I was working a year ago on a 3D imaging system that used parallax barriers. We would've killed to have had the kind of continuously-focusable output this camera could produce; one of our biggest problems was deciding what part of the image to focus upon, and then keeping the camera and light steady between shots--especially outdoors. We would have huge problems on cloudy days because the ambient light would change so much between shots at different depths of focus.
Combine this continuous focusing with dynamically sized parallax barriers, and the results might be interesting.
Take each focal plane (let's say one plane of "best" focus). Throw the pixel RGB values there into a 2x2 matrix. Now take the next plane and lay it behind in the same way--2x2x1. Repeat for "n" focal planes giving a 2x2xn image. Now the challenge is displaying it.
All sorts of optical technologies have been around for a long time, and only nowadays are people saying "Of course! Add this to this and I get a great thing!"
Off the top of my head... parallax barrier cameras and newer parallax barrier 3D displays... same thing with lenticular screens... Um... This was so much easier a year ago.
Video games sometimes don't even try to reflect reality. Most "realistic" TV shows have to at least obey the laws of physics, even if they try very hard to break them.
Sure, you might hear sound in vacuum on ST:TNG, and you might hear the same in Wing Commander; how many times on CSI does someone drive their car too fast and clip through a wall? "Realistic" television is inherently and insidiously more believable than even the most realistic video game. Hell, this is by _design._ You don't want a video game to be too realistic, ever--why bother playing? What if the cops never stopped looking for you in GTA, and if you couldn't just run on top of the buildings to get away?
I'd believe that more people would mistake CSI for reality than GTA--substitute any "realistic" television show for any video game at all: try "Law and Order" and "Phoenix Wright."
I wouldn't call your example a "creative liberty," I'd call it "lazy writers." Unless someone's writing fan fiction, usually creative liberties have a point they're flailing to make; this just sounds like a case of folks not doing their research.
I'm sorry, but that IS a joke. None of those are showstoppers--only the first would significally impact average gameplay. The third is unit conversions and maybe saves some confusion, unless those "messages" are system-directed and not user-directed. The second is marketing--what if I _like_ the title music? The last is arbitrary: "reasonably consistent." You'd hope a competent developer would naturally put together a consistent interface--look at Metroid Prime, where the interface was _designed_ as a part of the character's face.
It'd be great to see a full list, but I guess that can't happen. I'd like to see if things like, "they half-assed the end of the game" are on that list--I'm looking at you, Halo single player.
I further wonder how that list compares to the old NES-era Nintendo quality certification program.
That's part of my point. It doesn't need to be deep and thought-provoking, necessarily (though it helps) to be an artistic outlet.
When was the last time an new _means of artistic expression_ was brought into the world? They can be significant--they can tell a story or communicate some idea, could hold their own blow for blow if they didn't require so great of an investment of money. Video games have the potential to become the next "book," the next "painting," the next "interpretive dance." They aren't there. Not by far. They could be.
Illustrative artists were supported by patrons once, right? Guys who paid them to paint what they wanted to have painted, I mean. Same thing today, only instead of the whims of some old guy, it's the whims of America's--really, the world's "consumers" as interpreted by sales numbers and people who're paid too much to do too little. I hate that term--"consumer"--and think it's an insult to apply, but really that's what they call us--what we are. We're consuming video games. What if books were becoming like this? What if... Wait, too late. Where's our generation's Dumas? Where's our Paton? Our Faulkner? Hell, our Bradbury? Hell, where's our Shatner? I _kinda liked_ Tekwar--I'm off subject, though.
Did anyone here play Deadlock? Remember how you could build an "art complex" (or something) that _manufactured_ art, which was used as a morale-boosting _resource?_ I laughed and made smug comments to my friends when I saw that one, but that's what's happening to video games these days. Games are approaching the point where they're being churned out, purchased, and _consumed._ Market demands more Halo--make sequels, make money. Who cares if it's buggy, badly balanced, and rather crappy in the storyline? Who cares? If you make it, they'll buy it. They'll complain, or they won't, but they'll buy it. Brand new console--same old crap--flashier graphics--$60 a game plus incidentals, no soul included, story and plot sold separately.
