You can't go from body temperature to freezing within a minute just by sweating. Your body will close the pores on your skin and prevent the loss of sweat until your body is restored to operating temperature. You could lose some moisture through your mouth, but without any air to breath, you're not going to lose too much.
I don't understand the grandparent's complaint about Battlestar Galactica because, if it's the episode I'm thinking of, the characters were only exposed to a vacuum for a few seconds.
Which was considered "severe exposure". A few seconds exposure to vacuum is very far removed from "extreme exposure". Much less enough to cause them to freeze as they go flying out the side of the ship. In reality, the rescuers would have had a good chance of retrieving living (possibly quite healthy) people, even if they were exposed for as long as a minute.
a) The body continues to generate heat that more than makes up for the black body radiation loses.
b) Losses are significantly reduced by any insulating clothing worn. Even your standard shirt and pants provides fairly decent insulation. In the work suits worn on the Battlestar Galactica episode, the characters would have been more than protected.
To actually lose more heat than you generate, you need to look to an active cooling solution rather than a passive one. Conduction (and by extension, convection) are the ones that cause the body to lose heat faster than it can produce it. Since there's no conduction in space, you're not going to lose heat faster than you can generate it.
That's why I mentioned black body radiation in passing. It just doesn't matter to this discussion.
I refer, of course, to the infamous 250-shot revolver.
basically, back in the black and white days, nobody EVER reloaded their guns.
Hollywood still does that. But with modern weapons being capable of holding an indeterminate size of clip (as opposed to the standard six-shooter), it's difficult to call them on it. They just throw a few clip ejections into the fray to make it seem like the characters are really reloading.
You can kind of call them on double-barreled shotguns, but Hollywood has slowly phased those out for pump-action weapons. Of course, those are similarly amusing, but for different reasons. I was just watching an old episode of Sliders the other day where the characters are carrying pump-action shotguns. Every time they cut to a new scene, the characters would re-pump their shotguns. Which was rather amusing considering that they hadn't fired a single round...
How about the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect vacuum?
How do you mean? I not aware of too many situations where Hollywood pretends there is?
For example, Star Trek has something called a "Navigational Deflector". This is a device (sort of a reverse tractor beam) that sweeps ahead of the ship and removes small particles from its path before they cause a catastrophe. Similarly, shows that posit the existence of hyperspace deal with this from the perspective of hyperspace being a shortcut to another place in space-time. Taking this shortcut does not necessarily convey any great velocity. Travel through "normal" space is usually done at relative velocities that are not dangerous in a non-perfect vacuum.
Since theres no air convection taking heat away from your body and any sweat would immediately vapourise as it came out your pores so it wouldn't have a chance to spread over your skin and cool you.
When you sweat, the fluids come from inside your body. Since they're already heated, they will carry away some of the heat when they vaporize. So you'd probably die of other causes long before you overheated.
In the Space Shuttle, however, the bay doors are opened for heat rejection when in flight. Unlike the "cold" problem we see in Star Trek whenever they lose power (e.g. TNG: Booby Trap), they're far more likely to overheat due to the heat rejection systems being inoperable. (Presumably, a ship like the Enterprise would have a circulatory system that would pump heat from the inside of the ship to the outer skin, where it would be rejected as black body radiation.)
The fluid promptly freezes because, as we all know, outerspace is really, really cold.
That one bugged me about a recent Battlestar Galactica, as well. Inside the room, the characters were freezing because the air was leaking away. (Thus cooling the room.) I can accept that. But once they're blasted into space? Not a chance of freezing. No air for cooling == no loss of heat. (Actually, you can still lose it slowly through black-body radiation, but that's another topic.) Human skin is pretty good at holding pressure, so the big things are:
- Don't hold your breath (unnecessary internal pressure) - Close your eyes (they're more susceptable to decompression)
First, let me preface this by saying that Hollywood is fiction. I think when we see the tanker truck blow up, the Power Rangers jump-kicking someone in the chest, or Neo fly through the air like Superman, we understand it's fiction. It's called "suspension of disbelief." It's what makes movies enjoyable. No one is really going to think that these things happen as regularly (or at all) in real life as they do in the movies.
