Feel free to call me crazy on this one, but has it been considered such an obvious error was intentionally left in place to "encourage" iPhone users to update their firmware once the next release is issued? No matter how cool it may seem to show off your 3rd party apps running on your jailbroken iPhone, it's unlikely anyone who bothered to jailbrake their iPhone will want to show it off with a screwed up date/time setting they can't correct by themselves.
Of course, if Apple does finally release a "true" iPhone SDK that has no nasty surprises packaged in with it, such a tactic would simply be silly and pointless. On the other hand, if the SDK comes at the price of paid commissions to Apple, eliminating the competition early on might not be such a bad idea...
Perhaps he missed this neat little piece of documentary work on the Discovery channel over the last five weeks. The video game owes it's existence to the military, and now the industry is repaying the favor. Both will benefit in the long run and will result in both better games and far more realistic simulations for training. It's an absolute win-win scenario where everyone who participates gets something worthwhile from the experience.
You know... when you get right down to it, maybe this strike isn't so bad. For a lot of us, we're finally being driven to use the "off" button on our tv remotes and start looking at other aspects of our lives that have long since become neglected. Whether it's socializing, exercising or picking up on our old hobbies, it's all a damned site better than the mindless drek we've been staring at aimlessly all these years.
It's almost like waking up after a night of binge drinking, only to find that your one-night-stand isn't nearly as attractive as they were when you were still drunk off your ass.
So yeah... maybe it's for the best once you realize that not everyone *needs* to love Raymond, have friends or be a family guy. Perhaps, maybe we just need to be ourselves within the scope of our real lives instead.
For years I've seen this exact scenario repeat itself. The supposed "professional" becoming so fixated on doing something one way that he no longer sees the potential of the tools beyond his own everyday use of them. While at the same time, the seemingly "ignorant" guy manages to upstage the professional simply because they don't yet know the "limitations" of the tools.
The problem is how does one prevent themselves from becoming too complacent with the tools after they're convinced that their own methods are the best way to do something, simply because they work reliably every time?
Even stuff that seems like it should only have one definitive answer, such as math, can often have more than just the obvious answer. For example... resolve for Y:
Y * Y = 25
Most people would say Y can only equal 5.
Most people would also be wrong.
Y can also be -5 and yield the same result.
It's all a matter of how you look at it... and whatever episode of the Simpsons you plagerize to make a point. (Yeah... I went there.)
Interesting that betablockers are on the list, and, I'm certain they do offer such advantages from personal experience during my high school years. Back when I was in my freshmen year, my track record was continuously D or F range in most instances, despite repetitive IQ studies on me often placed me at a college senior, intelligence wise.
Then, around my sophomore year, I was placed on the betablocker, Atenolol to help offset a heart murmur I have. After about a year on the stuff, I went from my old D-F range to an A-B range in my overall grades. By my senior year, I finished out both semesters with a straight A average across the board, and did so only being present for half that time due to a major surgery I had performed on my spine about halfway in. Of the improvements, some of the most impressive results I achieved in that time includes finishing out the entire curriculim for English/Literature classs in only four weeks (which resulted in a document of about 90 pages on things like Shakespeare and various aspects of creative writing) and achieving an understanding of advanced computer programming and business law studies almost instantly. (Most likely, my ability to understand logics problems recieved a significant boost from the drug.)
However, the Atenolol did have an odd side effect of creating vivid dreams of almost completely abstract concepts. Almost like have Salvador Dali-goggles. Eventually, I did figure out how to mentally control this effect to achieve lucid dreaming and eventually was able to offset solving real world problems to my sleeping hours and recording the results after waking up. I probably did some of my best computer programming work back in those days because of it.
I've since been taken off the Atenolol in favor of Metoprolol. Unfortunately, the benefits I get from it are nowhere close to what I did get under the Atenolol. However, this could be caused partly by a former two year battle with chronic congestive lung and heart failure preventing proper oxygen flow to the brain. I'm definitely much slower now than I was before that point.
