No - Not paying to pirate it.... Antiguan Vista would be legitimate and Microsoft would have a hard time prosecuting people outside of the US who bought copies, and it would be difficult for other countries to police IP laws regarding this. Essentially, you could import and sell Antigua copies in other countries, destroying the value of the legitimate product...
Of course, it doesn't benefit people in the US as much, but if the legitimate copies sell overseas for a fraction of the cost, it would affect the value in the US to some extent as well.
Computers playing "Go" as an alternative to chess isn't likely to happen.
If you think about it, back in the 80's dedicated chess computers were pretty smart and you had to be very good to beat them. Then a company called Cyrus produced "IS Chess" which was able to defeat the then best-of technology dedicated chess computers (and it ran in 16Kbytes of program space on a 3.5 MHz Z-80 processor). Even back then, in the mid 80's, home PC technology was strong enough to defeat many amateur players. I never beat IS chess. Well, Once, on the easiest level... Took me hours. I guess I'm not that good at it.
On the other hand I play GO against a 1.8GHz P4 Laptop, and still defeat one of the newer programs frequently at speed go giving the computer up to five stones. The thing is, I'm not that strong a player - probably 5 to 10 Kyu.
Computers just don't play GO well against a moderately skilled human.
Now consider why Deep Blue was developed. It's to show how much computer technology has been developed and how far the technology has come, that a computer was able to beat a Chess Grandmaster.
I can't see any advantage for IBM to spend millions developing a huge supercomputer to play GO that is easily defeated by school children who have played for a few years. Sure, it's a great way to measure the performance against something that counts, but that's not reason enough to develop it.
Perhaps they could set their sights lower and play 9x9 GO or something. But in the end, people would see through it.
Chess, which most people can't play well, makes an impressive victory, because people think it's hard simply because they find it hard to play.
They think GO is easier (because it only has 3 or so rules) but it's hellishly difficult for a computer to play even as well as a beginner.
So it's not a good choice for computer technology developers to use to showcase their tech...
A lot of managers and staff underestimate the effectiveness of Role Play as a teaching / learning tool.
Take the manager into a quiet office and tell them that you're going to do some role play to observe their reactions. Give them a scenario... Eg, Employee theft, Trademark Crisis on project, Loss of proprietary information (that they are responsible for) etc.
See how well they respond. Usually, once they get into role play, they'll even assume the correct emotion state. See what they think of. Put them into an emotional problem.
eg, Someone comes in and lets the manager know they accidently gave their friend proprietary information and now it's on the Internet. Give the manager background. Is it a bad employee? Do they have family and how does that affect his decisions? Can he think on his feet to address the issue? How does he balance his commitment to his team with his commitment to his employer? A company hardliner always makes a bad manager, so even though it's the easy answer, it's often not what the company truly wants in a manager.
Make the scenario real enough, eg, he's just taken on the job when this happens, and now it's his mess.
Observing him as he reacts, thinks and determines what to do won't give a complete picture, but it will give an insight into their way of thinking and how they might react in similar circumstances if it did happen. Especially how he copes with this without knowing enough about the company he works for and what questions he asks the interviewer (playing the role of the managers Senior manager or as his 2IC...)
Adjust as required to meet company needs and position role description.
If they needed to completely drop all internet access, it shows how poorly organised their internet services were.
Most people under similar circumstances would simply upgrade their firewall ruleset and if necessary adopt alternate internal policies to allow limited connection to the internet during the crisis - especially given that it was indicated that the problems dropping the internet connection caused was significant.
Simply unplugging the pipe to circumvent an internal threat is like turning the power off to an entire city just so someone can change a lightbulb... It's not necessary and it highlights the lack of Internet security skills available to some large government departments.
Sounds just like the old stories about Laetrile...
A chemical (related to Cyanide) that is found naturally occuring in many foods.
Regardless of what was said, I had a very close relative use Laetrile and watched an untreatable cancer disappear over several months. I was stunned when the hospital refused to treat her later, and a nurse told her that the hospital was concerned that if it did tests and found no cancer, she might claim that she had been cured by natural medicines.
More recently a good friend trying to obtain supplies (through apricot kernels) for his dying mother was forced to sign a contract that the kernels would not be used to treat cancer...
I wouldn't be suprised if not being able to research this new drug is the least of the researchers problems. In the long run, if the drug is even rumoured to be effective, any means of producing it will likely be restricted as well.
If Vitamin C was patentable, oranges would no doubt be illegal,
You know, as much as I think a POTC MMORPG conversion would probably suck, Disney has the ultimate MMORPG ready to go... In their TRON universe.
The TRON2.0 game was pretty enjoyable, and Disney could build an entire universe around the premises in TRON and the later game without even trying. Even the game engine is ready to go. How much tweaking would it need to convert the Tron2.0 game into a MMORPG?
And if you could enter your world as a "User" or otherwise have your "Program" running around according to it's own script when you weren't in control, it would be pretty cool. Having your program search for interesting items / escape routes etc, and emailing you back in the real world when it found them, allowing you to control the game either from the command line or email and then using a full client when you wanted to roam around.
