ILM (I think..) actually developed a camera rig system using something like that, for realtime combining of virtual spaces with what the camera is shooting. They used it on "A.I.", with random dots/barcodes/targets above the camera rig, passing by the actors (on a green screen).. another camera composited in the virtual world around the actors, and used the markers on the ceiling as a guide to where they were in the virtual space.
I've found most "in-store" repair places to actually be more incompetant than "amateurs" who come to your house. The in-store people have little/no training, and usually just take stabs at what might be wrong. I remember waiting in a mom&pop store the other day to purchase something, and listening to the repair tech. telling the customer what was wrong with their PC.. "yeah, you had spyware, so we installed Spyware Xterminator, it's a $40 product, so that's on your bill. I don't know why your CD drive was no longer recognized by the system, so we just installed a new one. That'll be $200." Sheesh.
I have no problem charging $50/hr for on-site computer repair services. They're paying me for my knowledge, my presence (coming onto the site), my travel (driving 20+ miles usually) and my experience (10+ years.) If they have a problem with that, I'm sure they can find some underqualified 15 year old to deal with their problem, only to make it much worse.
90% of the people I've done computer repair work for have no problem with $50/hr, and only a few times have I heard comments on my charges. One old couple said that $50 is almost how much they paid for their machine. Another couple told me they wouldn't have had me work on their computer, had they known it would take three hours (I had even told them before hand it would probably be at least an hour or two to fix their problem..)
It's also funny to have them get nervous when you show them the legal forms to sign, clearing you of any wrong doing should something happen. I'm not liable for your data loss, your cat dying, your house burning down, etc..
Microsoft's AntiSpyware makes those registry messages "nicer", and filters out the less-infected ones.
As a standard practice, I'll install AVG, Spybot and FireFox on someone's machine, and teach them how they all work, and what they do. 70% of the time the users write down what I'm saying, and actually seem interested. The other 30% of the time, they don't really care, and just want their computer working.
Alas, that attitude is what got them there in the first place..
Re:The Real Problem
on
Girls Got Game
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
This is more of a "social" problem, than just a gaming problem, and it seems to be exaggerated by the internet. The internet provides a shield of anonymity, making it easier to get away with this sort of thing.
Better in the sense of gameplay/graphics/sound. Of course it had it's issues, but at least it was more of a continuation of the "Tribes" gameplay than Tribes 3 was.
I had an interesting idea the other day regarding this; what about "user-moderated" signings; the browser/JRE/active-x could query a server, with something like "applet GUID xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx, what's the current status?", and the server would return a hard (good/bad) or soft (percentages) ranking. Users could report if a given applet is bad, and leave comments. Those reports would also be moderated, of course, to prevent people from writing false reports.
The downside, of course, is that there would have to be some sort of master server for storing/relaying this information... and that'd be quite a task.
The whole "signed"/"unsigned" model is semi-broken, at least to the non-geeky. They have no idea what that means. I also think the dialogs should be severely re-designed and re-worded..
like bullets - these are "instant shot", so the developer just says "if there's a straight line between the direction the Player A is facing, and if that line would intersect Player B, then it's a hit. If not, then miss.
Just a side note, but this is something that really bothers me about most FPS's-- even Doom3/Half-Life2 gets this wrong in my opinion. Bullets/projectiles should be treated as such, and not done in a "if the front of the gun can draw a straight line to the person, it's a hit" manner.
Maybe it's a restriction of processing power; I certaintly don't know.
More seriously, it does seem that the video game industry has been moving more and more towards complete world simulations rather than "games with rules".
I'd say the rule of gravity, and the laws of physics are pretty important to conveying a realistic gaming experience, especially in the sense of a first person shooter. Even "in space" there are physics at play.:)
They are not within their rights unless they have a reasonable suspicion that I have stolen something.
One could argue that your failure to show your receipt/bag to be pretty suspicious.
they're going to have to stop me physically, and then I'll just file charges for assault on the spot
I don't think you understand what "assault" means, perhaps you should look up your local/state laws regarding the subject.
