Like the rules covering armor in modern 3.5 D&D (and most CRPGs, at least spiritually). It is a twist on the older = 2ed rules which in turn take their form from the way that hits were calculated using six sided dice in chainmail.
"Some of the big-ticket Vista features and programs are eerily familiar, too. The biggest one is Instant Search, a text box at the bottom of the Start menu. As you type here, the Start menu turns into a list of every file, folder, program and e-mail message that contains your search phrase, regardless of names or folder locations. It's a powerful, routine-changing tool, especially when you seek a program that would otherwise require burrowing through nested folders in the All Programs menu. A similar Search box appears at the top of every desktop (Explorer) window, for ease in plucking some document out of that more limited haystack. "
This stuff sounds like the google desktop search that sits in my coworker's taskbar as well as the toolbars that have been attached to everyones' browser for years; not some ripoff of the MacOS per se. By bet is that MS was likely looking at heading Google off at the pass and keep them off the desktop.
What really, really surprises me is the almost panglossian attitude of many in the nwn PW community about nwn2. With all of its problems and the obvious fact that persistent worlds were out of scope for the Obsidian design team, people still go on about how "future patches" or "the community" will fix it. I find it unbelievable that so many people simply assume that because the last nwn was so well supported for so many years, that this one will be as well; despite the fact that it was produced by a different company (and one with not so great a track record wrt bugs and patches).
You don't have to wait for Dragon Age (which iirc is also not designed for PW use). I left nwn for the greener pastures of Multiverse and never looked back. Its server architecture reads like a wet dream for PW admins. There is an example ruleset called MARS that you can run with, or use as an example to build your own. There is also an MMO kit (Called "My Dream RPG" or something like that) for the Torque Engine that you can use to get a PW up and running in short order. Also, with Torque, if you don't like how the engine does something, you have the c++ code and can change it.
The grandparent is right. Consider something for a moment. What if the patent on the wheel was still in force? What if every ancient story was still copyrighted? What would the world be like?
As for passing it on to your children. It is by no means guaranteed that your kids or grandkids are as clever as you. It is not in the interests of society at large to sandbag them over someone who is more clever and ambitious, but rather have them struggle their way to the top. This is how the modern meritocracry works and society as a whole benefits from this darwinism; as opposed to the old nobility systems that more or less reflected who had an ancestor swinging a sword for the right cheiftan at the fall of the roman empire. This is also Warren Buffet's argument in favor of the death tax.
Since prople are using nwn and nwn2 as the examples here, I'll point something out. Atari, as the publisher of both, has access to the platform related sales data if it exists (iirc, the CDa had both win and linux binaries and I don't remember if there was a platform question in registration). For nwn2, DirectX was used and they did not bother with OpenGL.
My suspicion is that the cost benefit (to Atari) came down in favor of not bothering with Linux this time around.
Errr... there are still controller classes; those nastly little things that sit behind your gui. The last I looked, you had to do at least SOME coding. But in general, the ui elements themselves are just painted now.
"Why didn't you go for the National Guard, hmm? Your chances of being deployed over seas to hostile combat zone are dramatically reduced in that organization."
I met an Ohio National Guardsman the other day who has been deployed three out of the past five years and has seen two combat tours in Iraq (and told me a depressing story about a child with a bloody arm who was wired with explosives and killed the medic who tried to help him). He left the active duty military shortly before 9/11 becasue he thought being a part timer would allow him to spend more time with his family.
Oh and I met him in the train station in Heidelberg Germany. He is away from home again.
Re:The problem with guis is they don't work
on
GUIs Get a Makeover
·
· Score: 1
There is a whole field called "useability" where building a user concentric interface is both an art and a science. The simple fact is that there is a spectrum of users for any given app that ranges from casual to intensive and there is no such thing as a broad spectrum power user. E.g. I'm an intensive user of some things such as MS Office, Visio and Eclipse, but fankly I'm a casual user of sysadmin tools. I use them rarely becasue they are out of the scope of my work and they are not my hobby.
I'd be seriously interested in seeing a useablilty test using morae (http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp) on those cli interfaces you tout. The faces of users as tey struggle to do even simple things must be worth a few good laughs. BAD UI's are as bad as good CLIs but bad CLIs are even worse. I'd rather write an email on my phone and I hate using mobile phones keyboards than vi any day of the week. Good GUIs are never even noticed, they just work.
I have seen cases where information must be in one case ot the rother. It is trivial to map lower and upper case. If you MUST use caps in shipped sodftware, that software has issues. If The developers could not be arsed to do something as trivial as mapping keystrokes (causing people not the get their medication) for useability, I really question the ooverall quality of their software.
Given the sanitary state of most airline bathrooms.... yech!
The idea of the mile high club is cool, but when that ideal meets the reality of a real airline bathroom; nevermind the fact that a zillion people are witing for you to finish your business so they can eject bodily fluids and solids there.
