I don't really get the point of this. The goal should be to map the entire surface of the planet using a system that maximizes each pass as much as possible. Crowd sourcing the poking around for interesting details is fine once you have those pictures, but people are only going to be interested in doing this for a short while. Having them work on low-res proxies for the short duration of their interest is failing to utilize their energy properly, imho.
What I'm saying is that if responding to user requests means failing to take as many useful pictures as possible, then that is a waste.
"So Google -- which has never been in the content business -- will become the all-important vehicle that will deliver the punters to the Dow Jones walled garden of news."
So if I understand this correctly, after railing about how Google was leeching off of others without paying a dime, Hinton is now going to use Google for his own profit without paying Google a dime...
I realize it makes too much sense for the RIAA to ever agree to it, but the prices should be based on demand. If a song gets downloaded a lot at $.99, then bump it to $1.29. If a song isn't getting downloaded, then drop the price to $.69. That way if a song becomes hot for some reason, they would get more money, and if a song is forgotten, the bargain shoppers will be more inclined to buy it (assuming you could search by price).
This actually makes sense. The most important thing for a software company to be successful is to have people who know how to use their software. Which is why student prices and Learning Editions exist. And there have been reports that some laid off workers are starting their own companies, so getting your software into the hands of those people would be a smart move, too.
Although Amazon may pay $2.00 more per game, is that going to make up for the shipping costs to send them the disc and get the new one? I'd love to see some pressure on GameStop to pay more for used games, but I don't think $2.00 is going to be enough.
The example I remember from school is that if the earth were an apple, the crust would be as thin as the skin of the apple. And we've never been able to drill all the way through even that "thin" skin.
"Anonymity actually is contributory to many disruptions and deteriorations in an ethical society."
I agree that it causes disruptions, but those disruptions are not always deteriorations. Any time there is oppression, there is a need for anonymity so that the oppressor's acts are brought to light (and hopefully remedied). Even in societies which consider themselves to be ethical there are oppressions both small and large.
I'm sure there is stupidity and greed standing in the way, but the obvious fix for this is to have one company acquire all of the failed games.
I know SOE has done this with several games (the Matrix, particularly) and is able to turn a profit even on very low subscription numbers because they already have all the infrastructure in place for their other games. The aggregator company could also gain leverage by selling access to multiple games for one price. For example, any two games for only $10/month, or all 10 games for only $20/month. You might keep a sub like that going all the time just so you have the convenience of playing a few hours of Auto Assault or Hellgate whenever you felt like it.
"Game Developer" is a catch-all term for anybody higher than a tester. After 10+ years as a game dev, I don't know anyone who actually has "Game Developer" on his business card. It's just not specific enough. However, any entry level programmer, artist, or designer could accurately call themselves a game developer.
This is true, but what you CAN do, with a bit of effort, is transfer IN about half of your credits. Go to a simple Jr. College for the basic math and English classes where you'll pay $20/unit instead of ~$300/unit.
It is pretty universal that a game dev job is not a 40 hr/wk gig, day in and day out. There will be crunch times, and depending on your manager, you may suffer more or less than the norm. However, that quote you wrote is a big red flag. That is an attitude that no employee should have to put up with. Mind you I said "should." If you are just starting out, it would (probably) be worth putting up with to get that first title under your belt, but not longer than that.
Well, to be more practical, it doesn't even have to be something that is only done once. That would make a player stand out to some of the humans playing on that server. But to make the player feel that his character is becoming a legend, you just have to have the in-game AI characters mention his character's achievements. There is quite a bit of stuff that can be done, visible only to the player, that could reinforce the impact his character is having on the world.
As just a simple example, lets say that a character carves his name in a tree trunk as part of a quest. Every time he passes that tree, he sees the change he's made in the environment. But to every other player who passes, they could be shown THEIR character's name (assuming they had done the quest), so each feels special, even though they are each treated equally.
