Not that I should enter this arguement, but I have never subscribed to doing all that is good for me...far too boring
Money that is redirected from the US's disproportionately rich economy helps ALL of those countries, not just a particular IT worker.
That worker will spend his savings in his country and that will benefit the economy and therefore provide more jobs helping poverty etc etc etc. Basic economics really.
The reality (and also basic economics) is that all that wealth your country has didn't just come from nowhere. If it wasn't for 3rd world countries producing lots of cheap produce/gadgets/etc you would have none of it. The US government has become extremely adept at manipulating markets and so forth to benefit their own economy. Sometimes with far reaching and deterimental effects on poorer countries.
Not that their is not poverty in the US, of course, but this is mostly because the distribution of wealth in the US is so screwed up.
PS: This is not a troll, just an objective opinion - such as it is.
Had said flatmate bothered to ask me, I would have advised, but he did not. He is not all that consumer wise and bought it because he loves CS. I am sure he was not alone.
The fact that the CS name was on such a rubbish game should warrant a reparation payment to such trusting consumers.
Demo/Beta - it is all the same in this case. A reduced feature version of the final product.
My main point was, if you would have stopped from ranting for a second to read it, that Demo/Beta versions are now being treated like products.
In the case of MMOG, you pay a subscription for it. (even MMOGs that are far from fully featured as per the box) In the case of this demo, you have to pay a Valve subscriber to use it. Very similar in that Valve get subscriptions both ways, wouldn't you say?
People (like my flatmate!) who where duped into buying condition zero deserve a FREE COPY when it is released, not just a beta!!
Man was that a travesty of a FPS or what?!?
Since when did Beta releases become such a big deal anyway? Aren't they just advertising? Why the hell are they restricting it????
Perhaps they are following the MS/MMOG example and consider a Beta an actual product?
Yeah....especially if you are poor academic researcher who can barely get enough funding for that last (necessary) piece of equipment.
What a load of bollucks.
But wait, you can just go and WORK FOR A PHARMACEUTICAL company!!?? They always do super-awesome, unbiased and well funded research while always releasing data no matter what the result...*breath*
Pull your head out, these sorts of companies are making money at the expense of people's quality of life at best, and lives at worst. This is just another sad, sad brick in the wall.
Well it is nice to see you guys all lubed up and ready for your employers, both presant and future. Keep making excuses for your employer and remember to never make waves! Man, if you swallow HR dogma that well, I would hire you and make you work for peanuts and fruit skins...
The whole idea of salaried workers in IT is that they are deparate fools who end up taking a shafting by a insanely capitalist government. Overtime is NOT worked into the salary, they pay them a standard wage (just enough to lure them in) and the enourmous overtime is just "expected". You can tell this because their contracts completely lack any overtime rules other than "no money for you monkey boy". Then they make the little "rats in a maze" feel they are being rewarded for this by giving out "Pats on the back"(TM) and only giving raises and promotions to people who averaged 95 hours a week. Further perpetuating this trend.
But don't worry, the little rats are loved and well looked after...until of course (as in this case) the profit margin is in danger, then they will sack you without a second thought.
GO CAPITALISTS GO!!! WOOHOO! BUSH FOREVER!
Note: Yes I work in IT. Yes I worked in a similar job to this above. (not in games) Although I was far too valuable to fire, as I am sure many of us are. I have a much better job now (in IT) and I get paid more...go figure.
This problem may still be NP hard. This solution, if you read the article, is not by any means COMPLETE, you can find wierdo examples to fool this algy, but works for almost all "normal" cases.
This means that a complete solution might be NP hard, but this approimation of the complete solution is much better than that.
Computer scientists have struggled with the problem of finding an optimal mix of large and small elements for years. In 1998, theoreticians proved that the problem was "NP hard" that no general solution exists that can be solved by a computer in finite length of time. They did find work-arounds: fast methods to simplify meshes, which were unable to guarantee accuracy, and accurate techniques, which were too slow.
