Re:Fake issues and real issues.
on
Games Are Not Drugs
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I tried to read yur post, but I kept drifting off. Hmm, what am I typing? Must get to next lvl, earn food pellet [drool]. Flashy gfx, sound fx, zzzz....
Seriously, video games are an artistic medium not unlike any other. How many teens do you know sit and contemplate fine art, or remain pensive when dealt life's great mysteries? The ones I know read pulp novels, stare blankly at MTV, or appreciate MC Escher because it looks cool on Acid. Pulp games are no different; they are targetted at this audience.
Can there exist a game that embodies the greater stimulation you describe? There most certainly could be, in my opinion. There is no doctrine that mandates art be passive. There is no inconsistency as you indicate. It is a new medium that we discuss. Would a cave painting impress if it wasn't ancient? We reflect on the cave painting because it reveals a bit of ourselves to us; in that it becomes great art.
Like a cave painting, modern games are a reflection of everyday life, or perhaps modern fantasy. The interactive nature provides opportunity for the artist to engage the patron in an unbounded manners, not excluding reflection on oneself or pause for contemplation. Simply because there are no clear examples of this today does not indicate the medium itself does not accomodate these facets of humanity.
Yet there are perhaps challenges to creating a lasting work as a game. The pace of technical development is very rapid compared to any similar venue. The "here today, gone tomorrow" nature of this is significant, and cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, I submit great art could come in any form, at any time.
By that same argument you cannot own culture either. Claiming "you have no culture" is inherently true, so you must be a master of debate.
Nevertheless, the post you're discrediting seems like a "fish swallowing the bait" to me and makes an ineffective rebuttal as you've indicated.
What surprises me is this idea that culture is somehow limited to political or national borders. As an obvious example, there is a "Slashdot culture" in this very forum that extends well beyond lines on a map. Few people here support prosecution of consumers as a right of the production houses, yet the allegations are clearly targeted at the United States for bringing this into existence. Culture as a collection of common memes could be grouped as being "American", but the original posters indictment of Americans as being fooled by "Ass's" is baseless. The topic is under heated debate and cannot seriously be considered uniquely American.
Likewise, the idea that commercializing art is an American invention is also naive. Theatres, concert halls, and colleseums sought money from spectators well before the USA existed at all. Collectors have attempted to thwart forgery throughout the ages, and passing forged works has long been a criminal offense throughout the world.
Now, of course, anybody can be a master forger of media with a few clicks on a PC. The consumer is no longer a concerned stakeholder so much as the original producer, and so you have producers targeting consumers since they are helpless against the offender. Ridiculous? Yes, of course.
Through all this it remains true that artisans will strive to represent the cultures of the world as it is their muse. The "my nation's culture is better than yours" pissing contest is fruitless, though perhaps worthy of being immortalized in a tragic work of art.
Hah! Good point. I especially like the "we own all sequel rights parts" in TFA. Imagine if a recording company put out a sophomore effort with new band members...
Trolling is a verb, and it means "To fish for by trailing a baited line behind a slowly moving boat".
Since I see nothing resembling a boat in this forum, please do not claim this poster is "trolling". _Splat is clearly concerned about the daft dialect epitomized by the Slashdot front page. If we are to be taken seriously as the technocratic elite, we must not expose our banality in such a manner.
Following in this spirit of progress, I implore the Slashdot editors to take down that representation of Mr. Bill Gates as a cyborg. I've seen Mr. Gates, and he does not have robotics on his face!
...according to the printed tomes of high repute you reference in your post.
Neither are "Googling", "phishing", "modded", or "goatse.cxing", though I've often found them used so in these forums. How attrocious!
I couldn't locate "OP" in my dictionary, but I think you mean to indicate that you aren't the original poster. Since you came to Opie's defense I must retort, offering approriate apologies for your limited role in this squabble. I did some research, and "IMHO", "IANAL", and "AFAIK" are heavily used in Slashdot posts (not unlike "OP"), yet are not to be found in standard printed unabridged dictionaries. Granted, these would be quite ridiculous if used as verbs, but surely any usage of these obscurities represents an offense tantamount to "verbing nouns". Ironically, I do believe "verbing" is not a verb either (that is ever so clever).
[I hope I used "ironically" correctly, because the grammar police are on patrol, and I know this word is so often abused in America, land of un-edumacated*]
I couldn't find "flaming" as a verb, so I am uncertain if it can be righfully used as such. I do know for certain "flaming" can be properly used as an adjective. I love adjectives, and one of my favorites is "pedantic". You were keen to observe this is an informal forum; however, the "OP" was undeniably pedantic in their statement. "Trolling" is indeed a verb, but I don't see any boats on this site, so I'll take the safe alternative and state that the "OP" is a "Troll", by any definition. Muhahahaha*. Hehe*.
