Well, that settles it. We'd better ignore the comments from Ubisoft, Activision, GarageGames, Full Sail, and other reputable shops. EA is there, so they spoil it for everyone.:-/
Someone else entered a bid, but failed to outbid the existing high bidder. Instead of seeing the internal bidding war, you just see the result, so it looks as if a bidder is bidding against himself.
I just think Luna is a non-starter because it lacks so many resources.
From a practical standpoint, I agree with you. However, there's more to the space program than just a commitment to go to Mars. The unfortunate fact is that politics plays a big role in the life of the space program. If it takes a presence on the moon to get a commitment to build space infrastructure, then I'm all for it. To me, it's more important to keep the ships flying than it is to lose the manned funding because Congress thinks NASA is being "too ambitious".:-)
Once you've plugged in and configured your PS3, you'll have to update the system software. Some (but not all) launch games will include that system update, which means the process will take 5 minutes or so. If not, you'll download and install the upgrade from the internet (as I did). This method takes more than 10 minutes. It's frustrating, especially having spent this much.
This reminds me of a conversation I overheard at a game store the other day. Apparently, this kid had borrowed a PSP game from his friend. The game had a firmware update on it that had failed to install properly. His PSP was absolutely toasted, and wouldn't even boot. The guy behind the counter was explaining to the kid's dad that it would cost almost as much as a new PSP to have Sony fix it.
I wonder how many PS3's will go the Way of the Brick(TM)?
Not really. iTunes television is taking off now. The technology may not have fully emerged yet, but it is being adopted by the public at an incredible rate. (I actually submitted a story about how "The Office" was saved from cancellation by the iTunes sales. Predictably, it was rejected.) Apples does not provide exact numbers on their TV and movie sales, but it's a pretty good bet that iTunes growth is outpacing Bluray and HDDVD adoption. Given that it took about 5 years for DVDs to replace VHS tapes, it wouldn't surprise me at all if online downloads end up being the unexpected competitor in this round.
Could we bring back enough to affect our gravity (for example)?
You have to ship back enough materials to create a sizable increase in the Earth's diameter. (Basically, buring the current surface and building on top.) That's not only impractical, it's pointless. If we're shipping that much material around, we'd have a massive outer-space presence that would need those materials just as much as Earth would.
To give you an idea of how much mass would be required, the Earth is ~5.98 x 10^24 kg in mass. A 1% increase in the Earth's mass would be 5.98 x 10^22 kg (59,800,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg) or approximately 59.8 yottagrams. If we could ship that much material to Earth, we'd have long ago managed to build ourselves a rather spacious interstellar ark.
Refining ores is expensive... refining ores in space more so.
This is true. However, most of your costs are upfront. Just like on Earth, you have to spend the money to tool up, ship in the equipment, and begin production. Also just like on Earth, your costs will drop substantially the longer the facilities operate. They'll also increase in efficiency as the workers better understand the job they're doing.
Never mind the cost of having staff members on-site
I think you're blowing this cost out of proportion. A Space Shuttle launch today costs about 200 to 500 million, and can only carry about 25 tonnes of material into orbit. (Give or take depending on the height and inclination.) Launching large amounts of material would be incredibly expensive on an ongoing basis. In comparison, you'd have one-time costs associated launching a mining facility, then much smaller costs for ongoing staffing and maintenance.
There is no way that constantly shipping manufactured materials from the bottom of Earth's gravity well is going to be less expensive in the long term. Yes, the short term costs would be higher for space mining, but it's not like the same isn't true for new mining and manufacturing facilities here on Earth.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious: Using an asteroid landing as a precusror to a mining mission.
If NASA's plans go forward, they're going to need a space infrastructure. Eventually, that will mean space-based manufacturing. For manufacturing, you need raw materials. Those raw materials are expensive to lift from Earth's gravity well. Ergo, the best solution is to mine them from much smaller gravity wells where the cost of transport is comparitively minimal.
The key issue that an mission to an asteroid would need to resolve is the actual composition and concentration of valuable ores. Scientists currently have a lot of educated guesses, but we won't know for sure until a geologist makes a proper survey.
At one of the jobs I worked at, we had a fellow who's sole role was to maintain the Version Control system, and manage the releases directly from that system. He was incredibly good at his job, to the point of politely beating the matter out of programmers who didn't comply. So if you just happened to forget to tag something for release (or otherwise tagged something that shouldn't have gone), he'd be over to let you know that you broke the build AND (here's the important part) work with you to get it resolved.
