Personally I'm a scientist (well, ok, I'm currently looking, but otherwise) and there's a pretty big disconnect between what you're doing. You obviously need lab space to do work in and it's just plain idiotic to have each person working in their own little lab. Each research group, yeah, but not each person. Depending on your lab and what you do people either pick out lab stations or you set up areas based on the work done in them. The thing is, you're not always working in the lab. You need to have an office someplace where you can go and analyze your results. Read journals. Type stuff up. These are generally tasks where having peace and quiet is much more of a bonus. Want to collaborate? Go check and see if someone's in their office or check in the lab.
While I was an undergrad and completely without an office it was frequently a pain in the ass. Sure, it wasn't in any way relevant for me to actually have an office, but you get into little problems with even the most basic things (e.g. nowhere to put your stuff) and trying to work through your notes and figure out just why your experiment keeps failing isn't much fun when you have a loud centrifuge going next to you and your co-workers trying to work on their experiments.
Our grandkids may laugh at us. They will see predictions like the one in this article and laugh in the same way we laugh at the jetpacks-and-flying-cars future of the past.
Laugh at?!? You're the bastard that's holding us all back! The rest of us are rightfully upset that we don't live in a technological wonderland of a future where we all have flying cars and sassy household robots. Whenever someone tries to mock the Roomba in some way I'm taken aback... it's a goddamn robot that cleans your house! People have dreaming of this for decades and now you're bitching about it when it's still in it's infancy, making people think that maybe it's not a good idea... maybe we should just develop holographic mousepads instead.
Stop keeping us down. Right now we're not even doing that well when compared to the glories of a cyberpunk future.
The problem is that sometimes it really helps to have the extra time to develop a situation (not to mention meaning that fans get that many more episodes of a brilliant show cut down in it's prime). Arrested Development uses this significantly to its advantage. It's still a very well written show without a lot of fat, but it will often slowly build up a plot point or refer to a smaller point frequently over time allowing it to build up in the mind of the audience. Smaller runs means the shows tend to be much more focused on a single idea for that one episode creating more of a "the one where foo happens" scenario.
The lack of a laugh track is a significant feature to Arrested Development which I feel is currently (that is, on the weeks they actually choose to show it) the funniest show on American television. Part of the appeal is because it doesn't lower the show to a lowest common denominator prodding you into laughing at obvious points. This allows the subtle jokes to slip past as part of normal conversation and means that actors don't need to stop and pause for a few seconds to let laughter subside. It allows for clever, witty jokes based on wordplay and double-entendres that might easily be missed unless you're paying attention. It's also necessary to the entire documentary-lite feel. Throw in a laugh track and while the show would still be good, it wouldn't be half of what it is now.
The problem is that stores are increasingly unwilling to sell new games. A great deal of shelf space for PC games is devoted to empty boxes for pre-orders and if you don't pre-order most console games then you might be lucky and the store will have ordered one or two copies to put on the shelf. Often many games as recent as 6 months are more or less impossible to find new requiring you to purchase them used. All of this contributes to publishes using smaller print runs and making games that much harder to find in the future.
Take Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. A great game that was still selling strong. While Konami has thankfully recently re-released it a few months ago there were only two options: buy it from a retail store that wants to charge ~$30 for a used title that will not include a manual, box, case, or anything but what is likely a scuffed-up cartridge or try to buy it on eBay and have to compete with the massive problems that are buying on eBay. Experiences vary (I personally have bought a bunch of GBA games on eBay without problems), but in the process of trying to purchase this one title from seemingly reputable sellers (e.g. not some guy from Hong Kong selling it at a rock-bottom price) ended up getting counterfeit copies twice.
The retail stores may not have great margins, but they've moved into a business model where they only want to deal in pre-orders and used games that are frequently overpriced. While I've gotten some very good deals on used games I still feel that the current climate that usually forces the consumer to purchase most titles used is terrible.
The only problem with the so-called "missile shield" is that they're so intent on calling it a shield when it's not. What we really need is to move into giant domed cities. A huge physical shield overheard would protect us from just about anything, including the daily terror that is weather.
You certainly make a valid point, but I can't say I entirely agree. Yes, I can see plenty of Counter-Strike players taking an overly simplistic view of international terrorism, but at the same time plenty of Americans who haven't played it don't have any problems adopting the same viewpoint without much prodding.
