They've been all but useless for ~20 years anyway. Contextual help and tutorials within the game are usually more useful and intuitive. If I need more help, it's usually easy enough to find what I'm looking for online anyway.
I'd argue that the rules of a game can be art themselves. Especially when the rules themselves are simple, but the gameplay is complex and dynamic. Games like the SimCity series, Civilization series, and Starcraft. They all involve a fairly simple set of rules: gather resources to build infrastructure that then allows you to gather more resources. But through repeated gameplay and exploring the different methods of balancing the various methods available you can ferret out some subtleties of cause and effect, decisions and consequences. You can also start asking questions about how well a game mimics reality. How does the balance of funding on research vs. military affect the outcome? Is it universal or context dependent? I.e., is research more valuable if your opponent is Protoss instead of Zerg? And how is that not a commentary on how the game creator perceives the world?
One of the most fascinating aspects of Civilization I've found is the effects of isolation on your empire. Try playing two games with the same overall style and choices, but one where you're very removed from the rest of the empires and one where you're surrounded by others. In isolation, your growth will lag and you very quickly lose any hope at winning, but when surrounded your growth is very rapid. Trade and competition with your neighbors is very important for a strong and wealthy empire.
How many of these interactions where intended by the game creators? I'm not sure, but that leads to other questions. How many of those effects are secondary consequences of the system the designers tried to create?
Art doesn't seem to have a good objective definition. It's always defined in terms of the things people consider to BE art. Any definition that doesn't use specific works seems to be an attempt at finding a common thread among the works that person considers to be art. Those themes can vary from person to person.
For some, emotional impact is key. A "sterile", though accurate drawing can never be art to them. For some, technical skill is important. I know I've refused to call a lot of abstract works "art". For others, social commentary or message is important. A pop singer is mere entertainment (the horror), but replace her lyrics about her boyfriend with ones about the hardships of poverty and she becomes an artist.
I've played video games that could pass muster in any of these categories, and some arguably in all three.
Wth Mr. Ebert, though, a work of art needs to be static. Interactivity, open-endedness, and an ability to win means it's not art. If you make a video game that is missing these pieces, he neatly claims it's no longer a video game. A very nice circular definition if you ask me.
I like that you (correctly) left Physics students off that list. Physics students don't cheat. Their wave functions become entangled, so when you solve for the eigenvalue of one, the other is necessarily solved as well.
Yes, they do have an economic/business bias, as would be expected by the title. But even then it tends to avoid a dogmatic approach to most issues (all regulation is 100% bad, etc), and they'll have a reasonable argument when discussing issues of regulation, taxation, monetary policy, etc that doesn't always fall along, say, libertarian policy lines. Yes, they are blatantly pro-capitalism and anti-communism, but balanced to me does not mean equal time for all sides, but rather a rational discussion of the issues they do examine. To put it another way, I've never come away from an Economist article angry about blatant misrepresentation of the facts or feeling that I'm being manhandled into a certain viewpoint, whether or not I agree with it. I also don't get the impression that the Economist has a monolithic viewpoint. I've read articles covering similar topics that reach different conclusions within the same issue.
It is by far my favorite news publication. It benefits from being a weekly paper, not subject to the constant rush of a daily or hourly news cycle. Their articles tend to be more balanced and more considered, in part I think due to the extra time they have to devote to research and fact-checking.
10% yearly pay raise over 15 years works out to over 4x your initial salary. Unless you're starting in the 30k ballpark, I don't see how that is reasonable at all. An exemplary employee working at an excellent company, perhaps, but a typical employee at a typical company? Not a chance.
Some stop lights in California are set up in a similar way, but aimed more for reward rather than punishment. There will be sensors set up a good distance from a major intersection. It's the car equivalent of pushing the "walk" button at a crosswalk. If you are going approximately the speed limit, the light will be green when you get to the intersection--no need to stop/start again. However, if you are speeding, you will get stuck at the light, every time. And since that stopping and starting takes time, your average speed is higher if you go the speed limit. Going along a several mile stretch of road where the lights were configured this way, I would pass the speeding drivers at every intersection. The bulk of drivers got the point though, and traffic generally flowed very smoothly in these areas.
