Prediction: George will continue his loopy devotion to lame "computer graphics as movies" dream through Episode 3. Then, five years later, he'll have an epiphany and realize that he lost sight of what Star Wars was about. He'll vow to do episodes 7-9 after all, using only real actors.
(Much like Spielberg realizing how badly Temple of Doom sucked, and apologizing to his fans via The Last Crusade.)
Many of the action scenes in Episode 1 were lame because of the reliance on computer animation. (For example, the massive battlefield scene was a big disappointment. It would have been epic if populated with real people.)
George Lucas seems to think the criticism he gets is because of his annoying Jar Jar character. Nope. The real issue is that if you're going to use artificial reality, the audience does not want to be able to tell it's artificial. All throughout Episode 1 we're hit over the head with the fact that much of what we're seeing is fake.
George is quickly becoming the poster child for bad use of computer animation.
Tracer's micro-gyroscope technology senses the smallest movements of your head
They say it gives mouse control to people with muscular dystrophy. Hmmm, let's look at the definition of muscular dystrophy:
Any of a group of progressive muscle disorders caused by a defect in one or more genes that control muscle function and characterized by gradual irreversible wasting of skeletal muscle.
It stands to reason such a person might have problems with a mouse that picks up even the slightest head movement.
My fond memory: playing Dungeon Master for several hours, then walking out of my room and encountering my brother in the hallway. My first impulse was to throw a club at him.
I'm watching the competition on cable right now. Apparently NASA thinks people who use the web don't watch TV, so there's no reason to mention on the web site about its broadcast availability. Oh well.
On the NASA cable channel we get to see all matter of taped video from space shuttle missions. And yet, when cool things like a NASA robot fight come up, we have to watch on a lousy Internet stream.
The same goes for those balloons they send up during meteor showers. Oooh, we can watch the meteors from a live webcast... but the thought of broadcasting the feed on cable television is apparently too tacky. Nevermind that cable reaches more people and with better visual clarity.
Selling new games is a bust because they're sold everywhere online and offline.
Selling old games is a bust because they're sold extensively on Ebay, etc.
People who like old games would go to an arcade. MAME does not compare to the genuine experience. The facility would however have to be billed as a comprehensive arcade museum or be mixed with new games.
Users are not at a web site to view ads. Ads are visual clutter.
The ads are very often deceptive or unclear. When I click on the bikini-clad babe, I'll end up at a hardware manufacturer instead of a flesh site. @#$%^&*!;-)
Clicking the ad interrupts what you were doing, sends you to a slow-loading unfocused page that you can't back out of because of a page forwarding sequence the advertiser created. (Or so it seems most of the time.)
The Solution?
Have ads identify the advertiser and its product immediately.
On the linked page, explain the product and pricing in simple terms without marketing-speak. If I don't understand your product in 7 seconds, forget you!
On the linked page, do not use extensive graphics. Have the damn thing load within 10 seconds on a 28.8 connection.
On the linked page, have a very clear link at the top and bottom of the page that takes the user back to where they were before they clicked the banner.
Advertisers have caused this mess by their trickster ways. They dug their own grave. All banner advertising has to change in order for users to change their expectations and give advertising credibility. If we must see ads, we want to understand and digest them quickly as we do all other web content.
Users do not know how to download and install software.
The new version is too long a download.
Users who do download and install immediately notice how much longer the new browser takes to load. Many users do not have fast PCs and will not upgrade their hardware to make their browser happy.
Users saw nothing wrong with their old browser. More complex page layouts and newer versions of Flash to produce flashier animations are not considered advancements.
Some users revert to their old browser because it's faster and more familiar.
Browser makers do not understand users. Netscape 6 is a prime example of how out-of-touch they are with the average user.
Is it possible all these people wanting to regulate our games just have never experienced a bout of good old fashioned blood lust? Perhaps they are like virgins who extoll the virtues of a pious life until their 37th birthday when then explode in a weekend marathon of sex with prostitutes, catching an array of sexually transmitted diseases. Maybe it's safer to buy Billy a box of condoms, a copy of Unreal Tournament, and sit him down for a heart-to-heart before letting him explore his nature in a safe and controlled environment.
