First Person Shooters at one point started doing this - the sliding scale of enemy difficulty. Since in FPSs, the difficulty is mostly accrued by the skill of the AI. How fast they move, how accurate they are, how much damage they do... All that can be changed on the fly and adjusted to the player's difficulty.
This ended up causing a problem though, sometimes a player would end up on a huge lucky kill streak, and then the AI would be ramped against him, and he'd find the next section frustrating and difficult to defeat. It would take longer to come back down to his level than it did to advance, and at some point they'd get frustrated and quit. Other times, when its longer to advance than it is to go down - sometimes the game will seem too easy, and you'll actually grow in skill faster than the game can accomodate. On the inverse, you get some players who just want to finish something for the sake of finishing it. This led to players cheaping out on hard parts or boss fights by simply grenading their own feet at the latest checkpoint about 5 or 6 times, then breezing through the rest of the level.
As far as I know, this type of difficulty has been GREATLY toned down from what it used to be, if its even prevalent at all in games anymore. It's been determined that sliding difficulty scales don't actually scale well. It often leads to less enjoyment or satisfaction from the player.
Someone I went to school with said he visitted North Korea once, he and a few of his friends who were journalists at the time. Since they were journalists they probably had it much harder than regular tourists. He said that before they could get into the country, that his group along with 2 dozen other people were taken out to a bar by some Korean correspondants. It was a Korean Bar, go figure. At said bar was their minister of foreign travel, or some position like that. Someone had told my friend before hand, "This night determines whether you get a visa or not. Try to enjoy it." So they drank and partied it up and had a good time. About half the people who went got their visa.
So once they were in China, it was mostly as you described. A VERY guided tour of the place. What stuck out most though was that they were having some kind of national sports tournament (I think soccer/football, but I don't recall what was said). Before the start of the tournament, they were all escorted onto a pedastal in the middle of the field, with thousands of Koreans all around them, and they sang the national anthem for them, and then the big jumbotron screen said something along the lines of "Welcome, American Visitors!". Absolutely blew everyone's mind.
Yeah, I had no idea that North Korea was really like that, I had a feeling they had really cut down tourist travel with the way current events are, but nothing like that. After hearing this story from my friend I went online to look up similar stories, and yep - they're all pretty much the same.
Slashdot has definately turned into a News Aggregator - you'll notice that besides "Ask Slashdot" - nothing makes it to the front page without a link to another news website.
In my personal beliefs, I believe in a God as a passive observer of what happens here, and that he puts more importance over how you live your life as opposed to what you believe. Like you said, to demand such silly things as the proper name would be insane. If I live an entirely "Christian" lifestyle without believing in God, does that mean I go to hell?
I think its best to approach it with some rational thought: The storeis in the Bible are really meant for lessons in wisdom rather than faith. At least, thats how I choose to interpret it.
In short, I'd say that I'm spiritual rather than Religious. I wouldn't want to be lumped in with the rest of the people who believe in a God.
Re:The originals really are something else
on
Homebrew Cray-1
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Anyhow, after that I sat on the couch. It was not comfy.
Turns out that when people wanted Consoles to be a "more equal" platform for online gaming, that meant routing all traffic through proprietary servers.
That's right, even though Halo 3 was designed with P2P hosting/clients in mind, it still has to run through Microsoft Servers in order to weed out hacking and other malicious activities that people try to pull off with an XBox. What you pay for with that 60/year is that service, the matchmaking, the tracking, the moderators who have to ban people, etc.
That kind of environment doesn't pay for itself. If you don't like it, the PC market is still alive.
Let's get one thing Straight: Xbox Live Silver is free. 1 lifetime Silver account comes with your XBox. With that, you get
- Media purchasing avenue (Games, Videos, Music, Add-ons, Themes, etc) - Chat with friends online and a way to compare achievements easily - Some Basic Features, such as free demos, Xbox News updates, Facebook, etc
With A Gold Membership, the only thing you really pay for is the Multiplayer Functionality. At 60 dollars for 12 months, that's 5 bucks a month. In comparison, lets say going to the movies costs you 10 dollars and lasts 2 hours. In order to be more ripped off by X-Box Live than you do going to the movie theatre once a month, you have to use live for 1 hour or less every 2 months.
Can't I buy that to lock in this year - And go to HMV and buy like ten $40 Gold Live cards, for the next ten years? Or will those no cards longer be valid after November 1, and if so do I get refunded?
