More accurately the evolution of the wave function is deterministic whereas the result of a measurement on a quantum system is probabilistic, with the probabilities given by the wave function.
Okay, fair point about the moratorium. But I still think that allowing all the different states to make their own regulations involving net transactions (and I'm not just talking about taxes here) will lead to a lot of confusion - what counts for a customer in New York buying off of a company in Maryland whose servers are based offshore somewhere?
And yes, I'm sure that the internet will be taxed in the long run - the moratorium is just to build up their tax base. But again you have to take into account the fluidity of the net - companies can relocate much more easily than their bricks and mortar counterparts.
Or are we planning on abolishing all local government right down to the municipal level?
Well I do think that when talking about local government smaller units work better than larger ones. A town can enact rules which make sense for itself but might not for another town. And my point was really that the states have control over a lot of things which should really be decided at a national level because they don't really apply to states differently. I mean, education should be education whether you live in New York or Kansas. As for what system would actually work in practice, well your guess is as good as mine.
Yeah, you've got to love laws which let people who drink, drive and run over small children go to jail for a month and ban them for driving for a year (a whole year - shock, horror!) and then puts people away for five years for having five pills on them. Seems to me like the goverment pays too much attention to what they think national opinion is and not enough attention to the actual effects of crimes are when working out prison sentances.
Well, you can write the core engine in C++ for speed purposes and then use Python to wrap this code. Then you can use Python to do prototyping for the rules and game mechanics - rather than having to rebuild the whole project each time, just change the code and rerun it. Saves a lot of time. Once you have finalised the game mechanics you can then choose to code then in C++ if you want to.
Alternatively you can actually embed the Python interpreter within C++ code and use it to write custom scripts and/or extension modules using the wrapped game objects. Kind of like QuakeC IIRC. Or for a game like Civ you could write custom macros to do tasks you do regularly such as changing build orders in response to attacks.
You may have noticed that I did say that this doesn't apply to all games. Of course games like Tetris wouldn't be improved one iota by some contrived plot - there are cases in which pure gameplay is the only important element.
And again, for games like Quake of course it is the gameplay that counts. This is what I was talking about in my last paragraph - that the game engine itself must be fully tested to be as playable as possible. Think of the many games that are like Quake, but not nearly as well-tuned and so just don't work.
For example. Suppose you have a star trek like game. Well I thoght of creating say a universe and have individual planets that one could explore and look at and perhaps meet new and interesting life forms. Have this game be infinitely playable and expandable and use plenty of randomness. You could play for years and never win but have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
I like the idea of open-ended games such as you're suggesting here but I think that this sort of game would work best as a multi-player game - you can only explore the universe on your own for so long before the appeal fades. I suppose things like Ultima Online are the first steps in this process, but I'm sure the "online world" type of game will grow in popularity as more and more people join in.
But there are certainly some kinds of games which don't really work as a stand-alone product but are almost ideal for this kind of treatment. How about a game based in a fantasy city where intrigue is rife? Players can engage in all kinds of things within the city or intrigue with other players for positions of power. Over time characters will rise and fall in power and prestige. That's just the first idea that popped into my head, but I'm sure you can think of others.
I remember trying to code something based on Civ after the original came out. After trying to work out an appropriate class structure I gave up in disgust because of the sheer amount of time and effort it would have taken:(
However I've also looked at the FreeCiv project and I'm very impressed. It looks like it'll be extremely good when it gets finished. OTOH I wish Microprose (?) would release the source code for Civ 1, now that would be a good download!
The authors focus not just on computer games, but on software entertainment as a more general concept. To that end, they discuss such diverse influences as Aristotle's elements of drama and provide analogies with films and literature.
This is the sort of thing which the game industry needs more of. I've lost count of the number of games which use predictable, tired storylines, or in which the storyline is totally unrelated to the game. A game with a great storyline in which your actions directly tie into this is extremely engrossing and keeps you coming back for more.
Of course this doesn't apply to all games. I doubt whether pure combat games would benefit from a finely wrought storyline:)
However, the main focus is on games, and I particularly enjoyed the applications of math and game theory to gameplay and balance. A nice touch was the discussion of emergence as it applies to the interaction of game rules.
