alanschu

I agree that T3 was much more comedy than the other ones. In my encounters, the only ones that really liked it were the ones that liked the first two.

I read somewhere that these courses dont really teach about hardware and software and just concentrate on using the most up to date equipment at the time. This is fine except once you graduate yoru knowledge is probably obsolete. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That's pretty much what Buchanan said.

What Game Development University do you go to Kaftan? And what precisely do they teach you there? I've spoken with John Buchanan of Electronic Arts, and he basically said that EA has poor histories with typical graduates from schools dedicated to dame development. It seems as though he has the impression that they didn't do too well once a shift to new hardware came into effect. To be fair, he made these comments while giving a discussion to a CompSci department at my University. He did say that some are good though, and those were generally the ones that also offered graduate programs (a bizarre correlation IMO, but maybe it means the school is more academic rather than vocational??). In any case I'm not sure where you got your information from regarding PC "dominance." I'm a PC fanboy and don't even own any modern consoles because I hate them, but consoles totally dominate the market from the information I have heard (including information coming from Electronic Arts, and to a lesser extent Bioware).

Ugh. I couldn't stand that Dolph version of Punisher.

I think it's getting to the point where things won't be going "back" but we'll be seeing the war after Judgement Day.

Announcers are generally the worst people to interpret a penalty IMO. I'd much rather see it for myself on the instant replay.

I was always a fan of Michael Biehn. I liked him in Terminator, The Rock, and Aliens. Plays those roles perfectly and are some of my favourite characters (well, The Rock his role is a little short).

I like them, too. However, there should be greater variety, not just 'from blueprints to construction'. Some work better than others, and the Statue of Liberty is a bit annoying because I think it was crafted in France then shipped out to the US, not built from scratch in its place. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course. By the way, the game is really good. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> That is true, but this is a new Civ. I mean, if you build the thing when you're at war with france, then what?

I'd suspect many of them also have additional overhead costs as well though. Gotta pay someone to ship those things across the pacific.

Marty is day-to-day, and I like Brodziak as his fill in. Kid seems pretty solid out there, and even gets PK time. Though I would rather have Marty.

If you just use a sample size of one then a conclusion cannot be extrapolated. When people say "Sequels are usually not as good as the first movies" it's an aggregate of the opinions of many people. It doesn't mean that no sequel is better than the original movie ever. Or that two people cannot disagree about whether it is or is not better.

I am all fo the Oilers and teh winning!

How is it so different? How does unified memory help a console and only a console, but not a computer? (Not just PCs. To reiterate, when Hades said "a computer is a computer" he was using the most basic definition of a computer, because consoles in fact are computers. If you want to talk about PC IBM/Compatible Intel/WIndows boxes, at least be consistent with your terminology and use "PC" exclusively. Once you use the word "computer" after somebody says "A computer is a computer" you are not talking about PCs exclusively anymore). But anyways, seriously. How is Unified Memory a clear cut advantage to a console computer, but a non-console computer is a completely different bag?

So, what do you guys think about Triple X: Cubed - More X than you can Dream about Vin Diesel with?

I notice he's been "unregistered." Whatever THAT means. I pray he turns up alive and well

Oh yeah, I'd seen that cartoon. Sam and Ralph. They were good buddies who went to work together. They were just on the opposite ends of things. My quotes weren't from them though, unless it was cryptomnesia.

Not always. Venture capitalists often just provide capital to someone with a business model that they believe in. Again, it' similar to the stock markets. People can and do invest large amounts of money into companies via the stock market and they don't have control over projects.

w00t w00t I couldn't see the game because we don't have digital cable. But I had free passes to Yuk Yuk's instead.

I always love the "forward looking" statements in press releases.

Heh nope. As for the power supply, I know it wasn't the power supply. One, because I swapped the power supply, and two because when I swapped the motherboard with my original power supply it ran perfectly. Though I do know that poor power supplies can cause huge problems too.

