I've always had a good nose, as humans go (and an extremely discerning sense of taste, which is closely related). Much better than the average cat, and a little better than the average toy dog. Not nearly as good as my gundogs, but I can still sometimes find a shot bird (or a plastic bumper), in cover, by scent alone. I can often find stuff dropped or tracked onto the floor by scent, without having to get down to floor level to do it.
Dogs have to learn to use their scenting ability too, and the more native ability they have, the faster they learn to use it. Most toy dogs never learn to really use their noses, nor do many cats, even when they have need (frex, outdoor cats that have to hunt their dinner). It's rather like how someone who is naturally good at math learns higher math much more readily than someone who starts off with no inherent grok of math.
Smoking, or living in a smoking household, will kill your scenting ability in a hurry. I've noticed that Cajun-spiced food does the same thing, so delicious as it is, I don't eat it.
I never thought of scenting as "stereo" but should have, since scents are typically "directional"... you can tell what angle they're at and about how far away, rather like you would with sight or hearing.
What about the fact that around half the internet runs on *NIX boxes of one stripe or another? Root one of those, and capture ALL the user data (IDs, passwords, credit card numbers, whatever) that passes through it. Much more efficient than relying on a random army of Windows Zombies.
As you say, P2P-based would be more suitable for smaller groups. Which makes me wonder if those smaller groups could in turn interact, perhaps by creating "border areas" where players would be seamlessly shifted from one P2P network to another. You wouldn't get the whole universe at once, but in its composite pieces it could be as large as the number of subnetworks present. The individual subnetworks wouldn't need to keep track of one another, except at those points where they overlap. -- This would probably be more suitable for a scenario involving, say, interstellar events, where each planet is a single network, rather than "everyone all in the same forest at once".
As to the database, maybe some form of encryption with public and private keys could be used. The system would have one key, and the user would have another, with both keys needed to alter data.
I'm neither a gamer nor a coder nor an encryption expert, so I may be making up bizarre and impossible concepts. But I find it an interesting problem.:)
"Why not use a few nuclear weapons to carve out some huge caverns on the moon for use as the starting point for the colonies? Is a hydrogen bomb that dirty that this won't work? In theory it would create huge caverns with a glass like seal all the way around and venting to a nonexistent atmosphere shouldn't be an environmental catastrophy either..."
An H-bomb would make the place unsafe for too many years to come, but we've had conventional excavation techniques for centuries that are quite capable of hollowing out plenty of working space. Equipment meant for underwater work could be adapted for work in vacuum.
Remember you don't need a big empty space, except for a docking bay; what you mostly need are a lot of access tunnels that golfcart-sized vehicles could use, and various medium to small rooms for living/working quarters. Envision a standard high school layout, except cut from the rock.
You probably wouldn't want to rely on a glassified surface, as that would be subject to cracking from temperature changes, geological activity, and the chemical and crystalline irregularities inherent in the native rock. I'd think a a stretchy neoprene-like coating would be more effective, and less subject to leakage.
This is the argument I make in a post above. The space program is only exciting and interesting to the common man when he feels like someone is there and on the edge. In his eyes, research experiments are just tedious.
The human species are fundamentally explorers. We NEED new horizons, or we stagnate.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Remember when the space program was exciting? Remember when everything at school came to a halt so we could watch (on our grainy B/W TVs) every step of the currrent manned flight?
I think the *human element pushing the envelope* is precisely what made the early space program fascinating, and the LACK of same is why it's become ho-hum in the eyes of most of the public.
People as a whole just don't CARE unless it's a man on the edge. Then we want to be there, to urge it on, to help it succeed. No one outside of pure research gets excited about unmanned probes or yet-another-routine-shuttle-mission.
Humans need to *be there*. Otherwise the mass of humanity just won't see the point.
I'm wondering if there's a practical way to make a MMORPG run on a P2P network? that would at least take care of the need for servers, and surely there'd be enough interested participants who'd take on some of the admin chores.
I recognise the "everyone compiling their own hacks" issue, but if the game ran in a specialized P2P client, perhaps it could be set up to disallow illegitimate clients, or to compartmentalize players depending on which set of "allowed hacks" they're using.
