just because its the first post doesnt make it off topic. i was just questioning the necessity of this sort of endeavor, syosef makes a great counterpoint to it.
this is very cool stuff.... but reading some of the other submissions today it makes me sad that this seems like frivolous spending in light of the social issues this planet is facing
MOD PARENT UP!! this is very insightful and i appreciate your objectivity here. as of late main stream media has been _very_ lax in handling the information they receive. there is a huge lack of fact checking in a desperate attempt to compete with the internet and "news" sites. the profession of journalism needs to realise that by shirking thier responsibility to be accurate so they can break the news they are in effect breaking the prefession. if i find something on the internet i am smart enough to know it is of dubious certainty, when i go to a professional news outlet (Reuters, AP, BBC, NPR, CNN, hell even FOX news) i should be able to expect honest well verified journalism. lets not even get into yellow journalism, in the US the news is so slanted its a joke.
i should add to this that another thing that separates most traditional art from games is the artist. most books, sculptured paintings, and music is composed by one person, modern music is becoming more collaborative but as i said traditionally art is usually the vision of a single person. not saying thats the way it needs to be, just another reason why the common person may have a hard time accepting games as art
the very notion that you ascribe video games having more power over a person than the written word scares me. not because its flat wrong, but because of what it says about society as a whole. it wasnt long ago (in fact it still persists today) when many books were banned because of the effect they had on those that read them. if the power of a video game rivales that of books, then the medium is being horribly short changed. the value of so-called 'games' needs to be greatly increased socially. how long will it be before video games are sued as social subversion tools, used to manipulate peoples ideology? do they already? i'm not wearing a tin-foil hat here, but these ideas really need to be explored.
certain medium are good for doing different things. painting is not a very good storytelling medium, although several famous paintings do tell stories. books generally are good story telling meduim, but not all written art tells a story. likewise games generally lend themselves to telling a story as the user typically manipulates the actions of an individual or group to define said individual or groups destiny and history, in this way the user "lives through the experiences" of the character(s) most games lately have been preoccupied with creating immersive environments that give the user the feeling they are actually _in_ a specific location. again not all games are like this, some can have the same effect as a Jackson Pollock (depending on how it makes you feel) some might say tetris would illicit a similar mental state as trying to take in every detail of a Pollock piece. i know if i stared at a Pollock long enough i'd loose my mind, same goes for tetris.
while i agree with the intense labor put into producing a game is indeed a demonstration of fine craftsmanship, and perhaps the ability to do it requires artisanship, i dont think a model, or sprite or texture can on its own really be considered art in this context, anymore than a prop or special effect in a film can be considered art on its own merit. these are tools of composition. art is (from my humble perspective) arranging and composing any medium in a way that provokes thought, inspiration, or an intended emotional reaction. a game can indeed be art, and i'd say most are (we'll leave the quality of saidart for others to parse) the thing is, to borrow the earlier analogy, we're still cavemen drawing on walls, we've just found acrylic paint instead of coal. the next step is for the industry to learn that even though it can create beautiful constructs to frame their art, the art that is best conveyed in a game is storytelling. there are few games which are good at storytelling, even among genres that are storytelling intensive (RPGs for example) many of these stories dont provoke thought, inspiration or a desired emotional effect in their audience very well.
i think people are too hung up on the sex-violence idea. just like a great environment or character model is a wonderful tool for telling a story, sex and violence serve the same role. if there was a game that left me horrified at having to commit violence, _THAT_ would definitely be art. sadly most games do feature too much violence, and frankly its like adding too much salt to a meal, it ruins the meal at a certain point and the opportunity for good storytelling is lost.
the next logical question is "if i (as a game production house) dont center my users activities on carrying out violence, what do i do with the user/character?" when studios begin to answer that question we will have a real answer as to how good a medium games are for transmitting art.
AFAIK the TSA agents are not Officers of the Law, and are not as such, Police, they are, Agents, again, not of the law but of the Transportation Safety Administration. please correct me if i'm wrong, i couldnt find any easily searchable information to verify this.
