Listen folks, you can complain all you want about the cost of the base system, but thanks to Microsoft, the market is already proven to handle it. Look at what happened during the 360 launch. You have a system at $399 with a feature-less version at $299. What is the result? You have to wait nearly six months before you can walk into a store and buy one. The demand was that high with the price point where it was at. People were even buying the $299 and paying through the nose to get the features of the $399 unit. So, Sony comes in and sells a feature complete PS3 (albeit with a smaller HD), for only $100 more. $499 will get you in for a fully functional, next gen system. With MS, you have to pay $399 plus what ever they are going to ask for the HD-DVD drive to get to the same level. People will pay, just wait.
Please, someone correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the actual goal of all this desktop restructuring was to move the processing off of the CPU for the rendering and onto the GPU. The eyecandy was just a fringe benefit of the transition. Unless the benefit is more CPU cycles for non-GUI tasks, I would agree that this is a waste of time.
You thought moisture farming was fun and exciting before, wait until you see it in HD! Plus, I can't wait to see a permiere for the new season of the O.C. during the last five minutes of a Star Wars television episode!
That Was A Short Review....
on
Black Review
·
· Score: 5, Funny
"You know what the difference is between Halo 2 and Half Life 2? The story. Oh sure, the storylines are great. I loved those games. But they are all the same in terms of gameplay. They just have different graphics."
I am curious how far you played into Half-Life 2. IMHO, it offers one of the most unique gamplay experiences of all the first person shooters out there. I will give it to you that for the first part of the game, it is standard fair, but once you obtain the gravity gun, the game launches into new territory. I can't remember a game where you had to become so intimately familiar with your environment to be successful in completing the game. Sure, you could continue with your typical FPS mentality of "shoot first, ask questions never" (which I did through Ravenholme the first time I played which was a big mistake), but that would only get you so far. Halo 2 was enjoyable (which I will attribute to the storyline), but to say that the gameplay mechanics were nearly identical would be a gross injustice to Half-Life 2.
Now, if you are talking about the multiplayer aspect of it only, then I have to agree. I have played a few DMs and it feels the same all around. I wasn't sure which you were addressing, though, the single player or the multiplayer parts of the game.
Re:Web 2.0: Where solutions don't need problems?
on
Web 3.0
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Damn, I'll bite....
First, where did you get your development cycle and why would you not implement XMLHTTP to begin with (the first development phase)? No wonder your ideas are getting shot down;-). My college profs would have been steamed if I proposed something like that....
But, I digress. To be honest, I have been using XMLHTTP going on three years now, since well before it was known as AJAX and there are problems that it, and Javascript, solve. I would imagine it all has to do with the type of problem. In my case, I was involved in a project that implemented JSR-168 portlets in a Jetspeed environment. Unfortunately, we had requirements that each portlet had to refresh with data, some at 5 second increments, some updates would be 5 minutes. So, you have a user configurable portal and each portlet had to be dynamic. Sure, you could use a full page refresh, but that would require the refresh time to be set to the shortest duration. Plus, some of the data we presented would require a sizable pull from our Oracle database. Doing that every 5 seconds would have been a nightmare. So, each portlet has its own Javascript implementation that inherits a base XMLHTTP class. Works like a charm and met every one of the customer's timing requirements.
Additionally, I wrote an image looper that worked a great deal like a media player that would update itself with data as new images arrived (it was a weather project). Instead of refreshing the popup window, XMLHTTP was used to retrieve a listing of images and add any new ones to the list. It was pretty cool stuff.
Should XMLHTTP be how we do all web solutions? No, I totally agree with that. But it does present the developer with some unique ways of doing things.
Sure, SD cable is horrible. SD off the air is far better. Both are only 480i, though, and will pale when compared to a true 480p DVD (plus DVDs have been greatly cleaned up compared to a standard broadcast). Plus, the TheaterTek software I mentioned before is a miracle working when it comes to all of this stuff. Incredible software. I pipe all of this through a Media Center Edition PC that is upscaling the picture to 1920x1080p. Additionally, the latest Catalyst drivers for ATI are performing image enhancements within the GPU itself. Switching back and forth between the TV's tuner and the MCEPC is hugely different.
