"Maybe if game developers could dream up a genre other than fantasy, problems like this would be averted..."
I think it's time they revive "Gammaworld" or "Boot Hill". I would enjoy a SciFi based RPG, and maybe a creative soul could make a good western!
But don't knock fantasy. I don't think I'll ever get tired of level-development-based party quests. However, I never thought I'd say this, but I AM getting tired of D&D themes. I started playing D&D in the 70's, Wizardry in the 1980's, and have played all of the Ultimas and Bard's Tales, continuing up to Baldurs Gate II. After BG2, there's really no way to improve unless the graphics get better, and that game was damn near perfect, but was 15-20 modules stuffed together!
2nd, Interesting observations. I must be stoopid b/c I didn't quite see where the ending was going.;-) To me, it felt like he was deliberately pulling the plot to the foreground, as opposed to pushing the technology in the background, as an attempt to make it feel much more "natural". That's what did it for me, the seamlessness of it. I also think Cory used a few less dorky terms than Stephenson, and defintely less insipid futuristic slang than Gibson.
Thanks for not modding me a troll, despite the fact it was a huge troll!;-)
I frequently read "spinsanity.com" and they covered all of these books. They try to be fair and objective, and what I've concluded is that the wave of books from the left, which followed the wave from the right, tend to more factually supported and less fanciful. Moore is a bit flamboyant and admittedly exaggerates, but Al Franken does mix in good satire with his solid facts, and Joe Conason was really sincere in his attempt to shed light. Compare those three to the rants of O'Reilly, Coulter, et al, that serve no other purpose than to revv folks up for war.
"Down and Out..." is the next in the logical procession of futurist novels.
The world is run by ad-hocracies (basically, large groups of fans), everyone has computers in their brains, collaberation happens in the cerebellum, and crygenics is de rigeur.
...is anyone else getting tired of the "seas of CGI combatants" going to war?
I thought the flock of dinos in Jurassic Park was cool.
Then the sea of Bugs in Starship Troopers really blew my mind.
Then came the dorky robots in Star Wars I. Roger, roger.
Now were treated to vast expanses of identical models in nearly EVERY action movie.
IMO, the magic is gone.
Jackson needs more battle scenes with heart. Faramir's ride into Osgillath set to Pippin's song was far more passionate than any battle in the three movies.
So is there going to be a follow up to this where we get flying motorcycles, invisible ships, a horde of annoying brats, and really cool wristwatch thingys??
You made a blanket statement that management is more valuable than the workers.
Yeah, the original post was written in trollish. It was a kneejerk to all the manager bashing I had read.
Altough I completely disagree statement:
IMO, even a half-assed worker is more valuable to a business than your average manager. At least, there is some productivity happening with the bad employee.
Sitting in a cube doing something is not the same as productivity, whereas the average manager is still has goals directly related to the success of the company. the half-ass is almost irrelevant.
Chalk it up to difference of opinion.
I'll meet you in the middle: both are equally important: neither a bulding full of managers or a building full of workers is going to produce anything useful.
Let me try to illustrate my point a different way:
What's easier: a) learning to write better code, or b) learning how to get people to learn how to write better code?
a) A noob can be highly motivated and take a proactive attitude toward personal improvement.
b) A manager stuck with a school of noobs can't just toss out the bad ones and hire new, better ones because they're all noobs. the manager is stuck with biomass of all abilities, and no way around it. A good manager that can make a team of worthless noobs perform is a highly valuable asset.
In any business there are always more noobs than managers, hence the value of the manager.
see, even in the responses to my 'troll' people fail to give credit to the daunting task of management.
Let me try to illustrate my point a different way:
What's easier: a) learning to write better code, or b) learning how to get people to learn how to write better code?
a) A noob can be highly motivated and take a proactive attitude toward personal improvement.
b) A manager stuck with a school of noobs can't just toss out the bad ones and hire new, better ones because they're all noobs. the manager is stuck with biomass of all abilities, and no way around it. A good manager that can make a team of worthless noobs perform is a highly valuable asset.
