In my experience (and I have been a video and non-video game designer) outside submissions get about as much reception as a leper in a hot tub.
It's like this:
Publishers have a marketing department which largely determines what games get made. "Our analysis is that we need a first-person shooter for Xmas 2003." So shall it be; some suit at the company gets an outside or inside developer to make the game. Publishers are usually not interested in innovative games. Innovation is risky. Sequels and genre clones aren't. (I think Black and White, a recent innovative game, was self-funded; the publisher didn't have to pony up much if anything to Lionhead for its development.)
Game development houses have their own staff of creative people who like games -- these people have their own ideas, and they DON'T WANT YOURS. I've seen this from the inside in several game companies. I have also been that bad person who doesn't want your idea, even if it's a good one. This never varies; creative people have their OWN agenda to push.
I'm sure that some kid somewhere came up with a great game idea and got it made by some company at some point in history. And if you are so inclined, try your luck at that. But don't believe that there's some magic formula -- some kind of document you can write that will win over the Suits at the Publisher and the Hipster-Looking Game Designers at the development house. It all comes down to luck, getting your proposal in front of some kind of executive who is both open minded AND not full of his own ideas. That's a rare cat indeed.
Not a bad idea. I'd email you for buttons except I never seem to leave the house anymore.:)
How about a web campaign too? I'll have to cook up a "Dark Heart of the Internet" banner for my site. I'd link such a banner to a well-written anti-censorship page.
Generally I like Bush but like any politician he has some truly retarded ideas.
The question really is this" how far ahead is Big Brother? If you read the history of the NSA (in a book like The Puzzle Palace) you will find out it is believed they are many years ahead of industry in these matters. (as if most people don't think that already.)
If I needed secure comms, I would get the best gear I could but ultimately I would be hoping that I was below Big Brother's radar. I'm not willing to bet my life on any of this crypto stuff. It takes more than gadgets... it takes good fieldcraft to communicate securely.
Not that I'm doing anything that needs crypto, but I suspect that will change when my local Illuminati cell finally recruits me. What are they waiting for??
While this might allow some smug "we don't need ya anyway!" remarks from the boys upstairs, the reality is that they may indeed be needed.
Luckily for the boys upstairs, they'll never realize their error. It must be nice to be right all the time, even when the company is falling down around you. I long to be an executive, protected by many layers of reality-defusing lackeys... but for now I am stuck with doing real work.
(Bitter much? Well, a little, I just saw my workplace disintegrating like this a few months ago...)
...it is still somewhat disputed that prions are alive.
This is actually not in dispute at all. Prions are just chunks of protein. They have some DAMN STRANGE properties, but these are all a result of the shape they are folded into and the ways that they interact with other things in the body.
(Fact: the prion that is thought to cause mad cow disease can't be destroyed by autoclaving it. CJD is the same way... it has been passed from one patient to another by the tools used for brain surgery, even though they were sterilized in the standard way. Spooky!)
A virus, at least, has some genetic code in it. But a prion is more like the biological equivalent of one of those little burrs that gets caught in your sock when you are outside. Dead, but still reactive in a way.
As a biochemist (by training, I'm not working in the field now though) I am DYING of curiosity about Martian life. The latest studies now support the original conclusion that the rock did have evidence of microbes... but I won't be satisfied until we have cultured some martian bugs. What will their biochemistry be like?? Will our current toolbox be worth anything on these guys?
If they even exist at all, anyway. But my gut feeling is they do. We just have to find them.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to explain to my mom why the "gardening.com" link I sent her doesn't work, and what she has to do to fix it, and how that fix will wreck her links to her other sites because she has changed her nickname authority. It sounds like a worse mess than what we have now, where not even the most basic rule holds anymore: this URL takes you to this specific page. (how is that an improvement??)
There is a lot of value in non-colliding nicknames. Geeks may not mind a few extra steps, but... Hey, wait a minute. I would mind too, actually.
this is a public trust, then I'd like to see a public audit of the books.
There are plenty of complex maps that need color to be rendered properly. Give me a break... 16 grays is just *not* enough for representing *some* kinds of data, no matter how heated you get. You can try to trivialize that by calling those applications "toys" but it doesn't make you look any better. When was the last time you used a modern GPS for urban navigation? Those displays get awfully cluttered. Color would be an improvement.
Besides, it would be nearly impossible to connect your camera to a handheld directly as you need the same connection (serial/USB) the handheld sync software on your camera, as well as the drivers and software to interact with the camera.
