"I haven't used a mouse pad in years, because I use trackballs. Seriously. I don't know why the mouse is so much more popular."
Do you play FPS games? Err, sorry, I don't mean to make that sound like a challenge to your post. Just curious if ppl with trackballs have a better or worse time than people with mice when playing games. I used a trackball years ago. I was really good with it, but I never was too successful at Doom. I wonder if I should give it another chance.
"No, it goes from looking like a plane to looking like a plane with the wings on a funny angle."
From TFA:
When completed (target date: 2020), it will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back.
"Understand sarcasm before you indulge in your slashdot penis waving attempt to correct someone."
Understand the point you're being sarcastic about before you indulge in slashdot penis waving in a vain attempt to increase your ambient intelligence.
"So, having one part of the plane change its angle is now shape shifting?"
No. Rotating the wings so that the entire shape of the plane makes it a shape shifter. This one goes from looking like a plane to looking like a knife, as opposed ot F-14 that just changes to look more like a dart.
Though I agree with your underwhelmment over the name and the description, cripes, your examples suck. Understand what you're poo-poo'ing.
"Television programs transferred to portable devices using TiVo Desktop Plus contain information that can be used to identify the TiVo account and/or DVR from which the transfer originated."
This question isn't all that relevent to the topic other than a brief mention of PHP. No hard feelings if modded off-topic.
I'm a 3D artist working in the VFX industry. Recently, I've been scripting within my 3D app. (The syntax of this language is a lot like PHP...) There are a lot of things you can do with the scripting portion of the app. You can write modeling plugins that play with the geometry. You can write shaders. You can automate tedious tasks. You can work on the RGB buffers after they've been written. Etc. There was a rumor flying around that they were going to switch from the PHP'esque syntax to Python, the justification being that they can do much more powerful things with it. I'm unfamiliar with Python, so please forgive my ignorance. I just wanted to ask: Can anybody describe in laymen's terms what this sort of change could mean towards writing better/more efficient code? I'm almost afraid to ask this question for fear of starting a PHP vs. Python war, but I'm just curious if there's a significant difference in philosophy with this language or if the company making this app is just trying to follow in the footsteps of more successful apps that already use Python.
Re:Dude, there's a whole universe in all of us...
on
Futurama Returns
·
· Score: 1
"I was amazed that the writing team had thought that far ahead."
Heh. I still think the writing team saw the original episode and thought "That shadow looks like Nibbler!" and went from there.
"Who thinks this will wear off really quick? I like game immersion in a seemless fashion where i can think, plan and strategize and the standard controller fits that perfectly.. The action of waving my arms around or shaking hands or even swaying back and forth just appears to be as another style of button mashing to me."
Not me. It's not about waving your arms around, it's about creating gestures. If you've ever used Opera's or FireFox's gestures, you're a good chunk of the way towards understanding what I'm talking about. Point at the screen, twitch the controller, shake the nunchuck, and you've got the basics to just about any game that's likely to come out. Compare that to "Triangle switces your inventory" or "R3 honks the horn", and you can see it's more intuitive. That's really what Nintendo's after.
Re:What about the traditional non-gamer crowd?
on
Wii-mote In Action
·
· Score: 1
"I've been seeing the DS/DS Lite make inroads with people I work with - especially when they see me playing "Brain Age" or "Big Brain Academy" - I had my DS Lite passed around the office for about an hour as people tried out the test from the latter game. At least one or two people - in their 40's, never played games before, but now are seriously thinking about picking up a DS for their kids and maybe the Brain Age for themselves."
I hear ya. My girlfriend started playing my DS last year and demanded one of her own for Christmas. She's put a heck of a lot of hours into Brain Age. She also played the heck out of Mario Kart on the net. She's not a gamer per-se, but now she's making noise about getting a DS Lite. Nintendo hit a home-run with the DS.
"Do you consider switching channels when commercials come on as stealing as well ?"
Ads are annoying. We all agree with that. There is a point to be made, though: If everybody blocks ads, whether they're for TV or for the net, sooner or later we can expect sites to either mandate paid registrations or die out all together. Maybe 'stealing' is a strong word, not interested in debating that, not that it would go anywhere useful anyway. It's the consequences one has to be mindful of. These services cost money to produce and be made available. Whether it is 'stealing' or not doesn't change this fact.
