I borrowed SMAC from a friend not long ago, and at the time he couldn't find the instructions. Regardless, I installed it and spent a night playing it. Having little idea what exactly I was doing, I pressed buttons, followed the guides, and generally pressed "Do it" when a advisor-type window popped up.
After several hours of playing, learning more how it worked, making some purposeful decisions, but generally just clicking "OK" whenever I could, I was clearly in the lead, with about 1/5 of the game time left.
At that point I quit. It just became tedious, and I felt that if I could just say OK to all the default options and be consistently in the lead of the game, then this wasn't going to be a very interesting game in the long run.
So do people really like clicking "OK" for 10 hours, or was I missing something big? Are there more challenging computer players that require you to actually make decisions (and make you play the game, instead of watching the game play itself)?
I had much the same thoughts as the parent poster. I think his main point is that most of those who say "I wish I could..." actually *can* do whatever they're bemoaning. As for your roomie - if she truly desired to do what she says, she would. She could install Linux and then do what you're doing. What she's really saying is, "It would be convenient at times if I could do what you're doing, but it's not important enough to me to motivate me to take action to do that sort of thing."
As for the original blurb on this topic - they *could* play SMAC if they *really* wanted to. Just buy a copy of Win 95/95 ($90), install, and then install SMAC and enjoy. Given the cost of hardware and games ($30-$50 each), $90 isn't too much extra to be able to play games they allegedly really want to play.
This wishing is a far different thing than the "I wish I could play b-ball like Michael Jordan" or "I wish my apps had no bugs so I woudn't have to reboot Win98 periodically" There's nothing I can do about either of those desires.
But anyone who is knowledgable enough to get Linux working, can certainly install windows to play a game.
Mmmm.... NeXT computers... I spent three summers full time, and two academic years part time programming edu apps on NeXTs as an undergrad. They were sweet.:)
I so enjoy seeing PC magazines rave about computer innovations that I was using 10 years ago.
(I still have the first release of NeXTStep 3.0 for Intel hardware in my closet. Unfortunately, I never got around to installing:( )
Good point. Talking with a friend who's a senior engineer at a local company, he told me that the general rule of thumb is that investors require 15% ROI (return on investment). If they don't think they can get at least that, they won't bother, since they can could just stick their money in the stock market and get in that ballpark with less risk.
You're right. I think that's part of why people enjoy regular games (sports, cards, board-games) so much. Every game is different. Not CYOA, stricly, but the same principle. There is no pre-defined end. Every game is different.
Multi-player games give a taste of this. I haven't played the online RPGs (Ultima etc.)
I'm sure someone will figure it out. We're seeing hints of it now, as you point out. But I'm betting it's a hard one to do well.
I misread your post and thought at first you were speaking of the imagination of the creator to give us something novel. Which is generally appreciated:)
Then I re-read and realized you meant the need to give us the right stuff, and let us fill in the rest. I didn't even think of that in the context of games! Your comment is dead-on.
The best moments in Half-Life were when I knew *something* was going to happen, I just didn't know quite when or where.
And why I enjoy X-Files so much at times; classic half-seen monsters jumping out of dark places.
And this is where Lucas mis-stepped in TPM. The mito-whazzits take away the essential mystery of The Force and make it mundane. We know too much now, in a way. It was better when we had to inuit what it was, rather knowing (in a sci-fi way).
The trick is to get us to see, hear, experience more than is actually there. To use a flat screen, two speakers, and program to make us believe we are interacting with a 3D living world.
The funny thing is that while it's easy to suggest over-arching, abstract traits for what makes good games (or art, for that matter), I am incapable of actually acheiving those ends.
That's where the true skill or even genius lies--being able to breathe those characteristics into your work.
All I can do, is paraphrase the common expression, "I know what I don't like, and this [game] isn't it":)
You're right, DETERMINISM wasn't the best word. Probably something like FORCED-CHOICES. Myst (like all adventure games) gave the player freedom to roam about somewhat freely, often with multiple puzzles that could be solved at any given time. Thus, your path doesn't feel quite so determined, even though the universe is strictly deterministic:)
The suggestion for necessary traits to make games "good" (DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM) is too simplistic.
