That sounds like the typical crap that companies get grilled for here on slashdot.
Well, I'm not your typical Slashdot user, Thank God. And even if you can't see the value in AI experiments I do. No one is saying that this is going to replace level designers. If you really thought that was this was all about I'm afraid that you've missed the point completely.
50 quality levels of Mario would probably take tens, if not hundreds, of thousands times more time to generate than 100 AI generated levels. Not to mention the investment involved.
Paper manufacturers don't go around cutting random trees; they either grow their own trees or buy them from someone who owns the land. If people stop using paper, that land will be used for some other purpose.
Unless there is no buyers. By reducing the need for resources in all possible places there simply will not be a market and land that is unused today will continue to be unused. Supply and demand applies as much to land as it does to money.
They're doing this to save money, nothing more.
The paper is not the only thing involved with the printing process. There is a potential for real gains here. Maybe not a big one on the small scale that Ubi is doing it but it is part of the solution of reducing waste, like it or not.
How do the Hindus feel about their ancestors being forced into manual labor like this, when they could have used human beings instead?
I don't know if you're being a troll by saying that but it is obvious you know little about the Hindu religion. I would take it as a slight if it wasn't for the fact that it's much more likely that you're just ignorant.
The certification just means that you can remember a lot of information and regurgitate it, not that you have a deep understanding of it, or the creativity to use it to solve problems in the best way.
That can be said of most college degrees as well. Do you have a point to be made here?
And the department pow-wow idea is a good one. We do that in my department but what happens when there is no real team? What ensures that the techs who are at these meetings take anything away from it besides a free coffee? What happens in the one man shops? There's a lot more of them out there than you might think.
Certifications hold a role in our industry. They may not deserve the value placed on them in some circumstances but they do still have a value. To dismiss a process simply because it ends with a certification instead of a degree is short sighted. To go through a process with no measuring stick at the end and expect people to take something useful from it is short sighted. A company may abuse the role of the certification but given some of my run ins with IT managers it is a better solution than what some of these bozos think should be the standard for their charges. And in a situation where managers who don't know IT, from a technical aspect, are meant to ensure that their staff is up to par it is probably the best solution.
Many certifications will help you be more marketable in your field. It is only the starter certs (A+-whatever) that don't mean all that much, unless you want to work for a help desk.
You may find it crazy but there is a university close to me of a somewhat reputable name that was recently hiring IT staff starting in the 40-50k USD range (35k is about the average household income in my area) that required A+ and if you didn't have an A+ they may hire you but you had to complete the A+ testing before the end of the probationary period. It's not a big step above the help desk level but it's nothing to sneeze at either and it seems pretty clear that they took the A+ seriously.
I can assure you, few PC gamers buy FPSs today for the single player version. That's why you can still find CounterStrike and Medal Of Honor servers out there. I can't remember the last time I bought a FPS and played the single player to any great length. Probably Half-Life 2.
And I was one of the many dedicated Modern Warfare players who didn't even bother with MW2 after the dedicated servers snub.
This is all the more reason to actively avoid their product; so that we can make it profitable for other countries to take up the production of items that only seem to sell at the lowest price point possible. It may cost us a little today but in the long run we won't be so attached to one provider that we have to put up with their abusive nature if we need to "cut the cord."
Maybe for people who are in the know but when Little Johnny's mom and dad get a summons it will be a whole different ball game. They'll pay in a moment to avoid legal hassles.
Everyone has their idea on what makes a game good for them and everyone has an idea on what makes a game bad for them and they're all right in their respective opinions for a single player: themselves.
Slashdot took a serious nose dive when they left behind the tech and took up the banner of political activism. I knew that on the day they (as in KDawson) started posting non-tech political articles on the front page that all kinds of weirdos and trolls were going to come out of the woodwork. The genie is out of the bottle and nothing is going to stop the endless cheap shots and mud smearing between idealogical camps.
A civilization that has any real chance to reach us with a spaceship would be able to not only deal with global warming easily but they'd also have no problem finding us with or without all the radio wave jazz.
As it has been mentioned here a few times; the people involved with SETI have no illusions of finding ET on his cell phone. It's about the concept that maybe there are civilizations sending out a signal that is meant for no other reason than to be a beacon to others. We've already done it ourselves, we just don't do it on a regular basis.
In any case, we will more likely observe life on their planet via chemical analysis of their atmosphere long before they get a signal from us. Given the leaps and bounds that extrasolar planet discovery has happened in the last decade, I'm guessing that we will know a great deal about the possibility of Earth-like life being on any planet within a thousand light years of us before our radio signals travel a tenth of that distance. If we find a planet that displays the chemical make up of life there is a high chance someone will start beaming it with radio signals but we will probably have the ability to actively observe the life on that planet long before the signal ever gets to them.
So is SETI really going to prove anything we won't know much more about in the next couple of decades? Doubtful. But if we do detect signals from another planet using the SETI project it will probably mean that they know we're here and they're reaching out to us for better or for worse.
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like the typical crap that companies get grilled for here on slashdot.
Well, I'm not your typical Slashdot user, Thank God. And even if you can't see the value in AI experiments I do. No one is saying that this is going to replace level designers. If you really thought that was this was all about I'm afraid that you've missed the point completely.
50 quality levels of Mario would probably take tens, if not hundreds, of thousands times more time to generate than 100 AI generated levels. Not to mention the investment involved.
If people are consuming less, what is, pray-tell, this "other purpose"? Or are you just missing the point on purpose?
While I get your point in all of this there is also the fact that the research value of this is well worth their time too.
