Please to keep in mind the famous Slashdot Mantra: Correlation is not causation.
Funny, I always thought it was something more along the lines of: Don't be a dumbass.
But seriously, I think this will be an easy and fast way to get statistical data. I can see it coming in handy for anyone looking to do a little research into a particular event/phenomenon. I'm not suggesting that Zoetrope will become the forefront in statistical research, but I can foresee it becoming very useful. Time may prove any one of us wrong. But if Adobe takes over the world, they'll use Zoetrope to find its first proponents...
Personally, I never understood the travel mechanics of SL - not allowing people to fly/warp wherever they want would make it much more immersive, IMO. You'd get rid of all the annoying pop-in, and I'm guessing the real estate market would get a boost as well, since proximity to popular venues would become even more important. It seems to me that in SL you have all the benefits of real life and more, but almost none of the rules.
Of course, too many rules make the experience just plain boring, but you'll notice that all successful open-world games (EVE, for example) have set a realistic transportation speed limit. Then again, maybe most places in Second Life aren't worth walking 5 minutes for. If that's the case, then get them to spring a couple thousand lindons for a car, or one of those fancy-but-functionally-useless jets I've seen for sale. I'd be very interested to hear other peoples' opinions on this.
I agree that people want to use what you sell them, but they did sell you "up to" 10mb. It's your problem since you agreed to their contract, even if it wasn't exactly what you wanted.
However, it may be the case that they mislead you by offering a "10mb line", when the fine print really said "up to". This strategy is despicable - it's akin to selling someone a car and suggesting that the car will always go 70mph when you want it to. Sure, you may reach a speed of 70mph on some days, but most of the time you'll be limited by traffic, weather, and the speed limit. It's simply irresponsible to suggest that a car/connection will always go a certain speed when the average speed is far lower. I would be extremely happy if companies started selling their connections on the basis of average speed as opposed to maximum speed.
TFA is about English, so I feel partially justified:
There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand â" including one word that's even longer.
Just for the record, a word cannot simultaneously be shorter and longer than another word. There, now I'm satisfied. (Also, "there are" instead of "there's". Now I'm really satisfied. And it's not from the stewardess porn.)
Are you sure it wasn't because CNN told you that this would be one of those unique moments, the kind that people decades from now will remember and ask each other "Do you remember where you were when Obama was elected?"
I watched it too (and CNN did say that). But I will remember:)
I'm not expecting a miracle, and I hope there aren't too many people out there that think the crises facing this nation will disappear just because Obama was elected. But any candidate that stands for change in a time like this has my support.
Re:An example of great game A.I.
on
The State of Game AI
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
RTS/TBS: build stuff quicker then you can and/or advance technology faster then should be possible. FPS: Have 'super accurate' shots, higher health, bigger guns.
This to me is a huge downfall of modern games - instead of making AI opponents "smarter", devs simply tweak the rules to give the AI more of an advantage.
That being said, it is incredibly hard to define an AI that doesn't have "unrealistic" skills when the players' skills are advancing in the same fashion. For example, your skill in Halo is to a large extent determined by how accurate you are, which is easily mimicked by AI. I can't count the number of times I've heard someone accused of using an "aimbot" because their skill (or luck) in an FPS seemed "too good" or "unrealistic". The same goes for RTS games - the top human players in the world are to a large degree measured by how many commands, or actions, they can perform in a minute - which is again easily transferred to an AI opponent.
In my humble opinion, what we need is some sort of standardized test for game AI - put one player and one computer opponent in the game with the exact same capabilities, and see who comes out on top after repeated rounds. After all, it's impossible to claim the AI is "cheating" if it can't do anything that you can't. And whoever learns from the other's actions best over the course of the game will come out on top. And if at the end of the day the two are evenly matched, I will happily put down money for the game.
Answer1: I would assume so, as long as the contraption itself was waterproof. And since lasers are just focused beams of light, they are subject to the laws of refraction, meaning that the laser would hit whatever the shark was looking at - below or above the water. (Note: this assumes the Scott Evil method of attaching lasers to sharks, whereby lasers are positioned above the shark's head, directly in front of the dorsal fin)
Answer2: I'm not sure about lasers, but most sharks are quite good at aiming their mouths.
I'd like to see a hierarchical system that gives a few players immense control over the gaming world. The best storylines are the ones you make yourselves. Actually, that would pretty much be my ideal game - depending on your rank in the game, you would be granted more or less responsibility/leadership, and higher-level players would be the rulers of their respective factions, with the ability to set national policies and delegate to other players. And then you could add some sweet graphics and everyone would love it. Aaah, if only I owned Blizzard...
