My son and I have played been playing online games together since EQ1 came out. He is now 16 and we are playing EQ2 together. There have been a couple of other MMORPGs in between.
Before that though, we gamed on consoles and I introduced him to PC games at an early age.
Gaming together, and play in general, is something all parents should do with their children. My son and I are much closer than we might have been, and definitely gotten some deeper insight into each other.
Playing an RPG like EQ or WoW, gives a young person a chance to exercise their personal skills in a variety of settings, being their with him/her gives a parent a chance to mentor, observce and assist.
As for the insight part, my son and I play totally differently in some areas. Grouping up, we learn how the other thinks about things, like fair play, how to treat others, and prioritizing.
That sad, game play is no substitute for good parenting. So, if you're excuse for not spending any other time with yoiur family is that you play EQ together....well, you read the article.:)
It's like giving out free maryjo samples.....a dealer is bound to get some instant new business. Heck, they could get a commercial on every TV show for free and it wouldn't be near the value of 1000 potential customers getting a taste. And not a taste with 1 million others but a very tight availability taste.
Also, as a programmer, I can say you can unit test till you are blue in the face, but it only takes a user 5 minutes to find a bug you'd have never tested for. If only one major bug is caught that's huge icing on the marketting and catching customers angles.
But I think there is one factor we overlooked...ego. If you'd spent years developing a new toy, you didn't do it to keep it locked up for yourself. You did it for someone to play with. I'm betting the rush of first players digging into the new toys you rolled out is huge! and heck, if it sucks, at least you only had to deal with the a small amount of laughs the first day. Ha!
Note to moderators: the following is probably redundant...:)
MS is probably going to charge for any goodies they produce other than minor or required fixes. The main reason being that even if they'd be happy to give it away, and we'd be happy to get it, many individuals would see this as continuing and strengthening and already strong monopoly, especially if these tools competed direclty with some you or I are already paying for.
I'd be happy to pay for a really good tool, MS or otherwise. In fact, I'm willing to bet most of you who read this not only use the 'lite' versions of various software tools but have purchased them also.
Heck, rather than complain, just continue using what you prefer. But I'm hoping if MS puts out something halfway decent, it will raise the bar for everyone else. Competition is healthy!
Ob MS negative comment: Those silly MS folks, charging me again for an OS I already bought?!
Ob new tool comment: Yet another company trying to one up my favority freeware tool, rocks!!!
The place I work takes on lots of contractors. They are frequently are number one place to look for new or repeat hires! Best thing is in our area of the country is the chance to meet and network with people. Don't hold out for a permanent job if you can take work as a contractor. Several of the folks in my area of all programmers have done the contractor gig, and half of them with my our current employer.
The networking aspect is huge in the IT industry overall, and like I said, better to take some money than none at all while holding out for a permanent job.
Be well, and good luck whichever way you go. Tojosan
He makes the implication that if the players want a major change because they don't like a design feature, that this change can be motivated because of the in flux of new players with preconcieved ideas about what a virtual world must contain. And then contends that in order to keep these new players, the devs must change the game or it dies out.
To be honest, I see something different happening. In the most recent online game I joined, I quickly discovered who drives nerfs/changes for the devs...he outspoken minority!!!!! These are the folks that post and post and post in the discussion forums.
In the game I'm referring too, one of the biggest changes they made recently was hugely talked up on the message boards but sadly the in game folks, unaware even of the forums as worth their time, were grossly surprised by it. This has happened in all the online games I've played. It isn't specifically newbs that rant on the boards, its oldbies with an axe to grind for or against their favorite feature.
Where I've seen this the most is when this game recently toughened up the tasks. This was the most requested thing on the boards, and sadly, unbeknownst to the remaining 98% of players. So they toughened up the tasks and guess what...tons of complaints from folks that were just fine with things the way they were...mostly cause folks were used to a certain amount of risk vs reward and suddenly...BAM...the risk jumped way up.
As for my experience, heck, yeah it got tougher but once I got used to the added risk, I actually got to enjoy the challenge. But what happened...suddenly a large number of folks decided to give some feedback to the devs and...BAM...now the tasks became easier again.
Either is good with me I guess, as long as the content is interesting...but just speaks to the fact that it isn't always about newbies vs oldbies and who knows best, sometimes it's about who shouts the loudest. Tojo
Walmart as they interface with business partners..
