While the article does say that people with highly analytical brains tend to have more Autistic children, it does not say that people with poor social skills tend to have highly analytical brains. I think it is a common fallacy around here that not knowing how to interact with other people well is some kind of badge proving how smart they are. Or to put it the slashdot way, even if you have a really fast Athlon 64 system, if you are connecting to the world with a dialup you aren't going to be able to play an online FPS well.
I think that Apple's success rides on the fact that they control the entire pipeline (sans content creation) and provide the user with a consistent and simple interface, with relative freedom for the user to listen when and where they want.
Yes, and Google has absolutely no experience making a consistent and simple interface.
Or better yet, you could have 8 at a time unlimited rentals from netflix for about 87 months... and I doubt that this hardware will last long enough to survive that long without replacement, not to mention its electricity bill!
That's exactly what I was going to say. The WSJ is completely wrong to think that just because online games on consoles haven't been big in the past, they won't be big in the future.
Aha! This story was a trick! We finally got one of the Hyper-Enthusiasts to come out of hiding, so he can be studied in a controlled environment. Good work slashdot!
It still doesn't answer why you said the Gateway was better. I'm no Dell fanboy, I built my own computer, but if you say "Dell's offering sucks because of x, y, and z" and then say that its competitor was great even though it had the same problems in many cases, you undermine any sort of confidence that people will have in any reviews at the website, even when they are by different authors.
So which is right? Does the Dell system suck, and the Gateway suck, or are they both actually ok, especially considering that any serious gamer would immediately wipe the computer, would go in and tweak what processes Windows ran, and would install the latest drivers? How do you justify the disparity in how the reviews were written by leaving out how the initial configuration did for Gateway?
Of course they can have fun poisoning meetings by coming up with the correct solutions in the first five minutes and presenting them in such an irritating and condescending fashion that the rest of the group will reject them and then leave the meeting forcing the rest to struggle through a bunch of incorrect solutions until such time as they are forced to accept (quitely and with out acknowledgement) what they know to be the correct solutions (preferable over a period of many weeks and many more meetings, all hopefully without your attendance;-)). There is no time when a sence of humour is not appropriate.
What you just described is what I would term an "asshole." You would be wasting your own time, other people time, and creating a rift between yourself and the rest of the group, all for the chance to feel smug and say "I told you so." For some reason slashdot seems to always downplay the value of communication, but the fact is no one can do everything on their own. Almost no one can do a significant part of anything on their own. Only by working together effectively can real accomplishments be made. There is nothing more frustrating than working with someone that you know can do so much, but who can't seem to just get things together.
You seem to subscribe to the idea that geniuses and visionaries are unable to handle other people, working in a team, or maybe even a workplace environment. While this may be true of people with Aspareger's (sp?) syndrome, it certainly does not need to be the case. And also, what good are geniuses and visionaries if they cannot communicate well enough to get their ideas across and implemented? I'd take someone who can get things done over someone who has good ideas but can't ever make them work.
It is a little odd that you would reference a paper focused on debunking the importance of genetic predisposition and then say how her brain continued development without any social interaction. One can only assume that such development was the result of nature, because there was no nurture. I think you missed the entire point of the paper - she scored a zero on an IQ test given shortly after she left the attic, and only once outside stimulation was introduced did her intelligence develop. Now you can argue that her intelligence is not the same thing as her brain, but your intelligence is what usually matters when determining how productive you are in society.
As the first English colony was in Virginia, and was focused on making money for its investors, I'd say that our country was founded by businessmen who grew drugs (tobacco) to make money.
The author is performing a study of microeconomics to determine if there are any economic incentives to using a hybrid vehicle. There are other kinds of incentives, including social incentives (for example, owning a hybrid might be considered cool), and moral incentives (they think that by owning a regular car, they're ruining the environment). By showing that economic incentives don't exist for hybrids, the author is implying that social and moral incentives are driving the switch. Contrary to popular belief, social and moral incentives can be very powerful.
