I've been lugging my college physics book (Fundamentals of Physics, 3rd Edition, Halliday and Resnick) around for the last week attempting to reassemble my knowledge of physics for my own take on Scorch. Of course both books offer what I need, however college textbooks without the notes (I swear I still have them somewhare) are often difficult to use, as there are gaps, which the lecture usually fills in, which this handy book _should_ cover, thus saving me from reassembling the few equations I'll need.
OTTOH, I'll either need or just make up constants for elasticity, friction, etc., which I used to do to accomdate display restrictions, like on a VT52 or a 600x400 screen. Adapting real math often produces bizarre simulated behavior on the small screen, so fudging is often called for.
Countless forums and USENET newsgroups help much in this regard as well. Best to ask for just enough help, or hints, to get past one obstacle, rather than...
"How do I activate Godmode? I just got this game last week and I can't beat it and am bored of it already."
Anyway, I come home from work and he whines to me that this level is too hard.
Hence the term: Spoiled.
Life, like games, without challenges, ceases to be interesting.
While playing Wolfenstein 3D I got to a floor where there was a maze with guards stationed at certain intersections. It was possible to walk through the maze without being seen, but I usually went for the direct approach, going to a hidden weapons, ammo, and medical stash and just duking it out. With considerable number of guards coming running at the sound of gunfire it took a few tries to find a way to survive the gun battle, but I did and that was more rewarding than slipping quietly through the maze.
Good for you. In my personal experience, the game is fun for about 1% more time, after finding cheats, etc. It's pretty much trivia at that point. A good game design (and this is a real area for discussion) keeps the game interesting for a very long time, wheras I'm under the impression that "cheat codes" and other specials are part of the product now, and expected.
Imagine your friends dismay, while playing a board game, such as Monopoly, revealing you found a remarkable cheat code for the game, which, if you wiggle your ears and stand your playing piece upside-down, you get Boardwalk and Park Place. It'll actually become an entirely different game. Interesting, perhaps in ways yet to be uncovered (as in finding your friends are as good at finding hidden cheat codes as you or showing you the door), but is the new game really fun, or is it the Discovery that's really the fun and interesting part?
NetHack, arguably one of the most engrossing first person games ever, was a blast while learning how it worked. Less so when I found the massive cheat code list on the internet. Wish I hadn't, there's a lesson there somewhere.
FWIW, I've been working on the old Scorch game lately and toying with putting out my own version, with considerable changes in gameplay, designed for a very long overall game. We'll see how it goes with coding among other holiday activities over the next few weeks. Don't expect any cheat codes;)
I (may be in error here, but) recall the guides which came out for Infocom text adventures, years and years ago. After a few games where a hit book (which wasn't free) was pretty much essential to solve the puzzles, leading me to suspect they were becoming intentionally bizzare to sell hint books. IIRC someone other than Infocom/Activision tried to sell hint books, too and was awarded C & D letters for their business acumen.
Cheat codes are usually put in by coders for debugging purposes and sloppy Q&A practices or, perhaps more sneaky, left in intentionally to drum up additional interest in the game. Winning the game becomes less the point, knowing how to cheat and where to find specials is the paradigm.
"Dude, I just came up with the greatest keyboard sequence to reveal a cheat code!"
"Yeah? Alright! Let's design a game around it!"
Reading Cadillac Desert, which delves into the water history of the west. Interesting stuff about L.A. thieving the water from the Owens River. I'm sure it'll get even more interesting as I get to how L.A. is sucking much of the water out of the entire southwest and how battles are simmering to revoke L.A.'s water rights, starting with Mono Lake a couple years ago.
So, there's water on Mars. Probably not a ton of it, considering the gravity. Maybe enough, with the right structure (like a biosphere) to sustain a limited amount of life. Roll forward to a point where living on Mars isn't just a scientific undertaking but part of enterprise (like settling the western US was from the 1880's onward) and think about how valuable water will be and how carefully it'll need to be overseen.
As for whether there's life or not, big deal, we'll wipe it out in some clumsy way or it'll prove to be so toxic to humans or human agriculture that we'll leave it a derelict desert like much of the southwest. Entertaining thinking, anyway.
Looks like an uphill battle, but, if the economy does improve, expect the fortunes of these to follow. I'd just hate to think either would sell out and lock users into something like MSN...
As the story says, but I can't help wondering if the first order of business will be, "Hi, I'm the U.S. Ambassador, please sign this agreement, placing our good friends in Afghanistan will abide by and turn over criminals who violate our Digital Millenium Copyright Act."
We just know you don't want us as an enemy after what we just did to the Taliban.
