You're falling into a common trap with Vista sales. "Not selling" in terms of Microsoft sales figures doesn't actually mean that it's literally not selling, it means it's not selling as it could have been with Microsoft's installbase.
Microsoft actually shifted 100million copies of Vista in it's first year of release (not sure how many more in the 10months since then). To put that into context, Apple has shifted only around 10million macs in the last year and only slightly less in the year previous, the story is similar for the previous few years before that.
Vista isn't doing so bad that it's causing a massive migration to the Mac in the slightest, in fact, judging by the fact there's been only a minor increase in Mac sales over the last few years despite platforms like the iPhone going from none to over 10million units in the last year providing a whole new market for mobile developers suggests that there isn't even really much of a switch to Mac development at all.
Regarding your comments on developers, that's a complete redefinition of the term as it's commonly used. Developers and programmers are nearly always cited as one and the same in computing. Artists and web designers aren't developers, they're, well, artists and web designers. If you go for a developer job as an artist people are going to look at you rather funny. It's like an IT manager saying they're a developer because they develop reports, an HR person calling themselves a developer because they help develop the underlying staff base by performing recruitment and payroll tasks. Architects are about the only profession you list that falls in the realm of developer.
To be honest I played through C&C3 on the PC and the 360, console controls for RTS' really aren't that bad.
It's the same with FPS really, I never used to be a console gamer but a lot of the mouse and keyboard snobbery is rather unfounded when it comes to.
Probably the only type of game I wouldn't want to play on a console is an MMO and that's because of communication, I don't know how you'd handle voice chat in busy areas with hundreds of people talking at once without a keyboard.
Getting used to console controls for RTS, FPS and RPG games is really no different than initially getting used to them on a PC, it's just that most people here were brought up with playing them on PCs and don't like the idea of change.
Sure some games that are poor ports from PC to console and haven't had their control schemes thought through on the console kinda suck but for the major releases where time is spent on these things there's nothing about console control schemes that detract from the fun of the game or your ability to play it and compete.
I have a long history of PC gaming and spent many years playing Quake DM and TF to a pretty high level. I've bought various consoles because of a couple of eye catching games and I like the instant-playability factor of consoles without the hassle for having to upgrade, fiddle with drivers and so on but it didn't take long for me to realise that even FPS and RTS were perfectly playable and good fun on consoles. Certainly on games like Shadowrun for example there was no disparity between PC gamers with a mouse and console gamers with a pad because the control schemes for each had been thought through.
I don't think that's true because PDEs are something you're taught before you're at the level you can be selective. It's not until latter years of your degree and then perhaps your MSc and then your Phd that you'll be selective. PDEs are part of what is generally taught as a core set of math skills.
I'm heading down the pure maths route with the math I'm doing now and in future (primarily combinatorics and also number theory) and as stated my degree isn't even a math degree so I'm not sure how if someone like me who has only done a partial maths degree with a focus on pure maths has encountered PDEs and done a lot of work with them that someone with an even stronger math focus, no matter what path could have missed them.
The questions being asked in the summary are not those of someone doing post-graduate PDEs and are of someone doing an undergraduate introductory course to PDEs.
The problem is that they are only selling in this format because the current way people's PCs and the internet works has left them no choice.
Their is still a lot of will in the industry to do away with it in favour of DRM'd formats where possible and I've no doubt having seen their antics so far they'd jump on the chance to try and ensure it's a format that wouldn't remain usable on trusted hardware.
Yes it's prevalent now, but would it still be if the music industry had a chance to try and do away with it? I'd like to think they couldn't, and realistically I think that's probably the case but you get the point, if our PCs become trusted platforms they also lose their flexibility and freedom that we enjoy and take for granted right now- I'd rather keep that off my PC and on my hardware specific to certain tasks that need trusted hardware to be truly secure (i.e. gaming).
Regarding area coding, some games are so there is that excuse to an extent. The big games that are released in the same place worldwide at the same time such as Gears of War aren't area coded but the small games, like say Beautiful Katamari that was released like 5 months apart in different regions was. Area coding seems entirely dependent on release dates over anything else.
Regarding homebrew, there's no need- XNA does the job just fine so that's why the 360 really has no homebrew scene, as of Wednesday you'll even be able to publish your games and sell them direct to the user via the new XBox interface which is a pretty nice feature, integrating the homebrew experience right into the system to an extent is a pretty cool idea. The only downside is you are limited then to homebrew games and such as opposed to apps, movie players and such.
Something the summary missed somewhat in regard to Microsoft's bans is that they're not just for anti-piracy reasons but like Blizzards are also for anti-cheating reasons.
Apparently a rather major oversight was made in development of the 360 whereby the executables are verified for integrity, so you can't modify the executables to cheat on a console capable of running pirated discs.
What they didn't do is implement a method of ensuring integrity of game resources, presumably they figured developers knowing their executables were secure would check integrity of resources themselves which makes sense as every game has individual assets so what's meant by integrity maybe game specific.
The problem is some people have found in some games you can hack the game assetts to give yourself an advantage and cheat and this is one of the main reasons Microsoft is banning. It's also one of the reasons I don't mind paying for XBox live because when Microsoft ban cheaters and void their warranties (which is fair enough, they've modified their hardware) it acts as a great disincentive for people to cheat. That levels the playing field for the rest of us who like to play fair. One of things I hated about PC gaming is no matter how hard developers try, you can't stop cheating on the PC without using game design specific mechanisms limiting somewhat your game's design because the PC isn't a trusted platform whilst consoles can at least to some extent be seen as trusted platforms.
To me I'd rather keep things this way too- I don't want my PC to become a trusted platform and controlled by someone else, I want to retain control but I'm also happy to use consoles for gaming for the advantages of trusted computing. This setup offers the best of both worlds IMO as the only way PCs will ever become cheat free is if they become trusted platforms which likely means you wont be allowed to play MP3s and the like when big corporates get their way.
Nope, I'm currently doing a second degree in my spare time and did this stuff last year (my second year) and my degree isn't even a full maths degree, only 50% of it is maths.
What on earth is a 3rd year Phd maths student doing only doing PDEs now??? This really is undergrad stuff. I understand these topics can go more advanced but the stuff described sounds like the basic undergrad stuff.
I wonder if perhaps the person asking the question actually means they're a 3rd year undergrad student who wants to do a Phd in maths one day maybe? I know some unis do leave PDEs until 3rd year for some reason.
