You either didn't follow the link in the blurb, or you're referring to some of the existing systems - in which case I agree w/ you. The way they did it was a setup step, where you selected 8 likes and 8 dislikes. Then when you need to authenticate, it shuffles those 16 items, and you select whether you like or dislike each item - no spelling required.
> Why is a move from Google Video to You Tube such a big deal?
IMO the good news is that "Berkeley said it will continue to expand the offering." I agree that YouTube vs. Google Video is pretty pointless, but if UC Berkeley has decided that their general policy should be to make ALL, not just a few selected, of their course lectures freely & easily available online, then I definitely think it newsworthy. Of course, TFA doesn't say they're going that far, but "continue to expand" is good.
For actual learning purposes, I very much agree w/ you. The problem is though, training is as much or more (IMO MUCH more) for the gaining of credentials as for learning. I've been running Linux exclusively on all my personal boxen for several years now, and pretty much everything I've wanted to do I've been able to learn how to do. But I haven't had any "official" training, and I have no certification or credentials, so whenever I look at postings for jobs that really interest me, I feel like I'm under-certified. I might actually have a shot at acceptance to some of them, but between my feeling of being unqualified & my innate laziness, I haven't yet bothered to really go for any of them. Various things (mostly low pay & my current job being in MS Windows shop) are currently prompting me to reconsider doing some active job hunting, so I might put whether or not I'm qualified to the test.
On the other hand, part of me thinks I really should do some official training to get certifications before starting a serious job-hunt. I really ought to go back to school and get a bachelor's degree, but there's so much time & money required for it that I don't want to. There are of course simpler test-certifications, some of which I could pass w/out needing any additional training, but while they don't require as much time, I'm still too much of a cheapskate to be comfortable paying for them, especially as they aren't worth as much as a B.S.
This has gotten a bit longer than I intended, really all I intended was to agree that for learning, reading easily obtained free documentation is usually enough; but for useful employment-wise credentials, I get the feeling they're almost worthless.
The BBC and Scientific American have good quotes from Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the results. Others are already calling it "possibly habitable".
Patents in general are ridiculous. They hold back the advancement of humankind at the expense of ensuring financial security.
I wouldn't say they're ridiculous in general. There are good (IMO) reasons to have patents. The thing is, as I understand it, patents were originally intended specifically to promote "the advancement of humanckind." Say I invent the proverbial "better mousetrap" - I build my new invention, and now my house is 100% mouse-free. But without a patent system, I'm not interested or able in selling my better mousetrap to the general public: after all, my design is pretty simple, and the general public could easily build their own just by looking at one of mine. So there's little to no incentive for me to tell anyone how my better mousetrap works - in fact, if I did want to try to market it, there'd be incentive to obfuscate it. So I keep my better mousetrap secret, and eventually I die. Now, since no one else knows how to build my better mousetrap (or even that it ever existed), where's the benefit to humankind?
Now, if there is a patent system, then I can file a patent for my better mousetrap, and receive legal protection for the exclusive right to market it, for a limited time, and in exchange for disclosing the details of how my better mousetrap works to the general public. So now it's a win-win situation - I as the inventor get rewarded, and the general public gets the benefits of my invention.
There are, of course, many problems w/ our current patent system, and I would definitely like to see major reform; but I don't think patents are ridiculous.
From what I've read in Wikipedia, the "Mayan end-of-the-world in 2012" is a myth. The more likely year they would predict as the end of the world is 4772.
It's probably more the "and decreased responses in regions that govern self-control" that worries people. My question is were these measurements done while they were playing the game, or when they were going about their daily life? Somehow I wouldn't be surprised that "self-control" goes down while playing a game.
I used to consider RTS games to be among my top favorite genres, maybe even #1. But it's gotten to the point where they're ruled by the twitch gamers, just like FPS games (which have been among my least favorite genres). WC3 is the main RTS I play right now, and in normal games I really suck bad. So I tend to end up playing custom games, mostly Tower Defence maps.
The problem I have is that the RT is overruling the S - the Real Time nature of the game means that you don't have enough time to work on a long-term strategy, because you have to defend against immediate threats. But because multi-player is such an important feature to have in mass-market games, it's hard to do away with Real Time, because Turn Based Strategy games are more difficult to correctly implement multiplayer, not on a technical level, but on a "pleases most players" level - you don't want to allow one player to slow down the game for all the other players, but you don't want to rush anyone, either. Also, Turn Based Strategy seem to have this "obsolete/inferior" rap going against them compared with Real Time Strategy, which they really don't deserve.
I really liked how Majesty removed the twitch-gamer advantage, by removing the low-level control of individual units. I'd probably play Majesty more than WC3, except that WC3 is more popular with my friends.