Bull. My camera writes to CF cards. When I fill a card up I'd like to review the images in a palmtop so I can trash the duds. There's no need to carry a cable around, or to mess with the palmtop after every shot. Camera sync software? Anyone who knows what they are doing gets the image right off the camera memory card. Since you don't know anything about digital cameras don't tell me how to use mine.
It would be nice if the camera had a better screen but that's life. No camera comes with an iPaq-type screen.
I have a digital camera. I would like a PDA with a good color screen so I can pop in the camera's memory card and evaluate the photos I just took. The camera has a display, but it is very small and suitable only for framing a shot. Even if you zoom in it is often hard to tell if an image is a keeper, or if it's just a bit to blurred to hang on to. An iPaq-like screen would make it possible for me to manage my images in the field without lugging a laptop around.
There are also pocket database applications color would be great for. I like aquariums. I would love to develop a pocket aquarist's guide that shows fish images in full color and displays the temp, pH etc. that they need. It would be great reference to have while shopping in a fish store. I can see how people who were into plants might like something similar.
Here's another one you overlooked: maps. A detailed map is far easier to view in color than in greyscale. If I had a color PDA with a lot of memory I would have maps for my whole city in it.
Color has a lot of uses.
Alas, all the color PDAs are overpriced so I am hanging onto my Palm III. (wasted money and frustration? Not.)
Re:Japanese (and American) revisionist history
on
Review: Pearl Harbor
·
· Score: 2
Since the entire economy of a modern nation is geared to produce the tools of war...
From what I have read, the movie will deviate from the books a lot. I mean, orc eggs? Arwen hangin' with the Fellowship? A big Elven army at Helm's Deep?
I can understand cutting things. The books are too long to translate perfectly into a movie. But adding things like orc eggs is just lame.
I'm going to wait for some reviews before I go see this thing. I'm expecting another TPM.
My monitor costs more than all the other components of my computer put together, and I figure that's the way it should be since I spend 12 hours a day in front of the damn thing. I only wish I had made the plunge earlier.
A good monitor is a joy, and a mediocre monitor taints your whole experience at the box. And unlike a CPU, a good monitor will last for *years.*
Unfortunately "the internet" isn't a utility in the same sense as a telephone. Maybe we here all think it should be, but it doesn't have the same legal status and it probably never will. You think ISPs want to provide "universal lifeline" internet connectivity like telcos must do with phones?
internet backbones are a utility by all definitions
Practically, but not legally. Too bad, really.
Re:The *real* problem with handheld devices...
on
Palm In Trouble?
·
· Score: 3
...and while it is funny as hell to play with, any and all actually useful functions it has are much better done with pen(cil) and paper. Honestly.
That may be true for the way YOU work but there are about a zillion people who would disagree with you.
My Palm III allowed me to get organized. I don't lose phone numbers or forget appointments anymore. And a paper planner can't beep to remind me to go do something.
FWIW I don't use Outlook, and I never use Palm Desktop for anything except backup. I keep all my contacts and appointments in the palmtop; once in a while I sync it, so I have a copy of my data.
But essentially, the palm is an expensive gameboy for adults.
Don't slam everyone who finds these things useful just because you are too set in your pen & paper ways to appreciate them.
Yves was awful. I could see her as an occasional opponent or ally, but a regular? Blech.
I was really dreading Jimmy Bond's role at first, but I immediately grew to like him. I thought that he made the perfect foil for the trio.
Anyway, I hope the Lone Gunmen made enough to retire on from their short stint in the spotlight. (It was sad to see the actor who played Frohicke at GenCon a few years ago. It's a rare actor who's career can get BETTER after a game industry convention appearance...)
Not when it's a TV program that gets broadcast that you tape for later. That falls under the 'time sharing' provision of fair use. The Supreme Court has ruled it's legal to time shift. End of story.
The problem is this: time shifting is legal, but preventing time shifting may not be illegal. And if that's how it plays out, we're screwed; the media/gadget companies will remove our ability to take advantage of 'fair use' in any way they can. They'll probably get away with it, too.
Slashdot Mirror
(let's all go to Episode I two days before a major milestone! YAAAAY!)
LOL, did you work where I did??
(In retrospect I would have rather stayed in the office trying to recreate some pesky bug that see TPM. Uck.)
In my experience (and I have been a video and non-video game designer) outside submissions get about as much reception as a leper in a hot tub.
It's like this:
Publishers have a marketing department which largely determines what games get made. "Our analysis is that we need a first-person shooter for Xmas 2003." So shall it be; some suit at the company gets an outside or inside developer to make the game. Publishers are usually not interested in innovative games. Innovation is risky. Sequels and genre clones aren't. (I think Black and White, a recent innovative game, was self-funded; the publisher didn't have to pony up much if anything to Lionhead for its development.)
