How do you know if you are in an exit/turn lane? On a service road parallel to a freeway? In a lane with a stalled car ahead?
By looking out the window?;-)
Seriously, though, don't forget that the signal received by your automotive/handheld GPS unit is not the only source of error when trying to orient yourself in relation to an object. Your maps have to be incredibly accurate, too.
Most of the consumer grade mapping solutions available for automotive GPS usage are only accurate down to a certain point- in my experience this is anywhere from 30-150 feet for Garmin's City Navigator series of maps. Some of their older map products can be much worse (some topo software was scaled off of paper maps, for example, and only claims to be accurate to within 800 feet). I too am an avid geocacher, and when a cache hider sloppily takes an inaccurate waypoint, it doesn't matter how accurate the signal is for you, you'll be off.
Now, imagine the best case scenario, where your lane data is accurate to within 10 feet and your GPS unit reports 10 feet accuracy (I've seen my 60Csx report as low as 6 feet, but that's dubious). Combine your error with the map error, and you could be as much as 20 feet off- making it difficult for the GPS unit to be certain as to which 16-foot-wide lane you are in.
Everything I've ever read about lane-level accuracy involves embedded sensors in the roadway (RFID, perhaps?) to pinpoint your position.
My point is that people often fail to differentiate between linearity in gameplay/plot and linearity in level design. Crysis has a fairly linear plot (there are a few optional side missions, though), and sticks you on an linear path along the way. However, unlike the "single tiny linear path" as described by the GGP, Crysis does a very good job of "widening" the path to create an illusion of openness.
The way I'd heard the game described before I played it, you'd think that your character was plunked down on a big island and allowed to roam around GTA-style. Not that I necessarily wanted the game to be that way, but based on my expectations from what I had been told, I was surprised that the game was laid out the way it was. Overall, I thought it was far, far better designed than the "endless chain of rooms and hallways" level design that tends to be all too common in the FPS genera (to use the tern genera loosely), but not so open that you wander around completely lost. However, it does maintain one characteristic that has become a common convention of FPS-style games, in that you visit many areas exactly once and travel through them in one direction.
Crysis is just as linear as any other FPS, they just did a much better job of hiding it.
I remember reading numerous reviews and forum hype about how Crysis was supposed to be so "open" and less "linear". Sure, the environments create the illusion of openness, but when you get down to it, Crysis was just another "go through each objective one at a time in this exact order" game. Any choice you had was more along the lines of "do I take the beachfront path to reach the village, or do I stick to the road? To I sneak around the perimeter of that valley behind the treeline, or do I plow my way right up the middle with guns blazing?"
From the way I heard alot of people describe the game, I expected something more along the lines of an Elder Scrolls style "go anywhere, do anything" openness. Not that I think such non-linearity necessarily would have worked for an FPS, but that's the way people seemed to describe it.
Ever tried to actually explore a level in Crysis? Wander too far, and you'll find that the developers have used tricks to keep you on the path they want you to take. Swim out too far, and you are eaten by sharks. Manage to get around the invisible barriers at the top of that rock pile (or just use the Sandbox editor to remove the barriers), and you get a "return to the combat area or be terminated in 7 seconds" message.
With hundreds of files on your desktop, what are the odds you'd hit one when you are just blanking out a selection, or deleting them, or frustratingly smack your mouse for [whatever reason] Or, even worse, on purpose.
First, imagine how many people would just blindly click on a new desktop icon just to "see what it does".
Second scenario, most Windows users I know keep file extensions off by default, and keep dozens of shortcuts to executables on their desktop among various folders, downloaded files, and other clutter. Now what if the downloaded file were named "safari.cgi" or "iTunes.cgi", but all the user sees is Safari with a generic file icon. I know many people who would think, "hmm, the icon to my internets is messed up" and click it anyway.
I'll second that. At one point, HP's AIO software had a "feature" that added the printer icon into the OS X dock. Clicking the icon opened something called the HP Director, which was essentially a floating window with buttons that you could click to launch the various photo managers and other bloatware installed by the driver.
If you removed the icon, the software "conveniently" replaced it for you on the next login using a little utility called the "Director Docker". Don't want the icon to be replaced every time you login? Then just delete the program from the startup items folder, right? Wrong. HP was one step ahead of you there, and would simply replace the docker if you deleted it. After all, you wouldn't want to delete it on purpose, would you?
