You're right, but I don't mind graphical foibles in games as much as in movies. CG for the sake of CG sucks when something could look much more realistic with some painted packing foam.
I'm thrilled to see that the internet really is a World of Ends. As a blogger and a Slashdot whiner (er, commentor) I feel empowered when my fellow netizens reap the fruits of their labour on the world stage. I'm just concerned that if net neutrality isn't preserved these people will be muscled out of their needed accessibility by the Disneys and Microsofts of the world.
These articles are written in a chronological, personal style that you might call Gonzo, though I'm not sure I'd call it all "journalism". My favourite is the insanely long but utterly fascinating account of an enormous heist in Eve Online, The Great Scam by Nightfreeze, which will be a hit with the Slashdotters. Any roaming Diggers will want to skip directly to the also well written Sex in Games: Rez + Vibrator.
But in the end, is this the correct journalistic voice for technology? Gonzo journalism is a very human format and that may not be interesting to read when describing technology (unless the gadget works very well or very poorly).
Does anyone else here cringe when they see computer animation superimposed on film or passed off as a real action sequence? Graphics have definitely gotten a lot better over the years but I always laugh when someone describes the next gen of movie effects as lifelike or realistic.
Take Spiderman for example - I find those swinging sequences to look so horribly fake and robotic. The character model looks pasted-on because the light doesn't strike his body as it should and he isn't as softened by the camera as other objects, and the body motion appears jerky and forced.
So we'll see what the next gen has in store for us, but I have a feeling it will impress us only the first time we see it in a theatre. Jurassic park looked amazing that first time, but in subsequent viewings anyone can easily tell the difference between CGI and a model.
I love video games but I hate movies full of computer effects. Practical effects like those in Sam Raimi's movies are still the only way to go in my books!
I think it's largely an issue of art style. Sci-Fi MMOs are either immaculte buiness sims (like EVE) or ugly dystopian battlegrounds (like Auto Assault) while fantasy MMOs are lush forests and towns nestled in mountains and meadows. My guess is that people would rather frolic "outside" than in claustrophobic corridors which they see enough at work.
Another issue is the familiarity with the weapons, as mention in TFA. A 3-foot sword has a 3-foot range, but a 2-foot gun has an arbitrary range that takes practise and familiarity to recognize by sight. It's quicker and easier to cut a guy with a kitchen utensil then to hone a masterwork of alien engineering.
You can program a game or an email client with PHP. I'm sure other dissimilar applications can be programmed with a foundation of common tasks.
Also, a core could be dedicated to an infrequent but CPU-intensive job. For instance, I once read about a PCI card solely dedicated to gzipping TAR archives. Yes, this is a server-intended product, but everybody zips (sooometimes - REM). Maybe occasionally taxing computations are enough to warrant a dedicated core if they get cheap enough.
I recently read about a 1024-core chip for small devices like cell phones Each core ran on a simplified instruction set and specialized in a certain task like muting the microphone when incoming sounds are too quiet, smoothing text on the low resolution screen, and other minute tasks. Individual cores could be placed in low power sleep mode until the software dictated a need for that instruction set.
Is it possible to couple CISC and RISC cores on one die? Is this how the math coprocessors of the 386 era worked? This sounds like an ideal solution to me since nobody needs 4 or 8 cores to be fully powered and ready to pounce at all times.
I would think hacker ethic would insist upon educating freeloaders as to what they are doing and the dangers of doing so anywhere other than in the confines of your generously shared network.
Name your hotspot "AllAreWelcome", and upon connection force your users to view a web page stating whose network they've stumbled upon, who pays for internet access, what they are welcome to do on the network, and why they shouldn't assume every open network is as forgiving as yours. Of course, also tell them that other people are equally free to share the network so you can't guarantee privacy or safety from malicious parties.
It's the same reason you shouldn't feed pigeons in a park. It might be a friendly thing to do, but not everyone is as nice as you. One day a pigeon that has been conditioned not to fear man will come across a mean spirited kid who will feed it poison. In the case of the USA, that mean spirited kid is the archaic law about accessing a wide open WiFi port without permission.
Do your neighbours a bigger favour - change their mooched web browsing data to kittens to let them know their actions are not clandestine.
When my neighbour mooched my wireless I had a little fun with Cain & Abel. I got some good recipes from their private documents. Romano cheese really is better than parmesan on spaghetti!
You can have a lot of phun with this all-in-one cracker suite. Hell, if my neighbours had a MS-SQL server or Cisco switch I could have 0wned those too!
For what it's worth, I have ZERO faith in CA. My one brush with their products has tarnished my opinion of them forever. I think they're completely inept.
