That is why they are so popular. There are times for Baldurs Gate, and there are times for Diablo. Simplicity is not inherently a bad thing, especially when it comes to interface and gameplay (look at all the good old classic games, even simpler than diablo and addicting as hell...even old school tetris still grabs a few hours from me everyone so often)
"With the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/etc., the capabilities of these consoles have gotten better and better. Their graphics and sound are better than on PCs, and for the most part they are played on bigger, more immersive screens. If you want a FPS, play it on a console."
Ummmmm yeah....I think I'm gonna have to go ahead and DISAGREE. sound is better on console? I dunno what kinda tin cans YOU use on your computer, but unless the game company really screwed up, computers sound much better.
As for graphics it all depends on what kinda machine you're using...sure a PS2 will almost always look better than a 386 w/ an ega card in it, but what about in a year when the gf4 is out, ram is really cheap, P4s hit the 3+ ghz mark, etc...etc... Then the PC'll look better than the ps2. As for bigger immerssive screens...ok, I can see that...except for the resolution. Unless you have an HDTV or something...(but hell, why not just spring for a good LCD projector instead?)
I think the PC'll always be relevent in gaming...and as voice comm gains a foothold, you'll now have 3 unique inputs over the consoles: a mouse, a keyboard, and a headset. I haven't bought a console since the old sega genesis way back when, and from playing friends consoles, I can see I haven't missed much (aka anything) by sticking with a computer.
Well, I don't know about you, but with a few exceptions I can play games simultaneously from any comp on my lan...halflife (mods), q3, UT, SS, etc...I can even play on the same server!
Well, scientific elites are also the minority and you're kinda suggesting we cater to the minority. Sure if half the population was an einstein, hawkings, lobachevsky, newton, that'd work, but science really isn't that big of a thing to the majority of the (worlds) population...for each scientist there might be thousands of construction workers, architects, pilots, masons, plumbers, etc...
The real stars in any field will show through no matter what kind of school system we have, but I really think that the 'guided education' we're seeing now is the best for the majority...we just need teachers to teach critical thinking more than anything else...and where are most of the critical thinkers? at high paying jobs. So make teaching a TOUGH profession to get into that is well compensated and they will come to you I think...
Well, for the military budget part: teachers sure as hell won't defend us against enemies who might attack RIGHT NOW whereas the military is equipped to handle that problem...and because we don't want to send soldiers off to their deaths in crappy planes, tanks, and boats we spend lots of money on them...what was it that one of the F22 proponents said....something about not trying to make it a fair fight.
Culture and identity loss'll happen w/ or w/o good teaching, imho good teaching is simply teaching to think critically (and by yourself) while passing on important facts. Anyone can just teach facts, the good teachers teach how to THINK.
'Full of uneducated menaces' well...I'm sure more people are better educated today than ever, but yeah good teaching is always needed and will reduce the amount.
We not only subsidize tobacco farmers, we subsidize ALL farmers...we do this in order to stop them from producing too much harvest thuse reducing prices dramatically and causing a recession (or in the case of the roaring 20's which weren't so roaring for the agricultural sector: the great depression).
So what can we do? Beyond paying taxes without trying to duck any of them, not much...most school sare state run so we can basically complain to our governors, mayors, representatives and senators, and maybe start a multi-billion dollar donation for each school district so it can afford to pay teachers what they should get...
So you prefer a kinda watered down darwinian social order...sure you can't kill people, but the strongest will always get the most stuff and be the most powerful (and have the most illegitimate kids). No, people should be accountable for their actions but not excessively so...it's a fine line that gets hazy at times but an important one. DMCA is on one extreme, you are on the other.
IMHO the main problem is that this technology thing is still NEW! Society still has yet to accept and integrate it, so it is testing out the extremes (facial recognition cameras, carnivore, etc...). Give it time to sink in (well, and fight to be sure that it doesn't sink in the wrong way hehe).
For the doom propheters out there, remember back in the late 19th/early 20th century? Trusts seem to own everything...and if you read The Jungle by Upton Sinclaire I think it really paints a similar picture to what the grandparent of this message is saying...trusts owned the political system/corporations own the political system now. What happened to the trusts? Teddy Roosevelt et al.. Strip away all of this sexy technology and we're basically back at the turn of the 20th century.