Again, this is a good thing. The game engine requires a balance amongst its elements otherwise it's no fun to play. If one element of the game makes it rediculously easy to win then this spoils any kind of long-term enjoyment you could get out of it. Games should be extensively playtested before release to make sure this sort of thing it correct. And the programmers having a few quick goes before release doesn't count, unfortunately for some games companies.
I'd agree that the US state system is definately showing its flaws. It has worked as a way of organising a large population over a large area of land in the past but I'm not sure if it still working to benefit the US as a whole. Why should two people living a mile apart be subject to two different sets of laws just because they are on different sides of some arbitrary state boundary?
There's also a vast cultural difference between a lot of states in the US - think of the difference between California and Kansas for instance. The cultural gap between some US states is far wider than it is between many different countries across the world. Whilst the Constitution guarantees certain rights across the US there are a lot of things equally important to the welfare of a country, such as education, which are decided on per state basis which IMHO isn't right.
Hence, if anybody really wants to tax trade over the net there needs to be a clear descision about where transactions take place - and nobody wants to do that because all pure net businesses will instantly "relocate" for the tax advantages!
I agree that this is an issue that will take a very long time to decide as it involves so many different countries and laws. In the mean time you're in a very uncertain position when it comes to internet transactions, which is probably why e-commerce is so slow in taking off over here in Europe.
IIRC however the major credit cards here in the UK will insure purchases over the net irrespective of where it was purchased, so this is probably the safest way to go.
As for relocations, if taxes are going to be levied in some countries then we'll certainly end up with about a dozen countries without these taxes which will end up hosting practically all of the websites on the net. This is similar to the way that almost all of the online gambling sites are run from a few countries - the Cayman Islands and Antigua IIRC.
Or you could run all of your servers off of a ship out in international waters using satellite connections. This isn't really ideal from speed purposes, but would avoid all of those pesky regulations:)
But many traditional retailers say they suffer an unfair disadvantage by having to add a sales tax to their goods in the 46 states that impose such a levy. Many governors and local officials fear a deep loss in revenue if online sales siphon business away from traditional merchants.
Further complicating the issue is the existence of more than 6,000 sales tax jurisdictions nationwide, with widely varying rules.
So basically what will happen is that different states will end up with yet another set of taxation rules that apply to internet sales. Seeing as how internet sales will generally occur across state lines this will result in vast amounts of confusion as different states attempt to try to apply different laws, and people and businesses will lose out from trying to comply with this patchwork of regulations.
Clinton is obviously in favour of such a tax, and is trying to get enough states to enact it so that it becomes more and more difficult for the advisory commision or his successor to keep the moratorium in force.
Ever taken psychology? Ever actually noticed that people have things called majors that group them into various camps on the basis of what they do and do not like. Just because a person follows this very natural and very human mode of analysis dosn't mean that they are stupid of juvenile (what you inferred from that "he's 16" theory.
No, I've never taken psychology but by fiancee did at university and I used to read a lot of her papers. OTOH she was doing mainly neuropsychology rather than social psychology, which she felt was mainly a load of crap. But anyway, being a thinking person who has eyes and can notice I'm at least entitled to have my own opinion about things, even if they're wrong:)
When you talk about majors what are you talking about? I'm not being sarcastic, I'd just like some clarification.
I would say that a surer halmark of a 16 year old is a person who trys to lust ( in this case a stronger or more appropriate word than want to have or get ahold of) after some actress to no avail but I guess your definition of maturity is different than mine.
I don't know whether you've ever noticed this but most men find women attractive and tend to notice attractive women. I can't honestly say that I've ever sat there are lusted after SMG to the exclusion of all else, nor does she fill my every waking thought. I just think she's very good looking, that's all. Last I heard there's nothing abnormal about that.
You did know that Courtney Cox, Neve Campbell, and Jenny McCarthy are in it? Hotties are definitely news for nerds.
While I'd agree with you there 100%, I think he's still about 16 and very touchy about his True Linux Geek status, which is obviously null and void if he admits to having anything to do with things which aren't Linux or SF:)
Of course if he's not 16 then that's scary, because every post I've seen him make in the last month or so have been similar BS...