There's a bunch here on source control, etc. so I have a few practical tips for keeping code reusable (which as some have pointed out, it often is not).
Any Language
DO: Comment Well - You should know exactly what a snippet does by reading it. Do not assume you will remember a year later.
DO: Name functions / objects with meaningful and specific names - same as above.
DO: Try to use consistent but flexible mechanisms for error logging/handling.
DO NOT: Allow dependencies (internal/external/platform) to develop. Code that is tied to other code is on the whole less reusable. There are some exceptions, but as a general rule, avoid dependencies.
DO: Keep code generic and avoid "lock-in" APIs if possible. Microsoft will tempt you into using their lock-in garbage and your code will be useless when the "new and improved" APIs come out. Also, you will sacrifice portability if you make this mistake.
DO: Treat reused code as its own "project". Keep it separated from other projects in source control, and insert a "release" version of your code library/snippets into other projects
DO: Version your code library. It is easy to insert breaking changes and side-effects without realizing it, and you don't want to kill an older project by failing to include the correct version of your code.
C/C++ Language
DO: Start with a simple "Utility.h" header and write inline or static methods right in the header with minimal dependencies. This is the most reusable method C/C++ offers, and I have an age-old C header still in use to prove it.
DO: When your code is too much for a simple header, break it into a few headers, or consider static libraries. Extern the methods in an include-able header that has limited or no link dependencies. Objects can be reposed in this manner, but be aware that objects are very difficult to construct in a truly reusable manner.
DO: Namespace your code. It will be easier to replace/find/use if you do. Perhaps this should be under the "Any Language" catagory.
DO NOT: Expect that your subclass of Micro$oft's latest data grid will be reusable for any appreciable measure of time. Chances are there are bugs in it you need to work around that may be fixed in the next version, and bugs that will be introduced in the next version that will wreck your hard efforts. On the whole, UI objects are rarely reusable unless you are ever so clever to be able to keep them looking "up to date" (or you're just years beyond your time;)
I'll just stop with C/C++, because that's what I know best. I have various script repositories, but the main point there is to keep them someplace that is easy to search.
Hope these are helpful. Flamers save your breath, I know your favorite language is 31337.
Right on, you should get the grant money. I was going to say that for me it was when my daughter was born. Ever since that fine day its been responsibility that takes precedence over tomfoolery (unless we're playing, in which case tomfoolery is my responsibility).
Second core will help with.NET CLR applications. The CLR uses thread pooling. I suppose there'd need to be more.NET applications though. hah. I can't think of any good ones. I'd hope a good portion of Vista is written as managed.NET code (does M$ eat their own food?).
Still, most Windoze devs I talk to admit that.NET is the future of Windows dev, and C++ will be relegated to "specialized" tasks. VB devs all probably work in.NET already, though on the whole they aren't a multi-threaded bunch (ever try putting threads in a VB app? Wait, don't answer that). Anyway, I'm rambling here, but the point is that Windows apps will soon (or not so soon perhaps) have more widespread use for multi-core processors.
How about two nice projectors lined up seemlessly side-by-side on my wall... No pesky break in the screen. Say, you could make a regular double-wide monitor without a break but two inputs...
Fable really laid on the cutscenes thick, to the point where they seriously affect gameplay. Somehow certain game publishers think that if a cutscene is rendered using the in-game engine it detracts less from the experience. Why they think that I can't imagine. The Fable would have been more enojoyable without all the slowdowns IMHO.
To me, a cutscene is analogous to a narrator moving the story of a play between acts (with some visuals, I guess, but do they match the imagination?). I don't know about you, but a play with 1000 acts is not much of a play.
The best cutscenes are build-ups to a game scene, or rewards for a job well done. The cited Super Mario 64 has mini-cutscenes where Mario does a little dance when he finds a star to reward the gamer. There's also the "Bowser laughing" mini-cutscenes that tell you a boss level is coming your way. They're long enough to rest your thumbs, and that's all.
Call of Duty 2 has done a nice job using lengthier cutscenes effectively. During the level loading period, you get something to read - fine I have to wait for the loading anyway. Before a major campaign, you get some military movie footage. Good buildup, and skippable. After you complete a mission, you get some music fading in and the commander talking up your good work. Good reward, short, and not a painful interruption. You may not think of these as "cutscenes", but I'm tackling the issue as "anything in-game that isn't live action", so if you think that's wrong, fine, keep thinking that way and enjoy the rest of your day.