That being said:
Explosions on the battlefield go boom right away, no matter how far away spectators are. Even a small thing, like the crack of a baseball player's bat, is simultaneous with ball contact, unlike at a real game.
In most instances that come to mind, the director takes care of this problem by zooming you in on the Volcano, shell explosion, or baseball hit. Once you hear the sound at the source, the director usually cuts away to the actors after the sound has arrived. (As can usually be surmised by the ash and dirt flying at the camera.)
Hollywood always gets this one wrong. On film, thunder doesn't follow lightning (as in real life, because sound is slower); they occur simultaneously.
To the human ear, they are effectively simultaneous if the lighting crack is close enough to the observer. Considering how LOUD the director usually chooses to make the thunder, I don't think it's that bad of a summation. How about we start worrying why the actors aren't taking shelter?
And because radioactive things emit light only when they run into phosphor - like the coating on the inner surface of a TV tube - you don't really need to worry.
This is actually incorrect. Radioactive "things" can emit light through two other methods:
1. They grow physically hot enough to glow red-hot or white-hot.
2. They heavily ionize the air around them, creating pretty streaks and rainbows.
However, the green-glow often seen in movies and cartoons does usually require the presence of phospher.
So, when you see a gal kick someone across the room, technically, the kicker (or holder of a gun) must fly across the room in the opposite direction - unless she has a back against the wall.
Or... the kicker could be properly grounded. If the kicker is properly braced against the ground, it's not impossible to send an unbalanced opponent off his feet. The fact that you can pick an opponent up and toss him in a single motion demonstrates that. That's not to say that the exact situation of many fights isn't ridiculous (excuse me, rediculous), but the physics of the situation don't prevent a kicker from delivering a blow hard enough to knock someone off their feet. Perhaps even to the point of sending them flying. (Though it's unlikely that it would be to the point of many kung-fu movies on strings. There's only so much structural capacity in the human body. After that, you start breaking your own bones.)
Now when they miss their target and don't go flying across the room...:-P
But in the movies, buses and cars shouldn't be able to jump across gaps in bridges, even if they go heavy on the accelerator.
Unless, of course, there is some sort of incline for a takeoff (ever notice how the Duke boys always manage to find that conveniently placed incline?) or the second section is lower than the first, thus allowing for the jump to complete depsite the drop in altitude. (As the camera appeared to make the situation in Speed.)
The problem, though, is that their voices don't change. In reality, if you slow down motion by a factor of two, the frequency of all sounds should drop by an octave.
Smash cuts don't exist in real-life, either. Yet we don't complain about those. Slow motion is an entirely artistic thing, and is not related to the physics of the situation. At all.
Ad hominem tu quoque, my trollish friend. You replied to me, remember?
I will never understand why you people start these arguments. You're obviously an intelligent person, so why twist meanings and facts to get the other party to respond? Seems like a waste of talent.
You choose to denigrate the merit of my opinion based on who I am (or rather my failure to login).
I am not denegrating your opinion. Only pointing out that I have no basis to trust it. As the old saying goes, "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one."
There is a reason why only those who carry credentials are able to provide "expert" testimony or "expert" consulting. They can show that they have the experience to show what they are talking about. Your failure to "log in" as it were, means that you do not have an credentials with which to rely upon when giving an opinion. You can give it, but it will be just so many words in the wind.
However, that does not stop a provably logical argument, something for which I invited you to produce. So where is it?
Classic ad hominem attack.
Again, you fail to understand the meaning of the term "ad hominem". Or in this case "argumentum ad hominem".
This is ad hominem:
> You are an AC and a troll, therefore your opinion about PThreads must be false.
This is what I said:
> You provide insufficient credentials to show an expert opinion. Please resort to using a logically provable argument instead.
