If I walk up to you on an empty street and punch you in the face, then run away, are you going to call for the police to pursue me? After all, there's no evidence that I committed a crime, except your word. In fact, there's no evidence that a crime was committed at all -- you could have gotten that bruised jaw some other way.
I don't know what idea you're trying to support with that example, but the puncher in your example would most assuredly get away scott free, and the punchee would be out of luck... unless there were witnesses. So your example supports the parent's argument. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
Also, your analogy would be more accurate if the pursued puncher in your example were strip searched and his clothes not returned.
Dr. Michael Gratzel (credited with pioneering the technology in the article) has a startup in Lowell, MA that has been working towards commercializing polymer based photovoltaics since 2001 called Konarka Technologies, and from what I understand from talking to them, they're almost done. I wonder if this involves some technology license, or if STMicro is going to beat Dr. Gratzel out the door with his own technology.
In a nation in which the military specifies that invididual nuts must come in their own box with padding - padding!
I've been to a shop where they make said nuts. The machinist showed me the highly precice lathe on which each nut is and made to incredible precision. He then took one of the nuts, lifted it 3 inches above the table and dropped it. He then dunked the nut in some die and showed me under a blacklight exactly why that nut would be rejected if he sent it to Pratt and Whitney to be used in a fighter engine, simply because it was dropped three inches. The boxes are padded for a reason: Without the padding 99% of the nuts would be ruined just by bumping against other nuts in a box. The precision is required to make the engines safe and reliable. Since the nuts need to be perfect, the padding saves money.
The motives are different now than they were then. Before Xbox was a reality, Microsoft wanted to seed units to developers as soon as possible to get them working on Xbox titles, and excited about the platform. Now, Microsoft will be trying to strike a careful balance between having tatles for their next generation console, and keeping developers interested in the current generation. Expect Microsoft to wait until the last possible second to send ont development units to a wide number of developers.
Because they're funding the contest with a reality TV show! You only win if you agree to release the footage of you drinking coke and having some obnoxious guy charge you with a TV camera. Bonus prizes if you sewar and they have to bleep you, or you open the can topless.
The fallacy is to assume that it is indeed a simple marketshare vs flexibility tradeoff. It is not.
Take my "soundbyte" (shouldn't that have an 'i'?) more literally. Adding a graphical environment such as 'Y' adds flexability. I'm not opposed to alternatives. I think it's foolish to talk about replacements. Why kill a good thing when you can have it both ways? My reply was simply that increased marketshare was not sufficient reason to not have it both ways. Technical reasons aside, since I was only responding to the parent who only made the marketshare argument.
Though I may disagree with your asessment of X in general ("too much flexibility in the wrong places"), I believe the rest of your points are sound.
If there's no equivalent at all on the other hardware, of course direct translation falls down. But so would emulation.
This is where you're wrong. It's entirely possible for an operation to be necissary on the target platform that is unnecissary on the source platform. No amount of translation will get you around that. I also continue to stand by my PCM/FM sound argument. If the code does something completely different, that's hardly translation.
Perhaps you should explain my logic to me then, because clearly I don't understand myself the way you do. How does anything I said have anything at all to do with an emulator?
Uhh, speaking as someone who owns the said version of Phantasy Star III on the Gameboy Advance
I didn't know that owning a video game cartridge implied any knowledge of how it was created. You have no idea if the methods described in this article were used in the creation of the GBA version of the game. I'm willing to bet that if these methods were used, they were only used on a limited number of code sections, labor intesive, and not directly reusable.
it's not very hard to find something with equivalent functionality on the current system
Equivalent functionality doesn't neciscarily have equivalent interfaces. Different interfaces require different code. Different code isn't a translation in the sense this article describes.
or to just hack through it with software.
Again, you're now writing new code instead of translating. The difference is the automation.
I'd say that translation's essentially an emulator optimized specifically to play one game correctly, to hell with the rest.
Hmm, change all the definitions to fit your point. I'll have to try that debate tactic in the future.
If you rebuild an executable for system X from a binary dump for system Y, you don't just disassemble it, but you put in macro's for all of the opcodes for system Y. These macro's are the glue that emulate parts of Y's hardware on system X.
