...by William Perry, as this very informative article suggests, when and why was it restarted?
If it's been eating up 39% of the Army's aircraft budget and we're not getting anything out of it now, shouldn't those responsible for restarting it answer for that now?
The Comanche is a beautiful piece of technology which accomplishes some amazing things. It's just not needed for its original mission any more. Indeed, its original mission was an awfully small niche in Cold-War tactics in the first place. The Bloomberg article says it was designed for an anti-Soviet role, but doesn't explain this well. (Nonetheless, it is very true.) We knew its mission was obsolete by 1991, but it has apparently taken 13 years to finally get rid of it. This suggests a very broken procurement pipeline.
I hope someone can offer some insights as to why this happened (or kept on happening).
...because in order to rule in favor of SCO the court would have to redefine "derivative work" in such a way as to create major problems for just about every piece of software out there.
Who would own Norton SystemTools? Who would own Netware? Who would own OSX? Who would own Windows?
If the answer to all of these questions was "SCO," would it be the end of the IT industry as we know it? Why isn't anybody indemnifying me against that?
...early '80s, bad economy, and the "reason for leaving" part of my last four jobs were: employer went under, employer bounced paychecks on me repeatedly, employer declared bankruptcy, and project ended.
I was interviewing with a prospective employer who looked this over and said, "Looks like you've had a run of bad luck."
"You could look at that way," I said. "But I think it might have been how I was choosing my employers." I explained to him how I was very good on some outmoded equipment, and maybe the reason I was picking so many losers was because I was looking for people who were using equipment that might suggest they didn't know what they were doing. (I had already learned that he did not use that equipment.)
Then I told him why I thought the equipment he was using was better (big difference: it had these things called "hard drives"), why I thought that was the future of the industry, and why I wanted to learn how to use it. Then I asked him some straightforward questions about his business, which he was able to answer quite confidently.
I explained that I was willing to work at trainee's wages on this better equipment even though I had several years of experience (if I had the chance to work at a well-run business). He was so complimented by my willingness to work for him (once I had explained that I was looking for a better employer) that he offered me 12 percent more than I asked for. A few years later I moved out west. A few years after that the "project ended" company moved to the same city. They offered me a great job, and I worked with them for a few years. Then they went under, and I started my own business by picking up a few of their customers and made a million bucks.
Anybody who tells you to lie is a fool. State the truth in the most positive light you can put it and hope for the best.
You don't want to work for anyone who would hold your situation against you, anyway.
..."A Postmodern Analysis of Slashdot Editor's Comments" and plan to use the following quote as an example of the phenomenology of desperate attempts to start a flamewar that are so transparent they inevitably fail:
Is there plenty important being done in this field, or is it possible that academic study of videogames can tend towards overanalysis?
Is it possible that there is plenty of importantwork being done in a field of study which can tend toward overanalysis? You mean, like statistics? Or philosophy? Or biology? Or literary criticism? How about the humanities? Or law? Or history?
How about the latest news on the SCO lawsuit? Or the value of Open Source technology?
I'm so glad the readers didn't rise to the bait here (obviously intended to re-ignite the non-controversy started when skotos criticized a single chapter from Richard Bartle's densely significant book).
a) They stole the technology from us and used it without testing.
Actually, they bought the technology and tested it before they used it. It was against our laws for them to buy it, but they paid for it. That's not the same as stealing. And the article clearly states that the software was designed to pass tests and fail in actual operation.
b) The explosion was in the middle of siberia, there was nobody there to be killed.
Since this thread is about whether the U.S. cared whether it killed people or not, the fact that it was in the middle of Siberia is only relevant if the terrorists who planned the operation knew it would happen in a place where no one would be killed. They didn't.
...don't listen to the whiners talking about how hard and boring it is. You'll know whether you like it long before you have a decent portfolio put together.
Take your favorite game with level-editing tools available for it: NWN and Starcraft or Warcraft spring immediately to mind, but remember it should be a game you know and understand. You have to know the game well enough to have a good feel for what makes a good level.
Another thing to consider is to contact your local IDGA chapter. Their website has a page which lists all the local chapters. I found a very active group in my local area, which turned out to have monthly meetings which are very useful.
Another thing to look for is groups working on mods. Most of the top mods were created by a bunch of "guys like you" who got together on the Internet and need lots of help and are willing to teach you what you need to know.
...like an explanation of why the "invention" is not patentable: It points out that, once you're using XML, somebody else doesn't need to know what (theoretically patentable) methods are being used by MS to be able to use the data in the XML file created by a Microsoft product.
Unless they're claiming to have patented the concept of encapsulation.
...the [0009] section reads suspiciously like a definition of XML. Or maybe a promise to use XML the way it was intended. While this may be novel in Redmond, it's hardly patentable.
...the really interesting aspect of the article: what MS is actually trying to patent.
But I'm still confused by this part of the article. I've written many applications which use methods which interpret various XML dialects. There is nothing particularly different about Office schemas that would require any different methods. All of the apps I've written used Perl modules or Ruby classes published long before MS filed these patents. Understanding the XML data or even the schemas was never very hard. I never found myself wishing for some technique that would make it easier.
