According to noted physicists who have dealt with this topic in a number of academic sources, a process isn't technically deemed to be teleportation, in the sense which Science Fiction would have us appreciate it, unless
1) swirly sparkly doo-dads flash around the area where the subject is standing
and
2) a low-pitched fluctuating tone sounds from a the lights above and beneath them.
* A fat Scotsman is also key to the process, for one reason or another.
I don't know if there are many good names left, for the new planets out there. Planet Quake is taken. Planet Duke, Planet Unreal, Planet HalfLife and Planet Fortress have been done. I suppose it could always be Planet Pong.
The naming planets after Greek Gods thing has been done to death. I say we adapt it to modern times and start naming planets after modern Gods. Planet Carmack, anyone?
Watch what you say, before SGI declares message threads using the term "OpenGL" their intellectual property. Perhaps we should call it "Open__". No, that contains "Open", so they'll probably start a lawsuit. Maybe "____GL". No, that contains "GL" and that'll piss them off. Alright, "Open__" and "____GL" might be SGI's, but we can always use "______"!
If the Canadian Space Agency's and NASA's scheduled operations on the International Space Station have the potential to be disrupted by a Russian grab for cash, I think everyone's worst fears about the Station are being realised. This sort of silliness just wouldn't be allowed to go on in any other government research ventures.
When was the last time you saw the Los Alamos labs offering businessmen the opportunity to play with their equipment for a week if the price is right? Sensitive research ventures can't be the playpen of Wall Street, whether or not Wall Street has the cash to make it so.
How the makers of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Planetfall and Zork could be left out of history is beyond me. At least Slashdot payed its respects to these incredible pioneers. I think quite a few people remember the Infocom games as their first experience with real plot development and authorship in gaming (and remember Leather Goddesses of Phobos as their first experience with obscenity in gaming).
Anyone who enjoyed these games and reminisces about them, still, should do what I did and get the Infocom Text Adventure Masterpieces collection.
If rural America has a difficult task ahead of it in the bid to wire its people, Canada is going to have a nightmare of a time.
Japan, our original example has a population density of approximately 335 people/sq km.
The United States has a bit of a harder time, with a population density of approximately of approximately 28 people/sq km.
But, here in Canada? We've got a population density of 3.3 people per frigging kilometre! How do you affordably link the 3.3 people in each of those square kilometres with fibre, especially given that many of them are separated by waterways?
Unless satellite access makes great strides, I don't see how those in Canada's north will soon join the digital revolution.
Until Satan sent down his dark minions, wizards, unto the coasts of the earth. These wizards of the coast perverted and distorted the works of The Lord, Gygax, and marketed them as trading cards.
Who would have believed the awful truth, before we unearthed this monstrosity ourselves:
Our ancestors were skinless bone-creatures of a dirty brown hue.
What could have brought about these hideous circumstances? How did these mysterious skeleton-beasts evolve into modern humans, with organs, skin and functional genitalia?
My friends, this proves the one and only valid theory on the origin of mankind:
1 In the beginning, Gygax created the source book for the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was without OCCs, and void; and the game world was empty.
3 And Gygax saw that the earth was void, and this displeased him.
4 Then said Gygax, let us make RCCs in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the orcs of the field and the dryads of the sea, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
5 Then did Gygax choose a spell, and he did then cast upon the earth an Animate Dead spell, to raise up man from the dust of the earth. And though Gygax rolled a 20 on his casting, his animate dead spell created a man who was bony and ugly and fearsome to his sight. This Gygax did regret...
Now if someone could just create a game which simulates the process of real people playing The Sims, in which you, the player, direct your sims in playing The Sims in a virtual computer nerd environment and simulate their Sims-playing experience, keeping them up playing The Sims until 5AM then getting them up at 8AM the next morning, etc., we'd have the ultimate vicarious existence.
Don't sound the death-knell of arcades, just quite yet. The little guys might be dying out, but Sony's stepped up to the plate and done some good things with the arcade experience at Playdium.
Like arcades used to, it's offering things that you couldn't get at home and, so, is giving people a reason to go to the arcade. The House of the Dead machines are always full when I go to one of my local Playdiums (Playdia?) so I wouldn't say that just because you can own it at home, people aren't going to go out and play it. I certainly do.
