I thought the same thing. Serious but frustrated gamer maybe....
You can look on ebay to gauge the market rate for a Jedi account. There is one listing over $1000 with bids, many at $1000 with no bids, a couple in the $700 range, and a few "almost a Jedi" with bids ranging $180-375ish. So clearly they're not quite going like hotcakes in the $1000 range. I could see the value going up a bit if it was an official product, but I doubt the market would be very large.
Is Crawford making a real point here, or is he just trying to sell his latest book on game development? Or a seminar where he teaches "interactive storytelling"?
The fact that he didn't (couldn't?) articulate what makes a game "cold and heartless" and what might give it "redeeming social value" and gave examples of neither left me feeling that perhaps there is not enough to this "problem" to even adequately define it.
From the article:
Still, we need to go much further. We need educational programs that expose students to equal amounts of technology and art. They should learn to program even as they study Michelangelo, rhetoric and recursion, algorithms and architecture.
First, is there a University anywhere that doesn't require a fair dose of humanities study (3-4 classes in addition to a lit course in the English requirement)? If he really wants to see "equal amounts" what would that add to a university degree? Figure six math courses, 10-12 comp sci/engineering courses, plus 2-4 more hard science courses makes 18 classes on the low end. If your curriculum already includes 5 humanities, that means you need 13-17 more to even things up. So 2 or 3 more semesters, when typical grads currently take 5 or 5 1/2 years to finish. 7 years in school to make video games sound reasonable?
There are several key differences. First, the cost is much different. At the time of the first voyages to the new world, sailing ships capable of the task were already in wide use. No new technology had to be invented. Everything could be done with "off the shelf parts", so to speak.
Also, there was legitimate expectation that profitable trade could be established in short order (remember, this was initially supposed to be a shortcut to India). You might be able to posit something that exists on Mars which would justify the cost of going there, finding it, and bringing it back, but the likelihood that such a thing (cure for disease, key to cold fusion?) exists there is infinitesimal. So going to Mars is virtually guaranteed to have basically no financial return.
Going to Mars is just not comparable to exploring the "new world" 500 years ago.
Sorry, couldn't pass up a response to this, even though it has been a few days.
No, all I have to assume is that the vast majority of middle-class jobs are the kind that don't require a local physical presence, which is absolutely true....
No it's not. You seem to be assuming 'middle class = white collar office worker'. Middle class simply means middle income, especially in this context of driving the U.S. economy. That includes most tradesmen (electrician, carpenter, plumber, mechanic and many variations on those basic categories), many categories of sales (that often depend on face-to-face contact), most small business owners, some lawyers, lots of healthcare workers, and despite the gloom and doom we heard about in the 80's a growing manufacturing sector. All that and many more, as well as the easily outsourced office work we think of as 'typical middle class'. If you have some data that show that I'm mistaken, I'd like to see it.
Backlash doesn't make any difference any more. The fact that the war in Iraq happened despite very heavy and vocal opposition should be enough to convince you that the government... doesn't give a crap what the people think anymore.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. First wrong: the "government" may not care what you think about war in Iraq, but many state legislatures are setting rules that state contractors cannot send work overseas. There may be a move to expand this at the federal level as well (there are already rules preventing foreign work and/or products in many areas). Second wrong: companies do care what consumers think, as evidenced by the fact that Dell brought their call center operations back stateside after customers complained. Third time wrong: the backlash I was referring to is from companies that are finding that outsourcing often doesn't live up to expectations, and it makes better business sense to keep the work here or even bring it back. But you'd know that if you looked at the link I provided.
While Americans are indeed diverse and tolerant, I think the remarks on innovation (which I hear often) could do with a little consideration.
Yeah? Who's innovative now? But seriously, I think the inference we often draw when one says something about Americans being "innovative" is that they are innately smarter or more creative than the rest of the world. That's probably not true, but it may not even be what is intended either. It may just be that the point is Americans have greater incentive and (perhaps) opportunity to innovate. Does that cause them to think differently and/or be more creative? It certainly seems to lead to a pretty good amount of innovation.
The move towards offshoring won't help the U.S. economy, which gets its strength from the middle class. It'll destroy it, because it'll destroy the middle class.