Spending dev time on a one-off event that only a few will enjoy is simply not going to happen anymore. Blizzard has demonstrated quite clearly to all the bean counters that you don't need those events to be the biggest, so no one will pay for it.
I think you've missed one point on #3, which is that you don't have to kill everyone, you simply have to scare everyone sufficiently.
Simply outlaw all weapons and set up a deadline to have them all turned in. After that date, anyone found with a weapon will be killed, along with their family and their neighbors. You have to get the people scared enough to rat out those who still want to resist. Rome was pretty good at using brutality to pacify conquered people, which is why they were so successful.
I don't think you are going to get a tablet PC that can touch a Wacom just yet. Also, I would suggest trying a Wacom before you buy, if possible. While many people think bigger is better (insert joke here), after actually using a Wacom, they usually find a smaller size fits their needs better. I've found the 6"x11" to be fine, while the 12"x12" was too big. The one you're talking about, the 12"x19" is actually about 25"x17", and almost 1.5" thick. That takes up a lot of desk space, and is probably too big for your lap.
Considering how disruptive it can be to introduce species from other geographic regions, I can't imagine that bringing back specimens from millenia ago is going to be very prudent.
I thought they had been digitized years ago to facilitate searches for similar characters, so that translation would be easier. What happened to all that work?
Shapeways is in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, so while each piece may only cost $50-$150, the shipping could push that quite a bit higher, depending on size, weight, and location.
Also, I don't know about Shapeways specifically, but most of these places will give you a pretty significant break per piece if you order more pieces, as long as they all fit into a single build volume.
Slashdot Mirror
www.bookswim.com
Supposed to be coming out with an e-book version, too.
Is it too much to hope that this will bring Pay Pal to the attention of the US Government and finally get PayPal regulated as the bank it clearly is?
I don't really get the point of this. The goal should be to map the entire surface of the planet using a system that maximizes each pass as much as possible. Crowd sourcing the poking around for interesting details is fine once you have those pictures, but people are only going to be interested in doing this for a short while. Having them work on low-res proxies for the short duration of their interest is failing to utilize their energy properly, imho.
What I'm saying is that if responding to user requests means failing to take as many useful pictures as possible, then that is a waste.
"So Google -- which has never been in the content business -- will become the all-important vehicle that will deliver the punters to the Dow Jones walled garden of news."
So if I understand this correctly, after railing about how Google was leeching off of others without paying a dime, Hinton is now going to use Google for his own profit without paying Google a dime...
I realize it makes too much sense for the RIAA to ever agree to it, but the prices should be based on demand. If a song gets downloaded a lot at $.99, then bump it to $1.29. If a song isn't getting downloaded, then drop the price to $.69. That way if a song becomes hot for some reason, they would get more money, and if a song is forgotten, the bargain shoppers will be more inclined to buy it (assuming you could search by price).
This actually makes sense. The most important thing for a software company to be successful is to have people who know how to use their software. Which is why student prices and Learning Editions exist. And there have been reports that some laid off workers are starting their own companies, so getting your software into the hands of those people would be a smart move, too.
But just think of all the possibilities of Mutant Porn!
Although Amazon may pay $2.00 more per game, is that going to make up for the shipping costs to send them the disc and get the new one? I'd love to see some pressure on GameStop to pay more for used games, but I don't think $2.00 is going to be enough.
I was going to say Doom, since that was the one that changed gaming the most for me, but I only played it on a PC, and this list is console only.
The example I remember from school is that if the earth were an apple, the crust would be as thin as the skin of the apple. And we've never been able to drill all the way through even that "thin" skin.
"Anonymity actually is contributory to many disruptions and deteriorations in an ethical society."
I agree that it causes disruptions, but those disruptions are not always deteriorations. Any time there is oppression, there is a need for anonymity so that the oppressor's acts are brought to light (and hopefully remedied). Even in societies which consider themselves to be ethical there are oppressions both small and large.
"The article mentions that this trap failed. Apparently he suspected something."
If I recall correctly, the German authorities got wind of what the feds were going to do and took the hacker into custody instead.