Wisconsin doesn't tax necessities, while states like Illinois do tax them. However, Wisconsin has seen a sales tax hike to 5.5% from the long established 5% we've been used to.
Given that we're no longer in our Tommy Thompson heyday, much of the state-driven benefits we've enjoyed over the years could well be on their way out.
Now, if this screwing video game tax does pass into law, I'll bet several other vice items not currently taxed will be next. For example, how long until we see an iPod tax or a DVD tax?
Sadly, I'm guessing this move has relatively little to do with morality and everything to do with improving one's own political outlook by "criminalizing" the video game industry.
It's not a question of being "better", just more "hacky". A traditional Wii-Remote usage is probably more stable than these other options, but it really doesn't investigate other applications where the Wii-Remote remains stationary as it's environment changes all around. This could eventually lead to improved immersion options with the Wii-Remote by coordinating environmental changes around it as you use it.
One possibility... a 360 spherical projection screen where the user remains in the center, lined with a grid of IR LED placed in such a way that no more than 4 are visible to the Wii-Remote at any one time. If you manipulated the sphere relative to the orientation sensors in the Wii-Remote, you could probably pull off some very star trek-like holodeck effects.
While much of this guy's latest stuff has been cool in a fun toy sort of way, it doesn't really do anything to cover any actual interaction beyond cursor movement. What this still needs, is an easily configurable method of generating different types of mouse clicks and scrolling to accompany the IR tracking. While he could just go back to using the Wii Remote normally, it just wouldn't be hacker worthy.
So, I've been thinking... how do you address the click/scroll stuff and the position tracking, all using only one hand?
My solution... modify an optical bluetooth mouse. Rip out the built-in LED used for optical tracking and use the available leads to power an external IR LED positioned at the top/front of the mouse body. Once you have this much in place, the mouse can be tracked externally by the Wii-Remote, but would still be perfectly capable of broadcasting mouse click data directly to the same machine. All you'd need to do is find a mouse that can be comfortably used in an upright position.
Sure, it's not quite Minority Report style control, but it would offer a lot of flexibility while requiring only a minimal set of custom drivers.
Although we are probably getting a little too carried away in making everything digital, there is a lot to be said for the long-term storage options of data in an analog form. Even if an item stored in an analog form is destroyed by 50% or more, it's not impossible to recover most of it with fairly reliable accuracy simply due to the amazing ability of the human mind to recognize common patterns and fill in the blanks. Even if the analog were warped out of it's original order, odds are good we could recover it.
On the other hand, digital archival of data, which can offer incredible clarity and potentially 1:1 accuracy in restoration often becomes an all-or-nothing proposition if even a tiny bit of the data is lost or altered. Even with file formats/codecs that offer some form of error correction or redundancy, the final result we may end up seeing could be little more than randomized shifts between a blank screen and a perfect image... all of which are swapped in and out so quickly, we may not see the recoverable parts long enough to identify any usable pattern.
For example, try comparing something like the "scrambled" channels (mostly the porn channels) on cable television back in the early to mid 90s to something like DirecTV during a heavy rain storm. Even though the cable stuff was typically visible warped and uncomfortable to look at, you at least had a good idea of exactly what was going on behind the scrambling, even without the audio channels. But, try watching a DirecTV signal under less than ideal weather conditions, and the best you get is a bounce between a random mosiac and pitch black, combined with severely degraded audio pops here and there. You're luck if you can even get a useful picture of anything on the screen, let alone being able to comprehend what is going on in the show itself.
That said, how difficult would it be to create a micro-film drive (photosensitive analog scanner/burner) that could not only store any document on a computer in an analog form, but do so in a format that could be interpreted entirely by the human eye using a proper magnifying device. For that matter, why not create a hybrid device that would store both an easily visible analog form of a document as a high-resolution thumbnail, along with a digital version using pattern of dots similar to how data would be stored on an optical disc. This way, no matter what device you use to extract the information, you'd always have the means to access the data you need.