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Inside Wal-Mart IT
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· Score: 4, Informative
I work for a company that sells various products to Walmart. In the last couple of years we moved from a mish mash of paper/fax/edi to full blown AS2/EDIINT connectivity. Of all the partners we have made this transition with, the Walmart team was the most knowledgeable about their own software, AS2 connectivity, and their partner expectations.
Yes, setting up with them was not about user friendliness, but trust me, they were the partners we have had the absolute fewest issues with. For any issue, they are knowledgeable, helpful, and consistent. The folks I spoke with at 1st and 2nd level support were polite and all about resolution, not blame, or fault and took ownership.
As I said, I work for a company that does a huge amount of business with them, but I can't say all the above things about any of our other partners.
Re:And now a word from Captain Obvious...
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Port-A-Nuke
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'd have modded you up, but I already blew all my mod points!
I was on a nuke submarine also and all I can say to this article is DOH!! This technology, the style of reactor construction, long fuel life, neutron bouncing etc etc etc is old tech. The fact that they are just now 'officially' considering it for that purpose slays me.
I find it interesting that the description, size, output, reactor life etc hail back to those days of nukedom.
Shout out to you fellow sumbmariner! USS Norfolk/USS Atlanta
Linux jobs won't spread until of more there are more Linux installs. This won't happen until Linux becomes easier to use, and more widespread.
Biggest of all is going to be when big companies can just move their software to a linux box without making software changes. And now since so many companies are still getting locked in MS contracts, this won't happen unless big hardware suppliers start packing Linux on their servers. One company doing this is IBM. Of course they are also packaging systems that will run MS server software, I guess covering their bases.
Anyway, best way to get Linux on the street would be to give me a prepackaged linux PC my wife could use. When that happens and she can browse the web, send email, and play her favorite games(or equivalent) then she won't be switching. Her and monay others, as another poster mentioned, don't want obscure and undocumented command line only changes to be required to set things up.
Me, I'm a geekboy at heart and miss a good command line go once in a while.:)
The potentially biggest problems is that whether its better or not, if Micorsoft's search tools are defaulted and integrated into the OS, then folks will use that more than anything else.
But is this really a problem? If it is as good as Google, then why shouldn't people use it?
I don't think the problem is with results or effeciency. The real potential problem is Microsoft totally driving out the competition, and becoming even more monopolistic. Again, not such a bad thing for 'users' but the side effects of a total monopoly in software aren't yet fully realized.
I'm still struggling to get my wife to use Firefox over Internet Explorer, old habits die hard.
Anyway, lets bide our time, use our favorites and see how it falls out.
This was a Civ type game. It made use of priests to convert the Navite Americans.
I'm pretty sure that's the game, correct me if I'm wrong someone please.:)
I'm thinking that if ethics is included in the game, read most FPSs, then perhaps some games could include references to a diety as part of the role playing or decision making. But all too often this does fall in the category making the god be healer more than anything.
What would probably be a cool idea is to let the player customize the description of thier diety and select values that this diety represents.
Of course as noted by the article, even with the Sims allowing user created content, the article writer didn't find any evidence of religious items created for the game. That either speeks volumes about what type of people play, unlikely, or volumes about what people care about when playing the Sims.
I don't think people would stop buying games if religion played a part if the only god allowed was the Christian one(lots of my fellow game playing friends are Christians), but I do think they would if it was preachy or heavy handed.
I've run across few games where adding religion would have added a lot to the game though.
Worship how you chose or chose not too, play what you like, and if the two should cross, well bully for you!
Great post! Very informative. I didn't realize about the transportation to/from school in Japan. In our local school system, even kids that live close to school ride the bus.
As for the risk vs RFID, I'd have to say that it just isn't there yet. Besides the fact that those tags wouldn't prevent the crime in most cases, just make it easier to find the dead body.
Besides, tagged once, tagged forever! My fear would be that once they are tagged this would be used in the future to track them as adults.
However, as you've noted, Japanese culture isn't the same as the States or Europe and they might really think this is neat and the way to go.
Anyway I also liked your story on your webpage about the teacher's lounge and the dried tentacles.
Nothing new in this article we havne't heard before.
Simply put, more features doesn't equal a better experience.
I'd have to say though the author should have been more clear. It is not so much that there are too many options, as that the ones used 90% of the time aren't easy to scout out. His Scrabble example is excellent. I just bought another new version since my old one won't work right on XP. The new one requires the CD in the drive, has grahpics, music and sound effects all on by default, and prompts you to setup online before you can even get the game to start. If you don't want to setup for online, then you have to exit out and it basically behaves like your setup is broken after that. To make matters worse, there isn't any easy to get to place to change all those options.
