\ sin(x) can have values between positive 1 and negative 1
so, we have:
- 1 <= sin (x) <= 1
ok, next
\ I have a value of x somewhere between 0 and pi.
so we have:
a <= sin (x) <= b where 0 <= x <= pi
sin(0) = 0 sin(pi) = 0 sin(pi/2) = 1
take my word for it, when 0 <= x <= pi our sines behaves such that:
0 <= sin (x) <= 1 where 0 <= x <= pi
ok, next:
\ Is my x going to be positive or negative?
is this a trick question?? are you referring to x as in input argument to sinus function? in which case you have said yourself, its from 0 to pi, its positive
are you refering to the result of sin(x) where x is between 0 and pi? in which case the result is positive as well as sin for first half of itself is positive.
no matter which interpretation we take, its same answer, so the real question that begets to be asked : Where is the self claimed snarking in that post?
-- /apz, A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours
\ It never ceases to amaze me how blinkered this tech-aware community is when
\ it comes to Flash. Any technology can be poorly implemented, but the days of
\ horrible sliding text skip-intro multiple alpha-tween flash movies are long,
\ long gone. But just to rile you up here's a *nice* piece of heavy flash work.
\ It's a great promo for an ad agency, integrates audio, video, and has a real
\ 'application' feel, so for those who still don't load frames or images you
\ won't be happy with this: http://www.agencynet.com/
its one thing when talking about applications, like you mention, google maps, its another matter when talking about websites. How do I bookmark news page from agency net? Why to load 500characters of news it takes me minutes? heck, my 300bps c64 modem could load those news faster if they were standard html.
ok, so we have, lets count them:
- bandwidth waste (serving content unneeded
- no ability to bookmark specific content (ie: news)
- no ability to copy text to a friend (ie: news)
- does not work with text to speech nor text to braile converters
- no way to zoomin for visibily impaired (unless they have special video drivers
that use virtual 800x600 with a display of 320x200 and lots of scrolling around)
- does not work on text only vt100/x3270 terminals (and links and w3 browsers do
support stuff like javascript and frames) I am hoping that with libcaca or aalib
it could be possible to access flash sites through text terminals
- no keyboard interface, all normal websites are easy to browse with keyboard.
But not the flash based websites.
Again, I am not saying that there is no usage for flash, and I agree, building corporate applications for the intr[ea]net is nice and dandy, but for a normal website I dont see a need, unless one really needs to be flashy (like an ad agency).
this is an exellent example of a flash done wrong !!
1) how do I link to a specific content? such as the gallery page or the discography?
There is no way I am going to send to my mom or friends a link to the page and
then a list of explanations on where to click to get somewhere specific. 2) my grandparents have vision problems, neither opera nor mozilla want to resize
this flash. And this flash is the newer type that does not allow internal zoomin 3) no text interface means no ability to use text to speech software that blind
and disabled people use 4) there is no way to copy text. I mean, I understand, biography is copyrighted and
I should not be able to spread the news of the band to my friends. 5) no keyboard interface, every normal site is browsable with keyboard, except most
flash (and this one too) sites..
I never really understood whats the point of flash except making webpages less usable
but I have to thank you for pointing them out, their music is excellent !! thanks
-- /apz, The world is coming to an end... SAVE YOUR BUFFERS!!!
I have to second the Quirks and Quarks show, it is truly superb
The 2600 group has archives of their shows going back to 1986, there is a great wealth of hacking and phreaking information under the title 'off the hook', http://www.2600.com/ You can also find other shows produced by Emanuel, like the 'Off The Wall' and the 'Brain Damage'.
2600 also have organized few different hacker conferences (hope series) and two most recent conferences have all of the audio online:
http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/hoop/5hope_speakers. khtml
conference from 2004, over 70 speakers, tons of listening material on
variety of topics like lockpicking, hacking, social engineering, spies
and even info on Romania's IT.. First Hope conference to which Kevin
Mitnick showed up to.
the author mentioned audio books, I am not sure what audiobooks he has been listening to but there is alot of choice, you dont have to listen to Robert Jordans another WoT 1000 page book, you can pick up an audio book that satisfies your 'geekinees', here are books that I am waiting at my library to take out and listen in my car:
- Bill Bryson - A Short History Of Nearly Everything
- Richard P Feynman - What Do You Care What Other People Think
- Richard Wolfson - Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution
- Stephne Hawking - Breif History of Time
Another thing that the person might look into are abridged books. I had a chance to listen to the 'Time Machine' that was abridged down to two hours. He could listen first part on the way to work, and second part on the way back. It definitelly is different listening to a two hour abridged book than listening to a 45hour unabridged book.
enjoy
-- /apz, Based on obituary notices: mean and unimportant people never die
Music Plasma is ok if you run a graphical browser, and only search for uberly popular stuff.
I just tried looking for:
Via Gra - newest russian pop band, no hits on Music Plasma, although the group is signed with Sony Music, and is very popular in both Russia and Japan (Via Gra is so popular in Japan that they learned few of their songs in Japanese to appease the fans) info on the band : http://dime32.dizinc.com/~russmus/bands-viagra.htm
DAAU - Belgain experimental Symphonic music... Again, Music Plasma fails doing anything relevant... More info on the band http://www.daau.com/
Green Nuns of the Revolution - nothing relevant, it thinks I typed in 'Guns and Roses'.. How could it make such a mistake? does it use some soundex algorithm? Anyways it is recommending me Aerosmith instead of stuff like 'Members of Mayday' or 'Hallucinogen'
I am sorry, but I will stick to AudioScrobbler, because atleast it provides me with searches that actually net to something, much much better than music plasma.
-- /apz, Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions, right here!
checkout AudioScrobbler.com , they even let you download their database to run own statistical analysis.
They provide the good stuff:
- most listened track by artist
- most listened track by listener
- most listened artist by listener
- similiar arists to an artist
Although, their database is not too clean, some arists are duplicated, for example you will find 'prodigy' and 'the prodigy' as if they were separate artists.
but then, audioscrobbler.com provides you with their database, its a project that runs on Creative Commons license (think open source data), and so far I have not seen/heard of it being poisened by commercial companies trying to boost some artist's ratings by submiting fake statistics into the system.
ymmv
-- /apz, "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, "Mind you, my first name is Bad."
thats great, but music store only has few thousand records, I have friends that have more tracks than many music stores, now I dont want to go and say that in particular your music store happends to be Walmart with 20 artists ranging from Black Street Boys to Christinna Spears, but still, could you elaborate as to what music store provides you with world music?
my own story : I try to listen to varied music, I had columbia house subscription whos selection blows (no Jean Michelle Jarre, nor no Prodigy (atleast when they released Music For Jilted Generation)), my local music stores (HMV, FutureShop) also had their selection limited, you can forget finding music like Isreal's Astral Projection or the french Red Room jazz group (which is generally hard to locate).
I found going to music stores meant listening to what music store has, and considering that there is a whole world out there. is quite a limiting factor.
Now, dont take me wrong, all I am saying is that music stores as the *sole* music source imho does not provide a wide range of music choices, so go to the music stores, but also know that there is hundreds more that you could be missing out if music store is your only source of music. (is that redundant enough?)
-- /apz, Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain
I will not give much credit to any p2p, especially since such networks like emule or torrent dont allow you to find other files that a given user has, but I will say that generally Internet did help me grown my taste and appreciation to world music.
1) online friends, after many years on irc and icq and other chat networks you
get to know lots of people from various places around the world. They often send me
lists of whats popular in their country. I recently heard of Via Gra, a russian pop
band (which is also known under the name Nu Virgos), whos music videos stand true
to the bands name (get their Biologia if you can).
