That's a bit like saying a mob boss isn't culpable for the people he has whacked.
At the end of the day, I'm responsible for the team I manage. Considering the people who outed Plame were *all* on Cheney's team, he's responsible, whether he made the actual call or not.
Basically, every argument you present is incorrect. Warrants in these cases can be applied for up to 72 hours *after* the wiretapping occurred. The *entire* point of FISA is to provide oversight while minimizing interference. It worked just fine for 25 years, through the Reagan/Bush years, and then the Clinton years.
This is about oversight, or the lack thereof. This has nothing to do with the ability of government agencies to perform their duties, which were performed quite admirably before Bush destroyed the "checks and balances" (remember that from your civics class?) that were in place.
Right now, Bush is exempt from FISA. It's as if it doesn't even exist. It's as if Bush thinks he can pick and choose the laws he wishes to obey. That's called, oh, "above the law."
Fuck that. Bush is no more above the law than I am. He too is an American citizen.
The PS2 wasn't that inferior to the XBox. The XBox was essentially a PC in a fancy (ugly, IMNSHO) case. The PS2 had an architecture geared specifically to games. I'd compare any of the later Ratchet and Clank PS2 titles with anything on the XBox. (Jade Empire was pretty stunning, though.)
Anyway.
The cell processor isn't hard to code for at all. It just takes a different mindset, and the ability to figure out what to turn into little processing packets and send out to a cell. The hardest part is really just managing the workflow among the various workers.
I think that game companies will see some real payoff in the very near future. I'm looking forward to Insomniac's next "Resistance" title, which will include things like texture streaming to reduce load time (which you can't do on a 360, because there's no guarantee of a hard drive).
In any case, both the 360 and the PS3 have a bright future. There are going to be some kick-ass games for both of them.
Yes, they do. UT3 developers have stated that the Xbox 360 game will have less content and less-detailed textures compared to the PS3, specifically because it takes up more than can fit on a DVD.
Games *do* need BluRay now. That's the primary reason I feel the PS3 has the long-term edge.
JSON is all about simplicity. It's trivial to write a JSON parser in any language that has first-class support for hashed variables. That is, all languages.
XML might be a better markup language for complicated documents. However, it sucks for exchanging data structures.
I think the difference is that between a strongly-typed language and a dynamically-typed language. XML has support for strong typing and structure verification. JSON is designed to work with languages like Javascript, Perl, Python, PHP, and the like-- which all have support for dynamic typing. So maybe the differences in opinion lie between developers who like the straitjacket (and algorithmic purity) of a strongly-typed language, and those who like the flexibility and simplicity of a dynamically-typed language.
Anyway, that's my opinion. I think the GP post might be referring to a preference in the matter.
And in snubbing Redmond, it couldn't even come off as a champion of the people because of the extreme "Sony Style" DRM built into Blu-Ray.
Yes. Because Microsoft's DRM is *so* much more acceptable.
Face it: both suck bad eggs due to corporatist-friendly DRM. Other than that, Bluray isn't just a Sony thing. Several other corporations had hands in creating it. Sony doesn't control it.
I find it humorous that so many folks around here trust Microsoft more than Sony. I've seen Sony admit they were wrong (the whole DRM rootkit fiasco) and reverse their stance. Have you ever seen Microsoft do that?
If you were another candidate, would you risk your limited funds in a primary you're likely to lose or have a poor showing in because of a "joke" candidate?
So, they might lose to a joke candidate. People would pass them over for someone that isn't even serious. What does that imply about the viability of the current candidates?
I think Colbert's run would've been the best possible thing for American politics. The sooner our flawed process becomes obvious to the most thick-headed voter, the sooner we can wrest control back into the hands of the people. Then we can be oppressed by mass stupidity, rather than self-interested greed.
It's just the Barbarians in charge (the so called CEO leadership style as influenced by Enron) - the rule of law hasn't entirely vanished and will return after a few technical difficulties.
There are many intelligent, thoughtful people of faith. Some of them will even alter their belief to match the evidence of the universe.
There are others who will ignore the evidence rather than alter their beliefs. This is the group to which the article refers. Unfortunately, it's a stereotype, but it is also true of a large number of people of faith. Among those are creationists.
Creationism is not unique, but creationists are certainly among the most resistant to reality. I have been assured that all scientists who are not creationists are part of a vast conspiracy to deny God, and are working on behalf of Satan. This is willful ignorance beyond my comprehension.
Finally, to equate Euler's axioms with those of any faith is a bit disingenuous. The axioms of faith are based on subjective feeling (or are taken from a book that is true because it is a special book). They contain no predictive power.
Euler's axioms are accepted because they form the basis of a rigorous, consistent mathematics with predictive powers. They have formed the basis of much of our advances in technology and science.