The Desbrun teams novel approach comes from the seemingly unrelated field of machine learning using a technique invented in 1959 called Lloyd Clustering named after its inventor Stuart Lloyd. Desbruns algorithm uses it to automatically segment an object into a group of non-overlapping connected regions an instant draft alternative to the too-numerous triangles of the original scan.
If you actually read it, it would be pretty obvious why this is new...sheesh!
Also, game data is built of far fewer triangles and in a much easier form than raw data read from a real-life source. (such as a laser range finder)LOD mesh reduction is usually done by full or partial MANUAL selection.
I agree that total open sourcing of Java will lead to this, haven't got time to go into it. Suffice to say that code forking in a platform such as this will be the death of it as it is now and could be in the future. IOW it will become marginalised...ironically this is EXACTLY what MS wanted to do when they released MS JVM!!
Imagine, OS marginalises Java when MS couldn't...using the same technique! !
My current thought is that Java is faaarrr too smart for this. They will adopt a restricted open source model, perhaps some sort of strict labelling model.
eg: Allow people to distribute Java-lite JVMs for use with their own applications...AFAIK currently not allowed.
Listened to 110 again and still I hold true to my statements.
It is simply an audio "visualisation" of pattern data. (pattern data taken to include things like fractals the repeat in interesting ways)
I don't want it to sound like man music, just some sort of sound that actually approximates something like music. Certain musicians specialise in creating random sounding music for various academic (one only hopes) purposes, but this is not what this is.
Of course any pattern based data processed to make a music file will sound like man-made music. Due to the hairy, university-trained composers out there, the only thing that defines most music is some sort of pattern!! (if even that)
So exactly what else does this show us, or is that it?? That was what I was trying to say.
I can take any number of pattern/fractal/etc data and produce stuff similar to this. What is your point exactly??
"'They are in poor physical shape, they eat unhealthily, grow fat and suffer insomnia,' she said. "
Yeah, they have to wait until they are 24 and working 12+ hours a day in a desk job. Then it is perfectly OK for this behaviour! It will have the added benefit of them NOT enjoying the activity also.
But they will still:
* Feel like killing people every 5 min
* Get no sun or physical activity
* Eat pizza and soft drinks
* Have no life
Unfortunately they will be able to blow off steam because your can't frag your opponent (read: boss) using an excel spreadsheet. (only older versions have the 3d doom game)
Actually the game has almost no content to speak of. (realtive to other MMOG games)
In fact, the devlopers ADMITTED as much on their message boards. (unfortunately you have to be a sucker like me and fork out the money first) They even admitted that they lacked DEVELOPER CONTENT TOOLS. No wonder they closed their boards.
Apparently the idea WAS for "player content", but the SWG team thought that that meant they invent a broken PVP system and a barely working crafting system and the players would invent the rest.
But seriously, there are almost NO player content creation tools. You can buld your own shop/house/base, but that is it. An extra set of standardised polygons in the pretty wasteland that are the SWG planets. They have no idea about player content.
You know why??? Because they openly admitted that only 2 of their developers had ever played MUDs and even then not too any great extent. Any idiot with a clipboard and pocket protector would have reliased that market research meant investigating the numerous, innovative methods being used in this founding technology.
I have come to the conclusion that they are just thick and were hoping for a quick buck from the SW universe.
Anyways, there is your answer on that one.
After a polite email to the forum admin, I have been reinstated.
I checked and all my posts are there with the article linked as expected. You sir, are either an incompetent forum user or are telling bald-faced lies.
The first thing I do when looking at buying a MMOG is go to the community forums.
The REAL story of the game is in there. I realise most of the posters are inflammatory, but I look past that to the facts they present: what kind of bugs, how bad are they and is the game any fun.
I have seen the bad posts and decided to buy anyway, an well informed decision. No MMOG is without bugs and the ones I seen were not fatal. (As with Shadowbane for example)
And you know what? The forums, taken in this light, were ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON. The issues they rant about were REAL and the impression I was given was about 98% accurate.
