This has been bothering me ever since the PS3 came out. There are so many games that only offer multiplayer online, with no option to play with someone sitting next to you. It might offer what they consider a "better" experience, with no split screen, or being confined to the same screen as with other dungeon crawlers, but they're basically saying that if you want to play it with a family member or room mate, you'll need to buy another console, TV and second copy of the game. That's just stupid.
There already is an iPhone/iPod app for this. It's called SoundAMP, and is $10. So for $210 you can get an iPod touch and SoundAMP, and have way more features than a normal hearing aid (unless the new ones can play music, surf the web, etc). It even has a playback feature in case you missed what someone said (presumably in the case where you can't ask them to repeat it, such as TV, or an announcement or something).
It's not hard to deny. Unless someone is just detached from reality, seeing something in a game or movie does not harden them to seeing it in real life. I played Unreal Tournament for years, with my favorite weapons being the flak cannon, which would blow people into "gibs," and the sniper rifle, which would shoot their heads clean off. I don't think I'm any more hardened to real-life gore than someone who hasn't played violent/gory games. I literally couldn't hurt a bug. I catch them and let them go outside.
Also, if seeing gore is all it takes to be desensitized to it and more likely to inflict it on others, wouldn't surgeons be turning into killers left and right? They see the insides of people on a daily basis.
I love Star Trek, but that part of it always drives me crazy. If someone figures out their shield frequency, they can shoot right through them as if they aren't there. Luckily, changing the shield frequency is all they need to do to block the enemy attacks once again. It doesn't even seem difficult for them to tell the shields to randomly change frequencies, because they often do this when fighting the Borg. So why isn't it just standard for shields to constantly change frequencies? I assume the Enterprise's own weapons are calibrated for their own shield frequency so they can go through it, but it shouldn't be too difficult to have them set to the same frequency variation program.
Borg shields seem to be the opposite. They are completely vulnerable to all phaser frequencies until they've "adapted," which they can do after one shot, or maybe two or three if the frequency is randomized. Either they're picking between 3 random frequencies, or the Borg shields just adapt to the entire range of the phasers. Of course they only keep this adaptation for a short time, because the next encounter, they're vulnerable again.
They also can't beam things to or from the ship when their shields are up, but there are a few times when they are able to calibrate the transporter to beam through enemy shields. If they can do that, can't they calibrate the transporters to work through their own shields?
The Ares 1 has not had its first test flight. The 1-X had a test flight, which was just the first stage. They don't plan on a full Ares 1 test flight until 2014. Pretty much every modern rocket is based on earlier models which didn't have perfect records. Falcon 1 was designed from the ground up. It would have been a near miracle for the first couple flights to not have problems.
SpaceX will have its Dragon module docking with the ISS 4 years before Ares I/Orion's first test flight, and manned missions 2-3 years before Orion. While I agree that it's bad for NASA to stop manned spaceflight before the replacement is available, THAT part was not Obama's plan. Bush decided that in 2004. Obama just wants to cancel the Constellation program, which seems like it's already behind what commercial systems like SpaceX have available.
Maybe one way they could counter griefing is to give some kind of risk to the griefer. Most MMOs have no system of law. You can go around killing all the players/NPCs you want, with little more risk than being chased by few guards for 30 seconds. You can then go talk to the baker, who just witnessed you brutally kill 30 peasants, children, and low-level players, but thinks nothing of it. What if killing low level players had consequences, like your character being "executed" (obviously being killed just to respawn 10 seconds later isn't really a punishment, so it could mean something else). What's funny, is WoW originally DID have penalties intended for killing passive NPCs or low-level characters. The rule book talks about dishonor, and how getting enough dishonor would cause you own faction to stop talking to you, eventually even attacking you if you entered town before your dishonor wore off.