2) AudioScrobbler, there is no other great tool that I know of. You enjoy some artist
that you just heard (ie: Shpongle) then head to AudioScrobbler.com and see what are
similiar artists. That way you can expand on what you though was a single song to a
whole genre of music !!
My current top pics for music: - Planet Funk - The new British dancish band, their Chase The Sun is a euro hit but
personally I love the song 'who said' (I am slave on a minimum wage) - Shpongle - and certain tracks from Infected Mushroom (like dancing with Kadafi),
the merge of Goa (psychodelic techno) with New Age - Andreas Vollenweider - beatifull Harp music - Ravi Shankhar - no one does Sithar better - Transe Atlantic Air Waves - from the maker of Enigma come best instrumental remixes
of 80s ambient techno tracks (AxelF, Jan Hammer, Vangelis, etc) - Aphordite - no one does jungle/DnB better (just listen to the 'takeover bid' album) - BT - aka Brain Transeau , mellodic techno (get IMA and ESCM albums now !!) - DAAU - Belgain group that does experimental symphonic music fusion with other
music genres.. Think classical merged with other genres, amazing stuff, although
highly experimental - Aphex Twin - there is hardy anyone more on the fringe techno than aphex twin
Really, take these artists, plug them into audioscrobbler to find out their best tracks, download these tracks, listen. if you like, get whole albums, or checkout audioscrobblers 'similiar artist' feature, or alternatively, use audioscrobblers listener group.
ofcourse, there is always the legal music you can get. Head to the remix.kwed.org and download anything that has red raving smiley face, these tracks are just amazing. Then head to vgmix.com and get 'stuff of legends'. And finally, there is also ocremix.org.
Enjoy, may you find good music out there.
-- /apz, Old age is always fifteen years older than I am. -- B. Baruch
The worst in my experience have been contracts that do IP Theft on you.
At one place the contract explicitly stated that company owns anything I do: 1) on their computers
understandable, afterall its their hardware, electricity, office, bandwidth 2) on their time
understandable, afterall I would be payed for it 3) on my own time at home when asked to do something for work
understandable, its their idea 4) on my own time at home my own thing
a big WTF WTF LOL WTF
I asked a lawyer at the company if my interpretation was right, and yes, The problem became with my homework assignments for university which I was also doing at the same time. Officially I had to ask for permission from our company lawyer and my boss if I could submit my homeworks... Atleast I could try to weasel out of late penalty marks at university by blaming the lawyer/boss for slowly responding.
At another company they would not claim rights over my code, but would claim ownage over any domain name I owned. Thankfully I asked my boss if I am reading this right and as boss owned some domain names himself he went to the lawyers and they changed the contract.
The second worst I had to deal with were bad bosses. This was second worse maybe because I always avoided bad bosses. I kid you not though, I had UML of class organization given on used napkins. I had bosses who could not understand basest of base ideas, it was normal to hear such quotes as:
- you can kiss my ass, and VICE VERSA!!
- you have turned this project 360 degrees around
-- /apz. Drilling for oil is boring, now War, thats entertaining
--/ APOLOGIES/---- Please accept my apologies if I have spoken too harshly about Java. I have not meant to insult you nor anyone who uses Java. I have not said Java should not be used at all, nor that Java coders are morons. All I have commented is that Java has worst starting times hence speed is not Java's cup of tea, pardon the pun.
Before I make another error at offending you yet again: lets review the discussion that has sparked this thread to maybe a conclusion in agreement:
--/ REVIEW/---- the original question: 'What does C/C++ do that Java does not??'. The answer was 'Device Drivers'. to which you wrote quite properly that
\ Java can handle "soft" realtime just fine, and extensions are being
\ worked on for "hard" realtime support. And yes, some people actually
\ write device drivers in Java.
to which I have replied, to quote myself:
\ if java can not even simply start fast, how can it be speedy?
now, to get to crux of the problem, you eloquently have stated:
\ You are comparing a Virtual Machine platform designed to optimize large
\ and long running programs, against simple scripting languages? With a
\ Hello World program no less!
--/ THE RESPONSE - AKA : MEA CULPA , REALLY ?/----
Yes, Java Virtual Machine by itself is quite of a beast, but there are reasons for that. JVM is large because it has many methods to optimize the code as its running it. JIT (Just In Time) will reorder code based on current code profiling to avoid branch misspredictions, wasted hardware registers, etc. In some cases JVM/JIT can optimize the code its running so well that it rivals unprofiled C/C++ code.
This is also where Java really shines, RAD world, not the actual program execution time. Speed was never part of the Java's equasion, and you yourself comment on that with:
\ tradeoffs programmers must make in order to make things fast, small, or
\ "abstract". Hint: It's a lot like Physics. You don't get something for nothing. There are tradeoffs. Some need fast execution, while others will go after clean code developed quickly that runs within required timeframe.
And although Java can do realtime device drivers its not really good at it, kinda like PHP can bind to the GTK.
Some of the problems with JVM/JIT is that it can execute faster benchmarks because it does not release used memory before benchmark finishes hence it never incurs the Garbage Collector penalty.
This is quite evident in the Original Shootout comparison:
Now we see a different picture, Java uses alot of the ram to avoid Garbage penalty. C/C++ are still at the top, but now we also have lua (used alot in games), Perl, Python and Ruby (out of the more well known languages) that do better than Java.
As others said, doing comparisons between languages is bad, my bad.
now, I do admit to being guilty for delibratelly chosing a statistic that is not in Java's favour at all, quite opposite to that, and for this 'manipulation' I am guilty. I am also guilty for overstating that Java is the worst of them all, obviously Java is not as bad as I have made it sound. However I stand by that Java is not as efficient as other Languages. I stand by that Java slow JVM startup is an indication to not being best.
sorry sir, I dont buy it, Java is the slowest of them all.
Here is a simple 'hello world' benchmark. Which language can generate 'hello world' to stdout the fastest way. Java ends up being second last and with highest memory usage
How is the test done? a batch file / shell script is created that calls your program an x amount of times. The total time taken is then devided by X to get the average time needed to display 'Hello World'.
Java apologists will say that the problem is with the JVM because everytime you want to run a program you get the JVM baggage, but will ignore the fact that other interpreted / emulated / VM like languages are atleast THREE times as fast (ie: vbscript / jscript
/ python / perl).
-- /apz, if java can not even simply start fast, how can it be speedy?
its a story about a guy who now: 1) has a job that takes 8hrs a day plus 1hr of driving 2) has a wife (husband) / kids that require time and attention 3) has a house / shopping / food / cleaning to take care of
and finds it hard to play recent games.
assume you have 2hrs a day of free time, of that you can dedicate 1.5hr to games (the rest is to catch up with news/read book).
this means a game like baldurs gate will take you 53 days to play (assuming that you can pass it within 80hrs of gameplay). This is almost two months. In those two months of play there will be atleast two games released that will be added to your to play list and out of a sudden you notice that the only games you can play are ones that take 20hrs to pass. Max Payne albeit short had the advantage of being short, people could start and finish it without wondering where the time was lost.
Thats what the complaint is all about. That games should have 'easy' mode that limits the scope of all of the quests, rather than making the enemies easier to kill.
When I was at university I had tons of hours to play games, climb ladders, read on the web strategies, howtos, faqs, guides, etc. Now with work one cannot put that much effort to game playing any more.
