"I work at 3D Realms..." "Really? What's that like?" "It's pretty sweet... we sit around a dream up cool stuff based on a 10 year piece of software..." "A what do you do with these ideas?" "Press releases, screen mock-ups, teaser trailers... that sort of thing." "That doesn't sound like a whole lot of work..." "Nope... we pretty much just like the sound of fake deadlines." "Fake?" "Yeah... it's nice to have a boss and investors who don't really care about releasing actual product." "I wish my boss would take a page out of that book..." "Who do you work for?" "Microsoft..." *snicker*
Trading the devil you know for the devil you don't isn't that great of an "upgrade". Some people will argue they like the devil they have...
Personally Microsoft hasn't showed me a single reason to upgrade beyond a pretty GUI... and there are projects out there to make the devil I've got look like the devil they want me to buy... besides, the "upgrade" package is 1/2 the price of an e-machine... give me a reason not to save twice as much and buy that, move my license to my good PC and install Linux on the e-machine...
C'mon... XP is the spawn of satan but it's the nicer brother we all know instead of the pretty-boy brother we don't.
It's been a while since I worked on this, but these idea have been propagated through networking protocols for years. When I was in University at Dalhousie I spent quite a bit of time on a directed study of somethink called the 'AntNet Routing Protocol'.
The idea was based on the pheramone trails left behind whne ants seek food. You see, one ant leaves behind a trail, not a big one, but a small scent to be picked-up by other ants. When it finds food, it will retrace it's steps backwards and double the intesity of the pheramone trail. If another ant happens upon a trail, it will follow the trail to the food and increase the trail's intensity again. If the trail ever ends without a prize, ants look around to try and pick-up the trail again. Simple concept, right?
Adapting this behaviour from ants to packets on a network was easy. You had ants that walk forward and ants that walk backwards. Forward ants would collect hostnames, IP address and time stamps as they passed through any PC and kept going to their host. Backward ants updated the routing table when they retraced their steps. If any route had a lower cost (latency) then the entry already in the routing table, then an updated entry was posted. There was also a hidden advantage to all this - if, for any reason, a node went down or dropped off the network it was easily and quickly detected. Furthermore if a link went down, alternate routes were already in place if you kept double-layered routing table... quick, easy and fast network response times were the result. Consider time stamps like a tick on a pedometer...
In case you're wondering, all computers on the network ran NTP to sync the time and give us one less hassle to worry about (this could be easily incorporated if need-be).
My main area of research was to figure-out where and when the Ants started to impeed the network instead of help it. I found it to be a function of the number of discovery ants versus time and nodes on the network... some pretty rough math ensued from what I remember, but the time delta between discovery ants was paramount in any effective benefit to the network.
Food for thought... or to the trail with the most ants.:-)
"If Emergence was $15, this would be a sure thing; At $20 I'm not sure this particular ride is worth the price of admission."
PRE LOAD saved me two or three bucks... it was palatable at $17.95. All the same, I'm not sure it was worth the price.
The adpative AI thing screwed me over. On minute I'm poping off headshots and the next I can't round a corner without someone having a bead on my toe as it crossed the thresehold of view. It got stupid hard _very_ quick and made me get bored of the game in no time.
One more thing... I wasn't expecting a full game, but I was expecting at least four guns and 6-7 hours not 3 guns and 5 hours.
I work in support at a hardware company which sells some USB products. On a related note to this article, the processor isn't always the one whose voltage is dropped. When one of customers call-up using a laptop, more often then not the device is fine and it's the laptop who is underpowering the USB port in order to save battery life which is causing the problem.
Seriously... I mean, I know M$ can't release an OS in the same year that it's name implies but do we have to underline that fact with a car-like release schedule... three or four months ahead of the actual year begins?
What's next... Debian wins the J.D. Power & Associates 2010 Consumers Choice Award?
All it takes is a fingerprint scanner, USB ID Key, good NIS setup, or my personal favorite - tiny RFID tags under the skin... ohh nelly... now I've got to cut off a chunk of johnny's hip to commit identity theft!
Start porting your favorite, e-mail server to an Atari... what fun is this project unless you're going to run it on old arcane hardware which was never designed for anything remotely close?
So, I could use a script to pre-cache images I'm never going to display on my webpage... and turn joe-legal into joe-porn-king without him even knowing... and it's _my_ fault?
So, if I'm asking for a particular webpage a few thousand times a second, am I violating another social contract? I mean seriously... What if I was going to website using a browser that couldn't handle the ads... flash based ads didn't work in Netscpae 1.0... what if I was still using that software?
Slashdot Mirror
"While direct performance comparisons are still missing"... you can get the indirect ones for now.
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6932&Itemid=1
Researchers discover human `diff` _is_ useful... isn't this the natural title for /.?
"I work at 3D Realms..."
"Really? What's that like?"
"It's pretty sweet... we sit around a dream up cool stuff based on a 10 year piece of software..."
"A what do you do with these ideas?"
"Press releases, screen mock-ups, teaser trailers... that sort of thing."
"That doesn't sound like a whole lot of work..."
"Nope... we pretty much just like the sound of fake deadlines."
"Fake?"
"Yeah... it's nice to have a boss and investors who don't really care about releasing actual product."
"I wish my boss would take a page out of that book..."
"Who do you work for?"
"Microsoft..."
*snicker*
Please note, my post above it an unsubstantiated rumor. Chances are, it's false but I just thought I'd throw it out there.
