All games have a set of rules and mechanics, and that alone requires some thinking. The material may not be particularly engaging, but all the games you mention involve pattern recognition and response.
Crossing the road requires thinking, pattern recognition and response. That doesn't make it an intellectual exercise.
I'm not saying that games don't involve thinking or that there aren't intelligent games. But the notion that playing video games is a purely geeky activity and not for "jocks" is just wrong. When I grew up, the nerds and geeks would spend more time programming than playing games. Meanwhile, the "jocks" were huge consumers of video games. Historically, video games have not been marketed towards nerds.
What I'm objecting to is the revisionist history in that post, not the idea that computer games don't appeal to nerds. Many posters on slashdot have a nasty habit of rewriting history in a nerd-centric and inaccurate way.
I agree. The problem is two-fold. Firstly, the news sources are shit, they aren't writing interesting and relevant articles. This is compounded by the fact that Google's search results are shit. Back in the day, we flocked to Google because the search results were superior. But today, that just isn't true. A typical Google search today often has link-farm spammers in the top results, and for News search, often has insane wing-tard blogs right up there in the top results alongside serious sources.
I think this is a generational thing. People who grew up with vinyl, where some releases would come in very ornate packaging - gatefolds, embossing, inserts, tracing paper layers, etc. miss all that.
Which is why I said "cheap artwork" to emphasize the difference between CDs and vinyl.
With downloads, of course you get none of that. Some Radiohead downloads include PDFs you're encouraged to print out and play with. But mostly, you just get the music. Us old guard feel something is missing.
Speak for yourself. I grew up with vinyl, and I have a substantial collection of interesting albums. But I also don't feel the need for this fetishism to continue. The music is what matters. This materialism and fetishism over bits of cardboard and plastic is counterproductive and wasteful.
Furthermore, with the iTunes LP and Extras, you actually get a lot more than you would the typical vinyl release. Remember, the majority of vinyl releases were not elaborate gatefold affairs with great art, they were just as cheap and nasty as your typical CD.
Bullshit. Marketing is not all-powerful. There are things that people just don't want, and marketing won't make a bit of difference.
CDs are a very good example of this. The whole music industry was marketing CDs heavily, but sales kept declining. The sales of digital downloads rose rapidly, despite very little marketing of them.
Are you really that weak that you just go out and buy whatever is advertised?
Why else would anybody pay thousands of dollars for a wristwatch when their cell phone is more accurate?
Because a wristwatch is a fashion item and a status symbol. You chose a very bizarre example, because I can't remember the last time I saw an ad for a wristwatch, but phone ads are all over the place.
Reportedly, company X will introduce Product Y, which will make sex-bots obsolete. Not only will it make sex-bots obsolete, it will run for 2,000 hours on a few drops of water-based lubricant. World hunger will be solved by Product Y, which will also be able to read Excel spreadsheets and shoot deadly laser bolts from its nipples. Analysts are excited to see beta versions of Product Y, and would gladly give their first-born children for a glimpse at the device.
Computer games used to be the preserve of geeks, or other intellectual types willing to do something as non-jocky as play on a computer.
Get the fuck out of here. Computer games have never been particularly intellectual. Was Pac Man intellectual? How about Rambo? The Sims? Street Fighter?
Intellectually stimulating computer games are the exception, not the rule. The whole "games" market has never been ruled by the intellectual or the geeky. The nerds and geeks were too busy doing other things with computers than to play games, while the "entertainment" companies ruled the games market.
I will even go so far as to say this is bad for IT.
I got into this field because of video games. I learned a lot about computers & networks because games, the modification of games, the modification of hardware to make the games run, (and yes, even the obtaining of games for free from dubious sources), were a big incentive for me to figure out out the damn things worked. I wonder what kind of incentive the average young X-Box owner has.
Wouldn't that be a good thing for IT?
IT would be better if fewer people were in IT just because they like games. After all, IT has little to do with games, and too many IT employees waste time at work talking about or playing games.
Yeah, people like to own things. Like a house, or a computer.
Having only digital copies does make sense if you live in a dorm. Otherwise, the valuable ones are the physical. Non-physicality is worthless.
Why? The song sounds the same whether it is being played from a physical CD or a rip stored on your hard drive. Nobody really cares that you own the CD case with its cheap artwork.
Your money would be much better put toward things that people actually care about.
The established industry is going about digital data backwards. They should use MP3s like thay use radio -- a free lure to get people to shell out cash for physical items.
In an increasingly virtual world, what physical items are you going to be selling? Food and shelter?
In the UK Sedan,Cabriolet,and Limousine are American cars... we have City Cars, Compacts, Executive
You don't have sedans or limousines in the UK? Bullshit.
