The zombies are really limited to just a pipe or a shotgun, they can't pick up anything else. By the way, I was also frustrated back when I originally played it and ended up putting it aside for a long time (as my other post testifies); however, this time I played it more thoughtfully. First, you can't just go around shooting at everything. Compared to the average FPS, your resources/ammo are very limited and you must make it go a long way. Early on I discovered that the easiest way to do this is (possible spoiler warning) to use the wrench a lot. Once you get the hang of it, and beef up your strength and melee skills you can take on just about anything with these. In fact, I completed the game without *ever* firing a single shot from a gun or energy weapon. My primary weapons for the entire game were the wrench and then the crystal shard. For easy ranged shots (like cameras, etc.) I used the psionic projected weapons, and for difficult ones later in the game I used the grenade launcher (which only requires a weapons skill of 1). Beefing up one's psionic capabilities will aide in this a lot. I played at the normal skill level.
I did find myself comparing it with Deus Ex as I played. Similar feel in some respects. I couldn't say which was necessarily better. Deus Ex had more variety and a deeper plot, but SS2 had a more compelling atmosphere. I'd probably rank them with equal scores myself, but for different reasons. Neither, however, knocks my favorite off the top--Ultima Underworld, The Stygian Abyss.
Man, how ironic. I just finished this game yesterday, no kidding! I purchased this one back in 1999 when it came out. I started it but then got distracted by some other game. I think it was called Half-Life. Anyway, I ended up moving on to other things like getting married and upgrading to Windows XP, playing Morrowind for five years, then recently upgrading to Windows Vista. When BioShock came out, I almost bit, but when I found out that its DRM bit back, I figured that maybe it was worth going back and playing the next best thing, the now legendary System Shock 2. That was about a month or month and a half ago.
Of course getting it to run on Vista turned out to be a challenge, but once I did it ran excellent--albeit with an occasional hang--but still extremely playable. And it certainly looked better on my latest PC than it did back in '99. Anyway, its been a ball playing. It's still every bit as creepy as people say, but its far more the sound that creeped me out than the visuals, which are admittedly a bit dated. Anyway, its still a great game, and one that requires that you think before you act.
But the really creepy thing is that the day after I finish it--and about eight years after I bought it--I see this posting on Slashdot. Is that you SHODAN?
Dave
I wouldn't call it fraud since they don't exactly hide what their doing (granted, they don't make it obvious either). But if people don't get it or care until its too late, that's their fault, not Microsoft's. Following their chosen business model, Microsoft is simply crafting a very strong DRM codec, and then doing their best to convince people that supporting strong DRM is the ethical thing to do. To combat this, people merely need to wake up and help enlighten Microsoft to the error of their ways. I don't really want government involved here; the solution needs to be consumer-driven. As another poster mentioned, we're not being forced to use WMP or Microsoft's vision of DRM, and as long as we're not, this isn't a federal case. But it is one where where the public needs to wise-up in order to help steer the industry.
I suspect this is because of different strategies. Microsoft is doing what appeals to the music industry at the expense of users, while Apple is doing what appeals to users at the possible expense of support by the Music industry. Sure, Apple has a lot of support by the Music industry now as demonstrated by the iTunes store, but Microsoft has to compete against them somehow. So they're betting on making themselves a favorite of the music industry by supporting draconian DRM policies, and simultaneiously betting that the bulk of users don't get it or care until its too late. This isn't a conspiracy, but a calculated business decision. That's why its so important that people let Microsoft know that they *do* get it and *do* care by either writing them or moving to alternative products.
Name me one science fiction show that had better actors. ST:TNG came close and Avery Brooks was pretty good in DS9, but one of the reasons B5 was successful in my eye was that the acting was actually decent, and in many cases genuinely impressive. Perhaps even more important was that the cast meshed well. Although I personally liked Jerry Doyle's work in the series, opinions I've read elsewhere usually consider him one of the weaker actors.