If you are at the state where you are applying a tourniquet, saving the limb is no longer the primiary aim. You are saving the victim at the expense of the limb.
Given that TV studios already like reality TV in large part because the cast is cheap, will we start seeing 100% virtual actors? From a business standpoint, intellectual property beats a human face that ages, gets into tabloids ( and potentially ruining the carefully marketed image ) is costly and needs to be recycled regularly.
I own a Razr and chose it over the Treo (and would have chosen it over the Q had it been available). Why? Like the other poster, I don't like its ergonomics. It feels like a PDA that can do phone calls. I am under no illusions that my phone is a phone that can play music, surf the net, send email, etc in a half assed manner...
BUT...
It's good enough. My five year old Nikon coolpix (an 800, a prehistoric 2 MP version, but good enough optics to not really miss the newer ccds) takes better pictures. Even my el-cheapo mp3 is better as a music player (at least more convenient and less annoying). My PC is where I maintain my calendar and write 99.999999% of my emails. I just don't go in for using a PDA for the write part. I'm too cheap for the per-kb data charges and a large TFT monitor sure as hell beats it for reading/. Etc.
It's the still/video camera that I find I have "on me" when something comes up and I did not come prepared. Someday I'll actually find a need to google something up from a mountaintop I guess. If I need t check my calendar anytime, any place, I can do it. I don't need to carry yet another gadget to listen to a song. Etc.
It's "GOOD ENOUGH" and its small enough to forget I have it on me. Yes, it has an annoying UI. Yes it does everything badly. Personally, I'll take half assed and conveniently small enough to always have without noticing over a little less half assed, but huge alternative.
Has Newscorp figured out a way to actually make money with MySpace yet? I recall reading about hair brained ideas like making movies, bands and other products into "friends". I just can't wait to add next month's big budget flick or label promoted band to my friends list.
Slashdot Mirror
Like the rules covering armor in modern 3.5 D&D (and most CRPGs, at least spiritually). It is a twist on the older = 2ed rules which in turn take their form from the way that hits were calculated using six sided dice in chainmail.
"Some of the big-ticket Vista features and programs are eerily familiar, too. The biggest one is Instant Search, a text box at the bottom of the Start menu. As you type here, the Start menu turns into a list of every file, folder, program and e-mail message that contains your search phrase, regardless of names or folder locations. It's a powerful, routine-changing tool, especially when you seek a program that would otherwise require burrowing through nested folders in the All Programs menu.
A similar Search box appears at the top of every desktop (Explorer) window, for ease in plucking some document out of that more limited haystack. "
This stuff sounds like the google desktop search that sits in my coworker's taskbar as well as the toolbars that have been attached to everyones' browser for years; not some ripoff of the MacOS per se. By bet is that MS was likely looking at heading Google off at the pass and keep them off the desktop.
... or java.lang.Math.PI
ohhhh.... a budding flamewar over the best way to do string handling in Java!!!
*gets out popcorn and settles in to watch*
YAY! I tried to patch to 1.03 this morning before coming to work. After a 60 meg download, it chokes while trying to apply the patch.
YAY!
What really, really surprises me is the almost panglossian attitude of many in the nwn PW community about nwn2. With all of its problems and the obvious fact that persistent worlds were out of scope for the Obsidian design team, people still go on about how "future patches" or "the community" will fix it. I find it unbelievable that so many people simply assume that because the last nwn was so well supported for so many years, that this one will be as well; despite the fact that it was produced by a different company (and one with not so great a track record wrt bugs and patches).
You don't have to wait for Dragon Age (which iirc is also not designed for PW use). I left nwn for the greener pastures of Multiverse and never looked back. Its server architecture reads like a wet dream for PW admins. There is an example ruleset called MARS that you can run with, or use as an example to build your own. There is also an MMO kit (Called "My Dream RPG" or something like that) for the Torque Engine that you can use to get a PW up and running in short order. Also, with Torque, if you don't like how the engine does something, you have the c++ code and can change it.
The grandparent is right. Consider something for a moment. What if the patent on the wheel was still in force? What if every ancient story was still copyrighted? What would the world be like?
As for passing it on to your children. It is by no means guaranteed that your kids or grandkids are as clever as you. It is not in the interests of society at large to sandbag them over someone who is more clever and ambitious, but rather have them struggle their way to the top. This is how the modern meritocracry works and society as a whole benefits from this darwinism; as opposed to the old nobility systems that more or less reflected who had an ancestor swinging a sword for the right cheiftan at the fall of the roman empire. This is also Warren Buffet's argument in favor of the death tax.
Since prople are using nwn and nwn2 as the examples here, I'll point something out. Atari, as the publisher of both, has access to the platform related sales data if it exists (iirc, the CDa had both win and linux binaries and I don't remember if there was a platform question in registration). For nwn2, DirectX was used and they did not bother with OpenGL.
