I actually ran into all of the talk about the singularity by asking the question: What is the meaning of life? More specifically, I asked Jeeves.
The first result he comes up with (this one) is an FAQ on the meaning of life. Part of the question of the meaning of life is an eventual goal, something to reach towards. Once of the options discussed is the Singularity.
The best place for more info is the Singularity Institute. Their definition of the Singularity is the technogical creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. This is by any possible means, either overclocking the human mind, creating artificial intelligence which is smarter than humans, or some combination thereof (such as uploading human minds to computers to run at a faster rate).
Read the FAQ. It'll clear up your basic questions, and doubtless leave you with many more.
Crap, you had to go say that out loud, didn't you? Who wants to bet the next car line will have an e-book and/or audio book reader built into the dashboard?
... but it seems that now when i buy a game i'm usually disapointed, and it seems too much like what i've already played. I don't buy too many games now because of this.
I hear this argument so much on Slashdot, but I disagree. If I find a game that I really like, that somehow manages to keep my interest and provide me hours of non-frustrating, yet exciting or intriguing gameplay, then I want a sequel, dammit!
Fallout was really the first game to do this for me... and the sequel was even better. True, it was basically the same interface, same graphics, same plot, same genre... the same game, with new content. This is a good thing. This is why add-ons are so popular in RPGs, since it is even easier to add more content to the same winning equation, need I mention Morrowind as proof?
There are many days I'll be going back to play an old game that I really loved, and think to myself, why didn't they make a sequel?? I would gladly pay for more of this! Some examples:
River City Ransom
Solstice
Scorched Earth
Alter Ego: Male, and Alter Ego: Female (for those of you complaining about every game belonging to one of a handful of genres hasn't played this)
Castle of the Winds
Master of Magic
Battletech: The Cresent Hawks' Inception
Tyrian (the most RPG-like scrolling shooter I know of)
Fallout (an RPG sequel, Fallout 3, not this tactics/BOS nonsense)
Arcanum
I, too, thought the article was brilliant, particularly this phrase:
Like most humans she (perhaps somewhat unfairly) feels happier when she perceives herself to be the most intelligent or knowledgeable person in the dialogue.
When you think about it, it's so true. All people want to be smarter than the people they talk to or the tools they operate. If overly-complex interfaces are truly the #1 problem for a first-time computer user, then perhaps all programs should have a "first-use" mode, similar to a Wizard. A simple dialog box, with a question or statement for the user to read, and two or three buttons at the bottom to choose as a reply. New features to the interface can be added gradually as the user gets comfortable with the existing ones.
Well, personally, I like the idea of using command line. Perhaps if I had started teaching my grandparents bash first, instead of putting them in front of Windows XP with AOL 8.0, scanning software, and all sorts of other complexities, they would have felt more comfortable. I can certainly agree that the mouse is not an easy thing to teach someone to use if they've never touched one before.
This is identical to the way that tobacco companies behave. I remember hearing that most tobacco companies will reimburse stores and gas stations 100% for stolen cigarettes.
Most people who steal cigarettes are minors (since they cannot legally buy them), and are either addicted to them, or are about to be. If a fifteen year old who has never smoked walks into a gas station and steals a pack of cigarettes from behind the counter (I know, this is awfully difficult to do in most gas stations, but it is possible) while buying a soda, then walks out into the parking lot and spreads the wealth to his four underage friends... cigarette companies rejoice! They have just made five customers for life, and they are more than happy to send that gas station a free pack of cigarettes to replace the one that was lost.
I don't see any reason why this should not apply to Microsoft. If someone gets ahold of a corporate licensed version of the latest version of Windows, then goes home and installs it on their four computers at home, Microsoft can be happy that while they didn't make a profit from those four sales, they have still almost guaranteed that those four computers will not run another OS (ignoring those smart enough to dual boot).
all we have to do is find a cheap or easier way to produce
A friend of mine said that the reason aerogel has the light bluish tint to it is that the crystal structure does not form perfectly due to earth's gravity. Aerogel made in zero-G should, in theory, be completely clear.