If MS has come up with something that I felt I had to have, it would have be cool enough that I'd be willing to pay for it. If it wasn't truly amazing, I probably wouldn't pay for it. I'd just keep using what I'm using now.
I have some difficulty imagining Microsoft coming after me some time in the future and saying, "That software you're using, which was written long before we filed our patent, violates our patent."
Sounds like grounds for a great countersuit to me.
Maybe if someone could explain what methods are being patented it would make more sense to me.
...like the rest of us, he lacks the large amount of capital that would be required to do it. The residuals from Triumph of the Nerds cannot be all that much.
...to make yourself look like an insufferable moron?
Allow me to recapitulate: You posted your opinion to a public forum saying that because we can't predict the weather we shouldn't assume we can predict the climate. Someone responded suggesting you didn't understand the difference between weather and climate and giving several completely valid analogies (and one really bad one -- the rain in February thing). Instead of trying to show you understood the difference, you pretended the response was arguing something the poster never said and attacked that (a classic example of a Strawman Argument). The responder pointed this out and suggested some areas you might study. You responded with an ad hominem attack, pretending his response was boilerplate and that he wasn't allowing you to have your own opinions.
I call this the O'Reilly Tactic. Challenge the other guy to come up with some facts, then pretend his answer is worthless with "Oh, that's just your opinion." Well, yes. And everything he says is "just his opinion." But some people can back up their opinions with logical arguments and some people just whine about not being allowed to have their own opinions.
If you don't want your opinions to be scrutinized, don't publish them on a public discussion forum. If you don't think they can stand up to such scrutiny, don't read the responses.
The truth is we all use climate models all the time: Season makes very little difference in the tropics. It's generally warmer in the summer than in the winter. It rains more in Seattle than Denver.
Some are more valid than others. Some are more useful than others. Statistical analysis and computers are both good tools for determine which are valid and useful.
...can produce strange results: Some abstract games (like checkers) just don't make sense in 3D; others (like chess) can be translated easily to 3D, but have radical shifts in their internal dynamics as a result; and some (like Go) can make the transition virtually intact, but can be problematic to represent.
Wasn't Qix a game where you tried to fence off areas of the board with orthogonal lines?
In that case, it might be difficult to define what is meant by "fencing off" a volume of space. This is one of the problems faced by the rook in 3D chess. Much of the rook's strength in 2 dimensions derives from its ability to fence the king into a section of the 2D board. In three dimensions, this ability disappears (for much the same reason that 3D Qix may be hard to imagine).
...since many Koreans *really* do hate the Japanese. This has long resulted in a strong preference (in Korea) for American products over Japanese products.
The amazing thing is that PS2 is outselling Xbox in Korea by such a wide margin when Koreans have long been some of the biggest customers in the Far East for Microsoft products. The fact that Koreans like on-line games (where Xbox has a very strong reputation compared to PS2) makes it even more mysterious.
...is much easier for me to understand than "Quicksilver" as best.
First of all, let me say that any impartial observer would predict that I would like Stephenson's latest book a lot: I am a big Neal Stephenson fan. I loved "Cryptonomicon" (which shares the "Quicksilver" tendency toward digression -- heck it even shares a character). My degree is in the philosophy of science, and that's really what "Quicksilver" is about. (I even have had a long-time interest in the conflict between Leibniz and Newton, which is the lens through which Stephenson looks at the philosophy of science in this book.) I have an interest in military history and have been reading a lot lately about The 30 Years War (which figures at least tangentially in the book).
Despite all these reasons I would be expected to enjoy "Quicksilver," I didn't like it much. You will probably like it less. I found myself gaining some insights from it (particularly on the English-Civil-War side of things), but I read it more like I might read a dull textbook on something I needed to know than as a gripping tale.
Looking at what's wrong with the book:
First of all, it's really not one really long book. It's really three fairly long books: "Quicksilver," "The Prince of Vagabonds" (or maybe it's "The King of Vagabonds") and "Odalesque." I have no idea why the publisher chose to present it as one book instead of as a trilogy (except perhaps that only the middle book would have any chance of being accepted by readers). If you're having trouble wading through the first part, skip to the second book ("The Prince of Vagabonds" really can stand on its own.)
Looking at the "Quicksilver" part: Stephenson seems to have realized his account of Newton and the Royal Society is not a rousing enough tale to make a novel. So he has intercut that account with an action-filled story about a crafty Dutch captain outfoxing Blackbeard in a sea battle. The pirate battle has almost nothing to do with the rest of the story (in fact, it takes place long after the events in the "Odalesque" part of the trilogy). If this book had been published separately, I would suggest readers interested in Newton read that part and everybody else read the Blackbeard part (if I suggested reading it all).
Looking at the "Prince of Vagabonds" part: As I suggested earlier, this was my favorite part. The only problem is that it has almost nothing to do with the main subject of the book (the Newton-Leibniz conflict). Some people may have difficulty believing in the "glorious stupidity" of the main character, but I know a guy who is just like Half-Cocked Jack so it was no problem for me.
...about IP paranoia, as one would expect from an experienced professional.