By the time the honor system was implemented though, they had removed dishonor (I think initially they did give negative honor for killing passive NPCs, but not for killing low level players). There was no penalty for killing lowbies all day. I played WoW on an RP-PVP server for a while, thinking it would provide some of the world-pvp I missed on my PVE server after Battlegrounds came out. Unfortunately, pretty much the only PVP that exists on PVP servers any more is griefing. I leveled from 1-70 without encountering a single enemy player that wasn't a skull (more than 10 levels above me) until I got to level 61, where they would fly overhead on their flying mount, waiting for me to drop to low health so they could swoop in for the easy kill.
Even though I'm not a "wolf," I wouldn't be opposed to a game including some kind of loss when killed, IF the person doing the killing faced some kind of risk as well. A level 80 player might not be able to get anything of value from a level 30, but they'd kill them all day just for the "fun" of causing them to lose something. In real life (most) people don't go around killing random helpless people because of morals, and a risk of imprisonment. In the game world, neither exists (most people aren't morally opposed to annoying someone).
The problem is, DRM seems to more often inconvenience the people who DO buy the game rather than those that pirate it. Pirates crack the game so it doesn't need the CD, doesn't need an online connection, etc. Sure, DRM might be difficult for most pirates to overcome, but it only takes one pirate to crack it, and then the rest have access through torrents. Then the only people inconvenienced by DRM are the legitimate purchasers, who can't play when their internet goes down or when Ubisoft's DRM server is down. Also, if someone wants to replay a game 10 years from now, will Ubisoft still be running the server?
AppleLink didn't come from QuantumLink. AppleLink was developed in-house by Apple, for use only by Apple employees and dealers. You are thinking of AppleLink Personal Edition, which was developed by Apple and Quantum, and didn't actually connect to the AppleLink service. Quantum retained the rights to AppleLink Personal Edition, and released a Mac/Windows version called "America Online," since Apple owned the AppleLink name.
The Slashdot title didn't really have anything to do with the linked article. It's not really about stunts, but about what might be seen as romantic vs. what might be seen as lame or generic, which of course depends entirely on the recipient, so "Ask Slashdot" isn't really a good place for an answer. I personally don't care for flowers or chocolate for Valentine's day. While I love chocolate, the stuff stores stock for Valentine's day tends to be of low quality, and in tacky, heart-shaped boxes.
I agree that starting a relationship for Valentine's day is a bad idea. For some reason, people seem to think they must be in a relationship, so a lot of bad relationships are probably started for Valentine's day.
Yeah. It really is too bad that when buying the iPad, you have to state what one function you're going to use it for, which can't be changed through the life of the product. I checked the "Scrabble" option when buying mine, but at least I like Scrabble, and am fine with it only doing that.
Or maybe, just maybe, no one is suggesting that people buy an iPad just to play board games. Maybe they're just saying if you are going to get one, it would work well for playing board games.....nah. That's silly. You're right. Your $800 vs $75 example is a fair and logical comparison.
Yeah. I know it's not perfect, and that all 2 m^2 of skin wouldn't actually be receiving full sunlight. I was just trying to emphasize that even with unrealistically optimal conditions, we wouldn't get nearly enough energy from the sun to live on photosynthesis alone.
I just did a few quick calculations. Assuming humans have 2 square meters of skin, and stood naked in direct sunlight in the best conditions for 8 hours per day, and assuming 5% efficiency for photosynthesis, we would only get enough energy to provide for 11 hours of sleep (250 BTU/hr), 7 hours of sitting still (400 BTU), 4 hours of light work (650 BTU) or 1 hour of heavy work (2400 BTU). We'd still probably need to consume 2/3 or so of our normal caloric intake from food.
I'd say greedy is luring in customers by advertising unlimited access, requiring them to pay $30 every month for two years for that access whether they need unlimited or not, and then deciding that they're using too much of their "unlimited" connection. I still don't understand how it's not illegal to advertise something as unlimited, and then limit it.