Keep in mind that "accessible" does not mean "easy to use." Even W3C-compliant accessible pages are difficult to navigate for blind users because every aspect of the browsing experience is different than a sighted person. A site deemed "accessible" is still designed by and for the sighted user.
After state and federal sites are made accessible, disabled users will want more (as they should) because of how many services will be delivered online. Vision impaired users, in particular, will want sites tailored to the hardware and software and distinctly different style of navigation they must use. Either the W3C standards will change to somehow radically change the makeup of pages on-the-fly for blind users, or another Jakob Nielsen will rise to power and make a lot of money.
Some designers welcome this monstrous retrofit project. For example, universities traditionally provide meager funding for web site development. Although this law does not apply to them, it is a harbinger for things to come. Such non-committal organizations will be forced to throw resources at web development to accommodate disabled access, or seriously reduce the site of their sites. The days of relying on a design infrastructure consisting of students, interested faculty and secretaries are numbered.
Why is it that popular web sites consolidate when they're bought out? Two sites may provide similar services, but serve distinctly different types of users, especially in terms of "look and feel." When a site is eaten up by another, the company simply loses audience share and revenue. If the lost site was not profitable, then why did you acquire it? If it was profitable, why did you abandon your established users? Did you really think they would move to your other property simply because pointed the old URL to your preferred URL? Silly Rabbit!
Perhaps this is a sign of a greater shift in importance from pure memory to analytical skills. The teaching world seems by and large to have followed that.
Let's not forget that cultures that predate written language are documented as having extraordinary memories (for example, much of the Old Testament was passed down through generations by memory before it was finally written down). Our minds got rewired when we formed language, when we began writing, etc. So, now that external information storage is so easy to come by, it's natural that our brains will be less trained to handle this aspect of our lives.
You know, I enjoy Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges. I guess I shouldn't because their films have already been shown in the theatres and rehashed on video and cable television. Surely there is no value in them anymore.
Er, so when an absurdity such as the patent office is brought up on/., why wouldn't users refresh the topic with more fun comments? Could it be that the topic is still funny after these long several months?
First, about productivity... you've probably never lived your life without television, and so have no frame of reference to base your conclusions. You simply cannot truly conceive of what your life is like without its presence.
Second, watching TV, medically speaking, is a mentally passive activity. Look at the research. You may be laughing or crying, but your brain isn't doin' a whole lot. Hours upon hours of a whole lot of nuthin'.
Third, your hourly wage was merely an example to illustrate that your time *is* worth something. You present many 'straw man' arguments.
Fourth, you may "have it all, plus TV" but I have more of "it" because I have none of TV. It's the "it" that I value more than TV.
Go without TV for one week, doing more with those extra hours than just sitting on your couch, and then we'll have something to talk about.
You miss the point. Whether you're watching intelligent programming or raunchy trash, you are spending your time sitting in front of a glowing box doing nothing productive. If you need a half hour comedy to relax after a busy day, fine. But spending an hour or more staring at an object in your living room is a waste of time IMHO.
Watching TV is the easy out because it requires nothing of you except your presence. Your brain zones out, unless you're watching something that requires active thought (perhaps a university course on a special cable channel or somesuch).
I don't feel like I'm missing anything. TV shows come and go. They will always come and go. My life will come and go. You have to ask yourself what's important.
How much does your employer pay you per hour? How much is your time really worth? I want to consciously enjoy my time before I'm gone. As you approach things in life, ask yourself whether doing this or doing that will be worth the time it steals from you.
Count up how many hours per week you spend watching TV and extrapolate that out to see how much time you'll spend over your lifetime. Boy, by the time I'm 75 I'll be happy I spent those hundreds of thousands of hours doing other things - spending time with family, spending time with friends, volunteering on community projects, hobbies, climbing mountains, etc. Basically I'll be able to look over my life and find a treasure trove of experiences, none of which involve memorable TV moments. My life, my heritage, my culture, is not on television.