Out of the numerous nutjobs in the race for president this upcoming election, the only one I've seen that probably wouldn't screw everything up for the rest of us in matters like these is Ron Paul. However, I have a strong feeling he may end up going the way of Ross Perot (you know... the one with the huge ears...).
Everyone else is probably just going to continue the current administrations game of limiting our domestic rights further, as a means of protecting us from ourselves, while doing next to nothing to give us a true exit strategy for the crap in the middle east.
This is sort of a weird issue that seems to come up whenever someone has a game concept, but suddenly become intimidated by the industry and the overwhelming quality of the content they generate. The fact is, you don't need a huge team of developers and technicians to produce a great game. You just need a good idea and a couple people with enough determination and skill to make it happen.
Heck, look at the first person shooter genre. It was initially brought to life by only two people who loved to play games. Now, it's a multi-billion dollar industry and the resulting engines produced each year often creates the standards for which all other games are judged.
Nowadays, you don't even need to be a programming genius capable of juggling dozens of complex equations to produce content. You can now get fairly simple to use game development tools, such as Unity to design prototypes and tweak things until it finally feels right. Even if it doesn't end up being the final product, having a working prototype can make a huge difference in even pitching your concepts to other, larger developers. (The ones in charge of such decisions often need visual aids beyond just a storyboard or sketch, since they likely aren't developers themselves.)
If not anything else, even Flash can work in a pinch for prototyping or development.
Having ran Think Secret's previous forums for a few years, I can definitely say it's sad to see such a reliable rumor site fade away like this.
That said, even though we were never directly owned/operated by Think Secret, we did get our own share of the underlying nastiness on the legal front. Luckily the few issues we did have with Apple Legal were surprisingly easy to resolve, all things considering. Usually they were reasonably patient and flexible on most things and would avoid pursuing action as long as you appeared willing to comply with their requests.
On the other hand, we did have a frighteningly close encounter with Adobe that could have been extremely ugly had we not been careful. (Trust me... you really do not want to be on Adobe's bad side... ever.)
The rumor industry is definitely a tricky road to travel. You have to be ready to "thread the needle" at any moment if you expect to survive very long. It doesn't get any more grey area than that.
... Being the "computer nerd" in the family that everyone and their friends come crying to everytime something stupidly simple confuses them. On a few occasions, they may even go so far as to blatantly ignore your instructions *not* to do something that eventually hoses their system. After that point, it's months and months of redundant "how do I find...?" questions.
I'm still convinced people need to start getting licensed for computer usage, determined by demonstrating their knowledge of basic computer logic and a rough understanding of how the machine works under the hood.
All of this fine information and more is readily available on the Futurama seasons 1-4 DVDs in the commentaries section. That button marked "audio" on your dvd player remote isn't just their for looks, people!
This kind of reminds me of the old days of computing where random number generators simply cycled through a fixed series of values that would be repeated over and over each time you powered up the computer. One fun exploit of these early random number generators was to place two identical computers on the same circuit, then flip the switch causing both machines to boot simultaneously. Assuming the factors were reasonably identical, you could simultaneously launch any program that used random numbers and use one computer to predict the results of the other with 100% accuracy.
For example, using this technique on a pair of Apple IIs (same series/configuration), you could load up a stock trading game on both machines and play one machine normally to see which companies were going to increase/decrease in value, then pour all the funds into the companies on the first computer that increased into those same companies on the second computer.
Near as I can tell, the random number generator (at least on the Apple II) would only change state when a new value was requested from it... otherwise it simply sat idly by waiting for the next request.
I doubt will see anything on the level of the movie A.I. in that short period, but I could certainly see effective, semi-autonamous sex bots becoming a reality. At best though, you'd just lead them around on a leash or something and would have a very basic personality profile with a primary focus on the sex part of the equation, rather than the full emotional baggage package of a real person.