Anyway, I'd better get my arse back to work and stop writing about video games.;)
USB is only included to transfer things from the internal memory card, usually still images and crappy digital-still-camera-like video.
This is not entirely accurate. The Sony Handycam models support streaming DV through iLink (Firewire) or USB 2.0. The quality is the same (to my eyes) for both methods. In fact, newer models of the low-end Handycams have moved the Firewire connection to a docking station, but left USB on the main unit. The docking station interferes with streaming DV capture because it blocks the mount and doesn't fasten securely to the camera. I interpreted this as a move away from Firewire on the Handycam, but I could be wrong about that.
We use Firewire for our DV because there aren't enough USB ports on our laptops, but that is the only reason really.
Come on, this is just ridiculous. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse from a real company, Logitech, that I comfortably use from my couch daily. If I want a little lap desk, there's a steel/plastic slidin' thing 4 sale on TV for $19.99. It even inclines to boot. But, I've never needed anything like that, because my knees can also support a keyboard and incline.
I know nothing about your company, but in my experience, training budgets are decided at the onset of each fiscal year. These budgets are balanced against monies slated for employee compensation increases, perhaps additional employees, contractors, tools, etc. If your company doesn't keep some money for employee training, than it doesn't believe investing in employees is worthwhile, and you may want to check your other options.
Take heart, this is not simply an IT issue, it is a corporate issue.
Here are some things to ask yourself...
How frequently do employees "rise in the ranks" at your company? Are new higher-up positions always filled with people off the street? Does your company have any benefits for continuing adult education? Tuition reimbursement?
How important is this domain that you now control? What would be the cost to the business if you left?
If your company is blind to employee education as an investment in the business, than you may be able to remind your supervisor that the cost of replacement will be higher than the cost of training. Of course, don't bluff with your job, be prepared to walk if your going to lay it on the table. You don't need to threaten to quit to get the message across. Ultimately, your supervisor will need to answer for their decisions, and if those decisions are costing the company money, they will be in a tough situation. Remember, if you've agressively pursued training, and not recieved it, you have a good stand against a boss who thinks training is your responsibility. Placing unqualified people in important positions is bad management, plain and simple.
The certificate "vouches" for the publishing party using a third party. In this case Verisign will issue the certificate that encrypts the publisher's public key. Since the Verisign public key is well known, the cert is decrypted, the publishers info and public key are then available. The signature is a hash of the binary encrypted using the publishers private key. The public key from the cert is used to decrypt the hash, and a new hash of the binary is compared to the signed hash. If the hashes are equal the integrity of the software can be trusted so long as the publisher's private key and Verisign's private key are kept secret, the certificate has not expired, the encryption method itself is trusted, and the code that checks the signature is trusted.
As an alternative, it may be possible to run a driver "interpreter" which is itself signed and trusted, and capable of running "script" or other dynamically-loaded unsigned code in a generic manner in kernel mode, exposing common pieces of hardware to a variety of purposes. This would in essense emulate an open driver API.
Someone should invent a camera that can capture the flow of comments posted to Slashdot...
I don't know about any of you - aside from your witty sigs - but I do know that I looked at every shot posted on the linked website, and I found them to be encaptivating. This project is both creative and thought-provoking, and I wish I'd thought of it first. Bravo, I say.
These shots should be on dorm room walls in no time...
A fool and his money?
on
Web 3.0
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· Score: 4, Insightful
It seems everyone in this forum is clear on the fact that Web 2.0 isn't the revolution VC's want it to be. At best, its hopeful it will displace the real estate bubble as the bubbliest bubble around.
Ironic that there seems to be some emphasis on usability, as if this weren't possible with the antiquated Web 1.0. What a pant-load! I find Google to be usable. In fact, there are many "old fashioned" sites that are perfectly usable.
People don't go to Netflix because it has "dynamic content"; they go because they want movies mailed to their house. They visit ebay because they want to buy or sell stuff. Am I going to visit ESPN because now there's more crap floating around the screen screaming at me to click-it? Nope, I visit only to see the scores of last night's game, or possibly even to read some commentary. The experience has never been good enough to be a draw in and of itself. Heck, there's a new IMAX theater in town, and I won't even go there until a decent show is screening.
The same basic tenet applies to all versions of Web x.x...
If your site is useful or entertaining people will visit. Dynamic content can help A LITTLE BIT in IMPROVING a site, but they cannot make the site good just by their being employed.
I use a wireless optical mouse to control my TV. Works great and even Grandma didn't need much training to get the basics down.
PC in closet with All-in-Wonder
A simple little app I wrote to interface the craptacular ATI TV software and make it behave / look nice and allow you to very efficiently change the channel and volume when you want to.
