I tried the same thing with another pal a week later, we played for about 60 minutes, I did the same thing, tried to like it and... no - it just didn't click, it wasn't really fun to be honest.
You are right. There are simply lots of better shooters on the PC.
Also the port was awful - forcing you to sign up to Microsoft Windows LIVE service and constantly be online in order to save the game? A single save slot per player profile? A server implementation so buggy, that if the client crashes while saving the game (not unusual) the save is corrupted server side and you have to restart the whole game from scratch? That's awesome.
You didn't miss anything with Pan's Labyrinth. There was no english sound track so if you didn't speak spannish you had to fight the subtitles to understand it.
Fight the subtitles? Is reading that hard? Personally I love subs. You get the original actor voices, and the pleasure of listening to the "music" of a foreign language.
So a non-sequitur post filled with strawman arguments is gut-bustingly funny these days? I must have missed the announcement.
So, are you dismissing environmental threats altogether, or are you trying to say that global warming distracts us from real environmental issues such as the ones depicted in the article, or what are you driving at?
integritetsintrång = invasion of integrity utredningsbegäran = request for official enquiry åsiktsregistrering = (political) view tracking
Ask for the "integritetsintrång" pen holder at your local IKEA!
Jokes aside, I find it interesting that it is the conservative and liberal parties who push for this law (though they are the ones who around elections claim they campaign for freedom and individuality).
One main protest site here, there is also a Google translation here. Oddly, the Google translation has problems with common words such as "integritetsintrång", "utredningsbegäran" and "åsiktsregistrering".:P
That is really amazing. Just when I thought the global warming discussions on Slashdot couldn't get any dumber. I think you deserve some kind of award, but I can't come up with something suitable...
Couldn't be the sun causing GW. Why would anyone even think that the primary source of heat in the solar system would be responsible for warming?
Because we can measure the input from the sun to the earth thanks to satellites etc, and see that we are getting a higher amount of warming than can be explained by increased solar input.
In the Open Source World? 1. Give away software 2. ??? 3. Profit!
Suggestions for step 2 - Charge for education, tailoring for specific customers, continued development.
Perhaps not as many can make a living from it, but not much use complaining, it's like being angry at trees for driving profitable oxygen-factories out of business.
Re:This is how economics is supposed to work!
on
The SUV Is Dethroned
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
This is how economics is supposed to work! Not via regulation or per-category taxes that artificially manipulate, but by consumers adjusting their buying habits as costs change.
But the OPEC countries do a lot of artificial manipulation of oil prices in the first place, so this isn't pure market either.
I think scenestar and tronbradia above debunked the rest of your arguments pretty well.
If you think compiler or parser design is interesting or may conceivably write a domain-specific language for your workplace, the Definitive Antlr Reference is not only a good place to start, but one of the only places to start short of signing up for a university course.
I am currently reading Programming Language Pragmatics. It's pretty good I think, but then, I have nothing to compare with. I'll probably pick up the Antlr book too.
Aside from burning food and assuring increased starvation throughout the world, they are also creating a widening dead zone in the gulf of Mexico thanks to the fertilizer run off. It gets better, it's quite likely their solution is actually accelerating CO2 production. It's time a few people admitted these "climate scientists" should consult real scientists before hatching their cult's crackpot schemes.
I love how you in three sentences managed to move the discussion from food prices to global warming, and then managed to tag three ad-hominems onto the end.:)
One word: Ethanol It's truly frightening that you could write five paragraphs and still overlook the reason for the recent food shortages.
The increasing prosperity and consumtion of the Chinese and Indian middle classes, as well as several years of bad harvest in, for instance, Australia, have contributed a lot more to that.
Ethanol production have added, sure, but when it is reported in many places as the single cause, I can't help but wonder if some of that isn't part of some "quick, here is our chance, lets do a smear job against the environmentalists!" campaign.
The performance of a single benchmark is hardly indicative of a whole platform... you might as well say - "Linux is fast? Go try run Azureus and weep".
JavaFX.com uses JavaScript and QuickTime to promote the benefits of JavaFX. No JVM needed.
It's funny, but it does make sense. a) They are trying to reach the maximum audience, and requiring people to install technology X before they can hear about technology X isn't too smart, that way you will only be preaching to the already converted. b) JavaFX is still in Beta.
Sun has acknowledged that Java is weak on the desktop and are putting massive amounts of resources on making it better. Better hardware acceleration with OpenGL and DirectX, better browser plugins, a new XRender pipeline project, portable GUI backends (last two are Open Source community challenge projects), etc. Unfortunately they have lost a couple of senior developers to Adobe's Flash team (Chet Haase, and Hans Muller who starts at Adobe today) and if that brain drain continues they may be in trouble.
