Don't be afraid to ask questions! No matter how silly they may seem to you - if getting them answered will get your work done faster you will benefit in the long run. And learn.
"When little Billy comes over and sneezes on them, like he always does."
Well, little Billy came, saw and sneezed already. And Google prevails. So Google may well be an exception to this rule - and go from really big to omnipotent.
1. Yes. In two settings: a) A hopeless arcade setup resembling the one you describe. b) Quake for SGI ported to a Cave at the Royal Insistute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.
Not surprisingly, my answers vary wildly between these two.
2 a) No 2 b) Yes
3 a) No. 3 b) Didn't pay anything, it was a research project;) But it might have been worth paying for.
4 a) No 4 b) Yes. In the fully immersive cave, the monsters REALLY came jumping from behind me. And since the researchers at KTH had also added a head tracking device, when I instinctively sat down, my Quake character would do the same to avoid the shots! (Of course I could not physically walk longer than the Cave walls, but pressing a button instead, to move where I'm looking, is OK given all the other candy).
5 a) No. 5 b) To some limited extent yes, I felt enclosed in the virtual world. But nobody could ever have fooled me that I wasn't standing in a huge plastic display with a pair of silly-looking shutter glasses, forced to use a wand to indicate where I wanted to go or shoot...
To me this demonstrates clearly that the biggest problem for VR lies in the hardware constraints. The state of the art required ridiculously expensive setups, you had to dedicate huge rooms to support enormous back-projected displays, controlled by SGI computers costing a fortune. Only then would you approach a somewhat acceptable user experience.
VR for the masses meant crappy head-mounted "displays" (obfuscators, if you ask me) with the cheapest trackers you could find, simulating nothing but seasickness and the feeling of looking through a tube after leaving your contact lenses on for a month.
But today, the steadily declining prices of large wall-mounted displays and 3D hardware may well spark new life into the VR industry sooner than many pessimists may expect...
It does? I clicked "maps" and entered "Sweden" into the search box and was informed (by a set of red baloons) that I live somewhere between Tulsa and Kansas City, not in northern Europe as I've always believed.
Come to think of it, this could explain the unusually warm winters we've had in Sweden lately.
> I wonder if this same technology might be used to protect you neighbor's cat from your robotic lawnmower?
I wonder if this same technology might be used to create an automatic, mechanical, cat replacement that uses the meat detector to find mice. (But then again, how would you keep it from eating your neighbor's kitten too?...:-)
I once did a 3D-visualized Prolog implementation of the towers of Hanoi for a course assignment. It used the VR system DIVE for visualization, the Hanoi implementation was a simple proof of concept of the rudimentary Prolog interface to DIVE that was the actual assignment... Sweet memories:)
(Un?)fortunately, the code is not publicly available.
Google game me this review on Savage: Battle for Newerth, which paints a pretty positive picture of the game.
Maybe the limited success comes from the fact that there is no single-player mode where one can practice as a commander or grunt? In Natural Selection you can at least hook up some bots on a local server for practicing.
The genre is not descending, it is evolving - though not primarily through the main commercial channels (yet). Just look at the popularity of Natural Selection, a truly innovative approach to real-time strategy: Replacing the dumb computer-controlled units with online gamers.
This idea seems so good to me that I find it surprising that we haven't seen more games of this type yet. (Or maybe someone have? If so, please shout:-)
If they decide spam is bad, how long before they decide mp3s or porn should be on the "get blocked" list?
Many ISP:s already will block you if you try to share mp3:s etc and they get prodded by your "favourite" record association. And since that type of behavior is already taking place - desirable or not - I personally am almost happy to see one ISP now doing something more constructive with their surveillance as well by trying to stop spam, which really is bad.
If Apple would have changed to Intel in the late 80's, today it would most likely have evolved into yet another dull Dell competitor (pun intended), making generic PC clones. That is, if the company would have survived such a blow at all. (Consider for instance the fate of Be, Inc).
I think Sculley just proves how little he still understands about Apple and its customers, and the core values of the company. For those of you ancient enough to remember those days: Imagine the badwill among the late 80's Mac users if, all of a sudden, the Macintosh (essentially) would be changed into a customized PC! I, for one, would have cringed and squirmed in agony and pain...
(Today my opinion about a potential CPU switch may differ, but that's another discussion).