Probably the era of the MCP would be the ideal time.... As you recall, the MCP controlled all the NPCs while the programs were essentially independant reflections of their users... Better still if you could download a basic bitmap of your size/features as parameters, your program could even look like you... (Not that difficult to send along with co-ordinate information if well thought out).
And you could develop your "User" powers over time, gain access to Tanks, Recognisers and Lightcycles to move through a massive world inside the computer. Even set up your own hard drive file area to store them:) Gain more resources (primitives) and even design your own transport or accomodation.
As much as the thought of a Disney MMORPG bothers me, I (and I imagine other programmers) could probably really get into and enjoy something like this. Kinda like Second Life but with Neon...:)
I found Many Faces Of Go a lot more challenging than GnuGo.
But then, I'm probably about a 5 Kyu, and I let MFOG take a 5 stone handicap on Level 10.
Still, it's about evenly matched at that point. I win about half of them playing speed go. (Typical match, 30 to 50 minutes on the train ride to work).
But the Go Handicap system works well.
GrpA
You didn't really say what kinds of games you like
on
The Last Games You'd Play?
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· Score: 3, Insightful
What games you should play depends on what you like. Simple. I'm suprised you didn't mention the sort of games you like to play.
Additionally, you haven't described the limitations of your medical issue.
Firstly if you like playing games, why stop? Is it only the button mashing games that you like? There are so many games that you don't need to stop playing. Just find something you enjoy that doesn't aggravate your condition.
Second, forget consoles. They are more likely to cause CTS or other issues than support a medical issue. Go PC. Just PC. Unlike consoles, PCs have hundreds of interfaces designed for everything from people with disabilities through to being ergonomic to support sufferers of similar ailments. Even without knowing what your issue is, if you can move a part of your body, you can buy something for a PC that lets you emulate mouse and keyboard.
PCs cost more, and you'll need to aim high for a games box, but the disadvantage of consoles is that they are designed with a difficulty level around the controller for normal people. This is something you clearly are not (by your own admission). So if you already have problems, then why waste it playing games on a controller designed for hands without medical issues.
Also, use the benefits of age. If you don't want to mash buttons, play more adventure games, where reaction time isn't critical. And when you play action games, choose games where you can play in a way that suits you.
As an example - consider BF2 for the PC. Even if you were nearly crippled, you could still play commander online, without any difficulty at all... Just with a voice interface alone. No keyboard or mouse. Of course, you'd probably want a Push To Talk button set up for your headset, although you could just use VOX. And if you want to get into the action, play sniper... Just sit, wait and take your time on each shot.
Additionally, for flight sims, you can use full size controllers... Joysticks. No rapid movement needed there. If you can still drive a car, you can use a wheel interface. Again, nothing complex there. (And Wheel interfaces are available on most consoles.)
But as I mentioned, console games tend (though not always) be designed around the console controller and controller limitations to provide an element of difficulty. PC games are designed around a keyboard that no two people seem to have the same one of, mouses that vary from house to house and the odd USB connected device that someone bought on special. The only thing left for PC game designers to challenge is your mind.
Avoid games that require precise timing and button mashing. They cause issues for those older players amongst us that don't have arthritis too!.
Finally, don't take the attitude of playing games quickly while you still can. That's pessimistic and you're setting your own limitation. Work to enjoy games for as long as you live and while you still enjoy them. For most of us, that's as long as we live.
Anyway an opinion. I'm not that far of where you say your are. I am starting to feel something in my fingers that I suspect is the onset of age. But unless I end up so crippled I can't live a normal life anymore, I don't ever think I'll stop playing games, and often I remind myself they are one of the few things I can still enjoy even if I do.
Like most things, it only works when you want something. A marketting company idea of what makes a media PC is never going to work, because they tend to string together a bunch of daft ideas all centered around controlling the viewer and making money while never giving the user what they want.
I have a PC set up in the living room. It's for my wife. She hates PCs. So I got her a 37inch LCD with 1366x768 resolution. Resolution doesn't mean much to her. I told her it means a nicer picture.
Then I built a PC into the stand it sits on. Installed XP and DVB Webscheduler. A TV Antenna, Wireless Keyboard and Mouse.
That's all you need. Seriously.
And I never ever turn it off (except for maintenance or rebooting). It's on 24x7 (Webscheduler is a robust platform. Even on XP. Never fails. Never crashes.).
My wife plays online games on it, because it's on her TV now. She records her TV shows through a web interface, and fast forwards ads using a mouse (She has a remote, but quickly worked out the mouse was fine). She watches normal TV on it. Just by switching to TV mode. Or if it's something she wants to watch and pause, she fires up the recorder and starts recording and watching in real time.
The kids stream recorded shows to their laptops, because it's *her* TV and Computer, and no one else is allowed to use it if she wants to watch something... (She's very possessive of it). They've worked out they can set the recorder and watch shows over the home network anyway.
She sends emails. She reads emails. She could watch a video while she does, but she never does, because no one wants to watch a video and send an email.
