Your comment was very interesting and I agree with you in general. As a college student, I make it a point to actually attend classes and pay attention.
You sound like you are a very good instructor. The problem is that there are some bad instructors. I have had instructors able to take subjects I am fascinated by (such as political science, my major) and turn it into boring mush. I had one Poli. Sci. prof. who literally read from the textbook in class. This was an "Intro to Political Systems" type class that was basically "This is what a communism is, this is what a capitalism is, etc." that was not difficult at all.
When a professor like that takes attendance, what do you suggest students do? I think that the ideal solution would be to drop the class and get a better prof., but this isn't always feasible (full classes, weird schedules, etc.). Do you think it's fair to me, a student who could get good grades all of the coursework and tests without attending a single lecture, to say that I pay attention regardless of the quality of the lecture?
I will note that, in my opinion, the best professors tend to be the ones that don't need to take attendance -- you simply aren't capable of passing their classes without the aid of the lecture. These are the classes I find myself looking forward to attending.
A simple solution would to just put a disclaimer for your entire journal that states that everything you post is based on your own opinion, and may or may not be backed by truth.
Not going to cut it. Courts have a pretty clear definition on the difference between an opinion and a statement of fact specifically worked out for libel cases, and what you label it doesn't matter (the opinion page of your local paper is just as much fair game as the front page).
In short, a statement fact is something that is provably true or false. Saying, "It is my opinion that Commander Taco robbed a bank once and also ran over my dog," is a statement of fact, even though you prefaced it with "It is my opinion." This is because we could, in theory, prove whether or not he robbed that bank and whether or not he ran over your dog.
Likewise, saying, "It is a fact that Commander Taco is a complete fool" is opinion. The word "fool" has a vague definition and is entirely subjective, making the claim one that would not be actionable.
Protecting their sources is only a right in the minds of the journalists. They have no legal right to do so, and are thrown in jail quite often.
I do agree with this. Everyone has the right to face their accuser. one shouldn't be able to be tried in the media by any different criteria than in court.
Depends on where you are. Here in California, we've got a shield law for journalists. If you get sued for libel, you won't be held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose an anonymous source. You may, however, lose the libel suit and have to pay the damages if your only proof is the word of a source you refuse to reveal.
This to me seems fair. Reporters do need to ocassionally use anonymous sources, and shouldn't be held criminally liable for refusing to disclose those sources just because somebody sues you. If you print something that is potentially libellous, though, you should have to pay damages if you can't prove it's true (you shouldn't print anything on which an anonymous source is your only proof, anyway). This protects whistle-blowers and the like from facing retribution without giving journalists license to simply make up libellous stories and then cite non-existent "anonymous" sources.
I don't care how "important" the message in Schindler's List is. The scene where there is a nude woman in the German officer's bed is stimulating and sexual. If I had kids, I would want to skip that scene.
So... let me get this straight. You're cool with the scenes that depict horrible acts of cruelty and murder, but a scene which is "stimulating" and "sexual" has got to go? There is seriously something wrong with your outlook on life.
For the record, I wouldn't want to cut anything out of Schindler's List -- it's so powerful and effective as it is.
I can , however, see where a small insert would be helpfull to the story line. Something like a shot of jar jar watching luke meet obiwan and saying "the circle starts again" or something similar IANASW( I am not a script writer). A small item to help tie the first three with the next three. With the way that these movies were filmed, in reverse order, Something like this may be necesary to make them feel as a whole series again
I don't know who's worse -- the original poster or the morons who modded this shit up to 5, Insightful. That has to be one of the worst fucking ideas I've ever heard. Yeah, that's what I want, Jar-Jar spouting words of wisdom. That computer generated freak doesn't deserve to share the screen (even as an insert) with Sir Alec Guinness.
Maybe, after we reveal that Amidala was "hiding," we could reveal that neither Anakin nor Yoda nor Obi-Wan actually died (I know! They were just resting!) and they can all do a chorus line with Ewoks! Then Jar-Jar can come out and sing "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King. That would be awesome.
