You may not be aware of this, but there have been 3D porn movies for some time. The Egyptian Theater in Seattle sometimes shows them for their midnight movies on the weekends. Pretty goddamn amusing stuff.
Yikes, shades of Mr. Katz... Anyway, if this approach is successful at approximating player behavior, I think it could be a wonderful thing and introduce an exciting new trend into the online game industry. Consider:
Right now, even good games have their boring periods where the user must do many repetitive actions dictated by some simple rules. These actions would easily be learned by a good AI engine. Players could relegate such tasks to AIs and focus on the fun stuff instead. The trick would be to make sure the AI knows in what situation to begin the repetitive task -- maybe a little tougher, but should be manageable. It's similar to what medical diagnosis AIs have been doing for years.
The ability of players to automate repetitive tasks will encourage game developers to focus more on the aspects of play that are really fun. It will make boring games more obviously boring -- if I can spend an hour playing and then turn it over to the AI and have it play just as well, then it's not really a very fun game is it? So, we raise the bar for innovative gameplay.
Whole new types of games could take advantage of this, along with the always-on connectivity of broadband connections. I'd love to see persistent strategy games, where you can check in on your kingdom for a few minutes or hours each day, and the rest of the time your trusty AI "advisor" runs things for you. Sort of remniscent of the old BBS door games, in a way. With MMOGs expanding into things like The Sims Online, it's clear that the medium is ready for more than just RPGs. A learning AI of this sort could be a massively effective enabling factor for innovation (chokes on buzzwords, hehe).
I want to see it in action. I've got to wonder about their choice to use genetic algorithms -- they're notoriously "the third best solution to any problem" (neural nets are the second). Seems like a more traditional decision-tree-based approach would be more suitable. But it just depends on whether they've been able to tune the selection criteria and crossover function in a suitable way to address the problem at hand. Hopefully it works out well, because I'd like to see this approach become quite common.
This is such a useless security measure. It can be defeated by anyone wearing polarized lenses, and such lenses are worn innocuously all the time so you couldn't accuse someone of spying just for wearing them. And what scenario is this supposed to be useful for? An environment where the display is visible to untrusted viewers -- public places, mostly. In an office you get better security by locking the doors. But in a public place you have no control over who wears sunglasses, so anyone who wants to see the screen can easily do so. It's just stupid.
Good lord, you're kidding, right? You would actually copy-and-paste 12 characters to avoid retyping them? Here's a tip, you can use the "character map" tool for all your text-entry needs and never need to touch the keyboard again. Whee.
Many have already pointed out the most obvious problem -- any angle other than straight on is going to wreck the effect. But let's not forget that a human with two functional, open eyes never views an object from just one angle (unless one eye's view of the object is obstructed -- geez, picky...). Ah, the miracle of depth perception. I don't think this method is nearly sophisticated enough to compensate for all the subtle clues we get from our binocular vision. Nice try, though. I mean, I think that everyone who's considered the possibility of invisibility has come up with a scheme like this. It's nice to see it coming closer to reality, but we all know that at this stage it's too limited except for perhaps certain special circumstances. But yeah, I want one too.
Well, first of all I'd really hate to see people just getting a boring old meter on their arm. I mean, it doesn't really matter what shape the thing is in as long as you can read it, right? So get a funky spiral or make it part of a larger design or something.
What would be even cooler would be to start seeing this technology, and "adaptive tattoos" in general made available to the general populace. The ability to have tattoos that change their appearance depending on physiological conditions would open up new worlds of expression. Anyone who's read Nylund's "Signal to Noise" will remember the character Panda's always-changing eyelid tattoos. Very cool.
The really cool part is if these were cybernetic implants, and you could slap the replacement cartridges into your wrists just like Spidey's webshooters.
Well, certainly they could spend more money and time to do something flashier than a quick up-and-down. But the purpose of this mission is to make history, to have the first civilian space flight, and that's no mean feat. It's not just so that they can say they did it -- that's a means to an end. It's to open up the door, make people realize it can be done, get other people working on the big, flashy projects. Since the purpose is to get the ball rolling, I think they chose right by doing it quick and simple rather than delaying to add more features to the mission.
Just make sure you don't decide to "give it the Fonzie" after you've immersed it in liquid nitro.
Jumped the shark indeed.
Re:The text of the article... in case of /. Effect
on
Meteorite Hits Girl
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· Score: 1
Pfft, I had you by a full two minutes, Mr. Redundant.
Re:[rant] They could have written _something_
on
Meteorite Hits Girl
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· Score: 2
Hear, hear. It seems like they just took a bunch of quotes from the girl and her dad, and a handful of incredibly obvious scientific observations, and shuffled them around randomly.
You know you're in trouble when the most exciting subheading you can come up with is "shiny." Oooh, shiny. Jebus.
How to get your photo in the news
on
Meteorite Hits Girl
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· Score: 5, Funny
1. Get a rock 2. Say it's a meteorite that hit you on the foot. 3. BBC believes you, publishes goofy photo of you holding your "meteorite" 4. ??? 5. Profit
Alternately, all your beowulf cluster of meteorite are belong to us.
Yeah, that should about cover it.
Re:The text of the article... in case of /. Effect
on
Meteorite Hits Girl
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· Score: 2
In case the BBC gets slashdotted? Um, I think they can probably handle the traffic.
Seems like a bit of a silly thing to be worried about, really. I mean, who knows more about stabilizing delicate components and damping vibrations than hard drive manufacturers? That's what they do!
And there's a tool called a hammer, used for inserting nails into things. Perhaps aliens have been seeding our civilization with technology for longer than I had suspected...
