The point I was trying to make and maybe made too quickly is: the reason for the lack of native Linux games has more to do with the current lack of competitive cross-platform APIs than it does the number of Linux gamers. 1% martketshare is easily enough to justify a port if the cost of a port is effectively nothing. I think you reinforce that point.
Profitability. Or lack thereof. Same reason why there aren't more Mac games. Do the potential gains justify the cost of porting it?
Er, you mean "Portability". Porting is cheap if you use cross-platform APIs from the beginning. What's needed more than anything is OpenGL 2.0 and SDL 2.0, so game companies can stop writing to DirectX.
I'm not saying anything negative about Linux. I use Linux. But how many gamers, or just regular casual gamers, use Linux and only Linux at home?
I do, but that's probably going to have to change when Half-Life 2 comes out. Damn you Valve!!
There's a caveat to doing this though: if the constant is defined in another class/interface the class that uses it must extend/implement it to be compiled conditionally. The new static import feature of Java 1.5 ought to fix this:)
Even if EA did intend to make Linux version, they would probably drop the idea after market research. It's the unfortunate truth--We just have to get used to it.
Even if the linux version only accounts for 1% of total sales, EA is still making a pretty substantial profit (for popular games). If the game uses cross-platform APIs then the cost of porting to linux is almost nothing. So why not port to linux?
Yeah, Java works. I'm using RC2 right now and java 1.3.1, 1.4.0, and 1.4.1 all work without having to do anything special.
Re:UT2k3 - linux impressions
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UT2003 LiveCD
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This is because in Windows the game is using DirectX, and in Linux the game is using OpenGL. If you switched it to use OpenGL in Windows you'd see roughly the frame rates you see in Linux (type "stat fps" in the console). UT2K runs about 25% faster with DirectX. Nothing you can do about that.
I just said to look at what the Bible says the world will be like just before the "Last Days", or "The Day of the Lord". It's a perfect fit for what we're seeing in the world today.
You can't take vague, generic statements from 2000 years ago, claim that they correspond to specific events today, then further claim to be justified by reason. How many Christians would agree with your interpretation of those passages? Very few. Jesus predicted World War 2? Get real.
I believe it would be more accurate to say God could commit evil, but he chooses not to because its not his nature.
You trivialize the concept of omnipotence if you say this. I can say that i am omnipotent and can do god-like things if i choose to, but i choose not to because those things are not in my nature. Surely something else is meant by the word "omnipotent".
Otherwise you are putting limits on a limitless God.
That's my point. Omnibenevolence is at odds with omnipotence.
Seriously. We have extremely complex organs, especially our brains. But beyond that, we have emotions and feelings and consciences. How could all that come about by pure unguided chance?
Evolution is a probablistic algorithm. It performs better than pure chance. That you can't see how evolution produces consciousness simply means that evolution is more creative than you are.
Or perhaps the fact that the Bible presented a perfect picture of what the world looks like today is good evidence.
Sigh. If i don't accept the bible why should i accept an argument based on the bible. The bible is not hard evidence, it is ancient literature that has been reinterpreted throughout history to support every type of argument.
Then the prophet Daniel said that "many will go here and there to increase knowledge" in the last days. Airplanes anyone?
Prattle.
This is just a few examples of why faith in God, and specifically in the Bible, is entirely reasonable!
This says it all. It's faith, not evidence or fact, that supports one's belief in God. IMO, faith does not justify belief, but you're free to believe whatever you want.
There are verses in the Bible that refer to God as all-loving (omnibenevolent) and furthermore most Christians i've talked do refer to God as omnibenevolent. I'm not arguing against you; I have no need to show that the Bible isn't self-contradicatory;)
Yes, but this isn't a perfect analogy. God is supposed to be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. You have no such constraints.
We are capable of commiting "evil" acts, and God isn't. Thus, the simple observation that there is evil in the world commited by humans implies that humans are more powerful than God. It's not simply that god chooses not commit evil acts, omnibenevolence requires that he does not commit evil acts.
But I'm not convinced. My point is, if he wanted to convice me of his existence, as well as a lot of other people, he could do it. Perhaps a giant "Made by Yaweh" written on the moon. I don't know, he should have better ideas than me. That there is no undeniable evidence, and that he is allegdly all-loving and should want there to be that evidence, and that he is omnipotent and has power to create that evidence, leaves me with no conculsion but that he isn't real.