As for serious, I have spent over 6 hours calibrating my TV with the AVIA disk (which doesn't make me a huge fanatic, but I believe I am pretty serious about it). Any serious Home Theatre person wouldn't be caugth dead without one....
"If you have a decent scaler in your TV, you don't need it."
I guess if you aren't serious about the picture quality, then yeah, I could agree. The problem is that on a 65" screen, I can tell a huge difference. Take a 480p player and have the resolution blown up to a TVs native resolution by the set itself versus running an HTPC at the screen's native resolution with an application like TheaterTek upconverting for you. Night and day. I have not seen a set yet that handles this as well (I have taken a look at the Diamond series from Mitsubishi and the Bravia line from Sony).
It's funny, as a guy who has owned and played nearly everything from the Atari 2600 through the Gamecube, I can't help but comment on how underwhelmed I am with this launch. To be honest, there isn't one title that is compelling me to go out and get the 360, which is somewhat surprising. PS2 had Tekken 4, Gamecube had Star Wars, and the XBox had Halo (all fantastic games and worth the price of admission), but nothing is trippin' the old game thumbs this time around.
To be honest, I wish Microsoft would have gulped down a ittle pride and pushed the release back six months. All the press is pointing to the PS3 not being a threat until later in 2006 so Microsoft would still have had that window to establish a strong first response. I would get excited about some of the other features such as the online stuff for FPS and the integrated Media Center functionality, but my mouse and keyboard are too cherished (hear that Microsoft! Let us use our mouse and keyboards and you would have me at "hello") and from what I have read, the Media Center functionality is limited to 720P playback for HDTV content from the media center PC. (Note: I said HDTV playback, not games. I am aware that the 360 can do games up to 1080i, but I would want my video there, too. Plus, they aren't even going to upscale DVDs!)
So, I too will probably wait from something really high-profile like Halo3 to come out. As much as I wanted to get to my local Best Buy at 5 A.M., I think I will pass this round.....
"Sure, Lucas can go back and revise history so Greedo shoots first<snip>"
You bet, that is Lucas' prerogative. You know what really grinds my gears, though? The fact that after Lucas does his new cut, the old ones are never to see the light of day. Outside of bootlegs, we will never see Greedo shoot first on DVD, or E.T. chased by gun toting F.B.I. agents. They will be stuck on a crappy medium (VHS) until those tapes stop working. Who even knows if the original 35mm prints are still saved.
This leads to the lapses in history. I couldn't believe when I watched a show about how ground breaking the special effects in Star Wars were back in 1977 and all the clips were from the re-release! They even played the clip with the Death Star exploding with the new enegery ring! Ughhhh.... That wasn't 1977, that was a couple of years ago.
Plus, it is only going to get worse. As the lack of creativity increases in Hollywood, you'll see more re-releases and remakes where the original is left in a dusty back-lot room someplace.
"There have actually been 11 storms to reach hurricane level this year."
Heh, sorry, I was on my way out to exercise this morning and was afraid that comment was a little ambiguous; I should have clarified. My point was that of the 22 named systems so far this year (up through Alpha), 14 have been relatively weak storms. Plus, the number is actually 12 to have made hurricane force, not 11. The break-down is as follows:
Actually, the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st to November 30th. So, there is only five weeks left, not two months. Also, less in magnitude is hard to say since Wilma set a record for the lowest pressure reading ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane at 882mb (record lowest world wide belongs to Typhoon Tip in the northwest Pacific at 870mb). Wilma also set a record as the fastest growing. Finally, quite a few tropical storms were named that didn't make hurricane status (9, I believe) and 5 hurricanes were minimal category 1.
