I would love to have a driverless car: let me get some work or reading done while lounging in the back seat (safer) of my car while it is driving me through the daily rush hour. Because I can get work done, I can either drive off later or am in less of a rush to get where I'm going. No more tedious trips of hours upon hours of driving.
From a design point of view, surfaces in the game are defined by materials, which include however many texture references and shader parameters as are necessary for each set of hardware features. The difficult thing about backwards-compatibility is more making sure that there's always a fairly good-looking fallback for lesser hardware - meaning a fancy shader effect might have to be replaced with something much cruder. Neglecting to do so might result in an important prop, character or whatever appearing as wireframe or a magenta-and-black checkerboard.
The DirectX 10 support in Episode 2 is more just forwards compatibility, I imagine - I wouldn't be surprised if the visual enhancements were very subtle, but nice nevertheless for people with the necessary hardware and software. Other changes might make the rendering pipeline more efficient, or whatever it is DirectX boasts about. Plus, with the materials system, it's more just a task for engine programmers and artists - updated materials will slot straight into previously designed maps. The actual, time-consuming gameplay design and implementation can run entirely in parallel, done by completely different people...
Power conversion is tough - most plugs for PDAs are 100-240 volt and 50-60 Hz (it will say on the plug). A kit with four or five adapters should be enough to get you through.
That's the case for loads of power adaptors now - they'll work on pretty much any vaguely sensible mains voltage and frequency you throw at them.
I know my own MacBook Pro's power adaptor worked just fine in the USA, likewise my Canon dSLR's. As you said, the only significant bit is the actual physical gubbins you stick in the socket - and you can get universal kits just about anywhere.
But taking a full-sized laptop around the world is a bit silly, especially a machine with poor battery life such as a MacBook Pro. There's a good chance that there won't be anywhere to attach it to the internet (I was in New York, and never got it networked), and I really began to regret it when I couldn't leave it anywhere after checking out of the hotel, and the bag's strap was cutting into my shoulder...
The tripod isn't a terrible idea, but I found the latest superzooms with image stabilization let you do pretty long hand holds, and with a little leaning against doorframes (-not- against the 1000 year old carvings, please) you'll never need the tripod, and that leaves you with more space for underwear.
Definitely - and short lenses with image stabilisation aren't bad for night shots, either. Here's one I took without a tripod - and it was taken from a rooftop bar where a tripod would have been ridiculous.
My checklist for future trips, and I'm not even planning on going anywhere particularly exotic: camera, lenses, universal plug adaptors, spare CF memory cards, wristwatch.
(You wouldn't believe how confusing jet-lag is without any form of time-keeping...;-) )
I thought it was nice, but a bit too understated by Gilliam-esque standards.
My favourite steampunk-style computer mod must be the ElectriClerk. Not nearly as practical as the keyboard in the article, but even more wonderfully anachronistic!
Everyone always says that failure statistics on the web are poor because nobody comes around and says their system is working fine. Maybe we can do an informal Slashdot poll of all Xbox 360 owners.
I disagree with your testing methodology - such a survey is inherently biased and self-selecting towards those who own Xbox 360 consoles, broken or not.
So in the interests of balance, I wish to report that I do not own an Xbox 360 games console. Or any other console, for that matter. However, this does mean that I have not personally encountered any problems with the Xbox 360's alleged unreliability!
... is leave dozens of wireless routers lying around, switched on, broadcasting trivially encrypted 'networks' to the surroundings - except not have anything connected to them. No internet, no servers, no ethernet cable, nothing.
The real network is hidden, strongly encrypted and using 802.11n. Beat that, hackers!
Is there anyone who managed to get past the final battle in the volcano without cheating?
I tried my best, then eventually gave up and enabled a god-mode cheat. Which helpfully counted how many times I 'died'. I played as well as I could, and still ended up with about seventy consecutive deaths.
Previous difficulty spikes I'd got past through excessive use of the almost-disabled quicksave function...