I disagree. For that to be true, you have to assume not only that most "middle class" workers are employed in positions that can be easily outsourced and that all positions that can be easily outsourced will be, but also that not enough jobs will be created to offset a significant portion of the jobs lost to outsourcing. I don't think you can show evidence of any of those conditions. Add to that the fact that there is already some backlash occurring against outsourcing, and I don't get all the gloom and doom.
That scenario is certainly one possibility, perhaps even the most likely. Another possibility is that you keep the best of your development team as system architects, project managers, whatever and have them continue to do your design work and specs and your Indian partner a)does a fair to excellent job; b)still screws it up.
Needless to say, we could spend all day going through possible scenarios. They all come down to varying degrees of risk vs. possible reward.
There is a lot of FUD about offshoring. Some concerns are real, but generally I think the issue is blown much out of proportion.
Actually, engineering is infamous as a career that doesn't have a very high salary max compared to, say, investment or management.
And, IIRC, wasn't the buzz in the early to mid 80's about the securities markets, due to deregulation and 401(k) coming about? It was the hot career path where if you (were smart, worked hard, looked really good in a suit; pick two) you could make tons of money. Then the S&L and junk bond scandals cooled that down a bit.
Then in the mid to late 90's the dot com boom had anyone who could code a little or come up with innovative ways to use the newly emerging tech (including kids right out of HS, plus more than a few in college who quit to make the big bucks). I don't know if this had a statistically significant impact, though.
I take some umbrage that college students are "lazy"...
Note the parent said neither all students nor all non-engineers. But it is true (and probably always has been) that some number of prospective engineers change majors when the math gets hard. It is not unreasonable to guess that an increase in this effect is part of the trend in engineering.
Apples and oranges. A masters bears little resemblance to an M.D. or nursing degree or even EMT certification. What is the point of comparing the vast majority of professions that can be successfully executed with OJT and minimal other training, with a select few that require highly specific training that can mean the difference between life and death? Besides, nearly all health care providers must be licensed in addition to their educational pedigree.
They do not give good return in a traffic jam environment because the crawling gets the batteries drained to the point where the ECU decides to recharge them and starts from cold (and there is not enough energy recovered from breaking).
That may or may not be true, depending on driving conditions, battery capacity, etc.... At very low speed, of if you're spending time stopped, you're drawing a little from the batteries (or nothing). Clearly, this is superior to constantly idling in a regular car. Once the batteries are tapped enough to cause the ICE to kick on, how long does it take to recharge the batteries? Won't the engine run at or near optimum rpm if only recharging the batteries and not needed to power the drivetrain? All you've offered to support your conclusion are assumptions about the way the vehicle/drivetrain behaves.
Even in areas where there is substantial choice, Top-40 pulls 'em in.
Hmmmm. I wonder if that is because they focus on a certain group of songs? Like maybe the 40 most popular (not to be confused the most meaningful, critically acclaimed, or technically exceptional, mind you) for a given week? Seems like this should be a no-brainer...
Perhaps, but keep in mind that they don't have the telecom infrastructure you do in N. America or most of Europe and Asia. There is substantial cost involved in developing and maintaining that infrastructure. Plus, there is less population (particularly in terms of users) density to offset those higher costs.
I agree on both counts. I still haven't finished half-life for that reason.
I don't think having set save points is a terrible thing. But put them reasonably close together. I don't mind replaying 5 or 10 minutes a few times to clear a level, but 1) I don't want to play 20/30/more minutes just to lose it because there is a tough boss/puzzle/whatever too far from a save point and; 2) If a boss/puzzle/whatever is wicked hard such that an average gamer might have to try dozens of times to get past, there better be a save point right before.
IMO, there is no reason to make a game too difficult. If you want your game to have wide appeal, give it multiple difficulty settings. Then lots of people with a range of skills can enjoy the game (that's what it is all about, after all, right?). If you want to reward the dedicated gamer who really works for the win, make the payoff for beating the game better for hard/extreme than easy/normal.
Um, yeah. I'd much rather have my eyes gouged out and fingers cut off, then be put inside a building and having it set on fire so that I can be shot or bayonetted if I happen to survive the flames instead of just having naked pictures taken of me with a hood over my head, maybe pressed up against another guy.
I am at a loss for how to address the scope of your stupidity.