Melvil Dewey, famous for inventing the Dewey Decimal Classification system for books, was a big proponent of spelling reform. He was somewhat successful, being responsible for many of the differences between "British" and "American" spelling, like catalogue vs. catalog. But what I find to be most amu^H^H^Hinteresting is that he actually legally changed his name from "Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey" to simply "Melvil Dui". So the Dewey Decimal system really should be the Dui Decimal system.
I disagree. There's been a number of other advances besides graphics in games, even in genres like racing or sports. I remember an old American football game where the only interaction the player had was selecting what play would be used each down. The player selected the play & then watched is it either succeeded or failed based on what play the opponent had selected, with some random variations thrown in. That's very different than the level of control a player of a current American football game has. Physics and AI are also on completely different levels now than they were 20 years ago.
Now, those are all aspects of the underlying game engine, which is somewhat seperate from the overall game design. Advances in the various aspects of game engines creates more possibilities for the game design, but fulfilling the increased potential does require innovation on the part of the game designer; and it's by no means guaranteed that the designer will do so. But regardless of whether they fully realize their potential, does not change the fact that the game engine, and hence the game as a whole, is different than games 20 years ago. Innovation or the lack thereof in game design is in many ways a seperate issue than changes in the game engine. As graphics is only one part of the game engine, I'd like to have seen a more in-depth article that included more comparisons of other aspects of game engines between 20 years ago and today, in addition to the side-by-side screenies in the article.
From TFA: "write this short article"... that little snippet is about 20% of the entire article text (yeah, bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point). At least he did call it short.
I was kinda hoping for an interesting in-depth article, rather than just a few side-by-side screenies. Graphics is probably the biggest, and definitely the most visible (pun intended) differance, but it's by no means the only change that's happened in games. The side-by-sides are kinda fun & interesting, but glancing at them really doesn't give any insight into much of anything. Sure, the graphics are better now. Does that make the games more fun? Well, yeah, all other things being equal, better graphics == better overall game, but is everything else really equal? I'd find an article making deep & broad comparisons between games today & 20 years ago very interesting to read. Little disappointed this wasn't that.
would it be OK for me to post a leter to everyone in my apartment block asking them to reply if they don't want me to break in to their home and take all their stuf. If they don't reply, I'm doing nothing illegal by breaking in and taking it all, right?
I can't believe how often people make that argument. That's a horrible analogy. Browsing, spidering, indexing, or caching a publicly accessable website is nothing like breaking and entering. It's more like picking up a flier off a stack under a sign saying "TAKE A FLYER". If you don't want people taking your flyers, don't stick them under a sign saying "TAKE A FLYER": if you don't want people accessing your website, don't make it publicly accessable on the internet.
There were two complaints Perfect 10 lodged; one against Google themselves caching the images, and the other against Google leading people to other pages that were using the images without permission. The "partial victory" was for Google themselves caching the images, TFA states "The judge said, however, that Perfect 10 was unlikely to succeed in proving that Google can be held liable for aiding copyright infringement by leading searchers to infringing sites." So, the judge thinks Google caching the images may constitute copyright infringment; I would disagree as IMO (IANAL) that Perfect 10 implicitly gave permission by making it public on the internet & not restricting in robots.txt. But the judge doesn't think that Google is liable for linking to other pages that infringe, and I'd agree w/ the judge on that.
That's not a good analogy. If you tell me, "Hey, come to a party at my house," and I come, and there's food on the table, and I eat some, and you say "I never said you could eat that!" it'd be closer. By inviting me to your party and having the food out on the table, you imply that it's OK for me to eat it. By making their content publicly available on the internet, Perfect 10 implies that it's OK for search engines to cache that content. If as I come in the door to your party, you tell me "Hey don't eat the food on the table," then I won't - and if as the Googlebot catalogues Perfect 10's website, it sees in robots.txt that it's not supposed to cache the images, then it won't.
I had a history professor who called the History Channel "All Hitler, all the time." I found it very funny when I happened to be watching it one night, when they were talking about the history of building roads... and of course talked about Hitler in conjunction w/ the German autobahnen.
That's what I get for posting before RTFA. He was refering to player characters continuing their lives while the player is offline, not NPCs living a life similar to a player characters. As it happens, the devs of VO have mentioned plans to eventually have actions players can set their characters to performing while they're offline, but that's a bit more of a long-term goal.