One of the recent problems I've encountered with menus that open to the hovering mouse:
The menu opens and closes in the expected way, but I am unable to scroll down the list of menu items more than about halfway. After the mouse cursor passes the 3rd or 4th item, the menu closes, making the menu items further down the list completely unavailable. This happens in both Moz and IE. -- I've noticed that the point of interference appears to be where the opened menu overlaps the next table boundary down the page.
It's the huge pile of unsorted porn CDs in a friend's back room. If you're not careful where you step, the damned things will indeed literally avalanche all over you!
Very very interesting, thanks for the insights. Fascinating that the RIAA cartel is *forbidding* artists to collect their own royalties... and I'm wondering if that violates some states' laws (maybe under a broad interpretation of "right to work" type laws??)
I don't know enough about networking protocols to comment intelligently on that part, but what did strike me, as I RTFA'd, was that this dovetails all too well with Treach^H^H^H^H Trusted Computing.
Anyone who hasn't reviewed Alsee's comments here on/. re TC, is strongly advised to do so.
Kangaroo rats strike fear into the heart of every desert landowner.
The damned things are everywhere at night here in the desert, almost as common as rabbits. Yet since they're considered "endangered", the state WILL freeze development on any land where they've been sighted. And then you've got an unsalable chunk of ground that you still have to pay property taxes on. And the state will not compensate you, either.
Hence you'll never hear anyone *admit* to seeing kangaroo rats on their property.
Sometimes it's just lousy science. Frex, the "endangered" spotted owl... turns out it lives everywhere along the west coast from Alaska to the far end of Mexico, and is not endangered at all. Biologists made the mistake of counting 'em like they would other owls, which will live in much closer proximity to one another. But a spotted owl's territory is about a square mile, so you DON'T see them as often as other owls that have smaller territories.
I don't buy LT products myself because they just don't seem to fit my hand right. But they sure do last. (For that matter, so do M$ mice.)
LT drivers were hideous all the way back in the DOS era. You'd think 15 years would be long enough to get it right?!
I once had a rodent that could do M$, LT, or Mouse Systems drivers, and you had to move a DIP switch to specify which it would use. Worked fine with the generic M$ driver (M$'s v8.20 mouse driver for DOS is wonderful.. in fact M$ themselves reverted to v8.20 after a brief foray into v9.x). Locked up constantly with the LT driver. Didn't work at all with the Mouse Systems driver.
I found the article interesting not as a gamer, but rather as an image editor at the single pixel level, where fine-grained control is extremely helpful.
I was a little amused that the cheap A4Tech did well -- he may not know the name, but they've been around since 1987, and in my experience their products have good hand-feel and are probably among the most reliable for lower-cost mice.
Logitech makes durable, well-designed hardware. But lordy, their drivers... awful, awful, awful. First thing I check when someone's system is randomly locking up is whether it's loading a LT driver.
Myself, I never use any mouse driver other than the default DOS and Win drivers.
My fave mouse was a BSR (DAK era) that had some ridiculously high DPI -- less than 1/4 INCH of motion was sufficient to zoom it clear across the screen. Startling at first, but once I got used to it, it was SO nice, especially for pixel-level editing (I don't use a mouse in gaming, so can't speak to that). Not to mention it only needed a mousepad *literally* the size of a postage stamp.
Unfortunately, it rests in pieces, and I've not seen its like since.
Amazing! I didn't realise there was a miniature variant, or perhaps it's the result of too much inbreeding since the Vicious Nauga became an endangered species. The specimens I recall were often large enough for a single hide to cover a full-sized couch.
At the Win2K road show in late 1999, M$ said pretty much the same thing -- their goal was to have everything done over the internet or network, very much as you describe. The audience of 1000 or so IT types all developed identical angry frowns.
And it does appear that we're headed back to the dumb terminal for the desktop, and specialty appliances for everything else. Given another couple hardware/software iterations, it'll penetrate consumer-space as well as business-space.
Slashdot Mirror
I've always had a good nose, as humans go (and an extremely discerning sense of taste, which is closely related). Much better than the average cat, and a little better than the average toy dog. Not nearly as good as my gundogs, but I can still sometimes find a shot bird (or a plastic bumper), in cover, by scent alone. I can often find stuff dropped or tracked onto the floor by scent, without having to get down to floor level to do it.
