My degree is in psychology with a tendency toward physiology. The brain is a deterministic machine -- or at least, as deterministic as anything else. This hypothesis is as strong as nearly anything else in science: it fits the data well, and has yet to be proven false.
It's one thing to say that computers and brains are both deterministic. It's a VERY different matter, however, to conclude that they are both computationally equivalent.
DFAs, PDAs, and Turing machines are all deterministic models of computation. Yet they are not equivalent models of computation. There are languages that can be recognized by a Turing machine which cannot also be recognized by a PDA. Thus there are problems which can be solved by some deterministic models of computation which cannot be solved by other models.
As far as I know, noone has even come close to proving that the brain is equivalent to a Turing machine. It may rely on some bizarre model of computation that nobody has ever thought of before. We just don't know. Thus it is still very possible that the human brain is capable of some things that computers, in their current form, will never be able at do.
So who are they targetting with this contraption? The hard-core gamers, who are the ones most likely to spend an extra $200 on a gimmick, would scoff at gaming on a laptop. The LCD is still universally acknoledged as inferior to the CRT as far as gaming goes.
No matter how good your software is, you're going to need brute force to get the vehicle into space in the first place. Putting three men into space is going to require a significant amount of energy, and no amount of programming genius will change that fact. More importantly, you're going to need a good bit more brute force than Armadillo Aerospace has been testing with so far.
The tricky part is that I don't think tests done with small rockets will necessarily give you a good idea of how the big rocket will perform. If that were the case, all we'd really need is to buy a model rocket kit from Wal-Mart and just build it 20x bigger.
"Occasionally I desire to do a different kind of game. To a large degree, id Software is a prisoner of its own success. Because we are a single-title company, we have a strong obligation to do something that has relatively low risk... I think real innovation will not necessarily come from triple-A titles. Triple-A titles have so much of an investment that it engenders a huge risk-aversion. I think that the real innovation will come from things that are done on a smaller budget, that might be targeted as budget titles."
Thus as a "prisoner of its own success", id has difficulty justifying the risks associated with gameplay innovation.
Today at QuakeCon the id guys specifically stated that the 4 player limit was completely arbitrary and that it would be relatively simple for mod makers to up the player limit to 8 or so. However, the game is definitely peer-to-peer instead of client/server, so anything more than 8 players may really be pushing it unless you've got a beast of a machine (to handle the incredibly high-poly character models and extra lights) and are playing on a LAN.
It's very easy to point out other people's "mistakes" like this, but I wonder how many people actually take all these various precautions that they're so quick to accuse others of not implementing?
The fools! They forgot to install a firewall!
The fools! They didn't purge all the old user accounts!
The fools! They didn't install the latest security patch! On all the boxes in the office!
The fools! They didn't require 10 character passwords, to be changed every 15 days!
The fools! They didn't update their virus definition files! Within the last 24 hours!
The fools! They didn't make triple-redundant off site backups!
The fools! They didn't have a plan C!
The fools! They don't know where their towel is!
Now granted, if you're being paid the big bucks to think about nothing but information security all day then all of these things should probably cross your mind... but I would be willing to bet that most people who are so quick and proud to show off their shiny, impenetrable suit of dragon scales have a soft vulnerable spot on their bellies.
Obviously there were thousands upon thousands of computers still vulnerable to this exploit when this worm was released. I honestly think that this particular worm has done the world a favor - a security hole this critical was BOUND to be exploited sooner or later. Better that this relatively harmless "vaccine" force everyone to patch their systems now. That way, when REAL malicious exploits hit - that actually delete files and destroy your work - most systems will no longer be vulnerable.
Heck, I'd almost wager that Microsoft released the bugger themselves in order to reduce the impact of the next big one...
Exactly my point, he is getting the errors because either the removal tool failed or the patch failed. Thus his system is still infected or still vulnerable.
The symptoms you describe indicate that either the removal tool failed or the patch failed - I'm not sure which. I would remove the worm manually and then install a firewall to be sure you don't get hit again (or perhaps in the reverse order). The manual removal instructions are very easy to follow - just need to delete the file and remove one registry entry.