Most likely, the next big thing that will "cross the line" here, is some sort of very realistic AI setup with a fully computer generated avatar that will be entirely indistinguishable from having a video chat with any random man or woman out there. Even without ever physically meeting, humans already develop emotional attachments to little more than a picture on computer screen.
It's not unlikely that this will become reality in Japan first, where dating simulators have been around for decades as entertainment. However, it'll likely be the porn industry who first starts exploiting people by literally hosting dozens of virtual cyber-prostitute farm servers that will reach to vocal and visual feedback through a user's webcam and respond accordingly (and realistically at that).
Finally, expect this to sneak it's way into mainstream advertising and scram artists. Instead of spam, junk mail and telemarketing phone calls, a series advertiser-owned farms of virtual women and men will initiate video chats with random folks as a means of getting the advertiser's foot in the door. However, unlike a paid employee of a normal company who's time on the clock is too costly to waste on being nice after giving their pitch, the virtual versions won't have that limitation imposed upon them and will be free to do whatever it takes to seal a deal... including sex acts, just to do things like sell off an insurance policy.
In a few years, we'll probably see a finalized version of such a device stored in a giant evidence bag as a possible murder weapon.
In the meanwhile, have we seen any cases yet where someone remotely connects into a complicated mechanical device, in an attempt to kill anyone nearby? I know there was once a lot of speculation about this kind of thing back when cyberterrorism was popular topic within the media... as though someone in china could potentially hack into some factory or utility overseas and create a deadly malfunction by changing a random setting here and there.
The earth is such a mass flood of electromagnetic signals with repetitive / predictable patterns that, even without SETI, we'd be like a halogen bulb in a dark room to them.
If they aren't making any sort of return on their investment on these vital isotopes, then something is seriously out of whack with the system of supply and demand here. Given how notoriously expensive the rest of the medical industry is, you would think part of those costs would go to the production and distribution of these isotopes.
On a side note, there is one other reason a company might choose to go online only with a game...
When users buy a next-generation game title, they expect not only better graphics, but better gameplay with more sophisticated enemies/allies to play with. When filling these characters' shoes with a human player isn't possible, game companies have to invest a lot of extra time and money into developing far more flexible AIs that can intelligently think for themselves on the fly, and do so with varying levels of difficulty for the user's enjoyment. Games that are unable to do this well often end up failing.
Developers who elect to go online only may just be too cheap, or too lazy, to create such AI systems for their games... or, perhaps they're trying to beat a deadline while trying to remove the possibility of a poorly developed AI system from rendering several months of work into a complete waste of time.
I don't understand the logic here. Because a game lacks a feature, it suddenly becomes "better"?
Yes, this generation of game consoles are the first to really take advantage of online connectivity and do it well, but forcing gamers to go online just to even play your game isn't exactly going to sell games by itself. Look what happened to "Shadowrun" after gamers learned it was multiplayer only... it flopped.
Aside from that, did this author completely overlook the MMORPG genre? This is about the only game format that will survive being online only for extended periods of time, because that is the what the user is expecting from the start. But when you start applying this concept randomly to games that don't even need to be social events, you're effectively telling the user that your game has a limited lifespan based on however long it takes other players to get bored with it and move on. And, once you kill off the game server, the game itself ceases to have any value, since it can no longer be played.
Not all of us want to be (or can be) constantly online when we pop in a game, so a single player mode is vital for a lot of us. If I wanted my games constantly tied to an external server, I'd just go buy a Phantom.
This whole thing sounds a lot like that old tale of the diligent, hard-working ant and the lazy, procastinating grasshopper. If these isotopes are so important to preserving human life, why the hell don't we have more reactors in place to produce them? Even if we didn't need to keep such reactors constantly active, there's no excuse for us not having at least a couple back-up facilities on hand in the event the primary facilities would even become unusable or inaccessible.
(Of course, this argument could apply to almost any limited resources mankind continually depends on...)