9/11 COULD have been prevented. Not by more surveilance but by being just a little more tolerant of other people's cultures....
I disagree. Our principle sin according to the extremists is that we are not an Islamic theocracy and have the temerity to thrive to such an extent that our culture is spreading throughout the world.
Oh and finally, torturing prisoners Nazi-style may also cause some foreigners to start hating u.
While I certainly agree that the abuse suffered by Iraqi prisoners was wrong, I think torture is too strong a word. Your lame Nazi analogy further fails when you consider that real torture (including medical experimentation, forced labor, mutilation, starvation, and various other means) was policy for the Nazis, whereas humiliation and emotional abuse (by a small group of americans) is unacceptable and perpetrators are being punished.
i don't think the dude above is saying all u Americans are hateful...just the ones with the guns and uniforms....
He's still wrong. There are certainly hateful people in the U.S., including soldiers and law enforcement, just like everywhere else in the world. And there are average people, good people, and truly exceptional people as well, including soldiers and law enforcement, just like everywhere else in the world.
Perhaps someone can explain how viewing all Americans as hateful people is less bigotted than viewing all arabs as sand n---ers?
Likely he was allowed to stack a number of books in front of him before getting the questions, just like you would normally research a wide range of subjects in a library.
Sure, if you know what it is you're looking for. But that was not the case here.
From other comments, it sounds like his time didn't start until he got to the book/source in question.
I still blame the minorities. I say that partly in jest, but if you look at the link, one of the charts (page 2) shows the rates for various ethnicities. The rate for white (non hispanic) is actually pretty close to that in Canada, though still a bit higher.
Obviously, the researcher was not an experienced googler.
And the library user was obviously very, very knowledgeable of the library. Or (more likely) the results were fixed. 20 seconds for question 1? What, did he start with Who's Who in his lap? Okay, maybe if it is an online version, and the guy is already logged in... but for an ordinary user, you could spend many times the amount of time it'd take to google something just trying to find out where to look in the library.
Is the time it takes me to do the performance optimization worth it in time or money.
The answer, naturally, depends on a number of factors such as the type and size of application.
Also, there is a difference (to me, at least) between really doing performance optimization and making bad code less bad. Many responders are arguing the case for the latter. To my way of thinking, fixing bad code is just like it sounds: fixing defects. It shouldn't count as "optimization" (performance enhancement, maybe) if you're just going from bad to acceptable, codewise.
The U.S. has gotten away from stressing personal responsibility in favor of moral relativism. Such as the notion that it is understandable (if not okay) to resort to crime if you're poor and a minority because it is too hard to make it any other way. Similarly, there are two irresponsible attitudes that contribute to teen pregnancy in the U.S. (which has been declining steadily for over a decade, by the way). On one hand, there is the line of thinking that "well, she can just get an abortion if she gets knocked up" and on the other is the reasoning that being a "baby's momma" is a good way to bind yourself to a man, along with the thinking that "I'll just go on public assistance when I get my baby". The UK has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe. The similarity between the US and UK may be more closely related to their similar issues of ethnic makeup, immigration and poverty that are significantly different from other developed nations than education.
I will agree that more and better education would help, but still dispute the notion that kids today don't know that sex causes pregnancy.
In many states, there is legislation making it illegal to teach sex ed. In the same states teen pregnancy is higher then the national average. The states are freely available from states on the US.
Slashdot Mirror
You can look on ebay to gauge the market rate for a Jedi account. There is one listing over $1000 with bids, many at $1000 with no bids, a couple in the $700 range, and a few "almost a Jedi" with bids ranging $180-375ish. So clearly they're not quite going like hotcakes in the $1000 range. I could see the value going up a bit if it was an official product, but I doubt the market would be very large.
The fact that he didn't (couldn't?) articulate what makes a game "cold and heartless" and what might give it "redeeming social value" and gave examples of neither left me feeling that perhaps there is not enough to this "problem" to even adequately define it.
