Does anyone else have any ideas as to what this "something special" which David Brin is referring to might be?
Anyone who read the *entire* article might.
In fact, a scenario is possible, if Vader and Obi-Wan conspire together against BOTH Emperor and Yoda. Go on, follow all the movies with this possibility in mind.
Why else would Obi-Wan 'hide' Vader's son in Vader's home town? Their final 'deathfight' distracts the guards to let Luke/Han/Leia get away. How else do you explain that Vader grabs/interrogates Leia, yet never detects her force? Watch carefully... Vader's 'chase' of Luke in the first film clears all the other Imperial fighters off his son's back and halts the antiaircraft guns, giving the kid a clear shot! And guess who's the only Imperial survivor?
It goes on and on! (Including the coincidence of whose droids carry the message.)
Actually, Enterprise's plots, at least early on, seem to follow the formula:
1. Enterprise encounters new planet/race/ship/widget. 2. T'Pol advises caution. 3. Archer and Tripp mock T'Pol and Vulcans in general. 4. Away team is sent to investigate/explore. 5. Away team gets in trouble. 6. Something rescues them. 7. Archer et al learn no lessons from the experience.
Great premise, likeable characters and good actors.
It got off to a great start. The Broken Bow was easily the best of the Trek pilots.
So what's the problem? It almost seems as if the producers want Enteprise to ASPIRE to be as mediocre as Voyager was.
It's stuck in that "nothing can change week to week" mentality that Paramount has long imposed on Trek. Worse, it's not even particularly bad like Voyager was early on... it's just... there. More often then not, it's not good or bad. Just something I could care less about.
The Temporal Cold War is at least a step in the right direction, even if I think they've removed too much of the mystery from it. Compare "Future Guy's" appearance in the pilot to what it was in the finale. Initially, you couldn't tell anything about him and there was that cool distortion effect. Now, he looks like a guy dressed in stage black.
Sullick and Daniels are a little too black & white. I wished they could've pretened for more than a fraction of an episode that the Suliban might actually be the good guys. Or that there were no good guys in this fight.
But the fact that they have an continuing, if infrequently returned to, storyline is a positive step. Having *consistant* internal continuity is generally a good thing for a show. It's an incentive to watch, when done properly.
As it is, I generally don't care about Enterprise.
You're full of shit. I never agreed to an LA for any of my video games. They're even less valid that click-through EULAs, because, well, there's nothing to click. Just an "agreement" that no one agrees or even realizes exists.
Furthermore, if a minor buys the game, they cannot agree to *any* contract, real or imagined. Somehow, i doubt Nintendo is going to insist "if Johnny can't agree to our terms, he must return his copy of Luigi's Mansion."
It's really pathetic and sad that you would even argue this willingly. Are you a Nintendo PR flack or something?
with a Door-User License Agreement. By walking through my door, anyone, including the BSA, agrees to free me of any obligation due to a EULA or similar license agreement.
That way, if they try to claim that I'm bound by their EULA because I allegedly clicked a button after buying the software, I'll have an equally valid counter claim that they freed me of their's by actually walking through my door. Not my fault they didn't read all the terms and conditions before using my doorway!
The DULA is posted on the *inside* of the door, of course.
What Fiske, Starr and Ray all discovered was that the Clintons got ripped off. They lost money. I guess the "willing accomplices" in the media forgot to mention that bit.
And naturally, more money was spent *investigating* Whitewater than was actually *lost* by taxpayers in the whole shebang.
You could do it by starting with 100 bots. Sort by win/loss ratio. Take the top 50 bots and breed them with each other one in some fashion. That gives you 2500 bots.
Now we need to filter those down. That's where a pool of control bots come in. Require new offspring to beat them, possibly within a time limit
Level 1 - Opponent just sits there. Level 2 - Opponent sits there and fires in different directions. Level 3 - Opponent moves in a pattern while firing. Level 4 - Opponent moves in a pattern and always fires in the direction of bot. Level 5 - Opponent chases bot and fires regularly.
