I don't normally follow sports games, so I didn't really think there were than many MLB games available. So this really couldn't have been that bad a deal? Wrong. Just a quick look at Gamecube baseball titles shows we've got baseball games from Acclaim (All Star Baseball), Infogrames (backyard baseball), Sega (home run king), Midway (MLB slugfest) and MVP Baseball (EA). 5 different developers, not one of which is Nintendo. This'll get paired down to 1 developer next year. That is a big blow to innovation/competition.
Interesting thing about these games, is that there's not a single non-MLB licensed baseball game available for the GC. One of the counter arguments is that locking up MLB (or any other sports association), frees other developers to be more independent. However, the lack of non-name brand sports games indicates that there really isn't much of a market for non-League games.
Although to be fair, there are 2 non-NBA games (one by disney) and 2 non-NFL games (disney + an ncaa game) out there (but one can't honestly expect the disney games to appeal to adults). So in all the currently available sports games for the 3 big sports, there's really only 2 that don't involve a national professional league. I guess that makes your choice a bit easier.
Meanwhile, how about millions of people using their thumbs on all those Game Boys and such? Are we headed for an epidemic of arthritic thumbs?
I can speak from personal experience that long term gameboy play does indeed put some serious stress/strain on my hand and thumb. After periods of continually using my GBA (say a cross country flight, 6-8 hour timeframe), the combination of repeated thumb movements and the way in which I hold the GBA gives me some serious aching and weakness in my thumb joint. It takes a couple of days away from the GBA before my hand is back to normal, so I've severly limited the amount of time I spend on it at one sitting, because of the possiblity of repetitive stress injuries.
I had a similar thought as well. MS paid $375 million for Rare and since then, they've released 1 game on the Xbox, and 4 or 5 GBA games in that time. Unless Conker becomes a runaway hit, I don't see MS recouping their expenses for that purchase anytime soon...
Those 2 sentences really seem at odds, don't they? The only way I can spin is is that it's not quite a monopoly, as the deal is only applies to 3rd party developers. Apparently if Sony, MS or Nintendo wanted to make their own MLB games, they are entitled to. So, rather than get hundreds of lousy MLB games for each console system, you'll have at most 2 Take2's and S/MS/N's version. (are MLB games even that popular that there are more than 2 for any given system?)
But even then, I think it's a stretch to claim that Take2 competing against Nintendo for the best MLB game on the gamecube is going to result in innovation...
Its been out a while now, since April of last year. Hill House Publishers have an arrangement with Neil (and other authors like Stephenson) to release limited edition "collector" versions of their works. These are the "books as heirloom" type printings, very high quality, archival grade, hand sewn bindings, you name it, deal. The version of American Gods they have sells for $200 and comes with the reader for free (if you request it). I've thought about doing this, as I love his work. Apparently, they'll eventually reprint most or all of his stories in heirloom editions (restoring text that the was cut by Neil or the editors for space reason) and you can get the same numbered one for the entire set. Would be cool, however I'm still stuck on the paying an order of magnitude more for a book than when I originally bought it...
They've been playing it all week (as well as the origina 70s series as well as the one in 80), and I thought you'd missed it, however, it looks like there'll be a chance to catch the miniseries again Sunday night. From AICN: "Battlestar Galactica" 2003 Miniseries: Jan. 8 8pm-11pm NBC: 3-Hour Version Jan. 11 9pm-11pm SciFi: Part One Jan. 12 7pm-9pm SciFi: Part One Jan. 12 9pm-11pm SciFi: Part Two Jan. 16 3pm-5pm SciFi: Part One Jan. 16 5pm-7pm SciFi: Part Two
click that second link in the story, the one that links to the previous slashdot story with pages 1 and 2. you'll notice the blurb points out that slashdot is helping alleviate some of PA's bandwith demand by hosting the cartoons here as well.