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Feel free to call me crazy on this one, but has it been considered such an obvious error was intentionally left in place to "encourage" iPhone users to update their firmware once the next release is issued? No matter how cool it may seem to show off your 3rd party apps running on your jailbroken iPhone, it's unlikely anyone who bothered to jailbrake their iPhone will want to show it off with a screwed up date/time setting they can't correct by themselves.
Of course, if Apple does finally release a "true" iPhone SDK that has no nasty surprises packaged in with it, such a tactic would simply be silly and pointless. On the other hand, if the SDK comes at the price of paid commissions to Apple, eliminating the competition early on might not be such a bad idea...
Perhaps he missed this neat little piece of documentary work on the Discovery channel over the last five weeks. The video game owes it's existence to the military, and now the industry is repaying the favor. Both will benefit in the long run and will result in both better games and far more realistic simulations for training. It's an absolute win-win scenario where everyone who participates gets something worthwhile from the experience.
You know... when you get right down to it, maybe this strike isn't so bad. For a lot of us, we're finally being driven to use the "off" button on our tv remotes and start looking at other aspects of our lives that have long since become neglected. Whether it's socializing, exercising or picking up on our old hobbies, it's all a damned site better than the mindless drek we've been staring at aimlessly all these years.
It's almost like waking up after a night of binge drinking, only to find that your one-night-stand isn't nearly as attractive as they were when you were still drunk off your ass.
So yeah... maybe it's for the best once you realize that not everyone *needs* to love Raymond, have friends or be a family guy. Perhaps, maybe we just need to be ourselves within the scope of our real lives instead.
For years I've seen this exact scenario repeat itself. The supposed "professional" becoming so fixated on doing something one way that he no longer sees the potential of the tools beyond his own everyday use of them. While at the same time, the seemingly "ignorant" guy manages to upstage the professional simply because they don't yet know the "limitations" of the tools.
The problem is how does one prevent themselves from becoming too complacent with the tools after they're convinced that their own methods are the best way to do something, simply because they work reliably every time?
Even stuff that seems like it should only have one definitive answer, such as math, can often have more than just the obvious answer. For example... resolve for Y:
Y * Y = 25
Most people would say Y can only equal 5.
Most people would also be wrong.
Y can also be -5 and yield the same result.
It's all a matter of how you look at it... and whatever episode of the Simpsons you plagerize to make a point. (Yeah... I went there.)
Interesting that betablockers are on the list, and, I'm certain they do offer such advantages from personal experience during my high school years. Back when I was in my freshmen year, my track record was continuously D or F range in most instances, despite repetitive IQ studies on me often placed me at a college senior, intelligence wise.
Then, around my sophomore year, I was placed on the betablocker, Atenolol to help offset a heart murmur I have. After about a year on the stuff, I went from my old D-F range to an A-B range in my overall grades. By my senior year, I finished out both semesters with a straight A average across the board, and did so only being present for half that time due to a major surgery I had performed on my spine about halfway in. Of the improvements, some of the most impressive results I achieved in that time includes finishing out the entire curriculim for English/Literature classs in only four weeks (which resulted in a document of about 90 pages on things like Shakespeare and various aspects of creative writing) and achieving an understanding of advanced computer programming and business law studies almost instantly. (Most likely, my ability to understand logics problems recieved a significant boost from the drug.)
However, the Atenolol did have an odd side effect of creating vivid dreams of almost completely abstract concepts. Almost like have Salvador Dali-goggles. Eventually, I did figure out how to mentally control this effect to achieve lucid dreaming and eventually was able to offset solving real world problems to my sleeping hours and recording the results after waking up. I probably did some of my best computer programming work back in those days because of it.
I've since been taken off the Atenolol in favor of Metoprolol. Unfortunately, the benefits I get from it are nowhere close to what I did get under the Atenolol. However, this could be caused partly by a former two year battle with chronic congestive lung and heart failure preventing proper oxygen flow to the brain. I'm definitely much slower now than I was before that point.
Wisconsin doesn't tax necessities, while states like Illinois do tax them. However, Wisconsin has seen a sales tax hike to 5.5% from the long established 5% we've been used to.
