Ethanol being added to fuel is a major reason that the smog in Los Angeles is so bad. I'm not saying this is a bad idea, but the pollution is something a lot of people forget about when considering this heavily-subsidized 'renewable' source of energy.
I've seen other materials cited saying that ethanol is not harmful. Regardless, I'm sure that the pollution that is generated by your corn-fed in-house ethanol-hydrogen fuel cell will be contained by the time this thing gets to market.
The games will never be secure because a good programmer can make a Turing machine that can fool the host.
The only alternative is to use a hardware driven, trusted computing set of keys that validate that *the* hardware is there and that a real 'punkbuster' program is running. Although, in theory, if you can hack this key, you can get around even this, although the key can be made sufficiently difficult so that you will need centuries to crack it and you lack the ability to physically pull apart a CPU.
Working against any cheat is publicity. Most hackers do not make the cheat for their own purposes but because they WANT publicity (I am guessing about the 'most' part - I have no imperical evidence). And once a cheat is publicized, Punkbuster, etc. can break it.
Of course, we have a the hackers who only share with their clan or just use them themselves, but their impact on the average player should be limited.
No no no no. Alienware is the company he is referring to when he says buy's commodity parts and twaeks them. He said he will MAKE HIS OWN video cards, etc. Go read it again.
Check the college graduate story a few weeks back; I think the standard for a capable graduate is well over 50k. This guy is clearly supurlative and could probably earn more starting a company that produces something or going to work for any number of companies; he could make more by designing games than by playing them.
That is impressive. He says he isn't going to be a commodity white box shop, either, but is going to make his own components. I wonder if he really understands how difficult this will be.
Really, he doesn't earn much money and probably would be earning more money had he gone to college and gotten a decent job (at least 50k) and I'm sure he's capable.
But he says he wants to create a company that makes the whole she-bang and doesn't just buy commodity parts. Lets presume that he will actually buy his chips from AMD/Intel. But he is actually going to create a company that is the equivilant of, say, Abit (motherboard) plus Nvidia (video) plus Creative (sound) plus Micron (memory). Seriously. He may as well start making his own CPU, too.
So if he thinks he can pull that off, well.... just never mind what I said about him making more money going to college. Stick to the parent's basement / gaming career.
Small business is alive and well, and all huge corporations were once small business. But you are right - the smaller businesses are the ones that feel the brunt of government largesse.
Clinton never raised capital gains taxes - in fact he cut them by about a third (28% to 20%). Sorry stupid.
I guess that this got moded up to 5 demonstrates
the idiocy of the/. moderators, and that you are as likely to get a decent post at -1 (where this will be moderated to with a quickness) as you are at 5 - at least on anything other than how to get Linux to run on your 1980 promotional Star Wars Seiko watch that came with your happy meal.
To make a great PC game these days, developers need to master five elements: Graphics, gameplay, design depth, artificial intelligence and sound effects. But the most valuable facet of truly successful games remains human interaction. With the maturing of the Internet and the advent of broadband access, Microsoft Research has subtly made human interaction, both cooperative and competitive, the brightest light in the starry sky of its inaugural title, Allegiance.
After the destruction of Earth in the future, the remaining "factions" struggle for control of resources and the remaining human population. In each game, you can choose to join the corporate-minded Gigacorp, the genetically enhanced Bios or the Iron Coalition militia. You and your team then face off against enemy factions as you struggle to build bases, develop new technologies and harvest resources.
Teamwork is critical, but segmented, offering different roles for you to fill. As a team commander, you direct mining operations, construct new bases and deploy defenses. You can also command other players, or pilots, to attack and defend (whether they obey or not is up to them.) Playing a pilot puts you in the seat of one of several combat craft to dogfight your foe. The larger capital ships need pilots, but also have turret seats where you can focus on gunning down anyone brave enough to get in range. While the commander usually holds the responsibility, a separate investor can allocate money for new bases and technologies.
Since Pong, games have emphasized the competitive side of human interaction in computer games. But cooperative games have been typically ignored. Not so in Allegiance. No matter how great a team may be in dog fighting, general strategy and tactics, they will fail when faced with a team that can better coordinate and play off of its members' strengths and talents.
The fundamentals of the game are benchmark quality, too. The ships are beautifully rendered and fit the character of their respective factions. They're even more impressive when they're blown up, as the sweet beauty of the explosions can cause tooth decay. The sound effects are intensely real, especially if you take advantage of the three-dimension capabilities. The layout of the screen, from either the command view or the cockpit view, is incredibly well thought out, giving you a massive amount of details in a single glance.
