So we hook a game that learns from the player up to a deathmatch with a game that teaches the player. If the game can teach the player, maybe it can actually play the game. We set the two AIs against each other.
Whichever one wins most gets to fight for the users.
It's not just the big studios. Smaller non-profit festivals are reaping huge exposure and benefits from allying with BitTorrent.
Every year for the past seven years, there's a film making festival called the Duke City Shootout in Albuquerque NM. The idea is that writers from all over the country submit a 10-12 page script, seven of the best get picked out, and the Shootout brings them to Albuquerque to help the writers film their scripts.
No, not pro writers. Guys like you and me. (Well, depending on who you are, it might just be me.)
Respected professionals in the film world (read: Morgan Freeman) are heavily involved behind the scenes, and some of them mentor the crews on the set. One week of madness later, you've got yourself seven brand new indie success stories and a whole lot of exhausted, happy people.
The Duke City Shootout is super cool, and a great place to get your hands on new and interesting video gear. It's literally top of the line digital tech. Apple, BitTorrent, Intel, and a host of other companies are footing the bill so that they can show what can be done by dedicated, creative amateurs with a little guidance and the right toys.
BitTorrent is one of the sponsors this year. They're going to distribute the winning films for free, and they've even got a backload of winners from years past. Admittedly it's not like downloading a complete cinematic experience -- the Duke City Shootout download will, for example, finish the day you start it.
Groupwise has a nice feature for dealing with attachments that can be set in the preferences: to use the built-in viewer, which is independent of Office. You can see the contents but it doesn't execute any code. IIRC, it's under Tools > Options > General -- look for the radio buttons marked "Default Attachment Behavior" (or something) and set it to View, not Open.
This was such a useful setting that I made it one of the first things I demonstrated to users during the open monthy training sessions. They loved it, and nobody ever suspected it was there or what it was good for.
I have no idea if Outlook has anything similar that's not so tied into the Office renderer that it would be indistinguishable. I forget the name of the technology, but it's awesome. It has just about every document type filter known to man. I've opened CAD schematics with it. No joke.
Say what you like about GroupWise, but I remember during my helpdesk years that every day a new email virus exploit was announced, I felt a little better about things. I also knew who I was going to get calls from that day: the five people on campus who simply would not give up Outlook.
One skill on the formal writing front that definitely needs improvement is the ability in writing to selectively group common ideas while maintaining logical breakpoints between them.
In other words: know when to start a new paragraph. It immeasurably improves readability. Take a breath, dude.
The question of whether we can as humans truly imagine "nothing" is debatable. However, we can *model* it: 0.
Douglas Adams said that interstellar distances don't fit within the human imagination. He might have been right, but we can model those too: light-years.
We don't have to imagine things in all their dimension and complexity simultaniously in order to model them. Models are where the science lives.
If you're fortunate enough to have a gaming shop in your town, go there. Chances are that there will be a billboard and a registry of gaming clubs in the area.
Brick and mortar may be so very twentieth century as far as retail goes, but as beacons for hobbyists who want to find their community, they can't be beat.
Another good place to look: the local university will probably have a gamers' group.
Just insisting that swords actually hit a vulnerable point with enough force to cause damage makes play too hard. Guns, yes; we can do guns. (Basic problem of video games: players can shoot well and move adequately; little else can be done well through a game pad or keyboard.)
The lightsaber play in Jedi Academy left me feeling like I really had years of jedi training. In combat the sabers would clash in the right spots, the swings would go the right way and turn on a dime if I wanted them to, the body movements were believable . . . it was an awesome simulation of a totally ludicrous method of swordplay. The top of the blade left glowing furrows in the walls and floors if a swing happened to go there. And there were three distinct styles of fighting, to boot!
Of course, it involved that trickiest of interfaces, the mouse. I don't know how the game would have played on a game pad. Maybe okay with an analog stick.
It's a balance of fantasy and believability. Consistent -- read: "realistic" -- physics is old hat. What makes or breaks an engine is having a game interface that makes that physics available to the player.
It might just mean that there's little impetus to go out and buy a role playing manual. Or even to purchase the PDF. No sale, no statistic.
One factor might be supply and demand. There are a million and one zero cost systems out there, not to mention the wealth of OGL suppliments and modifications. Why spend $90 on the Core Three Books when you can get what you need for a third of the cost or less with a similar, lesser known system?
Another factor might be the shift toward more collaborative storytelling with less mechanics, like FUDGE, FATE, or RISUS. These games are *fun* and involve significantly less algebra to play than any D&D edition I can think of. They're also much faster to learn, in part because they require a creative--rather than encyclopedic--understanding of how the game works.
