What killed it was when they patched the game so that slimes no longer *split when struck*.
Props to anyone who remembers that. Mad props to anyone who knows what that has to do with me. Oh, and if anyone does remember me from back then.. I'm sorry for looting your house on Atlantic. In hindsight, 18 years later, I can see how I should have asked first. I was just a Borrower and not a thief so if you're still interested in getting your shit back you know I'll get ya the next time, brah!:)
Wow, did that just happen? This off-topic thread was about the difference between "cajones" and "cojones" and you just capped off with a +5 insighful misuse of the very word in question...
Now that takes some cojones!
Ok, so we now that we know what it takes to admit mistakes, can we move onto the important part of "learning from mistakes".
I am not a fan of guns at all, but I am a believer in the constitution. I would suggest that the only constitutionally protected reason for a civilian to own a gun should be to be capable of mounting a militia that could defend against a corrupt government.
I'm not a fan of guns at all, and I am a believer in reality. What chance do you think you would have against a corrupt US government with your stupid AK-47? Even if you get a thousand of your hick friends together and you all have AKs, and y'all think the south is gonna rise again, what do you think you're gonna do when the F-22s come for you? Go ask the Syrian rebels how well that's working out for them against a government that's only a tiny fraction as sophisticated and powerful as ours.
The only thing an AK-47 is good for is shooting up movie theatres and giving dumb country boys an expensive, false sense of security. I live in the south and I have to listen to that line of reasoning all the time, always with a touch of that good 'ole confederate spirit.
Can we please drop this line of reasoning? It's a dead end. Literally.
I downloaded and installed SoftMaker Office 2010 Beta (rev 580) and ran a comparison to OpenOffice.org version 3.1.1. My system is a stock Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). It has dual-core atom processors with 2gb of ram.
Startup speed:
From a fresh reboot: SoftMaker Office, 12 seconds; Open Office, 9 seconds.
From cache (opened again after closing): SoftMaker Office, 6 seconds; Open Office, 3 seconds
Compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007:
Powerpoint 2007.pptx files (I used some sample shapes and text with some of the new shape effects):
SoftMaker Presentations would not even open at all; OpenOffice.org Presentation opened the file, loaded the text and shapes of my test file, but failed to load some special shape effects like the halo.
Word 2007.docx files (I used some sample text with a funky font, a table with some formatted borders, a graph, a diagram, and a shape):
SoftMaker TextMaker failed to load the font correctly, improperly formatted the table, failed to load the graph, failed to load the diagram, and loaded the shape fine; OpenOffice.org Word Processor failed to load the font correctly, imported the table perfect, failed to load the graph, failed to load the diagram, and loaded the shape fine.
Excel 2007.xlsx files (I created a column with conditional formatting, a column with a colored background, and a column with a border around it):
SoftMaker PlanMaker failed to load the conditional formatting, but showed the column data. Failed to load the column with the colored background entirely, showing none of the data. Failed to load the border around the last column. Open office failed to load the conditional formatting, but showed the column data. Loaded the column with colored background perfectly. Loaded the column border perfectly.
Conclusions:
OpenOffice.org is faster, more compatible with Office 2007, blends in well with my native theme, and is Free. SoftMaker is slow, not as compatible as OO.o, uses it's own theme and widgets, and is 70 Euros.
The strategy of a game might involve for example, ten different things that a human player could do well or poorly based upon the unique nature of the player. A good AI should be balanced against those ten things. A player might be very good at 3 of those things, but are weak in the 7 other areas. The AI should match those abilities. The AI should never be too good in a players weak areas, and never too weak on a players strong skills. Greater granularity of difficulty is the key. An AI doesn't even need to be all that "smart", because the game mechanics are known to the programmer. Just collect metrics and adjust the AI's "strength" to a player's performance.
Advertisers risk the cost of using bandwidth in the hopes that a certain percentage of users will click on the ads, and of those, a certain number will purchase a product or service. Savvy users (those who install adblock software) tend not to click on ads anyway, so by using bandwidth to serve ads onto the unwilling, all they're doing is diluting the percentage of willing ad clickers.
