Can't see this really being 'Myst' themed. I mean the point there was to advance through a landscape by solving puzzles.
Now, the designers of Myst and Riven have done a lot to create a very cohesive story and universe, but I'm going to be very sorely dissapointed if this is another 'kill the monster/go on quest' game, merely set in that universe.
Jonathan Shapiro, who teaches computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said: "There is data that when the customer can inspect the code the vendor is more responsive. . . . Microsoft is in a very weak position to make this argument. Whose software is the largest, most consistent source of security flaws? It's Microsoft."
As ye sew, so shall ye reap, I guess.
This article was so full of typical Microsoft FUD, but it hit one or two points very clearly:
The Gub'ment is savin' your tax dollers by usin' that open source Linux thingy!
Re:Implications for Radio Astronomy. . .
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Unlimited Airwaves
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· Score: 5, Interesting
As an aside: the Internet should have made the TelCos obsolete years ago; but it hasn't happened yet. I wouldn't hold my breath on newer radio technology making old radio obsolete anytime in the next ten years, at least.
Ah, but it has. Something you don't see in the U.S., but something you do see going on in the rest of the world is internet telephony and VoIP services springing up left and right. The Telcos have been and are currently fighting tooth and nail to keep internet telephony and similar services out of reach in the U.S. just so they don't come unglued.
You think the current hype about the record industry fighting MP3's is big? Wait until it's the baby Bells fighting against the first 'big' internet telephony service available in the U.S.. The amount of legislation bought and sold in that time will make laws like the DMCA look reasonable.
TriggerHappy is a troll.
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· Score: 2
Yes, the server space and bandwidth are mine. These are finite items, requiring either physical parts or service to maintain. Those are property. The information... the text, images, and everything else are available to anyone else who comes there.
Would you like to download any of the images I've created? I put a copyright notice on them so that people will not try to use them for for-profit works without first contacting me, but you're welcome to download the image, use it in almost any way you see fit and spread it to all your friends? Feel free!
Re:Leveraging what business, exactly?
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Fair IP Laws?
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· Score: 2
No, but then you already admitted that you could never sell your writing. Would you still give it away if you could sell it for a handsome sum of money?
I do sell writing. Rather, I'm paid for information I write for my company's website which is... get this... given away in order to encourage individuals to buy my company's services!
But is this the fault of the labels or the performer? Perhaps he's just not that good a performer. Or perhaps he's not that good at handling the business end of the job.
Hmm... You've got a lower slashdot ID than mine, so I don't *think* you're a music industry astroturfer.
If you don't buy what I'm saying, then, read the speech Courtney Love, arguably one of the 'big' names, gave to congress on this very matter:
Re:Leveraging what business, exactly?
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· Score: 2
Advantages to whom? Oh right, to people who want the fruits of other people's labour for free. So, being the kind of guy who demands the fruits of other people's labour for free, I guess you always walk out of restaurants without paying the bill too, huh?
Information is not equal to property.
I like giving information away. It's a fun hobby. I write almost every day. Rather than selling my writing, I write about things that I could never sell and give that writing to whomever comes to my website. Are you calling my readers criminals?
I'm sorry, but this is just f***ing nuts. Almost all musicians or writers worth their salt do nothing but make music or write. That's why they're so good, and that's why you want to listen to and read their stuff. So what other "business" do they have to leverage? Selling T-shirts? This might be funny if it weren't so stupid.
Unfortuneately, that's *exactly* the way most bands make their money. Sure you have the occasional artist who has great record sales and manages to come out on top after they're anally raped by their label, but the great majority of smaller performers make their money by a) selling merchandise such as t-shirts and b) selling concert tickets. Even then, they may not break even.
IP laws do not work in this day and age. They have to be scrapped, and anyone who tells you differently has already deceived themselve, buying into the flawed IP mythos created by media companies.
Re:The concept of intellectual property has got to
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· Score: 2
If you outlaw intellectual property, then there is very little incentive to share ideas with others.
And this is different what what's happening right now, how?
The idea behind a patent is that anyone can license the information that a patent protects, right? Why then do pharmeceutical companies refuse to license drugs to third-world countries? (Don't tell me that its because those countries can't afford them. If you don't lower your price to the maximum limit a customer can afford, then you're losing a sale.)
Same way with the music industry. The current licensing schema with DRM and the recent webcasting descision is not designed to make the information in the form of music shareable and profitable. It is designed to keep the music firmly in the hands of the record industry so that they have unquestionable control over it.