While I realized even as I wrote it that, technically, Civilization is bloodless, but unimaginably violent (though, sadly, reflecting only real-world violence) in theme it's never caused me to change my views on things. Do the French possess a supply of oil that I desire? Crush them without mercy! Subjugate their people to my will to feed my expanding empire! Yet at the same time I don't feel that wars are a valid means of settling these disputes. The underhanded, isolationistic tactics that are often necessary would still remain an incorrect way to solve real-world political disputes and do not influence me in any way.
Finally, even though I'm a pacifist real-world guns are still plenty cool. Perhaps it's because I grew up around them, but target shooting (I have the certifications to hunt, but never do, I doubt I could personally shoot an animal let alone gut it myself) is fabulous. Guns of all sorts (handguns, shotguns, fully-automatic assault rifles...) are an absolutely wonderful thing it's just a shame people can't find anything better to do with them than try to shoot them at each other. Maybe we just need a bit more airsoft...
Videogame decreases interest in real violence
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Games Are Porn in Utah
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· Score: 5, Interesting
First off I'd consider myself a pacifist. I may have a decent amount of inner rage, but I'm anti-war, anti-death penalty and generally think that there's little reason to ever hurt people.
Earlier today I was playing Resident Evil 4 on my second run through and became quite disappointed that after shooting enemies in the head they would just fall over dead. Sure I'd accomplished my goal by removing them as a threat, but it was just so lackluster if a perfect headshot from a powerful handgun (maxed out Red9) or shotgun (maxed out Striker) didn't cause their heads to explode in a mass of gore. A bit of violent fireworks to signify a job well done.
A little later I was talking to my girlfriend about this when I realized that when compared to real-world violence video game violence is simply more visceral and exciting. If I were to shoot someone in the head in the real world they'd simply fall over and bleed quite a bit.
Perhaps this is related to years upon years (i.e. since the release of the NES) of playing video games (not necessarily violent or not, I choose games based on their quality, Civilization being my all-time favorite) or maybe it's a result of all sorts of other effects culminating in a constant desire to get more and more out of it, but honestly real world violence isn't in any way exciting. It's simply painful, messy, unpleasant, and good for hurting people. Any claim that kids who enjoy the thrill of seeing a head pop open when hit by an excellent 500 yd shot from a sniper rifle would suddenly love to go out and do it in reality simply don't realize that watching some guy a long ways away fall over really isn't exciting. A good thing for all of us and a bad thing for the military... the only people who actually want kids to go off and shoot people in the head in real life.
Actually when I was working in a call center meetings were the highlight of my week. The actual work was terrible, horrible stuff and any opportunity to get away from it and spend some time sitting around without my every minute being logged and monitored was a blessing.
While I agree that it's hard to use a thumb on the screen in the current design it's also far too small to hold the thing comfortably as it is. If anything making it a bit larger would really go a long way to making it easier to hold and play.
All of the buttons need to be larger, not just the shoulder buttons. At present though it's a literal pain (in my hands) to try to keep my fingers on the shoulder buttons.
The volume slider is terrible. It makes it very hard to make adjustments to the volume and making a small change is more or less impossible.
Glad you enjoy it. Personally I don't care for either of them. I'm merely basing my observations on the fact that everyone I know who likes Stargate (i.e. many of my friends and my girlfriend) don't care for Atlantis. Likewise I've heard very little in favor of it on the Internet. I'm sure there are fans, but they seem to be far fewer in number (reasonable as it is a spin-off).
Well if you look at their current schedule they really don't have very smart people running the show over there.
Most days tend to be 8am-3pm being filled with re-runs of some sort often with only the vaguest sci-fi connection (e.g. Knight Rider). Not re-runs of multiple shows, but re-runs of the same show all day long. Then we get some time for the X-Files, maybe a Stargate SG-1 re-run and a some random crap. They'll usually toss in a movie at night. Sometimes it's something worth seeing (e.g. Stargate, Army of Darkness), but recently it's far more likely to be Dracula 3000 or some piece of dreck that they financed.
The only night of original programming they have is on Fridays when they run 3 shows (currently, though bringing Dr. Who to the US is a smart move): Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica. I'm not certain if they're still running Firefly re-runs on Fridays as well because I have the DVDs.
Of all the money they have to spend (that they don't spend producing some of the absolute best bumps I've ever seen) they funnel into those 3 shows and some absolutely piss-poor movies. Now, I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that almost nobody watches Stargate Atlantis. I can't imagine that anyone watches their movies unless they involve Bruce Campbell in some way (and even then Alien Invasion was beyond me after the first 30 minutes). They need to stop making the crappy movies and instead start seeking some new original programming and not the crappy original shows they've done in the past that nobody watched. While they destroyed Sliders and eventually killed MST3k at least they were trying. Picking up other people's properties seems to be the best they can really do.
