Well, since we are going all philosophical I'd like to warn you that this will all end with the tedious inevitability of talking about life, the universe and everything...
Lets look at real happiness. Would you agree that some scientists that develop all these gadgets and concepts are truly happy in their creative work? That this work makes them happy?
What about software developers? What about people who buy the gadget and start imagining what they could do with it to improve their life's work?
That's exactly why (I dare say most) slashdotters feel real happiness when getting these gadgets. Some here helped develop some of the concepts and the ideas behind it, for some it's their life's work. Some have seen it sprouting from the humble x86 IBM pc to becoming integrated with everything around us.
For a programmer to see their work being used by masses of people is the same as for an artist displaying their work for masses to see. These gadgets open new possibilities to programmers, something akin to an artist discovering a new medium to work with. Does this make some of these people really, truly happy? Yes I think it does⦠What do you think?
That doesn't mean you should go out and buy the latest gadgets yourself. I fully agree that some people are very happy without suing computers at all. But to come to a place like/. and criticize (I dare say) 'our' vision of the future as everyone becoming âoepassive spectatorsâ with not enough âoebrain capacityâ to process all the new information due to all the integrated computing is asking for an argument. Computing is all about processing the information for you so you don't have to. If anything it's 'meant' to free up your senses for more pleasurable/useful input.
Then to come out and say that it doesn't make people truly happy to work with such gadgets...
I put it to you that this technology WILL make us happy. The same way the discovery of fire and the wheel did. You are of course welcome to go climb a tree and be happy "by learning to live in the body and the reality" you are in... That's what we are supposed to do before those discoveries after all. Or you could get on your bike and cycle down to that great cafe you discovered the other day and enjoy an espresso made by a coffee machine with an integrated computer.
"Growing up in the '80s, most parents of that time felt that video games had absolutely no value"
I dumped my last "girfriend" 3 weeks ago pretty much because she said "games have no educational/productive value" (amongst other things). Told her I dont want to date someone so narrow minded...
What I'm saying is... Those people are still here with us and they are the majority of the population.
I learnt a lot of my history from Civ. My mum bought it for me when I was 13 with the precise wish that I learn about history through it.
Saying that, she hated that I played Elite instead of doing my homework through my teenage years. Looking back now it probably taught me a heck of a lot about Astronomy.
Ironically I never studied history or astronomy in my school... There was 1 astronomy session and homework, which I got an A+ for (being a C- average student that came as quite a shock to everyone), but none after that.
I just hope that my kids get a more intuitive education than me and I think games are vital to that. We play them as children, then it stops suddenly and education becomes âoeworkâ.
Sure, there is a lot of hard work involved, but imagine if you can interest a student in a subject as much as you can interest someone in World of Warcraft? If you can make an MMO out of something like Civ, with actual historical events we would have millions of young experts running around knowing everything you put into the game about that particular period.
Or make an interactive chemistry game that plays like Portal⦠How about a biology game like âoeflowâ but with more scientific value? Spore is coming out, I bet that will teach kids about evolution a lot faster than the curriculum can.
Its not about making good educational games, its about making good games more educational. Iâ(TM)m sure some one could write a mod for portal to teach kids about physics and chemistry. Create molecules by shooting companion âoeatomsâ into place? Give score for doing it faster? You could create a puzzle set for the whole periodic table heheâ¦
"never having to go and discover things by yourself"
When was the last time you actually discovered something that has never been discovered before, by yourself, without any aids? Data is always going to be generated by the makers; machines just format this data into more usable form. Some discoveries can not be made at all without aid of computers. Sure, humans can look at things, but it takes years of computer analysis to actually discover that what you were staring at for years was actually quite a lot more interesting than you thought.
"Enhanced senses that can 'see' or 'hear' not just what the natural eyes and ears can, but also, say UV, IR, radio, microwaves etc etc?"
We had this for years... Night vision goggles/scopes? Amplifiers? They all have many uses. No one is saying that you should be able to see in night vision, UV and microwave at the same time!
"we simply don't have enough brain capacity to process it."