I think that limitting stem cell research from the use of human embryo's furthers the ethical nature of human beings. I mean productivity was high when slavery was around, do you consider the abolishment of slavery as a backwards step to our society?
I refuse to allow the beliefs of anybody to get in the way of scientific research.
That is until the tables are turned, right?
Would you subject yourself to dangerous radiation RIGHT NOW so that scientists could study the harmful effects?
That is basically what you are stating. The whole debate about whether an Embryo is a person gets real messy real fast - since there is no real line to draw it at, as everyone develops differently at slight variances. When they are born? What about during labour, moments before their first breath? Until they have a cerebral cortex? But they'll have one if you don't stop it from developing...
No really - if you TRULY believe that it's alright to kill someone to further research, waltz right down to your local hospital and say "Study me! Dissect me! Make me a case study!" If it's that you don't believe an Embryo is a person, then I have to ask where it is that YOU draw the line, because right now no one has agreed on it.
its just that a small but vocal minority says that the means are bad because some book can vaguely be interpreted to say so.
That's not the issue at all, actually. It's that a wide variety of people see it as immoral regardless of their religion. Religion is just used as a way to unify those people under the ideals that they hold. Your generalization is like saying just because "Thou Shalt Not Murder" is in the Bible that all Atheists must believe that its okay to commit murder. Well - no - some people don't think its right to sacrifice human embryos for scientific research regardless if they have a soul or anything. Fact is that I would not want to be killed in the name of scientific progress. At least not without my volunteerism.
We have turned down people who are older than my supervisor simply on the logic that they won't want to be in the junior position for long and will either try to overstep their boundaries or search for another job while working anyways.
Which makes me feel terrible, in this economy, some people out there would be happy with ANYTHING, and silly things like Ageism are preventing them from finding a job they'd be happy with.
Experienced directors/designers have the foresight to be able to properly direct all that youthful energy to the most worthwhile pursuits.
This.
100 times this.
This to the power infinite.
I'm reaching my 4th year of professional programming (so still pretty young), and I remember starting out I definately marketted myself as one of those fresh new guys who are up to date with the latest stuff. I would not be where I am today without the senior developer over my shoulder though - he is basically the bridge between what you are taught and what the real world is like. Universities, Colleges, Polytechnics, all churn out hundreds of monkeys like me, but those guys who stick with it are the valuable ones, and I hate to see them under-appreciated. We recently had our lead developer with 10+ years experience in the company leave because of political BS, and while I'm capable at keeping the maintenance in check, I have no idea how to lay out the big projects that the VP's want done. Well, let me rephrase that: I know I could come up with something, but I have no idea if it is truly the best course of action, how easy it will be to implement with existing systems, or any of the logistical stuff on how long each section will take under the rest of the team with their experience.
I only hope that I can stick it out long enough to develop my skills to be as helpful to some protoges some day, and that they too will be appreciative of me.
It might be advantageous to BOTH of them to declare the marriage invalid as opposed to a divorce. I'm not sure what circumstances might cause this, I imagine there might be some crazy loophole in tax laws, or if they're abusing marriage to get people overseas a visa or something like that.
that's fine. they should have also cited wikipedia's citations.
Well now thats dependant on what was said. Not everything on Wikipedia is a word for word citation, and citing a "source" based on what was said on Wikipedia claiming it's cited from the source can often be taken out of context or used improperly.
Honestly, anything could make it as a source for Wikipedia, which doesn't make the source any more credible. A source needs to be peer reviewed at the least.
The same purely speculative one you make your "financial justification" claim. I mean why would they bother developing ClearType if there was a cheap alternative to use? What evidence do you have that implementing Freetype is any easier than implementing Cleartype in a Windows Application on a Mac Environment?
Slashdot Mirror
the men they found most attractive were those who kept their heads and torsos moving without flailing their arms and legs
Discovering what common sense knew years ago, Today!
This is just silly.
Yes, but I needed an article like this to cheer me up in the morning. Makes me glad I'm not a /. editor who has to try and filter this kind of stuff.
First Person Shooters at one point started doing this - the sliding scale of enemy difficulty. Since in FPSs, the difficulty is mostly accrued by the skill of the AI. How fast they move, how accurate they are, how much damage they do... All that can be changed on the fly and adjusted to the player's difficulty.