P.S. I personally prefer Sarah Michelle Gellar than the above mentioned, but I suppose they'd have to do;)
... and people who are technologically inclined usually don't care about various actors and "entertainment" news unless it is science fiction or something to do with technologically interesting subjects.
That's a very sweeping statement about what people who read/. like and dislike. While I personally am a big fan of both science fiction and technology I do have other interests which interest me equally. I'm sure there are plenty of other/. readers who also have interests outside of these. Just because these are the only things that interest you doesn't mean everyone else is the same.
If you like Scream fine but could someone please mention why this was posted and say not perhaps various political news? How about the newly elected president of Indonesia? Middle East peace talks? What about some issue that affects technology? I just would like some concrete proof and answers.
Why was this posted? Why not? There seems to be plenty of comments about this film already, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this site meant to be about discussion? If absolutely no-one was interested as you claim then there wouldn't be any posts to this article. And as for concrete proofs and answers well you won't find any in this kind of discussion - people's opinions and thoughts aren't really subject to this kind of analysis.
So you don't think this sort of thing should be posted here on/.? Fine, don't read it. No one forced you to read this article, go through the threads and reply to a post. In fact if you object so much, why are you reading it?
What does Scream 3 have to do with News for Nerds? This is hardly Stuff That Matters.
Then why are you even reading this article, let alone posting to it? Some of us here have a slightly broader circle of interests than just Linux you know.
An agency spokesman said the computer glitch was caused by an old program installed in the system.
It can't have been that old seeing as leap years occur every 4 years IIRC:) Seeing as I don't think that the rules for calculating leap years are particularly complex and probably in any number of libraries this does seem like a particularly shoddy piece of coding.
Slashdot Mirror
More accurately the evolution of the wave function is deterministic whereas the result of a measurement on a quantum system is probabilistic, with the probabilities given by the wave function.
Okay, fair point about the moratorium. But I still think that allowing all the different states to make their own regulations involving net transactions (and I'm not just talking about taxes here) will lead to a lot of confusion - what counts for a customer in New York buying off of a company in Maryland whose servers are based offshore somewhere?
And yes, I'm sure that the internet will be taxed in the long run - the moratorium is just to build up their tax base. But again you have to take into account the fluidity of the net - companies can relocate much more easily than their bricks and mortar counterparts.
Or are we planning on abolishing all local government right down to the municipal level?
Well I do think that when talking about local government smaller units work better than larger ones. A town can enact rules which make sense for itself but might not for another town. And my point was really that the states have control over a lot of things which should really be decided at a national level because they don't really apply to states differently. I mean, education should be education whether you live in New York or Kansas. As for what system would actually work in practice, well your guess is as good as mine.
The FBI was interested in the porn ... The FBI, on the other had, wanted to amass more evidence ...
Ha ha, I like that :)
Yeah, you've got to love laws which let people who drink, drive and run over small children go to jail for a month and ban them for driving for a year (a whole year - shock, horror!) and then puts people away for five years for having five pills on them. Seems to me like the goverment pays too much attention to what they think national opinion is and not enough attention to the actual effects of crimes are when working out prison sentances.
Well, you can write the core engine in C++ for speed purposes and then use Python to wrap this code. Then you can use Python to do prototyping for the rules and game mechanics - rather than having to rebuild the whole project each time, just change the code and rerun it. Saves a lot of time. Once you have finalised the game mechanics you can then choose to code then in C++ if you want to.
Alternatively you can actually embed the Python interpreter within C++ code and use it to write custom scripts and/or extension modules using the wrapped game objects. Kind of like QuakeC IIRC. Or for a game like Civ you could write custom macros to do tasks you do regularly such as changing build orders in response to attacks.
You may have noticed that I did say that this doesn't apply to all games. Of course games like Tetris wouldn't be improved one iota by some contrived plot - there are cases in which pure gameplay is the only important element.
And again, for games like Quake of course it is the gameplay that counts. This is what I was talking about in my last paragraph - that the game engine itself must be fully tested to be as playable as possible. Think of the many games that are like Quake, but not nearly as well-tuned and so just don't work.
