Re:Don't need no stinkin' recruiters!
on
Layoffs at WotC
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· Score: 1
WoTC actively recruits new players into the hobby by working to get D&D into the mass market stores as well as taking steps to increase brand awareness.
Parker Brothers does the same thing with Monopoly. Copies of Monopoly can be found damn near everywhere in the US due to PBs work at getting into the mass market. PB also aggressively promotes Monopoly. The annual McDonald's contest and the limited editions of the game are two examples.
How popular would Monopoly be if people could only buy it in specialty stores?
db
Re:I don't need no stinkin' Wizards!!!!
on
Layoffs at WotC
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· Score: 1
The hobby does need WoTC to survive and grow.
WoTC and White Wolf are the only two game companies that actively recruit new people to the tabletop RPG hobby. All the other RPG companies cater to established gamers. WoTC far outpaces even White Wolf with D&D controlling over 90% of the marketplace (in terms of sales).
db
Please drive with both hands on the steering wheel
on
Internet-Ready Car
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· Score: 2
Great, now accidents will be caused by people distracted by p0rn.
I wonder if laws will be passed prohibiting people from viewing p0rn while driving.
To be honest, how many schools are known for their educational programs? Most are known due to their sports programs. IIT does a lot a research, it is just in fields that most people here are not interested in.
Let's wait until the review is done before making charges of conspiracy.
Not a very accurate description of GenCon. Gaming Outpost (www.gamingoutpost.com/) and WoTC's Virtual Gencon (www.wizards.com) have much better highlights of the con.
I only saw 2 women in chainmail bikinis and both of them were real good looking.
Gencon also smelled better than the average Anime,SF, or comicbook con this year.
I like the fuel economy, but how does it rate when it comes to safety and maintainance?
Re:sacrificing quality of animiation for extras
on
Anime Moves To DVD
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· Score: 1
Care to name some "well-encoded" DVDs? I've seen (and have) quite a few anime DVDs as they are still better than VHS and I have yet to find one that is better than LD in terms of animation quality.
sacrificing quality of animiation for extras
on
Anime Moves To DVD
·
· Score: 2
For anime, Laser Disc is the best for animation quality. With DVD, the compression/decompression introduces quite a bit of line noise. On small screens this isn't too much of problem, but I normally watch anime with a projector and have either a 110 inch viewing area or a 25 foot viewing area and the line noise in DVDs is very noticable.
While the sound quality is better and the language/subtile options are more robust on DVDs, I still prefer LDs.
So, let me get this straight. Interactive media is open (and thus better) than closed media.
If this is true, then why does it seem that everytime that/. posts a story on their own, as opposed to linking to a closed media site such as CNN or NYT, they have to add a retraction or correction?
If this is true, then why does is seem that/. often uses misleading headlines and editorial commentary that doesn't even resemble the story that they are linking to?
If this is true, then why does the majority of/.'s stories involve linking to some closed media site?
Closed media, for all of its faults, is still the best source for news. They check the facts and actually write the news stories.
At least one good thing came from the long length of time it took to create this new addiction : very reasonable system requirements. This goes to prove that you don't need bleeding edge (and expensive) hardware to play a great game.
Depends on the industry that you are in
on
Too Old To Code?
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· Score: 1
One thing that many people forget is that the computer industry is very diverse. Different parts of the industry require different skill sets and experience levels.
For example, I'm in the avionic industry where experience is highly valued. I regularly work with people in their 40's and 50's.
To contrast that, most network admins that I know are in their 30's. And most web designer that I know are in their 20's.
While I would have prefered the list to be more specific, the list does make a striking statement. It shows the dramatic changes that has occured in the last 100 years. It gives a sense of perspective.
As we sit here week in and week out complaining about and debating how civilization in general is approaching the information age, it is good to sit back now and then and reflect on how far we have come in such a short period of time.
Most of us know how important some of the Open Source projects are to the health and well being of the internet. But the average user isn't interested.
An real world analogy would be roads (the internet) and vehicles(individul PCs). I have very little real knowledge about what make a good road. I don't have the education to know how to slope the curves or the right combinations of materials to use. All that I know is that some roads are more annoying to drive on than others. Most people don't know how the internet works, they just know that some parts are slower than others.
While I know the basics of how engines work, I wouldn't be able to tell you any details about the one in my car. I know how far I can drive before filling up with gas and how much it would cost me. Similarly, most people don't know the internal working of the computers, but they do know how many and which programs that they can run on it.
To extend this futher. I do know the audio system in my car pretty well and am always willing to upgrade it. This would be analogous to the applications that people use on their computers.
So, to sum up this entire analogy. While advancements in road and auto construction are very important and exciting to the engineers, they don't generate the same excitement in the end users. They are more interested in getting higher quality music out of their stereo system.
To apply this to the computer world. Many of us here get excited when an improvement is made to the items that run the internet and individul computers. But to the average users, they could care less. They are more concerned with the applications.
