There was one thing that kept me with playing games. Wanna know why? When I played games, i felt like a hero. I could be all the things I WASN'T in the real life.
And what makes kids feel miserable? Problematic families (i actually wonder how "normal" it is that parents don't speak to each other except for yelling. Tomorrow we'll accept a parent sending the spouse to jail as "normal"), being told that you're useless ("you failed again / you're good for nothing / you'll never get anywhere in life" blah blah blah), or being bullied by stupid kids at school.
Games let you take that anger and frustration and do something with it.
But... wouldn't it be much better to ACTUALLY solve the problems instead of trying to hide the symptoms? Just going to a 12-step program ISN'T enough.
You need to feel better with yourself. Unfortunately, in this broken society, we've all "learned" to "accept" the "facts of life" instead of realizing that they're NOT normal, that they're NOT right, and that they CAN be changed.
So, why not buying a couple of self-help books instead of a videogame, for instance?
And yes, send the parents to counseling, too. They probably have a major responsibility with an addicted child.
Positrons (anti-electrons), or antiprotons? (btw, is there any thing like anti-neutrons?) Or anti-atoms as a whole? If we're talking about positron rays, would there be any anti-matter left after a couple of meters? Or are we talking bombs by any chance?
And how are these things gonna be kept isolated from "positive" matter, anyway, so they won't be destroyed by mere contact?
IMHO, this whole antimatter business is just a bunch of crap. The most practical application of antimatter i've heard of, is smashing a couple of anti-particles in gigantic accelerators.
If you guys have complained about stability, think about this. How many MILES does a hard disk platter "travel" in say, a year? let's see, 7200 revolutions per minute, times 60 minutes per hour, times 24 hours per day,... do you really think this is STABLE?
You drop it, it becomes unusable due to the precision required to align the HD heads and prevent collisions.
In contrast, MEMS (micro electro mecanical switches) only move back and forth. And only by NANOmeters. And we're talking about crystalline materials here (did you know that carbon nanotubes , for example, have a much greater endurance than diamonds? AND they're flexible).
Plus, nanoswitches, even when they can be "moved", have a limited and stable range of movement. And being non ferro-magnetic makes them immune to EM interference. If you flick a switch today, it requires exactly the same action in exactly the opposite direction to alter the information. But with a floppy disk... hey, just get it near to your stereo.
Of course, do you think scientists would be dumb enough not to add an "isolation" layer to deal with vibrations? But look, to alter these thingies we'd have to talk about vibrations in the megahertz scale.
So yes, in the future, I think these babies will be the replacement for flash memories and hard disks.
Yeah, and Symmantec and McAffee are secretly making all the computer viruses so they can sell anti-virus software.
Believe it or not, this was common knowledge 10 years ago even before NATAS (first true polymorphic virus) came out. Just skip the Norton part. Norton was a hardware hacker who wrote excellent IBM PC books. Maybe you don't know, but at the time, McAffee was an antivirus MONOPOLY. And there were about 50 new virus strains appearing EACH MONTH. Don't you think that's a little *suspicious*? Think about it. Creating your own market. This ain't new at all.
Of course, in those times, you couldn't get infected by opening a normal document. Viruses were only the result of doing some "unhealthy" activity (warez). So if a company did something such as writing viruses, they might have (secretly) be appraised by governments.
Things are different now. Viruses are written by either anarchists or script kiddies, and against specific targets (Outlook, IE6, etc). Writing viruses is now no longer profittable for a company.
THe key with copyright, was to protect the _INVESTMENT_ that people have made in CREATING something.
"In Ye Olde Times, where books were written with quills," you get the idea.
So, the music industry had INVESTED a lot of money in producing records. But now this can be done with a SIMPLE PC. Media has become CHEAP. But there's something more important. Creators are _NOT_ returned their investment! The big companies keep it to themselves! So, the creators lose, the consumers lose, and guess who wins?
The music industry is just trying to maintain an unsustainable Status Quo with artificial means: DMCA, and similar things.
This is a completely broken system, and it will collapse under its own weight.
So, you want someone to get credit for his works that everybody reads but nobody pays?
Make some association. People donate, people vote... and if you find something scarse, purchase it. That way authors of good stuff will get paid, authors of bad stuff won't get paid (and they'll learn to improve)...
