Nothing is being "taken" from you. Words can be reproduced with minimal effort. Unrestricted sharing of words is the natural state of affairs - the only reason you have any right to control and restrict how people share those words is that we the people chose to give you that right. It's an investment - we trade less access to words now in exchange for anticipated greater access to words in the future. If this turns out to be a bad investment there's no reason it should continue.
No, *you* give control of the work to the public domain when you publish. To encourage you and others to give more work to the public domain we give you a temporary monopoly over it. If you want complete control of your writing you should keep it to yourself.
I have no problem reading novels and long articles, and I suspect this is because of advert blocking. At first I used a hosts file (probably starting around 1999 or 2000 because of the sharp increase in obnoxious adverts such as "Punch the monkey"), then adding user CSS, then switching to AdBlock Plus. I suspect those having problems with attention span have been exposed to far more adverts than me.
Youtube is useful for some types of searches. Eg. I wanted to know if pikes bit humans, and I assumed that if they did somebody would have recorded it and uploaded it to Youtube. Youtube search "pike bite" and there it is, video proof of pikes biting humans. That is much better than trying to interpret all the dubious fish stories you'll get with the same web search.
This marketing speak really annoys me. You're not allowed to say "design flaws" we get this meaningless sentence. All games worth playing are a challenge to design - if your design process is easy then you're making a boring or derivative game.
Old recordings sound great if you listen on good equipment and turn up the volume. Dynamic compression destroys information, and while it's necessary for listening in noisy environments it should be a feature of the playback equipment, not forced on everybody.
Yet people recorded metal in the 80s with high dynamic range and it sounded perfectly "heavy". The loudness war has ruined most modern music for me, and even older music is being destroyed in remastered versions. Untrained listeners might prefer the compressed sound at first, but it's tiring to listen to for more than a few minutes. This is especially true as you get older.
If you're concerned with standards, there's a new standard in planning at http://www.turnmeup.org/ . In the case of less mainstream music your fans will likely be more knowledgeable, and understand it sounds better if they turn it up themselves. Higher dynamic range could make you more popular and help you stand out from your overcompressed competitors.
There's no easy way to convert 2D video to 3D, but 3D porn already exists. See http://3d-eros.com/ for example. (NSFW obviously). If you learn to control your eye focus independently from convergence you can watch this without any special hardware.
I don't want a game to let me win, I want to earn that victory. If you don't have to overcome real challenge it's not a game at all, only "interactive entertainment". Anyone who's ascended a Nethack character should understand this. Nethack is a perfect example of good difficulty. When you complete your first ascension you'll get a feeling of accomplishment missing from most modern games. The game wasn't helping you at all, and you only succeeded by your own skill.
Dynamic difficulty is a very bad idea. There's no sense of accomplishment if the game punishes you for doing well. The only way it can work is if manipulating the difficulty system is intended as part of the game, as in Battle Garrega where the only way to succeed is learning how to keep the dynamic difficulty low, which is a difficult sub-game in itself.
NES games are often difficult but unfair and frustrating - "Nintendo hard". For a better type of difficulty, see most arcade games. Here there's a strong incentive to make the player fail (more money for the operator), but if it feels unfair the player won't play that game again. With NES games the publisher already has their money, so the difficulty is added only to stop complaints about the game being too short.
I've got good reaction time, but I'll still get pwned in 1v1 against a really good player. With enough practice the "twitch" aiming becomes completely automatic, and everyone converges to the fastest speed humanly possible. If this is all there is then the game is reduced to luck. In reality, maneuvering so you see your opponent before they see you is very important, and this requires the same high level mind-games as all competitive sports.
In FPSs you can hide the lag by calculating the hits client side and displaying the results immediately, then confirming them on the server later. This works well because it's rare for players to act simultaneously, and when they do it's rare for one attack to interrupt another. Mastering the map layout and being able to predict your opponent's movement while remaining unpredictable yourself is more important than reaction time.