Nice, but my email comes through an ISP who doesn't seem to recognise what a problem Spam is and don't provide any means to filter it on the way INTO my mailbox. Yeah, I know, I'll be changing to an new provider in a few months, when I go DSL and then it'll all be over. Still... there does seem to be a potential financial incentive to keep receiving this junk if I could sue in California.
Frequently the spam I get includes some URL which ends with.cn (China), so that's my guess. I never bring these things up in a browser, after one try, which yielded the on-screen equivilent of Times Square and gibberish.
I prefer a text-only preview of all incoming email and have been a happy user of The Bat, which does a nice job of allowing me to screen email without it launching nasty business behind the sceens (like some of the worms buried in html headers, an example can be found here)
I see these people winning in small claims courts against defendants in other states. How do they go about collecting the judgement, particularly if the out of state person/company just blows it off?
Possible new Spam trend:
From: dj898f78ds@hotmail.com
To: (undisclosed recipients)
Subject: Make Big Money Suing Spammers!
Hi, Friend! Are you bothered by Spam clogging up your mailbox, hard drive and embarrassing you by it's content? Worry no more!
For $25 we'll show you how to get rich by suing spammers! Send payment to:
About 70% of the spam I'm getting is offshore and a good percentage of that is in some language (probably chinese) which doesn't translate.
I'd love to take these weasels to court, since I'm getting about 30 spams a day and a one week vacation can result in lost email due to a clogged mailbox.
When companies go down this murky road, few ever return. Which will be a footnote in 3 years? TiVo is short on cash and SonicBlue will spend whatever they have fighting TV networks, defending "I.P." and generally failing to build a united front the PVR industry needs.
I think I'll just build my own... that way I know I'll still get support in 3 years.
The trick is that he is paying for CNN, A&E, etc. Would your father still pay if he only
got the local over the air stations?
The point is, it isn't just the local. It's more, that's why people buy it, same could be said for XM and Saltire. Bottom line: Is the more worth the change in cost, from free to ~$10/mo.
Yeah, that would work... buy $5,000 in audio gear, nice monitor, couple La-Z-Boys to watch it in. Then listen to the fans whining away in your PC.
There's a good article, a while back, about quieting down your hotrod. But I'd tend toward just cutting that umbilical cord and having seperate DVD's for the computer and for the Home Entertainment Megaplex.
Biggest driver of trend around my shack is "isn't more bother to deal with."
Getting off the ethnocentric soapbox, I can dig. A large number of stations in California are hispanic broadcasts, with a sprinkling of chinese, hindu, and other languages. Being of an ethnic group where english isn't your primary language, you'd enjoy the opportunity to listen to broadcasts in your native tongue, or better, from a country other than the US (where information can be so limited, and we could go on about that all day)
With the end of atmospheric broadcast of the BBC in North America I'd like the chance to listen to the BBC again, or Radio Deutschewelle, etc.
I will not pay $10 a month for the 'right' to listen to more commercials.
Oh, how I recall these words from the dawn of Cable TV. I guess nobody cared, as there's piles of successful channels and more everyday and most with commercials. Basic Cable cost about $15 a month in 1975 when they rolled through my town, in Michigan, and laid that fat cable and buried little green boxes.
My dad wouldn't dream of footing the bill to pay for something he already got for free, and having commercials in that pay-for content as well. Times have changed. He's got Cable and uses it a lot. He's a regular viewer of America's Team (the Atlanta Braves), History Channel, A&E, CNN, you name it. Him and half the country are wired for cable.
You're entitled to take your stance, but remember others see the practical side and value of it. I'd say it's a pretty good deal, but only if I get to hear the kinds of broadcasts I like. Consider this like the early days of Cable. It's actually pretty crude, what they're offering. I expect it to expand considerably.
I spent Thanksgiving week driving from Santa Cruz, CA to Death Valley to Grand Canyon to Sedona to Meteor Crater and back. There were a lot of dead spots, where satellite radio could fill in, if the broadcasts can cover such a large area. In particular, I was insensed that there were about 200 stations carrying Talk Radio while Nebraska was being spanked by Colorado, and (though not a grad of either school) being a big College Football fan, there was just an ESPN station which filled the gaps with updates. I'd really go for a service like this for continuous following of music, sports and news when driving. Even clear channel stations get lost in nearby mountains. I think it's great.
The only downside I see is the monthly subscription fees. I just don't want another tap into my wallet. Pay it once or get advertisers to foot the bill. I'm OK with ads, so long as they don't get old or insultingly lame.
Making a merchandising bonaza out of a film invariably distorts perception of what the film was about, unless, of course it's a film (or cartoon series) engineered for that purpose.
