Did you happen to see the Formlabs Form 1 printer? They were at Maker Faire too. They're running a Kickstarter right now, and from the photos and video on there the parts that machine produces look far better than most anything else I've seen. I watched the video of the Tinkerines Ditto on IndieGoGo and the parts didn't look anywhere near as finely-detailed.
I'm quite interested in learning more about the Form 1 and it would be great if someone had a first-hand experience from maker Faire (I'm in Seattle and couldn't attend).
Logitech has a system that I purchased for my home: Logitech Alert.
You didn't specify exactly what you meant by "cheap," but you can get a full six-camera system (the max # of cameras it will support) for around $1,000.
720p cameras, motion detection, video stored on SD cards in each camera and copied to your PC, remote access, email alerts... It's got pretty much everything.
The best part is how ridiculously easy it is to set up. The system uses your home's electrical wiring to communicate between the cameras and the base system, so you literally just plug everything in and you're up and running. I was shocked at how easy it was to set up.
If you have the urge to make like a Martian, you may get your wish. This is the goal of Paul S. Moller, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, who wants to develop low-cost ($4,000 and up) flying saucers for personal transportation. After installing new engines in his first machine [PS, July '66], Moller recently made a series of successful test flights a few feet off the ground. With a second, eight-foot-diameter, single-engine craft, demonstrated a few weeks ago, he hopes to acheive real flying-saucer altitudes.
For the past three decades, Moller International has been studying VTOL aircraft from every angle, in an effort to engineer the first VTOL aircraft that is safe to operate, inexpensive to manufacture, and economical to maintain. This advanced technology has finally been developed and will soon be available, in the form of the two-passenger Merlin 200.
Last August one of the longest-anticipated feats of flight since the moon landing took place in a grassy field in Davis, California. As a small crowd looked on, a red Batmobile-like vehicle shuddered, lurched, and rose a few feet into the air, its eight 50hp rotary engines screaming like hornets. After a few minutes, the craft settled into the ground.
The event might not have seemed like much—it could hardly even be called a flight—but it represented a milestone that inventor Paul Moller, a 67-year-old Canadian, had been promising journalists and investors for more than a decade.
Yeah, a little bit more than a decade, all right. What a crackpot.
Check out games by Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire) and Kalypso Media (Tropico 3). Those are two PC game companies that have publicly stated positions against heavy-handed, paying-customer-punishing DRM.
Trace Bundy does the live iPhone musical performance better, IMO. It also helps that he's obviously not taking himself too seriously, as the performers in the above video seem to be doing. iPhone music is an amusing gimmick, but not a serious musical art.
So, am I still supposed to believe that Blizzard won't charge a monthly fee to play Starcraft II online? On the same exact network, with basically the same set of services as millions of monthly-fee WoW-ers?
Thanks for posting. When I saw the headline my first thought was "Yes, if by 'new gameplay mechanic' you mean one that an entire game was built around in last year's PAX 10."
Unless they plan on adding extra multiplayer goodies to the subsequent "episode", then the real driver to buy anything after the first one would have to be a nice, solid single player-experience and plot-line.
How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?
The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.
However, they are definitely not neglecting single-player. Here's the latest news on all the work they're putting into single-player, and here's a video with a glimpse of the campaign.
What actual hard data does Blizzard have that led them to make such an about-face on LAN from Starcraft to Starcraft II? The ability with the original Starcraft to create a "spawn copy" that allowed friends to play for free in a LAN game was (IMO) a big driver of sales. Why remove such a successful feature? In what universe does removing popular features from your product and pissing off a large base of your fans somehow result in more sales?
1) My list was not intended to be comprehensive, it was just off the top of my head in 30 seconds. Yes, there are plenty of great 2D games out there, and still coming out today.
2) I've been "seriously" gaming since the NES (and before I saved up for my NES I played plenty of Atari 2600), so I've certainly got plenty of perspective. I still disagree with the original commenter's claims that "they" "just stop[ped] making 2D games" and that "2D games are not taken seriously."
You feel free to go ahead and keep complaining about the death of 2D games. If you don't mind, I'll just keep playing and enjoying the new ones that continue to come out. Thanks!
