It appears the idea they are trying to patent is that, in a 3D world, when you turn the camera to look a given direction, you should only see some avatars, and not others (that is, only the ones in your field of view). Additionally, if there are a lot of avatars, this patent claims protection for the idea that the client can implement a maximum number of avatars to display, and to use the knowledge of the maximum number to display, combined with the position information, to determine some subset of the avatars to display (presumably the X nearest avatars, where X is the maximum number to display, though the patent doesn't specify this explicitly).
Neal Stephenson covered this in 1992 in Snow Crash when he described the behavior of avatars in the Metaverse (the 3D virtual world in the novel). In large crowds the clients would typically display other avatars as ghosts to cut down on rendering time and to avoid avatar collisions.
1. It's more work to generate a flood of ideas than it is to ignore them. 2. Telling someone, "Not responding means that you accept this offer," doesn't work.
And no one has the right to have a green park or cleaned streets in downtown or whatever public services are there. And don't tell me you don't live downtown and have to pay your gardener or the cleaning lady! Sometimes it's just a good idea from a town to offer a service for free, even though you don't use it.
If a mayority in a town wants to have municipal WiFi, then let them have their way. If it gets too expensive for your wallet to pay the taxes, move somewhere else. Sheesh!
Well sure, if by "free" you mean "someone else pays for it." The big difference between your examples is that corporations are not generally in the business of providing parks or maintaining streets. Those are very legitimate uses of tax dollars. However, when you start talking about free Wi-Fi for all, this seems to really be crossing some lines.
Look at it this way. The difference between zero internet access and some internet access (i.e. dial-up) is enormous. This also costs about $5 per month. The difference between some internet access and streaming porn at warp speed isn't exactly essential, although it does increase the cost by about a factor of 10. It's a value-added service that some people choose to pay for. I don't see why a local government should be in the business of providing subsidized broadband, when there are plenty of very cheap alternatives available including the public libraries we already pay for.
That opinion piece uses arguments similar to those being used to ram government funded Wi-Fi down our throats. I'm sorry, but no one has the right to have broadband. Some people pay for it themselves, others have dial-up, and others choose to not have any internet access.
A major problem with this line of thinking is that after they establish that everyone has a right to use the internet at max speed, the next thing on the list will be the huge social injustice caused by not everyone having a tax payer supplied computer.
I'm with you on everything except the "human rights" part. This is not even remotely a human rights issue. It's a company making a stupid decision. Employees don't like it, they quit, they bring their talent to a different corporation. The market takes care of this.
Since our political system is divided in a very childish way (two parties)
The two parties may act like children, but that's not the same thing as the system being childish. There are plenty of parliamentary systems you could live under if you like a government where every crackpot has a voice. Personally, I like how the major parties filter out the lunatics.
Death rate -- 50%?
on
A Flu Pandemic?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
50% of what? Of people who got sick enough to go to a doctor. Where do the people who never showed up at a hospital fit into this statistic?
Q: This damn thing doesn't work on large files! #@%& You!
A: Did you not read the manual? Man I wish I could punch you in the face over
TCP/IP! Change the config file's MaxSize line. By default the limit is 2 megs.
If I had the mod points I'd do it. I'm not sure why this one bothers me so much, but I find it borderline insane that so many people say "Savings" when that is clearly wrong.
no thanks. the way i'm going to avoid not being recognizable when i die, is to die around friends, peacefully. it may be hard, but its better to fight for peace than war.
First of all, I'll say that this RFID idea seems really insane on its face. However, your comment about getting to choose the method of your own death is missing the point completely. These are terrorist attacks. You don't get to decide while it's happening, "Oh, I think I'll pass on being blown up just now. I prefer to die in a peaceful way."
When the bomb goes off, innocent and peaceful people die. They don't get a choice.
In Minnesota, a law that is passed as a tacked-on ammendment to another law can be challenged if the ammendment doesn't have anything to do with the main bill.
The concealed carry law that we've had for a couple of years was thrown out recently for this very reason. The state legislature has to go back and repass the law as its own separate bill.
Yeah, I may have worded that a bit poorly. My personal stance is that NetHack is zero fun if you cheat. It's a very easy game in that case. If you play it as intended, then it's much more fun and challenging.
For anyone who may not be aware, in NetHack you get one life. If you die, the game ends. If you load a saved game the save file is deleted, which is where the "backed-up save game file" cheat comes from. When you're a newbie, you die a lot from a lack of knowledge (starving to death, trying to fight things that are too hard for your level, equiping cursed items, rusting your weapons and armor to oblivion, etc.). When you are more experienced, you die more often from impatience and greed. It's a turn-based game, so you never have to rush anything. But almost always, after you die, you'll see something in your backpack that could have saved you if you had simply planned better.
