several other common words with that combo ending in "g" (long, wrong, song, thong, bong, etc.)
and, if you type the way I do, the left index finger naturally hangs between the "t" and "g" after hitting the "t" in "Python", so it's poised to make that stroke.
I'm pretty sure that my problem was trying primarily to learn the framework, and to learn the language only as necessary. Similar strategies taught me PHP to a fairly high level of proficiency, and it really worked with Django/Python (at this point, in fact, I'd say that I know more Django than I do Python, if that makes sense, but my lack of Python knowledge has only rarely hindered my use of Django)
With RoR, though, all I accomplished was to confuse myself on what should have been an easy-to-grasp topic (Rails) and to fail miserably to learn any Ruby at all. I'm thinking that this will be one of those languages where I'll actually have to buy a book or two on the basics, and really read them (there's my one real, actual complaint about the language: there's a lot of "how-to" material online, but its coverage of the topic is spotty, and 90% of it is "how to write Hello World", so you have to wade through a bunch of shit so that you can maybe, maybe find something sort of like what you actually wanted to know. PHP, Python, Perl, etc., all wipe the floor with it in terms of online documentation and support)
I'd never used RoR or even Ruby, but I was hearing a lot about it and I had a hobby project that I wanted to start on, so I bought an RoR book, and spent HOURS working on it. Then I gave up, having accomplished nothing, switched to Django (mind you, I'd never used Python before, either) and started getting stuff done.
(Well, a more full story is: I started with Ruby, switched to Django, realized my host doesn't support it, tried Ruby again [now I understood the framework better, from using Django, but the language still looked like Swahili], then moved to CakePHP which IS supported by my host, realized how much easier and less-fussy Django was, decided "to hell with my host, I'll get a new one if I ever decide to take this code live" and finally went with that.)
My hang up with RoR is the Ruby part. It's completely unreadable to me. Python, I could understand reasonably well before I even started reading any "learn Pythong" material. Same with most other languages. Any Ruby code beyond "hello world" and simple arithmetic looks like gibberish to me.
However! My first language was Perl. People often complain about how hard it is to read, and I instinctively bristle a bit when they do, because to me, it's the easiest language to read. The reason? Perl code tells a skilled Perl coder TONS about what it's doing and how, but confuses newbies like crazy. Ruby strikes me as being much the same way.
So, I understand why people who have taken the time to really learn it enjoy it so much, but for me it's so much easier to choose a framework that uses a "pick up and go" language like Python and be done with it. It does the same stuff, and I can get right to learning and working with the framework rather than dicking around with the underlying language.
I'm really not trying to pick on the RoR people, nor being petty (really!). I know it's a good framework, and I know that if I took the time to learn it I would like it just fine. Just getting a perspective out there that's not "rah rah, RoR is the best thing ever!" or "boo, RoR ran over my puppy!"
For the love of everything holy, get a copy of The Witcher NOW.
There are, at this point, maybe five or six RPGs that I've been really, really impressed with (and I've played quite a few), and it's one of them. Torment is another, of course. Very much story-driven. The requirements for the top graphical levels are steep, but it scales down well (I had to play at nearly the bottom, and it still looked better than, say, KOTOR2, so not remarkable but not ugly)
I think you mean, "If I were a cop, that man would be beaten and tasered repeatedly, and probably charged with assaulting a police officer, since at some point during the process he'd have done something that qualified, assuming intentionally hitting my car wasn't enough (and it would be). Let's throw in "resisting arrest" for the hell of it."
Come on, intentionally hitting a cop's car? You're AT LEAST gonna get roughed up a little, and if the guy was dumb enough to do that, the he's probably dumb enough to not be perfectly submissive, which means a tasering, in that situation.
What if a gun manufacturer listed "holding up banks" as a feature for their products?
Sure, the person who actually robbed the place is still going to be in big trouble, but advertising one's products as fit for criminal behavior has got to be a good way to get in some sort of trouble.
This is worse, because unlike bank robbery it may not be common knowledge that it's illegal to point lasers in the sky--not just at planes, but ANYWHERE--and even people who suspected it might be will decide that it surely isn't, since it's listed as a feature on the box.
Ok you don't need to buy one in the sense that you are capable of making a paper copy...which has nothing to do with the legality of your action. You would break the law when you scanned the novel.
You sure about that? Giving the copies to someone might be illegal, but I'm pretty sure that it's still fair use to "format shift". The only exception is when you have to break an "encryption" scheme to do it, then the DMCA kicks in. I'm not sure that it's ever been tested on books, mind you, but following from fair use rules for music, it seems like scanning a book that one owns for personal use, and printing out an extra copy, would easily fall into the same category.