Now, if we added a module to the ISS to make transparent aerogel, the ISS would fund itself! I mean, think about it... with how much it costs per cubic inch of the tinted stuff, and the fact that the ISS would have a monopoly on all transparent aerogel produced, you could charge practically whatever you wanted, and sell it to governments around the world.
An interesting side effect I had way that after about 6 months of no caffine just drinking a can of Pepsi gave me a major buzz.
I went through the same thing while going to ITT a couple years ago... I gave up my 4 liters of Mountain Dew a day habit. After being without for over a year, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to have a little caffeine every now and then. So, I simply made the rule that I could have no caffeine after 4:00 p.m.
My first drink was a can of Coke, and after less than half the can, I was bouncing all over the room. It was one hell of a caffeine buzz. It certainly is a very interesting effect.
Also, another odd thing is my ability to taste caffeine now. After going without for so long (I became a dedicated drinker of Sprite and Orange Faygo), I can taste the difference between Barq's root beer, and all the other brands, because of the caffeine. Most people don't notice it because they're so used to it, but caffeine does have a distinguishable taste!
Re:Oh man. Don't COpy That Floppy...
on
Random Humor
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· Score: 1
Yeah, the free AOL games were actually pretty good. The Simutronics games are still online and playable at simutronics.com (such as DragonRealms, Gemstone 3, Modus Operandi, etc.). However, they're no longer free.
It's really funny that you should mention the combat system of Fallout, I was just thinking about it earlier today while playing Arcanum (which is my RPG of choice until Fallout 3 arrives). I really like the way Fallout and Arcanum handle combat. You control one character, the rest sort of work on their own, or go by some really basic rules/orders that you give to them. If I wanted to play with every single character at once, I would buy additional mice for my computer and genetically engineer some new arms for myself to be able to use all of the characters simultaneously.
But, I really don't feel like doing this. Which is why I really don't like most real-time strategy games, ala Command & Conquer. It's not that I'm bad at them, but I think that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game (note that Role is a singular word). It's really hard to get into one character when you've got to manage a whole bunch at once. And yes, Fallout Tactics really bites, big time. The only way I could play it was to use a character editor and make one really powerful character and have him be my entire squad. And then I discovered missions where multiple things had to be done at once, which required more than one character to do, so I uninstalled the game, haven't touched it since.
Please, keep the current system. Fallout, Fallout 2, and Arcanum have so much more depth because of it.
Let me also say that space-shooters are still coming out at a pretty steady pace. Only now they're 3-D, like Descent Freespace (and there's a new one out from microsoft which is sorta rpg-style). Also, Earth & Beyond kinda fits in this category.
Also, I can't see how River City Ransom is that much different from Diablo II. I loved them both, and they're both pretty much mindless beat-them-up and take-their-treasure-to-buy-new-stuff games. That's pretty much what ALL RPGs are.
The reason why they say that text-based games are dying is because the size of the gaming community as a whole (PC and console both) is growing at an exponential rate, while the quantity of people who still put a significant amount of time into playing a MUD is shrinking. It's sad to say, but it is true. So, percentage-wise, the mud community is practically gone.
I don't like the way he did this...
on
NES PC
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· Score: 1
I'm working on doing this at the moment to a NES of mine that went bad. I have some suggestions to anyone else that is going to do this...
First of all, making the front ports the PS/2 ports is kind of a waste, because then only the mouse and keyboard plug into them. Instead, wire them up to USB ports, so you can make small Nintendo plug -> USB plug adapters, so you can plug any device into the front of it, even Nintendo paddles, with the help of a USB -> Parallel adapter (and you could probably even fit that inside a NES paddle).
However, it's nice to see that fixing the power button is so easy to do, I was honestly having some trouble getting it to work right (at the moment, you have to tap the power button twice real quick when turning it on, since the NES power button is a toggle switch).