That is not ad hominem, but rather a matter of authoritative sourcing. If you do not understand the difference, then your education is not as complete as you seem to think it is.
In particular I was speaking of "Ad hominem circumstantial" which asserts that the merit of the discussion is predicated on why the discussion is being held rather than the value of the discussion.
You seem to misunderstand. I was replying to someone else who made the statement that the author must have changed his mind. You can argue that his post was about "ad hominem circumstantial", but my own was distinctly on the topic at hand.
The answer is: Win32 is better because it's a high level API. PThreads is better because it is not a high level API."
Is both silly and insulting.
It is neither silly nor insulting when it is, in fact, the author's conclusions. If you wish to argue that he did not make statements to that effect, then be my guest.
If the question is "Do I think the author has a valid argument?", I expect I could answer that and spend quite some time talking about the merits of the position.
To be perfectly honest, your opinion holds very little weight with me. You are posting as an anonymous coward, which gives no basis for trusting your opinion. If you think you have a logical argument rather than just your thoughts on the issue, then you are free to make it.
Which is better Pthreads or Win Threads?
I am not looking to address that question. Each API has its finer points, and is worth investigating. A good article would take a good hard look at both and give an answer dependent on the situation. My only purpose in entering this conversation was to point out the evidence against another poster's assertion that the author simply changed his mind.
In all fairness, the 360 has had a full year head start over the Wii. Which means that the Live! service is well developed to meet the needs of the (rather massive) casual gaming market. However, I do expect that to change in the near future. For one, Nintendo has already stated that they'll be hosting "Wii Ware" downloadable games that can be purchased from the Wii Store. Rumors are already circulating that Super Paper Mario could be the first.
For another, tons of gaming sites have popped up to fill the "casual" needs through the Opera Web Browser. In fact, the most popular of these sites just announced a new API that lets game programmers make use of *all* of the Wiimote's buttons. If they get multiplayer gaming up and going (e.g. poker, battleship, hearts, etc.), they could end up being an impressive force for casual gaming on the Wii.
What's the point in being God if the rules don't follow your whim?:P
Actually, the law is based on a single promise. The promise of eternal life to Adam and Eve. The problem was that Adam and Eve failed to follow the single law they were given (don't eat from the tree at the center of the garden) and were cast out. But that's not entirely fair to their descendents, so they each had the choice to live their life according to the promise given. The 10 Commandments were a set of laws God gave to the Jewish civilization so that they would know how to conduct themselves in a pure form. If one sinned, they were required to atone for that sin. The most common atonement was to slaughter a lamb as a sacrifice. This was symbolic of the fate that would await the savior. You see, in Judaism, they believed in Christ before he came. Those who continue to practice Judaism believe that he hasn't arrived yet.
The harshest penalty (death) was reserved for only the highest crimes, murder being the most obvious. Even then, you'll note that God was merciful in many sitations, sparing the the life of the individual.
at one point in time (approximately two thousand years ago) it punished people for myriad minutiae (I'm thinking of Leviticus here)
You need to be more specific. Leviticus set up the laws under which the Jewish people lived. They did not differ all that significantly from the laws we live under today. The only thing that's changed is that today's laws are not as hard and fast as those of the old testament. e.g. When you sleep with a virgin woman outside of marriage, it may be "wrong" from a Christian perspective, but the law doesn't require you to marry her and pay the father 100 shekels of silver. Today's law in Christian societies recognizes grace, which the old testament did not. This follows a general societal pattern of placing greater value on life. If you look back in history to the period in which Leviticus was written, the humans of the world did not place a very high value on an individual's right to live.
I'm curious why you think your omnipotent god changed its mind all of a sudden?
He didn't "suddenly change his mind". First off, the savior was promised to the Jews long before he arrived. The primary purpose of the Bible is to track his lineage, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. It was important that Jesus be a son of man and not of the Niphilim. The Bible also tells us that Jesus spent time in the place of imprisioned spirits (hell? purgatory? I'll leave that to the scholars) preaching to them so that they might also be saved.