I've only briefly covered the genetic algorithm, but it looked pretty neat. Most of my formal education is still elementary Artificial Intelligence, but I did work with Dr. Michael Buro (he made Logistello, the AI that demolished the world champion in Othello 6-0) on his ORTS project his summer. Just in case people don't believe me, Here's the link. Scroll down and you'll find my name (Allan Schumacher) as a contributor. It was basically my first real foray into AI and has me seriously considering the idea of applying for graduate school in the field of Artificial Intelligence. I guess my school (University of Alberta) is actually quite reknowned for it's AI department (though CompSci as a whole is worried that we're becoming too specialized). I was at a talk by Electronic Arts and their University Liason (John Buchanan) basically said that their games group, led by Johnathan Schaefer is one of the most prolific AI departments in the world. They made a fully adaptive learning AI for one of the FIFA games (I think 2004). The only reason why EA has chosen to not implement it is that adaptive AIs do not have a static knowledge base, which "scares" them. While it probably wouldn't happen, they are concerned that a bug hidden in there somewhere might not come out for some while, at which time it manipulates the knowledge base in some way that the AI no longer performs properly. Given the dynamic nature of adaptive AI, it's pretty difficult to test all possible inputs. It's really cool stuff. Apparently Johnathan Schaefer's Chinook AI for Checkers is recognized as the first AI to win in a human world championship. It was cool seeing Russell and Norvig cite the works of both Chinook and Logistello in our AI textbook as well.

As long as I can abuse the "snooze" function on that alarm clock It'd probably be best if the alarm clock just saved the game, booted you from the game, shut down your computer, and tossed you into bed.

That's not correct. I must have missed the Pasta versions EDIT: Just in case anyone (i.e. Hades) feels Dragon Age is vapourware, Bioware is taking part in the University of Alberta's Industrial Internship Program with the intention of hiring people to work on Dragon Age. I was also at a talk on campus yesterday where the speaker gave an overview of the Eclipse Engine and how various things like scripting and AI will work with the Eclipse Engine.

So investment for a cut of the profits ? Seems strange since you end up feeding more mouths. In my experience the only time I've seen "altruistic" investment is as the first step in a long term "soft" takeover. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> What do you mean? It's just like when I buy stock in a company. Buying stocks IS investing in a company. And the reason why I buy stock in a company is so that I can accumulate some of the money, usually when the company issues dividends. It's pretty much how large corporations run. I invest my money, and you give me some sort of return on investement in exchange for using my capital for your purposes. It's really not any different that putting your money in a bank account (which is essentially you investing in the bank, and they give you a nominal return). The only difference is that a bank account won't get you the return on investment that investing in stocks is all about. It's not that Bioware now has "more" mouths to feed. They just got a HUGE influx of capital, at which they can now ramp up development even more. It also pulls publishers out of the equation, as they are the primary sources of capital for game development right now.

Ah, so now you are referring to a "standard" GPU. The Graphics Synthesizer is just like the GPUs prior to the GeForce. IT (and not the CPU) performed the instructions for the rendering and filtering and whatnot directly on hardware. The CPU did none of these calculations, and it was the standard since 3dfx released the original Voodoo chipset in the mid 1990s. The graphics responsibilities of the CPU was the geometery calculations. As for the "part of" the CPU problem, you are employing straw man. It was you that said that the Emotion Engine was part of the CPU. This is also not correct. The Emotion Engine IS in effect the CPU. Don't mislead the statement by trying to state the following: I never made any claim along the lines of what you said. You said that the Emotion Engine was part of the CPU. The Emotion Engine is the amalgamation. You cannot claim that it is "part of" anything, when it is the ENTIRE thing. When you say gems like "I believe there is far more code than simple "choice" strings that create a fully dynamic and robust AI" you pretty much stamped "I have no idea wtf I'm talking about regarding AI and just regurgitate the stuff I read on the internet" on your forehead. As for the rest of your points, I couldn't care less. I haven't really gotten into much discussion with you about any of it because I don't care about any of it. Until we actually have the final products for either, everything they discuss IS hype. I tried having a dicussion about unified memory mentioning that it can have drawbacks, such as how it is done on PC machines where the video shares the same memory, but your "constructive reply" was just "A PC is not a console." Hades' comment of "a computer is a computer" is still an accurate one though. If something is a clearcut advantage on a console, then it should be a clear cut advantage on any computer as well. I actually don't disagree with you that a unified memory architecture has definite merits, and was trying to actually have a discussion with you about them. Unfortunately you opted for a snarky reply instead. Finally, there is no point in discussing hardware technicalities with you, when you have demonstrated a lack of understanding of it with current technology. The situation is compounded by the fact that you obtuse in your (lack of) understanding. It's clear you are going to stick to your guns regarding the CPU performing all the graphics calculations despite the fact that it is 100% incorrect. The Emotion Engine DOES calculate the geometry and passes that information to the graphics synthesizer. But there's a lot more to graphics than just geometry.