You're still effectively saying that you care more about an animal you own than another human being but regardless that wasn't my whole point. As I pointed out people will go and spend money on an animal they've never previously seen and have no attachment to instead of sending money to Africa. Similarly people who do donate to charity will often donate as much to animal welfare charities as to human charities proportionally.
Also note the point about harming animals in films and such, it's much more taboo to have some guys dog killed in a film than it is to have some guys kids killed for example.
So basically you're complaining that a First Person Shooter is about shooting?
The graphics were pretty groundbreaking and the story was decent, as FPS games go it's definitely one of the best and it's definitely up there with Bioshock. I'm not saying Gears 2 is better than Bioshock as a single player game because Bioshock was cool but the fact it has multiplayer and a good coop mode means I'm far more likely to replay it than Bioshock. Not started Dead Space and Fallout 3 yet but I do have them sat there waiting so will play through them soon when I get chance!
It was definitely a better game than Gears 1 also, longer, better storyline, better graphics, better weapons.
At the end of the day, no it's not groundbreaking but frankly it was still excellent and I'd argue it even puts Halo 3 to shame in terms of gameplay, storyline and visuals. I suppose it depends what you like, it sounds like you prefer the roleplay side of things which I do to, but sometimes it's nice to be able to blast things and those giant rockworms you had to use as moving cover, the bits of flesh you had to chainsaw through as you progressed through the giant worm and the giant fish were all absolutely amazing moments were all really nice touches. Again though, what really brings Gears 2 out is the fact the whole storyline is set around coop, something that Bioshock, Dead Space and Fallout 3 don't provide and coop games are always much, much better to play through. Perhaps another good example of an awesome coop game lately was Mercenairies 2, as a single player game it really wasn't all that, but playing it coop really brought it out as an excellent game.
"But even if it's against a real threat, it's obvious some put the lives of whales over the lives of our sailors. In fact I noticed that the far-whacko environmentalists are more anti-human than pro-animal. That's a lot of self-loathing there."
Questions:
1) Do you have any pets?
2) How much have you spent on them compared to people dying of starvation in 3rd world nations?
It's possible you don't have any pets, but you'll hopefully see my point - that many humans care more about animal welfare than they do about humans, it's really not that unusual. In fact, it happens all around us- if animals are shot on a film for example it can often bring up far more emotions than a human being shot. Many people would rather go out and buy a pet dog than send the money to Africa.
I'd guess it's perhaps the fact that animals are too dumb to be evil and intentionally be malicious pulls on people's conscience much more when these animals have had problems caused to them by humans who are very easily capable of being both evil and malicious.
So really, I wouldn't call them whacko, I call them humans with a conscience. At the end of the day, the loss of many human lives will likely actually have a positive effect on the world when you look at it scientifically (i.e. less pollution, perhaps less conflict) whereas the loss of a group of many of a species of animals has a negative effect (food chain collapse for example perhaps). Perhaps it's just a matter of realising that the world consists of more than just humanity and that many species of animals are as important to the world as any human ever will be.
So many fearmongers seem to forget that Russia has a population of only 170mill and dropping. The only threat from Russia is bullying of smaller nations around them and their nuclear arsenal. It doesn't matter how much the US' credit rating weakens it'll still have it's nuclear arsenal as a deterrent to counter that, the nuclear threat is always present but can always be discounted from these types of scenarios because if it happens we're all fucked, if it doesn't happen we're all carrying on as is.
Russia and China aren't in any way allies, they have common goals in the security council sometimes of keeping the US subdued but they also have their own border disputes with each other and really have little in common enough to be as close allies as Europe is to the US for example.
Russia really isn't the type of threat the US needs to worry about in terms of launching submarine based attacks unless for some reason the US becomes an enemy of the likes of Europe also because Europe combined has a vastly bigger set of armed forces than Russia and has more to fear if it goes against the US and hence the West in general due to it being on their doorstep.
Russia also has a lot of internal strife, whilst South Ossetia and Abkhazia worship the ground Russia walks on due to their incursion into Georgia what a lot of people miss is that North Ossetians and Ingushetia and similar would love nothing more than Russia to be distracted in a real war so that they can lop off a sizeable chunk of Russia's lower borders, there are a few other areas of Russia that would rapidly follow suit.
China is in a similar situation, Japan, India, South Korea all have interests in supporting the US if China went aggressive and you could be sure again that Europe would join in. The other similarity with Russia is that any aggression by China would rapidly push away Taiwan, Tibet and possibly even Hong-Kong from their grasp. Even Pakistan has border disputes with it. At the end of the day, China couldn't launch full scale military action elsewhere because it'd lose it's grip on so many regions and find itself a nation that was suddenly a whole lot smaller and a whole lot weaker.
There's an instant fear that because China is so big it's a threat, but whilst it is bigger than any individual nation it's not bigger, nor would it be bigger even with it's allies than the nations whose interests run counter to it and their allies.
There is really no threat from China and Russia even with a weakened US, the Western view has too much support from too many strong nations and should there be such thing as another world war, even a lot of the border-line nations would easily drop their distaste with the US to support the West in this kind of scenario, whilst Venezuela, Bolivia and so forth may support the Russians/Chinese you can guarantee Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico would all side with the US. The Middle East would largely be a stalemate with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Israel siding off against Iran, Syria and potentially Lebanon.
The assault by Russia into Georgia was to make a point, the US has established bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, on Russia's Southern borders, in Japan to Russia's East and now in Poland et al. on Europe's Western borders and in Greenland and in cooperation with Canada over the arctic to it's North. Russia knows it's surrounded, it knows it can't break out but with Georgia it also knew it had a sudden chance to make a point and send a message to other smaller nations like Georgia warning them to not allow anymore US influence on it's borders.
China and Russia are simply outmanned and outgunned in conventional warfare by a massive amount regardless of the US's strength in the world. The Western ideal whilst regularly slagged off simply has too much core support at the end of the day because so many nations know that the alternative is simply much worse. It is for these reasons that China and Russia simply are not in the position to attack the US with conventional warfare and almost certainly will not be for many, many decades- long after the current range of submarines, other military hardware and current group of people manning them are retired.
Personally I enjoyed all CoD games, the only slight let down was 3. CoD4 was hands down the best though.