Seriously, remember how much Lucas screwed up the first trilogy the last time he messed with them? If you don't, here's a clue: Greedo shooting first. I just pray that someday I'll get the original, unaltered, trilogy on DVD. Probably not until Lucas is dead, but I can wait...
Negative. Evil Dead is a trilogy. It's fine that way. Leave it. Bruce Campbell has said often that he wouldn't care to do another one
Uh... really? The fact is, there was always an Evil Dead 4 planned, especially considering the original ending (where Ash wakes up in post-apocalyptic England). Furthermore, according to Bruce Campbell's official site:
"Let me be clear, however, on one point: I'd be happy to do it - so would Sam, but let's not beat that dead horse any more until it becomes a reality...IF it ever does."
So, both Raimi and Campbell would like to do one, and I know I'd love to see one. And, given the series' tendency to "alter" endings, I think we could get the ED4 Raimi had planned. It would rock.
On the site's list of things the project needs: Translators - both for the site and the CD. Free software is clearly very important in many poorer contras, so we should make it easy for them. [emphasis mine]
Yeah, uhm, maybe we should start with an English translator? Unless we're saying that those freedom fighters are in need of some Free software...
Well, it's Friday night at 10:30 EST and it seems as I'm the only browsing Slashdot. I think I should be one of the first appointees to this Geek Guard;-)
I'm in the same boat, PLUS I'm watching the Star Trek marathon on TNN. I beat you.;)
I think that the day that we allow the government to keep a perfectly safe product from shipping is the day that we have finally undermined all our principles of capitalism and the free market.
Here's the fundamental joke in capitalism: in order to have a free market, the government MUST interfere. It sounds incredibly moronic, but it's one of those funny little paradoxes like how sometimes we have to make war to have peace.
If you give companies complete and utter free reign over the market, they quickly do everything they can to squash all competition and then the free market goes away. You may think, "Well, those companies that do this are better than the competition and hence deserve control over the market." The problem with this reasoning is that once a monopoly is obtained, the company can leverage that power to keep competition down while offering an inferior product.
We have seen this happen in the U.S. during the latter portion of the 19th century, and for this reason anti-trust laws were invented. If the government doesn't stop monopolies from acting unfairly we end up with a situation that is unfair to consumers as well as competitors. A monopoly by one business is just as bad (if not worse) than a government controlled situation. The free market will destroy itself given enough time and no governmental interference.
$26 million will probably allow them to break even with production costs and not much else.
The IMDB lists the budget of Exit Wounds as $25 million (this probably doesn't include things like marketing). For argument's sake, let's say they break even (I'm ignoring the cut the exhibitors get of the box office). This is not bad at all, actually.
You see, movies rarely make all their money at the American box office. The rest of the money is in overseas showings as well as video sales (and of course merchandising when it comes to big movies). Action movies traditionally play well in other countries because there's less dialogue, and it's not that important anyway.
With how well Exit Wounds is performing, I think it's safe to say Seagal is (sadly) still going to be making movies. Ugh.
Since the fastest reboot is about six minutes, he says, this defense alone creates a serious obstacle for most automated, so-called brute-force hacking tools, which ordinarily bombard a digital-rights management technology with 50,000 trial-and-error attacks per second.
SIX MINUTES? My computer can boot Win98 in under a minute. Christ, if this thing fucks up Windows even more to the point where it's taking me six minutes to boot up, there's no chance I'm touching it with a ten foot pole...
Yeah, and that's the whole problem. It's a futile attempt on the industry's part, and one that negatively impacts consumers. Don't these companies get that they don't stand a chance at doing anything else than annoying the mainstream customers? Hardcore pirates won't be put off by weak software protection, and the rest of us get screwed.
Oh god, this reminds me of what happened with the Playstation and modchips. Sony releases the PSX, people discover rather quickly how to defeat the regional protection (including such things as just swapping out discs). Sony 'fixes' their hardware so these don't work (and to stop the PSXs from randomly melting, but that's a different story). Then the mod-chips start gaining popularity. Well, Sony won't let that happen, so they revamp the PSX hardware again. It's now harder to install them. Of course, within a few days there are new modchips. Next they try redoing their software so that it can detect mod-chips (which is what Warner seems to be trying). The next release is of course "stealth" mod-chips that aren't detectable by software, as well as little devices that plug into the serial ports of the PSX to override region protection.