So out of curiousity, when he was asked what one must do beyond knowing and following the 10 commandments in order to be admitted to heaven and he replied "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor", do you think he didn't mean it, or are you just not that interested in eternal life?
You are mistakenly quoting the law. Under the law it was incredibly difficult to get to heaven. Under grace, it's as easy as:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." --John 3:16
A reading of Galatians backs this up.
"We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." --Galatians 2:15-21
Your grasp of the term "ad homnim[sic]" leaves something to be desired.
The question really is (regardless of who wrote it and why he wrote it) Is one threading model better than the other.
Obviously you didn't read the articles. The answer is: Win32 is better because it's a high level API. PThreads is better because it is not a high level API.
Talk about a split personality.
What is the quality of what the author wrote?
Poor at best. (Why didn't you *read* it for yourself?) But that wasn't a problem when he was just expressing his opinion. When he resorted to modifying three words per paragraph to express the exact opposite opinion, his quality dropped to nothing more than junk copy.
Now, riddle me this Mr. AC: How can I take an opinion seriously when in one article the author says that a particular attribute is a detriment to one API over the other, while in the next article he tells me that the same attribute is an asset of one API over the other?
dude, you're such a fud-spreading hoser, you intentionally added emphasis on the wrong part
No, I added emphasis to the part that has actually shown up in most EA games. The "story" gobbledegook is just that: gobbledegook. Games are not about their storylines. A storyline can do a great deal to improve a game, but it can also detract from it. Most of the "great" games of times gone by never had anything more than a token plot. (e.g. Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, Pacman, Doom, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Asteroids, Unreal Tournament, etc.) There were exceptions (e.g. Wing Commander, BioForge, The Dig), but those were usually in addition to being a really great game.
At no time was the vision for the game a "Beat'Em Up with snazzy graphics"... That's just unfortunately how it turned out after they cut feature after feature for time and technical reasons.
In other words, EA management never took the risk. They talked up a storm to each other about how their game was going to be a "big risk", but when push came to shove, it didn't happen. Which in the case of a Superman game is not suprising. You don't bet movie franchises on risky games unless you're completely willing to miss the target date. Innovation takes time, patience, and a lot of wrong turns/backtracking.
Honestly speaking, the more I learn about the inside of EA, the more I'm glad I didn't end up working there. The management sings up praises of innovation and great gaming experiences, but they consistently make decisions that run counter to those promises. Unfortunately, I think that management really believes that they're making the great games they keep promising they're making.:(
If they think that's how they manage it now, then they need to rethink what they're doing. Their games are sameness stacked on top of uniformity wrapped in a blanket of mediocrity. Case in point:
See Superman for the XBox 360 - it's not fun, but it's not fun in part because it's trying something new that didn't work out.
The only "high risk" was that they spent millions of dollars on a movie tie-in license. Otherwise it's just your basic Beat'Em Up with snazzy graphics. Whoop-de-doo. In all reality, the Superman game should have been negotiated so that it would be a low risk title. After all, big movie tie-ins are not usually a good place to be innovating.
The problem must be somewhere in their mindset. From an SFGate interview with Probst (emphasis mine):
Q: I wonder if you can think a little further out. Give us your vision for the gaming experience say, five or 10 years from now.
A: I can't give you a vision 10 years out. Anybody that pretends that they can, get as far away from them as you can get because they're making it up. Five years, in terms of what are the products going to look like, imagine Nemo-like graphics with much more realistic characters and animation. What I think is going to be important to the future of this business, in addition to better graphics and better sound and smoother animation, is that we have to be better storytellers and that we start to create characters that people care about. I think that, longer term, (it will) help to broaden the demographics where we get more women into the demographic and even broaden the age demographic.