Game development houses have their own staff of creative people who like games -- these people have their own ideas, and they DON'T WANT YOURS. I've seen this from the inside in several game companies. I have also been that bad person who doesn't want your idea, even if it's a good one. This never varies; creative people have their OWN agenda to push.
I'm sure that some kid somewhere came up with a great game idea and got it made by some company at some point in history. And if you are so inclined, try your luck at that. But don't believe that there's some magic formula -- some kind of document you can write that will win over the Suits at the Publisher and the Hipster-Looking Game Designers at the development house. It all comes down to luck, getting your proposal in front of some kind of executive who is both open minded AND not full of his own ideas. That's a rare cat indeed.
Cheers,
IronChef
This has got to be an all-time low for the site.
(If we're interviewing nutbars, I would rather see an interview with the Timecube.com guy.)
We stopped at 0. I better die in some kind of accident, because I'll have no kids to take care of me when I get old and senile!
Luckily there are lots of other places to get X10 gear. Check Smarthome to start with.
I almost never patronize x10.com.
Not a bad idea. I'd email you for buttons except I never seem to leave the house anymore. :)
How about a web campaign too? I'll have to cook up a "Dark Heart of the Internet" banner for my site. I'd link such a banner to a well-written anti-censorship page.
Generally I like Bush but like any politician he has some truly retarded ideas.
The question really is this" how far ahead is Big Brother? If you read the history of the NSA (in a book like The Puzzle Palace) you will find out it is believed they are many years ahead of industry in these matters. (as if most people don't think that already.)
If I needed secure comms, I would get the best gear I could but ultimately I would be hoping that I was below Big Brother's radar. I'm not willing to bet my life on any of this crypto stuff. It takes more than gadgets... it takes good fieldcraft to communicate securely.
Not that I'm doing anything that needs crypto, but I suspect that will change when my local Illuminati cell finally recruits me. What are they waiting for??
While this might allow some smug "we don't need ya anyway!" remarks from the boys upstairs, the reality is that they may indeed be needed.
Luckily for the boys upstairs, they'll never realize their error. It must be nice to be right all the time, even when the company is falling down around you. I long to be an executive, protected by many layers of reality-defusing lackeys... but for now I am stuck with doing real work.
(Bitter much? Well, a little, I just saw my workplace disintegrating like this a few months ago...)
On-topic content: ICANN sucks.
...it is still somewhat disputed that prions are alive.
This is actually not in dispute at all. Prions are just chunks of protein. They have some DAMN STRANGE properties, but these are all a result of the shape they are folded into and the ways that they interact with other things in the body.
(Fact: the prion that is thought to cause mad cow disease can't be destroyed by autoclaving it. CJD is the same way... it has been passed from one patient to another by the tools used for brain surgery, even though they were sterilized in the standard way. Spooky!)
A virus, at least, has some genetic code in it. But a prion is more like the biological equivalent of one of those little burrs that gets caught in your sock when you are outside. Dead, but still reactive in a way.
As a biochemist (by training, I'm not working in the field now though) I am DYING of curiosity about Martian life. The latest studies now support the original conclusion that the rock did have evidence of microbes... but I won't be satisfied until we have cultured some martian bugs. What will their biochemistry be like?? Will our current toolbox be worth anything on these guys?
If they even exist at all, anyway. But my gut feeling is they do. We just have to find them.
I don't know about you, but I don't want to explain to my mom why the "gardening.com" link I sent her doesn't work, and what she has to do to fix it, and how that fix will wreck her links to her other sites because she has changed her nickname authority. It sounds like a worse mess than what we have now, where not even the most basic rule holds anymore: this URL takes you to this specific page. (how is that an improvement??)
There is a lot of value in non-colliding nicknames. Geeks may not mind a few extra steps, but... Hey, wait a minute. I would mind too, actually.
this is a public trust, then I'd like to see a public audit of the books.
That I can definitely agree with.
There are plenty of complex maps that need color to be rendered properly. Give me a break... 16 grays is just *not* enough for representing *some* kinds of data, no matter how heated you get. You can try to trivialize that by calling those applications "toys" but it doesn't make you look any better. When was the last time you used a modern GPS for urban navigation? Those displays get awfully cluttered. Color would be an improvement.
Besides, it would be nearly impossible to connect your camera to a handheld directly as you need the same connection (serial/USB) the handheld sync software on your camera, as well as the drivers and software to interact with the camera.
