Looks like the US is only tenth. So are you going after luxembourg and qatar (to name two) first?
As a resident here in the US, I personally would love to clean things up, starting with the lake that turns green every spring near my house. But let's not go overboard with the US hate. There are many countries just as bad. If I were a true "green", I would be watching China and India first. The US is done - they aren't going to change all that much. But China and India are going to skyrocket in terms of environmental emissions.
If I understood correctly, a nuerotic AI is one that exxagerates negative feelings. So it panics earlier at losing resources, or someone's scout, or whatever.
To me, that sounds about right for a game-winning AI. Most AIs seem nice and placid and just wait around for the players to attack, and then under-react to the attack.
"Each language is more than just a medium of communications between people, its the encapsulation of an entire way of thinking, of a cultural world-view. "
Yes, and nobody will ever be able to think that way again, now that the language is lost. That precious concept could only be create and encapsulated once. Gone forever, that thought.
Yeah right.
The reality is that we are moving to a new paradigm. There isn't one standard english anymore. There is english as spoken in world of warcraft, english as spoken in the boardroom, english as spoken over the operating table, and so on. Each craft/occupation/whatever out there ends up with its own dialect.
Anyways, doesn't matter. I don't like the word "prolly" for whatever reason, but that isn't going to stop it from coming into the language. This is one area where voting really, really works, and your concerns (or mine) mean little to nothing.
"Once we've got a policy of locking up all the brutes, thugs, drug dealers, thieves, and shoplifters then we can look at raising the penalty for crimes like jay-walking and copyright infringement."
Yeah, so don't give me a speeding ticket either until they take care of the more important crimes.
I really hate stupid arguments. Either laws count, or they don't.
It was certainly not torture. You're just using the word to get modded up.
He never calmed down. He kept screaming and struggling, trying to draw attention to himself. Sure, he got tired struggling with 4 cops, but he showed absolutely no signs of giving up. Yes, I heard him say he would walk out; no, it was not believable at that point, given the situation and his constant screaming and struggling.
All he had to do was shut up and do as he was told. That's it. Sorry if the use of force offends you, but it's part of the job when people *RESIST ARREST*.
The point of games isn't to win, necessairily. ---------------
In point of fact, one of the major definitions of the word "game" involves winning. So games are competitive exercises, sports are physical games, gambling is gaming involving money, and so on.
The thing is, an RPG can be approached in any number of ways, one of which is by worrying about winning/losing. Another would be socializing.
I disagree that the competitive types are in any way having less "fun", or that winning/losing automatically turns things into a "job". Competition can be very fun, whether it is an RPG or not.
Let me give an alternate perspective: it's my observation (as valid as yours) that most people who becomes a guild officer to maximize the social experience end up turning the game into a job and ultimately losing pleasure in it.
The reality is that it's all in the perspective, and that anybody can get too involved in a pasttime so that it ultimately looks more like work than fun. Then they badmouth it on a forum and move on.:-)
There are rich, influential people out there who are working to gather more and more power to the nanny state, and the masses help them by expecting the nanny state to cater to their little whims. It doesn't matter the specifics - some people think the federal govt should protect people from hurricanes, others want the fed to help with education, others want support for their particular race/creed/way-of-life. Each one may in fact have a reasonable case when looked at in isolation, but the overall effect is to gather power to a centralized body.
What can anyone do in the face of that? All govt works by compromise - If I want money, and you want money, then we work together for both ends and we both profit. But if I want to get rid of a program, how can I do that?
Nobody can change what is happening right now. We are marching to a centralized nanny state with no hope of escape.
Go back in time. 95-99% of people were farmers, barely scratching by an existence. Are you seriously telling me that all of them enjoyed there jobs? Or are you suggesting that they had alternatives to 12 hours of plowing that they failed to explore?
Now move forward to today, are you suggesting that there's a job with everyone's name on it that pays a living wage and is enjoyable? Please - most of us have to sit here posting to slashdot just to keep from being bored at work.
A model is only as good as its inputs and its processing. Both are being setup by people who are trying to prove a point; actually, given the word choice that I see, those "with an axe to grind" would be more appropriate.
Anyways, you yourself pointed out that the model is no good for prediction, just for analysis. Great - now make predictions, decade-by-decade as you say. As those come true, I will have more faith in the science. The test of science is its predictions.
I'll be watching. Skeptically, but I will be watching.
To be more specific, I know that you only get out of a computer model what you put into it. Period. That leaves a lot of room for uncertainty.
But I'll make you a deal; find me a model that starts from a base state in (say) 1800, and then accurately models regional temperatures and storms year-by-year. If you have such a model, and then choose to run it forward a few decades, I would be happy to entertain that as solid evidence.
