Wrong definition of art. That is art as a skill, e.g. John Carmacks programming is highly skilled and therefore he is worthy of being refered to as a master of the art of programming. It isnt art in the same sense that a piece of music is art.
It is also clearly not the definition Ebert is using as I am quite certain the man isnt stupid enough to believe programming top grade games is something that comes easy.
The act of playing a game _is_ the game! Thats its entire purpose, its what games are judged on, its why people buy them.
If you happen to play it in such a way as to produce something artistic that doesn't make the underlying game art anymore than a painters picture would make the paintcans he used art.
'And if the story is only ONE element of the game,:. the game is art'
Playing catch is not art. Even when your playing it with a copy of a midsummer night's dream, on a scenic embankment, at sunset, while listening to mozart, and wearing the latest fashion range from the worlds best designers.
'He makes it sound as if this comment describing how a specific file structure of the file system works as some sort of "secret confession" hidden there for the unscrupulous researcher. Joshua Davis, please turn in your geek badge!'
Um not really, it sounds and is just a poignant thing to say. After you have reeled through all that complex code (The complex story.) before you have finished (Before the guilty person has been identified.) there is a line that is appropriate both to his code and this tragedy.
Rather fitting. Isnt it?
Reading through the article there was no assumption or speculation in it. It was a well written list of the events that have occured up to now, finishing with the questions still left unanswered. A facinating, bizzare and chilling read.
'Apart from being the best standard compliant browser, Opera 9.5 will also display even more webpages with bad coding.'
Seems to indicate that its improving in both directions, though as an Opera user it is already very rare for me to need IE for sites. (Usually only happens with convoluted crappy menu systems.)
I'm amazed at how many people are protecting this current joke of a browser. Its not just got less features, its not just different to firefox, its not just beta issues, its a mess. Even the simplist things don't render well in it, (Check the register for more info.) it crashes constantly, its got more security holes than unpatched IE, and it ignores all of the O/Ss GUI conventions. This is supposed to be a beta yet it can not accomplish things that were stable in Opera, IE and Firefox alpha versions.
There is very little to defend here, its _not_ just made for developers, it _is_ a pile of crap, and they need to do a _lot_ more than your normal beta work to make it a viable competitor.
Also contrary to what some posts are saying I am not particularly annoyed or dissapointed by this and I do hope it will improve considerably, its free and competition is good, it just isnt showing any signs of presenting any.
I have to agree, you can minimise issues by making it clear that the ammo and such are helpful but not essential. There should always be a way around every problem regardless of how equipped you are.
Though ultimately things like that are difficult to balance and lead to similar effects to the one you mention. I prefer it when a situation calls for thought despite being well armed and equipped. Big Daddies being hard enough that they can take you down even if you are pumping non stop shots in to it. Only by using your also fairly unlimited powers (That like your non stop shots are not enough alone.) to manipulate the environment in intelligent ways can it be stopped.
I enjoy thinking and working out puzzles but by restricting resources its not so much intelligent thought as frustration as you try to get by a part using no resources only to find that its actually impossible after multiple reloads. (Reloading being a thing I despise, saving should be a convenience not a game mechanic.)
The guy used the Mac as the benchmark then suped up the PC laptop to beat it before considering its price.
I just priced up a PC laptop on Dell that meets every bit of his Mac spec except for the CPU which is a handful of Mhz slower. If his price for the Mac is 2809 the Dell PC comes in at over 1000 dollars cheaper. Which is more than comparable to the 650 dollar difference of taking the Mac as a benchmark.
Ultimately prices dont compare well because the Macs and PCs are out of sync in their ranges. (Probably on purpose.) Given the price discrepancies I found it would appear PCs are slightly better off but then they also have slightly lower build quality, youd probably do just as well either way depending on what you want. Which is pretty much what you'd expect.
I will, however, point to and agree with his last 'Get involved with the cost analysis' section. Someone may find different better prices and at the end of the day you should always take in every option and make your own judgements.
It is _not_ impossible to cheat, you can modify ini files to do it.*
I know that PGR3 and Gears of War being hacked in such a way its quite possible there are many more games. Now this still may just be an excuse from MS though quite frankly they dont really need one, virtually the only other purpose of a modchip is piracy.
Either way cheating _is_ possible it _has_ been done and banning the modders _will_ stop it regardless of why you really think they have started the bannings.
*There may be other files you can use as well I cant say ive looked in to it much which is why im amazed at how many people claim to be knowledgable about these things yet seem to have missed the fact that there have been super supercars in PGR3 for months.
'A vast majority of the systems of "high importance" are *nix boxes.'
'high importance' systems are the torrents of home users to be fed a stream of spam, adware, spyware and bots to manipulate and control the mass of computers for any particular goal.
