This is obviously a toy plain and simple, but you can't help wonder what kind of super maneveurable robot they could have created had they ploughed their efforts into something less pointless.
Well, maybe they are still working on it. A reasonably mobile bipedal robot that can get up by itself would be a nice advance towards a bipedal robot that can navigate more difficult terrain, such as stairs.
Once they get to that point, making robots bipedal will make sense... since these robots will then be able to go where we go. Heh, I always wondered how R2D2 managed to travel more than 3 meters over the sands of Tatooine... but C3PO just walked across.
if you were an artist you'd know we don't get paid shit for any of the work we care about. most of it goes un-noticed until after we die, and that's only if we were truly ahead of our time and actually a master.
...
at least engineers can pay the bills. that's ultimately what it comes down to...
Respect and regard for your profession in general is not the same as public recognition for your work in particular. Nor does it directly translate to a fat paycheck.
Why do all these programmers want to be considered artists anyway?
Because programmers are just like normal human beings, in the sense that most of them have that subconscious yearning for the approval and respect of their fellow man.
Now look at the amount of respect society at large bestows on artists and programmers / engineers. Artists are generally well-regarded... even the people who think that most artists are lazy and weird, can muster some respect for them. Contrast that with the amount of appreciation programmers garner these days. Most non-techs have little respect for programmers, or geeky activities in general.
A perfectly calculated arching cantilever is beautiful, a painting of a waterfall is just an inferior copy.
Yet very few 'regular' people will notice the beauty in beautiful bridges... but will fork over good money for that painting of a waterfall. Unsurprisingly... to appreciate the beauty of most engineering works, you have to have at least some working knowledge of the underlying principles. But if you know nothing about painting, proportion, shading and composition, you are still able to be moved emotionally by a piece of art. And that is what art is about.
To me, a piece of art should in some way speak to the beholder on an emotional level. By that definition, hacking is not an artform - at least not in my eyes.
By that definition, hacking is not an artform, but a/. article about hacking is! Judging by the often emotional replies such an article receives...;-)
YMMV off course, but I would define it rather more as a skill or a knack than as an (artistic) ability.
I agree that hacking isn't art, but I do think that it requires something you might call an 'artistic ability'. Hacking, creating programs and creating art all require a similar mindset, and perhaps similar mental processes. Hacking and art both require a creative mind, but that does not make hacking itself an art.
Everyone else out there would rather watch paint dry
This is actually one of the strong points of the Internet! It is hard to find a working economic model for publishing or discussing matters that do not interest a very large audience, using traditional media such as newspapers or television. On the Internet however, that is radically different. Everyone can be a publisher, and there are places where the weirdest sort of things can be discussed.
The fact that a particular webboard or newsgroup on, say, migration patterns of the Canadian yellowtail finch, is of no interest whatsoever to all but a few Internet users, is not a failure of the Internet... the fact that the 2 or 3 people (probably from different countries) who are interested in this subject have a place to discuss it, makes it a success! I think that counting the number of people interested in a particular bit of Web content, makes an exceedingly poor measure of its quality. The Internet is an incredible rich source of information. Despite the fact that almost no one cares one bit about the yellowtail finch, there will be some information on it somewhere, should you ever need it. In that case... judge the quality of the information on its accuracy, not on the number of people it appeals to.
But I think if it really is that, it can only be because high fantasy of this sort just isn't specifically geek anymore at all.
It never was, and certainly not the 'Lord of the Rings' books. Even though fantasy has always been snubbed by the literary crowd, works such as LOTR have made it into mainstream reader circles ages ago.
Fantasy and SF aren't the domain of geeks, it's the other way around: many geeks read nothnig but SF and Fantasy.
explaining your stack of batteries when it shows up on the x-ray at an airport.;)
They seem to be able to tell batteries and bombs apart on the X-ray (at least I hope so). I had no trouble with security when I took a dive-light through... basically a flashlight encased in a big, heavy, watertight aluminum casing... the thing looks exactly like a pipe bomb. They asked me to open it up and show the innards, which I couldn't, since it's all sealed tight. They asked me to turn it on, and again I couln't comply: you're supposed to remove the bulb from these things when moving them.
