I'm guessing they'll only stream the remastered version of the Original Series, which is too bad. Some of the redone visual effects look sorely out of place.
I rarely get involved in deletion debates these days. The problem is the whole concept of "notability" is definitely screwed up. Notability on Wikipedia is supposed to be objectively decided, but that runs contrary to establishing notability in the first place. To some an article on a certain topic might be important, but other people it might be something that should be deleted.
Normally this is where editorial supervision would come into play. For better or for worse, this is how it works in professional publications. People higher up decide what gets put into the book, what makes the newspaper. But there's no editorial hierarchy on Wikipedia, so that's out. So we're forced to adhere to some vague notion of notability, which basically states that anything that's mentioned a few times on the Internet is notable, nevermind old topics that might only have print sources that may or may not exist.
But by maintaining Wikipedia's facade of "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit", they've refused to do things that would be the first steps in any large professional writing project. That is, relying on a set of topic experts, quality copyeditors, fact checkers and researchers and professional level editorial staff that decides what's in and what's out. Citizendium has tried to establish such a system, but as they're finding out it's hard to get quality editors to do this stuff for free. It's far easier to do what Wikipedia does and let anyone whose passions outweigh their expertise and ability to contribute on a short leash.
The result? An encyclopedia that's quite imbalanced. E.g. we get tons of people weighing in on the debate for the notability of an Internet games review site, and far less people working on stuff like Mathematics and Health-related topics, stuff people get paid top dollar for their expertise on, but wouldn't necessarily write about for their own leisure. If you look at the featured articles, you'll see that there's lots of articles on pop culture stuff, recreation and warfare (stuff people like to write about for fun), but far less on seemingly cornerstone topics like Education, Math, Healthcare and Chemistry.
Holy crap those responses in his thread are cuntish. The guy comes along, builds a reasonable rig for under a grand that looks nice and has 3 screens and they shit all over him with retarded comments like "nnnthis won't runn Rage onn super max duper settinnngs-hai". Half of the responses even openly admit to not reading his entire post. Never mind that most new games don't even take full advantage of new PC hardware anyway, being as they are built for the console lowest common denominator. As someone who recently (about 8 months ago) built his own 'gaming' rig for under a grand I certainly sympathise with his efforts.
Yeah, everybody took the original post out of context. The guy's point was that you could build a good gaming PC for much less than a cost of an iMac. And the only reason the games wouldn't run on the three screens was because he didn't buy the $100 adapter (which still would have kept the price less than the price of most iMacs).
They're not comparable. MythTV is a PVR, whereas Boxee is primarily a streaming client/movie file organizer. Myth is more comparable to another XBMC fork, MediaPortal, which aims to add PVR functionality to the XBMC core.
I don't know why this was modded as flamebait. It's a sound, rational observation. Apple updates their PC lines about once a year and by that time, the tech they feature in their refresh has been on the market for months. It's not a necessarily a bad thing either - by the time Apple starts production, most of the early problems have been ironed out. And Apple is able to cram it all into a pretty looking, unibody case with an integrated, sharp display.
Funny. If anything, VoA has been criticized for not being American enough. The running gag is that throughout its existence, VoA hadn't even created an English language version of its broadcast. Just imagine if the BBC broadcasted programs in anything but English...
I've never found tool-assisted speedruns entertaining at all. Legit speedrun videos themselves are kind of boring, but at least they're for real. It's no different than going through a game with invincibility, or infinite time. You're changing the rules of the game - like giving yourself as many mulligans as you want in golf. Or editing out all the frames in which you missed a couple of pins in bowling to make it look like you got a 300. And the worst part is that sometime videos aren't marked as tool-assisted, so it leaves doubt as to whether some true speed runs were assisted or not.
Eh. Buy the business versions of computers instead. They're comparable in price to their home equivalents, and lack the trialware.
I still remember when I got my first computer though. There were some demos preinstalled, but there were also full versions of software as well on CDs - a few games, Encarta, etc. Plus, it came with a thick book with detailed technical descriptions of the computer (keep in mind this was a "home user" system) that was comparable to a textbook. Good stuff.
I'm guessing the same fear inducing forces that makes folks shy away from food irradiation will take hold here. Stem cell research gets a lot of attention, even if governments aren't likely to fund it either. But research into synthesizing a food source is just as important as stem cell research, if not more important, considering what a huge issue world hunger is today.