Even cherry picking games is hard. I am currently 4years worth of gaming lag. There are some games that take too long to pass and should have options:
- 'Core Gameplay (75% of quests removed, easier bosses)'
- 'Complete Gameplay (80hr of game play minimum)'
My current list of games to finish, or atleast try to:
- fallout brother hood of steel : Tactics
- planescape torment
- arcanum
- lionheart : legacy of the crusader
- baldurs gate 1 + addons
- baldurs gate 2 + addons
- ice wind dale 1 + addons
- ice wind dale 2 + addons
- deus ex
- max payne 2
- kotor
- halo
- etherlords
- age of wonders
- majestic
- c&c generals + condition zero
- Disciples 2
- HOMM4
- Thorgal : Odin's Quest
- Serious Sam 1 / 2
- Silent Hill 2
- Lemmings 3d Revolutions
- no one lives forever 1/2
- Sheep
blah, am lagging in games way too much...
-- /apz, only if life were as customizable as games.
First you create XML. Then you build DTD/Schema to enforce a set of constrictions on the original XML (note: DTD/Schema were added later to XML).
Then you 'automatically' convert the said XML to XHTML.
right, you build another XML to represent how to display the original data within original XML/DTD/Schema. Such display XML shall not be called XML, lets call it different things, for there are different DTD/Schemas for display XMLs. The Mozilla crowd wants you to use XUL, the ms camp wants you to use XAML, and ofcourse, others will say XHTML + Javascript + some server side sollution. When I say display I really mean display with ability to edit/add/delete.
Anyways, since XAML/XUL are esoteric we are left with XHTML + javascript + server side scripting (jsp/asp/php). This, as you say, is quite bad for true controlled non editing display. We want to export to DOC (be it RTF, or ms office XML), or to ascii or PS/PDF. Good, now hope that your original display XML, afterall from which you generated XHTML, can also be used to do the conversion to other formats. Here again you will come to problems, as you need to keep playing and writting converters from one XML format to another, massage their content, until the PDF/DOC exporters work like you want.
Now, you have gone through tons and tons of extra hoops, with a fairly new technology. And it took you how long?
Here is somethings that much faster: 1. sql -> setup tables / foreign keys / check constraints 2. ms access -> link tables 3. ms access -> auto wizard the forms 4. ms access -> export forms to ASP
and you are done. And anything to do is few clicks away. Now, its not perfect, actually far from it (ms-access exported forms to ASP leave ALOT to be desired) but atleast its not hodge podge as it is with the magical XML.
I cringe when people say XML is a sollution to every data related problem. The only thing that XML by itself that is amazing is the nested data structure support. Everything else the good old tab/comma delimited format already supported!!
\ Take as little mathematics as possible and focus on business
\ and more software engineering.
I somewhat disagree. Most important is to take things that will make you employable. And here I agree, if you want to get more likely to be employable add some business training to your index. Take Software Project Managment, Software Law, Business courses.
But do not skip on science either. I see people who did courses like programming language concepts get jobs more easily? why? They can learn any new language faster with formal traning on grammar. A job requires some language you dont know? Write it to your resume dont say in resume that you are expert, but that you know it and used it. When they call for interview you will have few days to brush up on the language. If you pass interview then you have additional week or more to start coding. Enough time to learn.
Same thing with algorithm analysis. Not that you will have tons of algorithms to write, but your code will be that much leaner and cleaner. Even things like graph theory, descrete maths, formal logic, all greatly help in abstraction.
If you cannot abstract algorithms, how well do you think you can abstract a problem to a project to a proper, clean, workable sollution?
So overall:
1. take programming, take things you like, but dont forget that
hard science, maths, will push you to your limits, and thats
good 2. take business like stuff for your electives. Ignore the
enticing sci/fi literature study class, and take project
managment, requirements gathering/analysis, project
design/architecture. Also, this is as good time as any to
fix your language (spoken/written, not programming) skills.
Doing this right will save you from tech writting classes.
this is ofcourse dependant on the outcome of the next few years and the industry. There are many different prospects, currently most accepted is that jobs will be outsourced, so your only chance to survive is to be a manager of the outsource resource.
There are ofcourse other theories out there:
1. GPL/OSS wins (not so great coder)
learn to program, learn to write clean code. Your job will be
administration / setting up and or fixing / adding features to
already existing software. This customization has already
been happening, but not on the scale that we could expect with
GPL/OSS. Your business classes will only be half as good
2. GPL/OSS wins (good coder)
You could lead project, large companies would call you for
help, analyst, fix things FAST, you can ask for any wage.
If you are a good coder, you have nothing to worry anyways.
3. Everything is outsourced (but managers)
you will need to become manager that is a buffer/proxy between
the client and the outsourced programmers. That is unless you
too become outsourced. Business skills required as much as
programming
4. Everything is outsourced (period)
so your managorial job got outsourced too? You have few
choices, move to a country to which you got outsourced to
and work from there. This is perfect for immigrants, they
come back to their country with degree/language, and are the
buffer/proxy like above, but from the outsourced country
(cheaper living, but more bang for the buck, but not too
(viable for american native (2generations+)
-- /apz, blah, future is blah... future is bleak...
\ I remember the rather heated feedback that Black Isle got,
\ first when they said that Fallout 3 would have 3D graphics
\ (although it would still take place in a 2D space like Fallout
\ 1 and 2 did), and later when they wanted to make the combat
\ real-time.
Have you played Fallout BOS for xbox? Its 3D is nothing like one would expect, not isometric, but top down. Why did they not do it more isometric, something akin to Warcraft 3.
As per combat real time? Why? One of the great things that Fallout shines at is its combat system. The great thing about Fallout was that not only was it a great RPG, but also its combat was strategic and not a click fest. Heck, there is even Fallout BOS (Tactics) game that is a Squad Strategy Game.
Now, does this mean that game should not be done 3D? I think to make better faster game one needs to use 3D, just do it properly. Dont make camera a burden in the game (again, in warcraft 3 you never play with camera).
Similiarly, lets talk about real time combat, such combat has tottaly different dynamics than a turn based. Better? Worse? For online play real time is better as your opponents/friends do not slow you down. For control and complexity and thinking about your move turn based is the only way to go?
but I agree, Fallout 3 should really be called the Wasteland 2 just to make sure that Fallout fans enjoy it, know its fallout related, but dont lament that its not Fallout as they played it (and maybe some fans will play Wasteland 1 (for c64 no less) and then appreciate where we are)
I was under assumption that SIDStation was making own chips, but you are right, my bad:
\ The possible production of SidStation synthesizers is limited.
\ Production of SID-chips has stopped since long, and we have
\ searched all over the world for remaining stock. We will stop
\ the production of SidStation as the stock we've managed to
\ secure is at an end. The price of the SidStation will also be
\ increased as the stock dries out. If you want to be in
\ possession of a SidStation - don't wait. from : sidstation.com/sidstory_sidwhat.php
-- /apz, SID is much better sounding than Roland TB-303 !!!
but isnt 2x256 also faster than 1x512? Afterall, you got two banks from which you can read/write data to? Especially when CPU is not doing the memory access, but other devices through DMA.
The 1x512 is more expensive for two reasons: 1) there is more silicon crammed onto same space 2) anyone who wants a decent performace tries to fill their memory
banks.
Yes, there are quite a few artists who do homage to the beloved SID. Ignoring people who remake SID tunes on other instruments such as Mahoney mahoney.c64.org or the Press Play on Tape pressplayontape.com (go to both websites now, if you want to hear GOOD music, also get the PPOT Boy Band Music Video), there are also arists that are signed with big labels that create their music with SID.
One of the more recent artists is Bastian who uses SID for the base, often lead, and sound effects. Not the frindge of the music spectrum when comparing to Aphex Twin, but still, quite fresh and unique (highly recommended song 'you got my love') arist website: bastianmusic.nl)
There are rumors wether many of the euro techno bands dont use SID chips to enhance their music. Orbital is one of the most known of bands that I heard about.