I don't homeschool but I have done some activities with homeschoolers and one thing I can say is that there is nothing necessarily isolating about it. In fact, many homeschoolers band together in groups/organizations that form a unique kind of social network that has no real analog in the conventional school system. In some ways the term "home school" is a bit of a misnomer as it conveys that students always remain confined at home. I'm not saying that some homeschoolers avoid networking or that there are not other issues with homeschooling; but in terms of being able to work with others or learning how to be a member of society by interacting with other peers, I don't think this is necessarily the problem some think it is. In fact, overall there is probably just as large a risk (if not larger) that students in conventional schools will become social misfits by connecting with wrong peer groups as homeschooers will have of becoming social misfits by having limited social interaction.
As far as this virtual classroom stuff goes, I am very much opposed to that. I'm a software engineer and have spent a lot of time with computers in the classroom. But they are tools, not teachers. There is something intuitively bad about sitting a student in front of a computer and saying "have at it", even if there is a teacher available online. Remember that teachers are not just conveyers of information, but they are also ever-present role models and supervisors. If you take those latter things away, you may be able to still pump information into the student, but will they be educated? I guess it all depends on what you believe education is.
I agree. Although the concept of "generation" is rather subjective, there is *definitely* a generation between the 2600/Intellivision era and the NES. In fact, I recall clearly (since I was in my video game playing peak at the time) that all the magazines were touting the ColecoVision as a third-wave system when it came out. Also released around this time was the Atari 5200, which was also clearly a generation ahead of the 2600/Intellivision era systems. Nintendo (NES) launched the fourth wave, not the third.
I love these revisionist views. But what do they really say?
1. So if a German, Iranian, or African discovers a new feature on Mars, what is the preferred language they should name the feature? Native Martian or English? Certainly, they shouldn't name it in their own language. Maybe we could make up a "real" Martian language. But who would make it up? Maybe we could just point.
2. Explorers should always ignore resources. Resources are evil. Come to think of it, exploration is evil. All of the moral elite believe this.
3. Does this mean that if I get to Mars first, that you have no moral right to it? If so, then cool.
4. Of course changing the world into one's own image of good is evil. But since it is going to be transformed into someone's image anyway, whose should it be? Note that answering this question is evil.
5. I think you're referring to slavery here. Ok, I'll agree, slavery is bad. And, yes, I'll even go as far as imposing my morality on others about this. Even on Mars.
6. Yup, "all" the Earth's resources are gone. There's nothing left, and it's been that way for twenty years (at least that's what they told me in high school). And now we're about to do the same to Mars.
7. I guess that means that Liberals are evil, right?
"...gamers are not loyal"
Actually, I think there is a substantial amount of loyalty out there. This is especially true if someone's old software can be played on the newer console. After all, isn't that how Sony keeps much of their base loyal? This is one of the reasons I am at least loosely loyal to the XBox family, even if the PS3 turns out to have an edge. And of course there is also national loyalty. I have nothing against Japanese consoles, but since I'm an American I tend to be be more loyal to American companies when product offerings are similar; just like I would think that when all things are roughly equal Japanese citizens would tend to buy Japanese products.
"Now...we have...the religious fundamentalism of Bush." Actually, there's nothing new about religious fundamentalism of Presidents. It has actually been the norm. Calling it "religious fundamentalism", now that's new.
It's fine for the govenment to launch and own satellites that they pay for with approved tax money. In other words, hopefully, for things that protect or benefit tax-paying citizens fairly universally. Military satellites, Earth Science research, GPS, etc. But govenment launching and owning entertainment satellites? That's a silly idea if I ever heard one. If I ever see a "space-based entertainment" tax added to my tax bill, I'll be one upset citizen! And don't even get me started on public television.
This is the version I've been waiting for. You know, the one where you can take a grainy picture of a person standing two blocks away and zoom in to create an 11x14 enlargement of the person's index fingerprint. Come on Adobe!
