I don't think anyone is worried about a rogue state nuking an American city as a start of some great conquering war. They're more worried about a rogue state nuking someone in the region as a last act of defiance before they topple in one of the coups or revolutions that frequent said countries. Or... that theoretical terror supporting government would hand a nuke (or sell) to a terrorist cell and try to extort concessions from the US ("We can't find this missing nuke from these terrorists unless you give us some breathing room on the human rights and embargo issues").
Not really. From his website the guy is either a liar or a dick, and some of the things he said happened were illegal. Beating up kids isn't a citizen's arrest even when they steal. Whomever that person is needs serious anger management therapy. Either that or to stop putting testosterone on his cheerios every morning.
I think you could infer two completely opposite things about "innovators" (word used loosely in gates' case). 1) They focus so much on creating, managing and predicting technology and the marketplace that they may lose it from time to time when dealing with people. I believe that's what you suggested. I would say the exact opposite. 2) The true innovators have a different mode of thinking, a different state of conscious thought (nothing transcendental though). They are involved in the "what is the right thing", "where do i go from here", "what are the consequences of this action"? Microsoft jokes aside, the emotional maturity required for such positions and real leadership in general would be a huge filter preventing people who act irrationally from ever rising to that position. [ballmerJoke] [/ballmerJoke]
Maybe. I think this falls into intentional, non-malicious, possibly but not probably harmful, and illegal. Moderate speeding (80 in a 65) is a good metaphor (if of somewhat different magnitude). I'm not up in arms about this. Credentials get you in the door, performance gets your employers their value from you.
While she was good at her job, everyone must be subjected to the same standards of honesty and culpability. She made a mistake, and has benefited from it for a while. However, the truth came out and she must now, like she preaches to high-schoolers, accept responsibility for her actions.
Isn't there a measure of advancement of a civilization that uses knowledge of things outside primary means of support for it's citizens as a basis? Thus a nation of robots gets a 0, and Ancient Greece gets a XXXX.
Your suggestion would seem to have a negative effect on our civilizational (word?) maturity.
AFAIK scram/ram jets are the the only feasible solution to the cheap-launch capability problem unless carbon-nanotube production speeds can increase by a factor of 100 and prices can come down by a factor of 100 in the next 10 years.
Highly massive sections of spacecraft rotating at a significant amount and the variability of the mass distribution inside that section pose a significant controls problem for the attitude control system of the station. Off the top of my head that's just the first of a long list of problems with "we should have made a spinny space-station a long time ago because spinning makes gravity".
I recently read Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, in which one of the cool ideas was that there was an environmental tax on things that would take care of the final lifetime cost of ownership. Buy a plastic toy? You would have to pay for the mining, manufacturing and distribution as normal. But also you pay for disposal, recycling, reduction of global petroleum reserves, pollution cost of mining to local residents etc. IIRC people ended up using ultrabiodegradable materials, public transportation, and everyones house was coated in solar panels...
Link here... http://www.amazon.com/Transcendent-Destinys-Childr en-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0345457919
NASA and the launch-vehicle community could learn from throwing prize money at incremental steps in a project in parallel with internal research. More often than not, the competitions can produce better and cheaper ideas... But then again, Robert Zubrin always was a smart guy...
Happens a lot that players who reach level cap often hold the accounts open, even if they don't want to play very often or are bored, because of the "But I worked so hard on him..." mentality. You may not see as much of a sharp decline as you would when a new game (Vanguard) came out and all those 60s who were irked with the quick-leveling and boring post-60 game AND those who havent canceled their accounts yet find something new...
So the in-game advertising is going to be a 1-click link to the buy page for a different game. Cross platform in-game advertising of other games! The you-win screen will be a "If you liked this game..." and a list of links of other games to buy.
"You have found the Sword of Vengeance! This quest brought to you by the makers of our rts-gaming-affiliate.."
It's interesting to note that nearly all the positive points from this article correspond to the generally perceived decline in game quality in the past few years.
For instance the MMO that gives acceptable rewards for soloing sees a good deal of its playerbase at max level relatively quickly. This impacts the long-standing belief touted by casual gamers (the main audience of WoW) that the journey is the fun part, and the end game item hoarding and raiding is boring. Also it leverages the HUGE userbase that followed Bliz from all their previous games. Generally, players want new content, new classes, new races, etc. instead of just a 3d version of the 2d FPS games. Lastly, the graphics of WoW are nothing wonderful. Contrary to new games touting "life-like graphics", where one needs to buy at least 300 bucks of gpu to play on high settings, WoW's graphics look cartoony, which allows them to put more focus on design and content more than the 795,945th pixel on the jewel in the pommell of the....