Well, the heat is generated by a "laser" and is very localized. I'm not sure about the scale, but I suspect the difference in heat output would be minimal. Actually, I'm trying to think of reasons why perhaps such a hard drive would actually generate less heat. Like not having to spin as fast or something. I dunno, probably not.
Slashdot Mirror
How about patenting a method for getting screwed over by people with outrageous, inspecific, overly broad patents? Double jeopardy time!
Thanks,
The Management
You may not be aware of this, but there have been 3D porn movies for some time. The Egyptian Theater in Seattle sometimes shows them for their midnight movies on the weekends. Pretty goddamn amusing stuff.
So... is particle physics a violation of the DMCA?
- Right now, even good games have their boring periods where the user must do many repetitive actions dictated by some simple rules. These actions would easily be learned by a good AI engine. Players could relegate such tasks to AIs and focus on the fun stuff instead. The trick would be to make sure the AI knows in what situation to begin the repetitive task -- maybe a little tougher, but should be manageable. It's similar to what medical diagnosis AIs have been doing for years.
- The ability of players to automate repetitive tasks will encourage game developers to focus more on the aspects of play that are really fun. It will make boring games more obviously boring -- if I can spend an hour playing and then turn it over to the AI and have it play just as well, then it's not really a very fun game is it? So, we raise the bar for innovative gameplay.
- Whole new types of games could take advantage of this, along with the always-on connectivity of broadband connections. I'd love to see persistent strategy games, where you can check in on your kingdom for a few minutes or hours each day, and the rest of the time your trusty AI "advisor" runs things for you. Sort of remniscent of the old BBS door games, in a way. With MMOGs expanding into things like The Sims Online, it's clear that the medium is ready for more than just RPGs. A learning AI of this sort could be a massively effective enabling factor for innovation (chokes on buzzwords, hehe).
I want to see it in action. I've got to wonder about their choice to use genetic algorithms -- they're notoriously "the third best solution to any problem" (neural nets are the second). Seems like a more traditional decision-tree-based approach would be more suitable. But it just depends on whether they've been able to tune the selection criteria and crossover function in a suitable way to address the problem at hand. Hopefully it works out well, because I'd like to see this approach become quite common.This is such a useless security measure. It can be defeated by anyone wearing polarized lenses, and such lenses are worn innocuously all the time so you couldn't accuse someone of spying just for wearing them. And what scenario is this supposed to be useful for? An environment where the display is visible to untrusted viewers -- public places, mostly. In an office you get better security by locking the doors. But in a public place you have no control over who wears sunglasses, so anyone who wants to see the screen can easily do so. It's just stupid.
RTFA. The screen doesn't look off if you're not wearing the glasses, it looks pure white.
Good lord, you're kidding, right? You would actually copy-and-paste 12 characters to avoid retyping them? Here's a tip, you can use the "character map" tool for all your text-entry needs and never need to touch the keyboard again. Whee.
But not mass. Think, man!
Many have already pointed out the most obvious problem -- any angle other than straight on is going to wreck the effect. But let's not forget that a human with two functional, open eyes never views an object from just one angle (unless one eye's view of the object is obstructed -- geez, picky...). Ah, the miracle of depth perception. I don't think this method is nearly sophisticated enough to compensate for all the subtle clues we get from our binocular vision. Nice try, though. I mean, I think that everyone who's considered the possibility of invisibility has come up with a scheme like this. It's nice to see it coming closer to reality, but we all know that at this stage it's too limited except for perhaps certain special circumstances. But yeah, I want one too.
What would be even cooler would be to start seeing this technology, and "adaptive tattoos" in general made available to the general populace. The ability to have tattoos that change their appearance depending on physiological conditions would open up new worlds of expression. Anyone who's read Nylund's "Signal to Noise" will remember the character Panda's always-changing eyelid tattoos. Very cool.
The really cool part is if these were cybernetic implants, and you could slap the replacement cartridges into your wrists just like Spidey's webshooters.
I feel like I am buying Ecstacy.
Wish I knew where to get ecstasy that cheap. Damn.
Well, certainly they could spend more money and time to do something flashier than a quick up-and-down. But the purpose of this mission is to make history, to have the first civilian space flight, and that's no mean feat. It's not just so that they can say they did it -- that's a means to an end. It's to open up the door, make people realize it can be done, get other people working on the big, flashy projects. Since the purpose is to get the ball rolling, I think they chose right by doing it quick and simple rather than delaying to add more features to the mission.
Jumped the shark indeed.
Pfft, I had you by a full two minutes, Mr. Redundant.
You know you're in trouble when the most exciting subheading you can come up with is "shiny." Oooh, shiny. Jebus.
1. Get a rock
2. Say it's a meteorite that hit you on the foot.
3. BBC believes you, publishes goofy photo of you holding your "meteorite"
4. ???
5. Profit
Alternately, all your beowulf cluster of meteorite are belong to us.
Yeah, that should about cover it.
In case the BBC gets slashdotted? Um, I think they can probably handle the traffic.
Yeah, but you really should have come up with a way to make that funny. Otherwise you just sound like a pedantic jackass.
Seems like a bit of a silly thing to be worried about, really. I mean, who knows more about stabilizing delicate components and damping vibrations than hard drive manufacturers? That's what they do!
And there's a tool called a hammer, used for inserting nails into things. Perhaps aliens have been seeding our civilization with technology for longer than I had suspected...
Well, the heat is generated by a "laser" and is very localized. I'm not sure about the scale, but I suspect the difference in heat output would be minimal. Actually, I'm trying to think of reasons why perhaps such a hard drive would actually generate less heat. Like not having to spin as fast or something. I dunno, probably not.
This isn't reporting, it's reprinting a press release verbatim. Jebus. Here's the original, from Seagate's site.