The machine also handles exceptional conditions gracefully. For example, what happens to most unix programs when they run out of disk space? In my experience, most segfault, crash, or hit infinite loops. On the A, the MCP suspends the task, notifies the operator, and waits patiently for more disk.
Yeah, that was a brilliant little bit there, and I actually hit that limit many times of my 4.5 years with the bank, when running monster reports/imports/extracts.
There are times when it was good, and times when it was awful. NX/View was a nice little proggie though, I liked it quite a bit. I don't know how much I uncovered over the years of the A series power, but a lot of it seemed damn impressive, for such an archaic layout/interface.
It's also nice to meet another A Series veteran here at/. Unisys mainframe vets unite!:)
And show me one linux app that's written in COBOL. (The language exists, but I've never seen it put to use).
I've worked in banks/credit unions my entire career, and this is my take.
In my experience, a LOT of financial software is written in COBOL.
I'm not talking about Quicken, I'm talking about the applications which take in hundreds of thousands of transactions in databases which boggle the mind.
I know for a fact that the core processing portion of ITI Software is written mainly in COBOL, as I ran the server there for over 4 years. I won't call it a mainframe (even though the superiors did) because the software package ran in Win2k Server using some really odd "MCP" (Master Control Program) stuff that is by far the most picky, strangely configured software I've ever come across. These "mainframes" were sold and configured by Unisys, who are definitely in bed with ITI as far as hardware/software support is concerned.
Most of the database per se is large "Flat Files", just a long stream of 0's and 1's and other data, seperated by special characters. During the daily processing of checks and various transactions, these files are updated, and it is these files which are utilized during daily operation.
It's a terribly arcane way of doing things, but if it ain't broke...
You'd also be surprised at the amount of robust win32 software that is written to interact with such dinosaur programming.
When I first encountered this system (where you have to enter process numbers and "AX" to send commands: for example "1234AX Y" to answer a y or n question a cobol program asks for) I thought they were kidding. Nope, this is how some banks actually process work, transactions, and reports/statements.
Also, any COBOL programmer made a FORTUNE with the whole Y2K thing. I know I specifically lost many days of my life in testing, especially with the federal government in utilizing their old DOS software (FEDLINE) and testing for year 2000 compliance.
This is certainly not the first law regarding these kinds of regulations.
Because I'm lazy I won't look it up (*ducks*), but I did have a friend of mine who owned a video store for a few years. This was around 1998-2001. During this time there were (and still are) Tennessee laws in place that made it a crime to rent R rated films or M rated video games to minors.
The first violation is a fine, the second is a very large fine, the third is jail time.
Please forgive me on the lack of details, but screaming from the rafters about the terribleness of this law just points out the ignorance in my fellow/.'ers.
There are many, many laws like this in many states (not just Tennessee) regarding video game/movie rentals with similar restrictions. Now the same applies to sales.
If I were a betting man, I'd say the same law I outlined here also includes any retail outlet. It just simply hasn't found a case to highlight it.
Re:LORD - Dont you people see what's happening her
on
Book-Digitizing Robots
·
· Score: 1
Just wait! Soon they'll organize and create a city called 01 and enslave the world!
And then some guy named Keanu will save us! And think he can act too!
One show that I really enjoyed this year was John Doe, is there a second season of this? this is probably one of the good findings this year, new actors good story, just enough "fiction" to keep it "real", I like the balance and the general concept.
When Fox released their fall schedule for 2003, John Doe wasn't on it.
Thankfully, neither was Fastlane.
Just FYI.
Re:Minimize coins in pocket
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 1
Of course they need coin. My whole point was if you work so hard to keep so much, and get excess, that if you deposit excess unrolled coin to a bank, you will be charged.
Just FYI, nothing really "challenging" the status quo, or the quote I replied to.
Think of it as a footnote.
Re:Minimize coins in pocket
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 1
I understand that. I'm just commenting on the fact that if they get too much coin, and deposit it to the bank unrolled, they will be charged. That's all.
Re:Minimize coins in pocket
on
Making Change
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The tellers come up with the most creative combinations that minimize my number of coins (and maximize theirs - this is in both of our interest).