In any business there are always more noobs than managers, hence the value of the manager.
see, even in the responses to my 'troll' people fail to give credit to the daunting task of management. pro'lly cause they've never had to do it, or are still in highschool.
Before we all start patting ourselves on the back because Hackers Make the World Go Round, stop and think about how successful a project would be if you threw a bunch of new-collge-grad "hackers" into a room with no management.
Despite YEARS of brainwashing (by Scott Adams) that Management is useless and evil, which you all seem to be blinded by, the reality is: Management is far more critical than grunt biomass. A good manager is worth a hundred half-skilled underlings. And good managers are worht their pay because they are rare, but the there are millions of squids who can type "gcc main.c..." and hack with an open book.
"...which are powerful enough to become a desktop replacement..."
Can i be the first to say: what a fucking boner! My work IBM T-30 (2.0 GHz) is more powerful than my desktop, which is a 900 MHz P3 that I used for the past three years.
i'm totally at a loss for this one. what could suck more!? every embarassing thing i did in 6th-8th grade now only resides in the distant memory of classmates. i'd probably kill myself if it was part of the internet for ever and ever. (hell, i'm still embarassed by dumbass posts i made to usenet in the 90's!)
this is a very interesting side-effect of the 'net. i don't know if this can be remedied, but it does imply that children now have accept the possibility of total transparency in their lives. as hard as it is to swallow, maybe this is how the new culture begins...
i would say i'm glad i'm not her, but this could, in reality, happen to ANYONE. it's just harder to ignore as a child, and it's harder to sue for libel/slander. but still, who to sue?
not after RH9. gone, no support. then it's only enterprise, which isn't free.
but hey, i'm always guaranteed to modded a troll whenever having an opinion that upsets the FSF zealots, even when it is closer to the truth than they care to acknowledge.
Ok: I say the free software movement IS dead and I stand to gain nothing. Microsoft makes some great points. Nothing of monetary value is coming out of the FSF, it's basically a never-ending pizza party for hackers. The corporate versions of Linux are far from free.
10 years ago you would study a subject and after a long period of study you would get questions that required you to apply knowledge.
I was just finishing college ten years ago, and it was regurgitation all the way!!! A few professors asked questions that made people think, and 99% of the class would choke, except for the token brains. I remember an exam in circuits with 2 questions, #1 (~20 points) was directly from the book (computing a Q point for a simple 5 transistor power amp), the other question (~80 points) was a 50 transistor Op Amp asking for the load on one wire. In a class of ~80, the average score was like 17 (partial credit), with a few 100s.
Maybe we need to go back to pre-60's to make your claim, but it was DEFINITELY more than 10 years ago!
Why waste the joules to program a flash-memory buffer? wouldn't it be less energy to use an sram buffer? flash is only necessary for non-volatile storage, since when does a playback buffer meet that requirement... or is the author a moe-ron?
Intel went after Xbox originally so that AMD wouldn't get the win, but Intel still took it in the shorts, or so it is claimed, by offering a nutrageously low price to outbid AMD. Probably even at a loss given the timeframe.
Intel doesn't give a crap about PPC, as it isn't even a remote threat, what at 4% of the market. Intel could have EASILY played the same power-play and had another design win, but at the cost of lower ASPs for a niche market (compared to its $20b a year market, xbox isn't worth it).
Slashdot Mirror
"Maybe if game developers could dream up a genre other than fantasy, problems like this would be averted..."
I think it's time they revive "Gammaworld" or "Boot Hill". I would enjoy a SciFi based RPG, and maybe a creative soul could make a good western!
But don't knock fantasy. I don't think I'll ever get tired of level-development-based party quests. However, I never thought I'd say this, but I AM getting tired of D&D themes. I started playing D&D in the 70's, Wizardry in the 1980's, and have played all of the Ultimas and Bard's Tales, continuing up to Baldurs Gate II. After BG2, there's really no way to improve unless the graphics get better, and that game was damn near perfect, but was 15-20 modules stuffed together!
1st, Voivod was an awesome band.
