I wonder if its really just a matter of timing. I remember the cardboard cutout for Clash of the Titans being March 26th but they pushed it back a week to add in the 3D. And when watching it, you could take off the glasses, and the only 3D items on screen were the rocks in the foreground. Bit disappointing, yes.
However, CGI Movies don't seem to have this problem as much. I know UP and How to Train your Dragon had better 3D effects than most recent blockbusters, though not at the same Caliber as Avatar, they pulled it off without making me feel ripped off. I wonder if they simply spent more than a week adding those effects in, or if they are just more competant studios.
I think from now on I'm going to save 3D to CGI animated movies, they seem to be the only ones capable of delivering it properly right now.
I've heard this arguement before, how "downloaded pixelated AVI's are just as good as Blu Rays!" because the person who is fine with it doesn't have 20/20 vision.
We get that, you don't notice a difference, but for those of us who CAN actually see the enhanced picture, its a better experience. I don't know what its like where all you guys see movies - but the only 3D movie in the past year and a half that hasn't had a 2D Equivalent showing in theatres has been Avatar. So quit playing it like you are being Gyped $2 - go watch the 2D Version.
I think what they are getting at is that it would have been as big as WoW - bigger then Ultima Online or Meridian 59, simply because it HAD that rich background and culture to it. WoW is by no means the first MMO, but its because of its predecessors that it did so well. In all honesty, I think if WoW did not have Warcraft and Starcraft games preceding it (and Warhammer games, if you count those), and it was launched at the same time as LotR:Online, LotR would be the bigger of the two.
If this HAD taken off - it would have been big. Supposedly.
It reminds me of a scenario we had at work. We come in one day and find that about half the computers in the building are getting bad IP addresses, and as such, weren't able to connect to the email servers or the internet. We found out it was a rogue router on the network, dishing out 192.168.1.x/24 addresses when that specific building was under 172.21.30.x/20. We were lucky that it was obviously a default linksys setup, we were able to log into it once we found the IP and disable DHCP. Then we had to go through our routers and switches IPTables/MAC Tables to find out which port this rogue device was plugged in on. Gratefully, our ports are labelled, and each cable is labelled on the patch panel.
So we go and its this dinky little thing inside a janitors closet. One of the lab computers and the lab instruments need to be on a 192.168.1.x/24 subnet because the lab instrument software is programmed terribly. So someone through that router down there years ago and solved the problem, forgetting about it entirely. Cleaning guys accidentally unplugged things one evening, and plugged things back in how they thought it went. They were wrong.
And that is the kind of crap we have come to expect from a company with a network set up about as security intensive as the rest of the internet.
You know, I wonder how that kind of data is collected. What, deducing the origin of the spambot? That doesn't mean the Spam is coming out of the States, it means some Spammer in China is using the states. And since the States simply has one of the bigger online populations, thats to be expected.
You look at their Top Spammers - Eastern Europe and Asia, hmmm, how many Americans?
When you look at WHO IS RESPONSIBLE - it's definately not nearly as bad in America as it is in China, North Korea, Ukraine, etc etc.
People don't use them because they don't know about them. You think Firefox would have taken off if every Geek didn't install it on their mothers computer?
who has been charged with installing malware on ATMs in North Carolina. Caverly, who worked on the bank's IT staff, allegedly withdrew cash untraceably from the ATMs over a period of 7 months last year.
Wait - so if they caught the guy, how the hell is that untraceable?
Just because you don't follow the money doesn't mean you aren't tracing.
You pay premium for a Dodge Challenger. You spend a year souping it up, new fuel injection system, NOS, anything and everything you might have heard of when you watched Fast and the Furious.
Dodge recalls the vehicles, for some issue.
When you go to pick it up, they return you a stock Dodge Neon.
The Earth is already covered in efficient origami solar panels, its just that regular people call them plants.
It also bothers me how little science has gone into researching plants. We know they help convert Carbon Dioxide back into Oxygen, but we don't know how exactly. The only resources they require to do so naturally occur on Earth, sunlight and water being the big two. And we say there is a looming crisis ahead because we've pumped too much CO2 into the atmosphere.
So, this process has been around since before mankind, that would essentially help to reverse the negative effects we've created, if only we could master it. Then we'd work on making it more efficient to make it practical. Where is the manhattan project for this?
You mean back when the team consisted of 1 programmer, 1 animator, 1 artist, and 1 person in marketting? And getting a game to sell a million copies was impossible because there were barely that many home PC's?
PC Gaming back then was entirely different than it was now. I would say that PC gaming was at its peak those years before the NES blasted off. It's been the slowest downhill incline ever since, with a few upward bumps to give us glimmering hope.
