Maybe you need to realize that while you *think* you're creating things with your new toy, it's actually more like playing in a sandbox they created.
The illusion of work is becoming more successful than ever.
Someone who prefers a tablet over a keyboard is an almost certain sign that they are useless when it comes to any kind technical competence, and therefore getting things done using modern tools.
Nope, sorry. It's not the tablet form-factor that's responsible, true, but there are people doing great things with the touch interface based on notions of near-direct control that are analogous to puppetry. The technical competence required for current content creation tools is pretty esoteric as they are based on a workflow that arose out of the limits of computers 10-20 years ago and physical analogies that are irrelevant to most modern users. The paradigm shift that we're seeing now goes well beyond the touch interface, and often the touch interface isn't even required, but touch has got designers thinking again, and we'll all be benefitting from the improved, modernised workflows in a couple of years...
Yes, but MacDonalds don't advertise themselves and define their brand as "we sell Big Macs", and That's The Difference Here. As someone else said, it's "brand dilution". A wholefoods store that started selling Mars bars and Coke would suffer a similar backlash, and you could claim "they didn't say they would sell nothing but wholefoods", but that would miss the point of the brand image.
You think just because they partner with a commercial company, they're capable of committing charity fraud?!? Wow... what must you think when your supermarket has a collection tin at the cash desk, they're charging charities ground rent?
The irony is I've never actually bought a humble bundle, and here I am thinking of buying this one specifically so that I can give the whole wedge to charity to make the point that I object to their choice to use a commercial company. Who I hope are paying up front for the exposure.
I got it from the video pitch on the Kickstarter page. Using diagonals makes sense in that it's what we already do with TVs, and converting from screen-size to viewing angle is a simple bit of geometry, which is the same calculation as used in translating between a projector's angular rating and the projection size at X meters/feet/standard-noodle-lengths. It's not really "new"....
I think they've solved a lot of hard problems with this device -- in particular head tracking lag -- but it still has some baking to do before it's ready for your average gamer to use as a monitor replacement. In particular the resolution needs to approach or surpass 720p.
Oculus agree with you. The version you see now is the developer version that they're making to encourage developers to support the device. (Most devs are gamers and are no doubt wetting themselves with excitement for this, and who's going to want to write in support if they can't test it (nightmare if it doesn't work when the consumer device ships)?
So Oculus are building a solid prototype and getting developer support early on, because developer support is vital to getting industry funding, then they'll use the support as justification for further funding and the negotiation of bulk contracts on better screens etc.
That also means that the 7" display now provides more screen real estate that the optics can turn into better horizontal field of view. 110 degrees of vertical field of view and 120 degrees of horizontal field of view means immersiveness unlike anything you've ever seen. So yes, Rift 1 will have 640x800 pixels for each eye. That's better than 720p vertically, and only a little cramped horizontally.
I can't see mention of the increased field of view in TFA -- is that something they've announced in a Kickstarter update somewhere? The only figure I've seen was 110 degrees diagonal, which is a very different beast....
well.. they still have all the hard parts about the manufacturing left.
which is kind of a bummer since everyone assumed(as would have been necessary if their previous estimates were true) that they had already done the things they still need to do - turns out they've been mucking with the design they said they had ready, switching the display and doing a new sensor board.
One of the interviewees in the Kickstarter pitch vid (the head of Valve, IIRC) said that he thought Palmer was the person to solve the "hard problems", which told me that the rest of the pitch was whitewash. It really sounded as though they just needed to tool up and fabricate the developer versions, and that the only remaining R&D was refining the hardware and upgrading the components for a higher-def production model. But then the Valve guy talked about "hard problems". And my enthusiasm vaporised with the hardware....
a $15 pledge gets a lot more expensive if you have to buy a new GPU in order to play.
Yup, which was why I didn't back Star Citizen. After years of "does it run Crysis" as a/. running gag, I was slightly worried about something built using CryEngine but cranking out an unfeasibly high number of polygons and giving massive freedom in camera views in a multi-polygon cockpit with various semi-transparent panels. Then I checked out the "Oculus Rift" that he said it was going to support. Binocular HD with perspective correction for curved views and stuff.
Ummm... that sounds pretty hefty computationally -- I don't think I'll have a computer that powerfully for another decade....
