And who's to say it's a bandwidth issue? MMOs don't generally need a huge amount. It's the server-side processing that's the bottleneck -- I can't imagine how many database lookups have to take place every game tick, and even after those it has to do a considerable amount of manipulation on that data. What do most web servers do? They take a file or grab some db contents and shovel them into the pipe.
Every player in an MMO needs to know about every other player and entity around them within a certain distance, at the very least, so it follows that when a lot of players are in a small area more calculations have to be performed in a given time unit. The solution is to streamline your algorithms or throw hardware at the bottleneck -- both of which I'm sure Blizzard has done or is in the process of doing. It's not necessarily such an easy solution...
it happens, as far as i know. just noticed the other day that one of my cds (unfortunately disc 1 of a double album) had a tiny hole in the aluminum. it doesn't look like it was scratched -- the spot looks like it was, well, rusted off -- but whether it was oxidation or just a freak accident i can't tell you.
then again some of us get into CS because they want to make games...and actually follow through with it:)
really, though, the reason i taught myself C eleven years ago (and toyed with basic years before that) was so i could make games. i went to college for CS so i could learn to program better -- not just in C or C++ but in any language that was thrown at me, and because i was well aware that algorithms, programming paradigms, even hardware architecture played enormous parts in game development.
to be a game programmer or simulator designer or any kind of realtime software engineer you have to be among the best of the best...and amazingly enough the quickest and easiest way to get there is to spend four years learning about all the computational theory and algorithms and calculus. i'm not saying someone can't learn it all on their own, obviously, just that formal education isn't wasted when someone just wants to make games.
i was just turned down from an entry-level job the other day because i didn't have enough programming experience -- despite having been programming in some capacity for thirteen years. i just haven't had a "real programming job" since getting out of college a year or so ago, and thus in their mind i'm still just an inexperienced monkey. so it can go both ways...it's very cliche but no less frustrating when you can't get a low-level job because you need the experience you only get at a low-level job. nobody seems to be willing to train, nor are most willing to take someone fresh out of college.
ahh, gotcha. yeah that seems to be the problem i'm having, though instead of mucking with the wireless zero config service i just disable the wirless access from the system tray and reenable it from the "connect to" panel conveniently set up in my start menu.
+1, informative:)
what wireless networking issues were occuring before you installed sp2? i've been having some connectivity problems with my 802.11g card and have so far been completely confounded as to the cause and possible solution.
my six meg account got a pretty humorous quota warning last night:
Hello [me],
You are currently exceeding your Yahoo! Mail storage quota by a very large amount. You are only allowed -2048.0MB of storage but you are currently using 0.3MB of storage. Your account has been temporarily disabled from receiving new messages.
will movies stop being made because a (likely insignificant) percentage of the population has a crappy-quality bootlegged vhs tape of the back of somebody's head?
i suppose it's a similar argument to the one against music sharing, but people who are willing to watch a bootlegged movie (i would think) are either a) not going to see it in the theater anyway or b) are quite excited about seeing it in the theater.
but hey, whatever. if you've got a couple bucks to throw around on night vision goggles in every single theater in a country, go for it.
doing this only for DUI offenders (even repeats) sounds alright until you consider it's effectively punishment for crimes that haven't been committed yet.
lest that sounds retarded (punishment? sounds more like a simple annoyance), consider a hypothetical person who's successfully completed his twelve steps. he may have had six DUIs in the past, but is unlikely to do it again. he's also already been punished for them.
i'm not saying i'm supportive of drunk bastards driving to endanger, just that it's a little less black and white. say someone had a DUI fifteen years ago: should he be forced to submit to breathalyzer tests every time he starts his car?
it sure is that hard to play, at least if you're new to it. if you're used to playing only open first-position chords, as most new players do, getting your index finger to both press down hard enough and close enough to the fret that it doesn't make that annoying buzz is hard.
when i was in high school, i took two cs-related classes. one was freshman year, an introduction to C course, and it was useless in terms of teaching programming concepts (despite the fact that the teacher was this unbelievably hot twenty-something).
the second, which i took as a senior, was simply called "computer science" and used pascal in preparation for the AP (the last year that the AP was actually in pascal instead of C). we actually learned stuff.
fortunately for me i had be throwing together code in QBasic since fifth grade, or else i probably wouldn't have understood enough of the concepts to do well in the two classes and the CS AB exam.
i figure, give kids something as high level as possible, that doesn't have a tendency to get really, really messy (i'm looking at you, perl), and just let them play around. basic worked really well for me, with a little help from my dad and his old programming books (especially a handy little book full of games to program).
actually now that i think about it, games are probably the best way to go: no adolescent wants to code spreadsheet software, but give them the source code to a simple game and you have a fun coding project. they can play around with the code to see what does what, augment it with their own code (which is a good skill to learn -- involves knowing what the original code does and lots of debugging), or even write their own game based on what they learned.
you don't even have to reach that far. remember lyrics.ch, the International Lyrics Server? i used to go there all the time to figure out what the hell it was i was listening to on the radio, and about 4 and a half years ago the NMPA (through the harry fox agency, of course) came in and had police raid the apartment of the guy who ran it.
Slashdot Mirror
I have a cat.
