I remember owning a toy aircraft which could sense wether it was taking-off orlanding by the angle I was holding it in.
Inside was a small copper ball in a little rail, constraining the ball's movements along it's nose-to-tail axis. - When the plane was tilted forward, the ball would roll and touch 2 contacts on the front end. - When the plane was tilted with tail down nose up, the same ball would roll down and close a different circuit, at the tail end. - when the plane was held horizontally, it woudnt close any circuits. This was how the aircraft "sensed" it's angle and thereby produced take-off and landing sounds.
I believe that using this idea it would be very easy to create hardware that can orient itself.
You make a "cage" like the toy aircraft used, but in a (roughly) spherical form. You put in a matrix of electrically conducting contact points on the inner surface of the sphere. You put in a copper ball, small but heavy enough.
As you now twist and roll the sphere, the little ball moves around.
This means: if you turn the controller upside down the metal ball will touch certain points inside the sphere, allowing electric currents from those points. you could quickly calculate through "reference points" what the position of the sphere is or look it up in a table.
USAGE: ------ -best results would come from ROLLING and TURNING: The "PATH" which the ball follows while it closes contact points could graciously followed. -SHAKING would yield really interesting ouput from the device I presume.
Some DETAILS: ------------- -You need gravity for this to work in a way that nintendo uses it. (easiest part, we already have that) You see the idea is: if the ball touches a circuit, it means that it's forced to touch it, either by gravity or by shaking.
-FINDING the orientation: ADRESS TABLE: each circuitpoint has a unique ID and a table containing these ID's and their pre-calculated position on the sphere.
e.g: - circuit XYZ is closed.
- Table returns XYZ's position on Sphere
- Software calculates.
RESOLUTION:how many little circuitpoints there are, would depend on how much we'd spend on the technology and what is considered a useful resolution to play a game.
no way man, google is way older than 2 years, I remeber switching to google before quake 3 was released (or around that time) when was that anyway (google it)? Google was a startup back then, 2 years ago everybody was already saying "you should google that"
I really enjoy all your known-space books and especially the ringworld books. It's been a while since I've read them but there is one thing I kept wondering for a long time:
The concept of rishatra (or rishing) was very original and resfreshing in the first installement of the ringworld books.
Rishatra, for those of you who don't know it, is sexual intercourse between alien (sub)races. It is a worldwide known and practised form of entertainment/negotiation on the ringworld.
I do wonder though if it was really nescessery to use rishatra so often in the later books. Every meeting, every encounter seems to end in a rishatra party:)
In what way was this needed to develop the storyline?
that's just rendering a picture with ASCII chars, where's the human effort? it's like a robot-made-painting.
and the flash movie? well, you can't just jiggle around with the chars. it defeats the whole purpose.
A leper walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender serves him, and then promptly throws up. The leper says, "Hey, look, if you're grossed out by me, just say so and I'll leave." and the bartender says, "No, it's not you, trust me." The leper orders a second drink, drinks it, and the bartender throws up again. The leper says, "Hey, I told you, I won't get offended, if it's me, just say so." and the bartender promises that it's not. After the leper's third drink, the bartender throws up a third time and the leper says, "All right, if it's not me making you throw up, then what is it?" and the bartender says, "It's not you, it's the guy behind you dipping his nachos into your back."
---------------
A guy goes to the pub, and says to his friend "You won't believe what happened. I was taking a short cut along the railway track, and I found a girl tied to it. I untied her, and then we had sex over and over again, all the positions, everything.
His friend replies, "That's great: did you get a blow job?"
"Oh, no: I never found her head."
-----------
Q: What's better than winning 4 gold medals in the special olympics?
A: not being RETARDED.
-----------
Billy and Jimmy come running down the stairs Christmas Morning. They race past the kitchen, where their mother is cooking up a delicious breakfast. Out the window they can see a perfect blanket of snow gently falling to the ground. Running to the living room, they are greeted by their father, who is stoking up a roaring fire. Then they see the tree, laden with gifts that spread across the floor.
The paper starts flying.