Honestly, having the guy around was the best thing that ever happened to our code tree. Suddenly, we developers didn't have to worry about handling all the minutia related to a test or production build, we didn't have to worry about pruning the tree, and we knew someone was watching our backs in case we screwed up. I know that my description probably sounds horrible, but it was honestly great! The whole process got a lot smoother after he came on board.
I think the key reason why it worked was because most developers wanted to follow good version control procedures; they just didn't have the spare bandwidth to manage it. By centralizing the handling, it offloaded a great deal of that duty and made everyone's lives easier. It also made clear the people who were intentionally keeping source control a few versions behind for "job security".:-/
I had one. Its key failing was that it was a 3D input device for a 2D system. Which is not very useful when you think about it.
Mattel & Nintendo made a big deal about how you could actually turn the steering wheel in Rad Racer, or punch in Punch Out. While I never tried Punch Out, the former wasn't actually true. The Power Glove had a "center" that you calibrated for. Any time you moved your hand away from the virtual center, your character/car moved. To run/jump/accelerate you flexed your fingers instead of pressing buttons.
The result was that you could clench your fist in Rad Racer, and pretend like you were turning a steering wheel. In reality, you were just moving to each side of the virtual center. The rotation of your hand played almost no role. (Even though the glove could detect it!) Most other games were finger twitching frenzies. My siblings and I always ended up using the joypad on the top of the glove because we couldn't execute some tricky maneuver.
Am I the only one that feels this article is too biased or unfair to the Wii?
Nope. All it really says is: "We (the author(s)) are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY excited about the PS3. Here's some boilerplate stuff about the Wii. See how the PS3 is cool?"
I'm glad they're excited, but they should probably be more upfront about it rather than pretending to have journalistic objectivity. A better solution might be to pit a couple different authors (with two different opinions) against each other. It would make for a more interesting read, at least.
Online plan: Traditonally, Nintendo's never been much for online gaming (the GameCube had two online games&ever), but Wii appears poised to finally bring Mario and Co. into the multiplayer arena. Wii will use a modified version of the DS' Wi-Fi Connection software to facilitate online matchmaking. (Most likely, you'll only be able to play against players who give you "friend codes" first, just like with the DS.) Like the PS3, the Wii will offer online gaming free of charge. Other elements in Nintendo's online plan include WiiConnect24, a feature that allows your Wii to receive pushed content downloads even when the system is turned off, and the Wii Browser, a modified version of the Opera web browser optimized for the Wii-mote. This comprehensive online plan has one massive flaw, though: No games shipping in 2006 are expected to offer online play. Oops.
Wii
Online plan: Traditonally, Nintendo's never been much for online gaming (the GameCube had two online games&ever), but Wii appears poised to finally bring Mario and Co. into the multiplayer arena. Wii will use a modified version of the DS' Wi-Fi Connection software to facilitate online matchmaking. (Most likely, you'll only be able to play against players who give you "friend codes" first, just like with the DS.) Like the PS3, the Wii will offer online gaming free of charge. Other elements in Nintendo's online plan include WiiConnect24, a feature that allows your Wii to receive pushed content downloads even when the system is turned off, and the Wii Browser, a modified version of the Opera web browser optimized for the Wii-mote. This comprehensive online plan has one massive flaw, though: No games shipping in 2006 are expected to offer online play. Oops.
Here's the kicker:
Winner: PS3 BEST ONLINE PLAN
Um, ok.
* On my part, anyway ** The amperstand after "games" is really there. It's not an HTML glitch.
The word "overarching" comes to mind whenever I hear about projects like this. If there's anything my years in software and systems has taught me, it's that starting with a monolithic design will mean monolithic failure. You invariably end up with too many cooks, all working on Lord knows what, accomplishing a very expensive nothing. There's just too much coordination to maintain any semblence of progress.
In fact, the most successful large scale projects always seem to be grown out of combinations of smaller architectures rather than a single massive architecture. Look at the Internet for an example. The protocol was architected. The routing design was architected. The information delivery systems were architected. The network itself? Grown with tender loving care, and Lots'o'peering agreements.