God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, but NOT Omni-controlling. Bad stuff happens to good people because we're not preprogrammed to a set of only good behaviors. We have free will that affects us and others. That doesn't stop the fact that He (God) loves us, and is willing to forgive us in the case where we make life changing decision(s) and turn away from that (and other) wrong.
How can God be omnipotent if human free will is more powerful than God's will? Does God not have a free will himself? Anyway, if God wanted us to be "saved" he could make his existence known to the world without compromising anybody's free will. (How difficult can it be for a supposedly omnipotent being to leave *hard* evidence of his existence around in a world he supposedly created?)
Javalobby.com linked to this paper a few weeks ago that I think does a good job of addressing the performance issues in using java for game development. Here's one choice quote from John Carmack (page 75):
"We are still working with significant chunks of an existing code base. If I did want to go off and start fresh, I would likely try doing almost everything in Java."
It's possible if the client itself puts the copyright mark into the mp3 as it transfers it. I don't think there's any way a napster server could ever afford the bandwidth cost of transfering all files through it, and napster never really would need to. The solution is simple: the napster client you're using now works, so don't upgrade.
But of course how does the client (or the server) know if the song shouldn't get a copyright mark? Doesn't this mean that even if a song isn't copyrighted it will get a copyright mark once it gets transfered by a pro-riaa napster client? I guess napster has decided not to care so much about artists using their service to promote free material..
It's true that from a calculational perspective general relativity can be seen as a superset of Newtonian gravitation. But because it's the conceptual perspective that shapes a paradigm (and not the calculational perspective), this point isn't relevant in assessing the degree of interpretation that goes into scientific self-appraisal. (And, at least in the present context, examples from a priori fields or particular interpretations of QM don't really carry much force either). Conceptual differences among paradigms are the differences that define the methods of a paradigm, its problem set, and its interpretations. The calculational differences between heliocentrism and geocentrism are, from a broad perspective, trifling as well. But before heliocentrism we believed that things fell to the earth because the earth is the center of the universe, and that the center of the universe is the natural place for all heavy things to migrate to. The shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism is what precipitated the creation of Newtionian mechanics and gravitation, which was a major conceptual change.
Similarly, from what I understand of general relativity this is also a major conceptual change: GR is more than just a redefinition of gravity: not only are its material predictions at odds with Newtonian gravitation, but its implications range issues that the earlier paradigm says nothing about, from the origin of the universe to time travel. It seems to me that the onological consequences of GR should yield the greatest influence over the way in which we apprehend the paradigm itself, and therefore be the most significant.
I'm not anti-science or solipsist or whatever it may seem from these comments. It's my view that the merit of a scientific theory is determined by its memetic success (the more people, or scientists, that accept a particular theory, the better it is). Degrees of certainty are paradigmatic consequences that can't be properly evaluated from within the paradigm itself. So long as our technology works, it doesn't inherently matter how certain we think we are of our scientific understanding behind it.
But because we're approaching the matter from two very different philosophical paradigms, I doubt we'll be able to find any middle ground. I think, at least, that we both subscribe to sound positions (in that from under the ambit of our respective paradigms both arguments are self-consistent), and that history will have to decide which of us right. You may leave it at that if you wish:)
Science does *not* work this way, and the real history of science shows that it doesn't. It is not linear and aggregating, it is paradigmatic. By and large it's not evidence motivates new theories of science, but a ripe environment. Kepler, for example, was a Copernican because he was a sun worshipper. Galileo was a Copernican before he got his first telescope, and not because of it. Copernicus developed his theory without any new evidence to support it. And of course Aristarchus first articulated helio-centrism in something like the 4th century BCE. There were text books that asserted geo-centrism published as late as 1849 (date?).
There are going to be holes in both new theories and old theories. A scientific paradigm causes us to at the world in a certain way; even though my paradigm may solve problems that yours doesn't, these holes will likely look trivial or inconsequential from your perspective, and vice versa with the holes in my paradigm and its integrity from my perspective. Scientific text-books make the history of science seem as though evidence builds to create "irrefutable" positions or theories that we can give a degree of certainty to, but this is simply not the case. Evidence is not objective, it has to be interpreted. General relativity is not built on Newtonian physics, it merely gives room for the fact that few noticed for so long that Newton was wrong. The two are completely disctinct conceptions of the universe that happen to intersect on a particular body of predictions. And if it weren't for the chance inconsistencies between general relativity and quantum mechanics, we wouldn't suspect as we do today that either theory is intrinsically imperfect. When we do have a better theory of physics, in all likelihood we won't know that's wrong until someone comes along with a new paradigm and we've begun to adopt it.