I do have a story that is more humorous than informative: In the early '80s one of the major game companies encouraged prospective designers to submit games to them as a way of applying for a job. I did so, using a working title which I thought was "not commercially viable." They lost the prototype I sent them and subsequently published a warning that no one should send them games (without even acknowledging they had been encouraging it for years). Then another game company announced a game with the same title as mine. I went in to complain and was hired. Go figure.
When the other company's game came out, it had no resemblance to my game whatsoever (although the title did prove to be every bit as nonviable as I had imagined).
As far as the distributors/publishers confusion, publishers are often guilty of blurring this line. WOTC and Games Workshop are famous for it. And both of them also operate retail stores. "Game Trade" magazine is a good source for this side of the business, although I don't think Mike Stackpole is still writing his highly informative column for them.
A lot of good ideas have been posted in answer to the original question (especially about forums and web sites dedicated to the subject). Here are a few less-than-obvious suggestions from a professional game designer:
Lumping card games and board games together suggests the original poster has not thought sufficiently about which market he (or she) is interested in. Card games are different from collectible card games. Both are different from traditional board games (Clue, Monopoly, etc.). All of these have virtually nothing in common with Chess and Go. To say nothing of Catan, Cheapass Games, wargames, miniatures rules, Diplomacy and other multiplayer games, D20 supplements, RPGs (which are an entirely different publishing problem from Open Game License products) and probably a bunch of others I haven't thought of. Are we talking mass market? Niche market? Kids games? Educational games? You want custom-made playing pieces? Parker-Brothers-style plastic pawns? Play money? Every one of these questions produces an entirely different answer to the basic questions the poster has asked. Answer them first, and then ask your question (preferably on a specialized forum).
The original poster mentions cards. There are a number of issues revolving around cards. First is, "Do they need unreadable backs?" If people need to lay them face-down on the table without the other player[s] knowing what they are, you almost certainly need a specialty playing-card printer. Most printers have not thought through the issues involved here and will promise you they can do it. But they cannot. The slightest variation in ink density on the Ace of Spades will get someone shot in a poker game. Second question is, "Are they "collectible"? This brings up all kinds of issues about randomness and fairness and packaging that even an expert playing-card printer may not understand.
Your rules will be read by two vastly different audiences: Some people will read them trying to interpret them as you intended; some will deliberately try to misinterpret them to gain some advantage in the game. Massive unhappiness will result if you don't write with both in mind. (This is why some game rules read like IRS instructions. Both have to be written with loophole-hunters in mind.)
Testing is obviously important, but some things about testing are less obvious:
Blindtesting is different from playtesting. Both are important. In playtesting, the developer sits down with the playtesters for weeks (or even months) at a time and plays the heck out of the game. Blindtesters should have no other contact with the designers except to receive a mock-up of what the purchasers of your product will receive. You need to know if they can figure it out from that. And you need to know if they end up playing the same game as playtesters who are getting subtle h
...the Soviet version of "War and Peace" was 511 minutes long (8-1/2 hours) and it *was* a single narrative framework. Both Tolkein and Jackson broke "The Lord of the Rings" into three parts.
...specifies that the president shall submit a budget to the Congress and that the Congress shall appropriate the funds (with all such legislation originating in the House of Representatives). It also specifies that the president has a veto which can be overridden by a supermajority in both houses of Congress. So it is very clear that this is a shared responsibility.
At various times in U.S. history, this balance of powers has played out in different ways: Sometimes a strong president has pretty much dictated the budget to the Congress; sometimes an assertive Congress has micromanaged everything; and sometimes there has been a constant battle over who would decide what.
During the years after Andrew Johnson's impeachment, very aggressive Republican Congresses pretty much decided everything and told presidents they'd like it. That changed with Teddy Roosevelt, when a strong personality turned the White House into his own "bully pulpit." Woodrow Wilson's executive branch also had a lot of influence. And the second President Roosevelt's power was largely unchecked by the Congress (although the courts did provide some checks on his power). After congressional leaders were embarrassed by their first attempt to rewrite a Reagan budget, the Democratic Congresses of the 1980s had little influence over the budget. Clinton usually got his way, but he had to fight for it every inch of the way.
Given this backdrop, it is difficult to say what the status of Bush's budget proposals have been. They have been passed, largely intact. But it's hard to say whether Congress has been cowed or is just going along because he's submitting budgets they like. It's even possible he's been cowed into submitting budgets he knows they'll like.
Whatever the case, it's clearly fair to say "Bush cut this program" or "Bush cut that program" when he submitted a budget proposal which included cuts which Congress enacted and he later signed into law. It is also fair to say "Bush tried to cut..." or "Bush cut such-and-such a program from his budget proposal" even if the money was later re-instated by Congress. It has been fairly common practice by this White House to make a promise, work hard to get the legislation passed, and then submit a budget which includes no funds for implementation.
Pointing out this proclivity is nothing more than honesty. And making snide comments about such honesty is a particularly insidious form of dishonesty.
There has been another historical trend which seems to be gaining popularity in the last 30 years: Dishonest politicians (and I am not saying Bush is one of them) have gotten into the habit of quoting small portions of part of the U.S. Constitution which delegate some part of the budgetary process to someone else (or to some other body) and pretending they don't have any responsibility for some particular budgetary problem (even though another part of the Constitution may well assign just such a responsibility to them).