Just as a note here, its probably not in their best interest to get back as many coins as possible.
I used to admin at a bank, and you are charged for "coin." This means the more you bring in which is unsorted, the more you are charged.
Of course, if they roll their coin then this is not a problem.
However, it would cost them more if they try to maximize their coin input without rolling.
Also, this is probably the most nit-picky post in my history of posting. God help us all.
I believe that there's a species of animal that's protected right now... hmm... I think it's the Leopard... maybe the Jaguar... I forget. Seems like it is the Leopard or a specific type of Leopard that's gene pool is over 99.999% identical. They say that they are all healthy and may as well be clones of each other as far as genetic testing goes, but the problem is that if one of them is vulnerable to a disease, they might all be vulnerable to it since they have the same immunities (with the same genetic makeup). I've heard of entire crops being decimated because all of the plants had the same DNA & thus, they were all vulnerable to the same plant disease.... be a shame if the same happened to animals, but at least they have an active immune system that could adapt.
It's the Cheetah. Heard a story about it on NPR. Evidently back in the 1970's they wanted to do some genetic testing in order to get them breeding efficiently.
Since they're inbred so badly they have those problems you listed. When all of the tests came back virtually the same, the doctor called the lab in Africa where they assured them it was from 15 different cheetahs.
The cheetah was almost wiped out 10,000 years ago and 10,000 years of inbreeding can screw a species good. And that's what happened.
We're entering SPOILER territory, so be prepared. There are plenty of reviews/thoughts that are spoiler-free, so go read them and check this out once your done.
Anyway.
I hadn't thought of the Matrix-within-a-Matrix until I had read through these comments. It makes sense.
I LOVED THE PACING OF THE FIRST 45 MINUTES. There, I said it. I don't know why everyone keeps bitching about it. You needed to get a sense of Zion, to get a feeling of familiarity, to get a feeling of sympathy for an inanimate place which will be destroyed (inevitably) in a spectacular sequence in Revolutions. You need to see the people at their height, fearless and unafraid, partying and happy to be alive before they are killed.
You NEEDED to see Link's relationship to Dozer's sister, how they worked as a couple, how decisions were made.
You NEEDED a love scene between Neo and Trinity because it was the only time, in probably all three movies, where a) they had time to themselves and b) didn't have to screw in a submarine.
The orgy thing seems to be pushed a bit hard. There's nothing there that isn't in your average rave. Sure there's a nipple shot here and there, but that's a far cry from bukkake people.
There's also a very insightful comment about how the machines insist the decision is made because that's what the mind would like to believe. That we're steered toward a goal that is obvious, and attainable. The one which appears unbelievable and lucid, well, that's just out of reach, accept it. The Oracle looks like an old woman because you trust that she is who she says she is.
After seeing both, I think I've concluded something about the first two films:
"The Matrix" is the "Discovery"
"The Matrix Reloaded" is the "Understanding"
This second film demonstrates to Neo the fact that he DOES have a choice, and the truth is known to him if only for a brief instant at the end of the film. It is in that split second before he comas out that he knows the "Real World" is a Matrix in and of itself, and that he too can make choices, not blindly go along with "fate" as the Oracle so wonderfully dishes out.
Predictions for Revolutions:
1) Zion will be destroyed in a very geekily-excellent sequence.
2) Neo will unlock ALL of the Matrixes, and we will get to see the "Real Real World" just before the credits.
3) Trinity is pregnant. C'mon people, you know that love scene couldn't be in there for no reason.
4) Morpheus might be a program. Remember, as the wild theorem which makes the most since to me states, the machines have created prophecy. Who has more faith in it than him?
5) Liability. Though it doesn't Make Sense (tm), if someone downloaded an "optimized driver" from superoptimizedrivers.com that in turn melted their chip or corrupted their vid card RAM in some way there would be repurcussions.
Realize, in a society in which people sue others over dogs barking too loud, NVidia would definitely hear from a very small but very vocal group about it.
6) Nivida's Programmers Don't Want This. Why? Let's say they GPL'd just the Linux reference driver. And in less than two weeks, a new optimized version came out that was TWICE as fast as the one before. This makes the programmers looks foolish. I know this is pure ego, but it is a concern I'm sure, for a programmer w/ a wife and kids.