Although on the whole the Wii is more powerful than the original XBox, and Source did appear on the XBox in the form of Half-Life 2, Valve has stated (although I can't find the quote) that Half-Life 2 will not be coming to Wii.
From someone who actually owns one of these things, I really can't imagine how painful it would be to attempt to use one as a general-purpose telephone. It was awkward enough to get my Belkin Skype phone to talk to my wireless router - and the bastard thing crashes and restarts when I'm not looking. It's working quite well as a cordless Skype phone now, but I really wouldn't want to use it for anything remotely serious. Business contacts have not been given my SkypeIn number; that's for family and friends only.
When I go anywhere, the Skype phone stays at home, while my proper, Nokia GSM phone goes with me.
I'd show you the output from uname -a and a listing of the files in/etc, but my MacBook Pro is currently running Windows XP. For PC games stuff, no less. It's quite a speedy Half-Life 2 machine!
Seriously, come on. The ad where the PC buys the Mac that C++ reference manual that he secretly lusts after himself is just so much blatant false image building it's ridiculous. Are they implying that Mac programmers live in a glorious world where technical manuals are unnecessary? Or that every windows user is a technical programmer? It's ludicrous.
Yeah. Macs come with manuals - I got a supposedly consumer-oriented Apple iBook a few years ago, and included on the disks alongside XCode were a full Objective-C programmer's reference, all the UNIX manual pages, and loads of API documentation.
It was most disappointing. Kind of like buying a printer, and discovering all the printer control codes in the manual. Remember when that happened?
I'm surprised that Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul didn't make Mod of the Year.
It would have helped if it had a Mod DB profile, so that people could have voted for it - you could always create one yourself. Oblivion is a listed game.
Conversely, two big Half-Life based mods, and one Unreal-engined standalone game, appear to have disqualified themselves from actually winning anything this year. Yep, Garry's Mod, Natural Selection and Red Orchestra - all previous winners of the competition, and all gone commercial in one form or another. Good for them - and more importantly, it makes room for young upstarts like me!
Although I did hear that explanation on their games radio show thing they had online - which in a demonstration of its levels of accuracy claimed I was called Adam Smith, and was French. Both incorrect. So who knows. Maybe MINERVA actually is deserving of a fifth place...;-)
(I'd like to thank my agent, my family, blah blah blah blah *sob* blah blah blah *cheer* blah blah blah ad nauseam...)
How fast electrical signals travel through the wires is depending on the material the wires are made of. Light has nothing to do with it.
While light itself may not have anything to do with it, the speed of light c most definitely has. It's the upper speed limit for, well, everything. Including propagation of signals.
I'm intrigued as to what's possible in DX10 that isn't possible in DX9 - more complex shaders, or something?
I'd be interested to see screenshots of graphical demos of things which simply can't be done on DX9. Because otherwise, I've no idea if it's an incremental upgrade, or something utterly spectacular which we're all missing out on. Carmack's comments seem to suggest it's the former, rather than the latter, however...
Really, do politics boil down to left and right? A single axis of political belief? Don't you think that's a little bit simplistic?
There's always the much-maligned Political Compass - with not one but two axes to look at. I posted a link to it a long time ago, and was immediately accused of it being slanted towards the left, or even as being a part of this hateful leftist conspiracy various Slashdotters appear so concerned about.
It's an interesting exercise anyway, even if you don't agree with its results.
But deviate from the accepted policy positions of the left and watch how little tolerance they have for that. They will violently suppress the slightest deviation from orthodox socialism.
Absolutely. And paranoids on the right are correct - there is a global leftist conspiracy. We receive our orders from the Party on a daily basis, and follow them to the letter. Good news, too - you'll be the first up against the firing squads come the glorious revolution.
...
To me, the news story was about a pseudo-fascist political group in France trying to leap on to the bandwagon of publicity about Second Life, before being chased off their server in a typically amusing manner by a bunch of online griefers. However, assorted Slashdotters appear to take this as evidence of some kind of hateful leftist conspiracy, intent on stifling free speech and dissent on the internet.
