A few random quick news...

Another couple of random news…

1. It's now days old one, but still I didn't notice it before. Ubisoft is interested into buying THQ assets:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/13/ubisoft-shows-interest-in-thq-assets/
I don't think anyone wants to see the most evil publisher putting claws on it's games. So instead of not caring for THQ's fate, I'm now joining all those who hope THQ won't fall.

2. Curiosity, NASA's rover in the mission on Mars, discovered something spectacular. Details are kept secret and will be released next month:
http://truthdive.com/2012/11/22/nasas-curiosity-rover-has-found-something.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57553096-1/nasas-not-sharing-a-historic-find-on-mars..-yet/
We're closing to the breakpoint of Mayan calendar that was declared as the doomsday by ignorant murderers who destroyed mayan culture. NASA is obviously waiting for the "doomsday" date to share the findings as mayan calendar marks just the breaktrough in human society. But how could we possible knew that when the history was written by mass murdering psychos like Alexandar, Napoleon and others. What's even worse, history books still sell a fraud that mayans never used a wheel and Gibson made a movie Apocalypto that was praised worldwide instead of ending his career for conning the masses. Seems NASA will rewrite the history and I simply can't wait.
 
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the MOBA genre took over all the university CS department when I was there. We actually had to ban it from a proper network games but then we had only a half turnout as kids would be up all night playing it.

Steven Sinofsky left for two reasons: a) he wanted Balmer's job so he's seeking it elsewhere; b) he was a dictator after saving MS from Vista with an identical product (no one liked him).

Also, Windows 8 is a dud if you're not buying a tablet. Getting out from the company may be an attempt to save his reputation.

What Rover discovered was probably methane - there was a report I heard on this on NPR where the discoverer strongly hints at what he can't say till its confirmed/published.

Most of the methane on earth is thought to be a byproduct of living organisms (like the bacteria found in cattle, termites, etc.). It is organic after all. However, Saturn's moon Titan has plenty of methane so I don't know what the big deal is.

BTW the doomsday is simply the reset of the Mayan "long calendar" which was artificially set based on the first king.

But here, read the Mayan doomsday for yourself:

Dresden_Codex_Flood.jpg

Its from the Dresden Codex I understand. Maybe Alrick can pop down to the museum take a look at it directly for us.
 
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Another couple of random news…

1. It's now days old one, but still I didn't notice it before. Ubisoft is interested into buying THQ assets:
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/11/13/ubisoft-shows-interest-in-thq-assets/
I don't think anyone wants to see the most evil publisher putting claws on it's games. So instead of not caring for THQ's fate, I'm now joining all those who hope THQ won't fall.

Personally, to me, THQ is "the evil one", and Ubi is just "the lesser evil".
But that's just my personal opinion.

Its from the Dresden Codex I understand. Maybe Alrick can pop down to the museum take a look at it directly for us.

I have seen a few manuscripts in exhibitions, and yes, a few still exist.
But I don't remember having seen this one yet.
 
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The truth is that there were hundreds of "codexes" initially, but were destroyed by ignorant, careless and illiterate conquerors. So one shown page (IIRC a cleric saved that codex from being destroyed which would mean the church sometimes can be positive) won't do the just.

But, hell, I completely overlooked possibly the biggest news today. Because of an ommission, pirated versions of windows 8 can be activated:
http://windowswave.com/security-hol...t-a-legitimate-windows-8-activation-for-free/

By initial responses from my country journalists in IT magazines, win8 is faster, but not as user friendly as win7. And a recommendation is not to buy it (at least till SP1 or KB that would allow/disallow Metro UI during the installation gets released). So I dare to say this wasn't an omission, but MS deliberately wanted to make ppl "get hooked" on win8, as I don't believe MS even upon the successful activation can't determine which win8 is legit and which one is pirated - so a later reaction would just make pirated and activated versions not working.
Me? I'm not getting win8 not matter what tricks MS does. Thanks, but my win7 is working like a charm.
 
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I have seen a few manuscripts in exhibitions, and yes, a few still exist.
But I don't remember having seen this one yet.