No wonder they've got a bad reputation! They've bought into the idea that better graphics == better games! Which is exactly what is visible in the Superman Game. It seems that no one really stepped back and thought, "what is it that would make this game fun?" They apparently thought they already knew the answer: Better graphics & a story from a movie tie-in.
If they're in a bad spot now, I think it's because they classified everything for the Wii as "high risk" and managed accordingly.
Truth be told, their sudden dedication to the Wii surprised me. The Wii is the antithesis of the types of games they've been making for the last decade. The games focus less on graphics and more on innovative and "fun" gameplay. I suppose we'll have to see if EA shows actual creative ability in the days to come, or if they will attempt to target the Wii with the same gameplay they always have. Cross your fingers.
EA is bringing back Wing Commander, and it looks awful.
That's not Wing Commander. That's just EA slapping the name on a quicky XBox Live! game to drive up sales. They do the same thing with their Pogo.com games. Take a look sometime and you'll find such gems as:
- Generic Chopper Game -> Command & Conquer Attack Copter - Generic Racing Game -> Need for Speed Top Speed - Generic Golf Game -> Pebble Beach Golf - Generic Soccer Game -> EA Sports Soccer
What I'd *like* them to do is stop mining their IP, and start building it. Like I said, dig Chris Roberts out of whatever hole he crawled into, and get a proper Wing Commander game done. And if they retell the story, we can go back to the beginning with the Tiger's Claw (note the 's) and the Kilrathi. None of this boneheaded Niphilim "story".
Slashdot Mirror
Doh! Sorry 'bout that. I was in full, "Hollywood is bad, but not as bad as the article claims" mode. The joke went right by me. :)
You can't go from body temperature to freezing within a minute just by sweating. Your body will close the pores on your skin and prevent the loss of sweat until your body is restored to operating temperature. You could lose some moisture through your mouth, but without any air to breath, you're not going to lose too much.
Which was considered "severe exposure". A few seconds exposure to vacuum is very far removed from "extreme exposure". Much less enough to cause them to freeze as they go flying out the side of the ship. In reality, the rescuers would have had a good chance of retrieving living (possibly quite healthy) people, even if they were exposed for as long as a minute.
You seem to forget that:
a) The body continues to generate heat that more than makes up for the black body radiation loses.
b) Losses are significantly reduced by any insulating clothing worn. Even your standard shirt and pants provides fairly decent insulation. In the work suits worn on the Battlestar Galactica episode, the characters would have been more than protected.
To actually lose more heat than you generate, you need to look to an active cooling solution rather than a passive one. Conduction (and by extension, convection) are the ones that cause the body to lose heat faster than it can produce it. Since there's no conduction in space, you're not going to lose heat faster than you can generate it.
That's why I mentioned black body radiation in passing. It just doesn't matter to this discussion.
Hollywood still does that. But with modern weapons being capable of holding an indeterminate size of clip (as opposed to the standard six-shooter), it's difficult to call them on it. They just throw a few clip ejections into the fray to make it seem like the characters are really reloading.
You can kind of call them on double-barreled shotguns, but Hollywood has slowly phased those out for pump-action weapons. Of course, those are similarly amusing, but for different reasons. I was just watching an old episode of Sliders the other day where the characters are carrying pump-action shotguns. Every time they cut to a new scene, the characters would re-pump their shotguns. Which was rather amusing considering that they hadn't fired a single round...
How do you mean? I not aware of too many situations where Hollywood pretends there is?
For example, Star Trek has something called a "Navigational Deflector". This is a device (sort of a reverse tractor beam) that sweeps ahead of the ship and removes small particles from its path before they cause a catastrophe. Similarly, shows that posit the existence of hyperspace deal with this from the perspective of hyperspace being a shortcut to another place in space-time. Taking this shortcut does not necessarily convey any great velocity. Travel through "normal" space is usually done at relative velocities that are not dangerous in a non-perfect vacuum.
When you sweat, the fluids come from inside your body. Since they're already heated, they will carry away some of the heat when they vaporize. So you'd probably die of other causes long before you overheated.