Same thing with 2D sprite-based games. 3D comes along, and people at first thing Great! This 3D stuff is neat, now we can have 3D and 2D games. And good thing, because entire genres of games and styles of art are built around 2D graphics. There's no way people will just stop making 2D games. But the reality is that they do. After a while we only have 3D games after all, and 2D games are not taken seriously anymore.
Gotta disagree with you on the point of 2D vs. 3D games. Just off the top of my head...
I could go on and on, but the point is that there are still plenty of great 2D games being made in recent years. 2D games most certainly are "taken seriously" (whatever that means—I mean, we are talking about games here).
Hot on the heels of a recent Louisiana victory in the fight against evolution, the Seattle-based think tank Discovery Institute held a press conference Thursday to announce their latest initiative: defeating the myth of gravity.
Robert Crowther, Discoveryâ(TM)s director of communications was visibly excited as he detailed the Instituteâ(TM)s plan for attacking what he refers to as the sloppy, inaccurate, and overtly biased portrayal of the theory of gravity.
Whoa, copy-paste madness. It looked good in the preview.
Let's try that again:
"Dear Customers," begins the message from Bezos. "We continue to be astonished at your insatiable hunger for Kindle: our earth-shattering nirvana delivery system."
"To date, we have sold more than three hundred Kindles for every man, woman, and child on planet Earth," the note continued, "That's over two trillion Kindles in just six months."
I read slightly higher numbers from a very reputable source:
âoeDear Customers,â begins the message from Bezos. âoeWe continue to be astonished at your insatiable hunger for Kindle: our earth-shattering nirvana delivery system.â
âoeTo date, we have sold more than three hundred Kindles for every man, woman, and child on planet Earth,â the note continued, âoeThatâ(TM)s over two trillion Kindles in just six months.â
Aren't the makers of Halo Wars saying the same kinds of things? "Designed specifically for the 360," etc.? I have some serious doubts about anyone being able to pull off a decent RTS on a system without a mouse and keyboard. But please, prove me wrong.
I wholeheartedly agree with the point you're making about nuclear fuel, but this was a bit over the top:
Electric Cars + Nuclear power grid = 0 harmful energy emissions, nationally, except for the occasional campfire, gas stoves, and our entire space program.
What exactly would all our airplanes be running on? And would gas-powered power tools (chainsaws, weed-whackers, lawn mowers, etc.) disappear? Eliminating dirty power plants and automobiles would eliminate most, but not nearly all air-polluting devices. Just sayin'.
Yes, you swing the Wiimote rather than pressing a button, but that's all you are doing in effect. It doesn't measure the angle you swing at or anything, it is just timing.
A few other people have pointed out that this is incorrect, but I thought I'd mention that the easiest way to demonstrate that this is not the case is to try hitting a shot that should be backhand with a forehand swing, or vice versa. You'll find that the ball will most likely go out of bounds.
I saw this on BoingBoing yesterday, and one part didn't make any sense to me. According to the article:
Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent.
Seems like an overly broad law, but whatever. However, it should be applied equally to everyone, don't you think? Did the officer have the consent of the vehicle driver for the dashboard camera in the police cruiser?
Note it doesn't say "without notification," it says "without consent." Important difference.
Slashdot Mirror
If you can't beat them, join them.
Did you happen to see the Formlabs Form 1 printer? They were at Maker Faire too. They're running a Kickstarter right now, and from the photos and video on there the parts that machine produces look far better than most anything else I've seen. I watched the video of the Tinkerines Ditto on IndieGoGo and the parts didn't look anywhere near as finely-detailed.
I'm quite interested in learning more about the Form 1 and it would be great if someone had a first-hand experience from maker Faire (I'm in Seattle and couldn't attend).
Logitech has a system that I purchased for my home: Logitech Alert.
You didn't specify exactly what you meant by "cheap," but you can get a full six-camera system (the max # of cameras it will support) for around $1,000.
720p cameras, motion detection, video stored on SD cards in each camera and copied to your PC, remote access, email alerts... It's got pretty much everything.