Few people break in to bank servers (Many of which are running Windows anyway...) when they do they'll almost certainly have used a computer way down the line to get the information they need to do it. There are undoubtedly thousands of computers out there with all the important bank details in a nice little text file. Hell ID theft is one of the biggest growing crimes out there and you don't need to crack a major server to do it.
Important security systems are solid regardless of what you put on them. Even with Windows a bank is simply not a viable target for virtually anyone. The people being targeted are the millions of users with little bits of useful information or a nice unprotected system to wield as a weapon.
If you think banks are the big targets online then perhaps you take a look at just how much malware, addware, spyware there is and keep in mind while you're doing that that non of it is capable or even built for breaking through a banks security.
First section, fairly accurate really. Linux is always talked about as one great thing, it isnt. Some are god awful, some are dedicated to a single task, some are home user friendly, others are command line. Just as he says this pretty much makes Linux perfect at everything, even though that is often far far from the truth because there is no single Linux platform that will accomplish all of the jobs a particular person requires.
He is right the comparisons are often deeply flawed because they do not compare Ubuntu to Windows or Red Hat to OSX they compare Linux or sometimes even just *nix to the competition. You might as well compare the traits of one person to the best selection of traits from a thousand other people. That one person is going to feel pretty awful after that.
This isnt just a bash on Linux because he is also right that there are distributions that can stand up to some real comparisons, its just more often than not they never get the chance.
Second section. Starts off well his previous point stands and its all too true that if someone doesnt know what they are doing you will always be running things insecurely regardless of which O/S your using. He does go a little astray here but there is still an important point, in an open community where people are expected to get help from the army of other users (This is often touted as a benefit of using Linux, and usually thats very true.) maintaining decent security is going to become a mine field. Its a little paranoid, its probably not a common occurence but there is a risk. Though I think the whole thing can be summed up in saying that net security is only as good as those securing it.
Third section. Again pretty much spot on, the community behind Linux has produced some awesome stuff but it is impossible to ignore the infighting that is going on nearly constantly. The GPL3 being an excellent example of this. He quite clearly isnt saying that the community is wrong and it should be disbanded his last statements want the users of Linux to actually get more involved. Id expect people to be supporting this much. There are some distinctly anti community events going on and that is what this section is pointing too.
Fourth section. The money Linux makes is undoubtedly fairly small. Ive seen a lot of people argue about how open source can make money, thats probably true but its rare. Very rare. Red Hat is one of the largest open source companies ever yet you scale it up, or scale MS down and youll see a huge difference in profits. There is simply no way you can take such a slash in profits without that having a knock on effect to the employees.
Im no financial expert and I dont have enough figures but a lot of even this section appears to make sense.
Fifth section, and here is the prophesy. I know this guy has a sketchy past with these articles, I know that there are flaws even here, but by in large he makes some really good points. You would not know this from the endless insults and put downs streaming out of this thread. Ive no doubt that everything he has said about those who are even more extreme is true as well. Linux has become like some kind of religion to some people and it virges on being genuinly frightening at times.
Hes proven it right here. There must be about a half dozen comments on this thread that have actually attempted to discuss his points, or citisize them properly. Most are more content to just slag him off, or quote obscure parts and strawman him. No one, no matter what there opinion, deserves some of the harrasment these people have to endure.
Ill probably have annoyed some people just posting this, and in case they have been annoyed then try take a moment and remember. Its just an operating system, this is just an opinion, relax.
You've presented no science just a few anecodotes, most of which are nearly entirely unrelated. Im willing to bet there is very little science to suggest this. Take a look at the murderers, criminals, even this child. How many of them come from happy families? How many of them have had trouble free lives? The letter was from his, vaguely described as a, step parent who hated him.*
How could you possibly be born 'bad'. How can a baby be born bad when it cant even comprehend the difference between right and wrong until it is taught.
This absurd belief in some kind of fate for new born kids is what leads to parents absolving themselves of all responsibilty when they have fucked up their own children through their own stupidity.
We are products of our upbringing and the society around us. You might be able to pin trends in personalities to genetics, even if happy people were physiologically different there is no reason in the wrong hands they couldnt just be a happy murderer, but you cant pin specific murderous acts. No science im aware of says different. (and people getting hit on the head isnt even remotely close to this situation.)
'After the kid was sentenced, all the cops, counselors, social workers, and people at the school that had been dealing with him contacted us and his mother and apologized for not taking us seriously.'
Doesn't that sound somewhat more responsible for this than some unproven nature over nuture. (and I dont buy the older brother bit either, I am considerably more... wild than my brother. Born like that? Nope, he just had to grow up faster to look after me.)
No one is a lost cause, indeed the very idea of that is utterly repellant to me. (and no doubt anyone else with a child who has hope for their future.) If no one is a lost cause then someone else somewhere along the line screwed up, its that screw up people should be looking for rather than blaming everything on nature. (Whos influence in this is unknown and largely irrelevant.)
