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I now realize that you probably made a BSoD reference but the first thing I thought about when I read your comment was the blue-ish color of cyborgs (especially their arms) in Deus Ex.

Now, as the rule goes "Deus Ex - Every time you mention it, someone will reinstall it" (proof), and I am too busy, I recommend that you install it and being playing immediatelly.

If a game forces you to spend hours doing tasks a bot CAN do, then it's crap.

This is the worst comment about games I have seen in a while. It's bad because on the surface it looks perfectly agreeable. In actuality it is quite insidious.

No game forces you to spend hours doing anything. You're always free to go do something else. Also a bot can be written to play Tetris or solve Sudoku puzzles or even play chess. I don't think that these games are crap and there are plenty of other people who would likely agree with me.

I have played WoW and found it to be enjoyable, but I liked the progression grind from 1-60 and not the general sameness tedium that ensued once max level was reached. Blizzard now wants everyone to focus on endgame and damn the rest. For me, 60 (and later 70) was a journey and not a destination. Now it seems that the less time your character spends on Azeroth actually learning how to play while enjoying the sights, the better.

Ah well. I don't play anymore and I figure that I'm better off for it. I enjoyed getting together with a few friends and questing or even doing an instance, but now that we've all been fervently pushed forward, I am not going to resign myself to the second job of raiding just so I can have equipment that is marginally better than what I have now.

Oh, and I also think it's pretty stupid to talk about how few lines it took to write the program when it's using a bunch of libraries. I could just write a one-liner that calls this program, by that rationale.

Here's the Artificial Intelligence Tetris I was mentioning.

Netris is an ncurses-based tetris game that can be played both single and two-player (over tcp/ip). Despite being text-based, it adheres rather closely in board size and gameplay to the standard original Tetris. During the late 90s, I spent heaps of hours in netris tournaments with my mates. I don't think it's been updated since 1999, tho...

If you are on Verizon Wireless, the largest US carrier with around 35m subscribers you can see further examples of stupidity. They have a fantastic infrastructure and you can do data at 150kbps (max, typical is 70-115kps, I always have 115). They will be rolling out EVDO later this year which maxes at 3MBPS, typical speed of 500kbps.

On their phones they chose to do Brew which is a binary based environment. You compile up your C/C++ apps against the API and they will run on any Brew phone (in theory). However Qualcomm, the purveyor of Brew, decided they didn't want just anyone to write Brew apps. You have to get a dev kit from them (with a license that makes Microsoft look like good guys), you have to have the app certified, and you have to have it approved by the carrier. Finally it gets distributed by the carrier for a fee to subscribers - the carrier gets 10%, Qualcomm gets 10% and the developer gets 80%. You cannot make free applications for this platform - it costs around $6000 a year just to have an app and they can only be distributed by the carrier.

And of course binaries are not portable between phones even if that is the intention as there are enough phone specific differences and quirks.

So as a customer you can download apps really quickly (just a few seconds), but you get to pay $3 to $5 per month to subscribe to each app, or you can buy them outright for $8 to $10 each. Most do not have free previews, and those that do are largely terrible. I assume the rest are just as bad as their descriptions are useless. The games are also tied to your phone. If you get a new phone you cannot transfer them, you have to buy them all again.

It is a shame to see so much potential wasted just because the carrier and their technology provider decided to erect barriers and impose such ridiculous costs when they have such a lead in network infrastructure.

Colin Fahey has an excellent page about J2ME vs Brew and how restrictive all the carriers are.

Just to give you an idea, here are some of the items showing up when I browse. Note that none of them have a free preview so you have no idea what they actually do without paying.

• NASCAR.COM: Provide real time information about NASCAR news, schedules, standings, races .... $10.49 per month.
• Around the world in 80 days: Based on Jackie Chan movie ... $2.49 monthly subscription, $5.99 unlimited use.
• Pink Panther Freeze Tag: The Pink Panther and friends are loose in this exciting game. Can you handle the pressure and tag them all? $1.99 monthly, $4.99 unlimited use.
• YAMAHA Ringtones: An application that allows browsing, managing and downloading of ringtones. $1.99 1 use, $6.99 6 uses. (No clue as to where the ringtones come from, if you can supply your own etc)
• Pandora Tomorrow: Splinter Cell furtive gameplay. $3.25 monthly, $7.49 unlimited

Maybe the games aren't just "furtive" enough?

