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Comment: Re:EA is stupid and self-destructive but... (Score 1) 259

by fireylord (#43129677) Attached to: EA Offering Free Game to Users After SimCity Launch Problems

EA is stupid and self-destructive but we should really spend time thinking "why?". The answer, sadly, is simple. EA has a management that is both educationally sub-normal, and yet unaccountable. We've all met vicious moronic people who are convinced their ideas are the best ever, regardless of their academic background and lack of any track-record. Oft-times, these types worm their way into upper management, especially in companies that have previously had periods of success independent of management activity.

The games industry is notorious for having the worst possible management- and easily the most corrupt and criminal. Managers have been caught over and over attempting to 'emulate' 'Hollywood accounting' by ensuring games never seem to turn a profit, because the money made goes in outrageous management salaries, bonuses, and none returnable loans. EA and Activision are easily the two biggest offenders.

Criminal type managers are notorious for having a vicious and vindictive attitude toward their own customers. But simply, they think their customers are 'scum' - 'scum' to be exploited in any way that is still likely to keep the managers out of jail.

An ordinary person might naively think that EA would be thankful for a person handing over $60 for SimCity, and wish to have that customer leave happy. Nothing could be further from the truth. That initial transaction is like when an old person makes a first payment to criminal builders who go door-to-door looking for vulnerable suckers. That first payment tell the criminal builders that they now have a chance to bleed dry the bank account of the old person.

You go "but why, oh why would EA choose to behave like this?". I'm sorry, you're not facing reality. The reason is simple. EA has employed the worst kind of nasty scum to manage its company. These people have no business or industry skills. These people got the job PRECISELY because they are sharks with no conscience. EA owners became famously bewitched by the success of Zynga, a company owned and run by an admitted criminal whose business model is stealing other people's games, and paying court fines when necessary. EA had no success themselves with Zynga's business model, but while trying to emulate Zynga, they hired managers they thought were most sympathetic with the concept.

EA is damaging itself massively with this behaviour. It recently bombed in its attempt to take on the COD franchise with its MOH franchise. Battlefield 4 is due to suffer the same fate as MOH and SimCity, as EA refuses to release the product customers want to use. EA's ownership of DICE will destroy DICE (it's pretty much finished already).

Sorry not trying to defend EA per se but can you cite some kind of source for these allegations?

Comment: Re:Hopefully (Score 3, Interesting) 177

by fireylord (#42317677) Attached to: Will Japan's New Government Restart the Nuclear Power Program?

Comparing Fukishima to Chernobyl is ridiculous. Chernobyl basically had no safety systems,

Incorrect. They had safety systems, sadly they were all disabled for the purpose of running the test that led directly to the disaster. The big design flaw at Chernobyl was the large positive void coefficient. Bad idea, made even worse by not explaining this to the technicians running the plant, nor (from what i understand) what a void coefficient was.

Comment: Simple, possibly (Score 1) 172

by fireylord (#42121965) Attached to: British Skylon Engine Passes Its Tests

My understanding of this issue is that the liquid hydrogen fuel will be used to carry away the excess heat, on it's way to the engine to be burnt (obviously they're not going to be wanting to suddenly start pouring heat into a tank of superchilled liquid hydrogen).

This craft will certainly NOT fly from normal aviation facilities due to the fack that having tens of tons of cryogenic hydrogen about could turn out to be rather dangerous in a busy airport...

Comment: Re:Must past this test (Score 1) 508

by fireylord (#41481703) Attached to: California Legalizes Self Driving Cars

Someone has never, ever taken an AI class. Or even an algorithm class dealing with risk. Here's how the calculation actually works (and by the way, that approach is about 20-30 years old).
Every situation is assessed an impact value: driving into oncoming traffic, 0 (very bad); driving into the right ditch, 10; swerving into a legal lane, 50; etc. Every situation is given a set of possible actions, with each action having a probability of being completed successfully. The algorithm multiplies the outcome with the odds of achieving that outcome, and picks the highest value. You can set it up in different ways, but the idea is the same: multiply outcome severity with odds of achieving outcome, pick lowest combined risk/outcome. In your situation, driving off the cliff (which is assumed to be very bad, since the car can see a very steep drop-off with no bottom) is going to have a much worse outcome than hitting the car in front of it. Hitting the car in front of it is guaranteed, but so is driving off the cliff. As a result, the algorithm will make the automated car hit the car in front of it, rather than drive off the cliff.

Not to mention that cars don't sleep, always behave optimally (according to the algorithms in place), and have no blind spots.

Oddly, one thing that seems to not have been considered is that an AI car would have a much much better ability to handle the car well under heavy braking than a human. Surely the 'drive into the oncoming car' outcome would be somewhat offset by the fact that the computer would pretty much instantly apply the maximum braking force it thinks the ABS equipped car can manage whilst performing a manouvre, at the same time as performing it, thus massively reducing the energy of any impact?

First Person Shooters (Games)

Activision Turning The Walking Dead Into a First-Person Shooter 102

Posted by Soulskill
from the new-and-refreshing-take-on-the-fps-genre dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Activision, along with developer Terminal Reality, is turning The Walking Dead into a first-person shooter. For those of you who aren't familiar, The Walking Dead is a story about a group of people who are trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. It began as a comic book series, and was adapted into a successful television show by AMC. Now, apparently Activision feels the world needs another zombie shooter, and thinks The Walking Dead is the perfect backdrop. The game will 'revolve around Daryl Dixon and his brother Merle on a "haunting, unforgiving quest to make their way to the supposed safety of Atlanta." Players will control Daryl as they attempt to avoid detection from zombies that hunt using sight, sound and smell and will choose between fighting them or using stealth to avoid detection.' A video game adaptation of the story already exists as an episodic adventure game."
AMD

XBMC Developers Criticize AMD's Linux Driver 212

Posted by timothy
from the pss-there's-a-conspiracy dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It's not only the NVIDIA Linux driver that has been publicly slammed over lacking support; the AMD Catalyst driver is now facing scrutiny from developers of the XBMC media and entertainment software. The developers aren't happy with AMD due to not properly supporting video acceleration under Linux. The AMD Linux driver is even lacking support for MPEG2 video acceleration and newer levels of H.264. AMD reportedly has the support coded, but they're refusing to turn it on in their public Linux driver."
Censorship

British Ban Spikes Pirate Bay Traffic 168

Posted by timothy
from the that-which-is-forbidden dept.
New submitter sleiper writes "Today sees UK ISPs begin to block access for their subscribers to the Pirate Bay URL. Sky, Talk Talk, Virgin Media and O2 have already blocked access and the UK's biggest provider, BT, are currently reviewing their legal position. This access ban however has seen The Pirate Bay's traffic spike to 12 million more page views than their previous daily record. It seems obvious that a message is being sent, that this type of censorship is not the way forward. The Pirate Bay keeps on sailing.""

Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.

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