The end result of all this was a ton of headache for Sony. There have been at least half a dozen different models of the PSX, and in the latest revision they've ditched the serial ports (which means that devices like Gamesharks, which have uses that even Sony considers okay, are useless). Of course, mod-chips still exist, piracy is still rampant, and the people who are doing something LEGAL like importing games get screwed trying to keep up with all of this.
I'd hate it if something like this happens with DVD players thanks to the industry's sheer stupidity. This isn't even about piracy, but about people wanting to do perfectly legal things. It's completely insane...
Funny, because I had a cracked Athlon T-bird 800 thanks to the Golden Orb. It appears to be one of those things that aren't going to affect everyone, but it's a big enough problem that the redesign is necessary. Of course, I'm a little wary of another Thermaltake solution until I've seen a lot more data on the current design. IMO it's pretty silly that there should be ANY trouble....
Why on earth would I want a sequel to a bad game with a pretty lame engine? All the "improvements" to the Q2 engine were for naught, with things like the sidekicks absolutely not functioning anywhere near the way they should've. As for the storyline, eh, it was okay. Travel through time, find a sword, etc. I'm not necessarily going to write off John Romero in the future (I think he probably realized the BALANCE between technology and design with the whole Daikatana fiasco) but Ion would do best to just forget about Daikatana entirely, aside from patching it to getting it into a somewhat workable state for all the people who got stuck buying it. Otherwise, give me a new title...
Okay, for the last time: EIDOS HAS LOTS OF MONEY. As absolutely weird as it seems (given their wonderful track record of producing utter crap), Looking Glass didn't go out of business because of Ion Storm or Daikatana.
Anyway, now that Daikatana is done with (let's hope we never hear rumors of a sequel), Ion Storm seems to be actually delivering what it promised originally. Deus Ex is one hell of a game, and Anachronox looks pretty decent too. Personally, I'm pretty stoked to be seeing Spector doing Thief III -- after playing Deus Ex, I'm convinced he's the right guy to do the job. IMO, DX was essentially everything the Thief series should have been all along (i.e. multiple solutions to problems, emphasis on stealth but not total reliance, no wandering around searching for keys, etc)...
The problem isn't that the record companies are overcharging for CDs, it's that they've aligned with each other and are both gouging people on the price of CDs as well as cutting off competition. The government virtually never just goes and regulates business for no reason -- being a huge company is fine, so long as you "play fair". When you get together with a select few other big companies and prevent any smaller companies from entering the marketplace, you need governmental intereference. Sounds weird, but in order to keep an open market, sometimes the government has to meddle.
Re:More bandwidth, please.
on
Movies Online?
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· Score: 1
I don't think that anyone really wants to watch a feature length movie on their 17" monitor.
Actually, when compared to most TVs, a 17" monitor looks a hell of a lot sharper. DVDs definitely benefit from them a whole lot. Until we all have digital HDTVs (widescreen, of course) a monitor isn't that bad an option, IMO.
Aside from the numerous responses regarding the theater being a social experience (very true -- I tend to see about a movie a week, and always with other people), there is the fact that digital technology is still not up to the par that actual projected film is. I'll grant that it's catching up, but even the very best DVD is only trying to mimic how the real thing looks.
Additionally, there are new technologies in film that supposedly increase the way it looks dramatically. Maxivision, a system that is projected at 48 frames per second as opposed to the standard 24 may be a major boon to traditional film. Not only do you maintain the richness of color and depth of film, but you get a much sharper picture (particularly of moving objects) as well. Roger Ebert has written pretty extensively about this technology -- you can find one of his articles (not credited) at http://www.cameraguild.co m/news/techno/film_v_digital.htm
Digital recording and projection will have their uses; digital is substantially cheaper than film, and is already becoming a huge boon to independant filmmakers. Movies that are essentially all digital anyway (Star Wars, any sort of big budget Sci-Fi / Action movie) will also see improvements from never having to touch celluloid.