Anyone who can't beat these bots in one try is eliminated. That should get you down to a manageable pool. If you have more than 50, use the time taken to beat the control bots as a tiebreaker. If you have less than 50... well, nature isn't looking at your species too kindly.
Your new pool consists of the 50 "parents" + the 50 "children". In order to continue, the children have to best each other *and* their parents. Repeat as many times as possible.
Get a checksum from each bot and maybe someway to track parentage and see who's dominating. This should hopefully avoid compeltely stupid robots and robots that are really good at killing their stupid offspring but nothing else.
You should ammend that with "Between two players of equal caliber, the winner will generally be the person with the most disposable income."
Magic is one third skill, one third deckbuilding and one third luck.
Thanks to the Internet, getting a good deck design isn't that difficult; it's simply getting the cards themselves that's difficult. That's where *money* comes in.
Don't kid yourselves that this isn't true, everyone. Even years ago, when I still played MtG, people were complaining about "TheDojo symdrome"; where people would check theDojo for killer decks and then build/buy them. I don't know how true this is for Magic now, but at the time, Magic was being dominated by combo decks that required very little skill or luck to pull off two or three turn kills.
Money is a *huge* factor and in the right tournament environment, it can be the only factor.
As for the people who say "Just play Draft or Sealed", I'm sorry, but not everyone can afford to drop $20+ to play a single tournament. Even if it doesn't affect the actual gameplay, money is a barrier to actually *playing*.
My entire group got tired of the upgrade treadmill and seeing their cards be relegated to infrequent extended tourneys. And this was at the University of Washington, just *blocks* from WotC's (now defunct) game center!
What did we play instead of Magic? Pinochle and Great Dalmuti. Don't laugh. With the right group of people, Pinochle can be an exciting, fast paced, fun-to-watch card game.
How is Magic On-line doing?
on
Layoffs at WotC
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Is that failing as well? It seems to be me they went about it completely the wrong way.
Magic is a fun challenging game... if you can afford to spend at least $300-$600 a year on it or can bargain like a madman. People stop playing because they got tired of the upgrade treadmill and seeing their old cards more or less become useless.
So, for the on-line version, what do they do? They make an even worse version of that flaw! You have to pay full retail for virtual cards. I never paid that much even with the real ones. I would buy by the box at a substantial discount. That's how I stayed in it for so long. This just ensures people burn out sooner.
I think if they had merely charged $10/month for access to all the cards, they would've done insanely well. Over a year, it probably adds up to about the same as the booster approach for many people, but that whole year I would've been able to build any deck I wanted.
As it is, I'm staying the fuck away from it. It's a pity. I really liked the first computer version of Magic the Gathering.
It's the moment you've been waiting for! The outskirts of Neo-Toyko is attacked by Slashdot! Can Taco reactivate the Meta-Mod in time to save Neo-Toyko? Meanwhile, a stranger waits in the shadows!
Remember, only TERRORISTS from TERRORIST NATIONS use open source software.
Therefore, Venezuela must be a TERRORIST NATION. Bush will be instituting a regime change there in favour of a more Microsoft friendly government any day now.
Has that argument been tried in other states, like California?
"Why should we send our money to *gasp* Redmond when we can get an equally capable system for substantially less?"
Of course, you could make the same argument about whatever city Red Hat is in. Maybe it's something only people outside the US can make.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Seven in 10 respondents agreed newspapers should publish freely, a slight drop from 2001. Those less likely to support newspaper rights included people without a college education, Republicans, and evangelicals, the survey found.
the Democrats where saying that a reducation in the projected rate of increase was a cut when it was not a cut.
There's this little thing called *inflation* you may have heard about. In real(inflation-adjusted) dollars, the GOP was cutting spending on Medicare.
Even Rep. John Kasich admitted it was "intellectually dishonest" to be portraying an increase in absolute dollars as an actual increase in the program's spending.