Paper manufacturers don't go around cutting random trees; they either grow their own trees or buy them from someone who owns the land. If people stop using paper, that land will be used for some other purpose.
Unless there is no buyers. By reducing the need for resources in all possible places there simply will not be a market and land that is unused today will continue to be unused. Supply and demand applies as much to land as it does to money.
They're doing this to save money, nothing more.
The paper is not the only thing involved with the printing process. There is a potential for real gains here. Maybe not a big one on the small scale that Ubi is doing it but it is part of the solution of reducing waste, like it or not.
FTP doesn't use up any network resources unless someone is using it.
How do the Hindus feel about their ancestors being forced into manual labor like this, when they could have used human beings instead?
I don't know if you're being a troll by saying that but it is obvious you know little about the Hindu religion. I would take it as a slight if it wasn't for the fact that it's much more likely that you're just ignorant.
The certification just means that you can remember a lot of information and regurgitate it, not that you have a deep understanding of it, or the creativity to use it to solve problems in the best way.
That can be said of most college degrees as well. Do you have a point to be made here?
And the department pow-wow idea is a good one. We do that in my department but what happens when there is no real team? What ensures that the techs who are at these meetings take anything away from it besides a free coffee? What happens in the one man shops? There's a lot more of them out there than you might think.
Certifications hold a role in our industry. They may not deserve the value placed on them in some circumstances but they do still have a value. To dismiss a process simply because it ends with a certification instead of a degree is short sighted. To go through a process with no measuring stick at the end and expect people to take something useful from it is short sighted. A company may abuse the role of the certification but given some of my run ins with IT managers it is a better solution than what some of these bozos think should be the standard for their charges. And in a situation where managers who don't know IT, from a technical aspect, are meant to ensure that their staff is up to par it is probably the best solution.
Many certifications will help you be more marketable in your field. It is only the starter certs (A+-whatever) that don't mean all that much, unless you want to work for a help desk.
You may find it crazy but there is a university close to me of a somewhat reputable name that was recently hiring IT staff starting in the 40-50k USD range (35k is about the average household income in my area) that required A+ and if you didn't have an A+ they may hire you but you had to complete the A+ testing before the end of the probationary period. It's not a big step above the help desk level but it's nothing to sneeze at either and it seems pretty clear that they took the A+ seriously.
Yeah, because Apple lead the charge in mobile devices long before MS.
Oh... wait!
RIAA, MPAA - why don't you just sell your product for a reasonable price so that more people will buy it?
What price beats free?
What's so "weird" about the multiplayer aspect?
I can assure you, few PC gamers buy FPSs today for the single player version. That's why you can still find CounterStrike and Medal Of Honor servers out there. I can't remember the last time I bought a FPS and played the single player to any great length. Probably Half-Life 2.
And I was one of the many dedicated Modern Warfare players who didn't even bother with MW2 after the dedicated servers snub.
They're still a producer of a legitimate product. That's the crux of the matter.
This is all the more reason to actively avoid their product; so that we can make it profitable for other countries to take up the production of items that only seem to sell at the lowest price point possible. It may cost us a little today but in the long run we won't be so attached to one provider that we have to put up with their abusive nature if we need to "cut the cord."
Call me a devil's advocate but I think it can be said that the companies that hire the MPAA/RIAA are legitimate businesses with a real products.
Maybe for people who are in the know but when Little Johnny's mom and dad get a summons it will be a whole different ball game. They'll pay in a moment to avoid legal hassles.
Everyone has their idea on what makes a game good for them and everyone has an idea on what makes a game bad for them and they're all right in their respective opinions for a single player: themselves.
Sometimes a checkmate is really a catch-22. Be careful of your footing when you make a sweeping statement like that.
I hear Leonard Nemoy has already sung... er sorry... *signed on* for this project.
Slashdot took a serious nose dive when they left behind the tech and took up the banner of political activism. I knew that on the day they (as in KDawson) started posting non-tech political articles on the front page that all kinds of weirdos and trolls were going to come out of the woodwork. The genie is out of the bottle and nothing is going to stop the endless cheap shots and mud smearing between idealogical camps.
A civilization that has any real chance to reach us with a spaceship would be able to not only deal with global warming easily but they'd also have no problem finding us with or without all the radio wave jazz.
As it has been mentioned here a few times; the people involved with SETI have no illusions of finding ET on his cell phone. It's about the concept that maybe there are civilizations sending out a signal that is meant for no other reason than to be a beacon to others. We've already done it ourselves, we just don't do it on a regular basis.
In any case, we will more likely observe life on their planet via chemical analysis of their atmosphere long before they get a signal from us. Given the leaps and bounds that extrasolar planet discovery has happened in the last decade, I'm guessing that we will know a great deal about the possibility of Earth-like life being on any planet within a thousand light years of us before our radio signals travel a tenth of that distance. If we find a planet that displays the chemical make up of life there is a high chance someone will start beaming it with radio signals but we will probably have the ability to actively observe the life on that planet long before the signal ever gets to them.
So is SETI really going to prove anything we won't know much more about in the next couple of decades? Doubtful. But if we do detect signals from another planet using the SETI project it will probably mean that they know we're here and they're reaching out to us for better or for worse.
The IEEE didn't develop any of the mentioned technologies. They just standardized them.
I've owned a Droid phone for 5 days now. I've already had to "patch" two of the apps for it out of about 10 apps that I have on the phone.
By those standards I'd say MS is doing one hell of a fine job.
I find it ironic that you're a subscriber and you're ranting against the same kind of activity on Slashdot that you condemn on Twitter.
Where does that leave you in the grand scheme of things?