Why are people increasingly disaffected with space exploration? Well, aside from general apathy -- I mean, come on, it's 18-25 year olds, the most apathetic (is that a word?) age -- most of us are "meh" about space because we highly doubt FTL travel will ever actually occur. The planets in our solar system are extremely distant and inhospitable, and terraforming another planet like Mars or Venus is also highly unlikely.
The "exploration" aspect of space is basically gone; we've been pretty much as far as we can feasibly go. It's not a frontier anymore, and it won't be until some future Columbus makes it to another star system and brings a few natives back.
There is no "debate" between Creationism and the theory of evolution. And to bring that into the scope of the article discussed does it an injustice.
You're kidding, right? Chicken vs egg *is* creationism vs evolution. I did not bring it into the scope of the article, it's inherent.
The article, by the way, did no treat the "chicken or egg" question as a philosophical/rhetorical one, but as a scientific one.
Ignoring the fact that one of the major proponents was a philosopher, I saw only one bit of science in that article -- the fact that genetic material does not change during the lifetime of an organism -- but it had no relation to the egg/chicken debate. The argument was fallacial. It was essentially: because the DNA of a chicken in the egg is the same as the DNA of the chicken when it hatched, the egg came first. This is an entirely irrelevant conclusion, *and* begs the question. Where did the egg come from? It assumes that the egg already existed, ignoring the divine half of the chicken/egg debate.
The egg was shown to come first, via evolution, long ago -- the chicken-like pre-chicken laid a mutated and/or cross-bred egg that hatched into a chicken. Arguments like this one just end up looking exactly like arguments for creationism.
Ok maybe I have super-intellect or something but some of those things I knew last year. "The egg came first"... how the heck is that news? Dinosaurs laid them well before chickens were running around... ugh idiocy.
Most of those "facts" were, in fact, not facts -- your egg first example shines among them. The which came first, chicken or egg question is a philosophical and/or rhetorical question, meant to generate debate but not actually solvable. It is the quintessential evolution vs creationism debate. Did God create the chicken, which then laid eggs, or did evolutionary forces result in the first chicken via a pre-chicken ancestor laying a mutated-into-a-chicken egg? Stating "The egg came first" is essentially a statement of faith. Additionally, the article that "fact" points to is highly questionable, essentially saying "a philosopher says the egg must have come first, therefore this proves that the egg came first".
There are *some* genuine discoveries on that list, but most of it is garbage.
I'm glad I've avoided Happy Feet like it was the next coming of Doogal, 'cause that's just *wrong*.
I was the one who suggested taking the kids to see Doogal, and we went over my wife's objections. She still gives me dirty looks for it, and I'm not allowed to suggest another movie. Ever. Even if we both want to see it, if I say "I want to see that" she says "Doogal", and I say "yes dear", 'cause I know I was wrong.
Good point. I forgot that threaded views tend to be collapsible. Still, can I view the entire thread in a single page/flat view the way I can with a GMail conversation?
With Opera, those seventeen (to continue with my previous, totally arbitrary number) emails in a threaded view still take up seventeen lines in my inbox. With GMail, they're collapsed together as a single conversation, a single line in my inbox. Yeah, that's much better.
The human body would be a horrible source of energy, the robots could easily take it's fuel (food) and more efficiently convert energy out of it, I suspect.
You're one of those guys who goes around debunking movies like The Matrix, aren't you?
I was about to post almost exactly the same thing when I stumbled on your post. So, mods, pay attention: mod parent +1, Insightful.
I personally couldn't care less how much space I get on GMail; I love GMail for one very simple reason: conversations. There isn't a single mail program out there that has a feature that compares to it. Lumping all emails on a single topic together as in a single interactive page is the best way to retain context on an email thread. Instead of seventeen "re: Bob, have you seen this yet?" emails in my inbox, I have one conversation.
It's features like that that make me wish I could use GMail all the time, not storage space.
It helps to actually preview your posts. Here's the fixed version:
Javascript has some amazingly powerful functional features that make it rival some of the great languages. That said, it is hampered by a lack of true object orientation. There are syntactic hacks that allow you to *fake* private methods/properties and inheritance, but they are not really features of the language.
It strikes me, however, that one of the best scripting languages out there, python, took a similar path. Once python had no object orientation, and people faked it with syntactic hacks. Then the syntax changed slightly and it was slowly added over the years, even as compatibility was kept with previous versions.