I played Far Cry on the hardest difficulty level. While I agree that its AI was more sophisticated than I normally see in FPSs, (putting to lie my statement about always playing against the same AI), I thought that most of the difficulty in that game came from the fact that the computer could shoot unerringly with some weapons, such as rocket launchers, through smoke and trees. Otherwise I agree, it had well done notification between enemies, good patrols, and good use of cover. What it didn't have much of was mercs working together in an effective way - they'd always come at you as directly as possible and not wait for their buddies. This was disappointing. I could run into a bunker, shoot one guy, and the bad guys would come in as soon as they arrived so I could pick them off one by one. I'd have liked it more if they would take up station around all the exits, then just start throwing in grenades until I either had to run out or just died. Alternatively use flashbangs to disorient me and then rush me. Alternatively, drive a tank through the building and crush me. Alternatively, drop a grenade by the propane tank outside the building and blow me to hell. Alternatively, throw in tear gas. But no, they just come in, one by one.
Why is game AI in FPS's always defined as "they can hide behind boxes?" Does that define sophistication for us now? It has been around since at least Half Life. People still ooh and ahh about it though, and I can't understand that.
I think the real test for an AI would be to guess where you are going to go and try to cut you off, time where you are and toss grenades at you without looking, perform ambushes on the fly, and so on. However, most of this can be done with scripting and I think it is easier to do it that way. So much of AI is game theory - the computer being able to guess where you are and what you are doing without actually seeing you. This is make-work in an fps though because the computer already "knows" exactly where you are, if the programmers want to take advantage of it.
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I feel like I've been playing against the exact same AI for the last 10 years. The only thing that's changed is more intricate scripting.
I wonder how much energy a household could save if we were all using DC outlets instead of AC.
Well, none. Assuming you still have a washing machine, dryer, refrigerator, (possibly) electric heating, (possibly) electric oven, hair dryer, (possibly) electric water heater, and air conditioning, which in total consumes almost all of the power that is used in your house, and all of which is more efficient in AC. DC would benefit your electronics, which make up a much smaller portion of the total electric consumption. Some things can swing either way, but as a whole, your energy efficiency is much higher with AC than with DC. AC is much better at running motors than DC is. The real issue that AC to DC conversion has with respect to efficiency is that it produces harmonics on the power lines, which are undesirable and require some damping. The more AC to DC we use, the worse the harmonics are, and the more expensive it is to dampen them. But that's a really really small issue, in comparison to switching everything to DC.
My mistake. I mis-remembered the whole paypal / red cross / united way fiasco that somethingawful had when raising donations for new orleans. I thought it was unicef that had a bad overhead, but it was the united way. Thanks for the link.
What a great example! Unicef spends a far larger percentage of the donations given to them on their administration and advertising than the American red cross. A perfect case where an organization doing basically the same job runs much less efficiently when... *gasp* it has a massive beaurocracy hanging over it. Is that what you want to have happen, even more, to ICANN?
If you have ever seen the videos of people taking the heat sinks off Intel chips while running quake 3, and the chips surviving then you would understand where the chips stand in this category.
Alternatively, combine two images so that the stenography on one minus the stenography on the other is the actual message, and then set that same stenography so that it fits normal noise and artifacting. It won't show up when you try a frequency analysis. Then you need to know which images go together, but that could be done easily enough. The problem with the "images as a message" technique is that it doesn't convey enough information.
The problem is that Windows allows some program to mess around with vital drivers and other system internals without screaming murder. This is a clear case where proper use of permissions would prevent potential damage to a system. While Sony is definitely in the wrong for taking advantage of this, the structure of Windows allows this rootkit to be installed.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't ever leave out Fallout, Fallout 2, and Arcanum. Definitely along the same vein.
While the article does say that people with highly analytical brains tend to have more Autistic children, it does not say that people with poor social skills tend to have highly analytical brains. I think it is a common fallacy around here that not knowing how to interact with other people well is some kind of badge proving how smart they are. Or to put it the slashdot way, even if you have a really fast Athlon 64 system, if you are connecting to the world with a dialup you aren't going to be able to play an online FPS well.