That said they are currently working on new shows (at least, according to thefutoncritic.com) including an adaptation of Mike Mignola's Amazing Screw-On Head and a show called Eureka about a town in the Pacific Northwest where the government has been secretly relocating the world's geniuses. Admittedly they have a variety of projects going on, but most are only at the script stage and of the few ordered to pilot most never seem to ever get picked up or even screened. Check the showwatch and devwatch sections at futon critic to see what else they're supposedly working on. At least they're trying.
Go outside? What the hell is this man smoking? It's 40 degrees outside and windy which means it's pretty damn cold. I'd sure as hell like him to tell me why he thinks it's so great outdoors and just what he plans to do once he starts freezing his own ass off out there.
I assure you that when I got mine in the 2nd Generation (ah the old days, back when you had seperate PC and Mac versions) they were pretty well into taking off. Admittedly they weren't as near-ubiquitous as they've become, but they were pretty hard to miss.
I always wondered why remotes went over to using the dock. On the older models the remote plugged directly into the headphone port with the headphones plugging into the remote. Frankly this was very useful since it could also be used as an extension cord for the headphones.
Anyhow, my point is that a better set of jeans (i.e. one with an iPod pocket, not a bunch of useless crap) wouldn't need to be expensive. They could charge more or less the same amount that they already do.
I agree. In my experience Nintendo definitely puts the customer first and I've had nothing but good experiences with their customer service on the few times I've needed it. Hell, even their hold music is excellent (they had a Mario theme remix playing the last time I called).
It's just that I'm highly doubtful that most companies operating today would go to the same lengths to correct the problem. If a patch wasn't possible it seems more likely that they would just ignore it. I may indeed be wrong, but that's my impression.
While I'm by no means a supporter of the XBox (in any incarnation, I'm personally a Nintendo fan) the fact that a patch might be available to resolve this definitely makes things better. In the old days it's far more likely that since there was no way to resolve short of a recall they'd just try to ignore the problem and hope that the pressure didn't get too bad where they'd be forced to acknowledge it. Admittedly, the internet has made it much easier for people to share this kind of information than in the days of the NES, but they'd still likely try to stall. Even if they did own up to it the chances that they'd actually do a recall rather than just release a new version of the game that was fixed would have been much higher.
The fact that a hard drive is available and that all games must include connectivity to XBox Live (with a corresponding crippled, but free account) means that companies are not only more likely to acknowledge problems, but also fix them.
Yes, it sucks for those people who don't have broadband or the hard drive, but it's much better than the past alternatives.
I have to admit I was a bit suprised when I heard about this. Given the recent political climate of blaming everything on games and harping about sex in games in particular we get a conference devoted to putting more sex into games, not worryied hand-wringing about what to do to minimize it.
While I'm of the opinion that not much sounds likely to come out of this it could be a good opportunity to develop reasonable, mature games that involve sexuality or sexual themes and how to make that work properly. Sure it's just as likely to focus on bottom-feeding crap, porn, and schlock (I mean, at least Softporn and the other early Leisure Suit Larry games were clever and funny), but the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone will be able to work on implementing sex as a valid part of gaming makes it all worth it.
That was my initial thought. That they were just going to be releasing a pair of jeans with a pocket designed to fit a relatively standard sized iPod (hopefully big enough to accomodate my non-docking slightly larger than normal 20 Gig 2nd generation model, not just the newest). Sure it would probably be about as stupid and useless as those cell phone pockets that I've been seeing lately, but a specific pocket would prevent it from flopping around the way it does when I carry it in one of my cargo pockets as I typically do. Such a pocket would also be useful for a cell phone, PDA, or many other small objects either electronic or not. As it is they've made a product that is only compatible with the newer dock-compatible iPods (a standard theme, everybody has totally forgotten that the relatively early adopters still own them 3 years later so just about nothing will work with it) and much less useful for someone who prefer to use their own headphones for better sound quality. The joystick is of very minimal use as well because the damn things already have wired remotes that serve effectively the same purpose. Plus if you want to pull it out and check out something or make slightly more complicated changes you need to go to the extra trouble of undocking and redocking it accurately rather than just slipping it out of a pocket.