For example. Suppose you have a star trek like game. Well I thoght of creating say a universe and have individual planets that one could explore and look at and perhaps meet new and interesting life forms. Have this game be infinitely playable and expandable and use plenty of randomness. You could play for years and never win but have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
I like the idea of open-ended games such as you're suggesting here but I think that this sort of game would work best as a multi-player game - you can only explore the universe on your own for so long before the appeal fades. I suppose things like Ultima Online are the first steps in this process, but I'm sure the "online world" type of game will grow in popularity as more and more people join in.
But there are certainly some kinds of games which don't really work as a stand-alone product but are almost ideal for this kind of treatment. How about a game based in a fantasy city where intrigue is rife? Players can engage in all kinds of things within the city or intrigue with other players for positions of power. Over time characters will rise and fall in power and prestige. That's just the first idea that popped into my head, but I'm sure you can think of others.
I remember trying to code something based on Civ after the original came out. After trying to work out an appropriate class structure I gave up in disgust because of the sheer amount of time and effort it would have taken :(
However I've also looked at the FreeCiv project and I'm very impressed. It looks like it'll be extremely good when it gets finished. OTOH I wish Microprose (?) would release the source code for Civ 1, now that would be a good download!
The authors focus not just on computer games, but on software entertainment as a more general concept. To that end, they discuss such diverse influences as Aristotle's elements of drama and provide analogies with films and literature.
This is the sort of thing which the game industry needs more of. I've lost count of the number of games which use predictable, tired storylines, or in which the storyline is totally unrelated to the game. A game with a great storyline in which your actions directly tie into this is extremely engrossing and keeps you coming back for more.
Of course this doesn't apply to all games. I doubt whether pure combat games would benefit from a finely wrought storyline :)
However, the main focus is on games, and I particularly enjoyed the applications of math and game theory to gameplay and balance. A nice touch was the discussion of emergence as it applies to the interaction of game rules.
Again, this is a good thing. The game engine requires a balance amongst its elements otherwise it's no fun to play. If one element of the game makes it rediculously easy to win then this spoils any kind of long-term enjoyment you could get out of it. Games should be extensively playtested before release to make sure this sort of thing it correct. And the programmers having a few quick goes before release doesn't count, unfortunately for some games companies.
I'd agree that the US state system is definately showing its flaws. It has worked as a way of organising a large population over a large area of land in the past but I'm not sure if it still working to benefit the US as a whole. Why should two people living a mile apart be subject to two different sets of laws just because they are on different sides of some arbitrary state boundary?
There's also a vast cultural difference between a lot of states in the US - think of the difference between California and Kansas for instance. The cultural gap between some US states is far wider than it is between many different countries across the world. Whilst the Constitution guarantees certain rights across the US there are a lot of things equally important to the welfare of a country, such as education, which are decided on per state basis which IMHO isn't right.
Hence, if anybody really wants to tax trade over the net there needs to be a clear descision about where transactions take place - and nobody wants to do that because all pure net businesses will instantly "relocate" for the tax advantages!
I agree that this is an issue that will take a very long time to decide as it involves so many different countries and laws. In the mean time you're in a very uncertain position when it comes to internet transactions, which is probably why e-commerce is so slow in taking off over here in Europe.
IIRC however the major credit cards here in the UK will insure purchases over the net irrespective of where it was purchased, so this is probably the safest way to go.
As for relocations, if taxes are going to be levied in some countries then we'll certainly end up with about a dozen countries without these taxes which will end up hosting practically all of the websites on the net. This is similar to the way that almost all of the online gambling sites are run from a few countries - the Cayman Islands and Antigua IIRC.
Or you could run all of your servers off of a ship out in international waters using satellite connections. This isn't really ideal from speed purposes, but would avoid all of those pesky regulations :)
But many traditional retailers say they suffer an unfair disadvantage by having to add a sales tax to their goods in the 46 states that impose such a levy. Many governors and local officials fear a deep loss in revenue if online sales siphon business away from traditional merchants.
Further complicating the issue is the existence of more than 6,000 sales tax jurisdictions nationwide, with widely varying rules.