Kickstarter is NOT a pre-ordering method. It's not a way to get early access and perks to a game. It's to fund an idea. If that idea doesn't pan out, that doesn't matter. You funded something you believed in.
Except that in a great many cases it is priced to look exactly like a pre-ordering method. The main "perk" is typically the game itself, and they're typically putting that in the 50-100% retail range, and that's as a digital download with no middlemen taking their cut. Many of these projects will end up getting more from the early backers than from each retail sale.
And that leaves us with a rather unappealing risk/reward ratio. A game should a decent order of magnitude more expensive than "a game... maybe... in a year... maybe". The early crowdfunding adopters risk destroying a useful and productive system by burning off all the goodwill in a sweep of self-serving, opportunistic short-termism.
And personally, I don't care to play games that have uber top secret techniques coded in the engine. I care to play games that are fun.
No, you don't care whether the games that you are playing have uber top secret techniques or not. But sometimes those techniques make the games better. A super-fast renderer lets you get more polygons, which means either A: more detail or B: more enemies. Which can make a better game. A really good AI algorithm will result in a much better experience. You care about the techniques, you don't care whether they're secret or not. But the creators of the techniques do care, because they've spent time and energy solving a difficult problem, and having control of their solution gives them the opportunity to make money back on their time investment.
Commercial closed-source engines are shared under license and used in many commercially successful ways, which means that the best programmers are rewarded for their work and continue to dedicate their time to improving the engine. Take away control of their source, and the only value is in the "assets" -- level design, sound and graphics. But a great coder (say the level of Carmack) who is a crap level designer with no artistic talents whatsoever is of great value in the production of what you call "fun". Reward them for that.
No, sorry, that's an argument against the current US implementation, not IP in and of itself. Computer patents are a questionable area -- that doesn't mean all IP is evil.
p>Then again - how many UKers,etc actually drive in the US,
Enough. Tourists, workers etc. Not to mention American tourists in the UK.
(because they did take the time to actually learn what American lights mean before they started driving here, right?)
Not good enough. Traffic signals have to be automatic -- second nature. Interference can be fatal. I learned how to ride a French bicycle -- the brakes are the other way round from UK ones. I learned, but when travelling fast, my instincts were all wrong. No matter how well I "knew" the brakes were switched, internally I wanted to do things the other way. This was dangerous. I swapped the brakes. Unfortunately an individual can't do that with traffic signals.
That's different. The important habit is to stop at the red light. Once you've stopped, you can take a rational decision. But the act of stopping has to be automatic -- without thinking. If you try to make the decision before you stop, you will increase your average reaction time to lights, by getting in the habit of deciding.
That's a vanishingly small proportion of software though.
Certain things are inherently suitable for OSS: browsers, webservers, and various little techie thingies like dev tools.
But end-user software? I'll give you Open/Libre Office, despite its warts. But would AutoCAD be better as OSS? Photoshop? Compare the OSS alternatives and you'll find that it generally doesn't turn out that way. And name one game that started out open, rather than open-sourcing the engine after the fact? Do you think they don't make a decision based on whether there's any valuable secrets in the code? If they had a top-secret technique, they'd keep the source closed.
When the referral is the product, none of the referrals become customers. See also the Amazon Android store's free app of the day and the zero benefit it offers to devs.
In the UK at least, there's two types of intersection: "hatched" and "unhatched". A hatched intersection is shaded (hatched) with yellow lines, and you're not allowed to enter the hatched area until and unless you have a clear path to leave it again. In theory. Most of the time, people ignore the hatching entirely....
Except that "green+yellow" means "get ready to go" in some parts of the world (eg the UK) and it's potentially fatal to have the same signal meaning two different things, giving that we learn to process these things implicitly.
The ONLY argument from this T-bone point of view is that it cuts down on T-bone accidents which saves several thousand in total costs (medical, etc.) per accident, which is true and sounds great... Until you realize that the savings are reaped by the insurance companies. (It's just another reason that insurance companies lobby for traffic camera technology.) We get the cameras and increase in accidents (minor or not - all those deductibles add up for the average Joe), and insurance companies save money.
So the whole goal of reducing accidents in your book is to save money? Me, I consider road safety a matter of life-and-death. Your mileage may vary.
That's a slippery slope. "It's safe this time" breaks the habit of obeying the lights, and increases the risk of the driver making a bad decision later down the line. The proper approach to quiet times is for the lights to be timed to go flashing amber, which isn't the drivers' choice.
