Amen! The game was a tour de force, -despite- its short comings. How often can you say about the game "Well, it was terrible but it rocked my world." That was what Deus Ex was to me, and I played it years after it was released when it looked pretty old and the graphics were stale. It was a compelling, thoughtful, atmospheric and well-written piece of art. It was everything its sequel was not.
This age seems about right. I surfed the first wave of computers becoming ubiquitous in schools.
I was also considered a 'special case' at my school because my hand writing was terrible due to a fine motor disability. I was given a choice between physiotherapy and a laptop computer. Guess which I asked for?
Oh... and guess which I actually got.:P Really, I can't complain because it was probably better for me in the long run.
That also makes me wonder whether people are going to lose fine manual dexterity as a result. Already kids do less manual craft (like building models) in favour of computer games. I wonder if lack of fine motor training will result in a generation that is unable to do anything more accurate with their hands than push buttons.
Yes I did RTFA. I also specifically stated that I was talking about the merits of using humans for computationally hard problems. Just because their company had poor business practices doesn't mean that the technical method they were employing was necessarily flawed.
The teacher showed his students that writing can be fun, and useful and stimulating. All those hours writing dull essays and book reports are precisely the sort of thing that's killing education. Kids learn early on that education is boring and tedious and good for nothing - droll repetition. Give the kids a reason to grapple with a problem that excites them, and they'll surprise you every time.
Sure, mod points come and go. It's just not often I see things change so quickly. I would hope, though, that they aren't modding me down simply based on differing opinion.
I considered Mr Mista troll-like because of the pattern of constructing strawmen from my points, followed by completely unrelated rhetorical baiting. I could be wrong - he might be earnest; wouldn't be the first time someone was wrong on the internet.
Well said. I was hesitant to keep feeding the troll, but your explanation has hit the nail on the head.
It's weird watching the moderating of my original post fluctuate - it went form +5 insightful to +1 overated-flamebait in the space of half an hour. I can't for the life of me figure that one out.
I think I'll just stick to typing dictated notes...
I think you misunderstood my post. Yes they lied; but I cannot blame them for using human brains as the speech-to-tech method as it's still probably the best way to do it.
Regardless of their lying about it, the actual 'method' itself is technically sound.
It may be they lied about keeping user supplied data in house, and they may have implied that they used advanced technological means to do the transcription, but if their service does what it says I can't blame them for using human labour to do the transcription. Human brains remain the only high performance computer manufactured with unskilled labour.
There are many good tricks (I've used a combination of many you describe - but the rocket-across-the-map is my fav') and mind-games might be the ultimate level of playing. It's like chess, in a way; you have to think several moves ahead as a middle player, but once you go past that to a really advanced player you're dealing with broad strokes kinds of gameplay.
I confess - I am not at that level and I probably never will be. Real life got in the way and now I just play for fun.
I hate to feed the trolls, but you're actually right on that one. If two groups of people really did stop mating outside of their groups, they would differentiate over time. However, it would take a long-long time. Certainly much longer than it took for the racial differentiation we see today, which was tens of thousands of years (and a whole lot of geographic separation) in the making. However, the modern trend of fast transportation and mingling global population means it will almost certainly not happen; we're much more likely to form a single quasi-homogeneous genepool over time.
I agree with the other replies to this comment; skill is only part of the package. When I used to play competitively at my university I was up against kids who had far superior point-and-shoot reflexes than me. However, I knew the maps better, I anticipated their movements better and ultimately I won the tournament. It's alright to be able to put the rocket exactly where you want it to go, but it's another thing entirely to -know- where to put it. My best move: launch a rocket from one end of a map, anticipating that the fool who just jumped on that air jump would land right around the same time the rocket hit.
No way! Never buy any property listed as 'historic' - the council will never let you change or fix anything. I can't imagine the paperwork you'd have to go through to get clearance to reshingle your geodesic dome near Tranquility Base for fear of upsetting historic mounds of moon dust.
Wait... why isn't anyone upset that the US and Russia have nuclear weapons? 'cus you know, neither of those powers has a history of invading other countries or general belligerence.
...may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-Ã-vis their rivals.
Yeah, see that bit of TFA bothered me a little. What, so now states will consider nuking each other, just because the radiation won't kill us all? I don't think so.
There's a lot more going on when you nuke someone than just the leftover radiation. Things like contamination of ground water, widespread destruction of ecology - all those things we need to live more than just a few days.
I understand why you're being sarcastic. Certainly, that statement from the article is just glib flag waving; not thought out at all.
Well, I guess I lumped depletion of prey in with 'habitat destruction' but you make a good point to highlight that. We can save all the forest and tigers we like, but it does them no good if there are no deer left.
You can argue that, but the rules of the game have changed. We humans are working on developmental time scales orders of magnitude above and beyond what animals evolve at. Telling tigers to evolve or perish is like yelling at a snail to get out of the way of your car. Doesn't give us the right to run over snails, either.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen! The game was a tour de force, -despite- its short comings. How often can you say about the game "Well, it was terrible but it rocked my world." That was what Deus Ex was to me, and I played it years after it was released when it looked pretty old and the graphics were stale. It was a compelling, thoughtful, atmospheric and well-written piece of art. It was everything its sequel was not.