When Firefox users use adblock software, they're making a statement that they're not interested in ads in general (they're not receptive customers) so why waste effort and resources trying to reach them? When that segment of the market has opted themselves out, those that remain are a more valuable market that advertisers can spend less resources to reach. This would allow advertisers to now pay more per click to reach a more receptive audience. These advertisers will still have a budget to pay websites, it's just that the "value per click" is increased.
One day in the chow hall, the TV showed an article from Duke University (nearby, I was in North Carolina) that covered Aspertame triggering migraines. So, I conducted my own little experiment. Some days I would drink normal fattening soda. No headaches. Then I would drink diet soda - and terrible headaches.
A good experiment tests for multiple variables, not just the ones supporting conclusions you want to make - that aspartame is bad for you (it could be). I think your headaches may be caused by the absense of another chemical - caffeine. Some diet sodas come without caffeine included. Caffeine withdrawal can cause headaches, sometimes severe like you described. So as part of your experiment, try testing if the presence of caffeine makes a difference in the frequency of your headaches.
and my addiction of choice now is tea with a bit of organic sugar for sweetener
Most tea has a high dose of caffeine. If the type of tea you drink does have caffeine, replace it with a different drink that doesn't have any then check for any of these symptoms.
In Ultima Online, one of the character professions you can be is a thief and you can steal items from players in certain areas. Say someone sells a virtual item on ebay for real money and then I steal it during the transaction, does that make me a real thief since at the time of theft the virtual item has real value? Would I then be faced with real consequences instead of virtual consequences?
If you consider an item to be virtual and without real world value, does it at any time have value? Or should the act of transferring an item be considered a "service rendered"?. What if I were acting in collusion with the ebay seller to steal back an item sold for real money?
There exists a lot of grey area, where a lot of players exist.
Heck, up here small claims handles stuff like this up to $7,000.00 If I were affected, I'd send them a demand/notice, wait 10 working days, then pay the filing fee. If enough people did this, they'd make a SERIOUS offer, one in line with the actual damages.
I like that idea but for most of us small claims and legal stuff is unknown territory. Most of us don't know what to do from start to finish because we haven't done anything like that before. I would like to see (as in, someone else do it:)) someone like Groklaw post templates and procedures for filing small claims specific to a case. e.g.: how to stick it to Sony in small claims.
All the research of what to do is too difficult and I'm lazy and a bit intimidated. If it were made easier, I would do it and I'm willing to bet a lot of others would too.
A thousand people each filing small claims at $500 a pop would be more potent then one lawyer representing a thousand people in a class action. Think "Slashdot Effect" in the legal sphere. It might even set a legal/business precedent: don't screw your customers so bad that they'll mobilize against you.
I'm willing to overcome my laziness and contribute, but I need help and direction. Others need it too.
During testing, the PVR had an issues with audio/video sync. Both audio and video were working, but the test movie which contained screams of frightened Japanese never matched up. They're still working on the issue.
using Linux and treating it just like we do Solaris, HP-UX, and Windows, where we also can't identify everybody who wrote the OS.
With GPL code, each contributor is appended to a (sometimes) long list of copyright holders. With proprietary code, each contributor tends to assign copyright to their parent company thus making the list of copyright owners just one.
Is there such an extention that will pretend to go through the motions of visiting a "sponsored link" to generate $$ for websites on a user's whitelist such that the advertising tracking mechanism thinks a unique visit has been generated?
That way we could provide support for websites we like while still visually blocking unwanted ads. This will of course ruin their technical business model and they'll have to adapt and thus creating a technical arms race.
In every way they adapt, this software would be updated. This would obsolete their advertising techniques in regular intervals and cause them a lot of grief. Advertisers are willing fight dirty and have bad karma so they get (-1, business model is fucked)
...when I piss in the water at Sanibel Island. Screw you spammers.
Dude, I was chillen out there and stuck my feet in the water at Sanibel and I never sent you a single email. I'm gonna kick sand on your towel if I ever come across it. And may the spams of a thousand bot-nets infest your email box.
What does a Mensa membership get you, exactly? Aside from the exciting merchandise purchasing opportunities, I mean.
How inclusion in a new social group. An earlier post mentioned that most jobs go to "friends of friends" or "colleagues of colleagues", so making new contacts is never a bad thing. It doesn't need to be Mensa, but any new group.
It's social networking. How many degrees of seperation are between you and getting an "in" for the type of job you're looking for?