When the dust has settled, Billy has a huge mound of presents: G.I. Joe action figures, Nerf guns, a Playstation, and tons of candy. Then he looks over at Jimmy, who has recieved ONE MATCHBOX CAR and is pushing it back and forth across the floor in the corner.
"Gosh," says Billy, "I got a lot more presents than you did this year."
"Yeah," replies Jimmy, "well, at least I don't have cancer."
----------------
The way things are goinig, cigarettes will be illegal soon enough anyway.
not quite likely to happen. tobacco industry has billions of dollars. they can always buy some politicians.
ps: I couldn't find any exact figures on tobacco industry income. If you know some figures (or if you're plain better at googling than me) please reply. I'm curious myself:)
I don't know what your definition of "art" may be, but I can tell you this: game programming/designing is one of the hardest thing around in the IT sector, and the people making the games aren't run off the mill VB application programmers.
Have you ever tried writing a decent 3D engine? or creating soundeffects/music for a game?
You could even say that one single game is a collection of different arts:
writing: a storyline
visual arts: models, textures (TRY making a decent texture, if you dare)
music: you need a real artist to make game music that'll set your mood
acting: voice-overs need emotions, isn't acting an art?
coding: don't you DARE not calling this an art...
and a whole lot more I probably forgot about...
show some respect to these people who spend hours on hours creating masterpieces in their own area
And the fact that the game is actually free to play (you don't have to purchase the currency to play) makes it prone to some serious abuse.
IMHO, MMORPGs without a subscription fee are always doomed to fail (anyone remember "graal"?) because some people won't take the game/account seriously ("hey, I don't pay for it, why shouldn't I be a damn lamer?")
Just maybe, if WE were smarter, we could make machines that are smarter. But then again, if WE were smarter, the level of intelligence that the machine reaches at that point is again lower compaired to our own intelligence.
What I mean is, I don't think an intelligent being would be capable of creating something that is more intelligent than himself.
The machines need to be programmed by humans, who are limited by their own inteligence.
Can God make a rock so big that he can't carry it himself?
That'w why it's "System Optimisation Guide for Gamers" and not "System Optimisation Guide for Super Secret Information Server Security Systems"
What? Someone is going to log into their PC and uninstall quake 3?
I don't think that people who follow a guide with such a title care that much about security anyway.
but in this case its even worse.... an apple has been a generic term far longer
"Apple" and "Window" have been in the English language for about the same period of time.
By the time English was evolving into the language it is now, both an "apple" (which indeed exsisted long before the window) and a "window" were common objects. So the generic term, as you call it, for "apple" evolved around the same period as "window".
Ofcourse, "Apple" could rename to "Apples" and therefore have a more grounded reason in prosecuting trademark violators on the grounds that Apples != Apple, and thus not a generic term (like a certain Redmond software giant does:))
What the hell is so sensational about theheadline? I really didn't gasp in awe or anything. All I thought was "why didn't they come up with this sooner?"
can one really determine from someones listening habits what they are into shopping for
For starters, if the majority of the drivers tuned into a radio station that plays country music, you wouldn't show ads for clothing like "GAP", but rather for "Marlboro Classic" (yes they have a clothing line) etc.
In Atlanta, where I am from we had one of those electronic billboards that got a court order to only have slowly changing adverts because it was to distractung.
If you read the article you'd know that the billboard changes every few minutes. That's slow enough imo:). But you're right though, people still might be distracted by it! (ooh, sarcasm meter went off the charts!)
If one of these got that sort of court order it would turn into a cool radio scanning static billboard that hemmoraged money.
I wish I could hemmorage money: it would be worth the discomfort, but quite embarassing when you're paying your bill;)
Some forms of advertisements are considered normal and acceptable (banners). But some ads are just hilariously blatantly unethical:
pop-ups that hide the window OFF the screen
pop-ups that produce other pop-ups
pop-ups that remove their button from the taskbar
pop-ups that go fullscreen
pop-ups that on unloading (closing the window) create more pop-ups
everything with the pop-ups, but with pop-unders
(usually) Flash banners that start moving all over the damn screen and render the site useless until you watched the entire ad
now those my friend, are the true reason pop-up killers exsist. The worst part is when they start combining these "marketing techniques", which is almost always the case.