I don't use any of Yahoo's crappy web services. In fact, I don't use anyone for any of the web services that are offered nor would I ever want to. What they did was create a slightly renamed, but slightly less functional (double-clicking a date in the included calender widget used to switch to the relevant date on the planner view app, now it throws an error) version of Konfabulator. Yay Yahoo, you made something more irritating and less functional. Quietly buying Konfabulator and releasing some Yahoo-specific widgets would have been much better.
Except that particular cartridge was not released at launch. In fact, at launch it wasn't even possible to buy a set with both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt both included. Either you bought the regular set which included Super Mario Bros. or you bought the Deluxe Set which indluded Duck Hunt and Gyromite.
As good as Super Mario Bros. was, however, I'd jump ahead a bit and state that Super Mario World was the best launch title. By this time Nintendo could have sold a ton of copies of it on it's own and included a lesser title as a pack-in, but instead they chose to release one of the best launch titles (lest we also forget about F-Zero and Actraiser).
Asking only for the opinions of other parents is a bit backwards really. If someone's parents acted in a certain way their impressions and opinions related to that (after a suitable time of course) are valuable data. Will treating my child like this have a positive effect or will it merely make them resent me for the rest of my life?
On a slightly alternate path it is certainly someone's right to state how not to raise your children. Taking it to an unnecessary extreme if you think that beating your child is the way to resolve perceived problems then outsiders have an obligation to interfere. More importantly we're the ones who are going to have to live with your children and if you screw them up now it's just going to make life harder for the rest of us.
Children are not you own personal domain where you are the absolute authority and cannot be questioned. They belong to themselves, not to you.
Indeed, while reading this story I was briefly able to suspend my disbelief a bit (and more importantly, my actual knowledge about what's really happening) and read a story about Virgin Galactic opening up a new spaceport like it was common, everyday news. For the first time in recent history I felt like I was living in the future.
Well, one of the smarter tricks they can try (providing the bitrate is there) would be to make it backwards compatible to a degree. SACD hybrid discs and some DVD-A titles (DVD compatible, but hey... that's actually better in many cases) along with the stunningly bad idea of DVD-A DualDisc are slightly helping to bring the formats out to market. The main problem is reluctance to move forward with it.
If a company decided that their new CDs were going to be SACD hybrid discs then they would quickly achieve penetration, bolster the sale of SACD-compatible players and the market would adopt them over time with the CD layer becoming little more than a legacy format for use in your old discman, CD-ROM, or car stereo.
A similar method could work with Blue-Ray. Start releasing films that are Blu-Ray and DVD compatible and only release those. The acceptance problem is only really going to be a major issue when consumers have to decide between a new, incompatible technology. They don't have a player and thus studios worry about releasing software that nobody will buy. Consumers, in turn, don't buy players because there isn't any software for them.
SACD/DVD-A isn't really the best model to use though. There are numerous problems ranging from a lack of software, a lack of consumer interest in higher quality (often citing how readily people will listen to badly encoded mp3s without regard for the poor sound quality), and a poor retail presence.
I definitely think that the PS3 stands of the best chances of really spurring Blu-Ray acceptance, but it's going to be up to the studios to actually release sufficient software for them. Given the way the massive push into UMD software though I doubt this will be a significant problem.
The problem of a major change in quality is going to be tough, even with the PS3 driving potential acceptance, but HD TV has been selling quite well and I doubt that all of those sales are the result of 16:9 aspect ratios and thin plasma and LCD displays (admittedly much like the iPod HD TV has become a trendy status symbol so that's probably driving a disturbing number of sales). If Blu-Ray has a sufficient high-definition picture that shows as much of an improvement as 1080i HD TV shows over 480i standard definition then maybe the quality improvement will be enough to sell people on it. Here's hoping.
While I wish this were true I really have trouble believing it. Lucas has shown quite apparently that he doesn't give a thin, watery shit about what consumers or fans want. Yes, Episode II had obvious fan-service (e.g. Yoda duel, Boba/Jango Fett, Portman midriff, almost no Jar-Jar) but it was also bad fan-service (the Boba/Jango Fett scenes actually made him less cool, Yoda acting like a Yorkie on meth). He took forever to release a Star Wars set that involves even further changes that piss off fans who were already bitching about changes from the originals.
Want to give us a good set? Add in only the minor bits that actually help. Cleaning up the visuals a bit, the enhanced Wampa sequence, the X-wing approach to the Death Star, the celebration sequences at the end of Jedi. None of these detracted from the film, but they added just a little bit extra and were (suprisingly) actually in the spirit of the originals.
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It depends heavily on the job.