Was there a case that ruled against format shifting as fair use, that I somehow missed?
There is little more satisfying than paying for one play, leaving an hour later having played 3 games, and leaving two more credits on the machine for the little kids who've been watching you.
That, and hearing that wonderful *CRACK!* on one's first go at a new machine. Heh.
Ah, Addams Family pinball, how I love you.
I'd love you, too, Johnny Mneumonic, if that damned magnet hand thing wasn't always broken on every single one of those machines in existence, except for a one-week window after the repair guy's been at it.
As much as you don't like it, the current law says that a copy of a movie on DVD is *the same* as a copy of a novel on paper. If you damage said copy, you must purchase a new one.
Unless I scanned the novel first. Then I don't really need to buy a new one, especially if I happen to own a printing press.
This in no way excuses your willful violation of existing laws.
When laws are wrong, violating them is entirely excusable. In some cases (not necessarily this one, mind you) failing to violate them is inexcusable.
I hated the one-man missions in the C&C/Red Alert series. Those caused multi-week pauses in my playing of the games, as I waited for a day when I had a few hours to kill and was in a very patient mood.
OK, so you've got real (made by replicators) food and drinks.
Then what happens if you order something but shut down the program before you eat it? Or to crumbs?
Do they get zapped by some sort of invisible disintegration beam?
Given how often holodecks malfunction, I certainly wouldn't trust anything like that not to zap me, too!
I think they've gotta be holograms, too, but you are right--in that case, they should have no flavor, or at least not the flavor that they're supposed to have. Gross.
In other news: Who started this whole "Half-Life ends with Ep3" rumor anyway?
Especially since they clearly have at least one story left to tell after HL2:EP3.
HL2:EP3: Combine suffers a last, crippling defeat on Earth, but is still a big (possibly realized, at the end of the game) threat. Gordon gets teleporting tech.... hmmm...
HL3: Gordon uses the teleporting tech to reach the Combine homeworld (or a major regional capitol world, or something) and kicks some ass, giving humanity long enough to build itself back up and create some defenses against the big, scary universe out there. Probably frees a bunch of enslaved worlds in the process, sparking a general uprising against the Combine and keeping them busy for decades or more (assuming they're not destroyed entirely).
And that's just if they don't come up with something other than the obvious.
Valve has NAILED the pure-FPS, linear game. Fucking nailed it. As in, may-never-be-beat nailed it.
I happen to like that genre, when it's done well. Non-linear shooters, FPS/RPG hybrids, etc. are a different matter entirely. I have trouble saying that HL2: Ep2 is a better or worse game than, say, Deus Ex or GTAIII: Vice City. I don't think it even makes a lot of sense to compare it to Doom I and II, or Painkiller, for example, since those are run-and-gun, minimal-story games, and they're supposed to be. I think that a game design team accomplishing what they set out to accomplish is one of the most important of the criteria for judging a game, and that it's difficult to compare games that have different goals and ideas of "fun". I also don't think that every damned FPS needs to be a sandbox, or involve "leveling", or to have any number of other genre-twisting features, in order to be good.
Incidentally, expanding on the Doom I and II examples, I have no problem saying that Doom III sucked hard, mainly because it was clear that they were trying to give it more of a story and make it kind of mostly-realistic survival-horror, and they failed miserably at that task, while also failing to provide a DI/DII-like experience of frantic, constant, wild action with dozens of opponents in a large area. I would think very slightly more highly of the game, strange as it may sound, if they'd had less story and characterization in it. As it is, it just teases you with those elements, then fails to follow through. Consequently, my favorite parts of the game are the prologue-ish section at the beginning, which is a better-than-average setup for some space-based survival horror with a story, and the last 1/5 or so (the Hell part) where it manages to get closer to the feel of its Doom I/Doom II roots. Everything in between, IMO, is too much of an awkward mix of the two to be any good at all.
What about workout programs? When Miles O'Brien goes whitewater rafting, does all of the sweat that falls into the river suddenly drop to the ground when the river dematerializes? How about some of the longer story-based programs? Surely people have to take a piss from time to time, and who wants to break immersion (or waste money, in the case of Quark's holodecks) by leaving? For that matter, what happens to holo-drinks and holo-food that gets consumed? Do people get full on it, then suddenly feel hungry when the program ends?
There was also the guy who got addicted to the holodeck in ST:TNG. One of the programs he was shown using was apparently a power-fantasy involving several of his real-life (female) coworkers, and it was pretty clear that it was going in a sexual direction before he was interrupted...
