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Me: Beta can't be that bad, right?
*clicks link to see beta version of article*
Me: Wow. That's terrible.
It's like Digg and Reddit had a baby. Whoever thinks it's a good design should go back to working on the latest internet startup that ends in "er" without the "e".
Serious question: Did the same people who developed the Beta Digg that destroyed that site develop Slashdot Beta? Because it reminds me of the exact same site-destroying arc. And when Slashdot goes down, where will I get my daily hyperbolic Bitcoin article?
EVE definitely rewards goal-setting. Once upon a time, I think they had 30 day trials, which, IMO, was a much better program.
Most people that I know in EVE didn't buy it on their first 14 day trial. They bought it after their second 14 day trial. The first 14 days is spent figuring out what the hell everyuthing is and how the game works, as it's so alien when compared to your typical, "Look, I'm a warrior, and I'm going to save your village, just like everyone else has done before," MMO. The skill system, the fitting system, the actual market, and the meta are all things that need to be understood before you can really scratch that itch.
Hopefully you come back. Set a goal for yourself: What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to be space-rich? Blow up other people's ships? Explore the new sites that are everywhere now (I expect them to scale back the spawn rate sometime soon...)?
If nothing else, EVE also has a great community of dedicated, helpful people. Even some of the biggest jerks in game are people I'd gladly share a pint with in real life; and in many cases, have.
EVE Online. You've got the freedom to play whatever type of game you want, within the bounds of the setting and sandbox. You can play alone when you want to be alone, and play with others when you want to play with others.
They just released their latest free expansion, too, so there's a whole host of new toys to play with and blow up.
Of course, based on the fact that their e-commerce portal looks like something out of 1998, I'd guess that they're not the most heavily-trafficked site.
I can't wait until a team member "lags out" of Halo. And by "lags out," I mean, "Is having a heart attack because his 350 lb. Cheetoh-laden body couldn't bunny hop across his living room anymore."
If you are a maxis fan, you probably have heard of their new project "Spore." The game which was originally dubbed "Sim Everything" allows you to do just about anything you could think of, from evolving a single celled creature, to creating advanced space faring societies. Perhaps the coolest thing about this game though, is that no two player's creatures, buildings, vehicles, or even planets will be alike, and yet they are all still fully functional. How does this work when the basic building blocks of ANY of these things are just polygons? Well, to see that first we have to examine the game itself.
Spore is a game of editors. In each stage of the game, you will spend your points to change and improve different aspects of your society. You start with the cellular editor, followed by the creature editor, object editor, building editor, vehicle editor, until eventually you become able to terraform planets. The best thing about these editors: their sheer flexibility. Any number of body parts, with any number of joints and features can be stretched and pulled to any number of sizes and shapes and attached almost anywhere on your creature. The same thing goes for the tiny cell bits at the cellular stage, and the interacting material parts for buildings and vehicles. The key to making all this work? Procedural programming.
Procedural programming is a bit hard to explain, but I'll give it a shot. First lets look at what procedural programming is not. Many games and programs that you are used to use something caused "sequential" programming. Sequential programming is essentially a gigantic looped together tangle of If/Then statements. This may seem simple, but its true enough. Lets take an easy example, think back to the old days, such as street fighter 2. The If/Then statement for say, Ryu's fireball would be something like: IF your command input looks like Down, Down Forward, Forward, Punch, THEN throw a fireball, or IF the fireball image is overlapping the opponent THEN deal a certain amount of damage.
The basics of sequential programming are all object oriented. To explain this fuller, their basic building block is the object, or a thing. In the above examples, the objects were the command input, the fireball and the opponent. Programs can check whether certain objects are doing certain things by comparing their numerical values. For example if every space on the game screen is assigned a number, much like grid coordinates, the program can use simple greater than or less than comparisons to figure out where the characters, the fireballs, the floor, and everything else was.
So why can't this be used in games like spore? Well in games with so many options, the IF/THEN list becomes so long it becomes scrambled. Several calls to previous points in the list are made and the whole thing gets disorganized, something which programmers affectionately call "Spaghetti Code." Also, that much code and that many variables simply gets huge! Even though information technology has been growing at an exponential rate, there is only a limited amount of space you can put on a CD or DVD. On the PS1 there were 4 disk games, and on the PS2 there were 2 and 3 DVD games. It is only a matter of time before we have games which fill up 2 or 3 HD DVDs or Blu Ray disks.