Even the player-initiated "taunts" are not nearly as annoying as they could be after hearing them for the hundredth time. As a bonus, they also service a purpose, letting you quickly communicate useful information to your teammates about who to attack and who to defend. The most and least popular: "I need gunners in my turrets, neeeeeow." (Hint: Since they are all.wav files, you can re-record your own sounds in place of the existing ones.)
Strategically, Allegiance invites extreme creativity. In addition to a tech tree that encourages early dedication to a technology path (you can focus on tactical stealth ships, capital ships or general enhancements, among other choices) each of the factions has their own ships and specialties - Gigacorp can set up cash generating stations, Bios can use teleport receivers on their escape pods (making it easier to get back to base), and the Iron Coalition's weapons do additional damage.
The game's played on the Zone (though you can set up a private server) - and if you never want to pay a penny beyond the retail price, you don't have to. However, for a $10 monthly charge, there are added benefits. And if you choose to play on a regular team, they could be worth the extra expenditure. In addition to keeping both individual and team scores, the pay subscription lets you participate in the story line by making theme-based maps that reflect battles going on in the Allegiance universe. Also, additional factions will become available for play, the first being the rebellious frontier-type Belters.
I am looking around for the review and will post the text here if I can find it, but here is the downlow:
This game was the most perfect, ever, in the execution of achieving what it wanted to do. In terms of fulfilling a tremendous diversity of player desires, in terms of graphical beauty, in terms of growing intensity, in terms of fostering teamwork....
In this game, you could:[ul]
[li] Command 20 individuals from an isometric view point and move your bases and mining ships through galaxies while charting a research path.
[li] Choose your space craft and modify it as you saw fit - load it with missiles, load it with mines. Your call.
[li] Dogfight in one of the best zero-G environments.
[li] Choose the role of a bomber pilot, a bomber gunner, a stealth ship launching missles from a distance, a utility ship deploying probes to detect stealth ships, a massive destroyer/dreadnaught ship pilot, or a troop transport pilot. And if you weren't careful, you would be a life pod pilot - at least until someone decided to blow your life pod up!
[li]Form a clan and display your clan's stats on the in-game leader board for all to see!
[li]Sit in the role of observer, and watch the battle unfold. Would one team try a bomber rush? Or expand to all systems to try and get the most resources?
[li]Would you play as the credit-generating race? The military race? The science driven race? Or maybe as an alien race with unique technologies?
I was so sad to see this game fail. I was willing to pay the $10 a month, but that fee, along with poor publicity on behalf of Microsoft Research Games (this was their first game) killed what *could* have been the next Counter Strike.
I'm not terribly optimistic about it's future. The best I can hope for is that it catches on and MS decides to develop a sequel.
Most of the games - especially NFL games - has historical teams built in. Even though you don't see the names, the jersey numbers make it pretty clear who is who as do the player performance stats.
So if his team was any good, you can STILL PLAY as Bo.
ACtually, yes. Microsoft's Gaming Zone had a tournament against Kasparov. Each day all zone members could log in and vote for which move to make. There were message boards where humans could argue about what move to make.
In the end, Kasparov spanked the humans pretty good.
How does this sound: "Only the government can afford to do things that don't really achieve anything." Putting a man on mars might help a politician get elected, but it was nothing but a money sink hole. It did nothing to elevate the standard of living of anyone. Sort of like building the windmill in Animal Farm.
If you were to declare any revenue generated from space-based operations (mining for H3 on the moon, manufacturing in zero-G) to be tax free for the next 100 years, you might see cities on the moon and mars that aren't just a sink hole for Earth resources, but are actually a NET GAIN.
As Robert Garmong writes for ARI, there is a tremendous contradiction in the space programs of the NASA and the ESA. Achieving this incredible goal requires the minds of men free to focus on this singular goal using the best of their abilities, yet they are hamstringed by the political nature of the government agencies running the progams.
Garmong is right - man's accomplishments in space will be best reached when such endeavors are released from the government tether.
Google is a commodity. Everything it has is immitable. Vivisimo, etc., are all trying to get in on the act and so are the big dogs who can buy more brain power (Y and MSFT).
Every day what they have becomes less and less valuable. They need to IPO now while they can to secure new less immitable, revenue generating technologies.
They need to own something tangible. Possibilities are ISPs (communication - wires), media producers (content - studios), media players and wireless (hardware - devices/factories), and leverage their eroding uniqueness and reputation for quality INTO something that can not be taken away by a digital imitator.
This is have out for a while. I had one and it worked really well; the headset is exceptionally high quality and is made by Platonic. It worked pretty well for player conversations and you can also macro commands to your voice.
Altogether it worked pretty well. Personally I am more of a keyboard guy, but this may be just what you are looking for.
Let's just skip the whole argument of the Eurotyrants having no right to say the word 'Microsoft' much less demand a tribute from them. But why should MS pay?
