Unlike a Library of Congress the quarter is an instantly relatable and contextual unit of measurement. Its a standard size that most everyone has access to. I'm sure there's specs available somewhere. If I'm reading this article in a newspaper on the bus, the odds are better that I have a quarter in my pocket than a ruler where I have to take it out and see what the number of millimeters really are. (What's 30? 60? Is that better than saying about the size of a quarter? Which one can you figure out first).
Of course, it is American centric, but the article is also in English from an American university published on an American website, so if they published specs along with the picture they could cover all their bases as well.
I don't think there's anything especially nerdy/geeky I can think of besides maybe DDR that you'd do for exercise. Really spirited cosplay? Find a gym that's open really early or late if you don't like other people around. Or just run/bike/walk outside by yourself with some music to drown out all the other meat-avatars. I like rock climbing at the indoor gym, which seems to have a geekier-than-average following. That does involve people of course, but why not exercise the social muscles at the same time?
I am a scientist on the team mentioned in the article and I just wanted to say that you, sir, have rocked my world! I just went down to the mall after reading your comment, and bought one of these "laser pointing" devices. And holy shit, you were totally right! There is absolutley nothing unique or different with the research I've spent 7 years of my life on. This cheap $10 plastic toy is exactly the same thing as an laser built into an IC without a lense or moving parts. EXACTLY the same. I mean, they're both totally like lasers right? Mind. Fucking. Blown. Anyways, the guy that sold me the device is keeping quiet in exchange for top billing on the article in Science, and a piece of the sweet sweet Nobel prize money.
Anyways, next up for me is taking the $10 plastic toy (because, after all, my research is completely useless as you've pointed out) and integrating it into a quantum computer. Refocusing the laser at quantum scales at the speed required to run a quantum computer can easily be achieved by swapping plastic tips on the end of the pointer (a process we've dubbed "rejiggering the doohickey" in science speak).
Thanks, and God Bless for pointing out the errors of my way. Guess I need to spend less time in the lab and more time in the mall!
A well designed game will offer BOTH. In GTA IV there were a lot of missions that you could do complete a lot easier if you went through a certain way, and you were often clued into it by the mission description (i.e. you sneak in the back door, trigger the cops, and slip out while the baddies are fighting the cops vs. fighting through and killing everyone, then evading the cops). Of course, not every mission was like that so it often lead to disapointment if you wanted to play them all like that.
I think its more the case that you've got a dedicated seeder with some base capability for sending out most of its content and that has a copy of all the content, and then uses the P2P system for load. If everyone is watching a popular program, the seeder doesn't have to do anything. When someone wants an obscure item, the seeder steps in and the connection drops to traditional client-server like YouTube or NetFlix. You can meet a huge demand this way as well as offer a wider selection because you don't need the giant expensive clusters you'd need to provide service to everyone at the same time.
Seriously, I think its facinating to see how many people have responded with "yes...but" answers to a really simple response to a fairly novice question. Yes, there's lots of ways to behind the scenes parallelize something, but that's really not the point. I was really just illustrating what the OP was seeing in as simple a way possible. I guess I should have just said
int main() {
int i;
while (true) i++; }
This is C. No CLR. This will only run on one core. There are lots of ways for other things to run in the background, other processes, etc. But what he was seeing was a single process that was not threaded using one core of his CPU. That's it.
It will hit 100% on one core and that's it. Its not multithreaded - one CPU will churn on it forever and the others will sit around waiting for a task from the OS. 2 course, 200,000 cores the results will be the same. These machines are made for tasks that are broken up into lots of smaller jobs and processed individually. Its not magic - more cores won't get a single threaded process done faster.
" and that's true for just about every experienced game composer who isn't named K. Kondo, N. Uematsu, H. Tanaka, or Y. Koshiro"
You're kidding yourself if you think any mainstream gamer knows those names or if that will affect thier purchase decision. More likely it will say "from the guy who created the soundtrack to Saving Private Ryan". There's actually a good deal of crossover between movie scores and game scores for big budget productions - there's really no difference anymore - no one is a "game composer" so much as a "composer". You used to have to have 8bit composers or MIDI masters, but now you can record a 200 piece orchestra and slap it in the game the same as any other piece of entertainment. I think the real "art" to music in games these days is how tightly you integrate it with the game play. Dynamic scoring, that's probably a talent you could sell to a game company.