Go without TV for one week as a test. Find other things to do with your time. I'll bet you don't know what to do with yourself. Go without it long enough and you'll find cool new things.
You guys still watch TV? I thought I'd get out of touch with society after quiting cold turkey, but surprisingly few of my daily conversations revolve around TV programs. It's wonderful to have my life back again with time to do more productive and interesting things.
and the government is doing nothing to check their power scramble.
What power scramble? They already have the power! Say what you will about Ralph Nader, but he's got the corporate issue nailed solid. They hold all the keys.
Slashdot Mirror
(Much like Spielberg realizing how badly Temple of Doom sucked, and apologizing to his fans via The Last Crusade.)
George Lucas seems to think the criticism he gets is because of his annoying Jar Jar character. Nope. The real issue is that if you're going to use artificial reality, the audience does not want to be able to tell it's artificial. All throughout Episode 1 we're hit over the head with the fact that much of what we're seeing is fake.
George is quickly becoming the poster child for bad use of computer animation.
They say it gives mouse control to people with muscular dystrophy. Hmmm, let's look at the definition of muscular dystrophy:
Any of a group of progressive muscle disorders caused by a defect in one or more genes that control muscle function and characterized by gradual irreversible wasting of skeletal muscle.
It stands to reason such a person might have problems with a mouse that picks up even the slightest head movement.
They don't list game, play or kill among the recommended uses.
My fond memory: playing Dungeon Master for several hours, then walking out of my room and encountering my brother in the hallway. My first impulse was to throw a club at him.
I'm watching the competition on cable right now. Apparently NASA thinks people who use the web don't watch TV, so there's no reason to mention on the web site about its broadcast availability. Oh well.
The same goes for those balloons they send up during meteor showers. Oooh, we can watch the meteors from a live webcast... but the thought of broadcasting the feed on cable television is apparently too tacky. Nevermind that cable reaches more people and with better visual clarity.
Yeesh. I'll stick with BattleBots.
Selling old games is a bust because they're sold extensively on Ebay, etc.
People who like old games would go to an arcade. MAME does not compare to the genuine experience. The facility would however have to be billed as a comprehensive arcade museum or be mixed with new games.
- Users are not at a web site to view ads. Ads are visual clutter.
- The ads are very often deceptive or unclear. When I click on the bikini-clad babe, I'll end up at a hardware manufacturer instead of a flesh site. @#$%^&*!
;-)
- Clicking the ad interrupts what you were doing, sends you to a slow-loading unfocused page that you can't back out of because of a page forwarding sequence the advertiser created. (Or so it seems most of the time.)
The Solution?- Have ads identify the advertiser and its product immediately.
- On the linked page, explain the product and pricing in simple terms without marketing-speak. If I don't understand your product in 7 seconds, forget you!
- On the linked page, do not use extensive graphics. Have the damn thing load within 10 seconds on a 28.8 connection.
- On the linked page, have a very clear link at the top and bottom of the page that takes the user back to where they were before they clicked the banner.
Advertisers have caused this mess by their trickster ways. They dug their own grave. All banner advertising has to change in order for users to change their expectations and give advertising credibility. If we must see ads, we want to understand and digest them quickly as we do all other web content.Winning With Data From Network Solutions
Is it possible all these people wanting to regulate our games just have never experienced a bout of good old fashioned blood lust? Perhaps they are like virgins who extoll the virtues of a pious life until their 37th birthday when then explode in a weekend marathon of sex with prostitutes, catching an array of sexually transmitted diseases. Maybe it's safer to buy Billy a box of condoms, a copy of Unreal Tournament, and sit him down for a heart-to-heart before letting him explore his nature in a safe and controlled environment.