Also, don't settle for just a CD/DVD-ROM drive. You can also get slim floppy drives, such as the one shown here, and fit both of them inside the case.
"There IS a fork there, albeit a minor one. You can kill him, or if you don't an NPC tries to. You can let this happen, or you can stop her. (Which results in you two fighting to the death). After she's dead, you explain to UNATCO that she was shot by terrorists, and you continue in your job there.
(If you didn't kill her, then she attacks you 2 missions later regardless).
Because it all happens so fast, most players don't realize they had any choice in the matter."
I caught it. When I attacked her, though, she killed me. So, I reloaded from an earlier save, and on my way to the russian, before I talked to him, I stuck three LAMs to the wall on the way in, and talked with him. A short while later, I heard a big explosion, and walked into the hallway, and found pieces of her on the ground, and somme ammo, too, I think. Anyway, I've learned that's the easiest way to kill her, and the computer geek dude back at headquarters covers up the logs, so you get to keep your job.
Try System Shock 2, then. With some of the best background music and freaky sounds, it does most of the storytelling in your head.
People who read books tell you that they're far better than any movie that can be made from it, because your imagination fills in the gaps that words leave (for instance, Stephen King's "It," the book was far better than the movie, IMHO), and computer graphics just can't compete with the imagination.
System Shock 2 takes advantage of this, and makes your mind work overtime, creating some of the spookiest feelings you'll ever get from an video game (and it's rpg, as well!).
Most people copy music, and let other people copy it, because it doesn't cost them anything, except a little bit of time. And most people don't properly value their time.
I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you here, Bob, er, TFloore.
Personally, I don't share music anymore, MP3's just don't interest me (there hasn't been any new songs out worth listening to, besides maybe Stone Sour and Hoobastank, but that's another issue). But, I have no problem downloading a movie or video game, and leaving it in my shared folder for a while after it's done downloading. I use Overnet, which requires uploading in order to download (great system, by the way), so it doesn't hurt me any to share more stuff than I already am (since it automatically shares the pieces and parts of files you have finished, even if the whole file isn't done). There's none of my time involved in sharing the stuff, it's done for me. And that's where a vast majority of the stuff shared on p2p networks comes from. People sharing something they've already downloaded.
Now, the people at the start of the chain, who use DVD2SVCD (movies) or Audiocatalyst (music) on the latest purchase and put something up online for the first time are the ones actually putting time into it. And, I can almost guarantee that they're doing it for themselves, in their free time (time outside of work, eating, sleeping, school, etc). People I know who make MP3's usually do it with a CD they've just bought, so they can have a really high quality rip that they can add to their playlist, and since it doesn't take any extra effort to drop it into a shared folder and watch it spread across the internet, they have no problems doing this. As for my friends who make SVCD's, they're usually doing it for themselves, too, because they run down to Blockbusters, rent a DVD, bring it home, copy it, and take it back. Then, they burn a copy for themselves and all their close friends for a couple bucks, and drop it in their shared folder too, because, like I said, there's no extra effort involved.
You seem to think there are people who don't do anything else besides run around, spending fortunes for new DVDs and CDs just so they can rip them and put them online just to be nice. I'm sorry, I don't think these people really exist.
People generally do things with their own needs in mind, and because of the nature of the internet, everyone else just lucks out and benefits from it.
Slashdot Mirror
I actually ran into all of the talk about the singularity by asking the question: What is the meaning of life? More specifically, I asked Jeeves.
The first result he comes up with (this one) is an FAQ on the meaning of life. Part of the question of the meaning of life is an eventual goal, something to reach towards. Once of the options discussed is the Singularity.
The best place for more info is the Singularity Institute. Their definition of the Singularity is the technogical creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. This is by any possible means, either overclocking the human mind, creating artificial intelligence which is smarter than humans, or some combination thereof (such as uploading human minds to computers to run at a faster rate).
