I agree entirely - there is a point where a device can become 'too small', eg. mobile phones that are too small to dial on, or peripherals that get dragged around by the cables plugged into them. The Wii is about where I expect a console should be - light enough to carry easily but hefty enough to sit stably on your AV cabinet shelf. Anything smaller would likely be disadvantageous.
Actually there's some sense there. Really, who aside from the nerdy geeky types really cares about the history of any technology? I expect most people these days are happy enough to use an object without really thinking too hard about where it came from or how it works. Certainly, to most kids these days, anything that predates Power Rangers is unbelievably ancient.
Hell, when I was a kid, the NES appeared to me to be the ONLY console game, ever. Even though I had some hind-brain understanding that there was atari and C64, the mere fact that they weren't part of my mid-to-late 80s Now made them entirely irrelevant. Who could possibly care or even want to know about anything else?
Just so. To the kids who have grown up with colour handhelds and never played a sprite-based game in their life, the old systems that we cherished and can ruminate over for hours seem so passe as to be unmentionable. When was the last time you actually impressed someone when you said "Hey man, I used to play games in, like, THREE colours, man"?
What surprises me is that anyone particularly cares about the physical size of consoles.
So long as it's small enough to carry home from the store it doesn't need to be portable. It doesn't need to run off batteries, either, so as long as it doesn't cause your lights to dim or make the lounge room into a sauna, who cares how much power it draws?
Now don't get me wrong - technological improvements are desirable and all, but as a consumer I'd much rather go Nintendo's route and buy the same console cheaper, rather than a smaller console at the same price.
Alternatively, perhaps they could use to resources to invest in getting the next generation console out sooner?
Sure, but how many actions of government (most egregiously law-making) seem to be entirely at the behest and benefit of businesses? Since when did it become "By the people, for some people"?
You're forgetting that cash/fame has a moderating strong effect. Remember, Gates has been a businessman for far longer than he was ever a pimply-faced geek.
Car analogy time: Nothing in the world stops you from changing the engine in your car to some aftermarket model. Nothing stops you from offering the same service to other people for a profit. Just because some people want to use that engine to break the speed limit doesn't mean it's illegal to alter something you own. I don't see an ethical problem with offering hacked Wiis for sale; it's not your business what other people use the product for, anymore than it's the fault of a gunstore operator if his products are used in a murder.
It's terrifying to me (and a sign of the times) that we can't do what we please with the material we've paid for. Sure, violating copyright is counter productive in the long-run, which is why we have it, but tinkering with stuff has a long proud history. Imagine if the guy who invented pneumatic tyres was taken to court because it violated the bicycle company's right to sell him replacement solid rubber rims? I doubt this guy was doing anything innovating, but he sure won't be doing so now.
But not buying their subsequent products, presumably? I refused to buy a single EMI product after I got burned by their disc copy protection - it wouldn't play on my PC, and they have not had a cent from me since.
Don't like the way they're treating you as a consumer? Don't buy their products - simple as that. Use the only real power you have as a passive recipient of their products: the power to stop being one. No one is forcing you to buy Super Testosterone Massacre III if you don't want to. You just have to want being treated fairly more than the latest shiny bauble. There are bigger things in life.
I'm curious as to what this does that a Robinson can't. If your reply includes "operate in closely spaced urban canyons" then my immediate responses is to call bullshit on it - the problems of operating in enclosed spaces is aerodynamic, not the safety of spinning blades.
With such small rotors the X-hawk will be recirculating its wake like nobody's business - that means more and more power has to be put into the thing to get off the ground. This is why you never try to fly a helicopter down into enclosed spaces (like cities streets or natural canyons) and instead always use a winch.
Unless they're doing something different that isn't immediately obvious from the 15-second glance I gave their page, I'm not buying it. It seems like lots of people in suits -are- buying it, but I suspect it has more to do with the way it looks like a 1950's era vision of a flying car, rather than any serious consideration of its technical merits. It's just another investment sink, like the Moller 400.
