I'd add lbreakout2 to that list as well. I've been a fan of breakout/arkanoid type games since I was a kid, and lbreakout2 has many fun levels, interesting block types, fun powerups and multiplayer capability.
FreedroidRPG, while not what I would call "done" is coming along rather nicely, and will make a nice Diablo-type game when (if) it's finished up.
That it's not backed by big corporations with money to throw at servers? Actually, I thought that that was almost implicit, but if you wanna be disappointed, go right ahead.
Or you could donate, possibly allowing them to upgrade their servers. Probably not as fun as making sweeping generalizations about projects YOU couldn't build, but hey, at least donating doesn't make you seem like an whiny douche to the rest of the room.
I am under the impression that evolution HAS been (mathematically) proven by use of genetic algorithms.
I myself on many occasions have overseen the REAL evolution of simulated organism. There exists a plethora of programs (at varying levels of detail) to experience the wonders of this phenomena yourself. It's truly amazing (at least to me) to watch a completely incompetent agent failing to interact with it's environment turn into an efficient resource gather overnight.
Of course I am assuming that DNA is quite a bit like our "agent definition", in that it basically makes us what we are. Holding that assumption as true, and knowing how DNA behaves in it's environment, I cannot find any reason to not accept evolution as fact.
Basically it boils down to this: 1. I assume we're agents interacting with their environment in life-like ways (eating, reproducing, dying, etc.). 2. I assume a mathematical representation of the agent (DNA) that is susceptible to random changes in its code. 3. I assume these agents are under fitness pressure, because they compete to do things like eat and reproduce. 4. I assume that none of these agents is the perfect eating, reproducing, etc. machine. 5. I assume that from the many random changes in the code, the very nature of randomness dictates that some code changes will make the resulting agent more "fit" (better able to eat and reproduce). 6. Assuming further generations of agents receive portions of code from previous generations (allowing beneficial changes to be propagated) the offspring of more "fit" agents will consume more resources and reproduce more (that being the way "fit" is usually determined in nature), thus spreading the code change further.
Every single one of those assumptions is STRONG and evidence supported. I cannot see a weak link in the chain that would allow evolution *NOT* to happen. Like most non-elementary aspects of physics, it's just another system that HAD to come about simply because of the way the universe is set up, whatwith it's mass and energy and space and particle interaction...
As the distribution, production and (especially) promotion industries become less and less relevant the word-of-mouth effect will become more important. Since we all know which of our friends have good taste in music (according to us), the all-around crap that is currently released due to contract requirements and marketing droid "idea" sessions will be weeded out sooner.
At least that's the way -I- think it will happen, and it's rare that I'm actually optimistic about something like this.
I agree, music is in a golden age, but the gold is buried under tonnes of flotsam.
I think that the internet made a golden age inevitable for artists of ALL types whose work can be well represented digitally. Music has always been good, unfortunately most good music dies in garages and out-of-the-way bars. Now it's on the internet too, the hard part is finding something good, the REALLY hard part is finding something that's both good and to your individual taste.
*raises hand* I am. Vehemently, though I'm not the OP. I'm an Independent party wise, but with a good enough dose of liberal ideology that I think I'd make a valid sample for your little survey.
It's a large point of contention between me and my mostly-politically-alike friends, but yeah, I'm against gun control for pretty much the reason you imply. Leaving only authoritarians with access to guns seems to be an excessively short-sighted idea to me.
That's right, instead of selling 20 albums to friends and family only you'll sell 2000 albums to people who've heard of you through friends, and have 3000 copies STOLEN from you! That's a net loss of 1000 albums! *waves hands menacingly* boogity boogity boogity!
What you're saying about the trusting-trust attack only hold true as an intellectual exercise. It only works if there is NO KNOWN GOOD COMPILER binary. That just isn't the case. Thompson's attack was brilliant and needed to be exposed, but can you imagine the code necessary to produce a compiler that corrupted every other compiler it ever came across forever (not just versions of it's 'clean' self)? I would wager that that is not humanly possible. Now imagine trying to have built this attack for the purpose of subverting voting software, taking into account THOSE not-yet-implemented variables, and you'll see why what you're talking about is NOT feasible in the slightest. Maybe if the attacker got to supply the compiler after having read the e-voting source code, but that's an implementation problem, not a systemic problem.