I think that Apple's success rides on the fact that they control the entire pipeline (sans content creation) and provide the user with a consistent and simple interface, with relative freedom for the user to listen when and where they want.
Yes, and Google has absolutely no experience making a consistent and simple interface.
Or better yet, you could have 8 at a time unlimited rentals from netflix for about 87 months... and I doubt that this hardware will last long enough to survive that long without replacement, not to mention its electricity bill!
Please don't forget:
Reason 6: the ability to be snooty about which brand of computer you are using.
That's exactly what I was going to say. The WSJ is completely wrong to think that just because online games on consoles haven't been big in the past, they won't be big in the future.
man you are serious about your mp3's! I prefer to just play them off of someone else's roomjuice server at 2 in the morning.
Aha! This story was a trick! We finally got one of the Hyper-Enthusiasts to come out of hiding, so he can be studied in a controlled environment. Good work slashdot!
It still doesn't answer why you said the Gateway was better. I'm no Dell fanboy, I built my own computer, but if you say "Dell's offering sucks because of x, y, and z" and then say that its competitor was great even though it had the same problems in many cases, you undermine any sort of confidence that people will have in any reviews at the website, even when they are by different authors.
So which is right? Does the Dell system suck, and the Gateway suck, or are they both actually ok, especially considering that any serious gamer would immediately wipe the computer, would go in and tweak what processes Windows ran, and would install the latest drivers? How do you justify the disparity in how the reviews were written by leaving out how the initial configuration did for Gateway?
Of course they can have fun poisoning meetings by coming up with the correct solutions in the first five minutes and presenting them in such an irritating and condescending fashion that the rest of the group will reject them and then leave the meeting forcing the rest to struggle through a bunch of incorrect solutions until such time as they are forced to accept (quitely and with out acknowledgement) what they know to be the correct solutions (preferable over a period of many weeks and many more meetings, all hopefully without your attendance ;-)). There is no time when a sence of humour is not appropriate.
What you just described is what I would term an "asshole." You would be wasting your own time, other people time, and creating a rift between yourself and the rest of the group, all for the chance to feel smug and say "I told you so." For some reason slashdot seems to always downplay the value of communication, but the fact is no one can do everything on their own. Almost no one can do a significant part of anything on their own. Only by working together effectively can real accomplishments be made. There is nothing more frustrating than working with someone that you know can do so much, but who can't seem to just get things together.
You seem to subscribe to the idea that geniuses and visionaries are unable to handle other people, working in a team, or maybe even a workplace environment. While this may be true of people with Aspareger's (sp?) syndrome, it certainly does not need to be the case. And also, what good are geniuses and visionaries if they cannot communicate well enough to get their ideas across and implemented? I'd take someone who can get things done over someone who has good ideas but can't ever make them work.
It is a little odd that you would reference a paper focused on debunking the importance of genetic predisposition and then say how her brain continued development without any social interaction. One can only assume that such development was the result of nature, because there was no nurture. I think you missed the entire point of the paper - she scored a zero on an IQ test given shortly after she left the attic, and only once outside stimulation was introduced did her intelligence develop. Now you can argue that her intelligence is not the same thing as her brain, but your intelligence is what usually matters when determining how productive you are in society.
What about all those people providing support on Linux/MySQL/Apache mailing lists/forums etc - what are they? Unemployed losers or OSS champions?
Yes.
As the first English colony was in Virginia, and was focused on making money for its investors, I'd say that our country was founded by businessmen who grew drugs (tobacco) to make money.
The author is performing a study of microeconomics to determine if there are any economic incentives to using a hybrid vehicle. There are other kinds of incentives, including social incentives (for example, owning a hybrid might be considered cool), and moral incentives (they think that by owning a regular car, they're ruining the environment). By showing that economic incentives don't exist for hybrids, the author is implying that social and moral incentives are driving the switch. Contrary to popular belief, social and moral incentives can be very powerful.
