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http://penny-arcade.com/comic/1998/12/21/ Prophetic!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/4/10/

You got a problem with twitter shitters, bub?

(Requisite link.)

You can pay $25,000 to have Will Wright pee on you: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/5/27/

He's made me want to get into racketeering!

It's funny you mention that (even in a jocular way) - I was honestly wondering if/when Apple might start using these. I can't pull up the article so I can't see if it's mentioned in there. Like the PA comic from the other day, their laptops get damn hot and despite sales pitches to the contrary, their battery life ain't great. With it being tough/impossible to get an airplane plug for use in-flight, would be nice to have a longer battery life (same is true for PC laptops, obviously).

If you want whore for Karma, include a link!

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/

sad thing is its true. I recently replaced my system (primary use: graphics editing/AV/WoW) with a 17" mbp and it literally does feel like that.

The thing runs at 70c with wow active, and almost all of that is conducted straight out the bottom. I rigged together a rack to give it a 1.5" clearance, but the last time I placed one on my lap it took me weeks to feel my nether regens again.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/

So basically you're pissed that your hobby language (and make no mistake, that's all Ruby will ever be)

Some hobbies are quite profitable.

there are more "unimaginative programmers" who know it thus allowing business to move forward with doing actual in an attempt to make a profit.

That is why I tend to move towards small businesses and startups. You don't need those "more programmers" -- you need the five or ten programmers it will take to get the job done. More than that is just people warming seats.

But then, PHP makes it so easy to botch the job the first time, you can pretty much guarantee there will be more programmers back to warm seats.

And no, I'm not really pissed about it. Actually, I'm happy about it. See, I know PHP, so I can use it if I have to. I also know Ruby, and there are fewer people who know Ruby. That makes me valuable -- and it makes the one startup out of twenty that's using Ruby instead of PHP that much more likely to succeed.

You'll always a cog in the machine.

I've never been a cog in the machine, not in my working adult life.

You don't understand business, that much is obvious.

I'm not paid to. I'm paid to write good code, which I can do more effectively and more productively in Ruby than in PHP.

Penny arcade already has this covered. Maybe they already knew abotu the i7.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/30/

Your comment reminded me of Gabe's last line in this strip :)
http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/2/14/

Did anyone else immediately think of this when they read this headline? I see a sudden rise in Q-tip sales.

As long as they have Windows 7 AIDS Edition, I'm set.

I thought they took Jack Thompson's licence to practice law... http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/23/

Penny Arcades Windows (not the OS) cartoon

Just have the bot announce "Shitcock" every 2 minutes or so.

Correction, it was originally a flagship MAC title (which would also be released on PC) made by the premier Macintosh gaming developer, Bungie. They were pushing it as a demonstration of the graphics and processing power of the Macintosh in a realtime rendered demo at Macworld 99. It was meant to be (and still sorta is) a spiritual successor to the popular Marathon series which was a great example of early Mac gaming and how every once in a while, the Mac gaming scene didn't suck. I was still kinda a Mac guy (college's inherent strain on $$ changed that) when MS, out of nowhere bought Bungie and forced them to re-make Halo from the ground up for their new "XBox" console. It was a devastating day for us Mac gamers, but honestly, the Halo franchise would not have gotten nearly as far as it did without the XBox.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/5/

Obligatory:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/7/22/

obligatory penny arcade reference

Penny Arcade ran that about a week ago. http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/9/

But the upgraded/final release came out just now and Penny Arcade covered that as well (just 6 days ago).

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/1/9/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/9/

also you find what a rhombus is.

But the upgraded/final release came out just now and Penny Arcade covered that as well (just 6 days ago).

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/1/9/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/9/

also you find what a rhombus is.

How is this news? According to wikipedia, the game has been released on June 1st, 2007.
Hell, even Penny Arcade talked about this more than a year ago in http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/12/21/the-next-gen/

I don't want to come off as trollish, but...

mp3 players might have been drab before the iPod, but they were certainly far from useless. I had two different sd-card based mp3 players years before the iPod launched, and they both worked perfectly well for playing mp3s I ripped from my CD collection.

