There are a lot of GPS units, especially the nice RTK Differential units (10mm +/- precision) that get installed on things like boats for hydrography and earthmoving equipment for earthworks. They aren't very portable at all.
The situation is a little different as the currency used in most MMOs is not a limited resource, it's more like a service. You could monopolize all of the currency being generated at a specific time, but as you push up the demand then the price should rise causing a higher supply of currency.
I was talking to my boss about this today in regards to a quad 24" widescreen high-res array we put together for a computer that runs some radar monitoring software. We came to the conclusion that a single big monitor that you could divide into 'workspaces' or something (effectively virtual monitors I guess) would be an interesting innovation. No idea if that has already been done or not...
Being in New Zealand and playing a Half-Life mod called Natural Selection at clan level showed me what a large and tight-knit community can be behind an online game. I had met about half of the people that I played with regularly in real life, and the rest I had spent a lot of time talking to over voice comms. Out of perhaps 60 people, 2 of them were women. Even if FPS' are biased towards male players, thats still pretty indicative of any non-MMO games that I've played.
Yeah, I've seen a few of those around. I think my favourites have been the ice-cream vending machines. They basically have a fridge with a motorised lid that flips itself up, then a big vaccuum cleaner type nozzle that gets lowered down to the ice-cream, turned on, then lifted out while sucked on to the ice-cream. It then gets dropped out a chute.
Its a pretty simple idea really, but sometimes it doesn't work out and your ice-cream either never comes out or just gets dropped somewhere inside the machine.
Its probably just being used as a router. We have quite a few of these things floating around in various places doing routing duty. For the most part you leave the antennas connected so that if for whatever reason the radios aren't switched of properly they don't cook themselves but running unloaded.
"most parts read like the worst, most dry history book you've ever read"
Thats exactly the same sentiment I've expressed many, many times. Keep on it though, someone else mentioned that once you've gotten through it once and have it in perspective it gets alot easier.
Of course, the guy who does Pure Mathematics is so abstracted from reality that they would flounder in something as well-grounded and useful as Chemistry...
Hey, wait a minute... I recognise that tree...
Unfortunately I never managed to make it through the Silmarillion, but I do understand what you mean. My problem was always that by the time I have read through a part, I had forgotten the part before it and could not follow any references to the middle earth history properly. This made it a little difficult to follow.
Well the article at least makes it seem like Tolkein abandoned it due to time pressures or something similar, as opposed to considering the work to be sub-standard. The fact that he included exerpts in his other works would seem to be a good sign.
The first Halo is around about 5 years old now, and in comparison to the other games of the time was excellent. If I remember rightly, this was mostly due to the gameplay, with the beautiful worlds and well-designed vehicles as a second. Not to mention that it was just an immensely fun (if simple) game to play. There were a few innovations in there as well, such as only carrying 2 weapons and the seperate button for grenades. I remember playing Halo for the first time and thinking 'Wow, why the hell doesn't everyone do this'. Comparing it to the games that you have is a little bit apples-to-oranges as these games are far more modern. A more appropriate comparison would be the original Half-Life.
That said, I'm not defending Halo 2 in any way, that was more like a lazy Halo: CE expansion pack really... Although the multiplayer Co-Op is something that would be nice in a lot of more modern FPSs
Thermal expansion would only be a problem if the units are power cycled often. As this is an industrial type arrangement, just leaving the units on would solve this problem easily enough.
Try looking into IPT (inductive power transfer). It involves using a 38.4kHz carrier and resonant LC pickups to transmit varying power levels (10W to 10s of kW) over short distances (up to about 100mm) with 90%+ efficiencies possible. With that kind of technology embedded in your desk or in a mat that you fasten to the top/underside of your desk, batteries would be a thing of the past.
All those things you mention are legitimate drawbacks to wireless technology. Are you really behaving any differently than the people who say 'go wireless' without thinking about it in saying that 'all wireless sucks' without truly justifying it? Different ends of the same rope?
As far as I am concerned, it is like everything else in life. It has pros, it has cons, and it is a case of weighing up the options and making an informed, concious decision as to which will suit your needs best.
IPT (inductive power transfer) technologies can already achieve 90%+ efficiencies at a range of power levels (10W up to hundreds of kW) over short distances (up to 100mm). There are also people working on embedding IPT coils in carpet so surely its not that inconceivable that we may be able to do this in the not so distant future. I wanted to do an IPT desk-mouse-keyboard-monitor etc. arrangement for my final year Electrical Engineering project, but unfortunately there were already a couple of similar projects in the works for IPT based mouse-mousemat combinations.
If you want to look at a technology with slightly better results across distances, check out some of the available IPT technology. I've done a bit of work on this kind of stuff at university at masters level and it's pretty promising, especially for higher power applications at the moment. (I actually developed a 1.2kW capable battery charger that worked across a 80mm air gap. Used it to charge the battery in a golf cart...)
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There are a lot of GPS units, especially the nice RTK Differential units (10mm +/- precision) that get installed on things like boats for hydrography and earthmoving equipment for earthworks. They aren't very portable at all.
The situation is a little different as the currency used in most MMOs is not a limited resource, it's more like a service. You could monopolize all of the currency being generated at a specific time, but as you push up the demand then the price should rise causing a higher supply of currency.