That's what it boils down to really. Anyone who follows the current IP debates will readily agree. It's not about money, or making information available. It's about control and power, plain and simple.
The idea of intellectual property laws is to encourage sharing of ideas by granting exclusivity to the creator for a limited amount of time. I believe that idea has been corrupted by corporate interests, but I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bath water.
Information is power. I beleive very firmly that as long as any method exists for the rich and powerful to influence laws, that they will do their best to 'extend' laws that make information artificially scarce in order to increase their own powers.
This is not a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but amputating the baby's infected, cancerous limb in order to save its life.
The concept of intellectual property has got to go
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· Score: 5, Insightful
In the first place, it was created to protect individuals against corporations. Now it's used by corporations to take advantage of individuals. There are just too many advantages to having no restriction on the flow of information. As the poster put it 'leveraging other business' should be the only way people who make information, be it text, code, music, etc... make money. It's the way I and everyone I work with makes money.
It's also the way I spend a great deal of my free time.
Patents, copyrights, and 'intellectual property' has got to go. If not, then when we, as a society, manage to convert fully to a non-scarcity based economy, those who have the ownership rights to information will be kings and everyone else will be paupers.
I wrote an essay for my website about this subject some time back. You can find it here:
The one exception that I would make to getting rid of all IP laws is the use of Trademarks. These are less in the way of making a piece of information which *should* be able to be copied freely uncopiable, but is a lot more about an individual or a business uniquely identifying themselves.
Other than that, IP law has got to go. End of story.
"If this is correct, it will radically change our view of the Universe. We have to be cautious but it could be revolutionary. We have seen something in our data - but is it what we think?"
I like it when scientists talk about their theories in this manner. On one hand you have a whole body of researchers, scientists, and journals who are so afraid to rock the status quo that they refuse to research (or publish) controversial information. On the other, you have scientists and/or crackpots who are so paranoid and skittish towards working within the peer reveiw system that we'll probably never gain access to their research, some of which may be quite important and revolutionary.
(I quit my physics major a year in and switched to CS. At what point do 'paranoia' and 'ego-building' become required courses?)
I think this is a nice middle ground. These guys have announced a neat finding, with the caveat that they are still in a thourough 'error-checking' mode and are looking for problems with their own research and are implicitly inviting others to do the same.
Around here, it's been noted that the temperature differential of the city causes some storms to be deflected slightly as they go past.
I live in Amarillo, TX. While we're certainly nowhere near the size of NYC, we do have an interesting condition that exaggerates this effect.
Amarillo (pop ~= 300k), you must understand, is an island of glass, concrete, and asphalt surrounded by nothing but flat prarie and even flatter pasture for a distance of at least 150 miles in any direction. The only major body of water any where near the city is more than 50 miles away.
Therefore, it is noticably hotter and windier inside the city than outside. While we do have severe weather being on the lower end of tornado alley, it tends to 'part' around the city. The last damaging tornado we had (You may have seen it on CNN since it killed a couple people) was listed as striking 'near' Amarillo. What really happened was that the tornado ran through the tiny burg of Happy, TX, which is very nearly forty miles to our south. Then, when it started aproaching the city of Amarillo, it veered off and started heading Southeast rather than Northeast. The bulk of the storm itself did the same thing... Head northeast until it came up against Amarillo, and then push off to the southeasth.
This is like rooting for The Empire to wipe out The Borg...
Sony isn't quite as blatantly evil as Microsoft, IMHO, but they are one of the major forces behind both the RIAA and the MPAA. When you buy a Playstation, you're contributing to a pool that eventually helps to lobby for laws like the DMCA and SCSSA
We Americans are always confused by World Cup Soccer. We know we want to be the best at it, but, on the whole, we don't really get it. No sport in the U.S. really has the near-universal draw that Soccer seems to have everywhere else in the world.
Even the other pro sports like American Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey have their rabid fans, but nothing like the stereotypical rioting mobs that we associate with British Soccer. In fact, as those sports become more and more corporate, they become less and less popular.
Starwars is the closest thing we have to that kind of draw. LOTR came close, but even with the negative impression a lot of fans left Episode 1 with, I haven't seen the kind of rabid dedication and fandom that Episode 2 is generating anywhere else.
