midnightsine

Are you sure? Is the universe described by an equation s=t*v, v=10 untrue unless we compute it? Does moving electrons on a CPU die suddenly give it meaning? Do scraps of graphite left on paper by a pencil? The simplest turing complete cellular automaton can be computed using ordinary rocks.

Are there no infinitely many natural numbers unless we observe them? And then finally is actually computing a universe described by a set and a step function the only way to make it real? Is it not "real" by simply being possible?

As for discreteness of time, in quantum mechanics changes in state are modeled by square matrices over complex numbers. GL(n, C) is complete - for every matrix M you also have M^1/2, representing half the state chance. It follows that our time, at conceptual level, is at least as "dense" as rational numbers.

Cashing out 100 000 BTC would crash the market down to 0 - right now the MtGox has exactly 105 708 BTC in the order book.

Cashing out 100 000 USD however is a different story. It actually happened a few hours ago, you can see the impact for yourself[1].

[1] http://i.imgur.com/cjI9ZaT.png

I think the debate stems mostly from the imperfections of our spoken language.

What is a human? Is it any biological organism that is genetically identifiable as homo sapiens? Is it our bodies? Our minds, hearts and 'souls'? When asked to draw a "human", a man will sketch a head, a torso, a pair of legs, two arms. On the most basic level we see this shape everyday in our lives - that is what we all subconsciously equate the word "human" with.

Is it all there is to it? Shouldn't we be focusing on what makes us human as the philosophers would see it? Creativity, spontaneity, our thoughts and dreams - everything that goes on in our brains? Consciousness?

There will be more and more debate in the coming years as the concept of what is "human" will come under fire. Technological advancements, medical innovations and strong AI will throw our preconceptions under a train and force us as a species to reconsider, for better or for worse.

Do you see how the abortion debate stems from different understanding of the same concept? There is no right and wrong.

Dictionaries rule over our minds.

Heightmap based 3d would be very simple to add via something like f(x, y) -> x, y, heightmap(x, y). The city building genre is essentially "2.5D", as the gameplay itself is purely 2d with the third dimension existing solely in the presentation layer.

Edit: As for the roads on uneven terrain, I'm thinking about deriving z coordinate from another 2d Bezier curve traced along 't' of the road. Control points could be derived from a convex polygon obtained via the road/heightmap intersection.

You know, I've actually spent the hours leading up to the SimCity launch coding a simple clone.

Here's a link http://www.browserpolis.com/, you need a webgl enabled browser though.

And a screenshot (http://imgur.com/4ixB2lO) in case you can't see anything.

$ nc -l 8888 > file

$ cat file | nc host.example.com 8888

I don't think a dedicated utility is required.

Edit: Sorry about my comment coming off as a bit hostile, I did not intend it to be.