Huh? Battery lifetime may be a problem, but it seems you are exaggerating the problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV suggests that battery lifetime is more like 50.000 to 100.000 miles. All other components should last longer than their counterparts in a car with internal combustion engine. Electric motors and the electronics to distribute the power are a mature and reliable technology. Maybe GM fucked something up, but again the Toyota RAV4 EV article suggests no problems other than the batteries giving out after several years. And finally: Dealing with lethal voltages EVERYWHERE in the car made this much less simple and much less reliable than normal cars. Use a switched power supply to convert the drive voltage to the usual 12 volts for car use. Problem solved and you can use standard components for lights and instruments. Maybe GM fucked this up too, but then I would not be surprised considering their overall performance. I think their stock price is down for a reason.
Secondly, ideologically, "loser pays" assumes that the person suing has done something wrong. Not necessarily. It also means "winner can collect lawyers fees" which is important if you are the "small inventor" and have just spent a lot of money convincing the court that you were, indeed, ripped off by $MEGACORP. Personally, I like the concept of "loser pays" even if it has its own potential for abuse (think suits about excessive sums to drive up the lawyers fees).
Exactly, and usually the telecom companies market their service without the monthly Z GB bandwidth cap. Which is the main reason they have problems with excessive usage by some people. Offer something like a 10GB/month connection and it will be sufficient for the vast majority of users. But don't whine if you have offered unlimited access and people use it.
Search is crap but the content is not so bad
on
Web 2.0, Meet .Net 3.0
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I agree that the MSDN search function is worthless, because it is way too inaccurate and will swamp you with lots of topics that are not really related. But once you found the right article, it tends to be OK. Actually Google can help you there, the chance that it points you to a useful MSDN article is better than using the search function on microsoft.com.
The other way round it makes sense. You want something not too hard for the jacket, to avoid excessive wear on the barrel. Inside, you want a hard core that can penetrate the armor. Maybe tungsten carbide.
The last part of the puzzle is how cheap 1080P TV's will get in the next 5 years. It isn't out of the question to hook up a keyboard, mouse and "cheap" 1080P LCD or Plasma TV to a PS3 and have a computer. This is a giant leap forward for consoles, and Sonys first attempt to bridge the gap between console, computer and DVR type of device. If this is worthwile for users will depend a lot on how open the console is for third-party software. Usually consoles are designed to run only software licensed by the console vendor, and in some cases those vendors will even sue companies that offer modifications. An example where Microsoft went after XBox modders: http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Oct/gam20021 004016641.htm
If Sony pulls a similar thing with the PS3, it will remain rather uninteresting as a computer unless they provide all the software an average user might want. Which I don't believe;-)
Not to people who play Halo, who I'm sure play the same maps over and over. Surprisingly, the people at large aren't that objective to rerunning content. The idea that you have to constantly be doing something new seems largely new to the RPG community alone. The difference is in the opponents: While most NPCs are rather stupid and repetitive to fight, in Halo (or my preferred FPS, Day Of Defeat) you fight other players who will throw a lot more surprises at you. The challenge is in beating the other guys, the map is merely the arena you fight in.
That said, maybe MMORPGs should have a C&C-like command console for the GMs to control the mobs. With that tool, it should be much easier to launch the occasional invasion attempt and make the attackers show at least a bit of strategy.
Interesting thoughts, and you have a point with your conclusion.
In a less permanent way, however, it is doable and has been done. In DOAC and Neocron, players can conquer places that give their realm or clan an advantage. While that can be reversed by a counterattack and things are back to the status quo, it does not happen automatically. So the first step beyond the static amusement park exists.
Another idea are player-built cities, which have reportedly been tried in SWG with mixed results. I think the concept is worth rethinking and improving (maybe limited to certain places, and offering a construction kit for putting your houses together?).
Interesting. So you pay a monthly fee for what is included in the price of other games. For instance, Valve's games on Steam. As much as I dislike Steam, XBOX Live seems a much greater customer ripoff.
