The Kindle or something similar is probably the right way to go - I personally would have preferred something like that as opposed to 40-50 lbs of textbooks in my backpack every afternoon.
Well, my backpacks did tend to wear out from the large number of books in 'em - plus my tendency to use just one shoulder strap most of the time - so I can kind of see where you're at, there... Besides which, I was a computer geek and I would have loved any kind of portable computer that could do that kind of stuff - (I didn't have much portable computer tech back then, just an old Model 100) - even if it wasn't quite as practical as the simpler alternative.
But to me, the idea of going to e-books seems horribly premature. An e-book has to work hard to do things that are quite natural for a paper book - things like letting the reader flip through pages quickly, or hold their place somewhere while jumping back to another chapter for reference... Plus simple things like being legible in different kinds of light, and providing sufficient resolution for the information on the page. A book is a very tactile thing, and as such it's a much more natural interface. A book also doesn't have to be started up, shut down, or recharged. Of course e-books have advantages, too - weight, as you said - plus automated features like search...
But there's also the technology aspect to consider. How smart are these devices going to look three years from now? The technology is still moving pretty briskly - I don't think it's too sensible to invest too much in today's version.
Not only were they missing a bunch of their better writers, but they were trying to do feature length movies, which Futurama just isn't well-suited for. It was almost as bad as the Aqua Teen Hungerforce movie (great in 15 minutes chunks, torture for a full 90 minutes).
Kai Cavalin has graduated from East Los Angeles Community College
I'm sure he's more brilliant than I'll ever to close to, but wouldn't it have made sense to go to a real university if he's that smart?
If this is the start of a long academic career, then it's probably best to start cheap. A community college is probably still a big step up from the classes he'd have been taking otherwise.
One of his primary interests is "wormholes," a hypothetical scientific phenomenon connected to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. It has been theorized that if such holes do exist in space, they could â" in tandem with black holes â" allow for the kind of space-age time travel seen in science fiction.
"space-age time travel"?
"Just like black holes, they suck in particulate objects, and also like black holes, they also travel at escape velocity, which is, the speed to get out of there is faster than the speed of light," Cavalin says. "I'd like to prove that wormholes are really there and prove all the theories are correct."
"they also travel at escape velocity"?
Actually, though, we pick on him - about it being a community college, about his hokey "everyone is smart in their own way" line, etc. - but it does sound like he's a pretty smart kid, who's hopefully developing the kind of attitude which will help him avoid turning into a condescending prick later on.
His attitude about video games - from a practical standpoint he's exactly right. Video games are a major time-sink. If you're someone who wants to achieve things, that kind of time-sink can be a real problem. Honestly I feel like it'll become something of a dilemma for me, especially once I have kids. I really enjoy games, but I don't want them to be how I spend all my time... And likewise, I wouldn't particularly want to deprive my little ones of the joys of gaming - but I don't want them to fall into it like a trap, either. There's so much a person can do when they're young - I wouldn't want them to waste that time the way I generally did.
News flash, it to pay for enforcement, not deter criminals.
Don't be stupid. What are they going to do with 15 cents a month? They'd be able to buy a Peppermint Pattie from the cafeteria - that's about all you can do with 15 cents. It would take them many, many months to accumulate enough money to fund anything worthwhile.
So it's not like nobody could have foreseen the time when 480p would be generally considered "not good enough".
If sales and general concensus are anything to go by, 480p is still "good enough".
That won't last, though. HDTV is everywhere now.
Huh? The point of this discussion is that not everything is using it.:)
Yes, but my point still stands. It's a marketing scam to me to provide incentive for perpetual upgrades, like they're already doing with computers. Check out Super Hi-Vision for the next scam.
What "scam"? As technology gets better, they can offer us better products - that's a good thing! Everybody wins...
720p still looks nice to me because I still compare it to 480i or 480p. Of course there will come a time when the PS3 doesn't look so great.
Yes. And that's stupid.
So's your mom.
But anyway, the thing is, people's expectations change over time. It's not an unreasonable thing. I still enjoy NES games, but a game from 1985 generally won't look as good as one from 1988. There's a very real difference in quality there. But this wouldn't have bothered me in 1985 because I hadn't yet become accustomed to the standards set in later years. When the world changes, our expectations change to match.