Thunderbird's anti-spam is nice, but I wouldn't call it excellent, at least from my experience. I've been using the junk mail feature since 0.7 or thereabouts, on a mail account that gets anywhere from 10 to 30 messages a day, 90% of which are spam. When I recently downloaded 300 or so messages, I still had 25 junk mails that it didn't flag. After several months of training, I'd think it should be more effective than that.
growing up in the 70s and 80s, i got all the cool presents: the star wars droid factory (which would be worth a mint today, if i still had it), matchbox cars, the Armitron, and then--my personal favorite--the lead brick. yes, one year my father gave me a 20 pound lead brick. Why, I'll never know. But once I discovered how well it destroyed GI Joe figures when you dropped it off a wall on them... Man those were the days. If I hadn't been given that brick, Ebay and I could be best friends making money together. But, alas, smashing stuff was just too irrestible to a 13 year old. When I have kids of my own, I think I'm taking their toys away from them on a regular, yearly basis and hermetically sealing them in the garage.
the 1 month period, Dec through January, is just the sign-up period for the free account. On the registration site, you'll find the following: "Free subscription until 1/1 - 2006, free full version!", as well as free 7 day trials for the various expansions.
so, yes, you get a year's worth of MMORPGing for the price of a download. must figure no one's going to buy the game anymore; but if they can get them in, perhaps they can be nickel and dimed for an expansion or 2.
the free trial period lasts until Jan 1, 2006, which is a whole year of free gaming. I couldn't figure out how this helps them as there will be newer games in that time that will certainly entice you away before you ever have to pay 1 cent. Then I clicked through the register a new character link (to read the terms), and saw all the various expansions the game has. I guess the idea is to get them in the door, and then dazzle them with all the other shiny doors they can pay for. Not necessarily a bad idea, if you've got worthwhile content for them to pay for.
That network is the only reason I've ever felt ashamed of having a penis.
Spike isn't all bad. They show CSI re-runs back to back on weekdays from 7 til 9 pm. Other than that, yes they suck. And I've very glad this stupid award show is over with. The promo commercials--every break--and the overlay graphics went way past annoying. now I can watch my CSI in peace.
Buying tickets online is nice for the times you want to go to opening day of a huge movie (like Return of the King) and can't get to the movie theater during your lunch break. For RotK, I'm there at 6 pm to pick up the tickets I purchased online for the 7 show and all of the showing through midnight were sold out. With the exception of those types of movies, I'd never buy online. The service charge is ridiculous...
this is solved by judicious use of instancing, which WoW obviously incorporates. Simply make Tomb of Dread an instanced dungeon, and you won't have a single camper waiting for the Uber sword, as they'll all be in their own dungeons waiting for it.
Playing through Ridge Racers until the battery dies is probably not a good indication of how long the battery will last when you end up getting your PSP system and putting it to use for a variety of things.
Except, this is exactly the scenario I'd want tested when purchasing a portable device. I'd like to know if it will die on me when I'm flying from Los Angeles to New York. Hopefully they'll include this in future tests.
but aren't law enforcement agencies already allowed to go into your home and install surveillance devices (e.g., microphones) if a warrant has been granted? this just extends that power to your computer.
looks like it's time for Gabe and company at Valve to bring Power Play back from the vaporware/pipedream cabinet. is the X-box Live / Halo 2 usage that much greater than online Half-life was? is it really a new issue, or just the same old issue in new shiny Halo 2 wrapping?
While this may account for some of the problems, it certainly isn't the root of the problem. As someone who receives correspondance / reviews reports from ESL individuals on a somewhat regular basis, I can state that their messages typically are prepared properly (capitalization, punctuation, and usually spelling), just that their word choice may at times be awkward (wrong verb tense, strange idioms, convoluted sentence structure). Idiots who write "ur" instead of "your" are clearly people who have a decent enough comprehension of English that they recognize that both are phonetically similar and are chosing to use the abbreviation. They've spent far too much time text messaging than is good for them.
true, but reporting that "fireduck says 'joe blow is a homophobe, denying his true gay nature'" without commenting as to whether any of the facts fireduck states are true is not reporting either. (it's just acting like a megaphone). so there's definitely a line between merely reporting a story, and acting as a journalist.
in a nice coincidence, less than 2 minutes after seeing this headline, my stock broker called and told me that the nVidia stock I bought last year was finally out of it's $9 dollar hole and almost back to breaking even. all we need now is for Nintendo to announce they're going with nVidia for their next console and maybe I'll have made some money in this stock market thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't normally follow sports games, so I didn't really think there were than many MLB games available. So this really couldn't have been that bad a deal? Wrong. Just a quick look at Gamecube baseball titles shows we've got baseball games from Acclaim (All Star Baseball), Infogrames (backyard baseball), Sega (home run king), Midway (MLB slugfest) and MVP Baseball (EA). 5 different developers, not one of which is Nintendo. This'll get paired down to 1 developer next year. That is a big blow to innovation/competition.