This is all best explained by Thomas Kuhn in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", which any educated person with a trace interest in science really ought to read.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, I've got a smaller user id than you ;)
The point I was trying to make and maybe made too quickly is: the reason for the lack of native Linux games has more to do with the current lack of competitive cross-platform APIs than it does the number of Linux gamers. 1% martketshare is easily enough to justify a port if the cost of a port is effectively nothing. I think you reinforce that point.
Profitability. Or lack thereof. Same reason why there aren't more Mac games. Do the potential gains justify the cost of porting it?
Er, you mean "Portability". Porting is cheap if you use cross-platform APIs from the beginning. What's needed more than anything is OpenGL 2.0 and SDL 2.0, so game companies can stop writing to DirectX.
I'm not saying anything negative about Linux. I use Linux. But how many gamers, or just regular casual gamers, use Linux and only Linux at home?
I do, but that's probably going to have to change when Half-Life 2 comes out. Damn you Valve!!
There's a caveat to doing this though: if the constant is defined in another class/interface the class that uses it must extend/implement it to be compiled conditionally. The new static import feature of Java 1.5 ought to fix this :)
Even if EA did intend to make Linux version, they would probably drop the idea after market research. It's the unfortunate truth--We just have to get used to it.
Even if the linux version only accounts for 1% of total sales, EA is still making a pretty substantial profit (for popular games). If the game uses cross-platform APIs then the cost of porting to linux is almost nothing. So why not port to linux?
Yeah, Java works. I'm using RC2 right now and java 1.3.1, 1.4.0, and 1.4.1 all work without having to do anything special.
This is because in Windows the game is using DirectX, and in Linux the game is using OpenGL. If you switched it to use OpenGL in Windows you'd see roughly the frame rates you see in Linux (type "stat fps" in the console). UT2K runs about 25% faster with DirectX. Nothing you can do about that.
See http://www.thehaus.net/index.php?ent=4158
You can't take vague, generic statements from 2000 years ago, claim that they correspond to specific events today, then further claim to be justified by reason. How many Christians would agree with your interpretation of those passages? Very few. Jesus predicted World War 2? Get real.
You trivialize the concept of omnipotence if you say this. I can say that i am omnipotent and can do god-like things if i choose to, but i choose not to because those things are not in my nature. Surely something else is meant by the word "omnipotent".
That's my point. Omnibenevolence is at odds with omnipotence.
Evolution is a probablistic algorithm. It performs better than pure chance. That you can't see how evolution produces consciousness simply means that evolution is more creative than you are.
Sigh. If i don't accept the bible why should i accept an argument based on the bible. The bible is not hard evidence, it is ancient literature that has been reinterpreted throughout history to support every type of argument.
Prattle.
This says it all. It's faith, not evidence or fact, that supports one's belief in God. IMO, faith does not justify belief, but you're free to believe whatever you want.
There are verses in the Bible that refer to God as all-loving (omnibenevolent) and furthermore most Christians i've talked do refer to God as omnibenevolent. I'm not arguing against you; I have no need to show that the Bible isn't self-contradicatory ;)
Yes, but this isn't a perfect analogy. God is supposed to be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent. You have no such constraints.
We are capable of commiting "evil" acts, and God isn't. Thus, the simple observation that there is evil in the world commited by humans implies that humans are more powerful than God. It's not simply that god chooses not commit evil acts, omnibenevolence requires that he does not commit evil acts.
But I'm not convinced. My point is, if he wanted to convice me of his existence, as well as a lot of other people, he could do it. Perhaps a giant "Made by Yaweh" written on the moon. I don't know, he should have better ideas than me. That there is no undeniable evidence, and that he is allegdly all-loving and should want there to be that evidence, and that he is omnipotent and has power to create that evidence, leaves me with no conculsion but that he isn't real.
How can God be omnipotent if human free will is more powerful than God's will? Does God not have a free will himself? Anyway, if God wanted us to be "saved" he could make his existence known to the world without compromising anybody's free will. (How difficult can it be for a supposedly omnipotent being to leave *hard* evidence of his existence around in a world he supposedly created?)