*I certainly do not blame her, from the sounds of things the damage was already done long before she got involved but its not like shes going to write a letter saying 'yeah my lover fucked his kid up, and we did nothing to help, ahh well...'
Thats largely irrelevant, whatever I think doesn't change the underlying rules. Now you can still claim thats a thought, that its all just thoughts but ultimately your not going to run in to a motorway and survive because your willing the vehicles not to kill you. The cold metal smashing your fragile body. Thats reality, your thoughts are just the way your brain is interpreting it. Not the way your brain is defining it.
As I mentioned before though, nothing I say could match Descartes.
'thought interference shows up' There is _no_ current proof that our will manipulates quantum events and indeed there are experiments suggesting otherwise. I await your evidence of this thought interference.
'thought does in fact influence physical reality' Um not even close to that extent. It influences the pulses from your brain that manipulate your body. You body is what influences your physical reality, not thought. To leap from the idea that because your body can manipulate reality according to your thoughts then your thoughts can do the same directly is completely illogical. Its like saying because I can make a car that can take me at 100mph I must be able to run at 100mph as well...
Reality is not based on thought it is based on physical rules that we can all percieve. Your actions and even your attitude can help you alter what happens but ultimately you have to do something physical to manipulate the physical. You can read Descartes for a philisophical view on the subject. Otherwise you will require some scientific proof to back your thought based idea up. As it runs contrary to all science, make that some hefty proof, and please dont use faith based logic. (Im well aware that your belief is self affirming, the less you believe the less it will occur and vice versa...) Im not going to dispute a belief system. You brought physics in to this, you should use physics to back it up.
Incidentally, the US government has done a lot of research with more than just hallucenogenics. All of it has been inconclusive and ultimately shut down due to poor results and wasted money.
I doubt you will be able to find fault with the review. Perhaps the book is just flawed rather than there being rampant 'idiocy' in the world...
Your optimism about these effects is admirable, but if it starts leading to you making sweeping statements about the intelligence level on this world its going to make you look like a self superior, deluded, idiot, yourself.
Open mindedness runs both ways, dont close your mind to the idea that its you, and Dean Radin, that is wrong. Likewise dont accuse the world of being idiotic when its quite possible there is nothing to figure out and you are the 'idiot'.
My M3 has an ebook section on its menu, not actually used it but I assume all you need comes with the M3 package. I know it also has music, movies etc and the encoders required to put them on. So Id assume the same for ebooks.
'I don't like articles like this when they ignore product releases, because it's not in their region.'
The article is written specifically about how well the PSP is doing in Europe and the import market simply isnt a major factor in the grand scheme of things. A tiny, tiny fraction of people rely on importing hardware and such to improve there gaming. (Especially with Sony making it very clear that they are not fond of that habit.) Not to mention that its questionable whether you could even take that in to account given the money is going out of Europe.
It really isnt unreasonable to ignore what is going on in the Japanese market when you could release just about anything over there and it would have a neglagable to non existent effect over here. Its also not too far of a stretch to consider things over there to be vaporware for here. (Even though I dont believe the article actually said vaporware.) More than few items have come out in Japan and gotten no further.
Got emulators. Got them for just about every console you can think of. Have quite literally tens of thousands of games. Played on about 10 of them for a fairly short period of time and that was only when we had hooked an X-Box in to a jamma cabinet.
Getting every game in existence usually means you play none of them. On the other hand my megadrive stack (MegaCD, megadrive, master system adaptor.) has us playing while drinking, chatting and generally relaxing.
Why this is is probably for various reasons. Easier to pick out games when you only have a shelf of specially bought ones. My friend likes the fact that he has a collection of games that he was once denied due to being too young to come close to affording them. Far more tactile having all the original controllers. Aesthetically pleasing to see your systems all set up (I have megaCD1 and its about the meanest looking console you can get.) etc. etc.
Emulators are good for a tinker, I could imagine being fantastically pleased if you were writing one, but ultimately playing them, at least in this house, is completely unsatisfying.
Which is probably why we have, SNES, Megadrive, MegaCD, Mastersystem (In three different forms), Gamegear, CD32 (My particular favorite.), Spectrum, Dreamcast, Original Gameboy (If only for the original and best Nintendo Tetris.), Jamma cabinet, all set up to play at a moments notice. Every bit of it, well worth the cash.
'But CD32 was released at the time when the only CD console was the PC Engine!' and the mega CD, the CDi and PC CD-ROM drives were rapidly on the rise.
' backwards compatibility with A1200 and A600 was not an advantage, because Amiga games required a keyboard and mouse.' both of which you can plug in to a CD32.
and you claim I should check my facts...
Im not trying to be nasty here but you are wrong, and it was nonsense.