About 5 still exist. Its a real shame. The Dresden Codex had heavy water damage in WW2 due to the bombing but black and white photographs from the 19th century from before the damage.

Mayan writing has only been recently translated - there are many reasons for this, including the cold war of all things, and one of the hold ups according to the linguist Michael Coe is historians themselves who seem to hate reading anything written about kings these days. The biggest hold up in translation was, it turns out, Mayan epigraphers never liked to spell the same word the same way twice.
 
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I once read that an scientist from Bonn, the former German capital, is among those who are translating the Mayan "letters".

I found their way of writing unique. I think there should be more languages using their system of making words. :D ;)
 
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its a syllabary (as ooposed to a letter alphabet or a character alphabet) - just like hieroglyphics or shorthand.
 
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Yes. It'sbeen a while since I last read about this.

An really great resource for the really interested ones is www.MesoWeb.com

Best thing is : Older books and articles are there in PDF-format !
 
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As promised a couple of news for those who plan to buy Wii U…


1. Last week 4A Games programmer Oleg Shishkovtsov gave an interview to NowGamer and said that "Metro: Last Light" won't be made for Nintendo's new console because of one, simple reason. CPU in Wii U is - horrible and slow!
http://www.nowgamer.com/news/1687689/wii_u_has_a_horrible_slow_cpu_says_metro_last_light_dev.html

As I care for consoles or some Metro game less than for my flu a decade ago, I just ignored this, I mean, of course that CPU in a console is an utter crap.


2. Huw Beynon who is representative of 4A Games in THQ today says that Shishkovtsov comment is not correct, that there is nothing wrong with Wii U and that the "obstacle" can be overcomed with tricks and yadda, yadda, yadda, bullshit et cetera:
http://www.slashgear.com/thq-clears-up-wii-u-horrible-slow-cpu-claim-23258098/

This probably should mean:
1. Programmers know nothing and should keep their mouth shut
2. PR knows stuff (and "tricks") better than a programmer
3. Wii U is an awsome must have console

Or the unnamed benefactor who gave some cash to THQ so they don't go bankrupt is Nintendo?
In any case, I'm not buying.
 
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The bottom line is, what the Wii U lacks in CPU power it makes up for in GPU power.

The reason the new Metro game won't be ported to the Wii U is because it would be too difficult for them to take a CPU-intensive game and make it compatible with the Wii U.

Here's a comment I found online that sums it up pretty well:

the cpu may be slow...but its gpu is there to share its processes with. More and more modern games are relying less on cpu and more on the combination of cpu and gpu.

metro would have been a port of a game already in development for two consoles that process pretty much everything in the cpu.

with the game being cpu intensive..ofcourse it wouldn't run well on the wiiu unless they bothered to reconfigure the game to dispersing calculations accross the cpu and gpu.....something likely to not happen given the amount of work it would take. THQ is going into bankruptcy...so the risk of allocating the necessary resources to do a proper port werent worth it...its not an issue of it not being possible or the wiiu not being strong enough to run it.

digital foundry

"I expect that GPU focused games will benefit from smoother frame-rates and lower levels of screen-tear, but cross-platform titles highly dependent on CPU power could end up noticeably worse off."

the wiiu also has slower ram.....what's the point in having faster ram, if the amount of ram is limiting. Nintendo went with slower but more...given that most ports on the wiiu show off better textures and greater draw distances than the other systems....nintendo's choice weighs more favorably.
 
Yea, well, publishers' worst kind of gamertype are those who need to see some AI. That's what CPU is for. Proper CPU. Not something like 6510 processor (it worked flawlessly in C64 though ;)).
 
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Better GPU = better graphics.
Who needs complex AI programming anyway ?
Good looking games sell anyway ! ;)
 
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Well hopefully the slow CPU doesn't hinder too many games on the Wii U. I think this Metro thing is just an isolated incident since the developers just don't seem to have the resources needed to make their game compatible with the "foreign" Wii U hardware.

Of course, other ports of CPU-intensive games may suffer the same fate as Metro, due to the unique nature of the hardware itself. But I'm holding out hope that the system can deliver good RPGs that aren't driven by the CPU. We shall see I guess...
 
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