I think penny-arcade said it best when the iPod first launched.

as for the iPhone... has it got cut and paste yet? Can I use it with a carrier of my choice without having to break the DRM, or avoid pay through the nose for the data plan? Can I download and install my own apps? Or is it just a pretty, expensive, show-off chunk of easily scratched plastic?

There were plenty of great phones out before the iPhone, and there'll be plenty after it - just look at the stuff you can get outside the US.

Your post reminds me of this PA comic.

The phantom console is real..gosh darn it....and Duke Nukem Forver will be a launch title.

Your post reminds me of this PA comic.

Obama is a gadget guy, making use of devices like the Blackberry, the iPod, and (by some reports) the Zune. His tech addiction is causing a minor dust-up, as his security personnel are trying to convince him to part with his beloved PDA.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't mention the Zune, he might lose the respect of the whole country: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/12/8/crisis/

This comic says it all. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/2/

Well, fascinating it is. I don't think many other companies outright insulted their customers (see such Yamauchi quotes as the one I quoted) _and_ business partners (see their attitude to the devs when some threatened to jump ship in the N64 days... which caused most to actually do jump ship) _and_ have a chairman who's publicly _proud_ to not be among the customers (Yamauchi actually took pride in never having played a single video game in his life), and, yes, get such adoring fans.

I mean, comparing to that, even the patents are nothing. Joe Average doesn't care about our ideological crusades about patents or IP. But call someone names, take pride in not being like him, and have him come back to you wagging his tail, now _that_ is something. I don't know how they do that, but hats off.

I don't think even comparing them to Apple does either of them justice. Apple and Steve Jobs actually flatter their customers, not insult them. They try to maintain the image that the Apple users are the smart, savvy, hip, cool, etc guys. Steve Jobs certainly takes pride in using his own products and in fact micro-managing the design until it exactly fits his personal taste. I remember keynotes where he stressed that some program was done for him, or beta-tested by him, or whatnot.

(And I'm not even an Apple fan, and hate the cult of personality around Steve Jobs. But credit where credit is due. He sure knows how to do a keynote and flatter his customers.)

Mind you, as I was saying, Nintendo does have some good and innovative designers, such as Shigeru Miyamoto, so maybe that's the explanation.

Maybe a more apt comparison is with the Penny Arade Will Wright's Pee comic strip.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/9/7/new-from-squareenix/

Enough said

Well, I do know what goes into a game like Crysis, being a 3D game programmer and all. Those programmers were very, very good, believe me. Some of the stuff they pulled off is just amazing.

The reason Crysis is slow is because of the artistic direction. Outdoor environments full of plants and shadows with a huge viewing distance is very hard to implement in a 3D engine. I mean really fucking hard. Making a game like that playable at all is a tradeoff between two scraggly trees on a flat green carpet that pretends to be grass, OR an enormous amount of research into optimization techniques that are very hard and time consuming to implement. The Crysis engine is pretty much the state of the art in optimization. And these guys managed to squeeze in fantastic shader effects on top of that, depth of field, and even some basic radiosity shadowing for the characters!!! That's just insane.

Most reviewers and players with the right hardware thought the game looked amazing, way better than its peers at the time, or even now. I thought the effects (especially in the spaceship) looked better than most Sci-Fi movies, which is a stunning achievement for a 3D game running on a $500 video card. I upgraded my PC just to play the game, and I thought it was worth it. Lots of people did too:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/10/15/

Take your head out of your ass and stop belittling other people's achievements until you have some of your own to compare it to, OK?

Mr. Fuzzle's weeds have gone unchecked for too long.End his life.

I will certainly never buy a song at $1.29

Penny Arcade said it better than I ever could: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/8/

Take a few pictures of the item you sell, add them to your auction description and VOILA! Instant patent infringement! These patents are getting more and more absurd by the day, I tells ya. Penny Arcade had it right: http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/1/2/

You'd think that jumping at the very bottom when the springs are most compressed would provide the biggest boost, since you'd send the springs down with the most energy, building up the energy stored in the springs... Instead you need to time your jump just before the spring reaches the top. You need to do it early enough that you're still "on" the platform (can't jump on air) but late enough that you'll gain height so that your higher fall will compress the spring more.

Well, Isaac Newton you're not. Not even a Robert Hooke.