There was a hack to prevent the driver from replacing the printer icon, but I think enough people complained to HP that they eventually pulled this "feature".
Because even if you pay for it, the EULA forbids you from legally running it on non-apple branded hardware. That's what the Apple stickers that come with your iPod are for...
That's not quite true. I work in the plant pathology field of study and introducing a predator species as a biological control of a pest is a fairly accepted practice. For example, a group at Virginia Tech is currently working with species of Laricobius, a beetle which is a predator of the hemlock woolly adelgid.
Of course, if you are going to be introducing a non native species, you'd better be absolutely sure you know what you're doing. There are countless regulatory obstacles that typically need to be overcome, too, and it can take years before a species is approved to be released from quarantine into the field, if it ever is.
Typically, an introduced organism becomes a pest for one of two reasons: 1) it's a generalist that is a better competitor for resources than existing species (as is the case with the zebra mussel, which is unbelievably effective at filtering particulate organic matter from the water and subsequently undergoing rapid population growth) or 2) it becomes a pest or pathogen of a particular existing species. Many introduced plant pathogens fall into this second category- they have no natural predators in the new environment, as well as a food source that has not evolved any defense mechanisms against them. The balsam woolly adelgid or the chestnut blight fungus are two examples of the latter.
Although there are probably cases where introducing a new predator species can cause more problems than it solves (remember that Simpsons episode?), with careful planning and understanding of the ecology of the organism, such issues can hopefully be avoided. Usually, we err too far on the side of caution by choosing a species that is too much of a specialist, and we don't get the results we would hope for. Remember the Laricobius beetles I mentioned earlier? One problem with them is that they are so specialized, that when the hemlock woolly adelgid starts to become scarce the beetles have no other food source and begin to decline as well. They have no other food source, and thus have essentially no effect on existing native species.
The example table in TFA has a light gray outline around every cell. I'm not sure if the table used in the experiment did, but I wouldn't doubt that the thin horizontal lines between each row/column can help "guide" the eyes the same way that zebra striping supposedly would.
Put the table on a plain white background with no borders, and I bet the results would be different. I would also bet that changing the spacing between columns (to add large chunks of white space, for example) would affect the results, too.
Of course, you could still be photographed from the rear (like red light cameras do in Tennessee, one of several states with no front license plates but with an increasing number of cameras).
Now, if they want to instigate a cell-phone free area at the front or rear of the plane like they used to do with smoking versus no-smoking sections then I say go-for-it...
Now there's a good idea. But let's make most of the plane phone-free, and require people to step out onto the wing to make a call.
Just because a road is on the maps, does not make it a public road.
Around 1996 or so, maps of our county were updated using areal photography, among other means. Our driveway, which is clearly posted, gated, about 600 feet long, and looks like a public road from the air, showed up on the next edition of the county map. We contacted the correct parties, who apologized, explained that it was an error, and took our driveway off of subsequent versions of the map.
Another state in which we own property requires that shared driveways be named for 911 purposes. We own the road, our neighbors have an easement, and the road name is on file with the county, but that doesn't give anybody the right to drive down it without permission (by the way, it's clearly posted). We don't get any government funding to maintain it, although we do get a sign with the road name where it meets the county road. Such street signs are yellow (not green), and have the letters "PVT" in addition to the road name. It's understood that such roads are legally no different than driveways, in that if the road is posted, you can be charged with criminal trespass for driving on it.
Mac-like? Maybe, but when the marketers get ahold if it you can be guaranteed that it will be pushed as, "The Most Stable, Reliable, and Secure" (TM) version of the Windows operating system^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Windows User Experience yet! And that it will offer improved "Preformance, Reliability, and Security", which seem to be required buzzwords attached to every minor patch that's been pushed through Windows Update as of late.
Blue Gene/L possesses 18 racks, each with 2000 standard PC processors that work in parallel to provide a huge amount of processing power â" it has a speed of 103 teraflops, or 103 trillion "floating point operations" per second. By way of comparison, a calculator uses about 10 floating operations per second....
He found that conventional ray-tracing software could run 822 times faster on the Blue Gene/L than on a standard computer.... This allowed it to convincingly mimic natural lighting in real time.
So, does this mean in a few years they'll have a computer that can actually run Crysis with a decent FPS?
I think your real problem is that you don't trust your workmates. If your workmates are, in fact, untrustworthy you probably need a new job.