There are plenty of games with original scores for blockbuster games - look at the Halo series or things like Medal of Honor. A lot of time those licensing costs for pop songs are way more expensive than hiring a composer and an orchestra for few days (although EA has its own music label), so I don't think its a cost-cutting measure. (And hell, if you want an electronic soundtrack, you could probably hire an in house composer for salary and have them just crank out tunes for a bunch of games at once). I think it has to do with style more than anything - even in real life football and basketball often have pop tunes associated with them. And you probably want songs that mesh with your audience if you're doing a skate or snowboarding game. (And of course, the GTA series is that much cooler because of the range of music they have on the radio).
Put it this way: transexuals have a lot easier time online. I can do anyone and be anyone with relative convincingness online. I could feed you garbage for a year, having you thinking I'm a woman from Kalamazoo, who's rich, drives a porche, etc. Putting on an act for any extended period of time is HARD. Just as chat is harder than say email to keep up a pretense, doing it in person is that much more difficult.
"sometimes even faster online, as there is more interaction in online world due to the ease of use."
I agree with you in spirit but for the most part today's _current_ online interactions are fairly limited in scope when compared to real life contact. Think about if someone is trying to hide their intentions from you - in the real world they have to be a pretty good actor, as their voice and body language have to be in tune to what we gauge as "sincere". In the online world, they need only type out what they want and add the correct emoticon. Maybe disguise their voice if its VoIP enabled, but that only goes so far. As humans we've evolved a complex set of subconscious cues that we pick up on when dealing with someone in close proximity. Those are for the most part missing in the online world. Yes, its all communications over sets of sensory inputs, but the bandwidth offered by physical co-location is way way higher than someone remote.
Of course, that's not to say it will always be like that. I think eventually things will be as you say, where telepresence is about the same as presence, and you can head down to the pub with your friends from overseas as easily and comfortably as you can with your friends next door. (And hey, given wearable computers and augmented reality, probably both at the same time!) But we're definitely not there yet.
I'm pretty sure on-the-fly terrorism isn't a big concern. And generally you know where large amounts of people are going to be anyways - parades, baseball games, etc. This stuff doesn't replace advertizing for events - you need people to get other people to see your event happening. Its more like "who won the 'make my place the most popular place tonight' context" or "where are my circle of friends at". The real danger here that I can see is somehow being able to tie your identity back to a stalker or not being able to lock out certain people from seeing where you are. In the US at least I'd be far more worried about a jealous ex than a terrorist hell bent on blowing up the newest night club in town.
You know, it would be really great if/. armchair scientists were really in an armchair watching science reports like it was a football game. Then you could see how ridiculous you're being:
Announcer: Dr. Hausinsphincter steps back, takes the chip, and inserts it into the eye of the patient.
Announcer #2: That's an equivalent 60 pixel chip I believe he's trying there Bob./. Know It All: 60 pixels! Awww what? Come on Hausinsphincter grow a pair! That's fucking rediculous! Get some of those stem cell's in on that shit and grow those connections!
Announcer: And now the patient is trying out the chip. Looks like he can see large objects, but no reading for him yet Carl.
Announcer #2: That's right Bob. Maybe in a few years./. Know It All: Well thank you VERY MUCH Hausinsphincter! That's $300 I didn't need. Dammit...wonder what's on the Linux Kernel Update channel....
Not to mention that the game is rated M in the US - which means that the only people who Take2 was (legally) selling the game to that couldn't legally watch porn were 17 year olds. The same 17 year olds who can see full frontal nudity and way racier sex scenes in an R rated movie, or even on M rated TV (anyone watched Nip/Tuck lately?)
Given that you've talked on the phone less than a minute a day for the past 9 years, I'd say you're probably better off just working out a schedule with the pizza guy instead of always just phoning him up and saying "the usual". Though it might be useful to have one around for 911 in case your hermit beard gets caught in the blender or something.
So around New York which state agency would regulate? New York? Pennsylvania? New Jersey? Would they have to have agreements? What if it broke down? Hell, even CT and DE could get in on some of that action if the transceivers were big enough! What about satellite bands? Do I now need to clear my signal with 50 different regulatory agencies?
Slashdot Mirror
Unlike a Library of Congress the quarter is an instantly relatable and contextual unit of measurement. Its a standard size that most everyone has access to. I'm sure there's specs available somewhere. If I'm reading this article in a newspaper on the bus, the odds are better that I have a quarter in my pocket than a ruler where I have to take it out and see what the number of millimeters really are. (What's 30? 60? Is that better than saying about the size of a quarter? Which one can you figure out first).
