They're so invested in a two-party system, that they won't consider a 3rd party candidate, although both are more honest the the Democrat and Republican offerings. We deserve what we are getting, either way.
I thought this too. I supposed that each ghost must be limited to line-of-sight information, and perhaps knowledge of the maze as well. However, I see no such restrictions:
Ghost-Team-Specific Rules
There are no restrictions regarding the actions of Ms Pac-Man: movement in any direction not blocked by a wall is allowed at all times. For the ghost team, on the other hand, three restrictions apply:
The first follows from the original game specifications and prevents a ghost from turning back on itself. In other words, a ghost may only choose its direction at a junction, choosing any of the paths available except the one the ghost used to approach the junction.
The second restriction is adapted from the original game: occasionally there is a global reversal event when all the ghosts suddenly change direction. In the original game this happens when particular conditions are met (such as a specific number of pills having been consumed). In our implementation a global reversal event can happen on any game tick with a small probability. This adds an element of randomness to each game. We believe the first two restrictions are essential to allow for complex game play to emerge.
Finally, the third restriction is competition-specific: in order to prevent the ghosts from spoiling the game by constantly blocking the power pills (in which case the game would result in a stalemate), each level finishes after 3000 time steps; all remaining pills are awarded to Ms Pac-Man. It is thus in the interest of the ghosts to catch Ms Pac-Man as quickly as possible. For testing, it may be useful to eliminate the time limit. In order to do so, just set the value for limit in Constants to a very high value.
It still seems like four ghosts would be enough to trap a Ms Pac-Man whose location is known at all times.
It is my understanding the current world record holder did NOT memorize map patterns and timing, but by learning the AI behavior and manipulating the ghosts. This was successful because people who memorize the routes are screwed if they mess up timing on a turn or something, but this technique lets you have a fighting chance to recover.
You are mistaken, because first, there is a maximum score and the first person to reach it used patterns. Secondly, those who have the perfect score can go those hours without blinking after many tries. It's hard, but if you can do it, then it's not a weakness to the method. Finally, although anyone who's played it that long can recover from a broken pattern, you can't just freestyle, because the maximum score requires you to get every prize that appears, without fail. The length of the feat requires that any serious contender use patterns.
I'm not planning investing months in getting a perfect Pac-Man score, but I have respect for those that can do it.
"MS Word was leaps ahead of WordStar and WordPerfect, and Excel was leaps ahead..."
What alternate universe did you grow up in? Word Perfect and Lotus 123 were the ones leaps ahead, and MS took years to achieve near parity - I'd say clippy + Visual Basic macros are examples of how MS fumbled, but they didn't have to get it right. A functional knock off is all they needed. They bundled office with Windows and prevented OEMs from allowing competitors to do the same.
It would be great for MS to remove non-OS applications from Windows, like IE and media player. Then OEMs would be free add the ones they want, or MS could pay OEMs for the privilege, the same rules that apply to their competitors. No blackmail allowed. No OS dependencies, like Windows Update, to require IE to function correctly. Maybe then we might see what 80% of users decide to use.
Yes this is all 15 years too late, but better late than never.
There's a minimum of six characters for a gmail account name. I knew you were a fraud! I could tell because you didn't have your own domain. Works every time.
I like the way you think. alix2c3 uses 6 Watts - a little more with a VPN card installed. I agree on keeping the wireless devices separate, they're just not gonna be rock solid.
Yet Mr. Gould thinks it's an "Orwellian contradiction" to charge people to work on the software distribution that you gave them for free. He must be new to technology blogging... or maybe, he figured out that being a tech troll is easier and more profitable than real technology analysis.
I'm able to enjoy the feature now, and I find it useful. This mode should be configurable, as well as reverting to a "dumb" URL text search if that suits your habits. Otherwise, this annoyance has the potential to drive away users, because every time you type a URL the awesomebar will assault you.
The similarity is the belief that these ambiguous situations should not be grounds for legal prosecution. The ambiguity in both cases is the intent of the parties involved, which although they may not constitute a legal defense, makes the laws themselves ridiculous in some cases.
Another thing they have in common is that analogies are usually inadequate to describe either dilemma.
I don't subscribe to both causes, but I understand the public sentiment.
If they ever need more cash in the bank, they can just stop extending the EOL of Windows XP. They don't want to do it before Vista + SP1 is fully stable, but it's their call.
The VLBA was aimed at one of the few radio-wave emitting stars in Orion, which was viewed twice in a single a year. The almost 200-million-mile width of Earth's orbit around the sun allowed the VLBA to serve as one eye, then again as the other eye six months later.
Wouldn't that be a telescope 200-million-miles wide, using the same poetic license that led them to say they used a telescope as big as the earth.
Given that the upshot of the SSSCA is the outlawing of Free operating systems, why isn't there someone from RedHat testifying at these hearings? Why isn't there someone from the Debian project there explaining that this bill is asking for nothing less than outlawing general purpose computers?