I observed similar symptoms on a Win2k system (svchost.exe was crashing, all programs that use COM objets / ActiveX controls were exhibiting strange behavior). After the manually removing the worm and installing ZoneAlarm the symptoms went away.
No one has a TI or Casio here - those are calculators for middle school students.
I've read that several times today, but nobody seems to back it up with anything other than a preference for RPN. Are there mathematical operations you use frequently that are unavailable on TI calculators? Do you notice a speed difference? Precision / accuracy issues?
As for RPN... looking at ticalc.org I can see 6 different RPN programs/environments available for the TI-89 (No, I have not tried any of them).
Schools and students, with limited budgets, are the main target for these devices. Your low end device target price is probably a bit below $100, and your high end will still be less than $150 or so. Thus, you've gotta pinch pennies everywhere you can. Color displays add cost (and probably use more battery power? I'm just guessing) without adding much in the way of educational value. Hence they get the axe.
Half-Life is beating 2nd place by over a factor of 10 in terms of player count. More players = larger pool of potential modders = more high-quality mods. More low quality mods, too, of course - but you don't really hear about those much:)
The problem with modern online role-playing games is that the vast majority of players are simply playing to win. "Win" is defined, in their opinions, as increasing experience, beating quests using any means necessary, and aquiring gobs of "phat l3wt".
Why? Because the game engine is spewing tons of this kind of information at them: stat points, hitpoints, experience, weapons which do Xd6 damage and have Y enchantments, etc... Numbers, numbers, and more numbers - none of which have anything to do with true role-playing. If nobody had told you that you were supposed to "role-play" in one of these games, how would you even know to do that? The game doesn't tell you. And it certainly doesn't encourage that kind of behavior.
If the social aspects of a game aren't directly included as part of the gameplay itself then the vast majority of players will ignore it. If the developers spend 95% of their time coding game math and 5% on features that encourage social interaction, you shouldn't be surprised when 95% of the players don't role-play their characters.
Selling games is a part of, but not all of, id's income. id gets a significant amount of revenue from licensing their game engines. Consequently, it's perfectly acceptable for them to release a game with extremely high system requirements. Games produced by 3rd party developers will come out much later than id's engine "demo" game (e.g. Doom 3, Quake 3, etc...), giving system specs time to catch up.
Sales of the Xbox in Japan are even worse than your guess, according to this article. A few thousand units per week? They couldn't give that console away to the Japanese if they tried. There must be some huge cultural factor that Microsoft neglected to consider.
Actually you don't need to kill a monster in DS to get experience. Just hitting the monster or casting a spell was enough to get some experience. In fact, I don't think there was any bonus at all for delivering a death blow.
Yet, in my experience, melee characters always advanced far more quickly than all my other characters. I tried going through the single-player campaign multiple times with various party configurations and strategies, but nothing seemed to help (exception: if you can get everyone in your party to a certain critical level, probably around 30-40, it becomes much easier to advance them at the same pace). Even tried making it through as a solo nature mage once:)
The problem is that melee characters just do a ton more damage than other classes, even when at the same character level. Granted, there are a few powerful spells that will allow your mages to keep up, but you would have to spend 90% of your gold on mana potions in order to use them often enough. Meanwhile, your mindless grunts just hack, hack, hack and slash, slash, slash their way to the top.
Mages just plain suck for 90% of the game! For the first dozen hours of gameplay, every spell you've got does LESS damage than a single hit from a decent sword... AND you have to pay mana to cast the thing.
And once a few characters in your party gain a slight experience advantage, it becomes even more difficult for the others to catch up.
I really would have preferred that all experience be equally divided among the party...
Another very beneficial file format to implement would be the Microsoft Works files. Last time I tried it, OpenOffice couldn't open them.
I've tried convincing several friends (who are not really computer literate) to switch to OpenOffice, and a frequent barrier I encounter is that it won't open their old Microsoft Works documents. Being home users, Works either came pre-installed on their machines (that seems to be a very common case) or they bought Works for its cheaper cost rather than fork over half their inheritance for a copy of Office.
Sure, you can just save the documents in RTF or a similar friendly format, but your average user just wouldn't think of something like that. You need to be able to handle the default format.