Thats nonsense. The CD32 outsold and outpowered every CD based console of the time, even the CD drives being included with PC's. It had the ability to attach mouse and keyboard, expand with various drives including a hard drive and even had A1200 backwards compatibility for a huge library of games. This was before Sony and Microsoft even thought about doing similar things.
Commodore were collapsing before the CD32 hit the market. (One of the biggest reasons it failed in America was because they couldn't bring new units in due to previous fines.) It failed to revitalise a dying company, in itself however, it was far from a failure.
(If you had said CDTV you may have had a point but even that was probably to ahead of its time to be considered an out and out failure. A computer acting as a multimedia hub in your lounge. Hmm sounds familiar... Unfortunately shoddy design decisions killed it.)
There is a seperate record for consecutive series which SG1 is winning.
There are 723 episodes of Doctor who in comparison to a couple of hundred SG1 episodes. In every concievable way Dr Who is the longest running series. Even if you discounted the two recent Seasons of it. Though really, every series morphs with time to some extent. However, the Doctor is still the same character, existing in the same universe, with the same enemies, the same TARDIS, the same camp quirkyness, the same relationships with companions. Its all still very much Doctor Who.
Yes it is the same series. Yes it is the longest running.
That would be true if Quake hadnt already done it and had a cracking single player game to boot.
Quake3 was pretty, but underneath the graphics it was essentially just multiplayer Quake with slightly different (Slightly better or worse depending on who you talk to.) weapons.
Though personally my favorite has always been Quake2, Quake remains the pinnacle of fast paced FPS.
'Unlike today's software-based approaches (e.g., A*), the Intia's pathfinding uses no heuristics, thereby guaranteeing that the optimal path will always be found.' That doesnt make any sense. A* guarantees an optimal path _because_ it uses heuristics. A* may not be the greatest algorithm computationally but it will always find the best path. (Its admissable)
'This optimality also means that the Intia processor avoids the common pitfalls of A*, including failures to find a path when one exists,' That isnt right either. If there is a path and it is the best path thats the path A* will return.
Whats more, A* is horribly out dated and should be fairly well modified to make it real time. (RTA*) Now I have written, and I wouldnt be even remotely surprised if this was a case for some commercial games, a real time A* program that simply re-tests the A* path each turn. (Horribly, horribly, inefficient.) This is what the article implies is going on and it just shouldnt be happening. We should have progressed enough with AI to implement a proper real time pathfinding algorithm.
'Most importantly, this very significant speed increase gives the Intia processor the adaptability to support large, dynamically changing maps.' Once again a real time algorithm should be able to deal with any dynamic map behaviour and the size of map shouldnt be an issue with some decent discretizing. (Discretizing, which will be essential otherwise youd flood the memory no matter how fast your AI can be processed especially without heuristics.)
'such as the need to find a path that passes through certain locations (e.g., hiding points, enemy positions). ' Just apply the right costs to the nodes in an A* algorithm (Which you can do in real time.), itll do the same thing.
'Sensory information' Now we're getting somewhere. Line of sight tests on that quantity of agents in such a short time is fairly good going and quite helpful.
There are once again software tricks to get around this fairly effectively by simply passing information to the agents that they shouldnt really have, but they can lead to problems such as enemies spotting you through several layers of brick wall.
'Terrain Analysis' As pointed out previously dynamic terrain analysis can be done using RTA* algorithms with very little problem. It shouldnt have a major impact on the processing because its not changing the AI its changing the world. (Which has to be updated constantly anyway.)
The reason NPC's get stuck on walls in games isnt because of A* its because of bad AI. From what they say on there site they arnt really going for making AI any better. Just doing what we already should and could be doing already.
Their insistence on not using heuristics is mystifying. Nearly every AI problem in existence needs good heuristics else it will chew through gigabytes of memory and hours of processor time to complete its task.
Just as an example. The number of moves in chess without heuristics in the first turn is 2048. With heuristics its 40.
Not to mention that throughout the article they seem to link heuristics to inadmisable algorithms which is nonsense.
It has been a while since ive done AI so someone may well prove me wrong, but from what I can see this chip just seems to use the same old algorithms to produce good AI through brute force instead of intelligent design.
This isnt like physics. If you simulate one brick falling and want to simulate 2 you double the power, simulate 3 triple it, easy. In the field of AI. That isnt going to cut it, the problems scale up in memory and processor requirements exponentially this kind of thing is only delaying the inevatable. AI _needs_ more research not more power.
Slashdot Mirror
'Playing or singing can be considered art'
Wrong definition of art. That is art as a skill, e.g. John Carmacks programming is highly skilled and therefore he is worthy of being refered to as a master of the art of programming. It isnt art in the same sense that a piece of music is art.
It is also clearly not the definition Ebert is using as I am quite certain the man isnt stupid enough to believe programming top grade games is something that comes easy.