While writing an article comparing small\medium business spyware solutions I installed a trial of eTrust Pest Patrol Corporate. Their crappy demo detected spyware (that none of the 4 other products detected, suspiciously) but informed me that only the pay version would remove it. I uninstalled the product but the eTrust right-click dialogs remained in Explorer. I called their tech support and they said they don't support product demos. I eventually found the registry key pertaining to the Explorer extension, emailed the info to them, and chewed them out.
I suspect CA is in the business of FUD, including spreading FUD about its competitors. Then again, nearly the whole antivirus industry is that way. Free clients ftw!!
If anyone cares, I blogged about the history of Norton\Symantec and how they've made a successful business with their increasingly inferior products.
Re:Excellent voice acting and characters
on
Prey Review
·
· Score: 1
"KMFDM's music, a truly unique blend of energy, intensity and attitude, dovetails perfectly with the goals of Prey."
In the end this isn't really so true. I wish their music was in Doom 3, though the minimalism of that game would be spoiled by interesting music. Maybe Quake 4? Good music would certainly have made that game far less of a suck fest.
Didn't KMFDM break up anyway? And get back together? And break up again? Regardless, Drug Against War rules!!
Re:Excellent voice acting and characters
on
Prey Review
·
· Score: 1
Was KMFDM originally going to do the soundtrack? That would have been way better than Jeremey Soule's soundtrack (he also did Guild Wars, Oblivion, and pretty much every fantasy game out there today), although he did some nice quiet flutey pieces for the spiritual native areas.
For some reason they licensed about 10 commercial songs (Heart, Blue Oyster Cult, MXPX) which you only have the option to hear in the opening sequence of the game. It added some immersion but it feels like they could have spent that money on improving the game or raising the pay of everyone who made this already excellent game.
Slashdot Mirror
I was about to say the same thing about kolf!
You're right, but I don't mind graphical foibles in games as much as in movies. CG for the sake of CG sucks when something could look much more realistic with some painted packing foam.
Kevin Mitnick was put in jail for 3 years including 8 consecutive months of solitary confinement - WITHOUT A TRIAL!!!
He's quite a Bruce of all trades, isn't he?
I'll watch the first movie again just for his cameo but I don't care to see any of the sequels, even for Ash.
Spiderman was a Sam Raimi flick
I TOTALLY forgot that!! Sam, how could you??
how else would Bruce Campell have gotten a cameo?
And Bruce in an A film? Is it -30 in hell? I missed his cameo - who did he play? Bruce RULES!!
I'm thrilled to see that the internet really is a World of Ends. As a blogger and a Slashdot whiner (er, commentor) I feel empowered when my fellow netizens reap the fruits of their labour on the world stage. I'm just concerned that if net neutrality isn't preserved these people will be muscled out of their needed accessibility by the Disneys and Microsofts of the world.
Apologies, that Nightfreeze link is broken. Here's the Google cache.
I may have gotten this link from /. originally but it's apropos here - Ten unmissable examples of New Games Journalism
These articles are written in a chronological, personal style that you might call Gonzo, though I'm not sure I'd call it all "journalism". My favourite is the insanely long but utterly fascinating account of an enormous heist in Eve Online, The Great Scam by Nightfreeze, which will be a hit with the Slashdotters. Any roaming Diggers will want to skip directly to the also well written Sex in Games: Rez + Vibrator.
But in the end, is this the correct journalistic voice for technology? Gonzo journalism is a very human format and that may not be interesting to read when describing technology (unless the gadget works very well or very poorly).
Does anyone else here cringe when they see computer animation superimposed on film or passed off as a real action sequence? Graphics have definitely gotten a lot better over the years but I always laugh when someone describes the next gen of movie effects as lifelike or realistic.
Take Spiderman for example - I find those swinging sequences to look so horribly fake and robotic. The character model looks pasted-on because the light doesn't strike his body as it should and he isn't as softened by the camera as other objects, and the body motion appears jerky and forced.
So we'll see what the next gen has in store for us, but I have a feeling it will impress us only the first time we see it in a theatre. Jurassic park looked amazing that first time, but in subsequent viewings anyone can easily tell the difference between CGI and a model.
I love video games but I hate movies full of computer effects. Practical effects like those in Sam Raimi's movies are still the only way to go in my books!
I think it's largely an issue of art style. Sci-Fi MMOs are either immaculte buiness sims (like EVE) or ugly dystopian battlegrounds (like Auto Assault) while fantasy MMOs are lush forests and towns nestled in mountains and meadows. My guess is that people would rather frolic "outside" than in claustrophobic corridors which they see enough at work.
Another issue is the familiarity with the weapons, as mention in TFA. A 3-foot sword has a 3-foot range, but a 2-foot gun has an arbitrary range that takes practise and familiarity to recognize by sight. It's quicker and easier to cut a guy with a kitchen utensil then to hone a masterwork of alien engineering.
x86 has to die some day. As long as someone codes an iteration of DOSBox so I can play my old Sierra games I'll be happy!