I'm one of them thar "denier" types. More seriously, I'm one of those uneducated types who looked at the evidence in the 80s/90s, and found it lacking, but worthy of further study.
I've watched the debate unfold over recent years, and just recently picked up a scientific american which tried to summarize the case at a layman's level. If I understood correctly:
a) temperatures are rising. Lots of hard data to support this, and everything looks statistically significant.
b) greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are rising. There is more debate here, but mankind has most certainly contributed and the question is simply about narrowing down "how much".
c) a & b are linked. This is shown recently to be true by ever more sophisticated computer models, which are serving as the basis for scientists elevating their statement to "highly likely" (that a & b are linked).
The problem I have is that like many here on slashdot I do happen to know a thing or two about computers. To put it plainly, when your big evidence is a computer model, then I will continue to wait until the evidence is something more substantial.....
There is the other question of attitude; both sides seek to demonize the other said. "Fanatics", "radicals", etc.
What I do see very clearly is that all suggested solutions seek to punish the united states while leaving some other areas of the world untouched. I pick "punish" deliberately; it's as if the US has been "bad" and now everyone wants their ounce of vengeance.
So not only do I choose to wait, but my attitude is now skeptical - this seems like a typical "america bad" attitude on the side of the global warming proponents. I'll wait for a more reasoned attitude with better data to back them up.
Finally, I recognize that all of this could be rendered moot by a continued rise in temperatures and the catastrophes that causes. But I've seen predictions of catastrophes all my life, and at this point I'm a bit jaded with all the "we're doomed" scenarios.
I'm tired of this excuse. Of course "sleep with me or it's your job", or any other such nonsense, is verboten.
But the whole "hostile environment" thing is overblown. Where I work there are numerous women in close proximity to me, and I get teased mercilously on a daily basis, full of comments such as "just like a man".
So I went home and cried and then wrote a message to slashdot....oh no, wait...I just laughed, occasionally fought back (it's a losing battle, but what the heck ), and then went on with my life.
Seriously, there may be inequities, and I'm sure there are real issues out there, but stop using this one as an excuse for women's issues in IT. It's time to look somewhere else.
"The limit to games on Linux is market share. Its not (much) easier to develop a good 3D game for linux as it is Windows, so why code for 2% of the market when you can code for 92% of the market?"
You can't make a business case in two sentences.
How big is that "2%"? How many sales could you expect? What is the cost of porting? Can you make the design to make the cost of porting lower?
I think that 2% is actually a decent number. I also think that making a game easy to port to both linux and mac will raise the market share significantly - in otherwords, if you can port to mac, it's probably an easy task to follow-up with linux.
So it's a question of a businessman spending a few days making an honest, mathematical assesment to see if there is a viable business plan. If there is, you do a quick prototype to see if there are any unforseen hitches. Assuming none, you and assuming your projections are reasonable, then you can make more money.
To be honest, I suspect most businessmen, rightfully or not, feel that linux is a hacker's/cracker's/pirate's platform, and don't feel there is a market there and thus don't follow-up with hard numbers.
"If someone kills another player for gear, they're playing and killing for the wrong reason, IMO."
Then your opinion is wrong!:-)
Seriously now, why do different groups of geeks engage in poking fun at other geeks like this? It's silly! Carebear! Ganker! Waaaaaaahhhhhhh!
WoW is a fantastic game. It may not be everyone's cup of tea (I'm not playing anymore), but that doesn't make it bad. But that doesn't make other games bad either. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
If all we do is make them pay a fine, then the fine becomes a cost of business. When the punishment involves freedom, it's a little more personal and not as easy to quantify.
As for Enron executives, they ruined the lives of many people. I hope all those enron executives get sent to federal pound-me prison, not the federal resort prison, for the crimes they committed.
By stating up-front they are against duping, in-game spamming, etc, they are really focusing on the major argument: is it right to buy and sell in-game items?
Now many of you may knee-jerk post how wrong it is, but consider that the buy-sell industry is out there and flourishing. There are plenty of consumers who want that action. Furthermore, nobody is getting "hurt" in any traditional sense.
This seems to me a case of a societal split in attitude, not a deep philosophical problem. Should the man walk into the room first or second when escorting a lady? That's the kind of argument we are seeing here.
-jeff, who has never bought or sold in-game items, etc, for real-world cash.
I'm struck by the double-speak I see going-on in this thread:
comment) I enjoy playing the game, and this person is a competant leader. response) You should use voice chat! Don't just play the game, socialize!
comment) I turned on voice chat. This is someone I don't want to socialize with. response) What's wrong with you? Is he good at the game, that's all that matters!
