Surely the very first first-person shooter is influential. It is what gives game developers a framework or the idea for creating news games based on that original concept. Not only was Midi Maze the first (to my knowledge) in 1987, it was deathmatch. It even came with a map editor! Just because this game was deployed in a niche market doesn't mean game developers were not exposed to it. Far from it.
This must be a list of the favorite games of the reviewer. How could they leave out Midi Maze as one of the first, if not the first, networked first-person shooter? Deathmatch and only deathmatch, against smiley faces no less. It predates Wolfenstein by 5 years! It does not even show up on their list of games that pre-date Doom!
OK, Midi Maze was on the Atari ST, but we're talking about the 15 most influential games, not most influential DOS/Windows games. If you want a good list, use CNet's Hall of Game Innovation list.
That web site is using locked typeface. At high rez, the type is unreadable and the designer has chosen not to let me resize it. That defies the purpose of HTML and cost them another reader.
Thin, geeky arms are a little less geeky if they have to exercise once in a while.
I grew up with a push mower and bought one when I bought my first house. They kick ass, especially if you're into midnight mowing because they're so quiet. They can be found in any decent hardware store -- hardly a dead technology.
In contrast, the days of the gas mower are numbered - to be replaced by cleaner, quieter electric mowers. Me, I'll take free, healthy human-power over expensive, polluting gasoline any day.
I would gladly pay 2 cents to read the article immediately via an efficient micropayment system. However, I will not waste 2 to 5 minutes signing up to read the article for free. My time is more valuable than that.
The toolbar needs some refining. One big issue is that the Toolbar search results come up on a regular Google page that also contains a search box. If the user conducts another search, mistakenly (or by habit) using the web-based search box, none of the toolbar features work on that search query. A custom version of Google is needed to integrate with the toolbar.
Google is currently hiring for a usability analyst. Hopefully they'll smooth out the rough edges.
California's web sites need work. The state is in the middle of a power crunch, issuing a Stage 3 alert Thursday evening (you know, the dire warning before they commence "rolling blackouts").
So, how does a conscientious citizen find out more from its government? Let me count the ways:
Visit the state's graphics heavy behemoth of a web site. Clicking on 'Emergency Services' on the front page sends you to earthquake information. Sorry. No electricity warnings easily found.
Turn to newspapers to learn that the person in charge of this issue is the 'Independent System Operator.' (And no, the ISO is probably not a computer geek.)
Return to the web site and search for the job title. Aha, the first search result takes you to the California ISO web site. Of course the ISO's front page doesn't describe what the ISO does or even explain what 'ISO' stands for.
Surely for a stage three alert the ISO would put a big alert message on its front page. Well, you thought wrong.
Muddling through its murky interface you find news releases. Ahh, but of course they're all posted as PDF files. The logic must be that only people with PDF readers are energy hogs and they of course enjoy using plug-ins to read plain text documents.
The sad thing is that the average person probably gave up at the state's front page. It's also sad for me because the newspaper reports said only 85% of the state is affected. I wanted to find a map or listing on the web (you know, where people go for more information) to see if I live within that 85% region.
Who wins in all of this? The news media wins by our continued reliance on them. State governments do not understand that they now control their own broadcast medium.
Re:See the video -- it's pretty good
on
Longitude
·
· Score: 1
Here's a better link about A&E's movie. Interviews, timeline and behind-the-scenes clips.
The title of my new book: "'Will you take care of my website?' and other questions of life in the digital age."
I've had the honor of caretaking a web site of a writer who died in a car accident last year. The family doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the technical issues or the thought of this information floating around forever. The reality is that you keep the site running a year or two until the domain registration expires and then you archive the files into cold storage. Your digital self isn't as permanent as you might want to think.
Californians like outsiders. In the Valley they just don't like "dot-commers."
You have to move to Portland, Oregon to see some real outsider prejudice. I interviewed in Portland and noted a disgusting newscast about a man who fell off a cliff at a state park. The newscaster made specific mention that the man had recently moved from California, as if that were pertinent. e.g., he implied Californians are stupid, as if Californians are the only people who do stupid things (in this case, ignoring a posted warning and climbing over a protective railing).
