I for one would love to move to a small rural town with clean air, not crowds, and home prices that are only in the 5 figure range.
These days it's going to be hard to find a good-sized house anywhere for 5 figures, unless it can be hauled in on a couple of flatbeds (some of those somehow have over 2000 square feet). Low-to-mid 100s would probably work in some areas and probably many rural ones. House price inflation has been insane in the last few years. The upside of that is that you'll most likely make a decent profit if you decide to sell your house a few years down the road.
So... you base business decisions on but a few percentage points of differing opinion? There were many states whose electoral votes went to Kerry by only a couple points. Same with these apparently reprehensible states that gave their votes to Bush. If you look at county-by-county results in much of the south, there were many that swung away from Bush, and many that didn't. Broad generalizations based on the opinions of a slim majority, while apparently effective in politics, strikes me as pretty stupid when applied to general life. Take Texas for example. It was one of the biggest Bush wins with something like 65% of the vote going to Bush, yet there seems to be a pretty big tech industry in cities like Austin.
Or you might have been sarcastic, I don't know. It seems somewhat contrived to propose business boycotts of India, China, and, hey, let's throw a slightly more conservative chunk of the US in there, too.
With a few exceptions (e.g. some Appalachian areas which not only are amazingly poverty-stricken but also seem to utilize some vestiges of Middle English), you're right. I've been all over much of the Southeast (born and raised in Tennessee, though near Nashville), which seems to be getting the most bashing in this discussion, and while I've definitely run across various seemingly backwards areas, none have been conspicuously missing essentials. Cars might be older, but they're still cars. People will have electricity, food, and shelter, even if they're not necessarily to the standards that many would want. I think mass media and more reliable roads and vehicles have helped. Rural areas are no longer totally isolated, geographically or informationally. Like I said, they may not be cosmopolitan, but they're certainly not "third world."
I have to admit that I've not been to Mississippi or Arkansas, though. (Whee, hypocrisy at work! Though it's true that I've not been there.)
I'd also like to note that "redneck," "hillbilly," and other stereotypes are not limited to this chunk of the country. My limited experience in the eastern midwest has turned up substantial evidence that redneckism is not geographially bound, though accents may vary.
Also, "y'all" is much more practical for disambiguating between singular and plural forms of "you" than midwest forms such as "y'ins," which I can only assume is derived from "you ones."
So I think if PC games just came in DVD cases even if they were CDs, I think I'd be happy
Max Payne came in such a case, inside one of the small form factor PC game boxes. I forget if the manual was in that case.
Max Payne 2 came on 2 CDs. Its entire package was one of those cardboard jacket type deals where the case slides out and unfolds into 3 or so segments.
Those are the only two games I have that came in DVD-size cases. Others come in various types of jewel cases, or cardboard or paper sleeves. Most recently it seems to be the annoying multidisc jewel cases unless there are more than 4 discs.
Interestingly enough, the only DVD-based PC game I have (I still need to get the UT2004 DVD version) is Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance from (I think) early 2003. It's in a completely transparent jewel case with no art, inserts, or anything.
The character creation process in CoH allows a LARGE amount of customization. When I created my character, there were no pre-set costumes or color schemes. You choose your origin, power types, and so on, a mix and match type deal. There's no particular "Hulk" power/appearance set to choose, though with the customizability I can see the allure of mimicking your favorite hero's power sets when you can.
Then you pick your character's appearance. There are a few body types including big bulky monster-sized guys (which I assume Marvel has not trademarked, Hulk being a Jekyll/Hyde homage/retelling already), which don't start out green or with purple pants. Again, there are people who use the engine's customization options to mimic their favorite hero, and of course the ones with simpler costumes (e.g. the Hulk wears... purple pants) are significantly simpler to copy than many other characters, the in-game copies of which are recognizable mainly because Marvel, DC, etc. have indeed done great jobs with making their trademarked costumes universally recognizable to the point where the in-game copes, which often have to improvise with incorrect patterns, equipment, and so on (because CoH does NOT actively try to allow creation of already trademarked characters) are still recognizable as the homages that they are.
From what I've read (admittedly, this was in a book about Nintendo), the Tetris deal was shady on many if not all sides due to many a crazy misunderstanding and broad interpretations of licensing and use rights. Not saying that Nintendo wasn't doing anything wrong, but they weren't the only ones creatively interpreting their licenses.
Resident Evil: Outbreak is a PS2 game that can run with or without the hard drive, but apparently the annoyingly frequent load times are unbearably long without the HDD. Just thought I'd throw out a failed example of such a practice in true/. spirit.