Afterall, SID chip has been voted into top 20 chips produced for computers, alongside such marvels as z80, sparc, and intel cpus. (link www.byte.com/art/9509/sec7/art9.htm)
-- /apz, SID chip was developed in 1981 and is still produced
\ But why would you want bouncy theme music during a tense scary
\ moment in a game?
Someone mentioned this earlier in another thread, KOTOR has tons of tense scary moments in the game, but it uses its orchestral Star Wars music that everyone can recognize, that people can humm to.
Game music in the tense scary moments should not downgrade itself to being ambient wolf howl, wind and the wind chime like sound effects.
Why cant scary tense moments rely on music, that has own climaxes that has own growth. Why cannot we have something like Vivaldi's Bolero, it takes a good 15 minutes for it to get up to speed, in a game one could prolong it, and leave the climax for the fight with the boss.
There is so much potential in games, so much in music, yet for many games this is left wasted.
I inderstand that for a game that is 80hours long it is hard to create 80 hours music that is at the same time non boring, not repeating, not too annoying, rememberable, and that any part of the tune can melt into any other tune (to change with the mood of the game). Actually, not just hard but very hard, however much too often companies seem to totally skip looking into the music as an added bonus to the game, and just slap on any ambient tune that is forgotten before it moves from ear drump to brain.
-- /apz, why does scary must mean looped wind samples?
\ Game audio shouldn't be the tunes you hear in your car
How I wish all sports games would follow this. God, I hated EA's FIFA for playing top 40 radio hits from the previous year.
\ Game audio should be convincing, engaging without being
\ detracting, and should heighten enjoyment the first time heard
\ without getting annoying the 10th. It should dynamically change
\ based upon the character's situation, and should contain an
\ original artistic spark.
Only to add one more point, game audio should be rememberable. It should be so good that people sit in the menu and wait for it to finish. It should be something that you can whistle or sing to. This is what differences good music that people enjoy from great music that people try to play at the camp fires, or whistle in the subway or bus.
-- /apz, I got eyes and ears, amaze me with your game
The idea is not that games should create new forms of music, the idea is that music can change a game from being 7 points rated up to 8 points.
Play any game, especially like Silent Hill or Doom3, and you will not be able to say that what you hear does not add to the tension in the game.
Music should be same. Music should add to the game.
Old Commodore 64 games had powerfull music. It played while game was loading, it was not ambient, it carried a tune which you could whistle. Can you whistle to me the Doom3 tune? its too ambient and its too bland. Can you whistle to me Duke Nukem 3d tune? YUP!
Another point, a remarkable game that broke grounds with music was Jedi Knight (not sure if 1 or 2), depending on whats happening (or about to) the music tone would change from being peacefull minuet to a violent orchestral explosions.
Here is another thing, visit remix.overclocked.org or vgmix.com and count remixes, both sites sport slightly more than 1000 remixes for ALL platforms from handhelds, through consoles, to pc based games. Then visit a site like remix.kwed.org and you will see 1000 remixes of c64 games alone.
That should tell you how memorable c64 music is, and how little people recall and liked music from other system.
music should be memorable music should add to the game music should not be treated as the background ambient noise
-- /apz, I want music I can whistle while in the bus
Commodore 64 SID chip designer when quitting create Ensoniq, a proffesional maker of Keyboards and musical synthesisers. Its on same level as Yamaha or Korg synthesisers. You cannot get more proffesional than this.
Unless you are refering to systems created before C64, or games from other systems (coleco vision?pong?).
IBM 3270 terminal is amazing technological marvel that should be much more well known. Its very similiar to http/html. The server formats a page, sends it to client, and forgets about it. The terminal client then guides user to fill out the form (like almost a browser). Once user is ready he submits the form back to the server. Server then does some work and sends another form to fill out (to correct input, or to do something else).
VT100 is nice especially when it comes to interactivity (since server can act upon every single keystroke), but IBM 3270 really shines when it comes to being low on cpu usage (only acts when user submits a form).
There are gateways that convert IBM 3270 terminal output into http/html. I believe AT&T is one company to prolong their mainframe usefullness through this.
my lame excuse: the IBM 3270 that I have access to is quite adamant as to the client line widths and to connect succesfully I have to ensure to be in 3270 mode 2 (80x24).
I should have read up on other modes. 3270 mode 5 is as you say, meaning 132 wide (by 27 lines).
For those wondering why 132 is magic to some, here is a list of line widths and reasons:
size reason ---- ----------------- __40 Old Terminals (old dos) __40 file_id.diz __72 Plaintext Emails __72 links/lynx/w3 webpage margins __80 Newer Terminals (new dos/vt100) _132 Newest VESA text mode supported ____ by hardware in GFX cards
Depending on who you are, and what purpose you have, different widths are good.
First old green/amber monitors were 12" (or blurry tvs) and fitting and reading more than 40chars on screen was hard, so we had initially 40chars.
Also, meet assembly coder, generally the code will fit in the first 40 characters, while the rest will be used for comments.
If you want to format code nicely for email you will be formatting 72 chars to be safe. Before someone starts saying that there is no such thing as 72 for email, you are mistaken for a multitude of reasons. -> if someone replies, your lines will be prefixed. with 72 chars
there is enough space to include original message through four
replies (by which time discussion moves offtopic, or graviates
around another quote) -> all mail clients adhere to this rule, from pine to mozilla
The 80 characters is also left over from old times. You want your code to fit completly to whenever/whoever is reading it. Pico/Vi/Emacs are here to blame. Many DOS editors actually are following more closely to the 72 char limit (such editors as turbo/borland pascal). Here we started getting color monitors (ega/cga/vga) and they were larger, sharper, and on 14" finally we could fit 80 chars.
The 132 characters is by now an old mode introduced with VESA standard. Remember first games that were 640x480x256 in DOS? Thats when VESA was created and when we got 132 characters. Ofcourse, this was almost 10years ago, people were switching to windows, and monitors did not grow up to support 132 chars properly yet. Of the more famous programs for dos to utilize all the text modes properly would be Cubic Player.
Novadays, the line limit is on how much you can fit on your screen, there are few factors: 1. IDE -> many Integrated Development Environments want to put
things on the left and right size. Opened files, objects
toolbar, properties explorer, color picker. Clutter galore. 2. Resolution -> Afterall, there are so few pixels on the screen 3. Eyes / Monitor Size -> some people have problems reading
smaller fonts. At 1024/768 I am fitting easily 170 chars
(running terminal 6px by 8px)
I am always wondering why people want blurry fonts (anti aliased as some call it) and why some want variable sized fonts (that are harder to read, and less predictable).
Slashdot Mirror
\ sin(x) can have values between positive 1 and negative 1
so, we have:
- 1 <= sin (x) <= 1
ok, next
\ I have a value of x somewhere between 0 and pi.
so we have:
a <= sin (x) <= b where 0 <= x <= pi
sin(0) = 0
sin(pi) = 0
sin(pi/2) = 1
take my word for it, when 0 <= x <= pi our sines behaves such that:
0 <= sin (x) <= 1 where 0 <= x <= pi
ok, next:
\ Is my x going to be positive or negative?
is this a trick question??
are you referring to x as in input argument to sinus function?
in which case you have said yourself, its from 0 to pi, its positive
are you refering to the result of sin(x) where x is between 0 and pi?
in which case the result is positive as well as sin for first half of itself is
positive.
no matter which interpretation we take, its same answer, so the real question
that begets to be asked : Where is the self claimed snarking in that post?