The article stated that Yahoo! received litterally thousands of warrants in the course of a year. This is probably not an indication of any more crimes being committed using Yahoo's services, but is instead a reflection of the greater power LEO's have to violate individual's privacy, especially in the wake of the Patriot act.
The problem here is not that there are going to be police officers in a data center around the clock carrying out warrants. It's that there are that many warrants issued in the first place.
I want one o' them old-skool Cyclops figures...
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· Score: 2
Sweetness...
These remind me of the 'There can't possibly be a Santa Clause because' document. Boils down to the fact that Santa, if he really did visit all the little good, Christian boys and girls would go through reindeer at an alarming rate. He'd lose them to explosions caused by atmospheric friction energy greater than a reentry burn.
While the same size, the little light I have is probably much simpler than the one advertised at ThinkGeek. I'm guessing that it's total cost of production was around $3.00US
About a year ago, I got a kitsch keychain from a vendor who was trying to sell software to my company. We didn't purchase the software, but I have held onto that keychain.
Let me describe it. It's oval in shape, about 3cm long by about 2cm across and 1 cm thick. Inside the body of the keychain, which is clear vinyl, you can see the mechanism that makes it so neat, which is a small watch-type battery, a very small resistor, and one of the newer white LED's. The clear plastic vinyl is red, so when you squeze the thing, it's light is very slightly pink.
Now, here's the thing that makes me keep this around. This little piece of what I would othewise call 'crap' is brighter than my 'keychain-size' Mag Light! I can easily read by or do computer maintenance with this toy. If I had five or six of them, I could reasonably light a room for however long the batteries lasted.
White LED's are the wave of the future, IMHO. They're cheap in terms of production and electricity cost. I also understand that they're significantly easier on the environment than incandescent bulbs or flourescent tubes. Unless you overload it with current, which I understand is very difficult since many come with tiny regulators in the form of attached IC's, they don't burn out, making replacement costs plummet.
It doesn't necessarily take physics to change a man's worldview:
The Cointoss Fractal
Get a largish sheet of paper, a coin or a d6, a felt-tip marker, and a tape measure.
Draw three dots, making any given shape of triangle. Pick any dot at random. This is your first point. Use the coin or a d6 to *randomly* decide between all three dots as a second point. Draw a new dot exactly half-way in between the two points. Use the dot you just drew as your new first point. Use the coin or a d6 to randomly select a new second point. Draw a dot exactly half-way between the two points. Wash, rinse, repeat.
After even a few hundred iterations, you'll begin to see a beautiful crystaline-like fractal pattern emerge. Even with the inherent innacuracy of this method, you can see the fractal down to the fourth or fifth iteration of the pattern before it breaks down. If you use even a slightly more accurate method, such as a C or Pascal program to draw colored dots on a computer screen, you can get 10 or 11 iterations, even with interger math rather than floating point.
Not to say anything about how funny it was, I had to chuckle at a few parts... but since when was the 'Holy Trinity' Warrior/Cleric/Wizard? I've always (for the past 3 years) heard Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter.
Chanters get the short end of the stick on uber-mob raids since, even if you have 50 people killing a dragon or a planar boss, you really only need one enchanter per force. Extra enchanters may be needed to mez ads, but once the enchanter tashes the dragon, that's pretty much it. Warriors/secondary tanks in front to taunt and maintain agro, clerics in the back to rotate complete heals on the main tank, and Wizzies in the middle to nuke. Rogues or other melee classes may get behind the mob, or on the side if they've got chaotic backstab, to dish out extra melee damage, but if you look at most uber-guilds application pages they want clerics, warriors, and wizards.
This is mostly the fault of Verant trying to keep casters from being independant and able to solo-kill mobs. They give every new monster incredible magical resists and tends of thousands of hitpoints which can only be worn down by either direct combat, or Wizard-only spells.
This has had some negative effects on the EQ community. Enchanters are often in short number in any given raid simply because they stack so poorly. Shamans are welcome, but as buffers and not as magical combat. Necros and Mages are only welcome sans-pet... what most consider their core abilities. Even then, Necros are considered mana batteries and are usually forced to work as backup mana resivoirs for Clerics who cheal the main tank. Druids and Beastmasters are all but unwelcome.
Now for 1-group hunting parties, you're right. Cleric, Warrior, Enchanter. Any group that doesn't have those three is considered 'substandard', even when they really aren't. As a matter of fact, Verant goes out of its way to try to keep all-caster groups from being viable. Recently, The Grey was changed so that caster-only 'Area Effect' groups couldn't be more effective than Holy Trinity groups. All the AE caster groups left, but there are better zones for MT groups, so all you see in The Grey now is Necros and Druids kiting mobs.