In the Space Shuttle, however, the bay doors are opened for heat rejection when in flight. Unlike the "cold" problem we see in Star Trek whenever they lose power (e.g. TNG: Booby Trap), they're far more likely to overheat due to the heat rejection systems being inoperable. (Presumably, a ship like the Enterprise would have a circulatory system that would pump heat from the inside of the ship to the outer skin, where it would be rejected as black body radiation.)
The radium is usually mixed with a phosphorescent compound to obtain the desired glow. The Radium only provides the power for the glow.
That's not to say that I disagree with you. See my post farther down the thread for other common physics behind making radioactive materials glow.
That one bugged me about a recent Battlestar Galactica, as well. Inside the room, the characters were freezing because the air was leaking away. (Thus cooling the room.) I can accept that. But once they're blasted into space? Not a chance of freezing. No air for cooling == no loss of heat. (Actually, you can still lose it slowly through black-body radiation, but that's another topic.) Human skin is pretty good at holding pressure, so the big things are:
- Don't hold your breath (unnecessary internal pressure)
- Close your eyes (they're more susceptable to decompression)
See the research into the Space Activity Suit for more info.
That being said:
In most instances that come to mind, the director takes care of this problem by zooming you in on the Volcano, shell explosion, or baseball hit. Once you hear the sound at the source, the director usually cuts away to the actors after the sound has arrived. (As can usually be surmised by the ash and dirt flying at the camera.)
To the human ear, they are effectively simultaneous if the lighting crack is close enough to the observer. Considering how LOUD the director usually chooses to make the thunder, I don't think it's that bad of a summation. How about we start worrying why the actors aren't taking shelter?
This is actually incorrect. Radioactive "things" can emit light through two other methods:
1. They grow physically hot enough to glow red-hot or white-hot.
2. They heavily ionize the air around them, creating pretty streaks and rainbows.
However, the green-glow often seen in movies and cartoons does usually require the presence of phospher.
Or... the kicker could be properly grounded. If the kicker is properly braced against the ground, it's not impossible to send an unbalanced opponent off his feet. The fact that you can pick an opponent up and toss him in a single motion demonstrates that. That's not to say that the exact situation of many fights isn't ridiculous (excuse me, rediculous), but the physics of the situation don't prevent a kicker from delivering a blow hard enough to knock someone off their feet. Perhaps even to the point of sending them flying. (Though it's unlikely that it would be to the point of many kung-fu movies on strings. There's only so much structural capacity in the human body. After that, you start breaking your own bones.)
:-P
Now when they miss their target and don't go flying across the room...
Unless, of course, there is some sort of incline for a takeoff (ever notice how the Duke boys always manage to find that conveniently placed incline?) or the second section is lower than the first, thus allowing for the jump to complete depsite the drop in altitude. (As the camera appeared to make the situation in Speed.)
Smash cuts don't exist in real-life, either. Yet we don't complain about those. Slow motion is an entirely artistic thing, and is not related to the physics of the situation. At all.
Pretty much the rest of his arguments
Shows what you know. OpenOffice on Mac OS X == NeoOffice/J. You only use the X11 version if you want a world of pain.
When you're on a Mac, you'll want to make it NeoOffice/J.
Nonesense, they're perfectly reusable! You only need to watch out for a metastability period* of 10 minutes between clocks.
* To reset the dominos, of course.
Ad hominem tu quoque, my trollish friend. You replied to me, remember?
I will never understand why you people start these arguments. You're obviously an intelligent person, so why twist meanings and facts to get the other party to respond? Seems like a waste of talent.
I am not denegrating your opinion. Only pointing out that I have no basis to trust it. As the old saying goes, "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one."
There is a reason why only those who carry credentials are able to provide "expert" testimony or "expert" consulting. They can show that they have the experience to show what they are talking about. Your failure to "log in" as it were, means that you do not have an credentials with which to rely upon when giving an opinion. You can give it, but it will be just so many words in the wind.