Two analogies: 1) During the era of B&W silent films, I can image such a round table discussion concluding that to make good films to capture large audiences they needed three things: COLOR, SOUND, EFFECTS. Well, we've got all three now, and for every _American History X_ or _Babe_, you've got countless _Starship Trooper_ and _Armageddon_'s.
2) A standard book has zero DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM. A choose-your-own-adventure book (remember those?) has all three. By the reasoning given, cyoa should be best sellers, with regular novels at the bottom of the heap. This is clearly not the case.
Why? 1) Better technology does not create better end products, it only allows the creator's concepts to be expressed in ways not previously possible. A lousy idea is still lousy even if it's IMAX 3D surround sound. A great concept can be accomplished in a 5 min B&W segment with no effects.
2) What people want, generally, is a compelling experience that speaks to their basic needs, desires, dreams, problems, etc. A finely crafted novel immerses the reader in a new world, giving a rich exposition of the author's ideas. A cyoa is too loose, and so it is even more difficult to communicate a well-defined concept. It could be done, I'm sure, but I don't think it has.
These principles apply to gaming. First and foremost, gamers want to have fun. This is why Diablo II, despite is dated graphics, and simplistic gameplay (find monster, kill it, get treasure, repeat for 15 hours, game over) is doing so well - it is *fun*. Blizzard is always behind the tech curve, but they know how to code *fun*. (They must being using the language F++:)
Half-Life was also great in part because of: a good story (for a game), the illusion of freedom (the path was almost completely linear, but you could explore that path as you wanted), and it gave the player the experience of being *there*. (I could only play for 30 min in a setting, cause it made me so tense. But those were gloriously stressful half hours:)
What about Myst? I never played it, but I've watched friends play through parts of it. It was ACCESSIBLE (which is why so many non-hardcore gamers bought it), IMMERSIVE (a realistically rendered, self-consistent world), and ENGAGING (people seemed to genuinely like to the slowly disclosed story coupled with the task of solving problems.) It had little DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM. Trespasser had all three, and by all accounts it was loathsome. What do games *really* need? You be the judge.
Finally, something I think all games lack, that great art possesses, is the ability to speak to our core; that is, to say significant things about the human condition, to challenge us with new ideas, to enlighten us about ourselves and others. Granted, games in general don't really do that (I thinking of sports and board games). But clearly computer game creators aspire to something closer to literature and film at times. To get there, the content must *significantly* improve.
Ok, mark me reundandant, since both you and the AC already said what I was thinking...
My first thought was that it was quite odd that bible-verse man lost Corinthian.com lost to a soccer team, but a nobody calling himself =Sting= prevailed over International pop-music star Sting to keep Sting.com.
Then I realized the key difference is that the judge found in the "Sting" case that the current holder was not violating the "fair-use" principle, showed no signs of being a 'squatter, and (inferred) was doing things with the site which illustrated that fact.
In the "Corinthian" case - the judge ruled that the former owner (assuming the owners personal account was accurate) was not using the name in good-faith, and that his one page, single bible verse site indicated that he was not engaged in "fair use". (Yes, there is much more involved, but that seems to be the key distinction)
I'm not one to chase conspiracies, but as a christian it does give me pause to think that talking about your exploits playing computer games is considered more significant than an internation music star (truly a household name), but posting inspirational bible verses is considered not a good use of cyber-space (especially compared to a soccer team essentially unheard of, at least in the U.S., which is one of the, if not the, largest users of the internet.)
Are the rulings random? Are is there some method behind the madness?
I agree - digital, even at 3Mp, is not surpassing standard film. And ccertainly anyone who is working with medium-format cameras is not going to be satisfied until *much* higher res is available. One could imagine many uses for such things in research/medicine/tolerancing etc.
I just don't think it's particularly useful for most of the market. For joe-consumer, what we need is lower cost, greater/cheaper storage capacity, and better user interface. Eventually, perhaps, it will be so easy to make large prints that joe-consumer will be making > 8x10 prints for himself. Then we will need more affordable very high-res cameras.