And she has a VHS recorder plugged into it. She watches old tapes. She has two DVD drives to watch videos on DVD. She doesn't need two, but if one breaks, she needs one for backup. Don't beleive me? You deal with a crazy woman who can't watch her favourite DVD one night!
And now she watches movies in higher resolution and hates cable TV because the quality is so poor compared to free-to-air and DVD. And she records all the shows she wants to, because there are no tapes to get old or switch over. She has an electronic program guide to help her select her shows. She even knows how to delete stuff she has watched.
And she has her own space to use a web-browser to see what the weather is going to be like, check on the latest movies or generally look things up on google. because it's all on her TV.
When she forgets to set the video, she calls me to do it over my phone (or from work).
Basically, she's the classic example of a completely wired up (and supported) non-geek. She doesn't care how or why it works, and her IT department (ie, ME!) is always close to find out why she can't get to some website or watch her latest show.
All in the living room.
The truth of the matter, was it was only a matter of time until two technologies became common.
1. A half-decent web-based video recorder. (DVB Webscheduler seems OK for this). 2. A TV Screen with a VGA/DVI interface and high resolution.
That's it. Convergence over. Simple and effective.
I'm not the only one where I work who has done this, as it is becomming a common enough item over here in Australia. A lot of engineers buy a large LCD and do this (and use the same apps). It seems all our wives are using them, which is an acid-test of sorts.
She also plays music on it. There's a radio tuner as well, but she doesn't use that because she doesn't listen to the radio in that room for some reason.
The media PC is therefore a pretty simple device, regardless of what MPC and MPCII were supposed to be. The day my wife started using it, I knew it was here. Regardless of what the marketting companies thought of it.
She has a normal TV also... She refuses to use it, unless there's no other option and seeing her sitting on a small cushion in front of the TV with the keyboard and mouse perched on the lip of the stand is now a common sight in the house.
Oh, and when she takes a shower or cooks dinner, a 37" screen makes a great Battlefield 2 console too !:)
It's not OK to remove violence or obscenities from home movies, but airlines are free to remove anything they find commercially offensive from in-flight movies.
Basically, they didn't work that well using "Bone Conduction" unless pressed hard against a bony surface.
And even then the audio quality suffered. I got the feeling that the developers didn't really understand it.
It's not that bone conduction is that suprising... You can see how it works by pressing your finger against a floppy drive to see if it's seeking. An old technique I learned long ago in noisy colocation environments to tell me if the disk really was being read. (You can head a floppy drive quite clearly when you press your finger against it.). Not that I do a lot with floppies anymore...
But not all frequencies transfer well and audio quality with bone conduction was never the best.
If you can't hear the sound from a bluetooth earpiece that's stuck right in your ear, then the problem is the environment you're working in. It's loud enough to cause permanent ear damage.
It's not dofficult to work out what happened. I started out in this career path long ago, straight out of high school. Back then, I was designing Z-80 based computer systems... Later, I went on to MCS-48 and MCS-51 based designs as well as flirting with x86 and 68xx(x) architectures at times.
I was pretty good at it. My success ratio exceeded 90% throughout my career. And I was a one-man engineering lab... From design (including PLDs) through fabrication, prototyping and production following successful prototyping. Many of my successful projects were valued in the millions of dollars to the companies I worked for, back in the 80's.
But there's not many people with those sort of skills, so over time, employers couldn't get the skills cheaply and stopped advertising for those people. They turned to PCs to perform jobs that would normally be performed on micro's or found other ways to do things. Most design work became an offshoot to inhouse production teams and never really became a critical business component.
And when someone did have an engineer with those skills, they tended to undervalue them. I worked for many employers as a part of their churn. I replaced a cheap engineer and they weren't prepared to pay extra for the skills I brought to the position. Not all employers can see the value of someone who can design a modem out of three 20pin PALs or produce an engine management unit if all they want is someone to design their latest pinpad.
The lack of people who could cut perfect code in assembly language and manually route circuits more efficiently than the auto-routing algorythms of the day became less important as circuit design apps got better and processors got fast enough that high level languages could be used instead of low level languages.
So more people came in to the industry, but lacked the skills. Employers worked around it by asking less of them, but that diluted the products and so in turn diluted the value of such engineers to their employers.
Universities and technical education centres simply couldn't produce the skills in people coming up. This further diluted the available skills resources.
And no matter that you can get away with this 95% of the time, the other 5% of the time, you need the low-level skills. Otherwise your success ratio tend to drop below 50%.
It got to the point where the average wage earner made around $40K per year, and Electronic Engineers in my city (Major capital city) would average about $35K.
So I usually left after a while, chasing salary increases with other companies, when the ones I worked for didn't want to pay.. Until one day I realised I could make more for my family just by doing basic low-level tech work as a PC assembler. So I threw away my old skills and became another tech on the production line.
Everyone else I knew - people who designed their own home PCs from the chips up only ten years earlier did the same... they became miners, postmen, builders. The work was less stressful, less hours and paid better. Some stayed. The lucky ones found companies that looked after them. It was rare.