How many people Know about Facebook but don't use it? How many people know about MySpace and don't use it? How many people know about Twitter but don't use it?
I think its more popular than you realize. Simply because I don't own a phone capable of running it, or because I choose not to use it for the very reasons listed above, doesn't mean that it isn't a well known trade name.
They don't have to "Dream" to be the next facebook. Facebook was offered like 8 or 9 hundred million right? Twitter, which was just an extension on the facebook status updates, was offered over a hundred million. FourSquare, which is more impressive than twitter, should be valued at more than twitter.
A million users is quite a lot, when you think about it. Facebook, which is the peak of all social networking right now, is about 400 million. So access to the information and advertising to 1 in 400 facebook users? So if the price is 900 million, that means it is worth at least 2.25 Million. Except you are getting WAY more sensative info than facebook allows.
Thats the problem though, Microsoft has found that their entertainment industry is a bit of a money pit. Maybe not as bad as some people make it sound, but its not nearly as profitable as Office or Windows. Every X-box sold means they are losing money (the cost of producing one is more than the cost they sell it at, or the margins are so thin they don't make enough to justify shipping it out). They try to make more money in licensing for games, but more and more people are going "I don't want to pay $70 for a new game, I'll wait for it to go down to $30 used" - and so game sales are down.
If you lived in Canada, they had 1 vs 100 on Xbox live as a way to get people to buy XboxLive Gold subscriptions. I remember the calender for shows going at least till July, and some for even the christmas season this year. It appears to have been pulled, or post-poned. It's no longer active, and the only reason I can think why is that the cost of running it didn't bring in enough subscribers. And no one wanted to pay for advertising, which is why they had the same 4 ads played over and over.
Point is, games are where the money is at. You sell the console for petty sums and make it all up in game licensing. If you pay Microsoft to allow your game on the 360, that means the price of the game goes up, which means less sales, which means less profit for both you and MS. Microsoft has tried to counter this by buying up other game dev companies, or working in a coexisting sense. However, Microsoft has a knack for pissing developers right off. Remember Bungie? There's a reason why they left the agreement they had with MS, they didn't like working under them. And how many game companies can you name that were bought by MS that have either dissolved or turned into suck? I can think of one for every finger, at least.
I don't know what its like exactly at Sony or Nintendo, but it can't be too different. Nintendo has at least branched out to the casual gaming crowd and will easily keep afloat so long as they do what they've been doing. Sony has the benefit of Blu Ray winning the format war, so if you're thinking of a Blu Ray Player, the only reason not to buy one is the price, which when you consider its a gaming console as well (if you like gaming) then its a solid investment. So - if the trend continues, yeah, Microsoft will either have to change its ways, or it'll end up cutting the whole console business out of its strategy. Because right now, they aren't doing so hot.
Christ, anyone who hasn't heard of Foursquare isn't really keen on the social networking scene. It's the latest buzz. HA, get it? Google Buzz? Alright I'll stop with stupid puns.
The general Idea is either A) They make enough money already (I believe another project of theirs was bought out by Google some time ago) B) They don't want their project to die, they want it to become worldchanging C) They are holding out for more, because its worth more.
Or any combination of those.Yes, well, you can say A and C don't go together but just look at Wall Street.
YOU'VE INSPIRED ME. I've got it. Imagine like... an environment... a virtual environment... thats integrated into the language you are developing in. Just the concept of it is groundbreaking. You could customize it however you want! Now, imagine this... right... the integrated development environment was capable of performing everything you just said!
When I was younger one of my favourite games to play was Road Rash. and it saved MY Life back in 2005. I was riding along one evening when I was suddenly found riding along another motorcyclist. My natural instinct was to whip out my 5 foot chain, beat him with it senselessly until he wiped out into a traffic sign, and continue along at breakneck speeds, only to stop for some hookers and booze.
The real question should be "Is there any chance Jack Thompson is going to read this post?". There's no way to answer that, but for now I'll stick with the "By God I sure hope not" attitude.
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I wonder if its really just a matter of timing. I remember the cardboard cutout for Clash of the Titans being March 26th but they pushed it back a week to add in the 3D. And when watching it, you could take off the glasses, and the only 3D items on screen were the rocks in the foreground. Bit disappointing, yes.
However, CGI Movies don't seem to have this problem as much. I know UP and How to Train your Dragon had better 3D effects than most recent blockbusters, though not at the same Caliber as Avatar, they pulled it off without making me feel ripped off. I wonder if they simply spent more than a week adding those effects in, or if they are just more competant studios.
I think from now on I'm going to save 3D to CGI animated movies, they seem to be the only ones capable of delivering it properly right now.
I've heard this arguement before, how "downloaded pixelated AVI's are just as good as Blu Rays!" because the person who is fine with it doesn't have 20/20 vision.