And the technical aspcets of the PSP were also beyond any other similar device of its generation and yet it fall behind in sales to the NDS in every market. Is not about the power of the hardware, is about the entertainment that brings the games.
If it was about the entertainment, then NDS wouldn't be doing so well either. Most of the titles are shovelware games, primarily based on TV shows and other properties. But the DS is very popular among kids. The problem with the PSP was that it tried to provide the exact same experience as a home console on a handheld, so what you ended up with were watered down home console games. At least with the DS, you have that touch screen that provides for some game features unique to that product.
This is true. Part of what makes video games fun is that with one button press, you can jump 10 feet in the air, make a headshot from 30 yards away and do all kinds of stuff you couldn't do in real life. These motion control hacks are interesting, but also clunky and weird - extend your left foot to run? Um... okay. That kinds of defeats the purpose of motion control since your gestures have little or nothing to do with what your onscreen character does. Motion controls are best (and I use that term loosely) when how you move is directly translated on the screen. Like in the Mocap boxing arcade game - you lean left, your character leans left. You punch, your character punches. Either you have motion controls that directly translate to the screen like those, or you just stick with joystick/analog stick/digital pad and buttons (preferably the latter).
"The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly: I'd rather use them to mimic something better." - E.W. Dijkstra
Sorry, but this article is crap. It just mentions a few things without proper reasoning. What makes a good sequel is not an exact science, trying to reason about it in a generic what is just unfounded.
Lesson 1: Starcraft 2 took a long time, and it's considered to be a good sequel. Same for Half Life 2. Development time is a dumb reason. Does it matter is a sequel needs 6 years of development, or simply 3 but still released 6 years after the original?
Lesson 2: The gamebryo engine was also used by Morrowind, and Oblivion before it was used for Fallout 3. A lot of games use the same engine, and it generally leads to better software, but it has nothing to do with game quality. Story and game content don't have much to do with the engine.
Lesson 3: BioShock 2 was made by a completely different studio, not just a different lead desginer. StarCraft 2 and Diablo 2 both had different lead desginers. There are also numerous examples of bad sequels that had the same lead designer.
Lesson 4: Yes... obviously. But what exactly was that, people can tell you that the change you made is a bad one, but they can't beforehand tell you what they liked and why? Also, not everybody is the same. Putting the exact game out doesn't result in a good sequel either.
Lesson 5: Don't evolve too much? What's too much? Also, doesn't have some overlap of lesson 4?
Lesson 6: Improve everything? But, doesn't that violate lessen 4 and 5?
But the worst part of the whole article, it doesn't even mention what defines a good sequel. He uses 4% difference in review score as listed by Metacritics. But reviews are not objective, review scores of games are also influenced by other games that were release before it. and of course, the reviews are generally written by different people, and different people tend to judge differently.
Actually, while the article isn't perfect, it does make some good points.
For Lesson 1, the writer didn't say that a long development process means a bad sequel. Rather, he meant that expectations are set higher, sometimes almost impossibly high. So even if you come up with a quality game like GT5, it will never meet the expectations people hold. As for Starcraft 2, you really have to go back to when the game was first announced, not the time between the last game and the sequel. No one has expectations for a sequel unless one is announced. GT5 has been in pipeline for about five years, while Starcraft 2 about three.
The game engine can mean a lot for the development of a game. Look at Duke Nukem Forever. It switched engines so many times because there were all these great games powered by more advanced engines. You don't want release a game with an outdated engine - it makes a game look dated compared to similar games.
As for Lesson 3, well duh, different studio, different designer. You can't underestimate the importance of a lead designer, although that alone doesn't guarantee a good sequel (remember the last King's Quest game?). But retaining the lead designer is still pretty important. Ninja Gaiden II was dumbed down when Itagaki left Team Ninja and the article rightly points out DMC and Mikami.
Lesson 4 is a pretty bad example since Force Unleashed wasn't good to begin with. And no one said anything about "putting the exact same game out." There's also a decent example for Lesson 5.
Not sure where the gripe is for lesson 6. Just because you improve everything, doesn't mean you change everything as well.
Uh... the whole article defines a good sequel - that is, a game with all those characteristics. Yes, quoting Metacritic is foolish. But then again, who else can you quote? If you discount the subjectivity of all game criticism, then it would render the objective of defining a "good" sequel, or indeed a "good" game entirely pointless.
Now we hit on the real problem: rich alumni who never really appreciated the value of an education.
