Nitpick the second: Tom says there are no shadow-buffering demos out there, but there's one right here.
It demonstrates some of the problems and shortcomings of the technique.
Heh, if you want more plot you should try reading the original manga.
Don't get me wrong, I love this stuff, BUT...
on
The DeCSS Haiku
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· Score: 1
...the arguments are bogus.
Propegating certain types of information is illegal and/or immoral, plain and simple. Eg: Holocaust denials dressed up as legitimate historical theories; other people's credit-card numbers; slander.
You can do what this guy has done with all of the above. Format it as a haiku, stick it in the low-order bits of an image, record a guy yodelling it, translate it into Klingon, print it on a tshirt. If you like, encode it into DNA, breed it into bacteria, eat it and go sneeze at MPAA lawyers.
All this has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with your right to distribute the information - it's a gimmick, a red-herring. It's great merry-pranksterism, but the guy challenging the lawyers to find grounds to protest each version in turn is bogus. Either he has the right to propegate the info or he doesn't.
Erm, what have these movies got to do with anything? Each one breaks most of the Dogma rules and not a single one could be considered low-budget.
You're just listing a bunch of movies that you like.
Rule 3: Most games that depend on gimmicky input devices are crummy games. Counter-examples: Samba de Amigo, Marble Madness, Virtual On, The House of the Dead, The Typing Of The Dead.
Rule 5: The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks."...It is your duty as a Dogma designer to create new genres of games Side-scrolling is not a genre (or is Mario a rehash of Defender?) Likewise special attacks; what does Street Fighter have to do with Bangaioh? Defining genres in terms of where the camera is placed is wrong-headed IMO.
Rule 6: The secret desire of game designers to be film directors is deleterious to their games and to the industry generally. This desire must be stamped out. Umm...which industry did the idea for this come from again?
I kind of agree with his intent but I think many of the rules are counter-productive. Stating that a game may be 3D but must run at 20fps in software creates a great deal of messy technical complications - quite the opposite effect of requiring a movie to be filmed with a single camera and light. A more appropriate rule would be that, if 3D, the game must use the Quake1 engine (which, incidentally, doesn't imply a 1st-person perspective).
Hardware acceleration, higher resolutions, and digital sounds have only brought computer gaming to a new level of detail and realism and in no way detract from the playability of a game.
Well, they *do* detract from playability. It takes so long to get your engine and content competitive with every other game out there that there's only half as much time left to do the actual game.
In the absense of anything decent to play, my entire office recently went retro en-masse; we've been playing Super-Bomberman, R-Type, Yoshi, Mariocart, Sonic&Knuckles, Gunstar Heroes, NBA Jam and so on for a few weeks now. Each one of these games held our attention for many more hours than any number of the anal-retentive and morally suspect 1st person shooters that seem to be considered 'cutting edge' in certain circles nowadays.
I don't think your tastes are more refined, quite the opposite in fact. I think you've gotter much *easier* to impress.
Just because you created a program to manage a linked list doesn't qualify it as an invention unless your implementation was sufficiently novel that you could patent it (and then demand license fees from others to use it).
Are you not a regular/. reader? You can't swing a cat without hitting a moronic patent' story nowadays. If that's the definition of an invention, then Novalogic invented voxels.
Hovering would work...if it could hover at a height of several meters.
The wintertime Atlantic is bad enough at 14 knots, I shudder to think what it would be like at 40+ knots. Passengers or not, I think you'd get some very unhappy crews.
Anyone know what the chances are that Sega can be convinced to release the Dreamcast SDK/specs to open source?
Sega heavily subsidises Dreamcast hardware - it makes a loss on each unit sold, the idea being that they then make back that cash selling games for it.
So how would it benefit them to sell Dreamcasts to people who aren't going to buy any games?
