Each of us could make a list of "art" games and each list will be very subjective, but really that is beside the point. Establishing that the medium of "video games" is a valid platform for artistic expression doesn't require there to be a certain volume of pre-existing video game art--this scarcity is not a flaw, just a sign of the young age and perhaps lack of (perceived) interest.
But why is it sorry? There is no imperative here, that video games ought to be art. I am completely satisfied with non-artistic games, that excel in the traditional ways, such as well-balanced, emergent gameplay.
Interestingly enough, I have done the appropriate experiment to really determine whether that is true. I was in a bathroom where a strobe light was running (at a science-themed party, no less), and by tuning its frequency, I could get a good view of the nature of my urine stream. Initially it is continuous, but it breaks up into small droplets fairly quickly--perhaps after a foot or so. With the strobe set correctly, the droplets appear almost stationary.
I don't disagree; I bet most of us agree that copyright law is out-of-date. This solution seems to be rather hard to implement though: lots of interested parties, some with deep pockets. What these temporary solutions, such as what Google is doing, can do is bring the issue greater attention and urgency.
One additional point, while Google would have the rights to its scanned copies, I don't recall it being true that they have exclusive rights to the content itself. Other companies would then be free to replicate Google's activities, making their own databases of scanned books. I may be wrong...
To me, information freedom includes diffusivity. If no one actually sees the information, e.g. a pile of books sitting in a disused corner of a library, it is not "free". Google is allowing these books to be seen, through digitization and online availability, and asking to be reimbursed the labor cost.
I won't claim intimate detail with the status of the "orphan books", but if what I've read is accurate, these are generally books that are out-of-print and not actively managed by the publisher or author. In this case, I say Google is doing a service by bringing to light a wide body of literature that would otherwise either remain unused or even disappear. Insisting on strict enforcement of copyright law leaves everyone worse off: the authors and publishers are still not getting anything because they have abandoned the works, and those who might have actually been interested in the material remain without access to it.
There is power and there is ill will. Google has power. Microsoft does also, but also apparently has ill will which is why I don't like them. Google has the opportunity to be a "benevolent dictator" of information. This is a good thing. Whether or not that will actually happen...hard to say.
Anyone with sufficient money, which includes large drug cartels, potentially has a say in politics. It is actually a bit naive to assume that, long-term, the level of drug use will be higher simply because of legalization. Perhaps the main reason: criminalization may not be stopping that many people from use. Anyway, the point you seem to be missing here is that by legalization, we can remove the problems like the black market and prosecution/enforcement/jailing expenses and use the savings to get abusers off of drugs.
There's a difference between getting people to make impulsive, thus irrational, decisions and providing targeted advertising that might actually be something the viewer wants and was not aware of. The latter arguably benefits the consumer, making people happier. I don't really see how Netflix is doing anything but this. I do agree on opening up ad psychology. Only the manipulative advertising stands to lose.
I agree with your sentiment, and tried to say that in the sentence following the one you quoted. I'm of the stance that DRM, like any other tool, has some form of reasonable use. This use might be entirely out of the marketplace. The major uses we've all seen so far are generally misuses, to me.
Everybody wants to switch over to a pay per use plan because that's how they figure they'd make the most money.
Which comes from similar logic used by RIAA lawyers when calculating lost revenue: that every unpaid for product in use is lost revenue equal to retail value. I'd hope anyone who thinks about that for a few seconds can realize how absurd it is.
The idea of DRM is fine, there are probably cases where it is makes perfect sense. It is this misuse of it in an attempt to leverage customers out of more money that I think is the issue.
Global cooling would only follow if we just stored all of the energy collected by the panels. Assuming we used it, or otherwise released it, which we would probably have to, this would create an amount of thermal energy equal to the initial loss. In the end, only the local energy density on Earth has changed.
Generally, global warming/cooling effects will need to involve changing the rate at which energy enters or exits the Earth. For example, carbon dioxide emissions increase the energy retention, while increased cloud cover can decrease energy entry.
Well, it seems to me like you can't put the 5 billion euros into both the LHC and other causes at the same time.
The point about fixing the wrongs is a good one. LHC will ultimately yield substantial progress towards understanding the universe (which, to fully appreciate, you really have to be a physicist). What is the expectation of sinking the money into a social program? Many programs here in the states are poorly constructed or simply underfunded so end up a waste, while some can truly help many people more directly and immediately than basic science research. From this angle, it seems science is a lower risk investment.
PS Obviously things are just that simple, though...
As usual, it will depend on the implementation. I'd say it is believable that, with good design, this feature could provide a lot of entertainment.