I'll be getting CoD5 regardless, I could instead spend £35 of my hard earned cash on some other, new franchise that's just releasing it's first in the series but it may or may not be good. The thing for me is that even if CoD5 is just more of the same I don't have a problem with that because they're always games I've been left at the end wanting more of.
I guess it's people like me they rely on, but their series is tried and tested, you know what you're getting with it and if you enjoy it it's much less of a risk to slap your money down on than something new which may indeed suck.
I'm not expecting it to be as good as something like Gears of War 2 which I completed this week, that really was awesome, perhaps the best single player FPS I've ever played in terms of graphics, story and gameplay but I do know I'll be able to play through it and have fun and feel it was money well spent. That's more than can be said for other games I've purchased in the past based on the hype.
I'm not sure if you read my full post or not but if you continued past that sentence you'll notice I pretty much agree with what you're saying. Your food poisoning example is very much akin to my driving example, I wouldn't give up driving even though it's more statistically dangerous than terrorism just like I don't want to give up my rights and freedoms for terrorism due to the very fact it is a much smaller threat.
Ask a computer to do something complex correctly once and it'll do it right every time.
Ask a human to do something complex correctly once and they will regularly screw it up.
You're right that computers aren't infallible and yes they are programmed by humans but that ignores the thing computers are better at than humans - repetitive tasks. These are often key to proving something. The point is to program something you often only have to get it right once then the computer will get it right as many times as you want after that. Humans simply can't do the same, computers aren't infallible but humans are extremely fallible.
Even to give a basic example, I wrote a very basic function that takes a dynamically sized ordered list of coefficients and a value of x to solve a polynomial of the order relevant to the size of the list of coefficients passed to it (pass it a list of 5 coefficients and a value for x and it'll handle the 4th order polynomial ax^4 + bx^3 + cx^2 + dx + e). I also proved it correct using mathematical induction. I can be sure that this simple function will always solve an nth order polynomial for me. Can you guarantee that a human will be able to correctly calculate even a 10th order polynomial correctly every time without fail for 100 values of x? Can you guarantee that they could do it in the same few seconds that my algorithm takes to do it?
"Does anyone out there still believe the made up religious fanatic terrorist fundamentalist threat pretext any more? I don't know about you, it's pretty obvious to me that that threat was just made up by the US/UK/Australian governments as an excuse to carry out the biggest power grab in history."
What? 9/11, 7/7 and the Nadrid train bombings did actually happen. It absolutely is a real threat and there was even analysis of it as an emerging threat long before current governments started using it to push their agenda.
Unfortunately in the case of the British government I do even believe that they think this will help and in a way hell I even think it's possible that it would. If they can see everything everyone is doing then yes I think it could reduce crime.
What I don't agree with is the cost. My grandfather didn't fight on the beaches of Normandy so that our own government could instead come and take away the freedoms he fought for. Frankly, I'd rather live everyday free and run the risk that I be one of the 1 in 100 million people that die from a terrorist attack once every 10 years or whatever than I would be totally safe but not have any freedom at all. I have a higher chance of dying in a car crash each day but I wont stop driving because of that because in the grand scheme of things, that chance is still very small.
The problem is people like Jacqui Smith who simply don't understand that we want freedoms and I can even understand why this is- because she is in a position where this wouldn't effect her. Being in the position she is she'd be privalaged enough to not be one of the citizens under her that have to suffer this. As such she can't possibly understand the worry this brings the rest of us unless it is the case that it's made clear to her for this to go ahead she must also accept that every single communication she makes must also be logged and available to the public to monitor.
I agree with your sentiment, but your theory behind it seems a little paranoid. I don't think our governments are out to get us, they're just outright incompetent and entirely disconnected from the citizens they serve. It's easy to tell everyone they have to be monitored when you yourself aren't subject to such monitoring because you can claim your communications are sensitive to national security and must hence remain private.
The problem you have in formulating your power grab plan is that you're crediting the people behind these ideas (again for example Jacqui Smith) with being intelligent enough to understand the flaws in her plan. To give an example that's fairly applicable here on Slashdot, think of your average fanboy. A fanboy will choose product/idea x and argue that it's the best or that their idea is right. You can provide countless facts and proof counter to their claim but it doesn't matter, they'll still believe they're right. This is the position Jacqui Smith is in, id cards, internet monitoring and so on are her pet projects, it doesn't matter how wrong they are, they don't want to hear it. They've sided with these ideas and they're not going to let go until they're forced to (i.e. election time).
I do think it's possible to counter these things but there has to be the will to do so, the public needs to stand up and say enough is enough or at least provide work arounds (truly secure encrypted communication with encryption keys passed via a separate unmonitored medium such as post, voice or similar). In the UK the NO2ID campagin is a good start, it gets it's voice heard on the national news and such but they need more volunteers, more help, more donations to have a real policy changing effect.
I do rather thing conspiracy theories are rather counterproductive and are really no different to the politics of fear you talk down when it comes to. It seems more sensible to take a step back and look at a more realistic view of what's going on and deal with it in the best way possible- actually make the physical effort to campaign against it.
Realistically I think what we'll see is convergence. We'll start to produce biological computers and we'll understand how to develop our own biological systems as such. Alternatively quantum computing may indeed provide computers powerful enough develop systems capable of acting just like real, complex biological systems.
Then it just comes down to the usual argument of semantics. Have you created artificial intelligence or has artificial intellignece failed because you instead just created real intelligence? This is the type of pointless bickering to be expected and that has already resulted in stifling the field a little in the past.
So that's what we have here, the field of AI is plagued by argument and differences of opinion on basic semantics, when there's no clear definition of even the fundamentals such as what intelligence actually is it's no wonder that we can't decide if AI is even possible or not.
I prefer to take a more simplistic view on it though, although it overlaps somewhat with what you, and the above posters have already said. My view is that AI research is worth it simply because it consistently provides important and useful results and for me that is reason enough to continue.
I accept the reasoning that some may argue strong AI is an impossible goal (although I don't believe this is the case personally, I still feel they're entitled to their opinion) what I do absolutely despise is suggestion by some so-called professionals that AI as a whole is pointless because of that unproven premise. It's simply not, it's so utterly important to computing as a whole that it's foolish to write off.