I guess "bought" wasn't what I meant exactly, but I thought I recalled a/. story a while back about nokia buying controlling interest in Symbian or something of the like. Oh well.
it's questionable whether the browser supports JavaScript
While I guess I'm not sure about the included browser (if there is one), I know the Nokia Series 60 phones have Java support, so I would assume that the Series 90 ones do as well, though I guess Java != JavaScript. As for the browser thing, I'd assume that Nokia is still using the Symbian OS since they recently bought Symbian, and last time I checked there was a version of the Opera browser available for Symbian devices (I ran a copy of Opera a couple of years ago on a 33MHz ARM-based PDA thing with Symbian).
They're calling it "performance capture" for exactly one of the reasons (among others, I suppose, too) you say that simple motion capture is insufficient. In this movie, they actually are capturing facial expresions and such. I heard a feature about it on NPR last night. Tom Hanks (who apparently did the "performance" for both the conductor and the child protagonist) was talking about the suit and process he went through, including the 4 minutes spent each day having ihs face painted and prepared for the capture. They perform in a small area with wire mesh objects to represent the items with which their CG counterparts will be interacting. It does sound to some degree more complex than most previous capture endeavors, but also gives the sense that they did not put much priority into tweaking the performance after the recording.
I think a very large part of what made Gollum so successful is that they didn't accept the motion capture as the be-all end-all of the performance. It looks like the animators were most likely able to augment and change the character to achieve something that manages to bridge that uncanny valley. Though I guess his not-quite-human appearance softens the oddness, too.
Here's a link to a page with a link to the audio feature I talked about (the "Listen" button above the picture).
You want cheesy game-related puns? I informed a friend a while back that Hasbro owns both Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers. He innocently asked, "Isn't that some sort of monopoly?"
And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??
I imagine the coating won't put up much of a fight to simple breakage of the disc. Though I suppose such occurrences are less frequent than severe scratching, it's still a valid concern for someone who travels with or otherwise moves their media about frequently.
I really have to wonder about the legitimacy of the "spinning backwards" claim, along with the miniDVD claim, especially if you state 1.5GB as the capacity on those. It's been common knowledge that the capacity of the GameCube media is 1.2GB. While admittedly not a huge difference, I don't see why Nintendo would not use a higher number for capacity if they could, as a few hundred MB extra would allow for more levels, FMV, speech, textures, extras, or anything else that could accompany or enhance a game. As for the spinning backwards thing, does that mean that Panasonic's licensed device that plays both GC games and DVDs has to have a drive that spins both ways?
The point made at the end of the article is that even if you can't afford two now, you can get one, and in 6 or 12 months not only will the current top of the line be cheaper, but you can get a huge performance increase by just buying an extra one (and maybe a bigger power supply) instead of replacing your current card entirely.
Half-Life 2 apparently requires authentication/activation through Steam even for the single player portion of the retail version of the game. I assume that's what JVert was talking about.
All good points there, except the goal is apparently to be able to set up checkpoints NEAR these places. I'd be mostly understanding if the proposed checkpoints were for entry to the locales, but this seems very much more invasive. Imagine walking by a phone company or something and being stopped and asked to show your shiny new government-issued biometric ID because... well, no reason, you're just kind of passing by the phone company, and now that fact is sitting on some computer somewhere, recallable at a moment's notice. I keep trying not to sound alarmist. I'm not the anarchic type or anything, but this seems far too extreme, and as some are saying seems to be one of those big-deal bills that are in the interest of "national security" and might make some people feel a little safer, and think maybe this kind of "protection," and, by extension, the administration proposing it, isn't too bad.
I'd certainly consider buying something like that myself, but I would imagine that those who couldn't afford a computer for more than $350 also could not easily afford the broadband access that the inclusion of the NIC would imply. Granted, a NIC would only add a trivial amount to production cost and would increase the capabilities of the device significantly. Back to my initial point, I would imagine that dial-up would be a more affordable option for those who would benefit most from such a device. With the possible exception of the (I would assume) growing number of people who use local cell phones instead of a land line.
As you note, the progress does seem pretty slow. I have to wonder if all of these researchers are recreating the wheel with these projects. Maybe there are obvious drawbacks to each of the methods used so far and the researchers are looking for more efficient or effective or safer methods.
I figure it would be best to test out the interactions in the relatively controlled environment of a computer, rather than sending the subject out in an electric wheelchair with a robotic arm and uncertainty of performance levels.
I heard on the radio this morning kind of vague but similar assertions. Essentially they said that BlueGene was more suited to solving "small parts of problems" than other supercomputers, which worked through complex simulations and the like.
Slashdot Mirror
I for one would love to move to a small rural town with clean air, not crowds, and home prices that are only in the 5 figure range.
