Good point, but didn't the article (or one of the comments) say that morse code input is really fast because you don't have to move your finger. A grip that allows you to use two-buttons of one hand very fast may be very difficult to make.
Well, there allready is a program for it, as other commenters have pointed out.
When I replied, no such comments had appeared.
You don't really need to learn morse code to write such an application. You just need to have the conversion table handy when you make the application
No, but I would have to know it to be able to use it.:-) At work I write code that I don't really use myself, so if you're willing to pay me, I'll do it.:-)
Your real challenges would be
1: Setting up the development environment and learningn the API. Should not be difficult, but takes some time.
I know this already, that would be your challenge, not mine.:-)
2: Working out the timing for interpreting key presses as dots and dashes and seperating words. This is the real challenge.
This would not be very difficult either. The trick is to not have any hard-coded timings at all but use determine the difference in timing based on the actual data. Some simple statistical analysis should do the trick.
They are ruining the game industry by detracting from gameplay.
As a fan of simulations, I obviously disagree. The simmers can just as well blame the gamers for ruining their experience.
I feel that just because you introduce some simulation aspects into a game it automatically becomes a bad game. However, it's very hard to do so since it's hard to keep agood storyline if the player is allowed stray away from the designated path.
The story mode of Operation Flashpoint suffers from this where the player can decide to run off in a completely different direction where the mission designer didn't put any enemies and therefore he is able to take a different route and complete the mission in a way that could easily be accused of "cheating".
The solution to this is to create a dynamic campaign engine such as the one seen in Falcon 4.0 (arguably the most advanced combat flight simulator ever made) but it is extremely difficult and expensive and ultimately was what killed that product (it has since been revived after the source was leaked and people started fixing the bugs).
He's not a gamer, he's a simmer
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I don't play many games. The main reason I don't is for the same reasons he lists.
However, I do play a lit of simulators. Mainly flight simulators, but also more "down to earth" simulators like Operation Flashpoint. These games need to have great AI, because they would be completely unplayable if not. They also usually have a physics model unparallelled in any other type of game. Take a look at IL2 Sturmovik for a good example.
Imagine that... There already exists games without artificial barriers, with great AI, with real physics, no indestructible doors and realistic movement.
I guess the problem is that as soon as you make such a game, it suddenly becomes a "simulator" and therefore not interesting anymore for most game-playing consumers. That's why unrealistic crap like Ace Combat sell way better than the realistic counterparts.
Am I the only one who feel that "ergonomic" mouses plainly suck? They seem to be designed for someone who holds their entire hand over the mouse and moves the arm in order to move the mouse.
Me, on the other hand, only touch the mouse with the tips of my fingers, and keep the rest of my hand fairly still. If the mouse is "ergonomic" I tend to bump my hand into its overgrown hump at the top.
A mouse should be low and most importantly: light. That way I can easily move the cursor across the screen without moving anything except my fingers.
The the other hand, some countries are implementing laws that ban copy protection that would infringe on the consumers right to fair use. I know such a law was proposed for Sweden, time will tell if it happens.
No, it hasn't. What are you planning to do if Denmark decides to leave in 20 years time, send in tanks?
I said some of the rights, not the right to leave.
Why do you think that some supreme court descisions can be appealed to the european court?
1. The vote for the consitution is likely to be "No".
Elections about the constitution is a bad idea anyway. It's just a "yes" or "no" question. What does a "no" mean? That it's not going far enough? That you want to leave the EU? (in the case of Denmark, the latter is probably the case).
Agreed - through power voluntarily pooled.
True. No country was invaded and the power forcibly transferred to the EU. The countries are also in their right to leave, but as long as they are in, some of their descision-making power has been transferred to the EU.
But you have to realise that slashdot is a very small minority. Small enough to not even be noticed on the bottom line for these companies.
There isn't a doubt in my mind that in hard numbers, the number of OSX users would increase after the release of a hypothetical OSX for x86. However, the number of "cool owners of equally cool mac boxes" would quite possibly go down, or at the very best stay on the same level as today. This would have a very negative effect on the brand awareness.
At the end of the day, Apple is about making money and staying in business. I believe it has been shown that releasing an alternative consumer OS for generic x86 boxes is not a good way to do that. [insert list of failed alternative OS'es here]. Apple has a pretty good business model here, my bet is that they will continue with it.
Some of the countries right to self-determination has already been given up. The vote for the consitution is about changes to it (which in some cases mean that more power will be transferred to the EU from the individual countries).
In this particular case, the EU already has the power it needs to enforce these rulings.
If you could buy the parts and build your own Mac they'd be alot more appealing to people...
In so many words: No, they wouldn't.