If the Open Source community wants to win more of the non-Geek type people to their cause, then they are going to have to create more car steroes. Rehashing the same old agruments are just going to fall on deaf ears.
There is an underabundance of open source products that the general public would care about.
Netscape 6 is the first product to come out that the general public would care about and the author was clearly not impressed by it.
Instead of attacking Open Source bashers with the same old arguments, prehaps the Open Source community should re-examine its priorities and posistions.
There are people out there who are not seeing the benefits of Open Source code as there hasn't been sufficient code written that would interest them. Most of the code to date has been written by Geeks for Geeks. This was fine until the Open Source community started pushing Open Source as THE WAY to publish software. Suddenly, non-Geeks started taking interest. But as most of the software is being written for Geeks, most non-Geeks only see an absence of software that would help them with their computing tasks.
Another item to add to this wonder bit of insight is the concept of choice.
Some programmers release code under the GPL and other free software licenses by choice. Other programmers release binary only freeware programs, others release binary only shareware programs, ect.... They have put the time and effort into creating something and they have the right to choose how it is to be distrubuted.
Artists (musicians, writters, painters, animators, ect...) also have this choice. They have put the time and effort into creating something and they have the right to choose how it is to be distrubuted.
Consumers also have a choice. In the computer world, if a programmer doesn't like the GPL, he doesn't have to use software released under it. In the music world, if a music fan doesn't want to pay for song, then they don't have to listen to it.
One of the biggest selling points of OSS is that "with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow". This strength is also a pretty big flaw in the OSS model.
As more and more software is released as Open Source, the ratio of eyes to SLOC will decrease.
Also, as the software that is released as Open Source becomes more complex and specialized, the odds of the eyes looking at the source code being knowledgable enough to identify bugs decreases as well.
What does this mean? At some point, for certain software packages, it will make more sense for a company to keep it closed source as the cons of releasing it as Open Source (basically, giving it away) will outway the pros (find bugs).
I don't work on the shuttle, I work in the Avionic biz, which shares many similarities to the shuttle project.
The avionics biz is very conservative when it comes to items that relate to safety. The primary and secondary displays have to be so safe, bug free, and have such a small memory space that they don't use an operating system such as windows, *nix, or DOS. It is strictly bare metal programming. In the boxes that I work on, having 500k of ram to work with is a luxury item.
The graphics are usually handled by seperate chip with a dedicated graphics engine embedded into it. The main processor and graphics chip usually communicate via shared memory locations and the commands don't get any more complicated than "draw blue circle at location x,y with radius r" and many of the items come predrawn.
Slashdot Mirror
WoTC actively recruits new players into the hobby by working to get D&D into the mass market stores as well as taking steps to increase brand awareness.
Parker Brothers does the same thing with Monopoly. Copies of Monopoly can be found damn near everywhere in the US due to PBs work at getting into the mass market. PB also aggressively promotes Monopoly. The annual McDonald's contest and the limited editions of the game are two examples.
How popular would Monopoly be if people could only buy it in specialty stores?
db
The hobby does need WoTC to survive and grow.
WoTC and White Wolf are the only two game companies that actively recruit new people to the tabletop RPG hobby. All the other RPG companies cater to established gamers. WoTC far outpaces even White Wolf with D&D controlling over 90% of the marketplace (in terms of sales).
db
Great, now accidents will be caused by people distracted by p0rn.
I wonder if laws will be passed prohibiting people from viewing p0rn while driving.
A fan's view is a pretty good site for pictures from cons.
I graduated from IIT and it is a fine school.
To be honest, how many schools are known for their educational programs? Most are known due to their sports programs. IIT does a lot a research, it is just in fields that most people here are not interested in.
Let's wait until the review is done before making charges of conspiracy.
Not a very accurate description of GenCon. Gaming Outpost (www.gamingoutpost.com/) and WoTC's Virtual Gencon (www.wizards.com) have much better highlights of the con.
,SF, or comicbook con this year.
I only saw 2 women in chainmail bikinis and both of them were real good looking.
Gencon also smelled better than the average Anime
I like the fuel economy, but how does it rate when it comes to safety and maintainance?
Care to name some "well-encoded" DVDs? I've seen (and have) quite a few anime DVDs as they are still better than VHS and I have yet to find one that is better than LD in terms of animation quality.
For anime, Laser Disc is the best for animation quality. With DVD, the compression/decompression introduces quite a bit of line noise. On small screens this isn't too much of problem, but I normally watch anime with a projector and have either a 110 inch viewing area or a 25 foot viewing area and the line noise in DVDs is very noticable.
While the sound quality is better and the language/subtile options are more robust on DVDs, I still prefer LDs.
So, let me get this straight. Interactive media is open (and thus better) than closed media.
/. posts a story on their own, as opposed to linking to a closed media site such as CNN or NYT, they have to add a retraction or correction?