If you want to solve an issue like modernizing Hospital IT, start small and work your way up. Design each technology independently, but not monolithically. Keep an eye toward standards rather than specific implementations. (Standards will allow you to plug in a few competing implementations, giving you "best of breed" options.) Then use those technologies to build out a few test sites. Work out the kinks, then start deploying at a few more sites. Keep doing that, and the economics of scale will begin to take hold. (i.e. The more you do of something, the less expensive it gets to do it.) With any luck, the project will get done within a reasonable budget and timeline.
In late September, Accenture, the global management and technology consultancy
Never mind what I just said. There's your answer right there.:P
You're confusing Korea and Vietnam. We had an exit strategy in Korea: Blaze a trail into the north and take it over. Just because the war ended in a stalemate and peace treaty doesn't mean that we weren't fighting to win.
Makes sense. In particular, thanks for doing the math. It's always easier to understand when there are some hard numbers behind it.
Generally, what you said has been my understanding as well. However, I keep going back and forth on it because of all the low-powered cutting lasers on the market. But I suppose you'd be more likely to give yourself a nasty burn than actually cut straight through a person.
Anywho, thanks for your help!:)
Re:I think it's energy density that's preventing
on
Blu-ray Laser Gadget
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· Score: 1
I only asked about a few watts, not a military grade, anti-tank weapon.:)
Unfortunately, I don't know enough details about laser weaponry. (Thus my question.) For example, how does the wavelength affect the penetration of the beam? Can the diameter be adjusted to do more damage? How much power is required to actually drill the target rather than totally cauterizing the wound you create? Would spinning the laser help, or would the laser fail to deliver enough power before it's moved off to a cooler spot?
Honestly speaking, a laptop battery could deliver about 20 watts of continuous power for an hour or two. From what I understand, that's a lot of firepower for a cutting laser. It won't outright destroy the target (you're still only delivering a maximum of 20 watts!), but it may allow for precision destruction. Remember, a sniper has to lead his target with a normal weapon. A laser has the advantage of What You See Is What You Kill (WYSIWYK!). The distances involved in most sniping exercises are inconsequential to laser weapons.
Scratch that. There are two videos of blue lasers. Though I can't say if they're the same lasers as advertised in the article.
Make sure to check out their videos
on
Blu-ray Laser Gadget
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· Score: 2, Informative
While they don't have any of the blue laser yet, the Wicked Laser Videos show off their other high-powered products. These things are powerful enough to light a match, blow up a balloon, burn a hole in your drywall, and other fun party tricks. What's cool about it, though, is that the laser is powerful enough to make the backscatter visible. i.e. You can see the beam!
It's enough to make one wonder: How feasible is a handheld laser weapon? (Say, a few watts?) I realize that the key issue is that the laser does very little damage as it passes through an object. (Actually, it leaves a hole the diameter of the beam. Not very large.) However, I could see the laser rotating through a small arc during fire. That would at least carve out a centimeter or two from the target...
If you were paying attention, I already mentioned that the FCC is regulating the matter. My point is not one of complete deregulation, but one of oversight already being in place. The reason why the ISPs are attempting to twist the anti-Net Neutrality as if it were Net Neutrality (See? Consumer Bill of Rights!) is because they want to get rid of the FCC oversight. They can only do that if a new law gets passed.
On the other hand, if an actual Net Neutrality law gets passed, it will either kill time-sensitive services outright (bye, bye VoIP) or have so many loopholes that the law would be effectively impotent.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever hear of Puffy AmiYumi? They're both in their 30's.
*shrug* It's a Japanese thing.
Well, that settles it. We'd better ignore the comments from Ubisoft, Activision, GarageGames, Full Sail, and other reputable shops. EA is there, so they spoil it for everyone.
Someone else entered a bid, but failed to outbid the existing high bidder. Instead of seeing the internal bidding war, you just see the result, so it looks as if a bidder is bidding against himself.
From a practical standpoint, I agree with you. However, there's more to the space program than just a commitment to go to Mars. The unfortunate fact is that politics plays a big role in the life of the space program. If it takes a presence on the moon to get a commitment to build space infrastructure, then I'm all for it. To me, it's more important to keep the ships flying than it is to lose the manned funding because Congress thinks NASA is being "too ambitious".
This reminds me of a conversation I overheard at a game store the other day. Apparently, this kid had borrowed a PSP game from his friend. The game had a firmware update on it that had failed to install properly. His PSP was absolutely toasted, and wouldn't even boot. The guy behind the counter was explaining to the kid's dad that it would cost almost as much as a new PSP to have Sony fix it.
I wonder how many PS3's will go the Way of the Brick(TM)?
