If you want to make yourself good for the IT industry, don't fall back on just being able to whip up a 1000 line C file in an hour.
These days, you have to make sure you have good communication skills. You could be asked to write proposals for getting new technology, or reporting something. If your grammar and spelling skills are amiss, it will reflect very poorly on you.
At my college, which is engineer-geared and thus tosses most of those useless classes, CS majors have to take one more literature/humanities/sociology/etc. course than any other major. The reason they gave to me was a bit odd, so I won't try to pass it on, but the idea is that programmer is much more than just punching in code, and the job revolving around programming may include much more.
I'd say you do have a future, but you have to actually work for it. Too many programmers think that their years of Visual Basic and HTML mean they can truly code, and too many people used to just Windows AD get shunted into the field.
At a non-profit I worked for as an intern, I was under three different head admins in a year and a half. The first guy was pretty good- while he didn't know everything, he could do the common stuff and figure out other things as they came around. After he left (he worked for a company that contracted out per-yearly) he got replaced by a guy who was lazy as all hell. I, the intern, had to remind him about such things as ping and ipconfig. He was also lazy, and got canned soon after starting. The third guy was alright, but also lacked some common knowledge, despite years in the field.
In short, don't limit yourself to what you know. Don't learn one programming language, learn five. Know how to administrate in both Windows and Linux/Unix. The things that are being offshored are helpdesks and jobs that don't require heavy expertise. Make yourself useful, and you're made.
You could also try going into some "different" areas. I have a year or two before I graduate as a CS major, and I'm thinking about being a computer forensics guy. With the increase in crimes done through or related to the internet, there's a growing demand by law enforcement, both local and federal, for people who can get into confiscated computers and retrieve deleted files. If not with the police force, I could work as a private detective, contracting to large corporations when they get hacked to trace it and try to find the perps.
...to the point that I don't even see why we have a news story. What's next? "Nintendo thinks that fun games are useful". "Microsoft thought it would help to get a head start". "The Sky is blue, but only if you write your game that way".
To counter this non-news news, Nintendo fanobys (especially those eager for the Revolution) might want to check out AOL's sweepstakes page. A contest, starting today and ending on the 28th, gives one lucky winner a three day visit to CA, passes to E3, and to be the first commoner to play the actual Revolution.
Did I mention you'd play it in front of an audience of thousands? Unfortunatly, only one entry per person.:(
17 Employ tactics and/or technologies to prevent the full and complete delivery or display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
a. Making journal style changes, customizations, or overrides that effectively block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on a Sponsored+ account's Content or other pages within the Service.
b. Employing and/or providing software programs, browser scripts, or other technologies that serve to block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages.
This looks like LiveJournal is just setting some ground rules for Supporter+ accounts. For those who don't use LiveJournal, Supporter+ accounts display ads on pages related to that journal, and in return those members get access to some of the previously friends-only features, such as more avatars, and the ability to create custom mood icons.
This is just making sure that those who sign up Supporter+, which includes extra customization of Journal layouts, don't write up CSS and the layouts in such a way as to hide the banners under other content.
Section b does appear to state that the use of such things like AdBlock on their site could be grounds for removal or other disciplinary action. However, unless you blatantly state in your LJ that you are using such technology, and using it actively on the site, I'm not sure how they could pin it down. And what if the user uses Lynx, or has images turned off?
If they have the means to do so, they stand to make a lot of money; there are lots of sites that rely on advertisements that would love to be able to stop people using banner blockers from using their site.
In short, this is probably nothing new; I've seen some similar things used at other sites, and seen people banned because they said they block any and all adverts.
So this is just to keep people from becoming Supporter+ and then screwing the system, with a browser-end technology stipulation thrown in for good measure to scare some people.
As Slashdot often says: Nothing to see here, please move along.
I'm not really interested in it. I don't think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games.
The controller has everything to do with the enjoyment of games, because that's how you interact with them. If this statement was really true, we'd all be using controllers like the Colecocision and other such monstrocities from the early 1980s. Look, it has nine buttons AND A KNOB! What more could you possibly ask for? And it's a sturdy, small design, so it can easily be stored.
Can you make enjoyable games with the current controllers? Hell yeah. But the Revolution contoller is about immersion as much as it is about enjoyment. Instead of sending an instruction to your character to swing the sword (passive second person) you actually move your arm to swing the sword (active first person), which will make people much more interested if they actually play the game instead of watch it.
Let's say you like playing sports. Which would you rather do? Be the coach who sits in the box and tells the batter when to swing, or be the batter and decide when you want to swing?
Games will be made on the PS3, 360, and Revolution that are enjoyable. But games will only be made for the Revolution that are immersable, which just compounds the enjoyment.
Well, unless they screw something up between E3 05 and release date, it will work just fine.
Many different gaming magazine writers got to sit down and actually use the controller with demo games. Pretty much every one commented on how flawlessly it worked.
Imagine if the NES had been released with the light gun as the only controller?
That would have been a problem because the light gun had only one function- read in light patterns from the screen. It did nothing else, so programmers would have been able to use that one function in their games.
This is far from a light gun.
(Also, Nintendo has already stated that it is making a "shell" for the controller so it will be more like a conventional one, for the developers and gamers who pussy out.)
Now, how would you feel if every square inch of this public space was being constantly monitored by closed-circuit cameras whose feeds are reviewed by police officers?