--
/apz, A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours
\ It never ceases to amaze me how blinkered this tech-aware community is when
\ it comes to Flash. Any technology can be poorly implemented, but the days of
\ horrible sliding text skip-intro multiple alpha-tween flash movies are long,
\ long gone. But just to rile you up here's a *nice* piece of heavy flash work.
\ It's a great promo for an ad agency, integrates audio, video, and has a real
\ 'application' feel, so for those who still don't load frames or images you
\ won't be happy with this: http://www.agencynet.com/
its one thing when talking about applications, like you mention, google maps, its
another matter when talking about websites. How do I bookmark news page from
agency net? Why to load 500characters of news it takes me minutes?
heck, my 300bps c64 modem could load those news faster if they were standard html.
ok, so we have, lets count them:
- bandwidth waste (serving content unneeded
- no ability to bookmark specific content (ie: news)
- no ability to copy text to a friend (ie: news)
- does not work with text to speech nor text to braile converters
- no way to zoomin for visibily impaired (unless they have special video drivers
that use virtual 800x600 with a display of 320x200 and lots of scrolling around)
- does not work on text only vt100/x3270 terminals (and links and w3 browsers do
support stuff like javascript and frames) I am hoping that with libcaca or aalib
it could be possible to access flash sites through text terminals
- no keyboard interface, all normal websites are easy to browse with keyboard.
But not the flash based websites.
Again, I am not saying that there is no usage for flash, and I agree, building
corporate applications for the intr[ea]net is nice and dandy, but for a normal
website I dont see a need, unless one really needs to be flashy (like an ad agency).
--
/apz, Real Users hate Real Programmers.
\ Take the Xploding Plastix site http://www.xplodingplastix.com/
\ this is an excellent demonstration of Flash done right.
this is an exellent example of a flash done wrong !!
1) how do I link to a specific content? such as the gallery page or the discography?
There is no way I am going to send to my mom or friends a link to the page and
then a list of explanations on where to click to get somewhere specific.
2) my grandparents have vision problems, neither opera nor mozilla want to resize
this flash. And this flash is the newer type that does not allow internal zoomin
3) no text interface means no ability to use text to speech software that blind
and disabled people use
4) there is no way to copy text. I mean, I understand, biography is copyrighted and
I should not be able to spread the news of the band to my friends.
5) no keyboard interface, every normal site is browsable with keyboard, except most
flash (and this one too) sites..
I never really understood whats the point of flash except making webpages less usable
but I have to thank you for pointing them out, their music is excellent !! thanks
--
/apz, The world is coming to an end
I have to second the Quirks and Quarks show, it is truly superb
The 2600 group has archives of their shows going back to 1986, there
is a great wealth of hacking and phreaking information under the title
'off the hook', http://www.2600.com/
You can also find other shows produced by Emanuel, like the 'Off The Wall'
and the 'Brain Damage'.
2600 also have organized few different hacker conferences (hope series)
and two most recent conferences have all of the audio online:
http://www.the-fifth-hope.org/hoop/5hope_speakers
conference from 2004, over 70 speakers, tons of listening material on
variety of topics like lockpicking, hacking, social engineering, spies
and even info on Romania's IT.. First Hope conference to which Kevin
Mitnick showed up to.
http://www.h2k2.net/panels.html
conference from 2002, everything online, also a great variety
http://www.h2k.net/panels.html
conference from 2000, not everything is in mp3 form
the author mentioned audio books, I am not sure what audiobooks he has
been listening to but there is alot of choice, you dont have to listen
to Robert Jordans another WoT 1000 page book, you can pick up an audio
book that satisfies your 'geekinees', here are books that I am waiting
at my library to take out and listen in my car:
- Bill Bryson - A Short History Of Nearly Everything
- Richard P Feynman - What Do You Care What Other People Think
- Richard Wolfson - Einstein's Relativity and the Quantum Revolution
- Stephne Hawking - Breif History of Time
Another thing that the person might look into are abridged books. I had
a chance to listen to the 'Time Machine' that was abridged down to two
hours. He could listen first part on the way to work, and second part
on the way back. It definitelly is different listening to a two hour
abridged book than listening to a 45hour unabridged book.
enjoy
--
Music Plasma is ok if you run a graphical browser, and only search for uberly popular
stuff.
I just tried looking for:
Via Gra - newest russian pop band, no hits on Music Plasma, although the group
is signed with Sony Music, and is very popular in both Russia and Japan (Via Gra is so
popular in Japan that they learned few of their songs in Japanese to appease the fans)
info on the band : http://dime32.dizinc.com/~russmus/bands-viagra.ht
DAAU - Belgain experimental Symphonic music... Again, Music Plasma fails doing anything
relevant... More info on the band http://www.daau.com/
Green Nuns of the Revolution - nothing relevant, it thinks I typed in 'Guns and
Roses'.. How could it make such a mistake? does it use some soundex algorithm? Anyways
it is recommending me Aerosmith instead of stuff like 'Members of Mayday' or
'Hallucinogen'
I am sorry, but I will stick to AudioScrobbler, because atleast it provides me with
searches that actually net to something, much much better than music plasma.
--
/apz, Feel disillusioned? I've got some great new illusions, right here!
checkout AudioScrobbler.com , they even let you download their database to run own
statistical analysis.
They provide the good stuff:
- most listened track by artist
- most listened track by listener
- most listened artist by listener
- similiar arists to an artist
Although, their database is not too clean, some arists are duplicated, for example
you will find 'prodigy' and 'the prodigy' as if they were separate artists.
but then, audioscrobbler.com provides you with their database, its a project that
runs on Creative Commons license (think open source data), and so far I have not
seen/heard of it being poisened by commercial companies trying to boost some artist's
ratings by submiting fake statistics into the system.
ymmv
--
/apz, "Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, "Mind you, my first name is Bad."
thats great, but music store only has few thousand records, I have friends
that have more tracks than many music stores, now I dont want to go and say that
in particular your music store happends to be Walmart with 20 artists ranging from
Black Street Boys to Christinna Spears, but still, could you elaborate as to what
music store provides you with world music?
my own story : I try to listen to varied music, I had columbia house subscription
whos selection blows (no Jean Michelle Jarre, nor no Prodigy (atleast when they
released Music For Jilted Generation)), my local music stores (HMV, FutureShop) also
had their selection limited, you can forget finding music like Isreal's Astral
Projection or the french Red Room jazz group (which is generally hard to locate).
I found going to music stores meant listening to what music store has, and
considering that there is a whole world out there. is quite a limiting factor.
Now, dont take me wrong, all I am saying is that music stores as the *sole*
music source imho does not provide a wide range of music choices, so go to
the music stores, but also know that there is hundreds more that you could be
missing out if music store is your only source of music. (is that redundant enough?)
--
/apz, Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain
I will not give much credit to any p2p, especially since such networks like emule
or torrent dont allow you to find other files that a given user has, but I will
say that generally Internet did help me grown my taste and appreciation to world
music.
1) online friends, after many years on irc and icq and other chat networks you
get to know lots of people from various places around the world. They often send me
lists of whats popular in their country. I recently heard of Via Gra, a russian pop
band (which is also known under the name Nu Virgos), whos music videos stand true
to the bands name (get their Biologia if you can).
2) AudioScrobbler, there is no other great tool that I know of. You enjoy some artist
that you just heard (ie: Shpongle) then head to AudioScrobbler.com and see what are
similiar artists. That way you can expand on what you though was a single song to a
whole genre of music !!