Without the second amendment you won't have any others for long.
i've seen this argument for a long time and although a proud gun owner and supporter of gun ownership, i feel this tactic is extremely detrimental to the cause you are trying to support. Saying things like this radicalize your position. blanket statements with no basis in fact which reveal an underlying fear (rational or otherwise) are an attempt to leverage fear in others. this is FUD at its _core_ . if you want to convince sombody of your position use a sound argument, not some paranoid sounding BS, intelligent people can read fear-mongering. there are plenty of countries around the world that do not give their citizens the inalienable right to bear arms, only one has Tehran as its Capitol. the UK readily comes to mind. Listen, i'm glad we can own guns in the US. they're a great tool, and can be a cool hobby and very entertaining, but be careful not to sound like a lunatic.
rights are not equal, people are, equal rights refers to one personsl rights bearing the same weight as another. the US constitution says Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. ask anyone and i guarantee they will say the first one is more valuble than the other two, and most will say the second is worth more than the 3rd.
I guess they don't read (or believe in) our Constitution.
it comes from years of those who claim to represent "we the people" not reading (or believing in) the Constitution. the Constitution just like any other document is just pretty words on a page, reality is a lot dirtier.
as an iPhone owner i'd like to pose a thought specifically re: iPhone and AT&T service. I live in the NY,NJ,PA tri-state area where AT&T has less than reputable service. (in much of the US AT&T has fairly good coverage) i've been with AT&T for over 10 years (from Cingular) in multiple locations in the US. i've never had any issues whatsoever with my phone service until i got my iPhone. now i will be the first to admit i _really_ like my iPhone, i like it enough to spell it with a capital "P" and lowercase "i". i dont even capitalize myself when i say 'i'. that being said, the iPhone has dropped calls more times than i possibly can fathom! i'm sure i've dropped over 250 calls minimum in the past 8 months or so that i've had the device. prior to this, i've only ever dropped 1 call in 10 _years_ with AT&T. i am dissatisfied with AT&T service plans but i have to recognize there is a possiblity that the iPhone itself has some real issues, it may be just the way it works with AT&T service (if anyone has any experince with other carriers, O2, the canadian one or whatever please ceel free to add your experience.) it may be the device, either way i wont know for sure till i can take my iPhone to another carrier.
And when they do, it's called "FRAUD". Again, IANA doctor, but placebos only work if the patient doesn't know they getting snake oil. Doctors could get disbarred for doing what you say they're doing.
doctors dont get disbarred, lawyers do. its not called fraud, its called treatment, its a physicians professional opinion. there are ethics doctors have to deal with but placebos are not unethical.
There's more to it than that. People taking medication often alter their behavior, eating better, exercising more, and doing all the things their doctor keeps telling them they should be doing. That's a big part of why taking a sugar pill is more effective than simply doing nothing.
the placebo effect has been well documented in clinical trials under controlled conditions. to understand why it works you need to understand the basics of pharmacology, your brain controls your body's functions, drugs effect how your brain responds to those functions, essentially _all_ drugs are fooling your brain. when you take a drug such as amphetamine, the drug tells your brain to produce more serotonin thus, your brain floods the neurons with serotonin allowing your the signals to flow across the synaptic gap (in patients with ADD/ADHD the neurons that fire are stuck also receiving, causing re-uptake of the serotonin thus the receiving neuron gets a "short" signal) thats why when "normal" people take amphetamines they are hyper active and generally happy, they get lots of serotonin, but ADD/ADHD people usually calm down, because they aren't getting short circuited and can concentrate the way their brain was meant to. the point is all drugs fool the brain into taking some action, even tylenol and asprin. sure it may look like fraud, but thats a big part of how medicine works. dosent make it legal fraud though.
anyone find it interesting that one of the most prolific "game" publishers in history is "Electronic _Arts_" ? i really think that we should abandon the labe' of "Game" much the same way that "Comic" has now become "Graphic Novel" Art has always has a struggle against the "establishment" Comics needed to become Graphic Novels to legitimize them as "art". Sin City comes to mind as art that while extremely violent and excessive, is accepted by society as art. Would a forthcoming game like the Last Guardian be considered art by most gamers? undoubetdly. and the development team at ICO would certainly deserve that status, if they released their work as an "Electronic Novel" or "Digital Theatre" the public might see it as art too. are all games art? not anymore than all doodles are art, but i've seen Van Goghs doodles in the Met in NYC so...