I doubt even the typical SLR purchaser is getting one because of the incredible res. of film. I think it's a largely because of the flexibility of such cameras: wide variety of lenses, flash positions, light metering, and shutter speeds mean you can take the picture, no matter the circumstances. But unless you blow it up, you probably don't really need all the resolution the film affords.
Well... You can can get ~$1000 3 Mpixel cameras right now. Are you looking for something beyond that?
Considering that most photos are granny pictures, or medium light birthday/christmas shots, printed at 3x4" or 3x6" using point-and-shoot cameras with mediocre lenses, there's not really a significant consumer need/demand for super high-res digi-cams. Seems that for normal use, ballpark 1025x768 res is probably sufficient.
Of course if you are a professional, avid hobbyist, or aspiring artist, then > 3Mpixel makes sense.
"if your web server is the same as your accounting database server... you deserve to lose everything when it get's nailed. "
I understand your point of taking sensible measures, but that type of comment still bothers me. It's too close to, "If you leave your car outside, instead of safe in a garage, you deserve to have it stolen." Or, "if you leave valuables in your home with your other stuff, you deserve to lose everything if you get robbed/house-torched/etc."
the point is, what we all want is a society were we *don't* have to lock our doors, look over our shoulders walking home at night, or spend time making computers secure (instead of doing productive work). But we live in an imperfect world, so we do what we think we must.
Given that, I don't think it's helpful to wish ill on others just because they do foolish things.
Good show! (good explanation:) I can imagine, though, that when dealing with lower resolution (and low color-depth) displays (e.g. anything electronic:), serif fonts may be *harder* to read than sans-serif fonts. Why? Because of the severe limitations of pixels available for drawing a letter, a pixel given to a serif is a pixel not used in defining the coarser aspects of a letter. However, as resolution increases, more information space is available for finer details, and combined with increased color space, "tricks" (e.g. anti-aliasing) can be used to make it appear more detailed. Put another way - with your NES, or SNES, characters had at best, crude eyes, mouth, hat for facial features. Now, with our pumped up Playstation2's, they can have cheekbone structure, eyebrows, wrinkles, etc. because of the higher resolution/color-depth available. What were we talking about? Oh, right, NVidia. They should use serif fonts in their manuals:)
This is getting off topic (into the realm of public education issues), but I see this notion of "computers want to be tinkered with" that needs to be made more sophisticated.
If a student went around their school, tinkering with the clocks, copy machines, video projectors and other mechanical supplies, in the the process breaking some of them temporarily, I think the admin's should rightfully point and that is not the proper avenue for such learning.
Nor would we say that if a student wants to learn auto mechanics, should he start playing with the public school buses, and taking apart/re-assembling their engines.
Likewise with school computers. These are tools for learning, but they also must remain operational because *others* use them besides you. If you break something, or even change it so a less educated user has a harder time using it, you're negatively impacting their education. There is a certain measure of respect for others required.
If you want to learn auto repair, you take the appropriate course. Cars are provided for such purposes, but you aren't given free-reign over all those cars and others for any amount of fooling around. If you want to tear it apart, you either get specific permission from your teacher, or you buy your own car.
Likewise, if you want to learn about computers, then you take the classes and use them in the designated fashion. If you need more "hard-core" experience, you either get permission to work on a specific machine, or you buy your own.
The ideal response would be for the company to publicly announce a recall due to security probles with the lock (just as car manufacturers do with recalls). They would repair/replace free of charge.
However, they wouldn't give out explicit details on how to exploit this problem. That would be silly, and would obviously encourage the less scrupulous types to take advantage of it.
Thus, you have public exposure, a fix, and no unnecessary information given out to the baddies.
The real issue is what to do regarding companies that ignore security problems, even when brought to their attention.
Re: the Kinko's analogy. I'd say Kinko's does have an obligation to make some effort to prevent copyright violation. And I believe they do. My experience is that copy stores, first, have the posted notices on/near copiers about what "fair use" is. I also believe that photo-developing shops will not make (unauthorized) duplicates of photos from professional photographers (since the photogs own the pictures, legally). That is to say, you can't go to Kmart and get prints made of your wedding photos.
I'd suggest that if a company is in a business where a clear and obvious use of their services/products is to violate laws (copyright, or e.g. buying a gun to shoot someone), they have an obligation to make a reasonable attempt to prevent such things.