This ended up causing a problem though, sometimes a player would end up on a huge lucky kill streak, and then the AI would be ramped against him, and he'd find the next section frustrating and difficult to defeat. It would take longer to come back down to his level than it did to advance, and at some point they'd get frustrated and quit. Other times, when its longer to advance than it is to go down - sometimes the game will seem too easy, and you'll actually grow in skill faster than the game can accomodate. On the inverse, you get some players who just want to finish something for the sake of finishing it. This led to players cheaping out on hard parts or boss fights by simply grenading their own feet at the latest checkpoint about 5 or 6 times, then breezing through the rest of the level.
As far as I know, this type of difficulty has been GREATLY toned down from what it used to be, if its even prevalent at all in games anymore. It's been determined that sliding difficulty scales don't actually scale well. It often leads to less enjoyment or satisfaction from the player.
Someone I went to school with said he visitted North Korea once, he and a few of his friends who were journalists at the time. Since they were journalists they probably had it much harder than regular tourists. He said that before they could get into the country, that his group along with 2 dozen other people were taken out to a bar by some Korean correspondants. It was a Korean Bar, go figure. At said bar was their minister of foreign travel, or some position like that. Someone had told my friend before hand, "This night determines whether you get a visa or not. Try to enjoy it." So they drank and partied it up and had a good time. About half the people who went got their visa.
So once they were in China, it was mostly as you described. A VERY guided tour of the place. What stuck out most though was that they were having some kind of national sports tournament (I think soccer/football, but I don't recall what was said). Before the start of the tournament, they were all escorted onto a pedastal in the middle of the field, with thousands of Koreans all around them, and they sang the national anthem for them, and then the big jumbotron screen said something along the lines of "Welcome, American Visitors!". Absolutely blew everyone's mind.
Yeah, I had no idea that North Korea was really like that, I had a feeling they had really cut down tourist travel with the way current events are, but nothing like that. After hearing this story from my friend I went online to look up similar stories, and yep - they're all pretty much the same.
Yes, it's been amply demonstrated that nothing left under the control of the average user can be counted on to stay secure.
It's because the "average user" has a girlfriend who can't keep a damn secret.
Luckily - we don't have that problem.
i must have missed the memo
I'll make sure you get a copy.
Slashdot has definately turned into a News Aggregator - you'll notice that besides "Ask Slashdot" - nothing makes it to the front page without a link to another news website.
It's funny that a year is your arbitrary marker for between "Bad" and "Broken". What if it had been 366 days?
Point is, none of the Gulf Rigs should be exploding. I think "Never" would have been a good record to aim for, not "Once in a while" or even "Rarely".
In my personal beliefs, I believe in a God as a passive observer of what happens here, and that he puts more importance over how you live your life as opposed to what you believe. Like you said, to demand such silly things as the proper name would be insane. If I live an entirely "Christian" lifestyle without believing in God, does that mean I go to hell?
I think its best to approach it with some rational thought: The storeis in the Bible are really meant for lessons in wisdom rather than faith. At least, thats how I choose to interpret it.
In short, I'd say that I'm spiritual rather than Religious. I wouldn't want to be lumped in with the rest of the people who believe in a God.
Anyhow, after that I sat on the couch. It was not comfy.
+1 Informative
Turns out that when people wanted Consoles to be a "more equal" platform for online gaming, that meant routing all traffic through proprietary servers.
That's right, even though Halo 3 was designed with P2P hosting/clients in mind, it still has to run through Microsoft Servers in order to weed out hacking and other malicious activities that people try to pull off with an XBox. What you pay for with that 60/year is that service, the matchmaking, the tracking, the moderators who have to ban people, etc.
That kind of environment doesn't pay for itself. If you don't like it, the PC market is still alive.
Let's get one thing Straight: Xbox Live Silver is free. 1 lifetime Silver account comes with your XBox. With that, you get
- Media purchasing avenue (Games, Videos, Music, Add-ons, Themes, etc)
- Chat with friends online and a way to compare achievements easily
- Some Basic Features, such as free demos, Xbox News updates, Facebook, etc
With A Gold Membership, the only thing you really pay for is the Multiplayer Functionality. At 60 dollars for 12 months, that's 5 bucks a month. In comparison, lets say going to the movies costs you 10 dollars and lasts 2 hours. In order to be more ripped off by X-Box Live than you do going to the movie theatre once a month, you have to use live for 1 hour or less every 2 months.
Can't I buy that to lock in this year - And go to HMV and buy like ten $40 Gold Live cards, for the next ten years? Or will those no cards longer be valid after November 1, and if so do I get refunded?
