Wait, is this Fraternite? If so, you were in my alliance a while ago; I remember your economics advice. Yeah, CN has some of the best player organizations I've ever seen in any game, on or offline. I have often thought that it would take virtually no structural changes to convert my alliance into an actual real-world organization. The game itself is almost nonexistent: it's just a thin pretext for the player-created politics.
I'm not sure if this really counts because often it fits in with the intent of the game, but I like to completely explore everything. Especially if there's a map that gets filled in as I explore; I will happily criss-cross a bare desert if it's the last uncharted corner of the map.
It really clues you in on the quality of the game: the best games are the ones where the designers stuck all sorts of cool little things away in corners for people like me to find. The worst games are the ones where none of the doors open but the ones you need to reach the next story point.
But how far has this reference frame itself traveled during that one minute?'
Relative to what? Relative to itself, it hasn't traveled at all. And since we don't know the mechanism for time travel, there's no reason to use any other reference frame. Really, until we understand how they are supposed to travel through time we can't discuss the interactions of reference frames across time skips.
There's a reason we don't already use visible light signals to send wireless data (except if we're lost in the wilderness, I guess). It's VISIBLE. Can you image how annoying it would be to have light flickering around you all the time from your communicating devices? One of the primary advantages of the various bands we use (radio, infrared, etc.) is that they don't interfere with our normal operations: they're invisible.
We've got plenty of bandwidth that doesn't interact directly with the human body. Why don't we stick to that instead of trying to use something that does?
"Mac" and "PC" aren't operating systems. They're hardware platforms. "PC" would include both Windows and Linux, as well as all the other PC-compatible operating systems.
Let's say I take them up on this beta offer and download Rome: Total War. Then I decide their service just isn't for me. Do I own Rome: Total War? Can I play it after I quit their service? Or does it check with their service that I'm entitled to play the game every time?
This guy makes a good case against "dumb" auto-scaling; that is, doing a simple "more traffic = scale up" calculation. However, it should be trivial to create more sophisticated algorithms that eliminate or at least reduce the problems he gives. For example, a module that can "recognize" DoS attacks versus slashdotting in most cases and either block or scale based on the results shouldn't be hard.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got cloned by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - there is a fine line of bio-ethical concern between humans and animals.
I wonder how efficient this process could be made. If it could be done with relative efficiency, would it be worthwhile to start looking at antimatter as a viable energy storage solution for certain applications? As far as I was aware, one of the major roadblocks to that was the antimatter creation process.
Fantastically fabricated, these fierce forebears
of flowing fairy finesse fire forth fast fletchettes,
forcing the faithful few to focus their fears: friend or foe?
But fah, I forstall. In short, you may call them "F".
Seriously, there's a reason Pedo-bear is such a popular meme. It's extrememly creepy to see something so supposedly cute doing bizarrly out of context things. Especially when you've got the whole 'uncanny valley' coming into play, with both the robotics and the fixed, glassy stare.
A much better idea would be to structure the robot as clearly not humanoid, but just as clearly not intimidating. Something like a walking stretcher or the robotic donkey they recently tested. Preferably not with a less-than-useless face; robot movies show that video cameras can be just as cute.
There's no mention in the article about instanced areas. There's nothing about any mentoring systems (like in CoH and EQ2) that may or may not be in place. No mention of integrated voice chat systems (not that it's important, with all the other options). I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the game just doesn't have any of those features. Someone will doubtless correct me.
Then let me do so. There are plenty of instanced areas in LoTRO; most major quests are in them. There aren't "mentoring" systems per se but there is a "family" system whereby you can be parents or children of other players. I've never played a game with a mentoring system so I'm not sure how far that goes. There is an integrated voice chat. There are also quite a few other features not mentioned in the review.
I beta-tested the game from fairly early on until shortly before open beta. I enjoyed it very much. I don't play it any more, but that says more about me than about the game. If you are a casual gamer who is more interested in story and immersion than in maximization and competition, you should at least check it out. They stayed very faithful to Tolkien's vision, and created an amazing, beautiful world to explore. The fact that the mechanics are nothing revolutionary does not take away from that. Treat it like a book: the form and grammar of each book is basically the same, but the style and story can create a masterpiece.