I know, my ideas aren't perfect. But hey, that's why we're slashdotting, right? To get better ideas.
Hey look. there's ALWAYS a way to exploit your creativity.
I've done it myself. I _SUCK_ at drawing. But i'm a wonderful storyteller. So instead of suffering because I can't draw manga, I don't lose time and start writing.
The key here is: Use what you have handy. People have different ways to express themselves: Music, poetry, literature, movies... etc etc.
And it's funny you mentioned Disneyland - because you know? There was some guy who wanted to turn the Pirates of the Caribbean tour into something more tangible. Voila, "Secret of Monkey Island" was born.
So, don't lose hope! I'm sure someday people will take your ideas when they're realizable and use them. But until then, there are always ways to exploit your creativity:)
And remember: What makes I.F. so compelling is that inside the human imagination, there are NO limits.
Maybe... you should start focusing on your capabilities, and not on your limitations.
Remember the old "Colossal cave adventure"? Text games, also known as *HINT* Interactive Fiction (hello...) which then led to Roleplaying games.
People want to get involved in a story and BECOME PART of it. That's the real success of games. I remember playing more and more of FF6 just to see Celes kiss Locke... or Terra find her first love. (But they didn't, bummer:P ) Still, it was a wonderful game. Why? It allowed me to become part of the story.
That's the secret. But people have become more focused on special effects, adding "realism" that they forget what realism is about: Getting you inside the story.
If by repetition (travel thru here, fight N monsters until you've advanced 100 levels or else you won't be able to defeat the wyrm or whatever), unrealistic lipsync, or an extremely difficult gameplay, the game reminds you that it's a game... it loses its magic.
Mission Impossible (c64). Wonderful gameplay. Project Firestart (c64). A survival horror classic. Flashback (PC). Platform game with a great story.
Ah yes, those were the days... if you want to ask me, i preferred good 'ol written dialogues (Loom, PC - LucasArts). Graphics just required a good painter and a scanner.
But now, we require a good 3D engine, a whole team of artists, coordinating the voice actors, doing the 3D scanning of real live stunt doubles...
hey, i just wanna play, k?:( I miss the old days...
I live in Mexico city. Commercial PC's have a prohibitive price tag. It's much cheaper to build your own.
Furthermore, in downtown there's a computer plaza. You DON'T buy brand-name PC's. You order them made (usually with cheap parts and mobo's made in Taiwan). Yeah they usually come with winxp unactivated. But you can just buy a cheap copy of RedHat CD around the corner, and do the installation the same day.
Russian guy: Hey guys, i got myself a copy of XP starter edition! Russian pirate: Well done, comrade! Let's check it out. If it's good, we'll start making copies of it!
(30 mins later)
Russian guy: This sucks! Russian pirate: It's allright, comrade. We'll just keep making copies of SP2. Russian guy: Stoopid americans, har har har har!
Microsoft PPL think we're idiots because they're idiots, too. They can't seem to distinguish that there are VARIOUS KINDS of users. Dummies, informed, advanced, experts, and superpower users.
They may not want to confuse a user with bloated information he doesn't need. But they should provide the info for us advanced users, anyway!
Wouldn't you like in MS apps to give you access to "advanced" information when you click a button?
i.e. BEFORE: "The current application has terminated abnormally" (advanced)
AFTER: "The current application, process executed by filename.exe tried to read at address xyz. This address is currently in use by process mnop."
Or in this particular case "The following DLL's were found defective:
c:\program files\yaddayadda\yatta\gdiplus.dll" which was installed as part of application "Yatta Plus!".
(Finishes list)
Do you want to? a) Replace defective dll's with fixed ones whenever possible b) Delete defective dll's and render applications unusable (but safe) c) Nothing.
Hey, how about other vulnerabilities in the MS knowledge base? "A vulnerability has been found that permits a user take control of the system" (Hey, big deal! We already know that. Why don't they tell us:
"A workaround would be to disable X and Y service from windows XP. Click here for more info."
The same when i accidentally delete some file that is used by the system (hey i didn't know netmeeting was required!)
I only get something like: "Warning! You idiot deleted some critical file. Insert the CD before the next reboot OR ELSE!"