In my experience, individual scientists may be resistant to an idea, but as a whole, scientists are not. Conversely, creationists are essentially united in their denial of fact, and their willingness to usurp actual knowledge in favor of myths handed down in a book.
Of course, that's my experience. There's no science to back me up on it.
Ratchet & Clank are the *best* platformer games out there. By far. They have a great sense of humor, clever cut scenes, fun weapons, and an intuitive control.
R&CF:TOD is the reason I purchased a PS3. Sure, Warhawk is fun, and Haze looks like it'll be a good FPS, but I have been a fan of the R&C series since the first one came out years ago. I highly recommend them.
This is a fun exercise: play the first R&C game. Then play the last one for the PS2. Compare the visuals. That's the result of a competent team learning how to take advantage of some great (though complex) hardware. I suspect you'll see the same sorts of things from them on the PS3.
There are several screenshots. There're also three trailers out, and have been for a while. If you own a PS3, the R&CF demo came out a few days ago. It'll give you a good flavor of the game.
I've loved the R&C franchise so far. The first two games were fantastic. The later two were more weapons-oriented, which was fine, but missed some of the storyline feel of the first two.
R&CF:TOD is supposed to be a return to the cinematic feel.
All I can say is, both the Groovatron and the morph-ball thingy are cool. Use them together to get a chorus line of penguins!
If their goals were to raise up their people and gain them the respect from the world they deserve, they would do so by treaty and negotiation not violence.
It didn't look like he was excusing it-- it looked like he was explaining it. Statistically, most crimes are committed by people living at or below the poverty line. Are they poor because they are criminals? Or are they criminals because they are poor?
At a subsistence level, living below the poverty line makes one a bit more desperate. That's all he was saying, near as I can read it.
Anyway, on to my point: I've often thought that you could make a cool SciFi story about an analog to television, where each evening all the citizens return to their homes and are "programmed" for the next day.
Too late. Brave New World had "soma," which was a drug, but essentially was an analogy for television.
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction Haze Assassin's Creed (also for the 360)
Stay away from Conan, if the whole game is anything like the demo. It seemed like a cheezy ripoff of God of War. (Which is different from Heavenly Sword, which is an excellent ripoff of God of War.)
Depends on your definition of "compelling." Me, I absolutely love my PS3. It's the best money I've ever wasted. (Granted, the Wii was a pretty damned good waste of money, too.) I play the hell out of Warhawk.
God DAMN! It's like watching a bunch of no-necked jocks arguing about the best sports team around here.
Nothing like a spot of, "The Wii is the best console out there!" followed by, "No way, N00b. teh 360 is the r0x!" ending with a, "I say, old chap, the PS3 is the superior system!"
How old are all of you? 13? You can like your favorite system without slamming the other systems, you know. That is, unless you are worried about your penis size.
Yes, this is a flame. I just can't believe all the whining that goes on around here every time a console is mentioned.
Or alternatively, for the HDD manufacturers collectively to sue the Reibers on the basis that their refusal to licence their patent has cost them business.
Jesus! I hope that isn't a reason to sue. I don't like patents much, but I loath the idea of a valid lawsuit based on "loss of business."
Without the inventor with the hopes of making it big and getting a return to their investors, they WILL BE NO INCENTIVE TO INNOVATE.
One anecdote about patents and MRI invention does not prove this point. The truth is, there are *plenty* of incentives to "innovate" (whatever that means anymore), not the least of which is just for the sheer joy of discovery.
But even with the MRI: their invention did not spring whole cloth from their foreheads. They too stood on the shoulders of giants, and other pithy phrases meaning, "We all work hard for progress." Humans are curious by nature, and desire to learn and discover and expand. Patents do not drive this curiosity.
I'm not saying that patents weren't a good thing in the case of the invention of MRI. They probably were, in that they helped make back R&D costs. This hardly proves that innovation would cease if patents disappeared. I'd say the opposite is more likely true: patents interfere with R&D and commercialization of a product, as everybody has to be careful not to step on a patent landmine.
You can't ignore the harm patents are doing just because they have done good in one or two situations. At some point you have to ask, "Are they doing more harm than good?"
Slashdot Mirror
That's a bit like saying a mob boss isn't culpable for the people he has whacked.
At the end of the day, I'm responsible for the team I manage. Considering the people who outed Plame were *all* on Cheney's team, he's responsible, whether he made the actual call or not.
No president has ever maintained that they could not run warrantless wiretaps for national security reasons.
Wrong.
Basically, every argument you present is incorrect. Warrants in these cases can be applied for up to 72 hours *after* the wiretapping occurred. The *entire* point of FISA is to provide oversight while minimizing interference. It worked just fine for 25 years, through the Reagan/Bush years, and then the Clinton years.
