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Comment Carbon Footprint (Score 1) 251

Ok this may not be quite newsworthy but, it's Sunday right? Anyway, the energy consumed by 26 million CPUs running at or near 100% utilization for 15 or so minutes each day translates to a considerable corporate carbon footprint. It *must* be possible to halve these requirements without impact to actual gameplay.

Comment P2P = Honeypot (Score 1) 241

1. Legal interpretation aside, this guy practically turned himself in leaving such an obvious digital trail. Had he been intercepting the mail he would have been much harder to track down. Unless it can be shown that making the act of viewing documents illegal will reduce the incidence of identity theft, it would seem the preservation of freedom on this topic remains in our best interest.

2. Before grabbing document x (most likely shared by mistake), ask yourself whether you want to be on the shortlist with morally-challenged folks like this guy.

Comment Re:irresponsible? (Score 1) 594

The example you cite has nothing whatsoever to do with the program, which defines a 'clunker' as a vehicle that gets a max combined economy of 18 MPG. The new vehicle must get no less than 22 MPG. Assuming most of these trade-ins will not get exactly 18 MPG (say 15 is the avg here), and most trade-ups will not get exactly 22 MPG (say 28 is the avg here), the net effect of the program may be to halve the overall fuel requirements of that portion of the populace who participated in the program.

The sort of freedom you cite, the freedom to disregard, is exactly the sort of attitude that if left unchecked will result in the decline of your country. Cheers.

Comment Re:irresponsible? (Score 1) 594

So complete disregard for ones carbon footprint is not irresponsible? Generally speaking, is it acceptable for those in power to endorse policies that reward irresponsible behavior? The term irresponsible, having a precise definition, can be argued and shown to have been used incorrectly. If merely being called out to defend ones actions is offensive, is the act of responding with largely irrelevant, hostile remarks not more so?

Comment The Idea Marketplace (Score 1) 539

If vetting of your idea requires expertise that you yourself don't possess, you should be prepared to offer those you consult with a stake in the venture. Otherwise you'd be guilty of the very thing you seek to prevent.

If you are truly a serious inventor, journal your marketable thoughts, email, print and mail them to yourself to establish authorship. If possible, prototype the idea to establish prior art. Let those you discuss the idea with know the idea is documented and you should be protected as fully as the law allows.

Comment Re:Capitalist flight (Score 5, Informative) 1142

To be fair, the US labor market of Carnegie's day was on par with that of most other countries, his railroad empire was largely built on the back of indentured labor (a substantial portion of which had consisted of Chinese immigrants). He maintained a private army to hedge against an armed workforce uprising, which eventually happened -- and during which he retreated to the safety of his personal Scottish castle. Afterward said labor force was promptly replaced with a force entirely composed of desperate immigrants.

It is widely believed his later philanthropic activities were entirely motivated by his damaged reputation and desire to right a fortune built on questionable ethics and ruthless business practices. What do you buy someone who already has everything? Posterity.

Real Time Strategy (Games)

Submission + - Emergent AI in an indie RTS game. (blogspot.com)

x4000 writes: "My recent RTS game uses a new style of AI that hybridizes rules-based AI with emergent AI logic. As a disclaimer, I'm really not an AI programmer at all — my background is in databases, financial modeling, etc. But it just so happens that database experience, which often involved distilling data points from multiple sources and then combining them into suggested decisions for executives, also makes a great foundation for certain styles of AI. The approach I came up with leans heavily on my database background, and what concepts I am familiar with from reading a bit about AI theory (emergent behavior, fuzzy logic, etc). The results are startlingly good.

Total development time on the AI was less than 3 months, and its use of tactics is some of the best in the RTS genre. I'm very open to talking about anything and everything to do with the design I used, as I think it's a viable new approach to AI to explore in games, and I'd like to see other developers potentially carry it even further. Here's an overview of how the AI in AI War: Fleet Command works."

Businesses

Submission + - Is Apache or GPL better for open-source business? (ibiblio.org)

mjasay writes: "While the GPL powers as much as 77% of all Sourceforge projects, Eric Raymond argues that the GPL is "a confession of fear and weakness" that "slows down open-source adoption" because of the fear and uncertainty the GPL provokes. Raymond's argument seems to be that if openness is the winning strategy, an argument Michael Tiemann advocates, wouldn't it make sense to use the most open license? Geir Magnusson of the Apache Software Foundation suggests that there are few "pure" GPL-only open-source projects as GPL-prone developers have to "modify it in some way to get around the enforcement of Freedom(SM) in GPL so people can use the project." But the real benefit of Apache-style licensing may not be for developers at all, and rather accrue to businesses hoping to drive adoption of their products: Apache licensing may encourage broader, deeper adoption than the GPL. In sum, the old GPL vs. BSD/Apache debate may not be about developer preferences so much as new business realities."

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