And finally, if "created" and "invented" mean the same thing, why do pundits and conservatives like yourself persist in saying "invented" instead of what Gore actually said?
Probably because you *know* they do *not* mean the same thing.
I'm sorry you don't want the United States to be the best at everything we do. But, don't worry, the rest of us will carry on where you are obviously so unwilling not.
This really doesn't sound any different. As always, someone will use CloneCD to burn a perfect copy of the CD. Or they'll create an image of it, which I'll download and run on Daemontools.
The only possible way I could see them thwarting a raw copy is if the CD's they're pressing at the factory have extra areas that can be read by existing drives but aren't on (current) CD-R(W)s. I don't know if that's possible though. It wouldn't matter how good a burner you have; you can't burn it if there isn't a spot to burn the critical bits of data.
Of course, they'll still be able to read the original and create an image which can be run in Daemontools. That's how I run all my software anyways. Create an image from the original CD and I never have to go hunting for it again.
When plamonic matter interacts with light inside a polariton-lined canister, it allows you to go back in time because you're going negative the speed of light.
What the fuck is up with that? If you're so sick of the perceived lack of technology here, move to Korea or Japan, you fucking whiner.
Because I'm not a lazy slob like you who just accepts his crappy situation and won't do anything to change it.
I believe America can do better. I would hardly think it's that radical a notion but from the incoherent "love or leave it" arguments that jarheads like you constantly screech, I'm apparently wrong.
So I have to ask, why do you hate America so much? Why don't you want to make it a better country to live in? Why are you such a quitter?
Slashdot Mirror
because Linux has progressed to the point that the New York Times thinks the "Linux Minority" is worth "pandering" to.
Does anyone else have any ideas as to what this "something special" which David Brin is referring to might be?
Anyone who read the *entire* article might.
In fact, a scenario is possible, if Vader and Obi-Wan conspire together against BOTH Emperor and Yoda. Go on, follow all the movies with this possibility in mind.
Why else would Obi-Wan 'hide' Vader's son in Vader's home town? Their final 'deathfight' distracts the guards to let Luke/Han/Leia get away. How else do you explain that Vader grabs/interrogates Leia, yet never detects her force? Watch carefully... Vader's 'chase' of Luke in the first film clears all the other Imperial fighters off his son's back and halts the antiaircraft guns, giving the kid a clear shot! And guess who's the only Imperial survivor?
It goes on and on! (Including the coincidence of whose droids carry the message.)
Actually, Enterprise's plots, at least early on, seem to follow the formula:
1. Enterprise encounters new planet/race/ship/widget.
2. T'Pol advises caution.
3. Archer and Tripp mock T'Pol and Vulcans in general.
4. Away team is sent to investigate/explore.
5. Away team gets in trouble.
6. Something rescues them.
7. Archer et al learn no lessons from the experience.
Great premise, likeable characters and good actors.
It got off to a great start. The Broken Bow was easily the best of the Trek pilots.
So what's the problem? It almost seems as if the producers want Enteprise to ASPIRE to be as mediocre as Voyager was.
It's stuck in that "nothing can change week to week" mentality that Paramount has long imposed on Trek. Worse, it's not even particularly bad like Voyager was early on... it's just... there. More often then not, it's not good or bad. Just something I could care less about.
The Temporal Cold War is at least a step in the right direction, even if I think they've removed too much of the mystery from it. Compare "Future Guy's" appearance in the pilot to what it was in the finale. Initially, you couldn't tell anything about him and there was that cool distortion effect. Now, he looks like a guy dressed in stage black.
Sullick and Daniels are a little too black & white. I wished they could've pretened for more than a fraction of an episode that the Suliban might actually be the good guys. Or that there were no good guys in this fight.
But the fact that they have an continuing, if infrequently returned to, storyline is a positive step. Having *consistant* internal continuity is generally a good thing for a show. It's an incentive to watch, when done properly.