Before: Users were forced to pay regular fees in the name of "upgrades." Users had to upgrade so that their documents were truly compatible for other people using the latest version of the software.
Now: Users are forced to pay regular fees in the name of "subscriptions."
Either way: Users shell out money every 12 to 16 months to continue using the same product.
My prediction: Microsoft's subscription plan will open opportunities for competing products that cost far less and can be owned. Companies buy into the idea of upgrades, but far fewer will stomach the idea of losing ownership (autonomy) over their software infrastructure.
How much 'innovation' is necessary? The first version of Word for Win95 still does everything I need it to do. The vast majority of users don't need to upgrade for new 'features' and don't need subscriptions.
The non-clickable border around the Personal Toolbar is much tighter than in Netscape 4. This creates a much smaller click zone, e.g., worse usability.
The navigation toolbar (back/foward/reload) cannot be customized (or at least the option was not immediately obvious).
I've been a diehard Netscape user until 2 weeks ago when I finally switched to IE 5.5. These options and IE's advanced options for configuring 'trusted sites' makes me ashamed Netscape 6 turned out to be this bad.
That reminds me of a recent web design interview at a moderately sized bank chain. The job announcement was prepared by Human Resources and specified that the web designer needed experience with a 10-key adding machine, algebra and geometry, and a lot of other weirdness.
At the interview, I was not asked a single question pertaining to web design or my skills! (example: "Where do you see the Internet in five years?") The interviewer - a techie himself - was fumbling for questions. Who knows if he even looked at my portfolio. I didn't have to turn them down, because they hired internally - a programmer with no design experience. Go figure.
And this story is different from what we heard in July how? Oh, except for 5 months passing an no substantive update as to how the people with these devices have turned out.
I had this argument at my school newspaper 5 years ago with the newspaper's advisor. I went apeshit. This was a time when using the word "e-mail" required you to explain what you meant by it. Anyone coming from the usenet or BBS scene remembers clearly that "email" has no hyphen.
Every time I wrote a story I wrote "email" in defiance and let the editor "correct" it. To me it was a sign of the continued butchering of our language by the news media (like "hacker" but on a smaller scale).
The Associated Press stylebook (the Bible for journalists) did not address the issue, but a couple years later decided "e-mail" was correct. I now use "e-mail" to fit in, just like how I've stopped trying to use the word "hacker" correctly.
If language evolution is any indicator, in about 10 years we will see the hyphen disappear and we'll be back to the pure form of the word.
What worries me is these nutjobs who spell it "eMail." They're mental.
There was a time when new employees underwent month(s) of training for their new jobs. Today, employers expected you to know everything necessary to jump in and begin work immediately, or perhaps with a one week orientation.
By flooding the market with IT workers and floating the idea that the IT market has a huge shortage, the industry assures itself a steady crop of new, young employees (with such variety of skills that training isn't needed).
IT workers are sheep. If your dreams of getting rich quick from an IPO have faded, perhaps its time to work for an established, profitable company that will still be here in 5, 10, or 15 years.
You've been duped by the most easily duped people in the world - journalists.
This is what industrialized countries do. They allow immigrant workers to enter the country temporarily to fill needed jobs, then ship them out when the work emergency is over, or before the immigrants get too settled and ready to make a case for permanent residency. Watch Drachenfutter and drown your sorrows.
Techie nerds who skip college are lonely.
Techie nerds who attend college see some action and graduate with a girlfriend / boyfriend / spouse.
The 1% of techies who are players are the exception.
For most nerds their closest friend is their right hand (left hand?).
The biggest market for Internet appliances is not among offline users. Us existing users are the ones hungry for 'Internet everywhere.' Sell inexpensive appliance hardware (even just an e-mail gadget w/keyboard) that works with any ISP and I'll buy several for myself, and a bunch for my disconnected family members.
Buying an appliance that only works with one service provider (that will be out of business a year from now) is throwing money away.