You know, how hard is it to add keyboard and mouse support to the 360? Come on, seriously. Sadly, I am a gamer that was raised on the keyboard and mouse for my first person shooters and until I can have that on my console, I won't jump ship. Everything else is finally there, IMHO. Broadband connections, hi-res display via HDTV, most of the things that the PC was able to hold over the head of the console game systems. Just not this last thing.
Sadly, though, I can see why they are doing it. I firmly believe that a user with a keyboard and mouse will have an unfair advantage over the controller user with the auto-aiming. And it isn't like it would be hard for Microsoft to do something about it. How about different lounges in the games based on what you were using to control the game? Seriously, you let me use a mouse/keyboard combo, and I will sign up for your Live service.
Fine, then your original statement is foolish. Based on your original statement, then, a single cancer specialist is not good enough to make a diagnosis so you would need to see many and have all of them confer about your condition for it to be a valid diagnosis. That is foolish. As for being besides the point, why do you think I addressed it seperately of my main body. In the future, would multiple posts be acceptable, one addressing your quote and the other addressing the subject?
"I find it odd that you claim that there is no link between gloabl(sic) warming and hurricane strength..."
No. Not true. Where in my original post do I make this claim? The post's function was to give readers a view from people who know the most about hurricanes. As I stated in my original post, Gray thinks it is overblown. That said, I would take Gray's word over someone else's when it comes to hurricane information. That's my own personal definite, though.
"...but then choose caution when considering the subject matter in full"
As I would for any subject having to do with climate and weather. The masses, as a whole, seem to believe we have quite a few pieces of the weather puzzle solved when we are scratching the surface over all of it. When I make that claim, I make it for global warming as well. Do you honestly believe it can be said we have a good handle on global warming when we still don't fully understand the atmosphere we live in? Please, that is foolish. I was making the same caveat for tropical systems so it is understood. Where you say definitive claims on this topic are wrong, I say anyone who makes a definitive claim about global warming other than "something's going on" (which I do agree with) are just as wrong. Sure we have core samples, sure we have tree rings, but until we understand our atmosphere better, nothing definitive can be said.
"Your trust in Gray and his views on tropical cyclones has no bearing on the subject matter."
Well then, until you can give me something definitive, then all I have is trust in those who know more than I do.
"Actually, I don't particularly care what one scientist says"
Then you, sir, are a fool. If a man or women is a specialist in a particular field, I would definitely listen.
"I care what scientists in aggregate say."
On certain overarching topics, I would agree. We aren't talking about one grand topic, though, we are talking about a very specific one. Science by committee is a horrible idea. You say that the problem is politics and misrepresentation, but that is what you get when a large group of scientist from different backgrounds get together. I agree with your comment that scientists often disagree about what data means, but that is because they usually are commenting on something outside of their field. Would I give equal weight to a climotologist as I would a tropical forecaster on matters of tropical cyclogenesis? No, of course not.
As I mentioned before, Gray is the grand daddy on all matters about tropical cyclogenesis. I would definitely take his word over a huge conglomerate of scientists. Further more, if you had bothered to read the second link at all, you would see that over 15 different sources were cited in the Colorado study with Gray being at the top of the list. Gray even says in the first article (again, did you bother to read it?) that nearly all of his collegues who have been around for a while are skeptical about the "global-warming thing". We are not talking about one or two different people.
Finally, tropical cyclogenesis is so far from full understanding, that if anyone was qualified to make a comment, it would be these people. So, as far as I am concerned, no overstatement was made.
If that is too definitive for you, a group of scientist out of the University of Colorado have come to the conclusion that the claims of a linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature [PDF]. So the brightest minds in hurricanes don't see it and I doubt that they would be in denial.....
Me: But, but you said it would come out this last spring.
Nintendo Rep: Excuse me, sir?
Me: Then, then you said it would be towards the end of August!
Nintendo Rep: Sir, what are you talking about?
Me: *SNIFF* Now, now you say Hunters won't be out till first quarter 2006?! Wha.... what have I done to upset you?
Nintendo Rep: Are you talking about Metroid Prime Hunters, sir?
