As a game developer, I use a lot of C++, and performance is important. That's really a big part of the draw of C++ for game development. So when interviewing new grads I often ask them a bit about cache behaviour. Most really don't have a clue, but those who do show an understanding get high marks because it shows they've dug a little deeper than the rest: Questions like: - "Tell me what cache memory is and why it's important." - "Let's say I have a list of objects with various bits of data like position, color, velocity, etc.. I can organize the list as an array of structures or a structure of arrays. Why might I choose one over the other and?" The best answer: "It depends on your usage patterns." and then they explain why. Not understanding cache behaviour is the first step to making even the prettiest code run slowly.
I'm not a Javascript developer, but working in the game industry, I've been involved in the development of mission scripting technology for a number of different games. In some ways the problem is the same: The people you need to write the code aren't necessarily comp-sci grads. It needs to be simple, yet powerful. I've seen multiple variations of both visual and textual languages used to represent mission flow, and the big problem I've seen with visual programming is that once a particular scripting problem becomes even mildly complicated in terms of requirements, the resulting visual script becomes a spaghetti mess which is far harder to understand than the lines of equivalent textual code. There's certainly a place for visual programming, but it's generally limited to fairly simple problems. Basically, visual programming doesn't scale well with the complexity of the problem it's trying to solve.
One of the financial disadvantages to US citizenship, compared to other citizenships around the world, is that you have to pay taxes to the US, regardless of where you live in the world. Often you don't end up paying anything due to credits for foreign income tax, but regardless, you have to at least declare it, which can be a pain. Most other citizenships don't have this requirement.
I don't think there's any law out there that says you must not index a site if they ask you not to. It's more of a request then a requirement. If information is public, and legally available to Microsoft, it would, I believe also be legally available to Google (unless the indexing was licenced in some way, but I don't think there's been any precedent for that). So all Google has to do is ignore the 1000 sites and just index them anyways. Problem solved.
I've always been highly annoyed that many airlines choose to ban GPS on board planes. These are devices that are only receivers, not emitters of signals, and should cause no interference with anything. Usually this falls under the banner of "we do not allow any electronic devices to be used which transmit or receive a signal", but I've heard them specifically call out GPS devices as being banned on at least one flight I've flown on. There's just no good reason, as far as I can tell, for doing this, but when I asked about it, their response was "well, it hasn't been tested yet". It certainly wouldn't be hard to test GPS interference. I would expect it should show up approximately as much as the tuna sandwich in my bag.
There's plenty of options already in Canada to get a similar service. How about zip.ca? or vhqonline.ca? I've been with Zip for half a year now and I love it. As much as I'd love to see Netflix start up in Canada, it's not like we're totally deprived without it. Zip.ca's selection is pretty massive. Turnaround times aren't as fast as some people claim they are for Netflix, but I expect that's more an issue with Canada Post than zip.ca. So, don't worry, you won't be stuck with "getting only Blockbuster".
Indeed. It seems like the two screen idea could lead to innovative game designs, but forcing 3rd party developers to develop those new designs just won't wash. Initially, 3rd party developers will want to do ports, and ports won't easily lend themselves to this. The 3rd party developers will still do most of their development work on the consoles (meaning PS2, because that's where the money is now), and won't want to throw big bucks into coming up with new designs requiring significant code re-work just for a single console. They'll look at something like PSP and say "It looks much like PS2. We can port in 6 months. Low cost. Low risk." Then they'll look at this thing, see they need a whole gameplay design, along with significant code re-work to support that design, and they'll really have to wonder whether it's worth the effort.
A number of years ago I ran into a guy who worked for a major telecommunications company. He worked in a department called, if I remember correctly, "Strategic planning". What it amounted to was that he basically led a team of corporate spies. They'd go into a country that was setting up a new phone network from the competition, pay off someone in the local telephone company, and then they'd get to grab some of the competition's latest hardware for an hour or two, disassemble it, take pictures, put it back together and return it. All so they could keep up with what the competition was doing. Eventually they were busted and some of these guys spent time in a foreign jail. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the story, but for what it's worth, I believe him. I expect this sort of stuff happens all the time.
To be precise, I think it's Deep Fritz that's the multiprocessor version. Fritz by itself is just a single processor version. To quote their blurb from Deep Fritz 7:
"Deep Fritz is the multi-processor version of Fritz7, which leads the world ranking list since four years. Deep Fritz 7 will run in computers with between one and eight processors. On a dual system the increase in speed is around 85% compared to a single processor of equivalent speed. But even if you have a single processor system the playing strength is greater than that of the regular Fritz7. The âoeDeepâ version has been improved and enhanced, it has more positional understanding and additional endgame knowledge. This has been achieved without diminishing the programâ(TM)s legendary tactical power. Deep Fritz 7 comes with the full Fritz7 interface and gives you full access to the playchess server."
Interestingly, I can't find a Deep Fritz 8, which makes me think that either Fritz 8 is inherently multi-processor (which I doubt, since it's cheaper than Deep Fritz 7), or they haven't released a multi-processor version of 8.