Those who haven't studied AI sometimes miss the fact that it's unlikely they go more than about 5 minutes using a computer without making use of something that came about as a result of AI research without ever even realising it- whether it's using Google's search engine, whether it's spelling/grammar checking facilities or whether it's compiler optimization when compiling code. If strong AI is impossible or not is irrelevant, AI research is still to this day fundamental to advancement in the field of Computing.
"We have the right to bare arms. PERIOD. That means if I want a magazine that holds 50+ rounds, I can have it. If I want a machine gun, so be it. Handgun -you bet - and NO license if I want to carry."
But this is the problem with sticking so vigorously to your bill of rights. It was conceived in a day when machine guns simply didn't exist as they do today. When guns weren't something that could lead to a massacre of innocent people.
You're assuming that when this was written into the bill of rights that it was written in with the knowledge that it was going to continue to be adhered to indefinitely regardless of how deadly weapons get. Do you feel it should even stretch as far as nuclear arms for example? if not why not?
If you don't believe everyone and anyone should have the right to nuclear weaponry then you accept that a line has to be drawn somewhere and this is the problem with your view- you're drawing your own line and suggesting that the line set by your government is incorrect. The reality is neither of you are more correct than the other if both of you agree that the bill of rights shouldn't extend indefinitely to cover all possible eventualities covered by the vagueness of some parts of it. Americans are brought up to believe the constitution, the bill of rights are infallible, that they should be adhered to at all costs but as with many things in life, something that remains static and defies change is extremely prone to becoming obsolete or at least partially obsolete and this is the problem with the bill of rights. Instead of the bill of rights it's better to have rules that are flexible that can be voted upon and changed as required- well that's basically what laws are so the constitutions usefulness is actually questionable, particularly when many nations get by just as well, or in some cases better in terms of personal happiness and freedoms without one. As the Bush administration has demonstrated, the problem is ensuring laws are enacted fairly, the Bush administration has pushed unfair laws through in contradiction of the constitution anyway, fix that problem and you'll find you don't need the constitution if the process of pushing through legislation is fair.
Many Americans still of course cite that the right to bear arms is important so that people can rise up against government but this is simply an excuse to argue against gun controls and is an impractical reason in reality. The scenario posed has the following results-
1) Civilians armed with weapons they can afford aren't going to stand a chance against a well trained, well equipped military
2) The military are citizens too anyway, even if the government does need to be overthrown the military will be on your side to do it because it consists of your sons, daughters, cousins, friends and so on.
In result 1, you're screwed either way. You're not going to be able to defeat the military. If guns were completely banned, you'd still be able to rise up and perform guerilla warfare if that's the path you REALLY wanted to take because in these situations illegal arms are easy to acquire anyway. In result 2, you still don't need guns, because the military has them and will do the job for you.
Result 2 is the most realistic scenario because it's happened and does still happen, not in the US but elsewhere in the world. Lebanon and Turkey are good examples, their armies have stood up against governments to overthrow them and protect the nations against governments trying to destroy their secular constitutions.
The argument for being able to carry guns to protect the constitution simply doesn't match up with reality. It does however result in an absolutely massive increase in murder rates and other related crime and gun related accidents. To put it another way, the right to bear arms actually takes away many other people's legitimate right to life than it ever saves and I know which I think is much more important.
Finally I'll not I'm not entirely against guns, I enjoy shooting, in fact, I reall
I was looking into something rather unrelated a few months ago, the Srebrenica masacre/genocide in former Yugoslavia back in the 90s. It turns out that when the US came to put forward a motion condemning the masacres every single US politician voted for it, bar one.
That one was Ron Paul. I've been trying to find out why he voted against it but have not been able to find anything out. I wonder if perhaps he was making some kind of point but it seems rather inappropriate to use real recent genocide to make a point.
This is my only real experience of the guy and it's a rather sickening experience. So what is it that redeems him?
Yep you're definitely missing something. Many people here are developers and getting this guys questioned answered is only a small part of why these types of news postings are excellent.
The opportunity for developers with countless different backgrounds to answer it in their own way and hence share knowledge between developers is why news postings like this are great.
Reading through the threads improves all of our knowledge because no single person has the same experiences to learn from as anyone else. Taking in other people's experiences makes us all better developers.
Developers are absolutely not just a small minority of the Slashdot crowd, I'm pretty certain the vast majority of people here have at least some development experience even if it's not in a professional capacity.
Ask Slashdot responses have a much greater amount of useful and insightful responses for people ofe all competences than Political, Apple and Gaming stories to name a few. I'd much rather have the insightful comments provided in response to Ask Slashdot queries to read through than the pro-Apple/anti-Apple trolling on the latest Macbook or whatever for example filling the front page.
"Although Nokia claimed it to be proprietary almost a year ago, nothing has been proven. So now it's time to help it take over the internet"
I admit I don't know what the situation with Theora's licensing history is but this comment strikes me as rather worrying. We're being told to use it because no one's proven it's not likely to end you up with licensing troubles later on. Personally I'd rather before something "takes over the internet" that the burden of proof was on it to demonstrate that it is completely open. This should be as easy as showing use of a relevant open license no?
From what I can see it's under a BSD license and so should really be open. Is this the case? The way the article summary is written just really doesn't instil confidence in their intentions.
Giving this codec the benefit of the doubt I think the summary is just a case of carried away fanboyism having an adverse effect towards the neutral observers view of the situation much as seeing a forum war between a PS3 and a 360 fanboy might put someone off the idea of online console gaming.
Can someone a bit more grounded give us a better view of the concerns and realities of Theora licensing and it's suitability as a codec to "take over the internet"?
Apart from say allowing you to go to a cyber cafe or friends house or similar and play Half-Life 2 there with the same settings you'd use at home and without having to plug your laptop into the cyber cafe's/friend's network or PCs and sync your data back to said PC?
The point of it is that you don't need to prat about with syncing and you don't need to worry about re-syncing. When you change the settings on one machine, it handles this all for you because the settings are stored online.
In todays connected world worry about internet access is rather a non-issue and it's even much easier to connect to the internet and have Steam update for you than it is to handle a sync!
Slashdot Mirror
You're falling into a common trap with Vista sales. "Not selling" in terms of Microsoft sales figures doesn't actually mean that it's literally not selling, it means it's not selling as it could have been with Microsoft's installbase.
Microsoft actually shifted 100million copies of Vista in it's first year of release (not sure how many more in the 10months since then). To put that into context, Apple has shifted only around 10million macs in the last year and only slightly less in the year previous, the story is similar for the previous few years before that.