This prediction game ("yomi" in fighting game slang, from the Japanese for "reading", as in reading your opponent) is also critical to fighting games, but reaction time is much more important than in FPSs because you're always watching your opponent (no FPS style ambushes or surprise attacks), and attacks are often interrupted by other attacks.
Casual players might not notice the lag, but for high level play with traditional fast paced fighting games it's going to be unacceptable. Modifying the gameplay is the only solution, and a lot of hardcore players are going to be unhappy about that.
Absolutely, and I'm sure musicians will be most sensitive to these effects. Performance isn't just playing the notes as written, it's about phrasing/groove/swing/etc., and this requires very subtle and precise timing. And just like frame timing jitter in a game, it contributes to "feeling" of quality in a way untrained listeners will likely notice without being able to explain.
Don't confuse control latency with reaction time. Reaction time will be at least 150ms for even the best players, but humans can notice time delays much smaller than best reaction time. A good rhythm game player can hit frame exact timing at 60fps -- a 17ms time window. With low enough latency the game character feels like a part of your own body, rather than something you are indirectly influencing.
The same thing applies to GUIs, and only a very short delay will destroy that feeling of transparency of action. I never actually used BeOS myself, but I read that it was designed with low interface latency as a priority, which was why it got such good reviews for user experience.
Slashdot Mirror
Nothing is being "taken" from you. Words can be reproduced with minimal effort. Unrestricted sharing of words is the natural state of affairs - the only reason you have any right to control and restrict how people share those words is that we the people chose to give you that right. It's an investment - we trade less access to words now in exchange for anticipated greater access to words in the future. If this turns out to be a bad investment there's no reason it should continue.
No, *you* give control of the work to the public domain when you publish. To encourage you and others to give more work to the public domain we give you a temporary monopoly over it. If you want complete control of your writing you should keep it to yourself.
I have no problem reading novels and long articles, and I suspect this is because of advert blocking. At first I used a hosts file (probably starting around 1999 or 2000 because of the sharp increase in obnoxious adverts such as "Punch the monkey"), then adding user CSS, then switching to AdBlock Plus. I suspect those having problems with attention span have been exposed to far more adverts than me.
Youtube is useful for some types of searches. Eg. I wanted to know if pikes bit humans, and I assumed that if they did somebody would have recorded it and uploaded it to Youtube. Youtube search "pike bite" and there it is, video proof of pikes biting humans. That is much better than trying to interpret all the dubious fish stories you'll get with the same web search.
Calling it "intellectual property" only makes an already vague phrase worse. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html
This one can: http://qalculate.sourceforge.net/
Or if you prefer normal pitch, install http://www.breakfastquay.com/rubberband/ , an excellent Free pitch shifter, and use:
mplayer -speed 1.6 -af ladspa=ladspa-rubberband.so:rubberband-pitchshifter-stereo:0:-8.1:0:2:0:0 [file]
This marketing speak really annoys me. You're not allowed to say "design flaws" we get this meaningless sentence. All games worth playing are a challenge to design - if your design process is easy then you're making a boring or derivative game.
Old recordings sound great if you listen on good equipment and turn up the volume. Dynamic compression destroys information, and while it's necessary for listening in noisy environments it should be a feature of the playback equipment, not forced on everybody.
Yet people recorded metal in the 80s with high dynamic range and it sounded perfectly "heavy". The loudness war has ruined most modern music for me, and even older music is being destroyed in remastered versions. Untrained listeners might prefer the compressed sound at first, but it's tiring to listen to for more than a few minutes. This is especially true as you get older. If you're concerned with standards, there's a new standard in planning at http://www.turnmeup.org/ . In the case of less mainstream music your fans will likely be more knowledgeable, and understand it sounds better if they turn it up themselves. Higher dynamic range could make you more popular and help you stand out from your overcompressed competitors.