Of course, it is American centric, but the article is also in English from an American university published on an American website, so if they published specs along with the picture they could cover all their bases as well.
I don't think there's anything especially nerdy/geeky I can think of besides maybe DDR that you'd do for exercise. Really spirited cosplay? Find a gym that's open really early or late if you don't like other people around. Or just run/bike/walk outside by yourself with some music to drown out all the other meat-avatars. I like rock climbing at the indoor gym, which seems to have a geekier-than-average following. That does involve people of course, but why not exercise the social muscles at the same time?
Dear PPH,
I am a scientist on the team mentioned in the article and I just wanted to say that you, sir, have rocked my world! I just went down to the mall after reading your comment, and bought one of these "laser pointing" devices. And holy shit, you were totally right! There is absolutley nothing unique or different with the research I've spent 7 years of my life on. This cheap $10 plastic toy is exactly the same thing as an laser built into an IC without a lense or moving parts. EXACTLY the same. I mean, they're both totally like lasers right? Mind. Fucking. Blown. Anyways, the guy that sold me the device is keeping quiet in exchange for top billing on the article in Science, and a piece of the sweet sweet Nobel prize money.
Anyways, next up for me is taking the $10 plastic toy (because, after all, my research is completely useless as you've pointed out) and integrating it into a quantum computer. Refocusing the laser at quantum scales at the speed required to run a quantum computer can easily be achieved by swapping plastic tips on the end of the pointer (a process we've dubbed "rejiggering the doohickey" in science speak).
Thanks, and God Bless for pointing out the errors of my way. Guess I need to spend less time in the lab and more time in the mall!
Sincerely yours,
Prof. T. Barnum Humperdink III
A well designed game will offer BOTH. In GTA IV there were a lot of missions that you could do complete a lot easier if you went through a certain way, and you were often clued into it by the mission description (i.e. you sneak in the back door, trigger the cops, and slip out while the baddies are fighting the cops vs. fighting through and killing everyone, then evading the cops). Of course, not every mission was like that so it often lead to disapointment if you wanted to play them all like that.
"More than". Better invest in some reading spectacles, gramps!
Happy Birthday Paulie!
Not to mention it stars that one gay cowboy as the makeup guy, and the other gay cowboy as the love interest...IN DRAG!
FYI they announce the Lucas Arts partnership with Bioware well before EA bought Bioware.
And you're a captain in the obvious army!
I think its more the case that you've got a dedicated seeder with some base capability for sending out most of its content and that has a copy of all the content, and then uses the P2P system for load. If everyone is watching a popular program, the seeder doesn't have to do anything. When someone wants an obscure item, the seeder steps in and the connection drops to traditional client-server like YouTube or NetFlix. You can meet a huge demand this way as well as offer a wider selection because you don't need the giant expensive clusters you'd need to provide service to everyone at the same time.
p.s.
Seriously. :)
Seriously, I think its facinating to see how many people have responded with "yes...but" answers to a really simple response to a fairly novice question. Yes, there's lots of ways to behind the scenes parallelize something, but that's really not the point. I was really just illustrating what the OP was seeing in as simple a way possible. I guess I should have just said
int main()
{
int i;
while (true) i++;
}
This is C. No CLR. This will only run on one core. There are lots of ways for other things to run in the background, other processes, etc. But what he was seeing was a single process that was not threaded using one core of his CPU. That's it.
If your process looks like this:
int main()
{
while (something)
{
doSometing();
}
}
It will hit 100% on one core and that's it. Its not multithreaded - one CPU will churn on it forever and the others will sit around waiting for a task from the OS. 2 course, 200,000 cores the results will be the same. These machines are made for tasks that are broken up into lots of smaller jobs and processed individually. Its not magic - more cores won't get a single threaded process done faster.
Seriously.
A 360 would shred that system. The PS3 would go even further. But I do agree with you, Civ belongs on a PC!
Hey, don't be rude, he gave you fat hairy dudes dressed as video game chicks instead!
" and that's true for just about every experienced game composer who isn't named K. Kondo, N. Uematsu, H. Tanaka, or Y. Koshiro"
You're kidding yourself if you think any mainstream gamer knows those names or if that will affect thier purchase decision. More likely it will say "from the guy who created the soundtrack to Saving Private Ryan". There's actually a good deal of crossover between movie scores and game scores for big budget productions - there's really no difference anymore - no one is a "game composer" so much as a "composer". You used to have to have 8bit composers or MIDI masters, but now you can record a 200 piece orchestra and slap it in the game the same as any other piece of entertainment. I think the real "art" to music in games these days is how tightly you integrate it with the game play. Dynamic scoring, that's probably a talent you could sell to a game company.