Not responsible if your n00b ass gets owned because in-game conditions are subject to change without notice. Oh, and you have to pay money to us for the right to play with these bits that are actually ours."
At this point, you're probably not going to get anywhere in forcing a game company to compensate you for in-game loss without first establishing that elements of the TOS itself are not legally valid or binding... usually a tough proposition.
Not compensation for in-game loss... after all, that is the game! But I was talking about compensation for out-of-game losses, such as servers being hacked or being scammed out of virtual goods. A Chinese judge already awarded the plaintiff in such a case recompense for lost virtual goods.
So basically, what you are saying is that if I find 100 other people with yellow penguins and walk around town with them, then it's suddenly okay and acceptable?
That is what I am saying, with one qualification: you would be walking in a walled-off section of town, set aside for walking around with yellow penguins. Perfectly acceptable... although the rest of the town might well call that area 'the Asylum', and take pains to ensure you lot remain within its walls:-)
But you never really "own" your character or your equipment in a game.
Depends on the law in your country. In some places, the law is ambiguous at best, and while you may not actually own the data or demand that it is handed over to you, a court can decide (and in some cases already has done exactly that) that the game company has an obligation to keep your character's data reasonably safe from hackers and the like.
When MMORPGs become more mainstream, I fully expect lawsuits to be fought over virtual property, and at some point I think the law will be changed to cope explicitly with these issues.
If you hold that it's ANY more then that, then whats to stop lawsuits to say, keep Everquest around after Sony decides it's no longer profitable? Where is the line drawn?
Since the question of the real world value of in-game items has already come up in a few lawsuits in various countries, you can be very sure that the game companies (if they're smart) are already looking into this very issue... If in-game items are deemed to have an actual real world value, then they need to carefully consider how their liabilities sit. Putting a price tag on virtual goods isn't a very foreign concept, after all: the free call minutes on your cell phone account may be just bits in a server somewhere, but they are yours, and they do have a value.
If I walk around in my town, carrying about a penguin that's been painted yellow and while trying to make everyone call said penguin "Pikachu", I'll be comitted to the local looney bin. How is that any different from romping about an imaginary town called "Darkhaven" and insisting that you're not John Doe, but "Thorpe the Ranger"?
The difference is that, in a good MMORPG, Darkhaven will be populated with many like-minded players, all trying to exist as make-believe characters in a virtual world. Rather than calling you a looney, they'll try and play along. I am not sure what you are referring to with the "actually being Thorpe" remark... but yes, some people will go very far with imagining themselves being their character. That has nothing to do with split personalities or psychological problems, it's simply the enjoyment of trying to create a believable character by exercising ones imagination
Yes, of course people get upset emotionally if their characters are harmed or their items stolen. Would you not be upset if someone ruined a painting you have been working hard on? Someone keying the classic car you've slaved over many hours to restore it to its former glory? Same deal... you get pissed at the person who is wilfully destroying something that gave you intense enjoyment.
That, by the way, is what so-called 'grievers' do in these games: they go out of their way, not to steal your money or kill your character per se, but to ruin your fun. Game companies are right to boot such players.
Because the guy that accepted to be killed had some psychological/psychiatric probems, so did the freak that was doing the cannibalism.
This is a common and partly valid argument often used against assisted suicide. Note that I added the qualifier 'of sound mind' in my own argument.
A sane, modern society would :
A) Help the guy that got killed with his mental problems, and minimize threat to people like this by making the cannibal's behavior illegal and morally unacceptable.
B) Try to fix whatever is wrong with the cannibal's brain/social behavior, and/or handle people like that by removing them from society to prevent harm.
Something cannot be considered "consentual" if it can only be consented by someone with serious psychiatric problems.