The gullible fanboys of these dishonest politicians then pick up the meme, saying things like "And I thought congress held the purse" in discussions where any truth which may be contained in the statement has no relevance to the topic.
...(or even a funny joke) if the article had been about social interaction in non-massively-multiplayer videogames.
By definition anyone who has an interest in multiplayer games has *some* interest in socialization. Otherwise they would be completely satisfied by off-line gaming.
The problem is that no one (even the non-geeks called "social scientists") has come up with a really good model for socialization. Perhaps this is acerbated by the fact that many games are designed by geeks who may be constitutionally unsuited for this task. But the geekiness of the players probably doesn't enter the equation at all.
...You're just confused about who the cretins are:
Coffee is prepared with boiling water,...
Very few coffeemakers are designed to bring any significant portion of the water to 212 degrees F at a time. Those that do all have some means provided by which the temperature is far below that for serving. That's the way people like it.
...and some people actually like it hot.
Some people like it hot, but not that hot. Most restaurants serve it around 135 degrees, which most people consider quite hot. Smart waitresses will sometimes keep their "freshener" pot at 150 or so, knowing that they will be putting it in cups with coffee that has already cooled, averaging out to a much lower temperature while keeping those that prefer it hot satisfied. But nobody likes it at a temperature which causes third-degree burns to their tongue and second-degree burns to their esophagus.
Even kids are supposed to know that.
The ad-hominem attacks begin: a sign of someone whose biases are not backed up by facts.
Yes, kids are supposed to know that. And this lady knew it. She was probably planning on blowing on it and sipping carefully. What she didn't know was that this particular coffee was far hotter than her previous experiences with "too hot" coffee had prepared her for.
So 700 out of _hundreds_ _of_ _millions_ served are total cretins.
Your willingness to make blanket judgments about large numbers of people is very interesting. Perhaps you might notice a correllation between the number of times each day you are wrong and the number of times you do this. Of course, neither you nor I know the intellectual capacity of these people. Nor their wisdom. I'm willing to bet that they exceed anyone who would call them "cretins" on both scores.
What does this tell you? Maybe that one has to be in the "0.1% most retarded" part of the bell curve to have trouble with it?
It must be nice to be able to extrapolate large numbers of facts (that just happen to support your preconceived notions) from such small amounts of data. It must give you a great deal of satisfaction. But it's not much use for those of us who live in the real world. In that real world, I suspect that those "hundreds of millions" probably included a great many who thought the coffee was way too hot. Some of them probably never came back. Some probably developed the habit of waiting to drink it. Some probably threw in an ice cube. Some probably complained verbally. Most probably just couldn't be bothered with writing a letter to complain.
But 700 did. You have performed your estimate of who they were and how they broke down. Allow me to perform mine: I think 697 of them were caring, concerned people who genuinely worried that McDonalds had a problem they weren't aware of; I think 3 of them were lawyers trying to set up just such a lawsuit as this one. Now my guess is just as likely to be wrong as yours was, but I'm willing to bet that it comes closer to reality than your 100% retards estimate. McDonalds were cretins for ignoring all these nice people. And you, sir, are a cretin for calling them "cretins." But I would like to concentrate on the three lawyers: While McDonalds was impolite to ignore the 397 nice people, they were pure fools to ignore the three lawyers.
Well, now you know where that old lady fits.
Now she's an "old lady." Ever notice how easily these made-up facts come to your lips? Everybody you know does.
This is precisely what makes her a cretin. If you put a paper-cup between your thighs, and _squeeze_ it to hold it in place as you wrestle the lid off... what do you expect to happen?
Well, because it's another example of the Internet being used to catch historical revisionism in the act.
Because Time is trying to censor the truth about the Iraq war?
Sounds like a good reason to me.
Riiiiight... Like Time Magazine is going to pull every sring they can to get W reelected...
This one really has me confused. Are you saying that you are so convinced that Time is biased against Bush that, when presented with clear evidence of the opposite, you reject reality rather than rejecting your own flawed hypothesis?
...and this isn't even new information!
What isn't new information? The fact Time is revising old content? (Clearly that is new information.) The historical reasoning behind the decision to halt the first Gulf War at the time it was halted? (See below.)
Everything in the TM article was a restatement of the white house's public position on the Iraq war from 1991!
Nonsense. The choosing of the exact point at which the war was ended was not a key issue at the time the war ended (although it had become one by the time of the book from which this Time piece was excerpted). The White House did little at the time to explain its exact movtives and reporters did not push them on it. For a long time it was assumed (especially by Bush's conservative critics) that Bush was unduly influenced by the State Department and the U.N.
That hypothesis had been shattered by people who had been witness to the discussions. They reported it was Schwarzkopf and Powell who had argued for a fairly quick end to the war. According to these reports, the State Department, foreign leaders, and the United Nations had not been part of the decision-making process at all. It was suggested that the primary reasons for ending the war that were brought up in these discussions were the risk of a quagmire and Powell's concern about the psychological damage that was accruing to U.S. soldiers from killing virtually defenseless Iraqis (I know this sounds silly, but that was reportedly his argument).