/. often uses misleading headlines and editorial commentary that doesn't even resemble the story that they are linking to?
/.'s stories involve linking to some closed media site?
If this is true, then why does it seem that everytime that
If this is true, then why does is seem that
If this is true, then why does the majority of
Closed media, for all of its faults, is still the best source for news. They check the facts and actually write the news stories.
At least one good thing came from the long length of time it took to create this new addiction : very reasonable system requirements. This goes to prove that you don't need bleeding edge (and expensive) hardware to play a great game.
One thing that many people forget is that the computer industry is very diverse. Different parts of the industry require different skill sets and experience levels.
For example, I'm in the avionic industry where experience is highly valued. I regularly work with people in their 40's and 50's.
To contrast that, most network admins that I know are in their 30's. And most web designer that I know are in their 20's.
The study can be found here
150 yen is nothing. A can of coke was 120 yen the last time that I was in Tokyo.
While I would have prefered the list to be more specific, the list does make a striking statement. It shows the dramatic changes that has occured in the last 100 years. It gives a sense of perspective.
As we sit here week in and week out complaining about and debating how civilization in general is approaching the information age, it is good to sit back now and then and reflect on how far we have come in such a short period of time.
Most of us know how important some of the Open Source projects are to the health and well being of the internet. But the average user isn't interested.
An real world analogy would be roads (the internet) and vehicles(individul PCs). I have very little real knowledge about what make a good road. I don't have the education to know how to slope the curves or the right combinations of materials to use. All that I know is that some roads are more annoying to drive on than others. Most people don't know how the internet works, they just know that some parts are slower than others.
While I know the basics of how engines work, I wouldn't be able to tell you any details about the one in my car. I know how far I can drive before filling up with gas and how much it would cost me. Similarly, most people don't know the internal working of the computers, but they do know how many and which programs that they can run on it.
To extend this futher. I do know the audio system in my car pretty well and am always willing to upgrade it. This would be analogous to the applications that people use on their computers.
So, to sum up this entire analogy. While advancements in road and auto construction are very important and exciting to the engineers, they don't generate the same excitement in the end users. They are more interested in getting higher quality music out of their stereo system.
To apply this to the computer world. Many of us here get excited when an improvement is made to the items that run the internet and individul computers. But to the average users, they could care less. They are more concerned with the applications.
If the Open Source community wants to win more of the non-Geek type people to their cause, then they are going to have to create more car steroes. Rehashing the same old agruments are just going to fall on deaf ears.
There is an underabundance of open source products that the general public would care about.
Netscape 6 is the first product to come out that the general public would care about and the author was clearly not impressed by it.
Instead of attacking Open Source bashers with the same old arguments, prehaps the Open Source community should re-examine its priorities and posistions.
There are people out there who are not seeing the benefits of Open Source code as there hasn't been sufficient code written that would interest them. Most of the code to date has been written by Geeks for Geeks. This was fine until the Open Source community started pushing Open Source as THE WAY to publish software. Suddenly, non-Geeks started taking interest. But as most of the software is being written for Geeks, most non-Geeks only see an absence of software that would help them with their computing tasks.
Another item to add to this wonder bit of insight is the concept of choice.
Some programmers release code under the GPL and other free software licenses by choice. Other programmers release binary only freeware programs, others release binary only shareware programs, ect.... They have put the time and effort into creating something and they have the right to choose how it is to be distrubuted.
Artists (musicians, writters, painters, animators, ect...) also have this choice. They have put the time and effort into creating something and they have the right to choose how it is to be distrubuted.
Consumers also have a choice. In the computer world, if a programmer doesn't like the GPL, he doesn't have to use software released under it. In the music world, if a music fan doesn't want to pay for song, then they don't have to listen to it.
One of the biggest selling points of OSS is that "with enough eyes, all bugs are shallow". This strength is also a pretty big flaw in the OSS model.
As more and more software is released as Open Source, the ratio of eyes to SLOC will decrease.
Also, as the software that is released as Open Source becomes more complex and specialized, the odds of the eyes looking at the source code being knowledgable enough to identify bugs decreases as well.
What does this mean? At some point, for certain software packages, it will make more sense for a company to keep it closed source as the cons of releasing it as Open Source (basically, giving it away) will outway the pros (find bugs).
I don't work on the shuttle, I work in the Avionic biz, which shares many similarities to the shuttle project.
The avionics biz is very conservative when it comes to items that relate to safety. The primary and secondary displays have to be so safe, bug free, and have such a small memory space that they don't use an operating system such as windows, *nix, or DOS. It is strictly bare metal programming. In the boxes that I work on, having 500k of ram to work with is a luxury item.
The graphics are usually handled by seperate chip with a dedicated graphics engine embedded into it. The main processor and graphics chip usually communicate via shared memory locations and the commands don't get any more complicated than "draw blue circle at location x,y with radius r" and many of the items come predrawn.