Damn, wish I had of known that before I gave him my hard earned ad revenue.
You are at the brink. It is dark. You may be eaten by a Grue.
So the One Laptop Per Child program has to be proceeded by One Air-Conditioned Room Per Child then??
I was talking to my boss about this today in regards to a quad 24" widescreen high-res array we put together for a computer that runs some radar monitoring software. We came to the conclusion that a single big monitor that you could divide into 'workspaces' or something (effectively virtual monitors I guess) would be an interesting innovation. No idea if that has already been done or not...
Being in New Zealand and playing a Half-Life mod called Natural Selection at clan level showed me what a large and tight-knit community can be behind an online game. I had met about half of the people that I played with regularly in real life, and the rest I had spent a lot of time talking to over voice comms. Out of perhaps 60 people, 2 of them were women. Even if FPS' are biased towards male players, thats still pretty indicative of any non-MMO games that I've played.
Where men are men, women are men and 14 year old girls are FBI agents...
Yeah, I've seen a few of those around. I think my favourites have been the ice-cream vending machines. They basically have a fridge with a motorised lid that flips itself up, then a big vaccuum cleaner type nozzle that gets lowered down to the ice-cream, turned on, then lifted out while sucked on to the ice-cream. It then gets dropped out a chute.
Its a pretty simple idea really, but sometimes it doesn't work out and your ice-cream either never comes out or just gets dropped somewhere inside the machine.
Its probably just being used as a router. We have quite a few of these things floating around in various places doing routing duty. For the most part you leave the antennas connected so that if for whatever reason the radios aren't switched of properly they don't cook themselves but running unloaded.
hahahaha. If I had mod points, I woulda shelled em out over the 'wiitarded' remark.
"most parts read like the worst, most dry history book you've ever read"
Thats exactly the same sentiment I've expressed many, many times. Keep on it though, someone else mentioned that once you've gotten through it once and have it in perspective it gets alot easier.
Of course, the guy who does Pure Mathematics is so abstracted from reality that they would flounder in something as well-grounded and useful as Chemistry...
Hey, wait a minute... I recognise that tree...
Unfortunately I never managed to make it through the Silmarillion, but I do understand what you mean. My problem was always that by the time I have read through a part, I had forgotten the part before it and could not follow any references to the middle earth history properly. This made it a little difficult to follow.
Anyone else finding that the Wii prefix on everything is getting hideously annoying?
Well the article at least makes it seem like Tolkein abandoned it due to time pressures or something similar, as opposed to considering the work to be sub-standard. The fact that he included exerpts in his other works would seem to be a good sign.
I'm an engineer who takes his car to the mechanic, but thats got nothing to do with my mechanical ability. More like sheer lazyness...
The first Halo is around about 5 years old now, and in comparison to the other games of the time was excellent. If I remember rightly, this was mostly due to the gameplay, with the beautiful worlds and well-designed vehicles as a second. Not to mention that it was just an immensely fun (if simple) game to play. There were a few innovations in there as well, such as only carrying 2 weapons and the seperate button for grenades. I remember playing Halo for the first time and thinking 'Wow, why the hell doesn't everyone do this'. Comparing it to the games that you have is a little bit apples-to-oranges as these games are far more modern. A more appropriate comparison would be the original Half-Life.
That said, I'm not defending Halo 2 in any way, that was more like a lazy Halo: CE expansion pack really... Although the multiplayer Co-Op is something that would be nice in a lot of more modern FPSs
Thermal expansion would only be a problem if the units are power cycled often. As this is an industrial type arrangement, just leaving the units on would solve this problem easily enough.
Try looking into IPT (inductive power transfer). It involves using a 38.4kHz carrier and resonant LC pickups to transmit varying power levels (10W to 10s of kW) over short distances (up to about 100mm) with 90%+ efficiencies possible. With that kind of technology embedded in your desk or in a mat that you fasten to the top/underside of your desk, batteries would be a thing of the past.
All those things you mention are legitimate drawbacks to wireless technology. Are you really behaving any differently than the people who say 'go wireless' without thinking about it in saying that 'all wireless sucks' without truly justifying it? Different ends of the same rope?
As far as I am concerned, it is like everything else in life. It has pros, it has cons, and it is a case of weighing up the options and making an informed, concious decision as to which will suit your needs best.
IPT (inductive power transfer) technologies can already achieve 90%+ efficiencies at a range of power levels (10W up to hundreds of kW) over short distances (up to 100mm). There are also people working on embedding IPT coils in carpet so surely its not that inconceivable that we may be able to do this in the not so distant future. I wanted to do an IPT desk-mouse-keyboard-monitor etc. arrangement for my final year Electrical Engineering project, but unfortunately there were already a couple of similar projects in the works for IPT based mouse-mousemat combinations.
If you want to look at a technology with slightly better results across distances, check out some of the available IPT technology. I've done a bit of work on this kind of stuff at university at masters level and it's pretty promising, especially for higher power applications at the moment. (I actually developed a 1.2kW capable battery charger that worked across a 80mm air gap. Used it to charge the battery in a golf cart...)
Why couldn't you just delay every 100ms block then? Seems to me that'd be easier...
eight is something the desktop market does not need and 640kB should be enough for anyone...