Decent projector and a nice room to go with it
I can barely imagine living without this setup or something like it now [that's called hyperbole, Captain Obvious]. Games, TV, Movies, Photos, Internet all from my "TV", all can be controlled using wireless mouse + keyboard (and the keyboard is not used for TV/DVD/Photos). A pair of wireless rumble pads complete the system.
I have a remote from ATI, and it went into the scrap heap after about 1 hour of service. Terrible design, many many buttons that don't feel or work very well. The mouse is a dream. In a previous life I used one of those Logitech Surfboards [or whatever the thing was called - trackball mouse you hold in your hand] - and that worked great, but mine broke, and I think they've since disappeared.
Anyway, the bulk interface shouldn't be in your hand, it should be on the screen. How can you make 62 buttons look sleek and elegant while preserving ease-of-use? On screen interfaces allow for dynamic changes and custom layouts to accomodate user preferences.
Some possible uses...
on
The USB Wristband
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I have 3 small children, one kindergartner, two two-year-olds. They all run around with little bracelets from time to time (right now, the charity-style rubber ones are the rage).
1. For small children or the elderly, equip the USB drive with important allergy, medical emergency information, etc. for use in case they are in a serious accident and they or their parents are not able to communicate.
2. For small children, equip with a program that when inserted into a computer, will "phone" home, possible notify authorities, etc. Could be useful for a child who has been abducted. If it works even a single time for a single child, it's worth inventing. I seem to recall a buffer exploit in USB... maybe not all exploits are a necessarily evil.
3. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sight due to Slashdotting, but the concept could be made into jewelry that has fashion value. I know my wife required a designer laptop purse to compliment her ensemble, and she doesn't always have pockets for little thumb drives and such, so perhaps an attractive band isn't such a bad idea as some detractors in this forum declare. For all you Weisenheimers, she doesn't always take her laptop bag with her wherever she goes, though I admit its rare for her not to have a purse of some kind. Still, ladies can be gadget lovers too, you know.;)
This is a nightmare. I work for a company that produces EEG systems, and we *need* to capture video of the patients and store it with our examination data. This is a diagnostic tool that physicians rely upon to characterize epileptic seizures. It is essential to treating these terrible episodes effectively.
How a bill that outlaws converting analog signal to digital media can seriously be considered is beyond my comprehension. Are camcorders going to be made illegal? Our application requires high quality video captured during low light or infrared conditions that must be visuallized and stored in near real time.
What about closed-circuit surveillance systems?
This money-for-policy exchange has got to stop. Interestingly, James Sensenbrenner is my mother's representative. I think he needs a letter from a constituent...
Digital technology is releasing the labels' stranglehold over distribution, but they are still very firmly entrenched in their influence over what gets played on the radio and on MTV. This gives the major labels enormous influence in entertainment marketing - furthered by their promotions of world stadium tours and the like.
Grassroots promotion does happen, but it is the rare case, and up-and-comers still want to strike that golden payday, ride in the back of the limo, and trash hotel rooms without reprise.
That aside, I fully agree with you. Distribution has been by far the largest barrier of scale preventing competition from entering the market. With today's technology, a small promoting firm could conceivably sign some talent and start making a big splash in the music business...
Programs can be opened through "Run as..." and launched under a lesser privileged account. Often, the program won't function fully because app developers rarely care about the security of your machine.
You can of course write a program to shift privileges as you describe, but few people take the time to do this.
The way it should be done is to deny all privileges by default, and require developers to request privileges as needed. The user could be notified on install or startup the list of the privileges the program is requesting and allow or deny any or all of them..NET allows this kind of thing, and an end user can go into.NET control panel (or whatever the heck its called), and do this, but by default, apps generally get full privileges after being installed. Convenience vs. Security, sigh.
I'm not assuming anything; I speak strictly from a consumer's point of view. When I approach a kiosk in a retail store, and the unit doesn't function, I get the impression that the "product" has problems. I truthfully don't care what the reason is for the failure. Every single console demonstration I've ever approached has worked. The XBox360 did not work.
It might be the people who designed the kiosk. It might be the people who assembled it. It might be the demo software. It might be some kid who dumped his Coke on the unit.
I never said it was a "hardware" problem. I said it was a "product" problem.
What sort of forum would this be without "me-too"? The topic is the reliability of the XBox, and I have a relevant first-hand experience to express. Should I just sit down and be quiet so people can speculate on possible causes for Xbox crashes? This isn't a technical post; It's a post about customer expectations not being met. Pardon me, but customers do not care why a thing doesn't work, they only care that it doesn't work.