For all you who agree with their posts, excuse me but you have no idea what you are talking about. Advertising and promotion are absolute bollocks, more so in the gaming industry. I never pay attention to the box, so to speak. It is not even written by people who have played the game FFS.
Anyways, IMHO if I see an MMOG that has closed off its forums, I would definitely wonder why and quite franky I would have serious doubts about purchasing it.
True that we are not lawyers. The law is of course an ass and it would probably be based on vague and impractical ways of reasoning anyway.:o)
In the end it would come down to local laws on e-commuting internationally, which may or may not be well defined. It could depend on what country you are in, or what state.
Very excellant example of a straw man argument,congratulations.
Your companies dealings and business processes are in another country and so the act is not actually occuring in the country you reside in.
In the silly case that you described, you would be personally responsible for any liquor stores you ripped off, regardless of who you said you did it for.
I sometimes don't know why I bother....
I believe you are right, although I too am unsure about the details of this agreement. This is how it ended up in NZ.
However, in NZ, a patent can be easily nullified if it is found to not be as novel as the limp wristed US patent office said it was.:o)
As per usual this costs money and lawyers and the dogs of law are again released and make a killing.
Not quite correct.
Your COMPANY is subject to the laws where it is formed. You are merely an employee/director of said company.
Small difference, but a very important one.
BTW Your patents have to be novel as in they have not been done before. These monkies first registered their patent in 1996/7 or some such before this was a big deal. It has only just been accepted.
Your idea would not work because it is not novel at the time of application.
A NZ lawyer commented that the patent will probably be nullified because it will be shown to not be a novel process. IMHO it should not matter, this who concept is utterly ridiculous!
The world has gone insane on this issue and it is time for governments to step in. Of course they will take their sweet time since the big players love it and have their own patent lawyer harem.
Have to agree here strongly.
I love what the RIAA and the rest doing in copyright enforcement. The sharing habit has been formed, the only way to go soon will be GPL and independant music.
Everyone who doesn't drive around in a limo wins!!
Slashdot Mirror
Or perhaps "/er."??
Not that I should enter this arguement, but I have never subscribed to doing all that is good for me...far too boring
Money that is redirected from the US's disproportionately rich economy helps ALL of those countries, not just a particular IT worker. That worker will spend his savings in his country and that will benefit the economy and therefore provide more jobs helping poverty etc etc etc. Basic economics really.
The reality (and also basic economics) is that all that wealth your country has didn't just come from nowhere. If it wasn't for 3rd world countries producing lots of cheap produce/gadgets/etc you would have none of it. The US government has become extremely adept at manipulating markets and so forth to benefit their own economy. Sometimes with far reaching and deterimental effects on poorer countries.
Not that their is not poverty in the US, of course, but this is mostly because the distribution of wealth in the US is so screwed up.
PS: This is not a troll, just an objective opinion - such as it is.
Had said flatmate bothered to ask me, I would have advised, but he did not. He is not all that consumer wise and bought it because he loves CS. I am sure he was not alone.
The fact that the CS name was on such a rubbish game should warrant a reparation payment to such trusting consumers.
In case you can't tell, I am joking...
Demo/Beta - it is all the same in this case. A reduced feature version of the final product.
My main point was, if you would have stopped from ranting for a second to read it, that Demo/Beta versions are now being treated like products.
In the case of MMOG, you pay a subscription for it. (even MMOGs that are far from fully featured as per the box) In the case of this demo, you have to pay a Valve subscriber to use it. Very similar in that Valve get subscriptions both ways, wouldn't you say?
Someone must have got it since I was modded up...
People (like my flatmate!) who where duped into buying condition zero deserve a FREE COPY when it is released, not just a beta!!
Man was that a travesty of a FPS or what?!?
Since when did Beta releases become such a big deal anyway? Aren't they just advertising? Why the hell are they restricting it????
Perhaps they are following the MS/MMOG example and consider a Beta an actual product?
Yeah....especially if you are poor academic researcher who can barely get enough funding for that last (necessary) piece of equipment.
What a load of bollucks.