The submitter doesn't explicitly say that it's his fellow employees that he's worried about. There are plenty of workplace settings that are easily accessible to anyone who just wanders in off of the street.
For example, I work for a university. Typically, graduate students don't have their own offices, but get a cubicle in a large room shared by a dozen or more fellow students. Hundreds of people attend classes in our building every day, and it's not uncommon for computers, textbooks, backpacks, projectors, or anything that is not locked up or chained down to disappear.
In that case, the best solution is to just take anything of value home with you, or lock it up when you leave.
Good point, not many people are aware of the extra few inches of legroom you get in an exit row seat. You usually even have enough extra room to fully open a laptop and type comfortably.
What you want to avoid is the row directly in front of an exit, since the seats in front of an exit don't recline. In planes with two adjacent exit rows (such as the 757), always pick the rear one. If rows 17 and 18 are exits, 16 and 17 won't recline, so pick 18.
As a Mississippi resident who came through Katrina, I fully understand the necessity of a working system of cell towers, but it's not just power that's important in an emergency- you also need adequate bandwidth/capacity. Our power was only out for 1-4 days after the storm (depending on the neighborhood), but it was a full two weeks before you could actually dial out and get something other than a "network busy" message.
Admittedly, landlines were no better, but cell service here was already known for it's limited capacity and poor coverage. It didn't help that on top of all the coordination of emergency and relief efforts, everybody had to continually tie up the circuits to let all the relatives know how they were doing.
Even the day before the storm hit, I remember that the cell lines were jammed beyond capacity... nobody could make or receive calls. Landlines worked perfectly fine.
In my brief experience with IT at a small university several years ago, I learned that laptops have a much shorter expected lifespan in the real world compared to desktops- two years versus four or five before they need to be replaced. Even if users treat them like their firstborn, they just aren't designed to last much longer than that. Out of the half dozen or so laptops that we have floating around the office that are over 2 years old, not one of them has a battery that lasts for more than 15 minutes off of AC.
Sounds like a great idea, but what about the journey between points A and B? Even at under 2,000 pounds, the cars look like they're too big for a sidewalk. Or are they designed to be street legal, with the requisite mirrors, lights, and safety features- and forcing you to fight for a position in rush hour traffic among the SUV-driving masses? That doesn't sound very safe.
For something like this to be a success, it seems like it would need to be limited to a small area, with it's own dedicated roads/lanes.
Slashdot Mirror
By looking out the window?
Seriously, though, don't forget that the signal received by your automotive/handheld GPS unit is not the only source of error when trying to orient yourself in relation to an object. Your maps have to be incredibly accurate, too.
Most of the consumer grade mapping solutions available for automotive GPS usage are only accurate down to a certain point- in my experience this is anywhere from 30-150 feet for Garmin's City Navigator series of maps. Some of their older map products can be much worse (some topo software was scaled off of paper maps, for example, and only claims to be accurate to within 800 feet). I too am an avid geocacher, and when a cache hider sloppily takes an inaccurate waypoint, it doesn't matter how accurate the signal is for you, you'll be off.
Now, imagine the best case scenario, where your lane data is accurate to within 10 feet and your GPS unit reports 10 feet accuracy (I've seen my 60Csx report as low as 6 feet, but that's dubious). Combine your error with the map error, and you could be as much as 20 feet off- making it difficult for the GPS unit to be certain as to which 16-foot-wide lane you are in.
Everything I've ever read about lane-level accuracy involves embedded sensors in the roadway (RFID, perhaps?) to pinpoint your position.
My point is that people often fail to differentiate between linearity in gameplay/plot and linearity in level design. Crysis has a fairly linear plot (there are a few optional side missions, though), and sticks you on an linear path along the way. However, unlike the "single tiny linear path" as described by the GGP, Crysis does a very good job of "widening" the path to create an illusion of openness.
The way I'd heard the game described before I played it, you'd think that your character was plunked down on a big island and allowed to roam around GTA-style. Not that I necessarily wanted the game to be that way, but based on my expectations from what I had been told, I was surprised that the game was laid out the way it was. Overall, I thought it was far, far better designed than the "endless chain of rooms and hallways" level design that tends to be all too common in the FPS genera (to use the tern genera loosely), but not so open that you wander around completely lost. However, it does maintain one characteristic that has become a common convention of FPS-style games, in that you visit many areas exactly once and travel through them in one direction.
Crysis is just as linear as any other FPS, they just did a much better job of hiding it.