<plug> Anyone interested in pen and paper role playing might also enjoy my podcast, Dice Make Bonk. </plug>
Or hey, how about this: let's cut out the middleman.
ATTENTION MARKETERS: I am more than happy to send you a copy of my tax return as part of a special, direct-to-you, promotional offer. Because of market instabilities, the time is right to get onboard this exciting opportunity to buy a copy of my tax return.
Current price estimates are in the $10-$200 range, but I personally guarantee that will be a small amount larger than whatever number happens to go into Box 12 of the 1040EZ form.
Couldn't be simpler. Don't delay! Call before 11:59 pm, April 15th, 2006. Checks, money orders, and Paypal are all accepted.
The sun is one astronomical unit away. (150 Million kilometers) 4280 years of walking. You'd have to have started walking about the time the first pyramid was built to get there by today.
Your estimate appears 50% short. You fail to take into account that in order to safely walk to the Sun, especially at closer distances, you'd have to walk only at night.
Okay, so my major problem with MMORPGs isn't with the clickity-click of combat. Heck, it's not even with the thin verneer of "role playing" that floods the chat channels.
It's that there's almost nothing else.
All the wacky skills that don't have to do with combat, healing, or trap discovery? Pretty much gone.
What about the weird ones like Jump and Climb that let you really motor around the terrain in bizarre ways? How about Forgery or Disguise, for getting past those pesky guards? What about a Balance check for stealing across a tightrope held precariously across the chasm by the sharp steel of my grappling hook as part of the intricate plan I worked on for three months to steal the royalty's jewels right out from under their noses?
D&D, the archetypal tabletop role playing game, has its roots in being *imaginative*, and one expression of that lays in finding creative ways through situations. When playing with humans, this is not a problem; humans can improvise, so the DM can make a judgement call on whether some creative action is plausable or not.
Computers, however, excel at running scripts and never deviating from them. I can't be creative in a MMORPG unless I can change the script. The only one I've heard of that really encourages that sort of on-the-fly redefinition is Second Life, but here's the other thing: I can't change the script intuitively, like, on a whim. Instead, I have to learn the freaking scripting language.
Not being Neo, I'm stuck in the role playing world as programmed. And that blows. I fight, or I select from a few pre-programmed conversation trees, or I get nowhere.
Like WOPR, I've decided the only way to win is to not play the game.
Uh . . . considering what the New Voyages folks have been able to crank together on their own, and comparing that the what Smith has already proven he *can* do on his own, and then taking into account that the guy basically wrote his own franchise and is, in all honesty, sitting rather pretty . . .
I don't think Smith needs to ask permission. He can, I'm sure, do an original series fan production *at least* as well as the New Voyages crew. I can dig that he'd like to get paid for it, but the NV crew *can't* make money off of their work, and nonetheless, they rock at it.
Let him ((or any other big-name-of-the-moment) put up his own money and do it for love. That's what the fans do, and they keep the show alive.
Smith can buy a lot of extra garages to use for sets, is all I'm saying.
Ok, so draw the distincton between teaching people what they can usefully know vs. enforcing a correct system administration policy.
The problem with the "teach them nothing" idea is that unless you blindfold them and stuff their ears with cotton every moment of their lives -- and force the enterprising Helen Kellers of the world to wear boxing gloves -- the user will somewhere, at some time, pick up something that they'll want to try.
Consider them contaminated at that point.
In the case of a little dangerous knowledge, the only cure is a lot more *useful* knowledge. Once they know how to break it, you'll have to teach them either why breaking it is a bad idea, or how to fix it when they break it.
I look at my attempts to educate users from the standpoint of being a user myself. No, not in the computer world. I'm talking about in the KITCHEN. Alton Brown is the most influencial reason why I can boil water without burning it, and my cuisine, though not fancy, has improved in taste dramatically since I began to understand how food chemistry works and why food can taste good.
Slashdot Mirror
So we hook a game that learns from the player up to a deathmatch with a game that teaches the player. If the game can teach the player, maybe it can actually play the game. We set the two AIs against each other.
Whichever one wins most gets to fight for the users.
I think we can delay worrying on that front. Microsoft doesn't even have a unified WinXP platform. There's home, professional, lite . . .
See the Duke City Shootout for exactly the scenario you describe.
Yeah. I'm shillin'. Oh well.
It's not just the big studios. Smaller non-profit festivals are reaping huge exposure and benefits from allying with BitTorrent.
