I forgot to mention this. In the article I read a couple days ago (in a newspaper even! gah), the manufacturer is planning on an LCD version within a year or so.
My suspicion is that it'll still be point/click with the LCD only for reviewing pics or a MICROSCOPIC LCD... they won't get 24 shots out of the camera's batteries otherwise.
It's a STILL camera, not video. It will make a very poor webcam, although it'd probably be possible to hack the ccd to stream video at lower resolution.
I saw this a few days ago in a USA Today while on a road-trip, and immediately started figuring out how far it was to Wisconsin... Alas it was too far to make the extra trip.
I would love to have a couple digital cameras that would allow me to collect stills easily. This has tremendous potential...
I remember reading in Popular Electronics (the now-defunct classic electronics and radio hacker mag) about controlling one of the Kodak Disc cameras remotely. This has similar uses... I hope the test market works out positively.
In the end, it doesn't matter if they use DRM or whatever. It's unlikely because that adds significant cost than a simple hardware jpg converter... and you are really only interested in the image which means you could tap directly off of the bus to get the image. It's more likely they have no compression, and just store it unencrypted/uncompressed in some flash. Memory is cheap these days.
RIAA filed 250 million lawsuits against every person in the USA, each of which has allegedly "received stolen music". Notable quotes are "Air should not be allowed to be used freely, as using the air is costing our artists millions of dollars. We are lobbying for a medium tax for everyone that uses air."
Comments that are better late than never
on
To Kill An Avatar
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I do a lot of MMORPG playing. I run large allegiances. I'm happy to address the social problems of MMORPGs.
1) Some people like to cause trouble. A virtual world is, as one friend put it, a place where he can do bad things without fear of having bad things done to him. In other words, he sees his avatar solely as a distraction at $10/month, but others see it as blood/sweat/tears and really identify with their avatars. Thus, they have more to lose, and therefore he gets all the power. And he enjoys abusing that power -- something he can't easily do in real life.
2) Some people like to complain. You will, in every virtual and non-virtual place, find people that will complain about anything. If the game is too hard, they complain. If it's too easy, they complain. If they report a bug that isn't fixed by the time they form their next (first?) coherent thought, they complain. These people must be ignored, and they exist en masse in MMORPGs and always migrate to the fansites and post in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME WITH LOTS OF !!!!!!!. In general, I pity them because they have no control over anything in real life.
3) Virtual police do not work. Some people do not like to play vs other players (pvp). Others find this the only exciting thing in games -- AI always fall short, but fighting real people can be a tremendous challenge. But what happens when a pvp-er attacks a non-combatant? The NC feels violated. Combine a pvper with #1, and you have a serious griefer. So let's say a bunch of folks get together to punish this person. The result is that a bunch of other people get together to punish the law enforcement. In real life, law enforcement usually has superior firepower... not so in virtual worlds.
4) There is no stealing in virtual worlds (generally). Rarely do virtual words add the ability to steal, except in worlds where you can hunt down the offending thief. All other cons are just that: cons. If you get tricked into dropping your Dragon Platemail of the Elements, it's your loss. Many people risk their character's reputation to con other characters, and it can be a lucrative business. Never underestimate the greed or the ignorance of your fellow player. This has real world implications, because that dragon platemail can be sold on ebay for $100. I am waiting for the day someone is sued or actually hurt in real life for conning or exploiting someone in a game. I've heard rumors that it's already happened. Some games have made conning against the Code of Conduct, and will ban or delete characters that don't keep their words. But this has the problem of enforcement, and usually there is no way to appeal. Remember we're talking about items that may have real world $ value, and it's being decided by some random droid on the other end of a computer. Judge/jury/executioner, and usually no process of appeal. No thanks.
5) If it can be exploited, it will be exploited. The physics of a game are coded very strictly, where players must be rewarded or they'll stop playing (and take their monthly fees with them!). So, things must be attainable by the normal player, yet things must remain challenging. There are people out there that will run the math and find the lowest cost:benefit, then do that. They see optimizing character advancement as the challenge, and are not interested in socializing or anything else. Maxing a character means winning the game. But these people are usually thwarted at every opportunity by the game manufacturers, which IMHO is a bad idea. What happens is that, in the attempt to thwart these people, the game manufacturers screw the normal player.
