Chineese writing can be more compact, but dude, unless you do a 7hr course, most laymen will go WTF are you writing this 1970s crap for.
Actually, the 1970s crap is much faster to input and eyeball-parse, and this is supposed to be a geek site, where people know about vi, perl and/or sed. Not to mention this is a text post.
It's like arguing against Chinese writing in China.
He didn't offer any details about how it would be implemented.
Because he doesn't know, obviously. Oh, and there is no copy protection that won't be cracked on release day. Again, there is one and only one method I've seen so far that worked: make the server you control essential to gameplay, see WoW. (Oh, and Blizzard actually releases their client without copy protection whatsoever.)
You don't control my computer, and you deserve to go bankrupt for trying.
It seems a wiser idea would be to give the users a chance to love your game THEN introduce microtransactions, perhaps to allow users gain an edge during endgame.
Fuck no. Nobody wants to play with someone who constantly tries to bribe the DM. And nobody wants to play with a DM who can be bribed.
You already have a working business model out there, follow that: in WoW everyone is equal.
That also makes me wonder whether people are going to lose fine manual dexterity as a result. Already kids do less manual craft (like building models) in favour of computer games. I wonder if lack of fine motor training will result in a generation that is unable to do anything more accurate with their hands than push buttons.
Everyday life requires some dexterity, too. Just think about your movements next time you put your socks on. Of course it's not as detailed, as e.g. painting, but it should be enough.
And, of course, typing requires dexterity as well. Look at your hands sometime:) The real danger lies in sitting all day in a bad posture.
The advantage of cursive over printing is that it is faster and less fatiguing to the hand.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've seen, the handwriting of Americans don't really differ from print. At least, compared to something like this.
Just wait 50 years: "That's right kids, grampa used to use his hands to program computers!"
If you mean on paper with a pen, my grandpa would've done that. If you mean the demise of the keyboard, good luck with that. Today, only the keyboard can satisfy the information density required by today's programming languages, and I don't think this will change anytime soon. C or Perl using voice recognition is a good way to lose your sanity:)
Of course, we could design languages specifically for voice recog, but that wouldn't be pretty to read, I promise you.
If we let cursive die, calligraphy could be next to go!
This seems like a controversial topic. Is it really that bad if people forget to write with their hands? Last time I had to (aside from quick notes for myself) was in college.
Even when you program in a high-level language, you still have to realize how the code you write works on the machine level.
1. By "under the hood", I meant assembly vs C.
2. It's not necessarily machine level you're interested in. You merely have to know the performance characteristics of your language features and your API. You don't care which CPU instructions actually run, because you might not even know what kind of processor your code will run on. What you do care about is whether that string function will run in O(log n) or O(n^3).
I wouldn't recommend Assembly. Most of the "under the hood" things are not the job of the programmer anymore. That's why we have compilers.
If I could choose now, I'd learn Python first, for basic algorithmic programming, followed by C, to get a grip on what's really happening at runtime. After that, you're not dependent on language anymore.
Actually, the defense mechanism inevitably costs some energy to produce, and imposes design compromises that may affect the other functions of the plant. A mutant without these defenses will certainly have a fitness advantage.
Until the next bird shows up, that is.
However, fitness advantage doesn't mean the other plant is going extinct. It only means the one with the advantage reproduces faster (in fact, that's the only way we can measure it). After millions of years of natural selection, I find it unlikely that any advantage will be big enough to cause a significant difference over such a short time.
despite the fact that GNU/Linux is superior in every possible way,
Ever tried setting up two screens on Linux? It's a major PITA, and you get to choose between Xinerama and 3D acceleration (of course there's no hint about this tiny little fact until you check the X logs).
On Vista it takes at most 10 mouse clicks and 30 seconds, and everything works perfectly.
It's time to stop letting insane left-wingers threaten everybody into living the way they want them to live.
"We have classified them on the imaginary political spectrum, so their arguments are invalid."
Are you implying your right to live as you please is more important than the continued survival of the global ecosystem, and the human race depending on it?
How much are they charging for the research details? Is the RIAA willing to buy out this information? If its from a university then someone is looking for grant money.
I, for one, welcome our new RIAA-cheating overlords.
We developed a new peer authorization protocol (PAP) to distinguish pirates from legitimate clients. Detected pirates will receive poisoned chunks in repeated attempts. A reputation-based mechanism is developed to detect colluders. The system does not slow down legal download from paid clients. The pirates are severely penalized with no chance to download successfully in finite time.
Oh, this cracks me up. Did anyone notice notice how this doesn't mention bittorrent, which AFAIK makes up 90% of the possibly infringing content? Of course, anyone who's seen a torrent client in action knows that clients sending bad data are banned fast.
Now that I think about it, this "researcher" should rank high on the "Best ways to make money and improve your karma" list. He's obviously a better way to drain RIAA money than lawsuits:)
I'm curious though: "Most" implies more than half - have you really verified that more than half of the people on the planet have no moral problem with copying? Or are you just spouting that bullshit to rationalize it?
Laying down and occasionally carving paths through the mountains for 75,000km of interstate probably sounded daunting, but it got done because there was a perceived need.
It got done eventually. Meanwhile the finished sections were already usable. A space elevator cable that's 1 km too short is useless.
Slashdot Mirror
Chineese writing can be more compact, but dude, unless you do a 7hr course, most laymen will go WTF are you
writing this 1970s crap for.
Actually, the 1970s crap is much faster to input and eyeball-parse, and this is supposed to be a geek site, where people know about vi, perl and/or sed. Not to mention this is a text post.
It's like arguing against Chinese writing in China.
That taxpayer money partly helps some people profit
What do you mean by taxpayer money?
s/Usenet/torrent/g
Welcome to 2009.
