But why would I pay for those casual games? I can go to kongregate.com or a dozen other sites like it and play one of hundreds of games. I'm not going to shell out money for a casual game. I will for a long, detailed game, but those aren't the type angry birds makes.
Two points here. On Android, Angry Birds is free / ad supported. On iPhone it's [wanders off to check; fails] some cheap price, that marketers evidently believe iPhone owners consider to be almost equivalent to free. So it's really equivalent to Kongregate on those platforms.
I think you could class AB as a long detailed game. Thought has gone into the level design. It takes several hours to complete, and several more hours to 3-star every level, as people who like the game will want to do.
Yeah, I found it deadly boring, but people who enjoy it get a lot of value out of it.
Kongregate has some excellent games, which I'm sure could sell (indeed, many of them contain ads to "buy this game for your iPhone"). I'm not sure theres a direct, predictable, correlation between quality and cost.
Mirror's Edge is an example of why innovation in AAA titles is risky. It *was* innovative, it cost a lot to make, the critics didn't like it, it didn't sell very well.
I really liked the idea of it, but on playing the demo, decided it wasn't for me.
From a business perspective, it would have made more sense for an indie -- or an indie-like team within a major -- to test that mechanic in a smaller, cheaper game. One where the audience will forgive less glossy graphics, a shorter experience, etc.
Of course, the downside of this is that when you transfer that mechanic to a major game, people will say "it's just a clone of [XBLA game] with higher production values". Which would be true.
Also, Scott Pilgrim vs The World was modelled after a very pixellated Double Dragon style 80s side-scrolling beat'em'up. Amazing 8 bit soundtrack by Anamanaguchi too. In today's world, you could call that innovative.
I love what they did with Scott Pilgrim, but (fairly slavishly) aping a format that the target demographic of the film will have nostalgic feelings about, doesn't really count as innovation. Especially when the template had been set by Mega Man 9 (a next-gen title that could have been implemented on a NES).
I'm still not sure who would buy an Android tablet. Buying one is like buying a TV that gets only 3 channels. Why purchase a tablet hoping that the app inventory will grow when you can get a state-of-the-art iPad with 65,000 apps?
Well, I'm not buying an Android tablet just yet, because they're too expensive -- and so are iPads. When there's a reasonably specced multitouch Android tablet for around $300, I'll snap it up, and be happy with the web brower, Tweetdeck and the Google suite of apps (GMail, Maps, Earth etc.). Anything else is an added bonus.
I predict those kind of prices within the next 12 months.
Ok, how about this? We need power to support the infrastructure needed to provide food to the existing populations.
I recognise that, and could have said it explicitly -- but it would have detracted from the pithiness of the post:) The point remains that the OP picked some particularly frivolous uses of electricity, when there are more important ones. Indeed, get rid of all the coffee makers, and I'd hope it wouldn't affect our ability to put food in mouths.
Like it or not that situation exists. The only way to remedy it is to reduce the population drastically and return to lower carrying rate methods on farming and only local travel/shipping.
There was a time like that. It was called the middle ages.
Partly true. I don't think we're anywhere near the efficiency levels we could achieve when it comes to electrical energy efficiency, and use of renewables. There are badly insulated buildings, inefficient appliances, appliances left switched on needlessly, etc. We already have wind and solar, which have issues of variable output, but we could learn to deal with variable output in various ways.
The problem is, what to replace it with? Coal has an even higher death and pollution rate, the worlds running out of natgas so forget that. That leaves, uh, going all "Pol Pot" on the population, I guess?
If we assume the market-driven-economists got it right, we should ensure that investors in nuclear power (and all the others) are held liable for the long term cleanup costs, and any emergency costs associated with their activities. The cost will rise; the cost of coal/oil/gas will rise. Alternatives will arise from the innovation of entrepreneurs.
I see that Fukushima proves that nuclear energy is safe. Basically all what happened is that they have to decommission two old reactors due to earthquake. Now they can build better and safer reactors that will withstand even greater earthquakes and tsunami.
It's fortunate for them that the earthquake happened after the break-even point -- assuming that it did, taking into account the cost of the cleanup? What if the earthquake had happened earlier? Vast costs. It seems to me that the chances of this happening were even; the "big one" could have hit at any moment.
Truly, we either need to evolve civilisation so that this is less true. Yes, there are renewable sources to explore, but at the same time, we should be looking at ways to reduce our energy needs. It's compatible with our basic desire to save money anyway.