Actually, games don't routinely "defy" the laws of physics, but they do frequently "stretch" it. Most people would find it hard to accept a game that completely violated the laws of physics. It would be too hard to make sense of. Consequently, games--even some of the most over-the-top cartoonish games--use real physics as a base, then just bend those rules to suit the character's superpowers or the game's universe to the game designer's whims. That's exactly the kind of thing I would expect a physics engine to be good at. You can be certain that the APIs will permit the physics to be tailored any way you want. You want little gravity? You want a lot of gravity? You want light to bend more or less than it naturally would? Fine, just plug different parameters into your APIs. This is the beauty. It's not that everyone is now forced to use "real" earth physics, but that you can now implement "believable" physics with better performance and without the same degree of toil to handcraft these things from scratch.
I'm just one person and I realize there are some for whom every driver they've ever used on Linux has worked perfectly, but I don't think this is the common experience. I've had very bad luck with Linux and its drivers and have basically given-up on it as a desktop OS. I still think its a blast as a fun geek-toy, great for specific tasks, and a wonderful platform for dedicated appliances (think TiVo), but for the home desktop and my devices it just takes too much time to get working if I can get it to work at all.
Dave
I remember reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and recall that most everything, even pocket sized devices, were "atomic" powered. I think we just don't give his ideas enough credit. AA sized nukes would be an incredibly great idea (though it might make your iPod kind of heavy with all that lead shielding).
It's not all bad. When I was in high school back in the late 70's we were being told that fossil fuels would be all used-up in 20 years. That was a rather vacuous prediction.
It's true that there have been no massive breakthroughs in battery technology, but the remarkable capacity and rechargeablility of the NiMH I use, for example, in my digital camera is pretty amazing to me compared to the dry cells I used in the 70's. I'm sure the knowledge of the chemistry behind these new batteries existed 20 and 30 years ago, but the fact that I can actually *buy* them now is the great move forward.
I do think that fuel cells, however, rather than batteries, will probably be the true future breakthrough. Then maybe some of the more lofty predictions will come true.
Better hope that Linux never becomes popular. With all that free bundled software, they're a prime target for a legal action since can't imagine a single company being able to compete against that.
What you have here is really the crux of the definition problem. AI will not be considered AI until a machine is able perform an act of mental dexterity for which we do not have an explanation (not very likely). You see, as soon as we have a perfect understanding of how a mental process was carried out, we no longer consider that process to be an act of intelligence but simply a mechanical routine.
The changes we have witnessed in the definition of intelligence really point out what the very definition of intelligence is. "True" intelligence makes "sense" to us, but is never perfectly understood. When we, as humans, make a decision or reach a conclusion, there is always some element of mystery about it. We don't know, for example, exactly how the thoughts leading to the "act of intelligence" are represented in the brain, or exactly what neurons fired, or what sensory or memorized inputs contributed to it. We just "feel" and "sense" an intelligent rationality about it. On the other hand, if we *did* know all of the physical mechanics about how the "thought" was carried out, we could readily model it in a computer, and step through the entire process of the thought in a debugger. But would we still regard the thought as an act of intelligence any more, or as just a routine? Isn't this exactly what has happened in the case of chess computers?
I do not think that there will ever be machines that will be regarded by humans who live contemporarily with such machines as "intelligent", for precisely the reason of definition. Yes, we will develop machines that manipulate and process information better and better, and in ways that more accurately reflect the kinds of decision making humans perform. But as long as it is possible to go back to the machine and retrace the exact algorithim, storage mechanics, and logic flow that are being followed in the machine, it is unlikely that people will ever accept that as real intelligence.
I'm still amazed in retrospect at how much could be done with so little memory. A hello world program in VB6 is 16kb (not counting the hundreds of kbs in overhead). But suppose I asked you to write a 3D, first person perspective space combat game, with rotatable starmaps showing enemy positions, particle explosions you could fly through, instantly switchable forward and aft views, space station docking, energy/shield management, an interactive 2D galactic map correlating to the 3D environment, and very cool sound effects...and put all of that in 8KB. Now that's amazing!
To see the proof, just load up Star Raiders on any 8-bit Atari computer (or emulator).
Slashdot Mirror
I specialized in psi. To get hypos I would just hack a vending machine that had them to reduce the price, then buy ten to twenty of them.