"Did anyone else read this and think 'Gee, go figure. A more powerful system needs more electricity.' Sounds like non-news to me."
I wouldn't be surprised if this article was inspired by something Nintendo said at E3 '05. They mentioned it was really efficient with power. I can imagine somebody taking that little blurb and writing a story about it. (They didn't mention the Wii so I'm probably just talking out of my rear.)
In any event, the interesting part of this article is towards the end when they compare the estimated cost of using these systems for a year. I'm really surprised by the PS1, here. Keeping it on for an entire year costs a whopping dollar.
"Here is a link to the SkySeer product on the manufacturer's web page that includes a photo of the device (looks like a model airplane): http://www.octatron.com/Products/SKS.html"
Funny you should mention that. They also sell model kits of it.
"This could be really big for space travel if it overcomes the main shortfall of common glass windows: sagging and ultimately flowing right out of the window frames over time. This is a huge barrier to the long-term space travel needed to get to other solar systems. Just imagine how fast normal glass would deform if they spun the space ship to maintain 1G!"
What ever happened to the 'transparent aluminum' that dude from San Francisco was working on in the 80's?
"Who makes the diecsion on whether or not games fall into this category or not? Thompson? I think it's fair to say that no game (that people would seriously play) falls into this category based on how I read it. But then again, I don't play games for those reasons and likely, neither does anyone else."
Heh. After I read this little blurb of your post I started thinking about some of the 'values' I learned in Jack's favorite game, San Andreas.
Science: I learned that you do NOT want to drive like a maniac... anywhere. You really cannot drive wrecklessly in any spot in that game without destroying your car. Heck, after playing the GTA games, I started paying a lot more attention to how erratic pedestrians can be.
Artistic: This game is dripping with satire. Sometimes it's about how silly movies can be. Sometimes it's about politics. Sometimes it's about culture icons. Just about anything's fair game. The media in particular took a few nasty hits from this game. Classic stuff.
Political: "It's time for a movie star to be president." I loved that little bit about how politicians always lie so an actor would be best qualified for the job.
Literary: Well.. I have to admit there, if there was any literary value, it was over my head.
Basically what I'm saying is that you're right, it's in the eye of the beholder. People like Jack see a player beating up a hooker, stop there, and rush to judgement. This is why I'm not a fan of bills like this. I personally think that anybody who drives through a busy city should spend some serious time with this game. That is an opinion, of course, but it cured any desire I ever had of wanting to go street racing.
I think if he's real serious about keeping dangerous content away from minors, he should pick on Crazy Taxi. The goal in that game is to drive like a thundering moron through busy streets to get from point A to point B in a ridiculously short amount of time. The game is programmed so that you cannot run over anybody. If a pedestrian walks out in front of you, they'll magically jump out of the way! Which is worse? Teens-soon-to-have-their-driver's-licenses playing a game where they can run over people until the cops hunt them down, or a game where they're encouraged to drive like a mad man who will never see any consequences of their actions? Show a little consistency, Jack!
"And I'd be willing to be that people in, say, Kansas, would much rather deal with tornadoes than hurricanes or earthquakes."
I'm from Kansas. Of the three, I'd rather deal with earthquakes. (Amusingly, I live in Cali now.) I've always felt that way, but I'm tainted by having been through several tornadoes. It's hard to compare lighting and high winds to the ground shaking around.
"It's a semantic point and one not even worth making."
Heh. Actually, I think he's pointing out Slashdot hypocrisy. From the responses he's gotten, I think he was rather clever about it. (I nearly replied and put my foot in my mouth.)
Slashdot Mirror
"I haven't used a mouse pad in years, because I use trackballs. Seriously. I don't know why the mouse is so much more popular."
Do you play FPS games? Err, sorry, I don't mean to make that sound like a challenge to your post. Just curious if ppl with trackballs have a better or worse time than people with mice when playing games. I used a trackball years ago. I was really good with it, but I never was too successful at Doom. I wonder if I should give it another chance.
Hmm.. that explains why my Mel scripts don't work.
Ah, never mind. I went over to the Pop-sci article and saw a picture of the wings in the configuration, and I agree with you now.
a 52aceb010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
Sorry about the 'slashdot penis waving'.