If it were the government setting up the cameras or website, I'd say that you'd have a dead-spot analogy.
However, this is more like someone else setting up the cameras, and the police just using them. Say, a mall installs cameras to satisfy those worried about safety. The cops think that someone is in the mall that they are looking for, or that someone might attempt to steal something, so they ask the mall guys "Hey, can we use your cameras?"
Well, the mall guys sure wouldn't hate the idea of having two cruisers parked in front of their mall; it would give regular citizens a more secure feeling because of the (apparent) police prescense. Plus, if the mall needs help, they could say "Hey, cops, we helped you here, mind giving us a minute?" It's the mall's property, so the only way that the customers could have any say is if they were able to succesfully picket or boycott to have the cameras removed (which is probably unlikely).
In any case, the cameras are already installed. The people at the mall are told the cameras are installed. Anyone that doesn't want to be on a camera doesn't have to go to the mall. And with the cruisers outside, a regular person could figure out that they might be looking at tapes or live camera feed.
In the same way, MySpace is a private company, it's already set up, and it's already there for the taking. Anyone who posts to MySpace (or LiveJournal, or Facebook) knows that millions of anonymous people on the internet can see their entries (unless they choose the privacy options). If they don't want people looking, they'll not make a public account.
And, in the same way, making this kind of thing public is helpful to MySpace- less parents will be worried about their child using it, and most regular users will have a better feeling that someone is trying to keep them safe.
Now, if the mall (or MySpace) was the only location in a given range to get a component necessary for life, then we could worry about the private/public fiasco.
Working the private/public part of this discussion, think about someone hanging a sign in the window of their (private) apartment saying that they murdered someone. Again, this is plain sight stuff, open to the public. Anyone can see it. There cannot be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
I'm not quite sure why this is under YRO; it's certainly news worth, in my opinion, but why YRO? Are we saying that the police are crossing a legal boundry by looking at MySpace pages? Maybe it's this line:
By conducting such surveillance, says Electronic Privacy Information Center senior counsel Chris Hoofnagle, an officer risks crossing "the line between crimes that have been committed and crimes that haven't. Next he'll be sucking down information just in case he needs it--and that's the type of action that upsets a user's rights."
If they were installing hidden cameras, taping phones, or installing keyloggers without cause, I really don't see the problems. If you can get a heads up about someone robbing a house tomorrow night because they were stupid enough to post it on MySpace, why should that be considered protected?
If someone painted a sign saying "I've stolen three cars from this street!" and wore it on said street, is there any reason the cops can't at least stop and question him (even if he denies anything vocally) and check up on him later?
As far as legal requirements for police goes, there's a "Plain View" clause (I'm sure there's a Latin term for it.) For the few who may not understand, it basically says that if the item is in plain view, it can be used. If the cops respond to a noise complaint at your house, look past you into the home, and see a meth lab, they can use that. They may not be able to bust in right away to arrest you (varies by state and circumstance), but they can call up a warrant PDQ. If they pushed their way into the house without cause, or just shoved you to the side to see it, it would most likely be inadmissable.
In the case of the meth lab and the robbery, both are due to horrible stupidity on the perpetrator's part, and there really is no reason they should be protected because of it. If the cop is stalking someone on their MySpace page because s/he doesn't like their choice in music, and wants to make sure they don't decide to steal a CD of it or something, then we might have cause for worry, but this is more likely something done by the common public than by the police, who hopefully are out catching badies and don't have enough time to track every movement on MySpace.
Now, as far as some smaller things go, like stealing CDs or smoking MJ, they can't just take the MySpace page and present that as conclusive evidence; they'd have to get other evidence (like the CD or MJ itself) to prosecute. Could it be enough for a warrant for the other evidence? Maybe. I think that's a legal battle that will come up, because you can't be sure if they actually did it or they're (erronously) trying to look cool for their interweb friends by posting it.
As with much of the internet (which has brought on a lot of problems really fast,) the law is still trying to catch up, and things like MySpace, LiveJournal, and perhaps even sites like Slashdot and Fark could play a role in some big trials in the next 5 or 10 years, especially how global information is received and used in criminal cases.
You know, when you think about, wouldn't you want government agencies that need tight security to run a propritairy OS? Maybe base it off Linux, so you still have app availablity, but change enough that its guts work different from Linux itself, and only use it within the government itself (Perhaps call it LinUS, though Torvalds may get a little cheesed.) Use dumb terminals when possible. Restrict access to the servers to a select few.
After all, it would be much harder to create a virus for a system that few people have real access to. Think of it as a master lock-picker coming to a new and complex lock that no one has seen before. After quite some time he might be able to pick it, but chances are that guards would come by and pick him up first.
As much as I like Microsoft as a regular user, there's no way in hell I plan to run servers on it.
Guys... it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not. This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.' It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
Since I'm sitting in class bored, I'm going to mince that line apart.
Guys...
While it's likely that's just a common euphamism for "You all", it shows a little bit more; most console gamers are guys. However, only roughly half of all humans are guys. That leaves a lot of potential consumers, and this is one thing that Nintendo has really been pushing for since we got the DS. Games like Super Princess Peach, Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing have been pulling in female gamers by the bucket load, and Nintendo wants to extend that to your average parent and grandparent as well with the Revolution.
it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not.
Light gun games require the controller to interact with the light cascading from a television. In the case of the afformentioned Duck Hunt, the screen briefly changes its colors to highlight the location of said duck, and the gun reads those colors to see if you hit it or not.