Just one "clean" C compiler, not matter how old, crappy or inefficient can give you a brand-spanking-new copy of gcc, optimized and ready to rock.
It amazes me that people can be so completely ignorant of history as to think that groups of people with money and power coming together to make clandestine plans is fantasy.
Read a history book please! Almost everything we've written down as "history" got started by groups of men (with an occasional woman thrown in, moreso recently) planning to do SOMETHING. Add modern politics and electronic communications into the mix and you end up with... people all of the sudden NOT making shady illicit deals with other people for gain? What are you trying to say exactly?
Yes, I believe that to be the idea as presented... In fact, the exploit this article talks about is an example of that very concept.
I know that's not exactly what you're talking about, but consider that ANY input device is an input stream that can theoretically have any pattern (even those beyond design specs, like over-voltage) send down it. Steps can be taken to mitigate any threat of course, but taking for granted that those steps have been taken is too optimistic a view as far as I'm concerned. There is a whole lot of crappy production code floating around out there.
I was going to disagree with your original quotation of "...any sane standard...", and I still disagree that it's excellent by ANY sane standard, but you did make a very good point about excellence being subjective, to which I concede Halo's excellence. Excellence isn't PURELY subjective though, as there is technical excellence (control setup, graphics, you know) too.
All that is just a side point to what I wanted to say. I REALLY liked the story in Return to Castle Wolfenstein (and Wolf3D for that matter). That may very well be that I'm biased in favor of Nazi slaying though (Hearts of Iron II FTW!).:-)
I'm talking to someone who thinks that spanking children is always child abuse but that sex with children and child pornography aren't.
Nevermind, I walked into the wrong corner of the room. I usually don't say this to people on slashdot, even people I REALLY don't agree with, but I'm ending this conversation now. I think you're a truly sick individual and want nothing to do with you.
I just sincerely hope that your belief that sex with kids is okay is purely a mental practice and not a physical one.
Why do people insist that advertising doesn't have any real effect on people's decision? I assume you saw the same giant flashing text, screaming used-car-salesmen commercials (from BANKS!!!) that I did. I'm smart enough to see through the bullshit, you're smart enough to see through the bullshit, but you damn well know that MANY people aren't. Someone in a suit telling everyone how easy and great is it to get some money, and in fact that it is THE RESPONSIBLE THING (yes, they said that) to get these loans because the interest rates were so cheap now, can be convincing to people who think that you're not allowed to lie in commercials (FAR too many people).
If advertising didn't work it wouldn't be the gigabuck business that it is. These banks gave people what they (wrongly) thought was good financial advice, and they took it. In light of that, I think a "fuck them" attitude is unnecessarily harsh.
Sure, because hard-hacking an ATM with electronic devices and putting a file on a memory card demonstrate the same level of security planning, right? Right?
I spank my children at times, I do not fuck my children, ever.
Grouping those two activities together is about as disingenuous as claiming that downloading music leads to STDs, rampant murder and global warming. To claim that the only people against sexual abuse of children are religious nuts tells us a whole lot more about you than it does the "think of the children" fanatics.
Try again, with your conversational parameters set a little more toward 'real life' than "batshit insane" please. As it is now, I can't think of any constructive conversation that can come from your rant.
Laid off? I just moved into the nicest house I've ever lived in, with more money coming in than I've ever had. I'm sorry that you cannot conceive of anything beyond your own personal life, but some of us have empathy and care about others. You assume that because YOU'RE a sociopath with no thought for anyone but your self that we ALL are like that. Some of us are just plain BETTER than that.
So you've figured out empty sarcasm too? You ARE smooth. Devoid of non-talking-point ideas, unable to compose a logical argument, and possessing of an attitude somewhat like my 6 year old, you DO possess a certain smoothness.
