Graphics do assist with suspension of disbelief, but so do, just as much, the physics of the game and level design. Better graphics can enable better level design and better portrayal of fancy physics systems, but by themselves graphics only do so much to assist in that suspension of disbelief.
A pretty world for your character to explore will help little if there are texture seams all over the place or if your character can't interact with the world, up against it as if it were merely a painting. By intelligently laying out levels and world details, super graphics or no, and by making sure world physics and character interactions are detailed and have some basis in realistic expectations (unlike the perennial inability of characters to climb on top of objects which only come up to their chest) you tap into something which I think is more important that merely the number of polygons and shaders being applied to the world.
Standard CFLs do not work well in closed fixtures, reportedly, because the heat can negatively affect the circuitry. Some packages also recommend you not use them unless the fixture has them positioned upright. I've noticed special CFLs designed to overcome all of these problems with standard CFLs (available in most big box stores) but they cost a little more. If you are buying the cheapest, normal CFLs and using them in non-recommended fixtures or environments then that would reduce operational lifespan.
Except that the down time and risk of problems with backups raises the cost greatly. "Better" drives with lower failure rates also mean less down time.
I disagree with many entries on the list, but the list IS talking about CONSOLE games. I would argue Doom wasn't very influential as a console game at all. It was a landmark PC game, but not very important as a console title.
Well, the journals with good reputations lend weight. An extremely highly respected journal like Nature or PNAS lends credibility to the study by publishing it. Better journals theoretically have a more careful peer review process and publish higher quality works.
I guess the bottom line is, anyone can start a journal and accept papers, but how do you convince people to referee, considering they don't get paid? How do you make sure you get only good papers? If you publish crap papers your journal will get a reputation for crap and your journal and submitters will have little impact.
So while there is a "house of cards" aspect to it all, its the academic system of article "impact", reputation, quality, and tenure that does much to drive this situation.
Where I work, even though we are a VERY low budget place, we have two separate products which we've licensed for which, either directly or via a user group, the source code is in escrow in case the company folds. We can't afford to switch software casually and so that escrow is security. Likewise, OSI compliance is a kind of security. Regardless of anything else you can always pay a vendor to make changes so that you can either continue to use or interface your software with other systems.
It kinda sounds like the OP is willing to pay for project work, which is therefore not free. The OP appears to simply want work done with, or rather on, software that's OSI compliant.
In this case the open source software is free, but the work is not. And isn't that how open source software is supposed to be profitable?
Yes there is. A lot of hard work performed, most likely by "member" (read "customer") libraries, goes into those records. Since OCLC is the only game in town and this behavior is clearly anti-competitive, with little benefit to consumers, they could run afoul of anti-trust laws.
I would like to see some humped up idiot try and lift a battery without tools (like a small pulley setup or a forklift) and end up with a massive hernia. Film it, I promise I'll LMAO.
Oh, very impressive! Some people keep old stuff because it's still useful, too. The place I work hoards old IBM Selectric II typewriters, because sometimes you just need to type info into a carbon form, or type up labels one at a time instead of running a whole sheet through a laser printer.
Expensive to maintain, but rock solid, durable, and useful.
I don't know about chipsets but the SonicWall device we use at work runs a Via C3 CPU, likely paired with some kind of Via chipset (though I'm not certain of that). The device is pretty darn rock solid.
Well, I have to admit, it's the first time I've ever had a post marked Troll. I'd say it's a milestone of sorts. And I'll admit, I have a habit of working for companies who run on budgets with very thing margins. Buying a new computer means justifying the expense. And putting an old computer out of service requires a thorough determination that it is truly too old to be of any real use.
As commodity as PCs have become, they are still equipment, and older institutions have trouble justifying replacing equipment every few years. Most durable purchases are quite a bit more durable than a modern PC, especially for the cost.
Oh, because I know *I* can afford a new PC that's going to sit turned off and un-used until I need to do something very specific. I wish I had your expense account.
Highly-paid consultants with good reputations can be as honest as they want. They've earned the right. They are not employees and can go find a client who And frankly, if money is being poured into a sinking ship, an ethical consultant has an obligation to spell out that a. the ship is sinking and b. you don't understand the details so I have to give it to you in summary form.