The one other topic I'd like to touch on is the fact that so many people seem to be jumping at the idea of on demand movies from the internet as a great way to replace Blockbuster -- what happened to wanting to actually own movies? Did we learn nothing from the DIVX fiasco? Then again I'd love to have a whole archive of movies that I could watch when I wanted to... there are some obscure movies that are essentially impossible to track down without paying insanely high prices, and if the internet could get me a way to see them cheaply, I'd be all for it.
Wow, helluva newsflash, people are lazy. Hasn't this been the driving force throughout most of invention? We invent things to make our lives *easier* (at least in theory -- I'd never have to spend any time bitching at my cable company if I didn't have a TV). I agree, these devices are rather odd and perhaps have some... interesting things to say about modern culture, but if you meet someone that makes you happy through them, what's the harm? I don't see how it's any worse than a dating service or a blind date or something similar. People who are using these things obviously aren't anti-social: they're *trying* to find others. That's certainly not a bad thing, is it?
Sony also owns Psygnosis (formerly an Amiga game developer). Psygnosis have been instrumental in making the PSX into a viable platform, by providing a steady flow of games early on and not supporting rivals.
That's true, though I don't believe that Sony owned Psygnosis until a few years into the PSX's lifespan. And of course Psygnosis still publishes titles on other consoles (but for a while they were pretty Sony exclusive -- it took years for Wipeout to hit another console. Sony has also been releasing more and more first and second party titles. Aside from the obvious like Crash Bandicoot, they've got things like Ape Escape, PaRappa the Rapper and Gran Turismo.
If MS go through with this, expect them to buy out some game developers to support it; perhaps Electronic Arts or Infogrames or GT Interactive will fall to MS and cease supporting non-MS platforms
Hrm, that's an interesting concept. A scary one too, but then again I couldn't see MS buying out either of those companies and forcing them to be X-Box/PC only. They both depend on too many different platforms to be profitable. What's more interesting though is that if you buy EA, you also get Square....
I don't get what market the X-Box is going for. Nintendo and Sega pretty much exist thanks to their in-house development teams, and Sony has done well because it has been able to court 3rd parties very effectively (particularly that little company called Squaresoft). It seems that the X-Box's primary games will be ports, either from other consoles or from a PC.
This raises the obvious question: who cares? I can buy an X-Box for about $300 in 2001. The PS2 will be cheaper than that in the U.S. by that point in time, the DreamCast already is and Nintendo is aiming for a low cost solution as well. The PS2 will have had more than a year's head start in terms of software and market penetration. Ditto for DC. Nintendo would seem to be more in direct competition, but Nintendo really has its own market built in (people buying it for things like Mario, Pokemon, etc).
Making matters worse for MS, crappy PC's are getting cheaper and cheaper, and so I don't see someone who wants a low cost PC spending the $300 on the X-Box. A hardcore gamer who wants to play PC games probably already owns a decent PC.
What MS needs are some exclusive titles. Having ports from everyone else is all well and good, but you can't sell a console on it. I don't think that they're going to get a lot of these (who the hell would want to develop something just for the X-Box when it's running off of generic PC hardware? You could port it to a "standard" PC with little problem, and dramatically increase your potential market). Without these, the X-Box will just be playing catch up to everything else. You can't sell a console with a pitch like "Hey, we've got all the PS2's games, only six months later!"
What strikes me as most odd is the fact that MS seems to be competing directly with Sony here. Both the PS2 and the X-Box are heavily integrated with online features, both have DVD-movie playback and both seem to be about the same price. That's suicide on Microsoft's part, because again they'll be launching too late to do this all that effectively (especially in Japan, where Sony rules even more). I see this thing going the way of the 3D0 and the CD-I.