After state and federal sites are made accessible, disabled users will want more (as they should) because of how many services will be delivered online. Vision impaired users, in particular, will want sites tailored to the hardware and software and distinctly different style of navigation they must use. Either the W3C standards will change to somehow radically change the makeup of pages on-the-fly for blind users, or another Jakob Nielsen will rise to power and make a lot of money.
Some designers welcome this monstrous retrofit project. For example, universities traditionally provide meager funding for web site development. Although this law does not apply to them, it is a harbinger for things to come. Such non-committal organizations will be forced to throw resources at web development to accommodate disabled access, or seriously reduce the site of their sites. The days of relying on a design infrastructure consisting of students, interested faculty and secretaries are numbered.
Why is it that popular web sites consolidate when they're bought out? Two sites may provide similar services, but serve distinctly different types of users, especially in terms of "look and feel." When a site is eaten up by another, the company simply loses audience share and revenue. If the lost site was not profitable, then why did you acquire it? If it was profitable, why did you abandon your established users? Did you really think they would move to your other property simply because pointed the old URL to your preferred URL? Silly Rabbit!
Let's not forget that cultures that predate written language are documented as having extraordinary memories (for example, much of the Old Testament was passed down through generations by memory before it was finally written down). Our minds got rewired when we formed language, when we began writing, etc. So, now that external information storage is so easy to come by, it's natural that our brains will be less trained to handle this aspect of our lives.
You know, I enjoy Charlie Chaplin and the Three Stooges. I guess I shouldn't because their films have already been shown in the theatres and rehashed on video and cable television. Surely there is no value in them anymore.
Er, so when an absurdity such as the patent office is brought up on /., why wouldn't users refresh the topic with more fun comments? Could it be that the topic is still funny after these long several months?
Users come and go from /. every day. What's the turnover rate? Why assume a topic posted months ago is known by /. users today?
Why couldn't all of this weaponry be blasted out of commission by a radical pacifist organization heaving a hefty electromagnetic pulse?
Also: ABC News says: NASA seeks shuttle escape system. Subhead: 15 Years After Challenger, Designs Come Up Short
NASA's official transcript and a collection of non-official information.
Second, watching TV, medically speaking, is a mentally passive activity. Look at the research. You may be laughing or crying, but your brain isn't doin' a whole lot. Hours upon hours of a whole lot of nuthin'.
Third, your hourly wage was merely an example to illustrate that your time *is* worth something. You present many 'straw man' arguments.
Fourth, you may "have it all, plus TV" but I have more of "it" because I have none of TV. It's the "it" that I value more than TV.
Go without TV for one week, doing more with those extra hours than just sitting on your couch, and then we'll have something to talk about.
Watching TV is the easy out because it requires nothing of you except your presence. Your brain zones out, unless you're watching something that requires active thought (perhaps a university course on a special cable channel or somesuch).
I don't feel like I'm missing anything. TV shows come and go. They will always come and go. My life will come and go. You have to ask yourself what's important.
How much does your employer pay you per hour? How much is your time really worth? I want to consciously enjoy my time before I'm gone. As you approach things in life, ask yourself whether doing this or doing that will be worth the time it steals from you.
Count up how many hours per week you spend watching TV and extrapolate that out to see how much time you'll spend over your lifetime. Boy, by the time I'm 75 I'll be happy I spent those hundreds of thousands of hours doing other things - spending time with family, spending time with friends, volunteering on community projects, hobbies, climbing mountains, etc. Basically I'll be able to look over my life and find a treasure trove of experiences, none of which involve memorable TV moments. My life, my heritage, my culture, is not on television.
Go without TV for one week as a test. Find other things to do with your time. I'll bet you don't know what to do with yourself. Go without it long enough and you'll find cool new things.
You guys still watch TV? I thought I'd get out of touch with society after quiting cold turkey, but surprisingly few of my daily conversations revolve around TV programs. It's wonderful to have my life back again with time to do more productive and interesting things.
What power scramble? They already have the power! Say what you will about Ralph Nader, but he's got the corporate issue nailed solid. They hold all the keys.