Very few people build their own computers. Most buy a box from their local computer store, or order it online from a company like Dell.
Also, no one would run OSX on a standard PC. Just like no one runs BeOS, or ran OS/2. An x86 Apple would probably be a proprietary Apple with an x86 in, and no one would care. Just like no one cares that there is a PowerPC in them today.
You are absolutely right. You are perfectly entitled to buy your iPod in any country, or even order it online from another EU country. The tax is not (AFAIK) based on an EU directive.
I have watched it a few times. There is really very little battle, and when actually fighting it's pertty much the heaviest who wins. They all got the design down so they look the same: low, unexposed wheels, and a shovel in front to get underneath the enemy. The flame thrower is nothing more than a silly show-off feature.
They really need to change the rules somehow to make the fights more interesting. Racing though silly course with "dangerous spikes" that can't even penetrate a millimetre of aluminium is just silly.
I can't remember seeing any of the robots actually damaged on that show.
Now, to be fair, I did see another, similar, but much better robot show. I can't remember its name but it too suffered from being too... umm... "nice" to the robots.
I'm also of the opinion that a screen is necessary. However, my point of the post was to point out that for a lot of people, it isn't. I personally have no idea how they can use their iPod without a screen, but then again, if all you listen to is top-40 hit music...
I just realised that a great feature on the mini would be to have a voice-synthesiser speak out the name of each song. That would make me buy one.
Personally, I need a screen. I would consider the shuffle if it had a screen. However, I can see why other people don't need it. I often speak to peoply who obviously has a completely different way of listeneing to their music. There can't be a single product that suits all people. It's not like Apple is trying to hide the fact that it doesn't have a screen.
I few weeks ago I was watching a kids "science" show. In it, they reviewed three different flash-based players: the suffle, a creative player and one by Jens of Sweden. They did point out the lack of a screen and the sucky headphones on the shuffle. The shuffle still won, 4 out of 5 (compared to 2 and 3 for the others). I have no idea why that is, but apparently the shuffle does appeal to a quite large segment of the market.
Perhaps Apple did their homework? Apple certainlly didn't do any brainwashing, since they have a miniscule market share in sweden. I can't remember if I ever saw any Apple ads in swedish media.
I haven't, but I have tried JAVA and it sucks in a Free Software environment. All the Free java compilers and class libraries are buggy in incompatible ways.
Correct.
Java is not like C, so some porting issues are bound to arise. Porting is hard sometimes."
That quote simply strikes me as bizarre. I'm at a loss as to how to respond to it because it's jsut so wrong. I can't think of any features of "portable C" that even the crappiest free Java implemenations cannot do portably.
There you have it. C is write once run anywhere. java is a pain the butt. With mono at least there is only one open source implementation so potentially it might be useful where java currently is not.
So what you're saying is that if we killed all but one of the the free Java projects, as well as all the commercial Java implementations, leaving only, say, Suns VM and SableVM/Classpath, Java would be as portable as.net?
Project Peabody" adds two licenses that make it easier for outsiders to see the code.
All you have to do is to head over to https://mustang.dev.java.net/ and download the source. You don't even have to register. The source package (56 MB) is two mouse clicks away from that page.
Yes, I understood that. But why is that a problem? The Java implementation is as free as it comes, and the source code is free from https://mustang.dev.java.net/ . Sun doesn't make money directly from people using their Java implementation.
If it would happen that everybody used some other implementation (even though that is quite unlikely for a very long time) then all that would mean is that Sun could save a lot of money.
Sun are quite pragmatic. If they could make someone else develop a product for them, they would.
Sun is in trouble because GCJ is getting so much better
Why would an omproved GCJ put Sun in trouble? They're getting another Java implementation done for free == more Java == good.
Now if you say they are afraid that if they BSD-license Java and then end up having the GCJ team dictating what Java is and is not, then yes. That is exactly what Sun means when they say there is a potential problem with forking.
Slashdot Mirror
Good point, but didn't the article (or one of the comments) say that morse code input is really fast because you don't have to move your finger. A grip that allows you to use two-buttons of one hand very fast may be very difficult to make.
Maybe I will... Some day... When I learn morse code... Or maybe I'll just have another beer instead. :-)
Innovation in video games is already dead, patents or not.
I feel that just because you introduce some simulation aspects into a game it automatically becomes a bad game. However, it's very hard to do so since it's hard to keep agood storyline if the player is allowed stray away from the designated path.
The story mode of Operation Flashpoint suffers from this where the player can decide to run off in a completely different direction where the mission designer didn't put any enemies and therefore he is able to take a different route and complete the mission in a way that could easily be accused of "cheating".