As for stable power bases -- I don't know why there aren't more hydroelectric schemes (not generating power from a river-filled reservoir, but pumping water uphill when the sun's out or the wind turbines are spinning, and running it downhill through turbines when they're not). They use up a lot of land, it's true, but so do nuclear plants and fossil fuel burners -- and reservoirs are a lot more pleasant to hike around.
The coast of Japan is smashed, tens of thousands are missing with many of them dead, and you're more concerned about a potential radiological release?
Get a sense of proportion.
It seems reasonable to say that a lot of those deaths, injuries and property damage were unavoidable though. It's simply not practical -- possible even -- to convince people not to build homes, roads or workplaces on low coastal land, especially if that includes 10 miles inland.
However, it seems fairly practical to avoid building things with potentially hugely dangerous failure modes, when there are alternatives. In know the alternatives seem unpalatable to some people, but the sour flavour of this alternative is harder to ignore today.
Sure, I didn't intend just say "me too". We should definitely congratulate the designers on building in tolerances greater than they were asked to.
But I'm not to clear to what extent we got lucky. The screw up with the backup power connectivity shows that everything wasn't perfect. How would the plant have coped with a 9.5 magnitude quake? Way beyond what you'd expect, perhaps, but so was the 8.9. The plant seems to need a lot of human attention. What if there were some complication that precluded people from going there (some kind of chemical/bacteriological threat) ?
So, let's see. So far these plants have endured an earthquake 10 times what they were designed for (8.9 Richter earthquake. Design was for 7.9. Modulo distance/ground transmission from epicenter.), a 23 foot tsunami that took out backup generators and the switchyard taking out all but battery power, failures of the RCIC backup cooling system, and 2 massive hydrogen explosions that took out the buildings around the containments.
One thing you can take from that is, whatever scale of disaster you plan for, nature (or potentially mankind) can go one better. Build your nuclear plants to withstand a 7.9 and along comes an 8.9 accompanied by massive flooding. Build a bomb proof pair of skyscrapers, and lo, someone flies passenger airliners into them. I can't predict any better than you what the next surprise will be.
Could it be that the headline writer expects you to know about the earthquake and tsunami already, and to be capable of applying context to the headline?
The digital versions will be (eventually) perfected with water-tight DRM so we lose one of the fundamental abilities of a book - it's ability to be lent out without restriction.
Whatever they try, there's always the analogue hole. Plonk a Kindle on a flatbed scanner, with a solenoid pressing the "next" button, and automate a scan/OCR -- and that's the worst possible case.
DRM upsets customers -- which is why Apple dropped it from iTunes purchases -- so I don't expect it to ever get *that* tough.
This is one of those threads where it's worth people noting what country (or even which state) they're in.
British libraries tend to be fairly adequately stocked. If they don't have a book you're looking for, you can search their catalogue and order it from a different branch within the region. If you want a specific book they don't own, they'll consider buying it.
So, it seems like we're pretty lucky here. However, the current government is doing their best to wreck it all with funding cuts (while claiming all the while that local councils can achieve the same services on less money, simply by waving a magic "efficiency" wand.)
British libraries facilitate eBook lending. Now, of course you could argue this could mean physical library buildings will die out, but this is different from saying "I don't think libraries will survive for much longer".
However, there are books that don't work as eBooks. A very easy example is children's books -- the tactile ones, the pop-up books, the ones on dribble-resistant cardboard, and so on. A good children's section in a library provides a very conducive environment for young children to explore books, and develop a love for reading and learning. The weekly library visit becomes a highlight of a child's week; I'd go so far as to say that it's bad parenting not to take a child to the library regularly (even if you have lots of books at home).
And, libraries aren't just book lending facilities. For people living in cramped/busy accommodation, they can be the only place where you can get the peace and quiet to read or study.
If we can bring our kids up as bold innovators again
Well, that's one kind of production. The other kind is to toil at a production line all day, getting a wage while making someone else rich. Not everyone can be the innovator.
It seems a bit churlish to deny the muscle of the production line a little fun, spending the money they earn on consuming.
Public libraries — the availability of free education for all — represent the collective commitment of a community to their future. They symbolize what is most important, a commitment to educating the next generation.
Slashdot Mirror
But why would I pay for those casual games? I can go to kongregate.com or a dozen other sites like it and play one of hundreds of games. I'm not going to shell out money for a casual game. I will for a long, detailed game, but those aren't the type angry birds makes.
Two points here. On Android, Angry Birds is free / ad supported. On iPhone it's [wanders off to check; fails] some cheap price, that marketers evidently believe iPhone owners consider to be almost equivalent to free. So it's really equivalent to Kongregate on those platforms.
I think you could class AB as a long detailed game. Thought has gone into the level design. It takes several hours to complete, and several more hours to 3-star every level, as people who like the game will want to do.