I want to wake up in a world where Russian folk music could take my neighborhood by storm without some pop singer to translate it. One where any crazy guy with a good idea can get a few airings of some nutcase TV show. A place where textbooks are purchased based on their factual content instead of price or contractual obligations--but I'm getting off subject again.
Oh, how nice. A corporate apologist acting in a twisted "save the children from themselves" guise.
A video game isn't a breakfast cereal. It's not something you put into your mind every day because you need it to survive. It's not a nutrient and it's not a consumer item. It isn't a medium where you should just "be happy" with whatever crap the game designers want to turn out. Of course it's all about money--what isn't? More importantly, it's about art. Video games have become--rather, they MUST become a legitimate creative outlet if they're going to hang on to what's made them unique and so memorable. Tetris wouldn't have been fun if it wasn't an engaging puzzle. The same damn shtick over and over again isn't fun, it isn't creative, it doesn't make us a better humanity--it's just breakfast cereal.
It's not about paying for Tetris again and again. It's not about being "just entertained enough." It's _not about spending money, that just has to happen to keep things rolling along._ It's about advancing humanity through the unlikely artistic and social medium of video games. Because of the necessity of wrapping everything in corporate culture, that just can't happen, and it's very sad. Movies, music, video games--books will be next. Then it'll be painting, dance, theater. "Sponsored by PepsiCo" will start appearing on all easels. I'm predicting the Creative Downfall of Humanity right here and now.
Christ, I swear one of these days I'm going to write that novel, the one where people eat their chicken-flavored cereal three times every day and are _happy_ because they don't have to _worry_ about "not enjoying the flavor" or "making a choice." A blueberry will be introduced into this culture and will tear it to ribbons.
and even We Love Katamari (remember the original, the game that was supposed to rid us of derivative games? It has a sequel).
Katamari did that very nicely. As a game instead of an abstraction, though, it was also very short and had crappy multiplayer. People wanted a sequel, so they made one. This wasn't a sequel looking for an audience.
I look down on sports games because, seriously, how many times can you release the a game about football? Or cricket? The sport doesn't change. You don't add special powers. You don't get new levels. There's no story to continue. You just update the rosters and add a new camera mode, not to mention a thousand bugs. I could go on about sweatshop development, consumer lock-in, the death of creativity in video gaming, and such--but I have better things to do.
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to waiting for FFXII. I hear they added a new camera mode!
That's what I was thinking... why not just monitor the fiber's back-reflections like in OTDR eqiupment? Are high-power beamsplitters the problem? Just monitor the returning light, and if the profile for a particular pulse is vastly different from the one before it, well, don't let another pulse through. Drop a little beam dump in front of the output coupler or something--you can't get a faster shutoff than that.
I personally don't like the idea of a bare fiber being used inside the body... if someone sneezes and gets a "kink" in the line, then I've got a lot of high-energy light just jumping out right next to my vital organs. No thanks.
From my small amount of high-power laser experience (research model, not medical: one of Continuum's powerlite Nd-YAGs downconverted to 350nm--3J per pulse, maybe? I think I'm off by an order of magnitude), I know I wouldn't want a laser beam anywhere near that amount of energy--definitely not a UV laser--to be uncontrolled anywhere near my person, or any other person for that matter. The direct output of that thing happily ablated our beam dumps, so I don't even want to think what it would've done to flesh.
Now we have a quick and effective solution to that nasty nail-biting habit. We simply will direct these three powerful beams of ionizing radiation into your skull, focussing them on your basal ganglia.
Just don't twitch, or you might forget how to talk.
Don't you remember your history? Pretty soon we'll see little slackers in life vests driving recklessly in 80's-era sports cars; you'll regret your wording when the newspapers all say "Jack Thompson Commended"!!
Slashdot Mirror
You have the makings of a successful fortune cookie writer!
Really, just read the subject. Go after the big game--sue the guy who _made_ the workaround for your product's protection scheme.
Is focusing really that hard?
I was working a year ago on a 3D imaging system that used parallax barriers. We would've killed to have had the kind of continuously-focusable output this camera could produce; one of our biggest problems was deciding what part of the image to focus upon, and then keeping the camera and light steady between shots--especially outdoors. We would have huge problems on cloudy days because the ambient light would change so much between shots at different depths of focus.
Combine this continuous focusing with dynamically sized parallax barriers, and the results might be interesting.