BTW, I've never had any class that you would consider even close to "liberal arts major", unless you count digital logic, oh so long ago. Just admit that you don't have anything fresh to say and be done with it, don't try to be slick and insult me, it will just make you look like (even more of) a fool.
Try telling your landlord (let alone mortgage holder) that you will eventually pay your rent. That's why it is unacceptable, for the same reason that having your family live in a car is unacceptable to most people.
And I heavily dispute that the government only creates unproductive or unwanted jobs. The roads! Mass transit ALONE is a major job creator, not to mention being HIGHLY productive to the rest of society. Most all non-bureaucratic civil service jobs are both necessary and socially rewarding.
To your assertion that market based job growth has worked for a long time, I say that's only superficially true (I've seen the near-(and sometimes utter)poverty of hard laborers all my life), and only then if you define "long time" as being the lifetime of MOST slashdotters. I'm sure there are still some people around that could testify to what actual "hard times" look like, if they could just get the kids off their lawn long enough to tell us.:-)
The first paragraph you devote to fiat declaration of your pet economic theory's success and calling me a whiner.
The second paragraph was more fiat declaration of economic wisdom followed up by a very smooth way of calling me stupid.
The third paragraph gives meaning to your whole post. Things aren't going your (failed) way anymore, so you're going to whine about how economic shifts are going to ruin things for half a century. This, combined with the fact that you're sitting here espousing the very system that caused the damage now evidenced, shows a wide streak of pure hypocrisy.
Slashdot Mirror
Like real life Penny Racers! Brilliant!
I'd add lbreakout2 to that list as well. I've been a fan of breakout/arkanoid type games since I was a kid, and lbreakout2 has many fun levels, interesting block types, fun powerups and multiplayer capability.
FreedroidRPG, while not what I would call "done" is coming along rather nicely, and will make a nice Diablo-type game when (if) it's finished up.
That it's not backed by big corporations with money to throw at servers? Actually, I thought that that was almost implicit, but if you wanna be disappointed, go right ahead.
Or you could donate, possibly allowing them to upgrade their servers. Probably not as fun as making sweeping generalizations about projects YOU couldn't build, but hey, at least donating doesn't make you seem like an whiny douche to the rest of the room.
I am under the impression that evolution HAS been (mathematically) proven by use of genetic algorithms.
I myself on many occasions have overseen the REAL evolution of simulated organism. There exists a plethora of programs (at varying levels of detail) to experience the wonders of this phenomena yourself. It's truly amazing (at least to me) to watch a completely incompetent agent failing to interact with it's environment turn into an efficient resource gather overnight.
Of course I am assuming that DNA is quite a bit like our "agent definition", in that it basically makes us what we are. Holding that assumption as true, and knowing how DNA behaves in it's environment, I cannot find any reason to not accept evolution as fact.
Basically it boils down to this:
1. I assume we're agents interacting with their environment in life-like ways (eating, reproducing, dying, etc.).
2. I assume a mathematical representation of the agent (DNA) that is susceptible to random changes in its code.
3. I assume these agents are under fitness pressure, because they compete to do things like eat and reproduce.
4. I assume that none of these agents is the perfect eating, reproducing, etc. machine.
5. I assume that from the many random changes in the code, the very nature of randomness dictates that some code changes will make the resulting agent more "fit" (better able to eat and reproduce).
6. Assuming further generations of agents receive portions of code from previous generations (allowing beneficial changes to be propagated) the offspring of more "fit" agents will consume more resources and reproduce more (that being the way "fit" is usually determined in nature), thus spreading the code change further.
Every single one of those assumptions is STRONG and evidence supported. I cannot see a weak link in the chain that would allow evolution *NOT* to happen. Like most non-elementary aspects of physics, it's just another system that HAD to come about simply because of the way the universe is set up, whatwith it's mass and energy and space and particle interaction...
addendum to my post:
As the distribution, production and (especially) promotion industries become less and less relevant the word-of-mouth effect will become more important. Since we all know which of our friends have good taste in music (according to us), the all-around crap that is currently released due to contract requirements and marketing droid "idea" sessions will be weeded out sooner.
