I sincerley hope this doesn't hinder the developing commercial space industry. It would be a shame to see commercial space flight being boged down by miltary and plitical red tape. The airline industry has suffered in the hands of tighter security and space flight would obviously be even more closely regulated. GO XPRIZE!
I started on Mandrake as well, but switched up to Debian for package management. Lately I've been using RH because it is the corporate standard. I'm not a fan of RedHat. I find it's desktop suite to be very limited, considering how bloated it is. I'd really like to see a distro that has the power of mandrake in the desktop department, but isn't 2-3 CDs big. I usually prefer network installs. Can mandrake be installed as an XP replacement for a non-techie, without taking up 2GB of HD with misc. software that will likely never be used?
How did the idea first come for the Postal series? We were bored making kids games for companies like Sesame Street and Disney. Most everybody in the office was playing Doom stuff, and we had a Robotron arcade machine. You make kids games for 10 years and then lets see what you think of. For us it was always about the fun, the comedy, I mean POSTAL is really about adult humor, that was out goal.
Was the "Postal" series created to be controversial from the beginning? Was being controversial your main goal? Our main goal was to make people die laughing, we never took it serious. Not at all, we just wanted to do something different. People ask about our industry not being creative or original that's because every other game that comes out is the same as the other, except with new tech features. I had no idea that setting a marching band on fire was gonna be considered politically incorrect, and the suicide move in the first POSTAL, we all thought it was great, but a lot of asshole politicians just seen it as an opportunity to be hypocritical about.
When "Running With Scissors" was first developing "Postal 1", what types of ideas went through the team's heads about how controversial the title was going to be? Back then did you think much about the fact that games could somehow "inspire" the player to commit acts that were portrayed in your game, or any game for that matter? First let me say that if I thought we could make a game that would honestly motivate people to do things in real life, then I would make a game about fucking, cause this world needs more sex than killing that's for shit sure. The creative process here is actually pretty open, everyone just says whats on their minds and it all gets considered, of course it the end technical reality takes over. For the most part the games include it all, we don't approach game design by what can or cant we put it, we just ask one thing, is it funny. Of course we have a different sense of humor but hey that's what makes the world interesting. As for the controversy I've said it before we never planned for it nor did we anticipate, I mean shit in this fucked up place called earth who the hell could have imagined that a video game could get so much attention when the real world is filled with real crazy people, but that's the news today.
What has influenced "Running With Scissors" development of such controversial titles? OK, to really get a clearer picture let me run off a few personality characteristics of the key folks in design: catholic school upbringing, some of us grew up in the 60's, 70's and 80's, metal, comics, race, horny male syndrome, drugs, guns, animals...are you getting the picture yet? Sure I could go on and tell you things like Southpark, Spy vs Spy, Robotron, Atari, Clinton, and of course 9/11. Thinking about it I'd say we're a pretty normal group, that decided to go for it, and actually do and say what we feel, I really do think we're very lucky.
If there were no rating system on games and nothing holding back any type of gore or adult content, what type of things do you imagine we might see in today's video games or at least "Running With Scissors" titles? I think a rating system is a good thing, the problem is that retailers are scared to carry controversial titles unless they get big ad guarantees, so the corruption and hypocrisy are not limited to the politicians, lets not forget the major publishers that are nothing more than pimps for sorry ass broke ugly developers. True creativity is a rare animal, so I'm not sure the rating system means that much for real and truly creative folks. I'm very proud of POSTAL not because its shock value but because it succeeds in what we set out to do MAKE PEOPLE HAVE FUN. As for RWS all I can say is if you play or watch POSTAL and don't laugh in the 1st 60 seconds then I blew it, and from all the fan mail we get I think we did pretty good.
What's your opinion on the statement "Games make killers out of gamers"? BULLSHIT. If that was actually true we'd have a h
I hear ya. I was in the porn shop the other day to buy some "materials" to take on a camping trip. When I went to pay for it, I pulled out my credit card. put away the credit card and pulled out my debit card. Put away my debit card and paid cash.
Am I the only only that is a bit skeptical of this report? There's never been any conclusive evidence to show that cell phones have an effect on the users brain. I just can't see how this idea would be possible... Maybe if I start using a 3G phone I'll wise up to the theory.
