My boss opened a MySpace account largely because he wanted to keep an eye on what his high-school-aged kids were up to online. First thing he saw on his son's page was a blowout party the son had at their house the weekend before while the parents were away. As the son never understood the MySpace blunder, he thinks his father is the all seeing eye. Anyway, just one example of a 35-54 getting sucked in due to parenting.
Unfortunately, companies need money to finance technology research. Sprint has already "bet the farm" on WiMax, which, if it doesn't work out, will put them out of business. So, they've already put their money where their mouth is to try to use technology to solve their problems and don't have any additional financing to re-create a fiber grid.
When you break it down, AT&T is suspiciously close to using monopolistic practices to defeat smaller competitors. As AT&T was once a government-created monopoly, the government should've done a better job policing their push back towards monopoly status. Unfortunately, our current administration uses a very light hand when it comes to enforcing anti-monopoly laws (I'd reference the way the Justice Dept backed off of Microsoft and the way they've let AT&T acquire everyone they want).
Monopolies almost always result in less efficiency in a market.
Of course, when I own both Park Place and Boardwalk and put up hotels, I'm not going to cut you any deals either.
Don't kill my lame but necessary supporting cast
on
Gaming Usability 101
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· Score: 2, Insightful
I hate, hate, hate game scenarios where you have to protect (or maybe just want to protect) a supporting character who dies absurdly easily. While I understand that this can occasionally make for interesting gameplay, devs often don't take into account the increasing difficulty levels on games. Watching my NPCs blown to pieces is frustrating, especially when my character is much stronger than anything else on the screen.
Yeah, movies can be tough, but I usually feel that the quality of the team creating the movie can add value. For example, I think the remake of Thomas Crown Affair is more enjoyable than the original. I think the production quality was high, and the performances were good (except for the gratuitous Pepsi product placement). On the other hand, the remake of Romeo and Juliet (the one with Claire Danes) struck me as hokey and potentially better performed closer to the original staging. Tough call on the value of most remakes, but I'm generally in favor of good artistic and creative teams feeling free to remake if they see an opportunity; it's a shame that so many poor remakes also surface.
Directly against your point, James Joyce wanted to re-write Homer's Odyssey in 1900s Ireland and wrote Ulysses. Plus, Beowulf's multiple translations could be considered remakes from an older platform of English. Also, people have re-written the Arthurian legends and much of Greek mythology multiple times.
Hell, I've even read new editions of novels that had significant content changes. Check out Cooper.
I was particularly impressed with Halo's playability. It reminded me of some of Id's successes in generating games with really masterful playability and balance, only for a console. That's not an easy accomplishment for a control system that isn't as natural as keyboard/mouse are for FPS. Plus, their graphics were gorgeous when they first came out (a couple of years before the PC release).
I'd put it up there with Goldeneye for best console FPS experience. I'm not sure that it's any better than good PC FPS games (Half-life 2 is tough to beat).
So, the one thing I've been happy about with my most recent laptop purchase (Dell D620): I bought the uber-support package - a tech shows up at my house the next day, hardware-in-hand to fix the problem. Compare that to my last computer support without anything fancy (Toshiba Satellite) - a 3 week wait while my laptop was out of commission waiting for the warranty support center to order and re-order parts. I don't have any particular affiliation with Dell or Toshiba (both the computers have been great), but that fancy support has been spectacular.
Fencing has a set of standard moves that could be modeled on the wiimote. These include the foil and epee forms that involve stabbing motions as well as the sabre form which involves cutting motions. The combination of these forms would provide a rich set of moves that would have some basis in real sword-fighting. On the downside, I have yet to figure out how to summon force lightning while fencing.
About as close as we could ever practically get would be a diplomatic entity with limited scope and power, resulting in a loose confederation of nations that comes together for regular discourse. Oh wait, that's the United Nations.
Time out. FirstNeed already produces a filter that can filter viruses, for 97 bucks. Check out REI.
Plus, you can purchase chlorine drops from any reputable outdoor gear retailer, which kills viruses. Combined with a 30 dollar filter, this is a much cheaper solution. Worried about chlorine? Municipal water supplies use it; so you're probably drinking it anyway.
