Most games already have a option to choose how hard or easy you want your game. This works better than autoleveling, because If I set the game to be hard, and I die too much, maybe thats exactly what I want, and If set game too easy and I kill everything, maybe thats what I want.
I couldn't agree more. There seems to be continuing trend in game design towards making games where the player is never frustrated. The way I interpret this, we're headed towards the philosophy of "don't make the game too hard, and if the player is still having trouble, make it even easier by dynamically adjusting the difficulty."
Now obviously for some people that's great. If you're a casual gamer, you still want to be able to play through games without getting stuck on the first level. However, I think there's a real hole in the market right now for games that cater to hardcore gamers. Personally, I like games that are a little bit frustrating, because it means I'm being challenged. I don't want to play an interactive movie, I want to play a game.
There are signs that this might be changing (Demon's Souls is a good example of a game that bucks the trend and does so in a very compelling way), but I think one of the big reasons that multiplayer games are so popular nowadays is simply that real players provide a genuine challenge to play against.
Do you even know how much waste you're talking about? Imagine a cylinder 10mm in diameter. A 5mm slice of that cylinder will supply your energy needs for a year.
Do *you* even know how much waste *you* are talking about? The US alone has accumulated over 60,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from fission reactors. Your figure of a 5mm by 10mm cylinder per year of waste is ridiculous.
Yes, of course coal releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere. Since we have to store the nuclear waste, *none* of it ends up in the atmosphere.
Now I'm not saying coal is good, or that nuclear isn't necessarily worth it...but if you want to advocate nuclear power, then stop damaging its credibility with arguments like these.
Paper is plenty sustainable. It's a renewable resource that can be recycled easily and cheaply. Obviously it takes some energy to manufacture and ship, but so does the kindle.
The "sustainability" claim is obviously just an excuse for something they wanted to do anyway.
Who's to say batteries can't be "free of rare metals" or have "extremely fast charge times"? Yes, nobody likes the limitations of current battery technology, that's why we're spending money to eliminate them.
I know the word "battery" isn't as exciting and glamourous as "ultra-capacitor", but let's keep things realistic here. There are batteries we have that work well for electric cars, and they only keep improving with time. Ultra-capacitors, on the other hand, have yet to demonstrate themselves as anything other than hype.
None of the Republicans voted for the stimulus bill.
That is absolutely incorrect. Three Republican senators voted for it. This may sound insignificant, but without these Republican votes, the bill could not have passed. Because of this, the Democrats ended up making quite a lot of changes to a bill that they could have otherwise just pushed through on their own.
Very well put. The Republicans have been saying things like "the stimulus bill has too much spending in it." What do they think stimulus is?!
This is basic economics, and it's not hard to understand. If the government gives someone a tax cut, they might spend the money and stimulate the economy, or they might just put it into savings. If, on the other hand, the government spends that money directly, they are guaranteed to stimulate the economy.
The best way for the government to stimulate the economy during a recession is government spending. Period. The Republicans aren't opposed to it because they think it won't work, they're opposed to it because they're afraid it will, and they'll do anything to try and bring down their opposition.
If you used that same gallon of gasoline to power a generator to charge your electric car, you wouldn't get any more efficiency--the opposite, in fact, due to losses in the conversion and storage process for electricity....not that they're so vastly more energy-efficient than gasoline cars (because holistically, they're not).
That is simply incorrect.
Even if 100% of the energy for an electric car is produced by oil burning power plants, you are much better off efficiency-wise than you are with an ICE-powered car. This is considering all energy losses involved, from the transportation of the fuel to the losses in the power lines to the inefficiencies in the batteries and motor. Large-scale generators are just that much more efficient.
Do two minutes of research next time before you post. Please. I have seen this myth debunked so many times, and I cannot believe it's still being repeated.
And yet, all I can see people talking about is how this is "propaganda". What!? Since when is providing straightforward information about your future plans and priorities equivalent to propaganda? Would you all prefer a president who keeps everything in secret and just does whatever he wants behind his country's back?