I really like this quote from the article. "Some goals may take a lifetime to reach," he said. "We need to set those goals now. We need to re-dedicate ourselves to science, engineering and technology in this country." Amen! Imagine what America could acheive with a $400 billion space and technology budget. Instead it's spent on building supersonic jets that can carpet an area with dirty bombs. Next generation technology to fight enemies that are 2 generations behind? WHY?
Fact: The magnetic field of the sun is relatively flat right now. In turn the field of earth is dropping.
Earth's magnetic flux is nothing new. It's happened dozens of times in history, as shown by ice core samples. The poles have shifted from south to north before, but we've never had the luxury of electricty when it happened. Electricity is reliant on magnectics, so how will earth's degraded field effect the flow? Could it cause increased instability in large scale grids? I've seen several interviews with the chief of power in Ohio that discussed an "unknown electrical phenomenon" causing the NY blackout. The amount of power lost in these events are so massive that when a grid tries to re-route the power it creates an osscilation effect. The grid shuts down to prevent the osscilation from spreading through the grid. After reading that interview I predicted that the blackouts would probably become a more common event. A few weeks later the UK blackout. Now the Italy blackout. Shortly after the Italy blackout I read that it was caused by an "unknown phenomenon", probably the same type of event. Your thoughts?
Finally, some innovation outside of the labs. Even if the engine doesn't perform as planned, I give the EU space team high marks for developing new ideas rather than rehashing the technology that has been updated since the 60s.
Perhaps it's a black-ops initiative by microsoft to try and demonstrate that all software is buggy. It would certainley help to discredit the open source alternatives. "Should you be caught, we will disavow all knowledge of your actions. " -- Bill
Video Phones were released by AT&T in the 90s, but they required both parties to have one. The display screen was very small and the frames per second were horrible. That combined with the cost made them very unattractive and never caught on.
I disagree, it is a valid topic. Afterall, think of the money spent on jailing people for minor drug offences. Millions! Many politicians agree that the war on drugs has been a miserable failure. The federal and state governments spend billions a year on drug enforcement, yet the usage rates have sky-rocketed. How often do you hear about people intoxicated on marijuana, start bar fights, crash their car, beat their wife, etc. Alcohol causes all kinds of social problems, resulting in death, injury and costs billions to police. How does that compare to people that run a minor risk of lung cancer (minmal compared to tabbaco), and possible obesity from the munchies?
Go here. Download apt for redhat. Then download another package called synaptic. Synaptic gives you a graphical lay-over for apt-get to run on redhat. I'm sure there are some incompatibilities somewhere, but this is the easiest way to get away from dependancy hell in Redhat.
Don't bother with SWG. If you want a space adventure, try Eve Online. There's no FPS component to Eve, but from the complaints I've read on SWG that's not a bad thing. Like all other games Eve was released a little to early, but they have done a spectacular job in crushing the major bugs. It's stable enough now that I don't worry about crashing to desktop in the middle of a heated battle. I've found that EVE is really what I was expecting SWG to be in the first place. SWG won't allow you to fly ships for another year or so. Even then you'll have to buy another 50 dollar expansion pack. Originally Eve was pretty boring because it's foundation is built on player actions. Now that there's over 4000 users on at most hours of the day, there's plenty to do. There's a PK group that has become a very serious blockade. The game has a full blown market with company stocks and trade goods. The potential of this game is unreal. Another reason I really beleive in Eve is that it was developed by a crew that can be considered a mom & pop development shop. Like any business arena I think it's important to support the little guys.
Dump SWG, try Eve.
Slashdot Mirror
I sincerley hope this doesn't hinder the developing commercial space industry. It would be a shame to see commercial space flight being boged down by miltary and plitical red tape. The airline industry has suffered in the hands of tighter security and space flight would obviously be even more closely regulated. GO XPRIZE!
I started on Mandrake as well, but switched up to Debian for package management. Lately I've been using RH because it is the corporate standard. I'm not a fan of RedHat. I find it's desktop suite to be very limited, considering how bloated it is. I'd really like to see a distro that has the power of mandrake in the desktop department, but isn't 2-3 CDs big. I usually prefer network installs. Can mandrake be installed as an XP replacement for a non-techie, without taking up 2GB of HD with misc. software that will likely never be used?