In these accounts, Bush alone was arguing to continue the war (not as far as Baghdad, but at least for another day). We now know the commanders on the ground were planning to take the whole country, but that military leaders at the Pentagon were much more cautious (or even pessimistic). Remember that at the time of the war many were predicting heavy causalties and a bloodbath. Bush was questioned after he left office by the press about the exact decision-making process and repeatedly refused to say much about why he had called it off when he did.
It was against this backdrop that the book by Bush and Scowcroft appeared. The fact that it was considered news at the time is reflected in the fact that Time chose to run an excerpt. Many thought Bush was trying quash the growing impression that he had not made the final decision (or had somehow disagreed with it). Others interpreted it as an attempt to take responsibility off Powell, whose political star was rising.
It's public knowledge, available from other sources and probably in history books by now.
Historians are still looking for a definitive picture of the decision process behind the abrupt end to the first Gulf War. It has turned out to be one of the most important decisions since the decision to accept an armistice (in return for reparations) instead of pushing for unconditional surrender at the end of the First World War. It promises to have as profound an effect on the first half of 21st century as the armistice did on the first half of the 20th.
Slashdot Mirror
...by William Perry, as this very informative article suggests, when and why was it restarted?
If it's been eating up 39% of the Army's aircraft budget and we're not getting anything out of it now, shouldn't those responsible for restarting it answer for that now?
The Comanche is a beautiful piece of technology which accomplishes some amazing things. It's just not needed for its original mission any more. Indeed, its original mission was an awfully small niche in Cold-War tactics in the first place. The Bloomberg article says it was designed for an anti-Soviet role, but doesn't explain this well. (Nonetheless, it is very true.) We knew its mission was obsolete by 1991, but it has apparently taken 13 years to finally get rid of it. This suggests a very broken procurement pipeline.
I hope someone can offer some insights as to why this happened (or kept on happening).
...because in order to rule in favor of SCO the court would have to redefine "derivative work" in such a way as to create major problems for just about every piece of software out there.
Who would own Norton SystemTools? Who would own Netware? Who would own OSX? Who would own Windows?
If the answer to all of these questions was "SCO," would it be the end of the IT industry as we know it? Why isn't anybody indemnifying me against that?
...early '80s, bad economy, and the "reason for leaving" part of my last four jobs were: employer went under, employer bounced paychecks on me repeatedly, employer declared bankruptcy, and project ended.
I was interviewing with a prospective employer who looked this over and said, "Looks like you've had a run of bad luck."
"You could look at that way," I said. "But I think it might have been how I was choosing my employers." I explained to him how I was very good on some outmoded equipment, and maybe the reason I was picking so many losers was because I was looking for people who were using equipment that might suggest they didn't know what they were doing. (I had already learned that he did not use that equipment.)
Then I told him why I thought the equipment he was using was better (big difference: it had these things called "hard drives"), why I thought that was the future of the industry, and why I wanted to learn how to use it. Then I asked him some straightforward questions about his business, which he was able to answer quite confidently.
I explained that I was willing to work at trainee's wages on this better equipment even though I had several years of experience (if I had the chance to work at a well-run business). He was so complimented by my willingness to work for him (once I had explained that I was looking for a better employer) that he offered me 12 percent more than I asked for. A few years later I moved out west. A few years after that the "project ended" company moved to the same city. They offered me a great job, and I worked with them for a few years. Then they went under, and I started my own business by picking up a few of their customers and made a million bucks.
Anybody who tells you to lie is a fool. State the truth in the most positive light you can put it and hope for the best.
You don't want to work for anyone who would hold your situation against you, anyway.
..."A Postmodern Analysis of Slashdot Editor's Comments" and plan to use the following quote as an example of the phenomenology of desperate attempts to start a flamewar that are so transparent they inevitably fail:
Is it possible that there is plenty of important work being done in a field of study which can tend toward overanalysis? You mean, like statistics? Or philosophy? Or biology? Or literary criticism? How about the humanities? Or law? Or history?
How about the latest news on the SCO lawsuit? Or the value of Open Source technology?
I'm so glad the readers didn't rise to the bait here (obviously intended to re-ignite the non-controversy started when skotos criticized a single chapter from Richard Bartle's densely significant book).
...has some tiny chance of being appropriate.
Actually, they bought the technology and tested it before they used it. It was against our laws for them to buy it, but they paid for it. That's not the same as stealing. And the article clearly states that the software was designed to pass tests and fail in actual operation.
Since this thread is about whether the U.S. cared whether it killed people or not, the fact that it was in the middle of Siberia is only relevant if the terrorists who planned the operation knew it would happen in a place where no one would be killed. They didn't.
This one might actually be right.
...don't listen to the whiners talking about how hard and boring it is. You'll know whether you like it long before you have a decent portfolio put together.
Take your favorite game with level-editing tools available for it: NWN and Starcraft or Warcraft spring immediately to mind, but remember it should be a game you know and understand. You have to know the game well enough to have a good feel for what makes a good level.
Another thing to consider is to contact your local IDGA chapter. Their website has a page which lists all the local chapters. I found a very active group in my local area, which turned out to have monthly meetings which are very useful.