At least that's the way -I- think it will happen, and it's rare that I'm actually optimistic about something like this.
I agree, music is in a golden age, but the gold is buried under tonnes of flotsam.
I think that the internet made a golden age inevitable for artists of ALL types whose work can be well represented digitally. Music has always been good, unfortunately most good music dies in garages and out-of-the-way bars. Now it's on the internet too, the hard part is finding something good, the REALLY hard part is finding something that's both good and to your individual taste.
*raises hand* I am. Vehemently, though I'm not the OP. I'm an Independent party wise, but with a good enough dose of liberal ideology that I think I'd make a valid sample for your little survey.
It's a large point of contention between me and my mostly-politically-alike friends, but yeah, I'm against gun control for pretty much the reason you imply. Leaving only authoritarians with access to guns seems to be an excessively short-sighted idea to me.
The only problem with that is that I'm not a murderer, you're not a murderer, we'll assume Lumpy isn't a murderer either.
The people who get killed are usually trying to do something positive, because the ones who DO murder are fearful of positive change.
That's how I see it anyways.
It looks like the meter is topping out at around 40 microamps. I don't know the voltage, so I can't tell you the power.
That's right, instead of selling 20 albums to friends and family only you'll sell 2000 albums to people who've heard of you through friends, and have 3000 copies STOLEN from you! That's a net loss of 1000 albums! *waves hands menacingly* boogity boogity boogity!
You felt the need to post on slashdot to tell someone that their (extremely common) style of humor isn't funny?
Get over yourself. Not only is it funny, but no one gives a shit if YOU think it was funny, egotistical asshole.
What you're saying about the trusting-trust attack only hold true as an intellectual exercise. It only works if there is NO KNOWN GOOD COMPILER binary. That just isn't the case. Thompson's attack was brilliant and needed to be exposed, but can you imagine the code necessary to produce a compiler that corrupted every other compiler it ever came across forever (not just versions of it's 'clean' self)? I would wager that that is not humanly possible. Now imagine trying to have built this attack for the purpose of subverting voting software, taking into account THOSE not-yet-implemented variables, and you'll see why what you're talking about is NOT feasible in the slightest. Maybe if the attacker got to supply the compiler after having read the e-voting source code, but that's an implementation problem, not a systemic problem.
Just one "clean" C compiler, not matter how old, crappy or inefficient can give you a brand-spanking-new copy of gcc, optimized and ready to rock.
It amazes me that people can be so completely ignorant of history as to think that groups of people with money and power coming together to make clandestine plans is fantasy.
Read a history book please! Almost everything we've written down as "history" got started by groups of men (with an occasional woman thrown in, moreso recently) planning to do SOMETHING. Add modern politics and electronic communications into the mix and you end up with... people all of the sudden NOT making shady illicit deals with other people for gain? What are you trying to say exactly?
Utopian naivety isn't realism.
Well, what you say is only true for "nudge nudge wink wink" values of "can't afford it".
Yes, I believe that to be the idea as presented... In fact, the exploit this article talks about is an example of that very concept.
I know that's not exactly what you're talking about, but consider that ANY input device is an input stream that can theoretically have any pattern (even those beyond design specs, like over-voltage) send down it. Steps can be taken to mitigate any threat of course, but taking for granted that those steps have been taken is too optimistic a view as far as I'm concerned. There is a whole lot of crappy production code floating around out there.
No mod points today or else you'd get +1 Most-Insightful-Drunken-AC-Post-Ever
I was going to disagree with your original quotation of "...any sane standard...", and I still disagree that it's excellent by ANY sane standard, but you did make a very good point about excellence being subjective, to which I concede Halo's excellence. Excellence isn't PURELY subjective though, as there is technical excellence (control setup, graphics, you know) too.