Who said they didn't appreciate the value of an education? If they didn't, they obviously wouldn't donate any money to the university at large. And anyway, most people appreciate the value of an education these days. Look at all the students with outstanding student loans. They appreciate the value of an education because they know how much it's costing them. Besides, beyond the drinking, the parties and the sports, I think that most people appreciate the value of an education - that is, the money they want to make because they have a degree.
Because it's easier to have people rally around a football, basketball or other team than it is for basically anything else you can think of. This is especially true in universities that aren't specifically technical or liberal arts and/or aren't Ivy League schools whose primary selling point is academics. You're less likely to get thousands of people to come to a poetry slam or robotics competition than to see Michigan State trounce Ohio State on the gridiron.
And I don't understand why any sensible user would discriminate between browsers solely based on the license. Unless of course, you're of the same frame of mind as Richard Stallman. The truth is, the major web browsers have differences that have little to nothing to do with the availability of their source code. Want guaranteed compatibility? Use IE (closed source). Want a large library of extensions? Use Firefox (open source). Want a simple, no frills, fast browser? Use Chromium (open source). Want a little bit of everything? Use Opera.
Oh yeah, and don't mention about an open source browser being more secure. The closed source Opera has a consistently low number of vulnerabilities according to Secunia. Mind you, I don't actually use Opera these days. The thing easily goes over 100 MB in memory usage just after two tabs and it doesn't seem as stable as it used to be.
Linux users already have Alien Arena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous and Nexuiz, among other FPS games. And the ID Software titles. I doubt they'll miss one more FPS game.
If you don't know what Ron Paul's foreign policy views are, here is a handy summary from his book "Revolution": Leave everybody else alone. Some might call it isolationism. Not sure how well that would work, but if that was our policy, then there obviously wouldn't be much to leak about it.
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I'm guessing they'll only stream the remastered version of the Original Series, which is too bad. Some of the redone visual effects look sorely out of place.
Eh. They should probably sell it to the owners of the Phoenix Suns NBA team. They'll just redirect it to their official website.
I rarely get involved in deletion debates these days. The problem is the whole concept of "notability" is definitely screwed up. Notability on Wikipedia is supposed to be objectively decided, but that runs contrary to establishing notability in the first place. To some an article on a certain topic might be important, but other people it might be something that should be deleted.
Normally this is where editorial supervision would come into play. For better or for worse, this is how it works in professional publications. People higher up decide what gets put into the book, what makes the newspaper. But there's no editorial hierarchy on Wikipedia, so that's out. So we're forced to adhere to some vague notion of notability, which basically states that anything that's mentioned a few times on the Internet is notable, nevermind old topics that might only have print sources that may or may not exist.
But by maintaining Wikipedia's facade of "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit", they've refused to do things that would be the first steps in any large professional writing project. That is, relying on a set of topic experts, quality copyeditors, fact checkers and researchers and professional level editorial staff that decides what's in and what's out. Citizendium has tried to establish such a system, but as they're finding out it's hard to get quality editors to do this stuff for free. It's far easier to do what Wikipedia does and let anyone whose passions outweigh their expertise and ability to contribute on a short leash.
The result? An encyclopedia that's quite imbalanced. E.g. we get tons of people weighing in on the debate for the notability of an Internet games review site, and far less people working on stuff like Mathematics and Health-related topics, stuff people get paid top dollar for their expertise on, but wouldn't necessarily write about for their own leisure. If you look at the featured articles, you'll see that there's lots of articles on pop culture stuff, recreation and warfare (stuff people like to write about for fun), but far less on seemingly cornerstone topics like Education, Math, Healthcare and Chemistry.
Sounds familiar...
Holy crap those responses in his thread are cuntish. The guy comes along, builds a reasonable rig for under a grand that looks nice and has 3 screens and they shit all over him with retarded comments like "nnnthis won't runn Rage onn super max duper settinnngs-hai". Half of the responses even openly admit to not reading his entire post. Never mind that most new games don't even take full advantage of new PC hardware anyway, being as they are built for the console lowest common denominator. As someone who recently (about 8 months ago) built his own 'gaming' rig for under a grand I certainly sympathise with his efforts.
Yeah, everybody took the original post out of context. The guy's point was that you could build a good gaming PC for much less than a cost of an iMac. And the only reason the games wouldn't run on the three screens was because he didn't buy the $100 adapter (which still would have kept the price less than the price of most iMacs).