This does not seem like such a stretch. There are obviously laws requiring businesses to "play fair" in the marketplace. This seems to be just another "play fair" type issue.
"What made it a good hoax..." When I first read the news of the hoax, I thought, "that was a worthless hoax." And I'm still wondering what the point of it was.
I'd say a good hoax does one of two things: 1) Gets people to believe something that, in retrospect, is so ludicrous that it should have been obviously false.
2) Illustrates something useful about the behavior of certain people or organizations.
As for 1 - the concept behind the card was not ludicrous. It was essentially a DSP based on salvaged chips. DSPs have been available and used for years, and can be quite useful. So it didn't get us to believe in something totally outrageous.
For 2 - a good example of this was the mock post-modern English article that was written by a critical physicist filled with buzzword/jargon, which passed peer review and was published, thus showing the true vacuous nature of certain po-mo studies. What did the SETI card hoax show us? That geeky people will spend money on toys that have little (if any) practical value? Duh. We already knew that -- witness the sales of sports cars, large screen TVs, and $400 GeForce2 video cards (no slam intended on anyone - nothing wrong with owning these; but they are just expensive toys with little essential use, just like a SETI accelerator).
Some excellent comments followed my thoughts, and so perhaps you'll appreciate my followup.
1) One person thought I made a poor example with Beethoven, since he died a pauper. That wasn't my point. As I read it, the original post expressed the opinion that we needed "higher-tech" ways of storing music (read: digital & electronic), and we needed to move away from these archaic "physical" constructs (read: vinyl records, tapes, CDs, etc). CDs die, break, and the player technology is lost. With digital, it's forever. Well, as time has shown, that's not the case. The best means of preserving music for *very* long times is with the most mundane of physical things - the written score. As for higher-tech digital sotrage, I can't readily read my doc's from my Atari ST from my freshman year in college. Why should I expect to easily listen to MP3's 10 years from now?
Put simply, higher tech is not always better for archiving than lower tech.
2) Someone else commented about my lack of recognition of the different types of music and how they are distributed. That seems like an unnecessary distinction. We listen to music in the same ways: classical is broadcast and on CDs, like pop. Pop is heard at concerts, like classical. The core of a classical score is more readily expressed in written form, but as someone commented about it being hard to express the strange sounds and effects used in todays pop, the same is true of new and old classical. Classical music is strongly dependent on the interpretation of the musicians, something that is not readily written down. Also, the volumes and speeds of the instruments is not generally strongly indicated on the music (unless you were to take the time to write it in dB & beats/sec for each and every player, as well as giving a precise map of their positions, and an acoustal analysis of the stage. I'm not being facetious - audiophiles care about this stuff!) And that's not even considering the modern classical stuff that does use unusual instruments & timing (e.g. John Cage)
As for how music is disseminted - pop music is spread by memory/playing (e.g. the cover bands, and every high school garage band that's ever played) The same comments could be made about the other types of music.
Finally, about Beethoven being poor - that's exactly the attitude I get from a variety of posters in these discussions.
Metallica, I mean, Beethoven, should give his music away for free, and besides, no one should be that rich (at least not richer than me).
Besides, had Beethoven been smart, he would have made money from his concerts and T-Shirts, and horse-carriage bumper stickers.:)
I've seen such comments made throughout these discussions, and I feel that they impose a double standard on so-called "artists" versus every other type of professional.
Would you say, "It's a sad day for all of us if engineers create their products only looking to the money they'll receive for it" ?, (or doctors, or waitresses, or Redhat PR people:)
Well, actually it would be sad if no one took any joy or valued their work as work, but only did it mechanically because because they must. (and unfortunately, there are people who have jobs they hate, but can't/won't get a different one).
Still, in these comments there is subtext which says, "a true artist will create art even if he doesn't get paid. Anyone else has 'sold out', and is just trying to be The Man." The reality is, with the exception of the wealthy, is that artists, like programmers, chefs, and day-care workers, must get paid for their work if they are going to continue to do it. We shouldn't expect free food from chefs, free health care from doctors, free programs from programmers, nor do we label them "Sell-outs" or less than "true-professionals" if they expect/require to be paid for their work.