Instead of: "You deleted critical file xxxxxxx.yyy. Please insert the CD, or try to specify an alternative directory.
This is something that's ALWAYS bothered me. That Windows takes ALL the decisions for me.
I was kinda shocked when I read that many people who died at the hindemburg incident did so because they JUMPED OFF the thing before it could land.
And when i read about the hydrogen exploding with a "pop" instead of a "boom" in laboratory, i remembered my chemistry lessons. We DID put a flame in a test tube full of hydrogen. It popped really nice:)
You better check out the article to get more informed.
Slashdot Mirror
That's right.
There was one thing that kept me with playing games. Wanna know why? When I played games, i felt like a hero. I could be all the things I WASN'T in the real life.
And what makes kids feel miserable? Problematic families (i actually wonder how "normal" it is that parents don't speak to each other except for yelling. Tomorrow we'll accept a parent sending the spouse to jail as "normal"), being told that you're useless ("you failed again / you're good for nothing / you'll never get anywhere in life" blah blah blah), or being bullied by stupid kids at school.
Games let you take that anger and frustration and do something with it.
But... wouldn't it be much better to ACTUALLY solve the problems instead of trying to hide the symptoms? Just going to a 12-step program ISN'T enough.
You need to feel better with yourself. Unfortunately, in this broken society, we've all "learned" to "accept" the "facts of life" instead of realizing that they're NOT normal, that they're NOT right, and that they CAN be changed.
So, why not buying a couple of self-help books instead of a videogame, for instance?
And yes, send the parents to counseling, too. They probably have a major responsibility with an addicted child.
Your son, your mirror.
Hello!!!
I'm the wacko scientist! %-P
Let's replace manual gears and levers for electronic! Electronic is the future! Yeehaw! %-P
I had to manage to check whether the time of day had changed from midnight to the next day. It was a TINY CHECK ROUTINE!!
I don't understand how Microsoft couldn't have done that with their OPERATING SYSTEM.
Let me repeat.
*Clears throat*
*mi mi mi mi..*
*Tests echo*
It was a _TINY_ CHECK ROUTINE!!!!!
Microsoft says: It's not the software, blame your boss!
OK let's hope the guys at Redmond do what they preach! ):D <-- evil face
What *kind* of antimatter are we discussing?
Positrons (anti-electrons), or antiprotons? (btw, is there any thing like anti-neutrons?) Or anti-atoms as a whole? If we're talking about positron rays, would there be any anti-matter left after a couple of meters? Or are we talking bombs by any chance?
And how are these things gonna be kept isolated from "positive" matter, anyway, so they won't be destroyed by mere contact?
IMHO, this whole antimatter business is just a bunch of crap. The most practical application of antimatter i've heard of, is smashing a couple of anti-particles in gigantic accelerators.
Wow, look at the dots in the computer, wheeeeeee!
If you guys have complained about stability, think about this. How many MILES does a hard disk platter "travel" in say, a year? let's see, 7200 revolutions per minute, times 60 minutes per hour, times 24 hours per day,... do you really think this is STABLE?
You drop it, it becomes unusable due to the precision required to align the HD heads and prevent collisions.
In contrast, MEMS (micro electro mecanical switches) only move back and forth. And only by NANOmeters. And we're talking about crystalline materials here (did you know that carbon nanotubes , for example, have a much greater endurance than diamonds? AND they're flexible).
Plus, nanoswitches, even when they can be "moved", have a limited and stable range of movement. And being non ferro-magnetic makes them immune to EM interference. If you flick a switch today, it requires exactly the same action in exactly the opposite direction to alter the information. But with a floppy disk... hey, just get it near to your stereo.
Of course, do you think scientists would be dumb enough not to add an "isolation" layer to deal with vibrations? But look, to alter these thingies we'd have to talk about vibrations in the megahertz scale.
So yes, in the future, I think these babies will be the replacement for flash memories and hard disks.
Yeah, and Symmantec and McAffee are secretly making all the computer viruses so they can sell anti-virus software.