This article is total marketing fluff. It just provides the backstory for a new product in a market with plenty of pre-existing, cheaper alternatives.
One of the items no one has touched on is the aesthetic reasoning (or lack thereof) behind compression. On most rock songs, compression of the dynamic range makes the song sound much "fuller." You can get some idea of the concept by listening to old albums by the Ramones and comparing them to Green Day. While the Ramones sound great, their relative lack of compression makes the recording sound less "full" when played next to a Green Day song with mroe compression, which captures and magnifies many quiet, ambient characteristics of the recording. High end playback equipment makes up for this by reproducing the music loudly with much higher fidelity, but the Ramones are going to sound a bit softer and quieter on 90% of the equipment out there.
Certain genres and groups with greater dynamic range will be especially hurt by this - could you imagine Stevie Ray with modern compression? It would definitely take a bit of the edge off. However, that's the job of the producers and engineers to make sure to hit the right compression level for the artist. Whether they're succeeding is a different matter.
I fully agree on those two games. Another piece of this puzzle is that FPS games are excellent forums for artistic achievement. I remember being mindblown by some of the visuals in Halo when it first came out. That in turn, boosted the story in my opinion.
FPSs have stories?
Seriously though, there's also continually increasing common ground between RPGs and FPSs. Case in point: Oblivion is first person, and while not a shooter in the traditional since, it sure has some strong FPS aspects. At the nexus of the two genres, I think there'll be a lot of plot development.
FPS as a genre holds appeal similar to action movies - quick gratification of the id. As such, I've faced plots that did a great job facilitating the action (Halo, Goldeneye, both Half-lifes), but too much plot intricacy could easily tarnish the quick fun of the frag.
Kodak came out with a line of printers they were trying to sell by touting the cheap ink. For a lazy person like me (who has also managed to spill ink from a do-it-yourself refill onto my carpet), I'd prefer to go buy a cartridge and not think about it. If you're printing a heap of pages, the Kodak might be the cheapest than the competition due to their cheap ink strategy. Anybody used tried them yet?
Slashdot Mirror
My boss opened a MySpace account largely because he wanted to keep an eye on what his high-school-aged kids were up to online. First thing he saw on his son's page was a blowout party the son had at their house the weekend before while the parents were away. As the son never understood the MySpace blunder, he thinks his father is the all seeing eye. Anyway, just one example of a 35-54 getting sucked in due to parenting.
Unfortunately, companies need money to finance technology research. Sprint has already "bet the farm" on WiMax, which, if it doesn't work out, will put them out of business. So, they've already put their money where their mouth is to try to use technology to solve their problems and don't have any additional financing to re-create a fiber grid.
When you break it down, AT&T is suspiciously close to using monopolistic practices to defeat smaller competitors. As AT&T was once a government-created monopoly, the government should've done a better job policing their push back towards monopoly status. Unfortunately, our current administration uses a very light hand when it comes to enforcing anti-monopoly laws (I'd reference the way the Justice Dept backed off of Microsoft and the way they've let AT&T acquire everyone they want).
Monopolies almost always result in less efficiency in a market.
Of course, when I own both Park Place and Boardwalk and put up hotels, I'm not going to cut you any deals either.
I hate, hate, hate game scenarios where you have to protect (or maybe just want to protect) a supporting character who dies absurdly easily. While I understand that this can occasionally make for interesting gameplay, devs often don't take into account the increasing difficulty levels on games. Watching my NPCs blown to pieces is frustrating, especially when my character is much stronger than anything else on the screen.
Yeah, movies can be tough, but I usually feel that the quality of the team creating the movie can add value. For example, I think the remake of Thomas Crown Affair is more enjoyable than the original. I think the production quality was high, and the performances were good (except for the gratuitous Pepsi product placement). On the other hand, the remake of Romeo and Juliet (the one with Claire Danes) struck me as hokey and potentially better performed closer to the original staging. Tough call on the value of most remakes, but I'm generally in favor of good artistic and creative teams feeling free to remake if they see an opportunity; it's a shame that so many poor remakes also surface.
