One thing I don't think people consider when talking about the Wii shortage is the online component of the Wii.
The reality is that Nintendo's server infastructure is simply not up to the maturity level that Xbox Live is. On some occasions, the downloads for system updates have had a huge lag. Personally, I think that the Online Store has only recently started to be a little snappier.
If Nintendo is purposefully throttling production, I think not overwhelming their servers is one of their main concerns. Nintendo wants their products to 'just work', and they don't want the Grandparents and techno-phobes to have to deal with connection problems.
I definitely understand where you are coming from with your desire for more Wii games. I don't see myself buying another Wii game until Metroid, Mario galaxy, or some great use of online play comes out. However, at the same time I feel like I have more than enough hours of great game play ahead of me till mid '07.
For one, there is the library of GC games that I never got around to buying (and are about 20 - 30 bucks a pop). For instance, if you like racing games, you should really try F-zero GX. Its hard, some courses you do have to memorize, but its really fast and its a beautiful game. Also, I understand (though I haven't personally played) that Lego Star Wars is supposed to be a lot of fun for non-gamers, and includes mid-game pick up and play co-op if your girl friend wants to play.
Secondly, you really should break down and get some of the VC games. Again, F-Zero, Super Mario World (or 64), or any of the shoot 'em ups, are really well implemented, *fun*, games. I guess they are slightly less expensive for me since I'm using the dollar, but if you think of it as having (for some games) 30+ hours of good gameplay enjoyment for under 10 quid, well, thats a bargain.
Whether this is realistic or not, I just want to say that it is wonderful to hear that companies like Lockheed Martin (and other defense contracters) are really getting involved in the space tourism industry. If the private sector is ever going to get into space, its not going to be Virgin. Realistically the companies with the staff and infastructure to do it are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Haliburton.
And think if they could make a profit doing this! The way things currently are, it would be nice if these companies were a) Buying off the government to de-regulate space instead of start wars. b) Building spaceships and orbiting hotels instead of jets and bombs.
Mod this guy up, he knows what he's talking about. I work with Data in the private sector and data like this cannot be on an unprotected machine.
What he's saying is that the data should only be on an oracle or whatever database where only reporting applications can run pre-written reporting programs on it, Those program will then return reports to the idiot business people. Those reports will not return a soc. or other identifying info all at the same (and rarely that stuff at all).
The reporting monkeys take *that* home. No one actaully gets to see the data. This is exactly what part of sarbanes oxley is forcing the private sector to do with customer credit card data and other sensitive info.
I have been waiting for that show for years. You know, along with the great players playing CS and even old RTS games, it wouldn't be that hard either to have like 'specials' where they show the video of some guy beating mario 3 in like 10 minutes. They could even be annoying and put a commercial or two in a longer game and you know, it would still be cool. Better than a lot of junk on TV when you are in high school, bored, and no good tv on.
The most awesomely awesome thing about this is how Penny Arcade is nearly getting slashdotted with all the free advertising and interest in their site generated from this Thompson fiasco. For all I know they'll probably make back the 10,000 dollars they donated to ESA in his name. What Jack should do now, is take credit for that money, and demand it back from the ESA (or sue). ohh man, how would we entertain ourselves w/o insane public figures?
For all of you too lazy to read the article, this is definitely worth the watch. For this, I think i'll finally have to break down and become an early adopter.
This thread reminds me of Ender's Game, where Ender would figure out new strategies in the battle room and the other kids would complain to the teachers how he was cheating. Face it, its in the game. If that doesn't make the game fun, then stop playing.
Try looking at the Teaching company website. My brother got me into this company a few years ago, and I can't get enough of the stuff. Basically, the company finds professors who are renouned for their teaching ability, and pays them to create a 8 - 10 lecture series on their 'bread and butter course'. The subject areas are pretty broad too, from classical literature, sci-fi, philosophy, history (there is a great series on the post 1940 history of U.S. Middle East foriegn policy), all the way to more hard sciency stuff, to business and law lectures. Anyway, the link is:
I didn't hear that Rogue Agent did badly. I bought the thing and loved it.. yeah, it had some aspects that were obviously a knock off of halo, but some of it was innovative for an FPS, and parts of it were a hell of a lot of fun.
To some degree, this is already happening. Gates
Quote:
"Gates also said advances in programing will allow software developers to create applications in less time by using visual representations of the inner workings of software rather than writing lines of programing code."
I think the problem (with robots, outsourcing, etc.) is not that it is "people" as the parent's students suggested, but that it shows an incredible amount of greed, lack of forsight, and willful ignorance on the part of the top 5% of this country that makes the decision to outsource. To the middle class, this is so scary because we are giving up too much control to the upper class, just so that we can save a buck at walmart. Whether it is microsoft creating a world where only the elite few actaul programmers really know what is going on under the hood (and are the only ones getting paid to do so), or if its just outsourcing jobs, the question these CEO's don't seem to want to deal with is: In 30 years, who are you're customers going to be?
