The Nazis are evil because we won. If they had won, history would label them as heroes for liberating the Aryans from racial oppression by the inferior races.
You'd be OK with that?
Your morality is determined by your surroundings. Really, that's all there is to it.
That seems like a rather shallow interpretation of it. There may not be an absolute answer for every dilemma, but I'd sure hope that morality is grounded on something deeper then the "whims of society". Just because the government or society says something is moral does not make it so. Things like universal rights should matter regardless of what the people in power are saying.
I wish it was more like Modo. I found Modo to be incredibly intuitive and loved it.
So when I saw blender 2.55 I thought "hey it looks similar, might be worth a try". But oh hell no. Blender has a lot of "options" that add up to fluff while a lot of the more important stuff was unconfigurable (without a script).
The article, and people here, are talking about how there are actual physical barriers to manned space flight in the Solar System, radiation, chemical, energy and mass barriers to it.
They're not inviolate barriers (like the speed of light). Build a big enough ship with a ton of water to shield the crew and a truly astonishing amount of chemical propellent (or a plasma/nuke drive) and all the problems go away. It's just economically, sensibly and manufacturingwise unfeasible.
Note too that while a manned expedition is theoretically possible, given enough funding, long-term colonization really isn't, because there's no way for any colony on Mars to provide for its ongoing needs. There's not enough atmosphere to support life, and keeping everything in a pressurized bubble all the time requires a continuous supply of materials and energy that cannot be produced locally. Even if you could somehow transport a nuclear reactor to Mars, there's no practical way to keep it cooled and maintained, and even if you could it only solves the energy problem. You still need a constant supply of materials and equipment, which would have to come from Earth, at enormous expense. The colony could never produce enough value to pay for that, so it could never be independent -- not with today's technology, anyhow.
That assumes mars is never Terraformed. Once a planet is terraformed and self-sustaining, the price of maintaining it drops off drastically, and the value returned skyrockets. Unfortunately yes, it's both "extremely expensive upfront" and "takes a bloody long time" so it's doubtful it will ever happen.
A colony in a bubble on the ocean floor would be *much* cheaper to build and maintain and produce *much* more value in trade goods and services (not least tourism), but nobody's yet managed to finance one, which should tell you something.
This is a really good point. I think the claustrophobia aspect probably plays a larger role then expense itself here (that would go for a space colony as well). People don't like to be cooped up with no sky to wander under, or to be cut off from the rest of civilization.
do any of the big animation studios use fractals to generate "random" landscapes? Does anybody use them in any sort of graphics applications?
I'm not really sure what the "big studios" use, but fractals are used quite a bit in 3D graphics apps.
As an example of a program that hinges/is based around fractals: Terragen: http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/productmain.shtml
Big Studios have a lot better apps then that, but the same process of using fractals for displacement and textures is in those programs as well.
However, there conclusions are often too broad considering the specifics of their experiments.
This. It drives me up the wall when they only test one case, ignore all other cases, and then their conclusion is stated in such a fashion as to say that the myth is definitively "busted" even though they forgot to test those other cases.
If you want to solve a problem don't bring it to a slimy politician, petition an engineer or scientist with subject matter expertise.
Engineers/Scientists are not above apathy, shortsightedness, obstinacy and greed. We're just as messed up as the rest of humanity is, we just happen to like math a lot.:P
Stereoscopy has a truly astonishing number of obstacles to overcome before it reaches that stage though. I'm kinda doubtful it ever will.
For instance, in order to get rid of stuff like the "sweet spot" and adjust for differing eye spacing amongst people, you have to target, measure, and produce an image for EVERY SINGLE EYE in the theater. It's currently impossible for LCD/Plasma (or any screen technology that we now know of for that matter) to refresh that fast. Also other problems like determining/adjusting precisely for eye focus.
Direct Mind Link would probably end up being an easier solution in the future.
Well, as stated above the plant DID survive the earthquake just fine, it was the tsunami that did it in.
But yes. They really shouldn't have built it that close to the ocean given Japan's history with tsunamis. For that matter, no nuclear plant at all should be built near the coastline, or near major fault zones.