Given that we're no longer in our Tommy Thompson heyday, much of the state-driven benefits we've enjoyed over the years could well be on their way out.
Now, if this screwing video game tax does pass into law, I'll bet several other vice items not currently taxed will be next. For example, how long until we see an iPod tax or a DVD tax?
Sadly, I'm guessing this move has relatively little to do with morality and everything to do with improving one's own political outlook by "criminalizing" the video game industry.
It's not a question of being "better", just more "hacky". A traditional Wii-Remote usage is probably more stable than these other options, but it really doesn't investigate other applications where the Wii-Remote remains stationary as it's environment changes all around. This could eventually lead to improved immersion options with the Wii-Remote by coordinating environmental changes around it as you use it.
One possibility... a 360 spherical projection screen where the user remains in the center, lined with a grid of IR LED placed in such a way that no more than 4 are visible to the Wii-Remote at any one time. If you manipulated the sphere relative to the orientation sensors in the Wii-Remote, you could probably pull off some very star trek-like holodeck effects.
While much of this guy's latest stuff has been cool in a fun toy sort of way, it doesn't really do anything to cover any actual interaction beyond cursor movement. What this still needs, is an easily configurable method of generating different types of mouse clicks and scrolling to accompany the IR tracking. While he could just go back to using the Wii Remote normally, it just wouldn't be hacker worthy.
So, I've been thinking... how do you address the click/scroll stuff and the position tracking, all using only one hand?
My solution... modify an optical bluetooth mouse. Rip out the built-in LED used for optical tracking and use the available leads to power an external IR LED positioned at the top/front of the mouse body. Once you have this much in place, the mouse can be tracked externally by the Wii-Remote, but would still be perfectly capable of broadcasting mouse click data directly to the same machine. All you'd need to do is find a mouse that can be comfortably used in an upright position.
Sure, it's not quite Minority Report style control, but it would offer a lot of flexibility while requiring only a minimal set of custom drivers.
Although we are probably getting a little too carried away in making everything digital, there is a lot to be said for the long-term storage options of data in an analog form. Even if an item stored in an analog form is destroyed by 50% or more, it's not impossible to recover most of it with fairly reliable accuracy simply due to the amazing ability of the human mind to recognize common patterns and fill in the blanks. Even if the analog were warped out of it's original order, odds are good we could recover it.
On the other hand, digital archival of data, which can offer incredible clarity and potentially 1:1 accuracy in restoration often becomes an all-or-nothing proposition if even a tiny bit of the data is lost or altered. Even with file formats/codecs that offer some form of error correction or redundancy, the final result we may end up seeing could be little more than randomized shifts between a blank screen and a perfect image... all of which are swapped in and out so quickly, we may not see the recoverable parts long enough to identify any usable pattern.
For example, try comparing something like the "scrambled" channels (mostly the porn channels) on cable television back in the early to mid 90s to something like DirecTV during a heavy rain storm. Even though the cable stuff was typically visible warped and uncomfortable to look at, you at least had a good idea of exactly what was going on behind the scrambling, even without the audio channels. But, try watching a DirecTV signal under less than ideal weather conditions, and the best you get is a bounce between a random mosiac and pitch black, combined with severely degraded audio pops here and there. You're luck if you can even get a useful picture of anything on the screen, let alone being able to comprehend what is going on in the show itself.
That said, how difficult would it be to create a micro-film drive (photosensitive analog scanner/burner) that could not only store any document on a computer in an analog form, but do so in a format that could be interpreted entirely by the human eye using a proper magnifying device. For that matter, why not create a hybrid device that would store both an easily visible analog form of a document as a high-resolution thumbnail, along with a digital version using pattern of dots similar to how data would be stored on an optical disc. This way, no matter what device you use to extract the information, you'd always have the means to access the data you need.