'We' have been processing all the radio/UV/IR/microwave data and many many more just fine for years. Not all at the same time of course...
"There is no extra capacity in there; it wouldn't make evolutionary sense to build in more capacity than needed"
First of all 'Need' is not a constant but a variable in that formula. Secondly computers help filter the bulk of unnecessary data so we only see the interesting bits that fit well within our sensory "capacity". Thirdly we are not evolving fast enough to start loosing our use of legs just because we sat in offices for a couple of hundred years. It would take several thousand generations of sitting in an office to evolve out of using our legs for transportation and into Darlek-like beings. Same goes for any other appendage and/or sensory apparatus god/evolution gave us.
"This kind of technology won't make us happier"
Speak for your self. And by the way what are you doing on Slashdot? This is exactly the kind of stuff that makes us (slashdotters) very happy indeed.
Well, I tend to agree with you. Since this is UK (and I live here) it would be so much better if planes just had a red phone booth in the tail section instead. If they really must make a call they should go queue up.
But I also had an uncle who went fishing under some high voltage lines around 10 years ago. They found him dead under the lines a day later after he failed to come home. Cause of death was determined to be electrocution...
The fact that this event actually occurred and resulted in a death I personally would not buy a house anywhere near high voltage power lines. Why take the risk?
But back on topic, I doubt Wi-Fi has any health risks... I'm in a Wi-Fi zone for most of my day and don't feel any worse for wear (so far).
Latest and greatest has a way of topping out these days. This quad-SLI rig is probably only a measly 5-10% 'speed' boost to something thats half the cost. Not only that, but that 'speed' bost is usually beyond the notisable range (i.e. getting 120+fps as opposed to 100+).
You just need to do a simple cost-benefit analysis. Paying $600 more for a theoretical 10% performance boost that you wont notice is not a lot of benefit for the added cost.
For me personally it's the other way around (Ironically I spent the first part of my life in Soviet Russia, litiraly). I'm bilingual and I can't read either languages as fast as a local would. So having books read to me yeilds the same level of comprehention as if I had read them myself.
I usually have to re-read certain parts a few times to understand what the author is trying to get at.
This doesen't stop me reading myself, but there no additional benefets to doing so either.
And lets remove advertising billboards while we are at it.
"I am constantly amazed at the general acceptance of the highway carnage"
May I suggest that you are easily amazed. "quite a few" is not a quantative measurement, you cant use it to correlate distractions to accidents. While I'd wager that that over 50% of drivers get distracted daily while driving, the accident rate its quite a lot less.
May I also suggest that driving a vehicle the size of a buss is a little more complicated than your avarage car.
Different people require different levels of focus to remain safe on the road. Thats why some people can drive F1 cars but most cant. This does not mean we should abandon audio in cars just because some people cant handle it. Perhaps the driving test should be made harder and keep those people off the roads in the first place...
I'm sorry, but thats a pretty narrow minded view...
You can quite easily drive a car while having a coversation. Quite a few people do it every day. People listen to the news on the radio in their cars. There are constant trafic announcements and none of this increases the chance to have an accident. So why are you so hostile towards Audio Books? If people should drive in total silence then why don't we have single seated cars with no audio devices?
It's quite clear that a majority of drivers enjoy having audio of some sort in their cars otherwise *all* cars would not be sold with speakers as standard. In todays world where safety is God, do you really think audio equipment in cars would still be there as standard if it significantly increased the risk of having an accident?
Now you could argue that it diverts attention significantly enough to cause an accident... But then so do police cars and speed cameras... Maybe we should not have those on the roads too hmm? After all, I could be glacing at that police car instead of putting my breaks on one day...
Day and a half of game time is 36 hours. Which is roughly 3 weeks if you want to call yourself a casual gamer. To be honest, if you know what you are doing you can clock it at an avarage time of 2 hours per level without claiming to be "hard core".
Leveling my new toon 1-60 took 6 days with the change (as opposed to 13 days on my previous toon). That still translates to ~2 months game play.