I realize this doesn't paint a very nice picture of MMORPGs, but remember that these are the difficulties that designers face. Some of the advantages is that they provide wonderful places to meet people with similar interests in a virtual environment, where you can present yourself as whatever you want. Some try to roleplay, some don't care. Some play the opposite sex, some tr
Q&D works great for certain things. If you're bidding on a contract that requires the ability to do 3d visualization and you code up something that can pass to allow you to bid... fine. When you get the contract, you can hire people to do it right or take the time to fix it.
However, if you have to stand in front of a congressional inquiry to explain why you cheated, you will be sorry.
Bottom line is, quick and dirty might not be the "right" way to do something, but has practical uses. "Not right" does not always mean wrong. Q&D should never be used when it's actually the "wrong" thing to do. Do not compromise yours or company ethics... it'll just disappoint your customer in the long run, and if you or your company depends on reputation it could hurt. Bad.
SWG has a completely player-motivated economy. This early in the game, there are no Han Solo heavy blasters.... noone can make them yet. The droid crafters are struggling to make anything bigger than a mouse droid which does nothing but hold crap and help the doctors heal.
But this is NOT bad, it allows socializers and crafters and doctors to play a very important part in the world. All other MMORPGs are dominated solely by the hack'n'slashers, and this is not the case in SWG. This game helps to foster relationships and community. Cities and other hives of scum and villainy can be built (eventually) which will be put on the map, and so on.
The problem with crafting, though, is it's a snorefest as someone said above. I'm playing a crafter, and feel I've done enough to advance, but am not even halfway to getting the next skill. The in-game macro system won't allow me to crank out garbage to advance my skills, and 3rd-party macros are verboten. Since games are supposed to be FUN, I'm having second thoughts about crafting.... it's more like a boring job as a mailclerk.
Combat is interesting, somewhat. Experienced characters have no more "hitpoints" than a n00b... but they have better skills to dodge and presumably better equipment (but not at this early stage of the game... wait until the crafters get cranking). A 1500 pt hit will kill anyone, no matter how experienced. Hopefully, the advanced character can wear armor to absorb most of that, though.
The idea of playing a hairdresser definitely turns the hack'n'slash idea on its ear. I'm hoping this game will attract more women and more roleplayers than other games of its genre.
The company is also devoting resources and forming alliances to offer
interactive media, including children's titles, games and information
products. Microsoft owns 50% of Dreamworks Interactive, MSNBC Cable,
and MSNBC Interactive News. The company also recently acquired WebTV
Networks, and made investments in Comcast and Apple Computer.
I keep seeing articles here saying "gee, nice to see something about linux instead of microsoft". This is ironic twofold, since Microsoft is a primary investor in Dreamworks, and also since they're producing a movie all on Linux. Goes to show, you should use the best OS for the job.... word processing is still better on software written primarily for Microsoft OS's.
Search for dreamworks here: http://www.tux.org/pub/tux/israel/dex/DEX/m sft.htm l
You probably will do your own networking which is good, but remember to leave areas for cables, and bring plenty of them, including crossover cables. Bring tons of cable ties. Bring extra switches, and avoid using hubs. Never have more than 5 cables between any two computers (count each wire between switches or repeaters). If possible, use separate lans for different games if you have many players. You should beware of large-scale wifi with today's products, although this will change with newer tech.
The worst is if you must connect to the Internet from a hotel. People that install these networks often are late, or completely fail to deliver access. Get the contract in place, with a date/time/bandwidth of the connection, guaranteed. Tolerate some downtime, but make non-idle threats if necessary.
Actually that is a lot of spin, but for the purposes that I've ever seen betamax used (digital sound recording, using a converter), VHS would not work as well... if at all. So, the signal difference mattered in this case.
For the masses, there was probably little difference in viewing except for the length of the recording time (in which VHS clearly won). But for the few home theaters in existence 20 years ago, there probably would've been a noticable difference between the formats.
Ever watch a VHS on a home theater? ugh. Even DVD artifacting (especially on poor recordings) is noticable.
No, it's not the same. Sony lost the betamax format because they wouldn't allow other OEMs to make compatible hardware. Too bad, too, because it has better resolution and the tapes are smaller. But Sony has always wanted to be a monopoly like Microsoft, and they're still working on it.
