"Prey" is a pretty good scifi novel about this. It follows the tired cautionary-tale forumla, but like all of Crichton's novels has (some) basis in real research.
For those of you that are not Manson fans (and I understand that, I'm only a casual fan) I'd like you to join in the irony here.
"This is the New Shit", the song absurdly-placed as the new themesong of a fairly-generic fantasy world with a lot of blood, is actually a song lampooning our consumer culture. The lyrics refer to the "new shit" as some fantastic new product or service that the consumer must buy for arbitrary reasons...not because they need it, but because it's new. It's a song about aggressive corporate greed and people guilible enough to buy into it.
I never quite understand these stories; maybe it's because I have difficulty grasping the complexities of medicine (as many people do and aren't aware they do), but doesn't it seem like the discovery of a treatment and the implimentation of a treatment have become abnormally distant from one another? Far beyond what proper testing and trials should mandate?
Is this a patent problem?
A legal one?
It's starting to seem like we've all but halted the advance of medicine while we try to extract as much profit from each new discovery as possible, nevermind that real people are dying in the meantime. How long is it before this drug treatment is avaliable? 2025?
Again, I have little grasp of medicine, so maybe I'm being paranoid. Can anyone give greater perspective on my concern?
I can do one better. My invention has two wheels, and is entirely human-powered. It's good for the environment, and has a max speed of around 25mph! (legs willing).
Microsoft has issued the following PSA: 'Some users have been found to experience sides effects from a sort of 'digital whiplash' after installing the new Chrome Frame plugin for IE8. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.'
Right now, it's easy to include DRM while only upsetting we, the minority, because the average consumer never tries to use their media in a way that runs afoul of DRM. They buy song off iTunes and just use it there on iTunes, never knowing the limitations of the "product". (I use iTunes merely as an example, I know there's DRM-free music there now)
With every new push, however, the average consumer comes closer to running head-first into these limitations. When you have people's files start disapearing off their hard drive when there is no physical product, they might finally join us in asking: "Why the Hell is a collection of ones and zeroes being treated this way?"
The harder DRM advocates push, the more the consumer becomes less ignorant of their questionable ownership philosophy.
The reason is entirely because of custom content. Despite the increased graphics of Dragon Age, the toolset is extremely limited in comparison to the 8-year-old NWN1(and much further behind the clunky, but powerful NWN2 toolset).
From early testers, here's the list of missing features and/or limitations: some of these are insane.
From:
_______________________________________
The following aren't in the game, probably as no surprise to anybody at this point:
-Multiplayer/DM client.
-Climbing.
-Jumping.
-Swimming.
-Mounts.
-Pushing/grabing objects around in real time.
-Path over path. You can do this but the pathfinding doesn't support it. In drive mode it works fine, but if you move with point and click or use scripting to move a creature it fails.
The following can be done, but only in hacky ways and were rarely done in the main campaign:
-Day/night. This can only be done with area transitions. No real time
-Placing/picking up objects in the world. Unlike NWN, you can't drop items into the world, or pick up anything that's not in a container. For picking up you have to put placeables into the world (and no model exists for most items). For placing you'd have to put an invisible placeable into the world which you click on, which spawns another placeable.
-Destroyable environments. Placeables can be destroyed, but they tend to stick beucase the lighting is different, especially large ones that you're trying to disguise as part of the background level art. Our artists have found ways to bake the lighting texture into the diffuse texture to pull a decent blend off, but it's hacky and hard to maintain.
-Ambient usage of objects. You can't hook an extra object up to an animation. So for instance, outside of a cutscene, you can't have people drinking from mugs, or working a forge with tools. We actually figured out too late that you can do this with visual effects, so hopefully the community can do a better job of it that we did.
Things that were in NWN that are different/missing from DA:
-Runtime local variables. All variables stored on an object have to be declared in a 2da.
-Custom equipment. NWN was more flexibile in allowing outfits to be made piece by piece and selecting different colours. DA's armors are one piece and the tinting is limited.
-Accessing objects. You can only grab/effect objects which are in the player's current area. If you want to change things in other areas, you set plot flags and update the other area in the area load script.
-Beam Effects. DA doesn't have beam visual effects.
-Using items. Plot items can't be usable in DA, and generally making items that are not consumed when used is a bit painful.