I never said that I thought it was okay to carry guns in a "school zone" (defined in the law as 1000 ft from a school), nor did I even say the law was a bad one.
What I said was that the Supreme Court ruled (correctly in my opinion) that Congress had no authority to pass such a law.
The question before a court is never whether a law is a good one or a bad one. In this case, as in the Lopez case, the question is whether Congress has authority to pass the law, whether it's good or bad.
Wow, nothing like using the word "gun" to bring out the nut cases on both sides of the fence.
For the record, I didn't say what the Gun Free Schools Zone Act of 1990 was about. All I said was that it was ruled unconstitutional by the SCOTUS on the grounds that Congress had exceeded the authority granted to it in the commerce clause.
Which is exactly how I predict that the SCOTUS will rule regarding the CTEA and the authority granted to Congress by the copyright clause.
Yes, and those very right-wing fundamentalists are our best hope for striking down the CTEA, as those right-wing fundamentalists have a strong propensity for telling Congress that they've exceeded the enumerated powers granted to them by the Constitution. Look up "US v. Lopez" in your favorite search engine. In that case, the right wing of the court (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas) and the "moderates" (O'Connor and Kennedy) struck down the Gun Free Schools Zone Act of 1990, on the grounds that Congress had no authority under the commerce clause.
Judge Sentelle of the Federal Circuit cited Lopez in his dissent in the ruling against Eldred, saying
" It would seem to me apparent that this concept of 'outer limits' to enumerated powers applies not only to the Commerce Clause but to all the enumerated powers, including the Copyright Clause, which we consider today."
I predict that those same justices will take one look at the words "limited times" and strike down the CTEA as making a mockery of the constitution.
(On the other hand, I could be wrong. Those very five justices found that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applied to their preferred presidential candidate, which is about as far from the original intent of the 14th amendment as one could imagine.)
Slashdot Mirror
They're so invested in a two-party system, that they won't consider a 3rd party candidate, although both are more honest the the Democrat and Republican offerings. We deserve what we are getting, either way.
I thought this too. I supposed that each ghost must be limited to line-of-sight information, and perhaps knowledge of the maze as well. However, I see no such restrictions:
Ghost-Team-Specific Rules
There are no restrictions regarding the actions of Ms Pac-Man: movement in any direction not blocked by a wall is allowed at all times. For the ghost team, on the other hand, three restrictions apply:
The first follows from the original game specifications and prevents a ghost from turning back on itself. In other words, a ghost may only choose its direction at a junction, choosing any of the paths available except the one the ghost used to approach the junction.
The second restriction is adapted from the original game: occasionally there is a global reversal event when all the ghosts suddenly change direction. In the original game this happens when particular conditions are met (such as a specific number of pills having been consumed). In our implementation a global reversal event can happen on any game tick with a small probability. This adds an element of randomness to each game. We believe the first two restrictions are essential to allow for complex game play to emerge.
Finally, the third restriction is competition-specific: in order to prevent the ghosts from spoiling the game by constantly blocking the power pills (in which case the game would result in a stalemate), each level finishes after 3000 time steps; all remaining pills are awarded to Ms Pac-Man. It is thus in the interest of the ghosts to catch Ms Pac-Man as quickly as possible. For testing, it may be useful to eliminate the time limit. In order to do so, just set the value for limit in Constants to a very high value.
It still seems like four ghosts would be enough to trap a Ms Pac-Man whose location is known at all times.
Some confusion in this topic is due to the title of the article. The actual competition uses Ms Pac-Man, which does not have patterns.
The article gets it wrong. The competition is actually run with Ms Pac-Man, which is more random than the original Pac-Man.
It is my understanding the current world record holder did NOT memorize map patterns and timing, but by learning the AI behavior and manipulating the ghosts. This was successful because people who memorize the routes are screwed if they mess up timing on a turn or something, but this technique lets you have a fighting chance to recover.
You are mistaken, because first, there is a maximum score and the first person to reach it used patterns. Secondly, those who have the perfect score can go those hours without blinking after many tries. It's hard, but if you can do it, then it's not a weakness to the method. Finally, although anyone who's played it that long can recover from a broken pattern, you can't just freestyle, because the maximum score requires you to get every prize that appears, without fail. The length of the feat requires that any serious contender use patterns.
I'm not planning investing months in getting a perfect Pac-Man score, but I have respect for those that can do it.
"MS Word was leaps ahead of WordStar and WordPerfect, and Excel was leaps ahead..."
What alternate universe did you grow up in? Word Perfect and Lotus 123 were the ones leaps ahead, and MS took years to achieve near parity - I'd say clippy + Visual Basic macros are examples of how MS fumbled, but they didn't have to get it right. A functional knock off is all they needed. They bundled office with Windows and prevented OEMs from allowing competitors to do the same.