Out of the numerous nutjobs in the race for president this upcoming election, the only one I've seen that probably wouldn't screw everything up for the rest of us in matters like these is Ron Paul. However, I have a strong feeling he may end up going the way of Ross Perot (you know... the one with the huge ears...).
Everyone else is probably just going to continue the current administrations game of limiting our domestic rights further, as a means of protecting us from ourselves, while doing next to nothing to give us a true exit strategy for the crap in the middle east.
This is sort of a weird issue that seems to come up whenever someone has a game concept, but suddenly become intimidated by the industry and the overwhelming quality of the content they generate. The fact is, you don't need a huge team of developers and technicians to produce a great game. You just need a good idea and a couple people with enough determination and skill to make it happen.
Heck, look at the first person shooter genre. It was initially brought to life by only two people who loved to play games. Now, it's a multi-billion dollar industry and the resulting engines produced each year often creates the standards for which all other games are judged.
Nowadays, you don't even need to be a programming genius capable of juggling dozens of complex equations to produce content. You can now get fairly simple to use game development tools, such as Unity to design prototypes and tweak things until it finally feels right. Even if it doesn't end up being the final product, having a working prototype can make a huge difference in even pitching your concepts to other, larger developers. (The ones in charge of such decisions often need visual aids beyond just a storyboard or sketch, since they likely aren't developers themselves.)
If not anything else, even Flash can work in a pinch for prototyping or development.
Wouldn't something like this be the equal of being frozen at the fabled "absolute zero" (a state of lacking all energy)?
Having ran Think Secret's previous forums for a few years, I can definitely say it's sad to see such a reliable rumor site fade away like this.
That said, even though we were never directly owned/operated by Think Secret, we did get our own share of the underlying nastiness on the legal front. Luckily the few issues we did have with Apple Legal were surprisingly easy to resolve, all things considering. Usually they were reasonably patient and flexible on most things and would avoid pursuing action as long as you appeared willing to comply with their requests.
On the other hand, we did have a frighteningly close encounter with Adobe that could have been extremely ugly had we not been careful. (Trust me... you really do not want to be on Adobe's bad side... ever.)
The rumor industry is definitely a tricky road to travel. You have to be ready to "thread the needle" at any moment if you expect to survive very long. It doesn't get any more grey area than that.
... Being the "computer nerd" in the family that everyone and their friends come crying to everytime something stupidly simple confuses them. On a few occasions, they may even go so far as to blatantly ignore your instructions *not* to do something that eventually hoses their system. After that point, it's months and months of redundant "how do I find...?" questions.
I'm still convinced people need to start getting licensed for computer usage, determined by demonstrating their knowledge of basic computer logic and a rough understanding of how the machine works under the hood.
All of this fine information and more is readily available on the Futurama seasons 1-4 DVDs in the commentaries section. That button marked "audio" on your dvd player remote isn't just their for looks, people!
This kind of reminds me of the old days of computing where random number generators simply cycled through a fixed series of values that would be repeated over and over each time you powered up the computer. One fun exploit of these early random number generators was to place two identical computers on the same circuit, then flip the switch causing both machines to boot simultaneously. Assuming the factors were reasonably identical, you could simultaneously launch any program that used random numbers and use one computer to predict the results of the other with 100% accuracy.
For example, using this technique on a pair of Apple IIs (same series/configuration), you could load up a stock trading game on both machines and play one machine normally to see which companies were going to increase/decrease in value, then pour all the funds into the companies on the first computer that increased into those same companies on the second computer.
Near as I can tell, the random number generator (at least on the Apple II) would only change state when a new value was requested from it... otherwise it simply sat idly by waiting for the next request.
"I forgot."
I doubt will see anything on the level of the movie A.I. in that short period, but I could certainly see effective, semi-autonamous sex bots becoming a reality. At best though, you'd just lead them around on a leash or something and would have a very basic personality profile with a primary focus on the sex part of the equation, rather than the full emotional baggage package of a real person.