The best part is how ridiculously easy it is to set up. The system uses your home's electrical wiring to communicate between the cameras and the base system, so you literally just plug everything in and you're up and running. I was shocked at how easy it was to set up.
Here's some sample video from the camera on my front porch (which, by the way, I exported from their software to YouTube in just one or two clicks).
July 1967
March 1987 (advertisement)
January 2005
Yeah, a little bit more than a decade, all right. What a crackpot.
Check out games by Stardock (Sins of a Solar Empire) and Kalypso Media (Tropico 3). Those are two PC game companies that have publicly stated positions against heavy-handed, paying-customer-punishing DRM.
If you know of any good games, please tell me.
In no particular order...
Trace Bundy does the live iPhone musical performance better, IMO. It also helps that he's obviously not taking himself too seriously, as the performers in the above video seem to be doing. iPhone music is an amusing gimmick, but not a serious musical art.
So, am I still supposed to believe that Blizzard won't charge a monthly fee to play Starcraft II online? On the same exact network, with basically the same set of services as millions of monthly-fee WoW-ers?
Thanks for posting. When I saw the headline my first thought was "Yes, if by 'new gameplay mechanic' you mean one that an entire game was built around in last year's PAX 10."
Unless they plan on adding extra multiplayer goodies to the subsequent "episode", then the real driver to buy anything after the first one would have to be a nice, solid single player-experience and plot-line.
From the official Starcraft II FAQ:
However, they are definitely not neglecting single-player. Here's the latest news on all the work they're putting into single-player, and here's a video with a glimpse of the campaign.
What actual hard data does Blizzard have that led them to make such an about-face on LAN from Starcraft to Starcraft II? The ability with the original Starcraft to create a "spawn copy" that allowed friends to play for free in a LAN game was (IMO) a big driver of sales. Why remove such a successful feature? In what universe does removing popular features from your product and pissing off a large base of your fans somehow result in more sales?
1) My list was not intended to be comprehensive, it was just off the top of my head in 30 seconds. Yes, there are plenty of great 2D games out there, and still coming out today.
2) I've been "seriously" gaming since the NES (and before I saved up for my NES I played plenty of Atari 2600), so I've certainly got plenty of perspective. I still disagree with the original commenter's claims that "they" "just stop[ped] making 2D games" and that "2D games are not taken seriously."
You feel free to go ahead and keep complaining about the death of 2D games. If you don't mind, I'll just keep playing and enjoying the new ones that continue to come out. Thanks!
Same thing with 2D sprite-based games. 3D comes along, and people at first thing Great! This 3D stuff is neat, now we can have 3D and 2D games. And good thing, because entire genres of games and styles of art are built around 2D graphics. There's no way people will just stop making 2D games. But the reality is that they do. After a while we only have 3D games after all, and 2D games are not taken seriously anymore.
Gotta disagree with you on the point of 2D vs. 3D games. Just off the top of my head...
I could go on and on, but the point is that there are still plenty of great 2D games being made in recent years. 2D games most certainly are "taken seriously" (whatever that means—I mean, we are talking about games here).
This story from the Seattle-area satire paper The Naked Loon seems relevant: Discovery Institute Takes on Gravity Myth
Let's try that again:
Amazon: Kindle is the greatest! Seriously, buy one RIGHT NOW! Kindle Kindle Kindle!
Aren't the makers of Halo Wars saying the same kinds of things? "Designed specifically for the 360," etc.? I have some serious doubts about anyone being able to pull off a decent RTS on a system without a mouse and keyboard. But please, prove me wrong.
For anyone that's interested, the video referred to above is titled "A Meditation On The Speed Limit."
Which is precisely why I refer to them as the "suggestions of physics."
Hey everybody. Just wanted to let you all know that my Xbox 360 is still working today!
Of course, I had to exchange my copy of Halo 3 due to the dreaded disc read error... But now even that is still working today. Just an FYI.
I'm fairly certain it was meant to be "1.6 million Wiis."
1,600,000 / 385,492 = ~4.15
Note it doesn't say "without notification," it says "without consent." Important difference.