Ah, yes. The Conservation of Accuracy, as it's known. The total number of typos being committed in a particular language at a particular time is constant. This is why I do not lose heart when I see some of the writing atrocities you come across on the internet. With them doing their part to consume the number of available errors, the way is left clear for someone, somewhere, to produce some of the most beautiful English prose we will ever see. It's the reason it takes 1e6 monkey-typewriter-years to produce the works of Shakespeare. It's not a statistical phenomenon (indeed, random chance would put it outside the lifetime of the universe), it's that it takes 999 monkeys typing absolute gibberish (gibbonish?) for 1000 years straight to allow that one remaining monkey to become the fabled Bard.
So the next time you see someone typing l1k3 th1s LOL!!!!111, don't berate them, thank them--the literary linemen that they are. It is by their grace and sacrifice that the likes of Frank McCourt or Michael Chabon are able to spin their gold.
a mathematician that has no insights,giving him tranquilizers to make him more patient, and locking him into your basement with some food and papers and pencils.
You just described every elementary school math class.
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It's been almost 20 years since I've ridden a bus (unless you count public transport).
They've been all but useless for ~20 years anyway. Contextual help and tutorials within the game are usually more useful and intuitive. If I need more help, it's usually easy enough to find what I'm looking for online anyway.
I'd argue that the rules of a game can be art themselves. Especially when the rules themselves are simple, but the gameplay is complex and dynamic. Games like the SimCity series, Civilization series, and Starcraft. They all involve a fairly simple set of rules: gather resources to build infrastructure that then allows you to gather more resources. But through repeated gameplay and exploring the different methods of balancing the various methods available you can ferret out some subtleties of cause and effect, decisions and consequences. You can also start asking questions about how well a game mimics reality. How does the balance of funding on research vs. military affect the outcome? Is it universal or context dependent? I.e., is research more valuable if your opponent is Protoss instead of Zerg? And how is that not a commentary on how the game creator perceives the world?
One of the most fascinating aspects of Civilization I've found is the effects of isolation on your empire. Try playing two games with the same overall style and choices, but one where you're very removed from the rest of the empires and one where you're surrounded by others. In isolation, your growth will lag and you very quickly lose any hope at winning, but when surrounded your growth is very rapid. Trade and competition with your neighbors is very important for a strong and wealthy empire.
How many of these interactions where intended by the game creators? I'm not sure, but that leads to other questions. How many of those effects are secondary consequences of the system the designers tried to create?
Sun Tzu wrote a book about it.
Art doesn't seem to have a good objective definition. It's always defined in terms of the things people consider to BE art. Any definition that doesn't use specific works seems to be an attempt at finding a common thread among the works that person considers to be art. Those themes can vary from person to person.
For some, emotional impact is key. A "sterile", though accurate drawing can never be art to them.
For some, technical skill is important. I know I've refused to call a lot of abstract works "art".
For others, social commentary or message is important. A pop singer is mere entertainment (the horror), but replace her lyrics about her boyfriend with ones about the hardships of poverty and she becomes an artist.
I've played video games that could pass muster in any of these categories, and some arguably in all three.
Wth Mr. Ebert, though, a work of art needs to be static. Interactivity, open-endedness, and an ability to win means it's not art. If you make a video game that is missing these pieces, he neatly claims it's no longer a video game. A very nice circular definition if you ask me.
I like that you (correctly) left Physics students off that list.
Physics students don't cheat. Their wave functions become entangled, so when you solve for the eigenvalue of one, the other is necessarily solved as well.