Also, placing someone under citizen's arrest usually involves calling the police, having them come out and take your statement, and a course of action being decided upon. If you fraudulantly place someone under "citizen's arrest", or make an accusation of felony against them that turns out to be false, you yourself can be arrested. You cannot just go "I'm placing you under citizen's arrest!" and that's that.
The point I'm trying to make here is that you're not some bigshot who has found a loophole in the system.
Also, if you're so unhappy with how these businesses check your receipt at the door, then why not shop elsewhere? It will certainly cause less comments on SlashDot bitching about it.
More than likely the minimum-wage paid, non-security guard employees at Frys do not want to bother calling the police, but if they did, they would be within their rights to do so, for you not wanting to display your receipt and purchased goods.
Let's say you refuse to show your receipt/bag/whatever, and someone actually stops you, detains you and calls the police. You scream false imprisonment, yadda yadda. The police show up. More than likely they're going to listen to both sides of the story, and ask you why you're making such a big deal out of showing your receipt to the employee at the exit. "Because it wastes my time" isn't really a valid excuse. More than likely the police officers will have a good laugh at your expense, and then go on to more important calls.
If you tried to push the whole "I was falsely imprisoned" angle-- do you know what's involved (money/time/travel-wise) in filing those sort of charges? Something tells me if you do, you'd know it's not worth it.. so essentially you're making a hollow threat.
I'd like to call baloney on your story.. but who knows.
I've had to call for activation twice, with regards to Windows XP, and once for Office 2003. Both programs had an automated phone system, where I spoke the key, and it read the activation key back to me. On the second Windows XP call, it said it couldn't understand me, so it put me through to an operator. They never asked me why I was reinstalling Windows, or anything like that. Just asked for my key, and then gave me the activation key.
All said it done, it was 10 minutes of my time. Big whoop.
Let's break down the real facts, because it seems like SlashDot likes spreading da FUD..
If you purchase a computer pre-installed with Windows XP from a major vendor (re: Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. etc.), Windows XP will come already activated. Your Windows XP key is in the BIOS (as it already is in most Dell PCs), letting you reinstall Windows XP without activation over and over again as many times as you want.
When I bought a new Dell a few months back, I had to go online to activate the copy; with this new rule, I won't have to anymore. It'll already be activated.
2) How is a CRT capable of producing 1080 lines of resolution exactly? Or, in the case of these 4:3 Sonys, more vertical resolution than 1080 lines? Do you know how expensive a television that big with true 1080 lines of scan resolution would be?
3) There's a difference in saying a television is capable of receiving an HD signal, and that the television can accurately display said HD signal in it's full resolution. These 4:3 Sony CRT TVs cannot reproduce 1080i in full resolution, no matter what you yourself may feel about the matter.
Slashdot Mirror
I was discussing the information bar; not pop-up blocking functionality-- next time, try not to "Jump to Conclusions(tm)"
I'm talking about the information bar-- directly copied/borrowed from Internet Explorer's SP2 changes; what are you talking about?
See Tony Schreiner's blog for more information.
You can also find more information about the information bar and it's development at Tony Schreiner's blog.
Internet Explorer did; FireFox "borrowed" the concept.
ILM (I think..) actually developed a camera rig system using something like that, for realtime combining of virtual spaces with what the camera is shooting. They used it on "A.I.", with random dots/barcodes/targets above the camera rig, passing by the actors (on a green screen).. another camera composited in the virtual world around the actors, and used the markers on the ceiling as a guide to where they were in the virtual space.
I've found most "in-store" repair places to actually be more incompetant than "amateurs" who come to your house. The in-store people have little/no training, and usually just take stabs at what might be wrong. I remember waiting in a mom&pop store the other day to purchase something, and listening to the repair tech. telling the customer what was wrong with their PC.. "yeah, you had spyware, so we installed Spyware Xterminator, it's a $40 product, so that's on your bill. I don't know why your CD drive was no longer recognized by the system, so we just installed a new one. That'll be $200." Sheesh.