After doing some google-digging, I believe the system he's talking about is the u-Buddy. Here's some info I found: A page at ECS describing the specs A place selling them for $279 If anyone can find a place that's confirmed selling them at $199, I'd be very interested.
My theory is that the the way he was able to find 600 songs and download them so quickly is that the RIAA set up a honeypot. How else would they actually be able to track who's downloading what? Is there a way to track downloads of other people? Perhaps they're packet sniffing Verizons incoming and outgoing data, but I expect that the RIAA just set up an uber-MP3 server and recorded what came their way. If that's true, that begs the question: Is this a form of entrapment? And is the RIAA guilty of copyright infringement because they set up an uber-server?
Canada also has a 50 year time limit on copyright (which starts after the artists dies, which may be different from the EU). It would seem that the threat from Canada in this regard would be greater than that from the EU, since we're just over the border up here.
While reading about the problems with radiation shielding, I came up with perhaps one way they could reduce exposure: Add improved shielding to the sleeping closets. If they can cut out 90% of the radiation in an area that the average astronaut will spend 30% of his or her time in, that`s a significant savings for relatively little added weight.
I agree. Scrutinizability (is that a word?) of code is great for cryptographic systems, but for air traffic control, the key is testing, testing, testing. I was a programmer on an air traffic control project for three years (before getting into games development). It was amazing just how rigorous the testing process was for the software I was working on. (To be fair, it was also amazing just how many bugs still managed to slip through the cracks in the various stages of testing). I wonder whether Open Source development could guarantee the same amount and quality of testing. Have there been any large Open Source projects where the end application was safety-critical?
Personally, I'd prefer that I simply get less email. The fact that we need NLP tools to pre-screen our email for us just shows how information-overloaded our society has become. What I really need is a tool at the sender's end that can pre-screen my email and tell the sender "Don't send this. He just doesn't care!"
I work for a major gaming company as a programmer. Most of the game designers I've worked with seem to come from a variety of backgrounds. Quite a few start off as game testers and work their way up through the ranks. Others are programmers who decided they they preferred the design side of things. Some are writers or video-game store managers who decided to pursue other careers. Still others come from even more obscure backgrounds. Often it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right experience. The main thing is you need to be able to prove to the company that you can be a competent game designer, however that may be. But getting your foot in the door is the first step. Very few people start out right in game design. Often it's a matter of working your way up from something like game testing. Best of luck!
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As a game developer, I use a lot of C++, and performance is important. That's really a big part of the draw of C++ for game development. So when interviewing new grads I often ask them a bit about cache behaviour. Most really don't have a clue, but those who do show an understanding get high marks because it shows they've dug a little deeper than the rest:
Questions like:
- "Tell me what cache memory is and why it's important."
- "Let's say I have a list of objects with various bits of data like position, color, velocity, etc.. I can organize the list as an array of structures or a structure of arrays. Why might I choose one over the other and?" The best answer: "It depends on your usage patterns." and then they explain why.
Not understanding cache behaviour is the first step to making even the prettiest code run slowly.
I'm not a Javascript developer, but working in the game industry, I've been involved in the development of mission scripting technology for a number of different games. In some ways the problem is the same: The people you need to write the code aren't necessarily comp-sci grads. It needs to be simple, yet powerful. I've seen multiple variations of both visual and textual languages used to represent mission flow, and the big problem I've seen with visual programming is that once a particular scripting problem becomes even mildly complicated in terms of requirements, the resulting visual script becomes a spaghetti mess which is far harder to understand than the lines of equivalent textual code. There's certainly a place for visual programming, but it's generally limited to fairly simple problems.
Basically, visual programming doesn't scale well with the complexity of the problem it's trying to solve.
One of the financial disadvantages to US citizenship, compared to other citizenships around the world, is that you have to pay taxes to the US, regardless of where you live in the world. Often you don't end up paying anything due to credits for foreign income tax, but regardless, you have to at least declare it, which can be a pain. Most other citizenships don't have this requirement.
I don't think there's any law out there that says you must not index a site if they ask you not to. It's more of a request then a requirement. If information is public, and legally available to Microsoft, it would, I believe also be legally available to Google (unless the indexing was licenced in some way, but I don't think there's been any precedent for that). So all Google has to do is ignore the 1000 sites and just index them anyways. Problem solved.
"A spokesperson for a spokeswoman for the state cabinet that filed the suit told the ..."
Wow. Spokespeople have their own spokespeople now?
I've always been highly annoyed that many airlines choose to ban GPS on board planes. These are devices that are only receivers, not emitters of signals, and should cause no interference with anything. Usually this falls under the banner of "we do not allow any electronic devices to be used which transmit or receive a signal", but I've heard them specifically call out GPS devices as being banned on at least one flight I've flown on. There's just no good reason, as far as I can tell, for doing this, but when I asked about it, their response was "well, it hasn't been tested yet". It certainly wouldn't be hard to test GPS interference. I would expect it should show up approximately as much as the tuna sandwich in my bag.