Why not?
Take each focal plane (let's say one plane of "best" focus). Throw the pixel RGB values there into a 2x2 matrix. Now take the next plane and lay it behind in the same way--2x2x1. Repeat for "n" focal planes giving a 2x2xn image. Now the challenge is displaying it.
All sorts of optical technologies have been around for a long time, and only nowadays are people saying "Of course! Add this to this and I get a great thing!"
Off the top of my head... parallax barrier cameras and newer parallax barrier 3D displays... same thing with lenticular screens... Um... This was so much easier a year ago.
I'MHORATIOANDI'MALWAYSMAD would be a GREAT cheat code.
Video games sometimes don't even try to reflect reality. Most "realistic" TV shows have to at least obey the laws of physics, even if they try very hard to break them.
Sure, you might hear sound in vacuum on ST:TNG, and you might hear the same in Wing Commander; how many times on CSI does someone drive their car too fast and clip through a wall? "Realistic" television is inherently and insidiously more believable than even the most realistic video game. Hell, this is by _design._ You don't want a video game to be too realistic, ever--why bother playing? What if the cops never stopped looking for you in GTA, and if you couldn't just run on top of the buildings to get away?
I'd believe that more people would mistake CSI for reality than GTA--substitute any "realistic" television show for any video game at all: try "Law and Order" and "Phoenix Wright."
I wouldn't call your example a "creative liberty," I'd call it "lazy writers." Unless someone's writing fan fiction, usually creative liberties have a point they're flailing to make; this just sounds like a case of folks not doing their research.
I'm sorry, but that IS a joke. None of those are showstoppers--only the first would significally impact average gameplay. The third is unit conversions and maybe saves some confusion, unless those "messages" are system-directed and not user-directed. The second is marketing--what if I _like_ the title music? The last is arbitrary: "reasonably consistent." You'd hope a competent developer would naturally put together a consistent interface--look at Metroid Prime, where the interface was _designed_ as a part of the character's face.
It'd be great to see a full list, but I guess that can't happen. I'd like to see if things like, "they half-assed the end of the game" are on that list--I'm looking at you, Halo single player.
I further wonder how that list compares to the old NES-era Nintendo quality certification program.
That's part of my point. It doesn't need to be deep and thought-provoking, necessarily (though it helps) to be an artistic outlet.
When was the last time an new _means of artistic expression_ was brought into the world? They can be significant--they can tell a story or communicate some idea, could hold their own blow for blow if they didn't require so great of an investment of money. Video games have the potential to become the next "book," the next "painting," the next "interpretive dance." They aren't there. Not by far. They could be.
Illustrative artists were supported by patrons once, right? Guys who paid them to paint what they wanted to have painted, I mean. Same thing today, only instead of the whims of some old guy, it's the whims of America's--really, the world's "consumers" as interpreted by sales numbers and people who're paid too much to do too little. I hate that term--"consumer"--and think it's an insult to apply, but really that's what they call us--what we are. We're consuming video games. What if books were becoming like this? What if... Wait, too late. Where's our generation's Dumas? Where's our Paton? Our Faulkner? Hell, our Bradbury? Hell, where's our Shatner? I _kinda liked_ Tekwar--I'm off subject, though.
Did anyone here play Deadlock? Remember how you could build an "art complex" (or something) that _manufactured_ art, which was used as a morale-boosting _resource?_ I laughed and made smug comments to my friends when I saw that one, but that's what's happening to video games these days. Games are approaching the point where they're being churned out, purchased, and _consumed._ Market demands more Halo--make sequels, make money. Who cares if it's buggy, badly balanced, and rather crappy in the storyline? Who cares? If you make it, they'll buy it. They'll complain, or they won't, but they'll buy it. Brand new console--same old crap--flashier graphics--$60 a game plus incidentals, no soul included, story and plot sold separately.
I want to wake up in a world where Russian folk music could take my neighborhood by storm without some pop singer to translate it. One where any crazy guy with a good idea can get a few airings of some nutcase TV show. A place where textbooks are purchased based on their factual content instead of price or contractual obligations--but I'm getting off subject again.
Oh, how nice. A corporate apologist acting in a twisted "save the children from themselves" guise.