The solution? Change the way the game thinks, and that is exactly what procedural programming does. Procedural programming dosen't use "things" as the basic building block of a program, but instead "actions." Taking the SF2 example from above "throw fireball" is one whole action, as is "Kick" "Jump" "Get Hit" and "Die" with all their particulars defined right there in the action itself. The interesting thing about procedural programming: modularity. Think of it like this: there is an action for jump and an action for kick, when you combine those two actions at once, you get jump kick. Of course its actually a lot more complicated than this, but this is perhaps the most simple
Even at the $0.70 per song mark, you have to consider damages for the pain and suffering of those poor, poor record executives. I mean, honestly: Think about the hours and hours that they spent in their mansions, lying awake on their double-king canopy beds, surrounded by sleeping hookers... and unable to sleep because of the massive injustice being done to their industry.
Or something like that.
In all honesty, it's a hard thing to nail down. If I work in a donut factory, there is SOMEONE, even if that person isn't me, who knows how much that donut costs to make, including materials, equipment, labor, shipping, and pesticides. When it comes to things like music, art, etc., how DO you quantify the cost of the artists' talents, the labels' marketing efforts, the RIAA's... something... etc. Even the most talented singer in the world is useless without distribution... and marketing and distribution channels can sometimes (Britney?) overcome a shallow pool of talent.
That being said, anything that comes out of the multi-mawed beast known as the RIAA is met with instant skepticism. When you spend years upon years intimidating people who may or may not have committed a crime, and many of those that are nominally guilty are in the "OMG, You ate a peanut out of the grocery store bin!" variety, it's hard to find any foothold of remorse in the market. So $0.70 wholesale price might be in the "ballpark." But I don't give a damn.
At least have the stones to attach your name to your racist, ignorant comment. Or did you not cut the holes in your white hood large enough, causing them to obscure the "Login" box?
WTF did I spend thousands of dollars on an education for? Apparently, all you need to become a CEO, Head of NASA, head football coach at a D1-A school is a good looking resume, truth not withstanding. One more "truth" from my high school guidance counselor that have been proven false, I guess...
While I'm all for civil liberties and freedom, rather than the apparent post 9/11 rollbacks that we are undergoing, I was incredibly amused by the options available:... rewriting history, stupidly paranoid, or both?
Same argument, if you ask me.
That being said, there is an inordinate amount of secrecy in today's government. I don't trust them with my tax return, let along the wellbeing of the American public in general. They keep spouting things like, "Releasing those torture pictures just emboldens the terrorists!" Oh, really? And what does limiting freedom of the press do? What does rolling back one of the pillars in the Bill of Rights do?
So let me get this straight: Including Flash, Javascript, animated GIFs, and other obnoxious content is now considered an improvement?
At least all the monkeys at MySpace will be pleased... now they can email seizure-inducing pages to each other without bothering to copy the link from their browser bar.
Re:What the fuck is 'CableCARD'?
on
CableCARD In-Depth
·
· Score: 0, Troll
Since that's what the whole article is about, it's kind of redundant, no?
The problem with a consumer-driven format war is that the format that provides better quality (think BetaMax) doesn't always win... marketing, production, and marketing win a format war, not the format itself.
With the massive media and product crush that's underway with the 360, I wouldn't be surprised if HD-DVD wins this war. The PS3 and its Blu-Ray drive is arriving late to the party, and the momentum might be hard to overcome. If anything, this is a win-win situation for Microsoft: If HD-DVD wins, they drive the PS3 to practical worthlessness with its integrated drive. If Blu-Ray wins, they simply produce an external BR drive to replace the HD-DVD one.
I hate to admit it, but the strategy is brilliant.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm kind of liking the new Bennett Hasselton Blocker Slashdot seems to have installed. (Don't say his name three times, though.)
A loose/loose situation? Could you please explain a tight/tight situation for me?
> NOTE: BitHammer is FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES ONLY. Get permission from a network's owner before using it. You assume all responsibility for it's use.
its
Is Comcast the government now? Is his accounting firm the government now?
I'm pretty sure using Slashdot Beta violates some part of the Geneva Conventions.