Me: Was it because I never called after that night I finishing Wind Waker? Or is it because Metroid Prime 2 is still unfinished because I have been busy with work? I will do better!
Nintendo Rep: Bob, is that you? Stop screwing around.
Me: I PROMISE! Please, please, my DS and I are so lonely......
It actually works by shooting a mist into the air and projecting an image onto said mist. Some videos of the display in action are located here and here.
That said, I am glad that the technology from SeaQuest DSV has finally made it. Now, everyone can have a conversation with a creepy old guy or a deceased relative in the comfort of their own home!
Sadly, Even When Added To Your Sound System....
on
Death Star Subwoofer
·
· Score: 4, Funny
... it will still be insignificant when compared to the power of the Force.
So, how long before we get Optimus Prime's blog up on that site! It would be awesome:
Planning For The Trip Monday, July 11th, 2005
My bags are packed and I have an Energon snack pack since the trip to the space bridge is a couple of ours by way of Jetfire. Got another message from Elita-1 which says that it will be good to have me home. I don't know. You know the old Cybertronian saying, "You can't go home...". I have never felt that as being more true than right now. I am so nervous, my energy storage unit is backed up into my Matrix of Leadership....
Damn it Spike Sunday, July 10th, 2005
I swear I don't know what I am going to do with that human. Just as I issued the orders to roll out, he hopped into Bumblebee and came on the last defensive of the human's oil refinery. Sure enough, he gets caught in an explosion and almost fell into the Earthen sea. I hate to do it, but I think I will have to make Bumblebee his care taker from now on. That goldbug has been asking for a promotion anyways...
Energon Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
God, I love energon. Just thought I would let you guys know that.
Slashdot Mirror
"I was going to buy a PS3 for Metal Gear Solid 3..."
;-).
I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that it will play the same as it plays on the PS2
Seriously, though, MGS4 is the primary reason I am picking up a PS3 as well...
Listen folks, you can complain all you want about the cost of the base system, but thanks to Microsoft, the market is already proven to handle it. Look at what happened during the 360 launch. You have a system at $399 with a feature-less version at $299. What is the result? You have to wait nearly six months before you can walk into a store and buy one. The demand was that high with the price point where it was at. People were even buying the $299 and paying through the nose to get the features of the $399 unit. So, Sony comes in and sells a feature complete PS3 (albeit with a smaller HD), for only $100 more. $499 will get you in for a fully functional, next gen system. With MS, you have to pay $399 plus what ever they are going to ask for the HD-DVD drive to get to the same level. People will pay, just wait.
Please, someone correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the actual goal of all this desktop restructuring was to move the processing off of the CPU for the rendering and onto the GPU. The eyecandy was just a fringe benefit of the transition. Unless the benefit is more CPU cycles for non-GUI tasks, I would agree that this is a waste of time.
You thought moisture farming was fun and exciting before, wait until you see it in HD! Plus, I can't wait to see a permiere for the new season of the O.C. during the last five minutes of a Star Wars television episode!
"Nothing to see here. Please move along."
Wow, it was that bad, eh?
"You know what the difference is between Halo 2 and Half Life 2? The story. Oh sure, the storylines are great. I loved those games. But they are all the same in terms of gameplay. They just have different graphics."
I am curious how far you played into Half-Life 2. IMHO, it offers one of the most unique gamplay experiences of all the first person shooters out there. I will give it to you that for the first part of the game, it is standard fair, but once you obtain the gravity gun, the game launches into new territory. I can't remember a game where you had to become so intimately familiar with your environment to be successful in completing the game. Sure, you could continue with your typical FPS mentality of "shoot first, ask questions never" (which I did through Ravenholme the first time I played which was a big mistake), but that would only get you so far. Halo 2 was enjoyable (which I will attribute to the storyline), but to say that the gameplay mechanics were nearly identical would be a gross injustice to Half-Life 2.
Now, if you are talking about the multiplayer aspect of it only, then I have to agree. I have played a few DMs and it feels the same all around. I wasn't sure which you were addressing, though, the single player or the multiplayer parts of the game.
