Well, the first book was written in 1979, he had plenty of time to write more - he was just interested in other things. I was googling earlier to see if Pratchett ever mentioned being influenced by Adams, and saw a quote from Pratchett saying that Adams felt that writing got in the way of having fun, while for Pratchett it was kind of the other way round - he would much rather be writing! Pratchett brings out a new novel more than once a year, and it's not like they are lightweight drivel. I'm not suggesting that Adams wasn't a good writer too, but it wasn't something he was so passionate about compared to Pratchett.
The point is that even if someone presses a button to vote for one side, it's easy to register their vote as for the other side and print off a paper vote for the same? I don't see how that could be the point.
So what if they do?
If they had access to the area where the paper ones were being stored, they could change other peoples is what I meant, so even if the electronic votes were correct, the whole thing may have to be rerun, etc.
Okay, audit trail, audit trail, audit trail, audit trail, the audit trail is all importan! I get it. What I don't get is what this audit trail consists of. Printing out paper votes does not provide a way of an indvidual knowing that their vote was counted correctly, unless they get to see the printout and see that it is correct. If the individual doesn't see the printout, then what difference does it make that the paper and electronic votes match, if the system itself was tampered with to register and print out the wrong vote? There was an article on/. recently about how to hack the system - it didn't look very practical to me, but there are ways to screw it all up if you want to (again, it would be pretty easy to rig the whole thing if you are already in power).
Unless each person gets to see the printout of their paper votes, then that still could be easily faked.. perhaps they do get to see them, but I hope they don't have physical access to them. In fact, even if they did see a pile of paper, what is to stop the government swapping them if they really wanted to? Again, I'm not saying they do because it's quite unlikely, but if a government wanted to rig an election I'm sure they could find a way to do it.
I hope you're just saying that Pratchett is a good writer, but he's not Douglas Adams and so shouldn't try to continue HHGTTG. But I still feel slightly slighted that you suggest that most of Pratchett's style is due to Adams - to me it seems more likely that they were both a result of watching too much Monty Python;) Discworld didn't come out until 5 years after the HHGTTG radio show started, so perhaps there was an influence, but Pratchett is an excellent writer on his own merits. Even without the amazing humour and wordplay, Discworld books would still be interesting reads..
Besides, we all know the only person who could write HHGttG properly is Terry Pratchett
That's exactly what I was thinking:) Pratchett has a very similar style of humour to Adams, but IMO his stories are much better. Adams admitted that he just made up HHGTTG as he went along (though some parts tie in quite well together, showing he's still very clever as well as randomly creative), but Pratchett has stories that are sometimes amazingly intricate, and all his books fit in well together.
Pratchett's books seem to have spoiled me with their combination of wit, often epic plots and well paced storytelling. They're so good that I sadly often find other books rather dull now (trudging through Dune at the moment, it reminds me a lot of LOTR with all the pointless geographical musings.. Pratchett manages to setup his atmosphere, landscapes and cityscapes rather well without being too monotonous).
I actually found some on tape in my dad's old stuff, completely forgot to have a listen and don't know where I've put them. Presumably they're all out there on bit torrent somewhere anyway..
When your votes are electronic for example, what exactly does this 'audit trail' entail? Counting fingerprints?
No, I've not been a victim of death threats etc, I think it's absurd that someone should be threatened for voting for one bunch of idiots over another. Unless the idiots that they are voting for are Nazis, but even then death threats are a bit much.
Guard: Give me your laptop. Citizen: Give me my receipt. Guard: Here you go. Citizen: Okay, here's my laptop. Citizen: Hey, this is a receipt for a packet of gum! Guard: What about it? Citizen: Where's my laptop? Guard: What laptop?
When votes are anonymous, you have to admit it isn't exactly very hard to fake elections. I'm not saying that's the case, but neither do I really care at the moment as I'm not a US citizen, and I don't vote. I don't see why voting should be an anonymous thing.
it should be more *fun* to play harder difficulties if your better at the game.
I can tell you that it is indeed fun. If you can't complete the higher difficulty level then obviously you're not 'better at the game'. Being able to play through without ever failing or putting a bit of practice in is not challenging, and for me is therefor not 'fun' either. Try going through the songs more slowly in practice mode if you are finding any sections especially hard (it lets your muscle memory remember the patterns to play, and is especially good for getting used to switching between more akward chord shapes), and remember that the notes go along with the music. I think people on the lower difficulty levels try to watch when the notes pass by the bottom of the screen or something. I just look at the middle to top of the screen to see what is coming, and then play those notes or chords along to the music (though on crazy solos like in Cult of Personality there isn't really any 'music' to play along to, heh, I just try to hit as much as I can.. get around 65-85% of the crazy solos usually).