Me: Beta can't be that bad, right? *clicks link to see beta version of article* Me: Wow. That's terrible. It's like Digg and Reddit had a baby. Whoever thinks it's a good design should go back to working on the latest internet startup that ends in "er" without the "e".
I, for many, do not welcome our vile beta overlords.
Serious question: Did the same people who developed the Beta Digg that destroyed that site develop Slashdot Beta? Because it reminds me of the exact same site-destroying arc. And when Slashdot goes down, where will I get my daily hyperbolic Bitcoin article?
EVE definitely rewards goal-setting. Once upon a time, I think they had 30 day trials, which, IMO, was a much better program. Most people that I know in EVE didn't buy it on their first 14 day trial. They bought it after their second 14 day trial. The first 14 days is spent figuring out what the hell everyuthing is and how the game works, as it's so alien when compared to your typical, "Look, I'm a warrior, and I'm going to save your village, just like everyone else has done before," MMO. The skill system, the fitting system, the actual market, and the meta are all things that need to be understood before you can really scratch that itch. Hopefully you come back. Set a goal for yourself: What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to be space-rich? Blow up other people's ships? Explore the new sites that are everywhere now (I expect them to scale back the spawn rate sometime soon...)? If nothing else, EVE also has a great community of dedicated, helpful people. Even some of the biggest jerks in game are people I'd gladly share a pint with in real life; and in many cases, have.
EVE Online. You've got the freedom to play whatever type of game you want, within the bounds of the setting and sandbox. You can play alone when you want to be alone, and play with others when you want to play with others. They just released their latest free expansion, too, so there's a whole host of new toys to play with and blow up.
Of course, based on the fact that their e-commerce portal looks like something out of 1998, I'd guess that they're not the most heavily-trafficked site.
Laws only apply to little people. Go back to shoveling dirt you peasants, and leave your governmental overlords in peace.
Is that now synonymous with programmers?
That's as original as Cooks Source, too. FIN
I can't wait until a team member "lags out" of Halo. And by "lags out," I mean, "Is having a heart attack because his 350 lb. Cheetoh-laden body couldn't bunny hop across his living room anymore."
Immortalized for the horror.
--
If you are a maxis fan, you probably have heard of their new project "Spore." The game which was originally dubbed "Sim Everything" allows you to do just about anything you could think of, from evolving a single celled creature, to creating advanced space faring societies. Perhaps the coolest thing about this game though, is that no two player's creatures, buildings, vehicles, or even planets will be alike, and yet they are all still fully functional. How does this work when the basic building blocks of ANY of these things are just polygons? Well, to see that first we have to examine the game itself.
Spore is a game of editors. In each stage of the game, you will spend your points to change and improve different aspects of your society. You start with the cellular editor, followed by the creature editor, object editor, building editor, vehicle editor, until eventually you become able to terraform planets. The best thing about these editors: their sheer flexibility. Any number of body parts, with any number of joints and features can be stretched and pulled to any number of sizes and shapes and attached almost anywhere on your creature. The same thing goes for the tiny cell bits at the cellular stage, and the interacting material parts for buildings and vehicles. The key to making all this work? Procedural programming.
Procedural programming is a bit hard to explain, but I'll give it a shot. First lets look at what procedural programming is not. Many games and programs that you are used to use something caused "sequential" programming. Sequential programming is essentially a gigantic looped together tangle of If/Then statements. This may seem simple, but its true enough. Lets take an easy example, think back to the old days, such as street fighter 2. The If/Then statement for say, Ryu's fireball would be something like: IF your command input looks like Down, Down Forward, Forward, Punch, THEN throw a fireball, or IF the fireball image is overlapping the opponent THEN deal a certain amount of damage.
The basics of sequential programming are all object oriented. To explain this fuller, their basic building block is the object, or a thing. In the above examples, the objects were the command input, the fireball and the opponent. Programs can check whether certain objects are doing certain things by comparing their numerical values. For example if every space on the game screen is assigned a number, much like grid coordinates, the program can use simple greater than or less than comparisons to figure out where the characters, the fireballs, the floor, and everything else was.