That's a dubious claim at best. A rom image is likely to contain device driver calls that set register bits that have no equivalent on other hardware. In order to produce a single device operation, a series of opcodes is likely to be required that is guaranteed not to appear in the same order on all software for the platform, and may not even have an analog on the new platform. That means at the very least you have tailor your macros for every image, if not for sections of an image. In the worst (and most likely) case, procedures and algorithims comprised of hundreds of opcodes and used to manipulate hardware on the original system would be completely invalid on the target, and would have to be implemented completely differently. That's the same thing as porting the software, but with some extra steps added.
Their example in the article is perfect to illustrate this. After they converted the FM synth codes to sampled PCM data, do you really think the sound code from the original ROM came even remotely close to working? I call bullshit.
Furthermore, there is no evidence in the article that this project was actually attempted, much less completed. Even if it was, I would bet significant sums of money that their tools wouldn't work to translate other games from Genesis to Gameboy without as much work as went into the tools in the first place. If their techniques ever were to work, it's likely that it would only be while translating between two extremely similar systems. Did anybody with a clue at the ACM read this article before posting it?
So now the bozos are about to have access to 50-million recently *verified* phone numbers that were provided by the do-not-call list so that those clowns wouldn't call?
As opposed to those 200 million numbers in the phone book? A number alone isn't worth much. You need some other information to decide wether a number is worth calling with a particular pitch. With these 50 million numbers they only additional data that they have is that these people don't want to be called. If I were a telemarketer, this list wouldn't appeal to me at all as a source.
No problems here on my dual 500... Other people are saying it only affects iMacs and eMacs. Maybe this guy with a broken dual 500 screwed it up himself.
We all know Dartmouth is a very technically savvy place, so presumably they could duplicate these results. Or were they charging less per minute of talk? It seems to me that something's odd about the idea that LD telco is too cheap to meter. I applaud the idea of not metering it, which is great social policy for Dartmouth. But I don't really see how it can be an economic gain.
They didn't say it was costing more to bill than they were taking in, they said (essentially) that billing was the highest cost. They were probably making a healthy profit. Especially if their rates were as high as what I've seen at most schools. I'd bet that the real reason they switched was due to the terms of some equipment or cash donation, since that's usually the only way to get a school to turn it's back on a revenue stream, even if that revenue stream isn't in the student's best interests.
Enable the 30 second skip button on the TiVo remote
Ick. Fastforwarding is faster, easier, and more accurate. I hate the 30 second skip.
Re:Threat to Athlon64: Prescott (not Pentium 4)
on
Athlon 64 Debuts
·
· Score: 1
You forgot to mention that they would likely Itanium less apealing to the market (if that's possible). If they were smart they would do it anyway, but we may never see these theorized 64-bit extensions if Intel is unwilling to shoot itself in the multi-billion dollar foot.
This soap opera is moot anyway. Average users buy what's shiny, institutional users buy sun, and educated users base their decision on price/performance. Only a limited number of people are fanboys.
Damn you Neal Stephenson!
on
Quicksilver
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
I can't read this book now because it would violate my first rule of book selection: I don't read any books that are part of an incomplete series. He's got to write faster so I can get my fix! Then again, I already sort of broke my rule by reading the sample chapter...
You have to make your e-mail address visible without logging in. Change your ebay user id to your e-mail address. The spam *will* flow.
I had an eBay account since back when they required you to use your e-mail address as in id. That account still gets over 2MB of spam a day, even though I changed my user id as soon as was allowed, which was more than 3 years ago.
Slashdot Mirror
If I walk up to you on an empty street and punch you in the face, then run away, are you going to call for the police to pursue me? After all, there's no evidence that I committed a crime, except your word. In fact, there's no evidence that a crime was committed at all -- you could have gotten that bruised jaw some other way.
I don't know what idea you're trying to support with that example, but the puncher in your example would most assuredly get away scott free, and the punchee would be out of luck... unless there were witnesses. So your example supports the parent's argument. The burden of proof is on the accuser.