Speaking of this. I wonder how far it will set society back when fossil fuels go out completely.
How well will society function when everyone has to bike to work? (China's done well, but western countries are in for a huge shock) What about the transport system trucks/plane delivery, will a whole lot of the country end up without basic supplies like food and water? How far will the rioting/wars go?
There's a very big reason for that. MMOs are a more social game. People play to chat with the fellas, kick back have some beers and enjoy, rather then focus on individual performance. This is why Facebook and WoW have dominated the market.
That can be problematic.
A person wants to do Quest X, but due to work schedules cant log in at night, and Quest X is only offered at night. Or the quest is never there when they go to look for it. Causal gamers don't want to wander up and down a road *hoping* for a quest to spawn, they just want to show up, click the quest and instantly get into action.
I'm hoping GW2 can make Dynamic interesting, but there is a lot to be said about the advantages of static questing.
++
It's a shame that we focus so much on trying to fix our problems (and failing miserably) in the present, rather then terraforming mars. Having a whole 'nother planet would provide an amazing amount of relief for so many of our current problems.
The solution lies out there in our solar system, but we're too shortsighted to focus on it. Sadly.
You really want to let the government dictate when and how people pro-create?
That is a slippery slope to a very very bad place.
The best way to decrease the population curve is to educate and empower women in third world countries. Societies with educated women have DRASTICALLY smaller birth rates.
I personally would not like to see a UN with the authority to be the world police.
Why not? That's kinda what the UN is suppose to be doing. The only thing that's a shame is they haven't been MORE active. The UN should be the one doing it, not the US.
So turn your head, cover your ears, and whistle while crimes against civilian populations/humanity are committed? There comes a time where interfering in other people's affairs is necessary. Civil wars between armies is one thing, but when war crimes are committed against civilians it's time for somebody to step in.
The French and Chileans were able to topple equally corrupt and dictatorial governments, with France having to deal with all the other monarchic countries going against her, so don't tell me that self-determination of the population does not work, no matter the odds. Mess with enough people enough, and even something as mighty as the Soviet Union will fall under its own weight.
How many bodies will pave the way to that "eventuality"? Should we turn our back on the chance to lower that number at every opportunity?
Ringworld would make an extremely boring movie.
The visuals of the environment would be truly impressive, but when it comes down to story it's rather dry, and when it comes to conflict (AKA "Action") it doesn't have that much.
Niven is a great "world creator", but when it comes to plot he isn't that good.
Physics is one area I'd love to see vastly improved on consoles. Real-time fluids++
Though they're probably already adding that.
Real-time ray-tracing would be amazing, but yeah, unlikely in the near future.
I imagine Nintendo is just going to roll with what they have for a few more years yet.
I can't see them pulling off "Kinect 2.0" or "Move 2.0" and being able to make it cheep. Maybe 4-5 years down the road when hardware actually gets powerful enough to power a true "Kinect" style device that doesn't have nearly as much lag and can precisely detect small stuff in adverse conditions. That would be the kind of stuff that would be console-defining. But I don't imagine it would be exactly cheep enough to fit the casual/family Nintendo mindset.
I wonder how that will work for Nintendo in the long run. They're kind of patterned after apple in the way that they brand stuff as stylish, innovative and "Just Works", but apple favors towards the premium market and so doesn't hesitate to pick up new tech simply because it's expensive.
/Seconded
He's got a very significant bias to killing off Starks and only Starks, while everyone else basically gets a "get out of death free" card. At first I thought the whole killing off main characters would be cool and at random, by the time I read A Feast For Crows it became apparent that there's nothing random about it.
That sucked most of the fun I had for the series out.
Slashdot Mirror
The Nazis are evil because we won. If they had won, history would label them as heroes for liberating the Aryans from racial oppression by the inferior races.
You'd be OK with that?
Your morality is determined by your surroundings. Really, that's all there is to it.
That seems like a rather shallow interpretation of it. There may not be an absolute answer for every dilemma, but I'd sure hope that morality is grounded on something deeper then the "whims of society". Just because the government or society says something is moral does not make it so. Things like universal rights should matter regardless of what the people in power are saying.