That sounds like a "Verizon-certified" thingy. Similar to the Nintendo Seal on old NES games.

Brew applications are written in C/C++. The reason for the testing/certification is because they can trivially cause all sorts of damage (remember you can make pointers to anything and trash anything - you don't get an industrial strength operating system in the phone with applications and data suitably protected). Additionally the Brew programming environment is crap. For example the way you find out free space on the EFS (embedded file system) is to write a file, fill up the filesystem, and see how big the file got! [This actually also causes some models to panic, reboot, panic on an infinite cycle] Contrast with J2ME which uses a defined virtual machine which can be proven to be safe.

A way for consumers to know if what they are getting meets some quality standard.

The "quality standard" is it not crashing the phone. The vast majority of the games are pure unadulterated crap. For example there is a XXX game (you know the big action film with Vin Diesel in it). After several screens of copyrights and license agreements, you end up with a clone of Pole Position (that ancient Atari game where you move a blob between parallel blobs that are supposed to be a road going off into the distance). And it is REALLY REALLY bad. In fact most of the games look like they took an entire afternoon to write.

Qualcomm and Verizon will lose this game. People expect much more, and will vote with their money. Here is by far the best explanation of just how dismal it is.

He wants to put on programs. You can't (legally) do that with Brew. Also you can't get the GPS information on the VX6000 anyway. Just as proof, go ahead and put a hello world program on your VX6000.

If you don't go the PDA route (ie Palm or PocketPC based phones) then get one with J2ME. You will have to stay far far away from Verizon and their Brew/Get-It-Now nonsense. This page goes into details about Brew, J2ME and the restrictions of the various carriers.

I've asked him to find out if there is any more info since the site is a bit sparse.

I would be interested to see how some of this comes together. I have a friend who has aspirations of putting a small profile PC in his car. He might be motivated to switch to an XBOX after he sees what can be done with it.

Your friend can follow a nice format laid out by this guy who has thouroughly detailed How to get the lowest score on the SAT.

I've asked him to find out if there is any more info since the site is a bit sparse.

I would be interested to see how some of this comes together. I have a friend who has aspirations of putting a small profile PC in his car. He might be motivated to switch to an XBOX after he sees what can be done with it.

Your friend can follow a nice format laid out by this guy who has thouroughly detailed How to get the lowest score on the SAT.

Yeah, I knew he got 2 right, but I think that is the lowest score possible still. Here's the scores (200 and 200), and here's the number right on each section. So getting 2 right on math, and 0 right on verbal means you get a 200 for each? I think 200 is the lowest you can get on each test, and I've always heard talk of how you get 400 total points just for filling out your name and stuff correctly. So I guess you can afford to get a few right so long as you get enough wrong? You're right, he did fail to do what he had set out to do by not answering every single question incorrectly. For that he does deserve a big YOU FAIL IT!

Yeah, I knew he got 2 right, but I think that is the lowest score possible still. Here's the scores (200 and 200), and here's the number right on each section. So getting 2 right on math, and 0 right on verbal means you get a 200 for each? I think 200 is the lowest you can get on each test, and I've always heard talk of how you get 400 total points just for filling out your name and stuff correctly. So I guess you can afford to get a few right so long as you get enough wrong? You're right, he did fail to do what he had set out to do by not answering every single question incorrectly. For that he does deserve a big YOU FAIL IT!

it's that creepy crazy guy from Con Air and Armageddon

Colin Fahey has authored a C# OpenGL Wrapper if that helps any...

Geez, do you think this guy has enough desktop icons? Clearly he spends too much time on his hobbies!

record attempt

:)

Someone get this guy a Desktop Cleanup Wizard!. And I thought I had too many icons on my desktop...

Emulate it baby, yesss!

Rowr!

Nokia has the best developer site.
http://www.forum.nokia.com/

Btw, this page should confirm all your suspicions about Colin. Check it!
http://www.colinfahey.com/pounce_nextpage.htm