Believe it or not, this was common knowledge 10 years ago even before NATAS (first true polymorphic virus) came out. Just skip the Norton part. Norton was a hardware hacker who wrote excellent IBM PC books. Maybe you don't know, but at the time, McAffee was an antivirus MONOPOLY. And there were about 50 new virus strains appearing EACH MONTH. Don't you think that's a little *suspicious*? Think about it. Creating your own market. This ain't new at all.
Of course, in those times, you couldn't get infected by opening a normal document. Viruses were only the result of doing some "unhealthy" activity (warez). So if a company did something such as writing viruses, they might have (secretly) be appraised by governments.
Things are different now. Viruses are written by either anarchists or script kiddies, and against specific targets (Outlook, IE6, etc). Writing viruses is now no longer profittable for a company.
But please remember: There WAS a time...
Our spyware detection system shows that currently you have 43 spywares installed on your computer. (Click to remove)
Oh, by the way. We also detected you running 23 illegitimate copies of commercial software.
(Click to remove)
Ah, forgot! We also detected you having watched some illegal pr0n / downloaded illegal warez.
(Click to surrender, we already called the police)
as long as they're accepted in businesses and stores...
WHO CARES?
THe key with copyright, was to protect the _INVESTMENT_ that people have made in CREATING something.
"In Ye Olde Times, where books were written with quills," you get the idea.
So, the music industry had INVESTED a lot of money in producing records. But now this can be done with a SIMPLE PC. Media has become CHEAP. But there's something more important. Creators are _NOT_ returned their investment! The big companies keep it to themselves! So, the creators lose, the consumers lose, and guess who wins?
The music industry is just trying to maintain an unsustainable Status Quo with artificial means: DMCA, and similar things.
This is a completely broken system, and it will collapse under its own weight.
So, you want someone to get credit for his works that everybody reads but nobody pays?
Make some association. People donate, people vote... and if you find something scarse, purchase it. That way authors of good stuff will get paid, authors of bad stuff won't get paid (and they'll learn to improve)...
I know, my ideas aren't perfect. But hey, that's why we're slashdotting, right? To get better ideas.
Didn't Jesus say...
"The Law was made for man, not man for the Law"?
So what should we do with Laws that protect the powerful and threaten the weak?
Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
This whole "big brother is watching" business gets me the nerves. Hello??? We live in America, not the U.S.S.R (big bad communists! remember?)
Unfortunately, one can't debate on piracy either because he'd have the feds tapping his phone line.
I'd say more, but hey...
<.<
>.>
big brother is watching.
Hey look. there's ALWAYS a way to exploit your creativity.
:)
I've done it myself. I _SUCK_ at drawing. But i'm a wonderful storyteller. So instead of suffering because I can't draw manga, I don't lose time and start writing.
The key here is: Use what you have handy. People have different ways to express themselves: Music, poetry, literature, movies... etc etc.
And it's funny you mentioned Disneyland - because you know? There was some guy who wanted to turn the Pirates of the Caribbean tour into something more tangible. Voila, "Secret of Monkey Island" was born.
So, don't lose hope! I'm sure someday people will take your ideas when they're realizable and use them. But until then, there are always ways to exploit your creativity
And remember: What makes I.F. so compelling is that inside the human imagination, there are NO limits.
Maybe... you should start focusing on your capabilities, and not on your limitations.
Remember the old "Colossal cave adventure"? Text games, also known as *HINT* Interactive Fiction (hello...) which then led to Roleplaying games.
:P ) Still, it was a wonderful game. Why? It allowed me to become part of the story.
People want to get involved in a story and BECOME PART of it. That's the real success of games. I remember playing more and more of FF6 just to see Celes kiss Locke... or Terra find her first love. (But they didn't, bummer
That's the secret. But people have become more focused on special effects, adding "realism" that they forget what realism is about: Getting you inside the story.
If by repetition (travel thru here, fight N monsters until you've advanced 100 levels or else you won't be able to defeat the wyrm or whatever), unrealistic lipsync, or an extremely difficult gameplay, the game reminds you that it's a game... it loses its magic.
As simple as that.
I remember old games:
:( I miss the old days...
Mission Impossible (c64). Wonderful gameplay.
Project Firestart (c64). A survival horror classic.
Flashback (PC). Platform game with a great story.