So why can't this be used in games like spore? Well in games with so many options, the IF/THEN list becomes so long it becomes scrambled. Several calls to previous points in the list are made and the whole thing gets disorganized, something which programmers affectionately call "Spaghetti Code." Also, that much code and that many variables simply gets huge! Even though information technology has been growing at an exponential rate, there is only a limited amount of space you can put on a CD or DVD. On the PS1 there were 4 disk games, and on the PS2 there were 2 and 3 DVD games. It is only a matter of time before we have games which fill up 2 or 3 HD DVDs or Blu Ray disks.
The solution? Change the way the game thinks, and that is exactly what procedural programming does. Procedural programming dosen't use "things" as the basic building block of a program, but instead "actions." Taking the SF2 example from above "throw fireball" is one whole action, as is "Kick" "Jump" "Get Hit" and "Die" with all their particulars defined right there in the action itself. The interesting thing about procedural programming: modularity. Think of it like this: there is an action for jump and an action for kick, when you combine those two actions at once, you get jump kick. Of course its actually a lot more complicated than this, but this is perhaps the most simple
Even at the $0.70 per song mark, you have to consider damages for the pain and suffering of those poor, poor record executives. I mean, honestly: Think about the hours and hours that they spent in their mansions, lying awake on their double-king canopy beds, surrounded by sleeping hookers... and unable to sleep because of the massive injustice being done to their industry.
Or something like that.
In all honesty, it's a hard thing to nail down. If I work in a donut factory, there is SOMEONE, even if that person isn't me, who knows how much that donut costs to make, including materials, equipment, labor, shipping, and pesticides. When it comes to things like music, art, etc., how DO you quantify the cost of the artists' talents, the labels' marketing efforts, the RIAA's... something... etc. Even the most talented singer in the world is useless without distribution... and marketing and distribution channels can sometimes (Britney?) overcome a shallow pool of talent.
That being said, anything that comes out of the multi-mawed beast known as the RIAA is met with instant skepticism. When you spend years upon years intimidating people who may or may not have committed a crime, and many of those that are nominally guilty are in the "OMG, You ate a peanut out of the grocery store bin!" variety, it's hard to find any foothold of remorse in the market. So $0.70 wholesale price might be in the "ballpark." But I don't give a damn.
At least have the stones to attach your name to your racist, ignorant comment. Or did you not cut the holes in your white hood large enough, causing them to obscure the "Login" box?
WTF did I spend thousands of dollars on an education for? Apparently, all you need to become a CEO, Head of NASA, head football coach at a D1-A school is a good looking resume, truth not withstanding. One more "truth" from my high school guidance counselor that have been proven false, I guess...
While I'm all for civil liberties and freedom, rather than the apparent post 9/11 rollbacks that we are undergoing, I was incredibly amused by the options available: ... rewriting history, stupidly paranoid, or both?
Same argument, if you ask me.
That being said, there is an inordinate amount of secrecy in today's government. I don't trust them with my tax return, let along the wellbeing of the American public in general. They keep spouting things like, "Releasing those torture pictures just emboldens the terrorists!" Oh, really? And what does limiting freedom of the press do? What does rolling back one of the pillars in the Bill of Rights do?
So let me get this straight: Including Flash, Javascript, animated GIFs, and other obnoxious content is now considered an improvement?
At least all the monkeys at MySpace will be pleased... now they can email seizure-inducing pages to each other without bothering to copy the link from their browser bar.
Since that's what the whole article is about, it's kind of redundant, no?
... they mean that Apple is already preparing to ship 125,000 iPods, and there won't be enough to satisfy the demand.
Other than that, it doesn't sound too Earth-like to me.
Just one more reason to think Family Guy has totally sold out. What's next, a spin-off featuring Cleveland and Quagmire as they move to Texas?
The problem with a consumer-driven format war is that the format that provides better quality (think BetaMax) doesn't always win... marketing, production, and marketing win a format war, not the format itself.
With the massive media and product crush that's underway with the 360, I wouldn't be surprised if HD-DVD wins this war. The PS3 and its Blu-Ray drive is arriving late to the party, and the momentum might be hard to overcome. If anything, this is a win-win situation for Microsoft: If HD-DVD wins, they drive the PS3 to practical worthlessness with its integrated drive. If Blu-Ray wins, they simply produce an external BR drive to replace the HD-DVD one.
I hate to admit it, but the strategy is brilliant.