I know this all sounds goofy, and trivial. But politics and Common Sense do not mesh. Again, I think your intentions are great and in a perfect world there would be thousands working on making the best, most optimized driver out there.
But if such a community were to exist (and you know it would), why bother paying a league of great programmers and not just send out a few test boards to those most active in that new community, more than willing to do work for Free (as in beer?)
Of course, if Nvidia's drivers were released under the GPL, none of the mud from this would stick as they could just point to the source code and say "look, no tricks".
Forgive me, but that sounds like one very stupid idea.
Why would you want to expose your hard earned work to the world? NVidia pays very well for programmers to think of wild and imaginative (out o' the box) programming techniques to get the most from their hardware.
With rogue drivers out there thanks to open-sourcing the code, someone could inadvertendly damage their card or render it (god what a pun) utterly useless.
Not to mention that other video card companies (ATI, anyone?) would love to see how their rendering pipelines work, and how they might be able to do the same. Remember that just until recently Catalyst drivers only covered upper echelon Radeon cards, and were certainly not "reference" (ie, covering an entire product line).
Terrible idea, though you had good intentions with it.
The problem is they're trying to drive out Linux. And you can't really drive out a competitor who isn't a business at all. Linux is a competitor for the space on your hard drive, but that's all.
They're not trying to drive out Sun (well, they are, but stay with me here), they're trying to keep Open Source Software, which Sun is not, from infiltrating (what a terrible word for it) the Governments of Poor Nations.
So even if these laws do exist, and I'm sure they do but IANAL, you can't drive out a competitor who doesn't own what they're selling.
To put it into perspective, all of these companies sell bits and pieces tacked on to a free kernel. This means that you're mainly paying for SUPPORT.
That's why you can download Redhat ISOs for free. People paying $10k for Redhat "Advanced Server" (whatever that means) are paying for round-the-clock professional support, and MS isn't aiming to outdo the support market, just the operating system one.
It's sly and hurtful and pathetic, but hey, that's the Microsoft way!
Not since Rise of the Triad on a 386 have I seen such a terrible resolution and absolute mess of pixels.
Did you see the shot where you looked down the hall and it was all a blur of brown and green/blue? Yeah, that's the whole game for you. "Did that blob move? Shoot it!"
And deathmatch? Don't make me laugh.
What little gameplay this will provide will be VERY SMALL roomed deathmatch with awful looking weapons on a very small screen.
I'm all for FPS on N-Gage if it can look better than this. And hell, if you're going to go, why not just port Doom 2? Its still a great game and you won't have to make a fool of yourself trying to make it look "as good" as the original.
I say go for fighting games on the N-Gage. Something like Samurai Showdown, which has an active zoom-out feature, would work great because of the screen width limitation.
The phone should've been longer, or the resolution should've been better, because this "hype" trailer just makes me glad I haven't through twice about buying an N-Gage.
Good job Romero! Once again you've underwhelmed everyone.
Donnie Darko, while a very interesting, thoughtful flick (very Lynch-esque), is pretty much all we have to judge Gyllenhaal's "serious" work. October Sky was decent, but there isn't much else out there.
However, Maguire has a very impressive resume, considering:
The Ice Storm (by Ang Crouching-Tiger Lee, fantastic film)
The Cider House Rules
Pleasantville (excellent film directed by Doug Ross, same guy who directed Maguire in Seabiscuit a few months ago)
Wonder Boys (awesome Curtis Hanson flick)
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (nice cameo though sporting a godawful hairpiece)
That, to me, far surpasses Jake's filmography (Donnie Darko, October Sky, and Bubble Boy, et al).
The human mind is not rule-based -- we impose a framework of rules to allow everyone to live together in relative harmony.
I disagree. I believe that all of our thinking is based on decisions, ie, rules that we create for ourselves.
Now you can call it conscience, knowing right from wrong or whatever, but anything we do or participate in is a decision, a yes or a no, a 1 or a 0. AI will do these same decisions based on what the programmer inputs.