My dissapointment in the direction recent games are taking comes from the formula game studios are learning to take to produce something "new". Take 1 of the following: a game of the year, a series game, a movie, a cult-classic that fans want brought back. Throw a design team together that has proven success doing nothing innovative. Come up with 1 feature that's not really new to throw to the masses as "innovation". Produce it as quickly and cheaply as possible, creating a fluffy nothing that will be beaten quickly and get the consumers ready for the next game at another $50. Hype it everywhere, and only show pre-rendered videos of it so that people who don't know better will believe that the gameplay is open-ended and gorgeous. Profit. Rinse, and repeat.
The only good news in the gaming industry for a while was Vanguard, but thats so far a dissapointment, and the Wii (which is truely innovative). Nintendo, do you want my bank account numbers so we can do direct deposit to you?
That was a pretty good review. I totally agree with everything you've said. As an addition, a B-Game that has AAA-Game fun was Worms Armageddon. Amazingly good. Such simple game dynamics, but the options were endless, as was the multiplayer action!
You can't launch rocks from Mars surface to Earth surface. Perturbations anywhere along the trajectory (especially pressure gradients in Mars atmosphere and error on reentry due to 39490194 things) would exponentially increase error on final landing point on Earth. Off 1/2 centimeter on Mars exit? Possibly off 1000km on Earth landing...
Although from a purely mental mastrubation standpoint, if you had tiny thrusters on the rock...
I totally buy it. As the old (new?) saying goes: "Everything in moderation". Though, the study you speak of really isn't making any earth-shattering predictions... It basically says "If you do more of X, you are more affected by X".
The study he *did* in fact rip apart tries to quantize the number of seconds of violence out of the total time, for different total timeperiods, in different genres, including cutscenes, not including the different *varieties* of death, including the loading screens, not including the difference between abstract and literal, not including the difference between malicious user-opted killing and required plot violence.
I haven't checked recently, but has it become passe to ignore that you need to do isolate as many dependent variables as possible in a scientific experiment for the results to be valid?
The kind doctor's response? Well theres a lot of studies so our study (whether it's crap or not) is going to be only one data point. FFS, if a data point is made-up it doesn't deserve to even be in the statistical sample!!!
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think anyone is worried about a rogue state nuking an American city as a start of some great conquering war. They're more worried about a rogue state nuking someone in the region as a last act of defiance before they topple in one of the coups or revolutions that frequent said countries. Or... that theoretical terror supporting government would hand a nuke (or sell) to a terrorist cell and try to extort concessions from the US ("We can't find this missing nuke from these terrorists unless you give us some breathing room on the human rights and embargo issues").
Not really. From his website the guy is either a liar or a dick, and some of the things he said happened were illegal. Beating up kids isn't a citizen's arrest even when they steal. Whomever that person is needs serious anger management therapy. Either that or to stop putting testosterone on his cheerios every morning.
Right below the Proximity Positive Language Reinforcement Dispenser (TM)
I think you could infer two completely opposite things about "innovators" (word used loosely in gates' case). 1) They focus so much on creating, managing and predicting technology and the marketplace that they may lose it from time to time when dealing with people. I believe that's what you suggested. I would say the exact opposite. 2) The true innovators have a different mode of thinking, a different state of conscious thought (nothing transcendental though). They are involved in the "what is the right thing", "where do i go from here", "what are the consequences of this action"? Microsoft jokes aside, the emotional maturity required for such positions and real leadership in general would be a huge filter preventing people who act irrationally from ever rising to that position. [ballmerJoke] [/ballmerJoke]
If I had mod points you'd be at least +1 Amazingly Fantastic Reference higher.
Maybe. I think this falls into intentional, non-malicious, possibly but not probably harmful, and illegal. Moderate speeding (80 in a 65) is a good metaphor (if of somewhat different magnitude). I'm not up in arms about this. Credentials get you in the door, performance gets your employers their value from you.
While she was good at her job, everyone must be subjected to the same standards of honesty and culpability. She made a mistake, and has benefited from it for a while. However, the truth came out and she must now, like she preaches to high-schoolers, accept responsibility for her actions.