Most likely, the next big thing that will "cross the line" here, is some sort of very realistic AI setup with a fully computer generated avatar that will be entirely indistinguishable from having a video chat with any random man or woman out there. Even without ever physically meeting, humans already develop emotional attachments to little more than a picture on computer screen.
It's not unlikely that this will become reality in Japan first, where dating simulators have been around for decades as entertainment. However, it'll likely be the porn industry who first starts exploiting people by literally hosting dozens of virtual cyber-prostitute farm servers that will reach to vocal and visual feedback through a user's webcam and respond accordingly (and realistically at that).
Finally, expect this to sneak it's way into mainstream advertising and scram artists. Instead of spam, junk mail and telemarketing phone calls, a series advertiser-owned farms of virtual women and men will initiate video chats with random folks as a means of getting the advertiser's foot in the door. However, unlike a paid employee of a normal company who's time on the clock is too costly to waste on being nice after giving their pitch, the virtual versions won't have that limitation imposed upon them and will be free to do whatever it takes to seal a deal... including sex acts, just to do things like sell off an insurance policy.
In a few years, we'll probably see a finalized version of such a device stored in a giant evidence bag as a possible murder weapon.
In the meanwhile, have we seen any cases yet where someone remotely connects into a complicated mechanical device, in an attempt to kill anyone nearby? I know there was once a lot of speculation about this kind of thing back when cyberterrorism was popular topic within the media... as though someone in china could potentially hack into some factory or utility overseas and create a deadly malfunction by changing a random setting here and there.
The earth is such a mass flood of electromagnetic signals with repetitive / predictable patterns that, even without SETI, we'd be like a halogen bulb in a dark room to them.
If they aren't making any sort of return on their investment on these vital isotopes, then something is seriously out of whack with the system of supply and demand here. Given how notoriously expensive the rest of the medical industry is, you would think part of those costs would go to the production and distribution of these isotopes.
On a side note, there is one other reason a company might choose to go online only with a game...
When users buy a next-generation game title, they expect not only better graphics, but better gameplay with more sophisticated enemies/allies to play with. When filling these characters' shoes with a human player isn't possible, game companies have to invest a lot of extra time and money into developing far more flexible AIs that can intelligently think for themselves on the fly, and do so with varying levels of difficulty for the user's enjoyment. Games that are unable to do this well often end up failing.
Developers who elect to go online only may just be too cheap, or too lazy, to create such AI systems for their games... or, perhaps they're trying to beat a deadline while trying to remove the possibility of a poorly developed AI system from rendering several months of work into a complete waste of time.
I don't understand the logic here. Because a game lacks a feature, it suddenly becomes "better"?
Yes, this generation of game consoles are the first to really take advantage of online connectivity and do it well, but forcing gamers to go online just to even play your game isn't exactly going to sell games by itself. Look what happened to "Shadowrun" after gamers learned it was multiplayer only... it flopped.
Aside from that, did this author completely overlook the MMORPG genre? This is about the only game format that will survive being online only for extended periods of time, because that is the what the user is expecting from the start. But when you start applying this concept randomly to games that don't even need to be social events, you're effectively telling the user that your game has a limited lifespan based on however long it takes other players to get bored with it and move on. And, once you kill off the game server, the game itself ceases to have any value, since it can no longer be played.
Not all of us want to be (or can be) constantly online when we pop in a game, so a single player mode is vital for a lot of us. If I wanted my games constantly tied to an external server, I'd just go buy a Phantom.
This just screams to be a plot for a modern WarGames sequel. How about a "Burger King" virus invading the "WOPR deluxe"?
This whole thing sounds a lot like that old tale of the diligent, hard-working ant and the lazy, procastinating grasshopper. If these isotopes are so important to preserving human life, why the hell don't we have more reactors in place to produce them? Even if we didn't need to keep such reactors constantly active, there's no excuse for us not having at least a couple back-up facilities on hand in the event the primary facilities would even become unusable or inaccessible.
(Of course, this argument could apply to almost any limited resources mankind continually depends on...)