Also, your analogy would be more accurate if the pursued puncher in your example were strip searched and his clothes not returned.
Dr. Michael Gratzel (credited with pioneering the technology in the article) has a startup in Lowell, MA that has been working towards commercializing polymer based photovoltaics since 2001 called Konarka Technologies, and from what I understand from talking to them, they're almost done. I wonder if this involves some technology license, or if STMicro is going to beat Dr. Gratzel out the door with his own technology.
Hmm, $99 plus $49 for the game, or $149 with a free game, and sales are up 4x...
Looks like people are as dumb as they seem...
In a nation in which the military specifies that invididual nuts must come in their own box with padding - padding!
I've been to a shop where they make said nuts. The machinist showed me the highly precice lathe on which each nut is and made to incredible precision. He then took one of the nuts, lifted it 3 inches above the table and dropped it. He then dunked the nut in some die and showed me under a blacklight exactly why that nut would be rejected if he sent it to Pratt and Whitney to be used in a fighter engine, simply because it was dropped three inches. The boxes are padded for a reason: Without the padding 99% of the nuts would be ruined just by bumping against other nuts in a box. The precision is required to make the engines safe and reliable. Since the nuts need to be perfect, the padding saves money.
The motives are different now than they were then. Before Xbox was a reality, Microsoft wanted to seed units to developers as soon as possible to get them working on Xbox titles, and excited about the platform. Now, Microsoft will be trying to strike a careful balance between having tatles for their next generation console, and keeping developers interested in the current generation. Expect Microsoft to wait until the last possible second to send ont development units to a wide number of developers.
Because they're funding the contest with a reality TV show! You only win if you agree to release the footage of you drinking coke and having some obnoxious guy charge you with a TV camera. Bonus prizes if you sewar and they have to bleep you, or you open the can topless.
Heh.
Buy support contract.
Buy cheap memory.
Have system failure.
Remove cheap memory.
Call for service.
Replace cheap memory.
Works great!
Actually, the GBA is $30 cheaper than a Gamecube.
The fallacy is to assume that it is indeed a simple marketshare vs flexibility tradeoff. It is not.
Take my "soundbyte" (shouldn't that have an 'i'?) more literally. Adding a graphical environment such as 'Y' adds flexability. I'm not opposed to alternatives. I think it's foolish to talk about replacements. Why kill a good thing when you can have it both ways? My reply was simply that increased marketshare was not sufficient reason to not have it both ways. Technical reasons aside, since I was only responding to the parent who only made the marketshare argument.
Though I may disagree with your asessment of X in general ("too much flexibility in the wrong places"), I believe the rest of your points are sound.
They need to make an original NES or Sega Master System controller for the Xbox so we can get the complete experience, thumb blisters and all.
Ninja Gaiden was the only game I remember where I had to bleed to beat it!
The choice in a tradeoff between flexability and marketshare in a product that doesn't require marketshare to survive should be obvious.
If there's no equivalent at all on the other hardware, of course direct translation falls down. But so would emulation.
This is where you're wrong. It's entirely possible for an operation to be necissary on the target platform that is unnecissary on the source platform. No amount of translation will get you around that. I also continue to stand by my PCM/FM sound argument. If the code does something completely different, that's hardly translation.
This guy spent way too much time on this post for it to have a zero score. Besides, he agrees with me, and he's right. :)
Perhaps you should explain my logic to me then, because clearly I don't understand myself the way you do. How does anything I said have anything at all to do with an emulator?
Uhh, speaking as someone who owns the said version of Phantasy Star III on the Gameboy Advance
I didn't know that owning a video game cartridge implied any knowledge of how it was created. You have no idea if the methods described in this article were used in the creation of the GBA version of the game. I'm willing to bet that if these methods were used, they were only used on a limited number of code sections, labor intesive, and not directly reusable.
it's not very hard to find something with equivalent functionality on the current system
Equivalent functionality doesn't neciscarily have equivalent interfaces. Different interfaces require different code. Different code isn't a translation in the sense this article describes.
or to just hack through it with software.
Again, you're now writing new code instead of translating. The difference is the automation.