The zombies are really limited to just a pipe or a shotgun, they can't pick up anything else. By the way, I was also frustrated back when I originally played it and ended up putting it aside for a long time (as my other post testifies); however, this time I played it more thoughtfully. First, you can't just go around shooting at everything. Compared to the average FPS, your resources/ammo are very limited and you must make it go a long way. Early on I discovered that the easiest way to do this is (possible spoiler warning) to use the wrench a lot. Once you get the hang of it, and beef up your strength and melee skills you can take on just about anything with these. In fact, I completed the game without *ever* firing a single shot from a gun or energy weapon. My primary weapons for the entire game were the wrench and then the crystal shard. For easy ranged shots (like cameras, etc.) I used the psionic projected weapons, and for difficult ones later in the game I used the grenade launcher (which only requires a weapons skill of 1). Beefing up one's psionic capabilities will aide in this a lot. I played at the normal skill level.
I did find myself comparing it with Deus Ex as I played. Similar feel in some respects. I couldn't say which was necessarily better. Deus Ex had more variety and a deeper plot, but SS2 had a more compelling atmosphere. I'd probably rank them with equal scores myself, but for different reasons. Neither, however, knocks my favorite off the top--Ultima Underworld, The Stygian Abyss.
Man, how ironic. I just finished this game yesterday, no kidding! I purchased this one back in 1999 when it came out. I started it but then got distracted by some other game. I think it was called Half-Life. Anyway, I ended up moving on to other things like getting married and upgrading to Windows XP, playing Morrowind for five years, then recently upgrading to Windows Vista. When BioShock came out, I almost bit, but when I found out that its DRM bit back, I figured that maybe it was worth going back and playing the next best thing, the now legendary System Shock 2. That was about a month or month and a half ago. Of course getting it to run on Vista turned out to be a challenge, but once I did it ran excellent--albeit with an occasional hang--but still extremely playable. And it certainly looked better on my latest PC than it did back in '99. Anyway, its been a ball playing. It's still every bit as creepy as people say, but its far more the sound that creeped me out than the visuals, which are admittedly a bit dated. Anyway, its still a great game, and one that requires that you think before you act. But the really creepy thing is that the day after I finish it--and about eight years after I bought it--I see this posting on Slashdot. Is that you SHODAN? Dave
I wouldn't call it fraud since they don't exactly hide what their doing (granted, they don't make it obvious either). But if people don't get it or care until its too late, that's their fault, not Microsoft's. Following their chosen business model, Microsoft is simply crafting a very strong DRM codec, and then doing their best to convince people that supporting strong DRM is the ethical thing to do. To combat this, people merely need to wake up and help enlighten Microsoft to the error of their ways. I don't really want government involved here; the solution needs to be consumer-driven. As another poster mentioned, we're not being forced to use WMP or Microsoft's vision of DRM, and as long as we're not, this isn't a federal case. But it is one where where the public needs to wise-up in order to help steer the industry.
I suspect this is because of different strategies. Microsoft is doing what appeals to the music industry at the expense of users, while Apple is doing what appeals to users at the possible expense of support by the Music industry. Sure, Apple has a lot of support by the Music industry now as demonstrated by the iTunes store, but Microsoft has to compete against them somehow. So they're betting on making themselves a favorite of the music industry by supporting draconian DRM policies, and simultaneiously betting that the bulk of users don't get it or care until its too late. This isn't a conspiracy, but a calculated business decision. That's why its so important that people let Microsoft know that they *do* get it and *do* care by either writing them or moving to alternative products.
Name me one science fiction show that had better actors. ST:TNG came close and Avery Brooks was pretty good in DS9, but one of the reasons B5 was successful in my eye was that the acting was actually decent, and in many cases genuinely impressive. Perhaps even more important was that the cast meshed well. Although I personally liked Jerry Doyle's work in the series, opinions I've read elsewhere usually consider him one of the weaker actors.