But now with only the diluted skills left in the marketplace, employers had a problem. I would speak to old employers who seemed suprised that their new projects were failing and no engineers were left. They wondered why it took a 386 processor and six weeks of C development to develop and debug a replacement to a keypad that cost $300 per unit to make that replaced one I designed for them from concept to prototype using $30 of parts with an MCS51 just six years earlier.
So Business got out of that industry also. No engineering skills means it's not viable business. So they got into PC software development or similar related industries and just dropped that line of revenue from their business model.
So, No new low-level skills, No engineers with the skills available to fix the problem and no positions because companies let this source of revenue die out.
First, install a used graphics card. Then reprogram the graphics card to do other stuff.
Any time domain project might work.
eg, Audio Card. (Yes, you can produce audio on a graphics card). Signal Generator (All kinds of repetative signals you can generate) TV Remote (Just connect to a IR led on the output port). Digital TV Modulator. http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000113073480/ This is the Best idea made practical. Transmitter (on MANY different frequencies). Ultrasonic transducer driver for driving 3 ultrasonic transducers. (Spot sound)
Just keep in mind you have 3 Digital to Analogue Controllers, Programmable clocks Memory (and a means of moving it to the DACs) and two other digital outputs,
ALL PACKED NEATLY INTO A VIDEO CARD FORMAT... and it even works with AGP.:)
1) It cannot climb stairs. 2) It cannot traverse rocky or uneven territory (unless there is a flat platform to follow) 3) Sooner or later, a software bug is going to turn "Automous Robotic Follow Mode" into the military version of "Carmageddon" as it runs down the soldiers in front. 4) Enemy soldiers are going to have a convenient aim point for rifle-grenades and similar whenever they hid, because this big ugly robot is going to follow them right up to their hiding place. 5) While attempting to walk silently, Soldiers will be very easy to hear coming, because of this noisy robotic lapdog following them. 6) Exhaust fumes will give it away also.
They could at least give it a plunger and gun, and teach it to say "Exterminate".
Overall, an electric robot might be useful, but this will contribute to casualties. "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" will be replaced with "until you smell their exhaust fumes"...
I used to read Slashdot every morning for a while on the train on my phone/pda. It's not very mobile friendly. Logging in is a pain, and although with graphics off it is bearable, it's far from ideal. Worse, is all the extra garbage that stills comes down with the text.
There is a real case for some sites to be mobile friendly, but designers seem to want to make it all far too pretty, when all I really want is convenience.
But when you do use a site that is mobile friendly, it's a snap to operate - especially if you have a touch screen as many new generation phones do.
It's not like the designers need to drop to the lowest common denominator - most people who need the service are happy to find a higher level model.
But even finding sites that support higher level models is difficult... And I truly wish I could do my Ebay-ing from the phone more easily... Ideal for bid-sniping.
GrpA
I've experienced similar problems in the past, due to current leakage. Especially with different phases, but also commonly with poorly grounded devices or devices which had peripherals or cables running close to sources of high levels of common mode noise.
Most commonly, when plugged into a peripheral or another device which is separately powered or grounded.
What was happening was small amounts of current leaking in through peripheral components was affecting the power supply... Usually to stop them starting up. ie, hit the power button, no start, no lights. The leakage was in the micro-amps region, but was enough to leak back through the motherboards into the power supply, and cause a false fault condition reading on start up, and the PSU would shut down before it got started.
The solution? In one instance, I decoupled the power rails. In another, better grounding. Another? Changed phase. The best solution was usually to find a better power supply that wasn't affected, but was not always possible.
Often in these circumstances you can feel the current leakage, as it's often at high voltage but very low amps. Sometimes it feels like a slight tickle when you touch rivets on the case.
Additionally, I've also encountered similar problems due to engineering faults, where a high impedance section of the circuit was acting like a radio antenna and was getting enough "reception" of a local signal (any strong electromagnetic radiation source) and causing a fault condition on power up that was not present during normal operations (when the applied signal was significantly stronger than the picked up signal).
Solutions there include EMF shielding and redesigning the circuits.
Problems like this are difficult to diagnose, as they are not always obvious, and there is very little you can do to test or troubleshoot directly. Often it involves experience and a little lucky guesswork.
Slashdot Mirror
No - Not paying to pirate it.... Antiguan Vista would be legitimate and Microsoft would have a hard time prosecuting people outside of the US who bought copies, and it would be difficult for other countries to police IP laws regarding this. Essentially, you could import and sell Antigua copies in other countries, destroying the value of the legitimate product...
Of course, it doesn't benefit people in the US as much, but if the legitimate copies sell overseas for a fraction of the cost, it would affect the value in the US to some extent as well.
GrpA
Computers playing "Go" as an alternative to chess isn't likely to happen.
If you think about it, back in the 80's dedicated chess computers were pretty smart and you had to be very good to beat them. Then a company called Cyrus produced "IS Chess" which was able to defeat the then best-of technology dedicated chess computers (and it ran in 16Kbytes of program space on a 3.5 MHz Z-80 processor). Even back then, in the mid 80's, home PC technology was strong enough to defeat many amateur players. I never beat IS chess. Well, Once, on the easiest level... Took me hours. I guess I'm not that good at it.