;-) To me, it felt like he was deliberately pulling the plot to the foreground, as opposed to pushing the technology in the background, as an attempt to make it feel much more "natural". That's what did it for me, the seamlessness of it. I also think Cory used a few less dorky terms than Stephenson, and defintely less insipid futuristic slang than Gibson.
2nd, Interesting observations. I must be stoopid b/c I didn't quite see where the ending was going.
Thanks for not modding me a troll, despite the fact it was a huge troll! ;-)
I frequently read "spinsanity.com" and they covered all of these books. They try to be fair and objective, and what I've concluded is that the wave of books from the left, which followed the wave from the right, tend to more factually supported and less fanciful. Moore is a bit flamboyant and admittedly exaggerates, but Al Franken does mix in good satire with his solid facts, and Joe Conason was really sincere in his attempt to shed light. Compare those three to the rants of O'Reilly, Coulter, et al, that serve no other purpose than to revv folks up for war.
Only the books by left-wingers are crap, the books by the right-wingers are all 100% accurate and truthful.
by Cory Doctorrow.
First there was Neuromancer.
Then Snow Crash took the reins.
"Down and Out..." is the next in the logical procession of futurist novels.
The world is run by ad-hocracies (basically, large groups of fans), everyone has computers in their brains, collaberation happens in the cerebellum, and crygenics is de rigeur.
Awesome, awesome book.
#2.
Did you expect anything less than a discussion that reads as: "I liked the matrix more than you did... no, i liked the matrix more than YOU did..."
This is a discussion mostly about hollywood blockbusters. Not a single indie film mentioned.
here are some great movies from the past few months, completely ignored due to lack of orcs or swords:
Lost in Translation: Scarlett is such a hottie and bill murray really CAN act.
American Splendor: any movie with R. Crumb is a winner.
The Russian Ark: longest single shot in history, which is far FAR more greater achievement than spending $300 million on CGI orcs.
Spider: Cronenberg never fails.
...is anyone else getting tired of the "seas of CGI combatants" going to war?
I thought the flock of dinos in Jurassic Park was cool.
Then the sea of Bugs in Starship Troopers really blew my mind.
Then came the dorky robots in Star Wars I. Roger, roger.
Now were treated to vast expanses of identical models in nearly EVERY action movie.
IMO, the magic is gone.
Jackson needs more battle scenes with heart. Faramir's ride into Osgillath set to Pippin's song was far more passionate than any battle in the three movies.
but you can still sell your vote by proving your barcode matches the website results. one of the nastier issues cringley brings up.
So is there going to be a follow up to this where we get flying motorcycles, invisible ships, a horde of annoying brats, and really cool wristwatch thingys??
Cool!
You made a blanket statement that management is more valuable than the workers.
Yeah, the original post was written in trollish. It was a kneejerk to all the manager bashing I had read.
Altough I completely disagree statement:
IMO, even a half-assed worker is more valuable to a business than your average manager. At least, there is some productivity happening with the bad employee.
Sitting in a cube doing something is not the same as productivity, whereas the average manager is still has goals directly related to the success of the company. the half-ass is almost irrelevant.
Chalk it up to difference of opinion.
I'll meet you in the middle: both are equally important: neither a bulding full of managers or a building full of workers is going to produce anything useful.
Let me try to illustrate my point a different way:
What's easier: a) learning to write better code, or b) learning how to get people to learn how to write better code?
a) A noob can be highly motivated and take a proactive attitude toward personal improvement.
b) A manager stuck with a school of noobs can't just toss out the bad ones and hire new, better ones because they're all noobs. the manager is stuck with biomass of all abilities, and no way around it. A good manager that can make a team of worthless noobs perform is a highly valuable asset.
In any business there are always more noobs than managers, hence the value of the manager.
see, even in the responses to my 'troll' people fail to give credit to the daunting task of management.
Let me try to illustrate my point a different way:
What's easier: a) learning to write better code, or b) learning how to get people to learn how to write better code?
a) A noob can be highly motivated and take a proactive attitude toward personal improvement.
b) A manager stuck with a school of noobs can't just toss out the bad ones and hire new, better ones because they're all noobs. the manager is stuck with biomass of all abilities, and no way around it. A good manager that can make a team of worthless noobs perform is a highly valuable asset.
