Publishing is expensive, ads are supposed to defray the cost and save the customer a little money. If this is true for the NYT why would it not be true for games? If they are as ignorable as ads in the newspaper then fine, something like wall posters or billboards. Product placement like in TV and movies, fine as long as it makes sense in the context of the plot/action. A character wearing a Nike t-shirt would not be the end of the world, its not like you don't see that on the street a hundred times a day. If the brand is being artificially pushed in front of your face that's a different story. Having to make a Del Taco run every time your characters gets low on hit points would be bad.
Reminds me of the upcoming "Doom" movie, that I heard neither takes place on mars, nor features hell demons.
Neither mars nor demons are important, they are completely replacable background material. "Doom" is scary-ugly-nasty looking stuff popping out and coming after you, you responding with massive amounts of firepower, and stains on the floor and wall result.
Changing the original storyline does not necessarily indicate failure, especially when there was not much of a storyline to begin with. The new Battlestar Gallactica may be a good example of where changes can work.
They'd still have to pass inspection to be lived in, so it's not as if the walls are going to cave in and kill everyone simply because it was built by a robot. If the build quality sucks, it'll be condemned unless it's correctable.
Assuming of course that the beta is performed in a responsible jurisdiction, which the gp post did state. However the beta could be performed in a developing area of the world with less strict codes. On the other hand it could be performed in a area with very strict building codes. Are the Laws of Hammurabi (18th century BC - Babylon) still enforced?;-)
233. If a builder build a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and a wall cracks, that builder shall strengthen that wall at his own expense.
229. If a builder build a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.
So who gets the death penalty? The robot, an engineer or programmer?
They'd still have to pass inspection to be lived in, so it's not as if the walls are going to cave in and kill everyone simply because it was built by a robot. If the build quality sucks, it'll be condemned unless it's correctable.
Excellent point. I guess the poor are only in danger of having their hope built up and then dashed. "Sorry the new homes are uninhabitable. The robots need some hardware and software tweaks, we'll try again next year. Until then enjoy the vacant lot once we demolish the condemned buildings." That seems a little cruel too. Don't beta test on the poor. When the new hardware and software is proven then it should be used for good public works.
It'd be cooler if they'd find some people in that part of town who could beta-test the whole process, and live in a few of these houses. Like an automated Habitat for Humanity or something.
Your heart may be in the right place but like many ideas inspired by emotion it's not a good one. Keep the robots building walls on campus that are not used for anything, that can fail without endangering anyone. Don't beta test the robots building load bearing walls that may collapse on a family in the middle of the night.
Just to be clear, Coppola adapted Mario Puzo's book, it was not Coppola's original work so your Lucas / Star Wars analogy is off. Coppola was just a worker, he did an excellent job and deserves a hell of a lot of credit for that, but that's it.
One-time-pads are a joke, encrypt not the answer
on
The Baby Bootstrap?
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· Score: 1
Encryption has made such leaps and bounds lately that cyphers can be made that literally would take longer than the age of the universe to crack.
Add to that the fact that one-time-pads can be loaded into the plane's memory before launch, and you really don't have to worry about anyone else hacking the planes.
For this particilar application encryption is not the answer and one-time-pads are a joke. You can not build an AI-based Air Force on the assumption that your one-time-pads will not be leaked through plain old human error or human espionage. History shows that "secure" encryption systems are defeated not so much by technology and theory but by sloppiness, betrayal, and other human flaws.
Follow the chain of technology upwards. The data on my key DOS-era QIC-80 tapes was burned to CD-R. Recently the data on my key CD-Rs was burned to a DVD-R. I also use an old machine as a home server and have copies of this data there.
For this patent, anything which existed publicly prior to July 20, 1984 would be considered prior art. Good luck.
Yes but keep in mind that in 1984 video game state of the art graphics consisted of things like how to code a better line or arc drawing routines in assembly language.
I wonder how many people on this site have kids named Han and Kirk!
With respect to the former you are excluding asia right? Wasn't it really "Hans" though? If so you'll find that pretty popular in Denmark, you may have heard of "Hans Christian Andersen". He definitley predates Star Wars
With respect to the latter Kirk is a pretty normal US/European name. You may have seen a movie or two with Kirk Douglas. He predates Star Wars as well.