Pick an argument and stick with it, please. For me, I can well see how an adult may want to game with a kid, even enjoy it, but not wish to spend time socializing with a kid. And vice-versa, I might add.
"The problem is a for-profit health care system and lack of coverage for those that cannot afford it."
The other side of the coin is that when health care is free, then everyone abuses it because it costs them nothing. "I don't feel well, I demand an MRI!", and so on...
Another issue is that we divide the world into "rich" and "poor", when the reality is that many are in-between and can chose to get this help when they feel they really need it. To steal an example from earlier in this thread - if my retired dad had a knee problem, and I had the family savings to get him an MRI and chose to do so, I would be very frustrated when I wasn't allowed to do so. It's a limit to my freedom. You from the outside may say "it's not necessary", but maybe his bad knee is creating a major drain on my family, ruining his own self-esteem (trapped, depending on others), etc. Why can't I decide that this is an important situation?
In the end, it's a question of an ethic of "fair play" vs an ethic of "personal responsibility" - do we all depend on a Nanny state to make our decisions for us, or do we depend ourselves and take our chances in an unfair world?
I live in montgomery village, MD. I asked verizon about FIOS recently, and was told (near quote) "We have received numerous inquiries from others in montgomery village, but the council has not approved our entry into your area at this time."
I'm not sure what the hangup is - it's probably something super silly - but at least in my area the issue is with government stopping business from proceeding.
Slashdot Mirror
"As long as the US, which is by far the largest source of CO2 on a per capita basis..."
So for grins I googled this statement, and found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
Looks like the US is only tenth. So are you going after luxembourg and qatar (to name two) first?
As a resident here in the US, I personally would love to clean things up, starting with the lake that turns green every spring near my house. But let's not go overboard with the US hate. There are many countries just as bad. If I were a true "green", I would be watching China and India first. The US is done - they aren't going to change all that much. But China and India are going to skyrocket in terms of environmental emissions.
-Jeff
If I understood correctly, a nuerotic AI is one that exxagerates negative feelings. So it panics earlier at losing resources, or someone's scout, or whatever.
To me, that sounds about right for a game-winning AI. Most AIs seem nice and placid and just wait around for the players to attack, and then under-react to the attack.
-Jeff
"Each language is more than just a medium of communications between people, its the encapsulation of an entire way of thinking, of a cultural world-view. "
Yes, and nobody will ever be able to think that way again, now that the language is lost. That precious concept could only be create and encapsulated once. Gone forever, that thought.
Yeah right.
The reality is that we are moving to a new paradigm. There isn't one standard english anymore. There is english as spoken in world of warcraft, english as spoken in the boardroom, english as spoken over the operating table, and so on. Each craft/occupation/whatever out there ends up with its own dialect.
Anyways, doesn't matter. I don't like the word "prolly" for whatever reason, but that isn't going to stop it from coming into the language. This is one area where voting really, really works, and your concerns (or mine) mean little to nothing.
-Jeff
"...eck you could say the same thing about the differences between Bostonian, Southern, and Midwestern dialects within the United States..."
Yeah, youns could say that all y'all are wrong!
"Once we've got a policy of locking up all the brutes, thugs, drug dealers, thieves, and shoplifters then we can look at raising the penalty for crimes like jay-walking and copyright infringement."
Yeah, so don't give me a speeding ticket either until they take care of the more important crimes.
I really hate stupid arguments. Either laws count, or they don't.
-Jeff
It was certainly not torture. You're just using the word to get modded up.
He never calmed down. He kept screaming and struggling, trying to draw attention to himself. Sure, he got tired struggling with 4 cops, but he showed absolutely no signs of giving up. Yes, I heard him say he would walk out; no, it was not believable at that point, given the situation and his constant screaming and struggling.
All he had to do was shut up and do as he was told. That's it. Sorry if the use of force offends you, but it's part of the job when people *RESIST ARREST*.
-Jeff
If you bust into my house, you done wrong. I don't care if you simply done it to admire the scenery, you still done wrong.
Hacking into systems is not some high-minded, deep, exercise of the mind, it is mischief or crime, depending on the angle.
If you really like breaking locks, feel free to buy a bunch of your own (physical or virtual), and hack away. No big deal, obviously.
-Jeff
The point of games isn't to win, necessairily.
:-)
---------------
In point of fact, one of the major definitions of the word "game" involves winning. So games are competitive exercises, sports are physical games, gambling is gaming involving money, and so on.
The thing is, an RPG can be approached in any number of ways, one of which is by worrying about winning/losing. Another would be socializing.
