I worked at Maxis in 1997-1998, and a prototype of The Sims was already on their internal 'toys' server -- I was told by some of the veterans that the game had been sitting there gathering dust for more than five years, presumably because Maxis' marketing department wouldn't let them finish it (Maxis' marketing department composed a huge percentage of the company and was, at least from my point of view, the principal reason that the company ended up losing so much money that they were eventually bought out by EA.)
I don't know how The Sims eventually got made (I had long since left the company), but I rather suspect that someone from EA found it sitting on a server and said, "there's potential here -- why don't we flesh this out?"
I'd say that Ozy and Millie's take on web comics is definitely worth a read. This plotline continues for the next several days, but is well summarised by the linked strip.
Ozy and Millie is undoubtedly my favourite web comic (Sorry, Pete!).. and one of only two that I keep up to date with, these days.
After all, the Playstation 2 can render Phantom Menace in real-time just like they said, and has been used to guide missiles for the military, just like they said it would..
*yawn* This sort of marketing tripe gets posted to Slashdot? And people here take it seriously? C'mon, guys, these are the people who gave you the Emotion Engine -- what are you thinking to be suckered in by them twice?
Maybe the next Code Red won't be quite so bad, if Microsoft can patch the latest bugs in IIS installations on systems that aren't being actively administrated by anyone..
Interesting thought, though.. if they're installing updates automatically, they can't put EULAs into those updates. Does that imply anything concerning the usage of the updated software? (Do you get back the right to reverse-engineer it, for example?)
I'm on a corporate LAN with an Exchange server. Here's what I did:
I got one of the old PCs that nobody wanted any more (P-200), stuck two 2-gig drives into it, and installed Debian Linux (any other UNIX-style OS would work just as well -- I just happened to have my Debian CDs with me at the time). I then installed fetchmail and mutt, and set up/etc/email-addresses to convert my local user name into my address on the exchange server.
I configured fetchmail to grab my e-mail from the exchange server via POP3, using the user name and password that I use to connect to the network (this means that I have to adjust my.fetchmailrc every two months or so, when it insists I change my network password). That's all there is to it!
So far as I've experienced, the standard Exchange server setup allows POP3 connections, and downloading mail through POP3 is much, MUCH faster than through Outlook's proprietary protocol!
And of course, it means that I get to have a reliable Linux box for e-mail and web browsing on my left, even if I have to do the main part of my development work on a Win2k box.
For what it's worth, I'm running Debian GNU/Linux on a Dell Latitude CP at the moment (installing Debian on this laptop was my introduction to Unixes in general; sort of a trial by fire!) XFree86 autodetected the video chipset, so X installation/configuration turned out to be remarkably painless.
Audio, however, was another matter. It was easy to get the Soundblaster (8) compatibility mode to work (just turn it on in the kernel), but if you want to play MP3s or other high-fidelity sounds, the quality is just unacceptable.
Eventually I managed to get ALSA configured, and now the computer is an absolute dream to work with. It's surprisingly fast for a Pentium 200, and has a tremendous battery life (which averages about 30% longer than it did when I was running Win9x).
More direct laptop support from Dell would be welcome, of course, but I didn't find there to be any real trouble installing Linux, apart from making ALSA find the Crystal Semiconductor audio chipset, which I notice that Dell doesn't seem to be putting in their laptops any more, anyway.
Did anybody else notice that a particular editorial writer who seems to be pleased that the Oscar celebrations are showing signs of 'interactivity' (using his definition) is the same editorial writer who doesn't respond to feedback or take part in discussions?
Admittedly, his definition of 'interactive' is "[unusual] content, not just the means of delivery" (square brackets inferred from content of editorial). Anybody want to chip in to buy a copy of Webster's for Jon?
Well, there's TD Gammon, which plays a pretty mean game of Backgammon using a neural network (and is rated as a master level player, no less!).. The author, Gerald Tesauro, has written a paper on the subject at:
http://web.cps.msu.edu/rlr/pub/Tesauro2.html
from the abstract:
"TD Gammon is a neural network that is able to teach itself to play backgammon soley by playing against itself and learning from the results, based on the TD(Lambda) reinforcment learning algorithm (Sutton, 1988). Despite starting from random initial weights (and hence random initial strategy), TD Gammon achieves a surprisingly strong level of play. With zero knowledge built in at the start of learning (i.e. given only a "raw" description of the board state), the network learns to play at a strong intermediate level. Furthermore, when a set of hand crafted features is added to the network's input representation, the result is a truly staggering level of performance: the latest version of TD Gammon is now estimated to play at a strong master level that is extremely close to the world's best human players. "
The folks at Cyberlife would have also used neural networks at the core of their 'Creatures' games and other applications. I like Creatures as an example, just because the neural networks clearly show their strengths and weaknesses in that context. The networks quickly reach an uncanny level of 'intelligence', but that 'intelligence' vanishes rapidly if training continues for too long. (In the Creatures fanbase, this loss of intelligence is called the 'One Hour Stupidity Syndrome', since the Norns typically start showing signs of it about an hour after being hatched)
Cyberlife can be found at: http://www.cyberlife.co.uk/ or http://www.creatures2.com/
Slashdot Mirror
Egads.. you mean that IBM is behind the scenes and is secretly putting SCO up to suing IBM and contesting the GPL?
It's so crazy, it just might work!
A more accurate analogy: if you built a house on Park Place, and two more on Broadway, would you deny that they have value?
