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Comment: Re:Agreed (Score 2, Insightful) 741

by azaris (#35778842) Attached to: Could You Pass Harvard's Entrance Exam From 1869?

I admit, I struggled a bit with the polynomials as I don't work much with them anymore, I still don't see any direct application for them even after years of working in scientific computing. Therefore, I see them as a graduation test only, meaning "If we can force you to learn this, then we can force you to learn anything.".

Just for that you fail the exam.

Comment: Re:Guilty much? (Score 1) 685

by azaris (#34441876) Attached to: Graduate Students Being Warned Away From Leaked Cables

I think the point the GP was making was that, yes the US military can instantly and overwhelmingly wipe out any civil resistance. However that is entirely dependent on said soldiers of the US military actually following those orders. If there was a civil insurrection, there is a real possibility that soldiers would simply refuse to open fire on civilians and also possible that they would simply join them.

Doesn't happen much, does it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_State_killings

Comment: Re:People would protest against raising corp. tax (Score 2, Funny) 809

by azaris (#34363710) Attached to: The Luck of the Irish Runs Out

Look, left-wing parties are likely to do well in our next election, but no-one sensible here, left or right, wants to raise the corporation tax rate. These companies provide our jobs.

If a raise would be announced, ordinary people here would really start to protest.

Ireland is not the US, where lower-middle class working people will protest on the streets saying that Mario Antoinette should have more cake.

Comment: Re:On the subject of games (Score 1) 200

by azaris (#34099146) Attached to: Developing <em>StarCraft 2</em> Build Orders With Genetic Algorithms

I'd like to see a game that isn't a click-fest, but still would offer some action and nice visuals. Something with the gameplay involving giving orders to partially autonomous troops. After giving orders, you could watch and see how they fare and perhaps give some further orders, maybe with some possible penalty incurred for breaking radio silence. Or in the setting of a Total War type of game, there could be a limited number messengers who would take time to reach the troops and even have a chance to fail in delivering your orders.

Scourge of War: Gettysburg and its predecessors Take Command: 2nd Manassas and Take Command: Bull Run pretty much work that way. The graphics are dated (think Medieval: TW quality) but functional enough, the gameplay fairly slow and meticulous. Most battles start with 5-20 minutes of maneuvering into attack positions, after which you order your divisions/brigades their set targets and watch them march into the fray. If and when things start looking bad you start to micromanage individual batteries and regiments. That's when it gets really hectic and interesting. Or you can play Empire: TW and watch the beautifully rendered but historically ridiculously inaccruate soldiers run up and down mountains on a tiny battlefield while being bombarded by overpowered artillery.

Comment: Sounds like multigrid (Score 4, Interesting) 157

by azaris (#33984906) Attached to: Astonishing Speedup In Solving Linear SDD Systems

Multigrid is theoretically O(s), so I don't immediately see how this is such a huge leap. Of course the actual complexity also depends on the problem and the implementation. Maybe their method.is applicaple to a wider variety of problems.

Also, the "iterated sparsifying" sounds a lot like algebraic multigrid.

Comment: Re:Not an RPG (Score 1) 86

by azaris (#32975480) Attached to: <em>Spore</em>-Inspired Action RPG <em>Darkspore</em> Announced

Seriously guys, we're limited by the technology. There's a reason CRPGs and JRPGs are what they are -- it's just not feasible to make the kind of experiences you are asking for. Consider Mass Effect or Dragon Age, games that have hundreds of thousands of pages of text. Even they feel "railroady" at times. You can't join the villain, after all, because they didn't have an extra 5 years to write, script, draw, program, etc that scenario and the 500 sub-scenarios involved.

That's the problem with modern games. They assume the player needs to be inundated with pages upon pages of mediocre fantasy guff to keep them engrossed in what is otherwise a plastic and unconvincing game world that has an economy entirely run on monster loot.

Make the game world logical if not realistic, fill it with NPCs that act like you would expect them to, and allow the PCs to act in meaningful ways with them. The players imagination can fill in the gaps and come up with a great story. Darklands might play like a multiple choice quiz at times, but it did this nearly two decades ago.

We were so poor we couldn't afford a watchdog. If we heard a noise at night, we'd bark ourselves. -- Crazy Jimmy

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