Personally I'm a scientist (well, ok, I'm currently looking, but otherwise) and there's a pretty big disconnect between what you're doing. You obviously need lab space to do work in and it's just plain idiotic to have each person working in their own little lab. Each research group, yeah, but not each person. Depending on your lab and what you do people either pick out lab stations or you set up areas based on the work done in them. The thing is, you're not always working in the lab. You need to have an office someplace where you can go and analyze your results. Read journals. Type stuff up. These are generally tasks where having peace and quiet is much more of a bonus. Want to collaborate? Go check and see if someone's in their office or check in the lab.
While I was an undergrad and completely without an office it was frequently a pain in the ass. Sure, it wasn't in any way relevant for me to actually have an office, but you get into little problems with even the most basic things (e.g. nowhere to put your stuff) and trying to work through your notes and figure out just why your experiment keeps failing isn't much fun when you have a loud centrifuge going next to you and your co-workers trying to work on their experiments.
Our grandkids may laugh at us. They will see predictions like the one in this article and laugh in the same way we laugh at the jetpacks-and-flying-cars future of the past.
Laugh at?!? You're the bastard that's holding us all back! The rest of us are rightfully upset that we don't live in a technological wonderland of a future where we all have flying cars and sassy household robots. Whenever someone tries to mock the Roomba in some way I'm taken aback... it's a goddamn robot that cleans your house! People have dreaming of this for decades and now you're bitching about it when it's still in it's infancy, making people think that maybe it's not a good idea... maybe we should just develop holographic mousepads instead.
Stop keeping us down. Right now we're not even doing that well when compared to the glories of a cyberpunk future.
The problem is that sometimes it really helps to have the extra time to develop a situation (not to mention meaning that fans get that many more episodes of a brilliant show cut down in it's prime). Arrested Development uses this significantly to its advantage. It's still a very well written show without a lot of fat, but it will often slowly build up a plot point or refer to a smaller point frequently over time allowing it to build up in the mind of the audience. Smaller runs means the shows tend to be much more focused on a single idea for that one episode creating more of a "the one where foo happens" scenario.
The lack of a laugh track is a significant feature to Arrested Development which I feel is currently (that is, on the weeks they actually choose to show it) the funniest show on American television. Part of the appeal is because it doesn't lower the show to a lowest common denominator prodding you into laughing at obvious points. This allows the subtle jokes to slip past as part of normal conversation and means that actors don't need to stop and pause for a few seconds to let laughter subside. It allows for clever, witty jokes based on wordplay and double-entendres that might easily be missed unless you're paying attention. It's also necessary to the entire documentary-lite feel. Throw in a laugh track and while the show would still be good, it wouldn't be half of what it is now.
The problem is that stores are increasingly unwilling to sell new games. A great deal of shelf space for PC games is devoted to empty boxes for pre-orders and if you don't pre-order most console games then you might be lucky and the store will have ordered one or two copies to put on the shelf. Often many games as recent as 6 months are more or less impossible to find new requiring you to purchase them used. All of this contributes to publishes using smaller print runs and making games that much harder to find in the future.
Take Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. A great game that was still selling strong. While Konami has thankfully recently re-released it a few months ago there were only two options: buy it from a retail store that wants to charge ~$30 for a used title that will not include a manual, box, case, or anything but what is likely a scuffed-up cartridge or try to buy it on eBay and have to compete with the massive problems that are buying on eBay. Experiences vary (I personally have bought a bunch of GBA games on eBay without problems), but in the process of trying to purchase this one title from seemingly reputable sellers (e.g. not some guy from Hong Kong selling it at a rock-bottom price) ended up getting counterfeit copies twice.
The retail stores may not have great margins, but they've moved into a business model where they only want to deal in pre-orders and used games that are frequently overpriced. While I've gotten some very good deals on used games I still feel that the current climate that usually forces the consumer to purchase most titles used is terrible.
The only problem with the so-called "missile shield" is that they're so intent on calling it a shield when it's not. What we really need is to move into giant domed cities. A huge physical shield overheard would protect us from just about anything, including the daily terror that is weather.
You certainly make a valid point, but I can't say I entirely agree. Yes, I can see plenty of Counter-Strike players taking an overly simplistic view of international terrorism, but at the same time plenty of Americans who haven't played it don't have any problems adopting the same viewpoint without much prodding.