My current top pics for music:
- Planet Funk - The new British dancish band, their Chase The Sun is a euro hit but
personally I love the song 'who said' (I am slave on a minimum wage)
- Shpongle - and certain tracks from Infected Mushroom (like dancing with Kadafi),
the merge of Goa (psychodelic techno) with New Age
- Andreas Vollenweider - beatifull Harp music
- Ravi Shankhar - no one does Sithar better
- Transe Atlantic Air Waves - from the maker of Enigma come best instrumental remixes
of 80s ambient techno tracks (AxelF, Jan Hammer, Vangelis, etc)
- Aphordite - no one does jungle/DnB better (just listen to the 'takeover bid' album)
- BT - aka Brain Transeau , mellodic techno (get IMA and ESCM albums now !!)
- DAAU - Belgain group that does experimental symphonic music fusion with other
music genres.. Think classical merged with other genres, amazing stuff, although
highly experimental
- Aphex Twin - there is hardy anyone more on the fringe techno than aphex twin
Really, take these artists, plug them into audioscrobbler to find out their best
tracks, download these tracks, listen. if you like, get whole albums, or checkout
audioscrobblers 'similiar artist' feature, or alternatively, use audioscrobblers
listener group.
ofcourse, there is always the legal music you can get. Head to the remix.kwed.org
and download anything that has red raving smiley face, these tracks are just
amazing. Then head to vgmix.com and get 'stuff of legends'. And finally, there is
also ocremix.org.
Enjoy, may you find good music out there.
--
/apz, Old age is always fifteen years older than I am. -- B. Baruch
The worst in my experience have been contracts that do IP Theft on you.
At one place the contract explicitly stated that company owns anything I do:
1) on their computers
understandable, afterall its their hardware, electricity, office, bandwidth
2) on their time
understandable, afterall I would be payed for it
3) on my own time at home when asked to do something for work
understandable, its their idea
4) on my own time at home my own thing
a big WTF WTF LOL WTF
I asked a lawyer at the company if my interpretation was right, and yes, The problem
became with my homework assignments for university which I was also doing at the
same time. Officially I had to ask for permission from our company lawyer and my boss
if I could submit my homeworks... Atleast I could try to weasel out of late penalty marks at university by blaming the lawyer/boss for slowly responding.
At another company they would not claim rights over my code, but would claim ownage
over any domain name I owned. Thankfully I asked my boss if I am reading this right
and as boss owned some domain names himself he went to the lawyers and they changed
the contract.
The second worst I had to deal with were bad bosses. This was second worse maybe
because I always avoided bad bosses. I kid you not though, I had UML of class
organization given on used napkins. I had bosses who could not understand basest of
base ideas, it was normal to hear such quotes as:
- you can kiss my ass, and VICE VERSA!!
- you have turned this project 360 degrees around
--
/apz. Drilling for oil is boring, now War, thats entertaining
--/ APOLOGIES
Please accept my apologies if I have spoken too harshly about Java. I have
not meant to insult you nor anyone who uses Java. I have not said Java
should not be used at all, nor that Java coders are morons. All I have
commented is that Java has worst starting times hence speed is not Java's
cup of tea, pardon the pun.
Before I make another error at offending you yet again: lets review the
discussion that has sparked this thread to maybe a conclusion in agreement:
--/ REVIEW
the original question: 'What does C/C++ do that Java does not??'. The
answer was 'Device Drivers'. to which you wrote quite properly that
\ Java can handle "soft" realtime just fine, and extensions are being
\ worked on for "hard" realtime support. And yes, some people actually
\ write device drivers in Java.
to which I have replied, to quote myself:
\ if java can not even simply start fast, how can it be speedy?
now, to get to crux of the problem, you eloquently have stated:
\ You are comparing a Virtual Machine platform designed to optimize large
\ and long running programs, against simple scripting languages? With a
\ Hello World program no less!
--/ THE RESPONSE - AKA : MEA CULPA , REALLY ?
Yes, Java Virtual Machine by itself is quite of a beast, but there are
reasons for that. JVM is large because it has many methods to optimize
the code as its running it. JIT (Just In Time) will reorder code based on
current code profiling to avoid branch misspredictions, wasted hardware
registers, etc. In some cases JVM/JIT can optimize the code its running
so well that it rivals unprofiled C/C++ code.
This is also where Java really shines, RAD world, not the actual program
execution time. Speed was never part of the Java's equasion, and you
yourself comment on that with:
\ tradeoffs programmers must make in order to make things fast, small, or
\ "abstract". Hint: It's a lot like Physics. You don't get something for nothing.
There are tradeoffs. Some need fast execution, while others will go after
clean code developed quickly that runs within required timeframe.
And although Java can do realtime device drivers its not really good at
it, kinda like PHP can bind to the GTK.
Some of the problems with JVM/JIT is that it can execute faster benchmarks
because it does not release used memory before benchmark finishes hence
it never incurs the Garbage Collector penalty.
This is quite evident in the Original Shootout comparison:
pure cpu report http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/craps.shtml?x cpu=1&xmem=0
Java is at the top, considering real languages its third, behind the old
and venerable C/C++, not bad, right?
cpu+mem report http://www.bagley.org/~doug/shootout/craps.shtml?x cpu=1&xmem=1
Now we see a different picture, Java uses alot of the ram to avoid Garbage
penalty. C/C++ are still at the top, but now we also have lua (used alot
in games), Perl, Python and Ruby (out of the more well known languages)
that do better than Java.
As others said, doing comparisons between languages is bad, my bad.
now, I do admit to being guilty for delibratelly chosing a statistic that
is not in Java's favour at all, quite opposite to that, and for this
'manipulation' I am guilty. I am also guilty for overstating that Java is
the worst of them all, obviously Java is not as bad as I have made it
sound. However I stand by that Java is not as efficient as other Languages.
I stand by that Java slow JVM startup is an indication to not being best.
--
sorry sir, I dont buy it, Java is the slowest of them all.
Here is a simple 'hello world' benchmark. Which language can
generate 'hello world' to stdout the fastest way. Java ends up
being second last and with highest memory usage
http://dada.perl.it/shootout/hello.html
How is the test done?
a batch file / shell script is created that calls your program
an x amount of times. The total time taken is then devided by X
to get the average time needed to display 'Hello World'.
Java apologists will say that the problem is with the JVM because
everytime you want to run a program you get the JVM baggage, but
will ignore the fact that other interpreted / emulated / VM like
languages are atleast THREE times as fast (ie: vbscript / jscript
/ python / perl).
--
/apz, if java can not even simply start fast, how can it be speedy?
bullshit
its a story about a guy who now:
1) has a job that takes 8hrs a day plus 1hr of driving
2) has a wife (husband) / kids that require time and attention
3) has a house / shopping / food / cleaning to take care of
and finds it hard to play recent games.
assume you have 2hrs a day of free time, of that you can dedicate
1.5hr to games (the rest is to catch up with news/read book).
this means a game like baldurs gate will take you 53 days to play
(assuming that you can pass it within 80hrs of gameplay). This is
almost two months. In those two months of play there will be
atleast two games released that will be added to your to play
list and out of a sudden you notice that the only games you can
play are ones that take 20hrs to pass. Max Payne albeit short
had the advantage of being short, people could start and finish
it without wondering where the time was lost.
Thats what the complaint is all about. That games should have
'easy' mode that limits the scope of all of the quests, rather
than making the enemies easier to kill.
When I was at university I had tons of hours to play games, climb
ladders, read on the web strategies, howtos, faqs, guides, etc.
Now with work one cannot put that much effort to game playing
any more.