On the other hand I play GO against a 1.8GHz P4 Laptop, and still defeat one of the newer programs frequently at speed go giving the computer up to five stones. The thing is, I'm not that strong a player - probably 5 to 10 Kyu.
Computers just don't play GO well against a moderately skilled human.
Now consider why Deep Blue was developed. It's to show how much computer technology has been developed and how far the technology has come, that a computer was able to beat a Chess Grandmaster.
I can't see any advantage for IBM to spend millions developing a huge supercomputer to play GO that is easily defeated by school children who have played for a few years. Sure, it's a great way to measure the performance against something that counts, but that's not reason enough to develop it.
Perhaps they could set their sights lower and play 9x9 GO or something. But in the end, people would see through it.
Chess, which most people can't play well, makes an impressive victory, because people think it's hard simply because they find it hard to play.
They think GO is easier (because it only has 3 or so rules) but it's hellishly difficult for a computer to play even as well as a beginner.
So it's not a good choice for computer technology developers to use to showcase their tech...
GrpA
A lot of managers and staff underestimate the effectiveness of Role Play as a teaching / learning tool.
Take the manager into a quiet office and tell them that you're going to do some role play to observe their reactions. Give them a scenario... Eg, Employee theft, Trademark Crisis on project, Loss of proprietary information (that they are responsible for) etc.
See how well they respond. Usually, once they get into role play, they'll even assume the correct emotion state. See what they think of. Put them into an emotional problem.
eg, Someone comes in and lets the manager know they accidently gave their friend proprietary information and now it's on the Internet. Give the manager background. Is it a bad employee? Do they have family and how does that affect his decisions? Can he think on his feet to address the issue? How does he balance his commitment to his team with his commitment to his employer? A company hardliner always makes a bad manager, so even though it's the easy answer, it's often not what the company truly wants in a manager.
Make the scenario real enough, eg, he's just taken on the job when this happens, and now it's his mess.
Observing him as he reacts, thinks and determines what to do won't give a complete picture, but it will give an insight into their way of thinking and how they might react in similar circumstances if it did happen. Especially how he copes with this without knowing enough about the company he works for and what questions he asks the interviewer (playing the role of the managers Senior manager or as his 2IC...)
Adjust as required to meet company needs and position role description.
GrpA.
If they needed to completely drop all internet access, it shows how poorly organised their internet services were.
Most people under similar circumstances would simply upgrade their firewall ruleset and if necessary adopt alternate internal policies to allow limited connection to the internet during the crisis - especially given that it was indicated that the problems dropping the internet connection caused was significant.
Simply unplugging the pipe to circumvent an internal threat is like turning the power off to an entire city just so someone can change a lightbulb... It's not necessary and it highlights the lack of Internet security skills available to some large government departments.
GrpA.
Sounds just like the old stories about Laetrile...
A chemical (related to Cyanide) that is found naturally occuring in many foods.
Regardless of what was said, I had a very close relative use Laetrile and watched an untreatable cancer disappear over several months. I was stunned when the hospital refused to treat her later, and a nurse told her that the hospital was concerned that if it did tests and found no cancer, she might claim that she had been cured by natural medicines.
More recently a good friend trying to obtain supplies (through apricot kernels) for his dying mother was forced to sign a contract that the kernels would not be used to treat cancer...
I wouldn't be suprised if not being able to research this new drug is the least of the researchers problems. In the long run, if the drug is even rumoured to be effective, any means of producing it will likely be restricted as well.
If Vitamin C was patentable, oranges would no doubt be illegal,
GrpA.
You know, as much as I think a POTC MMORPG conversion would probably suck, Disney has the ultimate MMORPG ready to go... In their TRON universe.
:) Gain more resources (primitives) and even design your own transport or accomodation.
:)
The TRON2.0 game was pretty enjoyable, and Disney could build an entire universe around the premises in TRON and the later game without even trying. Even the game engine is ready to go. How much tweaking would it need to convert the Tron2.0 game into a MMORPG?
And if you could enter your world as a "User" or otherwise have your "Program" running around according to it's own script when you weren't in control, it would be pretty cool. Having your program search for interesting items / escape routes etc, and emailing you back in the real world when it found them, allowing you to control the game either from the command line or email and then using a full client when you wanted to roam around.
Probably the era of the MCP would be the ideal time.... As you recall, the MCP controlled all the NPCs while the programs were essentially independant reflections of their users... Better still if you could download a basic bitmap of your size/features as parameters, your program could even look like you... (Not that difficult to send along with co-ordinate information if well thought out).
And you could develop your "User" powers over time, gain access to Tanks, Recognisers and Lightcycles to move through a massive world inside the computer. Even set up your own hard drive file area to store them
As much as the thought of a Disney MMORPG bothers me, I (and I imagine other programmers) could probably really get into and enjoy something like this. Kinda like Second Life but with Neon...
GrpA.
Especially as it claims to be "The Most Popular Open Source Backup and Recovery Software"
http://amanda.zmanda.com/
I'd be interested to read what any of it's users think of it in comparison to commercial apps.