It's called 'JAVA' desktop, it's built 'SUSE', and it's name is MAD 'HATTER'. Could they make this anymore confusing?!
How did the idea first come for the Postal series?
We were bored making kids games for companies like Sesame Street and Disney. Most everybody in the office was playing Doom stuff, and we had a Robotron arcade machine. You make kids games for 10 years and then lets see what you think of. For us it was always about the fun, the comedy, I mean POSTAL is really about adult humor, that was out goal.
Was the "Postal" series created to be controversial from the beginning? Was being controversial your main goal?
Our main goal was to make people die laughing, we never took it serious. Not at all, we just wanted to do something different. People ask about our industry not being creative or original that's because every other game that comes out is the same as the other, except with new tech features. I had no idea that setting a marching band on fire was gonna be considered politically incorrect, and the suicide move in the first POSTAL, we all thought it was great, but a lot of asshole politicians just seen it as an opportunity to be hypocritical about.
When "Running With Scissors" was first developing "Postal 1", what types of ideas went through the team's heads about how controversial the title was going to be? Back then did you think much about the fact that games could somehow "inspire" the player to commit acts that were portrayed in your game, or any game for that matter?
First let me say that if I thought we could make a game that would honestly motivate people to do things in real life, then I would make a game about fucking, cause this world needs more sex than killing that's for shit sure. The creative process here is actually pretty open, everyone just says whats on their minds and it all gets considered, of course it the end technical reality takes over. For the most part the games include it all, we don't approach game design by what can or cant we put it, we just ask one thing, is it funny. Of course we have a different sense of humor but hey that's what makes the world interesting. As for the controversy I've said it before we never planned for it nor did we anticipate, I mean shit in this fucked up place called earth who the hell could have imagined that a video game could get so much attention when the real world is filled with real crazy people, but that's the news today.
What has influenced "Running With Scissors" development of such controversial titles?
OK, to really get a clearer picture let me run off a few personality characteristics of the key folks in design: catholic school upbringing, some of us grew up in the 60's, 70's and 80's, metal, comics, race, horny male syndrome, drugs, guns, animals...are you getting the picture yet? Sure I could go on and tell you things like Southpark, Spy vs Spy, Robotron, Atari, Clinton, and of course 9/11. Thinking about it I'd say we're a pretty normal group, that decided to go for it, and actually do and say what we feel, I really do think we're very lucky.
If there were no rating system on games and nothing holding back any type of gore or adult content, what type of things do you imagine we might see in today's video games or at least "Running With Scissors" titles?
I think a rating system is a good thing, the problem is that retailers are scared to carry controversial titles unless they get big ad guarantees, so the corruption and hypocrisy are not limited to the politicians, lets not forget the major publishers that are nothing more than pimps for sorry ass broke ugly developers. True creativity is a rare animal, so I'm not sure the rating system means that much for real and truly creative folks. I'm very proud of POSTAL not because its shock value but because it succeeds in what we set out to do MAKE PEOPLE HAVE FUN. As for RWS all I can say is if you play or watch POSTAL and don't laugh in the 1st 60 seconds then I blew it, and from all the fan mail we get I think we did pretty good.
What's your opinion on the statement "Games make killers out of gamers"?
BULLSHIT. If that was actually true we'd have a h
serves me right for not previewing first.
"Is Linus a Guiness man?"
The big question that we need confirm here, "Is Linux a Guiness man?"
What about the pages in national geographic that are warped and stick together? Wil it be able to save those as well?
I hear ya. I was in the porn shop the other day to buy some "materials" to take on a camping trip. When I went to pay for it, I pulled out my credit card. put away the credit card and pulled out my debit card. Put away my debit card and paid cash.
Am I the only only that is a bit skeptical of this report? There's never been any conclusive evidence to show that cell phones have an effect on the users brain. I just can't see how this idea would be possible... Maybe if I start using a 3G phone I'll wise up to the theory.