Nintendo's controller, on the other hand, uses spacial recognition in co-operation with gyroscopes to measure height, distance, arc, pitch, yaw, and alignment. Light gun game my ass.
This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.'
It very well may not be, but what it shows is how the Revoltion controller can do for FPS games. Say you're chasing someone (or they're chasing ou) on the run down a hallway, and baddies pop out of side doors to shoot at you. To shoot them back, you'd have to turn your character to face them (or lock on), shoot them, and turn your character back to look at the guy you're after and continue forward. In this time he's gained ground on you.
With the Revolution controller, you never stray off the path. You keep holding forward, and simply move your hand to point the gun to your right, left, or whatever, cap the guy's ass, and continue as if nothing happened.
This controller adds a whole new layer of immersion to many titles, especially FPS. A good majority of people complain that regular console controllers suck for FPSes, citing various reasons. I'm really interested to see how the remote controller will fair in this.
It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
If you ask me, we're overdue for an updated Duck Hunt. None of this hiding in the bushes shit of other hunting games, either- you just sit there with a gun in a patch of grass while endless numbers of birds of different types fly out. Your dog (you would get to choose the breed- maybe even import a dog from Nintendogs!) would then fetch the bird and/or scare up more. Every so often you'd get to shoot the dog when it gets too damned annoying.
Bonus levels would including shooting flamingos in Florida and a form of skeet shooting where penguins launch down ice ramps into the air and you try to get them before they land on the other side.
I pray that there is a major change in the order of Congress this election year, or this kind of thing may not be far behind here in America.
Yes, we'll still have Bush, but if we can a Democrat majority in Congress, especially a democrat majority with a fucking spine, Bush and them will spend the next two years fighting until we can hopefully replace all of them in '08 and start the long path of recovery...
You know it's bad when pleas like this are coming from a Republican.
While this was more a book exerpt than a book review (actually, what exactly was that intended to be?), it was a good read. I'd never heard of Snapper before, and as a broke college student, I do most of my shopping at Wal-mart.
I've actually worked at Wal-mart, too. It's not the soul-sucking lowlife job that many would have you believe, though most of my coworkers weren't exactly the greatest bunch. While I wasn't there long enough to actually cash in on any of the benefits (thankfully,) what they offered seemed to be well enough, considering the job.
In any case, despite having worked there, I don't like Wal-mart because of their by-products. Most of their wares are crap (though useful if you want, say, a pot for just a few uses), and their stores are usually messy. I don't so much mind the whole "running the local places out of business" thing- after all, that's free market. I do have some problems with how they make their prices so low. Lastly, they seem to pander to the lowest of the low class- grossly overweight parents with three unbehaved children who buy a piece of tupperware, use it thrice in the microwave before it melts, and then tosses it out.
Part of the landfill problem is that people are okay with buying something on the cheap, tossing it out, and buying it again. Buying long lasting products for a bit more cuts down on waste.
Wal-mart is usefull for helping those on poor income, but it causes more problems than it solves, methinks.
In any case, now I think I'll buy a Snapper if and when I own my own home.
I've seen it mentioned a few times, both with this article and previous ones mentioned on Slashdot, that having an open source voting system would be the best, as people all over the world would be able to point out discrepencies and holes in the system.
However, no one has actually gone far enough to list out how it could be done. Since I am but a lowly programmer (forced to do so in Coldfusion, of all things), I ask Slashdot to humbly analyze and tear apart the following idea, as it related to open source:
First and foremost, no Windows. While I am not in the "anti-M$" crowd, and use Windows XP for my home operating system, it is bloated beyond comprehension for what we have need of. Even using one of the smaller forms like Windows CE would not do well, because we'd still have to worry about liscensing and fees, creating more of a headache for the government.
An Open Source Voting system should start with Unix or Linux, but not be built on top of those O.S.- instead, the systems should be modified to be an voting system and nothing more. No internet, no editing software (except what would be required for voting), etc. The operating system would exclusively allow for administrative setup, voting, and send the tallies to a main server meant to collect and conclude.
Next, the voting system (which I would like to coin as "VetOS") will print out every single ballet. After a user votes, the system prints the vote out on paper. The voter is asked to ensure all votes are as desired, and nothing is submitted until the user confirms that the paper version is a-ok. These paper ballots are turned into those in charge of that election center, as is normally done with regular paper ballots, who in turn put them into a locked box. By having a user verify the print out, hand out the print out to someone else, who then stores it in a secure location, you then have a verifiable trail. Extra precautions could include a personalized rubber stamp that is used by those working at the election center that is used on each print out before it goes into the machine.
While it would be quicker to have the print outs go into a locked box connected to the machine, there's always the chance that someone could sneak in and switch out the box, or that the print outs could become messed up (and no one would know until you had to actually open the box to count the votes.) Considering how important this is, the extra time (which really isn't much over what we have now) is worthwhile.
Finally, make the system as such that it can be run on just about everything. Smaller counties and towns don't have the budget to get fancy-pants touch screens and laser printers. Electronic voting is something that would benefit all, and every attempt should be made so that all can use it. Make the program able to scaled up; if all you have access to is equipment from 1998, it should work on that, but if you have state-of-the-art touchscreens, it should work there, as well.
This is a project that I believe the Open Source community could undertake (assuming it hasn't, already). Succeeding in such a course would not only decrease voting discrepancies, but would give the open source community a boost in the public eye.