I'm not saying all software is that way, but sure as shootin a lot of new stuff I bought is.
More menus should behave like the ones MS has. They display only the most common functions unless you hit the expand button. Or perhaps they should just have a common preferences menu.
BUT, and I say BUT, he needs to get used to the fact that multimedia is in and some of us actually would like our dictionary to have pictures.:) And our encyclopedia to have sounds!
And our Doom to have booms and blasts and... and our favorite horror game the screams...and and....ahhh, I'm going to go play Silent Hill!
Sexual preference and gender roles are often left out of games. As a matter fo fact, in very few games on any platform is there a chance to choose your sex, let alone your sexual preference, and even more remote, have it make a hill of beans difference on the game.
I'm not saying you have to make a game just for gays but if you are going to make a role playing game, at least offer the option to play male or female, and if there are possible encounters NPCs where flirting or more is possible, then at least leave the possibility open that the NPC might be gay. Of course, we should also leave the option open for NPCs to hate whites, blacks or peeps with big feet!:) (I'm partial to one eyed purple androgenous, Venusians.)
All in all, as someone else put it, people of all types should just be parts of the game, not the focus. But being an amateur author, I'd say that if you make someone explicitly straight or green skinned, then it should be important to the story or add some value.
Good grief Charlie Brown!!! Be well no matter how you lie.
Just a thought... Some movies will do way more in DVD and VHS sales than they ever did in the theatre. I know the Matrix movies have set records in DVD sales. That is just one among many that really cleaned up in that department.
Not saying your wrong, just there is more truth. Be well, Tojosan
I just wanted to respond to this one point. (So many other awesome posts covering the others.) Until today, even with my installing Firefox on her PC, my wife didn't realize there was another option besides IE. You know what turned her?????? Our local newspaper headlined that the government was recommending the use of another browser than IE.
She was very worried coming to me after that article. Asking what we could do and how would she use the Internet without it??? I told her, hey my lady, already got you covered, check out your new Firefox install.
As a side note, I keep her machine patched with all the latest MS and IE patches, as well as having higher security settings, popup blocker, etc set on her IE.
Old versions won't be around long if big companies can help it.
Not picking on MS, but our company is on board with the upgrade and pay plan from MS. The company bought into the yearly software licensing(spelling?) plan and mandatory upgrades. Go figure, for a smart company we do some odd things.
As part of getting on board with other software companies besides MS, the company has classified anything OSS, Freeware, Shareware etc as unsafe and illegal. (actually against the code of ethics of the company) THis policy resulted in the forced removal of Mozilla, Trillian, Cygwin, Adobe with addins(too new a version, not on the contract schedule), and etc.. Killed me when they said uninstall or take a walk.
My company pays half of just about any employee's high speed internet access. And they gave us free routers!
For IT folks, they also provide $10 on cell phone bill if you provide them the number. I won't give mine out even when asked by my direct supervisor on more than one occassion, so I pass on the $10.
They also provide pagers if they expect you to have one. Mind you not nice ones, but hey!
They will also pick up any phone charges related to work even without being on the cell phone dole.
All in all, very fair for what little I use of my personal resources for work.
Of course I'm technically available 24/7, but our team works hard to keep off hours calls down. Those are the things we work hard on when we aren't on special projects.
Oh yeah, we are just one company in our conglomerate, and I can't vouch for the other divisions.
while your observation is mostly true today, ie its really programming team against programming team, I have a feeling that the next generation of programs will take a step up from that.
I've noticed on the chess programs I've played against that the same program will pick the same move in the same position over and over again, even with good alternatives. What I invision in the future is that the programs won't just brute force algorithm themselves to the mate, but actually apply rules of fuzzy logic (shoot me someone for the buzzy words ehre) and pattern recognition.
I don't write chess programs, and to be honest my programming problems aren't near that complex, but we are often being tasked with not just simple data mapping, or totalling or scanning, but being asked to make the programs able to recognize that something is wrong via patterns. And of course there is the age old problem of guessing what the user wants to do and balancing it against what you know they should be doing. This sort of thing is just too hard to program directly but a learning system, one that could evolve its own heuristics over an extremely large sample set, would have a much better success rate. This same thing applies to chess, assuming some computer doesnt' figure out all possible positions and solutions before then. Pattern recognition and distilled heurisitics combined with brute force is going to take us beyond programmer vs programmer because the programmers won't be able to easily predict how their system will behave after its played thousands of games. That is unless they disect and dump each part of the system.