Now how our mind comes up with these rules, how we begin to "understand" things, how we have epiphanies, how we stare and stare at code and, suddenly, "get it," well, THAT's the AI mystery, and as soon as that algorithm or magic pixie dust is found where a machine can make up its own rules and create its own "mindspace" will the AI puzzle be solved.
Good point though, I too believe that AI has nothing to do with intellegence.
28,000 people that haven't even opened the box yet?
More like 28,000 that played for about a month and realized what a terrible game it was. No time-altering means if your sim has to read a book to learn something, and that book takes 5 minutes to read, expect to twiddle LOTS of thumbs while trying to up their skills in a particular area.
Can you even play Sims Online in single-player mode?
*Notes the "Online" in the title, as opposed to the lack of such in "The Sims"
Or rather, until one of the bottom trusses breaks and they're buried at 140MPH.
"That's one hell of a hole you got there, Sonny."
"Yeah."
(akward silence)
"Rollercoaster."
(nods)
Avril Lavigne and The Fakeness
on
Warren Ellis Answers
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I too had been convined by the marketing drones of the world (simply because I really don't pay that much attention to pop anymore) that Avril was "The Real Thing" (tm).
I did notice she was godawful live (damn near embarrassing herself on the Grammys), but I didn't know how Drone-like she was.
There's a fascinating bit of information available here on Google Groups for those wondering how far the fakeness goes.
And from what I've gathered in the past 20 minutes...it's really manipulative, and sad.
Slashdot Mirror
The machine also handles exceptional conditions gracefully. For example, what happens to most unix programs when they run out of disk space? In my experience, most segfault, crash, or hit infinite loops. On the A, the MCP suspends the task, notifies the operator, and waits patiently for more disk.
/. Unisys mainframe vets unite! :)
Yeah, that was a brilliant little bit there, and I actually hit that limit many times of my 4.5 years with the bank, when running monster reports/imports/extracts.
There are times when it was good, and times when it was awful. NX/View was a nice little proggie though, I liked it quite a bit. I don't know how much I uncovered over the years of the A series power, but a lot of it seemed damn impressive, for such an archaic layout/interface.
It's also nice to meet another A Series veteran here at
And show me one linux app that's written in COBOL. (The language exists, but I've never seen it put to use).
I've worked in banks/credit unions my entire career, and this is my take.
In my experience, a LOT of financial software is written in COBOL.
I'm not talking about Quicken, I'm talking about the applications which take in hundreds of thousands of transactions in databases which boggle the mind.
I know for a fact that the core processing portion of ITI Software is written mainly in COBOL, as I ran the server there for over 4 years. I won't call it a mainframe (even though the superiors did) because the software package ran in Win2k Server using some really odd "MCP" (Master Control Program) stuff that is by far the most picky, strangely configured software I've ever come across. These "mainframes" were sold and configured by Unisys, who are definitely in bed with ITI as far as hardware/software support is concerned.
Most of the database per se is large "Flat Files", just a long stream of 0's and 1's and other data, seperated by special characters. During the daily processing of checks and various transactions, these files are updated, and it is these files which are utilized during daily operation.
It's a terribly arcane way of doing things, but if it ain't broke...
You'd also be surprised at the amount of robust win32 software that is written to interact with such dinosaur programming.
When I first encountered this system (where you have to enter process numbers and "AX" to send commands: for example "1234AX Y" to answer a y or n question a cobol program asks for) I thought they were kidding. Nope, this is how some banks actually process work, transactions, and reports/statements.
Also, any COBOL programmer made a FORTUNE with the whole Y2K thing. I know I specifically lost many days of my life in testing, especially with the federal government in utilizing their old DOS software (FEDLINE) and testing for year 2000 compliance.
This is certainly not the first law regarding these kinds of regulations.
/.'ers.
Because I'm lazy I won't look it up (*ducks*), but I did have a friend of mine who owned a video store for a few years. This was around 1998-2001. During this time there were (and still are) Tennessee laws in place that made it a crime to rent R rated films or M rated video games to minors.
The first violation is a fine, the second is a very large fine, the third is jail time.