While I realized even as I wrote it that, technically, Civilization is bloodless, but unimaginably violent (though, sadly, reflecting only real-world violence) in theme it's never caused me to change my views on things. Do the French possess a supply of oil that I desire? Crush them without mercy! Subjugate their people to my will to feed my expanding empire! Yet at the same time I don't feel that wars are a valid means of settling these disputes. The underhanded, isolationistic tactics that are often necessary would still remain an incorrect way to solve real-world political disputes and do not influence me in any way.
Finally, even though I'm a pacifist real-world guns are still plenty cool. Perhaps it's because I grew up around them, but target shooting (I have the certifications to hunt, but never do, I doubt I could personally shoot an animal let alone gut it myself) is fabulous. Guns of all sorts (handguns, shotguns, fully-automatic assault rifles...) are an absolutely wonderful thing it's just a shame people can't find anything better to do with them than try to shoot them at each other. Maybe we just need a bit more airsoft...
First off I'd consider myself a pacifist. I may have a decent amount of inner rage, but I'm anti-war, anti-death penalty and generally think that there's little reason to ever hurt people.
Earlier today I was playing Resident Evil 4 on my second run through and became quite disappointed that after shooting enemies in the head they would just fall over dead. Sure I'd accomplished my goal by removing them as a threat, but it was just so lackluster if a perfect headshot from a powerful handgun (maxed out Red9) or shotgun (maxed out Striker) didn't cause their heads to explode in a mass of gore. A bit of violent fireworks to signify a job well done.
A little later I was talking to my girlfriend about this when I realized that when compared to real-world violence video game violence is simply more visceral and exciting. If I were to shoot someone in the head in the real world they'd simply fall over and bleed quite a bit.
Perhaps this is related to years upon years (i.e. since the release of the NES) of playing video games (not necessarily violent or not, I choose games based on their quality, Civilization being my all-time favorite) or maybe it's a result of all sorts of other effects culminating in a constant desire to get more and more out of it, but honestly real world violence isn't in any way exciting. It's simply painful, messy, unpleasant, and good for hurting people. Any claim that kids who enjoy the thrill of seeing a head pop open when hit by an excellent 500 yd shot from a sniper rifle would suddenly love to go out and do it in reality simply don't realize that watching some guy a long ways away fall over really isn't exciting. A good thing for all of us and a bad thing for the military... the only people who actually want kids to go off and shoot people in the head in real life.
"But you never talk about yourself"
"Well, maybe if you showed a little interest."
Actually when I was working in a call center meetings were the highlight of my week. The actual work was terrible, horrible stuff and any opportunity to get away from it and spend some time sitting around without my every minute being logged and monitored was a blessing.
While I agree that it's hard to use a thumb on the screen in the current design it's also far too small to hold the thing comfortably as it is. If anything making it a bit larger would really go a long way to making it easier to hold and play.
All of the buttons need to be larger, not just the shoulder buttons. At present though it's a literal pain (in my hands) to try to keep my fingers on the shoulder buttons.
The volume slider is terrible. It makes it very hard to make adjustments to the volume and making a small change is more or less impossible.
Glad you enjoy it. Personally I don't care for either of them. I'm merely basing my observations on the fact that everyone I know who likes Stargate (i.e. many of my friends and my girlfriend) don't care for Atlantis. Likewise I've heard very little in favor of it on the Internet. I'm sure there are fans, but they seem to be far fewer in number (reasonable as it is a spin-off).
Well if you look at their current schedule they really don't have very smart people running the show over there.
Most days tend to be 8am-3pm being filled with re-runs of some sort often with only the vaguest sci-fi connection (e.g. Knight Rider). Not re-runs of multiple shows, but re-runs of the same show all day long. Then we get some time for the X-Files, maybe a Stargate SG-1 re-run and a some random crap. They'll usually toss in a movie at night. Sometimes it's something worth seeing (e.g. Stargate, Army of Darkness), but recently it's far more likely to be Dracula 3000 or some piece of dreck that they financed.
The only night of original programming they have is on Fridays when they run 3 shows (currently, though bringing Dr. Who to the US is a smart move): Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica. I'm not certain if they're still running Firefly re-runs on Fridays as well because I have the DVDs.
Of all the money they have to spend (that they don't spend producing some of the absolute best bumps I've ever seen) they funnel into those 3 shows and some absolutely piss-poor movies. Now, I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure that almost nobody watches Stargate Atlantis. I can't imagine that anyone watches their movies unless they involve Bruce Campbell in some way (and even then Alien Invasion was beyond me after the first 30 minutes). They need to stop making the crappy movies and instead start seeking some new original programming and not the crappy original shows they've done in the past that nobody watched. While they destroyed Sliders and eventually killed MST3k at least they were trying. Picking up other people's properties seems to be the best they can really do.