Of course, this is all just buzzwords and pipedreams since peeps have been talking about this for ages!:)
Final note, and sadly no link, but there is more than one team working on alternates and enhancements to blind brute force.
Anyway, rant off, mod me down if you want for too many buzzy words!!!
I'd have to disagree though with the conclusion that the audience is now going to think anything new about fusion than they thought before. I saw the movie in a packed house and with several family members. Just a guess, not one of the folks sitting near me, mostly teens, my family included, had a clue what fusion is and/or how it differs from fission. And after the movie, I'm going to wager, from conversations I heard and had, that not a whole lot of them took any good/bad knowledge of fusion away with them.
I honestly believe most peeps were too caught up in the movie to worry about it. This isn't to say you aren't correct in saying the movie took a lot of liberties and that could have an effect, but that is probably minimal.
Mostly us geek boys who know something about the sciences are the only ones who cared and as everyone can see, we are certainly speeking our minds about it.:)
Besides, it is comic book science! I'm willing myself to ignore some science fallicies in a superhero movie, because I've ignored them for years in the comic books themselves.
And just what fun would it be if the fusion reaction was taking place in a full blown fusion reactor in a facility miles from nowwhere, with only those closely involved withit even getting within 10 miles. How would Doc Ock have been able to get to the hospital so quick!:)
Anyway, as I said, good points you have one and all, just in my view, the whole fusion thing along with other science anomolies are worth ignoring for the fun of the ride.
This is a tech success story! Putting aside my personal feelings one way or the other about Greenpeace, I was impressed that this guy was able to put this together so quickly! My biggest problem with this article is it didn't contain enough tech!!
I'd also have been more impressed if the folks that got this setup had done this for one of their local schools.
He mentioned a couple of my favorite pet peeves including PDFs. But I've got a few others: 1) Site inconsistency - having totally different designs between pages at the same site. This is often a navigation change, but could include color schemes, font choices, and text/graphic alignment. 2) Links off the page you are on - often missing are links to the main site page, as well as links to pages within the section of the site you are currently visiting. 3) Inconsistent content - one time a link is html, the next a text file, and the third a PDF. That is worse than every link being a PDF. 4) Lack of a link to send the site maintainer an email. 5) Lack of links to send anyone in the company an email. See this quite frequently. 6) Overall lack of anything but marketting buzz on a website, not a usability issue per se but makes the site worthless. 7) Inconsistent link behavoir - some links open a seperate browser, some don't. 8) Failure to warn about popups! Personal opinion here, but a site should warn you to expect a popup and what your expected action should be if it is at all going to be unclear. 9) Webforms for submitting a contact request that are just plain broken or don't point to a valid address.
Also I've got to put in my vote for getting rid of long long long pages, experience has shown, most users won't scroll or as he said, won't retain if they do scroll.
I'll second that motion on search being broken, heck, my company's internal and external websites are worthless in that respect.
I agree that if it isn't appropriate for 'your' kid, then you shouldn't buy it. The problem is that when something is rated 'E' and the box looks good, the parent ends up buying it before they see the true content. Then they are shocked when they see the actual game play. Parents should make an effort though to know what they are buying. Especially in this day and age when any game is $50! My rule is if I don't know, I don't buy it.
As to your point about accuracy, you are right, sports can be a scummy biz. And we could have a whole other discussion on your point about idols.
I know I'm not the only programmer out there that isn't a total slave.:) The normal routine where I work is about 50 hours a week for a non manager programmer. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Mostly not on the more side. I believe we are fairly compensated for our time too.
Of course everyone is assigned in a group and thus stuck supporting a small range of apps and new development. Maybe this helps but it also limits your future opportunities.
Overall I'm betting lots of programmers aren't getting the raw deal we see here. And trust me, I'm enough of a devotee to my off time that when it gets back to 60 hour weeks, I'll be looking for a new job.
Slashdot Mirror
My son and I have played been playing online games together since EQ1 came out.
:)
He is now 16 and we are playing EQ2 together. There have been a couple of other MMORPGs in between.
Before that though, we gamed on consoles and I introduced him to PC games at an early age.
Gaming together, and play in general, is something all parents should do with their children. My son and I are much closer than we might have been, and definitely gotten some deeper insight into each other.
Playing an RPG like EQ or WoW, gives a young person a chance to exercise their personal skills in a variety of settings, being their with him/her gives a parent a chance to mentor, observce and assist.