Dogs have to learn to use their scenting ability too, and the more native ability they have, the faster they learn to use it. Most toy dogs never learn to really use their noses, nor do many cats, even when they have need (frex, outdoor cats that have to hunt their dinner). It's rather like how someone who is naturally good at math learns higher math much more readily than someone who starts off with no inherent grok of math.
Smoking, or living in a smoking household, will kill your scenting ability in a hurry. I've noticed that Cajun-spiced food does the same thing, so delicious as it is, I don't eat it.
I never thought of scenting as "stereo" but should have, since scents are typically "directional"... you can tell what angle they're at and about how far away, rather like you would with sight or hearing.
My first thought was, I WANT ONE!!! This is like climbing the tallest tree just for the view, only YOU CAN MOVE THE TREE!!
;)
Kindof like doing Google Earth in the flesh.
Oh, wait... Most of the folks here have never done anything in the flesh.
What about the fact that around half the internet runs on *NIX boxes of one stripe or another? Root one of those, and capture ALL the user data (IDs, passwords, credit card numbers, whatever) that passes through it. Much more efficient than relying on a random army of Windows Zombies.
Lots of points to ponder, for sure.
:)
As you say, P2P-based would be more suitable for smaller groups. Which makes me wonder if those smaller groups could in turn interact, perhaps by creating "border areas" where players would be seamlessly shifted from one P2P network to another. You wouldn't get the whole universe at once, but in its composite pieces it could be as large as the number of subnetworks present. The individual subnetworks wouldn't need to keep track of one another, except at those points where they overlap. -- This would probably be more suitable for a scenario involving, say, interstellar events, where each planet is a single network, rather than "everyone all in the same forest at once".
As to the database, maybe some form of encryption with public and private keys could be used. The system would have one key, and the user would have another, with both keys needed to alter data.
I'm neither a gamer nor a coder nor an encryption expert, so I may be making up bizarre and impossible concepts. But I find it an interesting problem.
An AC suggests,
"Why not use a few nuclear weapons to carve out some huge caverns on the moon for use as the starting point for the colonies? Is a hydrogen bomb that dirty that this won't work? In theory it would create huge caverns with a glass like seal all the way around and venting to a nonexistent atmosphere shouldn't be an environmental catastrophy either..."
An H-bomb would make the place unsafe for too many years to come, but we've had conventional excavation techniques for centuries that are quite capable of hollowing out plenty of working space. Equipment meant for underwater work could be adapted for work in vacuum.
Remember you don't need a big empty space, except for a docking bay; what you mostly need are a lot of access tunnels that golfcart-sized vehicles could use, and various medium to small rooms for living/working quarters. Envision a standard high school layout, except cut from the rock.
You probably wouldn't want to rely on a glassified surface, as that would be subject to cracking from temperature changes, geological activity, and the chemical and crystalline irregularities inherent in the native rock. I'd think a a stretchy neoprene-like coating would be more effective, and less subject to leakage.
So bury the colony. After all, on the moon, rocks are cheap. ;)
This is the argument I make in a post above. The space program is only exciting and interesting to the common man when he feels like someone is there and on the edge. In his eyes, research experiments are just tedious.
The human species are fundamentally explorers. We NEED new horizons, or we stagnate.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Remember when the space program was exciting? Remember when everything at school came to a halt so we could watch (on our grainy B/W TVs) every step of the currrent manned flight?
I think the *human element pushing the envelope* is precisely what made the early space program fascinating, and the LACK of same is why it's become ho-hum in the eyes of most of the public.
People as a whole just don't CARE unless it's a man on the edge. Then we want to be there, to urge it on, to help it succeed. No one outside of pure research gets excited about unmanned probes or yet-another-routine-shuttle-mission.
Humans need to *be there*. Otherwise the mass of humanity just won't see the point.
Bah, I don't climb stairs. I just level the building.
I'm wondering if there's a practical way to make a MMORPG run on a P2P network? that would at least take care of the need for servers, and surely there'd be enough interested participants who'd take on some of the admin chores.
I recognise the "everyone compiling their own hacks" issue, but if the game ran in a specialized P2P client, perhaps it could be set up to disallow illegitimate clients, or to compartmentalize players depending on which set of "allowed hacks" they're using.