Personally, I would prefer usage charges (charges per GB levied against the user) than charges to the content provider. I agree, and some ISPs in Germany (where I live) actually offer that kind of deal. Unfortunately, most ISPs prefer the dishonest way of overselling their capacities, then complaining when people actually use the "unlimited access" they have bought.
I'd hardly call an environment where users have full admin rights to their systems an adequate test-bed. True, but Microsoft should be able to afford a test environment where the testers work as power users or even as user only. In that environment, an application that fails due to lack of admin rights should be caught soon. Or even simpler, the users could create secondary accounts without admin rights.
By all means, let him try. Make his decisions fallible (random glitches in whom he attacks?) and reduce his strength to compensate for his better smarts, but allow him a few clever moves. That will make the game more interesting.
"Nannying" usually refers to things where the government tries to regulate things that will harm only yourself. Like forcing you to use the seatbelt in your car. In these cases, I agree that government should stay out of peoples' lives. I would even go further and make it legal to use most drugs, for instance.
But the problem with dumping toxic waste into the landscape is that it hurts others, and that is not something we should allow. Even the most libertarian society needs some rules against ruthless behaviour that affects your fellow citizen.
Considering your side note: If the vast majority of people votes for a government that will NOT regulate environmentally-damaging products, they will get them. Just keep voting republican. If they want such stuff regulated, they can vote green and will get bans on hazardous substances. Democracy works fine here, except for a lack of fine control (usually, you cannot vote on individual substances to be banned or allowed).
First, Trusted Computing has a much different understanding of "integrity". In Trusted Computing, an "integer" application is one that can prove (upon start?) it has not been manipulated by third parties. This gives some protection against hackers, but does not guarantee that the application or driver is free from bugs that might bring the system down.
Second, you don't necessarily want to stop everything else when a problem appears. It would be quite desirable, for instance, that a flaw in your audio drivers leads only to the shutdown of the audio system. So you can still save the document you worked on for three hours without saving.
The problem is the next guy who doesn't give a shit. He will keep buying the cheapest stuff and dump it in the ordinary landfill. In many cases it will be stuff that leaks some poison once it has corroded on the landfill. Unless you have some regulation to keep this stuff off the market in the first place.
But what will people jump on instead of Vista? At the time WinME was new, Microsoft also had Win2000 which was a quite good system. If Vista sucks just as much, there will be no immediate alternative except dumping Windows for Linux, BSD or Mac with MacOS...
True, and there will always be some who take the CS career because they love the field. But there are also a lot of smart people with more versatile interests, who would do well in both law or CS. So you have a few idealists who will always take CS, but also some who will follow the money. Pay them well or do without them, because they are capable and willing to go elsewhere.
I think that may be a little extreme. Doctors and lawyers play active roles in the ultimate direction of people's lives, and can possibly be the difference between life and death. I can't think of any CS area that has a direct affect on people's lives in this manner. Indirectly, perhaps, with air traffic control software, medical record-keeping (big software market there), and the like. Still, to say we deserve as much money as the people who have to use those devices may be a stretch. For choosing a carreer, it is also a question of "return on investment". If you have to invest the same time, money and effort for studying CS and studying law, but lawyers are paid way better, what do you choose?
Thanks for the link. What I expect to become common a few years from now are four-core processors. At this point, AMD will run into the same bandwidth restrictions because the four cores have to share one memory interface. So it is a good idea for AMD to make the switch, even if DDR2 has no big advantage yet. The time will come when it makes a difference.
AFAIK DDR2 brings better throughput but at the expense of more latency. For the current AMD chips the overall result seems to be equal, but once you go to more cores I guess the throughput will become more important. A few months ago I've read a review of AMD Opteron vs. Intel Xeon dual cores. For one socket, both systems had similar memory bandwidth and while the AMD was faster, the difference was not dramatic. For two sockets (4 cores total), the Xeons still had to make do with the same memory bandwidth because they shared the memory interface, while the Opterons gained a second memory interface because each socket has its own memory controller. In the test results, the two-socket Opterons completely smoked the Xeons. Conclusion: When four processor cores have to share a memory interface, it better be a damned fast one.