This is ultimately the reason that Verant is going to release a new game rather than continue adding expansions for EQ 1. There are just too many problems that 'break the game' for uber-guilds if fixed.
FYI, the PS2 version of EQ will be called 'Everquest Adventures' and is set 500 years before the timeline EQ 1 uses. EQ2 is set 200-300 years after the EQ1 timeline. None of the three games will have cross play.
The following is an excerpt from the first draft of the official press release from Sony Online Entertainment about Everquest II. As far as I can, the only differences between this excerpt and the original is that some 'fine print' information was deleted.
Key features and improvements include:
* A brand new 3D engine which takes full advantage of a wide variety of recent technological advances in 3D hardware/software such as per pixel lighting, dynamic environment mapping, and a fully programmable surface shader system
(Note: This new engine will not significantly improve load times, frame-rate induced lag, or this sense of 'immersion' that some players seem to think they're entitled to. 'Uber' players are encouraged to purchase dual-processor computer systems with professional grade GeForce 5, 6, or 7 graphics adapters. Support requests from players who do not meet 'reccommended system requirements' will not be addressed.
* More intuitive gameplay features appeal to both new and seasoned players
(Note: Our answer to all player problems will still be 'Get a group'.)
* New branching class structure that players define as they advance through the game
(Note: DOAC was kicking our asses.)
* Vast world of Norrath revisits familiar locations and introduces a variety of newly discovered areas in the Age of Destiny, a time period in the future of the original EverQuest.
(Note: The new graphics engine would not support older zones, so we're ditching the zones we don't like, and releasing later zones in 'expansions' that you already bought in order to play Everquest I)
* Increased character customization capabilities allow players to customize characters' faces, hair, and body types to create truly unique avatars
(Note: All female characters will come complete with 38DD sized breasts, just like you've grown to expect from SOE and Verant.)
* Deeper character development offering pacing options that cater to game players new to the role-playing genre as well as experienced role-players
(Note: Prepare to be ganked and r0xxor3d by l33t players who don't have time for role-playing. Role-playing will be strictly verboten in the 'high-end' game, just like in Everquest I)
* Non-confrontational means of character advancement that including a completely new tradesman character class
(Note: Just because you can craft decent trade items doesn't mean that the best items won't be available to anyone but the largest, most uber guilds.)
* Rideable mounts and vehicles to own and control, including horses and boats, make traversing the massive world of Norrath faster than before.
(Note: Horses will still suck. Boats will still be dangerous. They'll just suck more and be more dangerous than ever before to give you an authentic role-playing experience. Carts will carry a bonus of +5 suck and +5 danger for all players.)
* Norrathian real estate for players to call their own
(Note: We want to make sure that the uber guilds can monopolize all the best zones in the game because they're the players we really care about. Therefore, we're going to go ahead and make it possible for them to 'wall off' the best zones and dungeons from non-l33t players, just like in other games that allow houses.)
* All-new tradeskill/crafting system
(Note: See note about tradesmen class...)
* Completely new and tactically rich combat, spell and skill systems
(Note: Of course more of the combat will be centered around 'Holy Trinity' or 'Main-Tank' strategy which we like so much, so don't bother rolling anything but a Warrior, Cleric, or Wizard.)
* A completely revised and enhanced quest system
(Note: More broken quests, more ultra-rare spawns, and longer spawn times for even the lowest-level quest!)
* Dynamic world environment shaped by player events
(Note: Players will cast shadows on the world. They may also train mobs to new locations. Professional-grade Geforce 5, 6, or 7 graphics adapters are required for players to experience the full benefits of the 'player shaped world'.)
2. Why do so many Java developers get so upset when you point out how damn slow Java really is?
3. Why is it so much fun to pick on Java developers when there really are slower languages out there?
4. If you could make Java fast, would you voluntarily leave it slow just so we could give Java developers apoplexy by mentioning how fast even PHP is for certain tasks?
Seriously, the examination of the apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe is staggering. Humanity may never have the opportunity to leave our own galaxy because of it... but what if that energy was something that could be tapped?
Slashdot Mirror
Can't see this really being 'Myst' themed. I mean the point there was to advance through a landscape by solving puzzles.