They're not comparable. MythTV is a PVR, whereas Boxee is primarily a streaming client/movie file organizer. Myth is more comparable to another XBMC fork, MediaPortal, which aims to add PVR functionality to the XBMC core.
I don't know why this was modded as flamebait. It's a sound, rational observation. Apple updates their PC lines about once a year and by that time, the tech they feature in their refresh has been on the market for months. It's not a necessarily a bad thing either - by the time Apple starts production, most of the early problems have been ironed out. And Apple is able to cram it all into a pretty looking, unibody case with an integrated, sharp display.
Funny. If anything, VoA has been criticized for not being American enough. The running gag is that throughout its existence, VoA hadn't even created an English language version of its broadcast. Just imagine if the BBC broadcasted programs in anything but English...
I've never found tool-assisted speedruns entertaining at all. Legit speedrun videos themselves are kind of boring, but at least they're for real. It's no different than going through a game with invincibility, or infinite time. You're changing the rules of the game - like giving yourself as many mulligans as you want in golf. Or editing out all the frames in which you missed a couple of pins in bowling to make it look like you got a 300. And the worst part is that sometime videos aren't marked as tool-assisted, so it leaves doubt as to whether some true speed runs were assisted or not.
Eh. Buy the business versions of computers instead. They're comparable in price to their home equivalents, and lack the trialware.
I still remember when I got my first computer though. There were some demos preinstalled, but there were also full versions of software as well on CDs - a few games, Encarta, etc. Plus, it came with a thick book with detailed technical descriptions of the computer (keep in mind this was a "home user" system) that was comparable to a textbook. Good stuff.
I'm guessing the same fear inducing forces that makes folks shy away from food irradiation will take hold here. Stem cell research gets a lot of attention, even if governments aren't likely to fund it either. But research into synthesizing a food source is just as important as stem cell research, if not more important, considering what a huge issue world hunger is today.
Geek Culture will obviously never be popular. At least not as long as folks like the incorrigible Patton Oswalt are the standard bearers for it.
This might be real holography, but the illusory effect from the video game Time Traveler is still more impressive at this point.
And the technical aspcets of the PSP were also beyond any other similar device of its generation and yet it fall behind in sales to the NDS in every market. Is not about the power of the hardware, is about the entertainment that brings the games.
If it was about the entertainment, then NDS wouldn't be doing so well either. Most of the titles are shovelware games, primarily based on TV shows and other properties. But the DS is very popular among kids. The problem with the PSP was that it tried to provide the exact same experience as a home console on a handheld, so what you ended up with were watered down home console games. At least with the DS, you have that touch screen that provides for some game features unique to that product.
This is true. Part of what makes video games fun is that with one button press, you can jump 10 feet in the air, make a headshot from 30 yards away and do all kinds of stuff you couldn't do in real life. These motion control hacks are interesting, but also clunky and weird - extend your left foot to run? Um... okay. That kinds of defeats the purpose of motion control since your gestures have little or nothing to do with what your onscreen character does. Motion controls are best (and I use that term loosely) when how you move is directly translated on the screen. Like in the Mocap boxing arcade game - you lean left, your character leans left. You punch, your character punches. Either you have motion controls that directly translate to the screen like those, or you just stick with joystick/analog stick/digital pad and buttons (preferably the latter).
Not surprisingly, they left out the ones from old 1940s serials. Everybody overlooks those.
i call prior art, suing wolfenstein with a 2002 patent? last time i checked 1992 happened before 2002.
They're probably talking about the 2009 game, which has online multiplayer.
"The effort of using machines to mimic the human mind has always struck me as rather silly: I'd rather use them to mimic something better." - E.W. Dijkstra
Sorry, but this article is crap. It just mentions a few things without proper reasoning. What makes a good sequel is not an exact science, trying to reason about it in a generic what is just unfounded.
Lesson 1: Starcraft 2 took a long time, and it's considered to be a good sequel. Same for Half Life 2. Development time is a dumb reason. Does it matter is a sequel needs 6 years of development, or simply 3 but still released 6 years after the original?
Lesson 2: The gamebryo engine was also used by Morrowind, and Oblivion before it was used for Fallout 3. A lot of games use the same engine, and it generally leads to better software, but it has nothing to do with game quality. Story and game content don't have much to do with the engine.