If parents attempt to teach a child their values using video games then they're probably not going to be effective. Even less so if the child in question has no desire to play such games. This sort of learning must have a human teacher. What happens when the kid has a question that the game can't answer?
That said, what happens when the game does answer the question... but answers it wrongly? I can't see Christian video games being less controverial than other games, simply because there are so many different views of what 'Christian' is. Do the games target Protestants, Catholics, or some other group entirely? If one of these games ever became semi-popular then someone, somewhere would hear about it and blast the game for bad theology. All the other parents would learn of the accusation and forbid their children from playing it (the truthfulness of accusation is irrelevant), and then we're back at square one.
What's wrong with the tons of non-violent games out there alredy? Pretty much anything from Nintendo is rated G. Mario, Zelda, etc... Then there are tons of sports games, puzzle games, simulations (SimCity, etc.), and even games where robots beat each other up instead of humans. (Total Annihilation! Woo!) My point is, there are already TONS of G-rated games out there to choose from.
Games can entertain or they can attempt to teach you life lessons, but I can't see them being used for both without one or the other hurting. Let the kids play video games that are actually fun, and let parents teach values on their own time.
If you patent an invention that naturally tends to reproduce itself then you shouldn't go whining to the authorities when it does exactly that.
However, a blurb from this article is also relevant:
CLARIFICATION: A March 30 article about a Monsanto Co. lawsuit against a Canadian canola farmer failed to fully report the judgeâ(TM)s conclusions in deciding the case. Judge W. Andrew MacKay wrote that the amount of Roundup Ready canola in the farmerâ(TM)s fields likely could not be explained by cross-pollination and the spread of seed from nearby fields and passing trucks, as argued in the farmerâ(TM)s defense.
So, in the judge's opinion, the case isn't a cut-and-dry drive-by pollination mishap.
Since this took place in Canada, I am curious - have any similar cases gone to court in the US yet? I had trouble doing a quick search for just that; all I could find were more references to the Canadian case.
You can patent a process / technique, but you can't just patent arbitrary bits of information (like the "glowing" genes). In any case, the "glowing" genes have been around for quite a while; the researchers didn't invent the genes but stole them from another creature. The only things they might be able to patent, if anything, are some of the techniques they used to insert these new genes into the GM pet. More simply, you could patent a specific "method for making fish glow", but you couldn't patent "glowing fish"
It should be perfectly fine to breed your own GM pets (assuming that's possible) - plenty of prior art for breeding:)
I'll admit, the title sounds dated. But that's because the first version of the game came out when VGA graphics were uncommon - shareware games, from the likes of Apogee and Epic Megagames, were still running amuck with EGA stuff. The game has come a long way from there, but the name stuck.
I bet there's more than a handfull of people here that still play rouge-likes (Nethack, Angband, etc...) and will vouch for the fact that a great game doesn't have to have great graphics.
Anyway, this is getting a bit off topic... The purpose of my original post was to give a good example of an app written in PowerBasic. So... there you go.
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Going by their numbers...
70% of all boys have played Grand Theft Auto
66% percent of all boys who have been in fights have played Grand Theft Auto [34% / (34% + 17%) ]
So if you've been in a fight then you're LESS likely to have played Grand Theft Auto :)
It's one thing to say that computers and brains are both deterministic. It's a VERY different matter, however, to conclude that they are both computationally equivalent.
DFAs, PDAs, and Turing machines are all deterministic models of computation. Yet they are not equivalent models of computation. There are languages that can be recognized by a Turing machine which cannot also be recognized by a PDA. Thus there are problems which can be solved by some deterministic models of computation which cannot be solved by other models.
As far as I know, noone has even come close to proving that the brain is equivalent to a Turing machine. It may rely on some bizarre model of computation that nobody has ever thought of before. We just don't know. Thus it is still very possible that the human brain is capable of some things that computers, in their current form, will never be able at do.
So who are they targetting with this contraption? The hard-core gamers, who are the ones most likely to spend an extra $200 on a gimmick, would scoff at gaming on a laptop. The LCD is still universally acknoledged as inferior to the CRT as far as gaming goes.