One of the recent problems I've encountered with menus that open to the hovering mouse:
The menu opens and closes in the expected way, but I am unable to scroll down the list of menu items more than about halfway. After the mouse cursor passes the 3rd or 4th item, the menu closes, making the menu items further down the list completely unavailable. This happens in both Moz and IE. -- I've noticed that the point of interference appears to be where the opened menu overlaps the next table boundary down the page.
So remember, when someone calls you a meathead -- it's a compliment!! ;)
Or, if the idea is customer service, the winner is he who helps the most other people build working PCs....
It's the huge pile of unsorted porn CDs in a friend's back room. If you're not careful where you step, the damned things will indeed literally avalanche all over you!
So, it appears the odds are... 100% :)
Oh, I see, the gov't runs on Vista! That certainly explains why I have to get my ID reactivated every few years...
Very very interesting, thanks for the insights. Fascinating that the RIAA cartel is *forbidding* artists to collect their own royalties... and I'm wondering if that violates some states' laws (maybe under a broad interpretation of "right to work" type laws??)
I don't know enough about networking protocols to comment intelligently on that part, but what did strike me, as I RTFA'd, was that this dovetails all too well with Treach^H^H^H^H Trusted Computing.
/. re TC, is strongly advised to do so.
Anyone who hasn't reviewed Alsee's comments here on
Kangaroo rats strike fear into the heart of every desert landowner.
... turns out it lives everywhere along the west coast from Alaska to the far end of Mexico, and is not endangered at all. Biologists made the mistake of counting 'em like they would other owls, which will live in much closer proximity to one another. But a spotted owl's territory is about a square mile, so you DON'T see them as often as other owls that have smaller territories.
The damned things are everywhere at night here in the desert, almost as common as rabbits. Yet since they're considered "endangered", the state WILL freeze development on any land where they've been sighted. And then you've got an unsalable chunk of ground that you still have to pay property taxes on. And the state will not compensate you, either.
Hence you'll never hear anyone *admit* to seeing kangaroo rats on their property.
Sometimes it's just lousy science. Frex, the "endangered" spotted owl
I don't buy LT products myself because they just don't seem to fit my hand right. But they sure do last. (For that matter, so do M$ mice.)
LT drivers were hideous all the way back in the DOS era. You'd think 15 years would be long enough to get it right?!
I once had a rodent that could do M$, LT, or Mouse Systems drivers, and you had to move a DIP switch to specify which it would use. Worked fine with the generic M$ driver (M$'s v8.20 mouse driver for DOS is wonderful.. in fact M$ themselves reverted to v8.20 after a brief foray into v9.x). Locked up constantly with the LT driver. Didn't work at all with the Mouse Systems driver.
Picky, picky :) Actually, I think it only gets a Y after you remove it from the Vicious Nauga. :)
I found the article interesting not as a gamer, but rather as an image editor at the single pixel level, where fine-grained control is extremely helpful.
I was a little amused that the cheap A4Tech did well -- he may not know the name, but they've been around since 1987, and in my experience their products have good hand-feel and are probably among the most reliable for lower-cost mice.
Logitech makes durable, well-designed hardware. But lordy, their drivers... awful, awful, awful. First thing I check when someone's system is randomly locking up is whether it's loading a LT driver.
Myself, I never use any mouse driver other than the default DOS and Win drivers.
My fave mouse was a BSR (DAK era) that had some ridiculously high DPI -- less than 1/4 INCH of motion was sufficient to zoom it clear across the screen. Startling at first, but once I got used to it, it was SO nice, especially for pixel-level editing (I don't use a mouse in gaming, so can't speak to that). Not to mention it only needed a mousepad *literally* the size of a postage stamp.
Unfortunately, it rests in pieces, and I've not seen its like since.
Amazing! I didn't realise there was a miniature variant, or perhaps it's the result of too much inbreeding since the Vicious Nauga became an endangered species. The specimens I recall were often large enough for a single hide to cover a full-sized couch.
At the Win2K road show in late 1999, M$ said pretty much the same thing -- their goal was to have everything done over the internet or network, very much as you describe. The audience of 1000 or so IT types all developed identical angry frowns.
And it does appear that we're headed back to the dumb terminal for the desktop, and specialty appliances for everything else. Given another couple hardware/software iterations, it'll penetrate consumer-space as well as business-space.