I think the reason people want the sex parts of the book to be left out is because they are terribly written and incredibly cliche. If they were well written, and perhaps didn't so grossly condescend to the women in the book, it would be nice to see some romance. However, the scenes between Linda(was that her name?) and Louis made me want to retch, and I'm not so sure the sci-fi screenplay writers will be able to make it any better.
In the Article, it mentions that the root of this problem is that the legal system for anti-trust cases is built for the 1800s, and that one of the only ways to fix this problem would be to bring the legal system into the 21st century. IANAL, so what would that involve?
I get what your saying, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I know that I have learned, and retained for many years, factoids that were surrounded by context and additional meaning. These are facts that i definitly wouldn't remember otherwise considering that i never use them. I still remember that summation equation because of the story that my high school math teacher told us, about how a the guy (i forget his name) figured it out because, as he was acting up in grade school, the teacher told him to add all the numbers from 1 to 100 (keep him busy). He came back in 5 minutes with the answer because he had figured out that 100 + 99 + 98 + 97... 1 + 2 + 3.... all the additions vertically are 101. multiply that by 100 and divide by 2 and you have the answer.
We know A LOT more today about cognitive psychology and what is physically going on in our brains when we learn. We know that by giving facts (propositions) context they are able to be better recalled and remain in our memories for longer periods. We CAN apply this to scientific learning. Ironically enough, to ignore that is to ignore what we are learning through science.
"These cases proved immediately politically controversial because of the implication that they could be related to ubiquitous consumer products. These 'human canaries', as some physicians had dubbed them, were a potential threat to corporate interests and the government agencies charged with establishing safety and health standards. Thus there was a tendency by the medical establishment to at first dismiss the growing number of reports and then to promote a psychosomatic explanation that effectively blamed the patient -or the influence of their physicians suggestions- for his illness -a neat solution to the issue of potential liability. This was supported by the preponderance of women among MCS patients, which suited the misogynist attitudes of a medical establishment that still tended to regard women as prone to 'hysteria.' However, the steadily accumulating body of facts eventually belied this notion, as far as the vast majority of cases were concerned, but despite being generally discredited this psychosomatic 'excuse' has persisted, particularly among government bureaucrats and the contract medical mouthpieces of major corporations. But then, it's not all that hard to find physicians in the US today who still insist that even conventional allergies are all psychosomatic."
Just because you don't have allergies doesn't mean that allergies don't exist.
Why don't you go all the way and just be a god damn solipsist?
It doesn't really work like that. The hippocampus uses chemicals (which are affected by the emotional intensity of the memory) to match the output of the neural network (which will contain the memory) to a "print now" output. An example of memory then is a guy walking in a pattern through a field of grass. If he walks hard (emotionally intense) or if he walks the path a lot (repetition) the path is more deaply ingrained into the grass. This is in no way a direct example of how neural networks work, but the basic idea is somewhat similar.
Anyway, the brain couldn't "reject" certain memories. In fact, don't high trauma situations often "scar" people, prompting them to go through years of therapy to deal with the memory.
If anyone wants to learn about how the brain "learns" and all this stuff about neural networks and how they relate to the brain, Read: THE WET MIND, by Kosslyn and Koenig. Very interesting and informative read.
Mod parent up. When i saw those guys fit a round tube into a square filter with a sock, a magazine, and the elastic out of their underwear, i had a whole new respect for the power of an Engineer.
-Pete
There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
Actaully, i took some saterday morning physics classes in high school at Fermi Lab(particle accelerator in illinois). I remember talking to one of the physics dudes about what our next big bomb was going to be. Since we have the hydrogen bomb, where do you go from there?
He told me that they had some anti-matter in storage that they were learning to use as weapons.
This was in 1994.
I wonder what Iraq is going to look like in 1 - 5 years.
I keep seeing "funny" (more like redundant) comments on how this will not make everyday applications like MSWORD run any faster. Its odd though, i remember when CPU speed really started to pick up and thinking it would be great when all of my everyday actions on the computer are near instantanious. What i'm getting at is that, even w/ a four ghz CPU, WORD, and most things, still take time to load up. Is this a memory/hard drive issue? or is it just that our ability to make use of 4 ghz when programming software hasn't reached our ability to get that speed in hardware?
Slashdot Mirror
One thing I don't think people consider when talking about the Wii shortage is the online component of the Wii.
The reality is that Nintendo's server infastructure is simply not up to the maturity level that Xbox Live is. On some occasions, the downloads for system updates have had a huge lag. Personally, I think that the Online Store has only recently started to be a little snappier.