I am a library science grad student with a work history in technology. However simple document/knowledge management systems appear on the surface, they are usually quite complex to operate. Even tagging documents accurately can be quite a task, depending on the complexity of the classification rules and what, if any, controlled vocabulary is available.
For lawyers to learn to effectively use such a system they need dedicated training, frequent reminders, and some powerful incentives. They have to not just be told but shown what benefits are to be had and be given convincing rewards/disincentives for using or not using such a system.
My brother in law is a lawyer and the hours he is working, all for the sake of being made a partner, are insane. I don't care how well paid lawyers are, the entry level folks are pretty well beaten-down. It makes me wonder if the younger lawyers are really given the time to learn such things.
You are correct, he was indeed talking about law students. But I hear that same refrain from tech-minded people just about anywhere there are forums. So while it's not necessarily the perfect response to that particular, specific expression, I think it still holds up as a valid general criticism.
Also, how frequently do law students need to sum data in Excel? If 4 times a year or less I can still understand them not having any room in their heads for it, particularly given how overly complicated law can be.
I find it interesting how people who are technology comfortable and capable always assume that everyone else should be expected to be able to do what they can do.
Most people already have lives that take up most of their time and energy. What real benefit is it to them to be able to sum a column in Excel, especially if they are called on to do it no more than twice a year?
When people don't perform certain types of tasks regularly they forget how to do them. Repetition is what keeps many of the things we do in our heads. But when someone's life is already full of those little repetitious tasks that they have to remember, throwing more straw on the camel's back will only serve to break it.
I have been using rudimentary SQL queries for months now, but if I don't use a particular SQL function for a month or more I have to go back through the rigmarole of having to relearn how to use it. Those functions that aren't useful on a weekly basis get forgotten, pushed out for more immediate things.
I know most of us want to believe that people have nothing better to do with their lives, and I agree that, going forward, technological literacy should be expected for many jobs, but for people who've already established their foothold and have spent several decades already making their fortunes perhaps our admonishments are a bit self-centered.
To me, this sounds like the OP is a quite young programmer who is looking for a chance to lead a moral crusade rather than get the job done. In my experience I avoid taking on employees like that because they seem more focused on making sure everyone else follows their ethics than in doing a good job on the task at hand. It does sound like either an inexperienced programmer or, more simply, someone who's new to this particular situation. The phrasing of the post does not at all suggest to me the OP is on some kind of moral crusade. It sounds like they are trying to develop their sense of ethics and want some guidance. And while ethics, like morals, can vary from person to person, the law of a locale is usually less flexible.
If a member of a programming team has some concerns about code legality it should absolutely be hashed out and not simply ignored. Older and/or more experience coders don't necessarily have any better grip on the law, just on code.
I think a number of people are missing the point on the Apple profits comment from the article. In a market where singles and single songs sell well but albums sell poorly, the music companies make less money but Apple continues to sell iPods, because their store sells singles and their singles play on the iPod. If people start gravitating back to the album, that is, if albums come with enough good songs on them that people want to buy more than 2 or 3 from the same album, fewer people will be buying the singles from the iTunes music store and they'll just be buying the CDs. And while people can rip songs from CDs to the iPod, it takes effort and a CD is easy to take with you and pop in and out of any old CD player.
The death of the music industry is, then, good for Apple so long as it doesn't go too far and kill off all the content.
When I watch TV I'm not obligated to sit and watch the commercials. I can get up and do something else. I can even, heaven forbid, click the remote and go to another channel for a few minutes to avoid those ads. Furthermore, the way web page technology originated and was designed, there is no rule, spoken or unspoken, that I have to view your web page the way you intend me to. If you want it to look the same way all the time you need to be using Flash or displaying PDFs, not HTML and basic web technologies. The web just doesn't roll that way.
The firefox blockers are allowed to try and block firefox, but ultimately their problem is that they are demanding others meet their needs instead of adapting their strategies to meet the needs of the modern user on the modern web. Frankly, I would not be unhappy to see any of them left behind as the world rolls forward and they try and hang back.
I still have doubts that the Macintosh, for example, will receive C# support. It may be an EMCA specification, but it's development is still controlled by Microsoft, and Microsoft has a habit of poorly supporting their products on any platform other than their own. Java already has a proven track record and receives support on all platforms, including cell phones. I'm sure C# is a wonderful language, but I'm not sure it'll ever be able to claim all that.