You do realize that UMD Movies have been effectively discontinued, don't you?
Story: Sony PSP UMD movie sales not so hot
Not really. iTunes television is taking off now. The technology may not have fully emerged yet, but it is being adopted by the public at an incredible rate. (I actually submitted a story about how "The Office" was saved from cancellation by the iTunes sales. Predictably, it was rejected.) Apples does not provide exact numbers on their TV and movie sales, but it's a pretty good bet that iTunes growth is outpacing Bluray and HDDVD adoption. Given that it took about 5 years for DVDs to replace VHS tapes, it wouldn't surprise me at all if online downloads end up being the unexpected competitor in this round.
You have to ship back enough materials to create a sizable increase in the Earth's diameter. (Basically, buring the current surface and building on top.) That's not only impractical, it's pointless. If we're shipping that much material around, we'd have a massive outer-space presence that would need those materials just as much as Earth would.
To give you an idea of how much mass would be required, the Earth is ~5.98 x 10^24 kg in mass. A 1% increase in the Earth's mass would be 5.98 x 10^22 kg (59,800,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg) or approximately 59.8 yottagrams. If we could ship that much material to Earth, we'd have long ago managed to build ourselves a rather spacious interstellar ark.
This is true. However, most of your costs are upfront. Just like on Earth, you have to spend the money to tool up, ship in the equipment, and begin production. Also just like on Earth, your costs will drop substantially the longer the facilities operate. They'll also increase in efficiency as the workers better understand the job they're doing.
I think you're blowing this cost out of proportion. A Space Shuttle launch today costs about 200 to 500 million, and can only carry about 25 tonnes of material into orbit. (Give or take depending on the height and inclination.) Launching large amounts of material would be incredibly expensive on an ongoing basis. In comparison, you'd have one-time costs associated launching a mining facility, then much smaller costs for ongoing staffing and maintenance.
There is no way that constantly shipping manufactured materials from the bottom of Earth's gravity well is going to be less expensive in the long term. Yes, the short term costs would be higher for space mining, but it's not like the same isn't true for new mining and manufacturing facilities here on Earth.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious: Using an asteroid landing as a precusror to a mining mission.
If NASA's plans go forward, they're going to need a space infrastructure. Eventually, that will mean space-based manufacturing. For manufacturing, you need raw materials. Those raw materials are expensive to lift from Earth's gravity well. Ergo, the best solution is to mine them from much smaller gravity wells where the cost of transport is comparitively minimal.
The key issue that an mission to an asteroid would need to resolve is the actual composition and concentration of valuable ores. Scientists currently have a lot of educated guesses, but we won't know for sure until a geologist makes a proper survey.
The real action is going to be on Deimos and Mars, in that order.
At one of the jobs I worked at, we had a fellow who's sole role was to maintain the Version Control system, and manage the releases directly from that system. He was incredibly good at his job, to the point of politely beating the matter out of programmers who didn't comply. So if you just happened to forget to tag something for release (or otherwise tagged something that shouldn't have gone), he'd be over to let you know that you broke the build AND (here's the important part) work with you to get it resolved.
:-/
Honestly, having the guy around was the best thing that ever happened to our code tree. Suddenly, we developers didn't have to worry about handling all the minutia related to a test or production build, we didn't have to worry about pruning the tree, and we knew someone was watching our backs in case we screwed up. I know that my description probably sounds horrible, but it was honestly great! The whole process got a lot smoother after he came on board.
I think the key reason why it worked was because most developers wanted to follow good version control procedures; they just didn't have the spare bandwidth to manage it. By centralizing the handling, it offloaded a great deal of that duty and made everyone's lives easier. It also made clear the people who were intentionally keeping source control a few versions behind for "job security".
I had one. Its key failing was that it was a 3D input device for a 2D system. Which is not very useful when you think about it.
Mattel & Nintendo made a big deal about how you could actually turn the steering wheel in Rad Racer, or punch in Punch Out. While I never tried Punch Out, the former wasn't actually true. The Power Glove had a "center" that you calibrated for. Any time you moved your hand away from the virtual center, your character/car moved. To run/jump/accelerate you flexed your fingers instead of pressing buttons.
The result was that you could clench your fist in Rad Racer, and pretend like you were turning a steering wheel. In reality, you were just moving to each side of the virtual center. The rotation of your hand played almost no role. (Even though the glove could detect it!) Most other games were finger twitching frenzies. My siblings and I always ended up using the joypad on the top of the glove because we couldn't execute some tricky maneuver.