Read the FAQ. It'll clear up your basic questions, and doubtless leave you with many more.
Dialog! Just pray he doesn't start singing...
Uh, this may be a technicality and all... but what's the difference?
My first thought: "Wow, I haven't seen an article about Dark Age of Camelot on Slashdot in a long time. Oh... wait... it says Trails. Darn."
How about READING a BOOK?
Crap, you had to go say that out loud, didn't you? Who wants to bet the next car line will have an e-book and/or audio book reader built into the dashboard?
wonder what would happen to CowboyNeal when he's placed under water....or the national debt....
...or the library of congress... or Natalie Portman... or...
Well, it would be newsworthy if it were a pre-alpha release of Duke Nukem Forever.
Yes, hell freezing over and the end of all mankind would be newsworthy, wouldn't it?
... but it seems that now when i buy a game i'm usually disapointed, and it seems too much like what i've already played. I don't buy too many games now because of this.
I hear this argument so much on Slashdot, but I disagree. If I find a game that I really like, that somehow manages to keep my interest and provide me hours of non-frustrating, yet exciting or intriguing gameplay, then I want a sequel, dammit!
Fallout was really the first game to do this for me... and the sequel was even better. True, it was basically the same interface, same graphics, same plot, same genre... the same game, with new content. This is a good thing. This is why add-ons are so popular in RPGs, since it is even easier to add more content to the same winning equation, need I mention Morrowind as proof?
There are many days I'll be going back to play an old game that I really loved, and think to myself, why didn't they make a sequel?? I would gladly pay for more of this! Some examples:
River City Ransom
Solstice
Scorched Earth
Alter Ego: Male, and Alter Ego: Female (for those of you complaining about every game belonging to one of a handful of genres hasn't played this)
Castle of the Winds
Master of Magic
Battletech: The Cresent Hawks' Inception
Tyrian (the most RPG-like scrolling shooter I know of)
Fallout (an RPG sequel, Fallout 3, not this tactics/BOS nonsense)
Arcanum
And more than I can name at the moment...
I, too, thought the article was brilliant, particularly this phrase:
Like most humans she (perhaps somewhat unfairly) feels happier when she perceives herself to be the most intelligent or knowledgeable person in the dialogue.
When you think about it, it's so true. All people want to be smarter than the people they talk to or the tools they operate. If overly-complex interfaces are truly the #1 problem for a first-time computer user, then perhaps all programs should have a "first-use" mode, similar to a Wizard. A simple dialog box, with a question or statement for the user to read, and two or three buttons at the bottom to choose as a reply. New features to the interface can be added gradually as the user gets comfortable with the existing ones.
Well, personally, I like the idea of using command line. Perhaps if I had started teaching my grandparents bash first, instead of putting them in front of Windows XP with AOL 8.0, scanning software, and all sorts of other complexities, they would have felt more comfortable. I can certainly agree that the mouse is not an easy thing to teach someone to use if they've never touched one before.
This is identical to the way that tobacco companies behave. I remember hearing that most tobacco companies will reimburse stores and gas stations 100% for stolen cigarettes.
Most people who steal cigarettes are minors (since they cannot legally buy them), and are either addicted to them, or are about to be. If a fifteen year old who has never smoked walks into a gas station and steals a pack of cigarettes from behind the counter (I know, this is awfully difficult to do in most gas stations, but it is possible) while buying a soda, then walks out into the parking lot and spreads the wealth to his four underage friends... cigarette companies rejoice! They have just made five customers for life, and they are more than happy to send that gas station a free pack of cigarettes to replace the one that was lost.
I don't see any reason why this should not apply to Microsoft. If someone gets ahold of a corporate licensed version of the latest version of Windows, then goes home and installs it on their four computers at home, Microsoft can be happy that while they didn't make a profit from those four sales, they have still almost guaranteed that those four computers will not run another OS (ignoring those smart enough to dual boot).