Please forgive me on the lack of details, but screaming from the rafters about the terribleness of this law just points out the ignorance in my fellow
There are many, many laws like this in many states (not just Tennessee) regarding video game/movie rentals with similar restrictions. Now the same applies to sales.
If I were a betting man, I'd say the same law I outlined here also includes any retail outlet. It just simply hasn't found a case to highlight it.
Just wait! Soon they'll organize and create a city called 01 and enslave the world!
And then some guy named Keanu will save us! And think he can act too!
They might even call it a Second Renaissance!
They even use puffs of compressed air to separate sticky pages!
This will go a long way in digitizing Playboy collections around the world.
*cough*
One show that I really enjoyed this year was John Doe, is there a second season of this? this is probably one of the good findings this year, new actors good story, just enough "fiction" to keep it "real", I like the balance and the general concept.
When Fox released their fall schedule for 2003, John Doe wasn't on it.
Thankfully, neither was Fastlane.
Just FYI.
Of course they need coin. My whole point was if you work so hard to keep so much, and get excess, that if you deposit excess unrolled coin to a bank, you will be charged.
Just FYI, nothing really "challenging" the status quo, or the quote I replied to.
Think of it as a footnote.
I understand that. I'm just commenting on the fact that if they get too much coin, and deposit it to the bank unrolled, they will be charged. That's all.
The tellers come up with the most creative combinations that minimize my number of coins (and maximize theirs - this is in both of our interest).
Just as a note here, its probably not in their best interest to get back as many coins as possible.
I used to admin at a bank, and you are charged for "coin." This means the more you bring in which is unsorted, the more you are charged.
Of course, if they roll their coin then this is not a problem.
However, it would cost them more if they try to maximize their coin input without rolling.
Also, this is probably the most nit-picky post in my history of posting. God help us all.
I believe that there's a species of animal that's protected right now... hmm... I think it's the Leopard... maybe the Jaguar... I forget. Seems like it is the Leopard or a specific type of Leopard that's gene pool is over 99.999% identical. They say that they are all healthy and may as well be clones of each other as far as genetic testing goes, but the problem is that if one of them is vulnerable to a disease, they might all be vulnerable to it since they have the same immunities (with the same genetic makeup). I've heard of entire crops being decimated because all of the plants had the same DNA & thus, they were all vulnerable to the same plant disease.... be a shame if the same happened to animals, but at least they have an active immune system that could adapt.
It's the Cheetah. Heard a story about it on NPR. Evidently back in the 1970's they wanted to do some genetic testing in order to get them breeding efficiently.
Since they're inbred so badly they have those problems you listed. When all of the tests came back virtually the same, the doctor called the lab in Africa where they assured them it was from 15 different cheetahs.
The cheetah was almost wiped out 10,000 years ago and 10,000 years of inbreeding can screw a species good. And that's what happened.
Damn fine flick.
We're entering SPOILER territory, so be prepared. There are plenty of reviews/thoughts that are spoiler-free, so go read them and check this out once your done.
Anyway.
I hadn't thought of the Matrix-within-a-Matrix until I had read through these comments. It makes sense.
I LOVED THE PACING OF THE FIRST 45 MINUTES. There, I said it. I don't know why everyone keeps bitching about it. You needed to get a sense of Zion, to get a feeling of familiarity, to get a feeling of sympathy for an inanimate place which will be destroyed (inevitably) in a spectacular sequence in Revolutions. You need to see the people at their height, fearless and unafraid, partying and happy to be alive before they are killed.
You NEEDED to see Link's relationship to Dozer's sister, how they worked as a couple, how decisions were made.
You NEEDED a love scene between Neo and Trinity because it was the only time, in probably all three movies, where a) they had time to themselves and b) didn't have to screw in a submarine.
The orgy thing seems to be pushed a bit hard. There's nothing there that isn't in your average rave. Sure there's a nipple shot here and there, but that's a far cry from bukkake people.
There's also a very insightful comment about how the machines insist the decision is made because that's what the mind would like to believe. That we're steered toward a goal that is obvious, and attainable. The one which appears unbelievable and lucid, well, that's just out of reach, accept it. The Oracle looks like an old woman because you trust that she is who she says she is.