My expectations have expanded to include a better display resolution. I honestly can't imagine I'm alone in this.
Really, why are people even arguing about this?
Why the hell not? You are.
The problem of today's industry is not graphics; it's the lack of fun, interesting games and innovation. In general, that is.
I have noted no such lack of late. But then again, I've been playing Little Big Planet pretty much non-stop for the past five months.
Fun, interesting games don't always require a lot of CPU and GPU power, of course (for that matter, they don't require innovation either...) - so you needn't take that LBP comment as any kind of attack on the Wii or defense of the PS3... Just, you know, that's where I'm at. Having tons of fun, not feeling a lack of interest in the available games at all. There's more fun games than I have time to play.
The Wii's graphics aren't a great match for the times. Everything is going HD, and with good reason: HD is becoming commonplace.
At the time the Wii was being developed and released, barely anyone cared about HD.
I can relate to that - before I got an HDTV, I didn't care about HDTV either.
But what about now? A console, as a platform, usually has a lifetime of several years. It was known in 2005 that HDTV would become the new broadcast standard, and it was known that the new DVD formats and the other gaming consoles would provide HD resolution. So it's not like nobody could have foreseen the time when 480p would be generally considered "not good enough".
Now - I've seen various HD broadcasts, I've watched a few Blu-Ray, and I've spent some time playing PS3 games. It makes a difference.
New technology always looks great at first. Then you get used to it, and it doesn't matter much anymore when everything is using it.
Huh? The point of this discussion is that not everything is using it.:)
720p still looks nice to me because I still compare it to 480i or 480p. Of course there will come a time when the PS3 doesn't look so great. But the Wii will always look noticeably worse...
Personally I think it's more worth it to improve the video quality by using a progressive scan display, which the Wii supports.
It's not an either/or proposition, there. They could have supported 480p and 720p.:)
The Wii's graphics aren't a great match for the times. Everything is going HD, and with good reason: HD is becoming commonplace.
Yep, and due to that horrible misstep, Nintendo's only made billions...whereas they could have made an HD-capable console like Sony or Microsoft, and lost billions!
I never claimed that it was a bad business decision. Cutting corners on their console has clearly worked quite well for them. I don't deny that, and it doesn't inspire any pride or anger in me, either. I don't care about that stuff. But speaking personally, my Wii's been idle since I got the PS3 - and I do believe the graphics resolution is a part of the reason why.
I do believe it is possible Nintendo could have done something in between the two extremes you describe - it wouldn't have required a significant increase in GPU muscle to push the same number of polygons, but at a higher output resolution.
BTW, the Wii does support 16x9.
Tell that to Mario Party.
going from 480p to 720p would reduce the apparent effect of aliased edges tremendously: 'cause you've got more pixels and 'cause the pixels are square at 16x9.
Again, the Wii does support 16x9. You're not even aware of that?
You've misunderstood me here.
I wasn't saying that the Wii doesn't do 16x9. What I was saying was that at 480p 16x9, the pixels aren't square. So you're covering more display width with the same number of columns - just one more reason why 480p isn't a good resolution for 16x9.
Then you probably don't know about scaling, and why the one in your TV apparently sucks.
I really don't care what you have to say about my TV. I mean, what, is that supposed to make me feel bad? Get me back for saying bad things about the Wii?
It doesn't matter what kind of hardware is in the TV - if the console's taking a polygon environment and rendering it in low resolution, the TV can't re-create the data that was thrown away in this process. It's not magic. What the console gives it is all it has to work with.
No HD = simpler graphics = less storage space needed.
It's more like "No HD = cheaper graphics chipset"
The Wii's graphics aren't a great match for the times. Everything is going HD, and with good reason: HD is becoming commonplace. So a gaming console that's not built with 16x9 and 720p (at least) as basic assumptions is a bit awkward.
Providing the exact same software on the Wii, but with an HD chipset would work. Granted, with the higher resolutions you'd be more likely to see the rough edges of the low-poly models, or the limits in the resolution of the textures - but on the other hand, there wouldn't be jaggies everywhere - even without antialiasing, going from 480p to 720p would reduce the apparent effect of aliased edges tremendously: 'cause you've got more pixels and 'cause the pixels are square at 16x9.
