I must admit that is pleasing to have our project on slashdot. It's been a fun project and
is getting me a M.Sc out of it:P.
Having a pool table in your lab is a lot of fun on friday afternoons.
For those/.'s interested the robot should be playing a game entirely on its own in the spring. We are still very much in the early stages of development, but we have made lots of progress over the last 16 months from when the gantry was delivered.
I would also add this comment, that the biggest hurdles in making a killer game involve the artistic side. Good artwork, level design, sound engineering and story writing make or break a game regardless how good the underlying engine is.
The parent is correct, but this also plays a large factor. Even getting a game done as OSS would be difficult and would require a few very determined developpers, but without the artists also joining the project it won't really go anywhere. If you can find a group of artists who want to work for free on a OSS game send em my way.
Personally I think the biggest impact that OSS can make in gaming is engine development. Its defined goals make it easier to complete as a OSS project and once done would allow anyone or anything to make games using it, that would all run on our favorite distros.
This would also save effort with game developers no longeer (well hopefully...though not necessarily) reinventing each others wheels everytime they make new games.
I would imagine that in order to successfully do this you need be a hardware company. If you can provide commodity hardware with commodity software that presents a viable consumer alternative (read marketable to average joes as the best thing since a toaster for this new sliced bread stuff) then you might be able to make it. This is really a marketing problem rather than anything else. Generate a kick ass device by intergrating open source solutions with commodity hardware and your product development is much cheaper.
"My first attempt matched me up to a very nice looking female."
The possible ways to respond to this are numerous, but I think that what you need to do, is to make sure that under no possible circumstance you find yourself in a prison...
Please leave your Einstien and Ben Franklin *quotes* at home.....you act like they never said anything stupid in their lives.
This brings up a valid point, with such a forum as slashdot, the perpensity for saying something stupid and having it remembered is vastly under-rated. Wouldn't you just hate to be the guy that first said: "oooh, First Post!"
As far as I can tell, the true father of Linux is in fact Al Gore. He invented it shortly after his fledgling idea of a net-inter caught on and became what we know now as the internet. It was originally called Alix, but had to be renamed due to copyright issues involving a book about wonderland....
Re:Better Use
on
eyeBlog
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Dare I provide another link to send my deparment's server to oblivion, if you search the HML website
you find several papers published on that very topic.
For me, I watched mom run an exe attachment right in front me... because 'so and so' sent it...
Just like all those other users that face the internet every day.
Until a law is passed to actively restrict all communications on the basis of "defending" the rights of copyright holders...
Unfortunately, this seems more and more likely every day. Perhaps not 'all' communications, but communication will be restricted, if those few organizations have their way. Scary thought really.
Shamefully responding to my own post...I realized that I forgot to ask if the lefthanded slashdotters use those lefthanded keyboards (numeric and qwerty opposite to what most people are used to)
and if they find that these are more comfortable, for the reasons I described in that first post..
The study mentions what I have personally felt for a while... With that numeric keypad tagged onto the keyboard, the mouse ends up being very far away... So I at one point started,sliding my keyboard left (I'm right handed) and found that while I started typing mostly with my left hand, keeping my right on the mouse I started getting cramps in my left so I had to move the keyboard back... but now I have to reach so much farther for my mouse, which will only be bad for my right hand. Why do we still have those numeric key pads anyways? The keyboard is a great input device but numeric keypad, cursor keys, and could be redesigned so as to bring the mouse closer to where your hands are when you are typing
I suspect that left handers (use the mouse with their left hand) have far less trouble with their mouse hand, than those who use it with their right.
What they should do is move the numeric keypad to the left side for righties and viceversa for lefties. That way you could use your left hand for cursors, numerics and your right hand will be 3-4X closer to the mouse. Errr.. patent pending on this:P
Yeah, right, like I can imagine CmdrTaco rejecting a story because he read the math and found the error.
Actually, the most probable result is that CmdrTaco read the story and didn't find the error, but the error's order of magnitude was too large and so it resulted in a dupe.
;)
If protecting against the weather is possible....
on
Broadband Barrage Balloons
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Ok,just to stop silly pellet gun comments... it
would take one that could shoot 1.5km accurately (according to article that is how high they are and for the metrically impaired that's just under a mile), so that would be one nifty pellet gun. But it wouldn't suprise me in one such toy weapon existed in the US....
