the exclusive partnerships of console makers and game developers provide little benefit to the consumer, yet take away choice, and give monopolistic-like power to the console-maker (if you want the game, you have to go through him). It's no different than software that works only on one OS, or a web site that is only viewable on one browser or a song that is only playable in one media player.
I see this as a victory for the consumer and gamers worldwide!
The idea is, when Marginal Cost to an individual of sending out spam is lower than the Marginal Cost to Society, then free market will not lead to socially optimal outcome. The use of spam filters does nothing to stop the problem, instead it helps society deal with the burdens of pollution. It's like suggesting that we all wear dust masks is the way to address air pollution
The only efficient way of dealing with the problem is to raise the marginal cost of spam. This could be accomplished with a tax on emails, albeit that would require the government to perfectly estimate the disparity in the marginal costs as well as adjust the tax amount as that disparity changes (because as the amount of spam decreases, the marginal cost of spam to society will decrease, so the tax should start out high and be lowered)
More creative and efficient solutions should probably be used instead. Spam only becomes spam when it's used for false advertising. Improving the network protocols to make it impossible to fake headers is probably the most efficient way of curing 90% of spam, as that would make parties liable to FCC, FDA regulations. To cure the rest (which would be similar to "Girls Gone Wild" ads on comedy central--perfectly legal, but a nuisance) would be harder and require more creative methods or more gov't regulation (which is inherently inefficient)
PS. Needless to say, the method suggested before -- forcing the sender to wait before sending an email -- isn't efficient as in how it imposes inflexible costs. Adjusting these costs will be difficult, and hence efficiency will be lost.
for many industry changes, there's always a company that argues "people don't really want this new technology". Hence train companies that insisted that the cozy feeling of train travel will let them keep their customers, the ppl who argued a personal computer will never spread because people wouldn't have any use for an electric editor that was many times more expensive then the easy-to-use typewriters that were common at the time, and so on...
their arguement does hold. there will always be demand for train travel, typewriters, etc. However the consumer never fails to quickly grasp the new technology and raise their expectations. The firms that fail to follow get reduced to the sidelines, although many continue to exist. I'm afraid the poster was correct in his opinion that Nintendo strategy is doomed. People do expect their games to look realistic, and when faced with a choice of 2 consoles or games at similar price point, they'll go with the more flashy/realistic/prettier one. The value of nintendo's trademarks is not really a growth generator, trademarks require technology or marketing behind them, and Nintendo's ability to do both will deteriorate if they fail to create games that lead, not trail the competition.
hopefully they'll avoid the fine-print and confusing fee structure of cellphone roaming charges (in the US) that have given the cellphone industry a bad name.
this year will be the year that professional game developers like id Software and Valve will finally raise the bar on game development and on graphics card makers. So far 90% of the new power in DirectX 9.0b have not been utilized extensively in games. Sure some games have some here and there, but nothing that would truly stress the hardware.
The party is over, slackers
Half-Life 2 shows an excellent example of the power of DirectX9. Shaders 2.0 loops allow truly realistic effects on key map materials like water and clouds. Before, my gun smoke, clouds, steam and nerve gas all looked identical on my monitor. Now each one of these will have the unique features that distinguish them in the real world.
Dynamic lighting, whose implementation hasn't changed since Quake3, will now be carefully applied with attention paid to the textures underneath and the shiny properties of the bump maps. A big crab in HL2 is a work of art to look at, mainly because of the way his texture isn't shiny while his exoskeleton is--creating a stunningly realist effect
I'm excited to be gamer in 2004. Lame uninventive sequels, franchises, or console ports to x86 will no longer suffice. The real game developers are coming to town, and they are bringing with them all the good stuff.
despite the myth that these projects seem to continuate, fussion can be accomplished easy with a very simple installation.
this guy, for example made 4 'fusors' that created plasma, and even achieved proton counts at levels indicative of fusion (the link has some pretty pictures of his fusion experiments)
What projects such as this one are really trying to demonstrate is not how to create fusion for a long time, but how to have fusion in a way that produces more energy that it takes to make it, which has eluded scientists so far.