Yeah, I found it deadly boring, but people who enjoy it get a lot of value out of it.
Kongregate has some excellent games, which I'm sure could sell (indeed, many of them contain ads to "buy this game for your iPhone"). I'm not sure theres a direct, predictable, correlation between quality and cost.
Mirror's Edge is an example of why innovation in AAA titles is risky. It *was* innovative, it cost a lot to make, the critics didn't like it, it didn't sell very well.
I really liked the idea of it, but on playing the demo, decided it wasn't for me.
From a business perspective, it would have made more sense for an indie -- or an indie-like team within a major -- to test that mechanic in a smaller, cheaper game. One where the audience will forgive less glossy graphics, a shorter experience, etc.
Of course, the downside of this is that when you transfer that mechanic to a major game, people will say "it's just a clone of [XBLA game] with higher production values". Which would be true.
Also, Scott Pilgrim vs The World was modelled after a very pixellated Double Dragon style 80s side-scrolling beat'em'up. Amazing 8 bit soundtrack by Anamanaguchi too. In today's world, you could call that innovative.
I love what they did with Scott Pilgrim, but (fairly slavishly) aping a format that the target demographic of the film will have nostalgic feelings about, doesn't really count as innovation. Especially when the template had been set by Mega Man 9 (a next-gen title that could have been implemented on a NES).
I'm still not sure who would buy an Android tablet. Buying one is like buying a TV that gets only 3 channels. Why purchase a tablet hoping that the app inventory will grow when you can get a state-of-the-art iPad with 65,000 apps?
Well, I'm not buying an Android tablet just yet, because they're too expensive -- and so are iPads. When there's a reasonably specced multitouch Android tablet for around $300, I'll snap it up, and be happy with the web brower, Tweetdeck and the Google suite of apps (GMail, Maps, Earth etc.). Anything else is an added bonus.
I predict those kind of prices within the next 12 months.
Ok, how about this? We need power to support the infrastructure needed to provide food to the existing populations.
I recognise that, and could have said it explicitly -- but it would have detracted from the pithiness of the post :) The point remains that the OP picked some particularly frivolous uses of electricity, when there are more important ones. Indeed, get rid of all the coffee makers, and I'd hope it wouldn't affect our ability to put food in mouths.
Like it or not that situation exists. The only way to remedy it is to reduce the population drastically and return to lower carrying rate methods on farming and only local travel/shipping.
There was a time like that. It was called the middle ages.
Partly true. I don't think we're anywhere near the efficiency levels we could achieve when it comes to electrical energy efficiency, and use of renewables. There are badly insulated buildings, inefficient appliances, appliances left switched on needlessly, etc. We already have wind and solar, which have issues of variable output, but we could learn to deal with variable output in various ways.
The problem is, what to replace it with? Coal has an even higher death and pollution rate, the worlds running out of natgas so forget that. That leaves, uh, going all "Pol Pot" on the population, I guess?
If we assume the market-driven-economists got it right, we should ensure that investors in nuclear power (and all the others) are held liable for the long term cleanup costs, and any emergency costs associated with their activities. The cost will rise; the cost of coal/oil/gas will rise. Alternatives will arise from the innovation of entrepreneurs.
Fingers crossed...
I see that Fukushima proves that nuclear energy is safe. Basically all what happened is that they have to decommission two old reactors due to earthquake. Now they can build better and safer reactors that will withstand even greater earthquakes and tsunami.
It's fortunate for them that the earthquake happened after the break-even point -- assuming that it did, taking into account the cost of the cleanup?
What if the earthquake had happened earlier? Vast costs. It seems to me that the chances of this happening were even; the "big one" could have hit at any moment.
Electrical power is modern civilization.
Truly, we either need to evolve civilisation so that this is less true. Yes, there are renewable sources to explore, but at the same time, we should be looking at ways to reduce our energy needs. It's compatible with our basic desire to save money anyway.
As for stable power bases -- I don't know why there aren't more hydroelectric schemes (not generating power from a river-filled reservoir, but pumping water uphill when the sun's out or the wind turbines are spinning, and running it downhill through turbines when they're not). They use up a lot of land, it's true, but so do nuclear plants and fossil fuel burners -- and reservoirs are a lot more pleasant to hike around.
You need power to run your TV, coffemaker and etcetera.
Great examples. We *need* those alright ;)
The coast of Japan is smashed, tens of thousands are missing with many of them dead, and you're more concerned about a potential radiological release?
Get a sense of proportion.
