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Comment Re:Outside of Valve I don't think many developers. (Score 1) 86

> Outside of Valve I don't think many developers ... pay enough attention to game design to consistently produce quality games

That's because a game is too dependent on Art + Tech. You can have the world's greatest designer but if they don't understand how to capitalize on Tech & Art _tailored_ for their project you're dead in the water.

There are few Game Designers that are recognized as delivering the goods. Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Will Wright, etc. How many of these game designers do the general public even know??
http://www.businesspundit.com/...

> Games are an awkward state of limbo these days,

AAA games maybe, but not indie. Content creation costs are spiraling out of control. People are getting fed up with grind-for-gear ooh shiny with shallow gameplay.

Minecraft just reach 54 million across all platforms.
https://twitter.com/pgeuder/st...

Comment Re:Daikatana failed because it was too Japanese. (Score 2) 86

That is not telling the complete picture. I had dinner with Romero a few years back at one E3 and specifically asked him "Why did Daikatana fail?" not knowing how that would go.

He said 2 reasons:

* Hired people in the wrong order. He said you need to hire your most experienced people *first*.
* He messed up.

The design was only part of the problem.

Comment Re:self-correcting (Score 1) 30

No, I am sorry but you are wrong. They were certainly not part of the original Bible. They were *added* to some Greek translations of the Scripture, somewhere around 100bc, but no one considered them Canonical until centuries later. We are talking the 4th century AD on the "Christian" side and perhaps a couple of centuries earlier on the Rabbinate side, but in each case it was a multi-generational project to ultimately *add* these books, to elevate the works of men to the status of scripture.

Submission + - Police drop plans to photograph teen's erection in sexting case (arstechnica.com)

mpicpp writes: Authorities planned to chemically induce an erection in a 17-year-old boy.

Local Virginia police have abandoned plans to photograph a 17-year-old boy's erection in connection with his felony prosecution for child pornography after he allegedly sexted his 15-year old girlfriend. The decision was made yesterday following a global outcry.

The brouhaha began earlier this week when Prince William County prosecutors obtained a search warrant from a juvenile court judge allowing them to photograph the boy's erection for evidentiary reasons (apparently to compare the photo with a video sent to the girlfriend's phone). The story, which included details that the authorities would chemically induce an erection in the boy, went viral.

In response, the Manassas City police department—which is investigating the case—said Thursday that it would let the search warrant expire.
In a statement, the department said, "It is not the policy of the Manassas City Police or the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office to authorize invasive search procedures of suspects in cases of this nature and no such procedures have been conducted in this case."

If found guilty, the teen could be jailed until his 21st birthday and be forced to register as a sex offender.

Submission + - The First Person Ever To Die In A Tesla Is A Guy Who Stole One

mrspoonsi writes: Elon Musk can no longer say that no one's ever died in a Tesla automobile crash. But few people will be pointing fingers at the electric car maker for this senseless tragedy. Earlier this month, 26-year-old Joshua Slot managed to successfully ride off with a Model S he'd stolen from a Tesla service center in Los Angeles, but police quickly spotted the luxury vehicle and gave chase. According to Park Labrea News, the high-speed pursuit was eventually called off after officers were involved in a fender bender of their own, leaving the police department strained for resources and without any feasible way of catching up to Slot. Reports claim he was traveling at speeds of "nearly 100 mph," but losing the police tail apparently didn't convince Slot to hit the brakes. Instead he sped on, eventually colliding with three other vehicles and a pair of street poles. The final impact was severe enough to "split the Tesla in half" and eject Slot from the car's remains. The Tesla's front section wound up in the middle of the road and caught fire. Its rear portion flew through the air with such force that it slammed into the side of a local Jewish community center and became wedged there.

Comment Re:self-correcting (Score 1) 30

That may be a matter of opinion and perspective as well.

Those are late compositions in Greek and clearly not part of the original Hebrew Bible (properly called the Tanakh.)

The books you mention, along with the so-called New Testament books, both those declared 'canonical' by the Imperial Roman authorities and the other books that were banned instead, along with the Talmud, are all in my mind defensible and even in cases valuable, as Midrash, as Commentary, as a record of what men at the time thought on some important subjects - but NOT as scripture to be elevated to stand with the Tanakh, let alone to actually be set ON TOP of the Bible proper as so many do.