Re:These spam laws are a waste of time
on
Spam, Milord
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Why waste time with legislation? A more permanent solution would focus on the technical - e.g., changing the protocol to forbid
spam, etc.
You get very few unsolicited faxes a day. Almost certainly, you have or had a business relationship with the fax-spammers, which means it's not truly unsolicited. You should fax them back (on the required number listed on the fax) and tell them to stop. No number listed? That's illegal, too!
Without the legislation, you and others would be receiving literally TONS of fax spam a month (yes, you can measure the mass when using faxes:). The problem is the same with email spam: the recipient bears the cost of receipt. If we consider the anti-fax-spam law to be a good one, it should simply be extended to the email age due to the close similarities. Spammers have been successfully sued based on the fax laws.
The anti-fax-spam laws are absolutely NOT a waste of time. You don't know what you're talking about.
In addition to having nothing to do with fair use and nothing to do with RIAA, most recordings you'd make with it would be legitimate.
If you've ever recorded at a live event like a concert, to get any quality recording you must set up mics that are high enough to pick up the band (and not the idiot in front of you whistling) and be positioned near the center for any reasonable stereo separation. If you're setting up 8' poles with mics and not thrown out of a concert, you're probably not breaking any rules.
Without a proper setup, live recordings will sound horrid, and illegitimate tapings don't have much draw because of the poor sound quality. In fact, you might be able to record for local bands and such as a favor.
... Gives a whole new meaning to "cyber-squatting"... Appropriate way to view most of the web and "squeeze out a blog"... Guys begin sitting down to whiz... In other news, Padded Toilet seat sales increase 10-fold!
The delivery mechanism is secondary to the effects of hitting something with a large missile. The idea is not so much to set a speed record, but to see what happens when the missile they had attached to it hits something at 6400 mph, in a highly-controlled environment. If they had fired the missile at an airborne target (for instance) they couldn't get as much data on the actual interaction between missile and target due to the difficulty in placing sensors accurately.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, you got a troll mod for a reasonable comment? Cool!
Ahh, slashdot... definitely -1 Overrated.
Either the first review or the garmin site claims a SDK will be available.
The original poster was correct, although it didn't apply to this particular product.
xref the street versions of their gps's. They charge a boatload, and even more for a specific city just to flash a new map.
I forgot to mention this. In the article I read a couple days ago (in a newspaper even! gah), the manufacturer is planning on an LCD version within a year or so.
My suspicion is that it'll still be point/click with the LCD only for reviewing pics or a MICROSCOPIC LCD... they won't get 24 shots out of the camera's batteries otherwise.
It's a STILL camera, not video. It will make a very poor webcam, although it'd probably be possible to hack the ccd to stream video at lower resolution.
I saw this a few days ago in a USA Today while on a road-trip, and immediately started figuring out how far it was to Wisconsin... Alas it was too far to make the extra trip.
I would love to have a couple digital cameras that would allow me to collect stills easily. This has tremendous potential...
I remember reading in Popular Electronics (the now-defunct classic electronics and radio hacker mag) about controlling one of the Kodak Disc cameras remotely. This has similar uses... I hope the test market works out positively.
In the end, it doesn't matter if they use DRM or whatever. It's unlikely because that adds significant cost than a simple hardware jpg converter... and you are really only interested in the image which means you could tap directly off of the bus to get the image. It's more likely they have no compression, and just store it unencrypted/uncompressed in some flash. Memory is cheap these days.
I do exactly this. I usually embed the name of the company I'm ordering from into the information I use.
Rand McNally used to have tiny fake roads. Lots of things do this.
There was a even recent study using fake emails to test out spam tactics.
haha, I was just about to make an Austin Powers quote and reference that pic.
RIAA filed 250 million lawsuits against every person in the USA, each of which has allegedly "received stolen music". Notable quotes are "Air should not be allowed to be used freely, as using the air is costing our artists millions of dollars. We are lobbying for a medium tax for everyone that uses air."
I do a lot of MMORPG playing. I run large allegiances. I'm happy to address the social problems of MMORPGs.
1) Some people like to cause trouble.