Last year Sega stopped EBay from selling imported Dreamcasts and games. I wouldn't be that suprised if Sony did the same thing. Game companies do *not* like their stuff being exported unless they get to be the sole controller of this. Sony wants to make sure that everyone in the U.S. (or Europe or anywhere else that they have a corporate arm) is playing a PS2 made for and purchased in their territory... It's similar to the "logic" behind keeping DVD's region coded: the company wants to be able to set specific prices for a region. Additionally, they don't like to compete with their own corporate arms. While they generally don't seem to do much about places like NCS they don't like individual people selling them. Thus don't be suprised when PS2 sales are stopped on EBay. As for this latest story about not being able to export PS2 consoles from Japan... errr, I'll believe it when I see it in effect. Last year there was a weird story going around that it was illegal to export a PS2 to China due to some regulations about exporting "supercomputers" to that country. Of course, this was a US regulation, and would have no effect on Sony which is in fact a Japanese company shipping units from Japan (or where ever the hell PS2s are made).
And no, American stuff won't work on a Japanese PS2. But rather quickly upon the release of the US system, expect to see a "mod chip" of some sort bypassing whatever lockout schemes Sony uses. Stephen Keller
There are still lots of media companies that aren't in conglomerates.
There are? Like what? Virtually all the major newspapers (and even most of the smaller ones) are owned by a larger group, and anything like TV or radio is almost definitely at the whim of a conglomerate.
Sometimes maybe it's useful to get companies together when their services can complement each other. Can anybody name one real reason why Time/Warner and AOL shouldn't merge if their stockholders want them too? Isn't this a free country?
Rather fortunately, what a company wants is not always what it gets (though of course the bigger the company, the more chance it has of bullying through pesky things like "laws"). Specifically speaking for the U.S., most aren't against the notion of big business so long as said businesses don't abuse their power. And that's the issue that's at stake. Things like monopoly (remember, there's nothing wrong with being a monopoly so long as you don't act like one) and illegal business practices that hurt other companies/individuals are.
I don't give a crap about AOL-TW so long as AOL doesn't use it to move it's half-assed product into even more homes. And I'd rather not see AOL propaganda when I turn on CNN. Even scarier is when mega businesses use thier limitless resources to just crush anything that's they percieve as a remote threat to them (obviously right now it's over DeCSS, but it's definitely not the first time and sadly won't be the last). In short: I'm all for business so long as they operate within the confines of the law (I'd rather have them be ethical but that's even more of a pipe dream)...
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Your comment was very interesting and I agree with you in general. As a college student, I make it a point to actually attend classes and pay attention.
You sound like you are a very good instructor. The problem is that there are some bad instructors. I have had instructors able to take subjects I am fascinated by (such as political science, my major) and turn it into boring mush. I had one Poli. Sci. prof. who literally read from the textbook in class. This was an "Intro to Political Systems" type class that was basically "This is what a communism is, this is what a capitalism is, etc." that was not difficult at all.
When a professor like that takes attendance, what do you suggest students do? I think that the ideal solution would be to drop the class and get a better prof., but this isn't always feasible (full classes, weird schedules, etc.). Do you think it's fair to me, a student who could get good grades all of the coursework and tests without attending a single lecture, to say that I pay attention regardless of the quality of the lecture?
I will note that, in my opinion, the best professors tend to be the ones that don't need to take attendance -- you simply aren't capable of passing their classes without the aid of the lecture. These are the classes I find myself looking forward to attending.
Not going to cut it. Courts have a pretty clear definition on the difference between an opinion and a statement of fact specifically worked out for libel cases, and what you label it doesn't matter (the opinion page of your local paper is just as much fair game as the front page).
In short, a statement fact is something that is provably true or false. Saying, "It is my opinion that Commander Taco robbed a bank once and also ran over my dog," is a statement of fact, even though you prefaced it with "It is my opinion." This is because we could, in theory, prove whether or not he robbed that bank and whether or not he ran over your dog.
Likewise, saying, "It is a fact that Commander Taco is a complete fool" is opinion. The word "fool" has a vague definition and is entirely subjective, making the claim one that would not be actionable.
Depends on where you are. Here in California, we've got a shield law for journalists. If you get sued for libel, you won't be held in contempt of court for refusing to disclose an anonymous source. You may, however, lose the libel suit and have to pay the damages if your only proof is the word of a source you refuse to reveal.