Every night, over 100 cars are burned by the immigrants who will be the new France. The birthrate is below replacement rate. 43% of all children in France are born to unwed mothers.
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! UNWED MOTHERS! FILTHY, HORRIBLE IMMIGRANTS EVERYWHERE!...
Do you read the Daily Mail? You'd probably like it.
In all honesty, I think we already hit the delay, and now we are just waiting for the final release. We will probably hear more precise rumours as the date goes by, then we will hear the giant WHOOOSH as they go flying by, and eventualy we will have out precious HL2:EP2, TF2, and Portal (time to wipe up the drool again), at the very, very end of summer.
Yep, it's quite easy to decipher Valve's release date announcements - so long as you have the right glossary...
And of course the Steam EULA will force you to bend over and be raped by Valve Software. You don't even have the right to run the game you pay for.
Hello troll. We were waiting for someone to make this kind of post - it happens with EVERY SODDING ARTICLE RELATING TO VALVE. But your comments made me finally realise that having Steam installed on my MacBook Pro is tantamount to allowing Valve employees to molest my dog, urinate in my tea and make lewd gestures at my grandmother.
Advertising in games? All we know is that Valve made a deal with an advertising company. Quite what this involves, the public isn't too sure about. I suspect it might simply be a set of advertising-supported dedicated servers somewhere, in addition to the existing ones run by enterprising individuals out of the goodness of their own hearts. And small businesses renting said servers to clans and the like. Game servers are not the same as Steam's servers. Please keep up.
If the automatic updates bother you, just disable them for the games you want to stay the same. Right-click, then something-or-other. I forget precisely what, but it's very easy.
In closing, please point at the kind of digital distribution system that you'd rather use. Thanks.
Right, and this is why I'll buy the 360 version. I'll get to play on my HDTV, with no slowdowns, multiplayer without cheaters, and will have EP1/EP2/Portal as a bonus.
The "fuckoff" tag on "Is A Bad Attitude Damaging The IT Profession?" was pretty good, too.
I think that was one of mine - I tagged the article as such, and posted a comment suggesting other people do so too. I guess the threshold for tags being displayed is pretty low, as the comment got modded down - but enough people must have seen it, and responded, for it to appear for everyone. It started at the end of the list, but others saw that, and presumably liked the joke and tagged the article accordingly, increasing its strength.
It's quite easy to poison the tagging thing with jokes - itsacrap was another of mine, although admittedly it's difficult to claim responsibility for any particular tags in any easily confirmed way.
In part, tagging seems to be an excuse for not writing a decent search facility (interestingly, the 'search' box at the top right of Slashdot appears to ignore tags entirely) - although perhaps you need Google's combined intellect to get all the synonyms and related words parsed and indexed appropriately. But conversely, it's very much a yes-or-no thing - it's easy enough to list all articles with a particular tag, but harder to define precise divisions in an index like Google's. So a 'developers' tag on Slashdot would only relate to software developers, while 'developers/developer/developing/develops/etc.' on Google could also cover photographic sites, embryology papers and everything in between.
Slashdot Mirror
Why not catch a train or bus to work?
Actually, the engine supports graphics cards supporting features from right back to DirectX 6.0.
From a design point of view, surfaces in the game are defined by materials, which include however many texture references and shader parameters as are necessary for each set of hardware features. The difficult thing about backwards-compatibility is more making sure that there's always a fairly good-looking fallback for lesser hardware - meaning a fancy shader effect might have to be replaced with something much cruder. Neglecting to do so might result in an important prop, character or whatever appearing as wireframe or a magenta-and-black checkerboard.