If you'd asked me what I thought of Wii not having HD a couple years ago, I would have said I don't care... Back then I was just getting my first HDTV, and hadn't gotten used to the idea that a TV picture (or video from a game console) could look as good as HD does. Now - I've seen various HD broadcasts, I've watched a few Blu-Ray, and I've spent some time playing PS3 games. It makes a difference. Even if the Wii is just rendering a bunch of textureless Mii characters, I would rather see that in HD.
I was going to point out all of the innovations that Guitar Hero has made in four years, but I think that including an entire band of controllers is enough to show that the Guitar Hero franchise is innovating at the same rate that the Mario Bros. franchise is when you consider that Mario Bros. has had a LOT more time to innovate.
Well, expanding the game to a full band is something they borrowed from "Rock Band"... Doesn't seem quite right to call it Guitar Hero's innovation, that being the case...
1977-to-1984 - Atari VCS/2600 - inferior to Intellivision 1985-to-1990 - NES - inferior to Sega Master System and Atari ProSystem/7800
The 7800 deserved to lose to the NES for several reasons and I'm pretty much a hater when it comes to the pastel palleted cutesy flickerfest that was the NES.
Pastel palleted? Cutesy? You know, there was this company called Konami that made a few games for the NES, you might want to check 'em out.:)
The Saturn, Dreamcast, TurboGrafix and Jaguar were all epic failures in the marketplace despite having advanced hardware. I don't get how this is an exception.
Slashdot Mirror
The latest analogy that I came up with is one of a Jet Engine....
Your upstart "Jet Engine analogies" are putting trustworthy, hard-working American "Car Analogies" out of work!
The Kindle or something similar is probably the right way to go - I personally would have preferred something like that as opposed to 40-50 lbs of textbooks in my backpack every afternoon.
Well, my backpacks did tend to wear out from the large number of books in 'em - plus my tendency to use just one shoulder strap most of the time - so I can kind of see where you're at, there... Besides which, I was a computer geek and I would have loved any kind of portable computer that could do that kind of stuff - (I didn't have much portable computer tech back then, just an old Model 100) - even if it wasn't quite as practical as the simpler alternative.
But to me, the idea of going to e-books seems horribly premature. An e-book has to work hard to do things that are quite natural for a paper book - things like letting the reader flip through pages quickly, or hold their place somewhere while jumping back to another chapter for reference... Plus simple things like being legible in different kinds of light, and providing sufficient resolution for the information on the page. A book is a very tactile thing, and as such it's a much more natural interface. A book also doesn't have to be started up, shut down, or recharged. Of course e-books have advantages, too - weight, as you said - plus automated features like search...
But there's also the technology aspect to consider. How smart are these devices going to look three years from now? The technology is still moving pretty briskly - I don't think it's too sensible to invest too much in today's version.
Printing them would be stupid and create MORE work for the teachers.
Why netbooks at all? Kids can sue there computers at home to create reports
They could also sue their English teachers for failing to teach 'em right...
this show has more lives then zombie Jesus.
Don't be ridiculous... zombies aren't even alive, they're just... undead...
Not only were they missing a bunch of their better writers, but they were trying to do feature length movies, which Futurama just isn't well-suited for. It was almost as bad as the Aqua Teen Hungerforce movie (great in 15 minutes chunks, torture for a full 90 minutes).
Don't like it? WALK OUT!
Correction: Stanislav Lem. Slashdot didn't like my Unicode.
I don't like your Unicode, either.
You must have missed Laugh-In.
(+1: Interesting)
(-1: Stupid)
Kai Cavalin has graduated from East Los Angeles Community College
I'm sure he's more brilliant than I'll ever to close to, but wouldn't it have made sense to go to a real university if he's that smart?
If this is the start of a long academic career, then it's probably best to start cheap. A community college is probably still a big step up from the classes he'd have been taking otherwise.
One of his primary interests is "wormholes," a hypothetical scientific phenomenon connected to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. It has been theorized that if such holes do exist in space, they could â" in tandem with black holes â" allow for the kind of space-age time travel seen in science fiction.
"space-age time travel"?