Bull. My camera writes to CF cards. When I fill a card up I'd like to review the images in a palmtop so I can trash the duds. There's no need to carry a cable around, or to mess with the palmtop after every shot. Camera sync software? Anyone who knows what they are doing gets the image right off the camera memory card. Since you don't know anything about digital cameras don't tell me how to use mine.
It would be nice if the camera had a better screen but that's life. No camera comes with an iPaq-type screen.
I think it can be argued that there are reference works that require color that do not count as toys. Same with maps.
I agree that B&W is fine for most things but you seem to have a serious anti-color agenda.
Why color? Here's just one reason.
I have a digital camera. I would like a PDA with a good color screen so I can pop in the camera's memory card and evaluate the photos I just took. The camera has a display, but it is very small and suitable only for framing a shot. Even if you zoom in it is often hard to tell if an image is a keeper, or if it's just a bit to blurred to hang on to. An iPaq-like screen would make it possible for me to manage my images in the field without lugging a laptop around.
There are also pocket database applications color would be great for. I like aquariums. I would love to develop a pocket aquarist's guide that shows fish images in full color and displays the temp, pH etc. that they need. It would be great reference to have while shopping in a fish store. I can see how people who were into plants might like something similar.
Here's another one you overlooked: maps. A detailed map is far easier to view in color than in greyscale. If I had a color PDA with a lot of memory I would have maps for my whole city in it.
Color has a lot of uses.
Alas, all the color PDAs are overpriced so I am hanging onto my Palm III. (wasted money and frustration? Not.)
Since the entire economy of a modern nation is geared to produce the tools of war...
Wow, where do you live--the Klingon homeworld?
From what I have read, the movie will deviate from the books a lot. I mean, orc eggs? Arwen hangin' with the Fellowship? A big Elven army at Helm's Deep?
I can understand cutting things. The books are too long to translate perfectly into a movie. But adding things like orc eggs is just lame.
I'm going to wait for some reviews before I go see this thing. I'm expecting another TPM.
You said it, monitor quality is key.
My monitor costs more than all the other components of my computer put together, and I figure that's the way it should be since I spend 12 hours a day in front of the damn thing. I only wish I had made the plunge earlier.
A good monitor is a joy, and a mediocre monitor taints your whole experience at the box. And unlike a CPU, a good monitor will last for *years.*
Unfortunately "the internet" isn't a utility in the same sense as a telephone. Maybe we here all think it should be, but it doesn't have the same legal status and it probably never will. You think ISPs want to provide "universal lifeline" internet connectivity like telcos must do with phones?
internet backbones are a utility by all definitions
Practically, but not legally. Too bad, really.
...and while it is funny as hell to play with, any and all actually useful functions it has are much better done with pen(cil) and paper. Honestly.
That may be true for the way YOU work but there are about a zillion people who would disagree with you.
My Palm III allowed me to get organized. I don't lose phone numbers or forget appointments anymore. And a paper planner can't beep to remind me to go do something.
FWIW I don't use Outlook, and I never use Palm Desktop for anything except backup. I keep all my contacts and appointments in the palmtop; once in a while I sync it, so I have a copy of my data.
But essentially, the palm is an expensive gameboy for adults.
Don't slam everyone who finds these things useful just because you are too set in your pen & paper ways to appreciate them.
Are you saying that you like Black Scorpion? Compared to that, Dark Angel is pure art.
:)
OK, even *I* won't stoop that low.
Yves was awful. I could see her as an occasional opponent or ally, but a regular? Blech.
I was really dreading Jimmy Bond's role at first, but I immediately grew to like him. I thought that he made the perfect foil for the trio.
Anyway, I hope the Lone Gunmen made enough to retire on from their short stint in the spotlight. (It was sad to see the actor who played Frohicke at GenCon a few years ago. It's a rare actor who's career can get BETTER after a game industry convention appearance...)
I wish they'd pull the plug on Dark Angel. I can watch nearly any sci-fi schlock but that show bites.
Lone Gunmen, I'm sorry to see you go...
Homer also said, "TV: friend, teacher... secret lover..."
You said it. I'll stick with my analog ReplayTV unless digital timeshifting works just as well. Which of course it won't... Ack.
webwasher.com will at least help with the popups. filters out ads too. very cool, unobtrusive free Win software.
mac version works well too.
Not when it's a TV program that gets broadcast that you tape for later. That falls under the 'time sharing' provision of fair use. The Supreme Court has ruled it's legal to time shift. End of story.
The problem is this: time shifting is legal, but preventing time shifting may not be illegal. And if that's how it plays out, we're screwed; the media/gadget companies will remove our ability to take advantage of 'fair use' in any way they can. They'll probably get away with it, too.
Damn.