I disagree that the competitive types are in any way having less "fun", or that winning/losing automatically turns things into a "job". Competition can be very fun, whether it is an RPG or not.
Let me give an alternate perspective: it's my observation (as valid as yours) that most people who becomes a guild officer to maximize the social experience end up turning the game into a job and ultimately losing pleasure in it.
The reality is that it's all in the perspective, and that anybody can get too involved in a pasttime so that it ultimately looks more like work than fun. Then they badmouth it on a forum and move on.
-Jeff
Yeah, America is so bad that we have a problem getting people to come here... oh...wait a minute...
There are rich, influential people out there who are working to gather more and more power to the nanny state, and the masses help them by expecting the nanny state to cater to their little whims. It doesn't matter the specifics - some people think the federal govt should protect people from hurricanes, others want the fed to help with education, others want support for their particular race/creed/way-of-life. Each one may in fact have a reasonable case when looked at in isolation, but the overall effect is to gather power to a centralized body.
What can anyone do in the face of that? All govt works by compromise - If I want money, and you want money, then we work together for both ends and we both profit. But if I want to get rid of a program, how can I do that?
Nobody can change what is happening right now. We are marching to a centralized nanny state with no hope of escape.
-Jeff
Sorry, but what a baseless load of nothing.
Go back in time. 95-99% of people were farmers, barely scratching by an existence. Are you seriously telling me that all of them enjoyed there jobs? Or are you suggesting that they had alternatives to 12 hours of plowing that they failed to explore?
Now move forward to today, are you suggesting that there's a job with everyone's name on it that pays a living wage and is enjoyable? Please - most of us have to sit here posting to slashdot just to keep from being bored at work.
I am not an "expert" nor did I ever say I was.
A model is only as good as its inputs and its processing. Both are being setup by people who are trying to prove a point; actually, given the word choice that I see, those "with an axe to grind" would be more appropriate.
Anyways, you yourself pointed out that the model is no good for prediction, just for analysis. Great - now make predictions, decade-by-decade as you say. As those come true, I will have more faith in the science. The test of science is its predictions.
I'll be watching. Skeptically, but I will be watching.
-Jeff
I find your analogy flawed.
:-)
To be more specific, I know that you only get out of a computer model what you put into it. Period. That leaves a lot of room for uncertainty.
But I'll make you a deal; find me a model that starts from a base state in (say) 1800, and then accurately models regional temperatures and storms year-by-year. If you have such a model, and then choose to run it forward a few decades, I would be happy to entertain that as solid evidence.
I would also be amazingly impressed.
-Jeff
I'm one of them thar "denier" types. More seriously, I'm one of those uneducated types who looked at the evidence in the 80s/90s, and found it lacking, but worthy of further study.
....
I've watched the debate unfold over recent years, and just recently picked up a scientific american which tried to summarize the case at a layman's level. If I understood correctly:
a) temperatures are rising. Lots of hard data to support this, and everything looks statistically significant.
b) greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are rising. There is more debate here, but mankind has most certainly contributed and the question is simply about narrowing down "how much".
c) a & b are linked. This is shown recently to be true by ever more sophisticated computer models, which are serving as the basis for scientists elevating their statement to "highly likely" (that a & b are linked).
The problem I have is that like many here on slashdot I do happen to know a thing or two about computers. To put it plainly, when your big evidence is a computer model, then I will continue to wait until the evidence is something more substantial.
There is the other question of attitude; both sides seek to demonize the other said. "Fanatics", "radicals", etc.
What I do see very clearly is that all suggested solutions seek to punish the united states while leaving some other areas of the world untouched. I pick "punish" deliberately; it's as if the US has been "bad" and now everyone wants their ounce of vengeance.
So not only do I choose to wait, but my attitude is now skeptical - this seems like a typical "america bad" attitude on the side of the global warming proponents. I'll wait for a more reasoned attitude with better data to back them up.
Finally, I recognize that all of this could be rendered moot by a continued rise in temperatures and the catastrophes that causes. But I've seen predictions of catastrophes all my life, and at this point I'm a bit jaded with all the "we're doomed" scenarios.
-Jeff
I'm tired of this excuse. Of course "sleep with me or it's your job", or any other such nonsense, is verboten.
But the whole "hostile environment" thing is overblown. Where I work there are numerous women in close proximity to me, and I get teased mercilously on a daily basis, full of comments such as "just like a man".
So I went home and cried and then wrote a message to slashdot....oh no, wait...I just laughed, occasionally fought back (it's a losing battle, but what the heck ), and then went on with my life.