Only so long as you have the right to run MS software... As the government is all for DRM/TCPA (as it allows excellent sheeple-steering), but TCPA would allow microsoft to rescind the ability to run word on future hardware, it makes sense to demand open-for-purposes-of-data-extraction-only formats.
Word outputs RTF, the RTF spec is published by microsoft, source code for sample readers is provided by microsoft, word could vanish from the face of the earth and the RTF docs would be just fine. If the government wanted docs to be open they would simply save as RTF. This is all politics not technical.
If you cared, and few really do, you could always have written an RTF file with word. RTF is documented and sample readers are available from Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp. Word and excel format used to be published, it hardly mattered with respect to Microsoft achieving dominance or helping the competition.
This at least gives us the right to our own data back, since we can then convert it to a more useable format. So it seems like we've won the first battle, but not the war!
You never lost the right to your data, you could always output your data into something else. Text, RTF if you wanted to preserve formatting. RTF's specification and a sample reader are published by Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp. You have won nothing, you do know that Microsoft used to publish word and excel formats on their website? It did not impeded MS's dominance, it did not help the competition.
f MSFT can't close the document format and any program can correctly read/write documents in the way they were intended what advantage does MSFT have. That's why MSFT doesn't want this and everyone else does.
What makes you think publishing the format would hurt Microsoft, you do know that the Word and Excel formats used to be published on their website? I have no idea why they stopped but it is hardly likely to affect their word processor dominance one way or the other. FWIW, my guesses:
(1) Didn't feel like spending the time maintaining it, combined with a very low level of interest.
(2) Wanted a consistent policy, publish all formats or none, consistency may make lawyers happy.
(3) Wanted to make an issue out of nothing, something that can be given away or conceded during a negotiation. Woot woot, a victory for Open Source, we got Microsoft to do something that they had previously done for years --- something that didn't impeded their dominance --- something that didn't help the competition --- something that nobody really cares about.
Woot - woot.
Compatibility generally refers to the application level, not the kernel level. It is normal for a kernel to have some knowledge of the specific CPU and to do a little branching accordingly. For example CPUID results changing a little depending on AMD or Intel, even changing a little between generations from the same vendor. Using your rediculous definition of compatibility we would have to say 32-bit Athlons are not Intel compatible because they do not report L1/L2 cache sizes in the same manner as Intel. Differences like this don't matter, the kernel can deal with. All that matters is that your end user apps don't have to care who made the CPU.
To be clear CPUID is just a convenient example of where things can be different, I don't really expect the problem to be related to CPUID.
Since Intel only released this to try to play catch-up with AMD, if Linux runs stably on an Athlon64 but not Intel's chip, the problem lies with Intel not Linux.
Do you develop kernel or driver software? Do you realize how rediculous what you are saying is? Working on AMD64 is not proof of correctness. While the instruction set that an end user application uses may be compatible between AMD and Intel the various control registers (not literally CRn but anything used for configuration or status) used by the kernel may be different and require new code.
Now it's time for game makers to get with the game [dum dum TISHHHH]. I'm tired of seeing 32 bits of my AMD 64 wasted every time I game, and now that every major player has 64 bit processors succeeding 32 bit, they need to get with the program and stop wasting bits.
No, it is not time for 64-bit ports, well at least for game clients. Servers are a different topic. First your CPU is probably not your bottleneck, you graphics card probably is. Secondly, developers don't optimize for the high end, they generally spend what little time they have on optimizing the low end. The low end needs the help, the high end is fine as is.
I talked to some of the few people who were testing these. Apparently it couldn't keep linux running for more than 4 minutes. Lets hope Intel was able to fix that "issue"
Assuming of course the issue is Intel's not Linux's. Yeah, heresy, sorry about that.
Actually I should also say assuming the hardware is not flaky. How's the 64-bit WinNT beta run on that system?
FWIW in certain jurisdiction law enforcement is considered "on duty" at all times, hence the requirement to carry concealed weapons when not "at work". They do have days off and vacations and are free to leave the jurisdiction.
... authorized US Naval attacks on German submarines prior to Pearl Harbor...
Hmm. Can you give me a reference for that? The only thing that comes to mind is the fact that FDR authorized unrestricted naval warfare shortly after Pearl Harbor.
"Admiral King's fleet was to implement much more than a standard defensive doctrine. He underlined the operative words in OpPlan 3-41: "If any such naval vessels or aircraft are encountered within twenty-five miles of Western Hemisphere territory, except the Azores, warn them to move twenty-five miles from such territory and, in case of failure to heed such warning, attack them.""