I would liken it, somewhat, to the Wiimote. It provided people another way of interacting with the game. In some cases it's stupid, but in others it works well. Mindlink-enhanced solitaire is a bad choie, but imagine all the people wetting themselves when they can actually use Jedi powers in-game with their thoughts.
I got to try NeuroSky's device somewhat recently, and it looked like they were going the Jedi route. They even had you levitate an X-wing.
I was going to post on how high I thought the 64 seconds of distraction estimate was, yet you seem to find it reasonable. I'm usually programming or analyzing data when I check e-mail (which tends to be every several minutes) and it certainly takes nowhere near a full minute to get back into my last task--for example, I just switched back to setting up some jobs to run right now and I'd guess it took maybe 5-10 seconds before I was full speed again. Switching from that back to writing this post was essentially fluid. So, I guess some people are just naturally better at multitasking, which points to a potential flaw in the article: if people are checking their e-mail with frequency related to their multitasking ability, then there is no issue with inefficiency.
We do know practically all of the basic physics--the available particles and how they interact--up to a relatively high energy level. If there's "another world" "in the same space" as us, then it would have as building blocks either weakly-interactive particles or high-energy, likely unstable particles. Neither seems reasonable for supporting any kind of life, certainly nothing remotely similar to us.
Within the Braneworld theories, I think you could have "parallel" universes in the sense that neighboring universes are lined up in space(the large-dimensional bulk, here). These could be separated by small distances (though what is small for the extra dimensions?). That's about the closest I can get to "world in the same space".
Correct, and the 2.5 mW devices(class 2) have a range of about 10 meters. I believe this includes the common bluetooth headset.
Re:Can Oscar's be given posthumously?
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Batman Discussion
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And the Mooninites seem more like the Joker's style! As long as they exploded too, of course.
Re:Can Oscar's be given posthumously?
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Batman Discussion
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What's wrong with real, believable characters in a fantastic world? Perhaps Lord of the Rings is an example of this, but I'm sure there are better ones. While Frodo is physically unreal (a hobbit), he behaves in a real, human manner, which is what I think we're getting at here. It's the opposite that I wouldn't like: fantastical characters stuck in the real world.
I agree that we are made to assume the Joker is an exceptional planner. Of course, that's probably all he does all day, doubt he has many hobbies. In the end, I think it's about an even tradeoff, for me, between enjoying the elaborate nature vs disliking the lack of reality.
Some thoughts on your points:
-I imagine even a modern metropolis would have numerous places you could stash a hundred barrels of gas for a day or two without someone finding them. Homeless people certainly find places to squat for longer periods.
-I think I only recall him shooting his own henchmen in the initial sequence. I don't think anyone lived to establish the fact to others. On top of that, if he does a good job of keeping his henchmen only aware of the portions of the operation they need to know about, he might be able to get away with a lot.
-The proficiency of his henchmen is pretty tough to defend. During the chase of Harvey Dent, they are amazingly good at taking out the other cars with their semis and garbage trucks. Then again, I haven't seen many movie car chases that come close to being believable.
-The corruptibility of Gotham is something that seems to be an inherent quality--part of its fantastic nature.
-I was also annoyed at the henchman/bomb scene. They could have done a better job with that. Still, only half a minute out of 150+.
For me, the biggest merits of the film were: excellent acting, superb dialog, and very interesting philosophical ideas brought forth about heroic and criminal duties/motives. It is rare to find these amongst what might otherwise be simply a decent action film.
The fact that moving parts reduce cost by exploiting symmetry is hard to beat. Either you have one/several reader/writer that can move around to access the bits => cheaper, or you hardwire billions into the storage media => more stable.
It is generally impossible to keep out-of-game (OOG) activities from affecting the in-game play. Instead of despairing, I would say that most of what happens OOG can be explained in terms of the VW, and thus work it into the game. Example: developers could try to code the ability to hack into other player's virtual, in-game web sites into the game, and it maybe work well, maybe not. Or, they could just let RL spying take care of that aspect, and it would obviously "be done right". The main drawback here is that only those players who actually have the RL know-how can participate. Also, OOG physical interaction still crosses the line, obviously.
So, as long as players are keeping their activities online, I say we don't need to make a distinction between activities explicitly in-game and those OOG but involving the game. It may as well be your avatar doing both.
People who will pay for this crap:
1) Those with MMORPG's as their biggest hobby. I know people that spend thousands on other hobbies that are more...socially mainstream.
2) People with loads of money and/or little time who don't want to bother with the "unfun parts" of the game.
3) Competitive types, who derive insane pleasure from being the only one to have a "Bastard Sword of +10 Virginity", etc.
Slashdot Mirror
Each of us could make a list of "art" games and each list will be very subjective, but really that is beside the point. Establishing that the medium of "video games" is a valid platform for artistic expression doesn't require there to be a certain volume of pre-existing video game art--this scarcity is not a flaw, just a sign of the young age and perhaps lack of (perceived) interest.