Abundance is not the problem. Scarcity is the problem. The resource upon which we rely to survive which is in least supply is the limiting factor of our growth and survival. Those that control such a resource, effectively controls the population that relies on it. This allows small groups or individuals to exert control over large populations by controlling the resources the population requires.
This applies not only to the obvious things like food, clean water, and energy, but also intellectual resources as well. Something many slashdot readers may be familiar with -- think Intellectual Property. Be wary of those who seek to control the building blocks of human knowledge. The knowledge of how to do things is becoming more and more important as us humans are developing.
That is why I like the GPL and use only GPL'd software. It helps provide an abundant pool of knowledge (existing code) to work with. This at least allows code and what we can do with it to be in abundant supply. It's not exactly going to end world hunger, but the same type of thinking might just accomplish it.
P.S.
I don't think hamburgers and fries were ever scarce for the articles author, either. Heh.
Two words that might cost Jake Gyllenhaal points: Bubble Boy.
Hey, if Tobey Maguire can bounce back from playing the hitchhiker-who-is-about-to-pee-his-pants in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas then Jake Gyllenhaal can bounce back from playing bubbleboy.
Slashdot Mirror
What killed it was when they patched the game so that slimes no longer *split when struck*.
Props to anyone who remembers that. Mad props to anyone who knows what that has to do with me. Oh, and if anyone does remember me from back then.. I'm sorry for looting your house on Atlantic. In hindsight, 18 years later, I can see how I should have asked first. I was just a Borrower and not a thief so if you're still interested in getting your shit back you know I'll get ya the next time, brah! :)
Unwillfully obtuse? Condenscendingly dismissing a point as "fandroid talk" just makes you an equal, yet opposite, troll.
Wow, did that just happen? This off-topic thread was about the difference between "cajones" and "cojones" and you just capped off with a +5 insighful misuse of the very word in question...
Now that takes some cojones!
Ok, so we now that we know what it takes to admit mistakes, can we move onto the important part of "learning from mistakes".
I am not a fan of guns at all, but I am a believer in the constitution. I would suggest that the only constitutionally protected reason for a civilian to own a gun should be to be capable of mounting a militia that could defend against a corrupt government.
I'm not a fan of guns at all, and I am a believer in reality. What chance do you think you would have against a corrupt US government with your stupid AK-47? Even if you get a thousand of your hick friends together and you all have AKs, and y'all think the south is gonna rise again, what do you think you're gonna do when the F-22s come for you? Go ask the Syrian rebels how well that's working out for them against a government that's only a tiny fraction as sophisticated and powerful as ours.
The only thing an AK-47 is good for is shooting up movie theatres and giving dumb country boys an expensive, false sense of security. I live in the south and I have to listen to that line of reasoning all the time, always with a touch of that good 'ole confederate spirit.
Can we please drop this line of reasoning? It's a dead end. Literally.
Startup speed:
Compatibility with Microsoft Office 2007:
Conclusions:
OpenOffice.org is faster, more compatible with Office 2007, blends in well with my native theme, and is Free. SoftMaker is slow, not as compatible as OO.o, uses it's own theme and widgets, and is 70 Euros.
The strategy of a game might involve for example, ten different things that a human player could do well or poorly based upon the unique nature of the player. A good AI should be balanced against those ten things. A player might be very good at 3 of those things, but are weak in the 7 other areas. The AI should match those abilities. The AI should never be too good in a players weak areas, and never too weak on a players strong skills. Greater granularity of difficulty is the key. An AI doesn't even need to be all that "smart", because the game mechanics are known to the programmer. Just collect metrics and adjust the AI's "strength" to a player's performance.
Advertisers risk the cost of using bandwidth in the hopes that a certain percentage of users will click on the ads, and of those, a certain number will purchase a product or service. Savvy users (those who install adblock software) tend not to click on ads anyway, so by using bandwidth to serve ads onto the unwilling, all they're doing is diluting the percentage of willing ad clickers.
When Firefox users use adblock software, they're making a statement that they're not interested in ads in general (they're not receptive customers) so why waste effort and resources trying to reach them? When that segment of the market has opted themselves out, those that remain are a more valuable market that advertisers can spend less resources to reach. This would allow advertisers to now pay more per click to reach a more receptive audience. These advertisers will still have a budget to pay websites, it's just that the "value per click" is increased.