"I wonder if Steve would only allow chairs that would be easy to throw, or have chairs so heavy that they couldn't be thrown. It depends on how he wants to raise his children, I suppose."
"Maybe his real motive for not allowing iPods is so that the kids won't throw them. Those things are expensive!"
"If you think Steve's tantrums are bad, wait until you meet his kids."
And the people who sold it became filthy stinking rich.
What would you rather do: Work on a site that's populated by ego-ridden teens and young college students who whine a lot and make some money off of adverts and sponsorships, or get a (very) large suitcase full of money and go do drugs off a hooker's ass in Vegas?
If you're still thinking about this, just ask yourself: What Would Bender Do?
Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property.
I couldn't quite understand that, so I used Babelfish Microsoft Translater (Beta) and got the following:
I'm blowing steam out my ass, but I'm pretty sure that if we paid the right professors the right amount of money, they'll be able to scrutinize the Linux code to the point of finding something that we can claim is in violation of our abundant trademarks. And if they can't, we'll just try to run Linux businesses into the groud by trying to claim they're infringing on our "array" patent, or whatever I pull out of a hat at the time. Cause those SCO lawsuits sure as hell ain't working, and we're losing almost as much money on them as we are on the XBox, ya know?
Wow, Microsoft sure has a condensed language.
In all serious, I think that one line is important. I think there are experts. Not I have experts or I'm speaking to experts, but I think there are experts. So he has no idea if there are people that claim that Linux violates MSIP (or, if there is, if they have proof to back it up.)
More hot air from a guy who hasn't been allowed to have his executive leather chair back (windows cost money, you know).
While I'm sure NASA will have a lot of interest in doing science research on the moon, as well as setting up a landing and take off area for ships going to and from Mars, it could be funded (at least partially) by tourism.
Set up a deal with some international hotel chain. Hilton, Holiday Inn, what have you. Work with them to construct living quarters on the moon. Nasa makes it possible, the hotel company makes it comfortable. Then work with travel agencies to set up private trips to the moon. NASA would be responsible for bringing people to and from the moon, and the hotel would take care of them while they're on the moon. Aside from being able to say "I stayed a night on the moon", you could set up such things as moon walks (hey, moon shuffle board!), lunar rides, and other such things. Of course, all of this would be handled by the hotel, and would not be cheap.
NASA and the hotel would split the profits. This would help speed up construction on the moon, and I'm sure you'll have other businesses interested in setting up tourism operations, which would be viable once such companies like SpaceX get commercial space rides going.
And you've heard of the Mile High club, right? Well, see how much people will pay to join the "Moon High" club, where the deed is done in orbit. (Porn companies will love this idea, too.)
Once tourism has made the moon an atractive destination, you'll get other private industry companies coming up, as well. For instance, I recall a story on Slashdot a few months back where they made glass 10x strong than normal with almost no imperfections by making it in zero G and using sound waves to keep it from touching anything.
While lacking the details some of us were hoping for, such as an official name or any extra info on the Revolution itself, this is still some damned good news.
With all that Nintendo is bringing out this year, such as Metroid Prime: Hunters, The New Super Mario Bros, (supposedly) new Pokemon games, and now Phantom Hourglass, it makes me weep softly at my lack of funds. At least I have even more reason to wait until DS Lite hits the shores. Between all that, Twilight Princess, and the Revolution, Nintendo is most likely going to get all of my free income this year, and rightly so.
The announcement that Genesis games will be on the Revolution is completely awesome; even though Sega has put out the classic Sonic games 18 times over, it will still be fun to play them on the Rev. Plus, you have games like Echo the Dolphin, Road Rash, and more. Even better, this could pave the way for 32X, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn games. I doubt we'd ever see Dreamcast games; while the Revolution will certainly be more powerful than the Dreamcast, would it be able to emulate the Dreamcast?
So, while these might be more minor announcements in the face of other things coming from Nintendo, but it's Good News none the less.
Although, we still don't have a specific state side release date for the DS Lite, do we? Dammit.
When sign language is used the majority of time versus speaking, that would make sense.
However, here sign language would be used in conjunction with words (most likely,) so the babies would pick up the sign language first and associate the words later; eventually, you'd switch over to speaking entirely, except when quiet is needed, and then you might switch to short sign language phrases.
Kind of like a person who walks crawls for a bit; you just crawl for a bit and you still walk just as well. I imagine if you started crawling all the time, your walking might be impaired.
My mother is a doula (works with women in more of a supportive mental sense than a medical sense during pregancy, childbirth, and afterwards) who is doing a class on sign language for mothers to be or recent mothers.
According to her (with about 15 years of experience under her belt as a doula, and "speaks" fluent sign language), babies can learn basic sign language before they can talk, and that teaching them sign language will enhance their mental capabilities (speak earlier, read earlier, higher IQ). She's listed off studies to back this, though I've never checked into them myself.
However, I don't doubt it. After all, we can teach monkeys to communicate via sign language. While certainly not dumb animals, they don't have the mental capabilities of humans (do monkeys have soap operas? There you go), so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we can teach humans sign language at an early age.
Slashdot Mirror
If you want to make yourself good for the IT industry, don't fall back on just being able to whip up a 1000 line C file in an hour.
These days, you have to make sure you have good communication skills. You could be asked to write proposals for getting new technology, or reporting something. If your grammar and spelling skills are amiss, it will reflect very poorly on you.
