This recalls the scene from Snow Crash where Hiro has gone gargoyle and approaches the motorcycle dealership's salesman with just just a line of patter. Loved it.
Videogames, not actually using a lens in the rendering process, were immune to the effect, but labored hard in efforts to reproduce it.
And that's where this comes in. Videogames are in a little box, so they need to look like they got there through a camera. Otherwise they still don't look like something you're seeing with your bare eyes, because seeing a moving world through a tiny portal is terribly unrealistic.
I have to disagree. The only way that I think a game is well served to appear as if the scene were being viewed through a camera would be if the actual scenario dictated that such a mediated experience was the intended channel.
Something like you're in a guardroom with video monitors, where one of the feed cameras pans past a bright light source. Then you should see a lens flare on the rendering of the video monitor. You shouldn't see a lens flare if you look directly into the desk lamp of the monitoring station. That reduces the immersiveness of the simulation.
Re:Games are getting ridiculous
on
Perfect Digital Skin
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· Score: 4, Informative
The most ridiculous part to me of lens-flare is that originally, it was to be avoided at all costs since it interfered with the suspension of disbelief (ie. it reminds the viewer that they're viewing something seen by a camera, not them), but somehow it got absorbed into the grammar of cinema as being cool. Videogames, not actually using a lens in the rendering process, were immune to the effect, but labored hard in efforts to reproduce it.
That's kind of an interesting idea. Sort of the ultimate in unrolled loops. Follow every possible execution path and translate all storage into global variables and string it all together with gotos.
Hm.
It's early, so maybe this sounding like a good idea is only my first-thing-in-the-morning fuzz keeping me from seeing the problem.
Were you pumping the brakes while going down the hill? ABS doesn't like pumping the brakes. The best way to use the brakes on an ABS equipped car is to apply steady, even pressure. Tapping the brakes confuses the ABS.
Very cool. Definitely thinking outside the box (so to speak). Thank you. I hadn't really considered rotating the squares, since that would leave you with a gap to start off with, but I didn't think about the idea that the optional loss of space would be less than the mandatory loss due to the relative sizes of the squares/box... very cool, indeed.
It seems strange, but it is true, that when the rec(t)angle is very large, this strategy is not optimal. More squares can be packed when they are not packed in such a regular pattern.
I, for one, am anxiously awaiting the day when the representatives from an interstellar federation will alight on our planet and tell us that we've got to get our act together. Stop oppressing and killing ourselves. Etc.
(What does "We are now once again sort of out over our skis, chronologically speaking" mean? Anyone?)
So, I think it's kind of a complex way of saying "we're getting ahead of ourselves, here." I don't imagine that he's implying we're about to do a temporal face-plant, just that we've gone wandering forwards towards the end before we've really explored the middle.
Otherwise, I'm about 85% of the way thru (given that I've just started section 7), and find it a good read (if sloggy to get thru), and share your good opinion of the book, but I'm taking a break and re-reading Cryptonomicon (which, oddly shares some of the same concepts towards the beginning when we're getting introduced to Woe-to-hice and his early education).
I liked how the saftey cable was discreetly dangling down behind the demonstrator's head and connected to the backpack. Good insurance against demo gremlins that would cause the system to seize and make the guy flop forward with 200lbs of stuff landing on his back.
I can't believe that the Russians beat us there. To think that they could have been the first to build a movie set and fake a lunar rover landing! I'm glad we were first to think of putting human actors on the set, though!
Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
Or do you have a completely dynamic site (ie. catalog)?
We face the opposite problem. We can't get google to crawl us enough. Out of perhaps 50-75k pages we'd like them to index, they only index about 1300. We're working on it tho!
>________ >(oop.ismad.com) If they have access to OUR jobs, then give me access to THEIR cost of living
Please forgive the following off-topic reply:
I've seen this quote before, and I finally figured out what was bothering me about it.
If you want THEIR cost of living *and* OUR jobs, just move there.
Re:none besides the PC?
on
Linux Toys
·
· Score: 1
I think perhaps the reviewer awkwardly phrased the last part of this sentence. When they said "(including none besides the PC)" it may have been interpreted as meaning: you don't need anything other than the PC to run all of these projects. What I think the reviewer actually meant was: "(including some projects where all you need is the PC)."
Have you noticed that you can't spell "awkwardly" without "awk"?
Cory Doctorow takes an interesting look at this question in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". He posits a post-death, post-scarcity society and solves the problem of who does the dirty work via the mechanism of 'whuffie'. He explains it better thru the novel than I could ever summarize. It's also available for free at http://www.craphound.com/down/
Slashdot Mirror
This recalls the scene from Snow Crash where Hiro has gone gargoyle and approaches the motorcycle dealership's salesman with just just a line of patter. Loved it.
And that's where this comes in. Videogames are in a little box, so they need to look like they got there through a camera. Otherwise they still don't look like something you're seeing with your bare eyes, because seeing a moving world through a tiny portal is terribly unrealistic.