Yup, my first reaction was "you're trying to change public behaviour -- it doesn't happen overnight." People are in bad habits with regards to traffic lights, and they're learning a new behaviour -- there will be a rough transition. If the long term effect is less injuries, is a few junked cars not a price worth paying...?
Everything should be free as in freedom because you should be free to repair, modify, and copy your own property as you see fit. It's about what sort of rights we will retain in the new information age.
Great sentiment, but in the end, only a vanishingly small population is capable of doing so. Improvements in car technology have reduced the ability of owners to repair their own cars, but simultaneously improved the driving experience for millions.
Why should software be designed to benefit the few at the cost of the many?
> Sharing code and designs predates computers by many years, hell, in many ways, it goes back to the begining of recorded history.
That is correct. The basis of civilization is built upon sharing. We shared (copied) ideas and technology: wheel, mathematics, education, language, philosophy, science, etc. By doing so EVERYONE benefits. The philosophy is WIN-WIN.
Conversely closed source is an archaic greed based philosophy - WIN-LOSE.
Money is a great motivator and provides nice incentive BUT at some point it is no longer enough. At the end of the day the "Right Thing" to do is to share, not maintain artificial illusions of power and control.
Reread your history, including the introduction of patents. During the industrial revolution, people made more and more ingenious devices. But they hid the technology so that they could maintain a competitive advantage in production. The patent system was introduced to encourage sharing.
Copyright terms are now too long -- I won't argue that -- but IP itself in and of itself is not an obstruction to progress.
I personally think we seriously change copyright and to make it compatible with a world where copying is trivial. The genie is out of the bottle, generally purpose computers are not going away.
Agreed. As copying is trivially, we need stronger deterrents to copying. That's what you're saying, right?
Me, I'm working on some educational software just now, and I'd love to sell it as a download to run locally, because I feel response time is important to the learner. However, I'm seriously thinking it's going to have to be online, because SAAS is the only effective way to maintain control over something that's costing me a lot of time and money to produce in the first place. (Voice artists aren't free!)
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe you need to realize that while you *think* you're creating things with your new toy, it's actually more like playing in a sandbox they created. The illusion of work is becoming more successful than ever.
Someone who prefers a tablet over a keyboard is an almost certain sign that they are useless when it comes to any kind technical competence, and therefore getting things done using modern tools.
Nope, sorry. It's not the tablet form-factor that's responsible, true, but there are people doing great things with the touch interface based on notions of near-direct control that are analogous to puppetry. The technical competence required for current content creation tools is pretty esoteric as they are based on a workflow that arose out of the limits of computers 10-20 years ago and physical analogies that are irrelevant to most modern users. The paradigm shift that we're seeing now goes well beyond the touch interface, and often the touch interface isn't even required, but touch has got designers thinking again, and we'll all be benefitting from the improved, modernised workflows in a couple of years...
Yes, but MacDonalds don't advertise themselves and define their brand as "we sell Big Macs", and That's The Difference Here. As someone else said, it's "brand dilution". A wholefoods store that started selling Mars bars and Coke would suffer a similar backlash, and you could claim "they didn't say they would sell nothing but wholefoods", but that would miss the point of the brand image.
I suspect it was in a plane that got a little further than this WWII bomber...
You think just because they partner with a commercial company, they're capable of committing charity fraud?!? Wow... what must you think when your supermarket has a collection tin at the cash desk, they're charging charities ground rent?
The irony is I've never actually bought a humble bundle, and here I am thinking of buying this one specifically so that I can give the whole wedge to charity to make the point that I object to their choice to use a commercial company. Who I hope are paying up front for the exposure.
I got it from the video pitch on the Kickstarter page. Using diagonals makes sense in that it's what we already do with TVs, and converting from screen-size to viewing angle is a simple bit of geometry, which is the same calculation as used in translating between a projector's angular rating and the projection size at X meters/feet/standard-noodle-lengths. It's not really "new"....
I think they've solved a lot of hard problems with this device -- in particular head tracking lag -- but it still has some baking to do before it's ready for your average gamer to use as a monitor replacement. In particular the resolution needs to approach or surpass 720p.