BTW every C, C++, Java or Vitual (sic) Assembler written Amiga/Tao application can be executed code identical on top of other operation systems (sic) as well including Linux.:)
You could say the same thing about regular Amiga apps, not to mention Win32 apps, MacOS apps, SNES apps, Gameboy apps, System16 apps etc etc. Emulation is pretty much a given for most platforms nowadays.
And as long as your target has to interpret/compile what you give it, you might as well give it something well-standardised, eg. C/C++ source. If you're set on producing bytecode, why not compile to Java bytecode? Or just pick an arch at random, compile to that arch, and use existing emulators on other platforms?
I'm trying to give up cynicism, but isn't this just inventing stuff for the sake of it?
Why does this comment always pop up? I'm not an EQ player myself, but I know a couple of quite heavy players. They're both rather well-balanced people, as 'normal' as anyone else. They have satisfying jobs and full social lives. How on earth did you jump to the conclusion that your life is somehow better than theirs?
You must live a truly excellent existance to so confidently assert superiority over so many people you've never met.
The UK has the data protection act which (AFAIK) allows you access to any data any organisation is holding on you, including CCTV footage. You send the company £10 and they have to send you the data within 40 days.
Mark Thomas, a UK comedian, recently used this to great effect - he forced some companies and governmental orgs to give him embarrasing and slanderous memos/emails they had on him. When one government agency didn't comply, he stood in front of one of their security cameras and waved a sign saying 'Please give me my personal data'. He then submitted a demand for that footage as well.
If you haven't played it online, you haven't played it at all. I was starting to get a little disappointed with it until I got it online - trust me, it's a whole new kettle of fish.
www.gamefaqs.com have detailed instructions on how to get the Japanese version online (on the PSO messageboard)
I just can't wait to see how it handles lag and dead reckoning Pretty well. The game is designed to hide it, so it rarely becomes visible and almost never affects gameplay significantly.
I guess the biggest hurdle now is getting the US servers online They're already there (and rather busy)
Sega should:
1) Replace the modem with the NIC
2) Put in a network-bootable boot ROM
3) Rip out the GDROM drive to save cash
4) Add a keyboard and mouse
5) Add a VGA box, and enable higher-resolution support on the graphics hardware
6) Bundle it up in 10-packs, along with the SH4 Linux port and a PC distro to run the server.
Hey presto! You too can have a 50 workstation lab for $10,000! The hardware is strong enough for many purposes - the display hardware can do a pretty good version of OpenGL with only a few holes in functionality. The audio hardware is good and the CPU is pretty sweet.
Re:3D projection onto a 2D screen...
on
3D GUI Project
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· Score: 1
You're absolutely right - our perception of reality is often very unreliable.
In the absence of depth-perception, it's quite easy to fake out the eye brain with false perspectives, trompe-l'oeils etc.
3D projection onto a 2D screen...
on
3D GUI Project
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· Score: 3
...is inherently ambiguous. Why ON EARTH would you want your work, your system files and so on represented so unreliably?
Example: Try using 3DS-MAX for heavy-duty 3D polygonal modelling for a few hours. Now imagine that the undo stack is only a single level deep, and that each mistake you make has deleted a random file from your HDD. Now note that this is a package that's evolved through many years of design by a large team at a well-funded software house.
...it is not going to be new processor tech that cuts it (if at all) but the compilers, which have to break down (probably CISC legacy) code into the parrelisations the Itty will want Are you suggesting that a compiler can't do a better job than a CPU, given that it around a billion times longer to think about it?
Had Sony bothered to write a set of high-level libraries, an emu might have been able to intercept calls to it and translate them a port of Sony's library.
You could probably shift the bulk of such a library's work onto the NV20's T&L processor, leaving the x86 to deal with the application's physics code and the like. Of course, Sony hasn't yet released such a library so this is pure speculation.
Slashdot Mirror
Nitpick the second: Tom says there are no shadow-buffering demos out there, but there's one right here.
It demonstrates some of the problems and shortcomings of the technique.
Wow, them's some expensive clams.
Heh, if you want more plot you should try reading the original manga.