Well, after doing some actual research on this, it looks like there are some possible contributors to spherical harmonics on Saturn, but that probably isn't the source of the hexagonal structure, since a similar structure does not appear at the south pole. Apparently it's probably due to a polar jet, similar to the ripples you see around a bathtub drain.
Yes, it can. Further down the page, check out the "l=3, m=3, l-m=0" graphic. It's like a six-sided beach ball. More complicated structures can also be induced.
Another related possibility is spherical harmonics, similar to what happens in the sun. The planet would be effectively resonating like a 3D drumhead. If that's true, there should be other points on the surface that exhibit similar phenomena.
I think perhaps your perception of elitism is much more narrow than mine. To my mind, elitists are elitist because they believe that only a narrow spectrum of art is 'true' art worth of being called such. Actually, in this case my definition of elitism is broader (not that there's anything better or worse about how broad one's definitions are; they just need to fit the definitions of one's audience): I include as elitist anyone who believes they are inherently better than others, and that their decisions should carry more weight. This encompasses many more areas than just art snobs. But this discussion is a tangent.
Elitism Home Test
Which of the following are not art:
A. "Autumn Rhythm" painting by Jackson Pollock
B. "The Pond--Moonlight" photograph by Edward Steichen.
C. "The Fantastic Four" comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
D. "Fear Of A Black Planet" rap album by Public Enemy
E. "Doom" film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Your test is not complete. I consider all of those to be art, yet I reject your definition. There are several things those examples have in common that aren't present in your definition. For one thing, the artists all consider their work to be art. Second, they all appeal to the aesthetic sense in some fashion (this doesn't, by the way, mean that they're all beautiful. Ugliness is part of the aesthetic sense as well). Finally, they are all meant to communicate some insight to the viewer. Are they all "good" art? No. But they are all art. Here are some things that are not necessarily art (they might be in certain situations):
A. A mugger threatening his victim with a gun.
B. A poster on a forum trying to convince someone of his position.
C. A man on a first date with a pretty woman.
My definition of art is extremely relaxed, but I do draw a definite line between art and simple communication, which, as you pointed out, almost always involves playing on peoples' emotions. You are pursuing a reductio ad absurdum to suggest that they are the same, as very few informed, rational people believe that.
I kinda wish there was an easier forum to debate this on, as Slashdot doesn't lend itself to long conversations.
I don't get how you could ever think that someone who posits one of the broadest, most inclusive definitions of art possible as being elitist. That doesn't make sense. It's only through broad exclusion that one can be an elitist. Elitism is not against art. Art is inanimate. Elitism is against other people. Art experts aren't elitist because they exclude certain things from being art; quite the opposite. They're elitist because they believe only they can 'see' the art in things most people consider non-artistic. You're saying that the vast majority of cultured people are incapable of understanding what you do.
If you don't think there is an art to the persuasive argument, you're never going to make one. I believe there is 'art' in the archaic sense of craft or workmanship. But I think the motivation is primarily practical, not aesthetic.
You ought to brush up on your communication theory; simply listing facts without context isn't communication, either. Check Wikipedia. It's not the most rigorous source, but it does represent a fairly general cross-section.
Strangely enough, I have been considering you as one of the elitist art 'experts', because yours is a position I see many of them taking: that art can be anything as long as it produces a reaction. That seems to so generalize art that it doesn't really have a definition, anymore. Our posts provoke reactions in each other and hopefully in other viewers. Does that make them art? I don't consider my posts art.
Bottom line (as this will be my last post on this topic), I know art (good and bad) when I see it, though I can't provide my own definition, and there are things that fall under your definition that I know are not art. I think anyone who's not trying to make a point would agree.
In that case, any form of communication is by definition art, since communication is intended to evoke a reaction, and reactions are practically always colored by emotion. While you personally may define art that way, it fails the "general consensus" definition test. By the way, when I say "general consensus" I mean of people familiar with art, not just your average yokel.