Yes, but the big problem (as viewed by the SpeakFreely author) is not necessarily the use of NAT as a firewall component as such, but rather the rapid proliferation of shared internet connections with one public IP address. Which, among other things, forces people to use NAT...
I believe he has good reasons for his concerns. And sadly, once (if ever) we get IPv6, there may well be commercial interests in keeping it that way: One consumer = one IP number as a base service, pay extra for additional IP:s. Which in turn would sustain a market for NAT:ed firewalls. (Someone more into IPv6: Please tell me I'm wrong!)
Only the thing here is that you as a gamer are expected to fill in the blanks yourself. Whereas the game author creates a framework where the character lives, and provides "personality hints" such as in the reactions of the other characters, clues in the game etc, YOU take the last step in forming the character.
Compared to traditional role-playing for instance, your freedom in forming the character of Freeman is indeed rather limited, but nevertheless I think the comparison is relevant.
In a way, I suppose the name "Half-Life" could well refer to this character-building approach. It's half-designed and half-life:-)
That is 3 different results from the same user action! So how do folders work everywhere else?
Well, IMO the real problem is not whether one maufacturer or another has his own user interface rules, it is the fact that folders and documents were introduced as the universal metaphor for arranging data on a computer in the first place.
And now we are stuck with the restrictions imposed by that representation, which will often lure first-time users into believing that just because it looks like real-life a folder it will behave like a real-life folder. No matter how you then try to squeeze the concept of links, views, etc, into some kind of association with this rather limited concept, you are likely run into problems. What, really would be the real-world counterpart of a symbolic link, a virtual forlder (!), a view, etc?
The file/folder metaphor comes from an age where files were few and far between for the average user. Maybe we need a completely new user interface concept to deal with today's overload of data.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought "Resistance is futile" was Ohm's Law.
Don't be afraid to ask questions! No matter how silly they may seem to you - if getting them answered will get your work done faster you will benefit in the long run. And learn.
Slashdotted. Apparently the best way to finally delete the deleted.
Why would i need that? I know where I am already.
[Silent black helicopter hovering above]
Getting a girl's phone number? This is Slashdot, remember!
"When will the house of cards collapse?"
"When little Billy comes over and sneezes on them, like he always does."
Well, little Billy came, saw and sneezed already. And Google prevails. So Google may well be an exception to this rule - and go from really big to omnipotent.
Here I am, brain the size of a planet...
Next they modify the data you receive to influence your opinion.
In a sense they already do...
1. Yes. In two settings:
;) But it might have been worth paying for.
a) A hopeless arcade setup resembling the one you describe.
b) Quake for SGI ported to a Cave at the Royal Insistute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm.
Not surprisingly, my answers vary wildly between these two.
2 a) No
2 b) Yes
3 a) No.
3 b) Didn't pay anything, it was a research project
4 a) No
4 b) Yes. In the fully immersive cave, the monsters REALLY came jumping from behind me. And since the researchers at KTH had also added a head tracking device, when I instinctively sat down, my Quake character would do the same to avoid the shots! (Of course I could not physically walk longer than the Cave walls, but pressing a button instead, to move where I'm looking, is OK given all the other candy).
5 a) No.
5 b) To some limited extent yes, I felt enclosed in the virtual world. But nobody could ever have fooled me that I wasn't standing in a huge plastic display with a pair of silly-looking shutter glasses, forced to use a wand to indicate where I wanted to go or shoot...
To me this demonstrates clearly that the biggest problem for VR lies in the hardware constraints. The state of the art required ridiculously expensive setups, you had to dedicate huge rooms to support enormous back-projected displays, controlled by SGI computers costing a fortune. Only then would you approach a somewhat acceptable user experience.
VR for the masses meant crappy head-mounted "displays" (obfuscators, if you ask me) with the cheapest trackers you could find, simulating nothing but seasickness and the feeling of looking through a tube after leaving your contact lenses on for a month.
But today, the steadily declining prices of large wall-mounted displays and 3D hardware may well spark new life into the VR industry sooner than many pessimists may expect...
A pity that you stopped there - you missed some of the best levels in the game... including the beach racer levels, IMHO.
It does? I clicked "maps" and entered "Sweden" into the search box and was informed (by a set of red baloons) that I live somewhere between Tulsa and Kansas City, not in northern Europe as I've always believed.
Come to think of it, this could explain the unusually warm winters we've had in Sweden lately.
> I wonder if this same technology might be used to protect you neighbor's cat from your robotic lawnmower?