Slashdot Mirror
Graphics do assist with suspension of disbelief, but so do, just as much, the physics of the game and level design. Better graphics can enable better level design and better portrayal of fancy physics systems, but by themselves graphics only do so much to assist in that suspension of disbelief.
A pretty world for your character to explore will help little if there are texture seams all over the place or if your character can't interact with the world, up against it as if it were merely a painting. By intelligently laying out levels and world details, super graphics or no, and by making sure world physics and character interactions are detailed and have some basis in realistic expectations (unlike the perennial inability of characters to climb on top of objects which only come up to their chest) you tap into something which I think is more important that merely the number of polygons and shaders being applied to the world.
The relevant posts were made, if I'm reading correctly, AFTER I posted this query, so without a time machine I wouldn't have had my answer.
A more polite tone in your response and a link or two to the relevant posts would have been nice, y'know.
Standard CFLs do not work well in closed fixtures, reportedly, because the heat can negatively affect the circuitry. Some packages also recommend you not use them unless the fixture has them positioned upright. I've noticed special CFLs designed to overcome all of these problems with standard CFLs (available in most big box stores) but they cost a little more. If you are buying the cheapest, normal CFLs and using them in non-recommended fixtures or environments then that would reduce operational lifespan.
Over the life of the bulb will it conserve enough energy to make up for the energy wasted by the uber-laser to create the filament?
This new development may not, at present, result in net gain.
Except that the down time and risk of problems with backups raises the cost greatly. "Better" drives with lower failure rates also mean less down time.
I disagree with many entries on the list, but the list IS talking about CONSOLE games. I would argue Doom wasn't very influential as a console game at all. It was a landmark PC game, but not very important as a console title.
Well, the journals with good reputations lend weight. An extremely highly respected journal like Nature or PNAS lends credibility to the study by publishing it. Better journals theoretically have a more careful peer review process and publish higher quality works.
I guess the bottom line is, anyone can start a journal and accept papers, but how do you convince people to referee, considering they don't get paid? How do you make sure you get only good papers? If you publish crap papers your journal will get a reputation for crap and your journal and submitters will have little impact.
So while there is a "house of cards" aspect to it all, its the academic system of article "impact", reputation, quality, and tenure that does much to drive this situation.
Where I work, even though we are a VERY low budget place, we have two separate products which we've licensed for which, either directly or via a user group, the source code is in escrow in case the company folds. We can't afford to switch software casually and so that escrow is security. Likewise, OSI compliance is a kind of security. Regardless of anything else you can always pay a vendor to make changes so that you can either continue to use or interface your software with other systems.
It kinda sounds like the OP is willing to pay for project work, which is therefore not free. The OP appears to simply want work done with, or rather on, software that's OSI compliant.
In this case the open source software is free, but the work is not. And isn't that how open source software is supposed to be profitable?
Yes there is. A lot of hard work performed, most likely by "member" (read "customer") libraries, goes into those records. Since OCLC is the only game in town and this behavior is clearly anti-competitive, with little benefit to consumers, they could run afoul of anti-trust laws.
Since when is improving interface speed and responsiveness not an improvement in interaction efficiency? Sounds like a necessary change.
I just imagined that enough battery power to drive a car would weight more in the neighborhood of 200+ pounds.
I would like to see some humped up idiot try and lift a battery without tools (like a small pulley setup or a forklift) and end up with a massive hernia. Film it, I promise I'll LMAO.
Oh, very impressive! Some people keep old stuff because it's still useful, too. The place I work hoards old IBM Selectric II typewriters, because sometimes you just need to type info into a carbon form, or type up labels one at a time instead of running a whole sheet through a laser printer.
Expensive to maintain, but rock solid, durable, and useful.
I don't know about chipsets but the SonicWall device we use at work runs a Via C3 CPU, likely paired with some kind of Via chipset (though I'm not certain of that). The device is pretty darn rock solid.
Well, I have to admit, it's the first time I've ever had a post marked Troll. I'd say it's a milestone of sorts. And I'll admit, I have a habit of working for companies who run on budgets with very thing margins. Buying a new computer means justifying the expense. And putting an old computer out of service requires a thorough determination that it is truly too old to be of any real use.
As commodity as PCs have become, they are still equipment, and older institutions have trouble justifying replacing equipment every few years. Most durable purchases are quite a bit more durable than a modern PC, especially for the cost.