Another thing to look for is groups working on mods. Most of the top mods were created by a bunch of "guys like you" who got together on the Internet and need lots of help and are willing to teach you what you need to know.
...of what any XML/XSD app should do?
Or am I missing something here?
...like an explanation of why the "invention" is not patentable: It points out that, once you're using XML, somebody else doesn't need to know what (theoretically patentable) methods are being used by MS to be able to use the data in the XML file created by a Microsoft product.
Unless they're claiming to have patented the concept of encapsulation.
...the [0009] section reads suspiciously like a definition of XML. Or maybe a promise to use XML the way it was intended. While this may be novel in Redmond, it's hardly patentable.
...the really interesting aspect of the article: what MS is actually trying to patent.
But I'm still confused by this part of the article. I've written many applications which use methods which interpret various XML dialects. There is nothing particularly different about Office schemas that would require any different methods. All of the apps I've written used Perl modules or Ruby classes published long before MS filed these patents. Understanding the XML data or even the schemas was never very hard. I never found myself wishing for some technique that would make it easier.
If MS has come up with something that I felt I had to have, it would have be cool enough that I'd be willing to pay for it. If it wasn't truly amazing, I probably wouldn't pay for it. I'd just keep using what I'm using now.
I have some difficulty imagining Microsoft coming after me some time in the future and saying, "That software you're using, which was written long before we filed our patent, violates our patent."
Sounds like grounds for a great countersuit to me.
Maybe if someone could explain what methods are being patented it would make more sense to me.
...like the rest of us, he lacks the large amount of capital that would be required to do it. The residuals from Triumph of the Nerds cannot be all that much.
...that many people don't understand it.
The economy of the state of Nevada is built around harvesting the excess cash of just such people.
...to make yourself look like an insufferable moron?
Allow me to recapitulate: You posted your opinion to a public forum saying that because we can't predict the weather we shouldn't assume we can predict the climate. Someone responded suggesting you didn't understand the difference between weather and climate and giving several completely valid analogies (and one really bad one -- the rain in February thing). Instead of trying to show you understood the difference, you pretended the response was arguing something the poster never said and attacked that (a classic example of a Strawman Argument). The responder pointed this out and suggested some areas you might study. You responded with an ad hominem attack, pretending his response was boilerplate and that he wasn't allowing you to have your own opinions.
I call this the O'Reilly Tactic. Challenge the other guy to come up with some facts, then pretend his answer is worthless with "Oh, that's just your opinion." Well, yes. And everything he says is "just his opinion." But some people can back up their opinions with logical arguments and some people just whine about not being allowed to have their own opinions.
If you don't want your opinions to be scrutinized, don't publish them on a public discussion forum. If you don't think they can stand up to such scrutiny, don't read the responses.
The truth is we all use climate models all the time: Season makes very little difference in the tropics. It's generally warmer in the summer than in the winter. It rains more in Seattle than Denver.
Some are more valid than others. Some are more useful than others. Statistical analysis and computers are both good tools for determine which are valid and useful.
...can produce strange results: Some abstract games (like checkers) just don't make sense in 3D; others (like chess) can be translated easily to 3D, but have radical shifts in their internal dynamics as a result; and some (like Go) can make the transition virtually intact, but can be problematic to represent.
Wasn't Qix a game where you tried to fence off areas of the board with orthogonal lines?
In that case, it might be difficult to define what is meant by "fencing off" a volume of space. This is one of the problems faced by the rook in 3D chess. Much of the rook's strength in 2 dimensions derives from its ability to fence the king into a section of the 2D board. In three dimensions, this ability disappears (for much the same reason that 3D Qix may be hard to imagine).
...since many Koreans *really* do hate the Japanese. This has long resulted in a strong preference (in Korea) for American products over Japanese products.
The amazing thing is that PS2 is outselling Xbox in Korea by such a wide margin when Koreans have long been some of the biggest customers in the Far East for Microsoft products. The fact that Koreans like on-line games (where Xbox has a very strong reputation compared to PS2) makes it even more mysterious.
...is much easier for me to understand than "Quicksilver" as best.
First of all, let me say that any impartial observer would predict that I would like Stephenson's latest book a lot: I am a big Neal Stephenson fan. I loved "Cryptonomicon" (which shares the "Quicksilver" tendency toward digression -- heck it even shares a character). My degree is in the philosophy of science, and that's really what "Quicksilver" is about. (I even have had a long-time interest in the conflict between Leibniz and Newton, which is the lens through which Stephenson looks at the philosophy of science in this book.) I have an interest in military history and have been reading a lot lately about The 30 Years War (which figures at least tangentially in the book).
Despite all these reasons I would be expected to enjoy "Quicksilver," I didn't like it much. You will probably like it less. I found myself gaining some insights from it (particularly on the English-Civil-War side of things), but I read it more like I might read a dull textbook on something I needed to know than as a gripping tale.