The old terms die when no longer appropriate, they only endure when they still have a use that actually makes sense
The irony of saying this and being British at the same time is immense. British English is full of archaic words that haven't died out.
There are perfectly good words for the process, they are lighten and darken, I don't need to "learn" what they mean....
But this is referring to a very specific form of lightening and darkening, not just the general concept. What do you propose the new name for these tools be?
But the point is that what comes out of the sensor isn't a colour image, it's a mono one which is then interpreted afterwards by demosaicing.
But color information is "encoded" into that data because of the color filter. Calling it a monochrome sensor makes about as much sense as saying that a color CRT TV is actually monochrome because the electron gun emits "monochrome" electrons, only to become color when they hit different phosphors for each color.
If the signal from the sensor was "monochrome" then it would never be able to be decoded into color by demosaicing. The process requires different signals for each color.
To me, I was more puzzled by how a race of hunter/gatherers have absolutely perfect teeth to a person,
That's a very odd thing to be puzzled about. Presumably, being in harmony with nature, they have a very good diet and look after their bodies. Do you also wonder why animals have such good teeth, even though they don't have toothbrushes?
I don't think anyone was suggesting that Avatar symbolized hatred for any nation.
I think you'll find that there were and are people suggesting exactly that. Hell, even the Vatican made a crazy public statement (although it was not about hating a particular nation, but rather about not endorsing the correct religious model).
Dodge/Burn etc.. makes no sense whatsoever to me, they are terms in the archaic process of developing, something you do not do with digital photos.....
I am processing photos taken with a digital camera, as digital data, on a computer.... why are terms derived from developing silvered photographs still used!
They are still used because they are effective and well-known. What would you call those tools instead - "selective lightening/darkening tool"? That's a but cumbersome.
The English language is a wonderful thing, and this kind of thing really adds flavor and character. It gives us insight into history. It's also educational, because when someone asks "what is dodging and burning" then they learn about these techniques and technology they have never heard of.
Would you rather just erase history and forget about all of that? There are historical aspects to all corners of our language, and they are wonderful to explore. Not to mention that anyone serious about photography is going to be studying the work of the old masters - people like Ansel Adams when it comes to darkroom technique, and there are many lessons to be learned there which are still relevant today. For a modern digital photographer not to have a basic understanding of the "obsolete" techniques is short sighted, IMO.
Firstly, it's a limited monopoly, and it actually gives information about inventions to the public domain.
Secondly, it actually works against monopolies. It means an individual inventor, or a small company can have a chance against the massive ones. Without this protection, the large monopolies with the most resources can easily just steal the hard work of the small guys who don't have the resources for immediate production.
Finally, it makes companies more open about technology, and less secretive, and it helps consumers verify claims - without patents there'd be a whole lot more "secret sauce" trade secrets and more "snake oil" claims made without backing information.
As for other inventors coming to the exact same solution independently, that is actually very rare. Patents don't protect the idea of something, they protect the implementation. Two people working independently are likely to have differences in their implementation.
Am I only the one who understood the summary to mean that he lacked interest in like image processing? And that the submitter/slashdot editor must have been like a valley girl?
I didn't get that, but I was wondering why FOSS graphics software has such brutal and disgusting names. First "The Gimp" and now an application name gloating about having raped someone until they were raw?? Ewwww.
Great news. For those who don't know, a digital camera's sensor is actually a monochrome sensor. It is not a true color sensor (except for Sigma cameras). Each seperate sensor cell (sensel) has a colored filter placed over it.
How is it a monochrome sensor if it has colored filters to sense different colors? Don't those filters turn it into a color sensor?
Great, so you are saying I have to be a photography expert before I can even start to understand the names of things in photoshop. That seems much better.
Given that the majority of users of a photo editing application will be photographers and graphic artists, it makes perfect sense. You wouldn't expect a large percentage of the users to be computer programmers.
Plus, if you're a non-photographer learning to use the program, then the naming of things will help teach you photography - which would be a good thing, as you're using an application for photographers!
What's next, are you going to complain about software for nuclear reactor design using terms that are familiar to nuclear engineers?
Slashdot Mirror
Lighten Tool, Darken Tool sounds good to me, short descriptive and obvious?
But that would imply lightening or darkening the whole image, not selected parts of arbitrary shape. Your name is not descriptive enough.
This rumor is correct in a way, but is missing crucial details. The iPhone's search will be powered by a Bing... but it will be Bing Crosby.
All games have a set of rules and mechanics, and that alone requires some thinking. The material may not be particularly engaging, but all the games you mention involve pattern recognition and response.
Crossing the road requires thinking, pattern recognition and response. That doesn't make it an intellectual exercise.