Vista isn't doing so bad that it's causing a massive migration to the Mac in the slightest, in fact, judging by the fact there's been only a minor increase in Mac sales over the last few years despite platforms like the iPhone going from none to over 10million units in the last year providing a whole new market for mobile developers suggests that there isn't even really much of a switch to Mac development at all.
Regarding your comments on developers, that's a complete redefinition of the term as it's commonly used. Developers and programmers are nearly always cited as one and the same in computing. Artists and web designers aren't developers, they're, well, artists and web designers. If you go for a developer job as an artist people are going to look at you rather funny. It's like an IT manager saying they're a developer because they develop reports, an HR person calling themselves a developer because they help develop the underlying staff base by performing recruitment and payroll tasks. Architects are about the only profession you list that falls in the realm of developer.
http://developers.sun.com/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/default.aspx
http://developer.intel.com/design/index.htm
oh, and even:
http://developer.apple.com/
All are focussed towards programming and software architecture.
To be honest I played through C&C3 on the PC and the 360, console controls for RTS' really aren't that bad.
It's the same with FPS really, I never used to be a console gamer but a lot of the mouse and keyboard snobbery is rather unfounded when it comes to.
Probably the only type of game I wouldn't want to play on a console is an MMO and that's because of communication, I don't know how you'd handle voice chat in busy areas with hundreds of people talking at once without a keyboard.
Getting used to console controls for RTS, FPS and RPG games is really no different than initially getting used to them on a PC, it's just that most people here were brought up with playing them on PCs and don't like the idea of change.
Sure some games that are poor ports from PC to console and haven't had their control schemes thought through on the console kinda suck but for the major releases where time is spent on these things there's nothing about console control schemes that detract from the fun of the game or your ability to play it and compete.
I have a long history of PC gaming and spent many years playing Quake DM and TF to a pretty high level. I've bought various consoles because of a couple of eye catching games and I like the instant-playability factor of consoles without the hassle for having to upgrade, fiddle with drivers and so on but it didn't take long for me to realise that even FPS and RTS were perfectly playable and good fun on consoles. Certainly on games like Shadowrun for example there was no disparity between PC gamers with a mouse and console gamers with a pad because the control schemes for each had been thought through.
I don't think that's true because PDEs are something you're taught before you're at the level you can be selective. It's not until latter years of your degree and then perhaps your MSc and then your Phd that you'll be selective. PDEs are part of what is generally taught as a core set of math skills.
I'm heading down the pure maths route with the math I'm doing now and in future (primarily combinatorics and also number theory) and as stated my degree isn't even a math degree so I'm not sure how if someone like me who has only done a partial maths degree with a focus on pure maths has encountered PDEs and done a lot of work with them that someone with an even stronger math focus, no matter what path could have missed them.
The questions being asked in the summary are not those of someone doing post-graduate PDEs and are of someone doing an undergraduate introductory course to PDEs.
The problem is that they are only selling in this format because the current way people's PCs and the internet works has left them no choice.
Their is still a lot of will in the industry to do away with it in favour of DRM'd formats where possible and I've no doubt having seen their antics so far they'd jump on the chance to try and ensure it's a format that wouldn't remain usable on trusted hardware.
Yes it's prevalent now, but would it still be if the music industry had a chance to try and do away with it? I'd like to think they couldn't, and realistically I think that's probably the case but you get the point, if our PCs become trusted platforms they also lose their flexibility and freedom that we enjoy and take for granted right now- I'd rather keep that off my PC and on my hardware specific to certain tasks that need trusted hardware to be truly secure (i.e. gaming).
Regarding area coding, some games are so there is that excuse to an extent. The big games that are released in the same place worldwide at the same time such as Gears of War aren't area coded but the small games, like say Beautiful Katamari that was released like 5 months apart in different regions was. Area coding seems entirely dependent on release dates over anything else.
Regarding homebrew, there's no need- XNA does the job just fine so that's why the 360 really has no homebrew scene, as of Wednesday you'll even be able to publish your games and sell them direct to the user via the new XBox interface which is a pretty nice feature, integrating the homebrew experience right into the system to an extent is a pretty cool idea. The only downside is you are limited then to homebrew games and such as opposed to apps, movie players and such.
Something the summary missed somewhat in regard to Microsoft's bans is that they're not just for anti-piracy reasons but like Blizzards are also for anti-cheating reasons.
Apparently a rather major oversight was made in development of the 360 whereby the executables are verified for integrity, so you can't modify the executables to cheat on a console capable of running pirated discs.
What they didn't do is implement a method of ensuring integrity of game resources, presumably they figured developers knowing their executables were secure would check integrity of resources themselves which makes sense as every game has individual assets so what's meant by integrity maybe game specific.
The problem is some people have found in some games you can hack the game assetts to give yourself an advantage and cheat and this is one of the main reasons Microsoft is banning. It's also one of the reasons I don't mind paying for XBox live because when Microsoft ban cheaters and void their warranties (which is fair enough, they've modified their hardware) it acts as a great disincentive for people to cheat. That levels the playing field for the rest of us who like to play fair. One of things I hated about PC gaming is no matter how hard developers try, you can't stop cheating on the PC without using game design specific mechanisms limiting somewhat your game's design because the PC isn't a trusted platform whilst consoles can at least to some extent be seen as trusted platforms.
To me I'd rather keep things this way too- I don't want my PC to become a trusted platform and controlled by someone else, I want to retain control but I'm also happy to use consoles for gaming for the advantages of trusted computing. This setup offers the best of both worlds IMO as the only way PCs will ever become cheat free is if they become trusted platforms which likely means you wont be allowed to play MP3s and the like when big corporates get their way.
Nope, I'm currently doing a second degree in my spare time and did this stuff last year (my second year) and my degree isn't even a full maths degree, only 50% of it is maths.
What on earth is a 3rd year Phd maths student doing only doing PDEs now??? This really is undergrad stuff. I understand these topics can go more advanced but the stuff described sounds like the basic undergrad stuff.
I wonder if perhaps the person asking the question actually means they're a 3rd year undergrad student who wants to do a Phd in maths one day maybe? I know some unis do leave PDEs until 3rd year for some reason.