Just grab a friend and a deck of cards, and you can play Yahoo vs. Google at home.
all we have to do is find a cheap or easier way to produce
A friend of mine said that the reason aerogel has the light bluish tint to it is that the crystal structure does not form perfectly due to earth's gravity. Aerogel made in zero-G should, in theory, be completely clear.
Now, if we added a module to the ISS to make transparent aerogel, the ISS would fund itself! I mean, think about it... with how much it costs per cubic inch of the tinted stuff, and the fact that the ISS would have a monopoly on all transparent aerogel produced, you could charge practically whatever you wanted, and sell it to governments around the world.
"Because you've got to say something. You can't get out onto the moon and go, 'Oh, it's all sticky! It's covered in jam!'
You can't land on the moon and go, 'Fucking hell, I've been in that spacecraft... Right. I need a piss!'
You can't land on the moon and wind down the window and go, 'Is this the Sea of Tranquility?'"
-Eddie Izzard
Dress to Kill Tour
An interesting side effect I had way that after about 6 months of no caffine just drinking a can of Pepsi gave me a major buzz.
I went through the same thing while going to ITT a couple years ago... I gave up my 4 liters of Mountain Dew a day habit. After being without for over a year, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to have a little caffeine every now and then. So, I simply made the rule that I could have no caffeine after 4:00 p.m.
My first drink was a can of Coke, and after less than half the can, I was bouncing all over the room. It was one hell of a caffeine buzz. It certainly is a very interesting effect.
Also, another odd thing is my ability to taste caffeine now. After going without for so long (I became a dedicated drinker of Sprite and Orange Faygo), I can taste the difference between Barq's root beer, and all the other brands, because of the caffeine. Most people don't notice it because they're so used to it, but caffeine does have a distinguishable taste!
Yeah, the free AOL games were actually pretty good. The Simutronics games are still online and playable at simutronics.com (such as DragonRealms, Gemstone 3, Modus Operandi, etc.). However, they're no longer free.
It's really funny that you should mention the combat system of Fallout, I was just thinking about it earlier today while playing Arcanum (which is my RPG of choice until Fallout 3 arrives). I really like the way Fallout and Arcanum handle combat. You control one character, the rest sort of work on their own, or go by some really basic rules/orders that you give to them. If I wanted to play with every single character at once, I would buy additional mice for my computer and genetically engineer some new arms for myself to be able to use all of the characters simultaneously.
But, I really don't feel like doing this. Which is why I really don't like most real-time strategy games, ala Command & Conquer. It's not that I'm bad at them, but I think that RPG stands for Role-Playing Game (note that Role is a singular word). It's really hard to get into one character when you've got to manage a whole bunch at once. And yes, Fallout Tactics really bites, big time. The only way I could play it was to use a character editor and make one really powerful character and have him be my entire squad. And then I discovered missions where multiple things had to be done at once, which required more than one character to do, so I uninstalled the game, haven't touched it since.
Please, keep the current system. Fallout, Fallout 2, and Arcanum have so much more depth because of it.
If it was open source, there would be no key code. That's the point.
Let me also say that space-shooters are still coming out at a pretty steady pace. Only now they're 3-D, like Descent Freespace (and there's a new one out from microsoft which is sorta rpg-style). Also, Earth & Beyond kinda fits in this category.
Also, I can't see how River City Ransom is that much different from Diablo II. I loved them both, and they're both pretty much mindless beat-them-up and take-their-treasure-to-buy-new-stuff games. That's pretty much what ALL RPGs are.
The reason why they say that text-based games are dying is because the size of the gaming community as a whole (PC and console both) is growing at an exponential rate, while the quantity of people who still put a significant amount of time into playing a MUD is shrinking. It's sad to say, but it is true. So, percentage-wise, the mud community is practically gone.
I'm working on doing this at the moment to a NES of mine that went bad. I have some suggestions to anyone else that is going to do this...