Comment Re:self-correcting (Score 0) 30

"What was the last time there was a retraction of inaccurate or harmful material from the Bible?"

It's actually a good question if refined a bit.

I would propose to you that what you see as 'inaccurate or harmful material from the Bible' is better defined as 'inaccurate or harmful interpretations of the Bible' and while retractions of those are not unheard of, they are certainly relatively rare.

I think the deeper point here is simply that the theoretical bright-line between science and religion has a worrying tendency to evaporate in practice, and simply pointing out that tel-evangelists are even worse is not much of a defense.

There's a huge difference between appreciating the scientific method and having faith in whatever the 'scientist' says - in fact they are mutually incompatible.

Submission + - What happens when gaming auteurs try to go it alone? (redbull.com)

An anonymous reader writes: As news that Cliff Bleszkinski, Epic Games' legendary former creative, sets off to found his own studio, a new article takes a look at how six other gaming auteurs have fared after leaving a major developer or publisher to go it alone. The results, surprisingly, are mixed: while some, such as Double Fine's Tim Schafer, have gone on to far greater success, it doesn't always work out that way: just look at John Romero's Daikatana. The article also makes a good point that Peter Molyneux is striking out with a start-up for the third in his career now, but it may not be third time the charm: Godus has been far less well received than Black & White or Fable. Can Cliffy B avoid making the same mistakes?

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 180

I am quite well aware of block-scope: I've worked on a professional C++ compiler, and I HAVE read Javascript: The Good Parts.

The point WAS that Javascript has a retarded design by NOT respecting block-scope like other languages that it was based upon. It is too easy to use variables when you don't mean to.

Javascript is the Basic of the 2000's. It was designed by an idiot that failed to learn from the mistakes of previous languages; it encourages bad programming practices and bites you in the ass when you least expect it, i.e. just use any misspelt variable without declaration unless you resort to stupid hacks like "use strict", etc.

Comprehending. Try it sometime.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 180

Did you even read what Wikipedia has ??

Some programmers refer to a language as "weakly typed" if simple operations do not behave in a way that they would expect. For example, consider the following program:

x = "5" + 6

Different languages will assign a different value to 'x':

One language might convert 6 to a string, and concatenate the two arguments to produce the string "56" (e.g. JavaScript)

A Strong Typed language does NOT automatically allow type conversion / coercion / type punning.

Comment Re:To what end? (Score 1) 219

"My impression, also from German newspapers etc., is that most germans including politicians are truely mad and are seriously considering to cool down relations with the USA."

As they should be, frankly the reaction seems inexplicably mild.

Can you imagine the reaction if the shoe was on the other foot? If this was a BD spy caught infiltrating the CIA?

A 'cool down' in relations would be a serious understatement.

Comment Re: haven't we learned from the last 25 exploits? (Score 1) 68

"Over the years, I've done a lot of work with games and simulations for training."

OK. That really doesnt have anything to do with the web, however. Sure, the web can be used to deliver the project - that doesnt mean it has to actually run inside the browser. There is a HUGE difference.

"We could not have produced this educational game with just HTML."

I get where you are coming from but I still think it's far off the mark. The web is not a game platform, that is not it's purpose, so 'we could not do games this way' is not a very telling criticism.

You can use better tools to make the games, and use the web merely to deliver the game. Where is the problem with that?

It would NOT be slower, clunkier, or more prone to error. It could be done using exactly the same technologies in virtually exactly the same way - the only difference would be very slightly less easy to get it started, and in return for that, your browser is no longer a malware vector.

Or, it could be done using technologies better suited for the purpose, in which case I would expect the results to be less clunky, faster, and more stable - but the development process would be more expensive as well.

I get why you would want to use RAD to lower costs, just not why you see the tiny convenience of running in the browser automatically as worth the cost of turning the web into a malware distribution network.

Submission + - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella Employee Memo: "We Will Reinvent Productivity"

rjmarvin writes: Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sent out a lengthy memo to employees http://sdt.bz/71478 laying out a proposed reorganization of the company, a renewed focus on devices and services and a call to action to “reinvent productivity.” The memo, entitled “Bold Ambition & Our Core,” http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... talks about transforming Microsoft from a self-described “devices and services” company to a “productivity and platform company.” Nadella also reaffirmed Microsoft’s commitment to the Xbox platform and touted CloudOS and its Enterprise Mobility Suite.

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