The tricky part is that I don't think tests done with small rockets will necessarily give you a good idea of how the big rocket will perform. If that were the case, all we'd really need is to buy a model rocket kit from Wal-Mart and just build it 20x bigger.
If Linux has a million lines of SCO code, why shouldn't they host their own web site with it? :)
Thus as a "prisoner of its own success", id has difficulty justifying the risks associated with gameplay innovation.
Today at QuakeCon the id guys specifically stated that the 4 player limit was completely arbitrary and that it would be relatively simple for mod makers to up the player limit to 8 or so. However, the game is definitely peer-to-peer instead of client/server, so anything more than 8 players may really be pushing it unless you've got a beast of a machine (to handle the incredibly high-poly character models and extra lights) and are playing on a LAN.
It's very easy to point out other people's "mistakes" like this, but I wonder how many people actually take all these various precautions that they're so quick to accuse others of not implementing?
The fools! They forgot to install a firewall!
The fools! They didn't purge all the old user accounts!
The fools! They didn't install the latest security patch! On all the boxes in the office!
The fools! They didn't require 10 character passwords, to be changed every 15 days!
The fools! They didn't update their virus definition files! Within the last 24 hours!
The fools! They didn't make triple-redundant off site backups!
The fools! They didn't have a plan C!
The fools! They don't know where their towel is!
Now granted, if you're being paid the big bucks to think about nothing but information security all day then all of these things should probably cross your mind... but I would be willing to bet that most people who are so quick and proud to show off their shiny, impenetrable suit of dragon scales have a soft vulnerable spot on their bellies.
I've also been using a 9700 All-In-Wonder with Windows 2000, for at least three months now. I haven't had a single BSOD.
Obviously there were thousands upon thousands of computers still vulnerable to this exploit when this worm was released. I honestly think that this particular worm has done the world a favor - a security hole this critical was BOUND to be exploited sooner or later. Better that this relatively harmless "vaccine" force everyone to patch their systems now. That way, when REAL malicious exploits hit - that actually delete files and destroy your work - most systems will no longer be vulnerable.
Heck, I'd almost wager that Microsoft released the bugger themselves in order to reduce the impact of the next big one...
Exactly my point, he is getting the errors because either the removal tool failed or the patch failed. Thus his system is still infected or still vulnerable.
The symptoms you describe indicate that either the removal tool failed or the patch failed - I'm not sure which. I would remove the worm manually and then install a firewall to be sure you don't get hit again (or perhaps in the reverse order). The manual removal instructions are very easy to follow - just need to delete the file and remove one registry entry.
I observed similar symptoms on a Win2k system (svchost.exe was crashing, all programs that use COM objets / ActiveX controls were exhibiting strange behavior). After the manually removing the worm and installing ZoneAlarm the symptoms went away.
I've read that several times today, but nobody seems to back it up with anything other than a preference for RPN. Are there mathematical operations you use frequently that are unavailable on TI calculators? Do you notice a speed difference? Precision / accuracy issues?
As for RPN... looking at ticalc.org I can see 6 different RPN programs/environments available for the TI-89 (No, I have not tried any of them).
Schools and students, with limited budgets, are the main target for these devices. Your low end device target price is probably a bit below $100, and your high end will still be less than $150 or so. Thus, you've gotta pinch pennies everywhere you can. Color displays add cost (and probably use more battery power? I'm just guessing) without adding much in the way of educational value. Hence they get the axe.
Half-Life is beating 2nd place by over a factor of 10 in terms of player count. More players = larger pool of potential modders = more high-quality mods. More low quality mods, too, of course - but you don't really hear about those much :)
The problem with modern online role-playing games is that the vast majority of players are simply playing to win. "Win" is defined, in their opinions, as increasing experience, beating quests using any means necessary, and aquiring gobs of "phat l3wt".
Why? Because the game engine is spewing tons of this kind of information at them: stat points, hitpoints, experience, weapons which do Xd6 damage and have Y enchantments, etc... Numbers, numbers, and more numbers - none of which have anything to do with true role-playing. If nobody had told you that you were supposed to "role-play" in one of these games, how would you even know to do that? The game doesn't tell you. And it certainly doesn't encourage that kind of behavior.