Actual programming likely has very little to do with making a good AI. If you want to outdo Sid Meier, you need to be able to describe, in very generic terms, how to play Civ III well. The game is outstandingly complex, with all of the different civ interactions going on at once. I seriously doubt that most people could succeed with this task.
Re:best games are often the cheapest
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
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· Score: 4, Insightful
OB reference to... NetHack. Still one of the most amazing and fun games ever made. If you don't cheat (i.e. play from backed-up save games) it's really frustrating, but in a good way. You know why you died, and almost every time you know that it was squarely your own fault and easily avoidable. (Yes, gnomes sometimes step on polymorph traps, turn into a mumak, and trample you to death, but those are rare events.)
The game keeps you coming back for --more--, time and time again.
#9: Immersion and the invisible hand of God
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Almost every game does this. In Lord of the Rings: Return of the King there's actually a "run out of a crumbling building" level and where stones rain down on your head and block your path. So the biggest difficulty in the level is that you can't jump over a knee-high stone because THERE IS NO FUCKING JUMPING IN THE GAME.
This one really hits home, because it's exactly the reason that I didn't buy Guild Wars. Yeah, it might be a really fun game otherwise, but it's like your character is on rails. Hey, there's a cliff. I think I'll run off the edge... hmmm, nope there's an invisible wall preventing me from moving. In a game that's supposedly a cross between FPS and MMORPG, this is just super lame.
For all of it's fault, at least in WoW I could explore terrain, climb mountains, and roam aimlessly if I wanted to.
Firefox doesn't include Adblock, but the ability to integrate custom extensions permitted someone to create it. Considering that it is the second-most popular extension on the mozilla site (over 900,000 downloads)
That's 90,000, but only for the last week. They've almost hit 2,000,000 total downloads for this plugin.
The good news is that insofar as EULAs have any legal weight whatsoever, the existing copies will be covered by the original EULA.
You actually agree to the WoW EULA when you log in, not when you install the software. There's a flag in your config file that indicates that you've agreed to it so that it doesn't pop up every time you log in. Each patch, they reset this flag so you have to click "Accept" again.
Slashdot Mirror
It appears the idea they are trying to patent is that, in a 3D world, when you turn the camera to look a given direction, you should only see some avatars, and not others (that is, only the ones in your field of view). Additionally, if there are a lot of avatars, this patent claims protection for the idea that the client can implement a maximum number of avatars to display, and to use the knowledge of the maximum number to display, combined with the position information, to determine some subset of the avatars to display (presumably the X nearest avatars, where X is the maximum number to display, though the patent doesn't specify this explicitly).
Neal Stephenson covered this in 1992 in Snow Crash when he described the behavior of avatars in the Metaverse (the 3D virtual world in the novel). In large crowds the clients would typically display other avatars as ghosts to cut down on rendering time and to avoid avatar collisions.
"why the lucky stiff" is a person's nickname.
Two problems.
1. It's more work to generate a flood of ideas than it is to ignore them.
2. Telling someone, "Not responding means that you accept this offer," doesn't work.
An even better summary on 2+2
Why should it be illegal to voluntarily give a cell phone company your SSN? Is someone forcing you to use their service?
Not if you get disabled at 25 and you draw social security benefits for the rest of your life.
Social Security is an insurance program.
Please explain why I'm responsible for your insurance bill.
And no one has the right to have a green park or cleaned streets in downtown or whatever public services are there. And don't tell me you don't live downtown and have to pay your gardener or the cleaning lady! Sometimes it's just a good idea from a town to offer a service for free, even though you don't use it.
If a mayority in a town wants to have municipal WiFi, then let them have their way. If it gets too expensive for your wallet to pay the taxes, move somewhere else. Sheesh!
Well sure, if by "free" you mean "someone else pays for it." The big difference between your examples is that corporations are not generally in the business of providing parks or maintaining streets. Those are very legitimate uses of tax dollars. However, when you start talking about free Wi-Fi for all, this seems to really be crossing some lines.
Look at it this way. The difference between zero internet access and some internet access (i.e. dial-up) is enormous. This also costs about $5 per month. The difference between some internet access and streaming porn at warp speed isn't exactly essential, although it does increase the cost by about a factor of 10. It's a value-added service that some people choose to pay for. I don't see why a local government should be in the business of providing subsidized broadband, when there are plenty of very cheap alternatives available including the public libraries we already pay for.
