>>Unless I'm mistaken, I think the same thing happened with the very first movies; people got motion sick at first, then they got used to the effect.
I used to write VR arcade games (with the motion tracking headsets and everything).
If you screwed up the filtering on the motion trackers, even a little bit, you'd get sick. The kicker was that you'd actually have to predict where the next frame should be drawn, due to lag from the trackers, and so people developed a lot of slick tricks to try to avoid people spewing inside of their VR worlds.
Interestingly enough, the people that got the most sick were those most in tune with their inner ear - a pole jumper couldn't have it on for more than a few seconds without wanting to puke. The human brain is very sensitive to differences between the eye and inner ear, and the people that trained this system the most were the most unable to be deceived by the computer.
Say what you want about Angry Birds (I liked it better when it was called Boom Blox), but he's right. Most professional games will modularize the UI as much as they can.
A friend of mine ported one of the launch titles for the Wii, and they didn't have to change much outside of the UI and rendering code. Their biggest problem was Nintendo suddenly demanding that all launch titles have the "safety strap splash screen" put in about a week before the deadline. That meant actually having to dig into the code to insert it.
I laughed at the situation, and then promptly flubbed the controller into the (expensive) Wii prototype box.
>>FTFY. If you think the credit card companies pay for fraud, you're crazy. If they actually were having to eat those costs, we might get actual security in this system.
If merchants verified everything they were supposed to, then the financial institution bears the cost of the fraud.
>>While I applaud the effort to crack down on incompetent business like this... I have to ask... who got the money from the fine? The victims? Doubt it...
Anyone that can claim damages from this breech should probably get compensated.
Though most of the time, you just tell your credit card company certain charges are invalid, and they waive them.
Credit card companies don't take 2% of every bill for nothing, you know.
>>What's stopping anyone from building a 10 billion dollar wind farm to replace their 10 billion dollar nuclear plant? >>Is there a technological problem? Is it less efficient?
Well... yeah. Energy costs different amounts to generate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source)
It varies quite a bit by geographical location, and legal environment, and so forth, so take those estimates with a very large grain of salt, but in general we haven't moved to wind or solar because they're too expensive.
>>Do you have a good public transportation system in your city? >>I commute in 30 minutes using my city's metro, which leaves every 7 minutes. I might save 5 minutes if I drove, maybe.
So you live next to a metro stop, which means you're either in a dense urban environment, or you're in the suburbs but lucky enough to live within walking distance of a line.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years, and I still didn't take mass transit, except when I'd be going out of town for a long time, and I didn't want to pay the significant long term parking fees at the airports.
I lived in the hills west of SFO.
Transit time to Oakland Airport: 45 minutes by car (in traffic), 3 hours by mass transit Transit time to SFO: 10 minutes by car, 45 minutes by walking, 1 hour by mass transit Transit time to San Jose Airport: 45 minutes by car (in traffic), 3 hours by mass transit
Sure, go ahead and try to convince me mass transit is effective.:p
Brings new meaning to the dungeons in Ultima IV: Deceit Despair Despise Wrong Covetous Shame...all apply equally well to the developers of microtransaction, spam-based social games, and the players that play them.
(Pedants: Yes, I'm ignoring Destard and Hythloth. Whatever.)
>>Hell, you could reasonably support a family of 4 on 75k a year if you budget right.
In Mountain View (SF Bay Area), you can get a 2 bedroom apartment (rented, not owned) for about $2k/month. Call all the other expenses $1k/month (food, power, etc.). Student loan $1k a month. Taxes take the rest.
In thirty years your student loan will be paid off and you'll have a bit of disposable income. Your other options are to live an hour's drive away or quit your nice job at Google or Microsoft.
White powder mailed to Mormon churches, writing a supporter's clients (http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-11-23/opinion/20871510_1_scott-eckern-free-speech-intimidation) and so forth.
What you (and everyone) needs to realize is that just because someone has the same political beliefs as you, doesn't mean they're angels.
No, my name and address aren't in that database, since I don't contribute to political causes on general principle. Only the EFF, which is a nonprofit, since they're the only group whose goals align with my own.
Type in the address of your neighbor, see what political groups they contribute to. They used this to pull a list of Prop 8 contributors in California, to intimidate them.
I could make some sort of argument about anonymity and free speech, I guess, but apparently these things only matter when it's the other guys doing these acts.
Slashdot Mirror
>>Reminds me of the episode they did where they raced a Horse against a Ford Mustang and the horse won because it was a tight oval.
Reminds me of a famous story where a man won a bet he could beat a horse in a 100 yard dash, by simply making it 50 yards each way.
>>Unless I'm mistaken, I think the same thing happened with the very first movies; people got motion sick at first, then they got used to the effect.
I used to write VR arcade games (with the motion tracking headsets and everything).
If you screwed up the filtering on the motion trackers, even a little bit, you'd get sick. The kicker was that you'd actually have to predict where the next frame should be drawn, due to lag from the trackers, and so people developed a lot of slick tricks to try to avoid people spewing inside of their VR worlds.
Interestingly enough, the people that got the most sick were those most in tune with their inner ear - a pole jumper couldn't have it on for more than a few seconds without wanting to puke. The human brain is very sensitive to differences between the eye and inner ear, and the people that trained this system the most were the most unable to be deceived by the computer.
Say what you want about Angry Birds (I liked it better when it was called Boom Blox), but he's right. Most professional games will modularize the UI as much as they can.