the interesting thing is that the placebo effect (which you are basically describing) is a very well documented medical fact. in some studies the placebo is actually more effective than the drug being tested, and its not because the drug sucks or that people are faking it. there is a huge misconception and stigma surrounding placebos. MDs prescribe them regularly. they _WORK_ . sure, its basically fooling your brain, but whats wrong with that? if you have a neuralgia or pain or dysfunction and somebody gives you a pill and the condition improves, what does it matter what the pill is made of? placebos should be preferred as they dont have side effects.
if by "proven rock-solid" you mean horrid fidelity and media degradation rates, i'd say you are correct about tapes. if you're client has a 30 petabyte tape archive there is probably some horrible inefficiency goin on. (i'm sure you probably have little control ofer the situation, i have similar clients) but if they have 30Pb of data on tape that they access regularly, they're wasting a LOT of time just retrieving data. you should really consider a SAN NAS or similar. HDD storage is very cheap these days and LTO4 tapes are pretty pricey. we all know they have shoddy storage quality to boot. if they dont access it regulary then its probably a real waste of money to own, record and store 30Pb of data. either way, just the physical storage of that many tapes is probably about equivelant to the sq. footage needed for a rack or 2 (or 3) of blade servers with the same storage capacity.
Microbes are found in almost every habitat present in nature. Even in hostile environments such as the poles, deserts, geysers, rocks, and the deep sea and have been known to survive for a prolonged time in a vacuum, and can be highly resistant to radiation, which may even allow them to survive in space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism#Habitats_and_ecology [wikipedia] it is very likely that even though we ingest huge ammounts of disgusting fast food this would not make your body an environment hostile enough to kill any given microbe. perhaps parts of your immune system or bodily produced acids may kill such a thing but certainly no gaurntee
Slashdot Mirror
just because its the first post doesnt make it off topic. i was just questioning the necessity of this sort of endeavor, syosef makes a great counterpoint to it.
this is very cool stuff.... but reading some of the other submissions today it makes me sad that this seems like frivolous spending in light of the social issues this planet is facing
if i shoot your horse, i'd bet to hell mine is faster than yours. my horse would beat any dead or crippled horse.
now... anyone got a horse i can borrow? xerox?
MOD PARENT UP!! this is very insightful and i appreciate your objectivity here. as of late main stream media has been _very_ lax in handling the information they receive. there is a huge lack of fact checking in a desperate attempt to compete with the internet and "news" sites. the profession of journalism needs to realise that by shirking thier responsibility to be accurate so they can break the news they are in effect breaking the prefession. if i find something on the internet i am smart enough to know it is of dubious certainty, when i go to a professional news outlet (Reuters, AP, BBC, NPR, CNN, hell even FOX news) i should be able to expect honest well verified journalism. lets not even get into yellow journalism, in the US the news is so slanted its a joke.
i should add to this that another thing that separates most traditional art from games is the artist. most books, sculptured paintings, and music is composed by one person, modern music is becoming more collaborative but as i said traditionally art is usually the vision of a single person. not saying thats the way it needs to be, just another reason why the common person may have a hard time accepting games as art
the very notion that you ascribe video games having more power over a person than the written word scares me. not because its flat wrong, but because of what it says about society as a whole. it wasnt long ago (in fact it still persists today) when many books were banned because of the effect they had on those that read them. if the power of a video game rivales that of books, then the medium is being horribly short changed. the value of so-called 'games' needs to be greatly increased socially. how long will it be before video games are sued as social subversion tools, used to manipulate peoples ideology? do they already? i'm not wearing a tin-foil hat here, but these ideas really need to be explored.
certain medium are good for doing different things. painting is not a very good storytelling medium, although several famous paintings do tell stories. books generally are good story telling meduim, but not all written art tells a story. likewise games generally lend themselves to telling a story as the user typically manipulates the actions of an individual or group to define said individual or groups destiny and history, in this way the user "lives through the experiences" of the character(s) most games lately have been preoccupied with creating immersive environments that give the user the feeling they are actually _in_ a specific location. again not all games are like this, some can have the same effect as a Jackson Pollock (depending on how it makes you feel) some might say tetris would illicit a similar mental state as trying to take in every detail of a Pollock piece. i know if i stared at a Pollock long enough i'd loose my mind, same goes for tetris.
oh and btw, tetris definitely is digital art.