Now AMD has announced that they want to introduce four-core processors eventually. Hence the need for plenty of bandwidth.
Happens all the time in the PC world. Technology improves, and you get better hardware at the same price. Or maybe the manufacturer cuts prices because the competition has better stuff to offer than last year.
Depends on how successful Vista will be. In other news, people claim that Vista is "the biggest disappontment ever", and it remains to be seen if the bulk of users really switches to Vista.
I agree. In the late 90s, games like Half-Life I reached a level of graphics technology that could support even complex game worlds. Real 3D environments and scaling to high resolutions, if your computer was up to it. Anything beyond that is more pretty but does not open up new possibilities. So the innovations would have to come from other parts of the game, and they are rare. The only thing that comes to mind right now is better enemy AI in shooters.
And anyway, everytime we find another transitional fossil the creationists are just going to point to the two gaps on either side of the new transitional and say, "Now there's two missing links! Nyah nyah nyah!" They already don't believe evolution is possible anyway.
Maybe, but at some point the remaining gaps are small enough to be explained by microevolution:-)
They know that just because anyone can "create content" and distribute it easily doesn't mean that it's worth anything, even if it is given away. Sturgeon's Law, right?
And the sad truth is: Even as the Internet has created a new distribution medium that is increasingly accessible, much of what is distributed through it *is* crap. Look at all the blogs, discussion sites and so forth, and tell me I'm wrong.
Like most of the so-called music that populates the charts these days;-)
For an example of good free content, consider the Baen Free Library: http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm A collection of older SciFi novels that are given away as marketing(?) freebies by the Baen publishing house. And it works BTW: Most of the books I buy for entertainment these days are from Baen.
Slashdot Mirror
Huh?
Battery lifetime may be a problem, but it seems you are exaggerating the problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_RAV4_EV suggests that battery lifetime is more like 50.000 to 100.000 miles.
All other components should last longer than their counterparts in a car with internal combustion engine. Electric motors and the electronics to distribute the power are a mature and reliable technology. Maybe GM fucked something up, but again the Toyota RAV4 EV article suggests no problems other than the batteries giving out after several years.
And finally:
Dealing with lethal voltages EVERYWHERE in the car made this much less simple and much less reliable than normal cars.
Use a switched power supply to convert the drive voltage to the usual 12 volts for car use. Problem solved and you can use standard components for lights and instruments. Maybe GM fucked this up too, but then I would not be surprised considering their overall performance. I think their stock price is down for a reason.
Secondly, ideologically, "loser pays" assumes that the person suing has done something wrong.
Not necessarily. It also means "winner can collect lawyers fees" which is important if you are the "small inventor" and have just spent a lot of money convincing the court that you were, indeed, ripped off by $MEGACORP.
Personally, I like the concept of "loser pays" even if it has its own potential for abuse (think suits about excessive sums to drive up the lawyers fees).
Exactly, and usually the telecom companies market their service without the monthly Z GB bandwidth cap. Which is the main reason they have problems with excessive usage by some people.
Offer something like a 10GB/month connection and it will be sufficient for the vast majority of users. But don't whine if you have offered unlimited access and people use it.
I agree that the MSDN search function is worthless, because it is way too inaccurate and will swamp you with lots of topics that are not really related.
But once you found the right article, it tends to be OK. Actually Google can help you there, the chance that it points you to a useful MSDN article is better than using the search function on microsoft.com.
The other way round it makes sense.
You want something not too hard for the jacket, to avoid excessive wear on the barrel.
Inside, you want a hard core that can penetrate the armor. Maybe tungsten carbide.