At my college, which is engineer-geared and thus tosses most of those useless classes, CS majors have to take one more literature/humanities/sociology/etc. course than any other major. The reason they gave to me was a bit odd, so I won't try to pass it on, but the idea is that programmer is much more than just punching in code, and the job revolving around programming may include much more.
I'd say you do have a future, but you have to actually work for it. Too many programmers think that their years of Visual Basic and HTML mean they can truly code, and too many people used to just Windows AD get shunted into the field.
At a non-profit I worked for as an intern, I was under three different head admins in a year and a half. The first guy was pretty good- while he didn't know everything, he could do the common stuff and figure out other things as they came around. After he left (he worked for a company that contracted out per-yearly) he got replaced by a guy who was lazy as all hell. I, the intern, had to remind him about such things as ping and ipconfig. He was also lazy, and got canned soon after starting. The third guy was alright, but also lacked some common knowledge, despite years in the field.
In short, don't limit yourself to what you know. Don't learn one programming language, learn five. Know how to administrate in both Windows and Linux/Unix. The things that are being offshored are helpdesks and jobs that don't require heavy expertise. Make yourself useful, and you're made.
You could also try going into some "different" areas. I have a year or two before I graduate as a CS major, and I'm thinking about being a computer forensics guy. With the increase in crimes done through or related to the internet, there's a growing demand by law enforcement, both local and federal, for people who can get into confiscated computers and retrieve deleted files. If not with the police force, I could work as a private detective, contracting to large corporations when they get hacked to trace it and try to find the perps.
...to the point that I don't even see why we have a news story. What's next? "Nintendo thinks that fun games are useful". "Microsoft thought it would help to get a head start". "The Sky is blue, but only if you write your game that way".
:(
To counter this non-news news, Nintendo fanobys (especially those eager for the Revolution) might want to check out AOL's sweepstakes page. A contest, starting today and ending on the 28th, gives one lucky winner a three day visit to CA, passes to E3, and to be the first commoner to play the actual Revolution.
Did I mention you'd play it in front of an audience of thousands? Unfortunatly, only one entry per person.
17 Employ tactics and/or technologies to prevent the full and complete delivery or display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages. These include, but are not limited to, the following:
a. Making journal style changes, customizations, or overrides that effectively block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on a Sponsored+ account's Content or other pages within the Service.
b. Employing and/or providing software programs, browser scripts, or other technologies that serve to block or substantially impair the display of advertisements on LiveJournal pages.
This looks like LiveJournal is just setting some ground rules for Supporter+ accounts. For those who don't use LiveJournal, Supporter+ accounts display ads on pages related to that journal, and in return those members get access to some of the previously friends-only features, such as more avatars, and the ability to create custom mood icons.
This is just making sure that those who sign up Supporter+, which includes extra customization of Journal layouts, don't write up CSS and the layouts in such a way as to hide the banners under other content.
Section b does appear to state that the use of such things like AdBlock on their site could be grounds for removal or other disciplinary action. However, unless you blatantly state in your LJ that you are using such technology, and using it actively on the site, I'm not sure how they could pin it down. And what if the user uses Lynx, or has images turned off?
If they have the means to do so, they stand to make a lot of money; there are lots of sites that rely on advertisements that would love to be able to stop people using banner blockers from using their site.
In short, this is probably nothing new; I've seen some similar things used at other sites, and seen people banned because they said they block any and all adverts.
So this is just to keep people from becoming Supporter+ and then screwing the system, with a browser-end technology stipulation thrown in for good measure to scare some people.
As Slashdot often says: Nothing to see here, please move along.
(For the recond, I have a Supporter+ account.)
I'm not really interested in it. I don't think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games.
The controller has everything to do with the enjoyment of games, because that's how you interact with them. If this statement was really true, we'd all be using controllers like the Colecocision and other such monstrocities from the early 1980s. Look, it has nine buttons AND A KNOB! What more could you possibly ask for? And it's a sturdy, small design, so it can easily be stored.
Can you make enjoyable games with the current controllers? Hell yeah. But the Revolution contoller is about immersion as much as it is about enjoyment. Instead of sending an instruction to your character to swing the sword (passive second person) you actually move your arm to swing the sword (active first person), which will make people much more interested if they actually play the game instead of watch it.
Let's say you like playing sports. Which would you rather do? Be the coach who sits in the box and tells the batter when to swing, or be the batter and decide when you want to swing?
Games will be made on the PS3, 360, and Revolution that are enjoyable. But games will only be made for the Revolution that are immersable, which just compounds the enjoyment.
Well, unless they screw something up between E3 05 and release date, it will work just fine.
Many different gaming magazine writers got to sit down and actually use the controller with demo games. Pretty much every one commented on how flawlessly it worked.
Imagine if the NES had been released with the light gun as the only controller?
That would have been a problem because the light gun had only one function- read in light patterns from the screen. It did nothing else, so programmers would have been able to use that one function in their games.
This is far from a light gun.
(Also, Nintendo has already stated that it is making a "shell" for the controller so it will be more like a conventional one, for the developers and gamers who pussy out.)
Now, how would you feel if every square inch of this public space was being constantly monitored by closed-circuit cameras whose feeds are reviewed by police officers?
If it were the government setting up the cameras or website, I'd say that you'd have a dead-spot analogy.