After seeing both, I think I've concluded something about the first two films:
"The Matrix" is the "Discovery"
"The Matrix Reloaded" is the "Understanding"
This second film demonstrates to Neo the fact that he DOES have a choice, and the truth is known to him if only for a brief instant at the end of the film. It is in that split second before he comas out that he knows the "Real World" is a Matrix in and of itself, and that he too can make choices, not blindly go along with "fate" as the Oracle so wonderfully dishes out.
Predictions for Revolutions:
1) Zion will be destroyed in a very geekily-excellent sequence.
2) Neo will unlock ALL of the Matrixes, and we will get to see the "Real Real World" just before the credits.
3) Trinity is pregnant. C'mon people, you know that love scene couldn't be in there for no reason.
4) Morpheus might be a program. Remember, as the wild theorem which makes the most since to me states, the machines have created prophecy. Who has more faith in it than him?
Just some thoughts. Discuss amongst yourselves.
In fact, its so small its not even visible!
Wow!
5) Liability. Though it doesn't Make Sense (tm), if someone downloaded an "optimized driver" from superoptimizedrivers.com that in turn melted their chip or corrupted their vid card RAM in some way there would be repurcussions.
Realize, in a society in which people sue others over dogs barking too loud, NVidia would definitely hear from a very small but very vocal group about it.
6) Nivida's Programmers Don't Want This. Why? Let's say they GPL'd just the Linux reference driver. And in less than two weeks, a new optimized version came out that was TWICE as fast as the one before. This makes the programmers looks foolish. I know this is pure ego, but it is a concern I'm sure, for a programmer w/ a wife and kids.
I know this all sounds goofy, and trivial. But politics and Common Sense do not mesh. Again, I think your intentions are great and in a perfect world there would be thousands working on making the best, most optimized driver out there.
But if such a community were to exist (and you know it would), why bother paying a league of great programmers and not just send out a few test boards to those most active in that new community, more than willing to do work for Free (as in beer?)
Just something to think about.
Of course, if Nvidia's drivers were released under the GPL, none of the mud from this would stick as they could just point to the source code and say "look, no tricks".
Forgive me, but that sounds like one very stupid idea.
Why would you want to expose your hard earned work to the world? NVidia pays very well for programmers to think of wild and imaginative (out o' the box) programming techniques to get the most from their hardware.
With rogue drivers out there thanks to open-sourcing the code, someone could inadvertendly damage their card or render it (god what a pun) utterly useless.
Not to mention that other video card companies (ATI, anyone?) would love to see how their rendering pipelines work, and how they might be able to do the same. Remember that just until recently Catalyst drivers only covered upper echelon Radeon cards, and were certainly not "reference" (ie, covering an entire product line).
Terrible idea, though you had good intentions with it.
The funniest part is bragging that you haven't broken the 1Ghz barrier.
If you haven't seen your favorite games in hi-res with sweet proc/vid combos, you haven't really played them.
I remember when I first saw Warcraft 3 on a Geforce 4 on a 1.5Ghz, I nearly creamed my shorts.
I upgraded my crappy Celeron 850 a month afterwards and am very pleased.
You should try it. You'd be surprised how much more fun games are when they're clearer, prettier, and run less chunky (in hi-res modes).
The problem is they're trying to drive out Linux. And you can't really drive out a competitor who isn't a business at all. Linux is a competitor for the space on your hard drive, but that's all.
They're not trying to drive out Sun (well, they are, but stay with me here), they're trying to keep Open Source Software, which Sun is not, from infiltrating (what a terrible word for it) the Governments of Poor Nations.
So even if these laws do exist, and I'm sure they do but IANAL, you can't drive out a competitor who doesn't own what they're selling.
To put it into perspective, all of these companies sell bits and pieces tacked on to a free kernel. This means that you're mainly paying for SUPPORT.
That's why you can download Redhat ISOs for free. People paying $10k for Redhat "Advanced Server" (whatever that means) are paying for round-the-clock professional support, and MS isn't aiming to outdo the support market, just the operating system one.