The MMO that I play is Vendetta Online, and it is currently in the process of some significant overhauling. The biggest focus right now is on rewriting the client, but the devs are also working on improving the AI of the NPCs, so that they'll live their lives much the same way the player characters live theirs. But rather than "this workout wouldn't actually happen in any way visible to players logged on", the actions of the NPCs in Vendetta Online are very much going to be visible to players. If there's a trade mission being offered, and a player doesn't take the mission before an NPC shows up where the misison is being offered, the NPC will take the mission. And when a trade mission is taken, either by a player or an NPC, a Pirate mission might be made available from a competitor, which can also be taken by either players or NPCs.
Slashdot Mirror
You either didn't follow the link in the blurb, or you're referring to some of the existing systems - in which case I agree w/ you. The way they did it was a setup step, where you selected 8 likes and 8 dislikes. Then when you need to authenticate, it shuffles those 16 items, and you select whether you like or dislike each item - no spelling required.
> Why is a move from Google Video to You Tube such a big deal?
IMO the good news is that "Berkeley said it will continue to expand the offering." I agree that YouTube vs. Google Video is pretty pointless, but if UC Berkeley has decided that their general policy should be to make ALL, not just a few selected, of their course lectures freely & easily available online, then I definitely think it newsworthy. Of course, TFA doesn't say they're going that far, but "continue to expand" is good.
> I don't know what safri does the FF can't.
Pass the Acid2 test?
For actual learning purposes, I very much agree w/ you. The problem is though, training is as much or more (IMO MUCH more) for the gaining of credentials as for learning. I've been running Linux exclusively on all my personal boxen for several years now, and pretty much everything I've wanted to do I've been able to learn how to do. But I haven't had any "official" training, and I have no certification or credentials, so whenever I look at postings for jobs that really interest me, I feel like I'm under-certified. I might actually have a shot at acceptance to some of them, but between my feeling of being unqualified & my innate laziness, I haven't yet bothered to really go for any of them. Various things (mostly low pay & my current job being in MS Windows shop) are currently prompting me to reconsider doing some active job hunting, so I might put whether or not I'm qualified to the test.
On the other hand, part of me thinks I really should do some official training to get certifications before starting a serious job-hunt. I really ought to go back to school and get a bachelor's degree, but there's so much time & money required for it that I don't want to. There are of course simpler test-certifications, some of which I could pass w/out needing any additional training, but while they don't require as much time, I'm still too much of a cheapskate to be comfortable paying for them, especially as they aren't worth as much as a B.S.
This has gotten a bit longer than I intended, really all I intended was to agree that for learning, reading easily obtained free documentation is usually enough; but for useful employment-wise credentials, I get the feeling they're almost worthless.
Excellent link, lots more interesting info. And at least some of the Board of Trustees are clear-headed: I really liked Trustee Stan Magee's quotes.
The BBC and Scientific American have good quotes from Stephane Udry of the Geneva Observatory, lead author of the scientific paper reporting the results. Others are already calling it "possibly habitable".
Very cool news!
Now, if there is a patent system, then I can file a patent for my better mousetrap, and receive legal protection for the exclusive right to market it, for a limited time, and in exchange for disclosing the details of how my better mousetrap works to the general public. So now it's a win-win situation - I as the inventor get rewarded, and the general public gets the benefits of my invention.
There are, of course, many problems w/ our current patent system, and I would definitely like to see major reform; but I don't think patents are ridiculous.
From what I've read in Wikipedia, the "Mayan end-of-the-world in 2012" is a myth. The more likely year they would predict as the end of the world is 4772.
It's probably more the "and decreased responses in regions that govern self-control" that worries people. My question is were these measurements done while they were playing the game, or when they were going about their daily life? Somehow I wouldn't be surprised that "self-control" goes down while playing a game.
It'd be awful nice if the word "new" was inserted between "entire" and "season"... but this is cool, too.
I used to consider RTS games to be among my top favorite genres, maybe even #1. But it's gotten to the point where they're ruled by the twitch gamers, just like FPS games (which have been among my least favorite genres). WC3 is the main RTS I play right now, and in normal games I really suck bad. So I tend to end up playing custom games, mostly Tower Defence maps.
The problem I have is that the RT is overruling the S - the Real Time nature of the game means that you don't have enough time to work on a long-term strategy, because you have to defend against immediate threats. But because multi-player is such an important feature to have in mass-market games, it's hard to do away with Real Time, because Turn Based Strategy games are more difficult to correctly implement multiplayer, not on a technical level, but on a "pleases most players" level - you don't want to allow one player to slow down the game for all the other players, but you don't want to rush anyone, either. Also, Turn Based Strategy seem to have this "obsolete/inferior" rap going against them compared with Real Time Strategy, which they really don't deserve.
I really liked how Majesty removed the twitch-gamer advantage, by removing the low-level control of individual units. I'd probably play Majesty more than WC3, except that WC3 is more popular with my friends.