However, that does not stop a provably logical argument, something for which I invited you to produce. So where is it?
Again, you fail to understand the meaning of the term "ad hominem". Or in this case "argumentum ad hominem".
This is ad hominem:
> You are an AC and a troll, therefore your opinion about PThreads must be false.
This is what I said:
> You provide insufficient credentials to show an expert opinion. Please resort to using a logically provable argument instead.
That is not ad hominem, but rather a matter of authoritative sourcing. If you do not understand the difference, then your education is not as complete as you seem to think it is.
You seem to misunderstand. I was replying to someone else who made the statement that the author must have changed his mind. You can argue that his post was about "ad hominem circumstantial", but my own was distinctly on the topic at hand.
It is neither silly nor insulting when it is, in fact, the author's conclusions. If you wish to argue that he did not make statements to that effect, then be my guest.
To be perfectly honest, your opinion holds very little weight with me. You are posting as an anonymous coward, which gives no basis for trusting your opinion. If you think you have a logical argument rather than just your thoughts on the issue, then you are free to make it.
I am not looking to address that question. Each API has its finer points, and is worth investigating. A good article would take a good hard look at both and give an answer dependent on the situation. My only purpose in entering this conversation was to point out the evidence against another poster's assertion that the author simply changed his mind.
Now please, do try to stay on topic.
In all fairness, the 360 has had a full year head start over the Wii. Which means that the Live! service is well developed to meet the needs of the (rather massive) casual gaming market. However, I do expect that to change in the near future. For one, Nintendo has already stated that they'll be hosting "Wii Ware" downloadable games that can be purchased from the Wii Store. Rumors are already circulating that Super Paper Mario could be the first.
For another, tons of gaming sites have popped up to fill the "casual" needs through the Opera Web Browser. In fact, the most popular of these sites just announced a new API that lets game programmers make use of *all* of the Wiimote's buttons. If they get multiplayer gaming up and going (e.g. poker, battleship, hearts, etc.), they could end up being an impressive force for casual gaming on the Wii.
What's the point in being God if the rules don't follow your whim?
Actually, the law is based on a single promise. The promise of eternal life to Adam and Eve. The problem was that Adam and Eve failed to follow the single law they were given (don't eat from the tree at the center of the garden) and were cast out. But that's not entirely fair to their descendents, so they each had the choice to live their life according to the promise given. The 10 Commandments were a set of laws God gave to the Jewish civilization so that they would know how to conduct themselves in a pure form. If one sinned, they were required to atone for that sin. The most common atonement was to slaughter a lamb as a sacrifice. This was symbolic of the fate that would await the savior. You see, in Judaism, they believed in Christ before he came. Those who continue to practice Judaism believe that he hasn't arrived yet.
The harshest penalty (death) was reserved for only the highest crimes, murder being the most obvious. Even then, you'll note that God was merciful in many sitations, sparing the the life of the individual.
You need to be more specific. Leviticus set up the laws under which the Jewish people lived. They did not differ all that significantly from the laws we live under today. The only thing that's changed is that today's laws are not as hard and fast as those of the old testament. e.g. When you sleep with a virgin woman outside of marriage, it may be "wrong" from a Christian perspective, but the law doesn't require you to marry her and pay the father 100 shekels of silver. Today's law in Christian societies recognizes grace, which the old testament did not. This follows a general societal pattern of placing greater value on life. If you look back in history to the period in which Leviticus was written, the humans of the world did not place a very high value on an individual's right to live.
He didn't "suddenly change his mind". First off, the savior was promised to the Jews long before he arrived. The primary purpose of the Bible is to track his lineage, going all the way back to Adam and Eve. It was important that Jesus be a son of man and not of the Niphilim. The Bible also tells us that Jesus spent time in the place of imprisioned spirits (hell? purgatory? I'll leave that to the scholars) preaching to them so that they might also be saved.