Reverse look-up of phone numbers isn't new. You used to be able to (maybe still can?) look through a printed reverse look-up phone book at a city or county government office. They were a tool for journalists, but probably pretty inaccurate with people moving and whatnot.
Your premise is mistaken. It's not exactly difficult to accomodate both browsers for 97 percent of what's done on web sites. If the designers are starting with the requisite knowledge, it's no big deal. If the designers have to learn where the kinks are, then yeah, I imagine a design company would have trouble on its hands.
Statistics mean squat. The guy played a good robot in one action flick, and has had a ton of mediocre bits since them. Oh yeah, The Faculty was a real gem. Acting in the movies is not the same as acting on TV -- hence your observation about Duchovny.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely the very first first-person shooter is influential. It is what gives game developers a framework or the idea for creating news games based on that original concept. Not only was Midi Maze the first (to my knowledge) in 1987, it was deathmatch. It even came with a map editor! Just because this game was deployed in a niche market doesn't mean game developers were not exposed to it. Far from it.
OK, Midi Maze was on the Atari ST, but we're talking about the 15 most influential games, not most influential DOS/Windows games. If you want a good list, use CNet's Hall of Game Innovation list.
That web site is using locked typeface. At high rez, the type is unreadable and the designer has chosen not to let me resize it. That defies the purpose of HTML and cost them another reader.
I grew up with a push mower and bought one when I bought my first house. They kick ass, especially if you're into midnight mowing because they're so quiet. They can be found in any decent hardware store -- hardly a dead technology.
In contrast, the days of the gas mower are numbered - to be replaced by cleaner, quieter electric mowers. Me, I'll take free, healthy human-power over expensive, polluting gasoline any day.
I would gladly pay 2 cents to read the article immediately via an efficient micropayment system. However, I will not waste 2 to 5 minutes signing up to read the article for free. My time is more valuable than that.
Google is currently hiring for a usability analyst. Hopefully they'll smooth out the rough edges.
- Visit the state's graphics heavy behemoth of a web site. Clicking on 'Emergency Services' on the front page sends you to earthquake information. Sorry. No electricity warnings easily found.
- Turn to newspapers to learn that the person in charge of this issue is the 'Independent System Operator.' (And no, the ISO is probably not a computer geek.)
- Return to the web site and search for the job title. Aha, the first search result takes you to the California ISO web site. Of course the ISO's front page doesn't describe what the ISO does or even explain what 'ISO' stands for.
- Surely for a stage three alert the ISO would put a big alert message on its front page. Well, you thought wrong.
- Muddling through its murky interface you find news releases. Ahh, but of course they're all posted as PDF files. The logic must be that only people with PDF readers are energy hogs and they of course enjoy using plug-ins to read plain text documents.
The sad thing is that the average person probably gave up at the state's front page. It's also sad for me because the newspaper reports said only 85% of the state is affected. I wanted to find a map or listing on the web (you know, where people go for more information) to see if I live within that 85% region.Who wins in all of this? The news media wins by our continued reliance on them. State governments do not understand that they now control their own broadcast medium.
Here's a better link about A&E's movie. Interviews, timeline and behind-the-scenes clips.
Newspaper publishers send their editions off to be recorded on microfiche, which are then distributed to local libraries.
I've had the honor of caretaking a web site of a writer who died in a car accident last year. The family doesn't want the hassle of dealing with the technical issues or the thought of this information floating around forever. The reality is that you keep the site running a year or two until the domain registration expires and then you archive the files into cold storage. Your digital self isn't as permanent as you might want to think.
FYI, Mike's web site: http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/, for the moment.
You have to move to Portland, Oregon to see some real outsider prejudice. I interviewed in Portland and noted a disgusting newscast about a man who fell off a cliff at a state park. The newscaster made specific mention that the man had recently moved from California, as if that were pertinent. e.g., he implied Californians are stupid, as if Californians are the only people who do stupid things (in this case, ignoring a posted warning and climbing over a protective railing).