There should be advertisment guidelines (just suggesting, not enforcing) on the internet about how advertisemnt should be on the internet. Perhaps a label you could place on your website:
"This site is not a rotting cesspool of annoying pop-ups"
in a grim future (to which we are heading) it would rather be illegal to DISconnect from the net... because they want to monitor your every move.
"warning, disconnecting from the internet is a violation of the megaCorp. Bill of Citizen Rights and Restrictions (art. 3bis). Please step away from your computer and wait for the Peace officers to arrive..."*insert eerie music*
Slashdot Mirror
I remember owning a toy aircraft which could sense wether it was taking-off orlanding by the angle I was holding it in.
:p
Inside was a small copper ball in a little rail, constraining the ball's movements along it's nose-to-tail axis.
- When the plane was tilted forward, the ball would roll and touch 2 contacts on the front end.
- When the plane was tilted with tail down nose up, the same ball would roll down and close a different circuit, at the tail end.
- when the plane was held horizontally, it woudnt close any circuits.
This was how the aircraft "sensed" it's angle and thereby produced take-off and landing sounds.
I believe that using this idea it would be very easy to create hardware that can orient itself.
You make a "cage" like the toy aircraft used, but in a (roughly) spherical form. You put in a matrix of electrically conducting contact points on the inner surface of the sphere. You put in a copper ball, small but heavy enough.
As you now twist and roll the sphere, the little ball moves around.
This means: if you turn the controller upside down the metal ball will touch certain points inside the sphere, allowing electric currents from those points. you could quickly calculate through "reference points" what the position of the sphere is or look it up in a table.
USAGE:
------
-best results would come from ROLLING and TURNING:
The "PATH" which the ball follows while it closes contact points could graciously followed.
-SHAKING would yield really interesting ouput from the device I presume.
Some DETAILS:
-------------
-You need gravity for this to work in a way that nintendo uses it. (easiest part, we already have that) You see the idea is: if the ball touches a circuit, it means that it's forced to touch it, either by gravity or by shaking.
-FINDING the orientation:
ADRESS TABLE: each circuitpoint has a unique ID and a table containing these ID's and their pre-calculated position on the sphere.
e.g: - circuit XYZ is closed.
- Table returns XYZ's position on Sphere
- Software calculates.
RESOLUTION:how many little circuitpoints there are, would depend on how much we'd spend on the technology and what is considered a useful resolution to play a game.
okay it's maybe far fethced, butwho cares?
no way man, google is way older than 2 years, I remeber switching to google before quake 3 was released (or around that time) when was that anyway (google it)? Google was a startup back then, 2 years ago everybody was already saying "you should google that"
I really enjoy all your known-space books and especially the ringworld books. It's been a while since I've read them but there is one thing I kept wondering for a long time:
The concept of rishatra (or rishing) was very original and resfreshing in the first installement of the ringworld books.
Rishatra, for those of you who don't know it, is sexual intercourse between alien (sub)races. It is a worldwide known and practised form of entertainment/negotiation on the ringworld.
I do wonder though if it was really nescessery to use rishatra so often in the later books. Every meeting, every encounter seems to end in a rishatra party
In what way was this needed to develop the storyline?
that's just rendering a picture with ASCII chars, where's the human effort? it's like a robot-made-painting.
and the flash movie? well, you can't just jiggle around with the chars. it defeats the whole purpose.
---------------
A guy goes to the pub, and says to his friend "You won't believe what happened. I was taking a short cut along the railway track, and I found a girl tied to it. I untied her, and then we had sex over and over again, all the positions, everything.
His friend replies, "That's great: did you get a blow job?"
"Oh, no: I never found her head."
-----------
Q: What's better than winning 4 gold medals in the special olympics?
A: not being RETARDED.
-----------
Billy and Jimmy come running down the stairs Christmas Morning. They race past the kitchen, where their mother is cooking up a delicious breakfast. Out the window they can see a perfect blanket of snow gently falling to the ground. Running to the living room, they are greeted by their father, who is stoking up a roaring fire. Then they see the tree, laden with gifts that spread across the floor. The paper starts flying. When the dust has settled, Billy has a huge mound of presents: G.I. Joe action figures, Nerf guns, a Playstation, and tons of candy. Then he looks over at Jimmy, who has recieved ONE MATCHBOX CAR and is pushing it back and forth across the floor in the corner.