That opinion piece uses arguments similar to those being used to ram government funded Wi-Fi down our throats. I'm sorry, but no one has the right to have broadband. Some people pay for it themselves, others have dial-up, and others choose to not have any internet access.
A major problem with this line of thinking is that after they establish that everyone has a right to use the internet at max speed, the next thing on the list will be the huge social injustice caused by not everyone having a tax payer supplied computer.
I'm with you on everything except the "human rights" part. This is not even remotely a human rights issue. It's a company making a stupid decision. Employees don't like it, they quit, they bring their talent to a different corporation. The market takes care of this.
Since our political system is divided in a very childish way (two parties)
The two parties may act like children, but that's not the same thing as the system being childish. There are plenty of parliamentary systems you could live under if you like a government where every crackpot has a voice. Personally, I like how the major parties filter out the lunatics.
50% of what? Of people who got sick enough to go to a doctor. Where do the people who never showed up at a hospital fit into this statistic?
From the TinyDisk FAQ:
Q: This damn thing doesn't work on large files! #@%& You!
A: Did you not read the manual? Man I wish I could punch you in the face over TCP/IP! Change the config file's MaxSize line. By default the limit is 2 megs.
I tried driving in Detroit. You had to be sneaky to change lanes. Signalling was only to indicate to the others to block you from changing lanes.
You spelled "Minneapolis" wrong.
If I had the mod points I'd do it. I'm not sure why this one bothers me so much, but I find it borderline insane that so many people say "Savings" when that is clearly wrong.
That one and "could care less" really annoy me.
Don't forget elevators that have "... the capacity to see dimly into the immediate future."
no thanks. the way i'm going to avoid not being recognizable when i die, is to die around friends, peacefully. it may be hard, but its better to fight for peace than war.
First of all, I'll say that this RFID idea seems really insane on its face. However, your comment about getting to choose the method of your own death is missing the point completely. These are terrorist attacks. You don't get to decide while it's happening, "Oh, I think I'll pass on being blown up just now. I prefer to die in a peaceful way."When the bomb goes off, innocent and peaceful people die. They don't get a choice.
In Minnesota, a law that is passed as a tacked-on ammendment to another law can be challenged if the ammendment doesn't have anything to do with the main bill.
The concealed carry law that we've had for a couple of years was thrown out recently for this very reason. The state legislature has to go back and repass the law as its own separate bill.
Broadband has been hijacked by the corporates and it isn't as fast as they want you to think.
Yes, I can see how having the world's largest media company build a new Internet would keep it out of the hands of the "corporates".
For anyone who may not be aware, in NetHack you get one life. If you die, the game ends. If you load a saved game the save file is deleted, which is where the "backed-up save game file" cheat comes from. When you're a newbie, you die a lot from a lack of knowledge (starving to death, trying to fight things that are too hard for your level, equiping cursed items, rusting your weapons and armor to oblivion, etc.). When you are more experienced, you die more often from impatience and greed. It's a turn-based game, so you never have to rush anything. But almost always, after you die, you'll see something in your backpack that could have saved you if you had simply planned better.
Actual programming likely has very little to do with making a good AI. If you want to outdo Sid Meier, you need to be able to describe, in very generic terms, how to play Civ III well. The game is outstandingly complex, with all of the different civ interactions going on at once. I seriously doubt that most people could succeed with this task.
The game keeps you coming back for --more--, time and time again.
Almost every game does this. In Lord of the Rings: Return of the King there's actually a "run out of a crumbling building" level and where stones rain down on your head and block your path. So the biggest difficulty in the level is that you can't jump over a knee-high stone because THERE IS NO FUCKING JUMPING IN THE GAME.
This one really hits home, because it's exactly the reason that I didn't buy Guild Wars. Yeah, it might be a really fun game otherwise, but it's like your character is on rails. Hey, there's a cliff. I think I'll run off the edge... hmmm, nope there's an invisible wall preventing me from moving. In a game that's supposedly a cross between FPS and MMORPG, this is just super lame.
For all of it's fault, at least in WoW I could explore terrain, climb mountains, and roam aimlessly if I wanted to.
That's 90,000, but only for the last week. They've almost hit 2,000,000 total downloads for this plugin.
It was posted here.
The good news is that insofar as EULAs have any legal weight whatsoever, the existing copies will be covered by the original EULA.
You actually agree to the WoW EULA when you log in, not when you install the software. There's a flag in your config file that indicates that you've agreed to it so that it doesn't pop up every time you log in. Each patch, they reset this flag so you have to click "Accept" again.