If Nintendo is purposefully throttling production, I think not overwhelming their servers is one of their main concerns. Nintendo wants their products to 'just work', and they don't want the Grandparents and techno-phobes to have to deal with connection problems.
I definitely understand where you are coming from with your desire for more Wii games. I don't see myself buying another Wii game until Metroid, Mario galaxy, or some great use of online play comes out. However, at the same time I feel like I have more than enough hours of great game play ahead of me till mid '07.
For one, there is the library of GC games that I never got around to buying (and are about 20 - 30 bucks a pop). For instance, if you like racing games, you should really try F-zero GX. Its hard, some courses you do have to memorize, but its really fast and its a beautiful game. Also, I understand (though I haven't personally played) that Lego Star Wars is supposed to be a lot of fun for non-gamers, and includes mid-game pick up and play co-op if your girl friend wants to play.
Secondly, you really should break down and get some of the VC games. Again, F-Zero, Super Mario World (or 64), or any of the shoot 'em ups, are really well implemented, *fun*, games. I guess they are slightly less expensive for me since I'm using the dollar, but if you think of it as having (for some games) 30+ hours of good gameplay enjoyment for under 10 quid, well, thats a bargain.
"What happens if you take both?"
Whether this is realistic or not, I just want to say that it is wonderful to hear that companies like Lockheed Martin (and other defense contracters) are really getting involved in the space tourism industry. If the private sector is ever going to get into space, its not going to be Virgin. Realistically the companies with the staff and infastructure to do it are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Haliburton.
And think if they could make a profit doing this! The way things currently are, it would be nice if these companies were
a) Buying off the government to de-regulate space instead of start wars.
b) Building spaceships and orbiting hotels instead of jets and bombs.
Granted, I have no idea what I'm talking about, but isn't this what venture capitalists are for?
Mod this guy up, he knows what he's talking about. I work with Data in the private sector and data like this cannot be on an unprotected machine.
What he's saying is that the data should only be on an oracle or whatever database where only reporting applications can run pre-written reporting programs on it, Those program will then return reports to the idiot business people. Those reports will not return a soc. or other identifying info all at the same (and rarely that stuff at all).
The reporting monkeys take *that* home. No one actaully gets to see the data. This is exactly what part of sarbanes oxley is forcing the private sector to do with customer credit card data and other sensitive info.
I have been waiting for that show for years. You know, along with the great players playing CS and even old RTS games, it wouldn't be that hard either to have like 'specials' where they show the video of some guy beating mario 3 in like 10 minutes. They could even be annoying and put a commercial or two in a longer game and you know, it would still be cool. Better than a lot of junk on TV when you are in high school, bored, and no good tv on.
The most awesomely awesome thing about this is how Penny Arcade is nearly getting slashdotted with all the free advertising and interest in their site generated from this Thompson fiasco. For all I know they'll probably make back the 10,000 dollars they donated to ESA in his name. What Jack should do now, is take credit for that money, and demand it back from the ESA (or sue). ohh man, how would we entertain ourselves w/o insane public figures?
Umm.. wasn't the grandparent was being sarcastic? :P (hey, it's an IM discussion)
The link for that ign video referenced by the parent:s _1.html
http://media.cube.ign.com/articles/651/651334/vid
For all of you too lazy to read the article, this is definitely worth the watch. For this, I think i'll finally have to break down and become an early adopter.
This thread reminds me of Ender's Game, where Ender would figure out new strategies in the battle room and the other kids would complain to the teachers how he was cheating. Face it, its in the game. If that doesn't make the game fun, then stop playing.
Try looking at the Teaching company website. My brother got me into this company a few years ago, and I can't get enough of the stuff. Basically, the company finds professors who are renouned for their teaching ability, and pays them to create a 8 - 10 lecture series on their 'bread and butter course'. The subject areas are pretty broad too, from classical literature, sci-fi, philosophy, history (there is a great series on the post 1940 history of U.S. Middle East foriegn policy), all the way to more hard sciency stuff, to business and law lectures. Anyway, the link is:
http://www.teach12.com/
Peter
I didn't hear that Rogue Agent did badly. I bought the thing and loved it.. yeah, it had some aspects that were obviously a knock off of halo, but some of it was innovative for an FPS, and parts of it were a hell of a lot of fun.
To some degree, this is already happening.
Gates
Quote:
"Gates also said advances in programing will allow software developers to create applications in less time by using visual representations of the inner workings of software rather than writing lines of programing code."
I think the problem (with robots, outsourcing, etc.) is not that it is "people" as the parent's students suggested, but that it shows an incredible amount of greed, lack of forsight, and willful ignorance on the part of the top 5% of this country that makes the decision to outsource. To the middle class, this is so scary because we are giving up too much control to the upper class, just so that we can save a buck at walmart. Whether it is microsoft creating a world where only the elite few actaul programmers really know what is going on under the hood (and are the only ones getting paid to do so), or if its just outsourcing jobs, the question these CEO's don't seem to want to deal with is: In 30 years, who are you're customers going to be?