Lesson 3: BioShock 2 was made by a completely different studio, not just a different lead desginer. StarCraft 2 and Diablo 2 both had different lead desginers. There are also numerous examples of bad sequels that had the same lead designer.
Lesson 4: Yes... obviously. But what exactly was that, people can tell you that the change you made is a bad one, but they can't beforehand tell you what they liked and why? Also, not everybody is the same. Putting the exact game out doesn't result in a good sequel either.
Lesson 5: Don't evolve too much? What's too much? Also, doesn't have some overlap of lesson 4?
Lesson 6: Improve everything? But, doesn't that violate lessen 4 and 5?
But the worst part of the whole article, it doesn't even mention what defines a good sequel. He uses 4% difference in review score as listed by Metacritics. But reviews are not objective, review scores of games are also influenced by other games that were release before it. and of course, the reviews are generally written by different people, and different people tend to judge differently.
Actually, while the article isn't perfect, it does make some good points.
For Lesson 1, the writer didn't say that a long development process means a bad sequel. Rather, he meant that expectations are set higher, sometimes almost impossibly high. So even if you come up with a quality game like GT5, it will never meet the expectations people hold. As for Starcraft 2, you really have to go back to when the game was first announced, not the time between the last game and the sequel. No one has expectations for a sequel unless one is announced. GT5 has been in pipeline for about five years, while Starcraft 2 about three.
The game engine can mean a lot for the development of a game. Look at Duke Nukem Forever. It switched engines so many times because there were all these great games powered by more advanced engines. You don't want release a game with an outdated engine - it makes a game look dated compared to similar games.
As for Lesson 3, well duh, different studio, different designer. You can't underestimate the importance of a lead designer, although that alone doesn't guarantee a good sequel (remember the last King's Quest game?). But retaining the lead designer is still pretty important. Ninja Gaiden II was dumbed down when Itagaki left Team Ninja and the article rightly points out DMC and Mikami.
Lesson 4 is a pretty bad example since Force Unleashed wasn't good to begin with. And no one said anything about "putting the exact same game out." There's also a decent example for Lesson 5.
Not sure where the gripe is for lesson 6. Just because you improve everything, doesn't mean you change everything as well.
Uh... the whole article defines a good sequel - that is, a game with all those characteristics. Yes, quoting Metacritic is foolish. But then again, who else can you quote? If you discount the subjectivity of all game criticism, then it would render the objective of defining a "good" sequel, or indeed a "good" game entirely pointless.
Nobody values sewers until they stop working.
Comparing 4Chan favorably to sewers is a fallacy. Sewers are actually useful. And they have less crap in them.
Now we hit on the real problem: rich alumni who never really appreciated the value of an education.
Who said they didn't appreciate the value of an education? If they didn't, they obviously wouldn't donate any money to the university at large. And anyway, most people appreciate the value of an education these days. Look at all the students with outstanding student loans. They appreciate the value of an education because they know how much it's costing them. Besides, beyond the drinking, the parties and the sports, I think that most people appreciate the value of an education - that is, the money they want to make because they have a degree.
Because it's easier to have people rally around a football, basketball or other team than it is for basically anything else you can think of. This is especially true in universities that aren't specifically technical or liberal arts and/or aren't Ivy League schools whose primary selling point is academics. You're less likely to get thousands of people to come to a poetry slam or robotics competition than to see Michigan State trounce Ohio State on the gridiron.
And I don't understand why any sensible user would discriminate between browsers solely based on the license. Unless of course, you're of the same frame of mind as Richard Stallman. The truth is, the major web browsers have differences that have little to nothing to do with the availability of their source code. Want guaranteed compatibility? Use IE (closed source). Want a large library of extensions? Use Firefox (open source). Want a simple, no frills, fast browser? Use Chromium (open source). Want a little bit of everything? Use Opera.
Oh yeah, and don't mention about an open source browser being more secure. The closed source Opera has a consistently low number of vulnerabilities according to Secunia. Mind you, I don't actually use Opera these days. The thing easily goes over 100 MB in memory usage just after two tabs and it doesn't seem as stable as it used to be.
Linux users already have Alien Arena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous and Nexuiz, among other FPS games. And the ID Software titles. I doubt they'll miss one more FPS game.
If you don't know what Ron Paul's foreign policy views are, here is a handy summary from his book "Revolution": Leave everybody else alone. Some might call it isolationism. Not sure how well that would work, but if that was our policy, then there obviously wouldn't be much to leak about it.