You're still effectively saying that you care more about an animal you own than another human being but regardless that wasn't my whole point. As I pointed out people will go and spend money on an animal they've never previously seen and have no attachment to instead of sending money to Africa. Similarly people who do donate to charity will often donate as much to animal welfare charities as to human charities proportionally.
Also note the point about harming animals in films and such, it's much more taboo to have some guys dog killed in a film than it is to have some guys kids killed for example.
So basically you're complaining that a First Person Shooter is about shooting?
The graphics were pretty groundbreaking and the story was decent, as FPS games go it's definitely one of the best and it's definitely up there with Bioshock. I'm not saying Gears 2 is better than Bioshock as a single player game because Bioshock was cool but the fact it has multiplayer and a good coop mode means I'm far more likely to replay it than Bioshock. Not started Dead Space and Fallout 3 yet but I do have them sat there waiting so will play through them soon when I get chance!
It was definitely a better game than Gears 1 also, longer, better storyline, better graphics, better weapons.
At the end of the day, no it's not groundbreaking but frankly it was still excellent and I'd argue it even puts Halo 3 to shame in terms of gameplay, storyline and visuals. I suppose it depends what you like, it sounds like you prefer the roleplay side of things which I do to, but sometimes it's nice to be able to blast things and those giant rockworms you had to use as moving cover, the bits of flesh you had to chainsaw through as you progressed through the giant worm and the giant fish were all absolutely amazing moments were all really nice touches. Again though, what really brings Gears 2 out is the fact the whole storyline is set around coop, something that Bioshock, Dead Space and Fallout 3 don't provide and coop games are always much, much better to play through. Perhaps another good example of an awesome coop game lately was Mercenairies 2, as a single player game it really wasn't all that, but playing it coop really brought it out as an excellent game.
Lawyers or Marketing people hopefully.
Anything that can shoot 28k of them at any rate is good enough for me.
"But even if it's against a real threat, it's obvious some put the lives of whales over the lives of our sailors. In fact I noticed that the far-whacko environmentalists are more anti-human than pro-animal. That's a lot of self-loathing there."
Questions:
1) Do you have any pets?
2) How much have you spent on them compared to people dying of starvation in 3rd world nations?
It's possible you don't have any pets, but you'll hopefully see my point - that many humans care more about animal welfare than they do about humans, it's really not that unusual. In fact, it happens all around us- if animals are shot on a film for example it can often bring up far more emotions than a human being shot. Many people would rather go out and buy a pet dog than send the money to Africa.
I'd guess it's perhaps the fact that animals are too dumb to be evil and intentionally be malicious pulls on people's conscience much more when these animals have had problems caused to them by humans who are very easily capable of being both evil and malicious.
So really, I wouldn't call them whacko, I call them humans with a conscience. At the end of the day, the loss of many human lives will likely actually have a positive effect on the world when you look at it scientifically (i.e. less pollution, perhaps less conflict) whereas the loss of a group of many of a species of animals has a negative effect (food chain collapse for example perhaps). Perhaps it's just a matter of realising that the world consists of more than just humanity and that many species of animals are as important to the world as any human ever will be.
If you hadn't explained the circumstances I'd have though the dolphin was being sent flying out the water after being hit by the ship :p
So many fearmongers seem to forget that Russia has a population of only 170mill and dropping. The only threat from Russia is bullying of smaller nations around them and their nuclear arsenal. It doesn't matter how much the US' credit rating weakens it'll still have it's nuclear arsenal as a deterrent to counter that, the nuclear threat is always present but can always be discounted from these types of scenarios because if it happens we're all fucked, if it doesn't happen we're all carrying on as is.
Russia and China aren't in any way allies, they have common goals in the security council sometimes of keeping the US subdued but they also have their own border disputes with each other and really have little in common enough to be as close allies as Europe is to the US for example.
Russia really isn't the type of threat the US needs to worry about in terms of launching submarine based attacks unless for some reason the US becomes an enemy of the likes of Europe also because Europe combined has a vastly bigger set of armed forces than Russia and has more to fear if it goes against the US and hence the West in general due to it being on their doorstep.
Russia also has a lot of internal strife, whilst South Ossetia and Abkhazia worship the ground Russia walks on due to their incursion into Georgia what a lot of people miss is that North Ossetians and Ingushetia and similar would love nothing more than Russia to be distracted in a real war so that they can lop off a sizeable chunk of Russia's lower borders, there are a few other areas of Russia that would rapidly follow suit.
China is in a similar situation, Japan, India, South Korea all have interests in supporting the US if China went aggressive and you could be sure again that Europe would join in. The other similarity with Russia is that any aggression by China would rapidly push away Taiwan, Tibet and possibly even Hong-Kong from their grasp. Even Pakistan has border disputes with it. At the end of the day, China couldn't launch full scale military action elsewhere because it'd lose it's grip on so many regions and find itself a nation that was suddenly a whole lot smaller and a whole lot weaker.
There's an instant fear that because China is so big it's a threat, but whilst it is bigger than any individual nation it's not bigger, nor would it be bigger even with it's allies than the nations whose interests run counter to it and their allies.
There is really no threat from China and Russia even with a weakened US, the Western view has too much support from too many strong nations and should there be such thing as another world war, even a lot of the border-line nations would easily drop their distaste with the US to support the West in this kind of scenario, whilst Venezuela, Bolivia and so forth may support the Russians/Chinese you can guarantee Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Mexico would all side with the US. The Middle East would largely be a stalemate with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Israel siding off against Iran, Syria and potentially Lebanon.
The assault by Russia into Georgia was to make a point, the US has established bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, on Russia's Southern borders, in Japan to Russia's East and now in Poland et al. on Europe's Western borders and in Greenland and in cooperation with Canada over the arctic to it's North. Russia knows it's surrounded, it knows it can't break out but with Georgia it also knew it had a sudden chance to make a point and send a message to other smaller nations like Georgia warning them to not allow anymore US influence on it's borders.
China and Russia are simply outmanned and outgunned in conventional warfare by a massive amount regardless of the US's strength in the world. The Western ideal whilst regularly slagged off simply has too much core support at the end of the day because so many nations know that the alternative is simply much worse. It is for these reasons that China and Russia simply are not in the position to attack the US with conventional warfare and almost certainly will not be for many, many decades- long after the current range of submarines, other military hardware and current group of people manning them are retired.
...that the US is actually now a bleu nation not a rouge nation.