E.T. will be back in theaters with gussied up special effects and footage put in which was originally cut. Care to guess which candy, softdrink, etc. will be going great guns with it?
I saw an ad for collectors glasses at Burger King.
This sort of thing often drags some of the enjoyment out of these films. Sell. Sell. Sell. I guess, someone's gotta come up with crap for eBay and Flea Markets.
How would you feel upon learning that the local mobster, after being caught for extortion
proposes, offers, as his punishment, to donate some money to a charity.
Think Michael Milken, junk bond king who put $900 million or so in his wife's name. Surely he wasn't trying to keep rightful claimants from recovering their lost retirement savings.
What people seem to forget is that Microsoft has destroyed companies, hurt
consumers, and generally played the all-around bad guy,
Sounds more like Milken.
and yet no only do they get to
propose a "penalty" (I use that term lightly), but they get to propose a penalty that
actually tightens their stranglehold!
The real stranglehold isn't what these companies have, it's when business-friendly administrations let them get away with it. Last I heard, Milken was out of prison and working in charitable causes after his brush with cancer. I suppose he did suffer some in his prison, they probably let the greens get dry or didn't leave a mint on his pillow every day.
Well, even if the award were to buy schools $1 billion in Linux installed PC's and support services, that's really a small drop in the bucket for M$, which even in these days of recession is raking in the dough. That should suggest to you, rather strongly, that they are continuing to gain, as their competition is languishing.
Slashdot Mirror
OTTOH, I'll either need or just make up constants for elasticity, friction, etc., which I used to do to accomdate display restrictions, like on a VT52 or a 600x400 screen. Adapting real math often produces bizarre simulated behavior on the small screen, so fudging is often called for.
"How do I activate Godmode? I just got this game last week and I can't beat it and am bored of it already."
Hence the term: Spoiled.
Life, like games, without challenges, ceases to be interesting.
While playing Wolfenstein 3D I got to a floor where there was a maze with guards stationed at certain intersections. It was possible to walk through the maze without being seen, but I usually went for the direct approach, going to a hidden weapons, ammo, and medical stash and just duking it out. With considerable number of guards coming running at the sound of gunfire it took a few tries to find a way to survive the gun battle, but I did and that was more rewarding than slipping quietly through the maze.
Good for you. In my personal experience, the game is fun for about 1% more time, after finding cheats, etc. It's pretty much trivia at that point. A good game design (and this is a real area for discussion) keeps the game interesting for a very long time, wheras I'm under the impression that "cheat codes" and other specials are part of the product now, and expected.
Imagine your friends dismay, while playing a board game, such as Monopoly, revealing you found a remarkable cheat code for the game, which, if you wiggle your ears and stand your playing piece upside-down, you get Boardwalk and Park Place. It'll actually become an entirely different game. Interesting, perhaps in ways yet to be uncovered (as in finding your friends are as good at finding hidden cheat codes as you or showing you the door), but is the new game really fun, or is it the Discovery that's really the fun and interesting part?
NetHack, arguably one of the most engrossing first person games ever, was a blast while learning how it worked. Less so when I found the massive cheat code list on the internet. Wish I hadn't, there's a lesson there somewhere.
FWIW, I've been working on the old Scorch game lately and toying with putting out my own version, with considerable changes in gameplay, designed for a very long overall game. We'll see how it goes with coding among other holiday activities over the next few weeks. Don't expect any cheat codes ;)
Cheat codes are usually put in by coders for debugging purposes and sloppy Q&A practices or, perhaps more sneaky, left in intentionally to drum up additional interest in the game. Winning the game becomes less the point, knowing how to cheat and where to find specials is the paradigm.
"Dude, I just came up with the greatest keyboard sequence to reveal a cheat code!"
"Yeah? Alright! Let's design a game around it!"
Now you:
Buy the game
Buy the strategy guide
Get all the cheat codes
Get bored because it's no fun anymore
Repeat cycle
To each their own...
So, there's water on Mars. Probably not a ton of it, considering the gravity. Maybe enough, with the right structure (like a biosphere) to sustain a limited amount of life. Roll forward to a point where living on Mars isn't just a scientific undertaking but part of enterprise (like settling the western US was from the 1880's onward) and think about how valuable water will be and how carefully it'll need to be overseen.
As for whether there's life or not, big deal, we'll wipe it out in some clumsy way or it'll prove to be so toxic to humans or human agriculture that we'll leave it a derelict desert like much of the southwest. Entertaining thinking, anyway.
Covad getting some cash back in Nov. 14th
Covad sorting out finances Aug. 8th. $1.4 Billion debt with bondholders.
Looks like an uphill battle, but, if the economy does improve, expect the fortunes of these to follow. I'd just hate to think either would sell out and lock users into something like MSN...