Personally, I'm not worried as 'revolution' is rarely a majority movement, and I have a firm belief that someone (or some group) will come in at some point and push reforms through (hmmm I guess kinda like a deus ex machina, no?)
but....but.....but....minivans aren't COOL for us l33t ice hockey players!
haha the funny thing is, I also drive a car that likes to drink gas (15-18 mpg on the freeway) but it's a small car...an 84 (or is it 85?) t-bird. It probably weighed more than most of the new suvs =)
BTW, what's the point of a mini suv? whenever I see one of those I feel like if I blow on it it'll tip over.
kinda like those tiny little vaio notebooks, whenver I see one I always think it'll break when you touch it
Yes, all suv's that I have ever seen or heard of (and since I live in southern california that is quite a few!) are all gas-guzzling. If it's NOT gas guzzling it'd be called something like 'electric suv' or something...but SUVs, by definition, guzzle gas. especially when they are 'huge-assed' like the guy said.
Geez, someone mod the parent of this as flamebait.
Well....assuming that FTL travel becomes possible then by default FTL communication will become available, even if it has to be hand-brought by a courier ship...
"I submit that, even if it fails the "classical music test", that's ok, because those guys probably don't do a lot of MP3 and won't do much ogg either. But it does need to cope with techno, trance, rave, and singers. It needs to be able to do Brittney Spears (gag), even."
and I submit that you, sir, are making a stereotype...I keep a large, QUALITY classical mp3 (and growing ogg, btw) collection. Just because I don't like the ummmm "music" that you listen to (yes you and billions of others, and I'll still always refer to the "music" as "music" because it IS only "music"). The "music" isn't known for it's complexity (whereas classical (and romantic and baroque etc...) were for the most part, BASED in complexity (complexity of texture, of tone, and lots of other terms many people don't know exist)), so the "classical music test" SHOULD be the de facto test for an encoding scheme. The rest of that "music" will fall in line.
And don't even try to say that it's just because I'm old...unless you consider almost 20 as old?
--Jubedgy
Yeah, first time I encoded a track in ogg vorbis (don't quite remember which one it was anymore...) I was floored with how different it sounded. Maybe I've gotten too used to mp3s and was looking for something new, but to my ears ogg vorbis sounds much, much better.
not 'equal' to, 'favorably comparable' to. Besides if I was one of those coders, I'd do this just for the coolness factor of being able to say I created my own unique type of compression.
How is CS (counter-strike) any more intellectual stimulating than quake, anyhow?
Quake DeathMatch: Oh boy, I'm going to Run Around and Shoot People until I die, then respawn and Do It Again!
Oh boy, I'm going to Run Around with a team and Shoot People not on my team (unless friendly fire is on, in which case I'll shoot everyone) until I die, then I'll wait around for 5 minutes twiddling my fingers, and Do It All Over Again once I respawn!!!!
yeah....VEEERRRRY intellectual there! (this specifically to all of those CS loveing Quake bashers). Give it up guys, CS is just like quake except you die faster and it's more boring.
--Jubedgy
It's because The Man (The Cray Man) is holding us back...let's stick it to The Man, clock speed for life! Flops can go and shove it!!!
PS my bus can do 1.3 gigabytes! It just takes a while....
--Jubedgy
"Sat Control, we're gonna have a close pass to a commercial bird, 5 meters at the closest point..."
"Sat Control, ummm yeah, make that feet..."
"Sat Control, whoops, can't keep my numbers straight, did I say feet? I meant inches!..."
"Damn, me again, it turns out we were actually calculating the distance from the target satellites center of mass, and were actually using centimeters...moving our sat now!"
"ARGH! No one told me we were using LITERS of fuel..."
damn, you need to learn some history, boy! The US was critical in the formation of the UN. Much as the US was critical in the formation of the league of nations after WWI...however, back then congress was pretty much isolationist so we never actually joined, I bet that president (whatsisname!) was pretty pissed, hehe.
Anyway, we (the US) have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (think of it as the super-special voting group in the old soviet politburo). I don't remember who holds the other permanent seat...I think it was the Soviet Union (balance of power and all that) but I'm not sure, and I dunno who holds it now. In fact, I'm not 100% positive we still have a permanent seat, anyone know anything about this stuff?
no it's not a fact...starcraft? halflife SP? etc...besides, how different is, say, Quake 3 from the twitch games of yester-year...pong, tetris, pacman, etc... (except in quake 3 you play against more people)??
I guess the problem is you grew up and decided sitting around playing space invaders for 10 hours wasn't fun.