I played the beta, and let me tell you the game was god awful for the following reasons:
1. Lack of weapon types, by that I mean lack of interesting ways to kill things and killing things is ALL you would do. I'm not talking about the zillion various rifles they have; you may as well have 1. 2. Tiny Class system: Yes it is a class system, and about 2 wow classes would make up for all the possible variations of TR. 3. Locks you into your class: Clones are great, but once you spent the only 1 you are allowed at certain levels you're stuffed. Put that point in the wrong skill? Sorry buddy its off to lev 1 for you. Which leads me to... 4. Unexciting upgrades: After hours of playing you get to use some new weapons, but guess what, your lev 15 versions of the basic lev 1 weapons are better... Go figure... And once you use up your clone to try the new skills out your stuffed for another 15 levels. 5. PvP??? No competitions makes the game a grind
Now add the bugs they expect the users to tolerate at release and all the balance issues makes the game unplayable. Even if they did up the difficulty of monsters and force people into groups (probably the worst way you can think of to get people to play together).
Maybe after 2 years worth of patches and an expansion pack added 2 extra "classes" it might be worth it...
Hell even the missions are identical to WoW's... How is this a "clean slate"?
Slashdot Mirror
I wash my M3 every week!
... It's the only way to be sure...
Fallout.
Not made by US Gov, but Chinese are (or were) "the enemy" of the US. In any case that scenario has been played out in a game back in 1997.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(video_game)
In Fallout 3 you even get to play as US army killing Chinese in one of the addons. "In which the United States Army liberated Anchorage, Alaska, from Chinese forces." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_3_expansions#Operation:_Anchorage
Yep, I never eat when I play. Some times I only notice I'm hungry when I get cold after hours playing... That sounds pretty sad doesent it?
Great Scott!!
"we" are building shiny new safe ones. Just not many...
Hmm,
I seem to recall a post where some one was saying that a colleague of his left his UID when he left the job.
Yes... It was a poll about ID theft.
He also mentioned that he used it occasionally. I wonder if I can dig the link out.
Yes here we are: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=528614&cid=23133862
So if that's you 787, welcome back, but if you are in fact Rob Kaper (5960), shame on you, abusing someone else's power like that to get modded up!
Well, since we are going all philosophical I'd like to warn you that this will all end with the tedious inevitability of talking about life, the universe and everything...
/. and criticize (I dare say) 'our' vision of the future as everyone becoming âoepassive spectatorsâ with not enough âoebrain capacityâ to process all the new information due to all the integrated computing is asking for an argument. Computing is all about processing the information for you so you don't have to. If anything it's 'meant' to free up your senses for more pleasurable/useful input.
Lets look at real happiness. Would you agree that some scientists that develop all these gadgets and concepts are truly happy in their creative work? That this work makes them happy?
What about software developers? What about people who buy the gadget and start imagining what they could do with it to improve their life's work?
That's exactly why (I dare say most) slashdotters feel real happiness when getting these gadgets. Some here helped develop some of the concepts and the ideas behind it, for some it's their life's work. Some have seen it sprouting from the humble x86 IBM pc to becoming integrated with everything around us.
For a programmer to see their work being used by masses of people is the same as for an artist displaying their work for masses to see. These gadgets open new possibilities to programmers, something akin to an artist discovering a new medium to work with. Does this make some of these people really, truly happy? Yes I think it does⦠What do you think?
That doesn't mean you should go out and buy the latest gadgets yourself. I fully agree that some people are very happy without suing computers at all. But to come to a place like
Then to come out and say that it doesn't make people truly happy to work with such gadgets...
I put it to you that this technology WILL make us happy. The same way the discovery of fire and the wheel did. You are of course welcome to go climb a tree and be happy "by learning to live in the body and the reality" you are in... That's what we are supposed to do before those discoveries after all. Or you could get on your bike and cycle down to that great cafe you discovered the other day and enjoy an espresso made by a coffee machine with an integrated computer.
"Growing up in the '80s, most parents of that time felt that video games had absolutely no value"
I dumped my last "girfriend" 3 weeks ago pretty much because she said "games have no educational/productive value" (amongst other things). Told her I dont want to date someone so narrow minded...