As for the insight part, my son and I play totally differently in some areas. Grouping up, we learn how the other thinks about things, like fair play, how to treat others, and prioritizing.
That sad, game play is no substitute for good parenting. So, if you're excuse for not spending any other time with yoiur family is that you play EQ together....well, you read the article.
Laters,
Tojosan
It's like giving out free maryjo samples.....a dealer is bound to get some instant new business. Heck, they could get a commercial on every TV show for free and it wouldn't be near the value of 1000 potential customers getting a taste. And not a taste with 1 million others but a very tight availability taste.
Also, as a programmer, I can say you can unit test till you are blue in the face, but it only takes a user 5 minutes to find a bug you'd have never tested for.
If only one major bug is caught that's huge icing on the marketting and catching customers angles.
But I think there is one factor we overlooked...ego. If you'd spent years developing a new toy, you didn't do it to keep it locked up for yourself. You did it for someone to play with. I'm betting the rush of first players digging into the new toys you rolled out is huge! and heck, if it sucks, at least you only had to deal with the a small amount of laughs the first day. Ha!
Be swell
or will it be. I'm not sure the game world needs another Sims(tm) game.
But perhaps this will be another Katomari like hit.
Either way, I'm sure it will be a blast.
Note to moderators: the following is probably redundant... :)
MS is probably going to charge for any goodies they produce other than minor or required fixes. The main reason being that even if they'd be happy to give it away, and we'd be happy to get it, many individuals would see this as continuing and strengthening and already strong monopoly, especially if these tools competed direclty with some you or I are already paying for.
I'd be happy to pay for a really good tool, MS or otherwise. In fact, I'm willing to bet most of you who read this not only use the 'lite' versions of various software tools but have purchased them also.
Heck, rather than complain, just continue using what you prefer. But I'm hoping if MS puts out something halfway decent, it will raise the bar for everyone else. Competition is healthy!
Ob MS negative comment: Those silly MS folks, charging me again for an OS I already bought?!
Ob new tool comment: Yet another company trying to one up my favority freeware tool, rocks!!!
Laters folks and be well,
Tojosan
The place I work takes on lots of contractors. They are frequently are number one place to look for new or repeat hires!
Best thing is in our area of the country is the chance to meet and network with people. Don't hold out for a permanent job if you can take work as a contractor. Several of the folks in my area of all programmers have done the contractor gig, and half of them with my our current employer.
The networking aspect is huge in the IT industry overall, and like I said, better to take some money than none at all while holding out for a permanent job.
Be well, and good luck whichever way you go.
Tojosan
To address only one point of his article...
...BAM...the risk jumped way up.
...BAM...now the tasks became easier again.
He makes the implication that if the players want a major change because they don't like a design feature, that this change can be motivated because of the in flux of new players with preconcieved ideas about what a virtual world must contain. And then contends that in order to keep these new players, the devs must change the game or it dies out.
To be honest, I see something different happening.
In the most recent online game I joined, I quickly discovered who drives nerfs/changes for the devs...he outspoken minority!!!!! These are the folks that post and post and post in the discussion forums.
In the game I'm referring too, one of the biggest changes they made recently was hugely talked up on the message boards but sadly the in game folks, unaware even of the forums as worth their time, were grossly surprised by it. This has happened in all the online games I've played. It isn't specifically newbs that rant on the boards, its oldbies with an axe to grind for or against their favorite feature.
Where I've seen this the most is when this game recently toughened up the tasks. This was the most requested thing on the boards, and sadly, unbeknownst to the remaining 98% of players. So they toughened up the tasks and guess what...tons of complaints from folks that were just fine with things the way they were...mostly cause folks were used to a certain amount of risk vs reward and suddenly
As for my experience, heck, yeah it got tougher but once I got used to the added risk, I actually got to enjoy the challenge. But what happened...suddenly a large number of folks decided to give some feedback to the devs and
Either is good with me I guess, as long as the content is interesting...but just speaks to the fact that it isn't always about newbies vs oldbies and who knows best, sometimes it's about who shouts the loudest.
Tojo
I work for a company that sells various products to Walmart. In the last couple of years we moved from a mish mash of paper/fax/edi to full blown AS2/EDIINT connectivity. Of all the partners we have made this transition with, the Walmart team was the most knowledgeable about their own software, AS2 connectivity, and their partner expectations.