I had been considering buying one to play with until I saw the price. For crying out loud, I can buy quite a few books for $400!
Yes, but manufacturing and distribution of digital books is cheaper, so this should in the long run mean that consumers will see decreased prices for titles just like when we moved from VHS to DVD, or DVD to Bluray!...
BWAHAHAH! Sorry...couldn't keep a straight face any longer.
A far more interesting system would be one which warns *whales* away from *ships*. If someone could come up with a cheap system which, upon detection of a largish ship, transmits the whalian equivalent of "Japanese/Norweigan ship approaching!!! Dive! Dive!", then instead of ridiculous chases across the Southern Ocean environmental activists could simply charter a plane and drop thousands of the things around known whale migratory zones. Make the whole thing solar powered and super-long-lasting, too.
It is a nice idea, but if it worked I think it wouldn't take long for the whalers to deploy millions of clones of the devices. Soon the whales would be desensetized to the warnings and we would be back to square one.
Nah, give the whales torpedo firing cybernetics instead. What could possibly go wrong?
Interpreted code running in an interpreter...that is *also* interpreted! Just think of the speed increase! It would be like using uranium to fuel the space shuttle! Awesome multiplied by awesome.
Of course you always need a low lever layer to go through. But adding another layer to increase performance isn't as outlandish a thought as you might think. JRuby is a virtual machine for Ruby written in Java to run on top of the Java virtual machine... and these days it is generally faster than the Ruby VM written in C.
Slashdot Mirror
I tried the same thing with another pal a week later, we played for about 60 minutes, I did the same thing, tried to like it and... no - it just didn't click, it wasn't really fun to be honest.
You are right. There are simply lots of better shooters on the PC.
Also the port was awful - forcing you to sign up to Microsoft Windows LIVE service and constantly be online in order to save the game? A single save slot per player profile? A server implementation so buggy, that if the client crashes while saving the game (not unusual) the save is corrupted server side and you have to restart the whole game from scratch? That's awesome.
Gears of War 2 console only? No big loss.
Sun has the Darkstar engine which is open source -
http://projectdarkstar.com/
You didn't miss anything with Pan's Labyrinth. There was no english sound track so if you didn't speak spannish you had to fight the subtitles to understand it.
Fight the subtitles? Is reading that hard? Personally I love subs. You get the original actor voices, and the pleasure of listening to the "music" of a foreign language.
As for the story, it sucked.
Did not! :P
So a non-sequitur post filled with strawman arguments is gut-bustingly funny these days? I must have missed the announcement.
So, are you dismissing environmental threats altogether, or are you trying to say that global warming distracts us from real environmental issues such as the ones depicted in the article, or what are you driving at?
Yeah I know! Penn and Teller totally debunked the existence of air pollution on "Bullshit!". People are SO naive.
>Tell us what those words mean!
integritetsintrång = invasion of integrity
utredningsbegäran = request for official enquiry
åsiktsregistrering = (political) view tracking
Ask for the "integritetsintrång" pen holder at your local IKEA!
Jokes aside, I find it interesting that it is the conservative and liberal parties who push for this law (though they are the ones who around elections claim they campaign for freedom and individuality).
One main protest site here, there is also a Google translation here. Oddly, the Google translation has problems with common words such as "integritetsintrång", "utredningsbegäran" and "åsiktsregistrering". :P
That is really amazing. Just when I thought the global warming discussions on Slashdot couldn't get any dumber. I think you deserve some kind of award, but I can't come up with something suitable...
Couldn't be the sun causing GW. Why would anyone even think that the primary source of heat in the solar system would be responsible for warming?
Because we can measure the input from the sun to the earth thanks to satellites etc, and see that we are getting a higher amount of warming than can be explained by increased solar input.
In the Open Source World?
1. Give away software 2. ??? 3. Profit!
Suggestions for step 2 - Charge for education, tailoring for specific customers, continued development.
Perhaps not as many can make a living from it, but not much use complaining, it's like being angry at trees for driving profitable oxygen-factories out of business.
This is how economics is supposed to work! Not via regulation or per-category taxes that artificially manipulate, but by consumers adjusting their buying habits as costs change.
But the OPEC countries do a lot of artificial manipulation of oil prices in the first place, so this isn't pure market either.
I think scenestar and tronbradia above debunked the rest of your arguments pretty well.
Thanks AC, I will check it out. Interesting review by Steve Yegge on Amazon though.