I have to disagree. The only way that I think a game is well served to appear as if the scene were being viewed through a camera would be if the actual scenario dictated that such a mediated experience was the intended channel.
Something like you're in a guardroom with video monitors, where one of the feed cameras pans past a bright light source. Then you should see a lens flare on the rendering of the video monitor. You shouldn't see a lens flare if you look directly into the desk lamp of the monitoring station. That reduces the immersiveness of the simulation.
The most ridiculous part to me of lens-flare is that originally, it was to be avoided at all costs since it interfered with the suspension of disbelief (ie. it reminds the viewer that they're viewing something seen by a camera, not them), but somehow it got absorbed into the grammar of cinema as being cool. Videogames, not actually using a lens in the rendering process, were immune to the effect, but labored hard in efforts to reproduce it.
That's kind of an interesting idea. Sort of the ultimate in unrolled loops. Follow every possible execution path and translate all storage into global variables and string it all together with gotos.
Hm.
It's early, so maybe this sounding like a good idea is only my first-thing-in-the-morning fuzz keeping me from seeing the problem.
Screen? Luxury! Try parchment and ink. The latency caused by drying time was a real hair-puller, that was....
Were you pumping the brakes while going down the hill? ABS doesn't like pumping the brakes. The best way to use the brakes on an ABS equipped car is to apply steady, even pressure. Tapping the brakes confuses the ABS.
Very cool. Definitely thinking outside the box (so to speak). Thank you. I hadn't really considered rotating the squares, since that would leave you with a gap to start off with, but I didn't think about the idea that the optional loss of space would be less than the mandatory loss due to the relative sizes of the squares/box... very cool, indeed.
I'd like to see a proof of that...
No, seriously. I would
Stop laughing. I mean it
Yeah Baby! I want to ride on the wall of death, one more time!!
I, for one, am anxiously awaiting the day when the representatives from an interstellar federation will alight on our planet and tell us that we've got to get our act together. Stop oppressing and killing ourselves. Etc.
Perhaps just an incorrect sense of the word 'clique?'
So, I think it's kind of a complex way of saying "we're getting ahead of ourselves, here." I don't imagine that he's implying we're about to do a temporal face-plant, just that we've gone wandering forwards towards the end before we've really explored the middle.
Otherwise, I'm about 85% of the way thru (given that I've just started section 7), and find it a good read (if sloggy to get thru), and share your good opinion of the book, but I'm taking a break and re-reading Cryptonomicon (which, oddly shares some of the same concepts towards the beginning when we're getting introduced to Woe-to-hice and his early education).
Nice review.
I liked how the saftey cable was discreetly dangling down behind the demonstrator's head and connected to the backpack. Good insurance against demo gremlins that would cause the system to seize and make the guy flop forward with 200lbs of stuff landing on his back.
from the article:
all of Maryland's machines had two identical locks, which could be opened by any one of 32,000 keys or be easily picked.
A "tinker" would be someone whose damn I would not give. Especially for this particular subject...
I can't believe that the Russians beat us there. To think that they could have been the first to build a movie set and fake a lunar rover landing! I'm glad we were first to think of putting human actors on the set, though!
The Chamilto Effect -- IT scutwork is pushed down the developer food chain until it lands with someone incapable of doing the job.
Consider it in the Jargon File.
Make sure your web server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This feature allows your web server to tell Google whether your content has changed since we last crawled your site. Supporting this feature saves you bandwidth and overhead.
Or do you have a completely dynamic site (ie. catalog)?
We face the opposite problem. We can't get google to crawl us enough. Out of perhaps 50-75k pages we'd like them to index, they only index about 1300. We're working on it tho!
oh please. you have to draw the line somewhere!
>________
>(oop.ismad.com) If they have access to OUR jobs, then give me access to THEIR cost of living
Please forgive the following off-topic reply:
I've seen this quote before, and I finally figured out what was bothering me about it.
If you want THEIR cost of living *and* OUR jobs, just move there.
I think perhaps the reviewer awkwardly phrased the last part of this sentence. When they said "(including none besides the PC)" it may have been interpreted as meaning: you don't need anything other than the PC to run all of these projects. What I think the reviewer actually meant was: "(including some projects where all you need is the PC)."
Have you noticed that you can't spell "awkwardly" without "awk"?
no, no, no. You are having it just a leetle wrong. eMachines are goooood...
for me to poop on.
Cory Doctorow takes an interesting look at this question in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom". He posits a post-death, post-scarcity society and solves the problem of who does the dirty work via the mechanism of 'whuffie'. He explains it better thru the novel than I could ever summarize. It's also available for free at http://www.craphound.com/down/
Robots physically and mentally superior to humans 2030
Living genetically engineered Furby (TM, Tiger Electronics) 2040
Apparently, all of these robots crashed in 2038 when their clocks wrapped and were replaced with a 64 bit Furby, instead.
Really well said. Not much to contribute here, other than than.