But why is it sorry? There is no imperative here, that video games ought to be art. I am completely satisfied with non-artistic games, that excel in the traditional ways, such as well-balanced, emergent gameplay.
They could slightly modify "The Gambler" for this robot, and have it sing to itself:
"I've got to know how to hold 'em, know how to fold 'em..."
"urine streams do not tend to break apart"
Interestingly enough, I have done the appropriate experiment to really determine whether that is true. I was in a bathroom where a strobe light was running (at a science-themed party, no less), and by tuning its frequency, I could get a good view of the nature of my urine stream. Initially it is continuous, but it breaks up into small droplets fairly quickly--perhaps after a foot or so. With the strobe set correctly, the droplets appear almost stationary.
I don't disagree; I bet most of us agree that copyright law is out-of-date. This solution seems to be rather hard to implement though: lots of interested parties, some with deep pockets. What these temporary solutions, such as what Google is doing, can do is bring the issue greater attention and urgency.
One additional point, while Google would have the rights to its scanned copies, I don't recall it being true that they have exclusive rights to the content itself. Other companies would then be free to replicate Google's activities, making their own databases of scanned books. I may be wrong...
To me, information freedom includes diffusivity. If no one actually sees the information, e.g. a pile of books sitting in a disused corner of a library, it is not "free". Google is allowing these books to be seen, through digitization and online availability, and asking to be reimbursed the labor cost.
I won't claim intimate detail with the status of the "orphan books", but if what I've read is accurate, these are generally books that are out-of-print and not actively managed by the publisher or author. In this case, I say Google is doing a service by bringing to light a wide body of literature that would otherwise either remain unused or even disappear. Insisting on strict enforcement of copyright law leaves everyone worse off: the authors and publishers are still not getting anything because they have abandoned the works, and those who might have actually been interested in the material remain without access to it.
There is power and there is ill will. Google has power. Microsoft does also, but also apparently has ill will which is why I don't like them. Google has the opportunity to be a "benevolent dictator" of information. This is a good thing. Whether or not that will actually happen...hard to say.
Anyone with sufficient money, which includes large drug cartels, potentially has a say in politics. It is actually a bit naive to assume that, long-term, the level of drug use will be higher simply because of legalization. Perhaps the main reason: criminalization may not be stopping that many people from use. Anyway, the point you seem to be missing here is that by legalization, we can remove the problems like the black market and prosecution/enforcement/jailing expenses and use the savings to get abusers off of drugs.
There's a difference between getting people to make impulsive, thus irrational, decisions and providing targeted advertising that might actually be something the viewer wants and was not aware of. The latter arguably benefits the consumer, making people happier. I don't really see how Netflix is doing anything but this. I do agree on opening up ad psychology. Only the manipulative advertising stands to lose.
I agree with your sentiment, and tried to say that in the sentence following the one you quoted. I'm of the stance that DRM, like any other tool, has some form of reasonable use. This use might be entirely out of the marketplace. The major uses we've all seen so far are generally misuses, to me.
Everybody wants to switch over to a pay per use plan because that's how they figure they'd make the most money.
Which comes from similar logic used by RIAA lawyers when calculating lost revenue: that every unpaid for product in use is lost revenue equal to retail value. I'd hope anyone who thinks about that for a few seconds can realize how absurd it is.
The idea of DRM is fine, there are probably cases where it is makes perfect sense. It is this misuse of it in an attempt to leverage customers out of more money that I think is the issue.
For those who might take the parent seriously:
Global cooling would only follow if we just stored all of the energy collected by the panels. Assuming we used it, or otherwise released it, which we would probably have to, this would create an amount of thermal energy equal to the initial loss. In the end, only the local energy density on Earth has changed.
Generally, global warming/cooling effects will need to involve changing the rate at which energy enters or exits the Earth. For example, carbon dioxide emissions increase the energy retention, while increased cloud cover can decrease energy entry.
I'll run some diagnostics on my sarcasm meter.
Unfortunately, that analogy fails. Here is the conduction mechanism in myelinated fibers.
Well, it seems to me like you can't put the 5 billion euros into both the LHC and other causes at the same time.
The point about fixing the wrongs is a good one. LHC will ultimately yield substantial progress towards understanding the universe (which, to fully appreciate, you really have to be a physicist). What is the expectation of sinking the money into a social program? Many programs here in the states are poorly constructed or simply underfunded so end up a waste, while some can truly help many people more directly and immediately than basic science research. From this angle, it seems science is a lower risk investment.
PS Obviously things are just that simple, though...