"Just like black holes, they suck in particulate objects, and also like black holes, they also travel at escape velocity, which is, the speed to get out of there is faster than the speed of light," Cavalin says. "I'd like to prove that wormholes are really there and prove all the theories are correct."
"they also travel at escape velocity"?
Actually, though, we pick on him - about it being a community college, about his hokey "everyone is smart in their own way" line, etc. - but it does sound like he's a pretty smart kid, who's hopefully developing the kind of attitude which will help him avoid turning into a condescending prick later on.
His attitude about video games - from a practical standpoint he's exactly right. Video games are a major time-sink. If you're someone who wants to achieve things, that kind of time-sink can be a real problem. Honestly I feel like it'll become something of a dilemma for me, especially once I have kids. I really enjoy games, but I don't want them to be how I spend all my time... And likewise, I wouldn't particularly want to deprive my little ones of the joys of gaming - but I don't want them to fall into it like a trap, either. There's so much a person can do when they're young - I wouldn't want them to waste that time the way I generally did.
com'on now, dont you get 30 points automaticlly for writting your name? Maybe an extra 10 if you spell it correctly....
"your name". "it".
Ha! 40 points, bitches!
Didn't your mother ever teach you to not use a $20 word where a $5 word will do? ;)
How about...
"really very silly phrase people only use to make dumb people feel okay."
But then it doesn't sound like something The Penguin (of Batman fame) would say...
Unless he were repeating himself... ...To Killer Croc.
I'd go with the Ankh-Morpork model ... lets start a Thief's Guild, an Assassins Guild and a Child Molesters Guild ...
Don't forget the Seamstress's Guild!
News flash, it to pay for enforcement, not deter criminals.
Don't be stupid. What are they going to do with 15 cents a month? They'd be able to buy a Peppermint Pattie from the cafeteria - that's about all you can do with 15 cents. It would take them many, many months to accumulate enough money to fund anything worthwhile.
If sales and general concensus are anything to go by, 480p is still "good enough".
That won't last, though. HDTV is everywhere now.
Yes, but my point still stands. It's a marketing scam to me to provide incentive for perpetual upgrades, like they're already doing with computers. Check out Super Hi-Vision for the next scam.
What "scam"? As technology gets better, they can offer us better products - that's a good thing! Everybody wins...
Yes. And that's stupid.
So's your mom.
But anyway, the thing is, people's expectations change over time. It's not an unreasonable thing. I still enjoy NES games, but a game from 1985 generally won't look as good as one from 1988. There's a very real difference in quality there. But this wouldn't have bothered me in 1985 because I hadn't yet become accustomed to the standards set in later years. When the world changes, our expectations change to match.
My expectations have expanded to include a better display resolution. I honestly can't imagine I'm alone in this.
Really, why are people even arguing about this?
Why the hell not? You are.
The problem of today's industry is not graphics; it's the lack of fun, interesting games and innovation. In general, that is.
I have noted no such lack of late. But then again, I've been playing Little Big Planet pretty much non-stop for the past five months.
Fun, interesting games don't always require a lot of CPU and GPU power, of course (for that matter, they don't require innovation either...) - so you needn't take that LBP comment as any kind of attack on the Wii or defense of the PS3... Just, you know, that's where I'm at. Having tons of fun, not feeling a lack of interest in the available games at all. There's more fun games than I have time to play.
Word!
Nice. Good work.
100+History=Lack of Proof-reading Skills
Congratulations, you've turned the summary's unit-starved quantity into one of the most delightfully nonsensical equations I've seen. :)
Eighteen.
So it's a 118 history. :)
Also analogies are evil
Nooooo! Not my precious car analogies!
This, please God, this.
sentence
At the time the Wii was being developed and released, barely anyone cared about HD.
I can relate to that - before I got an HDTV, I didn't care about HDTV either.
But what about now? A console, as a platform, usually has a lifetime of several years. It was known in 2005 that HDTV would become the new broadcast standard, and it was known that the new DVD formats and the other gaming consoles would provide HD resolution. So it's not like nobody could have foreseen the time when 480p would be generally considered "not good enough".
Now - I've seen various HD broadcasts, I've watched a few Blu-Ray, and I've spent some time playing PS3 games. It makes a difference.