while i agree with the intense labor put into producing a game is indeed a demonstration of fine craftsmanship, and perhaps the ability to do it requires artisanship, i dont think a model, or sprite or texture can on its own really be considered art in this context, anymore than a prop or special effect in a film can be considered art on its own merit. these are tools of composition. art is (from my humble perspective) arranging and composing any medium in a way that provokes thought, inspiration, or an intended emotional reaction. a game can indeed be art, and i'd say most are (we'll leave the quality of saidart for others to parse) the thing is, to borrow the earlier analogy, we're still cavemen drawing on walls, we've just found acrylic paint instead of coal. the next step is for the industry to learn that even though it can create beautiful constructs to frame their art, the art that is best conveyed in a game is storytelling. there are few games which are good at storytelling, even among genres that are storytelling intensive (RPGs for example) many of these stories dont provoke thought, inspiration or a desired emotional effect in their audience very well.
i think people are too hung up on the sex-violence idea. just like a great environment or character model is a wonderful tool for telling a story, sex and violence serve the same role. if there was a game that left me horrified at having to commit violence, _THAT_ would definitely be art. sadly most games do feature too much violence, and frankly its like adding too much salt to a meal, it ruins the meal at a certain point and the opportunity for good storytelling is lost.
the next logical question is "if i (as a game production house) dont center my users activities on carrying out violence, what do i do with the user/character?" when studios begin to answer that question we will have a real answer as to how good a medium games are for transmitting art.
AFAIK the TSA agents are not Officers of the Law, and are not as such, Police, they are, Agents, again, not of the law but of the Transportation Safety Administration. please correct me if i'm wrong, i couldnt find any easily searchable information to verify this.
.
Way to have your priorities straight.
Without the second amendment you won't have any others for long.
i've seen this argument for a long time and although a proud gun owner and supporter of gun ownership, i feel this tactic is extremely detrimental to the cause you are trying to support. Saying things like this radicalize your position. blanket statements with no basis in fact which reveal an underlying fear (rational or otherwise) are an attempt to leverage fear in others. this is FUD at its _core_ . if you want to convince sombody of your position use a sound argument, not some paranoid sounding BS, intelligent people can read fear-mongering. there are plenty of countries around the world that do not give their citizens the inalienable right to bear arms, only one has Tehran as its Capitol. the UK readily comes to mind. Listen, i'm glad we can own guns in the US. they're a great tool, and can be a cool hobby and very entertaining, but be careful not to sound like a lunatic.
rights are not equal, people are, equal rights refers to one personsl rights bearing the same weight as another. the US constitution says Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. ask anyone and i guarantee they will say the first one is more valuble than the other two, and most will say the second is worth more than the 3rd.
I guess they don't read (or believe in) our Constitution.
it comes from years of those who claim to represent "we the people" not reading (or believing in) the Constitution. the Constitution just like any other document is just pretty words on a page, reality is a lot dirtier.
thats why i store all my wealth on the moon... nobody has ever been there, and AFAIK nobody ever will.
i guess withdraws will be hard.
hell dont contradict or argue, you two girls need a good old fashioned mud fight we can debate the clothing option though.
woooooosh
you're right, for give me, i should have said there are a wide swath of drugs which act in this way.
as an iPhone owner i'd like to pose a thought specifically re: iPhone and AT&T service. I live in the NY,NJ,PA tri-state area where AT&T has less than reputable service. (in much of the US AT&T has fairly good coverage) i've been with AT&T for over 10 years (from Cingular) in multiple locations in the US. i've never had any issues whatsoever with my phone service until i got my iPhone. now i will be the first to admit i _really_ like my iPhone, i like it enough to spell it with a capital "P" and lowercase "i". i dont even capitalize myself when i say 'i'. that being said, the iPhone has dropped calls more times than i possibly can fathom! i'm sure i've dropped over 250 calls minimum in the past 8 months or so that i've had the device. prior to this, i've only ever dropped 1 call in 10 _years_ with AT&T. i am dissatisfied with AT&T service plans but i have to recognize there is a possiblity that the iPhone itself has some real issues, it may be just the way it works with AT&T service (if anyone has any experince with other carriers, O2, the canadian one or whatever please ceel free to add your experience.) it may be the device, either way i wont know for sure till i can take my iPhone to another carrier.