The harder difficulties are more 'natural' because they mimic the music almost exactly. I already played guitar before playing Guitar Hero so I had a bit of an advantage co-ordination wise, but I can complete a few songs on Hard even on lefty-flip. Playing lefty flip helped me to understand why some people find the co-ordination difficult (and is also the only way to make the game more challenging again now that I have completed all the set list and bonus songs apart from Through the Fire and Flames and the final battle on Expert):p
First poster didn't seem to. Times were when you only got 1.5 hours of word processing time, and these days people have their wifi enabled all the time. Anyone with a mobile phone will know that that is a major drain on the battery. We're getting the same battery life as before, but we're able to do much before in that time.
By the time affordable ultracaps everyone will probably be complaining of 'only' 11 hours solid gaming usage on their laptop.
Hmm yeah because XBox 360s use x86, don't they? Oh wait, no they don't. Perhaps you could run the games on suitably modified PPC Macs (apparently the dev kits were based on G5 Macs?), but what exactly is the point when the 360 is cheaper and faster?
Random phrase misuse nazi info: Little to no. As in, little to none. As in, not very much! They may have little to know as well, but that's beside the point!
Can you just imagine all the poor people who are heavily confused about the state of affairs in Soviet Russia after reading slashdot? How were they to know that these things were untrue!?
she kept assuming that certain parts would be a lot of trouble when really it was all pretty simple.
Yeah, I hate when people try to do your job for you and guess what you'll be doing. Sometimes of course people will ask for silly things that are currently impossible, but often it's best if they just give you requirements and let you work out the rest themselves.
I was doing an internal application for someone here and he started modifying the database tables as if he knew how I was going to do the implementation, but the only experience he has had with databases was a one day course at college, so he doesn't really have any notion of how to separate out data effectively, and it just ended up slowing me down instead of speeding things along. It did result in a good discussion about what he actually intended for those extra features to do though.
You can take a few tried and tested ideas and put them together well. You can also take some amazing new ideas, but implement them poorly. Ultimately the only thing that matters is whether the game is enjoyable.
Slashdot Mirror
Note: I'm stopping here because you've stopped reading anyhow
Wow, it's like you were watching me the whole time!
Well, the first book was written in 1979, he had plenty of time to write more - he was just interested in other things. I was googling earlier to see if Pratchett ever mentioned being influenced by Adams, and saw a quote from Pratchett saying that Adams felt that writing got in the way of having fun, while for Pratchett it was kind of the other way round - he would much rather be writing! Pratchett brings out a new novel more than once a year, and it's not like they are lightweight drivel. I'm not suggesting that Adams wasn't a good writer too, but it wasn't something he was so passionate about compared to Pratchett.
Actually, I agree with all of that, no flaming here :)
That's the whole freakin' point
The point is that even if someone presses a button to vote for one side, it's easy to register their vote as for the other side and print off a paper vote for the same? I don't see how that could be the point.
So what if they do?
If they had access to the area where the paper ones were being stored, they could change other peoples is what I meant, so even if the electronic votes were correct, the whole thing may have to be rerun, etc.
Okay, audit trail, audit trail, audit trail, audit trail, the audit trail is all importan! I get it. What I don't get is what this audit trail consists of. Printing out paper votes does not provide a way of an indvidual knowing that their vote was counted correctly, unless they get to see the printout and see that it is correct. If the individual doesn't see the printout, then what difference does it make that the paper and electronic votes match, if the system itself was tampered with to register and print out the wrong vote? There was an article on /. recently about how to hack the system - it didn't look very practical to me, but there are ways to screw it all up if you want to (again, it would be pretty easy to rig the whole thing if you are already in power).
Unless each person gets to see the printout of their paper votes, then that still could be easily faked.. perhaps they do get to see them, but I hope they don't have physical access to them. In fact, even if they did see a pile of paper, what is to stop the government swapping them if they really wanted to? Again, I'm not saying they do because it's quite unlikely, but if a government wanted to rig an election I'm sure they could find a way to do it.
I hope you're just saying that Pratchett is a good writer, but he's not Douglas Adams and so shouldn't try to continue HHGTTG. But I still feel slightly slighted that you suggest that most of Pratchett's style is due to Adams - to me it seems more likely that they were both a result of watching too much Monty Python ;) Discworld didn't come out until 5 years after the HHGTTG radio show started, so perhaps there was an influence, but Pratchett is an excellent writer on his own merits. Even without the amazing humour and wordplay, Discworld books would still be interesting reads..
Besides, we all know the only person who could write HHGttG properly is Terry Pratchett
That's exactly what I was thinking :) Pratchett has a very similar style of humour to Adams, but IMO his stories are much better. Adams admitted that he just made up HHGTTG as he went along (though some parts tie in quite well together, showing he's still very clever as well as randomly creative), but Pratchett has stories that are sometimes amazingly intricate, and all his books fit in well together.