Personally I enjoyed all CoD games, the only slight let down was 3. CoD4 was hands down the best though.
I'll be getting CoD5 regardless, I could instead spend £35 of my hard earned cash on some other, new franchise that's just releasing it's first in the series but it may or may not be good. The thing for me is that even if CoD5 is just more of the same I don't have a problem with that because they're always games I've been left at the end wanting more of.
I guess it's people like me they rely on, but their series is tried and tested, you know what you're getting with it and if you enjoy it it's much less of a risk to slap your money down on than something new which may indeed suck.
I'm not expecting it to be as good as something like Gears of War 2 which I completed this week, that really was awesome, perhaps the best single player FPS I've ever played in terms of graphics, story and gameplay but I do know I'll be able to play through it and have fun and feel it was money well spent. That's more than can be said for other games I've purchased in the past based on the hype.
Most British newspapers are very Conservative too unfortunately.
That's probably why we end up with either the Conservatives and the Conservatives reloaded (aka Labour) taking it in turns every election or two.
I'm not sure if you read my full post or not but if you continued past that sentence you'll notice I pretty much agree with what you're saying. Your food poisoning example is very much akin to my driving example, I wouldn't give up driving even though it's more statistically dangerous than terrorism just like I don't want to give up my rights and freedoms for terrorism due to the very fact it is a much smaller threat.
Ask a computer to do something complex correctly once and it'll do it right every time.
Ask a human to do something complex correctly once and they will regularly screw it up.
You're right that computers aren't infallible and yes they are programmed by humans but that ignores the thing computers are better at than humans - repetitive tasks. These are often key to proving something. The point is to program something you often only have to get it right once then the computer will get it right as many times as you want after that. Humans simply can't do the same, computers aren't infallible but humans are extremely fallible.
Even to give a basic example, I wrote a very basic function that takes a dynamically sized ordered list of coefficients and a value of x to solve a polynomial of the order relevant to the size of the list of coefficients passed to it (pass it a list of 5 coefficients and a value for x and it'll handle the 4th order polynomial ax^4 + bx^3 + cx^2 + dx + e). I also proved it correct using mathematical induction. I can be sure that this simple function will always solve an nth order polynomial for me. Can you guarantee that a human will be able to correctly calculate even a 10th order polynomial correctly every time without fail for 100 values of x? Can you guarantee that they could do it in the same few seconds that my algorithm takes to do it?
I thought not.
"Does anyone out there still believe the made up religious fanatic terrorist fundamentalist threat pretext any more? I don't know about you, it's pretty obvious to me that that threat was just made up by the US/UK/Australian governments as an excuse to carry out the biggest power grab in history."
What? 9/11, 7/7 and the Nadrid train bombings did actually happen. It absolutely is a real threat and there was even analysis of it as an emerging threat long before current governments started using it to push their agenda.
Unfortunately in the case of the British government I do even believe that they think this will help and in a way hell I even think it's possible that it would. If they can see everything everyone is doing then yes I think it could reduce crime.
What I don't agree with is the cost. My grandfather didn't fight on the beaches of Normandy so that our own government could instead come and take away the freedoms he fought for. Frankly, I'd rather live everyday free and run the risk that I be one of the 1 in 100 million people that die from a terrorist attack once every 10 years or whatever than I would be totally safe but not have any freedom at all. I have a higher chance of dying in a car crash each day but I wont stop driving because of that because in the grand scheme of things, that chance is still very small.
The problem is people like Jacqui Smith who simply don't understand that we want freedoms and I can even understand why this is- because she is in a position where this wouldn't effect her. Being in the position she is she'd be privalaged enough to not be one of the citizens under her that have to suffer this. As such she can't possibly understand the worry this brings the rest of us unless it is the case that it's made clear to her for this to go ahead she must also accept that every single communication she makes must also be logged and available to the public to monitor.
I agree with your sentiment, but your theory behind it seems a little paranoid. I don't think our governments are out to get us, they're just outright incompetent and entirely disconnected from the citizens they serve. It's easy to tell everyone they have to be monitored when you yourself aren't subject to such monitoring because you can claim your communications are sensitive to national security and must hence remain private.
The problem you have in formulating your power grab plan is that you're crediting the people behind these ideas (again for example Jacqui Smith) with being intelligent enough to understand the flaws in her plan. To give an example that's fairly applicable here on Slashdot, think of your average fanboy. A fanboy will choose product/idea x and argue that it's the best or that their idea is right. You can provide countless facts and proof counter to their claim but it doesn't matter, they'll still believe they're right. This is the position Jacqui Smith is in, id cards, internet monitoring and so on are her pet projects, it doesn't matter how wrong they are, they don't want to hear it. They've sided with these ideas and they're not going to let go until they're forced to (i.e. election time).
I do think it's possible to counter these things but there has to be the will to do so, the public needs to stand up and say enough is enough or at least provide work arounds (truly secure encrypted communication with encryption keys passed via a separate unmonitored medium such as post, voice or similar). In the UK the NO2ID campagin is a good start, it gets it's voice heard on the national news and such but they need more volunteers, more help, more donations to have a real policy changing effect.
I do rather thing conspiracy theories are rather counterproductive and are really no different to the politics of fear you talk down when it comes to. It seems more sensible to take a step back and look at a more realistic view of what's going on and deal with it in the best way possible- actually make the physical effort to campaign against it.
Realistically I think what we'll see is convergence. We'll start to produce biological computers and we'll understand how to develop our own biological systems as such. Alternatively quantum computing may indeed provide computers powerful enough develop systems capable of acting just like real, complex biological systems.
Then it just comes down to the usual argument of semantics. Have you created artificial intelligence or has artificial intellignece failed because you instead just created real intelligence? This is the type of pointless bickering to be expected and that has already resulted in stifling the field a little in the past.
So that's what we have here, the field of AI is plagued by argument and differences of opinion on basic semantics, when there's no clear definition of even the fundamentals such as what intelligence actually is it's no wonder that we can't decide if AI is even possible or not.
I prefer to take a more simplistic view on it though, although it overlaps somewhat with what you, and the above posters have already said. My view is that AI research is worth it simply because it consistently provides important and useful results and for me that is reason enough to continue.