From the article:
First, is there a University anywhere that doesn't require a fair dose of humanities study (3-4 classes in addition to a lit course in the English requirement)? If he really wants to see "equal amounts" what would that add to a university degree? Figure six math courses, 10-12 comp sci/engineering courses, plus 2-4 more hard science courses makes 18 classes on the low end. If your curriculum already includes 5 humanities, that means you need 13-17 more to even things up. So 2 or 3 more semesters, when typical grads currently take 5 or 5 1/2 years to finish. 7 years in school to make video games sound reasonable?Also, there was legitimate expectation that profitable trade could be established in short order (remember, this was initially supposed to be a shortcut to India). You might be able to posit something that exists on Mars which would justify the cost of going there, finding it, and bringing it back, but the likelihood that such a thing (cure for disease, key to cold fusion?) exists there is infinitesimal. So going to Mars is virtually guaranteed to have basically no financial return.
Going to Mars is just not comparable to exploring the "new world" 500 years ago.
No, all I have to assume is that the vast majority of middle-class jobs are the kind that don't require a local physical presence, which is absolutely true....
No it's not. You seem to be assuming 'middle class = white collar office worker'. Middle class simply means middle income, especially in this context of driving the U.S. economy. That includes most tradesmen (electrician, carpenter, plumber, mechanic and many variations on those basic categories), many categories of sales (that often depend on face-to-face contact), most small business owners, some lawyers, lots of healthcare workers, and despite the gloom and doom we heard about in the 80's a growing manufacturing sector. All that and many more, as well as the easily outsourced office work we think of as 'typical middle class'. If you have some data that show that I'm mistaken, I'd like to see it.
Backlash doesn't make any difference any more. The fact that the war in Iraq happened despite very heavy and vocal opposition should be enough to convince you that the government ... doesn't give a crap what the people think anymore.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. First wrong: the "government" may not care what you think about war in Iraq, but many state legislatures are setting rules that state contractors cannot send work overseas. There may be a move to expand this at the federal level as well (there are already rules preventing foreign work and/or products in many areas). Second wrong: companies do care what consumers think, as evidenced by the fact that Dell brought their call center operations back stateside after customers complained. Third time wrong: the backlash I was referring to is from companies that are finding that outsourcing often doesn't live up to expectations, and it makes better business sense to keep the work here or even bring it back. But you'd know that if you looked at the link I provided.
Yeah? Who's innovative now? But seriously, I think the inference we often draw when one says something about Americans being "innovative" is that they are innately smarter or more creative than the rest of the world. That's probably not true, but it may not even be what is intended either. It may just be that the point is Americans have greater incentive and (perhaps) opportunity to innovate. Does that cause them to think differently and/or be more creative? It certainly seems to lead to a pretty good amount of innovation.
I disagree. For that to be true, you have to assume not only that most "middle class" workers are employed in positions that can be easily outsourced and that all positions that can be easily outsourced will be, but also that not enough jobs will be created to offset a significant portion of the jobs lost to outsourcing. I don't think you can show evidence of any of those conditions. Add to that the fact that there is already some backlash occurring against outsourcing, and I don't get all the gloom and doom.
Needless to say, we could spend all day going through possible scenarios. They all come down to varying degrees of risk vs. possible reward.
There is a lot of FUD about offshoring. Some concerns are real, but generally I think the issue is blown much out of proportion.
And, IIRC, wasn't the buzz in the early to mid 80's about the securities markets, due to deregulation and 401(k) coming about? It was the hot career path where if you (were smart, worked hard, looked really good in a suit; pick two) you could make tons of money. Then the S&L and junk bond scandals cooled that down a bit.
Then in the mid to late 90's the dot com boom had anyone who could code a little or come up with innovative ways to use the newly emerging tech (including kids right out of HS, plus more than a few in college who quit to make the big bucks). I don't know if this had a statistically significant impact, though.
I take some umbrage that college students are "lazy"...
Note the parent said neither all students nor all non-engineers. But it is true (and probably always has been) that some number of prospective engineers change majors when the math gets hard. It is not unreasonable to guess that an increase in this effect is part of the trend in engineering.
Apples and oranges. A masters bears little resemblance to an M.D. or nursing degree or even EMT certification. What is the point of comparing the vast majority of professions that can be successfully executed with OJT and minimal other training, with a select few that require highly specific training that can mean the difference between life and death? Besides, nearly all health care providers must be licensed in addition to their educational pedigree.