I realize this post thread is long since dead, but I only just noticed your reply, so here's my response:
Please do your research before you declare that I'm wrong. The "bog standard MacBooks" do indeed come with the audio features I described.
Furthermore, my overall point still stands if you would actually check the facts. For the sake of comparison I'll look at the Dell M1330 XPS laptop, since that has a similar screen size and specs as the MacBook. If you actually go on the Dell site and customize it to match the specs the midrange MacBook model, the price is almost exactly the same (the Dell is slightly more pricey, actually). It does NOT come with bluetooth or gigabit standard as you claim all modern PCs do. Yes, 802.11n is cheap, but it still costs extra and all the little things add up. The actual battery life of laptops is always debatable, but regardless you can customize the M1330 to have the same watt-hour battery as a MacBook if you're willing to pay extra.
Even customizing it as closely as possible, there are still some features like the gigabit ethernet that you cannot even get on the Dell. Then again, you can't get a memory card reader on the MacBook, so it all about balances out.
Before you try and argue with someone about something like this, you really, really should check the numbers first.
Fair enough, but many people fail to take the extra features into account when doing this kind of comparison. Yeah, you might be able to get a laptop as fast as a MacBook for half as much, but does that laptop come with
- integrated webcam - 802.11n - bluetooth - ~five hour battery life - gigabit ethernet - built in microphone - firewire - standard AND optical audio output AND input - IR support with remote included free
etc.
In the informal comparisons I've done, they come out about even when you include all the extra stuff that Macs come with. Obviously, not everyone needs all those things, so maybe for some people it's not the best choice, but that doesn't mean that Macs aren't a good value for the money.
I think you missed the point the parent was trying to make. There's a catch-22 going on here: you can only detect a cosmic ray by interacting with it, but if you can interact with it then it's not a problem, because once it interacts with something then it's gone.
All in all, this sounds suspiciously like a patent on parity ram disguised as something else.
What Zune support? If it had that I'd be excited, but according to the FAQ the only devices it works with are several phones, the PSP, and the Kindle. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about anything that defeats DRM, but it doesn't seem like doubleTwist works with most music players out there right now, and therefore probably won't be perceived as much of at threat. Also, it doesn't even really defeat the iTunes DRM, it just uses the analog hole to produce degraded-quality transcoded files.
It's better if you want to create hydrogen, because using electricity to convert water to hydrogen is horribly inefficient.
However, the whole idea is pretty stupid when you consider that with today's technology you could just generate electricity, charge a battery, and run an electric car. The whole process would be much more efficient than the 15% advertised by this system, and even the 15% is just a theoretical number. Sadly, hydrogen cars are basically a scam brought about by oil companies to distract attention and funding away from gasoline alternatives that are actually realistic.
Tagging this "defectivebydesign" doesn't make any sense here at all, whether or not Apple's a monopoly. "Defective by design" is a phrase coined to describe DRM encumbered products, because they really are designed to be that way. A defect in a firewall is most definitely not intentional. Unfortunately, "defective by design" has lost its roots, and has become a phrase that is mindlessly repeated by the slashdot hoards whenever any product has any problem with it whatsoever. Obviously it couldn't be due to oversight or incompetence, Apple must have intentionally gone out of their way to make a flaw in their firewall because they're evil./sarcasm
Except the first time he wasn't actually elected, and the second time he was "elected" via electronic voting machines. I don't think there's adequate evidence to call the majority of Americans idiots. We've just had the wool pulled over our eyes.
If it's the only reason the iTMS uses DRM is because of "the executives", then why don't labels get to choose whether or not they want DRM on songs they sell through iTunes? Every single song sold on iTunes has DRM forced on it, whether the artist/label wants it or not.
Furthermore, look at it from Apple's point of view. From what I've heard, Apple makes a relatively small amount of money directly from iTunes, whereas they make a huge amount of money from selling iPods. Now think about it. What company wouldn't kill for the opportunity to artifically force consumers to keep buying their product forever? What happens when it's time to buy a new portable music player and the hundreds of songs you bought won't play on anything that's not an iPod?