Yes, they do have an economic/business bias, as would be expected by the title. But even then it tends to avoid a dogmatic approach to most issues (all regulation is 100% bad, etc), and they'll have a reasonable argument when discussing issues of regulation, taxation, monetary policy, etc that doesn't always fall along, say, libertarian policy lines. Yes, they are blatantly pro-capitalism and anti-communism, but balanced to me does not mean equal time for all sides, but rather a rational discussion of the issues they do examine. To put it another way, I've never come away from an Economist article angry about blatant misrepresentation of the facts or feeling that I'm being manhandled into a certain viewpoint, whether or not I agree with it. I also don't get the impression that the Economist has a monolithic viewpoint. I've read articles covering similar topics that reach different conclusions within the same issue.
It is by far my favorite news publication. It benefits from being a weekly paper, not subject to the constant rush of a daily or hourly news cycle. Their articles tend to be more balanced and more considered, in part I think due to the extra time they have to devote to research and fact-checking.
Yes, but only because most Americans think Scrabble is just a high-fiber version of Alphabits cereal.
10% yearly pay raise over 15 years works out to over 4x your initial salary. Unless you're starting in the 30k ballpark, I don't see how that is reasonable at all. An exemplary employee working at an excellent company, perhaps, but a typical employee at a typical company? Not a chance.
Well, at least now the marketing drones can advertise MS products as "Botnet Optimized"
I'd like to tell Dr. Lovelock that we're on the motherfucker. Full democracy shutdown commencing in 3...2...1...
So we truly do have a moral compass.
I wonder if it is orientation dependent. If I face north, am I less likely to punch somebody in the face?
Some stop lights in California are set up in a similar way, but aimed more for reward rather than punishment. There will be sensors set up a good distance from a major intersection. It's the car equivalent of pushing the "walk" button at a crosswalk. If you are going approximately the speed limit, the light will be green when you get to the intersection--no need to stop/start again. However, if you are speeding, you will get stuck at the light, every time. And since that stopping and starting takes time, your average speed is higher if you go the speed limit. Going along a several mile stretch of road where the lights were configured this way, I would pass the speeding drivers at every intersection. The bulk of drivers got the point though, and traffic generally flowed very smoothly in these areas.
I'm sure some scientists 100-200 years ago said something similar as they were filling in blanks on the periodic table.
Fatty foods activate reward pathways in the same way cocaine does. But so does sex, gambling, shopping, video games, etc. Choose your poison.
Sign me up for one of each.
Ah, yes. The Conservation of Accuracy, as it's known. The total number of typos being committed in a particular language at a particular time is constant. This is why I do not lose heart when I see some of the writing atrocities you come across on the internet. With them doing their part to consume the number of available errors, the way is left clear for someone, somewhere, to produce some of the most beautiful English prose we will ever see. It's the reason it takes 1e6 monkey-typewriter-years to produce the works of Shakespeare. It's not a statistical phenomenon (indeed, random chance would put it outside the lifetime of the universe), it's that it takes 999 monkeys typing absolute gibberish (gibbonish?) for 1000 years straight to allow that one remaining monkey to become the fabled Bard.
So the next time you see someone typing l1k3 th1s LOL!!!!111, don't berate them, thank them--the literary linemen that they are. It is by their grace and sacrifice that the likes of Frank McCourt or Michael Chabon are able to spin their gold.
a mathematician that has no insights,giving him tranquilizers to make him more patient, and locking him into your basement with some food and papers and pencils.
You just described every elementary school math class.
Yeah, the upkeep is where they get you though. Have you seen the prices on shark de-barnacling lately? Talk about a market bubble...
They're just following a standing precedent. Consider the EM spectrum:
ELF SLF ULF VLF LF MF HF VHF UHF SHF EHF
The last time I called the thing on my couch a galaxy, she called me a gaseous nebula.
That's why I never clean my lint trap. If I don't look, then my socks don't disappear!
Especially since just creating a MySpace account gives you the clap.
I would think some of them care if the ones who aren't alive are voting at all.
The Force is weak with these ones today.