Even cherry picking games is hard. I am currently 4years worth
of gaming lag. There are some games that take too long to pass
and should have options:
- 'Core Gameplay (75% of quests removed, easier bosses)'
- 'Complete Gameplay (80hr of game play minimum)'
My current list of games to finish, or atleast try to:
- fallout brother hood of steel : Tactics
- planescape torment
- arcanum
- lionheart : legacy of the crusader
- baldurs gate 1 + addons
- baldurs gate 2 + addons
- ice wind dale 1 + addons
- ice wind dale 2 + addons
- deus ex
- max payne 2
- kotor
- halo
- etherlords
- age of wonders
- majestic
- c&c generals + condition zero
- Disciples 2
- HOMM4
- Thorgal : Odin's Quest
- Serious Sam 1 / 2
- Silent Hill 2
- Lemmings 3d Revolutions
- no one lives forever 1/2
- Sheep
blah, am lagging in games way too much...
--
/apz, only if life were as customizable as games.
Another XML fanboy.
First you create XML. Then you build DTD/Schema to enforce a set
of constrictions on the original XML (note: DTD/Schema were added
later to XML).
Then you 'automatically' convert the said XML to XHTML.
right, you build another XML to represent how to display the
original data within original XML/DTD/Schema. Such display XML
shall not be called XML, lets call it different things, for there
are different DTD/Schemas for display XMLs. The Mozilla crowd
wants you to use XUL, the ms camp wants you to use XAML, and
ofcourse, others will say XHTML + Javascript + some server side
sollution. When I say display I really mean display with ability
to edit/add/delete.
Anyways, since XAML/XUL are esoteric we are left with XHTML +
javascript + server side scripting (jsp/asp/php). This, as you
say, is quite bad for true controlled non editing display. We
want to export to DOC (be it RTF, or ms office XML), or to
ascii or PS/PDF. Good, now hope that your original display XML,
afterall from which you generated XHTML, can also be used to do
the conversion to other formats. Here again you will come to
problems, as you need to keep playing and writting converters
from one XML format to another, massage their content, until the
PDF/DOC exporters work like you want.
Now, you have gone through tons and tons of extra hoops, with a
fairly new technology. And it took you how long?
Here is somethings that much faster:
1. sql -> setup tables / foreign keys / check constraints
2. ms access -> link tables
3. ms access -> auto wizard the forms
4. ms access -> export forms to ASP
and you are done. And anything to do is few clicks away. Now,
its not perfect, actually far from it (ms-access exported forms
to ASP leave ALOT to be desired) but atleast its not hodge podge
as it is with the magical XML.
I cringe when people say XML is a sollution to every data related
problem. The only thing that XML by itself that is amazing is
the nested data structure support. Everything else the good
old tab/comma delimited format already supported!!
--
/apz, XML is good and all when used right
\ Take as little mathematics as possible and focus on business
\ and more software engineering.
I somewhat disagree. Most important is to take things that will
make you employable. And here I agree, if you want to get more
likely to be employable add some business training to your index.
Take Software Project Managment, Software Law, Business courses.
But do not skip on science either. I see people who did courses
like programming language concepts get jobs more easily? why? They
can learn any new language faster with formal traning on grammar.
A job requires some language you dont know? Write it to your resume
dont say in resume that you are expert, but that you know it and
used it. When they call for interview you will have few days to
brush up on the language. If you pass interview then you have
additional week or more to start coding. Enough time to learn.
Same thing with algorithm analysis. Not that you will have tons of
algorithms to write, but your code will be that much leaner and
cleaner. Even things like graph theory, descrete maths, formal
logic, all greatly help in abstraction.
If you cannot abstract algorithms, how well do you think you can
abstract a problem to a project to a proper, clean, workable
sollution?
So overall:
1. take programming, take things you like, but dont forget that
hard science, maths, will push you to your limits, and thats
good
2. take business like stuff for your electives. Ignore the
enticing sci/fi literature study class, and take project
managment, requirements gathering/analysis, project
design/architecture. Also, this is as good time as any to
fix your language (spoken/written, not programming) skills.
Doing this right will save you from tech writting classes.
this is ofcourse dependant on the outcome of the next few years
and the industry. There are many different prospects, currently
most accepted is that jobs will be outsourced, so your only
chance to survive is to be a manager of the outsource resource.
There are ofcourse other theories out there:
1. GPL/OSS wins (not so great coder)
learn to program, learn to write clean code. Your job will be
administration / setting up and or fixing / adding features to
already existing software. This customization has already
been happening, but not on the scale that we could expect with
GPL/OSS. Your business classes will only be half as good
2. GPL/OSS wins (good coder)
You could lead project, large companies would call you for
help, analyst, fix things FAST, you can ask for any wage.
If you are a good coder, you have nothing to worry anyways.
3. Everything is outsourced (but managers)
you will need to become manager that is a buffer/proxy between
the client and the outsourced programmers. That is unless you
too become outsourced. Business skills required as much as
programming
4. Everything is outsourced (period)
so your managorial job got outsourced too? You have few
choices, move to a country to which you got outsourced to
and work from there. This is perfect for immigrants, they
come back to their country with degree/language, and are the
buffer/proxy like above, but from the outsourced country
(cheaper living, but more bang for the buck, but not too
(viable for american native (2generations+)
--
/apz, blah, future is blah... future is bleak...
There is the lights switch game:
http://binertia.com/lightswitch.html
press such combination that all squares are
yellow at the same time. It has been done.
and this works in IE5+/NS5+/Moz/FireFox/Opera
enjoy
--
/apz, simple puzzle games are the best
\ I remember the rather heated feedback that Black Isle got,
\ first when they said that Fallout 3 would have 3D graphics
\ (although it would still take place in a 2D space like Fallout
\ 1 and 2 did), and later when they wanted to make the combat
\ real-time.
Have you played Fallout BOS for xbox? Its 3D is nothing like one
would expect, not isometric, but top down. Why did they not do
it more isometric, something akin to Warcraft 3.
As per combat real time? Why? One of the great things that
Fallout shines at is its combat system. The great thing about
Fallout was that not only was it a great RPG, but also its combat
was strategic and not a click fest. Heck, there is even Fallout
BOS (Tactics) game that is a Squad Strategy Game.
Now, does this mean that game should not be done 3D? I think to
make better faster game one needs to use 3D, just do it properly.
Dont make camera a burden in the game (again, in warcraft 3 you
never play with camera).
Similiarly, lets talk about real time combat, such combat has
tottaly different dynamics than a turn based. Better? Worse?
For online play real time is better as your opponents/friends
do not slow you down. For control and complexity and thinking
about your move turn based is the only way to go?
but I agree, Fallout 3 should really be called the Wasteland 2
just to make sure that Fallout fans enjoy it, know its fallout
related, but dont lament that its not Fallout as they played it
(and maybe some fans will play Wasteland 1 (for c64 no less) and
then appreciate where we are)
--
/apz, I want sequel to Wasteland, not fallout
I was under assumption that SIDStation was making own
chips, but you are right, my bad:
\ The possible production of SidStation synthesizers is limited.
\ Production of SID-chips has stopped since long, and we have
\ searched all over the world for remaining stock. We will stop
\ the production of SidStation as the stock we've managed to
\ secure is at an end. The price of the SidStation will also be
\ increased as the stock dries out. If you want to be in
\ possession of a SidStation - don't wait.
from : sidstation.com/sidstory_sidwhat.php
--
/apz, SID is much better sounding than Roland TB-303 !!!
\ 2x256mb is cheaper then [ed: than] 1x512mb.
but isnt 2x256 also faster than 1x512? Afterall, you got two banks
from which you can read/write data to? Especially when CPU is not
doing the memory access, but other devices through DMA.
The 1x512 is more expensive for two reasons:
1) there is more silicon crammed onto same space
2) anyone who wants a decent performace tries to fill their memory
banks.