If you think compiler or parser design is interesting or may conceivably write a domain-specific language for your workplace, the Definitive Antlr Reference is not only a good place to start, but one of the only places to start short of signing up for a university course.
I am currently reading Programming Language Pragmatics. It's pretty good I think, but then, I have nothing to compare with. I'll probably pick up the Antlr book too.
Two non-flamebait Java-related stories in a row? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO THE REAL SLASHDOT??
No, but seriously. First Bluray wins and now this. There must be some wailing and gnashing of teeth going on at Redmond now.
Aside from burning food and assuring increased starvation throughout the world, they are also creating a widening dead zone in the gulf of Mexico thanks to the fertilizer run off. It gets better, it's quite likely their solution is actually accelerating CO2 production. It's time a few people admitted these "climate scientists" should consult real scientists before hatching their cult's crackpot schemes.
:)
I love how you in three sentences managed to move the discussion from food prices to global warming, and then managed to tag three ad-hominems onto the end.
One word: Ethanol
It's truly frightening that you could write five paragraphs and still overlook the reason for the recent food shortages.
The increasing prosperity and consumtion of the Chinese and Indian middle classes, as well as several years of bad harvest in, for instance, Australia, have contributed a lot more to that.
Ethanol production have added, sure, but when it is reported in many places as the single cause, I can't help but wonder if some of that isn't part of some "quick, here is our chance, lets do a smear job against the environmentalists!" campaign.
there are no pleasant, responsive desktop Java apps.
Eclipse, Netbeans, IntelliJ... I've used loads.
Java is fast? Go try to run Azureus and weep.
The performance of a single benchmark is hardly indicative of a whole platform... you might as well say - "Linux is fast? Go try run Azureus and weep".
JavaFX.com uses JavaScript and QuickTime to promote the benefits of JavaFX. No JVM needed.
It's funny, but it does make sense.
a) They are trying to reach the maximum audience, and requiring people to install technology X before they can hear about technology X isn't too smart, that way you will only be preaching to the already converted.
b) JavaFX is still in Beta.
Sun has acknowledged that Java is weak on the desktop and are putting massive amounts of resources on making it better. Better hardware acceleration with OpenGL and DirectX, better browser plugins, a new XRender pipeline project, portable GUI backends (last two are Open Source community challenge projects), etc. Unfortunately they have lost a couple of senior developers to Adobe's Flash team (Chet Haase, and Hans Muller who starts at Adobe today) and if that brain drain continues they may be in trouble.
I had been considering buying one to play with until I saw the price. For crying out loud, I can buy quite a few books for $400!
...
Yes, but manufacturing and distribution of digital books is cheaper, so this should in the long run mean that consumers will see decreased prices for titles just like when we moved from VHS to DVD, or DVD to Bluray!
BWAHAHAH! Sorry...couldn't keep a straight face any longer.
especially with the hot debate over whether or not it hinders people's musical instruction."
:)
No matter the outcome of THAT debate, I think no one can dispute that this upcoming game teaches people to play for real. I'm going to get it.
A far more interesting system would be one which warns *whales* away from *ships*. If someone could come up with a cheap system which, upon detection of a largish ship, transmits the whalian equivalent of "Japanese/Norweigan ship approaching!!! Dive! Dive!", then instead of ridiculous chases across the Southern Ocean environmental activists could simply charter a plane and drop thousands of the things around known whale migratory zones. Make the whole thing solar powered and super-long-lasting, too.
It is a nice idea, but if it worked I think it wouldn't take long for the whalers to deploy millions of clones of the devices. Soon the whales would be desensetized to the warnings and we would be back to square one.
Nah, give the whales torpedo firing cybernetics instead. What could possibly go wrong?
If it's anything like Pan's Labyrinth, it'll be worth watching -- del Toro isn't bad.
Seconded... I can also recommend Espinazo del Diablo (the Devil's Backbone). Don't read about the plot beforehand, that will spoil too much. Just watch it.
All these other languages mentioned (Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl, etc) do not compile to native code, and all do dynamic memory management.
Er, java DOES compile to native at runtime.
But unfortunately they're not so good for real-time tasks.
They can be. For instance, the Real-Time Java dialect of Java was recently picked to run the Eglin Space Surveillance Radar.
Interpreted code running in an interpreter...that is *also* interpreted! Just think of the speed increase! It would be like using uranium to fuel the space shuttle! Awesome multiplied by awesome.
Of course you always need a low lever layer to go through. But adding another layer to increase performance isn't as outlandish a thought as you might think. JRuby is a virtual machine for Ruby written in Java to run on top of the Java virtual machine... and these days it is generally faster than the Ruby VM written in C.