I accept the reasoning that some may argue strong AI is an impossible goal (although I don't believe this is the case personally, I still feel they're entitled to their opinion) what I do absolutely despise is suggestion by some so-called professionals that AI as a whole is pointless because of that unproven premise. It's simply not, it's so utterly important to computing as a whole that it's foolish to write off.
Those who haven't studied AI sometimes miss the fact that it's unlikely they go more than about 5 minutes using a computer without making use of something that came about as a result of AI research without ever even realising it- whether it's using Google's search engine, whether it's spelling/grammar checking facilities or whether it's compiler optimization when compiling code. If strong AI is impossible or not is irrelevant, AI research is still to this day fundamental to advancement in the field of Computing.
"We have the right to bare arms. PERIOD. That means if I want a magazine that holds 50+ rounds, I can have it. If I want a machine gun, so be it. Handgun -you bet - and NO license if I want to carry."
But this is the problem with sticking so vigorously to your bill of rights. It was conceived in a day when machine guns simply didn't exist as they do today. When guns weren't something that could lead to a massacre of innocent people.
You're assuming that when this was written into the bill of rights that it was written in with the knowledge that it was going to continue to be adhered to indefinitely regardless of how deadly weapons get. Do you feel it should even stretch as far as nuclear arms for example? if not why not?
If you don't believe everyone and anyone should have the right to nuclear weaponry then you accept that a line has to be drawn somewhere and this is the problem with your view- you're drawing your own line and suggesting that the line set by your government is incorrect. The reality is neither of you are more correct than the other if both of you agree that the bill of rights shouldn't extend indefinitely to cover all possible eventualities covered by the vagueness of some parts of it. Americans are brought up to believe the constitution, the bill of rights are infallible, that they should be adhered to at all costs but as with many things in life, something that remains static and defies change is extremely prone to becoming obsolete or at least partially obsolete and this is the problem with the bill of rights. Instead of the bill of rights it's better to have rules that are flexible that can be voted upon and changed as required- well that's basically what laws are so the constitutions usefulness is actually questionable, particularly when many nations get by just as well, or in some cases better in terms of personal happiness and freedoms without one. As the Bush administration has demonstrated, the problem is ensuring laws are enacted fairly, the Bush administration has pushed unfair laws through in contradiction of the constitution anyway, fix that problem and you'll find you don't need the constitution if the process of pushing through legislation is fair.
Many Americans still of course cite that the right to bear arms is important so that people can rise up against government but this is simply an excuse to argue against gun controls and is an impractical reason in reality. The scenario posed has the following results-
1) Civilians armed with weapons they can afford aren't going to stand a chance against a well trained, well equipped military
2) The military are citizens too anyway, even if the government does need to be overthrown the military will be on your side to do it because it consists of your sons, daughters, cousins, friends and so on.
In result 1, you're screwed either way. You're not going to be able to defeat the military. If guns were completely banned, you'd still be able to rise up and perform guerilla warfare if that's the path you REALLY wanted to take because in these situations illegal arms are easy to acquire anyway. In result 2, you still don't need guns, because the military has them and will do the job for you.
Result 2 is the most realistic scenario because it's happened and does still happen, not in the US but elsewhere in the world. Lebanon and Turkey are good examples, their armies have stood up against governments to overthrow them and protect the nations against governments trying to destroy their secular constitutions.
The argument for being able to carry guns to protect the constitution simply doesn't match up with reality. It does however result in an absolutely massive increase in murder rates and other related crime and gun related accidents. To put it another way, the right to bear arms actually takes away many other people's legitimate right to life than it ever saves and I know which I think is much more important.
Finally I'll not I'm not entirely against guns, I enjoy shooting, in fact, I reall
What is it that people love about Ron Paul?
I was looking into something rather unrelated a few months ago, the Srebrenica masacre/genocide in former Yugoslavia back in the 90s. It turns out that when the US came to put forward a motion condemning the masacres every single US politician voted for it, bar one.
That one was Ron Paul. I've been trying to find out why he voted against it but have not been able to find anything out. I wonder if perhaps he was making some kind of point but it seems rather inappropriate to use real recent genocide to make a point.
This is my only real experience of the guy and it's a rather sickening experience. So what is it that redeems him?
Yep you're definitely missing something. Many people here are developers and getting this guys questioned answered is only a small part of why these types of news postings are excellent.
The opportunity for developers with countless different backgrounds to answer it in their own way and hence share knowledge between developers is why news postings like this are great.
Reading through the threads improves all of our knowledge because no single person has the same experiences to learn from as anyone else. Taking in other people's experiences makes us all better developers.
Developers are absolutely not just a small minority of the Slashdot crowd, I'm pretty certain the vast majority of people here have at least some development experience even if it's not in a professional capacity.
Ask Slashdot responses have a much greater amount of useful and insightful responses for people ofe all competences than Political, Apple and Gaming stories to name a few. I'd much rather have the insightful comments provided in response to Ask Slashdot queries to read through than the pro-Apple/anti-Apple trolling on the latest Macbook or whatever for example filling the front page.
"Although Nokia claimed it to be proprietary almost a year ago, nothing has been proven. So now it's time to help it take over the internet"
I admit I don't know what the situation with Theora's licensing history is but this comment strikes me as rather worrying. We're being told to use it because no one's proven it's not likely to end you up with licensing troubles later on. Personally I'd rather before something "takes over the internet" that the burden of proof was on it to demonstrate that it is completely open. This should be as easy as showing use of a relevant open license no?
From what I can see it's under a BSD license and so should really be open. Is this the case? The way the article summary is written just really doesn't instil confidence in their intentions.
Giving this codec the benefit of the doubt I think the summary is just a case of carried away fanboyism having an adverse effect towards the neutral observers view of the situation much as seeing a forum war between a PS3 and a 360 fanboy might put someone off the idea of online console gaming.
Can someone a bit more grounded give us a better view of the concerns and realities of Theora licensing and it's suitability as a codec to "take over the internet"?
Apart from say allowing you to go to a cyber cafe or friends house or similar and play Half-Life 2 there with the same settings you'd use at home and without having to plug your laptop into the cyber cafe's/friend's network or PCs and sync your data back to said PC?
The point of it is that you don't need to prat about with syncing and you don't need to worry about re-syncing. When you change the settings on one machine, it handles this all for you because the settings are stored online.
In todays connected world worry about internet access is rather a non-issue and it's even much easier to connect to the internet and have Steam update for you than it is to handle a sync!