As it is, I generally don't care about Enterprise.
You're full of shit. I never agreed to an LA for any of my video games. They're even less valid that click-through EULAs, because, well, there's nothing to click. Just an "agreement" that no one agrees or even realizes exists.
Furthermore, if a minor buys the game, they cannot agree to *any* contract, real or imagined. Somehow, i doubt Nintendo is going to insist "if Johnny can't agree to our terms, he must return his copy of Luigi's Mansion."
It's really pathetic and sad that you would even argue this willingly. Are you a Nintendo PR flack or something?
Why pray tell would tbe FBI be at my door?
with a Door-User License Agreement. By walking through my door, anyone, including the BSA, agrees to free me of any obligation due to a EULA or similar license agreement.
That way, if they try to claim that I'm bound by their EULA because I allegedly clicked a button after buying the software, I'll have an equally valid counter claim that they freed me of their's by actually walking through my door. Not my fault they didn't read all the terms and conditions before using my doorway!
The DULA is posted on the *inside* of the door, of course.
Yes, people went to jail over Whitewater.
What Fiske, Starr and Ray all discovered was that the Clintons got ripped off. They lost money. I guess the "willing accomplices" in the media forgot to mention that bit.
And naturally, more money was spent *investigating* Whitewater than was actually *lost* by taxpayers in the whole shebang.
That's where the second TV special comes into play! The rescue mission!
Then again, that's what everyone said about Tobey McGuire as Spiderman.
According the rumors, the script does the whole origin story. Keanu might be a good fit for a Superman just starting out.
You could do it by starting with 100 bots. Sort by win/loss ratio. Take the top 50 bots and breed them with each other one in some fashion. That gives you 2500 bots.
Now we need to filter those down. That's where a pool of control bots come in. Require new offspring to beat them, possibly within a time limit
Level 1 - Opponent just sits there.
Level 2 - Opponent sits there and fires in different directions.
Level 3 - Opponent moves in a pattern while firing.
Level 4 - Opponent moves in a pattern and always fires in the direction of bot.
Level 5 - Opponent chases bot and fires regularly.
Anyone who can't beat these bots in one try is eliminated. That should get you down to a manageable pool. If you have more than 50, use the time taken to beat the control bots as a tiebreaker. If you have less than 50... well, nature isn't looking at your species too kindly.
Your new pool consists of the 50 "parents" + the 50 "children". In order to continue, the children have to best each other *and* their parents. Repeat as many times as possible.
Get a checksum from each bot and maybe someway to track parentage and see who's dominating. This should hopefully avoid compeltely stupid robots and robots that are really good at killing their stupid offspring but nothing else.
and only the guilty are concerned about little things like civil rights and due process.
You should ammend that with "Between two players of equal caliber, the winner will generally be the person with the most disposable income."
Magic is one third skill, one third deckbuilding and one third luck.
Thanks to the Internet, getting a good deck design isn't that difficult; it's simply getting the cards themselves that's difficult. That's where *money* comes in.
Don't kid yourselves that this isn't true, everyone. Even years ago, when I still played MtG, people were complaining about "TheDojo symdrome"; where people would check theDojo for killer decks and then build/buy them. I don't know how true this is for Magic now, but at the time, Magic was being dominated by combo decks that required very little skill or luck to pull off two or three turn kills.
Money is a *huge* factor and in the right tournament environment, it can be the only factor.
As for the people who say "Just play Draft or Sealed", I'm sorry, but not everyone can afford to drop $20+ to play a single tournament. Even if it doesn't affect the actual gameplay, money is a barrier to actually *playing*.
My entire group got tired of the upgrade treadmill and seeing their cards be relegated to infrequent extended tourneys. And this was at the University of Washington, just *blocks* from WotC's (now defunct) game center!
What did we play instead of Magic? Pinochle and Great Dalmuti. Don't laugh. With the right group of people, Pinochle can be an exciting, fast paced, fun-to-watch card game.