Oh? So would you consider it art if I punched you in the face? I would be provoking surprise, hurt, and anger, just so you know it's intentional.
There's something more to art than that. I'm not sure anyone can define art in such a concise statement, but at the very least I would say that art has to communicate some insight to the viewer, in addition to provoking a reaction.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait, is this Fraternite? If so, you were in my alliance a while ago; I remember your economics advice. Yeah, CN has some of the best player organizations I've ever seen in any game, on or offline. I have often thought that it would take virtually no structural changes to convert my alliance into an actual real-world organization. The game itself is almost nonexistent: it's just a thin pretext for the player-created politics.
I'm not sure if this really counts because often it fits in with the intent of the game, but I like to completely explore everything. Especially if there's a map that gets filled in as I explore; I will happily criss-cross a bare desert if it's the last uncharted corner of the map. It really clues you in on the quality of the game: the best games are the ones where the designers stuck all sorts of cool little things away in corners for people like me to find. The worst games are the ones where none of the doors open but the ones you need to reach the next story point.
This game has been so unbalanced since they nerfed funny. Interesting is way OP'd. They'd better at least throw us a bone in this world event.
Are you doing random or sequential writes? Your numbers sound like their sequential write numbers.
But how far has this reference frame itself traveled during that one minute?'
Relative to what? Relative to itself, it hasn't traveled at all. And since we don't know the mechanism for time travel, there's no reason to use any other reference frame. Really, until we understand how they are supposed to travel through time we can't discuss the interactions of reference frames across time skips.
There's a reason we don't already use visible light signals to send wireless data (except if we're lost in the wilderness, I guess). It's VISIBLE. Can you image how annoying it would be to have light flickering around you all the time from your communicating devices? One of the primary advantages of the various bands we use (radio, infrared, etc.) is that they don't interfere with our normal operations: they're invisible.
We've got plenty of bandwidth that doesn't interact directly with the human body. Why don't we stick to that instead of trying to use something that does?
"Mac" and "PC" aren't operating systems. They're hardware platforms. "PC" would include both Windows and Linux, as well as all the other PC-compatible operating systems.
Let's say I take them up on this beta offer and download Rome: Total War. Then I decide their service just isn't for me. Do I own Rome: Total War? Can I play it after I quit their service? Or does it check with their service that I'm entitled to play the game every time?
This guy makes a good case against "dumb" auto-scaling; that is, doing a simple "more traffic = scale up" calculation. However, it should be trivial to create more sophisticated algorithms that eliminate or at least reduce the problems he gives. For example, a module that can "recognize" DoS attacks versus slashdotting in most cases and either block or scale based on the results shouldn't be hard.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I'm just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got cloned by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: "Did little demons get inside and type it?" I don't know! My primitive mind can't grasp these concepts. But there is one thing I do know - there is a fine line of bio-ethical concern between humans and animals.
I wonder how efficient this process could be made. If it could be done with relative efficiency, would it be worthwhile to start looking at antimatter as a viable energy storage solution for certain applications? As far as I was aware, one of the major roadblocks to that was the antimatter creation process.
Yeah, I don't think "Virtual Rape" and "Virtual 9/11" will go over to well.
Fantastically fabricated, these fierce forebears of flowing fairy finesse fire forth fast fletchettes, forcing the faithful few to focus their fears: friend or foe? But fah, I forstall. In short, you may call them "F".
Sounds like this is just the sweeping overhaul we need to solve the patent system's problems!
This will probably make it slightly harder (and more tiring) to walk on those surfaces. The energy has to come from somewhere.
Seriously, there's a reason Pedo-bear is such a popular meme. It's extrememly creepy to see something so supposedly cute doing bizarrly out of context things. Especially when you've got the whole 'uncanny valley' coming into play, with both the robotics and the fixed, glassy stare.