How is this immoral?
In Ultima Online, one of the character professions you can be is a thief and you can steal items from players in certain areas. Say someone sells a virtual item on ebay for real money and then I steal it during the transaction, does that make me a real thief since at the time of theft the virtual item has real value? Would I then be faced with real consequences instead of virtual consequences?
If you consider an item to be virtual and without real world value, does it at any time have value? Or should the act of transferring an item be considered a "service rendered"?. What if I were acting in collusion with the ebay seller to steal back an item sold for real money?
There exists a lot of grey area, where a lot of players exist.
I like that idea but for most of us small claims and legal stuff is unknown territory. Most of us don't know what to do from start to finish because we haven't done anything like that before. I would like to see (as in, someone else do it :)) someone like Groklaw post templates and procedures for filing small claims specific to a case. e.g.: how to stick it to Sony in small claims.
All the research of what to do is too difficult and I'm lazy and a bit intimidated. If it were made easier, I would do it and I'm willing to bet a lot of others would too.
A thousand people each filing small claims at $500 a pop would be more potent then one lawyer representing a thousand people in a class action. Think "Slashdot Effect" in the legal sphere. It might even set a legal/business precedent: don't screw your customers so bad that they'll mobilize against you.
I'm willing to overcome my laziness and contribute, but I need help and direction. Others need it too.
why is this funny?
I don't know why. It doesn't make any sense.
one wonders how Sony will defend against these charges.
The Chewbacca(tm) defense?
Furthermore, they point out that DRM systems don't automatically switch themselves off when a work goes out of copyright.
It's a mute point, copyright will never expire anyway.During testing, the PVR had an issues with audio/video sync. Both audio and video were working, but the test movie which contained screams of frightened Japanese never matched up. They're still working on the issue.
using Linux and treating it just like we do Solaris, HP-UX, and Windows, where we also can't identify everybody who wrote the OS.
With GPL code, each contributor is appended to a (sometimes) long list of copyright holders. With proprietary code, each contributor tends to assign copyright to their parent company thus making the list of copyright owners just one.
That way we could provide support for websites we like while still visually blocking unwanted ads. This will of course ruin their technical business model and they'll have to adapt and thus creating a technical arms race.
In every way they adapt, this software would be updated. This would obsolete their advertising techniques in regular intervals and cause them a lot of grief. Advertisers are willing fight dirty and have bad karma so they get (-1, business model is fucked)
It seems that the Mozilla Suite has lost a lot of it's sex appeal. Firefox gets all the attention and Mozilla is the fat friend you gotta be nice to.
Dude, I was chillen out there and stuck my feet in the water at Sanibel and I never sent you a single email. I'm gonna kick sand on your towel if I ever come across it. And may the spams of a thousand bot-nets infest your email box.
Dear Japan,
We apologize for Microsoft. You kneel behind and we'll push them over.
Sincecerly,
The United States.
What does a Mensa membership get you, exactly? Aside from the exciting merchandise purchasing opportunities, I mean.
How inclusion in a new social group. An earlier post mentioned that most jobs go to "friends of friends" or "colleagues of colleagues", so making new contacts is never a bad thing. It doesn't need to be Mensa, but any new group.
It's social networking. How many degrees of seperation are between you and getting an "in" for the type of job you're looking for?
In other news Slashdot user, HopToit, has become the target of the most massive recorded spam attack in 3,000 years.
Poor guy :)
This applies not only to the obvious things like food, clean water, and energy, but also intellectual resources as well. Something many slashdot readers may be familiar with -- think Intellectual Property. Be wary of those who seek to control the building blocks of human knowledge. The knowledge of how to do things is becoming more and more important as us humans are developing.
That is why I like the GPL and use only GPL'd software. It helps provide an abundant pool of knowledge (existing code) to work with. This at least allows code and what we can do with it to be in abundant supply. It's not exactly going to end world hunger, but the same type of thinking might just accomplish it.
P.S.
I don't think hamburgers and fries were ever scarce for the articles author, either. Heh.
Curiosity
...which one is dead?
Hey, if Tobey Maguire can bounce back from playing the hitchhiker-who-is-about-to-pee-his-pants in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas then Jake Gyllenhaal can bounce back from playing bubbleboy.