Javascript could take such a route. It's not a bad languages; it could get better.
I would also like to see more "light" games that are less graphic-intense and more *gameplay* oriented.
However, the two are not going to be mixed anytime soon. Windowed games are going to be less performant, simply because you're going to be operating your desktop at a much higher resolution than you're going to be playing your game (unless you have an uber-card that can do 1900x1440 at 120fps, in which case your game window might not *fit* on your desktop).
Civ 4 is the *wrong* example of how going 3d is bad. It's heads and shoulders above any previous version of Civ, and I've owned them all (even that non-Sid version that had future tech). The map takes a little getting used to, but not that much, and in the end is actually *more* useful, IMO, than Civ 3's map. Especially when you zoom out and use the strategic layers.
No, Civ 4 *oozes* gameplay. Sure, 3d virtual Sid is painful to watch (and listen to), but he's only in the tutorial.
The problem with the original post/article is that it asks the wrong question.
3D games, in and of themselves, are not inherently more expensive to produce than 2D games. The reason modern 3D games are getting so expensive is that they're doing their best to be *realistic*, in terms of photographic quality, physics, and (usually) story. *That* is where the time and money is spent.
I've played some damn good "cartoony" 3D games in my day that cost a hell of a lot less to make than today's photorealistic Doom clones, and offered better gameplay while they were at it. Games like Mario 64, Warcraft 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, the new Pirates!, or Civilization 4. (JUST. ONE. MORE. TURN!!!!)
So, the original post is correct, in my opinion, that modern games focus too much on certain aspects and end up costing a lot more to make, but it's not 3D that's the problem.
The "Anyone But Bush" campaign was a *huge* mistake. It led directly to Kerry's nomination when there were *far* better candidates in the running. The only reason he was nominated was because of that floating question: "who can beat Bush?" The answer was along the lines of the following: "Why, Kerry is a war hero! He must be able to beat those warmongering Bushites! They like war, Kerry was in one... it's a sure thing!"
When will Democrats stop trying to play on the Republican's field? GET THE HOME COURT ADVANTAGE, FOLKS! Run on your issues, make them *your* issues. Stop trying to look like a Republican.
KOTOR was amazing. KOTOR2 was..... unsatisfying. It had a lot of potential, but was not finished. Please, Lucasarts, finish the job. Follow the KOTOR paradigm, not the KOTOR2 paradigm.
... they are rather quick to quash and fix a discovered security bug. Yes, there's a reason why I used both words. Check out the aftermath of this example at The Daily WTF.
Nevar! C# and the.NET framework are things of beauty! <br/><br/>
Gtk# however.... meh. Well, actually, I don't have much experience with it so I can't say if it's better than Win.Forms. But Win.Forms *is* infinitely better than Swing...
Slashdot Mirror
Why are people increasingly disaffected with space exploration? Well, aside from general apathy -- I mean, come on, it's 18-25 year olds, the most apathetic (is that a word?) age -- most of us are "meh" about space because we highly doubt FTL travel will ever actually occur. The planets in our solar system are extremely distant and inhospitable, and terraforming another planet like Mars or Venus is also highly unlikely.
The "exploration" aspect of space is basically gone; we've been pretty much as far as we can feasibly go. It's not a frontier anymore, and it won't be until some future Columbus makes it to another star system and brings a few natives back.
Except yours.
The egg was shown to come first, via evolution, long ago -- the chicken-like pre-chicken laid a mutated and/or cross-bred egg that hatched into a chicken. Arguments like this one just end up looking exactly like arguments for creationism.
There are *some* genuine discoveries on that list, but most of it is garbage.
I dunno, but to find her you need:
1) The Loot
2) The Warrant
3) The Crook
Back in '93 Acer and Compaq were among the best desktops you could buy, and Packard Bell (who seem to have disappeared) was crap. Go figure!
I was the one who suggested taking the kids to see Doogal, and we went over my wife's objections. She still gives me dirty looks for it, and I'm not allowed to suggest another movie. Ever. Even if we both want to see it, if I say "I want to see that" she says "Doogal", and I say "yes dear", 'cause I know I was wrong.
Good point. I forgot that threaded views tend to be collapsible. Still, can I view the entire thread in a single page/flat view the way I can with a GMail conversation?
Not nearly the same.