We get that, you don't notice a difference, but for those of us who CAN actually see the enhanced picture, its a better experience. I don't know what its like where all you guys see movies - but the only 3D movie in the past year and a half that hasn't had a 2D Equivalent showing in theatres has been Avatar. So quit playing it like you are being Gyped $2 - go watch the 2D Version.
I think what they are getting at is that it would have been as big as WoW - bigger then Ultima Online or Meridian 59, simply because it HAD that rich background and culture to it. WoW is by no means the first MMO, but its because of its predecessors that it did so well. In all honesty, I think if WoW did not have Warcraft and Starcraft games preceding it (and Warhammer games, if you count those), and it was launched at the same time as LotR:Online, LotR would be the bigger of the two.
If this HAD taken off - it would have been big. Supposedly.
It reminds me of a scenario we had at work. We come in one day and find that about half the computers in the building are getting bad IP addresses, and as such, weren't able to connect to the email servers or the internet. We found out it was a rogue router on the network, dishing out 192.168.1.x/24 addresses when that specific building was under 172.21.30.x/20. We were lucky that it was obviously a default linksys setup, we were able to log into it once we found the IP and disable DHCP. Then we had to go through our routers and switches IPTables/MAC Tables to find out which port this rogue device was plugged in on. Gratefully, our ports are labelled, and each cable is labelled on the patch panel.
So we go and its this dinky little thing inside a janitors closet. One of the lab computers and the lab instruments need to be on a 192.168.1.x/24 subnet because the lab instrument software is programmed terribly. So someone through that router down there years ago and solved the problem, forgetting about it entirely. Cleaning guys accidentally unplugged things one evening, and plugged things back in how they thought it went. They were wrong.
And that is the kind of crap we have come to expect from a company with a network set up about as security intensive as the rest of the internet.
If you are expecting a router to pass GOOD data, how hard is it to believe that someone can trick you into accepting BAD data?
This is no different than you downloading a Windows Update that bluescreens your computer. Clearly your equipment isn't configured correctly.
In actuallity, in order to route things through China, you have to trust China, and yes, that sucks, and yes, I'm using way too many comas.
You know, I wonder how that kind of data is collected. What, deducing the origin of the spambot? That doesn't mean the Spam is coming out of the States, it means some Spammer in China is using the states. And since the States simply has one of the bigger online populations, thats to be expected.
You look at their Top Spammers - Eastern Europe and Asia, hmmm, how many Americans?
When you look at WHO IS RESPONSIBLE - it's definately not nearly as bad in America as it is in China, North Korea, Ukraine, etc etc.
People don't use them because they don't know about them. You think Firefox would have taken off if every Geek didn't install it on their mothers computer?
And no one is forcing the judge to read his emails. No one is stopping the judge from setting up a filter.
Look at it this way: If they had all sent in letters through the post office, would this have been considered illegal?
What they need to do is remember why the project started and get back to that.
I know. You'd be surprised how many people would love an internet browser that does nothing but display a web page as fast as possible.
I'd argue that Windows live and Zune are not failures. And as for Windows Mobile, while it sucks, they still put it on phones, didn't they?
who has been charged with installing malware on ATMs in North Carolina. Caverly, who worked on the bank's IT staff, allegedly withdrew cash untraceably from the ATMs over a period of 7 months last year.
Wait - so if they caught the guy, how the hell is that untraceable?
Just because you don't follow the money doesn't mean you aren't tracing.
My Analogy:
You pay premium for a Dodge Challenger. You spend a year souping it up, new fuel injection system, NOS, anything and everything you might have heard of when you watched Fast and the Furious.
Dodge recalls the vehicles, for some issue.
When you go to pick it up, they return you a stock Dodge Neon.
Then why aren't we doing it ourselves? Why bother saving trees?
Minnesota has that effect on people.
The Earth is already covered in efficient origami solar panels, its just that regular people call them plants.
It also bothers me how little science has gone into researching plants. We know they help convert Carbon Dioxide back into Oxygen, but we don't know how exactly. The only resources they require to do so naturally occur on Earth, sunlight and water being the big two. And we say there is a looming crisis ahead because we've pumped too much CO2 into the atmosphere.
So, this process has been around since before mankind, that would essentially help to reverse the negative effects we've created, if only we could master it. Then we'd work on making it more efficient to make it practical.
Where is the manhattan project for this?
You mean back when the team consisted of 1 programmer, 1 animator, 1 artist, and 1 person in marketting? And getting a game to sell a million copies was impossible because there were barely that many home PC's?
PC Gaming back then was entirely different than it was now. I would say that PC gaming was at its peak those years before the NES blasted off. It's been the slowest downhill incline ever since, with a few upward bumps to give us glimmering hope.