Nor should we do so for artists. They're just a bunch of joes, like, trying to make a living doing what they like and/or good at. Like some here, a few make mucho bucks doing it. Like others here, they barely scrape by. That's just life.
(for the record, I am a scientist/engineer who could not write a decent song nor draw a decent picture if my life depended on it.)
The author of the quoted diatribe first writes, "...I want [my music] it to be available to my great grandchildren. But they will never hear it unless it's stored in some other medium than the material objects the record industry manufactured, all of which will be as mute as stones by then."
He then brings up some of the greats, "Of course, I wanted to be paid for it, and I was. Just as Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and countless others were paid, despite the absence of copyright protection."
I enjoy the irony that the music of Mozart, et. al., despite not having their work "stored in some other medium", rather only having the "material objects the record industry manufactured, all of which will be as mute as stones by then" (that is, sheet music) is still enjoyed today, centuries after their deaths.
The point being, ultimately it's not the technology, it's the music, that ultimately determines whether your grandchildren listen to your music. They'll be still listening to Beethoven in 100 years, but not Britney.
Just a side note, re: "Titanic...succeeded dispite [sic] having no...historical accuracy." While the basic story was fictional, the movie was dead-on accurate in the details (design/look of the ship; passengers; manner in which it sank; location of captain at the end; the string quartet play on the deck as it sank; etc.)
You may now return to your regularly scheduled flame war:)
At the risk of (exceedingly) redundant, by your argument, I should be able to set up an organization dealing with slashes and dots, and then sue (and win) slashdot.org (since they are commerical now). And I could make a registrar named microsoft.net (I could could be wrong, but MS seems to be a commerical enterprise:)
Well, actually, by domain name rules, I should be able to do just that. But, as many have pointed out, it would never happen. Rather, I would lose to the large, well financed businesses.
What it comes down to is that you go for.com, then.net, then.org. The meaning is now irrelevant; all that matters is how much "mindshare" your tld has with the public.
>Also, the article indicates that this is a temporary thing
According to the articles, ATI only leaked that Apple was announcing a new iMac and two new PowerMacs. No explicit mention of "cubes", colors, dual-processors, etc.
Further, they only say that Jobs prevented ATI from showing their hardware at the show, removed all mention of the cards from his keynote, and didn't allow ATI CEO from demo-ing. There is no indication that he replacing the new cards with older Rage 128's, or ceasing to do business with ATI.
From the article, it sounds only like ATI said a little more than Jobs wanted said, and he retaliated by publicly humiliating them. But the basic business between them is unchanged.
Slashdot Mirror
(First - I'm not trolling or flamebaiting.)
I borrowed SMAC from a friend not long ago, and at the time he couldn't find the instructions. Regardless, I installed it and spent a night playing it. Having little idea what exactly I was doing, I pressed buttons, followed the guides, and generally pressed "Do it" when a advisor-type window popped up.
After several hours of playing, learning more how it worked, making some purposeful decisions, but generally just clicking "OK" whenever I could, I was clearly in the lead, with about 1/5 of the game time left.
At that point I quit. It just became tedious, and I felt that if I could just say OK to all the default options and be consistently in the lead of the game, then this wasn't going to be a very interesting game in the long run.
So do people really like clicking "OK" for 10 hours, or was I missing something big? Are there more challenging computer players that require you to actually make decisions (and make you play the game, instead of watching the game play itself)?
I had much the same thoughts as the parent poster. I think his main point is that most of those who say "I wish I could..." actually *can* do whatever they're bemoaning. As for your roomie - if she truly desired to do what she says, she would. She could install Linux and then do what you're doing. What she's really saying is, "It would be convenient at times if I could do what you're doing, but it's not important enough to me to motivate me to take action to do that sort of thing."
As for the original blurb on this topic - they *could* play SMAC if they *really* wanted to. Just buy a copy of Win 95/95 ($90), install, and then install SMAC and enjoy. Given the cost of hardware and games ($30-$50 each), $90 isn't too much extra to be able to play games they allegedly really want to play.
This wishing is a far different thing than the "I wish I could play b-ball like Michael Jordan" or "I wish my apps had no bugs so I woudn't have to reboot Win98 periodically" There's nothing I can do about either of those desires.