Now, the designers of Myst and Riven have done a lot to create a very cohesive story and universe, but I'm going to be very sorely dissapointed if this is another 'kill the monster/go on quest' game, merely set in that universe.
How unoriginal!
I'll buy the first non WindowsCE handheld for which there is a good NES emulator.
I wanna play Mario3 on a handspring, dammit!
Quoth the article:
Jonathan Shapiro, who teaches computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said: "There is data that when the customer can inspect the code the vendor is more responsive. . . . Microsoft is in a very weak position to make this argument. Whose software is the largest, most consistent source of security flaws? It's Microsoft."
As ye sew, so shall ye reap, I guess.
This article was so full of typical Microsoft FUD, but it hit one or two points very clearly:
The Gub'ment is savin' your tax dollers by usin' that open source Linux thingy!
As an aside: the Internet should have made the TelCos obsolete years ago; but it hasn't happened yet. I wouldn't hold my breath on newer radio technology making old radio obsolete anytime in the next ten years, at least.
Ah, but it has. Something you don't see in the U.S., but something you do see going on in the rest of the world is internet telephony and VoIP services springing up left and right. The Telcos have been and are currently fighting tooth and nail to keep internet telephony and similar services out of reach in the U.S. just so they don't come unglued.
You think the current hype about the record industry fighting MP3's is big? Wait until it's the baby Bells fighting against the first 'big' internet telephony service available in the U.S.. The amount of legislation bought and sold in that time will make laws like the DMCA look reasonable.
Yes, the server space and bandwidth are mine. These are finite items, requiring either physical parts or service to maintain. Those are property. The information... the text, images, and everything else are available to anyone else who comes there.
Would you like to download any of the images I've created? I put a copyright notice on them so that people will not try to use them for for-profit works without first contacting me, but you're welcome to download the image, use it in almost any way you see fit and spread it to all your friends? Feel free!
No, but then you already admitted that you could never sell your writing. Would you still give it away if you could sell it for a handsome sum of money?
/ index.html
I do sell writing. Rather, I'm paid for information I write for my company's website which is... get this... given away in order to encourage individuals to buy my company's services!
But is this the fault of the labels or the performer? Perhaps he's just not that good a performer. Or perhaps he's not that good at handling the business end of the job.
Hmm... You've got a lower slashdot ID than mine, so I don't *think* you're a music industry astroturfer.
If you don't buy what I'm saying, then, read the speech Courtney Love, arguably one of the 'big' names, gave to congress on this very matter:
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love
Advantages to whom? Oh right, to people who want the fruits of other people's labour for free. So, being the kind of guy who demands the fruits of other people's labour for free, I guess you always walk out of restaurants without paying the bill too, huh?
Information is not equal to property.
I like giving information away. It's a fun hobby. I write almost every day. Rather than selling my writing, I write about things that I could never sell and give that writing to whomever comes to my website. Are you calling my readers criminals?
I'm sorry, but this is just f***ing nuts. Almost all musicians or writers worth their salt do nothing but make music or write. That's why they're so good, and that's why you want to listen to and read their stuff. So what other "business" do they have to leverage? Selling T-shirts? This might be funny if it weren't so stupid.
Unfortuneately, that's *exactly* the way most bands make their money. Sure you have the occasional artist who has great record sales and manages to come out on top after they're anally raped by their label, but the great majority of smaller performers make their money by a) selling merchandise such as t-shirts and b) selling concert tickets. Even then, they may not break even.
IP laws do not work in this day and age. They have to be scrapped, and anyone who tells you differently has already deceived themselve, buying into the flawed IP mythos created by media companies.
If you outlaw intellectual property, then there is very little incentive to share ideas with others.
And this is different what what's happening right now, how?
The idea behind a patent is that anyone can license the information that a patent protects, right? Why then do pharmeceutical companies refuse to license drugs to third-world countries? (Don't tell me that its because those countries can't afford them. If you don't lower your price to the maximum limit a customer can afford, then you're losing a sale.)
Same way with the music industry. The current licensing schema with DRM and the recent webcasting descision is not designed to make the information in the form of music shareable and profitable. It is designed to keep the music firmly in the hands of the record industry so that they have unquestionable control over it.
That's what it boils down to really. Anyone who follows the current IP debates will readily agree. It's not about money, or making information available. It's about control and power, plain and simple.
The idea of intellectual property laws is to encourage sharing of ideas by granting exclusivity to the creator for a limited amount of time. I believe that idea has been corrupted by corporate interests, but I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bath water.