I've been on Facebook for 9 months now, and haven't gotten a single spam friend request. The only request I've gotten from someone I didn't know was from someone whose blog post I had responded to, and he assumed I was someone he knew since only his friends and family knew about his blog (I found it through a google search). I can only assume that you are using some game or other application that is sharing your info or something.
I call BS. Just because you don't die when you crash in a video game, it doesn't mean someone who started out in a driving simulator would't know the risks of crashing. Also, to get the best lap times in Gran Turismo, as in real driving, you can't drive too aggressively and slide off the road, bump rails, etc. Even if he had no fear of injury (which I think is a stupid assumption), he'd be avoiding wrecks to get the best time anyway.
That's a bit different though. People went from downloading illegally to downloading legally because downloading is more convenient than going to the music store and buying a CD, then ripping it to your computer, and the legal download sites allow previews of the songs before you buy. I think modding hardware, downloading DVD ISOs, and then burning the DVDs is less convenient than buying the game, and in some cases, full games can just be downloaded on PSN or XBox Live these days.
There is also no way to rent most music, so it's basically either buy or don't buy. Most games have demos you can download, and if not, most games can be rented for a few dollars a night.
I think the person who downloads an MP3 out of convenience, and someone who goes out of their way to get something for free are two entirely different people. The latter can't really make an argument for convenience or one for "try before you buy."
You really think so? The "backups" that most people use in their modded XBoxes are backups from some guy on a torrent site who himself probably only rented the game. How are these people their best customers? They probably play more games and have higher gamer scores, and might even pay for XBox Live Gold, but MS still isn't making as much from them as someone who buys only a few games a year.
Slashdot Mirror
This has been bothering me ever since the PS3 came out. There are so many games that only offer multiplayer online, with no option to play with someone sitting next to you. It might offer what they consider a "better" experience, with no split screen, or being confined to the same screen as with other dungeon crawlers, but they're basically saying that if you want to play it with a family member or room mate, you'll need to buy another console, TV and second copy of the game. That's just stupid.
There already is an iPhone/iPod app for this. It's called SoundAMP, and is $10. So for $210 you can get an iPod touch and SoundAMP, and have way more features than a normal hearing aid (unless the new ones can play music, surf the web, etc). It even has a playback feature in case you missed what someone said (presumably in the case where you can't ask them to repeat it, such as TV, or an announcement or something).
It's not hard to deny. Unless someone is just detached from reality, seeing something in a game or movie does not harden them to seeing it in real life. I played Unreal Tournament for years, with my favorite weapons being the flak cannon, which would blow people into "gibs," and the sniper rifle, which would shoot their heads clean off. I don't think I'm any more hardened to real-life gore than someone who hasn't played violent/gory games. I literally couldn't hurt a bug. I catch them and let them go outside.
Also, if seeing gore is all it takes to be desensitized to it and more likely to inflict it on others, wouldn't surgeons be turning into killers left and right? They see the insides of people on a daily basis.
I love Star Trek, but that part of it always drives me crazy. If someone figures out their shield frequency, they can shoot right through them as if they aren't there. Luckily, changing the shield frequency is all they need to do to block the enemy attacks once again. It doesn't even seem difficult for them to tell the shields to randomly change frequencies, because they often do this when fighting the Borg. So why isn't it just standard for shields to constantly change frequencies? I assume the Enterprise's own weapons are calibrated for their own shield frequency so they can go through it, but it shouldn't be too difficult to have them set to the same frequency variation program.
Borg shields seem to be the opposite. They are completely vulnerable to all phaser frequencies until they've "adapted," which they can do after one shot, or maybe two or three if the frequency is randomized. Either they're picking between 3 random frequencies, or the Borg shields just adapt to the entire range of the phasers. Of course they only keep this adaptation for a short time, because the next encounter, they're vulnerable again.
They also can't beam things to or from the ship when their shields are up, but there are a few times when they are able to calibrate the transporter to beam through enemy shields. If they can do that, can't they calibrate the transporters to work through their own shields?