Actually, slow flight and STOL are still pretty useful - the question is more one of 'how efficient are they?'. A slow, efficient soar is quite a common strategy for long-term loitering UAVs. I suspect, though, that STOL UAVs don't have much endurance in their takeoff and landing configs. The primary benefit of STOL is that you can take off from short strips (like carriers) rather than being able to stay on top of one spot for long periods of time. However, since UAVs tend to be small, they don't have trouble finding a place to land. Global Hawk and stuff like Buran are notable exceptions.:)
Yes and no. We understand a lot about how fluids work in idealised cases. We know a lot about how individual molecules of air work. We know a lot about how turbulent flow works on a probablistic scale.
What we don't know well is how to estimate unsteady fluid flows with no a priori global knowledge of fluid conditions (same problem the climate modelers have on a much smaller scale). If we knew where every molecule was, how much energy it had and what the forces acting on them were at initial conditions I think we could do a pretty decent job working out what blade profile would work best for that condition; but it's a trick question because conditions can change dramatically across the flight envelope of a helicopter.
As I understand it, aerodynamics design these days is mostly simulation anyway. Blade design is still an art as much of a science, requiring careful consideration of trade-offs involved. I do not believe we're going to see any revolutionary performance gains until a truly novel lift device is invented (ie. something that doesn't use air as a working fluid).
I see a lot of these sorts of start-ups - people who design a VTOL UAV using some fancy lift generation device. Entecho entecho.com.au immediately springs to mind (if only because a friend works there). What these people aren't getting is that the problem with VTOL UAVs isn't the form of the lift production, it's the energy density of its power source. Think about it, the power needed to lift a mass is inversely proportional to the square root of the rotor area - that is, the more area, the less power. Things like this use a much smaller area to accelerate air than an equivalently sized helicopter rotor. Yes, they can bump into things, but their flight time will be slashed.
It's hard to make a more efficient rotor, and it's hard to make a duct light weight at large enough sizes to compete on power. So, unless I'm missing something these guys are using the same petrol/kerosine/lipo power sources as everyone else, except with higher power consumption. It's the same problem quadrotors and jet VTOLs have - they simply can't compete with helicopters on hover efficiency.
That's bad news for startups, though, because the helicopter space is already crowded with heavy hitters like Sikorski and the like.
Where does this leave UAVs? It leaves us with incremental improvements (my PhD involved making freaky aeroelastic UAV rotors that were fiercly optimised for the hover regime, just to squeeze out more flight time) with no real long-term flight performance in sight.
Why do these start-ups appear and disappear so quickly? Because they're trying to 'solve' a hard laws-of-physics style problem that isn't bounded by UAV technology, but rather power technology.
YIAAUHETYVM (Yes I Am A UAV Helicopter Engineer, Thank You Very Much)
Actually, the latest releases are quite good and I've had a lot of fun playing it with people who'd never have time to get together to roll dice. In a year or two I'll probably have played more games on Megamek than actual mapsheets
I do love how they replaced the red colouring in M&Ms with cochineal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal_dye - made from insect juice - to placate consumer concerns.
I respectfully disagree that MW4 was true to the simulator stylings of its ancestors. I felt it was a watered-down console-crippled travesty. However, if you enjoyed it then it did its job; I did not enjoy it.
I rather feel that the complexity of operating your systems, changing displays, configuring your fire-groups is part of what made the Mechwarrior games deep and complex experiences. I would rather more detail than less, and that's hard to do with fewer input options. Also, just because you can bind most of those functions to a d-pad doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. But more than that, changing the way you interact with the game goes hand in hand with the depth and complexity of the game itself. Eg. just because you could bind all the functions of Civilization to a game pad doesn't mean it's the right way to do it, and it certainly doesn't mean you're going to see games of that level of complexity on the console.
Consoles largely belong to the young teenager and drunken fratboy crowd - not the kinds of folks who enjoy grappling with a truly complex simulator. Alas, they're trying to sell to the biggest demographic and that means keeping things arcadey and dumb.
I wait with baited breath and trepidation for the new Mechwarrior. My heart sank when I heard they were going to make it console-friendly. Gah. The last thing we need is yet another dumbed-down POS console port. Give me detail or give me death! Or possibly both, so long as it's administered by a giant death-dealing robot of doom.