Also, the election and this whole democracy thing is a smoke screen to keep popular public opinion about the US's actions.>
You have zero credibility in this discussion. Iraqi citizens risked their lives to vote. Iragi police/soldiers died protecting these people on election day. You politics has patheitically twisted your perceptions.
A church functioning as a political organization cannot be compared to one functioning as a church. Politics corrupts, both religion and science. Witness the recent furor at Harvard when it was suggested that someone should investigate whether or not women have a predisposition against scientific careers. He was treated as a heretic for the suggestion.
Oh, c'mon! The scientific community thrives on open discussion and debate. The religious community (at least the religious community discussed in this story) thrives by shutting down any debate!
Could it be that these people are very much afraid of any rational discussion about their beliefs?
You must not read the papers, or web news other than slashdot.:-) A high ranking official at Harvard was nearly thrown out because he suggested that the theory that women have a lesser predisposition towards scientific careers than men might warrant further study. He did not say he believed this to be true but merely thought it was something worth investigating. He was treated as a heretic and nearly thrown out for merely suggesting a line of investigation. Yeah, science is open minded. You confuse the ideal of science with the reality of the world, politics screws up science just like it screws up relgion.
I find it real interesting that you mention a quote from the Vatican Observatory. The Vatican itself has been guilty of suppressing any discussion of ideas that conflict with its beliefs and has used the most draconian and horrific means possible to prevent dissemination of those ideas.
The church is run by men and is therefore fallible. If you wish to discuss the middle ages then yes the church was often wrong and corrupt, however it was functioning more as a political body not so much as a religion body. While science and religion are compatible, politics and religion are not. When the church gets into politics it loses sight of its original mission. The church we are discussing today is functioning in its proper domain, leaving to Ceasar what is Ceasar's.
Since you like to consider history perhaps you would like to consider low moments in science. How about medicine and the practice of bleeding? These old errors do not offer much insight into modern medicine do they?
Slashdot Mirror
Publishing is expensive, ads are supposed to defray the cost and save the customer a little money. If this is true for the NYT why would it not be true for games? If they are as ignorable as ads in the newspaper then fine, something like wall posters or billboards. Product placement like in TV and movies, fine as long as it makes sense in the context of the plot/action. A character wearing a Nike t-shirt would not be the end of the world, its not like you don't see that on the street a hundred times a day. If the brand is being artificially pushed in front of your face that's a different story. Having to make a Del Taco run every time your characters gets low on hit points would be bad.
Reminds me of the upcoming "Doom" movie, that I heard neither takes place on mars, nor features hell demons.
Neither mars nor demons are important, they are completely replacable background material. "Doom" is scary-ugly-nasty looking stuff popping out and coming after you, you responding with massive amounts of firepower, and stains on the floor and wall result.
Changing the original storyline does not necessarily indicate failure, especially when there was not much of a storyline to begin with. The new Battlestar Gallactica may be a good example of where changes can work.
They'd still have to pass inspection to be lived in, so it's not as if the walls are going to cave in and kill everyone simply because it was built by a robot. If the build quality sucks, it'll be condemned unless it's correctable.
;-)
Assuming of course that the beta is performed in a responsible jurisdiction, which the gp post did state. However the beta could be performed in a developing area of the world with less strict codes. On the other hand it could be performed in a area with very strict building codes. Are the Laws of Hammurabi (18th century BC - Babylon) still enforced?
233. If a builder build a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and a wall cracks, that builder shall strengthen that wall at his own expense.
229. If a builder build a house for a man and does not make its construction sound, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.
So who gets the death penalty? The robot, an engineer or programmer?
They'd still have to pass inspection to be lived in, so it's not as if the walls are going to cave in and kill everyone simply because it was built by a robot. If the build quality sucks, it'll be condemned unless it's correctable.
Excellent point. I guess the poor are only in danger of having their hope built up and then dashed. "Sorry the new homes are uninhabitable. The robots need some hardware and software tweaks, we'll try again next year. Until then enjoy the vacant lot once we demolish the condemned buildings." That seems a little cruel too. Don't beta test on the poor. When the new hardware and software is proven then it should be used for good public works.
It'd be cooler if they'd find some people in that part of town who could beta-test the whole process, and live in a few of these houses. Like an automated Habitat for Humanity or something.