... ok, maybe it's just a california thing...but *we* get fingerprinted when we get a license...and if you join the military you get fingerprinted there, too. I'd imagine the police get fingerprinted, and sometimes kids get fingerprinted too, when they visit a police station for fun.
But yeah, there are limited reasons to be fingerprinted, however cameras everywhere would essentially be fingerprinting you all the time...and then checking those fingerprints against a record...every time!
I tell you...I'm not a fan of these cameras AT ALL! How many people can honestly say they've never done an illegal thing...EVER? (j-walking, warez, unreported income, etc...). Hell, for something like j-walking, how many people can accurately define it and tell the difference between that and a legal street-crossing? Ignorance may not be an excuse, but I sure as hell would rather be allowed to make ignorant mistakes.
Last I heard , IT was rumored to be some kinda hydrogen propelled scooter or something....I await with bated breath to see what IT actually is (well, when I have nothing better to do anyway)
--Jubedgy
And when our oceans get seeded with alien life that migrates onto land and reproduces by shooting little hatchlings into us which can't be removed and we aren't able to move into space chandeliers because we don't have the expertise to build them because building space stations were a complete waste of money....what'll that guy be saying then?!
and my circle method! If you have some curve C defined by x(t) and y(t) and you want to find the nearest point (x,y) to C, simply draw a circle with radius r such that it intersects C at 2 and only 2 points and the center is at (x,y). The point on curve C whose linearization is the inverse-reciprocal of a line drawn from the center to the circumference is the nearest place on the curve to that point (in other words, imagine a line drawn from the center that extends to the circumference of the circle. Imagine it sweeps around like a radar line. When it intersects the curve C, and the slope of the point of intersection on the curve is perpendicular to that radius line, then that point on the curve is the closest to (x,y)).
Granted in subsequent calculus classes I was shown how completely useless that method is, but since I developed it in high-school with only a knowledge of derivatives, I think it's pretty cool...
Slashdot Mirror
That is why they are so popular. There are times for Baldurs Gate, and there are times for Diablo. Simplicity is not inherently a bad thing, especially when it comes to interface and gameplay (look at all the good old classic games, even simpler than diablo and addicting as hell...even old school tetris still grabs a few hours from me everyone so often)
--Jubedgy
"With the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox/etc., the capabilities of these consoles have gotten better and better. Their graphics and sound are better than on PCs, and for the most part they are played on bigger, more immersive screens. If you want a FPS, play it on a console."
Ummmmm yeah....I think I'm gonna have to go ahead and DISAGREE. sound is better on console? I dunno what kinda tin cans YOU use on your computer, but unless the game company really screwed up, computers sound much better.
As for graphics it all depends on what kinda machine you're using...sure a PS2 will almost always look better than a 386 w/ an ega card in it, but what about in a year when the gf4 is out, ram is really cheap, P4s hit the 3+ ghz mark, etc...etc... Then the PC'll look better than the ps2. As for bigger immerssive screens...ok, I can see that...except for the resolution. Unless you have an HDTV or something...(but hell, why not just spring for a good LCD projector instead?)
I think the PC'll always be relevent in gaming...and as voice comm gains a foothold, you'll now have 3 unique inputs over the consoles: a mouse, a keyboard, and a headset. I haven't bought a console since the old sega genesis way back when, and from playing friends consoles, I can see I haven't missed much (aka anything) by sticking with a computer.
--Jubedgy
Well, I don't know about you, but with a few exceptions I can play games simultaneously from any comp on my lan...halflife (mods), q3, UT, SS, etc...I can even play on the same server!
--Jubedgy
Well, scientific elites are also the minority and you're kinda suggesting we cater to the minority. Sure if half the population was an einstein, hawkings, lobachevsky, newton, that'd work, but science really isn't that big of a thing to the majority of the (worlds) population...for each scientist there might be thousands of construction workers, architects, pilots, masons, plumbers, etc...
The real stars in any field will show through no matter what kind of school system we have, but I really think that the 'guided education' we're seeing now is the best for the majority...we just need teachers to teach critical thinking more than anything else...and where are most of the critical thinkers? at high paying jobs. So make teaching a TOUGH profession to get into that is well compensated and they will come to you I think...
--Jubedgy
Well, for the military budget part: teachers sure as hell won't defend us against enemies who might attack RIGHT NOW whereas the military is equipped to handle that problem...and because we don't want to send soldiers off to their deaths in crappy planes, tanks, and boats we spend lots of money on them...what was it that one of the F22 proponents said....something about not trying to make it a fair fight.