The Ares 1 has not had its first test flight. The 1-X had a test flight, which was just the first stage. They don't plan on a full Ares 1 test flight until 2014. Pretty much every modern rocket is based on earlier models which didn't have perfect records. Falcon 1 was designed from the ground up. It would have been a near miracle for the first couple flights to not have problems.
I'm liberal and under 40, and I don't see how either impacts ones opinion on this. I agree with the grandparent.
SpaceX will have its Dragon module docking with the ISS 4 years before Ares I/Orion's first test flight, and manned missions 2-3 years before Orion. While I agree that it's bad for NASA to stop manned spaceflight before the replacement is available, THAT part was not Obama's plan. Bush decided that in 2004. Obama just wants to cancel the Constellation program, which seems like it's already behind what commercial systems like SpaceX have available.
Maybe one way they could counter griefing is to give some kind of risk to the griefer. Most MMOs have no system of law. You can go around killing all the players/NPCs you want, with little more risk than being chased by few guards for 30 seconds. You can then go talk to the baker, who just witnessed you brutally kill 30 peasants, children, and low-level players, but thinks nothing of it. What if killing low level players had consequences, like your character being "executed" (obviously being killed just to respawn 10 seconds later isn't really a punishment, so it could mean something else). What's funny, is WoW originally DID have penalties intended for killing passive NPCs or low-level characters. The rule book talks about dishonor, and how getting enough dishonor would cause you own faction to stop talking to you, eventually even attacking you if you entered town before your dishonor wore off.
By the time the honor system was implemented though, they had removed dishonor (I think initially they did give negative honor for killing passive NPCs, but not for killing low level players). There was no penalty for killing lowbies all day. I played WoW on an RP-PVP server for a while, thinking it would provide some of the world-pvp I missed on my PVE server after Battlegrounds came out. Unfortunately, pretty much the only PVP that exists on PVP servers any more is griefing. I leveled from 1-70 without encountering a single enemy player that wasn't a skull (more than 10 levels above me) until I got to level 61, where they would fly overhead on their flying mount, waiting for me to drop to low health so they could swoop in for the easy kill.
Even though I'm not a "wolf," I wouldn't be opposed to a game including some kind of loss when killed, IF the person doing the killing faced some kind of risk as well. A level 80 player might not be able to get anything of value from a level 30, but they'd kill them all day just for the "fun" of causing them to lose something. In real life (most) people don't go around killing random helpless people because of morals, and a risk of imprisonment. In the game world, neither exists (most people aren't morally opposed to annoying someone).
The problem is, DRM seems to more often inconvenience the people who DO buy the game rather than those that pirate it. Pirates crack the game so it doesn't need the CD, doesn't need an online connection, etc. Sure, DRM might be difficult for most pirates to overcome, but it only takes one pirate to crack it, and then the rest have access through torrents. Then the only people inconvenienced by DRM are the legitimate purchasers, who can't play when their internet goes down or when Ubisoft's DRM server is down. Also, if someone wants to replay a game 10 years from now, will Ubisoft still be running the server?
No. You were correct. Soichi tweeted at about 7am this morning with a picture of all windows open - http://twitpic.com/13qfse
AppleLink didn't come from QuantumLink. AppleLink was developed in-house by Apple, for use only by Apple employees and dealers. You are thinking of AppleLink Personal Edition, which was developed by Apple and Quantum, and didn't actually connect to the AppleLink service. Quantum retained the rights to AppleLink Personal Edition, and released a Mac/Windows version called "America Online," since Apple owned the AppleLink name.
I agree. While I've never actually done (professional) game development, it seems like the waterfall model would make more sense for a game.
The Slashdot title didn't really have anything to do with the linked article. It's not really about stunts, but about what might be seen as romantic vs. what might be seen as lame or generic, which of course depends entirely on the recipient, so "Ask Slashdot" isn't really a good place for an answer. I personally don't care for flowers or chocolate for Valentine's day. While I love chocolate, the stuff stores stock for Valentine's day tends to be of low quality, and in tacky, heart-shaped boxes.