However, this is more like someone else setting up the cameras, and the police just using them. Say, a mall installs cameras to satisfy those worried about safety. The cops think that someone is in the mall that they are looking for, or that someone might attempt to steal something, so they ask the mall guys "Hey, can we use your cameras?"
Well, the mall guys sure wouldn't hate the idea of having two cruisers parked in front of their mall; it would give regular citizens a more secure feeling because of the (apparent) police prescense. Plus, if the mall needs help, they could say "Hey, cops, we helped you here, mind giving us a minute?" It's the mall's property, so the only way that the customers could have any say is if they were able to succesfully picket or boycott to have the cameras removed (which is probably unlikely).
In any case, the cameras are already installed. The people at the mall are told the cameras are installed. Anyone that doesn't want to be on a camera doesn't have to go to the mall. And with the cruisers outside, a regular person could figure out that they might be looking at tapes or live camera feed.
In the same way, MySpace is a private company, it's already set up, and it's already there for the taking. Anyone who posts to MySpace (or LiveJournal, or Facebook) knows that millions of anonymous people on the internet can see their entries (unless they choose the privacy options). If they don't want people looking, they'll not make a public account.
And, in the same way, making this kind of thing public is helpful to MySpace- less parents will be worried about their child using it, and most regular users will have a better feeling that someone is trying to keep them safe.
Now, if the mall (or MySpace) was the only location in a given range to get a component necessary for life, then we could worry about the private/public fiasco.
Working the private/public part of this discussion, think about someone hanging a sign in the window of their (private) apartment saying that they murdered someone. Again, this is plain sight stuff, open to the public. Anyone can see it. There cannot be a reasonable expectation of privacy.
If they were installing hidden cameras, taping phones, or installing keyloggers without cause, I really don't see the problems. If you can get a heads up about someone robbing a house tomorrow night because they were stupid enough to post it on MySpace, why should that be considered protected?
If someone painted a sign saying "I've stolen three cars from this street!" and wore it on said street, is there any reason the cops can't at least stop and question him (even if he denies anything vocally) and check up on him later?
As far as legal requirements for police goes, there's a "Plain View" clause (I'm sure there's a Latin term for it.) For the few who may not understand, it basically says that if the item is in plain view, it can be used. If the cops respond to a noise complaint at your house, look past you into the home, and see a meth lab, they can use that. They may not be able to bust in right away to arrest you (varies by state and circumstance), but they can call up a warrant PDQ. If they pushed their way into the house without cause, or just shoved you to the side to see it, it would most likely be inadmissable.
In the case of the meth lab and the robbery, both are due to horrible stupidity on the perpetrator's part, and there really is no reason they should be protected because of it. If the cop is stalking someone on their MySpace page because s/he doesn't like their choice in music, and wants to make sure they don't decide to steal a CD of it or something, then we might have cause for worry, but this is more likely something done by the common public than by the police, who hopefully are out catching badies and don't have enough time to track every movement on MySpace.
Now, as far as some smaller things go, like stealing CDs or smoking MJ, they can't just take the MySpace page and present that as conclusive evidence; they'd have to get other evidence (like the CD or MJ itself) to prosecute. Could it be enough for a warrant for the other evidence? Maybe. I think that's a legal battle that will come up, because you can't be sure if they actually did it or they're (erronously) trying to look cool for their interweb friends by posting it.
As with much of the internet (which has brought on a lot of problems really fast,) the law is still trying to catch up, and things like MySpace, LiveJournal, and perhaps even sites like Slashdot and Fark could play a role in some big trials in the next 5 or 10 years, especially how global information is received and used in criminal cases.
Let's hope he stops before he gets to Jesus, because where are they going to find a lawyer in heaven?
You know, when you think about, wouldn't you want government agencies that need tight security to run a propritairy OS? Maybe base it off Linux, so you still have app availablity, but change enough that its guts work different from Linux itself, and only use it within the government itself (Perhaps call it LinUS, though Torvalds may get a little cheesed.) Use dumb terminals when possible. Restrict access to the servers to a select few.
After all, it would be much harder to create a virus for a system that few people have real access to. Think of it as a master lock-picker coming to a new and complex lock that no one has seen before. After quite some time he might be able to pick it, but chances are that guards would come by and pick him up first.
As much as I like Microsoft as a regular user, there's no way in hell I plan to run servers on it.
Guys... it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not. This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.' It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
Since I'm sitting in class bored, I'm going to mince that line apart.
Guys...
While it's likely that's just a common euphamism for "You all", it shows a little bit more; most console gamers are guys. However, only roughly half of all humans are guys. That leaves a lot of potential consumers, and this is one thing that Nintendo has really been pushing for since we got the DS. Games like Super Princess Peach, Nintendogs, and Animal Crossing have been pulling in female gamers by the bucket load, and Nintendo wants to extend that to your average parent and grandparent as well with the Revolution.
it's just a freaking light gun game. Tell me it's not.
Light gun games require the controller to interact with the light cascading from a television. In the case of the afformentioned Duck Hunt, the screen briefly changes its colors to highlight the location of said duck, and the gun reads those colors to see if you hit it or not.
Nintendo's controller, on the other hand, uses spacial recognition in co-operation with gyroscopes to measure height, distance, arc, pitch, yaw, and alignment. Light gun game my ass.
This isn't a badass 'Halo killer.'