Before: Users were forced to pay regular fees in the name of "upgrades." Users had to upgrade so that their documents were truly compatible for other people using the latest version of the software.
Now: Users are forced to pay regular fees in the name of "subscriptions."
Either way: Users shell out money every 12 to 16 months to continue using the same product.
My prediction: Microsoft's subscription plan will open opportunities for competing products that cost far less and can be owned. Companies buy into the idea of upgrades, but far fewer will stomach the idea of losing ownership (autonomy) over their software infrastructure.
How much 'innovation' is necessary? The first version of Word for Win95 still does everything I need it to do. The vast majority of users don't need to upgrade for new 'features' and don't need subscriptions.
- The non-clickable border around the Personal Toolbar is much tighter than in Netscape 4. This creates a much smaller click zone, e.g., worse usability.
- The navigation toolbar (back/foward/reload) cannot be customized (or at least the option was not immediately obvious).
I've been a diehard Netscape user until 2 weeks ago when I finally switched to IE 5.5. These options and IE's advanced options for configuring 'trusted sites' makes me ashamed Netscape 6 turned out to be this bad.This is why NIC makes sense. I've got a web terminal dialing up to my ISP even if the manufacturer goes under.
At the interview, I was not asked a single question pertaining to web design or my skills! (example: "Where do you see the Internet in five years?") The interviewer - a techie himself - was fumbling for questions. Who knows if he even looked at my portfolio. I didn't have to turn them down, because they hired internally - a programmer with no design experience. Go figure.
And this story is different from what we heard in July how? Oh, except for 5 months passing an no substantive update as to how the people with these devices have turned out.
Every time I wrote a story I wrote "email" in defiance and let the editor "correct" it. To me it was a sign of the continued butchering of our language by the news media (like "hacker" but on a smaller scale).
The Associated Press stylebook (the Bible for journalists) did not address the issue, but a couple years later decided "e-mail" was correct. I now use "e-mail" to fit in, just like how I've stopped trying to use the word "hacker" correctly.
If language evolution is any indicator, in about 10 years we will see the hyphen disappear and we'll be back to the pure form of the word.
What worries me is these nutjobs who spell it "eMail." They're mental.
There was a time when new employees underwent month(s) of training for their new jobs. Today, employers expected you to know everything necessary to jump in and begin work immediately, or perhaps with a one week orientation.
By flooding the market with IT workers and floating the idea that the IT market has a huge shortage, the industry assures itself a steady crop of new, young employees (with such variety of skills that training isn't needed).
IT workers are sheep. If your dreams of getting rich quick from an IPO have faded, perhaps its time to work for an established, profitable company that will still be here in 5, 10, or 15 years.
You've been duped by the most easily duped people in the world - journalists.
This is what industrialized countries do. They allow immigrant workers to enter the country temporarily to fill needed jobs, then ship them out when the work emergency is over, or before the immigrants get too settled and ready to make a case for permanent residency. Watch Drachenfutter and drown your sorrows.
Could you make my day any worse with this news? I've had it! I'm becoming a brick layer.
Techie nerds who skip college are lonely. Techie nerds who attend college see some action and graduate with a girlfriend / boyfriend / spouse. The 1% of techies who are players are the exception. For most nerds their closest friend is their right hand (left hand?).
Buying an appliance that only works with one service provider (that will be out of business a year from now) is throwing money away.
Reverse look-up of phone numbers isn't new. You used to be able to (maybe still can?) look through a printed reverse look-up phone book at a city or county government office. They were a tool for journalists, but probably pretty inaccurate with people moving and whatnot.
Your premise is mistaken. It's not exactly difficult to accomodate both browsers for 97 percent of what's done on web sites. If the designers are starting with the requisite knowledge, it's no big deal. If the designers have to learn where the kinks are, then yeah, I imagine a design company would have trouble on its hands.
Statistics mean squat. The guy played a good robot in one action flick, and has had a ton of mediocre bits since them. Oh yeah, The Faculty was a real gem. Acting in the movies is not the same as acting on TV -- hence your observation about Duchovny.