Actually I did not realize that - I guess I should stop trolling and RTGDFA huh?
Or forwards, depending on how you view it.
I think that limitting stem cell research from the use of human embryo's furthers the ethical nature of human beings. I mean productivity was high when slavery was around, do you consider the abolishment of slavery as a backwards step to our society?
I refuse to allow the beliefs of anybody to get in the way of scientific research.
That is until the tables are turned, right?
Would you subject yourself to dangerous radiation RIGHT NOW so that scientists could study the harmful effects?
That is basically what you are stating. The whole debate about whether an Embryo is a person gets real messy real fast - since there is no real line to draw it at, as everyone develops differently at slight variances. When they are born? What about during labour, moments before their first breath? Until they have a cerebral cortex? But they'll have one if you don't stop it from developing...
No really - if you TRULY believe that it's alright to kill someone to further research, waltz right down to your local hospital and say "Study me! Dissect me! Make me a case study!" If it's that you don't believe an Embryo is a person, then I have to ask where it is that YOU draw the line, because right now no one has agreed on it.
its just that a small but vocal minority says that the means are bad because some book can vaguely be interpreted to say so.
That's not the issue at all, actually. It's that a wide variety of people see it as immoral regardless of their religion. Religion is just used as a way to unify those people under the ideals that they hold. Your generalization is like saying just because "Thou Shalt Not Murder" is in the Bible that all Atheists must believe that its okay to commit murder. Well - no - some people don't think its right to sacrifice human embryos for scientific research regardless if they have a soul or anything. Fact is that I would not want to be killed in the name of scientific progress. At least not without my volunteerism.
We have turned down people who are older than my supervisor simply on the logic that they won't want to be in the junior position for long and will either try to overstep their boundaries or search for another job while working anyways.
Which makes me feel terrible, in this economy, some people out there would be happy with ANYTHING, and silly things like Ageism are preventing them from finding a job they'd be happy with.
Experienced directors/designers have the foresight to be able to properly direct all that youthful energy to the most worthwhile pursuits.
This.
100 times this.
This to the power infinite.
I'm reaching my 4th year of professional programming (so still pretty young), and I remember starting out I definately marketted myself as one of those fresh new guys who are up to date with the latest stuff. I would not be where I am today without the senior developer over my shoulder though - he is basically the bridge between what you are taught and what the real world is like. Universities, Colleges, Polytechnics, all churn out hundreds of monkeys like me, but those guys who stick with it are the valuable ones, and I hate to see them under-appreciated. We recently had our lead developer with 10+ years experience in the company leave because of political BS, and while I'm capable at keeping the maintenance in check, I have no idea how to lay out the big projects that the VP's want done. Well, let me rephrase that: I know I could come up with something, but I have no idea if it is truly the best course of action, how easy it will be to implement with existing systems, or any of the logistical stuff on how long each section will take under the rest of the team with their experience.
I only hope that I can stick it out long enough to develop my skills to be as helpful to some protoges some day, and that they too will be appreciative of me.
It might be advantageous to BOTH of them to declare the marriage invalid as opposed to a divorce. I'm not sure what circumstances might cause this, I imagine there might be some crazy loophole in tax laws, or if they're abusing marriage to get people overseas a visa or something like that.
I'd be more inclined to beat the prosecutor with a wet noodle
You Italians sure have weird and delicious forms of punishment.
that's fine. they should have also cited wikipedia's citations.
Well now thats dependant on what was said. Not everything on Wikipedia is a word for word citation, and citing a "source" based on what was said on Wikipedia claiming it's cited from the source can often be taken out of context or used improperly.
Honestly, anything could make it as a source for Wikipedia, which doesn't make the source any more credible. A source needs to be peer reviewed at the least.
And you make this claim based on what evidence?
The same purely speculative one you make your "financial justification" claim. I mean why would they bother developing ClearType if there was a cheap alternative to use? What evidence do you have that implementing Freetype is any easier than implementing Cleartype in a Windows Application on a Mac Environment?
They're obviously using the Mac as their testbed - notice its also in a beta.
If its a success on the Mac, it'll make its way to Windows soon enough.
They wouldn't want to test it on Windows - if its a massive failure it'll hurt the Windows image... But not on a Mac!
I don't understand why this would give anyone a boner - what is so different from a flying humvee from a Helicopter, other than an awkward design.
I know. Everyone knows that if your car catches on fire you stop drop and roll it into the ditch.