Damn, I'll bite....
;-). My college profs would have been steamed if I proposed something like that....
First, where did you get your development cycle and why would you not implement XMLHTTP to begin with (the first development phase)? No wonder your ideas are getting shot down
But, I digress. To be honest, I have been using XMLHTTP going on three years now, since well before it was known as AJAX and there are problems that it, and Javascript, solve. I would imagine it all has to do with the type of problem. In my case, I was involved in a project that implemented JSR-168 portlets in a Jetspeed environment. Unfortunately, we had requirements that each portlet had to refresh with data, some at 5 second increments, some updates would be 5 minutes. So, you have a user configurable portal and each portlet had to be dynamic. Sure, you could use a full page refresh, but that would require the refresh time to be set to the shortest duration. Plus, some of the data we presented would require a sizable pull from our Oracle database. Doing that every 5 seconds would have been a nightmare. So, each portlet has its own Javascript implementation that inherits a base XMLHTTP class. Works like a charm and met every one of the customer's timing requirements.
Additionally, I wrote an image looper that worked a great deal like a media player that would update itself with data as new images arrived (it was a weather project). Instead of refreshing the popup window, XMLHTTP was used to retrieve a listing of images and add any new ones to the list. It was pretty cool stuff.
Should XMLHTTP be how we do all web solutions? No, I totally agree with that. But it does present the developer with some unique ways of doing things.
Or me thinks someone foolishly thinks I have only one 1080p set....
Ugh.... right. Tekken Tag. My bad....
Sure, SD cable is horrible. SD off the air is far better. Both are only 480i, though, and will pale when compared to a true 480p DVD (plus DVDs have been greatly cleaned up compared to a standard broadcast). Plus, the TheaterTek software I mentioned before is a miracle working when it comes to all of this stuff. Incredible software. I pipe all of this through a Media Center Edition PC that is upscaling the picture to 1920x1080p. Additionally, the latest Catalyst drivers for ATI are performing image enhancements within the GPU itself. Switching back and forth between the TV's tuner and the MCEPC is hugely different.
As for serious, I have spent over 6 hours calibrating my TV with the AVIA disk (which doesn't make me a huge fanatic, but I believe I am pretty serious about it). Any serious Home Theatre person wouldn't be caugth dead without one....
"If you have a decent scaler in your TV, you don't need it."
I guess if you aren't serious about the picture quality, then yeah, I could agree. The problem is that on a 65" screen, I can tell a huge difference. Take a 480p player and have the resolution blown up to a TVs native resolution by the set itself versus running an HTPC at the screen's native resolution with an application like TheaterTek upconverting for you. Night and day. I have not seen a set yet that handles this as well (I have taken a look at the Diamond series from Mitsubishi and the Bravia line from Sony).
It's funny, as a guy who has owned and played nearly everything from the Atari 2600 through the Gamecube, I can't help but comment on how underwhelmed I am with this launch. To be honest, there isn't one title that is compelling me to go out and get the 360, which is somewhat surprising. PS2 had Tekken 4, Gamecube had Star Wars, and the XBox had Halo (all fantastic games and worth the price of admission), but nothing is trippin' the old game thumbs this time around.
To be honest, I wish Microsoft would have gulped down a ittle pride and pushed the release back six months. All the press is pointing to the PS3 not being a threat until later in 2006 so Microsoft would still have had that window to establish a strong first response. I would get excited about some of the other features such as the online stuff for FPS and the integrated Media Center functionality, but my mouse and keyboard are too cherished (hear that Microsoft! Let us use our mouse and keyboards and you would have me at "hello") and from what I have read, the Media Center functionality is limited to 720P playback for HDTV content from the media center PC. (Note: I said HDTV playback, not games. I am aware that the 360 can do games up to 1080i, but I would want my video there, too. Plus, they aren't even going to upscale DVDs!)
So, I too will probably wait from something really high-profile like Halo3 to come out. As much as I wanted to get to my local Best Buy at 5 A.M., I think I will pass this round.....