If the social aspects of a game aren't directly included as part of the gameplay itself then the vast majority of players will ignore it. If the developers spend 95% of their time coding game math and 5% on features that encourage social interaction, you shouldn't be surprised when 95% of the players don't role-play their characters.
Selling games is a part of, but not all of, id's income. id gets a significant amount of revenue from licensing their game engines. Consequently, it's perfectly acceptable for them to release a game with extremely high system requirements. Games produced by 3rd party developers will come out much later than id's engine "demo" game (e.g. Doom 3, Quake 3, etc...), giving system specs time to catch up.
Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational observatory!
Sales of the Xbox in Japan are even worse than your guess, according to this article. A few thousand units per week? They couldn't give that console away to the Japanese if they tried. There must be some huge cultural factor that Microsoft neglected to consider.
Actually you don't need to kill a monster in DS to get experience. Just hitting the monster or casting a spell was enough to get some experience. In fact, I don't think there was any bonus at all for delivering a death blow.
Yet, in my experience, melee characters always advanced far more quickly than all my other characters. I tried going through the single-player campaign multiple times with various party configurations and strategies, but nothing seemed to help (exception: if you can get everyone in your party to a certain critical level, probably around 30-40, it becomes much easier to advance them at the same pace). Even tried making it through as a solo nature mage once :)
The problem is that melee characters just do a ton more damage than other classes, even when at the same character level. Granted, there are a few powerful spells that will allow your mages to keep up, but you would have to spend 90% of your gold on mana potions in order to use them often enough. Meanwhile, your mindless grunts just hack, hack, hack and slash, slash, slash their way to the top.
Mages just plain suck for 90% of the game! For the first dozen hours of gameplay, every spell you've got does LESS damage than a single hit from a decent sword... AND you have to pay mana to cast the thing.
And once a few characters in your party gain a slight experience advantage, it becomes even more difficult for the others to catch up.
I really would have preferred that all experience be equally divided among the party...
Another very beneficial file format to implement would be the Microsoft Works files. Last time I tried it, OpenOffice couldn't open them.
I've tried convincing several friends (who are not really computer literate) to switch to OpenOffice, and a frequent barrier I encounter is that it won't open their old Microsoft Works documents. Being home users, Works either came pre-installed on their machines (that seems to be a very common case) or they bought Works for its cheaper cost rather than fork over half their inheritance for a copy of Office.
Sure, you can just save the documents in RTF or a similar friendly format, but your average user just wouldn't think of something like that. You need to be able to handle the default format.
Games can entertain or they can attempt to teach you life lessons, but I can't see them being used for both without one or the other hurting. Let the kids play video games that are actually fun, and let parents teach values on their own time.
If you patent an invention that naturally tends to reproduce itself then you shouldn't go whining to the authorities when it does exactly that.
However, a blurb from this article is also relevant:
So, in the judge's opinion, the case isn't a cut-and-dry drive-by pollination mishap.
Since this took place in Canada, I am curious - have any similar cases gone to court in the US yet? I had trouble doing a quick search for just that; all I could find were more references to the Canadian case.
You can patent a process / technique, but you can't just patent arbitrary bits of information (like the "glowing" genes). In any case, the "glowing" genes have been around for quite a while; the researchers didn't invent the genes but stole them from another creature. The only things they might be able to patent, if anything, are some of the techniques they used to insert these new genes into the GM pet. More simply, you could patent a specific "method for making fish glow", but you couldn't patent "glowing fish"
It should be perfectly fine to breed your own GM pets (assuming that's possible) - plenty of prior art for breeding :)
I'll admit, the title sounds dated. But that's because the first version of the game came out when VGA graphics were uncommon - shareware games, from the likes of Apogee and Epic Megagames, were still running amuck with EGA stuff. The game has come a long way from there, but the name stuck.
I bet there's more than a handfull of people here that still play rouge-likes (Nethack, Angband, etc...) and will vouch for the fact that a great game doesn't have to have great graphics.
Anyway, this is getting a bit off topic... The purpose of my original post was to give a good example of an app written in PowerBasic. So... there you go.