Nope. All it really says is: "We (the author(s)) are REALLY, REALLY, REALLY excited about the PS3. Here's some boilerplate stuff about the Wii. See how the PS3 is cool?"
I'm glad they're excited, but they should probably be more upfront about it rather than pretending to have journalistic objectivity. A better solution might be to pit a couple different authors (with two different opinions) against each other. It would make for a more interesting read, at least.
Here's the kicker:
Um, ok.
* On my part, anyway
** The amperstand after "games" is really there. It's not an HTML glitch.
In fact, the most successful large scale projects always seem to be grown out of combinations of smaller architectures rather than a single massive architecture. Look at the Internet for an example. The protocol was architected. The routing design was architected. The information delivery systems were architected. The network itself? Grown with tender loving care, and Lots'o'peering agreements.
If you want to solve an issue like modernizing Hospital IT, start small and work your way up. Design each technology independently, but not monolithically. Keep an eye toward standards rather than specific implementations. (Standards will allow you to plug in a few competing implementations, giving you "best of breed" options.) Then use those technologies to build out a few test sites. Work out the kinks, then start deploying at a few more sites. Keep doing that, and the economics of scale will begin to take hold. (i.e. The more you do of something, the less expensive it gets to do it.) With any luck, the project will get done within a reasonable budget and timeline.
Never mind what I just said. There's your answer right there.
s/peace treaty/cease fire/g
Sorry, it's getting late.
You're confusing Korea and Vietnam. We had an exit strategy in Korea: Blaze a trail into the north and take it over. Just because the war ended in a stalemate and peace treaty doesn't mean that we weren't fighting to win.
Now Vietnam on the other hand...
Makes sense. In particular, thanks for doing the math. It's always easier to understand when there are some hard numbers behind it.
:)
Generally, what you said has been my understanding as well. However, I keep going back and forth on it because of all the low-powered cutting lasers on the market. But I suppose you'd be more likely to give yourself a nasty burn than actually cut straight through a person.
Anywho, thanks for your help!
I only asked about a few watts, not a military grade, anti-tank weapon. :)
Unfortunately, I don't know enough details about laser weaponry. (Thus my question.) For example, how does the wavelength affect the penetration of the beam? Can the diameter be adjusted to do more damage? How much power is required to actually drill the target rather than totally cauterizing the wound you create? Would spinning the laser help, or would the laser fail to deliver enough power before it's moved off to a cooler spot?
Honestly speaking, a laptop battery could deliver about 20 watts of continuous power for an hour or two. From what I understand, that's a lot of firepower for a cutting laser. It won't outright destroy the target (you're still only delivering a maximum of 20 watts!), but it may allow for precision destruction. Remember, a sniper has to lead his target with a normal weapon. A laser has the advantage of What You See Is What You Kill (WYSIWYK!). The distances involved in most sniping exercises are inconsequential to laser weapons.
Um. You do know that HD-DVD uses a Blue-Violet Laser, just like the Blu-Ray, right? In fact, it's pretty much the same laser.
Scratch that. There are two videos of blue lasers. Though I can't say if they're the same lasers as advertised in the article.
While they don't have any of the blue laser yet, the Wicked Laser Videos show off their other high-powered products. These things are powerful enough to light a match, blow up a balloon, burn a hole in your drywall, and other fun party tricks. What's cool about it, though, is that the laser is powerful enough to make the backscatter visible. i.e. You can see the beam!
It's enough to make one wonder: How feasible is a handheld laser weapon? (Say, a few watts?) I realize that the key issue is that the laser does very little damage as it passes through an object. (Actually, it leaves a hole the diameter of the beam. Not very large.) However, I could see the laser rotating through a small arc during fire. That would at least carve out a centimeter or two from the target...
I wasn't aware that Star Fox, Mario Party, Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, and F-Zero had been ported?
If you were paying attention, I already mentioned that the FCC is regulating the matter. My point is not one of complete deregulation, but one of oversight already being in place. The reason why the ISPs are attempting to twist the anti-Net Neutrality as if it were Net Neutrality (See? Consumer Bill of Rights!) is because they want to get rid of the FCC oversight. They can only do that if a new law gets passed.
On the other hand, if an actual Net Neutrality law gets passed, it will either kill time-sensitive services outright (bye, bye VoIP) or have so many loopholes that the law would be effectively impotent.