Yes, setting up with them was not about user friendliness, but trust me, they were the partners we have had the absolute fewest issues with. For any issue, they are knowledgeable, helpful, and consistent. The folks I spoke with at 1st and 2nd level support were polite and all about resolution, not blame, or fault and took ownership.
As I said, I work for a company that does a huge amount of business with them, but I can't say all the above things about any of our other partners.
I'd have modded you up, but I already blew all my mod points!
I was on a nuke submarine also and all I can say to this article is DOH!! This technology, the style of reactor construction, long fuel life, neutron bouncing etc etc etc is old tech. The fact that they are just now 'officially' considering it for that purpose slays me.
I find it interesting that the description, size, output, reactor life etc hail back to those days of nukedom.
Shout out to you fellow sumbmariner!
USS Norfolk/USS Atlanta
Linux jobs won't spread until of more there are more Linux installs. This won't happen until Linux becomes easier to use, and more widespread.
:)
Biggest of all is going to be when big companies can just move their software to a linux box without making software changes. And now since so many companies are still getting locked in MS contracts, this won't happen unless big hardware suppliers start packing Linux on their servers. One company doing this is IBM. Of course they are also packaging systems that will run MS server software, I guess covering their bases.
Anyway, best way to get Linux on the street would be to give me a prepackaged linux PC my wife could use. When that happens and she can browse the web, send email, and play her favorite games(or equivalent) then she won't be switching. Her and monay others, as another poster mentioned, don't want obscure and undocumented command line only changes to be required to set things up.
Me, I'm a geekboy at heart and miss a good command line go once in a while.
Later folks,
Tojo
The potentially biggest problems is that whether its better or not, if Micorsoft's search tools are defaulted and integrated into the OS, then folks will use that more than anything else.
But is this really a problem? If it is as good as Google, then why shouldn't people use it?
I don't think the problem is with results or effeciency. The real potential problem is Microsoft totally driving out the competition, and becoming even more monopolistic. Again, not such a bad thing for 'users' but the side effects of a total monopoly in software aren't yet fully realized.
I'm still struggling to get my wife to use Firefox over Internet Explorer, old habits die hard.
Anyway, lets bide our time, use our favorites and see how it falls out.
Tojo
This was a Civ type game. It made use of priests to convert the Navite Americans.
:)
I'm pretty sure that's the game, correct me if I'm wrong someone please.
I'm thinking that if ethics is included in the game, read most FPSs, then perhaps some games could include references to a diety as part of the role playing or decision making. But all too often this does fall in the category making the god be healer more than anything.
What would probably be a cool idea is to let the player customize the description of thier diety and select values that this diety represents.
Of course as noted by the article, even with the Sims allowing user created content, the article writer didn't find any evidence of religious items created for the game. That either speeks volumes about what type of people play, unlikely, or volumes about what people care about when playing the Sims.
I don't think people would stop buying games if religion played a part if the only god allowed was the Christian one(lots of my fellow game playing friends are Christians), but I do think they would if it was preachy or heavy handed.
I've run across few games where adding religion would have added a lot to the game though.
Worship how you chose or chose not too, play what you like, and if the two should cross, well bully for you!
Be well,
Tojosan
Great post!
Very informative.
I didn't realize about the transportation to/from school in Japan. In our local school system, even kids that live close to school ride the bus.
As for the risk vs RFID, I'd have to say that it just isn't there yet. Besides the fact that those tags wouldn't prevent the crime in most cases, just make it easier to find the dead body.
Besides, tagged once, tagged forever! My fear would be that once they are tagged this would be used in the future to track them as adults.
However, as you've noted, Japanese culture isn't the same as the States or Europe and they might really think this is neat and the way to go.
Anyway I also liked your story on your webpage about the teacher's lounge and the dried tentacles.
Later and be well,
Tojosan
Am I the only individual here on Slashdot that isn't using a P2P client on a regular basis????????
I've never been unable to get a demo I wanted from a legitimate source.
I don't download pirate videos or music.
I've d/l linux distros direct or at distro sites with no problem.
So, in a short answer, why is using a P2P client sooo much better? From the consumer side that is?
I've read the info at the Bittorrent site.
And just to ask my fellow Sd folks...how safe is it?
Thanks and be well!
Nothing new in this article we havne't heard before.
:)
Simply put, more features doesn't equal a better experience.
I'd have to say though the author should have been more clear. It is not so much that there are too many options, as that the ones used 90% of the time aren't easy to scout out. His Scrabble example is excellent. I just bought another new version since my old one won't work right on XP. The new one requires the CD in the drive, has grahpics, music and sound effects all on by default, and prompts you to setup online before you can even get the game to start. If you don't want to setup for online, then you have to exit out and it basically behaves like your setup is broken after that.