Oculus agree with you. The version you see now is the developer version that they're making to encourage developers to support the device. (Most devs are gamers and are no doubt wetting themselves with excitement for this, and who's going to want to write in support if they can't test it (nightmare if it doesn't work when the consumer device ships)?
So Oculus are building a solid prototype and getting developer support early on, because developer support is vital to getting industry funding, then they'll use the support as justification for further funding and the negotiation of bulk contracts on better screens etc.
Sounds like good business practice to me....
That also means that the 7" display now provides more screen real estate that the optics can turn into better horizontal field of view. 110 degrees of vertical field of view and 120 degrees of horizontal field of view means immersiveness unlike anything you've ever seen. So yes, Rift 1 will have 640x800 pixels for each eye. That's better than 720p vertically, and only a little cramped horizontally.
I can't see mention of the increased field of view in TFA -- is that something they've announced in a Kickstarter update somewhere? The only figure I've seen was 110 degrees diagonal, which is a very different beast....
well.. they still have all the hard parts about the manufacturing left.
which is kind of a bummer since everyone assumed(as would have been necessary if their previous estimates were true) that they had already done the things they still need to do - turns out they've been mucking with the design they said they had ready, switching the display and doing a new sensor board.
One of the interviewees in the Kickstarter pitch vid (the head of Valve, IIRC) said that he thought Palmer was the person to solve the "hard problems", which told me that the rest of the pitch was whitewash. It really sounded as though they just needed to tool up and fabricate the developer versions, and that the only remaining R&D was refining the hardware and upgrading the components for a higher-def production model. But then the Valve guy talked about "hard problems". And my enthusiasm vaporised with the hardware....
a $15 pledge gets a lot more expensive if you have to buy a new GPU in order to play.
Yup, which was why I didn't back Star Citizen. After years of "does it run Crysis" as a /. running gag, I was slightly worried about something built using CryEngine but cranking out an unfeasibly high number of polygons and giving massive freedom in camera views in a multi-polygon cockpit with various semi-transparent panels. Then I checked out the "Oculus Rift" that he said it was going to support. Binocular HD with perspective correction for curved views and stuff.
Ummm... that sounds pretty hefty computationally -- I don't think I'll have a computer that powerfully for another decade....
Kickstarter is NOT a pre-ordering method. It's not a way to get early access and perks to a game. It's to fund an idea. If that idea doesn't pan out, that doesn't matter. You funded something you believed in.
Except that in a great many cases it is priced to look exactly like a pre-ordering method. The main "perk" is typically the game itself, and they're typically putting that in the 50-100% retail range, and that's as a digital download with no middlemen taking their cut. Many of these projects will end up getting more from the early backers than from each retail sale.
And that leaves us with a rather unappealing risk/reward ratio. A game should a decent order of magnitude more expensive than "a game... maybe... in a year... maybe". The early crowdfunding adopters risk destroying a useful and productive system by burning off all the goodwill in a sweep of self-serving, opportunistic short-termism.
And personally, I don't care to play games that have uber top secret techniques coded in the engine. I care to play games that are fun.
No, you don't care whether the games that you are playing have uber top secret techniques or not. But sometimes those techniques make the games better. A super-fast renderer lets you get more polygons, which means either A: more detail or B: more enemies. Which can make a better game. A really good AI algorithm will result in a much better experience. You care about the techniques, you don't care whether they're secret or not. But the creators of the techniques do care, because they've spent time and energy solving a difficult problem, and having control of their solution gives them the opportunity to make money back on their time investment.
Commercial closed-source engines are shared under license and used in many commercially successful ways, which means that the best programmers are rewarded for their work and continue to dedicate their time to improving the engine. Take away control of their source, and the only value is in the "assets" -- level design, sound and graphics. But a great coder (say the level of Carmack) who is a crap level designer with no artistic talents whatsoever is of great value in the production of what you call "fun". Reward them for that.
No, sorry, that's an argument against the current US implementation, not IP in and of itself. Computer patents are a questionable area -- that doesn't mean all IP is evil.
p>Then again - how many UKers,etc actually drive in the US,
Enough. Tourists, workers etc. Not to mention American tourists in the UK.
(because they did take the time to actually learn what American lights mean before they started driving here, right?)