The act of playing a game _is_ the game! Thats its entire purpose, its what games are judged on, its why people buy them.
If you happen to play it in such a way as to produce something artistic that doesn't make the underlying game art anymore than a painters picture would make the paintcans he used art.
'And if the story is only ONE element of the game, :. the game is art'
Playing catch is not art. Even when your playing it with a copy of a midsummer night's dream, on a scenic embankment, at sunset, while listening to mozart, and wearing the latest fashion range from the worlds best designers.
'He makes it sound as if this comment describing how a specific file structure of the file system works as some sort of "secret confession" hidden there for the unscrupulous researcher. Joshua Davis, please turn in your geek badge!'
Um not really, it sounds and is just a poignant thing to say. After you have reeled through all that complex code (The complex story.) before you have finished (Before the guilty person has been identified.) there is a line that is appropriate both to his code and this tragedy.
Rather fitting. Isnt it?
Reading through the article there was no assumption or speculation in it. It was a well written list of the events that have occured up to now, finishing with the questions still left unanswered. A facinating, bizzare and chilling read.
'Apart from being the best standard compliant browser, Opera 9.5 will also display even more webpages with bad coding.'
Seems to indicate that its improving in both directions, though as an Opera user it is already very rare for me to need IE for sites. (Usually only happens with convoluted crappy menu systems.)
'Does anyone expect the submitter think Apple's plan is for Safari to become the dominant browser on Windows?'w ser_war_safari_firefox/
Um, the CEO of Apple...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/12/apple_bro
I'm amazed at how many people are protecting this current joke of a browser.
Its not just got less features, its not just different to firefox, its not just beta issues, its a mess. Even the simplist things don't render well in it, (Check the register for more info.) it crashes constantly, its got more security holes than unpatched IE, and it ignores all of the O/Ss GUI conventions. This is supposed to be a beta yet it can not accomplish things that were stable in Opera, IE and Firefox alpha versions.
There is very little to defend here, its _not_ just made for developers, it _is_ a pile of crap, and they need to do a _lot_ more than your normal beta work to make it a viable competitor.
Also contrary to what some posts are saying I am not particularly annoyed or dissapointed by this and I do hope it will improve considerably, its free and competition is good, it just isnt showing any signs of presenting any.
I have to agree, you can minimise issues by making it clear that the ammo and such are helpful but not essential. There should always be a way around every problem regardless of how equipped you are.
Though ultimately things like that are difficult to balance and lead to similar effects to the one you mention. I prefer it when a situation calls for thought despite being well armed and equipped. Big Daddies being hard enough that they can take you down even if you are pumping non stop shots in to it. Only by using your also fairly unlimited powers (That like your non stop shots are not enough alone.) to manipulate the environment in intelligent ways can it be stopped.
I enjoy thinking and working out puzzles but by restricting resources its not so much intelligent thought as frustration as you try to get by a part using no resources only to find that its actually impossible after multiple reloads. (Reloading being a thing I despise, saving should be a convenience not a game mechanic.)
The guy used the Mac as the benchmark then suped up the PC laptop to beat it before considering its price.
I just priced up a PC laptop on Dell that meets every bit of his Mac spec except for the CPU which is a handful of Mhz slower. If his price for the Mac is 2809 the Dell PC comes in at over 1000 dollars cheaper. Which is more than comparable to the 650 dollar difference of taking the Mac as a benchmark.
Ultimately prices dont compare well because the Macs and PCs are out of sync in their ranges. (Probably on purpose.) Given the price discrepancies I found it would appear PCs are slightly better off but then they also have slightly lower build quality, youd probably do just as well either way depending on what you want. Which is pretty much what you'd expect.
I will, however, point to and agree with his last 'Get involved with the cost analysis' section. Someone may find different better prices and at the end of the day you should always take in every option and make your own judgements.
It is _not_ impossible to cheat, you can modify ini files to do it.*
I know that PGR3 and Gears of War being hacked in such a way its quite possible there are many more games.
Now this still may just be an excuse from MS though quite frankly they dont really need one, virtually the only other purpose of a modchip is piracy.
Either way cheating _is_ possible it _has_ been done and banning the modders _will_ stop it regardless of why you really think they have started the bannings.
*There may be other files you can use as well I cant say ive looked in to it much which is why im amazed at how many people claim to be knowledgable about these things yet seem to have missed the fact that there have been super supercars in PGR3 for months.
'A vast majority of the systems of "high importance" are *nix boxes.'
'high importance' systems are the torrents of home users to be fed a stream of spam, adware, spyware and bots to manipulate and control the mass of computers for any particular goal.
Few people break in to bank servers (Many of which are running Windows anyway...) when they do they'll almost certainly have used a computer way down the line to get the information they need to do it. There are undoubtedly thousands of computers out there with all the important bank details in a nice little text file. Hell ID theft is one of the biggest growing crimes out there and you don't need to crack a major server to do it.