With Opera, those seventeen (to continue with my previous, totally arbitrary number) emails in a threaded view still take up seventeen lines in my inbox. With GMail, they're collapsed together as a single conversation, a single line in my inbox. Yeah, that's much better.
I was about to post almost exactly the same thing when I stumbled on your post. So, mods, pay attention: mod parent +1, Insightful.
I personally couldn't care less how much space I get on GMail; I love GMail for one very simple reason: conversations. There isn't a single mail program out there that has a feature that compares to it. Lumping all emails on a single topic together as in a single interactive page is the best way to retain context on an email thread. Instead of seventeen "re: Bob, have you seen this yet?" emails in my inbox, I have one conversation.
It's features like that that make me wish I could use GMail all the time, not storage space.
It helps to actually preview your posts. Here's the fixed version: Javascript has some amazingly powerful functional features that make it rival some of the great languages. That said, it is hampered by a lack of true object orientation. There are syntactic hacks that allow you to *fake* private methods/properties and inheritance, but they are not really features of the language.
It strikes me, however, that one of the best scripting languages out there, python, took a similar path. Once python had no object orientation, and people faked it with syntactic hacks. Then the syntax changed slightly and it was slowly added over the years, even as compatibility was kept with previous versions.
Javascript could take such a route. It's not a bad languages; it could get better.
Javascript has some amazingly powerful functional features that make it rival some of the great languages. That said, it is hampered by a lack of true object orientation. There are syntactic hacks that allow you to *fake*
It strikes me, however, that one of the best scripting languages out there, python, took a similar path. Once python had no object orientation, and people faked it with syntactic hacks. Then the syntax changed slightly and it was slowly added over the years, even as compatibility was kept with previous versions.
Javascript could take such a route. It's not a bad languages; it could get better.
2.0753%, why?
I would also like to see more "light" games that are less graphic-intense and more *gameplay* oriented.
However, the two are not going to be mixed anytime soon. Windowed games are going to be less performant, simply because you're going to be operating your desktop at a much higher resolution than you're going to be playing your game (unless you have an uber-card that can do 1900x1440 at 120fps, in which case your game window might not *fit* on your desktop).
Civ 4 is the *wrong* example of how going 3d is bad. It's heads and shoulders above any previous version of Civ, and I've owned them all (even that non-Sid version that had future tech). The map takes a little getting used to, but not that much, and in the end is actually *more* useful, IMO, than Civ 3's map. Especially when you zoom out and use the strategic layers.
No, Civ 4 *oozes* gameplay. Sure, 3d virtual Sid is painful to watch (and listen to), but he's only in the tutorial.
The problem with the original post/article is that it asks the wrong question.
3D games, in and of themselves, are not inherently more expensive to produce than 2D games. The reason modern 3D games are getting so expensive is that they're doing their best to be *realistic*, in terms of photographic quality, physics, and (usually) story. *That* is where the time and money is spent.
I've played some damn good "cartoony" 3D games in my day that cost a hell of a lot less to make than today's photorealistic Doom clones, and offered better gameplay while they were at it. Games like Mario 64, Warcraft 3, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, the new Pirates!, or Civilization 4. (JUST. ONE. MORE. TURN!!!!)
So, the original post is correct, in my opinion, that modern games focus too much on certain aspects and end up costing a lot more to make, but it's not 3D that's the problem.
It's priorities.
The "Anyone But Bush" campaign was a *huge* mistake. It led directly to Kerry's nomination when there were *far* better candidates in the running. The only reason he was nominated was because of that floating question: "who can beat Bush?" The answer was along the lines of the following: "Why, Kerry is a war hero! He must be able to beat those warmongering Bushites! They like war, Kerry was in one... it's a sure thing!"
When will Democrats stop trying to play on the Republican's field? GET THE HOME COURT ADVANTAGE, FOLKS! Run on your issues, make them *your* issues. Stop trying to look like a Republican.
"A Solar Panel on Every Roof, a Hydrogen-Powered Car in Every Garage"
Amazingly enough, .NET/Win.Forms does too.
Wow. I wish every developer made 78k annually. And by that I mean I wish *I* made 78k annually.
KOTOR was amazing. KOTOR2 was..... unsatisfying. It had a lot of potential, but was not finished. Please, Lucasarts, finish the job. Follow the KOTOR paradigm, not the KOTOR2 paradigm.
... they are rather quick to quash and fix a discovered security bug. Yes, there's a reason why I used both words. Check out the aftermath of this example at The Daily WTF.