First of all, making the front ports the PS/2 ports is kind of a waste, because then only the mouse and keyboard plug into them. Instead, wire them up to USB ports, so you can make small Nintendo plug -> USB plug adapters, so you can plug any device into the front of it, even Nintendo paddles, with the help of a USB -> Parallel adapter (and you could probably even fit that inside a NES paddle).
However, it's nice to see that fixing the power button is so easy to do, I was honestly having some trouble getting it to work right (at the moment, you have to tap the power button twice real quick when turning it on, since the NES power button is a toggle switch).
Also, don't settle for just a CD/DVD-ROM drive. You can also get slim floppy drives, such as the one shown here, and fit both of them inside the case.
"There IS a fork there, albeit a minor one. You can kill him, or if you don't an NPC tries to. You can let this happen, or you can stop her. (Which results in you two fighting to the death). After she's dead, you explain to UNATCO that she was shot by terrorists, and you continue in your job there.
(If you didn't kill her, then she attacks you 2 missions later regardless).
Because it all happens so fast, most players don't realize they had any choice in the matter."
I caught it. When I attacked her, though, she killed me. So, I reloaded from an earlier save, and on my way to the russian, before I talked to him, I stuck three LAMs to the wall on the way in, and talked with him. A short while later, I heard a big explosion, and walked into the hallway, and found pieces of her on the ground, and somme ammo, too, I think. Anyway, I've learned that's the easiest way to kill her, and the computer geek dude back at headquarters covers up the logs, so you get to keep your job.
Try System Shock 2, then. With some of the best background music and freaky sounds, it does most of the storytelling in your head.
People who read books tell you that they're far better than any movie that can be made from it, because your imagination fills in the gaps that words leave (for instance, Stephen King's "It," the book was far better than the movie, IMHO), and computer graphics just can't compete with the imagination.
System Shock 2 takes advantage of this, and makes your mind work overtime, creating some of the spookiest feelings you'll ever get from an video game (and it's rpg, as well!).
Someone get this guy a Desktop Cleanup Wizard!. And I thought I had too many icons on my desktop...
July 23rd, 1999
Most people copy music, and let other people copy it, because it doesn't cost them anything, except a little bit of time. And most people don't properly value their time.
I think I'm gonna have to disagree with you here, Bob, er, TFloore.
Personally, I don't share music anymore, MP3's just don't interest me (there hasn't been any new songs out worth listening to, besides maybe Stone Sour and Hoobastank, but that's another issue). But, I have no problem downloading a movie or video game, and leaving it in my shared folder for a while after it's done downloading. I use Overnet, which requires uploading in order to download (great system, by the way), so it doesn't hurt me any to share more stuff than I already am (since it automatically shares the pieces and parts of files you have finished, even if the whole file isn't done). There's none of my time involved in sharing the stuff, it's done for me. And that's where a vast majority of the stuff shared on p2p networks comes from. People sharing something they've already downloaded.
Now, the people at the start of the chain, who use DVD2SVCD (movies) or Audiocatalyst (music) on the latest purchase and put something up online for the first time are the ones actually putting time into it. And, I can almost guarantee that they're doing it for themselves, in their free time (time outside of work, eating, sleeping, school, etc). People I know who make MP3's usually do it with a CD they've just bought, so they can have a really high quality rip that they can add to their playlist, and since it doesn't take any extra effort to drop it into a shared folder and watch it spread across the internet, they have no problems doing this. As for my friends who make SVCD's, they're usually doing it for themselves, too, because they run down to Blockbusters, rent a DVD, bring it home, copy it, and take it back. Then, they burn a copy for themselves and all their close friends for a couple bucks, and drop it in their shared folder too, because, like I said, there's no extra effort involved.
You seem to think there are people who don't do anything else besides run around, spending fortunes for new DVDs and CDs just so they can rip them and put them online just to be nice. I'm sorry, I don't think these people really exist.
People generally do things with their own needs in mind, and because of the nature of the internet, everyone else just lucks out and benefits from it.
I'm thinking 4321, how about you?