The last part of the puzzle is how cheap 1080P TV's will get in the next 5 years. It isn't out of the question to hook up a keyboard, mouse and "cheap" 1080P LCD or Plasma TV to a PS3 and have a computer. This is a giant leap forward for consoles, and Sonys first attempt to bridge the gap between console, computer and DVR type of device.1 004016641.htm
;-)
If this is worthwile for users will depend a lot on how open the console is for third-party software. Usually consoles are designed to run only software licensed by the console vendor, and in some cases those vendors will even sue companies that offer modifications. An example where Microsoft went after XBox modders:
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Oct/gam2002
If Sony pulls a similar thing with the PS3, it will remain rather uninteresting as a computer unless they provide all the software an average user might want. Which I don't believe
Not to people who play Halo, who I'm sure play the same maps over and over. Surprisingly, the people at large aren't that objective to rerunning content. The idea that you have to constantly be doing something new seems largely new to the RPG community alone.
;-)
The difference is in the opponents:
While most NPCs are rather stupid and repetitive to fight, in Halo (or my preferred FPS, Day Of Defeat) you fight other players who will throw a lot more surprises at you. The challenge is in beating the other guys, the map is merely the arena you fight in.
That said, maybe MMORPGs should have a C&C-like command console for the GMs to control the mobs. With that tool, it should be much easier to launch the occasional invasion attempt and make the attackers show at least a bit of strategy.
Lonewolf666, now logging in for a bit of DOD
Interesting thoughts, and you have a point with your conclusion.
In a less permanent way, however, it is doable and has been done. In DOAC and Neocron, players can conquer places that give their realm or clan an advantage. While that can be reversed by a counterattack and things are back to the status quo, it does not happen automatically.
So the first step beyond the static amusement park exists.
Another idea are player-built cities, which have reportedly been tried in SWG with mixed results. I think the concept is worth rethinking and improving (maybe limited to certain places, and offering a construction kit for putting your houses together?).
Interesting.
So you pay a monthly fee for what is included in the price of other games. For instance, Valve's games on Steam. As much as I dislike Steam, XBOX Live seems a much greater customer ripoff.
Personally, I would prefer usage charges (charges per GB levied against the user) than charges to the content provider.
I agree, and some ISPs in Germany (where I live) actually offer that kind of deal.
Unfortunately, most ISPs prefer the dishonest way of overselling their capacities, then complaining when people actually use the "unlimited access" they have bought.
I'd hardly call an environment where users have full admin rights to their systems an adequate test-bed.
True, but Microsoft should be able to afford a test environment where the testers work as power users or even as user only. In that environment, an application that fails due to lack of admin rights should be caught soon.
Or even simpler, the users could create secondary accounts without admin rights.
By all means, let him try.
Make his decisions fallible (random glitches in whom he attacks?) and reduce his strength to compensate for his better smarts, but allow him a few clever moves. That will make the game more interesting.
"Nannying" usually refers to things where the government tries to regulate things that will harm only yourself. Like forcing you to use the seatbelt in your car. In these cases, I agree that government should stay out of peoples' lives. I would even go further and make it legal to use most drugs, for instance.
But the problem with dumping toxic waste into the landscape is that it hurts others, and that is not something we should allow. Even the most libertarian society needs some rules against ruthless behaviour that affects your fellow citizen.
Considering your side note:
If the vast majority of people votes for a government that will NOT regulate environmentally-damaging products, they will get them. Just keep voting republican.
If they want such stuff regulated, they can vote green and will get bans on hazardous substances.
Democracy works fine here, except for a lack of fine control (usually, you cannot vote on individual substances to be banned or allowed).
First, Trusted Computing has a much different understanding of "integrity". In Trusted Computing, an "integer" application is one that can prove (upon start?) it has not been manipulated by third parties.
This gives some protection against hackers, but does not guarantee that the application or driver is free from bugs that might bring the system down.
Second, you don't necessarily want to stop everything else when a problem appears. It would be quite desirable, for instance, that a flaw in your audio drivers leads only to the shutdown of the audio system. So you can still save the document you worked on for three hours without saving.