The DirectX 10 support in Episode 2 is more just forwards compatibility, I imagine - I wouldn't be surprised if the visual enhancements were very subtle, but nice nevertheless for people with the necessary hardware and software. Other changes might make the rendering pipeline more efficient, or whatever it is DirectX boasts about. Plus, with the materials system, it's more just a task for engine programmers and artists - updated materials will slot straight into previously designed maps. The actual, time-consuming gameplay design and implementation can run entirely in parallel, done by completely different people...
That's the case for loads of power adaptors now - they'll work on pretty much any vaguely sensible mains voltage and frequency you throw at them.
I know my own MacBook Pro's power adaptor worked just fine in the USA, likewise my Canon dSLR's. As you said, the only significant bit is the actual physical gubbins you stick in the socket - and you can get universal kits just about anywhere.
But taking a full-sized laptop around the world is a bit silly, especially a machine with poor battery life such as a MacBook Pro. There's a good chance that there won't be anywhere to attach it to the internet (I was in New York, and never got it networked), and I really began to regret it when I couldn't leave it anywhere after checking out of the hotel, and the bag's strap was cutting into my shoulder...
Definitely - and short lenses with image stabilisation aren't bad for night shots, either. Here's one I took without a tripod - and it was taken from a rooftop bar where a tripod would have been ridiculous.
My checklist for future trips, and I'm not even planning on going anywhere particularly exotic: camera, lenses, universal plug adaptors, spare CF memory cards, wristwatch.
(You wouldn't believe how confusing jet-lag is without any form of time-keeping...
I think I spent a grand total of $18 for my gaming audio system.
Earphones do count, don't they?
I thought it was nice, but a bit too understated by Gilliam-esque standards.
My favourite steampunk-style computer mod must be the ElectriClerk. Not nearly as practical as the keyboard in the article, but even more wonderfully anachronistic!
I disagree with your testing methodology - such a survey is inherently biased and self-selecting towards those who own Xbox 360 consoles, broken or not.
So in the interests of balance, I wish to report that I do not own an Xbox 360 games console. Or any other console, for that matter. However, this does mean that I have not personally encountered any problems with the Xbox 360's alleged unreliability!
... is leave dozens of wireless routers lying around, switched on, broadcasting trivially encrypted 'networks' to the surroundings - except not have anything connected to them. No internet, no servers, no ethernet cable, nothing.
The real network is hidden, strongly encrypted and using 802.11n. Beat that, hackers!
I tried my best, then eventually gave up and enabled a god-mode cheat. Which helpfully counted how many times I 'died'. I played as well as I could, and still ended up with about seventy consecutive deaths.
Previous difficulty spikes I'd got past through excessive use of the almost-disabled quicksave function...
Skype data is encrypted, apparently: When you call another Skype user your call is encrypted with strong encryption algorithms ensuring you privacy.
:-/
Which is just as well, since my Belkin Skype phone doesn't want to talk WPA-whatever to my wireless router. Open network? Yep.
From someone who actually owns one of these things, I really can't imagine how painful it would be to attempt to use one as a general-purpose telephone. It was awkward enough to get my Belkin Skype phone to talk to my wireless router - and the bastard thing crashes and restarts when I'm not looking. It's working quite well as a cordless Skype phone now, but I really wouldn't want to use it for anything remotely serious. Business contacts have not been given my SkypeIn number; that's for family and friends only.
When I go anywhere, the Skype phone stays at home, while my proper, Nokia GSM phone goes with me.
I'd show you the output from uname -a and a listing of the files in
It was most disappointing. Kind of like buying a printer, and discovering all the printer control codes in the manual. Remember when that happened?
From the Netvibes.com front page: "Gmail Account not configured, use the Edit button to set your login and password".
... isn't a Google service. They want full access to your email? Yeah, right. I can't see how else it would work...
This site
Conversely, two big Half-Life based mods, and one Unreal-engined standalone game, appear to have disqualified themselves from actually winning anything this year. Yep, Garry's Mod, Natural Selection and Red Orchestra - all previous winners of the competition, and all gone commercial in one form or another. Good for them - and more importantly, it makes room for young upstarts like me!