What I'd like to see is a decent capital ship sim, set in the Starwars universe. I've yet to play a truly compelling ship-on-ship space sim game (and yes, I've been looking). I want something where I can tweak all the parameters of the ship - something like I-War but with more detail. It breaks my nerdy heart that 'simulation' is a dirty word in the games market at the moment.
Indeed. I still play this game regularly; none of its imitators really compare to the startling balance and clarity the game achieved. They got the formula right - nigh perfect - and all new comers are just techno remixes of the original.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree entirely - there is a point where a device can become 'too small', eg. mobile phones that are too small to dial on, or peripherals that get dragged around by the cables plugged into them. The Wii is about where I expect a console should be - light enough to carry easily but hefty enough to sit stably on your AV cabinet shelf. Anything smaller would likely be disadvantageous.
Hell, when I was a kid, the NES appeared to me to be the ONLY console game, ever. Even though I had some hind-brain understanding that there was atari and C64, the mere fact that they weren't part of my mid-to-late 80s Now made them entirely irrelevant. Who could possibly care or even want to know about anything else?
Just so. To the kids who have grown up with colour handhelds and never played a sprite-based game in their life, the old systems that we cherished and can ruminate over for hours seem so passe as to be unmentionable. When was the last time you actually impressed someone when you said "Hey man, I used to play games in, like, THREE colours, man"?
So long as it's small enough to carry home from the store it doesn't need to be portable. It doesn't need to run off batteries, either, so as long as it doesn't cause your lights to dim or make the lounge room into a sauna, who cares how much power it draws?
Now don't get me wrong - technological improvements are desirable and all, but as a consumer I'd much rather go Nintendo's route and buy the same console cheaper, rather than a smaller console at the same price.
Alternatively, perhaps they could use to resources to invest in getting the next generation console out sooner?
Sure, but how many actions of government (most egregiously law-making) seem to be entirely at the behest and benefit of businesses? Since when did it become "By the people, for some people"?
You're forgetting that cash/fame has a moderating strong effect. Remember, Gates has been a businessman for far longer than he was ever a pimply-faced geek.
My kingdom for modpoints - that was clearly composed and informative. Well done.
It's becoming increasingly hard for me to tell the difference.
Car analogy time: Nothing in the world stops you from changing the engine in your car to some aftermarket model. Nothing stops you from offering the same service to other people for a profit. Just because some people want to use that engine to break the speed limit doesn't mean it's illegal to alter something you own. I don't see an ethical problem with offering hacked Wiis for sale; it's not your business what other people use the product for, anymore than it's the fault of a gunstore operator if his products are used in a murder.
It's terrifying to me (and a sign of the times) that we can't do what we please with the material we've paid for. Sure, violating copyright is counter productive in the long-run, which is why we have it, but tinkering with stuff has a long proud history. Imagine if the guy who invented pneumatic tyres was taken to court because it violated the bicycle company's right to sell him replacement solid rubber rims? I doubt this guy was doing anything innovating, but he sure won't be doing so now.
Yes, I did. I sent them a letter stating why I was displeased and that my displeasure had resulted in the loss of a loyal customer.
But not buying their subsequent products, presumably? I refused to buy a single EMI product after I got burned by their disc copy protection - it wouldn't play on my PC, and they have not had a cent from me since.
Don't like the way they're treating you as a consumer? Don't buy their products - simple as that. Use the only real power you have as a passive recipient of their products: the power to stop being one. No one is forcing you to buy Super Testosterone Massacre III if you don't want to. You just have to want being treated fairly more than the latest shiny bauble. There are bigger things in life.
With such small rotors the X-hawk will be recirculating its wake like nobody's business - that means more and more power has to be put into the thing to get off the ground. This is why you never try to fly a helicopter down into enclosed spaces (like cities streets or natural canyons) and instead always use a winch.
Unless they're doing something different that isn't immediately obvious from the 15-second glance I gave their page, I'm not buying it. It seems like lots of people in suits -are- buying it, but I suspect it has more to do with the way it looks like a 1950's era vision of a flying car, rather than any serious consideration of its technical merits. It's just another investment sink, like the Moller 400.