Costco in Northern Cali is breaking the release date _now_. At least that's what one of the customers at the local EB was saying yesterday.
I saw H3 at PAX last weekend... it was the final round in the omegathon this year.
Looks sweet!
Trading the devil you know for the devil you don't isn't that great of an "upgrade".
Some people will argue they like the devil they have...
Personally Microsoft hasn't showed me a single reason to upgrade beyond a pretty GUI... and there are projects out there to make the devil I've got look like the devil they want me to buy... besides, the "upgrade" package is 1/2 the price of an e-machine... give me a reason not to save twice as much and buy that, move my license to my good PC and install Linux on the e-machine...
C'mon... XP is the spawn of satan but it's the nicer brother we all know instead of the pretty-boy brother we don't.
I won't pay 99 for a DRM-riddled piece of music... I will pay a full dollar for a DRM-free piece of music though.
It's been a while since I worked on this, but these idea have been propagated through networking protocols for years. When I was in University at Dalhousie I spent quite a bit of time on a directed study of somethink called the 'AntNet Routing Protocol'.
:-)
The idea was based on the pheramone trails left behind whne ants seek food. You see, one ant leaves behind a trail, not a big one, but a small scent to be picked-up by other ants. When it finds food, it will retrace it's steps backwards and double the intesity of the pheramone trail. If another ant happens upon a trail, it will follow the trail to the food and increase the trail's intensity again. If the trail ever ends without a prize, ants look around to try and pick-up the trail again. Simple concept, right?
Adapting this behaviour from ants to packets on a network was easy. You had ants that walk forward and ants that walk backwards. Forward ants would collect hostnames, IP address and time stamps as they passed through any PC and kept going to their host. Backward ants updated the routing table when they retraced their steps. If any route had a lower cost (latency) then the entry already in the routing table, then an updated entry was posted. There was also a hidden advantage to all this - if, for any reason, a node went down or dropped off the network it was easily and quickly detected. Furthermore if a link went down, alternate routes were already in place if you kept double-layered routing table... quick, easy and fast network response times were the result. Consider time stamps like a tick on a pedometer...
In case you're wondering, all computers on the network ran NTP to sync the time and give us one less hassle to worry about (this could be easily incorporated if need-be).
My main area of research was to figure-out where and when the Ants started to impeed the network instead of help it. I found it to be a function of the number of discovery ants versus time and nodes on the network... some pretty rough math ensued from what I remember, but the time delta between discovery ants was paramount in any effective benefit to the network.
Food for thought... or to the trail with the most ants.
Most people have some type of belief that high voltage lines cause cancer in humans... you want to find out what it does to an earthworm?
Is this the equivalent to a WOW server admin or the tech support guy?
"If Emergence was $15, this would be a sure thing; At $20 I'm not sure this particular ride is worth the price of admission."
PRE LOAD saved me two or three bucks... it was palatable at $17.95. All the same, I'm not sure it was worth the price.
The adpative AI thing screwed me over. On minute I'm poping off headshots and the next I can't round a corner without someone having a bead on my toe as it crossed the thresehold of view. It got stupid hard _very_ quick and made me get bored of the game in no time.
One more thing... I wasn't expecting a full game, but I was expecting at least four guns and 6-7 hours not 3 guns and 5 hours.
"The current rumour is there will be some sort of big announcement about Sony's next-gen console on the 15th."
"Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
CAESAR: He is a dreamer; let us leave him: pass."
Who's the dreamer now?
I work in support at a hardware company which sells some USB products. On a related note to this article, the processor isn't always the one whose voltage is dropped. When one of customers call-up using a laptop, more often then not the device is fine and it's the laptop who is underpowering the USB port in order to save battery life which is causing the problem.
Just food for thought.
C'mon, doesn't this sound a little dodgy to anyone else?
Do they warm-bunk them like in submarines?
What about all those e-mails telling them that their equipment just isn't big enough?
No mention of Penny Arcade... ? Props where props are due... yay Gabe and Tycho!
Seriously... I mean, I know M$ can't release an OS in the same year that it's name implies but do we have to underline that fact with a car-like release schedule... three or four months ahead of the actual year begins?
What's next... Debian wins the J.D. Power & Associates 2010 Consumers Choice Award?
All it takes is a fingerprint scanner, USB ID Key, good NIS setup, or my personal favorite - tiny RFID tags under the skin... ohh nelly... now I've got to cut off a chunk of johnny's hip to commit identity theft!
Don't worry though... "Dutch" is the newest country to join the EU... go microsoft!
Start porting your favorite, e-mail server to an Atari... what fun is this project unless you're going to run it on old arcane hardware which was never designed for anything remotely close?
wahoo! bring on the 10,000 spf sunscreen!
"which was sent to stores with hidden sex scenes left embedded on the discs by programmers"
and we all KNOW absolutely ALL porgrammers are... ya know, male.
So, I could use a script to pre-cache images I'm never going to display on my webpage... and turn joe-legal into joe-porn-king without him even knowing... and it's _my_ fault?
What is the world coming to?
Don't worry... it's non-operational until Big Mac does to McDEF-CON 3.
So, if I'm asking for a particular webpage a few thousand times a second, am I violating another social contract? I mean seriously... What if I was going to website using a browser that couldn't handle the ads... flash based ads didn't work in Netscpae 1.0... what if I was still using that software?