And to think people wonder why Apple won't license FairPlay to other companies.
basically with Apple DRM *I* can do whatever *I* want to do
Well good for you, but please don't generalize your own situation to the rest of the world. I happen to have a Linux machine, and as such I can not (legally) do whatever I want to do with music I've purchased from iTunes.
If Apple simply stops the DRM, they'd still sell as many, if not more iPods...
I beg to differ. As it stands right now, anyone who buys a significant amount of music from the iTMS is essentially locked into buying iPods forever, because their music won't play on any other portables.
I can't understand why everyone assumes that Apple is anti-DRM, and that Apple is somehow "forced" by the major labels to put DRM on all of the music being sold in their store. Never mind the fact that there are plenty of indie bands who hate DRM, yet still have it put on their music when Apple is the one selling. Pay no attention to the fact that the iTMS was created by Apple primarily to boost iPod sales.
No! Apple is a good company! They would never use something as evil as DRM, even if it meant ensuring the future of their largest source of revenue! Obviously it MUST be the labels' fault!!
What are you talking about? Linux doesn't threaten Apple in any way whatsoever. Apple's a hardware company, the Mac OS is just a selling point. Why on earth would they care which OS you want to use on your computer? Answer: they don't, and that's why they're releasing this product.
Oh it may be difficult to produce gasoline, but it's far from impossible. The thing that makes fossil fuels different from hydrogen is that there are already fossil fuels sitting in the ground just waiting to be harvested. However, there are no minable pockets of hydrogen.
So let me get this straight - you swapped out an old program (IE) for a new one (Firefox) without telling your relative. Why?
Sorry, I should have been more clear. That wasn't exactly what had happened. I did tell him what I was doing and why, he just didn't really understand.
The why part is also something I should have mentioned. He had more than ten different viruses/spywares/adwares on his computer. I cleaned them out for him, but I figured they'd just come back unless someone took preventive measures.
Slashdot Mirror
Because it doesn't cost the TV stations money when you turn your TV on. Websites have to pay bandwidth fees and the like.
I've got mixed feelings about ad-blocking, so I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it's definitely different from muting TV commercials.
Most games already have a option to choose how hard or easy you want your game. This works better than autoleveling, because If I set the game to be hard, and I die too much, maybe thats exactly what I want, and If set game too easy and I kill everything, maybe thats what I want.
I couldn't agree more. There seems to be continuing trend in game design towards making games where the player is never frustrated. The way I interpret this, we're headed towards the philosophy of "don't make the game too hard, and if the player is still having trouble, make it even easier by dynamically adjusting the difficulty."
Now obviously for some people that's great. If you're a casual gamer, you still want to be able to play through games without getting stuck on the first level. However, I think there's a real hole in the market right now for games that cater to hardcore gamers. Personally, I like games that are a little bit frustrating, because it means I'm being challenged. I don't want to play an interactive movie, I want to play a game.
There are signs that this might be changing (Demon's Souls is a good example of a game that bucks the trend and does so in a very compelling way), but I think one of the big reasons that multiplayer games are so popular nowadays is simply that real players provide a genuine challenge to play against.
Do you even know how much waste you're talking about? Imagine a cylinder 10mm in diameter. A 5mm slice of that cylinder will supply your energy needs for a year.
Do *you* even know how much waste *you* are talking about? The US alone has accumulated over 60,000 metric tons of nuclear waste from fission reactors. Your figure of a 5mm by 10mm cylinder per year of waste is ridiculous.
Yes, of course coal releases more radioactive material into the atmosphere. Since we have to store the nuclear waste, *none* of it ends up in the atmosphere.
Now I'm not saying coal is good, or that nuclear isn't necessarily worth it...but if you want to advocate nuclear power, then stop damaging its credibility with arguments like these.
Paper is plenty sustainable. It's a renewable resource that can be recycled easily and cheaply. Obviously it takes some energy to manufacture and ship, but so does the kindle.
The "sustainability" claim is obviously just an excuse for something they wanted to do anyway.
Who's to say batteries can't be "free of rare metals" or have "extremely fast charge times"? Yes, nobody likes the limitations of current battery technology, that's why we're spending money to eliminate them.