Culture and identity loss'll happen w/ or w/o good teaching, imho good teaching is simply teaching to think critically (and by yourself) while passing on important facts. Anyone can just teach facts, the good teachers teach how to THINK.
'Full of uneducated menaces' well...I'm sure more people are better educated today than ever, but yeah good teaching is always needed and will reduce the amount.
We not only subsidize tobacco farmers, we subsidize ALL farmers...we do this in order to stop them from producing too much harvest thuse reducing prices dramatically and causing a recession (or in the case of the roaring 20's which weren't so roaring for the agricultural sector: the great depression).
So what can we do? Beyond paying taxes without trying to duck any of them, not much...most school sare state run so we can basically complain to our governors, mayors, representatives and senators, and maybe start a multi-billion dollar donation for each school district so it can afford to pay teachers what they should get...
--Jubedgy
50 degrees farenheit?! where I come from (Los Angeles) that IS bitterly cold!
--Jubedgy
So you prefer a kinda watered down darwinian social order...sure you can't kill people, but the strongest will always get the most stuff and be the most powerful (and have the most illegitimate kids). No, people should be accountable for their actions but not excessively so...it's a fine line that gets hazy at times but an important one. DMCA is on one extreme, you are on the other.
IMHO the main problem is that this technology thing is still NEW! Society still has yet to accept and integrate it, so it is testing out the extremes (facial recognition cameras, carnivore, etc...). Give it time to sink in (well, and fight to be sure that it doesn't sink in the wrong way hehe).
For the doom propheters out there, remember back in the late 19th/early 20th century? Trusts seem to own everything...and if you read The Jungle by Upton Sinclaire I think it really paints a similar picture to what the grandparent of this message is saying...trusts owned the political system/corporations own the political system now. What happened to the trusts? Teddy Roosevelt et al.. Strip away all of this sexy technology and we're basically back at the turn of the 20th century.
Personally, I'm not worried as 'revolution' is rarely a majority movement, and I have a firm belief that someone (or some group) will come in at some point and push reforms through (hmmm I guess kinda like a deus ex machina, no?)
--Jubedgy
but....but.....but....minivans aren't COOL for us l33t ice hockey players!
haha the funny thing is, I also drive a car that likes to drink gas (15-18 mpg on the freeway) but it's a small car...an 84 (or is it 85?) t-bird. It probably weighed more than most of the new suvs =)
BTW, what's the point of a mini suv? whenever I see one of those I feel like if I blow on it it'll tip over.
kinda like those tiny little vaio notebooks, whenver I see one I always think it'll break when you touch it
--Jubedgy
Yes, all suv's that I have ever seen or heard of (and since I live in southern california that is quite a few!) are all gas-guzzling. If it's NOT gas guzzling it'd be called something like 'electric suv' or something...but SUVs, by definition, guzzle gas. especially when they are 'huge-assed' like the guy said.
Geez, someone mod the parent of this as flamebait.
--Jubedgy
Well....assuming that FTL travel becomes possible then by default FTL communication will become available, even if it has to be hand-brought by a courier ship...
--Jubedgy
"I submit that, even if it fails the "classical music test", that's ok, because those guys probably don't do a lot of MP3 and won't do much ogg either. But it does need to cope with techno, trance, rave, and singers. It needs to be able to do Brittney Spears (gag), even." and I submit that you, sir, are making a stereotype...I keep a large, QUALITY classical mp3 (and growing ogg, btw) collection. Just because I don't like the ummmm "music" that you listen to (yes you and billions of others, and I'll still always refer to the "music" as "music" because it IS only "music"). The "music" isn't known for it's complexity (whereas classical (and romantic and baroque etc...) were for the most part, BASED in complexity (complexity of texture, of tone, and lots of other terms many people don't know exist)), so the "classical music test" SHOULD be the de facto test for an encoding scheme. The rest of that "music" will fall in line. And don't even try to say that it's just because I'm old...unless you consider almost 20 as old? --Jubedgy
Yeah, first time I encoded a track in ogg vorbis (don't quite remember which one it was anymore...) I was floored with how different it sounded. Maybe I've gotten too used to mp3s and was looking for something new, but to my ears ogg vorbis sounds much, much better.