I'm sure there is stupidity and greed standing in the way, but the obvious fix for this is to have one company acquire all of the failed games.
I know SOE has done this with several games (the Matrix, particularly) and is able to turn a profit even on very low subscription numbers because they already have all the infrastructure in place for their other games. The aggregator company could also gain leverage by selling access to multiple games for one price. For example, any two games for only $10/month, or all 10 games for only $20/month. You might keep a sub like that going all the time just so you have the convenience of playing a few hours of Auto Assault or Hellgate whenever you felt like it.
"game developer is not an entry level position"
"Game Developer" is a catch-all term for anybody higher than a tester. After 10+ years as a game dev, I don't know anyone who actually has "Game Developer" on his business card. It's just not specific enough. However, any entry level programmer, artist, or designer could accurately call themselves a game developer.
This is true, but what you CAN do, with a bit of effort, is transfer IN about half of your credits. Go to a simple Jr. College for the basic math and English classes where you'll pay $20/unit instead of ~$300/unit.
It is pretty universal that a game dev job is not a 40 hr/wk gig, day in and day out. There will be crunch times, and depending on your manager, you may suffer more or less than the norm. However, that quote you wrote is a big red flag. That is an attitude that no employee should have to put up with. Mind you I said "should." If you are just starting out, it would (probably) be worth putting up with to get that first title under your belt, but not longer than that.
Well, to be more practical, it doesn't even have to be something that is only done once. That would make a player stand out to some of the humans playing on that server. But to make the player feel that his character is becoming a legend, you just have to have the in-game AI characters mention his character's achievements. There is quite a bit of stuff that can be done, visible only to the player, that could reinforce the impact his character is having on the world.
As just a simple example, lets say that a character carves his name in a tree trunk as part of a quest. Every time he passes that tree, he sees the change he's made in the environment. But to every other player who passes, they could be shown THEIR character's name (assuming they had done the quest), so each feels special, even though they are each treated equally.
Spending dev time on a one-off event that only a few will enjoy is simply not going to happen anymore. Blizzard has demonstrated quite clearly to all the bean counters that you don't need those events to be the biggest, so no one will pay for it.
I think you've missed one point on #3, which is that you don't have to kill everyone, you simply have to scare everyone sufficiently.
Simply outlaw all weapons and set up a deadline to have them all turned in. After that date, anyone found with a weapon will be killed, along with their family and their neighbors. You have to get the people scared enough to rat out those who still want to resist. Rome was pretty good at using brutality to pacify conquered people, which is why they were so successful.
Free market, government regulation, companies screwing the people, companies bought by government, revolution, repeat. Always repeat.
I thought the companies bought the government, not the other way round (recent bailout bit aside).
I don't think you are going to get a tablet PC that can touch a Wacom just yet. Also, I would suggest trying a Wacom before you buy, if possible. While many people think bigger is better (insert joke here), after actually using a Wacom, they usually find a smaller size fits their needs better. I've found the 6"x11" to be fine, while the 12"x12" was too big. The one you're talking about, the 12"x19" is actually about 25"x17", and almost 1.5" thick. That takes up a lot of desk space, and is probably too big for your lap.
Considering how disruptive it can be to introduce species from other geographic regions, I can't imagine that bringing back specimens from millenia ago is going to be very prudent.
I thought they had been digitized years ago to facilitate searches for similar characters, so that translation would be easier. What happened to all that work?
"You mean they didn't let you just pee off the top?!?!?"
Oh, he peed off the top. He was just saying he was glad to have something to aim at!
Shapeways is in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, so while each piece may only cost $50-$150, the shipping could push that quite a bit higher, depending on size, weight, and location.
Also, I don't know about Shapeways specifically, but most of these places will give you a pretty significant break per piece if you order more pieces, as long as they all fit into a single build volume.
That's funny. In all the time I've read about DNF, I'd never realized that it has the same letters they use in racing: "Did Not Finish"