I'd say that translation's essentially an emulator optimized specifically to play one game correctly, to hell with the rest.
Hmm, change all the definitions to fit your point. I'll have to try that debate tactic in the future.
If you rebuild an executable for system X from a binary dump for system Y, you don't just disassemble it, but you put in macro's for all of the opcodes for system Y. These macro's are the glue that emulate parts of Y's hardware on system X.
That's a dubious claim at best. A rom image is likely to contain device driver calls that set register bits that have no equivalent on other hardware. In order to produce a single device operation, a series of opcodes is likely to be required that is guaranteed not to appear in the same order on all software for the platform, and may not even have an analog on the new platform. That means at the very least you have tailor your macros for every image, if not for sections of an image. In the worst (and most likely) case, procedures and algorithims comprised of hundreds of opcodes and used to manipulate hardware on the original system would be completely invalid on the target, and would have to be implemented completely differently. That's the same thing as porting the software, but with some extra steps added.
Their example in the article is perfect to illustrate this. After they converted the FM synth codes to sampled PCM data, do you really think the sound code from the original ROM came even remotely close to working? I call bullshit.
Furthermore, there is no evidence in the article that this project was actually attempted, much less completed. Even if it was, I would bet significant sums of money that their tools wouldn't work to translate other games from Genesis to Gameboy without as much work as went into the tools in the first place. If their techniques ever were to work, it's likely that it would only be while translating between two extremely similar systems. Did anybody with a clue at the ACM read this article before posting it?
I doubt that people who are willing to use this list in a fraudulent way are more likely to now that it's not valid as a do-not-call list anymore.
So now the bozos are about to have access to 50-million recently *verified* phone numbers that were provided by the do-not-call list so that those clowns wouldn't call?
As opposed to those 200 million numbers in the phone book? A number alone isn't worth much. You need some other information to decide wether a number is worth calling with a particular pitch. With these 50 million numbers they only additional data that they have is that these people don't want to be called. If I were a telemarketer, this list wouldn't appeal to me at all as a source.
No problems here on my dual 500... Other people are saying it only affects iMacs and eMacs. Maybe this guy with a broken dual 500 screwed it up himself.
"Senior analyst Billy Pidgeon of the Zelos Group commented on the price drop, saying"
In other words, "Some random guy with no real insight into Nintendo's productions costs says...". Talk about pulling things out of your ass.
With guys like this out there, it makes you wonder if it's just a conicidence that 'analyst' starts with 'anal'.
We all know Dartmouth is a very technically savvy place, so presumably they could duplicate these results. Or were they charging less per minute of talk? It seems to me that something's odd about the idea that LD telco is too cheap to meter. I applaud the idea of not metering it, which is great social policy for Dartmouth. But I don't really see how it can be an economic gain.
They didn't say it was costing more to bill than they were taking in, they said (essentially) that billing was the highest cost. They were probably making a healthy profit. Especially if their rates were as high as what I've seen at most schools. I'd bet that the real reason they switched was due to the terms of some equipment or cash donation, since that's usually the only way to get a school to turn it's back on a revenue stream, even if that revenue stream isn't in the student's best interests.
Enable the 30 second skip button on the TiVo remote
Ick. Fastforwarding is faster, easier, and more accurate. I hate the 30 second skip.
You forgot to mention that they would likely Itanium less apealing to the market (if that's possible). If they were smart they would do it anyway, but we may never see these theorized 64-bit extensions if Intel is unwilling to shoot itself in the multi-billion dollar foot.
This soap opera is moot anyway. Average users buy what's shiny, institutional users buy sun, and educated users base their decision on price/performance. Only a limited number of people are fanboys.
I can't read this book now because it would violate my first rule of book selection: I don't read any books that are part of an incomplete series. He's got to write faster so I can get my fix! Then again, I already sort of broke my rule by reading the sample chapter...
You have to make your e-mail address visible without logging in. Change your ebay user id to your e-mail address. The spam *will* flow.
I had an eBay account since back when they required you to use your e-mail address as in id. That account still gets over 2MB of spam a day, even though I changed my user id as soon as was allowed, which was more than 3 years ago.