-Instancing. NWN allows you to modify any property of a placed object. DA has a much smaller list of instanced properties, and expects you to use more templates. I quite like the system, but it might take getting used to.
-Scaling. Creatures and placeables have a fixed size. NWN didn't have scaling, and neither does DA.
-Putting items into containers. DA doesn't let the player drag items from their inventory into a container. This functionality is actually included in the engine and can be accessed by changing a parameter in the function call to open the inventory, but users of the custom content probably won't realize they can do this.
-Placeable actions. Unlike NWN where the player can pretty much do any action on any placeable, DA only supports one action per placeable at a time. The state controller has a list of states and each one has an action. So a placeable can be bashed, or it can be examined, or it can be used, or it can be a container, or it can be an area transition or it can be locked, but it can't be multiple of these simultaneously. We did at one point have a second action accessed by shift-click, but I think we cut every place we used it in the main campaign and we might have cut the functionality from the engine. It's something to look into, but even then you're looking at two actions per placeable and not a radial menu.
I normally don't do this, as no third-party production needs "defending" from critics, but I would like to point out some glaring flaws in your post.
------- THIS POST CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS -----------
There were definite plot holes, the hero (Van De Merwe) I had a hard time rooting for instead of rooting that we would just get shot. He was weak and pathetic, and only had courage while in the exo-suit, and even then, he was wishy-washy.
A protaganist and a "Hero" are not the same thing. Hollywood forgets this, and in turn, many moviegoers forget this. I'm sorry you had a hard time rooting for an ignorant, racist, cowardly protagonist, but that was the point of the character.
and I just couldn't believe the government would allow the Nigerians to become so powerful inside the district, especially when they knew how dangerous they were.
This is a very Amero-centric point of view. Just because something like this is not plausible in the United States, does not make it far-fetched. The situation with the Nigerian warlord happens all the time in less wealthy or stable countries.
The father in law was evil for no apparent reason, and his wife suddenly believes Wilkus without explanation why?
You complain about the depth of the main character than complain about the one-sidedness of a minor character with minimal screentime? We don't see enough of the father to know much about him, aside from his greed. As for his wife, that's called a romantic subplot...she chose to love her husband regardless of the lies around her.
A lot of the gore was unneeded, and made me turn away from the screen a few times... Did we really need to see him biting off his nails?
Yes, I happen to think we did. The nails being lost did exactly what it was supposed to: sent a shiver up your spine. I prefer a movie that doesn't shy away from the dirty details of it's events. It potrayed the messy and tragic reality of Wilkus's condition.
why weren't the aliens using the weanpos to revolt instead of selling them to the Nigerians?
Explained directly in the plot. Almost all the aliens were worker drones with little free will of their own, bred to follow orders. They were very good at building things, but only rarely did any have the drive and wit to form complex plans (Christopher).
I have to question if we watched the same film.
Slashdot Mirror
Proving that technology is always one step ahead of copyright law.
I only wish I could afford one.
District 9 was good this year!
...and...uh...
So was...um...
Well, District 9 was good this year.
That's just what they want you to think.
But that's how it starts!
...okay, so maybe I didn't read the article yet.
"Prey" is a pretty good scifi novel about this. It follows the tired cautionary-tale forumla, but like all of Crichton's novels has (some) basis in real research.
I was making a (poor) joke. Seemed much funnier at the time.
Comedy is a fickle mistress.
Hate Apple...
But hate patent trolling...
My brain hurts.
More like Windows Vista was the beta of Windows 7.
Those of use that skipped Vista would do well to pick up 7, which while flawed, seems to me to be the best of the Windows home operating systems.
No coop?
No dedicated server support?
I guess I'm buying Borderlands and will continue playing MW1 for my hardcore FPS.
Let the common name be "impulse engines".
For those of you that are not Manson fans (and I understand that, I'm only a casual fan) I'd like you to join in the irony here.
"This is the New Shit", the song absurdly-placed as the new themesong of a fairly-generic fantasy world with a lot of blood, is actually a song lampooning our consumer culture. The lyrics refer to the "new shit" as some fantastic new product or service that the consumer must buy for arbitrary reasons...not because they need it, but because it's new. It's a song about aggressive corporate greed and people guilible enough to buy into it.
Think about that a moment.
But you can patent genes. Discovered, not created.