All that is just a side point to what I wanted to say. I REALLY liked the story in Return to Castle Wolfenstein (and Wolf3D for that matter). That may very well be that I'm biased in favor of Nazi slaying though (Hearts of Iron II FTW!). :-)
I'm talking to someone who thinks that spanking children is always child abuse but that sex with children and child pornography aren't.
Nevermind, I walked into the wrong corner of the room. I usually don't say this to people on slashdot, even people I REALLY don't agree with, but I'm ending this conversation now. I think you're a truly sick individual and want nothing to do with you.
I just sincerely hope that your belief that sex with kids is okay is purely a mental practice and not a physical one.
Why do people insist that advertising doesn't have any real effect on people's decision? I assume you saw the same giant flashing text, screaming used-car-salesmen commercials (from BANKS!!!) that I did. I'm smart enough to see through the bullshit, you're smart enough to see through the bullshit, but you damn well know that MANY people aren't. Someone in a suit telling everyone how easy and great is it to get some money, and in fact that it is THE RESPONSIBLE THING (yes, they said that) to get these loans because the interest rates were so cheap now, can be convincing to people who think that you're not allowed to lie in commercials (FAR too many people).
If advertising didn't work it wouldn't be the gigabuck business that it is. These banks gave people what they (wrongly) thought was good financial advice, and they took it. In light of that, I think a "fuck them" attitude is unnecessarily harsh.
Sure, because hard-hacking an ATM with electronic devices and putting a file on a memory card demonstrate the same level of security planning, right? Right?
I spank my children at times, I do not fuck my children, ever.
Grouping those two activities together is about as disingenuous as claiming that downloading music leads to STDs, rampant murder and global warming. To claim that the only people against sexual abuse of children are religious nuts tells us a whole lot more about you than it does the "think of the children" fanatics.
Try again, with your conversational parameters set a little more toward 'real life' than "batshit insane" please. As it is now, I can't think of any constructive conversation that can come from your rant.
Foaming at the mouth rage? Are you kidding me?
Laid off? I just moved into the nicest house I've ever lived in, with more money coming in than I've ever had. I'm sorry that you cannot conceive of anything beyond your own personal life, but some of us have empathy and care about others. You assume that because YOU'RE a sociopath with no thought for anyone but your self that we ALL are like that. Some of us are just plain BETTER than that.
Grow up.
*applauds*
So you've figured out empty sarcasm too? You ARE smooth. Devoid of non-talking-point ideas, unable to compose a logical argument, and possessing of an attitude somewhat like my 6 year old, you DO possess a certain smoothness.
BTW, I've never had any class that you would consider even close to "liberal arts major", unless you count digital logic, oh so long ago. Just admit that you don't have anything fresh to say and be done with it, don't try to be slick and insult me, it will just make you look like (even more of) a fool.
Try telling your landlord (let alone mortgage holder) that you will eventually pay your rent. That's why it is unacceptable, for the same reason that having your family live in a car is unacceptable to most people.
And I heavily dispute that the government only creates unproductive or unwanted jobs. The roads! Mass transit ALONE is a major job creator, not to mention being HIGHLY productive to the rest of society. Most all non-bureaucratic civil service jobs are both necessary and socially rewarding.
To your assertion that market based job growth has worked for a long time, I say that's only superficially true (I've seen the near-(and sometimes utter)poverty of hard laborers all my life), and only then if you define "long time" as being the lifetime of MOST slashdotters. I'm sure there are still some people around that could testify to what actual "hard times" look like, if they could just get the kids off their lawn long enough to tell us. :-)
The first paragraph you devote to fiat declaration of your pet economic theory's success and calling me a whiner.
The second paragraph was more fiat declaration of economic wisdom followed up by a very smooth way of calling me stupid.
The third paragraph gives meaning to your whole post. Things aren't going your (failed) way anymore, so you're going to whine about how economic shifts are going to ruin things for half a century. This, combined with the fact that you're sitting here espousing the very system that caused the damage now evidenced, shows a wide streak of pure hypocrisy.