--Jubedgy
not 'equal' to, 'favorably comparable' to. Besides if I was one of those coders, I'd do this just for the coolness factor of being able to say I created my own unique type of compression.
--Jubedgy
How is CS (counter-strike) any more intellectual stimulating than quake, anyhow? Quake DeathMatch: Oh boy, I'm going to Run Around and Shoot People until I die, then respawn and Do It Again! Oh boy, I'm going to Run Around with a team and Shoot People not on my team (unless friendly fire is on, in which case I'll shoot everyone) until I die, then I'll wait around for 5 minutes twiddling my fingers, and Do It All Over Again once I respawn!!!! yeah....VEEERRRRY intellectual there! (this specifically to all of those CS loveing Quake bashers). Give it up guys, CS is just like quake except you die faster and it's more boring. --Jubedgy
It's because The Man (The Cray Man) is holding us back...let's stick it to The Man, clock speed for life! Flops can go and shove it!!! PS my bus can do 1.3 gigabytes! It just takes a while.... --Jubedgy
hmmm....so long as we got those units right...
"Sat Control, we're gonna have a close pass to a commercial bird, 5 meters at the closest point..."
"Sat Control, ummm yeah, make that feet..."
"Sat Control, whoops, can't keep my numbers straight, did I say feet? I meant inches!..."
"Damn, me again, it turns out we were actually calculating the distance from the target satellites center of mass, and were actually using centimeters...moving our sat now!"
"ARGH! No one told me we were using LITERS of fuel..."
*CRASH*
--Jubedgy
damn, you need to learn some history, boy! The US was critical in the formation of the UN. Much as the US was critical in the formation of the league of nations after WWI...however, back then congress was pretty much isolationist so we never actually joined, I bet that president (whatsisname!) was pretty pissed, hehe.
Anyway, we (the US) have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (think of it as the super-special voting group in the old soviet politburo). I don't remember who holds the other permanent seat...I think it was the Soviet Union (balance of power and all that) but I'm not sure, and I dunno who holds it now. In fact, I'm not 100% positive we still have a permanent seat, anyone know anything about this stuff?
--Jubedgy
no it's not a fact...starcraft? halflife SP? etc...besides, how different is, say, Quake 3 from the twitch games of yester-year...pong, tetris, pacman, etc... (except in quake 3 you play against more people)??
I guess the problem is you grew up and decided sitting around playing space invaders for 10 hours wasn't fun.
... ok, maybe it's just a california thing...but *we* get fingerprinted when we get a license...and if you join the military you get fingerprinted there, too. I'd imagine the police get fingerprinted, and sometimes kids get fingerprinted too, when they visit a police station for fun.
But yeah, there are limited reasons to be fingerprinted, however cameras everywhere would essentially be fingerprinting you all the time...and then checking those fingerprints against a record...every time!
I tell you...I'm not a fan of these cameras AT ALL! How many people can honestly say they've never done an illegal thing...EVER? (j-walking, warez, unreported income, etc...). Hell, for something like j-walking, how many people can accurately define it and tell the difference between that and a legal street-crossing? Ignorance may not be an excuse, but I sure as hell would rather be allowed to make ignorant mistakes.
Last I heard , IT was rumored to be some kinda hydrogen propelled scooter or something....I await with bated breath to see what IT actually is (well, when I have nothing better to do anyway) --Jubedgy
nah, Gregory Benford...In the Ocean of the Night (part of the Galactic Center series...us vs naturally evolved sentient machines kinda thing)
And when our oceans get seeded with alien life that migrates onto land and reproduces by shooting little hatchlings into us which can't be removed and we aren't able to move into space chandeliers because we don't have the expertise to build them because building space stations were a complete waste of money....what'll that guy be saying then?!
and my circle method! If you have some curve C defined by x(t) and y(t) and you want to find the nearest point (x,y) to C, simply draw a circle with radius r such that it intersects C at 2 and only 2 points and the center is at (x,y). The point on curve C whose linearization is the inverse-reciprocal of a line drawn from the center to the circumference is the nearest place on the curve to that point (in other words, imagine a line drawn from the center that extends to the circumference of the circle. Imagine it sweeps around like a radar line. When it intersects the curve C, and the slope of the point of intersection on the curve is perpendicular to that radius line, then that point on the curve is the closest to (x,y)).
Granted in subsequent calculus classes I was shown how completely useless that method is, but since I developed it in high-school with only a knowledge of derivatives, I think it's pretty cool...