I remember reading numerous reviews and forum hype about how Crysis was supposed to be so "open" and less "linear". Sure, the environments create the illusion of openness, but when you get down to it, Crysis was just another "go through each objective one at a time in this exact order" game. Any choice you had was more along the lines of "do I take the beachfront path to reach the village, or do I stick to the road? To I sneak around the perimeter of that valley behind the treeline, or do I plow my way right up the middle with guns blazing?"
From the way I heard alot of people describe the game, I expected something more along the lines of an Elder Scrolls style "go anywhere, do anything" openness. Not that I think such non-linearity necessarily would have worked for an FPS, but that's the way people seemed to describe it.
Ever tried to actually explore a level in Crysis? Wander too far, and you'll find that the developers have used tricks to keep you on the path they want you to take. Swim out too far, and you are eaten by sharks. Manage to get around the invisible barriers at the top of that rock pile (or just use the Sandbox editor to remove the barriers), and you get a "return to the combat area or be terminated in 7 seconds" message.
First, imagine how many people would just blindly click on a new desktop icon just to "see what it does".
Second scenario, most Windows users I know keep file extensions off by default, and keep dozens of shortcuts to executables on their desktop among various folders, downloaded files, and other clutter. Now what if the downloaded file were named "safari.cgi" or "iTunes.cgi", but all the user sees is Safari with a generic file icon. I know many people who would think, "hmm, the icon to my internets is messed up" and click it anyway.
I'll second that. At one point, HP's AIO software had a "feature" that added the printer icon into the OS X dock. Clicking the icon opened something called the HP Director, which was essentially a floating window with buttons that you could click to launch the various photo managers and other bloatware installed by the driver.
If you removed the icon, the software "conveniently" replaced it for you on the next login using a little utility called the "Director Docker". Don't want the icon to be replaced every time you login? Then just delete the program from the startup items folder, right? Wrong. HP was one step ahead of you there, and would simply replace the docker if you deleted it. After all, you wouldn't want to delete it on purpose, would you?
There was a hack to prevent the driver from replacing the printer icon, but I think enough people complained to HP that they eventually pulled this "feature".
That's not quite true. I work in the plant pathology field of study and introducing a predator species as a biological control of a pest is a fairly accepted practice. For example, a group at Virginia Tech is currently working with species of Laricobius, a beetle which is a predator of the hemlock woolly adelgid.
Of course, if you are going to be introducing a non native species, you'd better be absolutely sure you know what you're doing. There are countless regulatory obstacles that typically need to be overcome, too, and it can take years before a species is approved to be released from quarantine into the field, if it ever is.
Typically, an introduced organism becomes a pest for one of two reasons: 1) it's a generalist that is a better competitor for resources than existing species (as is the case with the zebra mussel, which is unbelievably effective at filtering particulate organic matter from the water and subsequently undergoing rapid population growth) or 2) it becomes a pest or pathogen of a particular existing species. Many introduced plant pathogens fall into this second category- they have no natural predators in the new environment, as well as a food source that has not evolved any defense mechanisms against them. The balsam woolly adelgid or the chestnut blight fungus are two examples of the latter.
Although there are probably cases where introducing a new predator species can cause more problems than it solves (remember that Simpsons episode?), with careful planning and understanding of the ecology of the organism, such issues can hopefully be avoided. Usually, we err too far on the side of caution by choosing a species that is too much of a specialist, and we don't get the results we would hope for. Remember the Laricobius beetles I mentioned earlier? One problem with them is that they are so specialized, that when the hemlock woolly adelgid starts to become scarce the beetles have no other food source and begin to decline as well. They have no other food source, and thus have essentially no effect on existing native species.
I initially thought the same thing, but consider the source: a TV station. It's most likely a transcript.
The example table in TFA has a light gray outline around every cell. I'm not sure if the table used in the experiment did, but I wouldn't doubt that the thin horizontal lines between each row/column can help "guide" the eyes the same way that zebra striping supposedly would.
Put the table on a plain white background with no borders, and I bet the results would be different. I would also bet that changing the spacing between columns (to add large chunks of white space, for example) would affect the results, too.
Dude. Back away from the computer, get out of the basement for a little, and maybe step outside for a minute to take a breather. I'm not joking. ;-)
Yes. In fact, I knew that this comment would be modded up, so I just had to post it. *crosses fingers*
I would expect that kind of language at Denny's, but not here.