Yeesh, it looks like one of those stupid $1 foam planes that are too delicate to get the wings on right.
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/0f2505
From TFA:
"Understand sarcasm before you indulge in your slashdot penis waving attempt to correct someone."
Understand the point you're being sarcastic about before you indulge in slashdot penis waving in a vain attempt to increase your ambient intelligence.
"For example, they could identify a poison by measuring its effect on such a network of brain cells"
proc DetectPoison ()
{
global $NeuralActivity;
if($NeuralActivity == 0) return true;
return false;
}
"So, having one part of the plane change its angle is now shape shifting?"
No. Rotating the wings so that the entire shape of the plane makes it a shape shifter. This one goes from looking like a plane to looking like a knife, as opposed ot F-14 that just changes to look more like a dart.
Though I agree with your underwhelmment over the name and the description, cripes, your examples suck. Understand what you're poo-poo'ing.
"Television programs transferred to portable devices using TiVo Desktop Plus contain information that can be used to identify the TiVo account and/or DVR from which the transfer originated."
TiVo being evil, or TiVo being afraid of the *AA?
"The "PC" they use kinda looks like a Mac to me."
:P
Looks like a PC using an Apple display to me. The mouse and the tower should be a dead giveaway.
"Even our readers have had to endure more than one browser-crashing ad campaign from time to time. Thanks for sticking around."
Oh? What happened?
"Some people really get tied in a knot about stuff like this."
+5 Funny? I'm a freyed knot.
"The girl in the photo on the first page is H-A-W-T HOT!"
If vintage porn has taught me anything, she's probably surprisingly hairy under there. You've been warned!
This question isn't all that relevent to the topic other than a brief mention of PHP. No hard feelings if modded off-topic.
I'm a 3D artist working in the VFX industry. Recently, I've been scripting within my 3D app. (The syntax of this language is a lot like PHP...) There are a lot of things you can do with the scripting portion of the app. You can write modeling plugins that play with the geometry. You can write shaders. You can automate tedious tasks. You can work on the RGB buffers after they've been written. Etc. There was a rumor flying around that they were going to switch from the PHP'esque syntax to Python, the justification being that they can do much more powerful things with it. I'm unfamiliar with Python, so please forgive my ignorance. I just wanted to ask: Can anybody describe in laymen's terms what this sort of change could mean towards writing better/more efficient code? I'm almost afraid to ask this question for fear of starting a PHP vs. Python war, but I'm just curious if there's a significant difference in philosophy with this language or if the company making this app is just trying to follow in the footsteps of more successful apps that already use Python.
"I was amazed that the writing team had thought that far ahead."
Heh. I still think the writing team saw the original episode and thought "That shadow looks like Nibbler!" and went from there.
"Will they make it funny this time around?"
"I just thought I'd come into a thread about a show I don't like and spend 20 seconds posting that I don't like it."
"Who thinks this will wear off really quick? I like game immersion in a seemless fashion where i can think, plan and strategize and the standard controller fits that perfectly.. The action of waving my arms around or shaking hands or even swaying back and forth just appears to be as another style of button mashing to me."
Not me. It's not about waving your arms around, it's about creating gestures. If you've ever used Opera's or FireFox's gestures, you're a good chunk of the way towards understanding what I'm talking about. Point at the screen, twitch the controller, shake the nunchuck, and you've got the basics to just about any game that's likely to come out. Compare that to "Triangle switces your inventory" or "R3 honks the horn", and you can see it's more intuitive. That's really what Nintendo's after.
"I've been seeing the DS/DS Lite make inroads with people I work with - especially when they see me playing "Brain Age" or "Big Brain Academy" - I had my DS Lite passed around the office for about an hour as people tried out the test from the latter game. At least one or two people - in their 40's, never played games before, but now are seriously thinking about picking up a DS for their kids and maybe the Brain Age for themselves."
I hear ya. My girlfriend started playing my DS last year and demanded one of her own for Christmas. She's put a heck of a lot of hours into Brain Age. She also played the heck out of Mario Kart on the net. She's not a gamer per-se, but now she's making noise about getting a DS Lite. Nintendo hit a home-run with the DS.
"Do you consider switching channels when commercials come on as stealing as well ?"