My suspicion is that the cost benefit (to Atari) came down in favor of not bothering with Linux this time around.
Errr... there are still controller classes; those nastly little things that sit behind your gui. The last I looked, you had to do at least SOME coding. But in general, the ui elements themselves are just painted now.
If computers follow the lead of consumer electronics. then can we say that black and silver is the new biege?
Looking at the box near my left foot gives a data point comfirming this, so it must be true!
"Why didn't you go for the National Guard, hmm? Your chances of being deployed over seas to hostile combat zone are dramatically reduced in that organization."
I met an Ohio National Guardsman the other day who has been deployed three out of the past five years and has seen two combat tours in Iraq (and told me a depressing story about a child with a bloody arm who was wired with explosives and killed the medic who tried to help him). He left the active duty military shortly before 9/11 becasue he thought being a part timer would allow him to spend more time with his family.
Oh and I met him in the train station in Heidelberg Germany. He is away from home again.
Cameras anyone?
There is a whole field called "useability" where building a user concentric interface is both an art and a science. The simple fact is that there is a spectrum of users for any given app that ranges from casual to intensive and there is no such thing as a broad spectrum power user. E.g. I'm an intensive user of some things such as MS Office, Visio and Eclipse, but fankly I'm a casual user of sysadmin tools. I use them rarely becasue they are out of the scope of my work and they are not my hobby.
I'd be seriously interested in seeing a useablilty test using morae (http://www.techsmith.com/morae.asp) on those cli interfaces you tout. The faces of users as tey struggle to do even simple things must be worth a few good laughs. BAD UI's are as bad as good CLIs but bad CLIs are even worse. I'd rather write an email on my phone and I hate using mobile phones keyboards than vi any day of the week. Good GUIs are never even noticed, they just work.
The Samsung Synchmaster 213T in front of me supports it just by grabbing it and turning it clockwise.
While its sister the F15 stands at 105 kills against 0 losses.
Ummm.... im 90% certain that the grandparent intended to be ironic.
I have seen cases where information must be in one case ot the rother. It is trivial to map lower and upper case. If you MUST use caps in shipped sodftware, that software has issues. If The developers could not be arsed to do something as trivial as mapping keystrokes (causing people not the get their medication) for useability, I really question the ooverall quality of their software.
Given the sanitary state of most airline bathrooms.... yech!
The idea of the mile high club is cool, but when that ideal meets the reality of a real airline bathroom; nevermind the fact that a zillion people are witing for you to finish your business so they can eject bodily fluids and solids there.
Takes quick and dirty to new heights!
I dunno... Idaho has a nice stretch of the Rockies. If you like the outdoors, Idaho beats more congested regions hands down.
If only I had mod points.... this made my morning!
If you are at the state where you are applying a tourniquet, saving the limb is no longer the primiary aim. You are saving the victim at the expense of the limb.
Given that TV studios already like reality TV in large part because the cast is cheap, will we start seeing 100% virtual actors? From a business standpoint, intellectual property beats a human face that ages, gets into tabloids ( and potentially ruining the carefully marketed image ) is costly and needs to be recycled regularly.
I own a Razr and chose it over the Treo (and would have chosen it over the Q had it been available). Why? Like the other poster, I don't like its ergonomics. It feels like a PDA that can do phone calls. I am under no illusions that my phone is a phone that can play music, surf the net, send email, etc in a half assed manner...
/. Etc.
BUT...
It's good enough. My five year old Nikon coolpix (an 800, a prehistoric 2 MP version, but good enough optics to not really miss the newer ccds) takes better pictures. Even my el-cheapo mp3 is better as a music player (at least more convenient and less annoying). My PC is where I maintain my calendar and write 99.999999% of my emails. I just don't go in for using a PDA for the write part. I'm too cheap for the per-kb data charges and a large TFT monitor sure as hell beats it for reading
It's the still/video camera that I find I have "on me" when something comes up and I did not come prepared. Someday I'll actually find a need to google something up from a mountaintop I guess. If I need t check my calendar anytime, any place, I can do it. I don't need to carry yet another gadget to listen to a song. Etc.
It's "GOOD ENOUGH" and its small enough to forget I have it on me. Yes, it has an annoying UI. Yes it does everything badly. Personally, I'll take half assed and conveniently small enough to always have without noticing over a little less half assed, but huge alternative.
Has Newscorp figured out a way to actually make money with MySpace yet? I recall reading about hair brained ideas like making movies, bands and other products into "friends". I just can't wait to add next month's big budget flick or label promoted band to my friends list.
Then again, I think I'm too old for MySpace.
Why Ted Stevens' internet took five days to get to him! All that streaming filling those tubes...