Why doesn't the nation of Guinea-Bissau, the poorest nation on earth, levy a fine on MS for 'business practices?' MS would laugh it off. They should similarly laugh off the Euro fine. At least Guinea-Bissau has pleasant franocophones.
Other companies commit fraud, rip off investors, lie on their balance sheets, and embezzle government contract money. But the company that gets the biggest fine is MS and why? For being so much 'better' than everyone else. Just another sign of the Eurotrash inferior complex.
Slashdot Mirror
Ethanol causes Pollution too
Ethanol wrong for CA
I've seen other materials cited saying that ethanol is not harmful. Regardless, I'm sure that the pollution that is generated by your corn-fed in-house ethanol-hydrogen fuel cell will be contained by the time this thing gets to market.
The only alternative is to use a hardware driven, trusted computing set of keys that validate that *the* hardware is there and that a real 'punkbuster' program is running. Although, in theory, if you can hack this key, you can get around even this, although the key can be made sufficiently difficult so that you will need centuries to crack it and you lack the ability to physically pull apart a CPU.
Working against any cheat is publicity. Most hackers do not make the cheat for their own purposes but because they WANT publicity (I am guessing about the 'most' part - I have no imperical evidence). And once a cheat is publicized, Punkbuster, etc. can break it.
Of course, we have a the hackers who only share with their clan or just use them themselves, but their impact on the average player should be limited.
arggh. did anyone actually read the article? He said he WASNT tweaking, he was MAKING.
No no no no. Alienware is the company he is referring to when he says buy's commodity parts and twaeks them. He said he will MAKE HIS OWN video cards, etc. Go read it again.
Check the college graduate story a few weeks back; I think the standard for a capable graduate is well over 50k. This guy is clearly supurlative and could probably earn more starting a company that produces something or going to work for any number of companies; he could make more by designing games than by playing them.
Really, he doesn't earn much money and probably would be earning more money had he gone to college and gotten a decent job (at least 50k) and I'm sure he's capable.
But he says he wants to create a company that makes the whole she-bang and doesn't just buy commodity parts. Lets presume that he will actually buy his chips from AMD/Intel. But he is actually going to create a company that is the equivilant of, say, Abit (motherboard) plus Nvidia (video) plus Creative (sound) plus Micron (memory). Seriously. He may as well start making his own CPU, too.
So if he thinks he can pull that off, well.... just never mind what I said about him making more money going to college. Stick to the parent's basement / gaming career.
Small business is alive and well, and all huge corporations were once small business. But you are right - the smaller businesses are the ones that feel the brunt of government largesse.
Clinton never raised capital gains taxes - in fact he cut them by about a third (28% to 20%). Sorry stupid. I guess that this got moded up to 5 demonstrates the idiocy of the /. moderators, and that you are as likely to get a decent post at -1 (where this will be moderated to with a quickness) as you are at 5 - at least on anything other than how to get Linux to run on your 1980 promotional Star Wars Seiko watch that came with your happy meal.
To make a great PC game these days, developers need to master five elements: Graphics, gameplay, design depth, artificial intelligence and sound effects. But the most valuable facet of truly successful games remains human interaction. With the maturing of the Internet and the advent of broadband access, Microsoft Research has subtly made human interaction, both cooperative and competitive, the brightest light in the starry sky of its inaugural title, Allegiance. After the destruction of Earth in the future, the remaining "factions" struggle for control of resources and the remaining human population. In each game, you can choose to join the corporate-minded Gigacorp, the genetically enhanced Bios or the Iron Coalition militia. You and your team then face off against enemy factions as you struggle to build bases, develop new technologies and harvest resources.
Teamwork is critical, but segmented, offering different roles for you to fill. As a team commander, you direct mining operations, construct new bases and deploy defenses. You can also command other players, or pilots, to attack and defend (whether they obey or not is up to them.) Playing a pilot puts you in the seat of one of several combat craft to dogfight your foe. The larger capital ships need pilots, but also have turret seats where you can focus on gunning down anyone brave enough to get in range. While the commander usually holds the responsibility, a separate investor can allocate money for new bases and technologies.
Since Pong, games have emphasized the competitive side of human interaction in computer games. But cooperative games have been typically ignored. Not so in Allegiance. No matter how great a team may be in dog fighting, general strategy and tactics, they will fail when faced with a team that can better coordinate and play off of its members' strengths and talents.
The fundamentals of the game are benchmark quality, too. The ships are beautifully rendered and fit the character of their respective factions. They're even more impressive when they're blown up, as the sweet beauty of the explosions can cause tooth decay. The sound effects are intensely real, especially if you take advantage of the three-dimension capabilities. The layout of the screen, from either the command view or the cockpit view, is incredibly well thought out, giving you a massive amount of details in a single glance.