Important security systems are solid regardless of what you put on them. Even with Windows a bank is simply not a viable target for virtually anyone. The people being targeted are the millions of users with little bits of useful information or a nice unprotected system to wield as a weapon.
If you think banks are the big targets online then perhaps you take a look at just how much malware, addware, spyware there is and keep in mind while you're doing that that non of it is capable or even built for breaking through a banks security.
First section, fairly accurate really. Linux is always talked about as one great thing, it isnt. Some are god awful, some are dedicated to a single task, some are home user friendly, others are command line. Just as he says this pretty much makes Linux perfect at everything, even though that is often far far from the truth because there is no single Linux platform that will accomplish all of the jobs a particular person requires.
He is right the comparisons are often deeply flawed because they do not compare Ubuntu to Windows or Red Hat to OSX they compare Linux or sometimes even just *nix to the competition. You might as well compare the traits of one person to the best selection of traits from a thousand other people. That one person is going to feel pretty awful after that.
This isnt just a bash on Linux because he is also right that there are distributions that can stand up to some real comparisons, its just more often than not they never get the chance.
Second section. Starts off well his previous point stands and its all too true that if someone doesnt know what they are doing you will always be running things insecurely regardless of which O/S your using. He does go a little astray here but there is still an important point, in an open community where people are expected to get help from the army of other users (This is often touted as a benefit of using Linux, and usually thats very true.) maintaining decent security is going to become a mine field. Its a little paranoid, its probably not a common occurence but there is a risk. Though I think the whole thing can be summed up in saying that net security is only as good as those securing it.
Third section. Again pretty much spot on, the community behind Linux has produced some awesome stuff but it is impossible to ignore the infighting that is going on nearly constantly. The GPL3 being an excellent example of this. He quite clearly isnt saying that the community is wrong and it should be disbanded his last statements want the users of Linux to actually get more involved. Id expect people to be supporting this much. There are some distinctly anti community events going on and that is what this section is pointing too.
Fourth section. The money Linux makes is undoubtedly fairly small. Ive seen a lot of people argue about how open source can make money, thats probably true but its rare. Very rare. Red Hat is one of the largest open source companies ever yet you scale it up, or scale MS down and youll see a huge difference in profits. There is simply no way you can take such a slash in profits without that having a knock on effect to the employees.
Im no financial expert and I dont have enough figures but a lot of even this section appears to make sense.
Fifth section, and here is the prophesy. I know this guy has a sketchy past with these articles, I know that there are flaws even here, but by in large he makes some really good points. You would not know this from the endless insults and put downs streaming out of this thread. Ive no doubt that everything he has said about those who are even more extreme is true as well. Linux has become like some kind of religion to some people and it virges on being genuinly frightening at times.
Hes proven it right here. There must be about a half dozen comments on this thread that have actually attempted to discuss his points, or citisize them properly. Most are more content to just slag him off, or quote obscure parts and strawman him. No one, no matter what there opinion, deserves some of the harrasment these people have to endure.
Ill probably have annoyed some people just posting this, and in case they have been annoyed then try take a moment and remember. Its just an operating system, this is just an opinion, relax.
All of science...
You've presented no science just a few anecodotes, most of which are nearly entirely unrelated. Im willing to bet there is very little science to suggest this. Take a look at the murderers, criminals, even this child. How many of them come from happy families? How many of them have had trouble free lives? The letter was from his, vaguely described as a, step parent who hated him.*
How could you possibly be born 'bad'. How can a baby be born bad when it cant even comprehend the difference between right and wrong until it is taught.
This absurd belief in some kind of fate for new born kids is what leads to parents absolving themselves of all responsibilty when they have fucked up their own children through their own stupidity.
We are products of our upbringing and the society around us. You might be able to pin trends in personalities to genetics, even if happy people were physiologically different there is no reason in the wrong hands they couldnt just be a happy murderer, but you cant pin specific murderous acts. No science im aware of says different. (and people getting hit on the head isnt even remotely close to this situation.)
'After the kid was sentenced, all the cops, counselors, social workers, and people at the school that had been dealing with him contacted us and his mother and apologized for not taking us seriously.'
Doesn't that sound somewhat more responsible for this than some unproven nature over nuture. (and I dont buy the older brother bit either, I am considerably more... wild than my brother. Born like that? Nope, he just had to grow up faster to look after me.)
No one is a lost cause, indeed the very idea of that is utterly repellant to me. (and no doubt anyone else with a child who has hope for their future.) If no one is a lost cause then someone else somewhere along the line screwed up, its that screw up people should be looking for rather than blaming everything on nature. (Whos influence in this is unknown and largely irrelevant.)