Of course, you could still be photographed from the rear (like red light cameras do in Tennessee, one of several states with no front license plates but with an increasing number of cameras).
Now there's a good idea. But let's make most of the plane phone-free, and require people to step out onto the wing to make a call.
Just because a road is on the maps, does not make it a public road.
Around 1996 or so, maps of our county were updated using areal photography, among other means. Our driveway, which is clearly posted, gated, about 600 feet long, and looks like a public road from the air, showed up on the next edition of the county map. We contacted the correct parties, who apologized, explained that it was an error, and took our driveway off of subsequent versions of the map.
Another state in which we own property requires that shared driveways be named for 911 purposes. We own the road, our neighbors have an easement, and the road name is on file with the county, but that doesn't give anybody the right to drive down it without permission (by the way, it's clearly posted). We don't get any government funding to maintain it, although we do get a sign with the road name where it meets the county road. Such street signs are yellow (not green), and have the letters "PVT" in addition to the road name. It's understood that such roads are legally no different than driveways, in that if the road is posted, you can be charged with criminal trespass for driving on it.
Mac-like? Maybe, but when the marketers get ahold if it you can be guaranteed that it will be pushed as, "The Most Stable, Reliable, and Secure" (TM) version of the Windows operating system^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Windows User Experience yet! And that it will offer improved "Preformance, Reliability, and Security", which seem to be required buzzwords attached to every minor patch that's been pushed through Windows Update as of late.
Blue Gene/L possesses 18 racks, each with 2000 standard PC processors that work in parallel to provide a huge amount of processing power â" it has a speed of 103 teraflops, or 103 trillion "floating point operations" per second. By way of comparison, a calculator uses about 10 floating operations per second....
He found that conventional ray-tracing software could run 822 times faster on the Blue Gene/L than on a standard computer.... This allowed it to convincingly mimic natural lighting in real time.
So, does this mean in a few years they'll have a computer that can actually run Crysis with a decent FPS?
Time to break out the tin foil hats so they can't read my tire pressures.
Um, don't you mean tin foil rims?
Whoosh...
The submitter doesn't explicitly say that it's his fellow employees that he's worried about. There are plenty of workplace settings that are easily accessible to anyone who just wanders in off of the street.
For example, I work for a university. Typically, graduate students don't have their own offices, but get a cubicle in a large room shared by a dozen or more fellow students. Hundreds of people attend classes in our building every day, and it's not uncommon for computers, textbooks, backpacks, projectors, or anything that is not locked up or chained down to disappear.
In that case, the best solution is to just take anything of value home with you, or lock it up when you leave.
Good point, not many people are aware of the extra few inches of legroom you get in an exit row seat. You usually even have enough extra room to fully open a laptop and type comfortably.
What you want to avoid is the row directly in front of an exit, since the seats in front of an exit don't recline. In planes with two adjacent exit rows (such as the 757), always pick the rear one. If rows 17 and 18 are exits, 16 and 17 won't recline, so pick 18.
As a Mississippi resident who came through Katrina, I fully understand the necessity of a working system of cell towers, but it's not just power that's important in an emergency- you also need adequate bandwidth/capacity. Our power was only out for 1-4 days after the storm (depending on the neighborhood), but it was a full two weeks before you could actually dial out and get something other than a "network busy" message.
Admittedly, landlines were no better, but cell service here was already known for it's limited capacity and poor coverage. It didn't help that on top of all the coordination of emergency and relief efforts, everybody had to continually tie up the circuits to let all the relatives know how they were doing.
Even the day before the storm hit, I remember that the cell lines were jammed beyond capacity... nobody could make or receive calls. Landlines worked perfectly fine.
In my brief experience with IT at a small university several years ago, I learned that laptops have a much shorter expected lifespan in the real world compared to desktops- two years versus four or five before they need to be replaced. Even if users treat them like their firstborn, they just aren't designed to last much longer than that. Out of the half dozen or so laptops that we have floating around the office that are over 2 years old, not one of them has a battery that lasts for more than 15 minutes off of AC.
Sounds like a great idea, but what about the journey between points A and B? Even at under 2,000 pounds, the cars look like they're too big for a sidewalk. Or are they designed to be street legal, with the requisite mirrors, lights, and safety features- and forcing you to fight for a position in rush hour traffic among the SUV-driving masses? That doesn't sound very safe.
For something like this to be a success, it seems like it would need to be limited to a small area, with it's own dedicated roads/lanes.