A much better idea would be to structure the robot as clearly not humanoid, but just as clearly not intimidating. Something like a walking stretcher or the robotic donkey they recently tested. Preferably not with a less-than-useless face; robot movies show that video cameras can be just as cute.
Then let me do so. There are plenty of instanced areas in LoTRO; most major quests are in them. There aren't "mentoring" systems per se but there is a "family" system whereby you can be parents or children of other players. I've never played a game with a mentoring system so I'm not sure how far that goes. There is an integrated voice chat. There are also quite a few other features not mentioned in the review.
I beta-tested the game from fairly early on until shortly before open beta. I enjoyed it very much. I don't play it any more, but that says more about me than about the game. If you are a casual gamer who is more interested in story and immersion than in maximization and competition, you should at least check it out. They stayed very faithful to Tolkien's vision, and created an amazing, beautiful world to explore. The fact that the mechanics are nothing revolutionary does not take away from that. Treat it like a book: the form and grammar of each book is basically the same, but the style and story can create a masterpiece.
Well, after doing some actual research on this, it looks like there are some possible contributors to spherical harmonics on Saturn, but that probably isn't the source of the hexagonal structure, since a similar structure does not appear at the south pole. Apparently it's probably due to a polar jet, similar to the ripples you see around a bathtub drain.
Yes, it can. Further down the page, check out the "l=3, m=3, l-m=0" graphic. It's like a six-sided beach ball. More complicated structures can also be induced.
Another related possibility is spherical harmonics, similar to what happens in the sun. The planet would be effectively resonating like a 3D drumhead. If that's true, there should be other points on the surface that exhibit similar phenomena.
A. "Autumn Rhythm" painting by Jackson Pollock
B. "The Pond--Moonlight" photograph by Edward Steichen.
C. "The Fantastic Four" comic book by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
D. "Fear Of A Black Planet" rap album by Public Enemy
E. "Doom" film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Your test is not complete. I consider all of those to be art, yet I reject your definition. There are several things those examples have in common that aren't present in your definition. For one thing, the artists all consider their work to be art. Second, they all appeal to the aesthetic sense in some fashion (this doesn't, by the way, mean that they're all beautiful. Ugliness is part of the aesthetic sense as well). Finally, they are all meant to communicate some insight to the viewer. Are they all "good" art? No. But they are all art. Here are some things that are not necessarily art (they might be in certain situations):
A. A mugger threatening his victim with a gun.
B. A poster on a forum trying to convince someone of his position.
C. A man on a first date with a pretty woman.
My definition of art is extremely relaxed, but I do draw a definite line between art and simple communication, which, as you pointed out, almost always involves playing on peoples' emotions. You are pursuing a reductio ad absurdum to suggest that they are the same, as very few informed, rational people believe that.
I kinda wish there was an easier forum to debate this on, as Slashdot doesn't lend itself to long conversations.
You ought to brush up on your communication theory; simply listing facts without context isn't communication, either. Check Wikipedia. It's not the most rigorous source, but it does represent a fairly general cross-section.
Strangely enough, I have been considering you as one of the elitist art 'experts', because yours is a position I see many of them taking: that art can be anything as long as it produces a reaction. That seems to so generalize art that it doesn't really have a definition, anymore. Our posts provoke reactions in each other and hopefully in other viewers. Does that make them art? I don't consider my posts art.
Bottom line (as this will be my last post on this topic), I know art (good and bad) when I see it, though I can't provide my own definition, and there are things that fall under your definition that I know are not art. I think anyone who's not trying to make a point would agree.
In that case, any form of communication is by definition art, since communication is intended to evoke a reaction, and reactions are practically always colored by emotion. While you personally may define art that way, it fails the "general consensus" definition test. By the way, when I say "general consensus" I mean of people familiar with art, not just your average yokel.
Oh? So would you consider it art if I punched you in the face? I would be provoking surprise, hurt, and anger, just so you know it's intentional. There's something more to art than that. I'm not sure anyone can define art in such a concise statement, but at the very least I would say that art has to communicate some insight to the viewer, in addition to provoking a reaction.