It would be great for MS to remove non-OS applications from Windows, like IE and media player. Then OEMs would be free add the ones they want, or MS could pay OEMs for the privilege, the same rules that apply to their competitors. No blackmail allowed. No OS dependencies, like Windows Update, to require IE to function correctly. Maybe then we might see what 80% of users decide to use.
Yes this is all 15 years too late, but better late than never.
And what am I supposed to do until then?!
There's a minimum of six characters for a gmail account name. I knew you were a fraud! I could tell because you didn't have your own domain. Works every time.
I like the way you think. alix2c3 uses 6 Watts - a little more with a VPN card installed. I agree on keeping the wireless devices separate, they're just not gonna be rock solid.
Yet Mr. Gould thinks it's an "Orwellian contradiction" to charge people to work on the software distribution that you gave them for free. He must be new to technology blogging... or maybe, he figured out that being a tech troll is easier and more profitable than real technology analysis.
Yes, too many entries and two lines each, with the site icon making them look staggered. I simply couldn't see anything useful at a glance.
The oldbar addon gets you back to a clean list: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227
I'm able to enjoy the feature now, and I find it useful. This mode should be configurable, as well as reverting to a "dumb" URL text search if that suits your habits. Otherwise, this annoyance has the potential to drive away users, because every time you type a URL the awesomebar will assault you.
The similarity is the belief that these ambiguous situations should not be grounds for legal prosecution. The ambiguity in both cases is the intent of the parties involved, which although they may not constitute a legal defense, makes the laws themselves ridiculous in some cases.
Another thing they have in common is that analogies are usually inadequate to describe either dilemma.
I don't subscribe to both causes, but I understand the public sentiment.
If they ever need more cash in the bank, they can just stop extending the EOL of Windows XP. They don't want to do it before Vista + SP1 is fully stable, but it's their call.
I do not publish code under the GPL.
So you're commenting as an outsider then. You don't pick someone else's leader.
information will be free... when corporations... RMS can't code...
Oh, to be 20 years old with no accomplishments again.
The VLBA was aimed at one of the few radio-wave emitting stars in Orion, which was viewed twice in a single a year. The almost 200-million-mile width of Earth's orbit around the sun allowed the VLBA to serve as one eye, then again as the other eye six months later.
Wouldn't that be a telescope 200-million-miles wide, using the same poetic license that led them to say they used a telescope as big as the earth.
That makes you what, 26? Yeah, that's ancient.
You call that lurking? ;-)
In fact, as Federal
Circuit Judge Richard Posner noted
This is only a minor quibble, but Judge Posner is on the 7th circuit.
Irix 5.x was BSD-based. Irix 6.x is SVR4.
Given that the upshot of the SSSCA is the outlawing of Free operating systems, why isn't there someone from RedHat testifying at these hearings? Why isn't there someone from the Debian project there explaining that this bill is asking for nothing less than outlawing general purpose computers?
I never said that I thought it was okay to carry
guns in a "school zone" (defined in the law as
1000 ft from a school), nor did I even say the
law was a bad one.
What I said was that the Supreme Court ruled
(correctly in my opinion) that Congress had no
authority to pass such a law.
The question before a court is never whether a
law is a good one or a bad one. In this case, as
in the Lopez case, the question is whether
Congress has authority to pass the law, whether
it's good or bad.
Wow, nothing like using the word "gun" to bring
out the nut cases on both sides of the fence.
For the record, I didn't say what the Gun Free
Schools Zone Act of 1990 was about. All I said
was that it was ruled unconstitutional by
the SCOTUS on the grounds that Congress had
exceeded the authority granted to it in the
commerce clause.
Which is exactly how I predict that the SCOTUS
will rule regarding the CTEA and the authority
granted to Congress by the copyright clause.
Yes, and those very right-wing fundamentalists are our best hope for striking down the CTEA, as those right-wing fundamentalists have a strong propensity for telling Congress that they've exceeded the enumerated powers granted to them by the Constitution. Look up "US v. Lopez" in your favorite search engine. In that case, the right wing of the court (Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas) and the "moderates" (O'Connor and Kennedy) struck down the Gun Free Schools Zone Act of 1990, on the grounds that Congress had no authority under the commerce clause.
Judge Sentelle of the Federal Circuit cited Lopez in his dissent in the ruling against Eldred, saying
" It would seem to me apparent that this concept of 'outer limits' to enumerated powers applies not only to the Commerce Clause but to all the enumerated powers, including the Copyright Clause, which we consider today."
I predict that those same justices will take one look at the words "limited times" and strike down the CTEA as making a mockery of the constitution.
(On the other hand, I could be wrong. Those very five justices found that the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applied to their preferred presidential candidate, which is about as far from the original intent of the 14th amendment as one could imagine.)
At the risk of sounding like an AOLer:
Me too! LDAP!
Maybe "Using LDAP in a cross-platform environment".
Is that a bug, or a parody of a bug?
/usr/games/fortune -m fortunes.dat
/usr/games/lib/fortunes.dat.
[brock@harmless brock]$
(computers)
%
Can't open
%