Absolutely not. I never once thought that an event in The Two Towers or Return of the King was tacked on to fill pages. In fact, the genius of Tolkien was the "illusion of depth" that made everything feel very organic.
In Otherland, as well as countless other series, what begins as a solid idea, breaks down when the time comes for the author to make more money.
As for the "making it up" comment, I am sorry that you missed the point. Obviously it's all made up; but it's also apparent when an author isn't working from an outline or doesn't have the whole story thought out yet. Think "X Files", or anything following "Ender's Game".
like many other SF/Fantasy series, Otherland started strong, but it became obvious in the second volume that the author hadn't thought it all through and just started making it up as he went along (ala George Lucas).
there should be an exception to copyright rules that would let someone step in under these circumstances and write the sequel that the initial story deserves.
as for the online game aspect, why should we expect it to be anything other than one more level grinding bore with pretty graphics? when it's gotten to where character classes have generic descriptions (tank, etc.) no matter what they are supposed to represent, all that's left is changing the pictures.
No. Monetize means "to convert into money". Different concept. If I own a toll road and collect tolls, then I earn money from collecting tolls. If I sell the right to collect tolls to a third party in return for a large, one-time, payment, then I have monetized my toll road.
When Microsoft sold "Upgrade Assurance" they were monetizing their future, potential, upgrade revenues in order to obtain cash today.
As applied to this article, "monetize" is the wrong word. They aren't trading future revenue for present cash, they are "unbundling" pieces of a game that were once bundled. This is much more like airlines charging for checked baggage.
when I played Pitfall for hours on end I was using my imagination to fill in the blanks. It was more engaging in that regard because my own fantasies were part of the game. Turok, to pick a game with an arguably similar concept, doesn't have blanks for me to fill in, I have to play in the developer's fantasy. and yes, my ringtone is the swinging on a vine sound from Pitfall.
Professional golfers repeat the same swing time after time. Baseball players try to perfect their swings. A bowler strives for perfect repetition.
Back to the subject at hand... old video games were more like chess than newer games. They could be mastered with study and repetition. Today's games more and more rely on simulating the real world, meaning that each new game renders the last one obsolete as the simulations improve. I believe that the move from 2d to 3d represented a fundamental shift in gaming, away from the abstract toward the concrete.
The old games, lacking the realism, had to rely on the challenge. Today we're more concerned with reflections, textures and socializing. PacMan would have been very different if other humans controlled the ghosts.
They looked at 100 trillion pieces of data, and found 18 that they could call Omega-sub-b. Wouldn't this fall into the realm of randomness?
Re:Non-Tech Percent of Web Traffic from Chrome
on
Google Chrome, Day 2
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
"When you hit Ctrl+N the window that pops up is a blank window. In IE it's a clone of the current window, which is far more useful."
funny, but when forced to use IE, I HATE when it does that. Why would I want another window with the same page in it? I want a NEW window, that I will cause to be populated with a url of my choice.
"That and the downloads get cancelled if you close the browser - in IE they are seperate processes which live past the browser being closed."
funny, again. When I close an application I want it to close; go ahead and ask me to confirm, but don't pretend to close and keep doing stuff.
and, NO, I never feel guilty blocking ads, just as I don't feel guilty skipping commercials on my DVR, or not reading ads in newspapers, or throwing out those little cards in magazines. advertising is, by its nature, hit or miss. consider me a "miss".
"Instead, what you are doing (to continue to use the book analogy) is having someone copy the pages of the book and hand them to you to read (which is illegal without prior consent)."
what if I find those photocopied pages when you're done with them? can I take THEM home and read them? is it my responsibility to conduct a search to see if this collection of words is copyrighted somewhere?
if I photocopied 1000 copies of your book and left a copy at 1000 bus stops in NYC, and 1000 bus riders picked them up and read them, are THEY guilty of anything?
"Yes, I'm aware of that argument. I give it no credence. The effort was still expended and the workman should be compensated if you wish to avail yourself of his work."
But I didn't ask him to expend that effort. I did, however, hire the contractor to remodel my house.
If I find a print from a famous artist blowing down the street, I can take it and hang it up in my office. If I find a book by a famous author on the sidewalk I can take it home and read it. So why can't I find a copy of a software program and install it?
pretty funny transcript. all marketing and droid speak, then Carmack trots out the flux-capacitor discussion. and while I haven't played an id game since quake 2, I am still in awe of his genius.
This could be an interesting contention. If Apple is indeed subsidizing the cost of OS X, then somewhere on their books their will be an entry documenting the loss they take on selling a retail copy, and subsequent credit somewhere offsetting that. I don't know that Apple has ever claimed that OS X is being treated that way.
Dick Ebersole, who runs NBC Sports, is on record as saying that it is his goal to get better ratings, no matter what. That's why NBC doesn't post the running score of a football game, because they want you to stay and wait for it.
It's why they show all those personal profiles instead of sporting events. It's why they edited the opening games. It's why we can't see live events in the US.