Although I did hear that explanation on their games radio show thing they had online - which in a demonstration of its levels of accuracy claimed I was called Adam Smith, and was French. Both incorrect. So who knows. Maybe MINERVA actually is deserving of a fifth place...
(I'd like to thank my agent, my family, blah blah blah blah *sob* blah blah blah *cheer* blah blah blah ad nauseam...)
Deus Ex. Fantastic to cack in just two games. Alas...
While light itself may not have anything to do with it, the speed of light c most definitely has. It's the upper speed limit for, well, everything. Including propagation of signals.
I'm intrigued as to what's possible in DX10 that isn't possible in DX9 - more complex shaders, or something?
I'd be interested to see screenshots of graphical demos of things which simply can't be done on DX9. Because otherwise, I've no idea if it's an incremental upgrade, or something utterly spectacular which we're all missing out on. Carmack's comments seem to suggest it's the former, rather than the latter, however...
There's always the much-maligned Political Compass - with not one but two axes to look at. I posted a link to it a long time ago, and was immediately accused of it being slanted towards the left, or even as being a part of this hateful leftist conspiracy various Slashdotters appear so concerned about.
It's an interesting exercise anyway, even if you don't agree with its results.
Absolutely. And paranoids on the right are correct - there is a global leftist conspiracy. We receive our orders from the Party on a daily basis, and follow them to the letter. Good news, too - you'll be the first up against the firing squads come the glorious revolution.
To me, the news story was about a pseudo-fascist political group in France trying to leap on to the bandwagon of publicity about Second Life, before being chased off their server in a typically amusing manner by a bunch of online griefers. However, assorted Slashdotters appear to take this as evidence of some kind of hateful leftist conspiracy, intent on stifling free speech and dissent on the internet.
Oh noes!
IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD! UNWED MOTHERS! FILTHY, HORRIBLE IMMIGRANTS EVERYWHERE!
Do you read the Daily Mail? You'd probably like it.
Yep, it's quite easy to decipher Valve's release date announcements - so long as you have the right glossary...
Hello troll. We were waiting for someone to make this kind of post - it happens with EVERY SODDING ARTICLE RELATING TO VALVE. But your comments made me finally realise that having Steam installed on my MacBook Pro is tantamount to allowing Valve employees to molest my dog, urinate in my tea and make lewd gestures at my grandmother.
Advertising in games? All we know is that Valve made a deal with an advertising company. Quite what this involves, the public isn't too sure about. I suspect it might simply be a set of advertising-supported dedicated servers somewhere, in addition to the existing ones run by enterprising individuals out of the goodness of their own hearts. And small businesses renting said servers to clans and the like. Game servers are not the same as Steam's servers. Please keep up.
If the automatic updates bother you, just disable them for the games you want to stay the same. Right-click, then something-or-other. I forget precisely what, but it's very easy.
In closing, please point at the kind of digital distribution system that you'd rather use. Thanks.
I think that was one of mine - I tagged the article as such, and posted a comment suggesting other people do so too. I guess the threshold for tags being displayed is pretty low, as the comment got modded down - but enough people must have seen it, and responded, for it to appear for everyone. It started at the end of the list, but others saw that, and presumably liked the joke and tagged the article accordingly, increasing its strength.
It's quite easy to poison the tagging thing with jokes - itsacrap was another of mine, although admittedly it's difficult to claim responsibility for any particular tags in any easily confirmed way.
In part, tagging seems to be an excuse for not writing a decent search facility (interestingly, the 'search' box at the top right of Slashdot appears to ignore tags entirely) - although perhaps you need Google's combined intellect to get all the synonyms and related words parsed and indexed appropriately. But conversely, it's very much a yes-or-no thing - it's easy enough to list all articles with a particular tag, but harder to define precise divisions in an index like Google's. So a 'developers' tag on Slashdot would only relate to software developers, while 'developers/developer/developing/develops/etc.' on Google could also cover photographic sites, embryology papers and everything in between.