And who's to say it's a bandwidth issue? MMOs don't generally need a huge amount. It's the server-side processing that's the bottleneck -- I can't imagine how many database lookups have to take place every game tick, and even after those it has to do a considerable amount of manipulation on that data. What do most web servers do? They take a file or grab some db contents and shovel them into the pipe.
Every player in an MMO needs to know about every other player and entity around them within a certain distance, at the very least, so it follows that when a lot of players are in a small area more calculations have to be performed in a given time unit. The solution is to streamline your algorithms or throw hardware at the bottleneck -- both of which I'm sure Blizzard has done or is in the process of doing. It's not necessarily such an easy solution...
what bad joke is this setting up?
at the very least, we'll have a lower instance of skin cancer among penguins, which tux appreciates.
dork :P
and for the first eleven or so months it will be barely functional under windows XP and not at all in previous versions.
it happens, as far as i know. just noticed the other day that one of my cds (unfortunately disc 1 of a double album) had a tiny hole in the aluminum. it doesn't look like it was scratched -- the spot looks like it was, well, rusted off -- but whether it was oxidation or just a freak accident i can't tell you.
really, though, the reason i taught myself C eleven years ago (and toyed with basic years before that) was so i could make games. i went to college for CS so i could learn to program better -- not just in C or C++ but in any language that was thrown at me, and because i was well aware that algorithms, programming paradigms, even hardware architecture played enormous parts in game development.
to be a game programmer or simulator designer or any kind of realtime software engineer you have to be among the best of the best...and amazingly enough the quickest and easiest way to get there is to spend four years learning about all the computational theory and algorithms and calculus. i'm not saying someone can't learn it all on their own, obviously, just that formal education isn't wasted when someone just wants to make games.
i was just turned down from an entry-level job the other day because i didn't have enough programming experience -- despite having been programming in some capacity for thirteen years. i just haven't had a "real programming job" since getting out of college a year or so ago, and thus in their mind i'm still just an inexperienced monkey. so it can go both ways...it's very cliche but no less frustrating when you can't get a low-level job because you need the experience you only get at a low-level job. nobody seems to be willing to train, nor are most willing to take someone fresh out of college.
ahh, gotcha. yeah that seems to be the problem i'm having, though instead of mucking with the wireless zero config service i just disable the wirless access from the system tray and reenable it from the "connect to" panel conveniently set up in my start menu. :)
+1, informative
what wireless networking issues were occuring before you installed sp2? i've been having some connectivity problems with my 802.11g card and have so far been completely confounded as to the cause and possible solution.
Summary of ASTA Recommendations
will movies stop being made because a (likely insignificant) percentage of the population has a crappy-quality bootlegged vhs tape of the back of somebody's head?
i suppose it's a similar argument to the one against music sharing, but people who are willing to watch a bootlegged movie (i would think) are either a) not going to see it in the theater anyway or b) are quite excited about seeing it in the theater.
but hey, whatever. if you've got a couple bucks to throw around on night vision goggles in every single theater in a country, go for it.
that was the great thing about that game. your reward for playing a video game really well was soft-core porn.
not unless you cast someone named leslie nielsen or something like that
you just gave me a great idea for a half-life mod
a hearty w00t!
doing this only for DUI offenders (even repeats) sounds alright until you consider it's effectively punishment for crimes that haven't been committed yet.
lest that sounds retarded (punishment? sounds more like a simple annoyance), consider a hypothetical person who's successfully completed his twelve steps. he may have had six DUIs in the past, but is unlikely to do it again. he's also already been punished for them.
i'm not saying i'm supportive of drunk bastards driving to endanger, just that it's a little less black and white. say someone had a DUI fifteen years ago: should he be forced to submit to breathalyzer tests every time he starts his car?
it sure is that hard to play, at least if you're new to it. if you're used to playing only open first-position chords, as most new players do, getting your index finger to both press down hard enough and close enough to the fret that it doesn't make that annoying buzz is hard.
that said, an open Gm confounded me for months.
and then you have those of us in the metro boston area who just got out of college last spring, and aren't qualified for anything :P
that's certainly why i've been doing it.
err, right.
which is that, the lack of parking or northeastern university?
when i was in high school, i took two cs-related classes. one was freshman year, an introduction to C course, and it was useless in terms of teaching programming concepts (despite the fact that the teacher was this unbelievably hot twenty-something). the second, which i took as a senior, was simply called "computer science" and used pascal in preparation for the AP (the last year that the AP was actually in pascal instead of C). we actually learned stuff. fortunately for me i had be throwing together code in QBasic since fifth grade, or else i probably wouldn't have understood enough of the concepts to do well in the two classes and the CS AB exam. i figure, give kids something as high level as possible, that doesn't have a tendency to get really, really messy (i'm looking at you, perl), and just let them play around. basic worked really well for me, with a little help from my dad and his old programming books (especially a handy little book full of games to program). actually now that i think about it, games are probably the best way to go: no adolescent wants to code spreadsheet software, but give them the source code to a simple game and you have a fun coding project. they can play around with the code to see what does what, augment it with their own code (which is a good skill to learn -- involves knowing what the original code does and lots of debugging), or even write their own game based on what they learned.
you don't even have to reach that far. remember lyrics.ch, the International Lyrics Server? i used to go there all the time to figure out what the hell it was i was listening to on the radio, and about 4 and a half years ago the NMPA (through the harry fox agency, of course) came in and had police raid the apartment of the guy who ran it.