This to me seems fair. Reporters do need to ocassionally use anonymous sources, and shouldn't be held criminally liable for refusing to disclose those sources just because somebody sues you. If you print something that is potentially libellous, though, you should have to pay damages if you can't prove it's true (you shouldn't print anything on which an anonymous source is your only proof, anyway). This protects whistle-blowers and the like from facing retribution without giving journalists license to simply make up libellous stories and then cite non-existent "anonymous" sources.
So... let me get this straight. You're cool with the scenes that depict horrible acts of cruelty and murder, but a scene which is "stimulating" and "sexual" has got to go? There is seriously something wrong with your outlook on life.
For the record, I wouldn't want to cut anything out of Schindler's List -- it's so powerful and effective as it is.
I don't know who's worse -- the original poster or the morons who modded this shit up to 5, Insightful. That has to be one of the worst fucking ideas I've ever heard. Yeah, that's what I want, Jar-Jar spouting words of wisdom. That computer generated freak doesn't deserve to share the screen (even as an insert) with Sir Alec Guinness.
Maybe, after we reveal that Amidala was "hiding," we could reveal that neither Anakin nor Yoda nor Obi-Wan actually died (I know! They were just resting!) and they can all do a chorus line with Ewoks! Then Jar-Jar can come out and sing "The Circle of Life" from The Lion King. That would be awesome.
Seriously, remember how much Lucas screwed up the first trilogy the last time he messed with them? If you don't, here's a clue: Greedo shooting first. I just pray that someday I'll get the original, unaltered, trilogy on DVD. Probably not until Lucas is dead, but I can wait...
Uh... really? The fact is, there was always an Evil Dead 4 planned, especially considering the original ending (where Ash wakes up in post-apocalyptic England). Furthermore, according to Bruce Campbell's official site:
"Let me be clear, however, on one point: I'd be happy to do it - so would Sam, but let's not beat that dead horse any more until it becomes a reality...IF it ever does."
So, both Raimi and Campbell would like to do one, and I know I'd love to see one. And, given the series' tendency to "alter" endings, I think we could get the ED4 Raimi had planned. It would rock.
Yeah, uhm, maybe we should start with an English translator? Unless we're saying that those freedom fighters are in need of some Free software...
I'm in the same boat, PLUS I'm watching the Star Trek marathon on TNN. I beat you. ;)
Here's the fundamental joke in capitalism: in order to have a free market, the government MUST interfere. It sounds incredibly moronic, but it's one of those funny little paradoxes like how sometimes we have to make war to have peace.
If you give companies complete and utter free reign over the market, they quickly do everything they can to squash all competition and then the free market goes away. You may think, "Well, those companies that do this are better than the competition and hence deserve control over the market." The problem with this reasoning is that once a monopoly is obtained, the company can leverage that power to keep competition down while offering an inferior product.
We have seen this happen in the U.S. during the latter portion of the 19th century, and for this reason anti-trust laws were invented. If the government doesn't stop monopolies from acting unfairly we end up with a situation that is unfair to consumers as well as competitors. A monopoly by one business is just as bad (if not worse) than a government controlled situation. The free market will destroy itself given enough time and no governmental interference.
The IMDB lists the budget of Exit Wounds as $25 million (this probably doesn't include things like marketing). For argument's sake, let's say they break even (I'm ignoring the cut the exhibitors get of the box office). This is not bad at all, actually.
You see, movies rarely make all their money at the American box office. The rest of the money is in overseas showings as well as video sales (and of course merchandising when it comes to big movies). Action movies traditionally play well in other countries because there's less dialogue, and it's not that important anyway.
With how well Exit Wounds is performing, I think it's safe to say Seagal is (sadly) still going to be making movies. Ugh.
SIX MINUTES? My computer can boot Win98 in under a minute. Christ, if this thing fucks up Windows even more to the point where it's taking me six minutes to boot up, there's no chance I'm touching it with a ten foot pole...
Yeah, and that's the whole problem. It's a futile attempt on the industry's part, and one that negatively impacts consumers. Don't these companies get that they don't stand a chance at doing anything else than annoying the mainstream customers? Hardcore pirates won't be put off by weak software protection, and the rest of us get screwed.