Interesting thing about these games, is that there's not a single non-MLB licensed baseball game available for the GC. One of the counter arguments is that locking up MLB (or any other sports association), frees other developers to be more independent. However, the lack of non-name brand sports games indicates that there really isn't much of a market for non-League games.
Although to be fair, there are 2 non-NBA games (one by disney) and 2 non-NFL games (disney + an ncaa game) out there (but one can't honestly expect the disney games to appeal to adults). So in all the currently available sports games for the 3 big sports, there's really only 2 that don't involve a national professional league. I guess that makes your choice a bit easier.
Meanwhile, how about millions of people using their thumbs on all those Game Boys and such? Are we headed for an epidemic of arthritic thumbs?
I can speak from personal experience that long term gameboy play does indeed put some serious stress/strain on my hand and thumb. After periods of continually using my GBA (say a cross country flight, 6-8 hour timeframe), the combination of repeated thumb movements and the way in which I hold the GBA gives me some serious aching and weakness in my thumb joint. It takes a couple of days away from the GBA before my hand is back to normal, so I've severly limited the amount of time I spend on it at one sitting, because of the possiblity of repetitive stress injuries.
I had a similar thought as well. MS paid $375 million for Rare and since then, they've released 1 game on the Xbox, and 4 or 5 GBA games in that time. Unless Conker becomes a runaway hit, I don't see MS recouping their expenses for that purchase anytime soon...
Those 2 sentences really seem at odds, don't they? The only way I can spin is is that it's not quite a monopoly, as the deal is only applies to 3rd party developers. Apparently if Sony, MS or Nintendo wanted to make their own MLB games, they are entitled to. So, rather than get hundreds of lousy MLB games for each console system, you'll have at most 2 Take2's and S/MS/N's version. (are MLB games even that popular that there are more than 2 for any given system?)
But even then, I think it's a stretch to claim that Take2 competing against Nintendo for the best MLB game on the gamecube is going to result in innovation...
Its been out a while now, since April of last year. Hill House Publishers have an arrangement with Neil (and other authors like Stephenson) to release limited edition "collector" versions of their works. These are the "books as heirloom" type printings, very high quality, archival grade, hand sewn bindings, you name it, deal. The version of American Gods they have sells for $200 and comes with the reader for free (if you request it). I've thought about doing this, as I love his work. Apparently, they'll eventually reprint most or all of his stories in heirloom editions (restoring text that the was cut by Neil or the editors for space reason) and you can get the same numbered one for the entire set. Would be cool, however I'm still stuck on the paying an order of magnitude more for a book than when I originally bought it...
They've been playing it all week (as well as the origina 70s series as well as the one in 80), and I thought you'd missed it, however, it looks like there'll be a chance to catch the miniseries again Sunday night. From AICN:
"Battlestar Galactica" 2003 Miniseries:
Jan. 8 8pm-11pm NBC: 3-Hour Version
Jan. 11 9pm-11pm SciFi: Part One
Jan. 12 7pm-9pm SciFi: Part One
Jan. 12 9pm-11pm SciFi: Part Two
Jan. 16 3pm-5pm SciFi: Part One
Jan. 16 5pm-7pm SciFi: Part Two
click that second link in the story, the one that links to the previous slashdot story with pages 1 and 2. you'll notice the blurb points out that slashdot is helping alleviate some of PA's bandwith demand by hosting the cartoons here as well.
Thunderbird's anti-spam is nice, but I wouldn't call it excellent, at least from my experience. I've been using the junk mail feature since 0.7 or thereabouts, on a mail account that gets anywhere from 10 to 30 messages a day, 90% of which are spam. When I recently downloaded 300 or so messages, I still had 25 junk mails that it didn't flag. After several months of training, I'd think it should be more effective than that.
it's already happened. see the firefox page.