GrpA.
I found Many Faces Of Go a lot more challenging than GnuGo.
But then, I'm probably about a 5 Kyu, and I let MFOG take a 5 stone handicap on Level 10.
Still, it's about evenly matched at that point. I win about half of them playing speed go. (Typical match, 30 to 50 minutes on the train ride to work).
But the Go Handicap system works well.
GrpA
What games you should play depends on what you like. Simple. I'm suprised you didn't mention the sort of games you like to play.
Additionally, you haven't described the limitations of your medical issue.
Firstly if you like playing games, why stop? Is it only the button mashing games that you like? There are so many games that you don't need to stop playing. Just find something you enjoy that doesn't aggravate your condition.
Second, forget consoles. They are more likely to cause CTS or other issues than support a medical issue. Go PC. Just PC. Unlike consoles, PCs have hundreds of interfaces designed for everything from people with disabilities through to being ergonomic to support sufferers of similar ailments. Even without knowing what your issue is, if you can move a part of your body, you can buy something for a PC that lets you emulate mouse and keyboard.
PCs cost more, and you'll need to aim high for a games box, but the disadvantage of consoles is that they are designed with a difficulty level around the controller for normal people. This is something you clearly are not (by your own admission). So if you already have problems, then why waste it playing games on a controller designed for hands without medical issues.
Also, use the benefits of age. If you don't want to mash buttons, play more adventure games, where reaction time isn't critical. And when you play action games, choose games where you can play in a way that suits you.
As an example - consider BF2 for the PC. Even if you were nearly crippled, you could still play commander online, without any difficulty at all... Just with a voice interface alone. No keyboard or mouse. Of course, you'd probably want a Push To Talk button set up for your headset, although you could just use VOX. And if you want to get into the action, play sniper... Just sit, wait and take your time on each shot.
Additionally, for flight sims, you can use full size controllers... Joysticks. No rapid movement needed there. If you can still drive a car, you can use a wheel interface. Again, nothing complex there. (And Wheel interfaces are available on most consoles.)
But as I mentioned, console games tend (though not always) be designed around the console controller and controller limitations to provide an element of difficulty. PC games are designed around a keyboard that no two people seem to have the same one of, mouses that vary from house to house and the odd USB connected device that someone bought on special. The only thing left for PC game designers to challenge is your mind.
Avoid games that require precise timing and button mashing. They cause issues for those older players amongst us that don't have arthritis too!.
Finally, don't take the attitude of playing games quickly while you still can. That's pessimistic and you're setting your own limitation. Work to enjoy games for as long as you live and while you still enjoy them. For most of us, that's as long as we live.
Anyway an opinion. I'm not that far of where you say your are. I am starting to feel something in my fingers that I suspect is the onset of age. But unless I end up so crippled I can't live a normal life anymore, I don't ever think I'll stop playing games, and often I remind myself they are one of the few things I can still enjoy even if I do.
GrpA.
Would be the story of the orginal site's author right now...
GrpA
Have a look at some of the Symbian phones out there. I'm lost without my Motorola A1000.
The nice thing about them is that they double as a telephone, and are about the same size as well.
Also made my Erricson and other phone manufacturers, and open source programmable... Lot of apps to D/L free or for fee as well.
GrpA
After seeing this video, I certainly changed my opinion of goldfish, although I don't know if it's real.
z ed-swimming-goldfish.html
http://whatthepets.blogspot.com/2006/01/synchroni
However it did remind me of "Skinner" by Neal Asher and his comments on dolphins.
GrpA
I already have a media PC.
:)
Like most things, it only works when you want something. A marketting company idea of what makes a media PC is never going to work, because they tend to string together a bunch of daft ideas all centered around controlling the viewer and making money while never giving the user what they want.
I have a PC set up in the living room. It's for my wife. She hates PCs. So I got her a 37inch LCD with 1366x768 resolution. Resolution doesn't mean much to her. I told her it means a nicer picture.
Then I built a PC into the stand it sits on. Installed XP and DVB Webscheduler. A TV Antenna, Wireless Keyboard and Mouse.
That's all you need. Seriously.
And I never ever turn it off (except for maintenance or rebooting). It's on 24x7 (Webscheduler is a robust platform. Even on XP. Never fails. Never crashes.).
My wife plays online games on it, because it's on her TV now. She records her TV shows through a web interface, and fast forwards ads using a mouse (She has a remote, but quickly worked out the mouse was fine). She watches normal TV on it. Just by switching to TV mode. Or if it's something she wants to watch and pause, she fires up the recorder and starts recording and watching in real time.
The kids stream recorded shows to their laptops, because it's *her* TV and Computer, and no one else is allowed to use it if she wants to watch something... (She's very possessive of it). They've worked out they can set the recorder and watch shows over the home network anyway.
She sends emails. She reads emails. She could watch a video while she does, but she never does, because no one wants to watch a video and send an email.
And she has a VHS recorder plugged into it. She watches old tapes. She has two DVD drives to watch videos on DVD. She doesn't need two, but if one breaks, she needs one for backup. Don't beleive me? You deal with a crazy woman who can't watch her favourite DVD one night!
