Graphics actually ruins a game when it runs at 3 fps tops. I still prefer AvP2 over Bioshock on my Dell laptop, wanna guess why? And that facehugger that suddenly jumps you from a dark corner could be three polygons, you'd still jump through the ceiling.
Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game.
Case study: Heroes of Might and Magic III vs. Heroes of Might and Magic V: same fundamental gameplay, except 5 was done entirely in 3D. The result? 5 is unplayable on a dual-core Dell laptop, (except with minimal settings in 640x480), and it got harder to recognize objects you can interact with.
I guess a GPS unit is a bit like code generation tools (zomg a backwards car analogy!:P ) in that it's a good tool for experts, but it can hinder the development of expert skills by beginners.
Yup. The law of leaky abstractions. In order to use the higher level tool efficiently, you must be proficient in the lower level foundations.
'Sat-nav feeds into this long-held fear that the cold-blooded modern world is destroying local knowledge, that roads no longer lead to real places but around and through them.'"
Are there still signs on the side? If yes, you have everything you need to get anywhere. (Ok, it doesn't hurt to know the major cities you want to go through.)
But the second, more interesting feature of this malware, the investigator said, is that it creates a direct connection between the infected Microsoft Windows system and the attackers, allowing the bad guys to log in to the victim's bank account using the victim's own Internet connection.
Actually, if you root a *nix box, this part looks kinda trivial.
You are apparently failing to understand the concept of the US Government check and balance system with the division of power. While in general congress has the power to make law, the executive the power to enforce law, and the judicial to judge a case based on law, each branch has the ability to effect the law in different ways.
Congratulations, you fail as well.
Congress makes law, the executive branch execute it, and the police and courts enforce it. Legally binding precedence and the fact that the executive brach can create minor tweaks is merely a performance hack/implementation detail.
At least it should be. Like any optimization, this can backfire as well, as it happened in the case of copyright vs. internet. So now you have a $2M judgement, which could have been appropriate for a book publisher selling books without the consent of the writer, handed out to a single mom downloading some music.
I'm fairly sure the judge duked out whatever he could for the sole reason that she deliberately did whatever she could to BS him. Judges are only people, and people who don't like to be BSed.
That doesn't change the fact that the law allowed him to do this. Oh, and
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.
If the law says the judge can award $80k per violation, while outrageous, there is nothing retarded about a judge doing so. Remember, you don't change laws in court, you change them in Congress.
IMO the judge in question should be shot for total lack of decency, along with those who passed a law awarding a HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES the retail value of the file, of course, but still, it's not the courts' fault if the laws are bad.
"David Ropeik writes at MSNBC that there's a lot more to making a basic firework display than putting a fuel source and an oxidizer together.
I agree. For the real fun, you need something to blow up. Mythbusters isn't popular because the grenades they use produce nice colorful images upon exploding inside that fridge.
I'll take the analogy further: _don't_ look at software. Because this is what patents have done to software:
Patents don't work like that. For any specific task, there is exactly one optimal solution (making different choices about, say, memory use vs. raw speed yields different tasks in this context), and if that solution is patented, you're fucked either way. With copyright, you can't infringe if you can prove you didn't see the code in question.
That's the evil about software patents: they cover ideas, and software is purely about ideas.
'Share and Enjoy' is the company motto of the hugely successful Microsoft Complaints Division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium-sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years. The motto stands-- or rather stood-- in three mile high illuminated letters near the Complaints Department spaceport on Eadrax. Unfortunately its weight was such that shortly after it was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they dropped for nearly half their length through the offices of many talented young Complaints executives-- now deceased. The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read "Go stick your head in a pig," and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
Slashdot Mirror
The better the graphics the easier it is to be immersed in the game.
No, it's gameplay. There's something called willing suspension of disbelief.
Graphics actually ruins a game when it runs at 3 fps tops. I still prefer AvP2 over Bioshock on my Dell laptop, wanna guess why? And that facehugger that suddenly jumps you from a dark corner could be three polygons, you'd still jump through the ceiling.
Graphics can be cool and all, but they shouldn't be the primary reason for any game.
Case study: Heroes of Might and Magic III vs. Heroes of Might and Magic V: same fundamental gameplay, except 5 was done entirely in 3D. The result? 5 is unplayable on a dual-core Dell laptop, (except with minimal settings in 640x480), and it got harder to recognize objects you can interact with.
I guess a GPS unit is a bit like code generation tools (zomg a backwards car analogy! :P ) in that it's a good tool for experts, but it can hinder the development of expert skills by beginners.
Yup. The law of leaky abstractions. In order to use the higher level tool efficiently, you must be proficient in the lower level foundations.
if our satnav breaks we will use google maps on a smart phone.... in the long run its just no big deal.