Directly against your point, James Joyce wanted to re-write Homer's Odyssey in 1900s Ireland and wrote Ulysses. Plus, Beowulf's multiple translations could be considered remakes from an older platform of English. Also, people have re-written the Arthurian legends and much of Greek mythology multiple times.
Hell, I've even read new editions of novels that had significant content changes. Check out Cooper.
I was particularly impressed with Halo's playability. It reminded me of some of Id's successes in generating games with really masterful playability and balance, only for a console. That's not an easy accomplishment for a control system that isn't as natural as keyboard/mouse are for FPS. Plus, their graphics were gorgeous when they first came out (a couple of years before the PC release).
I'd put it up there with Goldeneye for best console FPS experience. I'm not sure that it's any better than good PC FPS games (Half-life 2 is tough to beat).
So, the one thing I've been happy about with my most recent laptop purchase (Dell D620): I bought the uber-support package - a tech shows up at my house the next day, hardware-in-hand to fix the problem. Compare that to my last computer support without anything fancy (Toshiba Satellite) - a 3 week wait while my laptop was out of commission waiting for the warranty support center to order and re-order parts. I don't have any particular affiliation with Dell or Toshiba (both the computers have been great), but that fancy support has been spectacular.
Fencing has a set of standard moves that could be modeled on the wiimote. These include the foil and epee forms that involve stabbing motions as well as the sabre form which involves cutting motions. The combination of these forms would provide a rich set of moves that would have some basis in real sword-fighting. On the downside, I have yet to figure out how to summon force lightning while fencing.
About as close as we could ever practically get would be a diplomatic entity with limited scope and power, resulting in a loose confederation of nations that comes together for regular discourse. Oh wait, that's the United Nations.
Time out. FirstNeed already produces a filter that can filter viruses, for 97 bucks. Check out REI.
Plus, you can purchase chlorine drops from any reputable outdoor gear retailer, which kills viruses. Combined with a 30 dollar filter, this is a much cheaper solution. Worried about chlorine? Municipal water supplies use it; so you're probably drinking it anyway.
This article is total marketing fluff. It just provides the backstory for a new product in a market with plenty of pre-existing, cheaper alternatives.
One of the items no one has touched on is the aesthetic reasoning (or lack thereof) behind compression. On most rock songs, compression of the dynamic range makes the song sound much "fuller." You can get some idea of the concept by listening to old albums by the Ramones and comparing them to Green Day. While the Ramones sound great, their relative lack of compression makes the recording sound less "full" when played next to a Green Day song with mroe compression, which captures and magnifies many quiet, ambient characteristics of the recording. High end playback equipment makes up for this by reproducing the music loudly with much higher fidelity, but the Ramones are going to sound a bit softer and quieter on 90% of the equipment out there.
Certain genres and groups with greater dynamic range will be especially hurt by this - could you imagine Stevie Ray with modern compression? It would definitely take a bit of the edge off. However, that's the job of the producers and engineers to make sure to hit the right compression level for the artist. Whether they're succeeding is a different matter.
I fully agree on those two games. Another piece of this puzzle is that FPS games are excellent forums for artistic achievement. I remember being mindblown by some of the visuals in Halo when it first came out. That in turn, boosted the story in my opinion.
FPSs have stories? Seriously though, there's also continually increasing common ground between RPGs and FPSs. Case in point: Oblivion is first person, and while not a shooter in the traditional since, it sure has some strong FPS aspects. At the nexus of the two genres, I think there'll be a lot of plot development. FPS as a genre holds appeal similar to action movies - quick gratification of the id. As such, I've faced plots that did a great job facilitating the action (Halo, Goldeneye, both Half-lifes), but too much plot intricacy could easily tarnish the quick fun of the frag.
Kodak came out with a line of printers they were trying to sell by touting the cheap ink. For a lazy person like me (who has also managed to spill ink from a do-it-yourself refill onto my carpet), I'd prefer to go buy a cartridge and not think about it. If you're printing a heap of pages, the Kodak might be the cheapest than the competition due to their cheap ink strategy. Anybody used tried them yet?