The article only mentions the opportunity for UK coverage but what about countries where laying fiber/cable would be a huge undertaking. 3rd World contries could certainly benefit from this kind of technology, if it works as well as they say it does. Wiring countries without the usual western infrastructure might be much more cost effective with this approach. Though I am not holding my breath on this... though the article does mention that the US military uses things like these...
I am happy to see that of the several projects heading to make this window, they are all focusing on different aspects of mars research. I would hate to see the effort of more then one group on the same 'problem', it would be a terrible waste of resources.
On another note, it's nice to see some more world involvement in space/mars research. More eyes, and maybe even more important differently organized eyes looking at Mars will only improve our results. It's very reasuring to see.
Why isn't defragging recommended? Admittedly, most of us 'in the know' are aware frequent defragging helps keep the HD organized... But its not mentioned in the article (unless I missed it in my quick glance). But even so I would think that it is much more important than a full re-install. Is it just because we have so much HD space these days that defragging is not necessary?
That's like the guy who said this new 'wheel' thing has seen its best days... "It's square now... the growth just isn't there anymore, the big bumps of the three sided wheel are gone and the good days of people being interested in wheel development are over."
Really the industry probably hasn't seen its best days. How much crappy software is there out there?
How far are we from getting it right? Right now we have square wheels, we haven't figured it all out yet. The industry (open and proprietary) is changing, which is good. We are at a point when software is about to become really exciting. There is so much that can be done and bright minds will do it. Besides its better that investors aren't throwing money at anything with DOT and a COM, it will mean sounder companies, sounder projects, and more interest in open/free software solutions (as true believers will make the project anyways, regardless of monetary gain).
Computer club is still kinda cool (nerdy but most will respect your knowledge).
But make sure you never start an after-school D&D club, or have DM Manuals in your school bag... no one will never ever over-look that. Forever... trust me.
Slashdot Mirror
Celine Dione?
Goodness... our poor server may survive....
I must admit that is pleasing to have our project on slashdot. It's been a fun project and is getting me a M.Sc out of it :P.
Having a pool table in your lab is a lot of fun on friday afternoons.
For those /.'s interested the robot should be playing a game entirely on its own in the spring. We are still very much in the early stages of development, but we have made lots of progress over the last 16 months from when the gantry was delivered.
It looks like I will finally have an excuse to upgrade. With Half-life 2 and Doom 3, looking to be a good year for PC gaming....
that's nothing.....Reality TV is the way to go
Next on HBC.... Average Joe Wants to Marry A Trillionaire On Survivor Asteroid
I would also add this comment, that the biggest hurdles in making a killer game involve the artistic side. Good artwork, level design, sound engineering and story writing make or break a game regardless how good the underlying engine is.
The parent is correct, but this also plays a large factor. Even getting a game done as OSS would be difficult and would require a few very determined developpers, but without the artists also joining the project it won't really go anywhere. If you can find a group of artists who want to work for free on a OSS game send em my way.
Personally I think the biggest impact that OSS can make in gaming is engine development. Its defined goals make it easier to complete as a OSS project and once done would allow anyone or anything to make games using it, that would all run on our favorite distros.
This would also save effort with game developers no longeer (well hopefully...though not necessarily) reinventing each others wheels everytime they make new games.
WOW...... Dubbya reads slashdot...
I would imagine that in order to successfully do this you need be a hardware company. If you can provide commodity hardware with commodity software that presents a viable consumer alternative (read marketable to average joes as the best thing since a toaster for this new sliced bread stuff) then you might be able to make it. This is really a marketing problem rather than anything else. Generate a kick ass device by intergrating open source solutions with commodity hardware and your product development is much cheaper.
For example the L600.
In the end, to be successful with this strategy you have to be a kick ass marketer to deal with the big guns at the top of the food chain.
"My first attempt matched me up to a very nice looking female."
The possible ways to respond to this are numerous, but I think that what you need to do, is to make sure that under no possible circumstance you find yourself in a prison...
This brings up a valid point, with such a forum as slashdot, the perpensity for saying something stupid and having it remembered is vastly under-rated. Wouldn't you just hate to be the guy that first said: "oooh, First Post!"
As far as I can tell, the true father of Linux is in fact Al Gore. He invented it shortly after his fledgling idea of a net-inter caught on and became what we know now as the internet. It was originally called Alix, but had to be renamed due to copyright issues involving a book about wonderland....