I'm not saying that games don't involve thinking or that there aren't intelligent games. But the notion that playing video games is a purely geeky activity and not for "jocks" is just wrong. When I grew up, the nerds and geeks would spend more time programming than playing games. Meanwhile, the "jocks" were huge consumers of video games. Historically, video games have not been marketed towards nerds.
What I'm objecting to is the revisionist history in that post, not the idea that computer games don't appeal to nerds. Many posters on slashdot have a nasty habit of rewriting history in a nerd-centric and inaccurate way.
I agree. The problem is two-fold. Firstly, the news sources are shit, they aren't writing interesting and relevant articles. This is compounded by the fact that Google's search results are shit. Back in the day, we flocked to Google because the search results were superior. But today, that just isn't true. A typical Google search today often has link-farm spammers in the top results, and for News search, often has insane wing-tard blogs right up there in the top results alongside serious sources.
I think this is a generational thing. People who grew up with vinyl, where some releases would come in very ornate packaging - gatefolds, embossing, inserts, tracing paper layers, etc. miss all that.
Which is why I said "cheap artwork" to emphasize the difference between CDs and vinyl.
With downloads, of course you get none of that. Some Radiohead downloads include PDFs you're encouraged to print out and play with. But mostly, you just get the music. Us old guard feel something is missing.
Speak for yourself. I grew up with vinyl, and I have a substantial collection of interesting albums. But I also don't feel the need for this fetishism to continue. The music is what matters. This materialism and fetishism over bits of cardboard and plastic is counterproductive and wasteful.
Furthermore, with the iTunes LP and Extras, you actually get a lot more than you would the typical vinyl release. Remember, the majority of vinyl releases were not elaborate gatefold affairs with great art, they were just as cheap and nasty as your typical CD.
You want what they tell you to want.
Bullshit. Marketing is not all-powerful. There are things that people just don't want, and marketing won't make a bit of difference.
CDs are a very good example of this. The whole music industry was marketing CDs heavily, but sales kept declining. The sales of digital downloads rose rapidly, despite very little marketing of them.
Are you really that weak that you just go out and buy whatever is advertised?
Why else would anybody pay thousands of dollars for a wristwatch when their cell phone is more accurate?
Because a wristwatch is a fashion item and a status symbol. You chose a very bizarre example, because I can't remember the last time I saw an ad for a wristwatch, but phone ads are all over the place.
Reportedly, company X will introduce Product Y, which will make sex-bots obsolete. Not only will it make sex-bots obsolete, it will run for 2,000 hours on a few drops of water-based lubricant. World hunger will be solved by Product Y, which will also be able to read Excel spreadsheets and shoot deadly laser bolts from its nipples. Analysts are excited to see beta versions of Product Y, and would gladly give their first-born children for a glimpse at the device.
Why don't they sell CDs with proper artwork, booklets, etc. then?
Why would they? Nobody wants it.
Computer games used to be the preserve of geeks, or other intellectual types willing to do something as non-jocky as play on a computer.
Get the fuck out of here. Computer games have never been particularly intellectual. Was Pac Man intellectual? How about Rambo? The Sims? Street Fighter?
Intellectually stimulating computer games are the exception, not the rule. The whole "games" market has never been ruled by the intellectual or the geeky. The nerds and geeks were too busy doing other things with computers than to play games, while the "entertainment" companies ruled the games market.
I will even go so far as to say this is bad for IT. I got into this field because of video games. I learned a lot about computers & networks because games, the modification of games, the modification of hardware to make the games run, (and yes, even the obtaining of games for free from dubious sources), were a big incentive for me to figure out out the damn things worked. I wonder what kind of incentive the average young X-Box owner has.
Wouldn't that be a good thing for IT?
IT would be better if fewer people were in IT just because they like games. After all, IT has little to do with games, and too many IT employees waste time at work talking about or playing games.
Harmony with nature is just a human concept that relates to our perception of the current situation.
Well, duh. You didn't understand that my comment was commenting on the anthropomorphic "harmony with nature" message of the movie?
Because people like to OWN things.
Yeah, people like to own things. Like a house, or a computer.
Having only digital copies does make sense if you live in a dorm. Otherwise, the valuable ones are the physical. Non-physicality is worthless.
Why? The song sounds the same whether it is being played from a physical CD or a rip stored on your hard drive. Nobody really cares that you own the CD case with its cheap artwork.
Your money would be much better put toward things that people actually care about.
The established industry is going about digital data backwards. They should use MP3s like thay use radio -- a free lure to get people to shell out cash for physical items.
In an increasingly virtual world, what physical items are you going to be selling? Food and shelter?