Also, I may be a dying breed, but I like pinball and I can't play the new pinball machines anywhere but at an arcade. There, at least, is a market (tiny as it is) that consoles can't usurp.
If the actors guild gets pissed off at the use of CGI characters...we'll replace them with CGI characters.
While the Screen Actors' Guild has had great success, in the past, in getting multi-millionaires to strike for more money, I think that, perhaps, CGI characters might be harder to woo to their unionist side. I'm not suggesting that Jar-Jar would never fight for what he sees as right, but I think getting him out on the picket line could be a little harder:
If this number is deemed legal, this could open some interesting possibilities to us. For example, with Pi (3.14159...) offering us an infinite series of random number combinations, might it not be used as a vehicle for transferring illegal information? The process would go something like the following
- Someone writes a java app capable of searching Pi for a number series identical to the ASCII values of the text they wish to tranfer.
- Upon finding this series, the location of it in Pi is transferred in a format something like "12137-12193" meaning "the message begins at place 12137 and ends at place 12193"
- Bingo. Your recipient has the message and all you transferred was two completely unrelated numbers.
Now, using microsoft's revolutionary technology, consumers will be able to censor media containing dangerous or obscene words like "open source" or "freeware". You won't have to worry about your children being drawn into a self-destructive downward spiral of pro bono programming when microsoft's X-Box censor technology is on the watch.
Scully: "But Mulder, how could a man like Van Gogh reproduce a perfect copy of the starscape at a given moment, when the painting would have taken hours, if not days, to paint?"
Mulder: "Maybe a man like Van Gogh...wasn't a MAN at all!"
Scully: "Are you suggesting...?"
Mulder: "Yes, Scully. Aliens, taking the form of Renaissance artists, visited 19th century Europe, bestowing on European civilisation the Impressionist school of art, in an attempt to destroy the Neo-Classical school, with its tendency towards historical paintings, thus to prevent any historical paintings recording their many visits to earth from being recorded"
Scully: "Yeah, I guess. You know I read in the National Inquirer that that Monet dude got anally probed..."
While the possibility of artificially manufactured cartilaginous tissue may be of some piddling consequence to people who are in desperate need of joint reconstruction, the implications of manufactured, durable, realistic joints and appendages has implications for CERTAIN OTHER MAJOR PLAYERS
As it turns out, Blizzard has every right to prevent the creation of this movie.
One of Blizzards entries in the US Patent and Trademark Office database for "Diablo" (there are several) lists "PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES" as a Good or Service for which Blizzard has registered the "Diablo" trademark. The link is located here.
A larger list of US trademarks of the name "Diablo" can be found here
New Line was surprisingly lax in not checking whether the name "Diablo" was already registered for motion picture distribution.
Why are they bothering to use these under-water monitors to test dolphins abilities in simple audio-visual games. Let's cut to the chase, make Bash operable by jabbing of the monitor with the nose and high-pitched squeeking alone, and see if these dolphins' are really as 1337 as marine biologists claim their neurological ski11z enable them to be.
Someday, my friends, you will by H4X3D by a dolphin.
With the cacophony coming from this LAN-party case, no one will be able to hear you giggling like a little schoolgirl as your massive reaver-drop-to-end-all-reaver-drops approaches the unmonitored rear of the enemy Zerg's base.
Somehow I think what we're looking at here is the gaming equivalent of the new Gallactica series. An old concept, grown cheesy with age, given bright shiny new packaging.
Besides <valley girl impression>ohmygosh, WWII games are like sooo 20th century</valley girl impression>
Nostalgia's all well and good, but doesn't it seems like most attempts at bringing back this sort of series from the dead usually result only in disappointment. The big successes in movies and TV have been those that came up with new themes, not repackaged old ones. Episode 1, obviously, is the first thing that comes to mind in the "should have let it die a graceful death" department. Battlefield Earth, similarly, should have been cut to pieces on the cutting room floor (though in this case, a book, not TV or movie gave it its terrible theme). Lost In Space, finally, didn't seem to realise its predecessor had succeeded because it was camp. Separate the camp from the theme and you just have a silly premise for a sci-fi.
It's nice to see someone make these long-overdue criticisms of the gaming industry. Worse than development houses, in their naivete are their investors. Game industry investors don't seem to be aware of this simple fact:
Development houses are only as valuable as their current contracts.