And when they do, it's called "FRAUD". Again, IANA doctor, but placebos only work if the patient doesn't know they getting snake oil. Doctors could get disbarred for doing what you say they're doing.
doctors dont get disbarred, lawyers do. its not called fraud, its called treatment, its a physicians professional opinion. there are ethics doctors have to deal with but placebos are not unethical.
There's more to it than that. People taking medication often alter their behavior, eating better, exercising more, and doing all the things their doctor keeps telling them they should be doing. That's a big part of why taking a sugar pill is more effective than simply doing nothing.
the placebo effect has been well documented in clinical trials under controlled conditions. to understand why it works you need to understand the basics of pharmacology, your brain controls your body's functions, drugs effect how your brain responds to those functions, essentially _all_ drugs are fooling your brain. when you take a drug such as amphetamine, the drug tells your brain to produce more serotonin thus, your brain floods the neurons with serotonin allowing your the signals to flow across the synaptic gap (in patients with ADD/ADHD the neurons that fire are stuck also receiving, causing re-uptake of the serotonin thus the receiving neuron gets a "short" signal) thats why when "normal" people take amphetamines they are hyper active and generally happy, they get lots of serotonin, but ADD/ADHD people usually calm down, because they aren't getting short circuited and can concentrate the way their brain was meant to. the point is all drugs fool the brain into taking some action, even tylenol and asprin. sure it may look like fraud, but thats a big part of how medicine works. dosent make it legal fraud though.
anyone find it interesting that one of the most prolific "game" publishers in history is "Electronic _Arts_" ? i really think that we should abandon the labe' of "Game" much the same way that "Comic" has now become "Graphic Novel" Art has always has a struggle against the "establishment" Comics needed to become Graphic Novels to legitimize them as "art". Sin City comes to mind as art that while extremely violent and excessive, is accepted by society as art. Would a forthcoming game like the Last Guardian be considered art by most gamers? undoubetdly. and the development team at ICO would certainly deserve that status, if they released their work as an "Electronic Novel" or "Digital Theatre" the public might see it as art too. are all games art? not anymore than all doodles are art, but i've seen Van Goghs doodles in the Met in NYC so...
the interesting thing is that the placebo effect (which you are basically describing) is a very well documented medical fact. in some studies the placebo is actually more effective than the drug being tested, and its not because the drug sucks or that people are faking it. there is a huge misconception and stigma surrounding placebos. MDs prescribe them regularly. they _WORK_ . sure, its basically fooling your brain, but whats wrong with that? if you have a neuralgia or pain or dysfunction and somebody gives you a pill and the condition improves, what does it matter what the pill is made of? placebos should be preferred as they dont have side effects.
i would think EXT4 would be the FS of choice for a SSD, if i'm wrong, i wouldnt be surprised but why those over EXT4?
if by "proven rock-solid" you mean horrid fidelity and media degradation rates, i'd say you are correct about tapes. if you're client has a 30 petabyte tape archive there is probably some horrible inefficiency goin on. (i'm sure you probably have little control ofer the situation, i have similar clients) but if they have 30Pb of data on tape that they access regularly, they're wasting a LOT of time just retrieving data. you should really consider a SAN NAS or similar. HDD storage is very cheap these days and LTO4 tapes are pretty pricey. we all know they have shoddy storage quality to boot. if they dont access it regulary then its probably a real waste of money to own, record and store 30Pb of data. either way, just the physical storage of that many tapes is probably about equivelant to the sq. footage needed for a rack or 2 (or 3) of blade servers with the same storage capacity.
/. ? clueless speculation?
you _must_ be new here
Microbes are found in almost every habitat present in nature. Even in hostile environments such as the poles, deserts, geysers, rocks, and the deep sea and have been known to survive for a prolonged time in a vacuum, and can be highly resistant to radiation, which may even allow them to survive in space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microorganism#Habitats_and_ecology [wikipedia]
it is very likely that even though we ingest huge ammounts of disgusting fast food this would not make your body an environment hostile enough to kill any given microbe. perhaps parts of your immune system or bodily produced acids may kill such a thing but certainly no gaurntee
i manifest a few loads of fecies every now and then, through sheer force of will... and i must say... its quite a gratifying act.