I personally think that Ok Go are talented enough to sit down in a barn somewhere with basic recording equipment and I'd buy it.
You say that, but you probably would never have heard of them if it weren't for marketing from a record label.
In the UK Sedan,Cabriolet,and Limousine are American cars ... we have City Cars, Compacts, Executive
You don't have sedans or limousines in the UK? Bullshit.
The old terms die when no longer appropriate, they only endure when they still have a use that actually makes sense
The irony of saying this and being British at the same time is immense. British English is full of archaic words that haven't died out.
There are perfectly good words for the process, they are lighten and darken, I don't need to "learn" what they mean ....
But this is referring to a very specific form of lightening and darkening, not just the general concept. What do you propose the new name for these tools be?
But the point is that what comes out of the sensor isn't a colour image, it's a mono one which is then interpreted afterwards by demosaicing.
But color information is "encoded" into that data because of the color filter. Calling it a monochrome sensor makes about as much sense as saying that a color CRT TV is actually monochrome because the electron gun emits "monochrome" electrons, only to become color when they hit different phosphors for each color.
If the signal from the sensor was "monochrome" then it would never be able to be decoded into color by demosaicing. The process requires different signals for each color.
To me, I was more puzzled by how a race of hunter/gatherers have absolutely perfect teeth to a person,
That's a very odd thing to be puzzled about. Presumably, being in harmony with nature, they have a very good diet and look after their bodies. Do you also wonder why animals have such good teeth, even though they don't have toothbrushes?
I don't think anyone was suggesting that Avatar symbolized hatred for any nation.
I think you'll find that there were and are people suggesting exactly that. Hell, even the Vatican made a crazy public statement (although it was not about hating a particular nation, but rather about not endorsing the correct religious model).
Dodge/Burn etc .. makes no sense whatsoever to me, they are terms in the archaic process of developing, something you do not do with digital photos.....
I am processing photos taken with a digital camera, as digital data, on a computer.... why are terms derived from developing silvered photographs still used!
They are still used because they are effective and well-known. What would you call those tools instead - "selective lightening/darkening tool"? That's a but cumbersome.
The English language is a wonderful thing, and this kind of thing really adds flavor and character. It gives us insight into history. It's also educational, because when someone asks "what is dodging and burning" then they learn about these techniques and technology they have never heard of.
Would you rather just erase history and forget about all of that? There are historical aspects to all corners of our language, and they are wonderful to explore. Not to mention that anyone serious about photography is going to be studying the work of the old masters - people like Ansel Adams when it comes to darkroom technique, and there are many lessons to be learned there which are still relevant today. For a modern digital photographer not to have a basic understanding of the "obsolete" techniques is short sighted, IMO.
The sensor itself is monochrome - it just detects brightness. Overlaying it is a mosaic of coloured filters set in a pattern.
And that mosaic of filters is a part of the sensor's design, an integrated part of the sensor.
Firstly, it's a limited monopoly, and it actually gives information about inventions to the public domain.
Secondly, it actually works against monopolies. It means an individual inventor, or a small company can have a chance against the massive ones. Without this protection, the large monopolies with the most resources can easily just steal the hard work of the small guys who don't have the resources for immediate production.
Finally, it makes companies more open about technology, and less secretive, and it helps consumers verify claims - without patents there'd be a whole lot more "secret sauce" trade secrets and more "snake oil" claims made without backing information.
As for other inventors coming to the exact same solution independently, that is actually very rare. Patents don't protect the idea of something, they protect the implementation. Two people working independently are likely to have differences in their implementation.
Am I only the one who understood the summary to mean that he lacked interest in like image processing? And that the submitter/slashdot editor must have been like a valley girl?
I didn't get that, but I was wondering why FOSS graphics software has such brutal and disgusting names. First "The Gimp" and now an application name gloating about having raped someone until they were raw?? Ewwww.
Great news. For those who don't know, a digital camera's sensor is actually a monochrome sensor. It is not a true color sensor (except for Sigma cameras). Each seperate sensor cell (sensel) has a colored filter placed over it.
How is it a monochrome sensor if it has colored filters to sense different colors? Don't those filters turn it into a color sensor?
Great, so you are saying I have to be a photography expert before I can even start to understand the names of things in photoshop. That seems much better.
Given that the majority of users of a photo editing application will be photographers and graphic artists, it makes perfect sense. You wouldn't expect a large percentage of the users to be computer programmers.
Plus, if you're a non-photographer learning to use the program, then the naming of things will help teach you photography - which would be a good thing, as you're using an application for photographers!
What's next, are you going to complain about software for nuclear reactor design using terms that are familiar to nuclear engineers?
Pray tell, why exactly are patents "a stupid concept"?