That said they are currently working on new shows (at least, according to thefutoncritic.com) including an adaptation of Mike Mignola's Amazing Screw-On Head and a show called Eureka about a town in the Pacific Northwest where the government has been secretly relocating the world's geniuses. Admittedly they have a variety of projects going on, but most are only at the script stage and of the few ordered to pilot most never seem to ever get picked up or even screened. Check the showwatch and devwatch sections at futon critic to see what else they're supposedly working on. At least they're trying.
Go outside? What the hell is this man smoking? It's 40 degrees outside and windy which means it's pretty damn cold. I'd sure as hell like him to tell me why he thinks it's so great outdoors and just what he plans to do once he starts freezing his own ass off out there.
I assure you that when I got mine in the 2nd Generation (ah the old days, back when you had seperate PC and Mac versions) they were pretty well into taking off. Admittedly they weren't as near-ubiquitous as they've become, but they were pretty hard to miss.
I always wondered why remotes went over to using the dock. On the older models the remote plugged directly into the headphone port with the headphones plugging into the remote. Frankly this was very useful since it could also be used as an extension cord for the headphones.
Anyhow, my point is that a better set of jeans (i.e. one with an iPod pocket, not a bunch of useless crap) wouldn't need to be expensive. They could charge more or less the same amount that they already do.
I agree. In my experience Nintendo definitely puts the customer first and I've had nothing but good experiences with their customer service on the few times I've needed it. Hell, even their hold music is excellent (they had a Mario theme remix playing the last time I called).
It's just that I'm highly doubtful that most companies operating today would go to the same lengths to correct the problem. If a patch wasn't possible it seems more likely that they would just ignore it. I may indeed be wrong, but that's my impression.
While I'm by no means a supporter of the XBox (in any incarnation, I'm personally a Nintendo fan) the fact that a patch might be available to resolve this definitely makes things better. In the old days it's far more likely that since there was no way to resolve short of a recall they'd just try to ignore the problem and hope that the pressure didn't get too bad where they'd be forced to acknowledge it. Admittedly, the internet has made it much easier for people to share this kind of information than in the days of the NES, but they'd still likely try to stall. Even if they did own up to it the chances that they'd actually do a recall rather than just release a new version of the game that was fixed would have been much higher.
The fact that a hard drive is available and that all games must include connectivity to XBox Live (with a corresponding crippled, but free account) means that companies are not only more likely to acknowledge problems, but also fix them.
Yes, it sucks for those people who don't have broadband or the hard drive, but it's much better than the past alternatives.
I have to admit I was a bit suprised when I heard about this. Given the recent political climate of blaming everything on games and harping about sex in games in particular we get a conference devoted to putting more sex into games, not worryied hand-wringing about what to do to minimize it.
While I'm of the opinion that not much sounds likely to come out of this it could be a good opportunity to develop reasonable, mature games that involve sexuality or sexual themes and how to make that work properly. Sure it's just as likely to focus on bottom-feeding crap, porn, and schlock (I mean, at least Softporn and the other early Leisure Suit Larry games were clever and funny), but the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone will be able to work on implementing sex as a valid part of gaming makes it all worth it.
That was my initial thought. That they were just going to be releasing a pair of jeans with a pocket designed to fit a relatively standard sized iPod (hopefully big enough to accomodate my non-docking slightly larger than normal 20 Gig 2nd generation model, not just the newest). Sure it would probably be about as stupid and useless as those cell phone pockets that I've been seeing lately, but a specific pocket would prevent it from flopping around the way it does when I carry it in one of my cargo pockets as I typically do. Such a pocket would also be useful for a cell phone, PDA, or many other small objects either electronic or not. As it is they've made a product that is only compatible with the newer dock-compatible iPods (a standard theme, everybody has totally forgotten that the relatively early adopters still own them 3 years later so just about nothing will work with it) and much less useful for someone who prefer to use their own headphones for better sound quality. The joystick is of very minimal use as well because the damn things already have wired remotes that serve effectively the same purpose. Plus if you want to pull it out and check out something or make slightly more complicated changes you need to go to the extra trouble of undocking and redocking it accurately rather than just slipping it out of a pocket.
I suspet that more or less nobody will buy these.