I'm going to be so. pissed. off. if they perfect some sort of brain-to-machine transfer or something while I'm on my deathbed and too weak to undergo the procedure.
Look at the Spice Girls song: "If you want to be my lover, you gotta first be my friend". What expert seducer doesn't find that advice abhorrently wrong?
Are you serious? That's what they're saying?
I always heard it as "you gotta get with my friend".
A vibrator IS a robot. It may be a simple one, but a robot none the less. The trick will be to see if they can get men to buy into robot sex as much as women have already embraced it.
This is one of those odd areas where men are the ones who are behind, as far as social acceptability of a sexual practice goes.
Vibrators are talked about and alluded to in a largely positive light in TV and movies all the time. Generally, at least for a couple generations now, the idea of a woman with a vibrator has been a turn on, or at least not a turn off. Women have Mary Kay-esque sex toy parties.
How many references to sex toys/masturbation aids for men are there in popular culture, compared with those for women? Far, far fewer, I would bet. What percentage are positive? Barely more than 0%, I'm sure. Being a guy and having any items of that sort is seen as something to be embarrassed about. Hell, I'm a guy, and I'm aware of the double-standard, and the idea still kind of weirds me out.
A better analog to Notepad in the Linux world is Mousepad.
It's got about the same feature set as Notepad, but with less brokenness. I use it when I'm editing only one file, and it's not code of any sort (I use Geany, which is basically Notepad++ for Linux, for code).
The Wookiee grandpa watching VR, immersive, softcore space-porn is the best part.
That, and the (admittedly) coked-up Carrie Fisher singing.
I skip to the "good" parts these days, and only watch it when I'm showing it to someone who hasn't seen it. The first time, I watched it straight through, and I had to start reading a book to stay awake during the 20-minute-long stretch with NO TALKING AT ALL, just Wookiee grunting.
Lucas should make a special edition of it. Any changes he might make could only make it more hilariously bad, which is a good thing, for once.
The PC RPG The Witcher (freaking great, go buy it now!) does basically the same thing. They shorten the (sometimes very long) dialog options so they fit better (no scrolling). You can have captions if you want, and a left-click skips whatever line is currently being spoken, so you can do the reading thing too.
Also, I'm almost certain I've played other games that just give you the gist of what will be spoken for a given dialog option. This is hardly an innovation.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I caught that AFTER I previewed.
I think it's a combination of:
several other common words with that combo ending in "g" (long, wrong, song, thong, bong, etc.)
and, if you type the way I do, the left index finger naturally hangs between the "t" and "g" after hitting the "t" in "Python", so it's poised to make that stroke.
I'm pretty sure that my problem was trying primarily to learn the framework, and to learn the language only as necessary. Similar strategies taught me PHP to a fairly high level of proficiency, and it really worked with Django/Python (at this point, in fact, I'd say that I know more Django than I do Python, if that makes sense, but my lack of Python knowledge has only rarely hindered my use of Django)
With RoR, though, all I accomplished was to confuse myself on what should have been an easy-to-grasp topic (Rails) and to fail miserably to learn any Ruby at all. I'm thinking that this will be one of those languages where I'll actually have to buy a book or two on the basics, and really read them (there's my one real, actual complaint about the language: there's a lot of "how-to" material online, but its coverage of the topic is spotty, and 90% of it is "how to write Hello World", so you have to wade through a bunch of shit so that you can maybe, maybe find something sort of like what you actually wanted to know. PHP, Python, Perl, etc., all wipe the floor with it in terms of online documentation and support)
I'd never used RoR or even Ruby, but I was hearing a lot about it and I had a hobby project that I wanted to start on, so I bought an RoR book, and spent HOURS working on it. Then I gave up, having accomplished nothing, switched to Django (mind you, I'd never used Python before, either) and started getting stuff done.
(Well, a more full story is: I started with Ruby, switched to Django, realized my host doesn't support it, tried Ruby again [now I understood the framework better, from using Django, but the language still looked like Swahili], then moved to CakePHP which IS supported by my host, realized how much easier and less-fussy Django was, decided "to hell with my host, I'll get a new one if I ever decide to take this code live" and finally went with that.)
My hang up with RoR is the Ruby part. It's completely unreadable to me. Python, I could understand reasonably well before I even started reading any "learn Pythong" material. Same with most other languages. Any Ruby code beyond "hello world" and simple arithmetic looks like gibberish to me.