The problem is the next guy who doesn't give a shit. He will keep buying the cheapest stuff and dump it in the ordinary landfill. In many cases it will be stuff that leaks some poison once it has corroded on the landfill.
Unless you have some regulation to keep this stuff off the market in the first place.
But what will people jump on instead of Vista? At the time WinME was new, Microsoft also had Win2000 which was a quite good system.
If Vista sucks just as much, there will be no immediate alternative except dumping Windows for Linux, BSD or Mac with MacOS...
True, and there will always be some who take the CS career because they love the field. But there are also a lot of smart people with more versatile interests, who would do well in both law or CS.
So you have a few idealists who will always take CS, but also some who will follow the money. Pay them well or do without them, because they are capable and willing to go elsewhere.
I think that may be a little extreme. Doctors and lawyers play active roles in the ultimate direction of people's lives, and can possibly be the difference between life and death. I can't think of any CS area that has a direct affect on people's lives in this manner. Indirectly, perhaps, with air traffic control software, medical record-keeping (big software market there), and the like. Still, to say we deserve as much money as the people who have to use those devices may be a stretch.
For choosing a carreer, it is also a question of "return on investment". If you have to invest the same time, money and effort for studying CS and studying law, but lawyers are paid way better, what do you choose?
Thanks for the link.
What I expect to become common a few years from now are four-core processors. At this point, AMD will run into the same bandwidth restrictions because the four cores have to share one memory interface.
So it is a good idea for AMD to make the switch, even if DDR2 has no big advantage yet. The time will come when it makes a difference.
AFAIK DDR2 brings better throughput but at the expense of more latency. For the current AMD chips the overall result seems to be equal, but once you go to more cores I guess the throughput will become more important.
A few months ago I've read a review of AMD Opteron vs. Intel Xeon dual cores. For one socket, both systems had similar memory bandwidth and while the AMD was faster, the difference was not dramatic. For two sockets (4 cores total), the Xeons still had to make do with the same memory bandwidth because they shared the memory interface, while the Opterons gained a second memory interface because each socket has its own memory controller. In the test results, the two-socket Opterons completely smoked the Xeons. Conclusion:
When four processor cores have to share a memory interface, it better be a damned fast one.
Now AMD has announced that they want to introduce four-core processors eventually. Hence the need for plenty of bandwidth.
Happens all the time in the PC world. Technology improves, and you get better hardware at the same price. Or maybe the manufacturer cuts prices because the competition has better stuff to offer than last year.
Why should consoles be different?
Depends on how successful Vista will be. In other news, people claim that Vista is "the biggest disappontment ever", and it remains to be seen if the bulk of users really switches to Vista.
I agree. In the late 90s, games like Half-Life I reached a level of graphics technology that could support even complex game worlds. Real 3D environments and scaling to high resolutions, if your computer was up to it.
Anything beyond that is more pretty but does not open up new possibilities. So the innovations would have to come from other parts of the game, and they are rare. The only thing that comes to mind right now is better enemy AI in shooters.
And anyway, everytime we find another transitional fossil the creationists are just going to point to the two gaps on either side of the new transitional and say, "Now there's two missing links! Nyah nyah nyah!" They already don't believe evolution is possible anyway.
:-)
Maybe, but at some point the remaining gaps are small enough to be explained by microevolution
They know that just because anyone can "create content" and distribute it easily doesn't mean that it's worth anything, even if it is given away. Sturgeon's Law, right?
And the sad truth is: Even as the Internet has created a new distribution medium that is increasingly accessible, much of what is distributed through it *is* crap. Look at all the blogs, discussion sites and so forth, and tell me I'm wrong.
Like most of the so-called music that populates the charts these days
For an example of good free content, consider the Baen Free Library: http://www.baen.com/library/defaultTitles.htm
A collection of older SciFi novels that are given away as marketing(?) freebies by the Baen publishing house. And it works BTW:
Most of the books I buy for entertainment these days are from Baen.