Dare I provide another link to send my deparment's server to oblivion, if you search the HML website you find several papers published on that very topic.
For me, I watched mom run an exe attachment right in front me... because 'so and so' sent it... Just like all those other users that face the internet every day.
Solve that problem...and profit!
Not that surprising really....
Now there is proof that there is only 1 blog to go with the well known fact that there is only 1 makefile.
philosophical questions about old planks and new boats aside of course... and Al Gore probably wrote it...
the secret to making Wine faster is to put anti-freezein it.
Ah... but it would hardly be a proper Win32 emulator if there some anti-freeze in it... might as well get rid of the blue screen while you are at it!
You don't know any statisticians do you....
Until a law is passed to actively restrict all communications on the basis of "defending" the rights of copyright holders...
Unfortunately, this seems more and more likely every day. Perhaps not 'all' communications, but communication will be restricted, if those few organizations have their way. Scary thought really.
Shamefully responding to my own post...I realized that I forgot to ask if the lefthanded slashdotters use those lefthanded keyboards (numeric and qwerty opposite to what most people are used to) and if they find that these are more comfortable, for the reasons I described in that first post..
The study mentions what I have personally felt for a while... With that numeric keypad tagged onto the keyboard, the mouse ends up being very far away... So I at one point started,sliding my keyboard left (I'm right handed) and found that while I started typing mostly with my left hand, keeping my right on the mouse I started getting cramps in my left so I had to move the keyboard back... but now I have to reach so much farther for my mouse, which will only be bad for my right hand. Why do we still have those numeric key pads anyways? The keyboard is a great input device but numeric keypad, cursor keys, and could be redesigned so as to bring the mouse closer to where your hands are when you are typing
I suspect that left handers (use the mouse with their left hand) have far less trouble with their mouse hand, than those who use it with their right. What they should do is move the numeric keypad to the left side for righties and viceversa for lefties. That way you could use your left hand for cursors, numerics and your right hand will be 3-4X closer to the mouse. Errr.. patent pending on this :P
Yeah, right, like I can imagine CmdrTaco rejecting a story because he read the math and found the error.
Actually, the most probable result is that CmdrTaco read the story and didn't find the error, but the error's order of magnitude was too large and so it resulted in a dupe.
Ok,just to stop silly pellet gun comments... it would take one that could shoot 1.5km accurately (according to article that is how high they are and for the metrically impaired that's just under a mile), so that would be one nifty pellet gun. But it wouldn't suprise me in one such toy weapon existed in the US....
The article only mentions the opportunity for UK coverage but what about countries where laying fiber/cable would be a huge undertaking. 3rd World contries could certainly benefit from this kind of technology, if it works as well as they say it does. Wiring countries without the usual western infrastructure might be much more cost effective with this approach. Though I am not holding my breath on this... though the article does mention that the US military uses things like these...
I am happy to see that of the several projects heading to make this window, they are all focusing on different aspects of mars research. I would hate to see the effort of more then one group on the same 'problem', it would be a terrible waste of resources.
On another note, it's nice to see some more world involvement in space/mars research. More eyes, and maybe even more important differently organized eyes looking at Mars will only improve our results. It's very reasuring to see.
Why isn't defragging recommended? Admittedly, most of us 'in the know' are aware frequent defragging helps keep the HD organized... But its not mentioned in the article (unless I missed it in my quick glance). But even so I would think that it is much more important than a full re-install. Is it just because we have so much HD space these days that defragging is not necessary?
yeah, just like that unix-esque OS... now what's its name?
"It's square now... the growth just isn't there anymore, the big bumps of the three sided wheel are gone and the good days of people being interested in wheel development are over."
Really the industry probably hasn't seen its best days. How much crappy software is there out there? How far are we from getting it right? Right now we have square wheels, we haven't figured it all out yet. The industry (open and proprietary) is changing, which is good. We are at a point when software is about to become really exciting. There is so much that can be done and bright minds will do it. Besides its better that investors aren't throwing money at anything with DOT and a COM, it will mean sounder companies, sounder projects, and more interest in open/free software solutions (as true believers will make the project anyways, regardless of monetary gain).
So many warnings about computer club...
Computer club is still kinda cool (nerdy but most will respect your knowledge).
But make sure you never start an after-school D&D club, or have DM Manuals in your school bag... no one will never ever over-look that. Forever... trust me.