Pratchett's books seem to have spoiled me with their combination of wit, often epic plots and well paced storytelling. They're so good that I sadly often find other books rather dull now (trudging through Dune at the moment, it reminds me a lot of LOTR with all the pointless geographical musings.. Pratchett manages to setup his atmosphere, landscapes and cityscapes rather well without being too monotonous).
I actually found some on tape in my dad's old stuff, completely forgot to have a listen and don't know where I've put them. Presumably they're all out there on bit torrent somewhere anyway..
When your votes are electronic for example, what exactly does this 'audit trail' entail? Counting fingerprints?
No, I've not been a victim of death threats etc, I think it's absurd that someone should be threatened for voting for one bunch of idiots over another. Unless the idiots that they are voting for are Nazis, but even then death threats are a bit much.
Simpler solution:
Guard: Give me your laptop.
Citizen: Give me my receipt.
Guard: Here you go.
Citizen: Okay, here's my laptop.
Citizen: Hey, this is a receipt for a packet of gum!
Guard: What about it?
Citizen: Where's my laptop?
Guard: What laptop?
The End
When votes are anonymous, you have to admit it isn't exactly very hard to fake elections. I'm not saying that's the case, but neither do I really care at the moment as I'm not a US citizen, and I don't vote. I don't see why voting should be an anonymous thing.
it should be more *fun* to play harder difficulties if your better at the game.
I can tell you that it is indeed fun. If you can't complete the higher difficulty level then obviously you're not 'better at the game'. Being able to play through without ever failing or putting a bit of practice in is not challenging, and for me is therefor not 'fun' either. Try going through the songs more slowly in practice mode if you are finding any sections especially hard (it lets your muscle memory remember the patterns to play, and is especially good for getting used to switching between more akward chord shapes), and remember that the notes go along with the music. I think people on the lower difficulty levels try to watch when the notes pass by the bottom of the screen or something. I just look at the middle to top of the screen to see what is coming, and then play those notes or chords along to the music (though on crazy solos like in Cult of Personality there isn't really any 'music' to play along to, heh, I just try to hit as much as I can.. get around 65-85% of the crazy solos usually).
The harder difficulties are more 'natural' because they mimic the music almost exactly. I already played guitar before playing Guitar Hero so I had a bit of an advantage co-ordination wise, but I can complete a few songs on Hard even on lefty-flip. Playing lefty flip helped me to understand why some people find the co-ordination difficult (and is also the only way to make the game more challenging again now that I have completed all the set list and bonus songs apart from Through the Fire and Flames and the final battle on Expert) :p
Nopes - grammar, spelling and other helpful english language nazis don't count towards Godwin!
First poster didn't seem to. Times were when you only got 1.5 hours of word processing time, and these days people have their wifi enabled all the time. Anyone with a mobile phone will know that that is a major drain on the battery. We're getting the same battery life as before, but we're able to do much before in that time.
By the time affordable ultracaps everyone will probably be complaining of 'only' 11 hours solid gaming usage on their laptop.
the need for super computers lessons
Holy (h)academic homonyms, Batman!
Know how you feel - I keep typing LHD instead of LHC for comments about the Large Hadron Collider!
You should try a valley or a half-pipe - then you'll be able to go uphill a bit after you reach the bottom!
You should try being a postman then - you'll be laughing all day!
Hmm yeah because XBox 360s use x86, don't they? Oh wait, no they don't. Perhaps you could run the games on suitably modified PPC Macs (apparently the dev kits were based on G5 Macs?), but what exactly is the point when the 360 is cheaper and faster?
Jebus, Buddha, Allah, I love you all! -- HJS
Random phrase misuse nazi info: Little to no. As in, little to none. As in, not very much! They may have little to know as well, but that's beside the point!
Can you just imagine all the poor people who are heavily confused about the state of affairs in Soviet Russia after reading slashdot? How were they to know that these things were untrue!?
she kept assuming that certain parts would be a lot of trouble when really it was all pretty simple.
Yeah, I hate when people try to do your job for you and guess what you'll be doing. Sometimes of course people will ask for silly things that are currently impossible, but often it's best if they just give you requirements and let you work out the rest themselves.
I was doing an internal application for someone here and he started modifying the database tables as if he knew how I was going to do the implementation, but the only experience he has had with databases was a one day course at college, so he doesn't really have any notion of how to separate out data effectively, and it just ended up slowing me down instead of speeding things along. It did result in a good discussion about what he actually intended for those extra features to do though.
No, games should be fun.
You can take a few tried and tested ideas and put them together well. You can also take some amazing new ideas, but implement them poorly. Ultimately the only thing that matters is whether the game is enjoyable.
That's truly informative :) Still pretty dumb though, in the same way that you can probably buy '2009' versions of software today..
I didn't mean my original reply as a troll or flamebait btw, was just making a joke.