Actually, slow flight and STOL are still pretty useful - the question is more one of 'how efficient are they?'. A slow, efficient soar is quite a common strategy for long-term loitering UAVs. I suspect, though, that STOL UAVs don't have much endurance in their takeoff and landing configs. The primary benefit of STOL is that you can take off from short strips (like carriers) rather than being able to stay on top of one spot for long periods of time. However, since UAVs tend to be small, they don't have trouble finding a place to land. Global Hawk and stuff like Buran are notable exceptions. :)
What we don't know well is how to estimate unsteady fluid flows with no a priori global knowledge of fluid conditions (same problem the climate modelers have on a much smaller scale). If we knew where every molecule was, how much energy it had and what the forces acting on them were at initial conditions I think we could do a pretty decent job working out what blade profile would work best for that condition; but it's a trick question because conditions can change dramatically across the flight envelope of a helicopter.
As I understand it, aerodynamics design these days is mostly simulation anyway. Blade design is still an art as much of a science, requiring careful consideration of trade-offs involved. I do not believe we're going to see any revolutionary performance gains until a truly novel lift device is invented (ie. something that doesn't use air as a working fluid).
It's hard to make a more efficient rotor, and it's hard to make a duct light weight at large enough sizes to compete on power. So, unless I'm missing something these guys are using the same petrol/kerosine/lipo power sources as everyone else, except with higher power consumption. It's the same problem quadrotors and jet VTOLs have - they simply can't compete with helicopters on hover efficiency.
That's bad news for startups, though, because the helicopter space is already crowded with heavy hitters like Sikorski and the like.
Where does this leave UAVs? It leaves us with incremental improvements (my PhD involved making freaky aeroelastic UAV rotors that were fiercly optimised for the hover regime, just to squeeze out more flight time) with no real long-term flight performance in sight.
Why do these start-ups appear and disappear so quickly? Because they're trying to 'solve' a hard laws-of-physics style problem that isn't bounded by UAV technology, but rather power technology.
YIAAUHETYVM (Yes I Am A UAV Helicopter Engineer, Thank You Very Much)
Actually, the latest releases are quite good and I've had a lot of fun playing it with people who'd never have time to get together to roll dice. In a year or two I'll probably have played more games on Megamek than actual mapsheets
The juice is made from boiling their dried bodies, if I recall correctly.
I do love how they replaced the red colouring in M&Ms with cochineal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal_dye - made from insect juice - to placate consumer concerns.
I rather feel that the complexity of operating your systems, changing displays, configuring your fire-groups is part of what made the Mechwarrior games deep and complex experiences. I would rather more detail than less, and that's hard to do with fewer input options. Also, just because you can bind most of those functions to a d-pad doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. But more than that, changing the way you interact with the game goes hand in hand with the depth and complexity of the game itself. Eg. just because you could bind all the functions of Civilization to a game pad doesn't mean it's the right way to do it, and it certainly doesn't mean you're going to see games of that level of complexity on the console.
Consoles largely belong to the young teenager and drunken fratboy crowd - not the kinds of folks who enjoy grappling with a truly complex simulator. Alas, they're trying to sell to the biggest demographic and that means keeping things arcadey and dumb.
I am interested in your project and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I hear there's a force-feedback motion control version you can play outside.
I wait with baited breath and trepidation for the new Mechwarrior. My heart sank when I heard they were going to make it console-friendly. Gah. The last thing we need is yet another dumbed-down POS console port. Give me detail or give me death! Or possibly both, so long as it's administered by a giant death-dealing robot of doom.
What I'd like to see is a decent capital ship sim, set in the Starwars universe. I've yet to play a truly compelling ship-on-ship space sim game (and yes, I've been looking). I want something where I can tweak all the parameters of the ship - something like I-War but with more detail. It breaks my nerdy heart that 'simulation' is a dirty word in the games market at the moment.
Indeed. I still play this game regularly; none of its imitators really compare to the startling balance and clarity the game achieved. They got the formula right - nigh perfect - and all new comers are just techno remixes of the original.