it's seems pretty probable to me that this might be of artificial origin, accidentally or intentionally
with the massive amounts of research we have going on right now with the virii (using them to fight cancer; finding cure for AIDS; studying influenza; sequencing virii's DNA) it's possible that we might have artificially produced SARS or have abused a population of some virus to the point that the population experienced a high mutation rate (e.g. if we tagged them with radiation-produced molecules, which is common practice for studying their spread in an animal)
if you live with a roommate (or gf, etc) who minds the noise you make with your keyboard during late night coding, then the obvious thing to do is to change your roommate or gf, much more so than go with drastic actions like changing your keyboard.
this is the ultimate product of RIAA's legal offensive. they have taken clear-text piracy, and driven it to encryption underground. it would be much harder for them to do anything about piracy with this in place.
Unfortunately, very few of the movies mentioned in this thread are truly original. Looking through, I see a lot of sequels (although very impressive sequels, no doubt) and a lot of big-budget films.
these things put a lot of pressure on the directors to "carry on the box office success" (e.g. Jonathan Mostow freedom was no doubt constrained by how his movie [T3] had to meet T2's revenue). The result is that movies are no longer as dynamic a genre as other ways of artistic expression.
Most of the population is probably not as concerned about this as I am. However, the unexpected successes of several of Fox Searchlight's productions (low-budget, mostly foreign movies spotted by Fox's scouts that get imported & marketed for the US audience) shows that a rising part of the consumer base is interested in movies that look 'fresh'. Let's hope that this trend continues.
apparently The Beatles have only released 1 album, titled "In The Beginning" ($9.44)
Can someone please explain to me what the fuss is about a band with only 1 CD???
This just serves to illustrate the same weakness in all the gazillion music stores so far: it's still a long way before they begin to have anything like a full collection of music.
when your game comes out later than Longhorn, you know you've been taking too long
Doom3, Half-Life2, now DNF are three games that have either taken a *long* time to get to market or have ran over timelines. It seems like it would make sense for any future large-scale game development project to hire more developers than they would in the past, because as these upcoming games show all too clear: game development is unpredictable and time-consuming.
here's a photo i took of a prank i did at their deliveries gate: http://a.dorm.duke.edu/images/real-buffering.jp g
for these stuck on windows, there's a great reverse engineering of the real codec. it looks like the Media Player classic, and is called "Real Alternative". clever, too!
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.ht m about half way down the page
this is good in the short run, but bad in the long run
people voluntarily patching M$ products will lessen the pressure on M$ to write code with fewer bugs in the first place. Also without knowing the source code, reverse engineering the program and writing patches is risky at best: who knows what this patch might break after extensive testing.
Also: when (and if) M$ actually releases a *real* patch for the problem, how will that work with this open source patch?
am i the only person who thinks this trend of every movie having a franchise game does not lead to excellent games?
a movie plot is just not very suitable to be made into a game. i don't see many novels based on poems, or movies based on a song, paintings based on folk dances, etc, etc for a very similar reason. When you write/make something in a particular form, you choose the form that can best portray your message to the viewer. Trying to repeat that in a different form is bound for failure.
Slashdot Mirror
the exclusive partnerships of console makers and game developers provide little benefit to the consumer, yet take away choice, and give monopolistic-like power to the console-maker (if you want the game, you have to go through him). It's no different than software that works only on one OS, or a web site that is only viewable on one browser or a song that is only playable in one media player.
I see this as a victory for the consumer and gamers worldwide!