The problem I have with this argument is the word 'only'. If you allow the outlawing of activities not because they harm others, but because no sane person would ever agree to partake in them, you arrive at a slippery slope. No sane person would eat another, right? Perhaps no sane person would smoke pot, eat fatty foods, have kinky sex, be a homosexual, question the State, etc, you get the idea. In Soviet Russia... they tried to 'cure' persons of some of these 'ailments'. Who is to say what a sane person might agree to? (not referring to this particular case, but to the idea in general).
By putting the word "abhorrent" in speech marks the poster suggests that these practices are somehow merely borderline or even acceptable. This may well be the way that aliens on the planet zzzorg behave, but I think I'm on safe ground when I say that the vast majority of humanity thinks otherwise. Even the good ol US of A.
In Germany, some guy helped another guy commit suicide, and then ate him. The man who was to be the main course fully agreed with this, apparently. Hey, if two guys agree to let one of them shoot and then eat the other (perhaps after buggering the corpse), who am I to say this should be disallowed? Let them have their fun.
In practice, it might be hard to establish that this was a consentual affair, but the key point here is that I think it should be allowed *if* the 'victim' agrees (being of sound mind etc etc).
No, we had a fuss over a television station violating FCC regulations
Breaking an existing regulation is a more or less accepted way to bring attention to the fact you disagree with it. People that break such rules do so knowing that they'll go to court for it. Usually that's the point.
But that's not the case here, is it? I very mouch doubt that the public gives a rodent's behind about FCC regulations. They do care about the fact that either their right to show boobage is being contested, or the fact that their ideas of decency have been violated, depending on which way their beliefs run.
This was very much about the boobs, not about the rulebook.
The Internet is no place for people looking for 'perverse gratification', claims the police officer leading the UK's fight against e-crime.
In what Net-less cave has this guy been living for the past 15 years anyway? The Internet is the place for perverse gratification downloaded straight into the comfort and privacy of your own home, and without the need to offend anyone else I might add. Or perhaps he meant to say "should be" instead of "is". Well, good luck cleaning up the Internet... I hope you brought a sturdy broom.
With this statement, the man has proven himself to be eminently unfit to lead any sort of fight against e-whatever.
A few hours browsing at souvenir shops or department stores in the Akihabara district will teach you the meaning of 'strange'. These toys are soothingly ordinary in comparison.
And don't get me started to the Tokyo fish market *shudders*
ClearChannel is ranked among the top 5 radio conglomerates in the world.
Heh, and not just radio.
Just this week, the anti-monopoly watchdog in the Netherlands seized some company records of Mojo, who organise about 90% of all large gigs in this country. I was surprised to learn that ClearChannel now apparently owns a goodly chunk of Mojo, although a spokesman vehemently denied that 'America' had their fingers in the day-to-day operation of Mojo.
There was the time when a Navy ship used its radar in the harbour. These radars kind of have a low-hi setting, and it was set to 'high' which is only supposed to be used out on the sea. It freaked out televisions, car alarms, and automatic garage doors in the nearby town.
I would not buy a car with this behavior, unless I could disable it.
Silly insurance company made me get one so I have no choice in the matter. Presumably I can turn the alarm of by tapping 'shut the hell up' in Morse on the brake pedal or some such, but I've never tried that.
The right to make a backup copy is not being questioned, but that'll be a useless right if there's no legal way to do so.
The Dutch prime minister recently commented on this: he stated that the right to make a copy of your own media does not mean that you are entitled to make that copy. In other words, copy it if you can, but the manufacturers are under no obligation to make sure that you actually can make that copy.
And that is the problem: I would like to see this loosely defined right to make back-ups turned into something stronger: an obligation for manufacturers to make sure that none of their DRM schemes and other crap violates our fair-use rights.
Subsequent investigation has shown this was not the result of any breach of Microsoft's corporate network or internal security, nor is it related to Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative or its Government Security Program, which enable our customers and partners, as well as governments, to legally access Microsoft source code.
So it wasn't an inside job, nor was their network compromised, nor any of the shared source partners leaked it. So... how did it get out in the open? The wind blew a stack of printed source code through an open window? The Underpants Gnomes (tm) took it? Someone left a CDROM on the seat of his BMW Z3 convertible and left the top down? What?