Even the player-initiated "taunts" are not nearly as annoying as they could be after hearing them for the hundredth time. As a bonus, they also service a purpose, letting you quickly communicate useful information to your teammates about who to attack and who to defend. The most and least popular: "I need gunners in my turrets, neeeeeow." (Hint: Since they are all .wav files, you can re-record your own sounds in place of the existing ones.)
Strategically, Allegiance invites extreme creativity. In addition to a tech tree that encourages early dedication to a technology path (you can focus on tactical stealth ships, capital ships or general enhancements, among other choices) each of the factions has their own ships and specialties - Gigacorp can set up cash generating stations, Bios can use teleport receivers on their escape pods (making it easier to get back to base), and the Iron Coalition's weapons do additional damage.
The game's played on the Zone (though you can set up a private server) - and if you never want to pay a penny beyond the retail price, you don't have to. However, for a $10 monthly charge, there are added benefits. And if you choose to play on a regular team, they could be worth the extra expenditure. In addition to keeping both individual and team scores, the pay subscription lets you participate in the story line by making theme-based maps that reflect battles going on in the Allegiance universe. Also, additional factions will become available for play, the first being the rebellious frontier-type Belters.
The game
This game was the most perfect, ever, in the execution of achieving what it wanted to do. In terms of fulfilling a tremendous diversity of player desires, in terms of graphical beauty, in terms of growing intensity, in terms of fostering teamwork....
In this game, you could:[ul] [li] Command 20 individuals from an isometric view point and move your bases and mining ships through galaxies while charting a research path. [li] Choose your space craft and modify it as you saw fit - load it with missiles, load it with mines. Your call. [li] Dogfight in one of the best zero-G environments. [li] Choose the role of a bomber pilot, a bomber gunner, a stealth ship launching missles from a distance, a utility ship deploying probes to detect stealth ships, a massive destroyer/dreadnaught ship pilot, or a troop transport pilot. And if you weren't careful, you would be a life pod pilot - at least until someone decided to blow your life pod up! [li]Form a clan and display your clan's stats on the in-game leader board for all to see! [li]Sit in the role of observer, and watch the battle unfold. Would one team try a bomber rush? Or expand to all systems to try and get the most resources? [li]Would you play as the credit-generating race? The military race? The science driven race? Or maybe as an alien race with unique technologies?
I was so sad to see this game fail. I was willing to pay the $10 a month, but that fee, along with poor publicity on behalf of Microsoft Research Games (this was their first game) killed what *could* have been the next Counter Strike.
I'm not terribly optimistic about it's future. The best I can hope for is that it catches on and MS decides to develop a sequel.
1) Unbelievable concept
2) (blank/silence/.../???)
3) PROFIT!
If you are going to rip off hackneyed phrases that were funny the first time but long ago lost their luster, you better damn well phrase them right!
I believe it is tasmanian 'devil.'
So if his team was any good, you can STILL PLAY as Bo.
But does Bo know that?
here here!
ACtually, yes. Microsoft's Gaming Zone had a tournament against Kasparov. Each day all zone members could log in and vote for which move to make. There were message boards where humans could argue about what move to make. In the end, Kasparov spanked the humans pretty good.
If you were to declare any revenue generated from space-based operations (mining for H3 on the moon, manufacturing in zero-G) to be tax free for the next 100 years, you might see cities on the moon and mars that aren't just a sink hole for Earth resources, but are actually a NET GAIN.
excellent point
Garmong is right - man's accomplishments in space will be best reached when such endeavors are released from the government tether.
My point stands, you loose another round. Care to go again or have you taken enough of a beating?
Every day what they have becomes less and less valuable. They need to IPO now while they can to secure new less immitable, revenue generating technologies.
They need to own something tangible. Possibilities are ISPs (communication - wires), media producers (content - studios), media players and wireless (hardware - devices/factories), and leverage their eroding uniqueness and reputation for quality INTO something that can not be taken away by a digital imitator.
Altogether it worked pretty well. Personally I am more of a keyboard guy, but this may be just what you are looking for.
Link Here. Good luck!
Give it a try, save some money, and get some serious bang for your buck out of that DSL connection.
Good luck!
Wow. Someone sticks up for MS and gets modded down to flame bait. I wonder if rants about SCO similarly get modded down.
Oh wait. We can't. You are a coward.
Why doesn't the nation of Guinea-Bissau, the poorest nation on earth, levy a fine on MS for 'business practices?' MS would laugh it off. They should similarly laugh off the Euro fine. At least Guinea-Bissau has pleasant franocophones.
Other companies commit fraud, rip off investors, lie on their balance sheets, and embezzle government contract money. But the company that gets the biggest fine is MS and why? For being so much 'better' than everyone else. Just another sign of the Eurotrash inferior complex.