It's sly and hurtful and pathetic, but hey, that's the Microsoft way!
Isn't this just going to cause confusion?
Of course it is! But we're not dealing with common sense here, we're dealing with egos.
And egos and common sense are like blood and space ships.
[/joke]
But this looks awful.
Not since Rise of the Triad on a 386 have I seen such a terrible resolution and absolute mess of pixels.
Did you see the shot where you looked down the hall and it was all a blur of brown and green/blue? Yeah, that's the whole game for you. "Did that blob move? Shoot it!"
And deathmatch? Don't make me laugh.
What little gameplay this will provide will be VERY SMALL roomed deathmatch with awful looking weapons on a very small screen.
I'm all for FPS on N-Gage if it can look better than this. And hell, if you're going to go, why not just port Doom 2? Its still a great game and you won't have to make a fool of yourself trying to make it look "as good" as the original.
I say go for fighting games on the N-Gage. Something like Samurai Showdown, which has an active zoom-out feature, would work great because of the screen width limitation.
The phone should've been longer, or the resolution should've been better, because this "hype" trailer just makes me glad I haven't through twice about buying an N-Gage.
Good job Romero! Once again you've underwhelmed everyone.
Donnie Darko, while a very interesting, thoughtful flick (very Lynch-esque), is pretty much all we have to judge Gyllenhaal's "serious" work. October Sky was decent, but there isn't much else out there.
However, Maguire has a very impressive resume, considering:
The Ice Storm (by Ang Crouching-Tiger Lee, fantastic film)
The Cider House Rules
Pleasantville (excellent film directed by Doug Ross, same guy who directed Maguire in Seabiscuit a few months ago)
Wonder Boys (awesome Curtis Hanson flick)
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (nice cameo though sporting a godawful hairpiece)
That, to me, far surpasses Jake's filmography (Donnie Darko, October Sky, and Bubble Boy, et al).
My $.02
In the classic Posting Of Stories With Blatant Spelling Mistakes tradition, I hereby apologize for mispelling Tobey Maguire three times in a row.
Yes, I too was in the running for a slashdot editor. (/joke)
The human mind is not rule-based -- we impose a framework of rules to allow everyone to live together in relative harmony.
I disagree. I believe that all of our thinking is based on decisions, ie, rules that we create for ourselves.
Now you can call it conscience, knowing right from wrong or whatever, but anything we do or participate in is a decision, a yes or a no, a 1 or a 0. AI will do these same decisions based on what the programmer inputs.
Now how our mind comes up with these rules, how we begin to "understand" things, how we have epiphanies, how we stare and stare at code and, suddenly, "get it," well, THAT's the AI mystery, and as soon as that algorithm or magic pixie dust is found where a machine can make up its own rules and create its own "mindspace" will the AI puzzle be solved.
Good point though, I too believe that AI has nothing to do with intellegence.
It has to do with understanding.
28,000 people that haven't even opened the box yet?
More like 28,000 that played for about a month and realized what a terrible game it was. No time-altering means if your sim has to read a book to learn something, and that book takes 5 minutes to read, expect to twiddle LOTS of thumbs while trying to up their skills in a particular area.
Can you even play Sims Online in single-player mode?
*Notes the "Online" in the title, as opposed to the lack of such in "The Sims"
Or rather, until one of the bottom trusses breaks and they're buried at 140MPH.
"That's one hell of a hole you got there, Sonny."
"Yeah."
(akward silence)
"Rollercoaster."
(nods)
I too had been convined by the marketing drones of the world (simply because I really don't pay that much attention to pop anymore) that Avril was "The Real Thing" (tm).
I did notice she was godawful live (damn near embarrassing herself on the Grammys), but I didn't know how Drone-like she was.
There's a fascinating bit of information available here on Google Groups for those wondering how far the fakeness goes.
And from what I've gathered in the past 20 minutes...it's really manipulative, and sad.
If the Linux version sells enough copies, Bioware drops the cash, puts in the Bink code, covers their costs. If it doesn't, everyone gets a refund.
Thanks for the best laugh I've had all week.
There's open source, then there's just bonehead business strategy.
The latter seems to apply in this case.