Making games is a hit and miss operation, especially on the PC platform and the way investors throw money into them, you'd think they were long-term investment opportunities. The sad fact is, that even if you get the #1 game of the year (e.g., Half Life), you won't necessarily make it big (Half Life made net profits of just over $200,000). In any development house, the star designer could leave, the current project could fail or new ideas could stop flowing at any moment. In such a horrendously spasmodic industry, multi-billion-dollar take-over bids seem completely out of place.
There are people out there with university degrees in the field who have to do this sort of menial labour. One simply can't expect to be handed a breadboard and told "have fun", because the market just doesn't have a place for many people of that sort. That's something you do in your basement for kicks, not something a corporation hires you to do.
This emerging technology could pose a threat to the current dominance of the "Put small metal items on the track in front of an oncoming train" technique of domestic metal-forming.
"Most of anime fans are young male adults I don't think there is any young male adult in the world that is not interest in sexy girls, uh...of course there are people who are interest in sexy guys... but, anyway, the majority are interesting in "sexy girls." Second, "many girls" IS another market issue too."
Truer words were never spoken...or something.
Much of this interview bears a remarkable resemblance to what you get when you type out random text and run it back and forth through each of babelfish's languages several times.
Slashdot Mirror
1) swirly sparkly doo-dads flash around the area where the subject is standing
and
2) a low-pitched fluctuating tone sounds from a the lights above and beneath them.
* A fat Scotsman is also key to the process, for one reason or another.
The naming planets after Greek Gods thing has been done to death. I say we adapt it to modern times and start naming planets after modern Gods. Planet Carmack, anyone?
Watch what you say, before SGI declares message threads using the term "OpenGL" their intellectual property. Perhaps we should call it "Open__". No, that contains "Open", so they'll probably start a lawsuit. Maybe "____GL". No, that contains "GL" and that'll piss them off. Alright, "Open__" and "____GL" might be SGI's, but we can always use "______"!
It's scary what people will pay for pretend things
When was the last time you saw the Los Alamos labs offering businessmen the opportunity to play with their equipment for a week if the price is right? Sensitive research ventures can't be the playpen of Wall Street, whether or not Wall Street has the cash to make it so.
Anyone who enjoyed these games and reminisces about them, still, should do what I did and get the Infocom Text Adventure Masterpieces collection.
Japan, our original example has a population density of approximately 335 people/sq km.
The United States has a bit of a harder time, with a population density of approximately of approximately 28 people/sq km.
But, here in Canada? We've got a population density of 3.3 people per frigging kilometre! How do you affordably link the 3.3 people in each of those square kilometres with fibre, especially given that many of them are separated by waterways?
Unless satellite access makes great strides, I don't see how those in Canada's north will soon join the digital revolution.
(these statistics were taken from Britannica.com)
Until Satan sent down his dark minions, wizards, unto the coasts of the earth. These wizards of the coast perverted and distorted the works of The Lord, Gygax, and marketed them as trading cards.
Our ancestors were skinless bone-creatures of a dirty brown hue.
What could have brought about these hideous circumstances? How did these mysterious skeleton-beasts evolve into modern humans, with organs, skin and functional genitalia?
My friends, this proves the one and only valid theory on the origin of mankind:
1 In the beginning, Gygax created the source book for the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was without OCCs, and void; and the game world was empty.
3 And Gygax saw that the earth was void, and this displeased him.
4 Then said Gygax, let us make RCCs in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the orcs of the field and the dryads of the sea, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
5 Then did Gygax choose a spell, and he did then cast upon the earth an Animate Dead spell, to raise up man from the dust of the earth. And though Gygax rolled a 20 on his casting, his animate dead spell created a man who was bony and ugly and fearsome to his sight. This Gygax did regret...
I call it Simsim.
Like arcades used to, it's offering things that you couldn't get at home and, so, is giving people a reason to go to the arcade. The House of the Dead machines are always full when I go to one of my local Playdiums (Playdia?) so I wouldn't say that just because you can own it at home, people aren't going to go out and play it. I certainly do.
Also, I may be a dying breed, but I like pinball and I can't play the new pinball machines anywhere but at an arcade. There, at least, is a market (tiny as it is) that consoles can't usurp.