A virtual world is, as one friend put it, a place where he can do bad things without fear of having bad things done to him. In other words, he sees his avatar solely as a distraction at $10/month, but others see it as blood/sweat/tears and really identify with their avatars. Thus, they have more to lose, and therefore he gets all the power. And he enjoys abusing that power -- something he can't easily do in real life.
2) Some people like to complain.
You will, in every virtual and non-virtual place, find people that will complain about anything. If the game is too hard, they complain. If it's too easy, they complain. If they report a bug that isn't fixed by the time they form their next (first?) coherent thought, they complain. These people must be ignored, and they exist en masse in MMORPGs and always migrate to the fansites and post in ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME WITH LOTS OF !!!!!!!. In general, I pity them because they have no control over anything in real life.
3) Virtual police do not work.
Some people do not like to play vs other players (pvp). Others find this the only exciting thing in games -- AI always fall short, but fighting real people can be a tremendous challenge. But what happens when a pvp-er attacks a non-combatant? The NC feels violated. Combine a pvper with #1, and you have a serious griefer. So let's say a bunch of folks get together to punish this person. The result is that a bunch of other people get together to punish the law enforcement. In real life, law enforcement usually has superior firepower... not so in virtual worlds.
4) There is no stealing in virtual worlds (generally).
Rarely do virtual words add the ability to steal, except in worlds where you can hunt down the offending thief. All other cons are just that: cons. If you get tricked into dropping your Dragon Platemail of the Elements, it's your loss. Many people risk their character's reputation to con other characters, and it can be a lucrative business. Never underestimate the greed or the ignorance of your fellow player. This has real world implications, because that dragon platemail can be sold on ebay for $100. I am waiting for the day someone is sued or actually hurt in real life for conning or exploiting someone in a game. I've heard rumors that it's already happened. Some games have made conning against the Code of Conduct, and will ban or delete characters that don't keep their words. But this has the problem of enforcement, and usually there is no way to appeal. Remember we're talking about items that may have real world $ value, and it's being decided by some random droid on the other end of a computer. Judge/jury/executioner, and usually no process of appeal. No thanks.
5) If it can be exploited, it will be exploited.
The physics of a game are coded very strictly, where players must be rewarded or they'll stop playing (and take their monthly fees with them!). So, things must be attainable by the normal player, yet things must remain challenging. There are people out there that will run the math and find the lowest cost:benefit, then do that. They see optimizing character advancement as the challenge, and are not interested in socializing or anything else. Maxing a character means winning the game. But these people are usually thwarted at every opportunity by the game manufacturers, which IMHO is a bad idea. What happens is that, in the attempt to thwart these people, the game manufacturers screw the normal player.
I realize this doesn't paint a very nice picture of MMORPGs, but remember that these are the difficulties that designers face. Some of the advantages is that they provide wonderful places to meet people with similar interests in a virtual environment, where you can present yourself as whatever you want. Some try to roleplay, some don't care. Some play the opposite sex, some tr
Q&D works great for certain things. If you're bidding on a contract that requires the ability to do 3d visualization and you code up something that can pass to allow you to bid... fine. When you get the contract, you can hire people to do it right or take the time to fix it.
However, if you have to stand in front of a congressional inquiry to explain why you cheated, you will be sorry.
Bottom line is, quick and dirty might not be the "right" way to do something, but has practical uses. "Not right" does not always mean wrong. Q&D should never be used when it's actually the "wrong" thing to do. Do not compromise yours or company ethics... it'll just disappoint your customer in the long run, and if you or your company depends on reputation it could hurt. Bad.
Hey, that's the name of my character!
SWG has a completely player-motivated economy. This early in the game, there are no Han Solo heavy blasters.... noone can make them yet. The droid crafters are struggling to make anything bigger than a mouse droid which does nothing but hold crap and help the doctors heal.
But this is NOT bad, it allows socializers and crafters and doctors to play a very important part in the world. All other MMORPGs are dominated solely by the hack'n'slashers, and this is not the case in SWG. This game helps to foster relationships and community. Cities and other hives of scum and villainy can be built (eventually) which will be put on the map, and so on.