I went to Target to see how COD2 stacked up against the PC version, and the store demo was constantly crashing! OMG, somebody should've probably tested that a bit more, wouldn't you say?
I mean really, the hardware looks like a deal to gamers who are comfortable shelling out 400 bucks for a graphics card, but to Ma and Pa looking for Jr.'s Xmas gift, $400 is a hefty sum. When the store demo crashed, I shook my head and said to myself, "who's gonna' buy a broken system?"
There should be more and updated standard hardware interfaces for things like wireless adapters, graphics adapters, etc. It works at the lowest levels, like monitors, CD-ROM drives, etc. Why not have a beefed up standard graphics adapter interface? Why not have a standard OpenGL driver interface implemented by the *hardware* itself? That way, the kernel is not in the way, there can be an open standard driver implementation, and the super secrets the hardware vender wants to hide can still be locked behind their own custom driver.
Perhaps this is naive, but interfaces allow us do just about everything in life. All that is needed is some agreement between hardware vendors and kernel developers, or my laptop won't be capable of running Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
I tried to read yur post, but I kept drifting off. Hmm, what am I typing? Must get to next lvl, earn food pellet [drool]. Flashy gfx, sound fx, zzzz....
Seriously, video games are an artistic medium not unlike any other. How many teens do you know sit and contemplate fine art, or remain pensive when dealt life's great mysteries? The ones I know read pulp novels, stare blankly at MTV, or appreciate MC Escher because it looks cool on Acid. Pulp games are no different; they are targetted at this audience.
Can there exist a game that embodies the greater stimulation you describe? There most certainly could be, in my opinion. There is no doctrine that mandates art be passive. There is no inconsistency as you indicate. It is a new medium that we discuss. Would a cave painting impress if it wasn't ancient? We reflect on the cave painting because it reveals a bit of ourselves to us; in that it becomes great art.
Like a cave painting, modern games are a reflection of everyday life, or perhaps modern fantasy. The interactive nature provides opportunity for the artist to engage the patron in an unbounded manners, not excluding reflection on oneself or pause for contemplation. Simply because there are no clear examples of this today does not indicate the medium itself does not accomodate these facets of humanity.
Yet there are perhaps challenges to creating a lasting work as a game. The pace of technical development is very rapid compared to any similar venue. The "here today, gone tomorrow" nature of this is significant, and cannot be ignored. Nonetheless, I submit great art could come in any form, at any time.
By that same argument you cannot own culture either. Claiming "you have no culture" is inherently true, so you must be a master of debate.
Nevertheless, the post you're discrediting seems like a "fish swallowing the bait" to me and makes an ineffective rebuttal as you've indicated.
What surprises me is this idea that culture is somehow limited to political or national borders. As an obvious example, there is a "Slashdot culture" in this very forum that extends well beyond lines on a map. Few people here support prosecution of consumers as a right of the production houses, yet the allegations are clearly targeted at the United States for bringing this into existence. Culture as a collection of common memes could be grouped as being "American", but the original posters indictment of Americans as being fooled by "Ass's" is baseless. The topic is under heated debate and cannot seriously be considered uniquely American.
Likewise, the idea that commercializing art is an American invention is also naive. Theatres, concert halls, and colleseums sought money from spectators well before the USA existed at all. Collectors have attempted to thwart forgery throughout the ages, and passing forged works has long been a criminal offense throughout the world.
Now, of course, anybody can be a master forger of media with a few clicks on a PC. The consumer is no longer a concerned stakeholder so much as the original producer, and so you have producers targeting consumers since they are helpless against the offender. Ridiculous? Yes, of course.
Through all this it remains true that artisans will strive to represent the cultures of the world as it is their muse. The "my nation's culture is better than yours" pissing contest is fruitless, though perhaps worthy of being immortalized in a tragic work of art.
Hah! Good point. I especially like the "we own all sequel rights parts" in TFA. Imagine if a recording company put out a sophomore effort with new band members...
Trolling is a verb, and it means "To fish for by trailing a baited line behind a slowly moving boat".
Since I see nothing resembling a boat in this forum, please do not claim this poster is "trolling". _Splat is clearly concerned about the daft dialect epitomized by the Slashdot front page. If we are to be taken seriously as the technocratic elite, we must not expose our banality in such a manner.
Following in this spirit of progress, I implore the Slashdot editors to take down that representation of Mr. Bill Gates as a cyborg. I've seen Mr. Gates, and he does not have robotics on his face!
...according to the printed tomes of high repute you reference in your post.