Oh and by the way I completly agree about battlefront 1. It had some really terrible AI.
I played Far Cry on the hardest difficulty level. While I agree that its AI was more sophisticated than I normally see in FPSs, (putting to lie my statement about always playing against the same AI), I thought that most of the difficulty in that game came from the fact that the computer could shoot unerringly with some weapons, such as rocket launchers, through smoke and trees. Otherwise I agree, it had well done notification between enemies, good patrols, and good use of cover. What it didn't have much of was mercs working together in an effective way - they'd always come at you as directly as possible and not wait for their buddies. This was disappointing. I could run into a bunker, shoot one guy, and the bad guys would come in as soon as they arrived so I could pick them off one by one. I'd have liked it more if they would take up station around all the exits, then just start throwing in grenades until I either had to run out or just died. Alternatively use flashbangs to disorient me and then rush me. Alternatively, drive a tank through the building and crush me. Alternatively, drop a grenade by the propane tank outside the building and blow me to hell. Alternatively, throw in tear gas. But no, they just come in, one by one.
Why is game AI in FPS's always defined as "they can hide behind boxes?" Does that define sophistication for us now? It has been around since at least Half Life. People still ooh and ahh about it though, and I can't understand that.
I think the real test for an AI would be to guess where you are going to go and try to cut you off, time where you are and toss grenades at you without looking, perform ambushes on the fly, and so on. However, most of this can be done with scripting and I think it is easier to do it that way. So much of AI is game theory - the computer being able to guess where you are and what you are doing without actually seeing you. This is make-work in an fps though because the computer already "knows" exactly where you are, if the programmers want to take advantage of it.
I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I feel like I've been playing against the exact same AI for the last 10 years. The only thing that's changed is more intricate scripting.
I wonder how much energy a household could save if we were all using DC outlets instead of AC.
Well, none. Assuming you still have a washing machine, dryer, refrigerator, (possibly) electric heating, (possibly) electric oven, hair dryer, (possibly) electric water heater, and air conditioning, which in total consumes almost all of the power that is used in your house, and all of which is more efficient in AC. DC would benefit your electronics, which make up a much smaller portion of the total electric consumption. Some things can swing either way, but as a whole, your energy efficiency is much higher with AC than with DC. AC is much better at running motors than DC is. The real issue that AC to DC conversion has with respect to efficiency is that it produces harmonics on the power lines, which are undesirable and require some damping. The more AC to DC we use, the worse the harmonics are, and the more expensive it is to dampen them. But that's a really really small issue, in comparison to switching everything to DC.
My mistake. I mis-remembered the whole paypal / red cross / united way fiasco that somethingawful had when raising donations for new orleans. I thought it was unicef that had a bad overhead, but it was the united way. Thanks for the link.
What a great example! Unicef spends a far larger percentage of the donations given to them on their administration and advertising than the American red cross. A perfect case where an organization doing basically the same job runs much less efficiently when... *gasp* it has a massive beaurocracy hanging over it. Is that what you want to have happen, even more, to ICANN?
Add to that "fails gracefully"
If you have ever seen the videos of people taking the heat sinks off Intel chips while running quake 3, and the chips surviving then you would understand where the chips stand in this category.
Alternatively, combine two images so that the stenography on one minus the stenography on the other is the actual message, and then set that same stenography so that it fits normal noise and artifacting. It won't show up when you try a frequency analysis. Then you need to know which images go together, but that could be done easily enough. The problem with the "images as a message" technique is that it doesn't convey enough information.
The problem is that Windows allows some program to mess around with vital drivers and other system internals without screaming murder. This is a clear case where proper use of permissions would prevent potential damage to a system. While Sony is definitely in the wrong for taking advantage of this, the structure of Windows allows this rootkit to be installed.
I know! Who cares about 2 through 11 anyway. We should convert those other sites to porn sites!