...the arguments are bogus.
Propegating certain types of information is illegal and/or immoral, plain and simple. Eg: Holocaust denials dressed up as legitimate historical theories; other people's credit-card numbers; slander.
You can do what this guy has done with all of the above. Format it as a haiku, stick it in the low-order bits of an image, record a guy yodelling it, translate it into Klingon, print it on a tshirt. If you like, encode it into DNA, breed it into bacteria, eat it and go sneeze at MPAA lawyers.
All this has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with your right to distribute the information - it's a gimmick, a red-herring. It's great merry-pranksterism, but the guy challenging the lawyers to find grounds to protest each version in turn is bogus. Either he has the right to propegate the info or he doesn't.
Erm, what have these movies got to do with anything? Each one breaks most of the Dogma rules and not a single one could be considered low-budget.
You're just listing a bunch of movies that you like.
Rule 3: Most games that depend on gimmicky input devices are crummy games.
Counter-examples: Samba de Amigo, Marble Madness, Virtual On, The House of the Dead, The Typing Of The Dead.
Rule 5: The following types of games are prohibited: first-person shooters, side-scrollers, any action game with "special attacks."...It is your duty as a Dogma designer to create new genres of games
Side-scrolling is not a genre (or is Mario a rehash of Defender?) Likewise special attacks; what does Street Fighter have to do with Bangaioh? Defining genres in terms of where the camera is placed is wrong-headed IMO.
Rule 6: The secret desire of game designers to be film directors is deleterious to their games and to the industry generally. This desire must be stamped out.
Umm...which industry did the idea for this come from again?
I kind of agree with his intent but I think many of the rules are counter-productive. Stating that a game may be 3D but must run at 20fps in software creates a great deal of messy technical complications - quite the opposite effect of requiring a movie to be filmed with a single camera and light. A more appropriate rule would be that, if 3D, the game must use the Quake1 engine (which, incidentally, doesn't imply a 1st-person perspective).
Hardware acceleration, higher resolutions, and digital sounds have only brought computer gaming to a new level of detail and realism and in no way detract from the playability of a game.
Well, they *do* detract from playability. It takes so long to get your engine and content competitive with every other game out there that there's only half as much time left to do the actual game.
In the absense of anything decent to play, my entire office recently went retro en-masse; we've been playing Super-Bomberman, R-Type, Yoshi, Mariocart, Sonic&Knuckles, Gunstar Heroes, NBA Jam and so on for a few weeks now. Each one of these games held our attention for many more hours than any number of the anal-retentive and morally suspect 1st person shooters that seem to be considered 'cutting edge' in certain circles nowadays.
I don't think your tastes are more refined, quite the opposite in fact. I think you've gotter much *easier* to impress.
Just because you created a program to manage a linked list doesn't qualify it as an invention unless your implementation was sufficiently novel that you could patent it (and then demand license fees from others to use it). Are you not a regular /. reader? You can't swing a cat without hitting a moronic patent' story nowadays. If that's the definition of an invention, then Novalogic invented voxels.
...Philip K Dick. A good proportion of his short stories and novels are about not-quite-humans, most obviously 'Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep'.
They'll do exactly what they're socially programmed to do
Which, if they grow into regular teenagers, will be to ache from a terrible sense that they don't belong and... oh.
If the worst they have to deal with is a little existential angst, I think they'll fit right in.
Space Camp
Hovering would work...if it could hover at a height of several meters.
The wintertime Atlantic is bad enough at 14 knots, I shudder to think what it would be like at 40+ knots. Passengers or not, I think you'd get some very unhappy crews.
Anyone know what the chances are that Sega can be convinced to release the Dreamcast SDK/specs to open source?
Sega heavily subsidises Dreamcast hardware - it makes a loss on each unit sold, the idea being that they then make back that cash selling games for it.
So how would it benefit them to sell Dreamcasts to people who aren't going to buy any games?