It seems reasonable to say that a lot of those deaths, injuries and property damage were unavoidable though. It's simply not practical -- possible even -- to convince people not to build homes, roads or workplaces on low coastal land, especially if that includes 10 miles inland.
However, it seems fairly practical to avoid building things with potentially hugely dangerous failure modes, when there are alternatives. In know the alternatives seem unpalatable to some people, but the sour flavour of this alternative is harder to ignore today.
Sure, I didn't intend just say "me too". We should definitely congratulate the designers on building in tolerances greater than they were asked to.
But I'm not to clear to what extent we got lucky. The screw up with the backup power connectivity shows that everything wasn't perfect. How would the plant have coped with a 9.5 magnitude quake? Way beyond what you'd expect, perhaps, but so was the 8.9. The plant seems to need a lot of human attention. What if there were some complication that precluded people from going there (some kind of chemical/bacteriological threat) ?
Or, knowing the dangers, wouldn't it have been wiser to stop pissing about with dark matter in the first place?
(I didn't know dark matter was so dangerous; I've got some in my cellar; should I get rid of it?)
It is only improved by the Long Now Foundations's leading digit.
02011-03-14
You know, to avoid the Y10K problem. (Or, less facetiously, to remind us that there's a lot of future to come).
I thought I read that a worker had been crushed to death by a crane, while working on the nuclear plant damage.
So, let's see. So far these plants have endured an earthquake 10 times what they were designed for (8.9 Richter earthquake. Design was for 7.9. Modulo distance/ground transmission from epicenter.), a 23 foot tsunami that took out backup generators and the switchyard taking out all but battery power, failures of the RCIC backup cooling system, and 2 massive hydrogen explosions that took out the buildings around the containments.
One thing you can take from that is, whatever scale of disaster you plan for, nature (or potentially mankind) can go one better. Build your nuclear plants to withstand a 7.9 and along comes an 8.9 accompanied by massive flooding. Build a bomb proof pair of skyscrapers, and lo, someone flies passenger airliners into them. I can't predict any better than you what the next surprise will be.
Could it be that the headline writer expects you to know about the earthquake and tsunami already, and to be capable of applying context to the headline?
The digital versions will be (eventually) perfected with water-tight DRM so we lose one of the fundamental abilities of a book - it's ability to be lent out without restriction.
Whatever they try, there's always the analogue hole. Plonk a Kindle on a flatbed scanner, with a solenoid pressing the "next" button, and automate a scan/OCR -- and that's the worst possible case.
DRM upsets customers -- which is why Apple dropped it from iTunes purchases -- so I don't expect it to ever get *that* tough.
I thought our public schools "represent the collective commitment of a community to their future," not our libraries.
Isn't it possible for them both to serve (part of) that purpose? As well as our universities, our museums, etc.
This is one of those threads where it's worth people noting what country (or even which state) they're in.
British libraries tend to be fairly adequately stocked. If they don't have a book you're looking for, you can search their catalogue and order it from a different branch within the region. If you want a specific book they don't own, they'll consider buying it.
So, it seems like we're pretty lucky here. However, the current government is doing their best to wreck it all with funding cuts (while claiming all the while that local councils can achieve the same services on less money, simply by waving a magic "efficiency" wand.)
British libraries facilitate eBook lending. Now, of course you could argue this could mean physical library buildings will die out, but this is different from saying "I don't think libraries will survive for much longer".
However, there are books that don't work as eBooks. A very easy example is children's books -- the tactile ones, the pop-up books, the ones on dribble-resistant cardboard, and so on. A good children's section in a library provides a very conducive environment for young children to explore books, and develop a love for reading and learning. The weekly library visit becomes a highlight of a child's week; I'd go so far as to say that it's bad parenting not to take a child to the library regularly (even if you have lots of books at home).
And, libraries aren't just book lending facilities. For people living in cramped/busy accommodation, they can be the only place where you can get the peace and quiet to read or study.
... as in the sound something makes as it goes right over your head.
If we can bring our kids up as bold innovators again
Well, that's one kind of production. The other kind is to toil at a production line all day, getting a wage while making someone else rich. Not everyone can be the innovator.
It seems a bit churlish to deny the muscle of the production line a little fun, spending the money they earn on consuming.
Woosh.
Public libraries — the availability of free education for all — represent the collective commitment of a community to their future. They symbolize what is most important, a commitment to educating the next generation.
Try telling that to the British government.
That's about the same amount of energy as lifting a 100 g
chocolate bar 10 cm vertically in the air....
... focussed on a tiny point -- it doesn't say how tiny.
Imagine attaching a needle to that 100g chocolate bar, then dropping it point-first at your hand, from a 10cm height.