Because you didnt have the 1337 skills to hack into large company sites. sorry, but it's true. and it's not flamebait, because I have a point - if I had had the time and interest required to hack web sites, I probably would have done that. but I didn't, just like the other 99.9% of people out there.
The rules for publishing books are quite simple: if the publisher thinks it can make money off of it, then you'll get published. Crazy shit sells. If you really want to sell a book, go out there and do some crazy shit. How many books do you think are being written about OJ Simpson right now?
What has changed is that it is very hard to get a loan now, even backed up to the gills. Consequently people cannot invest, either you and me or big companies.
Isn't investing on loans exactly what got us into this trouble? Big companies I can understand, because they (often) have the assets to cover their losses, but ordinary people like you and me who don't have a ton of assets should NOT be buying a lot of things (ie stocks, cars) on loan. Americans have a nasty habit of thinking we can afford things we really can't. So here's a news flash: You can't afford it! Don't mistake your current bank account for your bank account in 5 years, because it will come back to haunt you. So please, please, put your credit cards away and save them for a rainy day when you actually NEED something, like food, shelter, etc. and stop buying things you don't need that you realistically can't afford to pay for. Ok, I feel sufficiently ranted now.
I'm not sure if you're implying that the recent CS interest is caused by slackers, or that college students in general don't follow their dreams - in either case, I take offense. As a current junior and CS major, I can definitively say that the majority of CS majors in my school truly enjoy the field, and can't see any harm in a career track that gives them a high starting salary out of college. My point is that most high school students don't pick a college major based on how much it pays - if that were true, there would be a whole lot more doctors and lawyers and far fewer english/psych majors.
The idea that kids don't have and follow their passions is not only jaded, it's plain wrong. But choosing to drop out of college to pursue a career without a guarantee of a paycheck is too much risk for most students. If I had to choose between doing something I loved and something I liked, the decision would depend a lot on what kind of money/security each one offered. Call me a pansy or whatever, but I'm not going to sacrifice my job to play video games all day.
Whether or not you're consciously trying to dissuade students from joining the field, I say shame on you. How long would the human race have lasted if we spent our days doing whatever we wanted, without a thought to how we would get food on the table for our families? I apologize if this sounded like a rant, and if you're a college student yourself, I can only say I'm sorry that you go to a school where so few students actively pursue their ambitions.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently there are no fertile researchers at the Scripps Research Institute?
Not to mention the information they gathered couldn't escape the gravitational field...soooo, about those tps reports...
Please to keep in mind the famous Slashdot Mantra: Correlation is not causation.
Funny, I always thought it was something more along the lines of: Don't be a dumbass.
But seriously, I think this will be an easy and fast way to get statistical data. I can see it coming in handy for anyone looking to do a little research into a particular event/phenomenon. I'm not suggesting that Zoetrope will become the forefront in statistical research, but I can foresee it becoming very useful. Time may prove any one of us wrong. But if Adobe takes over the world, they'll use Zoetrope to find its first proponents...
Personally, I never understood the travel mechanics of SL - not allowing people to fly/warp wherever they want would make it much more immersive, IMO. You'd get rid of all the annoying pop-in, and I'm guessing the real estate market would get a boost as well, since proximity to popular venues would become even more important. It seems to me that in SL you have all the benefits of real life and more, but almost none of the rules.
Of course, too many rules make the experience just plain boring, but you'll notice that all successful open-world games (EVE, for example) have set a realistic transportation speed limit. Then again, maybe most places in Second Life aren't worth walking 5 minutes for. If that's the case, then get them to spring a couple thousand lindons for a car, or one of those fancy-but-functionally-useless jets I've seen for sale. I'd be very interested to hear other peoples' opinions on this.
I agree that people want to use what you sell them, but they did sell you "up to" 10mb. It's your problem since you agreed to their contract, even if it wasn't exactly what you wanted.
However, it may be the case that they mislead you by offering a "10mb line", when the fine print really said "up to". This strategy is despicable - it's akin to selling someone a car and suggesting that the car will always go 70mph when you want it to. Sure, you may reach a speed of 70mph on some days, but most of the time you'll be limited by traffic, weather, and the speed limit. It's simply irresponsible to suggest that a car/connection will always go a certain speed when the average speed is far lower. I would be extremely happy if companies started selling their connections on the basis of average speed as opposed to maximum speed.
TFA is about English, so I feel partially justified:
There's nearly 2,000 shorter words that can typed with only the left hand â" including one word that's even longer.
Just for the record, a word cannot simultaneously be shorter and longer than another word. There, now I'm satisfied. (Also, "there are" instead of "there's". Now I'm really satisfied. And it's not from the stewardess porn.)
Are you sure it wasn't because CNN told you that this would be one of those unique moments, the kind that people decades from now will remember and ask each other "Do you remember where you were when Obama was elected?"