So basically what will happen is that different states will end up with yet another set of taxation rules that apply to internet sales. Seeing as how internet sales will generally occur across state lines this will result in vast amounts of confusion as different states attempt to try to apply different laws, and people and businesses will lose out from trying to comply with this patchwork of regulations.
Clinton is obviously in favour of such a tax, and is trying to get enough states to enact it so that it becomes more and more difficult for the advisory commision or his successor to keep the moratorium in force.
Ever taken psychology? Ever actually noticed that people have things called majors that group them into various camps on the basis of what they do and do not like. Just because a person follows this very natural and very human mode of analysis dosn't mean that they are stupid of juvenile (what you inferred from that "he's 16" theory.
No, I've never taken psychology but by fiancee did at university and I used to read a lot of her papers. OTOH she was doing mainly neuropsychology rather than social psychology, which she felt was mainly a load of crap. But anyway, being a thinking person who has eyes and can notice I'm at least entitled to have my own opinion about things, even if they're wrong :)
When you talk about majors what are you talking about? I'm not being sarcastic, I'd just like some clarification.
I would say that a surer halmark of a 16 year old is a person who trys to lust ( in this case a stronger or more appropriate word than want to have or get ahold of) after some actress to no avail but I guess your definition of maturity is different than mine.
I don't know whether you've ever noticed this but most men find women attractive and tend to notice attractive women. I can't honestly say that I've ever sat there are lusted after SMG to the exclusion of all else, nor does she fill my every waking thought. I just think she's very good looking, that's all. Last I heard there's nothing abnormal about that.
Oh my God, what have we unleashed :)
You did know that Courtney Cox, Neve Campbell, and Jenny McCarthy are in it? Hotties are definitely news for nerds.
While I'd agree with you there 100%, I think he's still about 16 and very touchy about his True Linux Geek status, which is obviously null and void if he admits to having anything to do with things which aren't Linux or SF :)
Of course if he's not 16 then that's scary, because every post I've seen him make in the last month or so have been similar BS...
P.S. I personally prefer Sarah Michelle Gellar than the above mentioned, but I suppose they'd have to do ;)
That's a very sweeping statement about what people who read /. like and dislike. While I personally am a big fan of both science fiction and technology I do have other interests which interest me equally. I'm sure there are plenty of other /. readers who also have interests outside of these. Just because these are the only things that interest you doesn't mean everyone else is the same.
If you like Scream fine but could someone please mention why this was posted and say not perhaps various political news? How about the newly elected president of Indonesia? Middle East peace talks? What about some issue that affects technology? I just would like some concrete proof and answers.
Why was this posted? Why not? There seems to be plenty of comments about this film already, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this site meant to be about discussion? If absolutely no-one was interested as you claim then there wouldn't be any posts to this article. And as for concrete proofs and answers well you won't find any in this kind of discussion - people's opinions and thoughts aren't really subject to this kind of analysis.
So you don't think this sort of thing should be posted here on /.? Fine, don't read it. No one forced you to read this article, go through the threads and reply to a post. In fact if you object so much, why are you reading it?
What does Scream 3 have to do with News for Nerds? This is hardly Stuff That Matters.
Then why are you even reading this article, let alone posting to it? Some of us here have a slightly broader circle of interests than just Linux you know.
Not really related to your point because I'm in the UK and won't see the film for ages, but what's Dogma like? I missed it when it first came out.
Aaah, Pascal, that brings back happy memories :)
Alternatively, in Python:
isleap = (not year%4 and (year%100 or not year%400) > 0I really can't be arsed to do an x86 assembler version
Okay, it wasn't exactly the code I'd have put into a project, more of a demonstration of the two exception clauses...
Actually, try this bit of code instead :)
isleap = false;if !(year % 4) {
isleap = true;
year % 100 == 0 ? isleap = false;
year % 400 == 0 ? isleap = true;
}
It's a 400 year exception, not a 1000 year exception...
From the Yahoo report here:
An agency spokesman said the computer glitch was caused by an old program installed in the system.
It can't have been that old seeing as leap years occur every 4 years IIRC :) Seeing as I don't think that the rules for calculating leap years are particularly complex and probably in any number of libraries this does seem like a particularly shoddy piece of coding.
Go dmg!