A friend of mine ported one of the launch titles for the Wii, and they didn't have to change much outside of the UI and rendering code. Their biggest problem was Nintendo suddenly demanding that all launch titles have the "safety strap splash screen" put in about a week before the deadline. That meant actually having to dig into the code to insert it.
I laughed at the situation, and then promptly flubbed the controller into the (expensive) Wii prototype box.
Fascinating, thanks.
Makes a little more sense why we have to put up with that Verified By Visa crap.
>>FTFY. If you think the credit card companies pay for fraud, you're crazy. If they actually were having to eat those costs, we might get actual security in this system.
If merchants verified everything they were supposed to, then the financial institution bears the cost of the fraud.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud#Merchants
>>While I applaud the effort to crack down on incompetent business like this... I have to ask... who got the money from the fine? The victims? Doubt it...
Anyone that can claim damages from this breech should probably get compensated.
Though most of the time, you just tell your credit card company certain charges are invalid, and they waive them.
Credit card companies don't take 2% of every bill for nothing, you know.
>>What's stopping anyone from building a 10 billion dollar wind farm to replace their 10 billion dollar nuclear plant?
>>Is there a technological problem? Is it less efficient?
Well... yeah. Energy costs different amounts to generate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source)
It varies quite a bit by geographical location, and legal environment, and so forth, so take those estimates with a very large grain of salt, but in general we haven't moved to wind or solar because they're too expensive.
>>Do you have a good public transportation system in your city?
>>I commute in 30 minutes using my city's metro, which leaves every 7 minutes. I might save 5 minutes if I drove, maybe.
So you live next to a metro stop, which means you're either in a dense urban environment, or you're in the suburbs but lucky enough to live within walking distance of a line.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for four years, and I still didn't take mass transit, except when I'd be going out of town for a long time, and I didn't want to pay the significant long term parking fees at the airports.
I lived in the hills west of SFO.
Transit time to Oakland Airport: 45 minutes by car (in traffic), 3 hours by mass transit
Transit time to SFO: 10 minutes by car, 45 minutes by walking, 1 hour by mass transit
Transit time to San Jose Airport: 45 minutes by car (in traffic), 3 hours by mass transit
Sure, go ahead and try to convince me mass transit is effective. :p
>>buy 30 karma for 0.99 $ !"
Brings new meaning to the dungeons in Ultima IV: ...all apply equally well to the developers of microtransaction, spam-based social games, and the players that play them.
Deceit
Despair
Despise
Wrong
Covetous
Shame
(Pedants: Yes, I'm ignoring Destard and Hythloth. Whatever.)
All levels of average household income (poor through upper middle class) are up about 20% in constant dollars since the 1960s.
The rich are up more.
But don't let numbers get in the way of your beliefs.
>>Hell, you could reasonably support a family of 4 on 75k a year if you budget right.
In Mountain View (SF Bay Area), you can get a 2 bedroom apartment (rented, not owned) for about $2k/month. Call all the other expenses $1k/month (food, power, etc.). Student loan $1k a month. Taxes take the rest.
In thirty years your student loan will be paid off and you'll have a bit of disposable income. Your other options are to live an hour's drive away or quit your nice job at Google or Microsoft.
Thanks for playing.
>>You do realize that 75k puts one in nearly the top 10% of personal income, right? What are we supposed to do after we "wake up," go into finance?
Depends where you're living. If he's working in Manhattan, household income of $75k/year is about 25% *below average*.
If he had a wife also making $75k then he'd be above average, but that's one of the downsides of computer science.
>>If Republicans ran on their real platform - making sure the rich get richer
To be fair, they want everyone to get richer.
If it bothers you that the rich get richer too, then I can't help you.
There were cases. Google it yourself.
Turning game poachers into game wardens is an old trick, dating back many centuries.
This is not a new thing, at all.
>>I'm looking for "intimidate" in the stories you link to and it's not there
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=prop+8+intimidation
White powder mailed to Mormon churches, writing a supporter's clients (http://articles.sfgate.com/2008-11-23/opinion/20871510_1_scott-eckern-free-speech-intimidation) and so forth.
What you (and everyone) needs to realize is that just because someone has the same political beliefs as you, doesn't mean they're angels.
>>Did you feel intimidated, Shaka?
You just said this five messages up, dude.
No, my name and address aren't in that database, since I don't contribute to political causes on general principle. Only the EFF, which is a nonprofit, since they're the only group whose goals align with my own.
>>Shaka, did someone "intimidate" you for contributing to the Prop 8 campaign?
Me? No.
The only political contributions I've ever made are to the EFF, if you can even call them that.
>>I'm looking for "intimidate" in the stories you link to and it's not there. Is this personal with you?
Boycott is. They were used for intimidation. Or do you think that posting all those personal addresses was just for fun?
What, no clever response, Turtle?
>>Linky or it doesn't count.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/19prop8.html
http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/prop8/
http://www.afterellen.com/node/39787
It's not just Republicans doing this.
Look at HuffPo's website: http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/
Type in the address of your neighbor, see what political groups they contribute to. They used this to pull a list of Prop 8 contributors in California, to intimidate them.
I could make some sort of argument about anonymity and free speech, I guess, but apparently these things only matter when it's the other guys doing these acts.
It wasn't cheating.
In France, even the knights move like Queens.
If it happens once, why are you so certain it can't happen again? The evidence only shows that it can happen.
>>Lack of evidence ?
Ignoring the whole "we've all been born" thing?
>>Sweet Zombie Jesus!
Please, please, please learn the difference between Animate Dead (3rd level spell) and Resurrection (7th level spell).