:-)
I wonder if this same technology might be used to create an automatic, mechanical, cat replacement that uses the meat detector to find mice. (But then again, how would you keep it from eating your neighbor's kitten too?...
I equate this to a spammer saying: "here's a perfectly working gun. now use it to shoot me."
True, but - like with a real gun - few will actually use it because of the legal issues involved.
Some will use it, but not enough to cause the stir you hope for. But, sadly, perhaps enough to be useful for the culprits behind all this...
Here, here, and here.
:-)
But why not one more?
I once did a 3D-visualized Prolog implementation of the towers of Hanoi for a course assignment. It used the VR system DIVE for visualization, the Hanoi implementation was a simple proof of concept of the rudimentary Prolog interface to DIVE that was the actual assignment... Sweet memories :)
(Un?)fortunately, the code is not publicly available.
Google game me this review on Savage: Battle for Newerth, which paints a pretty positive picture of the game.
Maybe the limited success comes from the fact that there is no single-player mode where one can practice as a commander or grunt? In Natural Selection you can at least hook up some bots on a local server for practicing.
The genre is not descending, it is evolving - though not primarily through the main commercial channels (yet). Just look at the popularity of Natural Selection, a truly innovative approach to real-time strategy: Replacing the dumb computer-controlled units with online gamers.
:-)
This idea seems so good to me that I find it surprising that we haven't seen more games of this type yet. (Or maybe someone have? If so, please shout
If they decide spam is bad, how long before they decide mp3s or porn should be on the "get blocked" list?
;)
Many ISP:s already will block you if you try to share mp3:s etc and they get prodded by your "favourite" record association. And since that type of behavior is already taking place - desirable or not - I personally am almost happy to see one ISP now doing something more constructive with their surveillance as well by trying to stop spam, which really is bad.
But then again, I live in Sweden
If Apple would have changed to Intel in the late 80's, today it would most likely have evolved into yet another dull Dell competitor (pun intended), making generic PC clones. That is, if the company would have survived such a blow at all. (Consider for instance the fate of Be, Inc).
I think Sculley just proves how little he still understands about Apple and its customers, and the core values of the company. For those of you ancient enough to remember those days: Imagine the badwill among the late 80's Mac users if, all of a sudden, the Macintosh (essentially) would be changed into a customized PC! I, for one, would have cringed and squirmed in agony and pain...
(Today my opinion about a potential CPU switch may differ, but that's another discussion).
I feel a bit more optimistic now :-)
Yes, but the big problem (as viewed by the SpeakFreely author) is not necessarily the use of NAT as a firewall component as such, but rather the rapid proliferation of shared internet connections with one public IP address. Which, among other things, forces people to use NAT...
I believe he has good reasons for his concerns. And sadly, once (if ever) we get IPv6, there may well be commercial interests in keeping it that way: One consumer = one IP number as a base service, pay extra for additional IP:s. Which in turn would sustain a market for NAT:ed firewalls. (Someone more into IPv6: Please tell me I'm wrong!)
Only the thing here is that you as a gamer are expected to fill in the blanks yourself. Whereas the game author creates a framework where the character lives, and provides "personality hints" such as in the reactions of the other characters, clues in the game etc, YOU take the last step in forming the character.
:-)
Compared to traditional role-playing for instance, your freedom in forming the character of Freeman is indeed rather limited, but nevertheless I think the comparison is relevant.
In a way, I suppose the name "Half-Life" could well refer to this character-building approach. It's half-designed and half-life
That is 3 different results from the same user action! So how do folders work everywhere else?
Well, IMO the real problem is not whether one maufacturer or another has his own user interface rules, it is the fact that folders and documents were introduced as the universal metaphor for arranging data on a computer in the first place.
And now we are stuck with the restrictions imposed by that representation, which will often lure first-time users into believing that just because it looks like real-life a folder it will behave like a real-life folder. No matter how you then try to squeeze the concept of links, views, etc, into some kind of association with this rather limited concept, you are likely run into problems. What, really would be the real-world counterpart of a symbolic link, a virtual forlder (!), a view, etc?
The file/folder metaphor comes from an age where files were few and far between for the average user. Maybe we need a completely new user interface concept to deal with today's overload of data.
...of the *One disease, I predict that the Harry Potter series will soon be renamed "hermiOne".
BeOS? I suppose it must now inevitably be BeOne. Quite ironic indeed ;)