"Han shot first originally, dammit! You currently see Greedo shoot first on the new DVDs."
LOL! Damn, that is funny. Thanks for pointing out my horrible slip. Sadly, it appears I have bent to Lucas' will.
"What scene where Han shoots first?"
"Sure, Lucas can go back and revise history so Greedo shoots first<snip>"
You bet, that is Lucas' prerogative. You know what really grinds my gears, though? The fact that after Lucas does his new cut, the old ones are never to see the light of day. Outside of bootlegs, we will never see Greedo shoot first on DVD, or E.T. chased by gun toting F.B.I. agents. They will be stuck on a crappy medium (VHS) until those tapes stop working. Who even knows if the original 35mm prints are still saved.
This leads to the lapses in history. I couldn't believe when I watched a show about how ground breaking the special effects in Star Wars were back in 1977 and all the clips were from the re-release! They even played the clip with the Death Star exploding with the new enegery ring! Ughhhh.... That wasn't 1977, that was a couple of years ago.
Plus, it is only going to get worse. As the lack of creativity increases in Hollywood, you'll see more re-releases and remakes where the original is left in a dusty back-lot room someplace.
Heh, sorry, I was on my way out to exercise this morning and was afraid that comment was a little ambiguous; I should have clarified. My point was that of the 22 named systems so far this year (up through Alpha), 14 have been relatively weak storms. Plus, the number is actually 12 to have made hurricane force, not 11. The break-down is as follows:
Actually, the Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1st to November 30th. So, there is only five weeks left, not two months. Also, less in magnitude is hard to say since Wilma set a record for the lowest pressure reading ever recorded in an Atlantic hurricane at 882mb (record lowest world wide belongs to Typhoon Tip in the northwest Pacific at 870mb). Wilma also set a record as the fastest growing. Finally, quite a few tropical storms were named that didn't make hurricane status (9, I believe) and 5 hurricanes were minimal category 1.
You know, how hard is it to add keyboard and mouse support to the 360? Come on, seriously. Sadly, I am a gamer that was raised on the keyboard and mouse for my first person shooters and until I can have that on my console, I won't jump ship. Everything else is finally there, IMHO. Broadband connections, hi-res display via HDTV, most of the things that the PC was able to hold over the head of the console game systems. Just not this last thing.
Sadly, though, I can see why they are doing it. I firmly believe that a user with a keyboard and mouse will have an unfair advantage over the controller user with the auto-aiming. And it isn't like it would be hard for Microsoft to do something about it. How about different lounges in the games based on what you were using to control the game? Seriously, you let me use a mouse/keyboard combo, and I will sign up for your Live service.
"First of all, no need for name calling."
Fine, then your original statement is foolish. Based on your original statement, then, a single cancer specialist is not good enough to make a diagnosis so you would need to see many and have all of them confer about your condition for it to be a valid diagnosis. That is foolish. As for being besides the point, why do you think I addressed it seperately of my main body. In the future, would multiple posts be acceptable, one addressing your quote and the other addressing the subject?
"I find it odd that you claim that there is no link between gloabl(sic) warming and hurricane strength..."
No. Not true. Where in my original post do I make this claim? The post's function was to give readers a view from people who know the most about hurricanes. As I stated in my original post, Gray thinks it is overblown. That said, I would take Gray's word over someone else's when it comes to hurricane information. That's my own personal definite, though.
"...but then choose caution when considering the subject matter in full"
As I would for any subject having to do with climate and weather. The masses, as a whole, seem to believe we have quite a few pieces of the weather puzzle solved when we are scratching the surface over all of it. When I make that claim, I make it for global warming as well. Do you honestly believe it can be said we have a good handle on global warming when we still don't fully understand the atmosphere we live in? Please, that is foolish. I was making the same caveat for tropical systems so it is understood. Where you say definitive claims on this topic are wrong, I say anyone who makes a definitive claim about global warming other than "something's going on" (which I do agree with) are just as wrong. Sure we have core samples, sure we have tree rings, but until we understand our atmosphere better, nothing definitive can be said.