Ah yes, those were the days... if you want to ask me, i preferred good 'ol written dialogues (Loom, PC - LucasArts). Graphics just required a good painter and a scanner.
But now, we require a good 3D engine, a whole team of artists, coordinating the voice actors, doing the 3D scanning of real live stunt doubles...
hey, i just wanna play, k?
Hmmm maybe they'll sell you a BACKPACK with helluva batteries included. Hey, if it's in a backpack it's still "portable", right? :P
As a web developer, I _ALWAYS_ escape my output, and _ALWAYS_ preprocess my input.
No input ever goes unfiltered either way. Anyone with some experience on multi-tier programming should know this.
Now the problem with content-management systems is, we need a _GOOD_ wysiwyg editor with filtering capabilities.
i.e. make the thing output XML. Then use your favorite XSLT stylesheet to filter it.
Oh well...
I live in Mexico city. Commercial PC's have a prohibitive price tag. It's much cheaper to build your own.
Furthermore, in downtown there's a computer plaza. You DON'T buy brand-name PC's. You order them made (usually with cheap parts and mobo's made in Taiwan). Yeah they usually come with winxp unactivated. But you can just buy a cheap copy of RedHat CD around the corner, and do the installation the same day.
What? There's nothing like that in the US? O.o
That's the problem with the world. If you get angry at a machine, you just turn it off and sleep for the next day.
You get angry at someone... results are UNPREDICTABLE. That's the problem with people. You can't control them.
So, yes, you should definitely put more emphasis on the legal issues.
Well, million years of experience have proven us the robustness of the system! :)
they just don't report it.
Russian guy: Hey guys, i got myself a copy of XP starter edition!
Russian pirate: Well done, comrade! Let's check it out. If it's good, we'll start making copies of it!
(30 mins later)
Russian guy: This sucks!
Russian pirate: It's allright, comrade. We'll just keep making copies of SP2.
Russian guy: Stoopid americans, har har har har!
Just a thought... because from the map, looks much more like a crack than a cave.
:-S
Just imagine... World's deepest cave collapsed! *shudders at the thought*
Microsoft PPL think we're idiots because they're idiots, too. They can't seem to distinguish that there are VARIOUS KINDS of users. Dummies, informed, advanced, experts, and superpower users.
They may not want to confuse a user with bloated information he doesn't need. But they should provide the info for us advanced users, anyway!
Wouldn't you like in MS apps to give you access to "advanced" information when you click a button?
i.e.
BEFORE: "The current application has terminated abnormally"
(advanced)
AFTER: "The current application, process executed by filename.exe tried to read at address xyz. This address is currently in use by process mnop."
Or in this particular case
"The following DLL's were found defective:
c:\program files\yaddayadda\yatta\gdiplus.dll" which was installed as part of application "Yatta Plus!".
(Finishes list)
Do you want to?
a) Replace defective dll's with fixed ones whenever possible
b) Delete defective dll's and render applications unusable (but safe)
c) Nothing.
Hey, how about other vulnerabilities in the MS knowledge base?
"A vulnerability has been found that permits a user take control of the system" (Hey, big deal! We already know that. Why don't they tell us:
"A workaround would be to disable X and Y service from windows XP. Click here for more info."
The same when i accidentally delete some file that is used by the system (hey i didn't know netmeeting was required!)
I only get something like:
"Warning! You idiot deleted some critical file. Insert the CD before the next reboot OR ELSE!"
Instead of:
"You deleted critical file xxxxxxx.yyy. Please insert the CD, or try to specify an alternative directory.
This is something that's ALWAYS bothered me. That Windows takes ALL the decisions for me.
Why is hydrogen expensive today? Because we use TRADITIONAL ENERGY in producing that hydrogen.
Hydrogen will not be expensive to produce with Nanotechnology advances. Specially when the energy comes directly from the sun.
Please read Twenty hydrogen myths (pdf). (HTML version by Google). This guy KNOWS what he's talking about.
:)
I was kinda shocked when I read that many people who died at the hindemburg incident did so because they JUMPED OFF the thing before it could land.
And when i read about the hydrogen exploding with a "pop" instead of a "boom" in laboratory, i remembered my chemistry lessons. We DID put a flame in a test tube full of hydrogen. It popped really nice
You better check out the article to get more informed.