Neither are "Googling", "phishing", "modded", or "goatse.cxing", though I've often found them used so in these forums. How attrocious!
I couldn't locate "OP" in my dictionary, but I think you mean to indicate that you aren't the original poster. Since you came to Opie's defense I must retort, offering approriate apologies for your limited role in this squabble. I did some research, and "IMHO", "IANAL", and "AFAIK" are heavily used in Slashdot posts (not unlike "OP"), yet are not to be found in standard printed unabridged dictionaries. Granted, these would be quite ridiculous if used as verbs, but surely any usage of these obscurities represents an offense tantamount to "verbing nouns". Ironically, I do believe "verbing" is not a verb either (that is ever so clever).
[I hope I used "ironically" correctly, because the grammar police are on patrol, and I know this word is so often abused in America, land of un-edumacated*]
I couldn't find "flaming" as a verb, so I am uncertain if it can be righfully used as such. I do know for certain "flaming" can be properly used as an adjective. I love adjectives, and one of my favorites is "pedantic". You were keen to observe this is an informal forum; however, the "OP" was undeniably pedantic in their statement. "Trolling" is indeed a verb, but I don't see any boats on this site, so I'll take the safe alternative and state that the "OP" is a "Troll", by any definition. Muhahahaha*. Hehe*.
* not geniune English words
Any Language
C/C++ Language
I'll just stop with C/C++, because that's what I know best. I have various script repositories, but the main point there is to keep them someplace that is easy to search.
Hope these are helpful. Flamers save your breath, I know your favorite language is 31337.
"in a Ferrari, the engine provides the music." Mythical quote of Enzo Ferrari.
Right on, you should get the grant money. I was going to say that for me it was when my daughter was born. Ever since that fine day its been responsibility that takes precedence over tomfoolery (unless we're playing, in which case tomfoolery is my responsibility).
Second core will help with .NET CLR applications. The CLR uses thread pooling. I suppose there'd need to be more .NET applications though. hah. I can't think of any good ones. I'd hope a good portion of Vista is written as managed .NET code (does M$ eat their own food?).
.NET is the future of Windows dev, and C++ will be relegated to "specialized" tasks. VB devs all probably work in .NET already, though on the whole they aren't a multi-threaded bunch (ever try putting threads in a VB app? Wait, don't answer that). Anyway, I'm rambling here, but the point is that Windows apps will soon (or not so soon perhaps) have more widespread use for multi-core processors.
Still, most Windoze devs I talk to admit that
How about two nice projectors lined up seemlessly side-by-side on my wall... No pesky break in the screen. Say, you could make a regular double-wide monitor without a break but two inputs...
Fable really laid on the cutscenes thick, to the point where they seriously affect gameplay. Somehow certain game publishers think that if a cutscene is rendered using the in-game engine it detracts less from the experience. Why they think that I can't imagine. The Fable would have been more enojoyable without all the slowdowns IMHO.
;)
To me, a cutscene is analogous to a narrator moving the story of a play between acts (with some visuals, I guess, but do they match the imagination?). I don't know about you, but a play with 1000 acts is not much of a play.
The best cutscenes are build-ups to a game scene, or rewards for a job well done. The cited Super Mario 64 has mini-cutscenes where Mario does a little dance when he finds a star to reward the gamer. There's also the "Bowser laughing" mini-cutscenes that tell you a boss level is coming your way. They're long enough to rest your thumbs, and that's all.
Call of Duty 2 has done a nice job using lengthier cutscenes effectively. During the level loading period, you get something to read - fine I have to wait for the loading anyway. Before a major campaign, you get some military movie footage. Good buildup, and skippable. After you complete a mission, you get some music fading in and the commander talking up your good work. Good reward, short, and not a painful interruption. You may not think of these as "cutscenes", but I'm tackling the issue as "anything in-game that isn't live action", so if you think that's wrong, fine, keep thinking that way and enjoy the rest of your day.
Anyway, I'd better get my arse back to work and stop writing about video games.
USB is only included to transfer things from the internal memory card, usually still images and crappy digital-still-camera-like video.
This is not entirely accurate. The Sony Handycam models support streaming DV through iLink (Firewire) or USB 2.0. The quality is the same (to my eyes) for both methods. In fact, newer models of the low-end Handycams have moved the Firewire connection to a docking station, but left USB on the main unit. The docking station interferes with streaming DV capture because it blocks the mount and doesn't fasten securely to the camera. I interpreted this as a move away from Firewire on the Handycam, but I could be wrong about that.
We use Firewire for our DV because there aren't enough USB ports on our laptops, but that is the only reason really.