The solution to this is to create a dynamic campaign engine such as the one seen in Falcon 4.0 (arguably the most advanced combat flight simulator ever made) but it is extremely difficult and expensive and ultimately was what killed that product (it has since been revived after the source was leaked and people started fixing the bugs).
However, I do play a lit of simulators. Mainly flight simulators, but also more "down to earth" simulators like Operation Flashpoint. These games need to have great AI, because they would be completely unplayable if not. They also usually have a physics model unparallelled in any other type of game. Take a look at IL2 Sturmovik for a good example.
Imagine that... There already exists games without artificial barriers, with great AI, with real physics, no indestructible doors and realistic movement.
I guess the problem is that as soon as you make such a game, it suddenly becomes a "simulator" and therefore not interesting anymore for most game-playing consumers. That's why unrealistic crap like Ace Combat sell way better than the realistic counterparts.
Most people don't want MS to neccessarily to die. They do want to get rid of the "bad MS", perhaps by replacing it with a "good MS".
Me, on the other hand, only touch the mouse with the tips of my fingers, and keep the rest of my hand fairly still. If the mouse is "ergonomic" I tend to bump my hand into its overgrown hump at the top.
A mouse should be low and most importantly: light. That way I can easily move the cursor across the screen without moving anything except my fingers.
The the other hand, some countries are implementing laws that ban copy protection that would infringe on the consumers right to fair use. I know such a law was proposed for Sweden, time will tell if it happens.
Why do you think that some supreme court descisions can be appealed to the european court?
Elections about the constitution is a bad idea anyway. It's just a "yes" or "no" question. What does a "no" mean? That it's not going far enough? That you want to leave the EU? (in the case of Denmark, the latter is probably the case). True. No country was invaded and the power forcibly transferred to the EU. The countries are also in their right to leave, but as long as they are in, some of their descision-making power has been transferred to the EU.But you have to realise that slashdot is a very small minority. Small enough to not even be noticed on the bottom line for these companies.
There isn't a doubt in my mind that in hard numbers, the number of OSX users would increase after the release of a hypothetical OSX for x86. However, the number of "cool owners of equally cool mac boxes" would quite possibly go down, or at the very best stay on the same level as today. This would have a very negative effect on the brand awareness.
At the end of the day, Apple is about making money and staying in business. I believe it has been shown that releasing an alternative consumer OS for generic x86 boxes is not a good way to do that. [insert list of failed alternative OS'es here]. Apple has a pretty good business model here, my bet is that they will continue with it.
In this particular case, the EU already has the power it needs to enforce these rulings.
Very few people build their own computers. Most buy a box from their local computer store, or order it online from a company like Dell.
Also, no one would run OSX on a standard PC. Just like no one runs BeOS, or ran OS/2. An x86 Apple would probably be a proprietary Apple with an x86 in, and no one would care. Just like no one cares that there is a PowerPC in them today.
Disclaimer: I'm not in the US so I don't really keep track of that that law says
You are absolutely right. You are perfectly entitled to buy your iPod in any country, or even order it online from another EU country. The tax is not (AFAIK) based on an EU directive.
This is something I noticed in some of the It sounds just like you're not getting the OpenGL acceleration. What kind of hardware do you have?
They really need to change the rules somehow to make the fights more interesting. Racing though silly course with "dangerous spikes" that can't even penetrate a millimetre of aluminium is just silly.
I can't remember seeing any of the robots actually damaged on that show.
Now, to be fair, I did see another, similar, but much better robot show. I can't remember its name but it too suffered from being too... umm... "nice" to the robots.
I just realised that a great feature on the mini would be to have a voice-synthesiser speak out the name of each song. That would make me buy one.
I few weeks ago I was watching a kids "science" show. In it, they reviewed three different flash-based players: the suffle, a creative player and one by Jens of Sweden. They did point out the lack of a screen and the sucky headphones on the shuffle. The shuffle still won, 4 out of 5 (compared to 2 and 3 for the others). I have no idea why that is, but apparently the shuffle does appeal to a quite large segment of the market.
Perhaps Apple did their homework? Apple certainlly didn't do any brainwashing, since they have a miniscule market share in sweden. I can't remember if I ever saw any Apple ads in swedish media.
That is true, of course, but highly irrelevant.
If it would happen that everybody used some other implementation (even though that is quite unlikely for a very long time) then all that would mean is that Sun could save a lot of money.
Sun are quite pragmatic. If they could make someone else develop a product for them, they would.
Now if you say they are afraid that if they BSD-license Java and then end up having the GCJ team dictating what Java is and is not, then yes. That is exactly what Sun means when they say there is a potential problem with forking.
Seriously. Why, oh why, did Sun put it in the base J2SE?