Looking at what's wrong with the book:
First of all, it's really not one really long book. It's really three fairly long books: "Quicksilver," "The Prince of Vagabonds" (or maybe it's "The King of Vagabonds") and "Odalesque." I have no idea why the publisher chose to present it as one book instead of as a trilogy (except perhaps that only the middle book would have any chance of being accepted by readers). If you're having trouble wading through the first part, skip to the second book ("The Prince of Vagabonds" really can stand on its own.)
Looking at the "Quicksilver" part: Stephenson seems to have realized his account of Newton and the Royal Society is not a rousing enough tale to make a novel. So he has intercut that account with an action-filled story about a crafty Dutch captain outfoxing Blackbeard in a sea battle. The pirate battle has almost nothing to do with the rest of the story (in fact, it takes place long after the events in the "Odalesque" part of the trilogy). If this book had been published separately, I would suggest readers interested in Newton read that part and everybody else read the Blackbeard part (if I suggested reading it all).
Looking at the "Prince of Vagabonds" part: As I suggested earlier, this was my favorite part. The only problem is that it has almost nothing to do with the main subject of the book (the Newton-Leibniz conflict). Some people may have difficulty believing in the "glorious stupidity" of the main character, but I know a guy who is just like Half-Cocked Jack so it was no problem for me.
...about IP paranoia, as one would expect from an experienced professional.
I do have a story that is more humorous than informative: In the early '80s one of the major game companies encouraged prospective designers to submit games to them as a way of applying for a job. I did so, using a working title which I thought was "not commercially viable." They lost the prototype I sent them and subsequently published a warning that no one should send them games (without even acknowledging they had been encouraging it for years). Then another game company announced a game with the same title as mine. I went in to complain and was hired. Go figure.
When the other company's game came out, it had no resemblance to my game whatsoever (although the title did prove to be every bit as nonviable as I had imagined).
As far as the distributors/publishers confusion, publishers are often guilty of blurring this line. WOTC and Games Workshop are famous for it. And both of them also operate retail stores. "Game Trade" magazine is a good source for this side of the business, although I don't think Mike Stackpole is still writing his highly informative column for them.
A lot of good ideas have been posted in answer to the original question (especially about forums and web sites dedicated to the subject). Here are a few less-than-obvious suggestions from a professional game designer:
...department to tell them that a 20-year-old standard feature would be useful?
Yes.
...the Soviet version of "War and Peace" was 511 minutes long (8-1/2 hours) and it *was* a single narrative framework. Both Tolkein and Jackson broke "The Lord of the Rings" into three parts.
...specifies that the president shall submit a budget to the Congress and that the Congress shall appropriate the funds (with all such legislation originating in the House of Representatives). It also specifies that the president has a veto which can be overridden by a supermajority in both houses of Congress. So it is very clear that this is a shared responsibility.
At various times in U.S. history, this balance of powers has played out in different ways: Sometimes a strong president has pretty much dictated the budget to the Congress; sometimes an assertive Congress has micromanaged everything; and sometimes there has been a constant battle over who would decide what.
During the years after Andrew Johnson's impeachment, very aggressive Republican Congresses pretty much decided everything and told presidents they'd like it. That changed with Teddy Roosevelt, when a strong personality turned the White House into his own "bully pulpit." Woodrow Wilson's executive branch also had a lot of influence. And the second President Roosevelt's power was largely unchecked by the Congress (although the courts did provide some checks on his power). After congressional leaders were embarrassed by their first attempt to rewrite a Reagan budget, the Democratic Congresses of the 1980s had little influence over the budget. Clinton usually got his way, but he had to fight for it every inch of the way.
Given this backdrop, it is difficult to say what the status of Bush's budget proposals have been. They have been passed, largely intact. But it's hard to say whether Congress has been cowed or is just going along because he's submitting budgets they like. It's even possible he's been cowed into submitting budgets he knows they'll like.
Whatever the case, it's clearly fair to say "Bush cut this program" or "Bush cut that program" when he submitted a budget proposal which included cuts which Congress enacted and he later signed into law. It is also fair to say "Bush tried to cut..." or "Bush cut such-and-such a program from his budget proposal" even if the money was later re-instated by Congress. It has been fairly common practice by this White House to make a promise, work hard to get the legislation passed, and then submit a budget which includes no funds for implementation.
Pointing out this proclivity is nothing more than honesty. And making snide comments about such honesty is a particularly insidious form of dishonesty.
There has been another historical trend which seems to be gaining popularity in the last 30 years: Dishonest politicians (and I am not saying Bush is one of them) have gotten into the habit of quoting small portions of part of the U.S. Constitution which delegate some part of the budgetary process to someone else (or to some other body) and pretending they don't have any responsibility for some particular budgetary problem (even though another part of the Constitution may well assign just such a responsibility to them).
The gullible fanboys of these dishonest politicians then pick up the meme, saying things like "And I thought congress held the purse" in discussions where any truth which may be contained in the statement has no relevance to the topic.
...Microsoft is gaming the security situation instead of taking reasonable steps to fix their OS. So his job title probably should be game master.
...(or even a funny joke) if the article had been about social interaction in non-massively-multiplayer videogames.
By definition anyone who has an interest in multiplayer games has *some* interest in socialization. Otherwise they would be completely satisfied by off-line gaming.