Good stuff! Right on the mark!
Pigeons are horrible menaces that deserve only death
Unlike WiFi thieves?
With Ettercap, PCAP, and Squid
My WiFi scheme unfurls,
I'll hijack traffic from script kids
And send them to tubgirl.
You can program a game or an email client with PHP. I'm sure other dissimilar applications can be programmed with a foundation of common tasks.
Also, a core could be dedicated to an infrequent but CPU-intensive job. For instance, I once read about a PCI card solely dedicated to gzipping TAR archives. Yes, this is a server-intended product, but everybody zips (sooometimes - REM). Maybe occasionally taxing computations are enough to warrant a dedicated core if they get cheap enough.
I recently read about a 1024-core chip for small devices like cell phones Each core ran on a simplified instruction set and specialized in a certain task like muting the microphone when incoming sounds are too quiet, smoothing text on the low resolution screen, and other minute tasks. Individual cores could be placed in low power sleep mode until the software dictated a need for that instruction set.
Is it possible to couple CISC and RISC cores on one die? Is this how the math coprocessors of the 386 era worked? This sounds like an ideal solution to me since nobody needs 4 or 8 cores to be fully powered and ready to pounce at all times.
You magnificent bastard! Who do you work for? The Wireless Access Point Association of America?
I would think hacker ethic would insist upon educating freeloaders as to what they are doing and the dangers of doing so anywhere other than in the confines of your generously shared network.
Name your hotspot "AllAreWelcome", and upon connection force your users to view a web page stating whose network they've stumbled upon, who pays for internet access, what they are welcome to do on the network, and why they shouldn't assume every open network is as forgiving as yours. Of course, also tell them that other people are equally free to share the network so you can't guarantee privacy or safety from malicious parties.
Logically you are 100% correct. Legally you are wrong. Law != logic.
It's the same reason you shouldn't feed pigeons in a park. It might be a friendly thing to do, but not everyone is as nice as you. One day a pigeon that has been conditioned not to fear man will come across a mean spirited kid who will feed it poison. In the case of the USA, that mean spirited kid is the archaic law about accessing a wide open WiFi port without permission.
Do your neighbours a bigger favour - change their mooched web browsing data to kittens to let them know their actions are not clandestine.
When my neighbour mooched my wireless I had a little fun with Cain & Abel. I got some good recipes from their private documents. Romano cheese really is better than parmesan on spaghetti!
You can have a lot of phun with this all-in-one cracker suite. Hell, if my neighbours had a MS-SQL server or Cisco switch I could have 0wned those too!
Incredibly (insanely) I think uploading movies to others is STILL a lesser crime than making a backup of protected media.
Okay? Having the thing doesn't give you a right to download a copy
why not? its just the same as backing it up yourself, only someone else did the hard work for you.
Especially since copying DVDs is a breach of the DMCA. It's probably more legal to "steal" a movie you already have than to make a copy of your disc.
For what it's worth, I have ZERO faith in CA. My one brush with their products has tarnished my opinion of them forever. I think they're completely inept.
While writing an article comparing small\medium business spyware solutions I installed a trial of eTrust Pest Patrol Corporate. Their crappy demo detected spyware (that none of the 4 other products detected, suspiciously) but informed me that only the pay version would remove it. I uninstalled the product but the eTrust right-click dialogs remained in Explorer. I called their tech support and they said they don't support product demos. I eventually found the registry key pertaining to the Explorer extension, emailed the info to them, and chewed them out.
I suspect CA is in the business of FUD, including spreading FUD about its competitors. Then again, nearly the whole antivirus industry is that way. Free clients ftw!!
If anyone cares, I blogged about the history of Norton\Symantec and how they've made a successful business with their increasingly inferior products.
"KMFDM's music, a truly unique blend of energy, intensity and attitude, dovetails perfectly with the goals of Prey."
In the end this isn't really so true. I wish their music was in Doom 3, though the minimalism of that game would be spoiled by interesting music. Maybe Quake 4? Good music would certainly have made that game far less of a suck fest.
Didn't KMFDM break up anyway? And get back together? And break up again? Regardless, Drug Against War rules!!
Was KMFDM originally going to do the soundtrack? That would have been way better than Jeremey Soule's soundtrack (he also did Guild Wars, Oblivion, and pretty much every fantasy game out there today), although he did some nice quiet flutey pieces for the spiritual native areas.
For some reason they licensed about 10 commercial songs (Heart, Blue Oyster Cult, MXPX) which you only have the option to hear in the opening sequence of the game. It added some immersion but it feels like they could have spent that money on improving the game or raising the pay of everyone who made this already excellent game.