I know the word "battery" isn't as exciting and glamourous as "ultra-capacitor", but let's keep things realistic here. There are batteries we have that work well for electric cars, and they only keep improving with time. Ultra-capacitors, on the other hand, have yet to demonstrate themselves as anything other than hype.
None of the Republicans voted for the stimulus bill.
That is absolutely incorrect. Three Republican senators voted for it. This may sound insignificant, but without these Republican votes, the bill could not have passed. Because of this, the Democrats ended up making quite a lot of changes to a bill that they could have otherwise just pushed through on their own.
Very well put. The Republicans have been saying things like "the stimulus bill has too much spending in it." What do they think stimulus is?!
This is basic economics, and it's not hard to understand. If the government gives someone a tax cut, they might spend the money and stimulate the economy, or they might just put it into savings. If, on the other hand, the government spends that money directly, they are guaranteed to stimulate the economy.
The best way for the government to stimulate the economy during a recession is government spending. Period. The Republicans aren't opposed to it because they think it won't work, they're opposed to it because they're afraid it will, and they'll do anything to try and bring down their opposition.
There's a good paper with an in-depth analysis of the topic here:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/greendorm/participate/cee124/TeslaReading.pdf
It's written by Tesla about the Roadster, but all the facts have sources cited, and most of the information is not specific to their particular car.
If you used that same gallon of gasoline to power a generator to charge your electric car, you wouldn't get any more efficiency--the opposite, in fact, due to losses in the conversion and storage process for electricity....not that they're so vastly more energy-efficient than gasoline cars (because holistically, they're not).
That is simply incorrect.
Even if 100% of the energy for an electric car is produced by oil burning power plants, you are much better off efficiency-wise than you are with an ICE-powered car. This is considering all energy losses involved, from the transportation of the fuel to the losses in the power lines to the inefficiencies in the batteries and motor. Large-scale generators are just that much more efficient.
Do two minutes of research next time before you post. Please. I have seen this myth debunked so many times, and I cannot believe it's still being repeated.
Exactly! I couldn't agree with you more.
And yet, all I can see people talking about is how this is "propaganda". What!? Since when is providing straightforward information about your future plans and priorities equivalent to propaganda? Would you all prefer a president who keeps everything in secret and just does whatever he wants behind his country's back?
I realize this post thread is long since dead, but I only just noticed your reply, so here's my response:
Please do your research before you declare that I'm wrong. The "bog standard MacBooks" do indeed come with the audio features I described.
Furthermore, my overall point still stands if you would actually check the facts. For the sake of comparison I'll look at the Dell M1330 XPS laptop, since that has a similar screen size and specs as the MacBook. If you actually go on the Dell site and customize it to match the specs the midrange MacBook model, the price is almost exactly the same (the Dell is slightly more pricey, actually). It does NOT come with bluetooth or gigabit standard as you claim all modern PCs do. Yes, 802.11n is cheap, but it still costs extra and all the little things add up. The actual battery life of laptops is always debatable, but regardless you can customize the M1330 to have the same watt-hour battery as a MacBook if you're willing to pay extra.
Even customizing it as closely as possible, there are still some features like the gigabit ethernet that you cannot even get on the Dell. Then again, you can't get a memory card reader on the MacBook, so it all about balances out.
Before you try and argue with someone about something like this, you really, really should check the numbers first.
Fair enough, but many people fail to take the extra features into account when doing this kind of comparison. Yeah, you might be able to get a laptop as fast as a MacBook for half as much, but does that laptop come with
- integrated webcam
- 802.11n
- bluetooth
- ~five hour battery life
- gigabit ethernet
- built in microphone
- firewire
- standard AND optical audio output AND input
- IR support with remote included free
etc.
In the informal comparisons I've done, they come out about even when you include all the extra stuff that Macs come with. Obviously, not everyone needs all those things, so maybe for some people it's not the best choice, but that doesn't mean that Macs aren't a good value for the money.
I think you missed the point the parent was trying to make. There's a catch-22 going on here: you can only detect a cosmic ray by interacting with it, but if you can interact with it then it's not a problem, because once it interacts with something then it's gone. All in all, this sounds suspiciously like a patent on parity ram disguised as something else.