Second, some of us use computers for business, not just for posting to Slashdot. Twenty years of financial services IT makes me a geek, whether I like it or not.
Bzzzt. For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million. It bugs me to this day when people write 240M when they mean 240 million.
Email != a document repository. If you need to keep something, print as a PDF or store it somewhere more appropriate.
Perhaps in your parochial world. I'm on assignment in a company that uses Lotus Notes as it is intended to be used, and email is just one more document in a database that is accessible through many views, some of which are not a mail box. Works quite well.
On my last assignment the company routed EVERY email to an archive database, on the advice of their lawyers (not in house, real lawyers).
The Wii-remote is awful for extended use, at least for me. My fingers get cramps, my arms get little zings of pain, and I am constantly having to wave it broadly to find the cursor. I used a thinkpad and its pointing stick, and for work it was the best. I never got very good at using it for Unreal Tournament, though.
Touchscreens are not the answer for productivity. Kiosks, meter reading, UPS guys, maybe.
you're like the guy on the Garden State Parkway who drives 65 in the left lane to keep everyone else from speeding. at most you should drop a note to the copyright holders, and then stay the hell out of it.
I use it mon-fri as an attention deficit/cognition enhancement supplement. I am able to concentrate on a task more effectively when using it. For me the effects are like cocaine without the euphoria. I don't get jittery or wired, just focused. I have a shrink who has studied provigil extensively as an attention deficit drug, and while it is not yet approved in the US for that use, he believes strongly in it, as do I.
As do the mice who will choose provigil over food when given a choice.
Do we need drugs to make our lives "better"? Why not? Our society is no longer based solely on fulfilling basic needs. We work in fabric covered boxes performing tasks that have no direct connection to survival, other than earning money to buy food. If a drug helps us do that then, given the facts about it, we can make an informed decision.
seriously. Microsoft is a software company. What is the reason for their obsession with the search and advertising market? Last time I looked they are making money. Is it just because they want to take revenue away from Google?
I know, corporations exist to make money. But they don't have to go so far from their core competency (spare us the snarky comments) to do it. My heating oil provider doesn't have an internet search engine. My insurance company isn't creating web 2.0 video applications. Stick with what you're good at.
Slashdot Mirror
not very relevant to the overall discussion, but my public library has PC games available for borrowing. Some new ones, even.
doubtful. if a new game requires new firmware it will most likely include it on the game disk.
Absolutely not. I never once thought that an event in The Two Towers or Return of the King was tacked on to fill pages. In fact, the genius of Tolkien was the "illusion of depth" that made everything feel very organic.
In Otherland, as well as countless other series, what begins as a solid idea, breaks down when the time comes for the author to make more money.
As for the "making it up" comment, I am sorry that you missed the point. Obviously it's all made up; but it's also apparent when an author isn't working from an outline or doesn't have the whole story thought out yet. Think "X Files", or anything following "Ender's Game".
cheerio,
like many other SF/Fantasy series, Otherland started strong, but it became obvious in the second volume that the author hadn't thought it all through and just started making it up as he went along (ala George Lucas).
there should be an exception to copyright rules that would let someone step in under these circumstances and write the sequel that the initial story deserves.
as for the online game aspect, why should we expect it to be anything other than one more level grinding bore with pretty graphics? when it's gotten to where character classes have generic descriptions (tank, etc.) no matter what they are supposed to represent, all that's left is changing the pictures.
MMOs have become a lazy way to make games.
No. Monetize means "to convert into money". Different concept. If I own a toll road and collect tolls, then I earn money from collecting tolls. If I sell the right to collect tolls to a third party in return for a large, one-time, payment, then I have monetized my toll road.
When Microsoft sold "Upgrade Assurance" they were monetizing their future, potential, upgrade revenues in order to obtain cash today.
As applied to this article, "monetize" is the wrong word. They aren't trading future revenue for present cash, they are "unbundling" pieces of a game that were once bundled. This is much more like airlines charging for checked baggage.
when I played Pitfall for hours on end I was using my imagination to fill in the blanks. It was more engaging in that regard because my own fantasies were part of the game. Turok, to pick a game with an arguably similar concept, doesn't have blanks for me to fill in, I have to play in the developer's fantasy. and yes, my ringtone is the swinging on a vine sound from Pitfall.
Professional golfers repeat the same swing time after time. Baseball players try to perfect their swings. A bowler strives for perfect repetition.
Back to the subject at hand... old video games were more like chess than newer games. They could be mastered with study and repetition. Today's games more and more rely on simulating the real world, meaning that each new game renders the last one obsolete as the simulations improve. I believe that the move from 2d to 3d represented a fundamental shift in gaming, away from the abstract toward the concrete.
The old games, lacking the realism, had to rely on the challenge. Today we're more concerned with reflections, textures and socializing. PacMan would have been very different if other humans controlled the ghosts.