But wait, you can just go and WORK FOR A PHARMACEUTICAL company!!?? They always do super-awesome, unbiased and well funded research while always releasing data no matter what the result...*breath*
Pull your head out, these sorts of companies are making money at the expense of people's quality of life at best, and lives at worst. This is just another sad, sad brick in the wall.
Well it is nice to see you guys all lubed up and ready for your employers, both presant and future. Keep making excuses for your employer and remember to never make waves!
Man, if you swallow HR dogma that well, I would hire you and make you work for peanuts and fruit skins...
The whole idea of salaried workers in IT is that they are deparate fools who end up taking a shafting by a insanely capitalist government. Overtime is NOT worked into the salary, they pay them a standard wage (just enough to lure them in) and the enourmous overtime is just "expected". You can tell this because their contracts completely lack any overtime rules other than "no money for you monkey boy". Then they make the little "rats in a maze" feel they are being rewarded for this by giving out "Pats on the back"(TM) and only giving raises and promotions to people who averaged 95 hours a week. Further perpetuating this trend.
But don't worry, the little rats are loved and well looked after...until of course (as in this case) the profit margin is in danger, then they will sack you without a second thought.
GO CAPITALISTS GO!!! WOOHOO! BUSH FOREVER!
Note: Yes I work in IT. Yes I worked in a similar job to this above. (not in games) Although I was far too valuable to fire, as I am sure many of us are. I have a much better job now (in IT) and I get paid more...go figure.
Parent is not really that informative, sorry.
This problem may still be NP hard. This solution, if you read the article, is not by any means COMPLETE, you can find wierdo examples to fool this algy, but works for almost all "normal" cases.
This means that a complete solution might be NP hard, but this approimation of the complete solution is much better than that.
If you actually read it, it would be pretty obvious why this is new...sheesh!
Also, game data is built of far fewer triangles and in a much easier form than raw data read from a real-life source. (such as a laser range finder)LOD mesh reduction is usually done by full or partial MANUAL selection.
I agree that total open sourcing of Java will lead to this, haven't got time to go into it. Suffice to say that code forking in a platform such as this will be the death of it as it is now and could be in the future. IOW it will become marginalised...ironically this is EXACTLY what MS wanted to do when they released MS JVM!!
Imagine, OS marginalises Java when MS couldn't...using the same technique! !
My current thought is that Java is faaarrr too smart for this. They will adopt a restricted open source model, perhaps some sort of strict labelling model.
eg: Allow people to distribute Java-lite JVMs for use with their own applications...AFAIK currently not allowed.
One can only hope...
Listened to 110 again and still I hold true to my statements.
It is simply an audio "visualisation" of pattern data. (pattern data taken to include things like fractals the repeat in interesting ways)
I don't want it to sound like man music, just some sort of sound that actually approximates something like music. Certain musicians specialise in creating random sounding music for various academic (one only hopes) purposes, but this is not what this is.
I think you missed the point.
Of course any pattern based data processed to make a music file will sound like man-made music. Due to the hairy, university-trained composers out there, the only thing that defines most music is some sort of pattern!! (if even that)
So exactly what else does this show us, or is that it?? That was what I was trying to say.
I can take any number of pattern/fractal/etc data and produce stuff similar to this. What is your point exactly??
Did I miss something...
Mathematically based pattern gerenation mechanism applied to midi format produces repeating rhythmic sounds.
(don't forget the subjective addition: "that sound bloody terrible!!")
My god, this is so amazing...
Maybe if we hand tweak the pattern generation mechanism enough...we could get it sounding like... REAL MUSIC!!
Sorry, call me when you can approximate dance music, the most basic of rhythmic beats.
I apologise for the cynicism, third (or so) computer gen'ed music article that was distinctly average here on slashdot.
Gaming as a spectater sport....what is the world coming to...
"'They are in poor physical shape, they eat unhealthily, grow fat and suffer insomnia,' she said. "
Yeah, they have to wait until they are 24 and working 12+ hours a day in a desk job. Then it is perfectly OK for this behaviour! It will have the added benefit of them NOT enjoying the activity also.