Ads are annoying. We all agree with that. There is a point to be made, though: If everybody blocks ads, whether they're for TV or for the net, sooner or later we can expect sites to either mandate paid registrations or die out all together. Maybe 'stealing' is a strong word, not interested in debating that, not that it would go anywhere useful anyway. It's the consequences one has to be mindful of. These services cost money to produce and be made available. Whether it is 'stealing' or not doesn't change this fact.
"Oops. I'm not supposed to talk about that. Forget I said anything, will ya?"
I can't believe you broke both those rules. You can have your name back.
"Did anyone else read this and think 'Gee, go figure. A more powerful system needs more electricity.' Sounds like non-news to me."
I wouldn't be surprised if this article was inspired by something Nintendo said at E3 '05. They mentioned it was really efficient with power. I can imagine somebody taking that little blurb and writing a story about it. (They didn't mention the Wii so I'm probably just talking out of my rear.)
In any event, the interesting part of this article is towards the end when they compare the estimated cost of using these systems for a year. I'm really surprised by the PS1, here. Keeping it on for an entire year costs a whopping dollar.
"Here is a link to the SkySeer product on the manufacturer's web page that includes a photo of the device (looks like a model airplane): http://www.octatron.com/Products/SKS.html"
Funny you should mention that. They also sell model kits of it.
"This could be really big for space travel if it overcomes the main shortfall of common glass windows: sagging and ultimately flowing right out of the window frames over time. This is a huge barrier to the long-term space travel needed to get to other solar systems. Just imagine how fast normal glass would deform if they spun the space ship to maintain 1G!"
What ever happened to the 'transparent aluminum' that dude from San Francisco was working on in the 80's?
"Who makes the diecsion on whether or not games fall into this category or not? Thompson? I think it's fair to say that no game (that people would seriously play) falls into this category based on how I read it. But then again, I don't play games for those reasons and likely, neither does anyone else."
... anywhere. You really cannot drive wrecklessly in any spot in that game without destroying your car. Heck, after playing the GTA games, I started paying a lot more attention to how erratic pedestrians can be.
Heh. After I read this little blurb of your post I started thinking about some of the 'values' I learned in Jack's favorite game, San Andreas.
Science: I learned that you do NOT want to drive like a maniac
Artistic: This game is dripping with satire. Sometimes it's about how silly movies can be. Sometimes it's about politics. Sometimes it's about culture icons. Just about anything's fair game. The media in particular took a few nasty hits from this game. Classic stuff.
Political: "It's time for a movie star to be president." I loved that little bit about how politicians always lie so an actor would be best qualified for the job.
Literary: Well.. I have to admit there, if there was any literary value, it was over my head.
Basically what I'm saying is that you're right, it's in the eye of the beholder. People like Jack see a player beating up a hooker, stop there, and rush to judgement. This is why I'm not a fan of bills like this. I personally think that anybody who drives through a busy city should spend some serious time with this game. That is an opinion, of course, but it cured any desire I ever had of wanting to go street racing.
I think if he's real serious about keeping dangerous content away from minors, he should pick on Crazy Taxi. The goal in that game is to drive like a thundering moron through busy streets to get from point A to point B in a ridiculously short amount of time. The game is programmed so that you cannot run over anybody. If a pedestrian walks out in front of you, they'll magically jump out of the way! Which is worse? Teens-soon-to-have-their-driver's-licenses playing a game where they can run over people until the cops hunt them down, or a game where they're encouraged to drive like a mad man who will never see any consequences of their actions? Show a little consistency, Jack!
"every solder that came home from a war would need to be tried for every confirmed kill."
Death by solder. That's gotta be one for the Darwin Awards.
"And I'd be willing to be that people in, say, Kansas, would much rather deal with tornadoes than hurricanes or earthquakes."
I'm from Kansas. Of the three, I'd rather deal with earthquakes. (Amusingly, I live in Cali now.) I've always felt that way, but I'm tainted by having been through several tornadoes. It's hard to compare lighting and high winds to the ground shaking around.
"It's a semantic point and one not even worth making."
Heh. Actually, I think he's pointing out Slashdot hypocrisy. From the responses he's gotten, I think he was rather clever about it. (I nearly replied and put my foot in my mouth.)