It very well may not be, but what it shows is how the Revoltion controller can do for FPS games. Say you're chasing someone (or they're chasing ou) on the run down a hallway, and baddies pop out of side doors to shoot at you. To shoot them back, you'd have to turn your character to face them (or lock on), shoot them, and turn your character back to look at the guy you're after and continue forward. In this time he's gained ground on you.
With the Revolution controller, you never stray off the path. You keep holding forward, and simply move your hand to point the gun to your right, left, or whatever, cap the guy's ass, and continue as if nothing happened.
This controller adds a whole new layer of immersion to many titles, especially FPS. A good majority of people complain that regular console controllers suck for FPSes, citing various reasons. I'm really interested to see how the remote controller will fair in this.
It's next-gen Duck Hunt.
If you ask me, we're overdue for an updated Duck Hunt. None of this hiding in the bushes shit of other hunting games, either- you just sit there with a gun in a patch of grass while endless numbers of birds of different types fly out. Your dog (you would get to choose the breed- maybe even import a dog from Nintendogs!) would then fetch the bird and/or scare up more. Every so often you'd get to shoot the dog when it gets too damned annoying.
Bonus levels would including shooting flamingos in Florida and a form of skeet shooting where penguins launch down ice ramps into the air and you try to get them before they land on the other side.
Is that like putting shoe polish on the periscope/telescope?
I pray that there is a major change in the order of Congress this election year, or this kind of thing may not be far behind here in America.
Yes, we'll still have Bush, but if we can a Democrat majority in Congress, especially a democrat majority with a fucking spine, Bush and them will spend the next two years fighting until we can hopefully replace all of them in '08 and start the long path of recovery...
You know it's bad when pleas like this are coming from a Republican.
While this was more a book exerpt than a book review (actually, what exactly was that intended to be?), it was a good read. I'd never heard of Snapper before, and as a broke college student, I do most of my shopping at Wal-mart.
I've actually worked at Wal-mart, too. It's not the soul-sucking lowlife job that many would have you believe, though most of my coworkers weren't exactly the greatest bunch. While I wasn't there long enough to actually cash in on any of the benefits (thankfully,) what they offered seemed to be well enough, considering the job.
In any case, despite having worked there, I don't like Wal-mart because of their by-products. Most of their wares are crap (though useful if you want, say, a pot for just a few uses), and their stores are usually messy. I don't so much mind the whole "running the local places out of business" thing- after all, that's free market. I do have some problems with how they make their prices so low. Lastly, they seem to pander to the lowest of the low class- grossly overweight parents with three unbehaved children who buy a piece of tupperware, use it thrice in the microwave before it melts, and then tosses it out.
Part of the landfill problem is that people are okay with buying something on the cheap, tossing it out, and buying it again. Buying long lasting products for a bit more cuts down on waste.
Wal-mart is usefull for helping those on poor income, but it causes more problems than it solves, methinks.
In any case, now I think I'll buy a Snapper if and when I own my own home.
I've seen it mentioned a few times, both with this article and previous ones mentioned on Slashdot, that having an open source voting system would be the best, as people all over the world would be able to point out discrepencies and holes in the system.
However, no one has actually gone far enough to list out how it could be done. Since I am but a lowly programmer (forced to do so in Coldfusion, of all things), I ask Slashdot to humbly analyze and tear apart the following idea, as it related to open source:
First and foremost, no Windows. While I am not in the "anti-M$" crowd, and use Windows XP for my home operating system, it is bloated beyond comprehension for what we have need of. Even using one of the smaller forms like Windows CE would not do well, because we'd still have to worry about liscensing and fees, creating more of a headache for the government.
An Open Source Voting system should start with Unix or Linux, but not be built on top of those O.S.- instead, the systems should be modified to be an voting system and nothing more. No internet, no editing software (except what would be required for voting), etc. The operating system would exclusively allow for administrative setup, voting, and send the tallies to a main server meant to collect and conclude.
Next, the voting system (which I would like to coin as "VetOS") will print out every single ballet. After a user votes, the system prints the vote out on paper. The voter is asked to ensure all votes are as desired, and nothing is submitted until the user confirms that the paper version is a-ok. These paper ballots are turned into those in charge of that election center, as is normally done with regular paper ballots, who in turn put them into a locked box. By having a user verify the print out, hand out the print out to someone else, who then stores it in a secure location, you then have a verifiable trail. Extra precautions could include a personalized rubber stamp that is used by those working at the election center that is used on each print out before it goes into the machine.
While it would be quicker to have the print outs go into a locked box connected to the machine, there's always the chance that someone could sneak in and switch out the box, or that the print outs could become messed up (and no one would know until you had to actually open the box to count the votes.) Considering how important this is, the extra time (which really isn't much over what we have now) is worthwhile.
Finally, make the system as such that it can be run on just about everything. Smaller counties and towns don't have the budget to get fancy-pants touch screens and laser printers. Electronic voting is something that would benefit all, and every attempt should be made so that all can use it. Make the program able to scaled up; if all you have access to is equipment from 1998, it should work on that, but if you have state-of-the-art touchscreens, it should work there, as well.
This is a project that I believe the Open Source community could undertake (assuming it hasn't, already). Succeeding in such a course would not only decrease voting discrepancies, but would give the open source community a boost in the public eye.
"I wonder if Steve would only allow chairs that would be easy to throw, or have chairs so heavy that they couldn't be thrown. It depends on how he wants to raise his children, I suppose."