Information is power. I beleive very firmly that as long as any method exists for the rich and powerful to influence laws, that they will do their best to 'extend' laws that make information artificially scarce in order to increase their own powers.
This is not a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but amputating the baby's infected, cancerous limb in order to save its life.
In the first place, it was created to protect individuals against corporations. Now it's used by corporations to take advantage of individuals. There are just too many advantages to having no restriction on the flow of information. As the poster put it 'leveraging other business' should be the only way people who make information, be it text, code, music, etc... make money. It's the way I and everyone I work with makes money.
It's also the way I spend a great deal of my free time.
Patents, copyrights, and 'intellectual property' has got to go. If not, then when we, as a society, manage to convert fully to a non-scarcity based economy, those who have the ownership rights to information will be kings and everyone else will be paupers.
I wrote an essay for my website about this subject some time back. You can find it here:
http://www.furinkan.net/display.php?pageid=75
The one exception that I would make to getting rid of all IP laws is the use of Trademarks. These are less in the way of making a piece of information which *should* be able to be copied freely uncopiable, but is a lot more about an individual or a business uniquely identifying themselves.
Other than that, IP law has got to go. End of story.
Quoth the article:
"If this is correct, it will radically change our view of the Universe. We have to be cautious but it could be revolutionary. We have seen something in our data - but is it what we think?"
I like it when scientists talk about their theories in this manner. On one hand you have a whole body of researchers, scientists, and journals who are so afraid to rock the status quo that they refuse to research (or publish) controversial information. On the other, you have scientists and/or crackpots who are so paranoid and skittish towards working within the peer reveiw system that we'll probably never gain access to their research, some of which may be quite important and revolutionary.
(I quit my physics major a year in and switched to CS. At what point do 'paranoia' and 'ego-building' become required courses?)
I think this is a nice middle ground. These guys have announced a neat finding, with the caveat that they are still in a thourough 'error-checking' mode and are looking for problems with their own research and are implicitly inviting others to do the same.
Around here, it's been noted that the temperature differential of the city causes some storms to be deflected slightly as they go past.
I live in Amarillo, TX. While we're certainly nowhere near the size of NYC, we do have an interesting condition that exaggerates this effect.
Amarillo (pop ~= 300k), you must understand, is an island of glass, concrete, and asphalt surrounded by nothing but flat prarie and even flatter pasture for a distance of at least 150 miles in any direction. The only major body of water any where near the city is more than 50 miles away.
Therefore, it is noticably hotter and windier inside the city than outside. While we do have severe weather being on the lower end of tornado alley, it tends to 'part' around the city. The last damaging tornado we had (You may have seen it on CNN since it killed a couple people) was listed as striking 'near' Amarillo. What really happened was that the tornado ran through the tiny burg of Happy, TX, which is very nearly forty miles to our south. Then, when it started aproaching the city of Amarillo, it veered off and started heading Southeast rather than Northeast. The bulk of the storm itself did the same thing... Head northeast until it came up against Amarillo, and then push off to the southeasth.
Hmmm... Microsoft vs. Sony
This is like rooting for The Empire to wipe out The Borg...
Sony isn't quite as blatantly evil as Microsoft, IMHO, but they are one of the major forces behind both the RIAA and the MPAA. When you buy a Playstation, you're contributing to a pool that eventually helps to lobby for laws like the DMCA and SCSSA
We Americans are always confused by World Cup Soccer. We know we want to be the best at it, but, on the whole, we don't really get it. No sport in the U.S. really has the near-universal draw that Soccer seems to have everywhere else in the world.
Even the other pro sports like American Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey have their rabid fans, but nothing like the stereotypical rioting mobs that we associate with British Soccer. In fact, as those sports become more and more corporate, they become less and less popular.
Starwars is the closest thing we have to that kind of draw. LOTR came close, but even with the negative impression a lot of fans left Episode 1 with, I haven't seen the kind of rabid dedication and fandom that Episode 2 is generating anywhere else.
Obi-wan: ...As if thousands of fanboys and fangirls had called in sick.
Luke: What is it, Ben?
Obi-wan: Something horrible. It's as if thousands of businesses were running along, being productive, and were suddenly silenced.
The article stated that Yahoo! received litterally thousands of warrants in the course of a year. This is probably not an indication of any more crimes being committed using Yahoo's services, but is instead a reflection of the greater power LEO's have to violate individual's privacy, especially in the wake of the Patriot act.