The problem is that no one (even the non-geeks called "social scientists") has come up with a really good model for socialization. Perhaps this is acerbated by the fact that many games are designed by geeks who may be constitutionally unsuited for this task. But the geekiness of the players probably doesn't enter the equation at all.
...I apologize. She was an old woman. But the rest of Moraelin's stuff was made-up nonsense.
...You're just confused about who the cretins are:
Very few coffeemakers are designed to bring any significant portion of the water to 212 degrees F at a time. Those that do all have some means provided by which the temperature is far below that for serving. That's the way people like it.
Some people like it hot, but not that hot. Most restaurants serve it around 135 degrees, which most people consider quite hot. Smart waitresses will sometimes keep their "freshener" pot at 150 or so, knowing that they will be putting it in cups with coffee that has already cooled, averaging out to a much lower temperature while keeping those that prefer it hot satisfied. But nobody likes it at a temperature which causes third-degree burns to their tongue and second-degree burns to their esophagus.
The ad-hominem attacks begin: a sign of someone whose biases are not backed up by facts.
Yes, kids are supposed to know that. And this lady knew it. She was probably planning on blowing on it and sipping carefully. What she didn't know was that this particular coffee was far hotter than her previous experiences with "too hot" coffee had prepared her for.
Your willingness to make blanket judgments about large numbers of people is very interesting. Perhaps you might notice a correllation between the number of times each day you are wrong and the number of times you do this. Of course, neither you nor I know the intellectual capacity of these people. Nor their wisdom. I'm willing to bet that they exceed anyone who would call them "cretins" on both scores.
It must be nice to be able to extrapolate large numbers of facts (that just happen to support your preconceived notions) from such small amounts of data. It must give you a great deal of satisfaction. But it's not much use for those of us who live in the real world. In that real world, I suspect that those "hundreds of millions" probably included a great many who thought the coffee was way too hot. Some of them probably never came back. Some probably developed the habit of waiting to drink it. Some probably threw in an ice cube. Some probably complained verbally. Most probably just couldn't be bothered with writing a letter to complain.
But 700 did. You have performed your estimate of who they were and how they broke down. Allow me to perform mine: I think 697 of them were caring, concerned people who genuinely worried that McDonalds had a problem they weren't aware of; I think 3 of them were lawyers trying to set up just such a lawsuit as this one. Now my guess is just as likely to be wrong as yours was, but I'm willing to bet that it comes closer to reality than your 100% retards estimate. McDonalds were cretins for ignoring all these nice people. And you, sir, are a cretin for calling them "cretins." But I would like to concentrate on the three lawyers: While McDonalds was impolite to ignore the 397 nice people, they were pure fools to ignore the three lawyers.
Now she's an "old lady." Ever notice how easily these made-up facts come to your lips? Everybody you know does.
Who said she squeezed? Who said sh
...but almost everything in this post is wrong:
Well, because it's another example of the Internet being used to catch historical revisionism in the act.
Sounds like a good reason to me.
This one really has me confused. Are you saying that you are so convinced that Time is biased against Bush that, when presented with clear evidence of the opposite, you reject reality rather than rejecting your own flawed hypothesis?
What isn't new information? The fact Time is revising old content? (Clearly that is new information.) The historical reasoning behind the decision to halt the first Gulf War at the time it was halted? (See below.)
Nonsense. The choosing of the exact point at which the war was ended was not a key issue at the time the war ended (although it had become one by the time of the book from which this Time piece was excerpted). The White House did little at the time to explain its exact movtives and reporters did not push them on it. For a long time it was assumed (especially by Bush's conservative critics) that Bush was unduly influenced by the State Department and the U.N.
That hypothesis had been shattered by people who had been witness to the discussions. They reported it was Schwarzkopf and Powell who had argued for a fairly quick end to the war. According to these reports, the State Department, foreign leaders, and the United Nations had not been part of the decision-making process at all. It was suggested that the primary reasons for ending the war that were brought up in these discussions were the risk of a quagmire and Powell's concern about the psychological damage that was accruing to U.S. soldiers from killing virtually defenseless Iraqis (I know this sounds silly, but that was reportedly his argument).
In these accounts, Bush alone was arguing to continue the war (not as far as Baghdad, but at least for another day). We now know the commanders on the ground were planning to take the whole country, but that military leaders at the Pentagon were much more cautious (or even pessimistic). Remember that at the time of the war many were predicting heavy causalties and a bloodbath. Bush was questioned after he left office by the press about the exact decision-making process and repeatedly refused to say much about why he had called it off when he did.
It was against this backdrop that the book by Bush and Scowcroft appeared. The fact that it was considered news at the time is reflected in the fact that Time chose to run an excerpt. Many thought Bush was trying quash the growing impression that he had not made the final decision (or had somehow disagreed with it). Others interpreted it as an attempt to take responsibility off Powell, whose political star was rising.
Historians are still looking for a definitive picture of the decision process behind the abrupt end to the first Gulf War. It has turned out to be one of the most important decisions since the decision to accept an armistice (in return for reparations) instead of pushing for unconditional surrender at the end of the First World War. It promises to have as profound an effect on the first half of 21st century as the armistice did on the first half of the 20th.
The Bush-Sco