We just know you don't want us as an enemy after what we just did to the Taliban.
Nice, but my email comes through an ISP who doesn't seem to recognise what a problem Spam is and don't provide any means to filter it on the way INTO my mailbox. Yeah, I know, I'll be changing to an new provider in a few months, when I go DSL and then it'll all be over. Still... there does seem to be a potential financial incentive to keep receiving this junk if I could sue in California.
I prefer a text-only preview of all incoming email and have been a happy user of The Bat, which does a nice job of allowing me to screen email without it launching nasty business behind the sceens (like some of the worms buried in html headers, an example can be found here)
Possible new Spam trend:
From: dj898f78ds@hotmail.com
To: (undisclosed recipients)
Subject: Make Big Money Suing Spammers!
Hi, Friend! Are you bothered by Spam clogging up your mailbox, hard drive and embarrassing you by it's content? Worry no more!
For $25 we'll show you how to get rich by suing spammers! Send payment to:
O. B. Laden
Cave #1248
Tora Bora
Afghanistan
Act now, before it's too late!
I'd love to take these weasels to court, since I'm getting about 30 spams a day and a one week vacation can result in lost email due to a clogged mailbox.
I think I'll just build my own... that way I know I'll still get support in 3 years.
The point is, it isn't just the local. It's more, that's why people buy it, same could be said for XM and Saltire. Bottom line: Is the more worth the change in cost, from free to ~$10/mo.
Yeah, well, there's that DMCA thingie. Bet they're backers of that.
There's a good article, a while back, about quieting down your hotrod. But I'd tend toward just cutting that umbilical cord and having seperate DVD's for the computer and for the Home Entertainment Megaplex.
Biggest driver of trend around my shack is "isn't more bother to deal with."
With the end of atmospheric broadcast of the BBC in North America I'd like the chance to listen to the BBC again, or Radio Deutschewelle, etc.
Oh, how I recall these words from the dawn of Cable TV. I guess nobody cared, as there's piles of successful channels and more everyday and most with commercials. Basic Cable cost about $15 a month in 1975 when they rolled through my town, in Michigan, and laid that fat cable and buried little green boxes.
My dad wouldn't dream of footing the bill to pay for something he already got for free, and having commercials in that pay-for content as well. Times have changed. He's got Cable and uses it a lot. He's a regular viewer of America's Team (the Atlanta Braves), History Channel, A&E, CNN, you name it. Him and half the country are wired for cable.
You're entitled to take your stance, but remember others see the practical side and value of it. I'd say it's a pretty good deal, but only if I get to hear the kinds of broadcasts I like. Consider this like the early days of Cable. It's actually pretty crude, what they're offering. I expect it to expand considerably.
The only downside I see is the monthly subscription fees. I just don't want another tap into my wallet. Pay it once or get advertisers to foot the bill. I'm OK with ads, so long as they don't get old or insultingly lame.
Making a merchandising bonaza out of a film invariably distorts perception of what the film was about, unless, of course it's a film (or cartoon series) engineered for that purpose.
E.T. will be back in theaters with gussied up special effects and footage put in which was originally cut. Care to guess which candy, softdrink, etc. will be going great guns with it?
This sort of thing often drags some of the enjoyment out of these films. Sell. Sell. Sell. I guess, someone's gotta come up with crap for eBay and Flea Markets.
The silly rantings on technology...
Intel vs. Whomever...
Microsoft vs. Whomever else...
And all that silliness on rec.games.mecha...
So glad that's ... er ... changed ... and um ... behind me ...
Couldn't happen on slashdot, could it?
Nah....
Still, gotta go look up that new coal-tech battlemech I drew with ascii art, that was pretty cool :-)
Think Michael Milken, junk bond king who put $900 million or so in his wife's name. Surely he wasn't trying to keep rightful claimants from recovering their lost retirement savings.
What people seem to forget is that Microsoft has destroyed companies, hurt consumers, and generally played the all-around bad guy,
Sounds more like Milken.
and yet no only do they get to propose a "penalty" (I use that term lightly), but they get to propose a penalty that actually tightens their stranglehold!
The real stranglehold isn't what these companies have, it's when business-friendly administrations let them get away with it. Last I heard, Milken was out of prison and working in charitable causes after his brush with cancer. I suppose he did suffer some in his prison, they probably let the greens get dry or didn't leave a mint on his pillow every day.
Well, even if the award were to buy schools $1 billion in Linux installed PC's and support services, that's really a small drop in the bucket for M$, which even in these days of recession is raking in the dough. That should suggest to you, rather strongly, that they are continuing to gain, as their competition is languishing.