Slashdot Mirror
Once they get to that point, making robots bipedal will make sense... since these robots will then be able to go where we go. Heh, I always wondered how R2D2 managed to travel more than 3 meters over the sands of Tatooine... but C3PO just walked across.
Now look at the amount of respect society at large bestows on artists and programmers / engineers. Artists are generally well-regarded... even the people who think that most artists are lazy and weird, can muster some respect for them. Contrast that with the amount of appreciation programmers garner these days. Most non-techs have little respect for programmers, or geeky activities in general.
Yet very few 'regular' people will notice the beauty in beautiful bridges... but will fork over good money for that painting of a waterfall. Unsurprisingly... to appreciate the beauty of most engineering works, you have to have at least some working knowledge of the underlying principles. But if you know nothing about painting, proportion, shading and composition, you are still able to be moved emotionally by a piece of art. And that is what art is about.
The fact that a particular webboard or newsgroup on, say, migration patterns of the Canadian yellowtail finch, is of no interest whatsoever to all but a few Internet users, is not a failure of the Internet... the fact that the 2 or 3 people (probably from different countries) who are interested in this subject have a place to discuss it, makes it a success! I think that counting the number of people interested in a particular bit of Web content, makes an exceedingly poor measure of its quality. The Internet is an incredible rich source of information. Despite the fact that almost no one cares one bit about the yellowtail finch, there will be some information on it somewhere, should you ever need it. In that case... judge the quality of the information on its accuracy, not on the number of people it appeals to.
Fantasy and SF aren't the domain of geeks, it's the other way around: many geeks read nothnig but SF and Fantasy.
Then they just waved me through.
Depends on the law in your country. In some places, the law is ambiguous at best, and while you may not actually own the data or demand that it is handed over to you, a court can decide (and in some cases already has done exactly that) that the game company has an obligation to keep your character's data reasonably safe from hackers and the like.
When MMORPGs become more mainstream, I fully expect lawsuits to be fought over virtual property, and at some point I think the law will be changed to cope explicitly with these issues.
Yes, of course people get upset emotionally if their characters are harmed or their items stolen. Would you not be upset if someone ruined a painting you have been working hard on? Someone keying the classic car you've slaved over many hours to restore it to its former glory? Same deal... you get pissed at the person who is wilfully destroying something that gave you intense enjoyment.
That, by the way, is what so-called 'grievers' do in these games: they go out of their way, not to steal your money or kill your character per se, but to ruin your fun. Game companies are right to boot such players.
Who is to say what a sane person might agree to? (not referring to this particular case, but to the idea in general).
In practice, it might be hard to establish that this was a consentual affair, but the key point here is that I think it should be allowed *if* the 'victim' agrees (being of sound mind etc etc).
But that's not the case here, is it? I very mouch doubt that the public gives a rodent's behind about FCC regulations. They do care about the fact that either their right to show boobage is being contested, or the fact that their ideas of decency have been violated, depending on which way their beliefs run.
This was very much about the boobs, not about the rulebook.
With this statement, the man has proven himself to be eminently unfit to lead any sort of fight against e-whatever.
A few hours browsing at souvenir shops or department stores in the Akihabara district will teach you the meaning of 'strange'. These toys are soothingly ordinary in comparison.
And don't get me started to the Tokyo fish market *shudders*
Just this week, the anti-monopoly watchdog in the Netherlands seized some company records of Mojo, who organise about 90% of all large gigs in this country. I was surprised to learn that ClearChannel now apparently owns a goodly chunk of Mojo, although a spokesman vehemently denied that 'America' had their fingers in the day-to-day operation of Mojo.
Happens all the time.
There was the time when a Navy ship used its radar in the harbour. These radars kind of have a low-hi setting, and it was set to 'high' which is only supposed to be used out on the sea. It freaked out televisions, car alarms, and automatic garage doors in the nearby town.
And that is the problem: I would like to see this loosely defined right to make back-ups turned into something stronger: an obligation for manufacturers to make sure that none of their DRM schemes and other crap violates our fair-use rights.