Every year for the past seven years, there's a film making festival called the Duke City Shootout in Albuquerque NM. The idea is that writers from all over the country submit a 10-12 page script, seven of the best get picked out, and the Shootout brings them to Albuquerque to help the writers film their scripts.
No, not pro writers. Guys like you and me. (Well, depending on who you are, it might just be me.)
Respected professionals in the film world (read: Morgan Freeman) are heavily involved behind the scenes, and some of them mentor the crews on the set. One week of madness later, you've got yourself seven brand new indie success stories and a whole lot of exhausted, happy people.
The Duke City Shootout is super cool, and a great place to get your hands on new and interesting video gear. It's literally top of the line digital tech. Apple, BitTorrent, Intel, and a host of other companies are footing the bill so that they can show what can be done by dedicated, creative amateurs with a little guidance and the right toys.
BitTorrent is one of the sponsors this year. They're going to distribute the winning films for free, and they've even got a backload of winners from years past. Admittedly it's not like downloading a complete cinematic experience -- the Duke City Shootout download will, for example, finish the day you start it.
Check it out for yourself: Duke City Shootout home site, and the BitTorrent host for the last year's winners.
</shill>
A quick Google search for "SRAID" shows only 1 out of the top 10 are related to computers and RAID. The other 9 appear to be some word in gaelic.
It's "street" in Irish. Pronounced something like "ssrawd."
It's not ready for Grandma to use . . .
Get her to talk to Joe Six-Pack. I got him set up yesterday.
The authorities have been notified and your ISP is under watch. Expect the SWAT team just as soon as we figure out the last number of your IP address.
Groupwise has a nice feature for dealing with attachments that can be set in the preferences: to use the built-in viewer, which is independent of Office. You can see the contents but it doesn't execute any code. IIRC, it's under Tools > Options > General -- look for the radio buttons marked "Default Attachment Behavior" (or something) and set it to View, not Open.
This was such a useful setting that I made it one of the first things I demonstrated to users during the open monthy training sessions. They loved it, and nobody ever suspected it was there or what it was good for.
I have no idea if Outlook has anything similar that's not so tied into the Office renderer that it would be indistinguishable. I forget the name of the technology, but it's awesome. It has just about every document type filter known to man. I've opened CAD schematics with it. No joke.
Say what you like about GroupWise, but I remember during my helpdesk years that every day a new email virus exploit was announced, I felt a little better about things. I also knew who I was going to get calls from that day: the five people on campus who simply would not give up Outlook.
I think instead of "kick" you mean "head butt."
One skill on the formal writing front that definitely needs improvement is the ability in writing to selectively group common ideas while maintaining logical breakpoints between them.
In other words: know when to start a new paragraph. It immeasurably improves readability. Take a breath, dude.
The question of whether we can as humans truly imagine "nothing" is debatable. However, we can *model* it: 0.
Douglas Adams said that interstellar distances don't fit within the human imagination. He might have been right, but we can model those too: light-years.
We don't have to imagine things in all their dimension and complexity simultaniously in order to model them. Models are where the science lives.
If you're fortunate enough to have a gaming shop in your town, go there. Chances are that there will be a billboard and a registry of gaming clubs in the area.
Brick and mortar may be so very twentieth century as far as retail goes, but as beacons for hobbyists who want to find their community, they can't be beat.
Another good place to look: the local university will probably have a gamers' group.
I don't know about pipeweed, but the giant flaming CBS logo on top of that one tower was, I thought, pretty promenant.
Does closed source encourage vulnerabilities?
Just insisting that swords actually hit a vulnerable point with enough force to cause damage makes play too hard. Guns, yes; we can do guns. (Basic problem of video games: players can shoot well and move adequately; little else can be done well through a game pad or keyboard.)
The lightsaber play in Jedi Academy left me feeling like I really had years of jedi training. In combat the sabers would clash in the right spots, the swings would go the right way and turn on a dime if I wanted them to, the body movements were believable . . . it was an awesome simulation of a totally ludicrous method of swordplay. The top of the blade left glowing furrows in the walls and floors if a swing happened to go there. And there were three distinct styles of fighting, to boot!
Of course, it involved that trickiest of interfaces, the mouse. I don't know how the game would have played on a game pad. Maybe okay with an analog stick.
It's a balance of fantasy and believability. Consistent -- read: "realistic" -- physics is old hat. What makes or breaks an engine is having a game interface that makes that physics available to the player.
It might just mean that there's little impetus to go out and buy a role playing manual. Or even to purchase the PDF. No sale, no statistic.
One factor might be supply and demand. There are a million and one zero cost systems out there, not to mention the wealth of OGL suppliments and modifications. Why spend $90 on the Core Three Books when you can get what you need for a third of the cost or less with a similar, lesser known system?
