fowlerserpent - Slashdot User

67-Kilowatt Laser Unveiled 395

Posted by kdawson on Saturday February 24, 2007 @06:11PM from the very-big-sharks dept.

s31523 writes "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has announced they have working in the lab a Solid State Heat Capacity Laser that averages 67 kW. It is being developed for the military. The chief scientist Dr. Yamamoto is quoted: 'I know of no other solid state laser that has achieved 67 kW of average output power.' Although many lasers have peaked at higher capacities, getting the average sustained power to remain high is the tricky part. The article says that hitting the 100-kW level, at which point it would become interesting as a battlefield weapon, could be less than a year away."

Comment Re:Why the prequels stank (Score 1) 472

by fowlerserpent on Friday January 12, 2007 @05:34AM (#17570788) Attached to: Harrison Ford Turned Down Han Solo Role

Are you sure the episodes 1-3 were written before 4-6? At best Lucas had an outline of the entire story (1-6), then wrote episode 4. The rest was written as the movies were made. The only good stuff is in episodes 4 and 5. The rest is filler. RotJ is just filler until Luke finally confronts his father and the emperor. Heck, he started with episode 4 because he knew the first part of the story wasn't enough to make a story out of. These stories are always better when the backstory is hinted at rather than spelled out explicitly. Look what happened to the Matrix when they tried to flesh out that story. The idea that Lucas actually had a complete grand vision for all six movies is a myth. He had a very vague outline that lacked all the details that made a good movie and when he tried to write the first three episodes and add those details, he failed.

Using Agile Methodologies To Make Games? 236

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday June 28, 2006 @12:43PM from the faster-and-cheaper-usually-answer-that-question dept.

simoniker writes "Using Agile methodologies for programming is a concept that's been around for a while now, but some firms are now applying the concept to video game development." There has been a lot of talk lately about what the 'next big thing' in development will be. Could this be it? Or is this just another step along the way? From the article: "Agile puts the emphasis on producing demonstrable iterations of a game almost immediately into production, creating prioritized vertical slices that iterate on the most critical elements and features. The method also puts great emphasis on the organization of teams and the relationships therein, as well as the cycles in which teams must plan and carry out their project objectives."

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