To make matters worse, there isn't any easy to get to place to change all those options.
I'm not saying all software is that way, but sure as shootin a lot of new stuff I bought is.
More menus should behave like the ones MS has. They display only the most common functions unless you hit the expand button. Or perhaps they should just have a common preferences menu.
BUT, and I say BUT, he needs to get used to the fact that multimedia is in and some of us actually would like our dictionary to have pictures.
And our encyclopedia to have sounds!
And our Doom to have booms and blasts and...
and our favorite horror game the screams...and
and....ahhh, I'm going to go play Silent Hill!
Later and be well,
Tojosan
Sexual preference and gender roles are often left out of games. As a matter fo fact, in very few games on any platform is there a chance to choose your sex, let alone your sexual preference, and even more remote, have it make a hill of beans difference on the game.
:) (I'm partial to one eyed purple androgenous, Venusians.)
I'm not saying you have to make a game just for gays but if you are going to make a role playing game, at least offer the option to play male or female, and if there are possible encounters NPCs where flirting or more is possible, then at least leave the possibility open that the NPC might be gay.
Of course, we should also leave the option open for NPCs to hate whites, blacks or peeps with big feet!
All in all, as someone else put it, people of all types should just be parts of the game, not the focus. But being an amateur author, I'd say that if you make someone explicitly straight or green skinned, then it should be important to the story or add some value.
Good grief Charlie Brown!!!
Be well no matter how you lie.
Just a thought...
Some movies will do way more in DVD and VHS sales than they ever did in the theatre. I know the Matrix movies have set records in DVD sales. That is just one among many that really cleaned up in that department.
Not saying your wrong, just there is more truth.
Be well,
Tojosan
I just wanted to respond to this one point. (So many other awesome posts covering the others.)
Until today, even with my installing Firefox on her PC, my wife didn't realize there was another option besides IE. You know what turned her??????
Our local newspaper headlined that the government was recommending the use of another browser than IE.
She was very worried coming to me after that article. Asking what we could do and how would she use the Internet without it??? I told her, hey my lady, already got you covered, check out your new Firefox install.
As a side note, I keep her machine patched with all the latest MS and IE patches, as well as having higher security settings, popup blocker, etc set on her IE.
Be well,
Tojosan
Old versions won't be around long if big companies can help it.
Not picking on MS, but our company is on board with the upgrade and pay plan from MS. The company bought into the yearly software licensing(spelling?) plan and mandatory upgrades. Go figure, for a smart company we do some odd things.
As part of getting on board with other software companies besides MS, the company has classified anything OSS, Freeware, Shareware etc as unsafe and illegal. (actually against the code of ethics of the company) THis policy resulted in the forced removal of Mozilla, Trillian, Cygwin, Adobe with addins(too new a version, not on the contract schedule), and etc.. Killed me when they said uninstall or take a walk.
Just food for thought,
Laters,
Tojosan
My company pays half of just about any employee's high speed internet access. And they gave us free routers!
For IT folks, they also provide $10 on cell phone bill if you provide them the number. I won't give mine out even when asked by my direct supervisor on more than one occassion, so I pass on the $10.
They also provide pagers if they expect you to have one. Mind you not nice ones, but hey!
They will also pick up any phone charges related to work even without being on the cell phone dole.
All in all, very fair for what little I use of my personal resources for work.
Of course I'm technically available 24/7, but our team works hard to keep off hours calls down. Those are the things we work hard on when we aren't on special projects.
Oh yeah, we are just one company in our conglomerate, and I can't vouch for the other divisions.
Your friend,
Tojo
while your observation is mostly true today, ie its really programming team against programming team, I have a feeling that the next generation of programs will take a step up from that.
:)
I've noticed on the chess programs I've played against that the same program will pick the same move in the same position over and over again, even with good alternatives. What I invision in the future is that the programs won't just brute force algorithm themselves to the mate, but actually apply rules of fuzzy logic (shoot me someone for the buzzy words ehre) and pattern recognition.
I don't write chess programs, and to be honest my programming problems aren't near that complex, but we are often being tasked with not just simple data mapping, or totalling or scanning, but being asked to make the programs able to recognize that something is wrong via patterns. And of course there is the age old problem of guessing what the user wants to do and balancing it against what you know they should be doing. This sort of thing is just too hard to program directly but a learning system, one that could evolve its own heuristics over an extremely large sample set, would have a much better success rate. This same thing applies to chess, assuming some computer doesnt' figure out all possible positions and solutions before then.