This is about oversight, or the lack thereof. This has nothing to do with the ability of government agencies to perform their duties, which were performed quite admirably before Bush destroyed the "checks and balances" (remember that from your civics class?) that were in place.
Right now, Bush is exempt from FISA. It's as if it doesn't even exist. It's as if Bush thinks he can pick and choose the laws he wishes to obey. That's called, oh, "above the law."
Fuck that. Bush is no more above the law than I am. He too is an American citizen.
The PS2 wasn't that inferior to the XBox. The XBox was essentially a PC in a fancy (ugly, IMNSHO) case. The PS2 had an architecture geared specifically to games. I'd compare any of the later Ratchet and Clank PS2 titles with anything on the XBox. (Jade Empire was pretty stunning, though.)
Anyway.
The cell processor isn't hard to code for at all. It just takes a different mindset, and the ability to figure out what to turn into little processing packets and send out to a cell. The hardest part is really just managing the workflow among the various workers.
I think that game companies will see some real payoff in the very near future. I'm looking forward to Insomniac's next "Resistance" title, which will include things like texture streaming to reduce load time (which you can't do on a 360, because there's no guarantee of a hard drive).
In any case, both the 360 and the PS3 have a bright future. There are going to be some kick-ass games for both of them.
Microsoft is generally a very good place to work. Everyone I know who works (or has worked) there has loved it.
It's still a very evil corporation that has set the computing industry back over a decade, but it's a great place to work.
Yes, they do. UT3 developers have stated that the Xbox 360 game will have less content and less-detailed textures compared to the PS3, specifically because it takes up more than can fit on a DVD.
Games *do* need BluRay now. That's the primary reason I feel the PS3 has the long-term edge.
JSON is all about simplicity. It's trivial to write a JSON parser in any language that has first-class support for hashed variables. That is, all languages.
XML might be a better markup language for complicated documents. However, it sucks for exchanging data structures.
I think the difference is that between a strongly-typed language and a dynamically-typed language. XML has support for strong typing and structure verification. JSON is designed to work with languages like Javascript, Perl, Python, PHP, and the like-- which all have support for dynamic typing. So maybe the differences in opinion lie between developers who like the straitjacket (and algorithmic purity) of a strongly-typed language, and those who like the flexibility and simplicity of a dynamically-typed language.
Anyway, that's my opinion. I think the GP post might be referring to a preference in the matter.
And in snubbing Redmond, it couldn't even come off as a champion of the people because of the extreme "Sony Style" DRM built into Blu-Ray.
Yes. Because Microsoft's DRM is *so* much more acceptable.
Face it: both suck bad eggs due to corporatist-friendly DRM. Other than that, Bluray isn't just a Sony thing. Several other corporations had hands in creating it. Sony doesn't control it.
I find it humorous that so many folks around here trust Microsoft more than Sony. I've seen Sony admit they were wrong (the whole DRM rootkit fiasco) and reverse their stance. Have you ever seen Microsoft do that?
Do you want to completely abandon the 2-party system?
Yes. It's broken by design. Get rid of party-based systems, and institute some a little more... democratic.
If you were another candidate, would you risk your limited funds in a primary you're likely to lose or have a poor showing in because of a "joke" candidate?
So, they might lose to a joke candidate. People would pass them over for someone that isn't even serious. What does that imply about the viability of the current candidates?
I think Colbert's run would've been the best possible thing for American politics. The sooner our flawed process becomes obvious to the most thick-headed voter, the sooner we can wrest control back into the hands of the people. Then we can be oppressed by mass stupidity, rather than self-interested greed.
It's just the Barbarians in charge (the so called CEO leadership style as influenced by Enron) - the rule of law hasn't entirely vanished and will return after a few technical difficulties.
Just like it did at Enron?
There are many intelligent, thoughtful people of faith. Some of them will even alter their belief to match the evidence of the universe.
There are others who will ignore the evidence rather than alter their beliefs. This is the group to which the article refers. Unfortunately, it's a stereotype, but it is also true of a large number of people of faith. Among those are creationists.
Creationism is not unique, but creationists are certainly among the most resistant to reality. I have been assured that all scientists who are not creationists are part of a vast conspiracy to deny God, and are working on behalf of Satan. This is willful ignorance beyond my comprehension.
Finally, to equate Euler's axioms with those of any faith is a bit disingenuous. The axioms of faith are based on subjective feeling (or are taken from a book that is true because it is a special book). They contain no predictive power.
Euler's axioms are accepted because they form the basis of a rigorous, consistent mathematics with predictive powers. They have formed the basis of much of our advances in technology and science.
In my experience, individual scientists may be resistant to an idea, but as a whole, scientists are not. Conversely, creationists are essentially united in their denial of fact, and their willingness to usurp actual knowledge in favor of myths handed down in a book.
Of course, that's my experience. There's no science to back me up on it.