Isn't there a measure of advancement of a civilization that uses knowledge of things outside primary means of support for it's citizens as a basis? Thus a nation of robots gets a 0, and Ancient Greece gets a XXXX. Your suggestion would seem to have a negative effect on our civilizational (word?) maturity.
Which is only about 6sigmas of the population...
Yes, offtopic, but I think it deserves to be noted that its a pretty well written review.
AFAIK scram/ram jets are the the only feasible solution to the cheap-launch capability problem unless carbon-nanotube production speeds can increase by a factor of 100 and prices can come down by a factor of 100 in the next 10 years.
Highly massive sections of spacecraft rotating at a significant amount and the variability of the mass distribution inside that section pose a significant controls problem for the attitude control system of the station. Off the top of my head that's just the first of a long list of problems with "we should have made a spinny space-station a long time ago because spinning makes gravity".
I recently read Transcendent by Stephen Baxter, in which one of the cool ideas was that there was an environmental tax on things that would take care of the final lifetime cost of ownership. Buy a plastic toy? You would have to pay for the mining, manufacturing and distribution as normal. But also you pay for disposal, recycling, reduction of global petroleum reserves, pollution cost of mining to local residents etc. IIRC people ended up using ultrabiodegradable materials, public transportation, and everyones house was coated in solar panels... Link here... http://www.amazon.com/Transcendent-Destinys-Childr en-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0345457919
Appeasement worked in 1939 too!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_for_Mars
Happens a lot that players who reach level cap often hold the accounts open, even if they don't want to play very often or are bored, because of the "But I worked so hard on him..." mentality. You may not see as much of a sharp decline as you would when a new game (Vanguard) came out and all those 60s who were irked with the quick-leveling and boring post-60 game AND those who havent canceled their accounts yet find something new...
This is why. Doing nothing nets profit. Go out on a limb and try something new and you might fail. But oh boy oh boy, rehash last year and you're set.
EA is the anti-jeebus of gaming.
On another note... I wonder if the advertising games will get click-generated revenue from the sales of the advertised games.
"You have found the Sword of Vengeance! This quest brought to you by the makers of our rts-gaming-affiliate.."
For instance the MMO that gives acceptable rewards for soloing sees a good deal of its playerbase at max level relatively quickly. This impacts the long-standing belief touted by casual gamers (the main audience of WoW) that the journey is the fun part, and the end game item hoarding and raiding is boring. Also it leverages the HUGE userbase that followed Bliz from all their previous games. Generally, players want new content, new classes, new races, etc. instead of just a 3d version of the 2d FPS games. Lastly, the graphics of WoW are nothing wonderful. Contrary to new games touting "life-like graphics", where one needs to buy at least 300 bucks of gpu to play on high settings, WoW's graphics look cartoony, which allows them to put more focus on design and content more than the 795,945th pixel on the jewel in the pommell of the....
My dissapointment in the direction recent games are taking comes from the formula game studios are learning to take to produce something "new". Take 1 of the following: a game of the year, a series game, a movie, a cult-classic that fans want brought back. Throw a design team together that has proven success doing nothing innovative. Come up with 1 feature that's not really new to throw to the masses as "innovation". Produce it as quickly and cheaply as possible, creating a fluffy nothing that will be beaten quickly and get the consumers ready for the next game at another $50. Hype it everywhere, and only show pre-rendered videos of it so that people who don't know better will believe that the gameplay is open-ended and gorgeous. Profit. Rinse, and repeat.
The only good news in the gaming industry for a while was Vanguard, but thats so far a dissapointment, and the Wii (which is truely innovative). Nintendo, do you want my bank account numbers so we can do direct deposit to you?
That was a pretty good review. I totally agree with everything you've said. As an addition, a B-Game that has AAA-Game fun was Worms Armageddon. Amazingly good. Such simple game dynamics, but the options were endless, as was the multiplayer action!
Although from a purely mental mastrubation standpoint, if you had tiny thrusters on the rock...
I totally buy it. As the old (new?) saying goes: "Everything in moderation". Though, the study you speak of really isn't making any earth-shattering predictions... It basically says "If you do more of X, you are more affected by X".
I haven't checked recently, but has it become passe to ignore that you need to do isolate as many dependent variables as possible in a scientific experiment for the results to be valid?
The kind doctor's response? Well theres a lot of studies so our study (whether it's crap or not) is going to be only one data point. FFS, if a data point is made-up it doesn't deserve to even be in the statistical sample!!!