As usual, it will depend on the implementation. I'd say it is believable that, with good design, this feature could provide a lot of entertainment. I would liken it, somewhat, to the Wiimote. It provided people another way of interacting with the game. In some cases it's stupid, but in others it works well. Mindlink-enhanced solitaire is a bad choie, but imagine all the people wetting themselves when they can actually use Jedi powers in-game with their thoughts.
I got to try NeuroSky's device somewhat recently, and it looked like they were going the Jedi route. They even had you levitate an X-wing.
I was going to post on how high I thought the 64 seconds of distraction estimate was, yet you seem to find it reasonable. I'm usually programming or analyzing data when I check e-mail (which tends to be every several minutes) and it certainly takes nowhere near a full minute to get back into my last task--for example, I just switched back to setting up some jobs to run right now and I'd guess it took maybe 5-10 seconds before I was full speed again. Switching from that back to writing this post was essentially fluid. So, I guess some people are just naturally better at multitasking, which points to a potential flaw in the article: if people are checking their e-mail with frequency related to their multitasking ability, then there is no issue with inefficiency.
We do know practically all of the basic physics--the available particles and how they interact--up to a relatively high energy level. If there's "another world" "in the same space" as us, then it would have as building blocks either weakly-interactive particles or high-energy, likely unstable particles. Neither seems reasonable for supporting any kind of life, certainly nothing remotely similar to us.
Within the Braneworld theories, I think you could have "parallel" universes in the sense that neighboring universes are lined up in space(the large-dimensional bulk, here). These could be separated by small distances (though what is small for the extra dimensions?). That's about the closest I can get to "world in the same space".
Correct, and the 2.5 mW devices(class 2) have a range of about 10 meters. I believe this includes the common bluetooth headset.
And the Mooninites seem more like the Joker's style! As long as they exploded too, of course.
What's wrong with real, believable characters in a fantastic world? Perhaps Lord of the Rings is an example of this, but I'm sure there are better ones. While Frodo is physically unreal (a hobbit), he behaves in a real, human manner, which is what I think we're getting at here. It's the opposite that I wouldn't like: fantastical characters stuck in the real world.
I agree that we are made to assume the Joker is an exceptional planner. Of course, that's probably all he does all day, doubt he has many hobbies. In the end, I think it's about an even tradeoff, for me, between enjoying the elaborate nature vs disliking the lack of reality.
Some thoughts on your points:
-I imagine even a modern metropolis would have numerous places you could stash a hundred barrels of gas for a day or two without someone finding them. Homeless people certainly find places to squat for longer periods.
-I think I only recall him shooting his own henchmen in the initial sequence. I don't think anyone lived to establish the fact to others. On top of that, if he does a good job of keeping his henchmen only aware of the portions of the operation they need to know about, he might be able to get away with a lot.
-The proficiency of his henchmen is pretty tough to defend. During the chase of Harvey Dent, they are amazingly good at taking out the other cars with their semis and garbage trucks. Then again, I haven't seen many movie car chases that come close to being believable.
-The corruptibility of Gotham is something that seems to be an inherent quality--part of its fantastic nature.
-I was also annoyed at the henchman/bomb scene. They could have done a better job with that. Still, only half a minute out of 150+.
For me, the biggest merits of the film were: excellent acting, superb dialog, and very interesting philosophical ideas brought forth about heroic and criminal duties/motives. It is rare to find these amongst what might otherwise be simply a decent action film.
The fact that moving parts reduce cost by exploiting symmetry is hard to beat. Either you have one/several reader/writer that can move around to access the bits => cheaper, or you hardwire billions into the storage media => more stable.
It is generally impossible to keep out-of-game (OOG) activities from affecting the in-game play. Instead of despairing, I would say that most of what happens OOG can be explained in terms of the VW, and thus work it into the game. Example: developers could try to code the ability to hack into other player's virtual, in-game web sites into the game, and it maybe work well, maybe not. Or, they could just let RL spying take care of that aspect, and it would obviously "be done right". The main drawback here is that only those players who actually have the RL know-how can participate. Also, OOG physical interaction still crosses the line, obviously. So, as long as players are keeping their activities online, I say we don't need to make a distinction between activities explicitly in-game and those OOG but involving the game. It may as well be your avatar doing both.
People who will pay for this crap: 1) Those with MMORPG's as their biggest hobby. I know people that spend thousands on other hobbies that are more...socially mainstream. 2) People with loads of money and/or little time who don't want to bother with the "unfun parts" of the game. 3) Competitive types, who derive insane pleasure from being the only one to have a "Bastard Sword of +10 Virginity", etc.
True. That was pretty ambiguous of me. I was thinking (jokingly) of modding someone else's mod as "funny" or "insightful", not just the fairness.