I wish it was more like Modo. I found Modo to be incredibly intuitive and loved it.
So when I saw blender 2.55 I thought "hey it looks similar, might be worth a try". But oh hell no. Blender has a lot of "options" that add up to fluff while a lot of the more important stuff was unconfigurable (without a script).
The article, and people here, are talking about how there are actual physical barriers to manned space flight in the Solar System, radiation, chemical, energy and mass barriers to it.
They're not inviolate barriers (like the speed of light). Build a big enough ship with a ton of water to shield the crew and a truly astonishing amount of chemical propellent (or a plasma/nuke drive) and all the problems go away. It's just economically, sensibly and manufacturingwise unfeasible.
Note too that while a manned expedition is theoretically possible, given enough funding, long-term colonization really isn't, because there's no way for any colony on Mars to provide for its ongoing needs. There's not enough atmosphere to support life, and keeping everything in a pressurized bubble all the time requires a continuous supply of materials and energy that cannot be produced locally. Even if you could somehow transport a nuclear reactor to Mars, there's no practical way to keep it cooled and maintained, and even if you could it only solves the energy problem. You still need a constant supply of materials and equipment, which would have to come from Earth, at enormous expense. The colony could never produce enough value to pay for that, so it could never be independent -- not with today's technology, anyhow.
That assumes mars is never Terraformed. Once a planet is terraformed and self-sustaining, the price of maintaining it drops off drastically, and the value returned skyrockets. Unfortunately yes, it's both "extremely expensive upfront" and "takes a bloody long time" so it's doubtful it will ever happen.
A colony in a bubble on the ocean floor would be *much* cheaper to build and maintain and produce *much* more value in trade goods and services (not least tourism), but nobody's yet managed to finance one, which should tell you something.
This is a really good point. I think the claustrophobia aspect probably plays a larger role then expense itself here (that would go for a space colony as well). People don't like to be cooped up with no sky to wander under, or to be cut off from the rest of civilization.
Fault of the user, not fault of the tool that was used incorrectly.
do any of the big animation studios use fractals to generate "random" landscapes? Does anybody use them in any sort of graphics applications?
I'm not really sure what the "big studios" use, but fractals are used quite a bit in 3D graphics apps. As an example of a program that hinges/is based around fractals: Terragen: http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/productmain.shtml Big Studios have a lot better apps then that, but the same process of using fractals for displacement and textures is in those programs as well.
However, there conclusions are often too broad considering the specifics of their experiments.
This. It drives me up the wall when they only test one case, ignore all other cases, and then their conclusion is stated in such a fashion as to say that the myth is definitively "busted" even though they forgot to test those other cases.
Do you actually get to play the single-player campaing co-operatively with another player? If not then I atleast don't count those as co-op.
Gears of War and Left4Dead were built with Co-Op campaign first and foremost in mind. It really shows and they're great fun to play.
Halo isn't DESIGNED around being a co-op game, but it's co-op campaign is still pretty fun.
Army of Two I really didn't like, and Call of Duty doesn't have a co-op campaign.
If you want to solve a problem don't bring it to a slimy politician, petition an engineer or scientist with subject matter expertise.
Engineers/Scientists are not above apathy, shortsightedness, obstinacy and greed. We're just as messed up as the rest of humanity is, we just happen to like math a lot. :P
Stereoscopy has a truly astonishing number of obstacles to overcome before it reaches that stage though. I'm kinda doubtful it ever will. For instance, in order to get rid of stuff like the "sweet spot" and adjust for differing eye spacing amongst people, you have to target, measure, and produce an image for EVERY SINGLE EYE in the theater. It's currently impossible for LCD/Plasma (or any screen technology that we now know of for that matter) to refresh that fast. Also other problems like determining/adjusting precisely for eye focus. Direct Mind Link would probably end up being an easier solution in the future.
Speaking of which, what does a "Google" taste like anyways? Grape? Kiwi? Orange?
Well, as stated above the plant DID survive the earthquake just fine, it was the tsunami that did it in. But yes. They really shouldn't have built it that close to the ocean given Japan's history with tsunamis. For that matter, no nuclear plant at all should be built near the coastline, or near major fault zones.