Hey, don't knock on us if we want to have a beach lan party.
How many people Know about Facebook but don't use it? How many people know about MySpace and don't use it? How many people know about Twitter but don't use it?
I think its more popular than you realize. Simply because I don't own a phone capable of running it, or because I choose not to use it for the very reasons listed above, doesn't mean that it isn't a well known trade name.
They don't have to "Dream" to be the next facebook. Facebook was offered like 8 or 9 hundred million right? Twitter, which was just an extension on the facebook status updates, was offered over a hundred million. FourSquare, which is more impressive than twitter, should be valued at more than twitter.
A million users is quite a lot, when you think about it. Facebook, which is the peak of all social networking right now, is about 400 million.
So access to the information and advertising to 1 in 400 facebook users? So if the price is 900 million, that means it is worth at least 2.25 Million. Except you are getting WAY more sensative info than facebook allows.
Thats the problem though, Microsoft has found that their entertainment industry is a bit of a money pit. Maybe not as bad as some people make it sound, but its not nearly as profitable as Office or Windows. Every X-box sold means they are losing money (the cost of producing one is more than the cost they sell it at, or the margins are so thin they don't make enough to justify shipping it out). They try to make more money in licensing for games, but more and more people are going "I don't want to pay $70 for a new game, I'll wait for it to go down to $30 used" - and so game sales are down.
If you lived in Canada, they had 1 vs 100 on Xbox live as a way to get people to buy XboxLive Gold subscriptions. I remember the calender for shows going at least till July, and some for even the christmas season this year. It appears to have been pulled, or post-poned. It's no longer active, and the only reason I can think why is that the cost of running it didn't bring in enough subscribers. And no one wanted to pay for advertising, which is why they had the same 4 ads played over and over.
Point is, games are where the money is at. You sell the console for petty sums and make it all up in game licensing. If you pay Microsoft to allow your game on the 360, that means the price of the game goes up, which means less sales, which means less profit for both you and MS. Microsoft has tried to counter this by buying up other game dev companies, or working in a coexisting sense. However, Microsoft has a knack for pissing developers right off. Remember Bungie? There's a reason why they left the agreement they had with MS, they didn't like working under them. And how many game companies can you name that were bought by MS that have either dissolved or turned into suck? I can think of one for every finger, at least.
I don't know what its like exactly at Sony or Nintendo, but it can't be too different. Nintendo has at least branched out to the casual gaming crowd and will easily keep afloat so long as they do what they've been doing. Sony has the benefit of Blu Ray winning the format war, so if you're thinking of a Blu Ray Player, the only reason not to buy one is the price, which when you consider its a gaming console as well (if you like gaming) then its a solid investment. So - if the trend continues, yeah, Microsoft will either have to change its ways, or it'll end up cutting the whole console business out of its strategy. Because right now, they aren't doing so hot.
Perhaps "the brains" over at Canonical decided to finally listen to the open source community that provides the backbone of their business.
Christ, anyone who hasn't heard of Foursquare isn't really keen on the social networking scene. It's the latest buzz. HA, get it? Google Buzz? Alright I'll stop with stupid puns.
The general Idea is either
A) They make enough money already (I believe another project of theirs was bought out by Google some time ago)
B) They don't want their project to die, they want it to become worldchanging
C) They are holding out for more, because its worth more.
Or any combination of those.Yes, well, you can say A and C don't go together but just look at Wall Street.
The cost of renting the server farm has to be twice as much as the savings they'd have if they just powered them off.
Maybe even a little more, so that someone makes a profit.
I still don't understand why the Stock Market can't run 24/7.
That approach was obsolete even back in Turing's day.
What made it obsolete? The amount of time it took? Could that be why this organization takes so long to leak these videos?
*Stands out of Chair*
YOU'VE INSPIRED ME.
I've got it. Imagine like... an environment... a virtual environment... thats integrated into the language you are developing in. Just the concept of it is groundbreaking. You could customize it however you want! Now, imagine this... right... the integrated development environment was capable of performing everything you just said!
Why, I don't think anyone has ever thought of this before. Not Microsoft, not even the open source community!
Seriously John, lets jump on this.
When I was younger one of my favourite games to play was Road Rash. and it saved MY Life back in 2005. I was riding along one evening when I was suddenly found riding along another motorcyclist. My natural instinct was to whip out my 5 foot chain, beat him with it senselessly until he wiped out into a traffic sign, and continue along at breakneck speeds, only to stop for some hookers and booze.
The real question should be "Is there any chance Jack Thompson is going to read this post?". There's no way to answer that, but for now I'll stick with the "By God I sure hope not" attitude.