These days it's going to be hard to find a good-sized house anywhere for 5 figures, unless it can be hauled in on a couple of flatbeds (some of those somehow have over 2000 square feet). Low-to-mid 100s would probably work in some areas and probably many rural ones. House price inflation has been insane in the last few years. The upside of that is that you'll most likely make a decent profit if you decide to sell your house a few years down the road.
So... you base business decisions on but a few percentage points of differing opinion? There were many states whose electoral votes went to Kerry by only a couple points. Same with these apparently reprehensible states that gave their votes to Bush. If you look at county-by-county results in much of the south, there were many that swung away from Bush, and many that didn't. Broad generalizations based on the opinions of a slim majority, while apparently effective in politics, strikes me as pretty stupid when applied to general life. Take Texas for example. It was one of the biggest Bush wins with something like 65% of the vote going to Bush, yet there seems to be a pretty big tech industry in cities like Austin.
Or you might have been sarcastic, I don't know. It seems somewhat contrived to propose business boycotts of India, China, and, hey, let's throw a slightly more conservative chunk of the US in there, too.
With a few exceptions (e.g. some Appalachian areas which not only are amazingly poverty-stricken but also seem to utilize some vestiges of Middle English), you're right. I've been all over much of the Southeast (born and raised in Tennessee, though near Nashville), which seems to be getting the most bashing in this discussion, and while I've definitely run across various seemingly backwards areas, none have been conspicuously missing essentials. Cars might be older, but they're still cars. People will have electricity, food, and shelter, even if they're not necessarily to the standards that many would want. I think mass media and more reliable roads and vehicles have helped. Rural areas are no longer totally isolated, geographically or informationally. Like I said, they may not be cosmopolitan, but they're certainly not "third world."
I have to admit that I've not been to Mississippi or Arkansas, though. (Whee, hypocrisy at work! Though it's true that I've not been there.)
I'd also like to note that "redneck," "hillbilly," and other stereotypes are not limited to this chunk of the country. My limited experience in the eastern midwest has turned up substantial evidence that redneckism is not geographially bound, though accents may vary.
Also, "y'all" is much more practical for disambiguating between singular and plural forms of "you" than midwest forms such as "y'ins," which I can only assume is derived from "you ones."
So I think if PC games just came in DVD cases even if they were CDs, I think I'd be happy
Max Payne came in such a case, inside one of the small form factor PC game boxes. I forget if the manual was in that case.
Max Payne 2 came on 2 CDs. Its entire package was one of those cardboard jacket type deals where the case slides out and unfolds into 3 or so segments.
Those are the only two games I have that came in DVD-size cases. Others come in various types of jewel cases, or cardboard or paper sleeves. Most recently it seems to be the annoying multidisc jewel cases unless there are more than 4 discs.
Interestingly enough, the only DVD-based PC game I have (I still need to get the UT2004 DVD version) is Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance from (I think) early 2003. It's in a completely transparent jewel case with no art, inserts, or anything.
The character creation process in CoH allows a LARGE amount of customization. When I created my character, there were no pre-set costumes or color schemes. You choose your origin, power types, and so on, a mix and match type deal. There's no particular "Hulk" power/appearance set to choose, though with the customizability I can see the allure of mimicking your favorite hero's power sets when you can.
Then you pick your character's appearance. There are a few body types including big bulky monster-sized guys (which I assume Marvel has not trademarked, Hulk being a Jekyll/Hyde homage/retelling already), which don't start out green or with purple pants. Again, there are people who use the engine's customization options to mimic their favorite hero, and of course the ones with simpler costumes (e.g. the Hulk wears... purple pants) are significantly simpler to copy than many other characters, the in-game copies of which are recognizable mainly because Marvel, DC, etc. have indeed done great jobs with making their trademarked costumes universally recognizable to the point where the in-game copes, which often have to improvise with incorrect patterns, equipment, and so on (because CoH does NOT actively try to allow creation of already trademarked characters) are still recognizable as the homages that they are.
From what I've read (admittedly, this was in a book about Nintendo), the Tetris deal was shady on many if not all sides due to many a crazy misunderstanding and broad interpretations of licensing and use rights. Not saying that Nintendo wasn't doing anything wrong, but they weren't the only ones creatively interpreting their licenses.
Resident Evil: Outbreak is a PS2 game that can run with or without the hard drive, but apparently the annoyingly frequent load times are unbearably long without the HDD. Just thought I'd throw out a failed example of such a practice in true /. spirit.
I guess "bought" wasn't what I meant exactly, but I thought I recalled a /. story a while back about nokia buying controlling interest in Symbian or something of the like. Oh well.
it's questionable whether the browser supports JavaScript
While I guess I'm not sure about the included browser (if there is one), I know the Nokia Series 60 phones have Java support, so I would assume that the Series 90 ones do as well, though I guess Java != JavaScript. As for the browser thing, I'd assume that Nokia is still using the Symbian OS since they recently bought Symbian, and last time I checked there was a version of the Opera browser available for Symbian devices (I ran a copy of Opera a couple of years ago on a 33MHz ARM-based PDA thing with Symbian).