The end result of all this was a ton of headache for Sony. There have been at least half a dozen different models of the PSX, and in the latest revision they've ditched the serial ports (which means that devices like Gamesharks, which have uses that even Sony considers okay, are useless). Of course, mod-chips still exist, piracy is still rampant, and the people who are doing something LEGAL like importing games get screwed trying to keep up with all of this.
I'd hate it if something like this happens with DVD players thanks to the industry's sheer stupidity. This isn't even about piracy, but about people wanting to do perfectly legal things. It's completely insane...
Funny, because I had a cracked Athlon T-bird 800 thanks to the Golden Orb. It appears to be one of those things that aren't going to affect everyone, but it's a big enough problem that the redesign is necessary. Of course, I'm a little wary of another Thermaltake solution until I've seen a lot more data on the current design. IMO it's pretty silly that there should be ANY trouble....
Why on earth would I want a sequel to a bad game with a pretty lame engine? All the "improvements" to the Q2 engine were for naught, with things like the sidekicks absolutely not functioning anywhere near the way they should've. As for the storyline, eh, it was okay. Travel through time, find a sword, etc. I'm not necessarily going to write off John Romero in the future (I think he probably realized the BALANCE between technology and design with the whole Daikatana fiasco) but Ion would do best to just forget about Daikatana entirely, aside from patching it to getting it into a somewhat workable state for all the people who got stuck buying it. Otherwise, give me a new title...
I did not mean to imply that LGlass was producing crap -- rather Eidos does it. My mistake, it's 3 in the morning... :P
Anyway, now that Daikatana is done with (let's hope we never hear rumors of a sequel), Ion Storm seems to be actually delivering what it promised originally. Deus Ex is one hell of a game, and Anachronox looks pretty decent too. Personally, I'm pretty stoked to be seeing Spector doing Thief III -- after playing Deus Ex, I'm convinced he's the right guy to do the job. IMO, DX was essentially everything the Thief series should have been all along (i.e. multiple solutions to problems, emphasis on stealth but not total reliance, no wandering around searching for keys, etc)...
The problem isn't that the record companies are overcharging for CDs, it's that they've aligned with each other and are both gouging people on the price of CDs as well as cutting off competition. The government virtually never just goes and regulates business for no reason -- being a huge company is fine, so long as you "play fair". When you get together with a select few other big companies and prevent any smaller companies from entering the marketplace, you need governmental intereference. Sounds weird, but in order to keep an open market, sometimes the government has to meddle.
Actually, when compared to most TVs, a 17" monitor looks a hell of a lot sharper. DVDs definitely benefit from them a whole lot. Until we all have digital HDTVs (widescreen, of course) a monitor isn't that bad an option, IMO.
Additionally, there are new technologies in film that supposedly increase the way it looks dramatically. Maxivision, a system that is projected at 48 frames per second as opposed to the standard 24 may be a major boon to traditional film. Not only do you maintain the richness of color and depth of film, but you get a much sharper picture (particularly of moving objects) as well. Roger Ebert has written pretty extensively about this technology -- you can find one of his articles (not credited) at http://www.cameraguild.co m/news/techno/film_v_digital.htm
Digital recording and projection will have their uses; digital is substantially cheaper than film, and is already becoming a huge boon to independant filmmakers. Movies that are essentially all digital anyway (Star Wars, any sort of big budget Sci-Fi / Action movie) will also see improvements from never having to touch celluloid.
The one other topic I'd like to touch on is the fact that so many people seem to be jumping at the idea of on demand movies from the internet as a great way to replace Blockbuster -- what happened to wanting to actually own movies? Did we learn nothing from the DIVX fiasco? Then again I'd love to have a whole archive of movies that I could watch when I wanted to... there are some obscure movies that are essentially impossible to track down without paying insanely high prices, and if the internet could get me a way to see them cheaply, I'd be all for it.