The idea is, when Marginal Cost to an individual of sending out spam is lower than the Marginal Cost to Society, then free market will not lead to socially optimal outcome. The use of spam filters does nothing to stop the problem, instead it helps society deal with the burdens of pollution. It's like suggesting that we all wear dust masks is the way to address air pollution
The only efficient way of dealing with the problem is to raise the marginal cost of spam. This could be accomplished with a tax on emails, albeit that would require the government to perfectly estimate the disparity in the marginal costs as well as adjust the tax amount as that disparity changes (because as the amount of spam decreases, the marginal cost of spam to society will decrease, so the tax should start out high and be lowered)
More creative and efficient solutions should probably be used instead. Spam only becomes spam when it's used for false advertising. Improving the network protocols to make it impossible to fake headers is probably the most efficient way of curing 90% of spam, as that would make parties liable to FCC, FDA regulations. To cure the rest (which would be similar to "Girls Gone Wild" ads on comedy central--perfectly legal, but a nuisance) would be harder and require more creative methods or more gov't regulation (which is inherently inefficient)
PS. Needless to say, the method suggested before -- forcing the sender to wait before sending an email -- isn't efficient as in how it imposes inflexible costs. Adjusting these costs will be difficult, and hence efficiency will be lost.
for many industry changes, there's always a company that argues "people don't really want this new technology". Hence train companies that insisted that the cozy feeling of train travel will let them keep their customers, the ppl who argued a personal computer will never spread because people wouldn't have any use for an electric editor that was many times more expensive then the easy-to-use typewriters that were common at the time, and so on...
their arguement does hold. there will always be demand for train travel, typewriters, etc. However the consumer never fails to quickly grasp the new technology and raise their expectations. The firms that fail to follow get reduced to the sidelines, although many continue to exist. I'm afraid the poster was correct in his opinion that Nintendo strategy is doomed. People do expect their games to look realistic, and when faced with a choice of 2 consoles or games at similar price point, they'll go with the more flashy/realistic/prettier one. The value of nintendo's trademarks is not really a growth generator, trademarks require technology or marketing behind them, and Nintendo's ability to do both will deteriorate if they fail to create games that lead, not trail the competition.
hopefully they'll avoid the fine-print and confusing fee structure of cellphone roaming charges (in the US) that have given the cellphone industry a bad name.
The party is over, slackers
Half-Life 2 shows an excellent example of the power of DirectX9. Shaders 2.0 loops allow truly realistic effects on key map materials like water and clouds. Before, my gun smoke, clouds, steam and nerve gas all looked identical on my monitor. Now each one of these will have the unique features that distinguish them in the real world.
Dynamic lighting, whose implementation hasn't changed since Quake3, will now be carefully applied with attention paid to the textures underneath and the shiny properties of the bump maps. A big crab in HL2 is a work of art to look at, mainly because of the way his texture isn't shiny while his exoskeleton is--creating a stunningly realist effect
I'm excited to be gamer in 2004. Lame uninventive sequels, franchises, or console ports to x86 will no longer suffice. The real game developers are coming to town, and they are bringing with them all the good stuff.
i'm sorry FreeBSD, i would love to help out and test but i'm testing Linux 2.6.0 right now. Maybe we can meet sometime later for some testing?
- Old AIDS infected prostitutes
- Abuse of the elderly [abusive nurses, anyone?]
- Camera control will allow the alleged strip-clubs to introduce a whole number of new 'services'
- irresponsible teenagers [next thing you know we'll have 16 years old raising kids in the game!]
I see a 'certain someone' becoming even more upset about this version of Sims than the current one!- a guy made a USB menorah
- a guy made a web interface to 4,000 xmas lights and a rotating camera w/ pan & zoom
- guys are making spacecraft in garages by hand for xprize
- ??? [and etc]
And you are telling me you can't print your own manual and make your own little plastic figures? SHAME ON YOU!what's next? software that composes the game in real time with "unpredictable but recognizable content"??? [first post!]
despite the myth that these projects seem to continuate, fussion can be accomplished easy with a very simple installation.
this guy, for example made 4 'fusors' that created plasma, and even achieved proton counts at levels indicative of fusion (the link has some pretty pictures of his fusion experiments)
What projects such as this one are really trying to demonstrate is not how to create fusion for a long time, but how to have fusion in a way that produces more energy that it takes to make it, which has eluded scientists so far.