Except in the UK, The Land Of The One-Way Roads, Where Straight Lines Are Forever Banished.
'Sat-nav feeds into this long-held fear that the cold-blooded modern world is destroying local knowledge, that roads no longer lead to real places but around and through them.'"
Are there still signs on the side? If yes, you have everything you need to get anywhere. (Ok, it doesn't hurt to know the major cities you want to go through.)
if they bothered to anticipate our fifty bajillion core processors back then like any NORMAL person should today, they wouldn't be in this mess!
Processes don't offer more multicore support than threads. What they do offer is clean separation of code that can run independently.
The entire car weighs less than an average American.
Fixed that for you.
Might I suggest he stops calling BitTorrent BT to avoid himself getting confussed?
BitTorrent is way too formal, anyway. Unless we're talking about the protocol itself, it's just torrent.
But the second, more interesting feature of this malware, the investigator said, is that it creates a direct connection between the infected Microsoft Windows system and the attackers, allowing the bad guys to log in to the victim's bank account using the victim's own Internet connection.
Actually, if you root a *nix box, this part looks kinda trivial.
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, "First Post!".
Does anyone know when this science will be taught in universities?
Right after Creationism.
You are apparently failing to understand the concept of the US Government check and balance system with the division of power. While in general congress has the power to make law, the executive the power to enforce law, and the judicial to judge a case based on law, each branch has the ability to effect the law in different ways.
Congratulations, you fail as well.
Congress makes law, the executive branch execute it, and the police and courts enforce it. Legally binding precedence and the fact that the executive brach can create minor tweaks is merely a performance hack/implementation detail.
At least it should be. Like any optimization, this can backfire as well, as it happened in the case of copyright vs. internet. So now you have a $2M judgement, which could have been appropriate for a book publisher selling books without the consent of the writer, handed out to a single mom downloading some music.
I'm fairly sure the judge duked out whatever he could for the sole reason that she deliberately did whatever she could to BS him. Judges are only people, and people who don't like to be BSed.
That doesn't change the fact that the law allowed him to do this. Oh, and
Impartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.
If the law says the judge can award $80k per violation, while outrageous, there is nothing retarded about a judge doing so. Remember, you don't change laws in court, you change them in Congress.
IMO the judge in question should be shot for total lack of decency, along with those who passed a law awarding a HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES the retail value of the file, of course, but still, it's not the courts' fault if the laws are bad.
To be fair, it's not their job. Their job is to force as many people as they can to watch it.
(Hmm, I just noticed that PayPal donation is currently down, which is rather awkward...)
One would hope it's because they got slashdotted with donations.
I completely disagree with sacrificing virgins, so anybody who buys this car is implicitly supporting the destruction of virgins.
Male virgins, yes. Now give me my car!
How do you know he's human? All I see is text on my screen.
And, in fact, you are related because you share a common ancestor, even if it is many generations removed.
Do you know that?
this was (for the time) a lighter alternative to a desktop
Yeah, you actually had a door big enough to fit this through.
Without contrast some things are difficult to perceive. In this scenario, these damages are quite a bit more then the original figure.
Quite a bit? $80 thousand per mp3. She could've produced a new album for each file from that money.
"David Ropeik writes at MSNBC that there's a lot more to making a basic firework display than putting a fuel source and an oxidizer together.
I agree. For the real fun, you need something to blow up. Mythbusters isn't popular because the grenades they use produce nice colorful images upon exploding inside that fridge.
I'll take the analogy further: _don't_ look at software. Because this is what patents have done to software:
Patents don't work like that. For any specific task, there is exactly one optimal solution (making different choices about, say, memory use vs. raw speed yields different tasks in this context), and if that solution is patented, you're fucked either way. With copyright, you can't infringe if you can prove you didn't see the code in question.
That's the evil about software patents: they cover ideas, and software is purely about ideas.
I know a better solution:
'Share and Enjoy' is the company motto of the hugely successful Microsoft Complaints Division, which now covers the major land masses of three medium-sized planets and is the only part of the Corporation to have shown a consistent profit in recent years.
The motto stands-- or rather stood-- in three mile high illuminated letters near the Complaints Department spaceport on Eadrax. Unfortunately its weight was such that shortly after it was erected, the ground beneath the letters caved in and they dropped for nearly half their length through the offices of many talented young Complaints executives-- now deceased.
The protruding upper halves of the letters now appear, in the local language, to read "Go stick your head in a pig," and are no longer illuminated, except at times of special celebration.
Both were part of the same industry (literature and plays)
Why is everything considered "industry" nowadays?