The problem here is not that there are going to be police officers in a data center around the clock carrying out warrants. It's that there are that many warrants issued in the first place.
Sweetness...
These remind me of the 'There can't possibly be a Santa Clause because' document. Boils down to the fact that Santa, if he really did visit all the little good, Christian boys and girls would go through reindeer at an alarming rate. He'd lose them to explosions caused by atmospheric friction energy greater than a reentry burn.
While the same size, the little light I have is probably much simpler than the one advertised at ThinkGeek. I'm guessing that it's total cost of production was around $3.00US
About a year ago, I got a kitsch keychain from a vendor who was trying to sell software to my company. We didn't purchase the software, but I have held onto that keychain.
Let me describe it. It's oval in shape, about 3cm long by about 2cm across and 1 cm thick. Inside the body of the keychain, which is clear vinyl, you can see the mechanism that makes it so neat, which is a small watch-type battery, a very small resistor, and one of the newer white LED's. The clear plastic vinyl is red, so when you squeze the thing, it's light is very slightly pink.
Now, here's the thing that makes me keep this around. This little piece of what I would othewise call 'crap' is brighter than my 'keychain-size' Mag Light! I can easily read by or do computer maintenance with this toy. If I had five or six of them, I could reasonably light a room for however long the batteries lasted.
White LED's are the wave of the future, IMHO. They're cheap in terms of production and electricity cost. I also understand that they're significantly easier on the environment than incandescent bulbs or flourescent tubes. Unless you overload it with current, which I understand is very difficult since many come with tiny regulators in the form of attached IC's, they don't burn out, making replacement costs plummet.
Make my next lightbulb a white LED
Giving you a semi-accurate idea of where the midpoint between 2 points is...
It doesn't necessarily take physics to change a man's worldview:
The Cointoss Fractal
Get a largish sheet of paper, a coin or a d6, a felt-tip marker, and a tape measure.
Draw three dots, making any given shape of triangle. Pick any dot at random. This is your first point. Use the coin or a d6 to *randomly* decide between all three dots as a second point. Draw a new dot exactly half-way in between the two points. Use the dot you just drew as your new first point. Use the coin or a d6 to randomly select a new second point. Draw a dot exactly half-way between the two points. Wash, rinse, repeat.
After even a few hundred iterations, you'll begin to see a beautiful crystaline-like fractal pattern emerge. Even with the inherent innacuracy of this method, you can see the fractal down to the fourth or fifth iteration of the pattern before it breaks down. If you use even a slightly more accurate method, such as a C or Pascal program to draw colored dots on a computer screen, you can get 10 or 11 iterations, even with interger math rather than floating point.
The first time I saw this, I very nearly cried.
Order from chaos, just from math.
Not to say anything about how funny it was, I had to chuckle at a few parts... but since when was the 'Holy Trinity' Warrior/Cleric/Wizard? I've always (for the past 3 years) heard Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter.
Chanters get the short end of the stick on uber-mob raids since, even if you have 50 people killing a dragon or a planar boss, you really only need one enchanter per force. Extra enchanters may be needed to mez ads, but once the enchanter tashes the dragon, that's pretty much it. Warriors/secondary tanks in front to taunt and maintain agro, clerics in the back to rotate complete heals on the main tank, and Wizzies in the middle to nuke. Rogues or other melee classes may get behind the mob, or on the side if they've got chaotic backstab, to dish out extra melee damage, but if you look at most uber-guilds application pages they want clerics, warriors, and wizards.
This is mostly the fault of Verant trying to keep casters from being independant and able to solo-kill mobs. They give every new monster incredible magical resists and tends of thousands of hitpoints which can only be worn down by either direct combat, or Wizard-only spells.
This has had some negative effects on the EQ community. Enchanters are often in short number in any given raid simply because they stack so poorly. Shamans are welcome, but as buffers and not as magical combat. Necros and Mages are only welcome sans-pet... what most consider their core abilities. Even then, Necros are considered mana batteries and are usually forced to work as backup mana resivoirs for Clerics who cheal the main tank. Druids and Beastmasters are all but unwelcome.
Now for 1-group hunting parties, you're right. Cleric, Warrior, Enchanter. Any group that doesn't have those three is considered 'substandard', even when they really aren't. As a matter of fact, Verant goes out of its way to try to keep all-caster groups from being viable. Recently, The Grey was changed so that caster-only 'Area Effect' groups couldn't be more effective than Holy Trinity groups. All the AE caster groups left, but there are better zones for MT groups, so all you see in The Grey now is Necros and Druids kiting mobs.