I agree that starting a relationship for Valentine's day is a bad idea. For some reason, people seem to think they must be in a relationship, so a lot of bad relationships are probably started for Valentine's day.
Yeah. It really is too bad that when buying the iPad, you have to state what one function you're going to use it for, which can't be changed through the life of the product. I checked the "Scrabble" option when buying mine, but at least I like Scrabble, and am fine with it only doing that.
Or maybe, just maybe, no one is suggesting that people buy an iPad just to play board games. Maybe they're just saying if you are going to get one, it would work well for playing board games.....nah. That's silly. You're right. Your $800 vs $75 example is a fair and logical comparison.
Yeah. I know it's not perfect, and that all 2 m^2 of skin wouldn't actually be receiving full sunlight. I was just trying to emphasize that even with unrealistically optimal conditions, we wouldn't get nearly enough energy from the sun to live on photosynthesis alone.
That's so much better than my idea of a bicycle powered TV. With your method, you could power the TV directly, just by eating.
I just did a few quick calculations. Assuming humans have 2 square meters of skin, and stood naked in direct sunlight in the best conditions for 8 hours per day, and assuming 5% efficiency for photosynthesis, we would only get enough energy to provide for 11 hours of sleep (250 BTU/hr), 7 hours of sitting still (400 BTU), 4 hours of light work (650 BTU) or 1 hour of heavy work (2400 BTU). We'd still probably need to consume 2/3 or so of our normal caloric intake from food.
Sources:
http://www.solarexpert.com/Heat-theory.html
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/IgorFridman.shtml
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/514275
http://www.ccmr.cornell.edu/education/ask/index.html?quid=1021
I'd say greedy is luring in customers by advertising unlimited access, requiring them to pay $30 every month for two years for that access whether they need unlimited or not, and then deciding that they're using too much of their "unlimited" connection. I still don't understand how it's not illegal to advertise something as unlimited, and then limit it.
I've been on Facebook for 9 months now, and haven't gotten a single spam friend request. The only request I've gotten from someone I didn't know was from someone whose blog post I had responded to, and he assumed I was someone he knew since only his friends and family knew about his blog (I found it through a google search). I can only assume that you are using some game or other application that is sharing your info or something.
That's my justification for running SETI/Folding@Home. I only run them in the winter, and I almost never have to turn on the heat in my apartment.
A computer with dual quad core Xeons could easily draw 450w+ under load.
[citation needed]
I call BS. Just because you don't die when you crash in a video game, it doesn't mean someone who started out in a driving simulator would't know the risks of crashing. Also, to get the best lap times in Gran Turismo, as in real driving, you can't drive too aggressively and slide off the road, bump rails, etc. Even if he had no fear of injury (which I think is a stupid assumption), he'd be avoiding wrecks to get the best time anyway.
That's a bit different though. People went from downloading illegally to downloading legally because downloading is more convenient than going to the music store and buying a CD, then ripping it to your computer, and the legal download sites allow previews of the songs before you buy. I think modding hardware, downloading DVD ISOs, and then burning the DVDs is less convenient than buying the game, and in some cases, full games can just be downloaded on PSN or XBox Live these days.
There is also no way to rent most music, so it's basically either buy or don't buy. Most games have demos you can download, and if not, most games can be rented for a few dollars a night.
I think the person who downloads an MP3 out of convenience, and someone who goes out of their way to get something for free are two entirely different people. The latter can't really make an argument for convenience or one for "try before you buy."
You really think so? The "backups" that most people use in their modded XBoxes are backups from some guy on a torrent site who himself probably only rented the game. How are these people their best customers? They probably play more games and have higher gamer scores, and might even pay for XBox Live Gold, but MS still isn't making as much from them as someone who buys only a few games a year.
I meant that it picks up that I like that, not that I thought it analyzed the song and determined that.