"Your trust in Gray and his views on tropical cyclones has no bearing on the subject matter."
Well then, until you can give me something definitive, then all I have is trust in those who know more than I do.
"Actually, I don't particularly care what one scientist says"
Then you, sir, are a fool. If a man or women is a specialist in a particular field, I would definitely listen.
"I care what scientists in aggregate say."
On certain overarching topics, I would agree. We aren't talking about one grand topic, though, we are talking about a very specific one. Science by committee is a horrible idea. You say that the problem is politics and misrepresentation, but that is what you get when a large group of scientist from different backgrounds get together. I agree with your comment that scientists often disagree about what data means, but that is because they usually are commenting on something outside of their field. Would I give equal weight to a climotologist as I would a tropical forecaster on matters of tropical cyclogenesis? No, of course not.
As I mentioned before, Gray is the grand daddy on all matters about tropical cyclogenesis. I would definitely take his word over a huge conglomerate of scientists. Further more, if you had bothered to read the second link at all, you would see that over 15 different sources were cited in the Colorado study with Gray being at the top of the list. Gray even says in the first article (again, did you bother to read it?) that nearly all of his collegues who have been around for a while are skeptical about the "global-warming thing". We are not talking about one or two different people.
Finally, tropical cyclogenesis is so far from full understanding, that if anyone was qualified to make a comment, it would be these people. So, as far as I am concerned, no overstatement was made.
"These people aren't scientists, they are politicians."
Fine then, ask the scientists. William Gray, the grand daddy of hurricane forecasting and the go-to guy at the beginning of the season thinks the hurricane-to-global-warming connection is way overblown to non-existant.
If that is too definitive for you, a group of scientist out of the University of Colorado have come to the conclusion that the claims of a linkage between global warming and hurricane impacts are premature [PDF]. So the brightest minds in hurricanes don't see it and I doubt that they would be in denial.....
Me: But, but you said it would come out this last spring.
Nintendo Rep: Excuse me, sir?
Me: Then, then you said it would be towards the end of August!
Nintendo Rep: Sir, what are you talking about?
Me: *SNIFF* Now, now you say Hunters won't be out till first quarter 2006?! Wha.... what have I done to upset you?
Nintendo Rep: Are you talking about Metroid Prime Hunters, sir?
Me: Was it because I never called after that night I finishing Wind Waker? Or is it because Metroid Prime 2 is still unfinished because I have been busy with work? I will do better!
Nintendo Rep: Bob, is that you? Stop screwing around.
Me: I PROMISE! Please, please, my DS and I are so lonely......
Nintendo Rep: *click*
It actually works by shooting a mist into the air and projecting an image onto said mist. Some videos of the display in action are located here and here.
That said, I am glad that the technology from SeaQuest DSV has finally made it. Now, everyone can have a conversation with a creepy old guy or a deceased relative in the comfort of their own home!
... it will still be insignificant when compared to the power of the Force.
God knows, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised....
So, how long before we get Optimus Prime's blog up on that site! It would be awesome:
Planning For The Trip
Monday, July 11th, 2005
My bags are packed and I have an Energon snack pack since the trip to the space bridge is a couple of ours by way of Jetfire. Got another message from Elita-1 which says that it will be good to have me home. I don't know. You know the old Cybertronian saying, "You can't go home...". I have never felt that as being more true than right now. I am so nervous, my energy storage unit is backed up into my Matrix of Leadership....
Damn it Spike
Sunday, July 10th, 2005
I swear I don't know what I am going to do with that human. Just as I issued the orders to roll out, he hopped into Bumblebee and came on the last defensive of the human's oil refinery. Sure enough, he gets caught in an explosion and almost fell into the Earthen sea. I hate to do it, but I think I will have to make Bumblebee his care taker from now on. That goldbug has been asking for a promotion anyways...
Energon
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
God, I love energon. Just thought I would let you guys know that.