However! My first language was Perl. People often complain about how hard it is to read, and I instinctively bristle a bit when they do, because to me, it's the easiest language to read. The reason? Perl code tells a skilled Perl coder TONS about what it's doing and how, but confuses newbies like crazy. Ruby strikes me as being much the same way.
So, I understand why people who have taken the time to really learn it enjoy it so much, but for me it's so much easier to choose a framework that uses a "pick up and go" language like Python and be done with it. It does the same stuff, and I can get right to learning and working with the framework rather than dicking around with the underlying language.
I'm really not trying to pick on the RoR people, nor being petty (really!). I know it's a good framework, and I know that if I took the time to learn it I would like it just fine. Just getting a perspective out there that's not "rah rah, RoR is the best thing ever!" or "boo, RoR ran over my puppy!"
But since love is irrational, then only a float is going to be at all useful.
You like Torment?
For the love of everything holy, get a copy of The Witcher NOW.
There are, at this point, maybe five or six RPGs that I've been really, really impressed with (and I've played quite a few), and it's one of them. Torment is another, of course. Very much story-driven. The requirements for the top graphical levels are steep, but it scales down well (I had to play at nearly the bottom, and it still looked better than, say, KOTOR2, so not remarkable but not ugly)
I think you mean, "If I were a cop, that man would be beaten and tasered repeatedly, and probably charged with assaulting a police officer, since at some point during the process he'd have done something that qualified, assuming intentionally hitting my car wasn't enough (and it would be). Let's throw in "resisting arrest" for the hell of it."
Come on, intentionally hitting a cop's car? You're AT LEAST gonna get roughed up a little, and if the guy was dumb enough to do that, the he's probably dumb enough to not be perfectly submissive, which means a tasering, in that situation.
TIE fighter lasers are green. So is the Death Star superlaser.
X-wings fire red, and so do the quad cannons on the Falcon.
Sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
What if a gun manufacturer listed "holding up banks" as a feature for their products?
Sure, the person who actually robbed the place is still going to be in big trouble, but advertising one's products as fit for criminal behavior has got to be a good way to get in some sort of trouble.
This is worse, because unlike bank robbery it may not be common knowledge that it's illegal to point lasers in the sky--not just at planes, but ANYWHERE--and even people who suspected it might be will decide that it surely isn't, since it's listed as a feature on the box.
You sure about that? Giving the copies to someone might be illegal, but I'm pretty sure that it's still fair use to "format shift". The only exception is when you have to break an "encryption" scheme to do it, then the DMCA kicks in. I'm not sure that it's ever been tested on books, mind you, but following from fair use rules for music, it seems like scanning a book that one owns for personal use, and printing out an extra copy, would easily fall into the same category.
Was there a case that ruled against format shifting as fair use, that I somehow missed?
There is little more satisfying than paying for one play, leaving an hour later having played 3 games, and leaving two more credits on the machine for the little kids who've been watching you.
That, and hearing that wonderful *CRACK!* on one's first go at a new machine. Heh.
Ah, Addams Family pinball, how I love you.
I'd love you, too, Johnny Mneumonic, if that damned magnet hand thing wasn't always broken on every single one of those machines in existence, except for a one-week window after the repair guy's been at it.
Unless I scanned the novel first. Then I don't really need to buy a new one, especially if I happen to own a printing press.
When laws are wrong, violating them is entirely excusable. In some cases (not necessarily this one, mind you) failing to violate them is inexcusable.
I hated the one-man missions in the C&C/Red Alert series. Those caused multi-week pauses in my playing of the games, as I waited for a day when I had a few hours to kill and was in a very patient mood.
OK, so you've got real (made by replicators) food and drinks.
Then what happens if you order something but shut down the program before you eat it? Or to crumbs?
Do they get zapped by some sort of invisible disintegration beam?
Given how often holodecks malfunction, I certainly wouldn't trust anything like that not to zap me, too!
I think they've gotta be holograms, too, but you are right--in that case, they should have no flavor, or at least not the flavor that they're supposed to have. Gross.
Especially since they clearly have at least one story left to tell after HL2:EP3.
HL2:EP3: Combine suffers a last, crippling defeat on Earth, but is still a big (possibly realized, at the end of the game) threat. Gordon gets teleporting tech.... hmmm...
HL3: Gordon uses the teleporting tech to reach the Combine homeworld (or a major regional capitol world, or something) and kicks some ass, giving humanity long enough to build itself back up and create some defenses against the big, scary universe out there. Probably frees a bunch of enslaved worlds in the process, sparking a general uprising against the Combine and keeping them busy for decades or more (assuming they're not destroyed entirely).
And that's just if they don't come up with something other than the obvious.