In any business there are always more noobs than managers, hence the value of the manager.
see, even in the responses to my 'troll' people fail to give credit to the daunting task of management. pro'lly cause they've never had to do it, or are still in highschool.
Before we all start patting ourselves on the back because Hackers Make the World Go Round, stop and think about how successful a project would be if you threw a bunch of new-collge-grad "hackers" into a room with no management.
Despite YEARS of brainwashing (by Scott Adams) that Management is useless and evil, which you all seem to be blinded by, the reality is: Management is far more critical than grunt biomass. A good manager is worth a hundred half-skilled underlings. And good managers are worht their pay because they are rare, but the there are millions of squids who can type "gcc main.c..." and hack with an open book.
"...which are powerful enough to become a desktop replacement..."
Can i be the first to say: what a fucking boner! My work IBM T-30 (2.0 GHz) is more powerful than my desktop, which is a 900 MHz P3 that I used for the past three years.
i'm totally at a loss for this one. what could suck more!? every embarassing thing i did in 6th-8th grade now only resides in the distant memory of classmates. i'd probably kill myself if it was part of the internet for ever and ever. (hell, i'm still embarassed by dumbass posts i made to usenet in the 90's!)
this is a very interesting side-effect of the 'net. i don't know if this can be remedied, but it does imply that children now have accept the possibility of total transparency in their lives. as hard as it is to swallow, maybe this is how the new culture begins...
i would say i'm glad i'm not her, but this could, in reality, happen to ANYONE. it's just harder to ignore as a child, and it's harder to sue for libel/slander. but still, who to sue?
gah.
the transparent society is gonna suck.
you forget: Liberal Media == anything that has those sinful GAYS depicted as NORMAL!!! for SHAME!
not after RH9. gone, no support. then it's only enterprise, which isn't free.
but hey, i'm always guaranteed to modded a troll whenever having an opinion that upsets the FSF zealots, even when it is closer to the truth than they care to acknowledge.
Ok: I say the free software movement IS dead and I stand to gain nothing. Microsoft makes some great points. Nothing of monetary value is coming out of the FSF, it's basically a never-ending pizza party for hackers. The corporate versions of Linux are far from free.
Pffff, my squeeze would buy it for me in a heartbeat if I ask nicely. Did I mention I'm dating Paris Hilton?
10 years ago you would study a subject and after a long period of study you would get questions that required you to apply knowledge.
I was just finishing college ten years ago, and it was regurgitation all the way!!! A few professors asked questions that made people think, and 99% of the class would choke, except for the token brains. I remember an exam in circuits with 2 questions, #1 (~20 points) was directly from the book (computing a Q point for a simple 5 transistor power amp), the other question (~80 points) was a 50 transistor Op Amp asking for the load on one wire. In a class of ~80, the average score was like 17 (partial credit), with a few 100s.
Maybe we need to go back to pre-60's to make your claim, but it was DEFINITELY more than 10 years ago!
Unfortunately, only NOT is reversible. (Name one other gate that is? ... buffers don't count ;-)
So that gets us nowhere.
I believe the article is hinting at reusing the charge required to change state. Although I have no idea how it is stored, or how it is re-routed.
This article is entirely fluff.
tee hee...
Why waste the joules to program a flash-memory buffer? wouldn't it be less energy to use an sram buffer? flash is only necessary for non-volatile storage, since when does a playback buffer meet that requirement... or is the author a moe-ron?
Intel went after Xbox originally so that AMD wouldn't get the win, but Intel still took it in the shorts, or so it is claimed, by offering a nutrageously low price to outbid AMD. Probably even at a loss given the timeframe.
Intel doesn't give a crap about PPC, as it isn't even a remote threat, what at 4% of the market. Intel could have EASILY played the same power-play and had another design win, but at the cost of lower ASPs for a niche market (compared to its $20b a year market, xbox isn't worth it).
just my $0.02.
Hello! WMDs anyone??? Immintent attack by Iraq???