I was also considered a 'special case' at my school because my hand writing was terrible due to a fine motor disability. I was given a choice between physiotherapy and a laptop computer. Guess which I asked for?
Oh... and guess which I actually got. :P Really, I can't complain because it was probably better for me in the long run.
That also makes me wonder whether people are going to lose fine manual dexterity as a result. Already kids do less manual craft (like building models) in favour of computer games. I wonder if lack of fine motor training will result in a generation that is unable to do anything more accurate with their hands than push buttons.
Yes I did RTFA. I also specifically stated that I was talking about the merits of using humans for computationally hard problems. Just because their company had poor business practices doesn't mean that the technical method they were employing was necessarily flawed.
The teacher showed his students that writing can be fun, and useful and stimulating. All those hours writing dull essays and book reports are precisely the sort of thing that's killing education. Kids learn early on that education is boring and tedious and good for nothing - droll repetition. Give the kids a reason to grapple with a problem that excites them, and they'll surprise you every time.
That's what I was wondering! Glad I'm not the only one! :D
I considered Mr Mista troll-like because of the pattern of constructing strawmen from my points, followed by completely unrelated rhetorical baiting. I could be wrong - he might be earnest; wouldn't be the first time someone was wrong on the internet.
It's weird watching the moderating of my original post fluctuate - it went form +5 insightful to +1 overated-flamebait in the space of half an hour. I can't for the life of me figure that one out.
I think I'll just stick to typing dictated notes...
Regardless of their lying about it, the actual 'method' itself is technically sound.
It may be they lied about keeping user supplied data in house, and they may have implied that they used advanced technological means to do the transcription, but if their service does what it says I can't blame them for using human labour to do the transcription. Human brains remain the only high performance computer manufactured with unskilled labour.
Oh... bravo. +1 cunning pun.
2. Get one of these fancy lasers to ignite it from a battery
3. Use a recirculating condensing water system
4. ???
5. Profit!
I'm a militant agnostic: I don't know, and you don't know either!
Hey mods: why is this a troll? You might disagree, but he makes a valid point.
I confess - I am not at that level and I probably never will be. Real life got in the way and now I just play for fun.
I hate to feed the trolls, but you're actually right on that one. If two groups of people really did stop mating outside of their groups, they would differentiate over time. However, it would take a long-long time. Certainly much longer than it took for the racial differentiation we see today, which was tens of thousands of years (and a whole lot of geographic separation) in the making. However, the modern trend of fast transportation and mingling global population means it will almost certainly not happen; we're much more likely to form a single quasi-homogeneous genepool over time.
It's a good point; I wonder how different the modern world would be if England had had no coal.
Don't be so keen - slashdot makes for a ready supply of guaranteed virgins.
I agree with the other replies to this comment; skill is only part of the package. When I used to play competitively at my university I was up against kids who had far superior point-and-shoot reflexes than me. However, I knew the maps better, I anticipated their movements better and ultimately I won the tournament. It's alright to be able to put the rocket exactly where you want it to go, but it's another thing entirely to -know- where to put it. My best move: launch a rocket from one end of a map, anticipating that the fool who just jumped on that air jump would land right around the same time the rocket hit.
No way! Never buy any property listed as 'historic' - the council will never let you change or fix anything. I can't imagine the paperwork you'd have to go through to get clearance to reshingle your geodesic dome near Tranquility Base for fear of upsetting historic mounds of moon dust.
Neat shots. I'm just waiting for someone to 'CSI enhance' this so that we can see Neil's bootprints.
Wait... why isn't anyone upset that the US and Russia have nuclear weapons? 'cus you know, neither of those powers has a history of invading other countries or general belligerence.
...may have far-reaching implications on the balance of power in the world, as states capable of providing their citizens with protection against radiation will enjoy a significant strategic advantage vis-Ã-vis their rivals.
Yeah, see that bit of TFA bothered me a little. What, so now states will consider nuking each other, just because the radiation won't kill us all? I don't think so.
There's a lot more going on when you nuke someone than just the leftover radiation. Things like contamination of ground water, widespread destruction of ecology - all those things we need to live more than just a few days.
I understand why you're being sarcastic. Certainly, that statement from the article is just glib flag waving; not thought out at all.
It's the softdrink of the post-apocalyptic world: warm and flat.
Well, I guess I lumped depletion of prey in with 'habitat destruction' but you make a good point to highlight that. We can save all the forest and tigers we like, but it does them no good if there are no deer left.
You can argue that, but the rules of the game have changed. We humans are working on developmental time scales orders of magnitude above and beyond what animals evolve at. Telling tigers to evolve or perish is like yelling at a snail to get out of the way of your car. Doesn't give us the right to run over snails, either.