They looked at 100 trillion pieces of data, and found 18 that they could call Omega-sub-b. Wouldn't this fall into the realm of randomness?
"When you hit Ctrl+N the window that pops up is a blank window. In IE it's a clone of the current window, which is far more useful."
funny, but when forced to use IE, I HATE when it does that. Why would I want another window with the same page in it? I want a NEW window, that I will cause to be populated with a url of my choice.
"That and the downloads get cancelled if you close the browser - in IE they are seperate processes which live past the browser being closed."
funny, again. When I close an application I want it to close; go ahead and ask me to confirm, but don't pretend to close and keep doing stuff.
and, NO, I never feel guilty blocking ads, just as I don't feel guilty skipping commercials on my DVR, or not reading ads in newspapers, or throwing out those little cards in magazines. advertising is, by its nature, hit or miss. consider me a "miss".
"Instead, what you are doing (to continue to use the book analogy) is having someone copy the pages of the book and hand them to you to read (which is illegal without prior consent)."
what if I find those photocopied pages when you're done with them? can I take THEM home and read them? is it my responsibility to conduct a search to see if this collection of words is copyrighted somewhere?
if I photocopied 1000 copies of your book and left a copy at 1000 bus stops in NYC, and 1000 bus riders picked them up and read them, are THEY guilty of anything?
of course not.
"Yes, I'm aware of that argument. I give it no credence. The effort was still expended and the workman should be compensated if you wish to avail yourself of his work."
But I didn't ask him to expend that effort. I did, however, hire the contractor to remodel my house.
If I find a print from a famous artist blowing down the street, I can take it and hang it up in my office. If I find a book by a famous author on the sidewalk I can take it home and read it. So why can't I find a copy of a software program and install it?
pretty funny transcript. all marketing and droid speak, then Carmack trots out the flux-capacitor discussion. and while I haven't played an id game since quake 2, I am still in awe of his genius.
"we'll just keep making Duke Nukem, forever."
This could be an interesting contention. If Apple is indeed subsidizing the cost of OS X, then somewhere on their books their will be an entry documenting the loss they take on selling a retail copy, and subsequent credit somewhere offsetting that. I don't know that Apple has ever claimed that OS X is being treated that way.
Dick Ebersole, who runs NBC Sports, is on record as saying that it is his goal to get better ratings, no matter what. That's why NBC doesn't post the running score of a football game, because they want you to stay and wait for it.
It's why they show all those personal profiles instead of sporting events. It's why they edited the opening games. It's why we can't see live events in the US.
First, Get Off My Lawn.
Second, some of us use computers for business, not just for posting to Slashdot. Twenty years of financial services IT makes me a geek, whether I like it or not.
Bzzzt. For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million. It bugs me to this day when people write 240M when they mean 240 million.
Email != a document repository. If you need to keep something, print as a PDF or store it somewhere more appropriate.
Perhaps in your parochial world. I'm on assignment in a company that uses Lotus Notes as it is intended to be used, and email is just one more document in a database that is accessible through many views, some of which are not a mail box. Works quite well.
On my last assignment the company routed EVERY email to an archive database, on the advice of their lawyers (not in house, real lawyers).
The Wii-remote is awful for extended use, at least for me. My fingers get cramps, my arms get little zings of pain, and I am constantly having to wave it broadly to find the cursor. I used a thinkpad and its pointing stick, and for work it was the best. I never got very good at using it for Unreal Tournament, though.
Touchscreens are not the answer for productivity. Kiosks, meter reading, UPS guys, maybe.
UIs have evolved to use mice, and use them well.
I would like to see a PC Repair licensing procedure that provides for the confidentiality of information, not the disclosure of information.
you're like the guy on the Garden State Parkway who drives 65 in the left lane to keep everyone else from speeding. at most you should drop a note to the copyright holders, and then stay the hell out of it.
I use it mon-fri as an attention deficit/cognition enhancement supplement. I am able to concentrate on a task more effectively when using it. For me the effects are like cocaine without the euphoria. I don't get jittery or wired, just focused. I have a shrink who has studied provigil extensively as an attention deficit drug, and while it is not yet approved in the US for that use, he believes strongly in it, as do I.
As do the mice who will choose provigil over food when given a choice.
Do we need drugs to make our lives "better"? Why not? Our society is no longer based solely on fulfilling basic needs. We work in fabric covered boxes performing tasks that have no direct connection to survival, other than earning money to buy food. If a drug helps us do that then, given the facts about it, we can make an informed decision.
seriously. Microsoft is a software company. What is the reason for their obsession with the search and advertising market? Last time I looked they are making money. Is it just because they want to take revenue away from Google?
I know, corporations exist to make money. But they don't have to go so far from their core competency (spare us the snarky comments) to do it. My heating oil provider doesn't have an internet search engine. My insurance company isn't creating web 2.0 video applications. Stick with what you're good at.
Tell that to King Tut.
Exactly when does graverobbing become archaeology?