What I'm saying is... Those people are still here with us and they are the majority of the population.
I learnt a lot of my history from Civ. My mum bought it for me when I was 13 with the precise wish that I learn about history through it.
Saying that, she hated that I played Elite instead of doing my homework through my teenage years. Looking back now it probably taught me a heck of a lot about Astronomy.
Ironically I never studied history or astronomy in my school... There was 1 astronomy session and homework, which I got an A+ for (being a C- average student that came as quite a shock to everyone), but none after that.
I just hope that my kids get a more intuitive education than me and I think games are vital to that. We play them as children, then it stops suddenly and education becomes âoeworkâ.
Sure, there is a lot of hard work involved, but imagine if you can interest a student in a subject as much as you can interest someone in World of Warcraft? If you can make an MMO out of something like Civ, with actual historical events we would have millions of young experts running around knowing everything you put into the game about that particular period.
Or make an interactive chemistry game that plays like Portal⦠How about a biology game like âoeflowâ but with more scientific value? Spore is coming out, I bet that will teach kids about evolution a lot faster than the curriculum can.
Its not about making good educational games, its about making good games more educational. Iâ(TM)m sure some one could write a mod for portal to teach kids about physics and chemistry. Create molecules by shooting companion âoeatomsâ into place? Give score for doing it faster? You could create a puzzle set for the whole periodic table heheâ¦
"never having to go and discover things by yourself"
When was the last time you actually discovered something that has never been discovered before, by yourself, without any aids? Data is always going to be generated by the makers; machines just format this data into more usable form. Some discoveries can not be made at all without aid of computers. Sure, humans can look at things, but it takes years of computer analysis to actually discover that what you were staring at for years was actually quite a lot more interesting than you thought.
"Enhanced senses that can 'see' or 'hear' not just what the natural eyes and ears can, but also, say UV, IR, radio, microwaves etc etc?"
We had this for years... Night vision goggles/scopes? Amplifiers? They all have many uses. No one is saying that you should be able to see in night vision, UV and microwave at the same time!
"we simply don't have enough brain capacity to process it."
'We' have been processing all the radio/UV/IR/microwave data and many many more just fine for years. Not all at the same time of course...
"There is no extra capacity in there; it wouldn't make evolutionary sense to build in more capacity than needed"
First of all 'Need' is not a constant but a variable in that formula. Secondly computers help filter the bulk of unnecessary data so we only see the interesting bits that fit well within our sensory "capacity". Thirdly we are not evolving fast enough to start loosing our use of legs just because we sat in offices for a couple of hundred years. It would take several thousand generations of sitting in an office to evolve out of using our legs for transportation and into Darlek-like beings. Same goes for any other appendage and/or sensory apparatus god/evolution gave us.
"This kind of technology won't make us happier"
Speak for your self. And by the way what are you doing on Slashdot? This is exactly the kind of stuff that makes us (slashdotters) very happy indeed.
I for one welcome our AVPR1a overlords.
Well, I tend to agree with you. Since this is UK (and I live here) it would be so much better if planes just had a red phone booth in the tail section instead. If they really must make a call they should go queue up.
I hear what you say...
But I also had an uncle who went fishing under some high voltage lines around 10 years ago. They found him dead under the lines a day later after he failed to come home. Cause of death was determined to be electrocution...
The fact that this event actually occurred and resulted in a death I personally would not buy a house anywhere near high voltage power lines. Why take the risk?
But back on topic, I doubt Wi-Fi has any health risks... I'm in a Wi-Fi zone for most of my day and don't feel any worse for wear (so far).
Can you see the advantage of Formula-1 racing? What about going to space? Or even a regular hobby?
Why make an elaborate argument against something you dont see the advantage of?
Latest and greatest has a way of topping out these days. This quad-SLI rig is probably only a measly 5-10% 'speed' boost to something thats half the cost. Not only that, but that 'speed' bost is usually beyond the notisable range (i.e. getting 120+fps as opposed to 100+).
You just need to do a simple cost-benefit analysis. Paying $600 more for a theoretical 10% performance boost that you wont notice is not a lot of benefit for the added cost.