Oh, because I know *I* can afford a new PC that's going to sit turned off and un-used until I need to do something very specific. I wish I had your expense account.
Highly-paid consultants with good reputations can be as honest as they want. They've earned the right. They are not employees and can go find a client who And frankly, if money is being poured into a sinking ship, an ethical consultant has an obligation to spell out that a. the ship is sinking and b. you don't understand the details so I have to give it to you in summary form.
I am a library science grad student with a work history in technology. However simple document/knowledge management systems appear on the surface, they are usually quite complex to operate. Even tagging documents accurately can be quite a task, depending on the complexity of the classification rules and what, if any, controlled vocabulary is available.
/disincentives for using or not using such a system.
For lawyers to learn to effectively use such a system they need dedicated training, frequent reminders, and some powerful incentives. They have to not just be told but shown what benefits are to be had and be given convincing rewards
My brother in law is a lawyer and the hours he is working, all for the sake of being made a partner, are insane. I don't care how well paid lawyers are, the entry level folks are pretty well beaten-down. It makes me wonder if the younger lawyers are really given the time to learn such things.
You are correct, he was indeed talking about law students. But I hear that same refrain from tech-minded people just about anywhere there are forums. So while it's not necessarily the perfect response to that particular, specific expression, I think it still holds up as a valid general criticism.
Also, how frequently do law students need to sum data in Excel? If 4 times a year or less I can still understand them not having any room in their heads for it, particularly given how overly complicated law can be.
I find it interesting how people who are technology comfortable and capable always assume that everyone else should be expected to be able to do what they can do.
Most people already have lives that take up most of their time and energy. What real benefit is it to them to be able to sum a column in Excel, especially if they are called on to do it no more than twice a year?
When people don't perform certain types of tasks regularly they forget how to do them. Repetition is what keeps many of the things we do in our heads. But when someone's life is already full of those little repetitious tasks that they have to remember, throwing more straw on the camel's back will only serve to break it.
I have been using rudimentary SQL queries for months now, but if I don't use a particular SQL function for a month or more I have to go back through the rigmarole of having to relearn how to use it. Those functions that aren't useful on a weekly basis get forgotten, pushed out for more immediate things.
I know most of us want to believe that people have nothing better to do with their lives, and I agree that, going forward, technological literacy should be expected for many jobs, but for people who've already established their foothold and have spent several decades already making their fortunes perhaps our admonishments are a bit self-centered.
If a member of a programming team has some concerns about code legality it should absolutely be hashed out and not simply ignored. Older and/or more experience coders don't necessarily have any better grip on the law, just on code.
I think a number of people are missing the point on the Apple profits comment from the article. In a market where singles and single songs sell well but albums sell poorly, the music companies make less money but Apple continues to sell iPods, because their store sells singles and their singles play on the iPod. If people start gravitating back to the album, that is, if albums come with enough good songs on them that people want to buy more than 2 or 3 from the same album, fewer people will be buying the singles from the iTunes music store and they'll just be buying the CDs. And while people can rip songs from CDs to the iPod, it takes effort and a CD is easy to take with you and pop in and out of any old CD player.
The death of the music industry is, then, good for Apple so long as it doesn't go too far and kill off all the content.
When I watch TV I'm not obligated to sit and watch the commercials. I can get up and do something else. I can even, heaven forbid, click the remote and go to another channel for a few minutes to avoid those ads. Furthermore, the way web page technology originated and was designed, there is no rule, spoken or unspoken, that I have to view your web page the way you intend me to. If you want it to look the same way all the time you need to be using Flash or displaying PDFs, not HTML and basic web technologies. The web just doesn't roll that way.
The firefox blockers are allowed to try and block firefox, but ultimately their problem is that they are demanding others meet their needs instead of adapting their strategies to meet the needs of the modern user on the modern web. Frankly, I would not be unhappy to see any of them left behind as the world rolls forward and they try and hang back.
I still have doubts that the Macintosh, for example, will receive C# support. It may be an EMCA specification, but it's development is still controlled by Microsoft, and Microsoft has a habit of poorly supporting their products on any platform other than their own. Java already has a proven track record and receives support on all platforms, including cell phones. I'm sure C# is a wonderful language, but I'm not sure it'll ever be able to claim all that.