Very few games are ever thought-out fully to the extent necessary for a complete story to be composed that will satisfy the masses.
Yeah, you'd need to create a whole realistic universe, credible premises, believable characters, intertwining plot lines. As you say, very few games have that. There's only, what, Deus Ex, Halo... Oh, wait.
Assuming that a retroreflector is something which amplifies the signal (otherwise it fades quite fast), the maximum number of bits you could store is equal to the frequency of the signal in hertz multiplied by the total round trip time of the signal in seconds. If we call that a 75THz signal (maximum of visible light) and a 24-hour round trip around the whole solar system, that's about 10^20 bits, or ~1000 petabytes? Not bad.
I don't think that's the aim here necessarily. Forced obselescence in this case simply forces people to update from SP1 to SP2, not from Win98 to XP. You can say what you like about Windows XP but SP2 is definitely more secure than SP1 - and free - so it's mainly for your own good that you update. By contrast, upgrading from Win98 to XP costs money so there is a good reason to stick with Win98 in that case.
I often find a good way to find out the truth about something is to put a statement online in public which is which is definitely wrong, then wait for somebody to correct you:)
See, in TOS you had the brushed kind of metal/plastic grey floors that were so classic in the sixties. You couldn't see dirt or footprints in that, you waxed it - it was shiny, it was a little camp, a little primitive by today's standards, but you kind of look past that, you see the show for what it really is at the core: a clean, shiny floor.
TNG took a while to find its own direction, but I think carpets were a good logical development on the theme. You brought in new technology - vacuum cleaners, carpet brushes - but they did stay true to the theme - exploring and developing new ways of keeping the floor clean in a universe essentially full of darkness and dirt.
DS9 was a bit different - most of the time it was so dark you couldn't even see the floor, it could have been covered in dirt for all you knew. But this was new, it was interesting. It wasn't something Trek had done before. They brought in religious themes, it was a fresh idea. What if neatly swept floors took a back seat? What if you let the Federation get their hands and their floorings a little bit dirtier?
But Voyager... Voyager tried to take the TNG angle, which was already tired, and they just shoved perfectly, ridiculously clean carpetry into a quadrant of the galaxy where they should barely have had access to soap, let alone the carpet shampooing requirements that a typical Federation starship needs. It was implausible. They were exceeding the general cleanliness of a fully-tooled-up Federation, on their own, half a galaxy from home. As for ENT - did you see all that shimmery metal, and no sweeping in sight? Not even a Borg-created alternate timeline could account for that kind of discontinuity.
So, yes. The standard of sweeping in Trek has been steadily decreasing for the best part of a decade right now. It's time for a change. I'm thinking... rugs?
Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present?
By SamSim
The process of learning from the past works as follows: a situation arises for a person. The person acts and the situation changes in some way - everything
may be resolved or everything may go drastically wrong or any outcome between those could also occur. Time then passes, before a similar situation to what
happened before arises. Here's where memory comes in. By remembering what happened when he took the previous action, the person can now make a reasonable
guess as to what will happen when he makes a similar action in this similar situation - depending on circumstances he may also be able to evaluate what
would happen if he took the diametrically opposite action and/or what would happen differently if he took precisely the same action in this slightly
different situation.
The key point is that the person REMEMBERS what happened last time around. Without memory, this second situation is as new to the individual as the first
situation. Without memory, the process of learning - that is, the process of assimilating information and allowing one's future actions to be guided by it
- simply cannot occur. Likewise, without learning, the only way to succeed in the present is to use one's intelligence alone to accurately predict the
possible outcomes of all possible actions and pick the correct one - something which is admittedly possible in some situations, but assuredly impossible
when the utterly unforseeable and unexpected can arise without warning.
But there are drawbacks. For example, in a frantic moment where there isn't time to think - a sports match, or a street fight - stopping to think slows
one down. That fraction of a second can lose you a point, or your life. Likewise, remembering a time when a similar situation arose and you made the wrong
move, resulting in highly undesirable consequences, can paralyse you on the spot - you don't want to do ANYTHING in case the same thing happens again.
However, there is no substitute for experience. Nobody can predict the future - at least, not very accurately, and not very far, and certainly not when
other human beings, the largest variables imaginable, are involved. But knowing what worked in the past can enable you to make good guesses about what
works in the present.
--------------
That took me about 15 minutes. I stopped early because I was using a word processor - I write much slower longhand. I agree
with the points made in my sibling posts and the parent - this is a gigantic question and not a simple one, and you could very easily spend two hours, or
even six months, trying and failing to compose an answer. Horrible. This isn't an SAT question, this is a thesis.