I don't homeschool but I have done some activities with homeschoolers and one thing I can say is that there is nothing necessarily isolating about it. In fact, many homeschoolers band together in groups/organizations that form a unique kind of social network that has no real analog in the conventional school system. In some ways the term "home school" is a bit of a misnomer as it conveys that students always remain confined at home. I'm not saying that some homeschoolers avoid networking or that there are not other issues with homeschooling; but in terms of being able to work with others or learning how to be a member of society by interacting with other peers, I don't think this is necessarily the problem some think it is. In fact, overall there is probably just as large a risk (if not larger) that students in conventional schools will become social misfits by connecting with wrong peer groups as homeschooers will have of becoming social misfits by having limited social interaction. As far as this virtual classroom stuff goes, I am very much opposed to that. I'm a software engineer and have spent a lot of time with computers in the classroom. But they are tools, not teachers. There is something intuitively bad about sitting a student in front of a computer and saying "have at it", even if there is a teacher available online. Remember that teachers are not just conveyers of information, but they are also ever-present role models and supervisors. If you take those latter things away, you may be able to still pump information into the student, but will they be educated? I guess it all depends on what you believe education is.
I agree. Although the concept of "generation" is rather subjective, there is *definitely* a generation between the 2600/Intellivision era and the NES. In fact, I recall clearly (since I was in my video game playing peak at the time) that all the magazines were touting the ColecoVision as a third-wave system when it came out. Also released around this time was the Atari 5200, which was also clearly a generation ahead of the 2600/Intellivision era systems. Nintendo (NES) launched the fourth wave, not the third.
I love these revisionist views. But what do they really say? 1. So if a German, Iranian, or African discovers a new feature on Mars, what is the preferred language they should name the feature? Native Martian or English? Certainly, they shouldn't name it in their own language. Maybe we could make up a "real" Martian language. But who would make it up? Maybe we could just point. 2. Explorers should always ignore resources. Resources are evil. Come to think of it, exploration is evil. All of the moral elite believe this. 3. Does this mean that if I get to Mars first, that you have no moral right to it? If so, then cool. 4. Of course changing the world into one's own image of good is evil. But since it is going to be transformed into someone's image anyway, whose should it be? Note that answering this question is evil. 5. I think you're referring to slavery here. Ok, I'll agree, slavery is bad. And, yes, I'll even go as far as imposing my morality on others about this. Even on Mars. 6. Yup, "all" the Earth's resources are gone. There's nothing left, and it's been that way for twenty years (at least that's what they told me in high school). And now we're about to do the same to Mars. 7. I guess that means that Liberals are evil, right?
"...gamers are not loyal" Actually, I think there is a substantial amount of loyalty out there. This is especially true if someone's old software can be played on the newer console. After all, isn't that how Sony keeps much of their base loyal? This is one of the reasons I am at least loosely loyal to the XBox family, even if the PS3 turns out to have an edge. And of course there is also national loyalty. I have nothing against Japanese consoles, but since I'm an American I tend to be be more loyal to American companies when product offerings are similar; just like I would think that when all things are roughly equal Japanese citizens would tend to buy Japanese products.
"Now...we have...the religious fundamentalism of Bush." Actually, there's nothing new about religious fundamentalism of Presidents. It has actually been the norm. Calling it "religious fundamentalism", now that's new.
Maybe we should ban trial by jury. Consider how much money is wasted on THAT every year.
It's fine for the govenment to launch and own satellites that they pay for with approved tax money. In other words, hopefully, for things that protect or benefit tax-paying citizens fairly universally. Military satellites, Earth Science research, GPS, etc. But govenment launching and owning entertainment satellites? That's a silly idea if I ever heard one. If I ever see a "space-based entertainment" tax added to my tax bill, I'll be one upset citizen! And don't even get me started on public television.
This is the version I've been waiting for. You know, the one where you can take a grainy picture of a person standing two blocks away and zoom in to create an 11x14 enlargement of the person's index fingerprint. Come on Adobe!
Ted Kennedy's idea. Do you need to know more?