Another factor might be the shift toward more collaborative storytelling with less mechanics, like FUDGE, FATE, or RISUS. These games are *fun* and involve significantly less algebra to play than any D&D edition I can think of. They're also much faster to learn, in part because they require a creative--rather than encyclopedic--understanding of how the game works.
<plug>
Anyone interested in pen and paper role playing might also enjoy my podcast, Dice Make Bonk.
</plug>
Or hey, how about this: let's cut out the middleman.
ATTENTION MARKETERS: I am more than happy to send you a copy of my tax return as part of a special, direct-to-you, promotional offer. Because of market instabilities, the time is right to get onboard this exciting opportunity to buy a copy of my tax return.
Current price estimates are in the $10-$200 range, but I personally guarantee that will be a small amount larger than whatever number happens to go into Box 12 of the 1040EZ form.
Couldn't be simpler. Don't delay! Call before 11:59 pm, April 15th, 2006. Checks, money orders, and Paypal are all accepted.
The sun is one astronomical unit away. (150 Million kilometers) 4280 years of walking. You'd have to have started walking about the time the first pyramid was built to get there by today.
Your estimate appears 50% short. You fail to take into account that in order to safely walk to the Sun, especially at closer distances, you'd have to walk only at night.
Okay, so my major problem with MMORPGs isn't with the clickity-click of combat. Heck, it's not even with the thin verneer of "role playing" that floods the chat channels.
It's that there's almost nothing else.
All the wacky skills that don't have to do with combat, healing, or trap discovery? Pretty much gone.
What about the weird ones like Jump and Climb that let you really motor around the terrain in bizarre ways? How about Forgery or Disguise, for getting past those pesky guards? What about a Balance check for stealing across a tightrope held precariously across the chasm by the sharp steel of my grappling hook as part of the intricate plan I worked on for three months to steal the royalty's jewels right out from under their noses?
D&D, the archetypal tabletop role playing game, has its roots in being *imaginative*, and one expression of that lays in finding creative ways through situations. When playing with humans, this is not a problem; humans can improvise, so the DM can make a judgement call on whether some creative action is plausable or not.
Computers, however, excel at running scripts and never deviating from them. I can't be creative in a MMORPG unless I can change the script. The only one I've heard of that really encourages that sort of on-the-fly redefinition is Second Life, but here's the other thing: I can't change the script intuitively, like, on a whim. Instead, I have to learn the freaking scripting language.
Not being Neo, I'm stuck in the role playing world as programmed. And that blows. I fight, or I select from a few pre-programmed conversation trees, or I get nowhere.
Like WOPR, I've decided the only way to win is to not play the game.
In Soviet Russia, copy-protection cracks YOU!
I . . . now consider anything before Win2k to be a toy OS.
Funny: I say the same thing, except about Vista.
When this story gets duped, I'll be looking for this exact same comment.
And my response to it.
Depends. . . What time is it?
.
.
.
I think I just sprained my own brain with that (admittedly lousy) joke.
Uh . . . considering what the New Voyages folks have been able to crank together on their own, and comparing that the what Smith has already proven he *can* do on his own, and then taking into account that the guy basically wrote his own franchise and is, in all honesty, sitting rather pretty . . .
I don't think Smith needs to ask permission. He can, I'm sure, do an original series fan production *at least* as well as the New Voyages crew. I can dig that he'd like to get paid for it, but the NV crew *can't* make money off of their work, and nonetheless, they rock at it.
Let him ((or any other big-name-of-the-moment) put up his own money and do it for love. That's what the fans do, and they keep the show alive.
Smith can buy a lot of extra garages to use for sets, is all I'm saying.
Ok, so draw the distincton between teaching people what they can usefully know vs. enforcing a correct system administration policy.
The problem with the "teach them nothing" idea is that unless you blindfold them and stuff their ears with cotton every moment of their lives -- and force the enterprising Helen Kellers of the world to wear boxing gloves -- the user will somewhere, at some time, pick up something that they'll want to try.
Consider them contaminated at that point.
In the case of a little dangerous knowledge, the only cure is a lot more *useful* knowledge. Once they know how to break it, you'll have to teach them either why breaking it is a bad idea, or how to fix it when they break it.
I look at my attempts to educate users from the standpoint of being a user myself. No, not in the computer world. I'm talking about in the KITCHEN. Alton Brown is the most influencial reason why I can boil water without burning it, and my cuisine, though not fancy, has improved in taste dramatically since I began to understand how food chemistry works and why food can taste good.