They're calling it "performance capture" for exactly one of the reasons (among others, I suppose, too) you say that simple motion capture is insufficient. In this movie, they actually are capturing facial expresions and such. I heard a feature about it on NPR last night. Tom Hanks (who apparently did the "performance" for both the conductor and the child protagonist) was talking about the suit and process he went through, including the 4 minutes spent each day having ihs face painted and prepared for the capture. They perform in a small area with wire mesh objects to represent the items with which their CG counterparts will be interacting. It does sound to some degree more complex than most previous capture endeavors, but also gives the sense that they did not put much priority into tweaking the performance after the recording.
I think a very large part of what made Gollum so successful is that they didn't accept the motion capture as the be-all end-all of the performance. It looks like the animators were most likely able to augment and change the character to achieve something that manages to bridge that uncanny valley. Though I guess his not-quite-human appearance softens the oddness, too.
Here's a link to a page with a link to the audio feature I talked about (the "Listen" button above the picture).
I mean dwarves? Elves? Jeez, gimme a break...
I find it immensely amusing that this comment was moderated "Troll."
You want cheesy game-related puns? I informed a friend a while back that Hasbro owns both Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers. He innocently asked, "Isn't that some sort of monopoly?"
is there a patent on thinking yet?
Yes, and patent officials don't want to pay the licensing fees to do it.
I can take my CDs to the beach!
I can hear your CD player's various moving parts whimpering in fear.
And will record companies do more to prevent "backup" copies now that you simply can't scratch your CDs anymore??
I imagine the coating won't put up much of a fight to simple breakage of the disc. Though I suppose such occurrences are less frequent than severe scratching, it's still a valid concern for someone who travels with or otherwise moves their media about frequently.
I really have to wonder about the legitimacy of the "spinning backwards" claim, along with the miniDVD claim, especially if you state 1.5GB as the capacity on those. It's been common knowledge that the capacity of the GameCube media is 1.2GB. While admittedly not a huge difference, I don't see why Nintendo would not use a higher number for capacity if they could, as a few hundred MB extra would allow for more levels, FMV, speech, textures, extras, or anything else that could accompany or enhance a game. As for the spinning backwards thing, does that mean that Panasonic's licensed device that plays both GC games and DVDs has to have a drive that spins both ways?
I... does that mean you're actually a high school graduate?
The point made at the end of the article is that even if you can't afford two now, you can get one, and in 6 or 12 months not only will the current top of the line be cheaper, but you can get a huge performance increase by just buying an extra one (and maybe a bigger power supply) instead of replacing your current card entirely.
And with words like "futeristic," you don't even have to mean anything! "That wasn't a typo, we use 'futeristic' to refer to the idle state."
Half-Life 2 apparently requires authentication/activation through Steam even for the single player portion of the retail version of the game. I assume that's what JVert was talking about.
All good points there, except the goal is apparently to be able to set up checkpoints NEAR these places. I'd be mostly understanding if the proposed checkpoints were for entry to the locales, but this seems very much more invasive. Imagine walking by a phone company or something and being stopped and asked to show your shiny new government-issued biometric ID because... well, no reason, you're just kind of passing by the phone company, and now that fact is sitting on some computer somewhere, recallable at a moment's notice. I keep trying not to sound alarmist. I'm not the anarchic type or anything, but this seems far too extreme, and as some are saying seems to be one of those big-deal bills that are in the interest of "national security" and might make some people feel a little safer, and think maybe this kind of "protection," and, by extension, the administration proposing it, isn't too bad.
Thus ends my rambling.
I'd certainly consider buying something like that myself, but I would imagine that those who couldn't afford a computer for more than $350 also could not easily afford the broadband access that the inclusion of the NIC would imply. Granted, a NIC would only add a trivial amount to production cost and would increase the capabilities of the device significantly. Back to my initial point, I would imagine that dial-up would be a more affordable option for those who would benefit most from such a device. With the possible exception of the (I would assume) growing number of people who use local cell phones instead of a land line.
As you note, the progress does seem pretty slow. I have to wonder if all of these researchers are recreating the wheel with these projects. Maybe there are obvious drawbacks to each of the methods used so far and the researchers are looking for more efficient or effective or safer methods.
I figure it would be best to test out the interactions in the relatively controlled environment of a computer, rather than sending the subject out in an electric wheelchair with a robotic arm and uncertainty of performance levels.
I heard on the radio this morning kind of vague but similar assertions. Essentially they said that BlueGene was more suited to solving "small parts of problems" than other supercomputers, which worked through complex simulations and the like.