And now she watches movies in higher resolution and hates cable TV because the quality is so poor compared to free-to-air and DVD. And she records all the shows she wants to, because there are no tapes to get old or switch over. She has an electronic program guide to help her select her shows. She even knows how to delete stuff she has watched.
And she has her own space to use a web-browser to see what the weather is going to be like, check on the latest movies or generally look things up on google. because it's all on her TV.
When she forgets to set the video, she calls me to do it over my phone (or from work).
Basically, she's the classic example of a completely wired up (and supported) non-geek. She doesn't care how or why it works, and her IT department (ie, ME!) is always close to find out why she can't get to some website or watch her latest show.
All in the living room.
The truth of the matter, was it was only a matter of time until two technologies became common.
1. A half-decent web-based video recorder. (DVB Webscheduler seems OK for this).
2. A TV Screen with a VGA/DVI interface and high resolution.
That's it. Convergence over. Simple and effective.
I'm not the only one where I work who has done this, as it is becomming a common enough item over here in Australia. A lot of engineers buy a large LCD and do this (and use the same apps). It seems all our wives are using them, which is an acid-test of sorts.
She also plays music on it. There's a radio tuner as well, but she doesn't use that because she doesn't listen to the radio in that room for some reason.
The media PC is therefore a pretty simple device, regardless of what MPC and MPCII were supposed to be. The day my wife started using it, I knew it was here. Regardless of what the marketting companies thought of it.
She has a normal TV also... She refuses to use it, unless there's no other option and seeing her sitting on a small cushion in front of the TV with the keyboard and mouse perched on the lip of the stand is now a common sight in the house.
Oh, and when she takes a shower or cooks dinner, a 37" screen makes a great Battlefield 2 console too !
The media PC? Mine arrived for Christmas, 2005.
GrpA.
It's not OK to remove violence or obscenities from home movies, but airlines are free to remove anything they find commercially offensive from in-flight movies.
GrpA
I had a bone fone.
Basically, they didn't work that well using "Bone Conduction" unless pressed hard against a bony surface.
And even then the audio quality suffered. I got the feeling that the developers didn't really understand it.
It's not that bone conduction is that suprising... You can see how it works by pressing your finger against a floppy drive to see if it's seeking. An old technique I learned long ago in noisy colocation environments to tell me if the disk really was being read. (You can head a floppy drive quite clearly when you press your finger against it.). Not that I do a lot with floppies anymore...
But not all frequencies transfer well and audio quality with bone conduction was never the best.
If you can't hear the sound from a bluetooth earpiece that's stuck right in your ear, then the problem is the environment you're working in. It's loud enough to cause permanent ear damage.
GrpA
Lighting information week...
http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/week.htm
Safety.
http://www.lightningsafety.noaa.gov/outdoors.htm
Check out the line of dead cows near the metal fence.... I didn't see a single cow with a mobile phone in it's non-opposable-thumb hoof.
GrpA
It's not dofficult to work out what happened. I started out in this career path long ago, straight out of high school. Back then, I was designing Z-80 based computer systems... Later, I went on to MCS-48 and MCS-51 based designs as well as flirting with x86 and 68xx(x) architectures at times.
I was pretty good at it. My success ratio exceeded 90% throughout my career. And I was a one-man engineering lab... From design (including PLDs) through fabrication, prototyping and production following successful prototyping. Many of my successful projects were valued in the millions of dollars to the companies I worked for, back in the 80's.
But there's not many people with those sort of skills, so over time, employers couldn't get the skills cheaply and stopped advertising for those people. They turned to PCs to perform jobs that would normally be performed on micro's or found other ways to do things. Most design work became an offshoot to inhouse production teams and never really became a critical business component.
And when someone did have an engineer with those skills, they tended to undervalue them. I worked for many employers as a part of their churn. I replaced a cheap engineer and they weren't prepared to pay extra for the skills I brought to the position. Not all employers can see the value of someone who can design a modem out of three 20pin PALs or produce an engine management unit if all they want is someone to design their latest pinpad.
The lack of people who could cut perfect code in assembly language and manually route circuits more efficiently than the auto-routing algorythms of the day became less important as circuit design apps got better and processors got fast enough that high level languages could be used instead of low level languages.
So more people came in to the industry, but lacked the skills. Employers worked around it by asking less of them, but that diluted the products and so in turn diluted the value of such engineers to their employers.
Universities and technical education centres simply couldn't produce the skills in people coming up. This further diluted the available skills resources.
And no matter that you can get away with this 95% of the time, the other 5% of the time, you need the low-level skills. Otherwise your success ratio tend to drop below 50%.
It got to the point where the average wage earner made around $40K per year, and Electronic Engineers in my city (Major capital city) would average about $35K.
So I usually left after a while, chasing salary increases with other companies, when the ones I worked for didn't want to pay.. Until one day I realised I could make more for my family just by doing basic low-level tech work as a PC assembler. So I threw away my old skills and became another tech on the production line.