If the center of gravity of the pair is outside the Earth, then it's not orbiting the Earth, any more than the Earth is orbiting it.
So that I can tell you if they're violent or not.
Melvil Dewey, famous for inventing the Dewey Decimal Classification system for books, was a big proponent of spelling reform. He was somewhat successful, being responsible for many of the differences between "British" and "American" spelling, like catalogue vs. catalog. But what I find to be most amu^H^H^Hinteresting is that he actually legally changed his name from "Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey" to simply "Melvil Dui". So the Dewey Decimal system really should be the Dui Decimal system.
I disagree. There's been a number of other advances besides graphics in games, even in genres like racing or sports. I remember an old American football game where the only interaction the player had was selecting what play would be used each down. The player selected the play & then watched is it either succeeded or failed based on what play the opponent had selected, with some random variations thrown in. That's very different than the level of control a player of a current American football game has. Physics and AI are also on completely different levels now than they were 20 years ago.
Now, those are all aspects of the underlying game engine, which is somewhat seperate from the overall game design. Advances in the various aspects of game engines creates more possibilities for the game design, but fulfilling the increased potential does require innovation on the part of the game designer; and it's by no means guaranteed that the designer will do so. But regardless of whether they fully realize their potential, does not change the fact that the game engine, and hence the game as a whole, is different than games 20 years ago. Innovation or the lack thereof in game design is in many ways a seperate issue than changes in the game engine. As graphics is only one part of the game engine, I'd like to have seen a more in-depth article that included more comparisons of other aspects of game engines between 20 years ago and today, in addition to the side-by-side screenies in the article.
From TFA: "write this short article"... that little snippet is about 20% of the entire article text (yeah, bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point). At least he did call it short.
I was kinda hoping for an interesting in-depth article, rather than just a few side-by-side screenies. Graphics is probably the biggest, and definitely the most visible (pun intended) differance, but it's by no means the only change that's happened in games. The side-by-sides are kinda fun & interesting, but glancing at them really doesn't give any insight into much of anything. Sure, the graphics are better now. Does that make the games more fun? Well, yeah, all other things being equal, better graphics == better overall game, but is everything else really equal? I'd find an article making deep & broad comparisons between games today & 20 years ago very interesting to read. Little disappointed this wasn't that.
There were two complaints Perfect 10 lodged; one against Google themselves caching the images, and the other against Google leading people to other pages that were using the images without permission. The "partial victory" was for Google themselves caching the images, TFA states "The judge said, however, that Perfect 10 was unlikely to succeed in proving that Google can be held liable for aiding copyright infringement by leading searchers to infringing sites." So, the judge thinks Google caching the images may constitute copyright infringment; I would disagree as IMO (IANAL) that Perfect 10 implicitly gave permission by making it public on the internet & not restricting in robots.txt. But the judge doesn't think that Google is liable for linking to other pages that infringe, and I'd agree w/ the judge on that.
That's not a good analogy. If you tell me, "Hey, come to a party at my house," and I come, and there's food on the table, and I eat some, and you say "I never said you could eat that!" it'd be closer. By inviting me to your party and having the food out on the table, you imply that it's OK for me to eat it. By making their content publicly available on the internet, Perfect 10 implies that it's OK for search engines to cache that content. If as I come in the door to your party, you tell me "Hey don't eat the food on the table," then I won't - and if as the Googlebot catalogues Perfect 10's website, it sees in robots.txt that it's not supposed to cache the images, then it won't.
I had a history professor who called the History Channel "All Hitler, all the time." I found it very funny when I happened to be watching it one night, when they were talking about the history of building roads... and of course talked about Hitler in conjunction w/ the German autobahnen.
That's what I get for posting before RTFA. He was refering to player characters continuing their lives while the player is offline, not NPCs living a life similar to a player characters. As it happens, the devs of VO have mentioned plans to eventually have actions players can set their characters to performing while they're offline, but that's a bit more of a long-term goal.
The MMO that I play is Vendetta Online, and it is currently in the process of some significant overhauling. The biggest focus right now is on rewriting the client, but the devs are also working on improving the AI of the NPCs, so that they'll live their lives much the same way the player characters live theirs. But rather than "this workout wouldn't actually happen in any way visible to players logged on", the actions of the NPCs in Vendetta Online are very much going to be visible to players. If there's a trade mission being offered, and a player doesn't take the mission before an NPC shows up where the misison is being offered, the NPC will take the mission. And when a trade mission is taken, either by a player or an NPC, a Pirate mission might be made available from a competitor, which can also be taken by either players or NPCs.
... or else they'll commit suicide.