What Zune support? If it had that I'd be excited, but according to the FAQ the only devices it works with are several phones, the PSP, and the Kindle. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about anything that defeats DRM, but it doesn't seem like doubleTwist works with most music players out there right now, and therefore probably won't be perceived as much of at threat. Also, it doesn't even really defeat the iTunes DRM, it just uses the analog hole to produce degraded-quality transcoded files.
It's better if you want to create hydrogen, because using electricity to convert water to hydrogen is horribly inefficient.
However, the whole idea is pretty stupid when you consider that with today's technology you could just generate electricity, charge a battery, and run an electric car. The whole process would be much more efficient than the 15% advertised by this system, and even the 15% is just a theoretical number. Sadly, hydrogen cars are basically a scam brought about by oil companies to distract attention and funding away from gasoline alternatives that are actually realistic.
Tagging this "defectivebydesign" doesn't make any sense here at all, whether or not Apple's a monopoly. "Defective by design" is a phrase coined to describe DRM encumbered products, because they really are designed to be that way. A defect in a firewall is most definitely not intentional. Unfortunately, "defective by design" has lost its roots, and has become a phrase that is mindlessly repeated by the slashdot hoards whenever any product has any problem with it whatsoever. Obviously it couldn't be due to oversight or incompetence, Apple must have intentionally gone out of their way to make a flaw in their firewall because they're evil. /sarcasm
Twice.
Except the first time he wasn't actually elected, and the second time he was "elected" via electronic voting machines. I don't think there's adequate evidence to call the majority of Americans idiots. We've just had the wool pulled over our eyes.
Twice.
If it's the only reason the iTMS uses DRM is because of "the executives", then why don't labels get to choose whether or not they want DRM on songs they sell through iTunes? Every single song sold on iTunes has DRM forced on it, whether the artist/label wants it or not.
Furthermore, look at it from Apple's point of view. From what I've heard, Apple makes a relatively small amount of money directly from iTunes, whereas they make a huge amount of money from selling iPods. Now think about it. What company wouldn't kill for the opportunity to artifically force consumers to keep buying their product forever? What happens when it's time to buy a new portable music player and the hundreds of songs you bought won't play on anything that's not an iPod?
And to think people wonder why Apple won't license FairPlay to other companies.
basically with Apple DRM *I* can do whatever *I* want to do
Well good for you, but please don't generalize your own situation to the rest of the world. I happen to have a Linux machine, and as such I can not (legally) do whatever I want to do with music I've purchased from iTunes.
I beg to differ. As it stands right now, anyone who buys a significant amount of music from the iTMS is essentially locked into buying iPods forever, because their music won't play on any other portables.
I can't understand why everyone assumes that Apple is anti-DRM, and that Apple is somehow "forced" by the major labels to put DRM on all of the music being sold in their store. Never mind the fact that there are plenty of indie bands who hate DRM, yet still have it put on their music when Apple is the one selling. Pay no attention to the fact that the iTMS was created by Apple primarily to boost iPod sales.
No! Apple is a good company! They would never use something as evil as DRM, even if it meant ensuring the future of their largest source of revenue! Obviously it MUST be the labels' fault!!
What are you talking about? Linux doesn't threaten Apple in any way whatsoever. Apple's a hardware company, the Mac OS is just a selling point. Why on earth would they care which OS you want to use on your computer? Answer: they don't, and that's why they're releasing this product.
Oh, of course. Because having a program's icon show up with a white background is such a horribly crippling bug that you just can't possibly use gaim.
Oh it may be difficult to produce gasoline, but it's far from impossible. The thing that makes fossil fuels different from hydrogen is that there are already fossil fuels sitting in the ground just waiting to be harvested. However, there are no minable pockets of hydrogen.
Coral Cache Link
Sorry, I should have been more clear. That wasn't exactly what had happened. I did tell him what I was doing and why, he just didn't really understand.
The why part is also something I should have mentioned. He had more than ten different viruses/spywares/adwares on his computer. I cleaned them out for him, but I figured they'd just come back unless someone took preventive measures.