I watched it too (and CNN did say that). But I will remember :)
I'm not expecting a miracle, and I hope there aren't too many people out there that think the crises facing this nation will disappear just because Obama was elected. But any candidate that stands for change in a time like this has my support.
RTS/TBS: build stuff quicker then you can and/or advance technology faster then should be possible.
FPS: Have 'super accurate' shots, higher health, bigger guns.
This to me is a huge downfall of modern games - instead of making AI opponents "smarter", devs simply tweak the rules to give the AI more of an advantage.
That being said, it is incredibly hard to define an AI that doesn't have "unrealistic" skills when the players' skills are advancing in the same fashion. For example, your skill in Halo is to a large extent determined by how accurate you are, which is easily mimicked by AI. I can't count the number of times I've heard someone accused of using an "aimbot" because their skill (or luck) in an FPS seemed "too good" or "unrealistic". The same goes for RTS games - the top human players in the world are to a large degree measured by how many commands, or actions, they can perform in a minute - which is again easily transferred to an AI opponent.
In my humble opinion, what we need is some sort of standardized test for game AI - put one player and one computer opponent in the game with the exact same capabilities, and see who comes out on top after repeated rounds. After all, it's impossible to claim the AI is "cheating" if it can't do anything that you can't. And whoever learns from the other's actions best over the course of the game will come out on top. And if at the end of the day the two are evenly matched, I will happily put down money for the game.
Sounds like funs!
Answer1: I would assume so, as long as the contraption itself was waterproof. And since lasers are just focused beams of light, they are subject to the laws of refraction, meaning that the laser would hit whatever the shark was looking at - below or above the water. (Note: this assumes the Scott Evil method of attaching lasers to sharks, whereby lasers are positioned above the shark's head, directly in front of the dorsal fin)
Answer2: I'm not sure about lasers, but most sharks are quite good at aiming their mouths.
I'd like to see a hierarchical system that gives a few players immense control over the gaming world. The best storylines are the ones you make yourselves. Actually, that would pretty much be my ideal game - depending on your rank in the game, you would be granted more or less responsibility/leadership, and higher-level players would be the rulers of their respective factions, with the ability to set national policies and delegate to other players. And then you could add some sweet graphics and everyone would love it. Aaah, if only I owned Blizzard...
Flamebait? I thought this was pretty funny. Perhaps you just fear it because it's true. or are slashdot mods really bots?! zomg run 4 ur lif!!
Because you didnt have the 1337 skills to hack into large company sites. sorry, but it's true. and it's not flamebait, because I have a point - if I had had the time and interest required to hack web sites, I probably would have done that. but I didn't, just like the other 99.9% of people out there.
The rules for publishing books are quite simple: if the publisher thinks it can make money off of it, then you'll get published. Crazy shit sells. If you really want to sell a book, go out there and do some crazy shit. How many books do you think are being written about OJ Simpson right now?
What has changed is that it is very hard to get a loan now, even backed up to the gills. Consequently people cannot invest, either you and me or big companies.
Isn't investing on loans exactly what got us into this trouble? Big companies I can understand, because they (often) have the assets to cover their losses, but ordinary people like you and me who don't have a ton of assets should NOT be buying a lot of things (ie stocks, cars) on loan. Americans have a nasty habit of thinking we can afford things we really can't. So here's a news flash: You can't afford it! Don't mistake your current bank account for your bank account in 5 years, because it will come back to haunt you. So please, please, put your credit cards away and save them for a rainy day when you actually NEED something, like food, shelter, etc. and stop buying things you don't need that you realistically can't afford to pay for. Ok, I feel sufficiently ranted now.
I'm not sure if you're implying that the recent CS interest is caused by slackers, or that college students in general don't follow their dreams - in either case, I take offense. As a current junior and CS major, I can definitively say that the majority of CS majors in my school truly enjoy the field, and can't see any harm in a career track that gives them a high starting salary out of college. My point is that most high school students don't pick a college major based on how much it pays - if that were true, there would be a whole lot more doctors and lawyers and far fewer english/psych majors.
The idea that kids don't have and follow their passions is not only jaded, it's plain wrong. But choosing to drop out of college to pursue a career without a guarantee of a paycheck is too much risk for most students. If I had to choose between doing something I loved and something I liked, the decision would depend a lot on what kind of money/security each one offered. Call me a pansy or whatever, but I'm not going to sacrifice my job to play video games all day.
Whether or not you're consciously trying to dissuade students from joining the field, I say shame on you. How long would the human race have lasted if we spent our days doing whatever we wanted, without a thought to how we would get food on the table for our families? I apologize if this sounded like a rant, and if you're a college student yourself, I can only say I'm sorry that you go to a school where so few students actively pursue their ambitions.