Speaking of this. I wonder how far it will set society back when fossil fuels go out completely. How well will society function when everyone has to bike to work? (China's done well, but western countries are in for a huge shock) What about the transport system trucks/plane delivery, will a whole lot of the country end up without basic supplies like food and water? How far will the rioting/wars go?
I feel like my fingers just fly over the keys as opposed to chunking each finger down.
I second this. I hate deep keys, normal PC keyboards drive me up the wall.
How exactly can you "choose to not drive on the roads"?
For many of the more rural sections of the country there is no Public Transit option. It's not an option.
There's a very big reason for that. MMOs are a more social game. People play to chat with the fellas, kick back have some beers and enjoy, rather then focus on individual performance. This is why Facebook and WoW have dominated the market.
That can be problematic. A person wants to do Quest X, but due to work schedules cant log in at night, and Quest X is only offered at night. Or the quest is never there when they go to look for it. Causal gamers don't want to wander up and down a road *hoping* for a quest to spawn, they just want to show up, click the quest and instantly get into action. I'm hoping GW2 can make Dynamic interesting, but there is a lot to be said about the advantages of static questing.
++ It's a shame that we focus so much on trying to fix our problems (and failing miserably) in the present, rather then terraforming mars. Having a whole 'nother planet would provide an amazing amount of relief for so many of our current problems. The solution lies out there in our solar system, but we're too shortsighted to focus on it. Sadly.
You really want to let the government dictate when and how people pro-create?
That is a slippery slope to a very very bad place.
The best way to decrease the population curve is to educate and empower women in third world countries. Societies with educated women have DRASTICALLY smaller birth rates.
I personally would not like to see a UN with the authority to be the world police.
Why not? That's kinda what the UN is suppose to be doing. The only thing that's a shame is they haven't been MORE active. The UN should be the one doing it, not the US. So turn your head, cover your ears, and whistle while crimes against civilian populations/humanity are committed? There comes a time where interfering in other people's affairs is necessary. Civil wars between armies is one thing, but when war crimes are committed against civilians it's time for somebody to step in.
The French and Chileans were able to topple equally corrupt and dictatorial governments, with France having to deal with all the other monarchic countries going against her, so don't tell me that self-determination of the population does not work, no matter the odds. Mess with enough people enough, and even something as mighty as the Soviet Union will fall under its own weight.
How many bodies will pave the way to that "eventuality"? Should we turn our back on the chance to lower that number at every opportunity?
Pfft. Kirk > TNG
:P
How many children want to grow up to be a bald guy? Noooo sireee.
Swaggering around the galaxy womanizing and barbrawlin is the iconic future of space travel!
Ringworld would make an extremely boring movie. The visuals of the environment would be truly impressive, but when it comes down to story it's rather dry, and when it comes to conflict (AKA "Action") it doesn't have that much. Niven is a great "world creator", but when it comes to plot he isn't that good.
Physics is one area I'd love to see vastly improved on consoles. Real-time fluids++
Though they're probably already adding that.
Real-time ray-tracing would be amazing, but yeah, unlikely in the near future.
I imagine Nintendo is just going to roll with what they have for a few more years yet. I can't see them pulling off "Kinect 2.0" or "Move 2.0" and being able to make it cheep. Maybe 4-5 years down the road when hardware actually gets powerful enough to power a true "Kinect" style device that doesn't have nearly as much lag and can precisely detect small stuff in adverse conditions. That would be the kind of stuff that would be console-defining. But I don't imagine it would be exactly cheep enough to fit the casual/family Nintendo mindset. I wonder how that will work for Nintendo in the long run. They're kind of patterned after apple in the way that they brand stuff as stylish, innovative and "Just Works", but apple favors towards the premium market and so doesn't hesitate to pick up new tech simply because it's expensive.
/Seconded He's got a very significant bias to killing off Starks and only Starks, while everyone else basically gets a "get out of death free" card. At first I thought the whole killing off main characters would be cool and at random, by the time I read A Feast For Crows it became apparent that there's nothing random about it. That sucked most of the fun I had for the series out.