But they will still:
* Feel like killing people every 5 min
* Get no sun or physical activity
* Eat pizza and soft drinks
* Have no life
Unfortunately they will be able to blow off steam because your can't frag your opponent (read: boss) using an excel spreadsheet. (only older versions have the 3d doom game)
Actually the game has almost no content to speak of. (realtive to other MMOG games) In fact, the devlopers ADMITTED as much on their message boards. (unfortunately you have to be a sucker like me and fork out the money first) They even admitted that they lacked DEVELOPER CONTENT TOOLS. No wonder they closed their boards. Apparently the idea WAS for "player content", but the SWG team thought that that meant they invent a broken PVP system and a barely working crafting system and the players would invent the rest. But seriously, there are almost NO player content creation tools. You can buld your own shop/house/base, but that is it. An extra set of standardised polygons in the pretty wasteland that are the SWG planets. They have no idea about player content. You know why??? Because they openly admitted that only 2 of their developers had ever played MUDs and even then not too any great extent. Any idiot with a clipboard and pocket protector would have reliased that market research meant investigating the numerous, innovative methods being used in this founding technology. I have come to the conclusion that they are just thick and were hoping for a quick buck from the SW universe. Anyways, there is your answer on that one.
After a polite email to the forum admin, I have been reinstated.
I checked and all my posts are there with the article linked as expected. You sir, are either an incompetent forum user or are telling bald-faced lies.
I could not care less which.
The first thing I do when looking at buying a MMOG is go to the community forums.
The REAL story of the game is in there. I realise most of the posters are inflammatory, but I look past that to the facts they present: what kind of bugs, how bad are they and is the game any fun.
I have seen the bad posts and decided to buy anyway, an well informed decision. No MMOG is without bugs and the ones I seen were not fatal. (As with Shadowbane for example)
And you know what? The forums, taken in this light, were ABSOLUTELY SPOT ON. The issues they rant about were REAL and the impression I was given was about 98% accurate.
For all you who agree with their posts, excuse me but you have no idea what you are talking about. Advertising and promotion are absolute bollocks, more so in the gaming industry. I never pay attention to the box, so to speak. It is not even written by people who have played the game FFS.
Anyways, IMHO if I see an MMOG that has closed off its forums, I would definitely wonder why and quite franky I would have serious doubts about purchasing it.
True that we are not lawyers. The law is of course an ass and it would probably be based on vague and impractical ways of reasoning anyway. :o)
In the end it would come down to local laws on e-commuting internationally, which may or may not be well defined. It could depend on what country you are in, or what state.
Very excellant example of a straw man argument,congratulations. Your companies dealings and business processes are in another country and so the act is not actually occuring in the country you reside in. In the silly case that you described, you would be personally responsible for any liquor stores you ripped off, regardless of who you said you did it for. I sometimes don't know why I bother....
In NZ the people who have been sent letters have banded together. This may scare them off.
I believe you are right, although I too am unsure about the details of this agreement. This is how it ended up in NZ. However, in NZ, a patent can be easily nullified if it is found to not be as novel as the limp wristed US patent office said it was. :o)
As per usual this costs money and lawyers and the dogs of law are again released and make a killing.
Not quite correct. Your COMPANY is subject to the laws where it is formed. You are merely an employee/director of said company. Small difference, but a very important one.
BTW Your patents have to be novel as in they have not been done before. These monkies first registered their patent in 1996/7 or some such before this was a big deal. It has only just been accepted. Your idea would not work because it is not novel at the time of application. A NZ lawyer commented that the patent will probably be nullified because it will be shown to not be a novel process. IMHO it should not matter, this who concept is utterly ridiculous! The world has gone insane on this issue and it is time for governments to step in. Of course they will take their sweet time since the big players love it and have their own patent lawyer harem.
Have to agree here strongly. I love what the RIAA and the rest doing in copyright enforcement. The sharing habit has been formed, the only way to go soon will be GPL and independant music. Everyone who doesn't drive around in a limo wins!!