Come on, this is just ridiculous. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse from a real company, Logitech, that I comfortably use from my couch daily. If I want a little lap desk, there's a steel/plastic slidin' thing 4 sale on TV for $19.99. It even inclines to boot. But, I've never needed anything like that, because my knees can also support a keyboard and incline.
This must be some sort of Laundering scam.
I know nothing about your company, but in my experience, training budgets are decided at the onset of each fiscal year. These budgets are balanced against monies slated for employee compensation increases, perhaps additional employees, contractors, tools, etc. If your company doesn't keep some money for employee training, than it doesn't believe investing in employees is worthwhile, and you may want to check your other options.
Take heart, this is not simply an IT issue, it is a corporate issue.
Here are some things to ask yourself...
How frequently do employees "rise in the ranks" at your company?
Are new higher-up positions always filled with people off the street?
Does your company have any benefits for continuing adult education? Tuition reimbursement?
How important is this domain that you now control?
What would be the cost to the business if you left?
If your company is blind to employee education as an investment in the business, than you may be able to remind your supervisor that the cost of replacement will be higher than the cost of training. Of course, don't bluff with your job, be prepared to walk if your going to lay it on the table. You don't need to threaten to quit to get the message across. Ultimately, your supervisor will need to answer for their decisions, and if those decisions are costing the company money, they will be in a tough situation. Remember, if you've agressively pursued training, and not recieved it, you have a good stand against a boss who thinks training is your responsibility. Placing unqualified people in important positions is bad management, plain and simple.
The certificate "vouches" for the publishing party using a third party. In this case Verisign will issue the certificate that encrypts the publisher's public key. Since the Verisign public key is well known, the cert is decrypted, the publishers info and public key are then available. The signature is a hash of the binary encrypted using the publishers private key. The public key from the cert is used to decrypt the hash, and a new hash of the binary is compared to the signed hash. If the hashes are equal the integrity of the software can be trusted so long as the publisher's private key and Verisign's private key are kept secret, the certificate has not expired, the encryption method itself is trusted, and the code that checks the signature is trusted.
As an alternative, it may be possible to run a driver "interpreter" which is itself signed and trusted, and capable of running "script" or other dynamically-loaded unsigned code in a generic manner in kernel mode, exposing common pieces of hardware to a variety of purposes. This would in essense emulate an open driver API.
Someone should invent a camera that can capture the flow of comments posted to Slashdot...
I don't know about any of you - aside from your witty sigs - but I do know that I looked at every shot posted on the linked website, and I found them to be encaptivating. This project is both creative and thought-provoking, and I wish I'd thought of it first. Bravo, I say.
These shots should be on dorm room walls in no time...
It seems everyone in this forum is clear on the fact that Web 2.0 isn't the revolution VC's want it to be. At best, its hopeful it will displace the real estate bubble as the bubbliest bubble around.
Ironic that there seems to be some emphasis on usability, as if this weren't possible with the antiquated Web 1.0. What a pant-load! I find Google to be usable. In fact, there are many "old fashioned" sites that are perfectly usable.
People don't go to Netflix because it has "dynamic content"; they go because they want movies mailed to their house. They visit ebay because they want to buy or sell stuff. Am I going to visit ESPN because now there's more crap floating around the screen screaming at me to click-it? Nope, I visit only to see the scores of last night's game, or possibly even to read some commentary. The experience has never been good enough to be a draw in and of itself. Heck, there's a new IMAX theater in town, and I won't even go there until a decent show is screening.
The same basic tenet applies to all versions of Web x.x...
If your site is useful or entertaining people will visit. Dynamic content can help A LITTLE BIT in IMPROVING a site, but they cannot make the site good just by their being employed.
I can barely imagine living without this setup or something like it now [that's called hyperbole, Captain Obvious]. Games, TV, Movies, Photos, Internet all from my "TV", all can be controlled using wireless mouse + keyboard (and the keyboard is not used for TV/DVD/Photos). A pair of wireless rumble pads complete the system.
I have a remote from ATI, and it went into the scrap heap after about 1 hour of service. Terrible design, many many buttons that don't feel or work very well. The mouse is a dream. In a previous life I used one of those Logitech Surfboards [or whatever the thing was called - trackball mouse you hold in your hand] - and that worked great, but mine broke, and I think they've since disappeared.
Anyway, the bulk interface shouldn't be in your hand, it should be on the screen. How can you make 62 buttons look sleek and elegant while preserving ease-of-use? On screen interfaces allow for dynamic changes and custom layouts to accomodate user preferences.
I have 3 small children, one kindergartner, two two-year-olds. They all run around with little bracelets from time to time (right now, the charity-style rubber ones are the rage).