This has to be one of the coolest ideas I've seen in a long time! Education without borders. Kudos to MIT!
I really like this quote from the article.
"Some goals may take a lifetime to reach," he said. "We need to set those goals now. We need to re-dedicate ourselves to science, engineering and technology in this country."
Amen! Imagine what America could acheive with a $400 billion space and technology budget. Instead it's spent on building supersonic jets that can carpet an area with dirty bombs. Next generation technology to fight enemies that are 2 generations behind? WHY?
Fact: The magnetic field of the sun is relatively flat right now. In turn the field of earth is dropping.
Earth's magnetic flux is nothing new. It's happened dozens of times in history, as shown by ice core samples. The poles have shifted from south to north before, but we've never had the luxury of electricty when it happened. Electricity is reliant on magnectics, so how will earth's degraded field effect the flow? Could it cause increased instability in large scale grids? I've seen several interviews with the chief of power in Ohio that discussed an "unknown electrical phenomenon" causing the NY blackout. The amount of power lost in these events are so massive that when a grid tries to re-route the power it creates an osscilation effect. The grid shuts down to prevent the osscilation from spreading through the grid. After reading that interview I predicted that the blackouts would probably become a more common event. A few weeks later the UK blackout. Now the Italy blackout. Shortly after the Italy blackout I read that it was caused by an "unknown phenomenon", probably the same type of event. Your thoughts?
That's all I have to say about that.
This is almost enough to make me change my views on burning books.
Finally, some innovation outside of the labs. Even if the engine doesn't perform as planned, I give the EU space team high marks for developing new ideas rather than rehashing the technology that has been updated since the 60s.
I agree! Based on this guys resume he won't have a problem getting a job!
That's a pretty impressive bio. I'd be interested to read an interview with Dr. Geer. Can slashdot arrange this?
Not only is the site ugly, but the picture that is a scroll off screen is more offensive than gotse! That site deserves to be slashdotted!
Windows Millenium is the bastard step child of the windows family. Have some self respect and use WIN2K or XP.
Perhaps it's a black-ops initiative by microsoft to try and demonstrate that all software is buggy. It would certainley help to discredit the open source alternatives. "Should you be caught, we will disavow all knowledge of your actions. " -- Bill
Video Phones were released by AT&T in the 90s, but they required both parties to have one. The display screen was very small and the frames per second were horrible. That combined with the cost made them very unattractive and never caught on.
I disagree, it is a valid topic. Afterall, think of the money spent on jailing people for minor drug offences. Millions! Many politicians agree that the war on drugs has been a miserable failure. The federal and state governments spend billions a year on drug enforcement, yet the usage rates have sky-rocketed. How often do you hear about people intoxicated on marijuana, start bar fights, crash their car, beat their wife, etc. Alcohol causes all kinds of social problems, resulting in death, injury and costs billions to police. How does that compare to people that run a minor risk of lung cancer (minmal compared to tabbaco), and possible obesity from the munchies?
This is a terrible article. It reads like it was written by a 16 year old.... and an immature 16 year old at that.
Go here. Download apt for redhat. Then download another package called synaptic. Synaptic gives you a graphical lay-over for apt-get to run on redhat. I'm sure there are some incompatibilities somewhere, but this is the easiest way to get away from dependancy hell in Redhat.
Don't bother with SWG. If you want a space adventure, try Eve Online. There's no FPS component to Eve, but from the complaints I've read on SWG that's not a bad thing. Like all other games Eve was released a little to early, but they have done a spectacular job in crushing the major bugs. It's stable enough now that I don't worry about crashing to desktop in the middle of a heated battle. I've found that EVE is really what I was expecting SWG to be in the first place. SWG won't allow you to fly ships for another year or so. Even then you'll have to buy another 50 dollar expansion pack. Originally Eve was pretty boring because it's foundation is built on player actions. Now that there's over 4000 users on at most hours of the day, there's plenty to do. There's a PK group that has become a very serious blockade. The game has a full blown market with company stocks and trade goods. The potential of this game is unreal. Another reason I really beleive in Eve is that it was developed by a crew that can be considered a mom & pop development shop. Like any business arena I think it's important to support the little guys.
Dump SWG, try Eve.