"Unselfish concern for the welfare of others" is always a disguised form of selfishness? A dictionary definition is sufficient to refute your position.

Anyone is allowed to write their own library before the contest and submit their code for approval.

1. We need to verify that any such library doesn't contain 99% of a game, just waiting for them to make a few tweaks to fit the theme.
2. We need to verify that the library's license allows anyone to use it for free, and allows us to distribute the games produced for free.
3. We need to give others time to learn how to use the custom libraries, or it doesn't matter that the licensing is permissive.
4. If we know what libraries are capable of, it makes judging effort a lot easier.

You're right that there would be some issues with allowing mods in such a contest, but no, it hasn't come up yet. Still, we would know that we can redistribute the mod for free. We would also know that a lot of work was done for them, so we would be able to take that into account during the judging. Perhaps we should officially disallow mods, but I don't think that making a non-trivial mod for a commercial game in 48 hours would be easy, so it might be an interesting challenge for some of our members in the future. It is an interesting point that the developers would normally have the game's sound/music/graphics available to them when making a mod. By the current rules, I'm not sure that they would be able to use the graphics, but we'd probably have to allow the use of at least some graphical assets provided with the game. We would ask the developers to make it clear to us what assets they actually created.

The only languages I've seen used are C++, C#, Java, and Flash. Libraries commonly used include SDL, OpenGL, zenilib, XNA, ClanLib, and SFML.

I'm one of the three co-coordinators of the contest. You can find out more information about it on our webpage:

http://wolverinesoft.org/event/contest/48hourcontest7/

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

Unfortunately, one of us is misinformed. If you could point me to any phones or tablet PCs running Microsoft operating systems that have locked down application distribution pipelines, I'd be surprised. It has been my understanding that I can write a program for any Microsoft OS, put it on my website, and let anyone run it without Microsoft's permission.

The Xbox is the only exception I'm aware of, and in many ways it is still the most open mainstream game console on the market (for developers).

It's new features like these that keep the site fresh. srsly

Thanks for confirming confirmation bias for me. It was pretty much what I expected anyway...

Maybe you could skim the article next time? Ah... who am I kidding. You just wanted first post, after all.

FileVault:
- Long waiting times at logout
- No shrinking while logged in
- Doesn't work well with Time Vault
- Proprietary
- Weak encryption
+ Well worked out and tested

EncFS:
+Get your space back
+Get rid of the long waiting times at logout
+Back your data up while logged in
+Be safer by using open-source

I can't vouch for the claims.

An unproven claim does not make for good evidence. When you have proven that the human brain does more than a deterministic machine can do, please let me know.

You have provided no evidence that an AI agent "cannot have personality". Nor will you. Also, you seem to use the word "possible" where you should be using the word "feasible".

When writing a novel or poem, there is no "wrong answer". Some writing may be better than other writing, but no writing can be completely rejected. If you ever get a computer program that can behave more or less as you have specified, it won't be as simple. Be prepared to get into an argument with your AI.

But what does your suggestion have to do with consciousness?

If you have a "significant understanding of what consciousness is", why don't you share it with us rather than merely mocking Searle's ideas? Note that Bruce did not try to claim that no AI could be conscious, which is the type of assertion that Searle would argue.

Anyway, most AI researchers are going to assume that either that an AI can be conscious or that the question is meaningless. For us, the debate will be settled when it appears that an AI is conscious and the implementation seems cognitively plausible.

I found, when watching Avatar, that it was important to look where the director wants you to look. Real cameras have real focal distances, so you can't look wherever you want and expect to be able to get everything in focus. Up was an easier viewing experience, but with a less extreme 3D effect.

Most of the "important" features of Direct3D 11 will be exposed immediately as OpenGL extensions.
The next version of OpenGL will officially support those features.
As usual, it will be a nightmare to take advantage of those features without requiring their presence. (GLEW and GLEE help only so much.)
If there are any features of Direct3D that would require architectural changes to OpenGL, they won't appear until the next major version, at the earliest. I'd be surprised if virtualization of texture memory were supported soon, but I'm not really expert in these developments. (For all I know, it is already supported...)

In summary, OpenGL will remain competitive with Direct3D with the usual caveats.

I think you're misunderstanding the OP. You find these things relevant to your current work. The OP is discussing the possibility that video games are a reasonable way to make computer science immediately relevant to first year students. Most real world applications would be unfamiliar to them. They couldn't be expected to be familiar with anything you've listed when they begin their degree (though some of them may be).

He helped the FBI to expose the price-fixing scheme of his company and served his time. Assuming someone is inspecting his work, what more do you want from the guy?