You are mistakenly quoting the law. Under the law it was incredibly difficult to get to heaven. Under grace, it's as easy as:
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." --John 3:16
A reading of Galatians backs this up.
"We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." --Galatians 2:15-21
Your grasp of the term "ad homnim[sic]" leaves something to be desired.
Obviously you didn't read the articles. The answer is: Win32 is better because it's a high level API. PThreads is better because it is not a high level API.
Talk about a split personality.
Poor at best. (Why didn't you *read* it for yourself?) But that wasn't a problem when he was just expressing his opinion. When he resorted to modifying three words per paragraph to express the exact opposite opinion, his quality dropped to nothing more than junk copy.
Now, riddle me this Mr. AC: How can I take an opinion seriously when in one article the author says that a particular attribute is a detriment to one API over the other, while in the next article he tells me that the same attribute is an asset of one API over the other?
No, I added emphasis to the part that has actually shown up in most EA games. The "story" gobbledegook is just that: gobbledegook. Games are not about their storylines. A storyline can do a great deal to improve a game, but it can also detract from it. Most of the "great" games of times gone by never had anything more than a token plot. (e.g. Sonic the Hedgehog, Street Fighter II, Pacman, Doom, Commander Keen, Duke Nukem, Asteroids, Unreal Tournament, etc.) There were exceptions (e.g. Wing Commander, BioForge, The Dig), but those were usually in addition to being a really great game.
In other words, EA management never took the risk. They talked up a storm to each other about how their game was going to be a "big risk", but when push came to shove, it didn't happen. Which in the case of a Superman game is not suprising. You don't bet movie franchises on risky games unless you're completely willing to miss the target date. Innovation takes time, patience, and a lot of wrong turns/backtracking.
Honestly speaking, the more I learn about the inside of EA, the more I'm glad I didn't end up working there. The management sings up praises of innovation and great gaming experiences, but they consistently make decisions that run counter to those promises. Unfortunately, I think that management really believes that they're making the great games they keep promising they're making.
It was a joke. Relax. :)
If they think that's how they manage it now, then they need to rethink what they're doing. Their games are sameness stacked on top of uniformity wrapped in a blanket of mediocrity. Case in point:
The only "high risk" was that they spent millions of dollars on a movie tie-in license. Otherwise it's just your basic Beat'Em Up with snazzy graphics. Whoop-de-doo. In all reality, the Superman game should have been negotiated so that it would be a low risk title. After all, big movie tie-ins are not usually a good place to be innovating.
The problem must be somewhere in their mindset. From an SFGate interview with Probst (emphasis mine):
No wonder they've got a bad reputation! They've bought into the idea that better graphics == better games! Which is exactly what is visible in the Superman Game. It seems that no one really stepped back and thought, "what is it that would make this game fun?" They apparently thought they already knew the answer: Better graphics & a story from a movie tie-in.
Truth be told, their sudden dedication to the Wii surprised me. The Wii is the antithesis of the types of games they've been making for the last decade. The games focus less on graphics and more on innovative and "fun" gameplay. I suppose we'll have to see if EA shows actual creative ability in the days to come, or if they will attempt to target the Wii with the same gameplay they always have. Cross your fingers.
Am not!
Just because I know this story has been duped twice before does not mean I'm an addict!
[...]
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
That's not Wing Commander. That's just EA slapping the name on a quicky XBox Live! game to drive up sales. They do the same thing with their Pogo.com games. Take a look sometime and you'll find such gems as:
- Generic Chopper Game -> Command & Conquer Attack Copter
- Generic Racing Game -> Need for Speed Top Speed
- Generic Golf Game -> Pebble Beach Golf
- Generic Soccer Game -> EA Sports Soccer
What I'd *like* them to do is stop mining their IP, and start building it. Like I said, dig Chris Roberts out of whatever hole he crawled into, and get a proper Wing Commander game done. And if they retell the story, we can go back to the beginning with the Tiger's Claw (note the 's) and the Kilrathi. None of this boneheaded Niphilim "story".