I would just like to throw Ikaruga into this ring. Ikaruga is a blazingly enjoyable scrolling shooter. It takes about 25 minutes to play through the whole thing, start to finish (unless you die before the end). The key emphasis is on high-scoring.
Ikaruga and games of a similar ilk would be perfect for this guy. You can try it as many times as you like, every game is different, you always learn something new, but you get an easy and obvious breaking point every 25 minutes or less, so you can hang it up and go to sleep/work whenever's convenient, and return to top form the following day just as quickly.
Right now there are probably thousands of people in hundreds of corporations who are sitting down and trying to figure out how they can profit from global warming. They are not idiots. The only way to stop global warming is to convince these people that it will be unprofitable in the long-run.
Actually, scratch that. These guys can quit any time they want and live off their accumulated billions. We need to convince them global warming will be unprofitable in the short term. Like, instantly, and without warning. Which is probably untrue. So we're screwed.
Dear Bill Gates, you have ten figures of charity donations you can't figure out how to spend - please buy all the unoccupied land you can find and plant trees there, thus converting CO2 back into oxygen and saving the world. Better, plant wheat - same result, and you can feed Africa into the bargain...
The Sun itself gives out light of all visible frequencies. On average this works out so it appears light yellow. The Sun appears yellower from ground level because the blue frequencies are scattered in the atmosphere - hence the sky being blue (usually).
Oddly enough, electromagnetic fields do indeed surround us, bind us, and hold the universe together. Gravity, too, of course, but it's very small-scale electromagnetic effects which stop you flying apart into a cloud of free atoms.
I would be interested to see an actual physical simulation of Spider-Man style webslinging, to see if you could actually get around New York (or anywhere) by swinging from building to building. My theory? He should crash into walls all the time.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, you'd need to create a whole realistic universe, credible premises, believable characters, intertwining plot lines. As you say, very few games have that. There's only, what, Deus Ex, Halo... Oh, wait.
I realise you're probably joking, but FYI it's pronounced "Oo-vah".
No no no. You have to eat the can as well. That burns more than enough calories in chewing energy. Strengthens your teeth, too.
Isn't shoplifting kinda risky though?
Surprise, according to Terry Pratchett.
Assuming that a retroreflector is something which amplifies the signal (otherwise it fades quite fast), the maximum number of bits you could store is equal to the frequency of the signal in hertz multiplied by the total round trip time of the signal in seconds. If we call that a 75THz signal (maximum of visible light) and a 24-hour round trip around the whole solar system, that's about 10^20 bits, or ~1000 petabytes? Not bad.
I don't think that's the aim here necessarily. Forced obselescence in this case simply forces people to update from SP1 to SP2, not from Win98 to XP. You can say what you like about Windows XP but SP2 is definitely more secure than SP1 - and free - so it's mainly for your own good that you update. By contrast, upgrading from Win98 to XP costs money so there is a good reason to stick with Win98 in that case.
That's because no single government CAN do anything about it. All the attackers need to do is move to another country - say, Russia - and start over.
Ah, Firefox has arrived!
If you want more of the similar, there's always Cowboy Bebop.
That's nothing. I'm told Pioneer 10 has a fifty-year warranty which it is nowhere near the end of yet.
Repairs are on a return-to-manufacturer basis, of course, that's why it was so cheap
I often find a good way to find out the truth about something is to put a statement online in public which is which is definitely wrong, then wait for somebody to correct you :)
I seem to recall the first Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the invention of dynamite.
See, in TOS you had the brushed kind of metal/plastic grey floors that were so classic in the sixties. You couldn't see dirt or footprints in that, you waxed it - it was shiny, it was a little camp, a little primitive by today's standards, but you kind of look past that, you see the show for what it really is at the core: a clean, shiny floor.
TNG took a while to find its own direction, but I think carpets were a good logical development on the theme. You brought in new technology - vacuum cleaners, carpet brushes - but they did stay true to the theme - exploring and developing new ways of keeping the floor clean in a universe essentially full of darkness and dirt.
DS9 was a bit different - most of the time it was so dark you couldn't even see the floor, it could have been covered in dirt for all you knew. But this was new, it was interesting. It wasn't something Trek had done before. They brought in religious themes, it was a fresh idea. What if neatly swept floors took a back seat? What if you let the Federation get their hands and their floorings a little bit dirtier?