Your heart may be in the right place but like many ideas inspired by emotion it's not a good one. Keep the robots building walls on campus that are not used for anything, that can fail without endangering anyone. Don't beta test the robots building load bearing walls that may collapse on a family in the middle of the night.
Just to be clear, Coppola adapted Mario Puzo's book, it was not Coppola's original work so your Lucas / Star Wars analogy is off. Coppola was just a worker, he did an excellent job and deserves a hell of a lot of credit for that, but that's it.
Encryption has made such leaps and bounds lately that cyphers can be made that literally would take longer than the age of the universe to crack. Add to that the fact that one-time-pads can be loaded into the plane's memory before launch, and you really don't have to worry about anyone else hacking the planes.
For this particilar application encryption is not the answer and one-time-pads are a joke. You can not build an AI-based Air Force on the assumption that your one-time-pads will not be leaked through plain old human error or human espionage. History shows that "secure" encryption systems are defeated not so much by technology and theory but by sloppiness, betrayal, and other human flaws.
Follow the chain of technology upwards. The data on my key DOS-era QIC-80 tapes was burned to CD-R. Recently the data on my key CD-Rs was burned to a DVD-R. I also use an old machine as a home server and have copies of this data there.
It has always been "Han" and it is usually MISspelled/read/spoken as "Hans" by non-fans for whatever reason
;-)
You sure Lucas didn't change it in the "special" editions?
Also I think getting the name right/wrong is for qualification/disqualification for something beyond a fan.
For this patent, anything which existed publicly prior to July 20, 1984 would be considered prior art. Good luck.
Yes but keep in mind that in 1984 video game state of the art graphics consisted of things like how to code a better line or arc drawing routines in assembly language.
I wonder how many people on this site have kids named Han and Kirk!
With respect to the former you are excluding asia right? Wasn't it really "Hans" though? If so you'll find that pretty popular in Denmark, you may have heard of "Hans Christian Andersen". He definitley predates Star Wars
With respect to the latter Kirk is a pretty normal US/European name. You may have seen a movie or two with Kirk Douglas. He predates Star Wars as well.
Do they read RTF's written by Word?
Only so long as you have the right to run MS software... As the government is all for DRM/TCPA (as it allows excellent sheeple-steering), but TCPA would allow microsoft to rescind the ability to run word on future hardware, it makes sense to demand open-for-purposes-of-data-extraction-only formats.
Word outputs RTF, the RTF spec is published by microsoft, source code for sample readers is provided by microsoft, word could vanish from the face of the earth and the RTF docs would be just fine. If the government wanted docs to be open they would simply save as RTF. This is all politics not technical.
If you cared, and few really do, you could always have written an RTF file with word. RTF is documented and sample readers are available from Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url= /library/en-us/dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp. Word and excel format used to be published, it hardly mattered with respect to Microsoft achieving dominance or helping the competition.
This at least gives us the right to our own data back, since we can then convert it to a more useable format. So it seems like we've won the first battle, but not the war!
= /library/en-us/dnrtfspec/html/rtfspec.asp. You have won nothing, you do know that Microsoft used to publish word and excel formats on their website? It did not impeded MS's dominance, it did not help the competition.
You never lost the right to your data, you could always output your data into something else. Text, RTF if you wanted to preserve formatting. RTF's specification and a sample reader are published by Microsoft, http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url
f MSFT can't close the document format and any program can correctly read/write documents in the way they were intended what advantage does MSFT have. That's why MSFT doesn't want this and everyone else does.
What makes you think publishing the format would hurt Microsoft, you do know that the Word and Excel formats used to be published on their website? I have no idea why they stopped but it is hardly likely to affect their word processor dominance one way or the other. FWIW, my guesses:
(1) Didn't feel like spending the time maintaining it, combined with a very low level of interest.
(2) Wanted a consistent policy, publish all formats or none, consistency may make lawyers happy.
(3) Wanted to make an issue out of nothing, something that can be given away or conceded during a negotiation. Woot woot, a victory for Open Source, we got Microsoft to do something that they had previously done for years --- something that didn't impeded their dominance --- something that didn't help the competition --- something that nobody really cares about. Woot - woot.
Compatibility generally refers to the application level, not the kernel level. It is normal for a kernel to have some knowledge of the specific CPU and to do a little branching accordingly. For example CPUID results changing a little depending on AMD or Intel, even changing a little between generations from the same vendor. Using your rediculous definition of compatibility we would have to say 32-bit Athlons are not Intel compatible because they do not report L1/L2 cache sizes in the same manner as Intel. Differences like this don't matter, the kernel can deal with. All that matters is that your end user apps don't have to care who made the CPU.