If the energy is stored in the springs, it's not available to you. How does the energy come out of the spring? By contracting. Exactly analogous situation: playground swing. If you're going for horizontal distance, when should you jump off? If you're going for vertical distance, when should you jump off?

Not how actual physics work, but, well, that's my entire point, isn't it?

I can see why you're posting anonymously.

As to the rest, at least you took one bit of my advice and attacked the removal of PS2 compatibility... though it was like pulling teeth to get you that far. That's a definite downside, though the 360 hasn't always done that much better.

Yeah. It's kinda like E3. So much pressure to show the best off at that event only to get a load of bullshot. Now, no more half-promises. Your game can be showed off as you want it. No need to razzle-dazzle at the trade show.

How the hell is the parent flamebait?

Overstated points or invented points ("long load times and shitty online play") by an Anonymous Coward? How could it notbe? Normally I don't respond to trolls, but you managed to get upmodded and an educational opportunity is at hand.

LBP is a lot more than a tech demo. You don't get praise and scores like that from tech demos. I play it regularly, and so do my kids, and it's fun. And no, the physics is quite good. As to user-made levels - sure, there's a lot of crap, but since there's already more than 100,000 user-created levels, only a tiny percentage need to be good to make it worthwhile... and in my experience the percentage isn't all that tiny, plus the ranking system's gotten to the point where it's easy to find good levels. (My 8-year-old loved "Little Dead Space". :-> ) People who have no affection or affinity for side-scrollers won't like it. But then, people who don't like FPS won't like Halo. Oy. Of course, there's been a concerted effort by fanboys of other platforms to slam it, so at least you're not alone.

I'm not an RPG guy, so I can't comment on Valkyria Chronicles, but a lotta people seem to like it, though it's also not everyone's cup of tea.

Mirror's Edge? I found the demo fresh and interesting, but again, ultimately not my cup of tea. And yes, like Rock Band it's available for more than one platform... but if you have a PS3, why not?

Let's give you full credit and state that the PS3 version of Rock Band is a "port". Heaven forfend! What problems, exactly and specifically, does this lead to? You only mentioned PS2 and Wii issues, and while I'm sure they're fascinating and all, they're kind of irrelevant to the PS3.

I've got Singstar 'cause my wife likes to sing and she's good at it. Now the PS2 discs work with the PS3, too, and we can buy songs off the "Singstore". Sure, there's "Lips", which is apparently all right, but if you're worried about ports, then clones should terrify you...

The 360's initially cheaper than the PS3 (though that's in both senses of the term, unfortunately) and has a bigger library. No question. The Wii outsells both, and is more open to casual gamers than either. There are reasons why the PS3 might not be the best choice for everyone, but neither you nor the parent hit on any of 'em.

How the hell is the parent flamebait?

Overstated points or invented points ("long load times and shitty online play") by an Anonymous Coward? How could it notbe? Normally I don't respond to trolls, but you managed to get upmodded and an educational opportunity is at hand.

LBP is a lot more than a tech demo. You don't get praise and scores like that from tech demos. I play it regularly, and so do my kids, and it's fun. And no, the physics is quite good. As to user-made levels - sure, there's a lot of crap, but since there's already more than 100,000 user-created levels, only a tiny percentage need to be good to make it worthwhile... and in my experience the percentage isn't all that tiny, plus the ranking system's gotten to the point where it's easy to find good levels. (My 8-year-old loved "Little Dead Space". :-> ) People who have no affection or affinity for side-scrollers won't like it. But then, people who don't like FPS won't like Halo. Oy. Of course, there's been a concerted effort by fanboys of other platforms to slam it, so at least you're not alone.

I'm not an RPG guy, so I can't comment on Valkyria Chronicles, but a lotta people seem to like it, though it's also not everyone's cup of tea.

Mirror's Edge? I found the demo fresh and interesting, but again, ultimately not my cup of tea. And yes, like Rock Band it's available for more than one platform... but if you have a PS3, why not?

Let's give you full credit and state that the PS3 version of Rock Band is a "port". Heaven forfend! What problems, exactly and specifically, does this lead to? You only mentioned PS2 and Wii issues, and while I'm sure they're fascinating and all, they're kind of irrelevant to the PS3.