That may or may not be true, depending on driving conditions, battery capacity, etc.... At very low speed, of if you're spending time stopped, you're drawing a little from the batteries (or nothing). Clearly, this is superior to constantly idling in a regular car. Once the batteries are tapped enough to cause the ICE to kick on, how long does it take to recharge the batteries? Won't the engine run at or near optimum rpm if only recharging the batteries and not needed to power the drivetrain? All you've offered to support your conclusion are assumptions about the way the vehicle/drivetrain behaves.
Actually, the Prius (and others) use both regenerative braking and the gasoline engine to drive the generator that charges the batteries. FYI
In their advertising, Ebay seems to be stressing more that you can find nearly anything there, rather than finding common items at the cheapest price.
Hmmmm. I wonder if that is because they focus on a certain group of songs? Like maybe the 40 most popular (not to be confused the most meaningful, critically acclaimed, or technically exceptional, mind you) for a given week? Seems like this should be a no-brainer...
Perhaps, but keep in mind that they don't have the telecom infrastructure you do in N. America or most of Europe and Asia. There is substantial cost involved in developing and maintaining that infrastructure. Plus, there is less population (particularly in terms of users) density to offset those higher costs.
I don't think having set save points is a terrible thing. But put them reasonably close together. I don't mind replaying 5 or 10 minutes a few times to clear a level, but 1) I don't want to play 20/30/more minutes just to lose it because there is a tough boss/puzzle/whatever too far from a save point and; 2) If a boss/puzzle/whatever is wicked hard such that an average gamer might have to try dozens of times to get past, there better be a save point right before.
IMO, there is no reason to make a game too difficult. If you want your game to have wide appeal, give it multiple difficulty settings. Then lots of people with a range of skills can enjoy the game (that's what it is all about, after all, right?). If you want to reward the dedicated gamer who really works for the win, make the payoff for beating the game better for hard/extreme than easy/normal.
I am at a loss for how to address the scope of your stupidity.
I disagree. Our principle sin according to the extremists is that we are not an Islamic theocracy and have the temerity to thrive to such an extent that our culture is spreading throughout the world.
Oh and finally, torturing prisoners Nazi-style may also cause some foreigners to start hating u.
While I certainly agree that the abuse suffered by Iraqi prisoners was wrong, I think torture is too strong a word. Your lame Nazi analogy further fails when you consider that real torture (including medical experimentation, forced labor, mutilation, starvation, and various other means) was policy for the Nazis, whereas humiliation and emotional abuse (by a small group of americans) is unacceptable and perpetrators are being punished.
He's still wrong. There are certainly hateful people in the U.S., including soldiers and law enforcement, just like everywhere else in the world. And there are average people, good people, and truly exceptional people as well, including soldiers and law enforcement, just like everywhere else in the world.
Perhaps someone can explain how viewing all Americans as hateful people is less bigotted than viewing all arabs as sand n---ers?
Sure, if you know what it is you're looking for. But that was not the case here.
From other comments, it sounds like his time didn't start until he got to the book/source in question.
I still blame the minorities. I say that partly in jest, but if you look at the link, one of the charts (page 2) shows the rates for various ethnicities. The rate for white (non hispanic) is actually pretty close to that in Canada, though still a bit higher.
an article about this every week? As another poster pointed out, most people realize there is a change going on. So is this really newsworthy?
And the library user was obviously very, very knowledgeable of the library. Or (more likely) the results were fixed. 20 seconds for question 1? What, did he start with Who's Who in his lap? Okay, maybe if it is an online version, and the guy is already logged in... but for an ordinary user, you could spend many times the amount of time it'd take to google something just trying to find out where to look in the library.
The answer, naturally, depends on a number of factors such as the type and size of application.
Also, there is a difference (to me, at least) between really doing performance optimization and making bad code less bad. Many responders are arguing the case for the latter. To my way of thinking, fixing bad code is just like it sounds: fixing defects. It shouldn't count as "optimization" (performance enhancement, maybe) if you're just going from bad to acceptable, codewise.
I will agree that more and better education would help, but still dispute the notion that kids today don't know that sex causes pregnancy.
In many states, there is legislation making it illegal to teach sex ed. In the same states teen pregnancy is higher then the national average. The states are freely available from states on the US.
But you didn't know how to post a link?
Do you have a source for that, or are you just trying to stir up anti-religious FUD?