I have no problem charging $50/hr for on-site computer repair services. They're paying me for my knowledge, my presence (coming onto the site), my travel (driving 20+ miles usually) and my experience (10+ years.) If they have a problem with that, I'm sure they can find some underqualified 15 year old to deal with their problem, only to make it much worse.
90% of the people I've done computer repair work for have no problem with $50/hr, and only a few times have I heard comments on my charges. One old couple said that $50 is almost how much they paid for their machine. Another couple told me they wouldn't have had me work on their computer, had they known it would take three hours (I had even told them before hand it would probably be at least an hour or two to fix their problem..)
It's also funny to have them get nervous when you show them the legal forms to sign, clearing you of any wrong doing should something happen. I'm not liable for your data loss, your cat dying, your house burning down, etc..
Microsoft's AntiSpyware makes those registry messages "nicer", and filters out the less-infected ones.
As a standard practice, I'll install AVG, Spybot and FireFox on someone's machine, and teach them how they all work, and what they do. 70% of the time the users write down what I'm saying, and actually seem interested. The other 30% of the time, they don't really care, and just want their computer working.
Alas, that attitude is what got them there in the first place..
This is more of a "social" problem, than just a gaming problem, and it seems to be exaggerated by the internet. The internet provides a shield of anonymity, making it easier to get away with this sort of thing.
Better in the sense of gameplay/graphics/sound. Of course it had it's issues, but at least it was more of a continuation of the "Tribes" gameplay than Tribes 3 was.
Let's face it.. Tribes 1 was awesome. Tribes 2, better but kind of "eh". Tribes 3.. terrible.
You make a crappy game, no one's going to buy it, and no one's going to care when support is pulled.
Just my two cents..
I had an interesting idea the other day regarding this; what about "user-moderated" signings; the browser/JRE/active-x could query a server, with something like "applet GUID xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx, what's the current status?", and the server would return a hard (good/bad) or soft (percentages) ranking. Users could report if a given applet is bad, and leave comments. Those reports would also be moderated, of course, to prevent people from writing false reports.
The downside, of course, is that there would have to be some sort of master server for storing/relaying this information... and that'd be quite a task.
The whole "signed"/"unsigned" model is semi-broken, at least to the non-geeky. They have no idea what that means. I also think the dialogs should be severely re-designed and re-worded..
like bullets - these are "instant shot", so the developer just says "if there's a straight line between the direction the Player A is facing, and if that line would intersect Player B, then it's a hit. If not, then miss.
Just a side note, but this is something that really bothers me about most FPS's-- even Doom3/Half-Life2 gets this wrong in my opinion. Bullets/projectiles should be treated as such, and not done in a "if the front of the gun can draw a straight line to the person, it's a hit" manner.
Maybe it's a restriction of processing power; I certaintly don't know.
More seriously, it does seem that the video game industry has been moving more and more towards complete world simulations rather than "games with rules".
:)
I'd say the rule of gravity, and the laws of physics are pretty important to conveying a realistic gaming experience, especially in the sense of a first person shooter. Even "in space" there are physics at play.
Sorry, but even a "high end" PC is gonna struggle with decoding a 1080p/i HD/MPEG2 stream. WMV-HD and MPEG4-HD are exceptions to the rule.
My two computers at home (a P4-3.2GHz and Athlon 2GHz) cannot smoothly play back a 1080i MPEG2 HD transport signal. I get about 1 FPS, sometimes less.
Tried with both Windows Media Player and VideoLAN Client.
They are not within their rights unless they have a reasonable suspicion that I have stolen something.
One could argue that your failure to show your receipt/bag to be pretty suspicious.
they're going to have to stop me physically, and then I'll just file charges for assault on the spot
I don't think you understand what "assault" means, perhaps you should look up your local/state laws regarding the subject.