Wow, helluva newsflash, people are lazy. Hasn't this been the driving force throughout most of invention? We invent things to make our lives *easier* (at least in theory -- I'd never have to spend any time bitching at my cable company if I didn't have a TV). I agree, these devices are rather odd and perhaps have some... interesting things to say about modern culture, but if you meet someone that makes you happy through them, what's the harm? I don't see how it's any worse than a dating service or a blind date or something similar. People who are using these things obviously aren't anti-social: they're *trying* to find others. That's certainly not a bad thing, is it?
That's true, though I don't believe that Sony owned Psygnosis until a few years into the PSX's lifespan. And of course Psygnosis still publishes titles on other consoles (but for a while they were pretty Sony exclusive -- it took years for Wipeout to hit another console. Sony has also been releasing more and more first and second party titles. Aside from the obvious like Crash Bandicoot, they've got things like Ape Escape, PaRappa the Rapper and Gran Turismo.
If MS go through with this, expect them to buy out some game developers to support it; perhaps Electronic Arts or Infogrames or GT Interactive will fall to MS and cease supporting non-MS platforms
Hrm, that's an interesting concept. A scary one too, but then again I couldn't see MS buying out either of those companies and forcing them to be X-Box/PC only. They both depend on too many different platforms to be profitable. What's more interesting though is that if you buy EA, you also get Square....
This raises the obvious question: who cares? I can buy an X-Box for about $300 in 2001. The PS2 will be cheaper than that in the U.S. by that point in time, the DreamCast already is and Nintendo is aiming for a low cost solution as well. The PS2 will have had more than a year's head start in terms of software and market penetration. Ditto for DC. Nintendo would seem to be more in direct competition, but Nintendo really has its own market built in (people buying it for things like Mario, Pokemon, etc).
Making matters worse for MS, crappy PC's are getting cheaper and cheaper, and so I don't see someone who wants a low cost PC spending the $300 on the X-Box. A hardcore gamer who wants to play PC games probably already owns a decent PC.
What MS needs are some exclusive titles. Having ports from everyone else is all well and good, but you can't sell a console on it. I don't think that they're going to get a lot of these (who the hell would want to develop something just for the X-Box when it's running off of generic PC hardware? You could port it to a "standard" PC with little problem, and dramatically increase your potential market). Without these, the X-Box will just be playing catch up to everything else. You can't sell a console with a pitch like "Hey, we've got all the PS2's games, only six months later!"
What strikes me as most odd is the fact that MS seems to be competing directly with Sony here. Both the PS2 and the X-Box are heavily integrated with online features, both have DVD-movie playback and both seem to be about the same price. That's suicide on Microsoft's part, because again they'll be launching too late to do this all that effectively (especially in Japan, where Sony rules even more). I see this thing going the way of the 3D0 and the CD-I.
And no, American stuff won't work on a Japanese PS2. But rather quickly upon the release of the US system, expect to see a "mod chip" of some sort bypassing whatever lockout schemes Sony uses. Stephen Keller
There are? Like what? Virtually all the major newspapers (and even most of the smaller ones) are owned by a larger group, and anything like TV or radio is almost definitely at the whim of a conglomerate.
Sometimes maybe it's useful to get companies together when their services can complement each other. Can anybody name one real reason why Time/Warner and AOL shouldn't merge if their stockholders want them too? Isn't this a free country?
Rather fortunately, what a company wants is not always what it gets (though of course the bigger the company, the more chance it has of bullying through pesky things like "laws"). Specifically speaking for the U.S., most aren't against the notion of big business so long as said businesses don't abuse their power. And that's the issue that's at stake. Things like monopoly (remember, there's nothing wrong with being a monopoly so long as you don't act like one) and illegal business practices that hurt other companies/individuals are.
I don't give a crap about AOL-TW so long as AOL doesn't use it to move it's half-assed product into even more homes. And I'd rather not see AOL propaganda when I turn on CNN. Even scarier is when mega businesses use thier limitless resources to just crush anything that's they percieve as a remote threat to them (obviously right now it's over DeCSS, but it's definitely not the first time and sadly won't be the last). In short: I'm all for business so long as they operate within the confines of the law (I'd rather have them be ethical but that's even more of a pipe dream)...