Pattern recognition and distilled heurisitics combined with brute force is going to take us beyond programmer vs programmer because the programmers won't be able to easily predict how their system will behave after its played thousands of games. That is unless they disect and dump each part of the system.
Of course, this is all just buzzwords and pipedreams since peeps have been talking about this for ages!
Final note, and sadly no link, but there is more than one team working on alternates and enhancements to blind brute force.
Anyway, rant off, mod me down if you want for too many buzzy words!!!
Lot of good comments in your post!
:)
:)
I'd have to disagree though with the conclusion that the audience is now going to think anything new about fusion than they thought before. I saw the movie in a packed house and with several family members. Just a guess, not one of the folks sitting near me, mostly teens, my family included, had a clue what fusion is and/or how it differs from fission. And after the movie, I'm going to wager, from conversations I heard and had, that not a whole lot of them took any good/bad knowledge of fusion away with them.
I honestly believe most peeps were too caught up in the movie to worry about it. This isn't to say you aren't correct in saying the movie took a lot of liberties and that could have an effect, but that is probably minimal.
Mostly us geek boys who know something about the sciences are the only ones who cared and as everyone can see, we are certainly speeking our minds about it.
Besides, it is comic book science! I'm willing myself to ignore some science fallicies in a superhero movie, because I've ignored them for years in the comic books themselves.
And just what fun would it be if the fusion reaction was taking place in a full blown fusion reactor in a facility miles from nowwhere, with only those closely involved withit even getting within 10 miles. How would Doc Ock have been able to get to the hospital so quick!
Anyway, as I said, good points you have one and all, just in my view, the whole fusion thing along with other science anomolies are worth ignoring for the fun of the ride.
Be well,
Tojosan
This is a tech success story! Putting aside my personal feelings one way or the other about Greenpeace, I was impressed that this guy was able to put this together so quickly!
My biggest problem with this article is it didn't contain enough tech!!
I'd also have been more impressed if the folks that got this setup had done this for one of their local schools.
Nice to have a happy post here!
Be well,
Tojosan
He mentioned a couple of my favorite pet peeves including PDFs. But I've got a few others:
1) Site inconsistency - having totally different designs between pages at the same site. This is often a navigation change, but could include color schemes, font choices, and text/graphic alignment.
2) Links off the page you are on - often missing are links to the main site page, as well as links to pages within the section of the site you are currently visiting.
3) Inconsistent content - one time a link is html, the next a text file, and the third a PDF. That is worse than every link being a PDF.
4) Lack of a link to send the site maintainer an email.
5) Lack of links to send anyone in the company an email. See this quite frequently.
6) Overall lack of anything but marketting buzz on a website, not a usability issue per se but makes the site worthless.
7) Inconsistent link behavoir - some links open a seperate browser, some don't.
8) Failure to warn about popups! Personal opinion here, but a site should warn you to expect a popup and what your expected action should be if it is at all going to be unclear.
9) Webforms for submitting a contact request that are just plain broken or don't point to a valid address.
Also I've got to put in my vote for getting rid of long long long pages, experience has shown, most users won't scroll or as he said, won't retain if they do scroll.
I'll second that motion on search being broken, heck, my company's internal and external websites are worthless in that respect.
I've ranted enough, be well.
Tojosan
I agree that if it isn't appropriate for 'your' kid, then you shouldn't buy it. The problem is that when something is rated 'E' and the box looks good, the parent ends up buying it before they see the true content.
Then they are shocked when they see the actual game play.
Parents should make an effort though to know what they are buying. Especially in this day and age when any game is $50! My rule is if I don't know, I don't buy it.
As to your point about accuracy, you are right, sports can be a scummy biz. And we could have a whole other discussion on your point about idols.
Be well,
Tojosan
I know I'm not the only programmer out there that isn't a total slave. :)
The normal routine where I work is about 50 hours a week for a non manager programmer. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Mostly not on the more side. I believe we are fairly compensated for our time too.
Of course everyone is assigned in a group and thus stuck supporting a small range of apps and new development. Maybe this helps but it also limits your future opportunities.
Overall I'm betting lots of programmers aren't getting the raw deal we see here. And trust me, I'm enough of a devotee to my off time that when it gets back to 60 hour weeks, I'll be looking for a new job.
Be well,
Tojosan