"Gosh," says Billy, "I got a lot more presents than you did this year."
"Yeah," replies Jimmy, "well, at least I don't have cancer."
----------------
hehe, sick jokes are so funny
and yes, I do want to hear a leprosy joke!
not quite likely to happen. tobacco industry has billions of dollars. they can always buy some politicians.
ps: I couldn't find any exact figures on tobacco industry income. If you know some figures (or if you're plain better at googling than me) please reply. I'm curious myself
I used to listen to the Dropkick Murphy's in the car too. My mom says I'm not a dork.
tnx
lousy AC
Well, you're new areound here aren't you? :p
Have you ever tried writing a decent 3D engine? or creating soundeffects/music for a game?
You could even say that one single game is a collection of different arts:
show some respect to these people who spend hours on hours creating masterpieces in their own area
I bet years ago someone said that about ARPANET too :)
BLASPHEMY! :p
If I made a game and called it "car", it would be kinda silly to assume nobody else can use that name..
otoh.. windows and apple prove me wrong...
And the fact that the game is actually free to play (you don't have to purchase the currency to play) makes it prone to some serious abuse.
IMHO, MMORPGs without a subscription fee are always doomed to fail (anyone remember "graal"?) because some people won't take the game/account seriously ("hey, I don't pay for it, why shouldn't I be a damn lamer?")
What I mean is, I don't think an intelligent being would be capable of creating something that is more intelligent than himself.
The machines need to be programmed by humans, who are limited by their own inteligence.
Can God make a rock so big that he can't carry it himself?
That'w why it's "System Optimisation Guide for Gamers" and not "System Optimisation Guide for Super Secret Information Server Security Systems"
What? Someone is going to log into their PC and uninstall quake 3?
I don't think that people who follow a guide with such a title care that much about security anyway.
"Apple" and "Window" have been in the English language for about the same period of time.
By the time English was evolving into the language it is now, both an "apple" (which indeed exsisted long before the window) and a "window" were common objects. So the generic term, as you call it, for "apple" evolved around the same period as "window".
Ofcourse, "Apple" could rename to "Apples" and therefore have a more grounded reason in prosecuting trademark violators on the grounds that Apples != Apple, and thus not a generic term (like a certain Redmond software giant does :))
it's a mail client
it sure seems you haven't
What the hell is so sensational about theheadline? I really didn't gasp in awe or anything. All I thought was "why didn't they come up with this sooner?"
can one really determine from someones listening habits what they are into shopping for
For starters, if the majority of the drivers tuned into a radio station that plays country music, you wouldn't show ads for clothing like "GAP", but rather for "Marlboro Classic" (yes they have a clothing line) etc.
In Atlanta, where I am from we had one of those electronic billboards that got a court order to only have slowly changing adverts because it was to distractung.
If you read the article you'd know that the billboard changes every few minutes. That's slow enough imo :). But you're right though, people still might be distracted by it! (ooh, sarcasm meter went off the charts!)
If one of these got that sort of court order it would turn into a cool radio scanning static billboard that hemmoraged money.
I wish I could hemmorage money: it would be worth the discomfort, but quite embarassing when you're paying your bill ;)
now those my friend, are the true reason pop-up killers exsist. The worst part is when they start combining these "marketing techniques", which is almost always the case.
There should be advertisment guidelines (just suggesting, not enforcing) on the internet about how advertisemnt should be on the internet. Perhaps a label you could place on your website:
"This site is not a rotting cesspool of annoying pop-ups"
(note: most of the malices usually occur in IE)
"warning, disconnecting from the internet is a violation of the megaCorp. Bill of Citizen Rights and Restrictions (art. 3bis). Please step away from your computer and wait for the Peace officers to arrive..."*insert eerie music*
ofcourse, I could be completely wrong too :)
changing the channel when a commercial break starts is a major fellony too!