Pete
I think the reason people want the sex parts of the book to be left out is because they are terribly written and incredibly cliche. If they were well written, and perhaps didn't so grossly condescend to the women in the book, it would be nice to see some romance. However, the scenes between Linda(was that her name?) and Louis made me want to retch, and I'm not so sure the sci-fi screenplay writers will be able to make it any better.
In the Article, it mentions that the root of this problem is that the legal system for anti-trust cases is built for the 1800s, and that one of the only ways to fix this problem would be to bring the legal system into the 21st century. IANAL, so what would that involve?
I get what your saying, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I know that I have learned, and retained for many years, factoids that were surrounded by context and additional meaning. These are facts that i definitly wouldn't remember otherwise considering that i never use them. I still remember that summation equation because of the story that my high school math teacher told us, about how a the guy (i forget his name) figured it out because, as he was acting up in grade school, the teacher told him to add all the numbers from 1 to 100 (keep him busy). He came back in 5 minutes with the answer because he had figured out that
100 + 99 + 98 + 97...
1 + 2 + 3....
all the additions vertically are 101. multiply that by 100 and divide by 2 and you have the answer.
We know A LOT more today about cognitive psychology and what is physically going on in our brains when we learn. We know that by giving facts (propositions) context they are able to be better recalled and remain in our memories for longer periods. We CAN apply this to scientific learning. Ironically enough, to ignore that is to ignore what we are learning through science.
-Pete
From the Article:
"These cases proved immediately politically controversial because of the implication that they could be related to ubiquitous consumer products. These 'human canaries', as some physicians had dubbed them, were a potential threat to corporate interests and the government agencies charged with establishing safety and health standards. Thus there was a tendency by the medical establishment to at first dismiss the growing number of reports and then to promote a psychosomatic explanation that effectively blamed the patient -or the influence of their physicians suggestions- for his illness -a neat solution to the issue of potential liability. This was supported by the preponderance of women among MCS patients, which suited the misogynist attitudes of a medical establishment that still tended to regard women as prone to 'hysteria.' However, the steadily accumulating body of facts eventually belied this notion, as far as the vast majority of cases were concerned, but despite being generally discredited this psychosomatic 'excuse' has persisted, particularly among government bureaucrats and the contract medical mouthpieces of major corporations. But then, it's not all that hard to find physicians in the US today who still insist that even conventional allergies are all psychosomatic."
Just because you don't have allergies doesn't mean that allergies don't exist.
Why don't you go all the way and just be a god damn solipsist?
-Pete
It doesn't really work like that. The hippocampus uses chemicals (which are affected by the emotional intensity of the memory) to match the output of the neural network (which will contain the memory) to a "print now" output. An example of memory then is a guy walking in a pattern through a field of grass. If he walks hard (emotionally intense) or if he walks the path a lot (repetition) the path is more deaply ingrained into the grass. This is in no way a direct example of how neural networks work, but the basic idea is somewhat similar.
Anyway, the brain couldn't "reject" certain memories. In fact, don't high trauma situations often "scar" people, prompting them to go through years of therapy to deal with the memory.
If anyone wants to learn about how the brain "learns" and all this stuff about neural networks and how they relate to the brain, Read: THE WET MIND, by Kosslyn and Koenig. Very interesting and informative read.
Mod parent up. When i saw those guys fit a round tube into a square filter with a sock, a magazine, and the elastic out of their underwear, i had a whole new respect for the power of an Engineer. -Pete There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.
And life for all dog's everywhere will never be the same.
You get used to Texting pretty quick when you're broke. However, on the site they mention that God Mode and other cheats are options in the game.
your precious thumbs should be fine.
Actaully, i took some saterday morning physics classes in high school at Fermi Lab(particle accelerator in illinois). I remember talking to one of the physics dudes about what our next big bomb was going to be. Since we have the hydrogen bomb, where do you go from there?
He told me that they had some anti-matter in storage that they were learning to use as weapons.
This was in 1994.
I wonder what Iraq is going to look like in 1 - 5 years.
I keep seeing "funny" (more like redundant) comments on how this will not make everyday applications like MSWORD run any faster. Its odd though, i remember when CPU speed really started to pick up and thinking it would be great when all of my everyday actions on the computer are near instantanious. What i'm getting at is that, even w/ a four ghz CPU, WORD, and most things, still take time to load up. Is this a memory/hard drive issue? or is it just that our ability to make use of 4 ghz when programming software hasn't reached our ability to get that speed in hardware?
- Pete
I would cash it into one hundred ten dollar bills each day and then spend my life impulse shopping and over tipping everyone.