But Voyager... Voyager tried to take the TNG angle, which was already tired, and they just shoved perfectly, ridiculously clean carpetry into a quadrant of the galaxy where they should barely have had access to soap, let alone the carpet shampooing requirements that a typical Federation starship needs. It was implausible. They were exceeding the general cleanliness of a fully-tooled-up Federation, on their own, half a galaxy from home. As for ENT - did you see all that shimmery metal, and no sweeping in sight? Not even a Borg-created alternate timeline could account for that kind of discontinuity.
So, yes. The standard of sweeping in Trek has been steadily decreasing for the best part of a decade right now. It's time for a change. I'm thinking... rugs?
I would argue that TDS has a huge advantage over regular news shows, because the political situation in the USA already is a joke.
Do memories hinder or help people in their effort to learn from the past and succeed in the present?
By SamSim
The process of learning from the past works as follows: a situation arises for a person. The person acts and the situation changes in some way - everything may be resolved or everything may go drastically wrong or any outcome between those could also occur. Time then passes, before a similar situation to what happened before arises. Here's where memory comes in. By remembering what happened when he took the previous action, the person can now make a reasonable guess as to what will happen when he makes a similar action in this similar situation - depending on circumstances he may also be able to evaluate what would happen if he took the diametrically opposite action and/or what would happen differently if he took precisely the same action in this slightly different situation.
The key point is that the person REMEMBERS what happened last time around. Without memory, this second situation is as new to the individual as the first situation. Without memory, the process of learning - that is, the process of assimilating information and allowing one's future actions to be guided by it - simply cannot occur. Likewise, without learning, the only way to succeed in the present is to use one's intelligence alone to accurately predict the possible outcomes of all possible actions and pick the correct one - something which is admittedly possible in some situations, but assuredly impossible when the utterly unforseeable and unexpected can arise without warning.
But there are drawbacks. For example, in a frantic moment where there isn't time to think - a sports match, or a street fight - stopping to think slows one down. That fraction of a second can lose you a point, or your life. Likewise, remembering a time when a similar situation arose and you made the wrong move, resulting in highly undesirable consequences, can paralyse you on the spot - you don't want to do ANYTHING in case the same thing happens again.
However, there is no substitute for experience. Nobody can predict the future - at least, not very accurately, and not very far, and certainly not when other human beings, the largest variables imaginable, are involved. But knowing what worked in the past can enable you to make good guesses about what works in the present.
--------------
That took me about 15 minutes. I stopped early because I was using a word processor - I write much slower longhand. I agree with the points made in my sibling posts and the parent - this is a gigantic question and not a simple one, and you could very easily spend two hours, or even six months, trying and failing to compose an answer. Horrible. This isn't an SAT question, this is a thesis.
How so? Even discounting the revival, the original DW series ran for 26 consecutive seasons, compared to SG1 which is coming up to 10.
Well, unless you found another frontier beyond space, I'm gonna say no.
I would just like to throw Ikaruga into this ring. Ikaruga is a blazingly enjoyable scrolling shooter. It takes about 25 minutes to play through the whole thing, start to finish (unless you die before the end). The key emphasis is on high-scoring.
Ikaruga and games of a similar ilk would be perfect for this guy. You can try it as many times as you like, every game is different, you always learn something new, but you get an easy and obvious breaking point every 25 minutes or less, so you can hang it up and go to sleep/work whenever's convenient, and return to top form the following day just as quickly.
Mod parent up.
Right now there are probably thousands of people in hundreds of corporations who are sitting down and trying to figure out how they can profit from global warming. They are not idiots. The only way to stop global warming is to convince these people that it will be unprofitable in the long-run.
Actually, scratch that. These guys can quit any time they want and live off their accumulated billions. We need to convince them global warming will be unprofitable in the short term. Like, instantly, and without warning. Which is probably untrue. So we're screwed.
Dear Bill Gates, you have ten figures of charity donations you can't figure out how to spend - please buy all the unoccupied land you can find and plant trees there, thus converting CO2 back into oxygen and saving the world. Better, plant wheat - same result, and you can feed Africa into the bargain...
The Sun itself gives out light of all visible frequencies. On average this works out so it appears light yellow. The Sun appears yellower from ground level because the blue frequencies are scattered in the atmosphere - hence the sky being blue (usually).
Oddly enough, electromagnetic fields do indeed surround us, bind us, and hold the universe together. Gravity, too, of course, but it's very small-scale electromagnetic effects which stop you flying apart into a cloud of free atoms.
Lightspeed Briefs?
I would be interested to see an actual physical simulation of Spider-Man style webslinging, to see if you could actually get around New York (or anywhere) by swinging from building to building. My theory? He should crash into walls all the time.
Well said, Jeff.