I don't use any of Yahoo's crappy web services. In fact, I don't use anyone for any of the web services that are offered nor would I ever want to. What they did was create a slightly renamed, but slightly less functional (double-clicking a date in the included calender widget used to switch to the relevant date on the planner view app, now it throws an error) version of Konfabulator. Yay Yahoo, you made something more irritating and less functional. Quietly buying Konfabulator and releasing some Yahoo-specific widgets would have been much better.
Except that particular cartridge was not released at launch. In fact, at launch it wasn't even possible to buy a set with both Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt both included. Either you bought the regular set which included Super Mario Bros. or you bought the Deluxe Set which indluded Duck Hunt and Gyromite.
As good as Super Mario Bros. was, however, I'd jump ahead a bit and state that Super Mario World was the best launch title. By this time Nintendo could have sold a ton of copies of it on it's own and included a lesser title as a pack-in, but instead they chose to release one of the best launch titles (lest we also forget about F-Zero and Actraiser).
Asking only for the opinions of other parents is a bit backwards really. If someone's parents acted in a certain way their impressions and opinions related to that (after a suitable time of course) are valuable data. Will treating my child like this have a positive effect or will it merely make them resent me for the rest of my life?
On a slightly alternate path it is certainly someone's right to state how not to raise your children. Taking it to an unnecessary extreme if you think that beating your child is the way to resolve perceived problems then outsiders have an obligation to interfere. More importantly we're the ones who are going to have to live with your children and if you screw them up now it's just going to make life harder for the rest of us.
Children are not you own personal domain where you are the absolute authority and cannot be questioned. They belong to themselves, not to you.
Indeed, while reading this story I was briefly able to suspend my disbelief a bit (and more importantly, my actual knowledge about what's really happening) and read a story about Virgin Galactic opening up a new spaceport like it was common, everyday news. For the first time in recent history I felt like I was living in the future.
Well, one of the smarter tricks they can try (providing the bitrate is there) would be to make it backwards compatible to a degree. SACD hybrid discs and some DVD-A titles (DVD compatible, but hey... that's actually better in many cases) along with the stunningly bad idea of DVD-A DualDisc are slightly helping to bring the formats out to market. The main problem is reluctance to move forward with it.
If a company decided that their new CDs were going to be SACD hybrid discs then they would quickly achieve penetration, bolster the sale of SACD-compatible players and the market would adopt them over time with the CD layer becoming little more than a legacy format for use in your old discman, CD-ROM, or car stereo.
A similar method could work with Blue-Ray. Start releasing films that are Blu-Ray and DVD compatible and only release those. The acceptance problem is only really going to be a major issue when consumers have to decide between a new, incompatible technology. They don't have a player and thus studios worry about releasing software that nobody will buy. Consumers, in turn, don't buy players because there isn't any software for them.
SACD/DVD-A isn't really the best model to use though. There are numerous problems ranging from a lack of software, a lack of consumer interest in higher quality (often citing how readily people will listen to badly encoded mp3s without regard for the poor sound quality), and a poor retail presence.
I definitely think that the PS3 stands of the best chances of really spurring Blu-Ray acceptance, but it's going to be up to the studios to actually release sufficient software for them. Given the way the massive push into UMD software though I doubt this will be a significant problem.
The problem of a major change in quality is going to be tough, even with the PS3 driving potential acceptance, but HD TV has been selling quite well and I doubt that all of those sales are the result of 16:9 aspect ratios and thin plasma and LCD displays (admittedly much like the iPod HD TV has become a trendy status symbol so that's probably driving a disturbing number of sales). If Blu-Ray has a sufficient high-definition picture that shows as much of an improvement as 1080i HD TV shows over 480i standard definition then maybe the quality improvement will be enough to sell people on it. Here's hoping.
While I wish this were true I really have trouble believing it. Lucas has shown quite apparently that he doesn't give a thin, watery shit about what consumers or fans want. Yes, Episode II had obvious fan-service (e.g. Yoda duel, Boba/Jango Fett, Portman midriff, almost no Jar-Jar) but it was also bad fan-service (the Boba/Jango Fett scenes actually made him less cool, Yoda acting like a Yorkie on meth). He took forever to release a Star Wars set that involves even further changes that piss off fans who were already bitching about changes from the originals.
Want to give us a good set? Add in only the minor bits that actually help. Cleaning up the visuals a bit, the enhanced Wampa sequence, the X-wing approach to the Death Star, the celebration sequences at the end of Jedi. None of these detracted from the film, but they added just a little bit extra and were (suprisingly) actually in the spirit of the originals.