growing up in the 70s and 80s, i got all the cool presents: the star wars droid factory (which would be worth a mint today, if i still had it), matchbox cars, the Armitron, and then--my personal favorite--the lead brick. yes, one year my father gave me a 20 pound lead brick. Why, I'll never know. But once I discovered how well it destroyed GI Joe figures when you dropped it off a wall on them... Man those were the days. If I hadn't been given that brick, Ebay and I could be best friends making money together. But, alas, smashing stuff was just too irrestible to a 13 year old. When I have kids of my own, I think I'm taking their toys away from them on a regular, yearly basis and hermetically sealing them in the garage.
the 1 month period, Dec through January, is just the sign-up period for the free account. On the registration site, you'll find the following: "Free subscription until 1/1 - 2006, free full version!", as well as free 7 day trials for the various expansions.
so, yes, you get a year's worth of MMORPGing for the price of a download. must figure no one's going to buy the game anymore; but if they can get them in, perhaps they can be nickel and dimed for an expansion or 2.
the free trial period lasts until Jan 1, 2006, which is a whole year of free gaming. I couldn't figure out how this helps them as there will be newer games in that time that will certainly entice you away before you ever have to pay 1 cent. Then I clicked through the register a new character link (to read the terms), and saw all the various expansions the game has. I guess the idea is to get them in the door, and then dazzle them with all the other shiny doors they can pay for. Not necessarily a bad idea, if you've got worthwhile content for them to pay for.
so, when all the programmers go on strike, what's to stop the company from just up and moving its programming department overseas?
That network is the only reason I've ever felt ashamed of having a penis.
Spike isn't all bad. They show CSI re-runs back to back on weekdays from 7 til 9 pm. Other than that, yes they suck. And I've very glad this stupid award show is over with. The promo commercials--every break--and the overlay graphics went way past annoying. now I can watch my CSI in peace.
I don't get the jist of buying tickets online.
Buying tickets online is nice for the times you want to go to opening day of a huge movie (like Return of the King) and can't get to the movie theater during your lunch break. For RotK, I'm there at 6 pm to pick up the tickets I purchased online for the 7 show and all of the showing through midnight were sold out. With the exception of those types of movies, I'd never buy online. The service charge is ridiculous...
this is solved by judicious use of instancing, which WoW obviously incorporates. Simply make Tomb of Dread an instanced dungeon, and you won't have a single camper waiting for the Uber sword, as they'll all be in their own dungeons waiting for it.
Playing through Ridge Racers until the battery dies is probably not a good indication of how long the battery will last when you end up getting your PSP system and putting it to use for a variety of things.
Except, this is exactly the scenario I'd want tested when purchasing a portable device. I'd like to know if it will die on me when I'm flying from Los Angeles to New York. Hopefully they'll include this in future tests.
but aren't law enforcement agencies already allowed to go into your home and install surveillance devices (e.g., microphones) if a warrant has been granted? this just extends that power to your computer.
if we count that strange guy with a valve for an eye that pops up while the game is getting ready to load, sure.
I'm waiting for meat animals without heads or brains
So you're waiting for Mike, the Headless Chicken. Don't know how pleasant life without a head really was for the critter.
kinda reminds me of this.
looks like it's time for Gabe and company at Valve to bring Power Play back from the vaporware/pipedream cabinet. is the X-box Live / Halo 2 usage that much greater than online Half-life was? is it really a new issue, or just the same old issue in new shiny Halo 2 wrapping?
While this may account for some of the problems, it certainly isn't the root of the problem. As someone who receives correspondance / reviews reports from ESL individuals on a somewhat regular basis, I can state that their messages typically are prepared properly (capitalization, punctuation, and usually spelling), just that their word choice may at times be awkward (wrong verb tense, strange idioms, convoluted sentence structure). Idiots who write "ur" instead of "your" are clearly people who have a decent enough comprehension of English that they recognize that both are phonetically similar and are chosing to use the abbreviation. They've spent far too much time text messaging than is good for them.
true, but reporting that "fireduck says 'joe blow is a homophobe, denying his true gay nature'" without commenting as to whether any of the facts fireduck states are true is not reporting either. (it's just acting like a megaphone). so there's definitely a line between merely reporting a story, and acting as a journalist.
in a nice coincidence, less than 2 minutes after seeing this headline, my stock broker called and told me that the nVidia stock I bought last year was finally out of it's $9 dollar hole and almost back to breaking even. all we need now is for Nintendo to announce they're going with nVidia for their next console and maybe I'll have made some money in this stock market thing.