Music is missing a very important characteristic, and that's presence.
When you're standing at the bus stop, you'll talk to the old lady waiting for the 86 about the weather, because it's there, or about the horrendous state of transport in your area, because it's immediate and common to you both. Unless there's a radio playing, you're not going to talk about music. If there is a radio playing, the best you can expect is "Turn that shit down."
In fact if you're standing at the bus stop listening to your MP3 player, having the earbuds/headphones on means "Do not disturb" to anyone who isn't socially maladjusted.
"As a rational human being, Al-Qaeda are a loose association of psychopathic zealots who could be rounded up with a sustained police investigation. But speaking as a parent, they're all eight foot tall, they've got lasers under their moustaches, a huge eye in their foreheads and the only way to kill them is to nuke every country that hasn't sent us a Christmas card in the the last 20 years. Speaking as a mother..." - Bill Bailey
Isn't an interactive story basically a 1 player RPG? I mean interactive fiction is basically an RPG but with more depth to the written narrative. Isn't it?
And the thing that keeps tabletop RPGs alive is the games master. or DM or whatever the particular set of rules call him or her. That's your storytron right there: a human mind that can generate new narrative on the fly in response to the 'reader's initiative.
Unless storytron is an AI that can take the best from human GMs, human authors and Game Engines, then it's nothing to write home about. Otherwise, the key to interactive fiction lies in using the existing techniques available ('foldback') in the best way. The same way a good game designer will make the player feel that he's using his initiative when really he's being subtly guided, or in giving the player short bursts of freedom while the overarching story is on rails.
Erm...
Hong Kong
South Korea
Taiwan
Bankok
Manila
Australian/New Zealand cities
Call centers all over India
That should be enough to monitor the Asia-Pacific coast and Indian ocean, if the technology actually works.
You know, as well as Warp Drive, we'll also have to improve the level of our geo-political awareness or the Vulcans will think we're too stupid to explore the universe and bring peace to the galaxy...
I would go so far as to say they're completely different.
With Ockham's razor, once the theories that are easy to disprove are eliminated (easy as in obviously wrong and not even considered to begin with), then you choose the simplest of the remaining theories. This is because the chance that the simplest is correct is so likely as to make the expense of proving it to eliminate a negligible margin of error a wasteful endeavour. Ockham, of course, put it a lot simpler.
The Holmes quote is a completely different thing. It advocates taking the process of elimination to completion, asserting that the remaining theory could be infinitely complex and fanciful and still be correct, simply because it is the only possible theory left.
One would be crazy to apply Ockham's Razor to a criminal investigation. I mean if you did, you wouldn't really call it an investigation.
Galactic Civilizations 2 does that. You have the option of allowing the AI to run CPU-intensive algorithms. I think they suggest turning it off only if you're on laptop batteries or running other programs in the background.
When the option is enabled, the game's opponents are constantly designing new ships to counteract your ship designs and the technologies available to you. With the option disabled, those calculations are performed once per game year which leaves the AI opponents at a disadvantage towards the end of the year, if you exploit it.
But the absence/presence of the existing processor power doesn't just have to relate to how often the AI thinks or directly relate to how 'smart' it behaves. For example, games that do not feature AI learning can introduce it, using the extra calculations for AI training. You can apply data mining to the myriad of stats in all manner of management sims. You can play a co-op game with yourself after training a bot to think like you in FPSes. Small things, extras that increase the lifespan of the games and establish a user base with the chip.
I could think of a lot more non-essential extras that could be added to games with this chip, and I'd definitely spend my money on better AI than better physics if I had to choose.
I think the subscription based model has a lot of merits and it deserves to survive. What's missing is a rival in the genre that is pushing the others.
A decent rival game that either reduces the subscription fees or invests more into regular, fresh, original content would force Blizzard to compete a little more, giving even better value to the gamers. Given Blizzard's profits, I'm sure they could afford to compete. The trouble is can any new contenders compete without first getting a decent market share?