Is that failing as well? It seems to be me they went about it completely the wrong way.
Magic is a fun challenging game... if you can afford to spend at least $300-$600 a year on it or can bargain like a madman. People stop playing because they got tired of the upgrade treadmill and seeing their old cards more or less become useless.
So, for the on-line version, what do they do? They make an even worse version of that flaw! You have to pay full retail for virtual cards. I never paid that much even with the real ones. I would buy by the box at a substantial discount. That's how I stayed in it for so long. This just ensures people burn out sooner.
I think if they had merely charged $10/month for access to all the cards, they would've done insanely well. Over a year, it probably adds up to about the same as the booster approach for many people, but that whole year I would've been able to build any deck I wanted.
As it is, I'm staying the fuck away from it. It's a pity. I really liked the first computer version of Magic the Gathering.
As I recall, the Greeks not only knew the world was spherical but also had a very good idea of how big it was.
Sheesh. If you going to post spoilers for the 7th season, you might as well post ACCURATE ones.
It's the moment you've been waiting for! The outskirts of Neo-Toyko is attacked by Slashdot! Can Taco reactivate the Meta-Mod in time to save Neo-Toyko? Meanwhile, a stranger waits in the shadows!
Next time on SLASHDOT Z!
Remember, only TERRORISTS from TERRORIST NATIONS use open source software.
Therefore, Venezuela must be a TERRORIST NATION. Bush will be instituting a regime change there in favour of a more Microsoft friendly government any day now.
Has that argument been tried in other states, like California?
"Why should we send our money to *gasp* Redmond when we can get an equally capable system for substantially less?"
Of course, you could make the same argument about whatever city Red Hat is in. Maybe it's something only people outside the US can make.
Seven in 10 respondents agreed newspapers should publish freely, a slight drop from 2001. Those less likely to support newspaper rights included people without a college education, Republicans, and evangelicals, the survey found.
They needed a survey to find this out?
the Democrats where saying that a reducation in the projected rate of increase was a cut when it was not a cut.
There's this little thing called *inflation* you may have heard about. In real(inflation-adjusted) dollars, the GOP was cutting spending on Medicare.
Even Rep. John Kasich admitted it was "intellectually dishonest" to be portraying an increase in absolute dollars as an actual increase in the program's spending.
And finally, if "created" and "invented" mean the same thing, why do pundits and conservatives like yourself persist in saying "invented" instead of what Gore actually said?
Probably because you *know* they do *not* mean the same thing.
I'm sorry you don't want the United States to be the best at everything we do. But, don't worry, the rest of us will carry on where you are obviously so unwilling not.
This really doesn't sound any different. As always, someone will use CloneCD to burn a perfect copy of the CD. Or they'll create an image of it, which I'll download and run on Daemontools.
The only possible way I could see them thwarting a raw copy is if the CD's they're pressing at the factory have extra areas that can be read by existing drives but aren't on (current) CD-R(W)s. I don't know if that's possible though. It wouldn't matter how good a burner you have; you can't burn it if there isn't a spot to burn the critical bits of data.
Of course, they'll still be able to read the original and create an image which can be run in Daemontools. That's how I run all my software anyways. Create an image from the original CD and I never have to go hunting for it again.
When plamonic matter interacts with light inside a polariton-lined canister, it allows you to go back in time because you're going negative the speed of light.
Brilliant!
What the fuck is up with that? If you're so sick of the perceived lack of technology here, move to Korea or Japan, you fucking whiner.
Because I'm not a lazy slob like you who just accepts his crappy situation and won't do anything to change it.
I believe America can do better. I would hardly think it's that radical a notion but from the incoherent "love or leave it" arguments that jarheads like you constantly screech, I'm apparently wrong.
So I have to ask, why do you hate America so much? Why don't you want to make it a better country to live in? Why are you such a quitter?