Allow me a "me too".
Valve has NAILED the pure-FPS, linear game. Fucking nailed it. As in, may-never-be-beat nailed it.
I happen to like that genre, when it's done well. Non-linear shooters, FPS/RPG hybrids, etc. are a different matter entirely. I have trouble saying that HL2: Ep2 is a better or worse game than, say, Deus Ex or GTAIII: Vice City. I don't think it even makes a lot of sense to compare it to Doom I and II, or Painkiller, for example, since those are run-and-gun, minimal-story games, and they're supposed to be. I think that a game design team accomplishing what they set out to accomplish is one of the most important of the criteria for judging a game, and that it's difficult to compare games that have different goals and ideas of "fun". I also don't think that every damned FPS needs to be a sandbox, or involve "leveling", or to have any number of other genre-twisting features, in order to be good.
Incidentally, expanding on the Doom I and II examples, I have no problem saying that Doom III sucked hard, mainly because it was clear that they were trying to give it more of a story and make it kind of mostly-realistic survival-horror, and they failed miserably at that task, while also failing to provide a DI/DII-like experience of frantic, constant, wild action with dozens of opponents in a large area. I would think very slightly more highly of the game, strange as it may sound, if they'd had less story and characterization in it. As it is, it just teases you with those elements, then fails to follow through. Consequently, my favorite parts of the game are the prologue-ish section at the beginning, which is a better-than-average setup for some space-based survival horror with a story, and the last 1/5 or so (the Hell part) where it manages to get closer to the feel of its Doom I/Doom II roots. Everything in between, IMO, is too much of an awkward mix of the two to be any good at all.
What about workout programs? When Miles O'Brien goes whitewater rafting, does all of the sweat that falls into the river suddenly drop to the ground when the river dematerializes? How about some of the longer story-based programs? Surely people have to take a piss from time to time, and who wants to break immersion (or waste money, in the case of Quark's holodecks) by leaving? For that matter, what happens to holo-drinks and holo-food that gets consumed? Do people get full on it, then suddenly feel hungry when the program ends?
There was also the guy who got addicted to the holodeck in ST:TNG. One of the programs he was shown using was apparently a power-fantasy involving several of his real-life (female) coworkers, and it was pretty clear that it was going in a sexual direction before he was interrupted...
I'm going to be so. pissed. off. if they perfect some sort of brain-to-machine transfer or something while I'm on my deathbed and too weak to undergo the procedure.
Are you serious? That's what they're saying?
I always heard it as "you gotta get with my friend".
Which is way closer to being correct.
This is one of those odd areas where men are the ones who are behind, as far as social acceptability of a sexual practice goes.
Vibrators are talked about and alluded to in a largely positive light in TV and movies all the time. Generally, at least for a couple generations now, the idea of a woman with a vibrator has been a turn on, or at least not a turn off. Women have Mary Kay-esque sex toy parties.
How many references to sex toys/masturbation aids for men are there in popular culture, compared with those for women? Far, far fewer, I would bet. What percentage are positive? Barely more than 0%, I'm sure. Being a guy and having any items of that sort is seen as something to be embarrassed about. Hell, I'm a guy, and I'm aware of the double-standard, and the idea still kind of weirds me out.
Socialization is a powerful thing.
A better analog to Notepad in the Linux world is Mousepad.
It's got about the same feature set as Notepad, but with less brokenness. I use it when I'm editing only one file, and it's not code of any sort (I use Geany, which is basically Notepad++ for Linux, for code).
The Wookiee grandpa watching VR, immersive, softcore space-porn is the best part.
That, and the (admittedly) coked-up Carrie Fisher singing.
I skip to the "good" parts these days, and only watch it when I'm showing it to someone who hasn't seen it. The first time, I watched it straight through, and I had to start reading a book to stay awake during the 20-minute-long stretch with NO TALKING AT ALL, just Wookiee grunting.
Lucas should make a special edition of it. Any changes he might make could only make it more hilariously bad, which is a good thing, for once.
New shortest verse in the bible:
"Jesus sneezed".
nope, doesn't have the same ring to it.
Well, if we can kick their asses, then we'll rename them whatever the hell we want.
See "The Naming of Names" in Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.
The PC RPG The Witcher (freaking great, go buy it now!) does basically the same thing. They shorten the (sometimes very long) dialog options so they fit better (no scrolling). You can have captions if you want, and a left-click skips whatever line is currently being spoken, so you can do the reading thing too.
Also, I'm almost certain I've played other games that just give you the gist of what will be spoken for a given dialog option. This is hardly an innovation.