*I certainly do not blame her, from the sounds of things the damage was already done long before she got involved but its not like shes going to write a letter saying 'yeah my lover fucked his kid up, and we did nothing to help, ahh well...'
Thats largely irrelevant, whatever I think doesn't change the underlying rules. Now you can still claim thats a thought, that its all just thoughts but ultimately your not going to run in to a motorway and survive because your willing the vehicles not to kill you. The cold metal smashing your fragile body. Thats reality, your thoughts are just the way your brain is interpreting it. Not the way your brain is defining it.
As I mentioned before though, nothing I say could match Descartes.
'thought interference shows up'
There is _no_ current proof that our will manipulates quantum events and indeed there are experiments suggesting otherwise. I await your evidence of this thought interference.
'thought does in fact influence physical reality'
Um not even close to that extent. It influences the pulses from your brain that manipulate your body. You body is what influences your physical reality, not thought. To leap from the idea that because your body can manipulate reality according to your thoughts then your thoughts can do the same directly is completely illogical. Its like saying because I can make a car that can take me at 100mph I must be able to run at 100mph as well...
Reality is not based on thought it is based on physical rules that we can all percieve. Your actions and even your attitude can help you alter what happens but ultimately you have to do something physical to manipulate the physical. You can read Descartes for a philisophical view on the subject. Otherwise you will require some scientific proof to back your thought based idea up. As it runs contrary to all science, make that some hefty proof, and please dont use faith based logic. (Im well aware that your belief is self affirming, the less you believe the less it will occur and vice versa...) Im not going to dispute a belief system. You brought physics in to this, you should use physics to back it up.
Incidentally, the US government has done a lot of research with more than just hallucenogenics. All of it has been inconclusive and ultimately shut down due to poor results and wasted money.
http://www.skepticreport.com/pseudoscience/radinbo ok.htm
I doubt you will be able to find fault with the review. Perhaps the book is just flawed rather than there being rampant 'idiocy' in the world...
Your optimism about these effects is admirable, but if it starts leading to you making sweeping statements about the intelligence level on this world its going to make you look like a self superior, deluded, idiot, yourself.
Open mindedness runs both ways, dont close your mind to the idea that its you, and Dean Radin, that is wrong. Likewise dont accuse the world of being idiotic when its quite possible there is nothing to figure out and you are the 'idiot'.
My M3 has an ebook section on its menu, not actually used it but I assume all you need comes with the M3 package. I know it also has music, movies etc and the encoders required to put them on. So Id assume the same for ebooks.
'I don't like articles like this when they ignore product releases, because it's not in their region.'
The article is written specifically about how well the PSP is doing in Europe and the import market simply isnt a major factor in the grand scheme of things. A tiny, tiny fraction of people rely on importing hardware and such to improve there gaming. (Especially with Sony making it very clear that they are not fond of that habit.) Not to mention that its questionable whether you could even take that in to account given the money is going out of Europe.
It really isnt unreasonable to ignore what is going on in the Japanese market when you could release just about anything over there and it would have a neglagable to non existent effect over here. Its also not too far of a stretch to consider things over there to be vaporware for here. (Even though I dont believe the article actually said vaporware.) More than few items have come out in Japan and gotten no further.
Got emulators. Got them for just about every console you can think of. Have quite literally tens of thousands of games.
Played on about 10 of them for a fairly short period of time and that was only when we had hooked an X-Box in to a jamma cabinet.
Getting every game in existence usually means you play none of them. On the other hand my megadrive stack (MegaCD, megadrive, master system adaptor.) has us playing while drinking, chatting and generally relaxing.
Why this is is probably for various reasons. Easier to pick out games when you only have a shelf of specially bought ones. My friend likes the fact that he has a collection of games that he was once denied due to being too young to come close to affording them. Far more tactile having all the original controllers. Aesthetically pleasing to see your systems all set up (I have megaCD1 and its about the meanest looking console you can get.) etc. etc.
Emulators are good for a tinker, I could imagine being fantastically pleased if you were writing one, but ultimately playing them, at least in this house, is completely unsatisfying.
Which is probably why we have, SNES, Megadrive, MegaCD, Mastersystem (In three different forms), Gamegear, CD32 (My particular favorite.), Spectrum, Dreamcast, Original Gameboy (If only for the original and best Nintendo Tetris.), Jamma cabinet, all set up to play at a moments notice. Every bit of it, well worth the cash.
'But CD32 was released at the time when the only CD console was the PC Engine!'
and the mega CD, the CDi and PC CD-ROM drives were rapidly on the rise.
' backwards compatibility with A1200 and A600 was not an advantage, because Amiga games required a keyboard and mouse.'
both of which you can plug in to a CD32.
and you claim I should check my facts...
Im not trying to be nasty here but you are wrong, and it was nonsense.