... maybe not all exploits are a necessarily evil.
;)
1. For small children or the elderly, equip the USB drive with important allergy, medical emergency information, etc. for use in case they are in a serious accident and they or their parents are not able to communicate.
2. For small children, equip with a program that when inserted into a computer, will "phone" home, possible notify authorities, etc. Could be useful for a child who has been abducted. If it works even a single time for a single child, it's worth inventing. I seem to recall a buffer exploit in USB
3. Unfortunately, I couldn't see the sight due to Slashdotting, but the concept could be made into jewelry that has fashion value. I know my wife required a designer laptop purse to compliment her ensemble, and she doesn't always have pockets for little thumb drives and such, so perhaps an attractive band isn't such a bad idea as some detractors in this forum declare. For all you Weisenheimers, she doesn't always take her laptop bag with her wherever she goes, though I admit its rare for her not to have a purse of some kind. Still, ladies can be gadget lovers too, you know.
This is a nightmare. I work for a company that produces EEG systems, and we *need* to capture video of the patients and store it with our examination data. This is a diagnostic tool that physicians rely upon to characterize epileptic seizures. It is essential to treating these terrible episodes effectively.
How a bill that outlaws converting analog signal to digital media can seriously be considered is beyond my comprehension. Are camcorders going to be made illegal? Our application requires high quality video captured during low light or infrared conditions that must be visuallized and stored in near real time.
What about closed-circuit surveillance systems?
This money-for-policy exchange has got to stop. Interestingly, James Sensenbrenner is my mother's representative. I think he needs a letter from a constituent...
You are absolutely correct.
Digital technology is releasing the labels' stranglehold over distribution, but they are still very firmly entrenched in their influence over what gets played on the radio and on MTV. This gives the major labels enormous influence in entertainment marketing - furthered by their promotions of world stadium tours and the like.
Grassroots promotion does happen, but it is the rare case, and up-and-comers still want to strike that golden payday, ride in the back of the limo, and trash hotel rooms without reprise.
That aside, I fully agree with you. Distribution has been by far the largest barrier of scale preventing competition from entering the market. With today's technology, a small promoting firm could conceivably sign some talent and start making a big splash in the music business...
Programs can be opened through "Run as..." and launched under a lesser privileged account. Often, the program won't function fully because app developers rarely care about the security of your machine.
.NET allows this kind of thing, and an end user can go into .NET control panel (or whatever the heck its called), and do this, but by default, apps generally get full privileges after being installed. Convenience vs. Security, sigh.
You can of course write a program to shift privileges as you describe, but few people take the time to do this.
The way it should be done is to deny all privileges by default, and require developers to request privileges as needed. The user could be notified on install or startup the list of the privileges the program is requesting and allow or deny any or all of them.
I'm not assuming anything; I speak strictly from a consumer's point of view. When I approach a kiosk in a retail store, and the unit doesn't function, I get the impression that the "product" has problems. I truthfully don't care what the reason is for the failure. Every single console demonstration I've ever approached has worked. The XBox360 did not work.
It might be the people who designed the kiosk.
It might be the people who assembled it.
It might be the demo software.
It might be some kid who dumped his Coke on the unit.
I never said it was a "hardware" problem. I said it was a "product" problem.
What sort of forum would this be without "me-too"? The topic is the reliability of the XBox, and I have a relevant first-hand experience to express. Should I just sit down and be quiet so people can speculate on possible causes for Xbox crashes? This isn't a technical post; It's a post about customer expectations not being met. Pardon me, but customers do not care why a thing doesn't work, they only care that it doesn't work.
I went to Target to see how COD2 stacked up against the PC version, and the store demo was constantly crashing! OMG, somebody should've probably tested that a bit more, wouldn't you say?
I mean really, the hardware looks like a deal to gamers who are comfortable shelling out 400 bucks for a graphics card, but to Ma and Pa looking for Jr.'s Xmas gift, $400 is a hefty sum. When the store demo crashed, I shook my head and said to myself, "who's gonna' buy a broken system?"
There should be more and updated standard hardware interfaces for things like wireless adapters, graphics adapters, etc. It works at the lowest levels, like monitors, CD-ROM drives, etc. Why not have a beefed up standard graphics adapter interface? Why not have a standard OpenGL driver interface implemented by the *hardware* itself? That way, the kernel is not in the way, there can be an open standard driver implementation, and the super secrets the hardware vender wants to hide can still be locked behind their own custom driver.
Perhaps this is naive, but interfaces allow us do just about everything in life. All that is needed is some agreement between hardware vendors and kernel developers, or my laptop won't be capable of running Linux.