"Maybe his real motive for not allowing iPods is so that the kids won't throw them. Those things are expensive!"
"If you think Steve's tantrums are bad, wait until you meet his kids."
I'll be here all day. Try the veal.
It sounds like someone's jealous that they can't have a ponytail at work.
"If I can't wear sandals, NO ONE CAN!"
And the people who sold it became filthy stinking rich.
What would you rather do: Work on a site that's populated by ego-ridden teens and young college students who whine a lot and make some money off of adverts and sponsorships, or get a (very) large suitcase full of money and go do drugs off a hooker's ass in Vegas?
If you're still thinking about this, just ask yourself: What Would Bender Do?
Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property.
I couldn't quite understand that, so I used Babelfish Microsoft Translater (Beta) and got the following:
I'm blowing steam out my ass, but I'm pretty sure that if we paid the right professors the right amount of money, they'll be able to scrutinize the Linux code to the point of finding something that we can claim is in violation of our abundant trademarks. And if they can't, we'll just try to run Linux businesses into the groud by trying to claim they're infringing on our "array" patent, or whatever I pull out of a hat at the time. Cause those SCO lawsuits sure as hell ain't working, and we're losing almost as much money on them as we are on the XBox, ya know?
Wow, Microsoft sure has a condensed language.
In all serious, I think that one line is important. I think there are experts. Not I have experts or I'm speaking to experts, but I think there are experts. So he has no idea if there are people that claim that Linux violates MSIP (or, if there is, if they have proof to back it up.)
More hot air from a guy who hasn't been allowed to have his executive leather chair back (windows cost money, you know).
While I'm sure NASA will have a lot of interest in doing science research on the moon, as well as setting up a landing and take off area for ships going to and from Mars, it could be funded (at least partially) by tourism.
Set up a deal with some international hotel chain. Hilton, Holiday Inn, what have you. Work with them to construct living quarters on the moon. Nasa makes it possible, the hotel company makes it comfortable. Then work with travel agencies to set up private trips to the moon. NASA would be responsible for bringing people to and from the moon, and the hotel would take care of them while they're on the moon. Aside from being able to say "I stayed a night on the moon", you could set up such things as moon walks (hey, moon shuffle board!), lunar rides, and other such things. Of course, all of this would be handled by the hotel, and would not be cheap.
NASA and the hotel would split the profits. This would help speed up construction on the moon, and I'm sure you'll have other businesses interested in setting up tourism operations, which would be viable once such companies like SpaceX get commercial space rides going.
And you've heard of the Mile High club, right? Well, see how much people will pay to join the "Moon High" club, where the deed is done in orbit. (Porn companies will love this idea, too.)
Once tourism has made the moon an atractive destination, you'll get other private industry companies coming up, as well. For instance, I recall a story on Slashdot a few months back where they made glass 10x strong than normal with almost no imperfections by making it in zero G and using sound waves to keep it from touching anything.
While lacking the details some of us were hoping for, such as an official name or any extra info on the Revolution itself, this is still some damned good news.
With all that Nintendo is bringing out this year, such as Metroid Prime: Hunters, The New Super Mario Bros, (supposedly) new Pokemon games, and now Phantom Hourglass, it makes me weep softly at my lack of funds. At least I have even more reason to wait until DS Lite hits the shores. Between all that, Twilight Princess, and the Revolution, Nintendo is most likely going to get all of my free income this year, and rightly so.
The announcement that Genesis games will be on the Revolution is completely awesome; even though Sega has put out the classic Sonic games 18 times over, it will still be fun to play them on the Rev. Plus, you have games like Echo the Dolphin, Road Rash, and more. Even better, this could pave the way for 32X, Sega CD, and Sega Saturn games. I doubt we'd ever see Dreamcast games; while the Revolution will certainly be more powerful than the Dreamcast, would it be able to emulate the Dreamcast?
So, while these might be more minor announcements in the face of other things coming from Nintendo, but it's Good News none the less.
Although, we still don't have a specific state side release date for the DS Lite, do we? Dammit.
When sign language is used the majority of time versus speaking, that would make sense.
However, here sign language would be used in conjunction with words (most likely,) so the babies would pick up the sign language first and associate the words later; eventually, you'd switch over to speaking entirely, except when quiet is needed, and then you might switch to short sign language phrases.
Kind of like a person who walks crawls for a bit; you just crawl for a bit and you still walk just as well. I imagine if you started crawling all the time, your walking might be impaired.
So... she basically gave a name, applying mostly to geeks, for the small amount of ADD that all of us h- ooh, shiny object!
My mother is a doula (works with women in more of a supportive mental sense than a medical sense during pregancy, childbirth, and afterwards) who is doing a class on sign language for mothers to be or recent mothers.
According to her (with about 15 years of experience under her belt as a doula, and "speaks" fluent sign language), babies can learn basic sign language before they can talk, and that teaching them sign language will enhance their mental capabilities (speak earlier, read earlier, higher IQ). She's listed off studies to back this, though I've never checked into them myself.
However, I don't doubt it. After all, we can teach monkeys to communicate via sign language. While certainly not dumb animals, they don't have the mental capabilities of humans (do monkeys have soap operas? There you go), so it shouldn't come as a surprise that we can teach humans sign language at an early age.
Actually, I kind of like the whole "make it easy" GUI stuff. :) I'm the modern lazy geek.
Still, I'll check it out. Thanks.