He didn't offer any details about how it would be implemented.
Because he doesn't know, obviously. Oh, and there is no copy protection that won't be cracked on release day. Again, there is one and only one method I've seen so far that worked: make the server you control essential to gameplay, see WoW. (Oh, and Blizzard actually releases their client without copy protection whatsoever.)
You don't control my computer, and you deserve to go bankrupt for trying.
Troll. That way the reader must decide for themselves.
It seems a wiser idea would be to give the users a chance to love your game THEN introduce microtransactions, perhaps to allow users gain an edge during endgame.
Fuck no. Nobody wants to play with someone who constantly tries to bribe the DM. And nobody wants to play with a DM who can be bribed.
You already have a working business model out there, follow that: in WoW everyone is equal.
Nothing to see here, move along.
That also makes me wonder whether people are going to lose fine manual dexterity as a result. Already kids do less manual craft (like building models) in favour of computer games. I wonder if lack of fine motor training will result in a generation that is unable to do anything more accurate with their hands than push buttons.
Everyday life requires some dexterity, too. Just think about your movements next time you put your socks on. Of course it's not as detailed, as e.g. painting, but it should be enough.
And, of course, typing requires dexterity as well. Look at your hands sometime :) The real danger lies in sitting all day in a bad posture.
The advantage of cursive over printing is that it is faster and less fatiguing to the hand.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I've seen, the handwriting of Americans don't really differ from print. At least, compared to something like this.
Just wait 50 years: "That's right kids, grampa used to use his hands to program computers!"
If you mean on paper with a pen, my grandpa would've done that. If you mean the demise of the keyboard, good luck with that. Today, only the keyboard can satisfy the information density required by today's programming languages, and I don't think this will change anytime soon. C or Perl using voice recognition is a good way to lose your sanity :)
Of course, we could design languages specifically for voice recog, but that wouldn't be pretty to read, I promise you.
If we let cursive die, calligraphy could be next to go!
This seems like a controversial topic. Is it really that bad if people forget to write with their hands? Last time I had to (aside from quick notes for myself) was in college.
26 year old people are just old enough to have learned to write before computers. If they can't, it's the school, not the keyboard.
Even when you program in a high-level language, you still have to realize how the code you write works on the machine level.
1. By "under the hood", I meant assembly vs C.
2. It's not necessarily machine level you're interested in. You merely have to know the performance characteristics of your language features and your API. You don't care which CPU instructions actually run, because you might not even know what kind of processor your code will run on. What you do care about is whether that string function will run in O(log n) or O(n^3).
I wouldn't recommend Assembly. Most of the "under the hood" things are not the job of the programmer anymore. That's why we have compilers.
If I could choose now, I'd learn Python first, for basic algorithmic programming, followed by C, to get a grip on what's really happening at runtime. After that, you're not dependent on language anymore.
Why do I think C is important, you ask? Read on.
and 500 years is a drop in the evolutionary bucket.
Let me rephrase that: 10 generations of trees.
And of course, isn't it an evolutionary success if something you're protecting yourself against goes extinct?
Actually, the defense mechanism inevitably costs some energy to produce, and imposes design compromises that may affect the other functions of the plant. A mutant without these defenses will certainly have a fitness advantage.
Until the next bird shows up, that is.
However, fitness advantage doesn't mean the other plant is going extinct. It only means the one with the advantage reproduces faster (in fact, that's the only way we can measure it). After millions of years of natural selection, I find it unlikely that any advantage will be big enough to cause a significant difference over such a short time.
despite the fact that GNU/Linux is superior in every possible way,
Ever tried setting up two screens on Linux? It's a major PITA, and you get to choose between Xinerama and 3D acceleration (of course there's no hint about this tiny little fact until you check the X logs).
On Vista it takes at most 10 mouse clicks and 30 seconds, and everything works perfectly.
So far, I've really had nothing to complain about, the new UI aside. I was pretty pissed that there was no classic theme.
I'm still pissed about Vista not having the XP style. That one was much nicer.
Even Starcraft, which is very aged game, worked just fine.
The latest patch is dated Jan 22, 2009. I don't think that makes it "aged".
It's time to stop letting insane left-wingers threaten everybody into living the way they want them to live.
"We have classified them on the imaginary political spectrum, so their arguments are invalid."
Are you implying your right to live as you please is more important than the continued survival of the global ecosystem, and the human race depending on it?
Here's one for ya.
How much are they charging for the research details? Is the RIAA willing to buy out this information? If its from a university then someone is looking for grant money.
I, for one, welcome our new RIAA-cheating overlords.
We developed a new peer authorization protocol (PAP) to distinguish pirates from legitimate clients. Detected pirates will receive poisoned chunks in repeated attempts. A reputation-based mechanism is developed to detect colluders. The system does not slow down legal download from paid clients. The pirates are severely penalized with no chance to download successfully in finite time.
Oh, this cracks me up. Did anyone notice notice how this doesn't mention bittorrent, which AFAIK makes up 90% of the possibly infringing content? Of course, anyone who's seen a torrent client in action knows that clients sending bad data are banned fast.
Now that I think about it, this "researcher" should rank high on the "Best ways to make money and improve your karma" list. He's obviously a better way to drain RIAA money than lawsuits :)
I'm curious though: "Most" implies more than half - have you really verified that more than half of the people on the planet have no moral problem with copying? Or are you just spouting that bullshit to rationalize it?
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/29/0810250
Please read the discussion as well.
Laying down and occasionally carving paths through the mountains for 75,000km of interstate probably sounded daunting, but it got done because there was a perceived need.
It got done eventually. Meanwhile the finished sections were already usable. A space elevator cable that's 1 km too short is useless.