To be clear CPUID is just a convenient example of where things can be different, I don't really expect the problem to be related to CPUID.
Since Intel only released this to try to play catch-up with AMD, if Linux runs stably on an Athlon64 but not Intel's chip, the problem lies with Intel not Linux.
Do you develop kernel or driver software? Do you realize how rediculous what you are saying is? Working on AMD64 is not proof of correctness. While the instruction set that an end user application uses may be compatible between AMD and Intel the various control registers (not literally CRn but anything used for configuration or status) used by the kernel may be different and require new code.
Now it's time for game makers to get with the game [dum dum TISHHHH]. I'm tired of seeing 32 bits of my AMD 64 wasted every time I game, and now that every major player has 64 bit processors succeeding 32 bit, they need to get with the program and stop wasting bits.
No, it is not time for 64-bit ports, well at least for game clients. Servers are a different topic. First your CPU is probably not your bottleneck, you graphics card probably is. Secondly, developers don't optimize for the high end, they generally spend what little time they have on optimizing the low end. The low end needs the help, the high end is fine as is.
I talked to some of the few people who were testing these. Apparently it couldn't keep linux running for more than 4 minutes. Lets hope Intel was able to fix that "issue"
Assuming of course the issue is Intel's not Linux's. Yeah, heresy, sorry about that.
Actually I should also say assuming the hardware is not flaky. How's the 64-bit WinNT beta run on that system?
FWIW in certain jurisdiction law enforcement is considered "on duty" at all times, hence the requirement to carry concealed weapons when not "at work". They do have days off and vacations and are free to leave the jurisdiction.
... authorized US Naval attacks on German submarines prior to Pearl Harbor...
n norFeb-2.htm
Hmm. Can you give me a reference for that? The only thing that comes to mind is the fact that FDR authorized unrestricted naval warfare shortly after Pearl Harbor.
"Admiral King's fleet was to implement much more than a standard defensive doctrine. He underlined the operative words in OpPlan 3-41: "If any such naval vessels or aircraft are encountered within twenty-five miles of Western Hemisphere territory, except the Azores, warn them to move twenty-five miles from such territory and, in case of failure to heed such warning, attack them.""
http://www.usni.org/navalhistory/Articles04/NHoco
Also, the election and this whole democracy thing is a smoke screen to keep popular public opinion about the US's actions.>
You have zero credibility in this discussion. Iraqi citizens risked their lives to vote. Iragi police/soldiers died protecting these people on election day. You politics has patheitically twisted your perceptions.
A church functioning as a political organization cannot be compared to one functioning as a church. Politics corrupts, both religion and science. Witness the recent furor at Harvard when it was suggested that someone should investigate whether or not women have a predisposition against scientific careers. He was treated as a heretic for the suggestion.
Oh, c'mon! The scientific community thrives on open discussion and debate. The religious community (at least the religious community discussed in this story) thrives by shutting down any debate!
:-) A high ranking official at Harvard was nearly thrown out because he suggested that the theory that women have a lesser predisposition towards scientific careers than men might warrant further study. He did not say he believed this to be true but merely thought it was something worth investigating. He was treated as a heretic and nearly thrown out for merely suggesting a line of investigation. Yeah, science is open minded. You confuse the ideal of science with the reality of the world, politics screws up science just like it screws up relgion.
Could it be that these people are very much afraid of any rational discussion about their beliefs?
You must not read the papers, or web news other than slashdot.
I find it real interesting that you mention a quote from the Vatican Observatory. The Vatican itself has been guilty of suppressing any discussion of ideas that conflict with its beliefs and has used the most draconian and horrific means possible to prevent dissemination of those ideas.
The church is run by men and is therefore fallible. If you wish to discuss the middle ages then yes the church was often wrong and corrupt, however it was functioning more as a political body not so much as a religion body. While science and religion are compatible, politics and religion are not. When the church gets into politics it loses sight of its original mission. The church we are discussing today is functioning in its proper domain, leaving to Ceasar what is Ceasar's.
Since you like to consider history perhaps you would like to consider low moments in science. How about medicine and the practice of bleeding? These old errors do not offer much insight into modern medicine do they?