But anyone who is knowledgable enough to get Linux working, can certainly install windows to play a game.
Mmmm.... NeXT computers... :)
:( )
I spent three summers full time, and two academic years part time programming edu apps on NeXTs as an undergrad. They were sweet.
I so enjoy seeing PC magazines rave about computer innovations that I was using 10 years ago.
(I still have the first release of NeXTStep 3.0 for Intel hardware in my closet. Unfortunately, I never got around to installing
Good point. Talking with a friend who's a senior engineer at a local company, he told me that the general rule of thumb is that investors require 15% ROI (return on investment). If they don't think they can get at least that, they won't bother, since they can could just stick their money in the stock market and get in that ballpark with less risk.
You're right. I think that's part of why people enjoy regular games (sports, cards, board-games) so much. Every game is different. Not CYOA, stricly, but the same principle. There is no pre-defined end. Every game is different.
Multi-player games give a taste of this. I haven't played the online RPGs (Ultima etc.)
I'm sure someone will figure it out. We're seeing hints of it now, as you point out. But I'm betting it's a hard one to do well.
I misread your post and thought at first you were speaking of the imagination of the creator to give us something novel. Which is generally appreciated :)
:)
Then I re-read and realized you meant the need to give us the right stuff, and let us fill in the rest. I didn't even think of that in the context of games! Your comment is dead-on.
The best moments in Half-Life were when I knew *something* was going to happen, I just didn't know quite when or where.
And why I enjoy X-Files so much at times; classic half-seen monsters jumping out of dark places.
And this is where Lucas mis-stepped in TPM. The mito-whazzits take away the essential mystery of The Force and make it mundane. We know too much now, in a way. It was better when we had to inuit what it was, rather knowing (in a sci-fi way).
The trick is to get us to see, hear, experience more than is actually there. To use a flat screen, two speakers, and program to make us believe we are interacting with a 3D living world.
The funny thing is that while it's easy to suggest over-arching, abstract traits for what makes good games (or art, for that matter), I am incapable of actually acheiving those ends.
That's where the true skill or even genius lies--being able to breathe those characteristics into your work.
All I can do, is paraphrase the common expression, "I know what I don't like, and this [game] isn't it"
You're right, DETERMINISM wasn't the best word. Probably something like FORCED-CHOICES. Myst (like all adventure games) gave the player freedom to roam about somewhat freely, often with multiple puzzles that could be solved at any given time. Thus, your path doesn't feel quite so determined, even though the universe is strictly deterministic :)
thanks for the good point.
The suggestion for necessary traits to make games "good" (DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM) is too simplistic.
:)
:)
Two analogies:
1) During the era of B&W silent films, I can image such a round table discussion concluding that to make good films to capture large audiences they needed three things: COLOR, SOUND, EFFECTS. Well, we've got all three now, and for every _American History X_ or _Babe_, you've got countless _Starship Trooper_ and _Armageddon_'s.
2) A standard book has zero DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM. A choose-your-own-adventure book (remember those?) has all three. By the reasoning given, cyoa should be best sellers, with regular novels at the bottom of the heap. This is clearly not the case.
Why?
1) Better technology does not create better end products, it only allows the creator's concepts to be expressed in ways not previously possible. A lousy idea is still lousy even if it's IMAX 3D surround sound. A great concept can be accomplished in a 5 min B&W segment with no effects.
2) What people want, generally, is a compelling experience that speaks to their basic needs, desires, dreams, problems, etc. A finely crafted novel immerses the reader in a new world, giving a rich exposition of the author's ideas. A cyoa is too loose, and so it is even more difficult to communicate a well-defined concept. It could be done, I'm sure, but I don't think it has.