Everyone else I knew - people who designed their own home PCs from the chips up only ten years earlier did the same... they became miners, postmen, builders. The work was less stressful, less hours and paid better. Some stayed. The lucky ones found companies that looked after them. It was rare.
But now with only the diluted skills left in the marketplace, employers had a problem. I would speak to old employers who seemed suprised that their new projects were failing and no engineers were left. They wondered why it took a 386 processor and six weeks of C development to develop and debug a replacement to a keypad that cost $300 per unit to make that replaced one I designed for them from concept to prototype using $30 of parts with an MCS51 just six years earlier.
So Business got out of that industry also. No engineering skills means it's not viable business. So they got into PC software development or similar related industries and just dropped that line of revenue from their business model.
So, No new low-level skills, No engineers with the skills available to fix the problem and no positions because companies let this source of revenue die out.
And the industry disappeared.
After last night's soccer loss to Australia 3:1, it seems that most Japanese just want to forget...
GrpA.
Heh, But seriously, great research. Good to hear.
Because if it is, that means that the Oceans are now 30% shark, 70% water... Not a good mix. GrpA
I don't have to compensate for shortcomings in other areas...
First, install a used graphics card. Then reprogram the graphics card to do other stuff.
:)
Any time domain project might work.
eg,
Audio Card. (Yes, you can produce audio on a graphics card).
Signal Generator (All kinds of repetative signals you can generate)
TV Remote (Just connect to a IR led on the output port).
Digital TV Modulator. http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000113073480/ This is the Best idea made practical.
Transmitter (on MANY different frequencies).
Ultrasonic transducer driver for driving 3 ultrasonic transducers. (Spot sound)
Just keep in mind you have 3 Digital to Analogue Controllers,
Programmable clocks
Memory (and a means of moving it to the DACs)
and two other digital outputs,
ALL PACKED NEATLY INTO A VIDEO CARD FORMAT... and it even works with AGP.
GrpA
Yes, but it had it's drawbacks. Aside from the obvious technical issues with the entire engine spinning, there were practical issues also.
Just imagine the torque roll problem. Throttle response issues. Gyroscopic effect. Bearing loads.
The radial was a much better design. The two stroke radials (even number of cylinders) seem even better still...
GrpA
Possible problems with this idea.
1) It cannot climb stairs.
2) It cannot traverse rocky or uneven territory (unless there is a flat platform to follow)
3) Sooner or later, a software bug is going to turn "Automous Robotic Follow Mode" into the military version of "Carmageddon" as it runs down the soldiers in front.
4) Enemy soldiers are going to have a convenient aim point for rifle-grenades and similar whenever they hid, because this big ugly robot is going to follow them right up to their hiding place.
5) While attempting to walk silently, Soldiers will be very easy to hear coming, because of this noisy robotic lapdog following them.
6) Exhaust fumes will give it away also.
They could at least give it a plunger and gun, and teach it to say "Exterminate".
Overall, an electric robot might be useful, but this will contribute to casualties. "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" will be replaced with "until you smell their exhaust fumes"...
GrpA
I used to read Slashdot every morning for a while on the train on my phone/pda. It's not very mobile friendly. Logging in is a pain, and although with graphics off it is bearable, it's far from ideal. Worse, is all the extra garbage that stills comes down with the text. There is a real case for some sites to be mobile friendly, but designers seem to want to make it all far too pretty, when all I really want is convenience. But when you do use a site that is mobile friendly, it's a snap to operate - especially if you have a touch screen as many new generation phones do. It's not like the designers need to drop to the lowest common denominator - most people who need the service are happy to find a higher level model. But even finding sites that support higher level models is difficult... And I truly wish I could do my Ebay-ing from the phone more easily... Ideal for bid-sniping. GrpA
I've experienced similar problems in the past, due to current leakage. Especially with different phases, but also commonly with poorly grounded devices or devices which had peripherals or cables running close to sources of high levels of common mode noise.
Most commonly, when plugged into a peripheral or another device which is separately powered or grounded.
What was happening was small amounts of current leaking in through peripheral components was affecting the power supply... Usually to stop them starting up. ie, hit the power button, no start, no lights. The leakage was in the micro-amps region, but was enough to leak back through the motherboards into the power supply, and cause a false fault condition reading on start up, and the PSU would shut down before it got started.
The solution? In one instance, I decoupled the power rails. In another, better grounding. Another? Changed phase. The best solution was usually to find a better power supply that wasn't affected, but was not always possible.
Often in these circumstances you can feel the current leakage, as it's often at high voltage but very low amps. Sometimes it feels like a slight tickle when you touch rivets on the case.
Additionally, I've also encountered similar problems due to engineering faults, where a high impedance section of the circuit was acting like a radio antenna and was getting enough "reception" of a local signal (any strong electromagnetic radiation source) and causing a fault condition on power up that was not present during normal operations (when the applied signal was significantly stronger than the picked up signal).
Solutions there include EMF shielding and redesigning the circuits.
Problems like this are difficult to diagnose, as they are not always obvious, and there is very little you can do to test or troubleshoot directly. Often it involves experience and a little lucky guesswork.
GrpA