This is ultimately the reason that Verant is going to release a new game rather than continue adding expansions for EQ 1. There are just too many problems that 'break the game' for uber-guilds if fixed.
FYI, the PS2 version of EQ will be called 'Everquest Adventures' and is set 500 years before the timeline EQ 1 uses. EQ2 is set 200-300 years after the EQ1 timeline. None of the three games will have cross play.
The following is an excerpt from the first draft of the official press release from Sony Online Entertainment about Everquest II. As far as I can, the only differences between this excerpt and the original is that some 'fine print' information was deleted.
Key features and improvements include:
* A brand new 3D engine which takes full advantage of a wide variety of recent technological advances in 3D hardware/software such as per pixel lighting, dynamic environment mapping, and a fully programmable surface shader system
(Note: This new engine will not significantly improve load times, frame-rate induced lag, or this sense of 'immersion' that some players seem to think they're entitled to. 'Uber' players are encouraged to purchase dual-processor computer systems with professional grade GeForce 5, 6, or 7 graphics adapters. Support requests from players who do not meet 'reccommended system requirements' will not be addressed.
* More intuitive gameplay features appeal to both new and seasoned players
(Note: Our answer to all player problems will still be 'Get a group'.)
* New branching class structure that players define as they advance through the game
(Note: DOAC was kicking our asses.)
* Vast world of Norrath revisits familiar locations and introduces a variety of newly discovered areas in the Age of Destiny, a time period in the future of the original EverQuest.
(Note: The new graphics engine would not support older zones, so we're ditching the zones we don't like, and releasing later zones in 'expansions' that you already bought in order to play Everquest I)
* Increased character customization capabilities allow players to customize characters' faces, hair, and body types to create truly unique avatars
(Note: All female characters will come complete with 38DD sized breasts, just like you've grown to expect from SOE and Verant.)
* Deeper character development offering pacing options that cater to game players new to the role-playing genre as well as experienced role-players
(Note: Prepare to be ganked and r0xxor3d by l33t players who don't have time for role-playing. Role-playing will be strictly verboten in the 'high-end' game, just like in Everquest I)
* Non-confrontational means of character advancement that including a completely new tradesman character class
(Note: Just because you can craft decent trade items doesn't mean that the best items won't be available to anyone but the largest, most uber guilds.)
* Rideable mounts and vehicles to own and control, including horses and boats, make traversing the massive world of Norrath faster than before.
(Note: Horses will still suck. Boats will still be dangerous. They'll just suck more and be more dangerous than ever before to give you an authentic role-playing experience. Carts will carry a bonus of +5 suck and +5 danger for all players.)
* Norrathian real estate for players to call their own
(Note: We want to make sure that the uber guilds can monopolize all the best zones in the game because they're the players we really care about. Therefore, we're going to go ahead and make it possible for them to 'wall off' the best zones and dungeons from non-l33t players, just like in other games that allow houses.)
* All-new tradeskill/crafting system
(Note: See note about tradesmen class...)
* Completely new and tactically rich combat, spell and skill systems
(Note: Of course more of the combat will be centered around 'Holy Trinity' or 'Main-Tank' strategy which we like so much, so don't bother rolling anything but a Warrior, Cleric, or Wizard.)
* A completely revised and enhanced quest system
(Note: More broken quests, more ultra-rare spawns, and longer spawn times for even the lowest-level quest!)
* Dynamic world environment shaped by player events
(Note: Players will cast shadows on the world. They may also train mobs to new locations. Professional-grade Geforce 5, 6, or 7 graphics adapters are required for players to experience the full benefits of the 'player shaped world'.)
1. Why is Java so damn slow?
2. Why do so many Java developers get so upset when you point out how damn slow Java really is?
3. Why is it so much fun to pick on Java developers when there really are slower languages out there?
4. If you could make Java fast, would you voluntarily leave it slow just so we could give Java developers apoplexy by mentioning how fast even PHP is for certain tasks?
It's in my pants!!!
Seriously, the examination of the apparent acceleration of the expansion of the universe is staggering. Humanity may never have the opportunity to leave our own galaxy because of it... but what if that energy was something that could be tapped?
Heady thoughts for a little mind...