Actually, games don't routinely "defy" the laws of physics, but they do frequently "stretch" it. Most people would find it hard to accept a game that completely violated the laws of physics. It would be too hard to make sense of. Consequently, games--even some of the most over-the-top cartoonish games--use real physics as a base, then just bend those rules to suit the character's superpowers or the game's universe to the game designer's whims. That's exactly the kind of thing I would expect a physics engine to be good at. You can be certain that the APIs will permit the physics to be tailored any way you want. You want little gravity? You want a lot of gravity? You want light to bend more or less than it naturally would? Fine, just plug different parameters into your APIs. This is the beauty. It's not that everyone is now forced to use "real" earth physics, but that you can now implement "believable" physics with better performance and without the same degree of toil to handcraft these things from scratch.
I'm just one person and I realize there are some for whom every driver they've ever used on Linux has worked perfectly, but I don't think this is the common experience. I've had very bad luck with Linux and its drivers and have basically given-up on it as a desktop OS. I still think its a blast as a fun geek-toy, great for specific tasks, and a wonderful platform for dedicated appliances (think TiVo), but for the home desktop and my devices it just takes too much time to get working if I can get it to work at all. Dave
I remember reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation series and recall that most everything, even pocket sized devices, were "atomic" powered. I think we just don't give his ideas enough credit. AA sized nukes would be an incredibly great idea (though it might make your iPod kind of heavy with all that lead shielding).
It's not all bad. When I was in high school back in the late 70's we were being told that fossil fuels would be all used-up in 20 years. That was a rather vacuous prediction.
It's true that there have been no massive breakthroughs in battery technology, but the remarkable capacity and rechargeablility of the NiMH I use, for example, in my digital camera is pretty amazing to me compared to the dry cells I used in the 70's. I'm sure the knowledge of the chemistry behind these new batteries existed 20 and 30 years ago, but the fact that I can actually *buy* them now is the great move forward.
I do think that fuel cells, however, rather than batteries, will probably be the true future breakthrough. Then maybe some of the more lofty predictions will come true.
That's the problem, and EXACTLY why it is anti-competitive. They can't make a profit on it.
Better hope that Linux never becomes popular. With all that free bundled software, they're a prime target for a legal action since can't imagine a single company being able to compete against that.
Everyone knows Martians have their eyes in their chin.
What you have here is really the crux of the definition problem. AI will not be considered AI until a machine is able perform an act of mental dexterity for which we do not have an explanation (not very likely). You see, as soon as we have a perfect understanding of how a mental process was carried out, we no longer consider that process to be an act of intelligence but simply a mechanical routine. The changes we have witnessed in the definition of intelligence really point out what the very definition of intelligence is. "True" intelligence makes "sense" to us, but is never perfectly understood. When we, as humans, make a decision or reach a conclusion, there is always some element of mystery about it. We don't know, for example, exactly how the thoughts leading to the "act of intelligence" are represented in the brain, or exactly what neurons fired, or what sensory or memorized inputs contributed to it. We just "feel" and "sense" an intelligent rationality about it. On the other hand, if we *did* know all of the physical mechanics about how the "thought" was carried out, we could readily model it in a computer, and step through the entire process of the thought in a debugger. But would we still regard the thought as an act of intelligence any more, or as just a routine? Isn't this exactly what has happened in the case of chess computers? I do not think that there will ever be machines that will be regarded by humans who live contemporarily with such machines as "intelligent", for precisely the reason of definition. Yes, we will develop machines that manipulate and process information better and better, and in ways that more accurately reflect the kinds of decision making humans perform. But as long as it is possible to go back to the machine and retrace the exact algorithim, storage mechanics, and logic flow that are being followed in the machine, it is unlikely that people will ever accept that as real intelligence.
I'm still amazed in retrospect at how much could be done with so little memory. A hello world program in VB6 is 16kb (not counting the hundreds of kbs in overhead). But suppose I asked you to write a 3D, first person perspective space combat game, with rotatable starmaps showing enemy positions, particle explosions you could fly through, instantly switchable forward and aft views, space station docking, energy/shield management, an interactive 2D galactic map correlating to the 3D environment, and very cool sound effects...and put all of that in 8KB. Now that's amazing! To see the proof, just load up Star Raiders on any 8-bit Atari computer (or emulator).