New technology always looks great at first. Then you get used to it, and it doesn't matter much anymore when everything is using it.
Huh? The point of this discussion is that not everything is using it. :)
720p still looks nice to me because I still compare it to 480i or 480p. Of course there will come a time when the PS3 doesn't look so great. But the Wii will always look noticeably worse...
Personally I think it's more worth it to improve the video quality by using a progressive scan display, which the Wii supports.
It's not an either/or proposition, there. They could have supported 480p and 720p. :)
The Wii's graphics aren't a great match for the times. Everything is going HD, and with good reason: HD is becoming commonplace.
Yep, and due to that horrible misstep, Nintendo's only made billions...whereas they could have made an HD-capable console like Sony or Microsoft, and lost billions!
I never claimed that it was a bad business decision. Cutting corners on their console has clearly worked quite well for them. I don't deny that, and it doesn't inspire any pride or anger in me, either. I don't care about that stuff. But speaking personally, my Wii's been idle since I got the PS3 - and I do believe the graphics resolution is a part of the reason why.
I do believe it is possible Nintendo could have done something in between the two extremes you describe - it wouldn't have required a significant increase in GPU muscle to push the same number of polygons, but at a higher output resolution.
BTW, the Wii does support 16x9.
Tell that to Mario Party.
going from 480p to 720p would reduce the apparent effect of aliased edges tremendously: 'cause you've got more pixels and 'cause the pixels are square at 16x9.
Again, the Wii does support 16x9. You're not even aware of that?
You've misunderstood me here.
I wasn't saying that the Wii doesn't do 16x9.
What I was saying was that at 480p 16x9, the pixels aren't square. So you're covering more display width with the same number of columns - just one more reason why 480p isn't a good resolution for 16x9.
Then you probably don't know about scaling, and why the one in your TV apparently sucks.
I really don't care what you have to say about my TV. I mean, what, is that supposed to make me feel bad? Get me back for saying bad things about the Wii?
It doesn't matter what kind of hardware is in the TV - if the console's taking a polygon environment and rendering it in low resolution, the TV can't re-create the data that was thrown away in this process. It's not magic. What the console gives it is all it has to work with.
No HD = simpler graphics = less storage space needed.
It's more like "No HD = cheaper graphics chipset"
The Wii's graphics aren't a great match for the times. Everything is going HD, and with good reason: HD is becoming commonplace. So a gaming console that's not built with 16x9 and 720p (at least) as basic assumptions is a bit awkward.
Providing the exact same software on the Wii, but with an HD chipset would work. Granted, with the higher resolutions you'd be more likely to see the rough edges of the low-poly models, or the limits in the resolution of the textures - but on the other hand, there wouldn't be jaggies everywhere - even without antialiasing, going from 480p to 720p would reduce the apparent effect of aliased edges tremendously: 'cause you've got more pixels and 'cause the pixels are square at 16x9.
If you'd asked me what I thought of Wii not having HD a couple years ago, I would have said I don't care... Back then I was just getting my first HDTV, and hadn't gotten used to the idea that a TV picture (or video from a game console) could look as good as HD does. Now - I've seen various HD broadcasts, I've watched a few Blu-Ray, and I've spent some time playing PS3 games. It makes a difference. Even if the Wii is just rendering a bunch of textureless Mii characters, I would rather see that in HD.
I was going to point out all of the innovations that Guitar Hero has made in four years, but I think that including an entire band of controllers is enough to show that the Guitar Hero franchise is innovating at the same rate that the Mario Bros. franchise is when you consider that Mario Bros. has had a LOT more time to innovate.
Well, expanding the game to a full band is something they borrowed from "Rock Band"... Doesn't seem quite right to call it Guitar Hero's innovation, that being the case...
The 7800 deserved to lose to the NES for several reasons and I'm pretty much a hater when it comes to the pastel palleted cutesy flickerfest that was the NES.
Pastel palleted? Cutesy? You know, there was this company called Konami that made a few games for the NES, you might want to check 'em out. :)
The Saturn, Dreamcast, TurboGrafix and Jaguar were all epic failures in the marketplace despite having advanced hardware. I don't get how this is an exception.
There, fixed that for you.