it's seems pretty probable to me that this might be of artificial origin, accidentally or intentionally
with the massive amounts of research we have going on right now with the virii (using them to fight cancer; finding cure for AIDS; studying influenza; sequencing virii's DNA) it's possible that we might have artificially produced SARS or have abused a population of some virus to the point that the population experienced a high mutation rate (e.g. if we tagged them with radiation-produced molecules, which is common practice for studying their spread in an animal)
to me, there's a clear solution to your problem:
if you live with a roommate (or gf, etc) who minds the noise you make with your keyboard during late night coding, then the obvious thing to do is to change your roommate or gf, much more so than go with drastic actions like changing your keyboard.
hope this helps
this is the ultimate product of RIAA's legal offensive. they have taken clear-text piracy, and driven it to encryption underground. it would be much harder for them to do anything about piracy with this in place.
just a note, shouldn't you be out there looking for a job instead of posting on slashdot? not to be an ass, but it just struck me as odd...
that's real great for disabled people, but do i really have to get excited about this???
i mean it's kinda hard to relate to an issue so far and obscure to the average user
- love,
- friendships,
- memories (that are not measured in MB's or pixels)
- getting away from the computer
- sunshine (one *not* coming from the monitor)
- fresh clothes
- mountains/beaches -- these things in LotR:RotK actually exist!
I was so startled by thier weird tastes that i say kudos to anyone who claims to have mastered their weird ways.that $20 mil space ticket sounds too good to be true, for example...
it's true, this *has* been a good year for movies
Unfortunately, very few of the movies mentioned in this thread are truly original. Looking through, I see a lot of sequels (although very impressive sequels, no doubt) and a lot of big-budget films.
these things put a lot of pressure on the directors to "carry on the box office success" (e.g. Jonathan Mostow freedom was no doubt constrained by how his movie [T3] had to meet T2's revenue). The result is that movies are no longer as dynamic a genre as other ways of artistic expression.
Most of the population is probably not as concerned about this as I am. However, the unexpected successes of several of Fox Searchlight's productions (low-budget, mostly foreign movies spotted by Fox's scouts that get imported & marketed for the US audience) shows that a rising part of the consumer base is interested in movies that look 'fresh'. Let's hope that this trend continues.
apparently The Beatles have only released 1 album, titled "In The Beginning" ($9.44) Can someone please explain to me what the fuss is about a band with only 1 CD???
This just serves to illustrate the same weakness in all the gazillion music stores so far: it's still a long way before they begin to have anything like a full collection of music.
when your game comes out later than Longhorn, you know you've been taking too long
Doom3, Half-Life2, now DNF are three games that have either taken a *long* time to get to market or have ran over timelines. It seems like it would make sense for any future large-scale game development project to hire more developers than they would in the past, because as these upcoming games show all too clear: game development is unpredictable and time-consuming.
i bow down to our new Wal-Mart'ian overlords
here's a photo i took of a prank i did at their deliveries gate: http://a.dorm.duke.edu/images/real-buffering.jp g for these stuck on windows, there's a great reverse engineering of the real codec. it looks like the Media Player classic, and is called "Real Alternative". clever, too! http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.ht m about half way down the page
this is good in the short run, but bad in the long run
people voluntarily patching M$ products will lessen the pressure on M$ to write code with fewer bugs in the first place. Also without knowing the source code, reverse engineering the program and writing patches is risky at best: who knows what this patch might break after extensive testing.
Also: when (and if) M$ actually releases a *real* patch for the problem, how will that work with this open source patch?
am i the only person who thinks this trend of every movie having a franchise game does not lead to excellent games?
a movie plot is just not very suitable to be made into a game. i don't see many novels based on poems, or movies based on a song, paintings based on folk dances, etc, etc for a very similar reason. When you write/make something in a particular form, you choose the form that can best portray your message to the viewer. Trying to repeat that in a different form is bound for failure.
Has anyone told him that the Sims Online is just a game?