There's plenty of options already in Canada to get a similar service. How about zip.ca? or vhqonline.ca? I've been with Zip for half a year now and I love it. As much as I'd love to see Netflix start up in Canada, it's not like we're totally deprived without it. Zip.ca's selection is pretty massive. Turnaround times aren't as fast as some people claim they are for Netflix, but I expect that's more an issue with Canada Post than zip.ca. So, don't worry, you won't be stuck with "getting only Blockbuster".
Here. The quick summary: Beautiful. Too bad they didn't spend more time on the script.
Indeed. It seems like the two screen idea could lead to innovative game designs, but forcing 3rd party developers to develop those new designs just won't wash. Initially, 3rd party developers will want to do ports, and ports won't easily lend themselves to this. The 3rd party developers will still do most of their development work on the consoles (meaning PS2, because that's where the money is now), and won't want to throw big bucks into coming up with new designs requiring significant code re-work just for a single console.
They'll look at something like PSP and say "It looks much like PS2. We can port in 6 months. Low cost. Low risk." Then they'll look at this thing, see they need a whole gameplay design, along with significant code re-work to support that design, and they'll really have to wonder whether it's worth the effort.
A number of years ago I ran into a guy who worked for a major telecommunications company. He worked in a department called, if I remember correctly, "Strategic planning". What it amounted to was that he basically led a team of corporate spies. They'd go into a country that was setting up a new phone network from the competition, pay off someone in the local telephone company, and then they'd get to grab some of the competition's latest hardware for an hour or two, disassemble it, take pictures, put it back together and return it. All so they could keep up with what the competition was doing. Eventually they were busted and some of these guys spent time in a foreign jail. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the story, but for what it's worth, I believe him. I expect this sort of stuff happens all the time.
To be precise, I think it's Deep Fritz that's the multiprocessor version. Fritz by itself is just a single processor version. To quote their blurb from Deep Fritz 7:
"Deep Fritz is the multi-processor version of Fritz7, which leads the world ranking list since four years. Deep Fritz 7 will run in computers with between one and eight processors. On a dual system the increase in speed is around 85% compared to a single processor of equivalent speed. But even if you have a single processor system the playing strength is greater than that of the regular Fritz7. The âoeDeepâ version has been improved and enhanced, it has more positional understanding and additional endgame knowledge. This has been achieved without diminishing the programâ(TM)s legendary tactical power. Deep Fritz 7 comes with the full Fritz7 interface and gives you full access to the playchess server."
Interestingly, I can't find a Deep Fritz 8, which makes me think that either Fritz 8 is inherently multi-processor (which I doubt, since it's cheaper than Deep Fritz 7), or they haven't released a multi-processor version of 8.
After doing some google-digging, I believe the system he's talking about is the u-Buddy.
Here's some info I found:
A page at ECS describing the specs
A place selling them for $279
If anyone can find a place that's confirmed selling them at $199, I'd be very interested.
My theory is that the the way he was able to find 600 songs and download them so quickly is that the RIAA set up a honeypot. How else would they actually be able to track who's downloading what? Is there a way to track downloads of other people? Perhaps they're packet sniffing Verizons incoming and outgoing data, but I expect that the RIAA just set up an uber-MP3 server and recorded what came their way.
If that's true, that begs the question: Is this a form of entrapment? And is the RIAA guilty of copyright infringement because they set up an uber-server?
Canada also has a 50 year time limit on copyright (which starts after the artists dies, which may be different from the EU). It would seem that the threat from Canada in this regard would be greater than that from the EU, since we're just over the border up here.
While reading about the problems with radiation shielding, I came up with perhaps one way they could reduce exposure: Add improved shielding to the sleeping closets. If they can cut out 90% of the radiation in an area that the average astronaut will spend 30% of his or her time in, that`s a significant savings for relatively little added weight.
I agree. Scrutinizability (is that a word?) of code is great for cryptographic systems, but for air traffic control, the key is testing, testing, testing. I was a programmer on an air traffic control project for three years (before getting into games development). It was amazing just how rigorous the testing process was for the software I was working on. (To be fair, it was also amazing just how many bugs still managed to slip through the cracks in the various stages of testing).
I wonder whether Open Source development could guarantee the same amount and quality of testing.
Have there been any large Open Source projects where the end application was safety-critical?
Personally, I'd prefer that I simply get less email. The fact that we need NLP tools to pre-screen our email for us just shows how information-overloaded our society has become. What I really need is a tool at the sender's end that can pre-screen my email and tell the sender "Don't send this. He just doesn't care!"
I work for a major gaming company as a programmer. Most of the game designers I've worked with seem to come from a variety of backgrounds. Quite a few start off as game testers and work their way up through the ranks. Others are programmers who decided they they preferred the design side of things. Some are writers or video-game store managers who decided to pursue other careers. Still others come from even more obscure backgrounds. Often it's a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right experience. The main thing is you need to be able to prove to the company that you can be a competent game designer, however that may be. But getting your foot in the door is the first step. Very few people start out right in game design. Often it's a matter of working your way up from something like game testing. Best of luck!
Ken Musgrave has spent a lot of time exploring the concept of algorithm as art. His "Algorists" page is here.