Slashdot Mirror
Music is missing a very important characteristic, and that's presence.
When you're standing at the bus stop, you'll talk to the old lady waiting for the 86 about the weather, because it's there, or about the horrendous state of transport in your area, because it's immediate and common to you both. Unless there's a radio playing, you're not going to talk about music. If there is a radio playing, the best you can expect is "Turn that shit down."
In fact if you're standing at the bus stop listening to your MP3 player, having the earbuds/headphones on means "Do not disturb" to anyone who isn't socially maladjusted.
"As a rational human being, Al-Qaeda are a loose association of psychopathic zealots who could be rounded up with a sustained police investigation. But speaking as a parent, they're all eight foot tall, they've got lasers under their moustaches, a huge eye in their foreheads and the only way to kill them is to nuke every country that hasn't sent us a Christmas card in the the last 20 years. Speaking as a mother..." - Bill Bailey
Isn't an interactive story basically a 1 player RPG? I mean interactive fiction is basically an RPG but with more depth to the written narrative. Isn't it?
And the thing that keeps tabletop RPGs alive is the games master. or DM or whatever the particular set of rules call him or her. That's your storytron right there: a human mind that can generate new narrative on the fly in response to the 'reader's initiative.
Unless storytron is an AI that can take the best from human GMs, human authors and Game Engines, then it's nothing to write home about. Otherwise, the key to interactive fiction lies in using the existing techniques available ('foldback') in the best way. The same way a good game designer will make the player feel that he's using his initiative when really he's being subtly guided, or in giving the player short bursts of freedom while the overarching story is on rails.
No, Washington Heights is grey.
Erm... Hong Kong South Korea Taiwan Bankok Manila Australian/New Zealand cities Call centers all over India That should be enough to monitor the Asia-Pacific coast and Indian ocean, if the technology actually works. You know, as well as Warp Drive, we'll also have to improve the level of our geo-political awareness or the Vulcans will think we're too stupid to explore the universe and bring peace to the galaxy...
I would go so far as to say they're completely different.
With Ockham's razor, once the theories that are easy to disprove are eliminated (easy as in obviously wrong and not even considered to begin with), then you choose the simplest of the remaining theories. This is because the chance that the simplest is correct is so likely as to make the expense of proving it to eliminate a negligible margin of error a wasteful endeavour. Ockham, of course, put it a lot simpler.
The Holmes quote is a completely different thing. It advocates taking the process of elimination to completion, asserting that the remaining theory could be infinitely complex and fanciful and still be correct, simply because it is the only possible theory left.
One would be crazy to apply Ockham's Razor to a criminal investigation. I mean if you did, you wouldn't really call it an investigation.
Galactic Civilizations 2 does that. You have the option of allowing the AI to run CPU-intensive algorithms. I think they suggest turning it off only if you're on laptop batteries or running other programs in the background. When the option is enabled, the game's opponents are constantly designing new ships to counteract your ship designs and the technologies available to you. With the option disabled, those calculations are performed once per game year which leaves the AI opponents at a disadvantage towards the end of the year, if you exploit it.
But the absence/presence of the existing processor power doesn't just have to relate to how often the AI thinks or directly relate to how 'smart' it behaves. For example, games that do not feature AI learning can introduce it, using the extra calculations for AI training. You can apply data mining to the myriad of stats in all manner of management sims. You can play a co-op game with yourself after training a bot to think like you in FPSes. Small things, extras that increase the lifespan of the games and establish a user base with the chip.
I could think of a lot more non-essential extras that could be added to games with this chip, and I'd definitely spend my money on better AI than better physics if I had to choose.
I think the subscription based model has a lot of merits and it deserves to survive. What's missing is a rival in the genre that is pushing the others. A decent rival game that either reduces the subscription fees or invests more into regular, fresh, original content would force Blizzard to compete a little more, giving even better value to the gamers. Given Blizzard's profits, I'm sure they could afford to compete. The trouble is can any new contenders compete without first getting a decent market share?