Javalobby.com linked to this paper a few weeks ago that I think does a good job of addressing the performance issues in using java for game development. Here's one choice quote from John Carmack (page 75):
"We are still working with significant chunks of an existing code base. If I did want to go off and start fresh, I would likely try doing almost everything in Java."
How many planets is this now scientists have found?
The exoplanet count is now at 63, according to this article at cnn.com.
It's possible if the client itself puts the copyright mark into the mp3 as it transfers it. I don't think there's any way a napster server could ever afford the bandwidth cost of transfering all files through it, and napster never really would need to. The solution is simple: the napster client you're using now works, so don't upgrade.
But of course how does the client (or the server) know if the song shouldn't get a copyright mark? Doesn't this mean that even if a song isn't copyrighted it will get a copyright mark once it gets transfered by a pro-riaa napster client? I guess napster has decided not to care so much about artists using their service to promote free material ..
I'm sorry, but I can't accept this argument.
It's true that from a calculational perspective general relativity can be seen as a superset of Newtonian gravitation. But because it's the conceptual perspective that shapes a paradigm (and not the calculational perspective), this point isn't relevant in assessing the degree of interpretation that goes into scientific self-appraisal. (And, at least in the present context, examples from a priori fields or particular interpretations of QM don't really carry much force either). Conceptual differences among paradigms are the differences that define the methods of a paradigm, its problem set, and its interpretations. The calculational differences between heliocentrism and geocentrism are, from a broad perspective, trifling as well. But before heliocentrism we believed that things fell to the earth because the earth is the center of the universe, and that the center of the universe is the natural place for all heavy things to migrate to. The shift from geocentrism to heliocentrism is what precipitated the creation of Newtionian mechanics and gravitation, which was a major conceptual change.
Similarly, from what I understand of general relativity this is also a major conceptual change: GR is more than just a redefinition of gravity: not only are its material predictions at odds with Newtonian gravitation, but its implications range issues that the earlier paradigm says nothing about, from the origin of the universe to time travel. It seems to me that the onological consequences of GR should yield the greatest influence over the way in which we apprehend the paradigm itself, and therefore be the most significant.
I'm not anti-science or solipsist or whatever it may seem from these comments. It's my view that the merit of a scientific theory is determined by its memetic success (the more people, or scientists, that accept a particular theory, the better it is). Degrees of certainty are paradigmatic consequences that can't be properly evaluated from within the paradigm itself. So long as our technology works, it doesn't inherently matter how certain we think we are of our scientific understanding behind it.
But because we're approaching the matter from two very different philosophical paradigms, I doubt we'll be able to find any middle ground. I think, at least, that we both subscribe to sound positions (in that from under the ambit of our respective paradigms both arguments are self-consistent), and that history will have to decide which of us right. You may leave it at that if you wish :)
Science does *not* work this way, and the real history of science shows that it doesn't. It is not linear and aggregating, it is paradigmatic. By and large it's not evidence motivates new theories of science, but a ripe environment. Kepler, for example, was a Copernican because he was a sun worshipper. Galileo was a Copernican before he got his first telescope, and not because of it. Copernicus developed his theory without any new evidence to support it. And of course Aristarchus first articulated helio-centrism in something like the 4th century BCE. There were text books that asserted geo-centrism published as late as 1849 (date?).
There are going to be holes in both new theories and old theories. A scientific paradigm causes us to at the world in a certain way; even though my paradigm may solve problems that yours doesn't, these holes will likely look trivial or inconsequential from your perspective, and vice versa with the holes in my paradigm and its integrity from my perspective. Scientific text-books make the history of science seem as though evidence builds to create "irrefutable" positions or theories that we can give a degree of certainty to, but this is simply not the case. Evidence is not objective, it has to be interpreted. General relativity is not built on Newtonian physics, it merely gives room for the fact that few noticed for so long that Newton was wrong. The two are completely disctinct conceptions of the universe that happen to intersect on a particular body of predictions. And if it weren't for the chance inconsistencies between general relativity and quantum mechanics, we wouldn't suspect as we do today that either theory is intrinsically imperfect. When we do have a better theory of physics, in all likelihood we won't know that's wrong until someone comes along with a new paradigm and we've begun to adopt it.
This is all best explained by Thomas Kuhn in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", which any educated person with a trace interest in science really ought to read.