The problem with crafting, though, is it's a snorefest as someone said above. I'm playing a crafter, and feel I've done enough to advance, but am not even halfway to getting the next skill. The in-game macro system won't allow me to crank out garbage to advance my skills, and 3rd-party macros are verboten. Since games are supposed to be FUN, I'm having second thoughts about crafting.... it's more like a boring job as a mailclerk.
Combat is interesting, somewhat. Experienced characters have no more "hitpoints" than a n00b... but they have better skills to dodge and presumably better equipment (but not at this early stage of the game... wait until the crafters get cranking). A 1500 pt hit will kill anyone, no matter how experienced. Hopefully, the advanced character can wear armor to absorb most of that, though.
The idea of playing a hairdresser definitely turns the hack'n'slash idea on its ear. I'm hoping this game will attract more women and more roleplayers than other games of its genre.
Relevant parts are
I keep seeing articles here saying "gee, nice to see something about linux instead of microsoft". This is ironic twofold, since Microsoft is a primary investor in Dreamworks, and also since they're producing a movie all on Linux. Goes to show, you should use the best OS for the job.... word processing is still better on software written primarily for Microsoft OS's.
m sft.htm l
Search for dreamworks here:
http://www.tux.org/pub/tux/israel/dex/DEX/
You probably will do your own networking which is good, but remember to leave areas for cables, and bring plenty of them, including crossover cables. Bring tons of cable ties. Bring extra switches, and avoid using hubs. Never have more than 5 cables between any two computers (count each wire between switches or repeaters). If possible, use separate lans for different games if you have many players. You should beware of large-scale wifi with today's products, although this will change with newer tech.
The worst is if you must connect to the Internet from a hotel. People that install these networks often are late, or completely fail to deliver access. Get the contract in place, with a date/time/bandwidth of the connection, guaranteed. Tolerate some downtime, but make non-idle threats if necessary.
Actually that is a lot of spin, but for the purposes that I've ever seen betamax used (digital sound recording, using a converter), VHS would not work as well... if at all. So, the signal difference mattered in this case.
For the masses, there was probably little difference in viewing except for the length of the recording time (in which VHS clearly won). But for the few home theaters in existence 20 years ago, there probably would've been a noticable difference between the formats.
Ever watch a VHS on a home theater? ugh. Even DVD artifacting (especially on poor recordings) is noticable.
No, it's not the same. Sony lost the betamax format because they wouldn't allow other OEMs to make compatible hardware. Too bad, too, because it has better resolution and the tapes are smaller. But Sony has always wanted to be a monopoly like Microsoft, and they're still working on it.
spam, etc.
You get very few unsolicited faxes a day. Almost certainly, you have or had a business relationship with the fax-spammers, which means it's not truly unsolicited. You should fax them back (on the required number listed on the fax) and tell them to stop. No number listed? That's illegal, too!
Without the legislation, you and others would be receiving literally TONS of fax spam a month (yes, you can measure the mass when using faxes
The anti-fax-spam laws are absolutely NOT a waste of time. You don't know what you're talking about.
"After sampling your breath from your nose, we've determined that some manager in this building has colon cancer"
In addition to having nothing to do with fair use and nothing to do with RIAA, most recordings you'd make with it would be legitimate.
If you've ever recorded at a live event like a concert, to get any quality recording you must set up mics that are high enough to pick up the band (and not the idiot in front of you whistling) and be positioned near the center for any reasonable stereo separation. If you're setting up 8' poles with mics and not thrown out of a concert, you're probably not breaking any rules.
Without a proper setup, live recordings will sound horrid, and illegitimate tapings don't have much draw because of the poor sound quality. In fact, you might be able to record for local bands and such as a favor.
As mentioned, he's not the same Scott Adams, the adventure-engine/game-writer as the Dilbert version.
... Gives a whole new meaning to "cyber-squatting" ... Appropriate way to view most of the web and "squeeze out a blog" ... Guys begin sitting down to whiz ... In other news, Padded Toilet seat sales increase 10-fold!
Definitely the Blue Screen of Death!
The delivery mechanism is secondary to the effects of hitting something with a large missile. The idea is not so much to set a speed record, but to see what happens when the missile they had attached to it hits something at 6400 mph, in a highly-controlled environment. If they had fired the missile at an airborne target (for instance) they couldn't get as much data on the actual interaction between missile and target due to the difficulty in placing sensors accurately.