Also, placing someone under citizen's arrest usually involves calling the police, having them come out and take your statement, and a course of action being decided upon. If you fraudulantly place someone under "citizen's arrest", or make an accusation of felony against them that turns out to be false, you yourself can be arrested. You cannot just go "I'm placing you under citizen's arrest!" and that's that.
The point I'm trying to make here is that you're not some bigshot who has found a loophole in the system.
Also, if you're so unhappy with how these businesses check your receipt at the door, then why not shop elsewhere? It will certainly cause less comments on SlashDot bitching about it.
More than likely the minimum-wage paid, non-security guard employees at Frys do not want to bother calling the police, but if they did, they would be within their rights to do so, for you not wanting to display your receipt and purchased goods.
Let's say you refuse to show your receipt/bag/whatever, and someone actually stops you, detains you and calls the police. You scream false imprisonment, yadda yadda. The police show up. More than likely they're going to listen to both sides of the story, and ask you why you're making such a big deal out of showing your receipt to the employee at the exit. "Because it wastes my time" isn't really a valid excuse. More than likely the police officers will have a good laugh at your expense, and then go on to more important calls.
If you tried to push the whole "I was falsely imprisoned" angle-- do you know what's involved (money/time/travel-wise) in filing those sort of charges? Something tells me if you do, you'd know it's not worth it.. so essentially you're making a hollow threat.
Those people can't stop you. Just blow right by them.
Have fun with that!
No, seriously. Have lots of fun. Then call Mr. Jones bail bonds when you're in jail being Bubba's playmate.
By the way, a store's location _is_ private property, not a private "club". Where did you get that terminology?
I'd like to call baloney on your story.. but who knows.
I've had to call for activation twice, with regards to Windows XP, and once for Office 2003. Both programs had an automated phone system, where I spoke the key, and it read the activation key back to me. On the second Windows XP call, it said it couldn't understand me, so it put me through to an operator. They never asked me why I was reinstalling Windows, or anything like that. Just asked for my key, and then gave me the activation key.
All said it done, it was 10 minutes of my time. Big whoop.
I forgot to also point to Ed Bott's latest entry on Windows Product Activation, with more detail than ever..
Let's break down the real facts, because it seems like SlashDot likes spreading da FUD..
If you purchase a computer pre-installed with Windows XP from a major vendor (re: Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. etc.), Windows XP will come already activated. Your Windows XP key is in the BIOS (as it already is in most Dell PCs), letting you reinstall Windows XP without activation over and over again as many times as you want.
When I bought a new Dell a few months back, I had to go online to activate the copy; with this new rule, I won't have to anymore. It'll already be activated.
Check out Ed Bott's blog entry regarding this. You can also read an article at Dell's site detailing the difference in "OEM" and "SLP" editions of Windows XP/2003.
Get the facts, people, before you start yelling that the sky is falling.
There's a difference in a 20" CRT and a 32"/36" CRT, which the Sony "HD" televisions are.
Do you know how expensive those larger televisions would be if they could truly reproduce 1080 individual scanlines?
I meant to say on 2:
"How is a 30+ inch TV/CRT capable of producing 1080 lines of resolution, in that exact amount?"
How about:
1) You're posting anonymous.
2) How is a CRT capable of producing 1080 lines of resolution exactly? Or, in the case of these 4:3 Sonys, more vertical resolution than 1080 lines? Do you know how expensive a television that big with true 1080 lines of scan resolution would be?
3) There's a difference in saying a television is capable of receiving an HD signal, and that the television can accurately display said HD signal in it's full resolution. These 4:3 Sony CRT TVs cannot reproduce 1080i in full resolution, no matter what you yourself may feel about the matter.
What's the point of watching letterboxed HD content?
Using your logic, these Sony CRTs are putting out an even _higher_ resolution than 1080i? I fail to believe that..
Also, see the reply above mine, regarding silliness with measuring a CRT's "pixels".