Not good enough. Traffic signals have to be automatic -- second nature. Interference can be fatal. I learned how to ride a French bicycle -- the brakes are the other way round from UK ones. I learned, but when travelling fast, my instincts were all wrong. No matter how well I "knew" the brakes were switched, internally I wanted to do things the other way. This was dangerous. I swapped the brakes. Unfortunately an individual can't do that with traffic signals.
That's different. The important habit is to stop at the red light. Once you've stopped, you can take a rational decision. But the act of stopping has to be automatic -- without thinking. If you try to make the decision before you stop, you will increase your average reaction time to lights, by getting in the habit of deciding.
That's a vanishingly small proportion of software though. Certain things are inherently suitable for OSS: browsers, webservers, and various little techie thingies like dev tools. But end-user software? I'll give you Open/Libre Office, despite its warts. But would AutoCAD be better as OSS? Photoshop? Compare the OSS alternatives and you'll find that it generally doesn't turn out that way. And name one game that started out open, rather than open-sourcing the engine after the fact? Do you think they don't make a decision based on whether there's any valuable secrets in the code? If they had a top-secret technique, they'd keep the source closed.
When the referral is the product, none of the referrals become customers. See also the Amazon Android store's free app of the day and the zero benefit it offers to devs.
In the UK at least, there's two types of intersection: "hatched" and "unhatched". A hatched intersection is shaded (hatched) with yellow lines, and you're not allowed to enter the hatched area until and unless you have a clear path to leave it again. In theory. Most of the time, people ignore the hatching entirely....
Except that "green+yellow" means "get ready to go" in some parts of the world (eg the UK) and it's potentially fatal to have the same signal meaning two different things, giving that we learn to process these things implicitly.
The ONLY argument from this T-bone point of view is that it cuts down on T-bone accidents which saves several thousand in total costs (medical, etc.) per accident, which is true and sounds great... Until you realize that the savings are reaped by the insurance companies. (It's just another reason that insurance companies lobby for traffic camera technology.) We get the cameras and increase in accidents (minor or not - all those deductibles add up for the average Joe), and insurance companies save money.
So the whole goal of reducing accidents in your book is to save money? Me, I consider road safety a matter of life-and-death. Your mileage may vary.
That's a slippery slope. "It's safe this time" breaks the habit of obeying the lights, and increases the risk of the driver making a bad decision later down the line. The proper approach to quiet times is for the lights to be timed to go flashing amber, which isn't the drivers' choice.
Yup, my first reaction was "you're trying to change public behaviour -- it doesn't happen overnight." People are in bad habits with regards to traffic lights, and they're learning a new behaviour -- there will be a rough transition. If the long term effect is less injuries, is a few junked cars not a price worth paying...?
Everything should be free as in freedom because you should be free to repair, modify, and copy your own property as you see fit. It's about what sort of rights we will retain in the new information age.
Great sentiment, but in the end, only a vanishingly small population is capable of doing so. Improvements in car technology have reduced the ability of owners to repair their own cars, but simultaneously improved the driving experience for millions.
Why should software be designed to benefit the few at the cost of the many?
> Sharing code and designs predates computers by many years, hell, in many ways, it goes back to the begining of recorded history.
That is correct. The basis of civilization is built upon sharing. We shared (copied) ideas and technology: wheel, mathematics, education, language, philosophy, science, etc. By doing so EVERYONE benefits. The philosophy is WIN-WIN.
Conversely closed source is an archaic greed based philosophy - WIN-LOSE.
Money is a great motivator and provides nice incentive BUT at some point it is no longer enough. At the end of the day the "Right Thing" to do is to share, not maintain artificial illusions of power and control.
Reread your history, including the introduction of patents. During the industrial revolution, people made more and more ingenious devices. But they hid the technology so that they could maintain a competitive advantage in production. The patent system was introduced to encourage sharing.
Copyright terms are now too long -- I won't argue that -- but IP itself in and of itself is not an obstruction to progress.
I personally think we seriously change copyright and to make it compatible with a world where copying is trivial. The genie is out of the bottle, generally purpose computers are not going away.
Agreed. As copying is trivially, we need stronger deterrents to copying. That's what you're saying, right?
Me, I'm working on some educational software just now, and I'd love to sell it as a download to run locally, because I feel response time is important to the learner. However, I'm seriously thinking it's going to have to be online, because SAAS is the only effective way to maintain control over something that's costing me a lot of time and money to produce in the first place. (Voice artists aren't free!)