BTW every C, C++, Java or Vitual (sic) Assembler written Amiga/Tao application can be executed code identical on top of other operation systems (sic) as well including Linux. :)
You could say the same thing about regular Amiga apps, not to mention Win32 apps, MacOS apps, SNES apps, Gameboy apps, System16 apps etc etc. Emulation is pretty much a given for most platforms nowadays.
And as long as your target has to interpret/compile what you give it, you might as well give it something well-standardised, eg. C/C++ source. If you're set on producing bytecode, why not compile to Java bytecode? Or just pick an arch at random, compile to that arch, and use existing emulators on other platforms?
I'm trying to give up cynicism, but isn't this just inventing stuff for the sake of it?
get a life
Why does this comment always pop up? I'm not an EQ player myself, but I know a couple of quite heavy players. They're both rather well-balanced people, as 'normal' as anyone else. They have satisfying jobs and full social lives. How on earth did you jump to the conclusion that your life is somehow better than theirs?
You must live a truly excellent existance to so confidently assert superiority over so many people you've never met.
...what's the point of getting a Sun box to run Linux?
Is SPARC *that* special?
The UK has the data protection act which (AFAIK) allows you access to any data any organisation is holding on you, including CCTV footage. You send the company £10 and they have to send you the data within 40 days. Mark Thomas, a UK comedian, recently used this to great effect - he forced some companies and governmental orgs to give him embarrasing and slanderous memos/emails they had on him. When one government agency didn't comply, he stood in front of one of their security cameras and waved a sign saying 'Please give me my personal data'. He then submitted a demand for that footage as well.
If you haven't played it online, you haven't played it at all. I was starting to get a little disappointed with it until I got it online - trust me, it's a whole new kettle of fish.
www.gamefaqs.com have detailed instructions on how to get the Japanese version online (on the PSO messageboard)
I just can't wait to see how it handles lag and dead reckoning
Pretty well. The game is designed to hide it, so it rarely becomes visible and almost never affects gameplay significantly.
I guess the biggest hurdle now is getting the US servers online
They're already there (and rather busy)
It is subsidised, but (unlike the PSX2) not very heavily. It also has much, much better price/performance than stock PC hardware.
Sega should:
1) Replace the modem with the NIC
2) Put in a network-bootable boot ROM
3) Rip out the GDROM drive to save cash
4) Add a keyboard and mouse
5) Add a VGA box, and enable higher-resolution support on the graphics hardware
6) Bundle it up in 10-packs, along with the SH4 Linux port and a PC distro to run the server.
Hey presto! You too can have a 50 workstation lab for $10,000! The hardware is strong enough for many purposes - the display hardware can do a pretty good version of OpenGL with only a few holes in functionality. The audio hardware is good and the CPU is pretty sweet.
You're absolutely right - our perception of reality is often very unreliable. In the absence of depth-perception, it's quite easy to fake out the eye brain with false perspectives, trompe-l'oeils etc.
...is inherently ambiguous. Why ON EARTH would you want your work, your system files and so on represented so unreliably?
Example: Try using 3DS-MAX for heavy-duty 3D polygonal modelling for a few hours. Now imagine that the undo stack is only a single level deep, and that each mistake you make has deleted a random file from your HDD. Now note that this is a package that's evolved through many years of design by a large team at a well-funded software house.
...it is not going to be new processor tech that cuts it (if at all) but the compilers, which have to break down (probably CISC legacy) code into the parrelisations the Itty will want
Are you suggesting that a compiler can't do a better job than a CPU, given that it around a billion times longer to think about it?
...a rewrite of 'if OSes were airlines' is in order.
Had Sony bothered to write a set of high-level libraries, an emu might have been able to intercept calls to it and translate them a port of Sony's library.
You could probably shift the bulk of such a library's work onto the NV20's T&L processor, leaving the x86 to deal with the application's physics code and the like. Of course, Sony hasn't yet released such a library so this is pure speculation.