While the Screen Actors' Guild has had great success, in the past, in getting multi-millionaires to strike for more money, I think that, perhaps, CGI characters might be harder to woo to their unionist side. I'm not suggesting that Jar-Jar would never fight for what he sees as right, but I think getting him out on the picket line could be a little harder:
"Meesa Jar-Jar. Meesa wanna equitable workplace conditions"
- Someone writes a java app capable of searching Pi for a number series identical to the ASCII values of the text they wish to tranfer.
- Upon finding this series, the location of it in Pi is transferred in a format something like "12137-12193" meaning "the message begins at place 12137 and ends at place 12193"
- Bingo. Your recipient has the message and all you transferred was two completely unrelated numbers.
Then again, maybe Pi is illegal.
Now, using microsoft's revolutionary technology, consumers will be able to censor media containing dangerous or obscene words like "open source" or "freeware". You won't have to worry about your children being drawn into a self-destructive downward spiral of pro bono programming when microsoft's X-Box censor technology is on the watch.
Scully: "But Mulder, how could a man like Van Gogh reproduce a perfect copy of the starscape at a given moment, when the painting would have taken hours, if not days, to paint?"
Mulder: "Maybe a man like Van Gogh...wasn't a MAN at all!"
Scully: "Are you suggesting...?"
Mulder: "Yes, Scully. Aliens, taking the form of Renaissance artists, visited 19th century Europe, bestowing on European civilisation the Impressionist school of art, in an attempt to destroy the Neo-Classical school, with its tendency towards historical paintings, thus to prevent any historical paintings recording their many visits to earth from being recorded"
Scully: "Yeah, I guess. You know I read in the National Inquirer that that Monet dude got anally probed..."
While the possibility of artificially manufactured cartilaginous tissue may be of some piddling consequence to people who are in desperate need of joint reconstruction, the implications of manufactured, durable, realistic joints and appendages has implications for CERTAIN OTHER MAJOR PLAYERS
One of Blizzards entries in the US Patent and Trademark Office database for "Diablo" (there are several) lists "PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MOTION PICTURES" as a Good or Service for which Blizzard has registered the "Diablo" trademark. The link is located here. A larger list of US trademarks of the name "Diablo" can be found here
New Line was surprisingly lax in not checking whether the name "Diablo" was already registered for motion picture distribution.
Someday, my friends, you will by H4X3D by a dolphin.
With the cacophony coming from this LAN-party case, no one will be able to hear you giggling like a little schoolgirl as your massive reaver-drop-to-end-all-reaver-drops approaches the unmonitored rear of the enemy Zerg's base.
Somehow I think what we're looking at here is the gaming equivalent of the new Gallactica series. An old concept, grown cheesy with age, given bright shiny new packaging. Besides <valley girl impression>ohmygosh, WWII games are like sooo 20th century</valley girl impression>
Nostalgia's all well and good, but doesn't it seems like most attempts at bringing back this sort of series from the dead usually result only in disappointment. The big successes in movies and TV have been those that came up with new themes, not repackaged old ones. Episode 1, obviously, is the first thing that comes to mind in the "should have let it die a graceful death" department. Battlefield Earth, similarly, should have been cut to pieces on the cutting room floor (though in this case, a book, not TV or movie gave it its terrible theme). Lost In Space, finally, didn't seem to realise its predecessor had succeeded because it was camp. Separate the camp from the theme and you just have a silly premise for a sci-fi.
Development houses are only as valuable as their current contracts.
Making games is a hit and miss operation, especially on the PC platform and the way investors throw money into them, you'd think they were long-term investment opportunities. The sad fact is, that even if you get the #1 game of the year (e.g., Half Life), you won't necessarily make it big (Half Life made net profits of just over $200,000). In any development house, the star designer could leave, the current project could fail or new ideas could stop flowing at any moment. In such a horrendously spasmodic industry, multi-billion-dollar take-over bids seem completely out of place.
There are people out there with university degrees in the field who have to do this sort of menial labour. One simply can't expect to be handed a breadboard and told "have fun", because the market just doesn't have a place for many people of that sort. That's something you do in your basement for kicks, not something a corporation hires you to do.
This emerging technology could pose a threat to the current dominance of the "Put small metal items on the track in front of an oncoming train" technique of domestic metal-forming.
Truer words were never spoken...or something.
Much of this interview bears a remarkable resemblance to what you get when you type out random text and run it back and forth through each of babelfish's languages several times.