These principles apply to gaming. First and foremost, gamers want to have fun. This is why Diablo II, despite is dated graphics, and simplistic gameplay (find monster, kill it, get treasure, repeat for 15 hours, game over) is doing so well - it is *fun*. Blizzard is always behind the tech curve, but they know how to code *fun*. (They must being using the language F++
Half-Life was also great in part because of: a good story (for a game), the illusion of freedom (the path was almost completely linear, but you could explore that path as you wanted), and it gave the player the experience of being *there*. (I could only play for 30 min in a setting, cause it made me so tense. But those were gloriously stressful half hours
What about Myst? I never played it, but I've watched friends play through parts of it. It was ACCESSIBLE (which is why so many non-hardcore gamers bought it), IMMERSIVE (a realistically rendered, self-consistent world), and ENGAGING (people seemed to genuinely like to the slowly disclosed story coupled with the task of solving problems.) It had little DETERMINISM, IMPROVISATION, FREEDOM. Trespasser had all three, and by all accounts it was loathsome. What do games *really* need? You be the judge.
Finally, something I think all games lack, that great art possesses, is the ability to speak to our core; that is, to say significant things about the human condition, to challenge us with new ideas, to enlighten us about ourselves and others. Granted, games in general don't really do that (I thinking of sports and board games). But clearly computer game creators aspire to something closer to literature and film at times. To get there, the content must *significantly* improve.
Given Sony's current tendencies towards proprietary standards, I wouldn't be surprised if it were 480x640 :)
Ok, mark me reundandant, since both you and the AC already said what I was thinking...
My first thought was that it was quite odd that bible-verse man lost Corinthian.com lost to a soccer team, but a nobody calling himself =Sting= prevailed over International pop-music star Sting to keep Sting.com.
Then I realized the key difference is that the judge found in the "Sting" case that the current holder was not violating the "fair-use" principle, showed no signs of being a 'squatter, and (inferred) was doing things with the site which illustrated that fact.
In the "Corinthian" case - the judge ruled that the former owner (assuming the owners personal account was accurate) was not using the name in good-faith, and that his one page, single bible verse site indicated that he was not engaged in "fair use". (Yes, there is much more involved, but that seems to be the key distinction)
I'm not one to chase conspiracies, but as a christian it does give me pause to think that talking about your exploits playing computer games is considered more significant than an internation music star (truly a household name), but posting inspirational bible verses is considered not a good use of cyber-space (especially compared to a soccer team essentially unheard of, at least in the U.S., which is one of the, if not the, largest users of the internet.)
Are the rulings random? Are is there some method behind the madness?
I agree - digital, even at 3Mp, is not surpassing standard film. And ccertainly anyone who is working with medium-format cameras is not going to be satisfied until *much* higher res is available. One could imagine many uses for such things in research/medicine/tolerancing etc.
I just don't think it's particularly useful for most of the market. For joe-consumer, what we need is lower cost, greater/cheaper storage capacity, and better user interface. Eventually, perhaps, it will be so easy to make large prints that joe-consumer will be making > 8x10 prints for himself. Then we will need more affordable very high-res cameras.
I doubt even the typical SLR purchaser is getting one because of the incredible res. of film. I think it's a largely because of the flexibility of such cameras: wide variety of lenses, flash positions, light metering, and shutter speeds mean you can take the picture, no matter the circumstances. But unless you blow it up, you probably don't really need all the resolution the film affords.
Well... You can can get ~$1000 3 Mpixel cameras right now. Are you looking for something beyond that?
Considering that most photos are granny pictures, or medium light birthday/christmas shots, printed at 3x4" or 3x6" using point-and-shoot cameras with mediocre lenses, there's not really a significant consumer need/demand for super high-res digi-cams. Seems that for normal use, ballpark 1025x768 res is probably sufficient.
Of course if you are a professional, avid hobbyist, or aspiring artist, then > 3Mpixel makes sense.
Theory of Convergence dictates that we must now get a camera that small that can see through clothes.
"if your web server is the same as your accounting database server... you deserve to lose everything when it get's nailed. "
I understand your point of taking sensible measures, but that type of comment still bothers me. It's too close to, "If you leave your car outside, instead of safe in a garage, you deserve to have it stolen." Or, "if you leave valuables in your home with your other stuff, you deserve to lose everything if you get robbed/house-torched/etc."
the point is, what we all want is a society were we *don't* have to lock our doors, look over our shoulders walking home at night, or spend time making computers secure (instead of doing productive work). But we live in an imperfect world, so we do what we think we must.