A video game isn't a breakfast cereal. It's not something you put into your mind every day because you need it to survive. It's not a nutrient and it's not a consumer item. It isn't a medium where you should just "be happy" with whatever crap the game designers want to turn out. Of course it's all about money--what isn't? More importantly, it's about art. Video games have become--rather, they MUST become a legitimate creative outlet if they're going to hang on to what's made them unique and so memorable. Tetris wouldn't have been fun if it wasn't an engaging puzzle. The same damn shtick over and over again isn't fun, it isn't creative, it doesn't make us a better humanity--it's just breakfast cereal.
It's not about paying for Tetris again and again. It's not about being "just entertained enough." It's _not about spending money, that just has to happen to keep things rolling along._ It's about advancing humanity through the unlikely artistic and social medium of video games. Because of the necessity of wrapping everything in corporate culture, that just can't happen, and it's very sad. Movies, music, video games--books will be next. Then it'll be painting, dance, theater. "Sponsored by PepsiCo" will start appearing on all easels. I'm predicting the Creative Downfall of Humanity right here and now.
Christ, I swear one of these days I'm going to write that novel, the one where people eat their chicken-flavored cereal three times every day and are _happy_ because they don't have to _worry_ about "not enjoying the flavor" or "making a choice." A blueberry will be introduced into this culture and will tear it to ribbons.
and even We Love Katamari (remember the original, the game that was supposed to rid us of derivative games? It has a sequel).
Katamari did that very nicely. As a game instead of an abstraction, though, it was also very short and had crappy multiplayer. People wanted a sequel, so they made one. This wasn't a sequel looking for an audience.
I look down on sports games because, seriously, how many times can you release the a game about football? Or cricket? The sport doesn't change. You don't add special powers. You don't get new levels. There's no story to continue. You just update the rosters and add a new camera mode, not to mention a thousand bugs. I could go on about sweatshop development, consumer lock-in, the death of creativity in video gaming, and such--but I have better things to do.
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go back to waiting for FFXII. I hear they added a new camera mode!
back reflection fault indicators
That's what I was thinking... why not just monitor the fiber's back-reflections like in OTDR eqiupment? Are high-power beamsplitters the problem? Just monitor the returning light, and if the profile for a particular pulse is vastly different from the one before it, well, don't let another pulse through. Drop a little beam dump in front of the output coupler or something--you can't get a faster shutoff than that.
I personally don't like the idea of a bare fiber being used inside the body... if someone sneezes and gets a "kink" in the line, then I've got a lot of high-energy light just jumping out right next to my vital organs. No thanks.
From my small amount of high-power laser experience (research model, not medical: one of Continuum's powerlite Nd-YAGs downconverted to 350nm--3J per pulse, maybe? I think I'm off by an order of magnitude), I know I wouldn't want a laser beam anywhere near that amount of energy--definitely not a UV laser--to be uncontrolled anywhere near my person, or any other person for that matter. The direct output of that thing happily ablated our beam dumps, so I don't even want to think what it would've done to flesh.
The space death rays are OUT THERE, man!
It's the Earth's B-field that protects us, though. Or the ozone layer. Or Superman. I never can remember which is for cosmic death rays.
Being socially well adjusted is overrated.
Tell that to the misanthropic whiz-kids--even us mundane ones who can correct our physics professors but can't get a goddamn date.
The real future of surveillance is to replace "cows" in parent with "people." The rest still works... except maybe the last bit.
It's not like they're your shoes, after all.
Now we have a quick and effective solution to that nasty nail-biting habit. We simply will direct these three powerful beams of ionizing radiation into your skull, focussing them on your basal ganglia.
Just don't twitch, or you might forget how to talk.
Don't you remember your history? Pretty soon we'll see little slackers in life vests driving recklessly in 80's-era sports cars; you'll regret your wording when the newspapers all say "Jack Thompson Commended"!!
In the lobby of the Museum, they have a working Pong game standup.
So, in a way, yes. The rest is just mercury memory and so on.
You mean PA will do it for him?
Be really careful about this one.
They say it's already in all our water supplies! Shocking.
Uh? I thought this article was about fungal spores, not bacterial spores.
OK, why Insightful? They mean pound as in bling. This is funny if anything.
After all, I sure as hell wouldn't want a share of some dictator's multimillion pound fortune if it were pounds of human flesh or something.