--
/apz, ofcourse, potentially I could be wrong
Yes, there are quite a few artists who do homage to the
beloved SID. Ignoring people who remake SID tunes on other
instruments such as Mahoney mahoney.c64.org or the
Press Play on Tape pressplayontape.com
(go to both websites now, if you want to hear GOOD music, also get
the PPOT Boy Band Music Video), there are also arists that are
signed with big labels that create their music with SID.
One of the more recent artists is Bastian who uses SID for the
base, often lead, and sound effects. Not the frindge of the music
spectrum when comparing to Aphex Twin, but still, quite fresh and
unique (highly recommended song 'you got my love')
arist website: bastianmusic.nl)
There are rumors wether many of the euro techno bands dont use
SID chips to enhance their music. Orbital is one of the most
known of bands that I heard about.
Afterall, SID chip has been voted into top 20 chips produced for
computers, alongside such marvels as z80, sparc, and intel cpus.
(link www.byte.com/art/9509/sec7/art9.htm)
--
/apz, SID chip was developed in 1981 and is still produced
\ But why would you want bouncy theme music during a tense scary
\ moment in a game?
Someone mentioned this earlier in another thread, KOTOR has tons
of tense scary moments in the game, but it uses its orchestral
Star Wars music that everyone can recognize, that people can humm
to.
Game music in the tense scary moments should not downgrade itself
to being ambient wolf howl, wind and the wind chime like sound
effects.
Why cant scary tense moments rely on music, that has own climaxes
that has own growth. Why cannot we have something like Vivaldi's
Bolero, it takes a good 15 minutes for it to get up to speed,
in a game one could prolong it, and leave the climax for the
fight with the boss.
There is so much potential in games, so much in music, yet for
many games this is left wasted.
I inderstand that for a game that is 80hours long it is hard to
create 80 hours music that is at the same time non boring, not
repeating, not too annoying, rememberable, and that any part of
the tune can melt into any other tune (to change with the mood
of the game). Actually, not just hard but very hard, however
much too often companies seem to totally skip looking into the
music as an added bonus to the game, and just slap on any ambient
tune that is forgotten before it moves from ear drump to brain.
--
/apz, why does scary must mean looped wind samples?
\ Game audio shouldn't be the tunes you hear in your car
How I wish all sports games would follow this. God, I hated EA's
FIFA for playing top 40 radio hits from the previous year.
\ Game audio should be convincing, engaging without being
\ detracting, and should heighten enjoyment the first time heard
\ without getting annoying the 10th. It should dynamically change
\ based upon the character's situation, and should contain an
\ original artistic spark.
Only to add one more point, game audio should be rememberable. It
should be so good that people sit in the menu and wait for it to
finish. It should be something that you can whistle or sing to.
This is what differences good music that people enjoy from great
music that people try to play at the camp fires, or whistle in the
subway or bus.
--
/apz, I got eyes and ears, amaze me with your game
The idea is not that games should create new forms of music,
the idea is that music can change a game from being 7 points rated
up to 8 points.
Play any game, especially like Silent Hill or Doom3, and you will
not be able to say that what you hear does not add to the tension
in the game.
Music should be same. Music should add to the game.
Old Commodore 64 games had powerfull music. It played while game
was loading, it was not ambient, it carried a tune which you could
whistle. Can you whistle to me the Doom3 tune? its too ambient
and its too bland. Can you whistle to me Duke Nukem 3d tune? YUP!
Another point, a remarkable game that broke grounds with music
was Jedi Knight (not sure if 1 or 2), depending on whats happening
(or about to) the music tone would change from being peacefull
minuet to a violent orchestral explosions.
Here is another thing, visit remix.overclocked.org
or vgmix.com and count remixes, both
sites sport slightly more than 1000 remixes for ALL platforms
from handhelds, through consoles, to pc based games. Then visit
a site like remix.kwed.org and you
will see 1000 remixes of c64 games alone.
That should tell you how memorable c64 music is, and how little
people recall and liked music from other system.
music should be memorable
music should add to the game
music should not be treated as the background ambient noise
--
/apz, I want music I can whistle while in the bus
What simplistic audio?
Commodore 64 SID chip designer when quitting create Ensoniq, a
proffesional maker of Keyboards and musical synthesisers. Its on
same level as Yamaha or Korg synthesisers. You cannot get more
proffesional than this.
Unless you are refering to systems created before C64, or games
from other systems (coleco vision?pong?).
--
/apz, Rememberable game music is whats missing
IBM 3270 terminal is amazing technological marvel that should be
much more well known. Its very similiar to http/html. The server
formats a page, sends it to client, and forgets about it. The
terminal client then guides user to fill out the form (like
almost a browser). Once user is ready he submits the form
back to the server. Server then does some work and sends another
form to fill out (to correct input, or to do something else).
VT100 is nice especially when it comes to interactivity (since
server can act upon every single keystroke), but IBM 3270 really
shines when it comes to being low on cpu usage (only acts when
user submits a form).
There are gateways that convert IBM 3270 terminal output into
http/html. I believe AT&T is one company to prolong their
mainframe usefullness through this.
my lame excuse: the IBM 3270 that I have access to is quite
adamant as to the client line widths and to connect succesfully
I have to ensure to be in 3270 mode 2 (80x24).
I should have read up on other modes. 3270 mode 5 is as you say,
meaning 132 wide (by 27 lines).
Thank you
--
/apz, one learns new things
For those wondering why 132 is magic to some, here is a list of
line widths and reasons:
size reason
---- -----------------
__40 Old Terminals (old dos)
__40 file_id.diz
__72 Plaintext Emails
__72 links/lynx/w3 webpage margins
__80 Newer Terminals (new dos/vt100)
_132 Newest VESA text mode supported
____ by hardware in GFX cards
Depending on who you are, and what purpose you have, different
widths are good.
First old green/amber monitors were 12" (or blurry tvs) and
fitting and reading more than 40chars on screen was hard, so
we had initially 40chars.
Also, meet assembly coder, generally the code will fit in the
first 40 characters, while the rest will be used for comments.
If you want to format code nicely for email you will be
formatting 72 chars to be safe. Before someone starts saying that
there is no such thing as 72 for email, you are mistaken for a
multitude of reasons.
-> if someone replies, your lines will be prefixed. with 72 chars
there is enough space to include original message through four
replies (by which time discussion moves offtopic, or graviates
around another quote)
-> all mail clients adhere to this rule, from pine to mozilla
The 80 characters is also left over from old times. You
want your code to fit completly to whenever/whoever is reading
it. Pico/Vi/Emacs are here to blame. Many DOS editors actually
are following more closely to the 72 char limit (such editors
as turbo/borland pascal).
Here we started getting color monitors (ega/cga/vga) and they
were larger, sharper, and on 14" finally we could fit 80 chars.
The 132 characters is by now an old mode introduced with VESA
standard. Remember first games that were 640x480x256 in DOS?
Thats when VESA was created and when we got 132 characters.
Ofcourse, this was almost 10years ago, people were switching
to windows, and monitors did not grow up to support 132 chars
properly yet. Of the more famous programs for dos to utilize
all the text modes properly would be Cubic Player.
Novadays, the line limit is on how much you can fit on your
screen, there are few factors:
1. IDE -> many Integrated Development Environments want to put
things on the left and right size. Opened files, objects
toolbar, properties explorer, color picker. Clutter galore.
2. Resolution -> Afterall, there are so few pixels on the screen
3. Eyes / Monitor Size -> some people have problems reading
smaller fonts. At 1024/768 I am fitting easily 170 chars
(running terminal 6px by 8px)
I am always wondering why people want blurry fonts (anti aliased
as some call it) and why some want variable sized fonts (that
are harder to read, and less predictable).
--
/apz, viva la terminal