I've got Singstar 'cause my wife likes to sing and she's good at it. Now the PS2 discs work with the PS3, too, and we can buy songs off the "Singstore". Sure, there's "Lips", which is apparently all right, but if you're worried about ports, then clones should terrify you...

The 360's initially cheaper than the PS3 (though that's in both senses of the term, unfortunately) and has a bigger library. No question. The Wii outsells both, and is more open to casual gamers than either. There are reasons why the PS3 might not be the best choice for everyone, but neither you nor the parent hit on any of 'em.

How the hell is the parent flamebait?

Overstated points or invented points ("long load times and shitty online play") by an Anonymous Coward? How could it notbe? Normally I don't respond to trolls, but you managed to get upmodded and an educational opportunity is at hand.

LBP is a lot more than a tech demo. You don't get praise and scores like that from tech demos. I play it regularly, and so do my kids, and it's fun. And no, the physics is quite good. As to user-made levels - sure, there's a lot of crap, but since there's already more than 100,000 user-created levels, only a tiny percentage need to be good to make it worthwhile... and in my experience the percentage isn't all that tiny, plus the ranking system's gotten to the point where it's easy to find good levels. (My 8-year-old loved "Little Dead Space". :-> ) People who have no affection or affinity for side-scrollers won't like it. But then, people who don't like FPS won't like Halo. Oy. Of course, there's been a concerted effort by fanboys of other platforms to slam it, so at least you're not alone.

I'm not an RPG guy, so I can't comment on Valkyria Chronicles, but a lotta people seem to like it, though it's also not everyone's cup of tea.

Mirror's Edge? I found the demo fresh and interesting, but again, ultimately not my cup of tea. And yes, like Rock Band it's available for more than one platform... but if you have a PS3, why not?

Let's give you full credit and state that the PS3 version of Rock Band is a "port". Heaven forfend! What problems, exactly and specifically, does this lead to? You only mentioned PS2 and Wii issues, and while I'm sure they're fascinating and all, they're kind of irrelevant to the PS3.

I've got Singstar 'cause my wife likes to sing and she's good at it. Now the PS2 discs work with the PS3, too, and we can buy songs off the "Singstore". Sure, there's "Lips", which is apparently all right, but if you're worried about ports, then clones should terrify you...

The 360's initially cheaper than the PS3 (though that's in both senses of the term, unfortunately) and has a bigger library. No question. The Wii outsells both, and is more open to casual gamers than either. There are reasons why the PS3 might not be the best choice for everyone, but neither you nor the parent hit on any of 'em.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/04/23/le-twittre/

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/9/27/

You could always be a Twitter Shitter

Well, he can't have iChoke-U, because that's already taken.

Slashdot certainly reminds me of what the internet really is for...

Hmm. The linked cartoon suggests that anonymity makes for fuckwad behavior. Since my actual name appears on all my posts, and yours doesn't...are you saying you're a fuckwad?

Look, I'm just pointing out the consequences of your statement. "[I]f someone wants my hard work, they either pay me for the agreed upon price or they get a good lawyer", plus the fact that good lovemaking is hard work, implies that the speaker will either be paid a negotiated price, or will engage in some sort of legal action for compensation, in return for lovemaking. If that's not what you meant, I suggest you retract or amend your statement.

For many people, contributing to projects like Wikipedia gives a satisfaction somewhat similar to contributing to a lover's sexual satisfaction. (Obviously much less intense, but on the other hand a Wikipedia contribution last longer than an orgasm.) Based on your statement, you appear to be immune to such satisfaction derived from giving; if that's the case, too bad for you.

What's so wrong with expressing that opinion neatly in a single character change?

There is a strong risk that you wind up sending yourself up if write "M$". It became so cliched Penny Arcade did a comic about what people who write M$ might look like.

Perhaps the only folks who still get away using it are those who hate money or those making some sort of political statement. Some even say using M$ cheapens an argument...

I like free things, too. But sometimes it's just not realistic.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2002/20020722h.gif
"From my parents' home in Wyoming, I STAB AT THEE!"

Wow, you must be a hoot between the sheets.

Slashdot certainly reminds me of what the internet really is for...