Seriously, there may be inequities, and I'm sure there are real issues out there, but stop using this one as an excuse for women's issues in IT. It's time to look somewhere else.
-Jeff
"The limit to games on Linux is market share. Its not (much) easier to develop a good 3D game for linux as it is Windows, so why code for 2% of the market when you can code for 92% of the market?"
You can't make a business case in two sentences.
How big is that "2%"? How many sales could you expect? What is the cost of porting? Can you make the design to make the cost of porting lower?
I think that 2% is actually a decent number. I also think that making a game easy to port to both linux and mac will raise the market share significantly - in otherwords, if you can port to mac, it's probably an easy task to follow-up with linux.
So it's a question of a businessman spending a few days making an honest, mathematical assesment to see if there is a viable business plan. If there is, you do a quick prototype to see if there are any unforseen hitches. Assuming none, you and assuming your projections are reasonable, then you can make more money.
To be honest, I suspect most businessmen, rightfully or not, feel that linux is a hacker's/cracker's/pirate's platform, and don't feel there is a market there and thus don't follow-up with hard numbers.
-Jeff
"If someone kills another player for gear, they're playing and killing for the wrong reason, IMO."
:-)
Then your opinion is wrong!
Seriously now, why do different groups of geeks engage in poking fun at other geeks like this? It's silly! Carebear! Ganker! Waaaaaaahhhhhhh!
WoW is a fantastic game. It may not be everyone's cup of tea (I'm not playing anymore), but that doesn't make it bad. But that doesn't make other games bad either. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
-Jeff
Let's distract everyone from the issues at hand by another pedantic argument on the definition of theft. That will certainly help matters!
If all we do is make them pay a fine, then the fine becomes a cost of business. When the punishment involves freedom, it's a little more personal and not as easy to quantify.
As for Enron executives, they ruined the lives of many people. I hope all those enron executives get sent to federal pound-me prison, not the federal resort prison, for the crimes they committed.
-Jeff
By stating up-front they are against duping, in-game spamming, etc, they are really focusing on the major argument: is it right to buy and sell in-game items?
Now many of you may knee-jerk post how wrong it is, but consider that the buy-sell industry is out there and flourishing. There are plenty of consumers who want that action. Furthermore, nobody is getting "hurt" in any traditional sense.
This seems to me a case of a societal split in attitude, not a deep philosophical problem. Should the man walk into the room first or second when escorting a lady? That's the kind of argument we are seeing here.
-jeff, who has never bought or sold in-game items, etc, for real-world cash.
"Why don't we "terraform" the Sahara desert, the Gobi desert, Antarctica, and the various dust bowls around the world before trying to tackle Mars."
I work with you, don't I?
Before you put code into production, we politely ask that you first test it in another environment.
Thank You,
-Jeff
I'm struck by the double-speak I see going-on in this thread:
comment) I enjoy playing the game, and this person is a competant leader.
response) You should use voice chat! Don't just play the game, socialize!
comment) I turned on voice chat. This is someone I don't want to socialize with.
response) What's wrong with you? Is he good at the game, that's all that matters!
Pick an argument and stick with it, please. For me, I can well see how an adult may want to game with a kid, even enjoy it, but not wish to spend time socializing with a kid. And vice-versa, I might add.
-Jeff
"The problem is a for-profit health care system and lack of coverage for those that cannot afford it."
The other side of the coin is that when health care is free, then everyone abuses it because it costs them nothing. "I don't feel well, I demand an MRI!", and so on...
Another issue is that we divide the world into "rich" and "poor", when the reality is that many are in-between and can chose to get this help when they feel they really need it. To steal an example from earlier in this thread - if my retired dad had a knee problem, and I had the family savings to get him an MRI and chose to do so, I would be very frustrated when I wasn't allowed to do so. It's a limit to my freedom. You from the outside may say "it's not necessary", but maybe his bad knee is creating a major drain on my family, ruining his own self-esteem (trapped, depending on others), etc. Why can't I decide that this is an important situation?
In the end, it's a question of an ethic of "fair play" vs an ethic of "personal responsibility" - do we all depend on a Nanny state to make our decisions for us, or do we depend ourselves and take our chances in an unfair world?
-Jeff
I live in montgomery village, MD. I asked verizon about FIOS recently, and was told (near quote) "We have received numerous inquiries from others in montgomery village, but the council has not approved our entry into your area at this time."
I'm not sure what the hangup is - it's probably something super silly - but at least in my area the issue is with government stopping business from proceeding.
-Jeff
After the first incident, the company should have forbidden the developers from playing on the main server (have fun on test).
I think the cost of having the developers playing the main game well outweigh the benefit.
-Jeff