Thats nonsense. The CD32 outsold and outpowered every CD based console of the time, even the CD drives being included with PC's. It had the ability to attach mouse and keyboard, expand with various drives including a hard drive and even had A1200 backwards compatibility for a huge library of games. This was before Sony and Microsoft even thought about doing similar things.
Commodore were collapsing before the CD32 hit the market. (One of the biggest reasons it failed in America was because they couldn't bring new units in due to previous fines.) It failed to revitalise a dying company, in itself however, it was far from a failure.
(If you had said CDTV you may have had a point but even that was probably to ahead of its time to be considered an out and out failure. A computer acting as a multimedia hub in your lounge. Hmm sounds familiar... Unfortunately shoddy design decisions killed it.)
Opera is more compliant with the web standards than either Firefox or IE.
If your tables arnt being displayed correctly its very likely because the tables are wrong, not Opera.
There is a seperate record for consecutive series which SG1 is winning.
There are 723 episodes of Doctor who in comparison to a couple of hundred SG1 episodes. In every concievable way Dr Who is the longest running series. Even if you discounted the two recent Seasons of it. Though really, every series morphs with time to some extent. However, the Doctor is still the same character, existing in the same universe, with the same enemies, the same TARDIS, the same camp quirkyness, the same relationships with companions. Its all still very much Doctor Who.
Yes it is the same series. Yes it is the longest running.
That would be true if Quake hadnt already done it and had a cracking single player game to boot.
Quake3 was pretty, but underneath the graphics it was essentially just multiplayer Quake with slightly different (Slightly better or worse depending on who you talk to.) weapons.
Though personally my favorite has always been Quake2, Quake remains the pinnacle of fast paced FPS.
IIS is only more vulnerable because lots of people like to mouth off about MS being vulnerable. In reality 'the platforms are almost equally vulnerable to attacks' http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483, sid14_gci1114647,00.html
If you google it youll come up with more. ISS and Apache are very much on equal footing.
From their site.
'Unlike today's software-based approaches (e.g., A*), the Intia's pathfinding uses no heuristics, thereby guaranteeing that the optimal path will always be found.'
That doesnt make any sense. A* guarantees an optimal path _because_ it uses heuristics. A* may not be the greatest algorithm computationally but it will always find the best path. (Its admissable)
'This optimality also means that the Intia processor avoids the common pitfalls of A*, including failures to find a path when one exists,'
That isnt right either. If there is a path and it is the best path thats the path A* will return.
Whats more, A* is horribly out dated and should be fairly well modified to make it real time. (RTA*) Now I have written, and I wouldnt be even remotely surprised if this was a case for some commercial games, a real time A* program that simply re-tests the A* path each turn. (Horribly, horribly, inefficient.) This is what the article implies is going on and it just shouldnt be happening. We should have progressed enough with AI to implement a proper real time pathfinding algorithm.
'Most importantly, this very significant speed increase gives the Intia processor the adaptability to support large, dynamically changing maps.'
Once again a real time algorithm should be able to deal with any dynamic map behaviour and the size of map shouldnt be an issue with some decent discretizing. (Discretizing, which will be essential otherwise youd flood the memory no matter how fast your AI can be processed especially without heuristics.)
'such as the need to find a path that passes through certain locations (e.g., hiding points, enemy positions). '
Just apply the right costs to the nodes in an A* algorithm (Which you can do in real time.), itll do the same thing.
'Sensory information'
Now we're getting somewhere. Line of sight tests on that quantity of agents in such a short time is fairly good going and quite helpful.
There are once again software tricks to get around this fairly effectively by simply passing information to the agents that they shouldnt really have, but they can lead to problems such as enemies spotting you through several layers of brick wall.
'Terrain Analysis'
As pointed out previously dynamic terrain analysis can be done using RTA* algorithms with very little problem. It shouldnt have a major impact on the processing because its not changing the AI its changing the world. (Which has to be updated constantly anyway.)
The reason NPC's get stuck on walls in games isnt because of A* its because of bad AI. From what they say on there site they arnt really going for making AI any better. Just doing what we already should and could be doing already.
Their insistence on not using heuristics is mystifying. Nearly every AI problem in existence needs good heuristics else it will chew through gigabytes of memory and hours of processor time to complete its task.
Just as an example. The number of moves in chess without heuristics in the first turn is 2048. With heuristics its 40.
Not to mention that throughout the article they seem to link heuristics to inadmisable algorithms which is nonsense.
It has been a while since ive done AI so someone may well prove me wrong, but from what I can see this chip just seems to use the same old algorithms to produce good AI through brute force instead of intelligent design.
This isnt like physics. If you simulate one brick falling and want to simulate 2 you double the power, simulate 3 triple it, easy. In the field of AI. That isnt going to cut it, the problems scale up in memory and processor requirements exponentially this kind of thing is only delaying the inevatable. AI _needs_ more research not more power.