For me personally it's the other way around (Ironically I spent the first part of my life in Soviet Russia, litiraly). I'm bilingual and I can't read either languages as fast as a local would. So having books read to me yeilds the same level of comprehention as if I had read them myself.
I usually have to re-read certain parts a few times to understand what the author is trying to get at.
This doesen't stop me reading myself, but there no additional benefets to doing so either.
"Excellent idea!"
I know! Won't go down too well with the advertisers though.
"I'm willing to be that near 100% of accidents though are directly caused by distracted drivers."
My point exactly. Now if we can get a driving test hard enough to weed out drivers that can get distracted, we'd be onto something!
"How so? They handle differently"
You answered yourself there.
And lets remove advertising billboards while we are at it.
"I am constantly amazed at the general acceptance of the highway carnage"
May I suggest that you are easily amazed. "quite a few" is not a quantative measurement, you cant use it to correlate distractions to accidents. While I'd wager that that over 50% of drivers get distracted daily while driving, the accident rate its quite a lot less.
May I also suggest that driving a vehicle the size of a buss is a little more complicated than your avarage car.
Different people require different levels of focus to remain safe on the road. Thats why some people can drive F1 cars but most cant. This does not mean we should abandon audio in cars just because some people cant handle it. Perhaps the driving test should be made harder and keep those people off the roads in the first place...
I'm sorry, but thats a pretty narrow minded view...
You can quite easily drive a car while having a coversation. Quite a few people do it every day. People listen to the news on the radio in their cars. There are constant trafic announcements and none of this increases the chance to have an accident. So why are you so hostile towards Audio Books? If people should drive in total silence then why don't we have single seated cars with no audio devices?
It's quite clear that a majority of drivers enjoy having audio of some sort in their cars otherwise *all* cars would not be sold with speakers as standard. In todays world where safety is God, do you really think audio equipment in cars would still be there as standard if it significantly increased the risk of having an accident?
Now you could argue that it diverts attention significantly enough to cause an accident... But then so do police cars and speed cameras... Maybe we should not have those on the roads too hmm? After all, I could be glacing at that police car instead of putting my breaks on one day...
I'd mod you funny, but I used my points up already hehe
Day and a half of game time is 36 hours. Which is roughly 3 weeks if you want to call yourself a casual gamer. To be honest, if you know what you are doing you can clock it at an avarage time of 2 hours per level without claiming to be "hard core".
Leveling my new toon 1-60 took 6 days with the change (as opposed to 13 days on my previous toon). That still translates to ~2 months game play.
60-70 still takes ages. ~5-10 hours per level
Anyone who thinks that and then does it is twisted...
I think 99% of the time no one thinks anything besides carrying out orders...
Growing up and realizing that shit happes is a big part of growing up.
I played the beta, and let me tell you the game was god awful for the following reasons:
... How is this a "clean slate"?
1. Lack of weapon types, by that I mean lack of interesting ways to kill things and killing things is ALL you would do. I'm not talking about the zillion various rifles they have; you may as well have 1.
2. Tiny Class system: Yes it is a class system, and about 2 wow classes would make up for all the possible variations of TR.
3. Locks you into your class: Clones are great, but once you spent the only 1 you are allowed at certain levels you're stuffed. Put that point in the wrong skill? Sorry buddy its off to lev 1 for you. Which leads me to...
4. Unexciting upgrades: After hours of playing you get to use some new weapons, but guess what, your lev 15 versions of the basic lev 1 weapons are better... Go figure... And once you use up your clone to try the new skills out your stuffed for another 15 levels.
5. PvP??? No competitions makes the game a grind
Now add the bugs they expect the users to tolerate at release and all the balance issues makes the game unplayable. Even if they did up the difficulty of monsters and force people into groups (probably the worst way you can think of to get people to play together).
Maybe after 2 years worth of patches and an expansion pack added 2 extra "classes" it might be worth it...
Hell even the missions are identical to WoW's
Electricity cannot conduct up a stream of water. A more likely result would be heating and evaporation of the said water.