There are plenty of games with original scores for blockbuster games - look at the Halo series or things like Medal of Honor. A lot of time those licensing costs for pop songs are way more expensive than hiring a composer and an orchestra for few days (although EA has its own music label), so I don't think its a cost-cutting measure. (And hell, if you want an electronic soundtrack, you could probably hire an in house composer for salary and have them just crank out tunes for a bunch of games at once). I think it has to do with style more than anything - even in real life football and basketball often have pop tunes associated with them. And you probably want songs that mesh with your audience if you're doing a skate or snowboarding game. (And of course, the GTA series is that much cooler because of the range of music they have on the radio).
Put it this way: transexuals have a lot easier time online. I can do anyone and be anyone with relative convincingness online. I could feed you garbage for a year, having you thinking I'm a woman from Kalamazoo, who's rich, drives a porche, etc. Putting on an act for any extended period of time is HARD. Just as chat is harder than say email to keep up a pretense, doing it in person is that much more difficult.
"sometimes even faster online, as there is more interaction in online world due to the ease of use."
I agree with you in spirit but for the most part today's _current_ online interactions are fairly limited in scope when compared to real life contact. Think about if someone is trying to hide their intentions from you - in the real world they have to be a pretty good actor, as their voice and body language have to be in tune to what we gauge as "sincere". In the online world, they need only type out what they want and add the correct emoticon. Maybe disguise their voice if its VoIP enabled, but that only goes so far. As humans we've evolved a complex set of subconscious cues that we pick up on when dealing with someone in close proximity. Those are for the most part missing in the online world. Yes, its all communications over sets of sensory inputs, but the bandwidth offered by physical co-location is way way higher than someone remote.
Of course, that's not to say it will always be like that. I think eventually things will be as you say, where telepresence is about the same as presence, and you can head down to the pub with your friends from overseas as easily and comfortably as you can with your friends next door. (And hey, given wearable computers and augmented reality, probably both at the same time!) But we're definitely not there yet.
I'm pretty sure on-the-fly terrorism isn't a big concern. And generally you know where large amounts of people are going to be anyways - parades, baseball games, etc. This stuff doesn't replace advertizing for events - you need people to get other people to see your event happening. Its more like "who won the 'make my place the most popular place tonight' context" or "where are my circle of friends at". The real danger here that I can see is somehow being able to tie your identity back to a stalker or not being able to lock out certain people from seeing where you are. In the US at least I'd be far more worried about a jealous ex than a terrorist hell bent on blowing up the newest night club in town.
Words to live by - Macguyver would have had this stuff done faster than you could have typed out the submission.
You know, it would be really great if /. armchair scientists were really in an armchair watching science reports like it was a football game. Then you could see how ridiculous you're being:
Announcer: Dr. Hausinsphincter steps back, takes the chip, and inserts it into the eye of the patient.
Announcer #2: That's an equivalent 60 pixel chip I believe he's trying there Bob. /. Know It All: 60 pixels! Awww what? Come on Hausinsphincter grow a pair! That's fucking rediculous! Get some of those stem cell's in on that shit and grow those connections!
Announcer: And now the patient is trying out the chip. Looks like he can see large objects, but no reading for him yet Carl.
Announcer #2: That's right Bob. Maybe in a few years. /. Know It All: Well thank you VERY MUCH Hausinsphincter! That's $300 I didn't need. Dammit...wonder what's on the Linux Kernel Update channel....
Not to mention that the game is rated M in the US - which means that the only people who Take2 was (legally) selling the game to that couldn't legally watch porn were 17 year olds. The same 17 year olds who can see full frontal nudity and way racier sex scenes in an R rated movie, or even on M rated TV (anyone watched Nip/Tuck lately?)
Given that you've talked on the phone less than a minute a day for the past 9 years, I'd say you're probably better off just working out a schedule with the pizza guy instead of always just phoning him up and saying "the usual". Though it might be useful to have one around for 911 in case your hermit beard gets caught in the blender or something.
So around New York which state agency would regulate? New York? Pennsylvania? New Jersey? Would they have to have agreements? What if it broke down? Hell, even CT and DE could get in on some of that action if the transceivers were big enough! What about satellite bands? Do I now need to clear my signal with 50 different regulatory agencies?