Motion blur is unrelated to flicker. 60Hz CRT TVs usually flicker less than 60Hz CRT monitors because they use slower phosphors.
There's no easy way to convert 2D video to 3D, but 3D porn already exists. See http://3d-eros.com/ for example. (NSFW obviously). If you learn to control your eye focus independently from convergence you can watch this without any special hardware.
Most (all?) current 120Hz TVs don't allow 120Hz input but only interpolate 60Hz.
I don't want a game to let me win, I want to earn that victory. If you don't have to overcome real challenge it's not a game at all, only "interactive entertainment". Anyone who's ascended a Nethack character should understand this. Nethack is a perfect example of good difficulty. When you complete your first ascension you'll get a feeling of accomplishment missing from most modern games. The game wasn't helping you at all, and you only succeeded by your own skill.
Dynamic difficulty is a very bad idea. There's no sense of accomplishment if the game punishes you for doing well. The only way it can work is if manipulating the difficulty system is intended as part of the game, as in Battle Garrega where the only way to succeed is learning how to keep the dynamic difficulty low, which is a difficult sub-game in itself.
NES games are often difficult but unfair and frustrating - "Nintendo hard". For a better type of difficulty, see most arcade games. Here there's a strong incentive to make the player fail (more money for the operator), but if it feels unfair the player won't play that game again. With NES games the publisher already has their money, so the difficulty is added only to stop complaints about the game being too short.
Infinity of Mersenne primes isn't proven, you'll have to post the whole thing for us to believe you.
DVDs use MPEG-2, which is old and inefficient. 2GB would be adequate for a DVD-resolution encode using a modern codec such as H.264.
I've got good reaction time, but I'll still get pwned in 1v1 against a really good player. With enough practice the "twitch" aiming becomes completely automatic, and everyone converges to the fastest speed humanly possible. If this is all there is then the game is reduced to luck. In reality, maneuvering so you see your opponent before they see you is very important, and this requires the same high level mind-games as all competitive sports.
In FPSs you can hide the lag by calculating the hits client side and displaying the results immediately, then confirming them on the server later. This works well because it's rare for players to act simultaneously, and when they do it's rare for one attack to interrupt another. Mastering the map layout and being able to predict your opponent's movement while remaining unpredictable yourself is more important than reaction time.
This prediction game ("yomi" in fighting game slang, from the Japanese for "reading", as in reading your opponent) is also critical to fighting games, but reaction time is much more important than in FPSs because you're always watching your opponent (no FPS style ambushes or surprise attacks), and attacks are often interrupted by other attacks.
Casual players might not notice the lag, but for high level play with traditional fast paced fighting games it's going to be unacceptable. Modifying the gameplay is the only solution, and a lot of hardcore players are going to be unhappy about that.
Absolutely, and I'm sure musicians will be most sensitive to these effects. Performance isn't just playing the notes as written, it's about phrasing/groove/swing/etc., and this requires very subtle and precise timing. And just like frame timing jitter in a game, it contributes to "feeling" of quality in a way untrained listeners will likely notice without being able to explain.
I agree this is a common problem in modern games; see http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1942/programming_responsiveness.php
Don't confuse control latency with reaction time. Reaction time will be at least 150ms for even the best players, but humans can notice time delays much smaller than best reaction time. A good rhythm game player can hit frame exact timing at 60fps -- a 17ms time window. With low enough latency the game character feels like a part of your own body, rather than something you are indirectly influencing.
The same thing applies to GUIs, and only a very short delay will destroy that feeling of transparency of action. I never actually used BeOS myself, but I read that it was designed with low interface latency as a priority, which was why it got such good reviews for user experience.
If everyone is that educated it won't be long until the shit jobs are fully automated.
As this blog post explains, while the current software patent situation exists, Mono is an unacceptable risk.
I think it's garbage too, but I also think life on Mars is unlikely. Finding oil there would not be automatic proof of life.