0 = 0
-1 + 1 = 0
There. I just created *two* somethings, equal opposites of each other.
In physics, this happens quite a bit. Particles and their corresponding antiparticles pop in and out of existence.
The questions you ask are about as relevant as the old stumper, "Can God make a rock so heavy He cannot move it?"
Ratchet & Clank are the *best* platformer games out there. By far. They have a great sense of humor, clever cut scenes, fun weapons, and an intuitive control.
R&CF:TOD is the reason I purchased a PS3. Sure, Warhawk is fun, and Haze looks like it'll be a good FPS, but I have been a fan of the R&C series since the first one came out years ago. I highly recommend them.
This is a fun exercise: play the first R&C game. Then play the last one for the PS2. Compare the visuals. That's the result of a competent team learning how to take advantage of some great (though complex) hardware. I suspect you'll see the same sorts of things from them on the PS3.
http://www.us.playstation.com/ratchetandclank/
There are several screenshots. There're also three trailers out, and have been for a while. If you own a PS3, the R&CF demo came out a few days ago. It'll give you a good flavor of the game.
I've loved the R&C franchise so far. The first two games were fantastic. The later two were more weapons-oriented, which was fine, but missed some of the storyline feel of the first two.
R&CF:TOD is supposed to be a return to the cinematic feel.
All I can say is, both the Groovatron and the morph-ball thingy are cool. Use them together to get a chorus line of penguins!
If their goals were to raise up their people and gain them the respect from the world they deserve, they would do so by treaty and negotiation not violence.
Jeez. If only the US would do that.
"Evil" is the willingness to fuck over someone else for your own benefit. That's it. That's all.
Excellent analysis of the paradox of the corporation. Question is, how do we fix it?
It didn't look like he was excusing it-- it looked like he was explaining it. Statistically, most crimes are committed by people living at or below the poverty line. Are they poor because they are criminals? Or are they criminals because they are poor?
At a subsistence level, living below the poverty line makes one a bit more desperate. That's all he was saying, near as I can read it.
Anyway, on to my point: I've often thought that you could make a cool SciFi story about an analog to television, where each evening all the citizens return to their homes and are "programmed" for the next day.
Too late. Brave New World had "soma," which was a drug, but essentially was an analogy for television.
Lots of good SF has television-like analogs.
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Haze
Assassin's Creed (also for the 360)
Stay away from Conan, if the whole game is anything like the demo. It seemed like a cheezy ripoff of God of War. (Which is different from Heavenly Sword, which is an excellent ripoff of God of War.)
Depends on your definition of "compelling." Me, I absolutely love my PS3. It's the best money I've ever wasted. (Granted, the Wii was a pretty damned good waste of money, too.) I play the hell out of Warhawk.
God DAMN! It's like watching a bunch of no-necked jocks arguing about the best sports team around here.
Nothing like a spot of, "The Wii is the best console out there!" followed by, "No way, N00b. teh 360 is the r0x!" ending with a, "I say, old chap, the PS3 is the superior system!"
How old are all of you? 13? You can like your favorite system without slamming the other systems, you know. That is, unless you are worried about your penis size.
Yes, this is a flame. I just can't believe all the whining that goes on around here every time a console is mentioned.
Why of why do people like you not believe in the free market?
Why does this sound like a religious question?
Oh. Because it is.
Or alternatively, for the HDD manufacturers collectively to sue the Reibers on the basis that their refusal to licence their patent has cost them business.
Jesus! I hope that isn't a reason to sue. I don't like patents much, but I loath the idea of a valid lawsuit based on "loss of business."
Without the inventor with the hopes of making it big and getting a return to their investors, they WILL BE NO INCENTIVE TO INNOVATE.
One anecdote about patents and MRI invention does not prove this point. The truth is, there are *plenty* of incentives to "innovate" (whatever that means anymore), not the least of which is just for the sheer joy of discovery.
But even with the MRI: their invention did not spring whole cloth from their foreheads. They too stood on the shoulders of giants, and other pithy phrases meaning, "We all work hard for progress." Humans are curious by nature, and desire to learn and discover and expand. Patents do not drive this curiosity.
I'm not saying that patents weren't a good thing in the case of the invention of MRI. They probably were, in that they helped make back R&D costs. This hardly proves that innovation would cease if patents disappeared. I'd say the opposite is more likely true: patents interfere with R&D and commercialization of a product, as everybody has to be careful not to step on a patent landmine.
You can't ignore the harm patents are doing just because they have done good in one or two situations. At some point you have to ask, "Are they doing more harm than good?"
I submit patents have crossed this line.
That's like saying a vegetarian changes their diet without....
Damnit! I blew the punchline! AGAIN!
The idea is that UIs now need to be ultra-simplistic without compromising on usability.
That's like saying a vegetarian their diet without compromising on meat.