Is it bullshit? Yes, but it has legal precedent.
I never quite understand these stories; maybe it's because I have difficulty grasping the complexities of medicine (as many people do and aren't aware they do), but doesn't it seem like the discovery of a treatment and the implimentation of a treatment have become abnormally distant from one another? Far beyond what proper testing and trials should mandate?
Is this a patent problem?
A legal one?
It's starting to seem like we've all but halted the advance of medicine while we try to extract as much profit from each new discovery as possible, nevermind that real people are dying in the meantime. How long is it before this drug treatment is avaliable? 2025?
Again, I have little grasp of medicine, so maybe I'm being paranoid. Can anyone give greater perspective on my concern?
All iPhones will now play the Imperial March on startup.
Watching you argue with yourself is funny, but, downhill shouldn't really count.
You're right, I'm too honest for this marketing gig. That's why I was let go from Best Buy after three months. I didn't lie about Monster cables.
I can do one better. My invention has two wheels, and is entirely human-powered. It's good for the environment, and has a max speed of around 25mph! (legs willing).
I'll call it: a bicycle.
Microsoft has issued the following PSA: 'Some users have been found to experience sides effects from a sort of 'digital whiplash' after installing the new Chrome Frame plugin for IE8. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.'
I know replying to my own post is cheesy, but there is a great feature you guys might have missed.
THE BATTERY IS REMOVABLE.
(Anyone who has ever had a dying ipod/iphone battery can appreciate this)
For technophiles, the iPhone is dead. The n900, with it's Debian-based-OS and open platform, is our new lord and savior. http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
Right now, it's easy to include DRM while only upsetting we, the minority, because the average consumer never tries to use their media in a way that runs afoul of DRM. They buy song off iTunes and just use it there on iTunes, never knowing the limitations of the "product". (I use iTunes merely as an example, I know there's DRM-free music there now)
With every new push, however, the average consumer comes closer to running head-first into these limitations. When you have people's files start disapearing off their hard drive when there is no physical product, they might finally join us in asking: "Why the Hell is a collection of ones and zeroes being treated this way?"
The harder DRM advocates push, the more the consumer becomes less ignorant of their questionable ownership philosophy.
For technophilles, the iPhone is dead. The n900, with it's Debian-based-OS and open platform, is our new lord and savior.
http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
From early testers, here's the list of missing features and/or limitations: some of these are insane.
From: _______________________________________
Give several story points in a trailer, and people will complain you gave away the entire plot.
Keep the story elements to a minimum, and people will complain your trailer is shallow.
There is no victory for them, is there?
------- THIS POST CONTAIN MAJOR SPOILERS -----------
There were definite plot holes, the hero (Van De Merwe) I had a hard time rooting for instead of rooting that we would just get shot. He was weak and pathetic, and only had courage while in the exo-suit, and even then, he was wishy-washy.
A protaganist and a "Hero" are not the same thing. Hollywood forgets this, and in turn, many moviegoers forget this. I'm sorry you had a hard time rooting for an ignorant, racist, cowardly protagonist, but that was the point of the character.
and I just couldn't believe the government would allow the Nigerians to become so powerful inside the district, especially when they knew how dangerous they were.
This is a very Amero-centric point of view. Just because something like this is not plausible in the United States, does not make it far-fetched. The situation with the Nigerian warlord happens all the time in less wealthy or stable countries.
The father in law was evil for no apparent reason, and his wife suddenly believes Wilkus without explanation why?
You complain about the depth of the main character than complain about the one-sidedness of a minor character with minimal screentime? We don't see enough of the father to know much about him, aside from his greed. As for his wife, that's called a romantic subplot...she chose to love her husband regardless of the lies around her.
A lot of the gore was unneeded, and made me turn away from the screen a few times... Did we really need to see him biting off his nails?
Yes, I happen to think we did. The nails being lost did exactly what it was supposed to: sent a shiver up your spine. I prefer a movie that doesn't shy away from the dirty details of it's events. It potrayed the messy and tragic reality of Wilkus's condition.
why weren't the aliens using the weanpos to revolt instead of selling them to the Nigerians?
Explained directly in the plot. Almost all the aliens were worker drones with little free will of their own, bred to follow orders. They were very good at building things, but only rarely did any have the drive and wit to form complex plans (Christopher). I have to question if we watched the same film.