I worked at Maxis in 1997-1998, and a prototype of The Sims was already on their internal 'toys' server -- I was told by some of the veterans that the game had been sitting there gathering dust for more than five years, presumably because Maxis' marketing department wouldn't let them finish it (Maxis' marketing department composed a huge percentage of the company and was, at least from my point of view, the principal reason that the company ended up losing so much money that they were eventually bought out by EA.)
I don't know how The Sims eventually got made (I had long since left the company), but I rather suspect that someone from EA found it sitting on a server and said, "there's potential here -- why don't we flesh this out?"
One word:
aptitude.
Because every package maintenance tool needs a built-in implementation of minesweeper.
I'd say that Ozy and Millie's take on web comics is definitely worth a read. This plotline continues for the next several days, but is well summarised by the linked strip.
Ozy and Millie is undoubtedly my favourite web comic (Sorry, Pete!).. and one of only two that I keep up to date with, these days.
After all, the Playstation 2 can render Phantom Menace in real-time just like they said, and has been used to guide missiles for the military, just like they said it would..
*yawn* This sort of marketing tripe gets posted to Slashdot? And people here take it seriously? C'mon, guys, these are the people who gave you the Emotion Engine -- what are you thinking to be suckered in by them twice?
Maybe the next Code Red won't be quite so bad, if Microsoft can patch the latest bugs in IIS installations on systems that aren't being actively administrated by anyone..
Interesting thought, though.. if they're installing updates automatically, they can't put EULAs into those updates. Does that imply anything concerning the usage of the updated software? (Do you get back the right to reverse-engineer it, for example?)
Amazing how five minutes research can turn up information such as the CHOICESPATH environment variable.
It defaults to ~/Choices if you don't set it to something else.
This is in Rox's FAQ on the project homepage.
I'm on a corporate LAN with an Exchange server. Here's what I did:
/etc/email-addresses to convert my local user name into my address on the exchange server.
.fetchmailrc every two months or so, when it insists I change my network password). That's all there is to it!
I got one of the old PCs that nobody wanted any more (P-200), stuck two 2-gig drives into it, and installed Debian Linux (any other UNIX-style OS would work just as well -- I just happened to have my Debian CDs with me at the time). I then installed fetchmail and mutt, and set up
I configured fetchmail to grab my e-mail from the exchange server via POP3, using the user name and password that I use to connect to the network (this means that I have to adjust my
So far as I've experienced, the standard Exchange server setup allows POP3 connections, and downloading mail through POP3 is much, MUCH faster than through Outlook's proprietary protocol!
And of course, it means that I get to have a reliable Linux box for e-mail and web browsing on my left, even if I have to do the main part of my development work on a Win2k box.
For what it's worth, I'm running Debian GNU/Linux on a Dell Latitude CP at the moment (installing Debian on this laptop was my introduction to Unixes in general; sort of a trial by fire!) XFree86 autodetected the video chipset, so X installation/configuration turned out to be remarkably painless.
Audio, however, was another matter. It was easy to get the Soundblaster (8) compatibility mode to work (just turn it on in the kernel), but if you want to play MP3s or other high-fidelity sounds, the quality is just unacceptable.
Eventually I managed to get ALSA configured, and now the computer is an absolute dream to work with. It's surprisingly fast for a Pentium 200, and has a tremendous battery life (which averages about 30% longer than it did when I was running Win9x).
More direct laptop support from Dell would be welcome, of course, but I didn't find there to be any real trouble installing Linux, apart from making ALSA find the Crystal Semiconductor audio chipset, which I notice that Dell doesn't seem to be putting in their laptops any more, anyway.
Did anybody else notice that a particular editorial writer who seems to be pleased that the Oscar celebrations are showing signs of 'interactivity' (using his definition) is the same editorial writer who doesn't respond to feedback or take part in discussions?
Admittedly, his definition of 'interactive' is "[unusual] content, not just the means of delivery" (square brackets inferred from content of editorial). Anybody want to chip in to buy a copy of Webster's for Jon?
mewse
Well, there's TD Gammon, which plays a pretty mean game of Backgammon using a neural network (and is rated as a master level player, no less!).. The author, Gerald Tesauro, has written a paper on the subject at:
http://web.cps.msu.edu/rlr/pub/Tesauro2.html
from the abstract:
"TD Gammon is a neural network that is able to teach itself to play backgammon soley by playing against itself and learning from the results, based on the TD(Lambda) reinforcment learning algorithm (Sutton, 1988). Despite starting from random initial weights (and hence random initial strategy), TD Gammon achieves a surprisingly strong level of play. With zero knowledge built in at the start of learning (i.e. given only a "raw" description of the board state), the network learns to play at a strong intermediate level. Furthermore, when a set of hand crafted features is added to the network's input representation, the result is a truly staggering level of performance: the latest version of TD Gammon is now estimated to play at a strong master level that is extremely close to the world's best human players. "
The folks at Cyberlife would have also used neural networks at the core of their 'Creatures' games and other applications. I like Creatures as an example, just because the neural networks clearly show their strengths and weaknesses in that context. The networks quickly reach an uncanny level of 'intelligence', but that 'intelligence' vanishes rapidly if training continues for too long. (In the Creatures fanbase, this loss of intelligence is called the 'One Hour Stupidity Syndrome', since the Norns typically start showing signs of it about an hour after being hatched)
Cyberlife can be found at:
http://www.cyberlife.co.uk/
or
http://www.creatures2.com/