Given that, I don't think it's helpful to wish ill on others just because they do foolish things.
Good show! (good explanation :) I can imagine, though, that when dealing with lower resolution (and low color-depth) displays (e.g. anything electronic :), serif fonts may be *harder* to read than sans-serif fonts. Why? Because of the severe limitations of pixels available for drawing a letter, a pixel given to a serif is a pixel not used in defining the coarser aspects of a letter. However, as resolution increases, more information space is available for finer details, and combined with increased color space, "tricks" (e.g. anti-aliasing) can be used to make it appear more detailed. Put another way - with your NES, or SNES, characters had at best, crude eyes, mouth, hat for facial features. Now, with our pumped up Playstation2's, they can have cheekbone structure, eyebrows, wrinkles, etc. because of the higher resolution/color-depth available. What were we talking about? Oh, right, NVidia. They should use serif fonts in their manuals :)
This is getting off topic (into the realm of public education issues), but I see this notion of "computers want to be tinkered with" that needs to be made more sophisticated.
If a student went around their school, tinkering with the clocks, copy machines, video projectors and other mechanical supplies, in the the process breaking some of them temporarily, I think the admin's should rightfully point and that is not the proper avenue for such learning.
Nor would we say that if a student wants to learn auto mechanics, should he start playing with the public school buses, and taking apart/re-assembling their engines.
Likewise with school computers. These are tools for learning, but they also must remain operational because *others* use them besides you. If you break something, or even change it so a less educated user has a harder time using it, you're negatively impacting their education. There is a certain measure of respect for others required.
If you want to learn auto repair, you take the appropriate course. Cars are provided for such purposes, but you aren't given free-reign over all those cars and others for any amount of fooling around. If you want to tear it apart, you either get specific permission from your teacher, or you buy your own car.
Likewise, if you want to learn about computers, then you take the classes and use them in the designated fashion. If you need more "hard-core" experience, you either get permission to work on a specific machine, or you buy your own.
I think your analogy is helpful.
The ideal response would be for the company to publicly announce a recall due to security probles with the lock (just as car manufacturers do with recalls). They would repair/replace free of charge.
However, they wouldn't give out explicit details on how to exploit this problem. That would be silly, and would obviously encourage the less scrupulous types to take advantage of it.
Thus, you have public exposure, a fix, and no unnecessary information given out to the baddies.
The real issue is what to do regarding companies that ignore security problems, even when brought to their attention.
Re: the Kinko's analogy. I'd say Kinko's does have an obligation to make some effort to prevent copyright violation. And I believe they do. My experience is that copy stores, first, have the posted notices on/near copiers about what "fair use" is. I also believe that photo-developing shops will not make (unauthorized) duplicates of photos from professional photographers (since the photogs own the pictures, legally). That is to say, you can't go to Kmart and get prints made of your wedding photos.
I'd suggest that if a company is in a business where a clear and obvious use of their services/products is to violate laws (copyright, or e.g. buying a gun to shoot someone), they have an obligation to make a reasonable attempt to prevent such things.
This does not seem like such a stretch. There are obviously laws requiring businesses to "play fair" in the marketplace. This seems to be just another "play fair" type issue.
"What made it a good hoax..."
When I first read the news of the hoax, I thought, "that was a worthless hoax." And I'm still wondering what the point of it was.
I'd say a good hoax does one of two things:
1) Gets people to believe something that, in retrospect, is so ludicrous that it should have been obviously false.
2) Illustrates something useful about the behavior of certain people or organizations.
As for 1 - the concept behind the card was not ludicrous. It was essentially a DSP based on salvaged chips. DSPs have been available and used for years, and can be quite useful. So it didn't get us to believe in something totally outrageous.
For 2 - a good example of this was the mock post-modern English article that was written by a critical physicist filled with buzzword/jargon, which passed peer review and was published, thus showing the true vacuous nature of certain po-mo studies. What did the SETI card hoax show us? That geeky people will spend money on toys that have little (if any) practical value? Duh. We already knew that -- witness the sales of sports cars, large screen TVs, and $400 GeForce2 video cards (no slam intended on anyone - nothing wrong with owning these; but they are just expensive toys with little essential use, just like a SETI accelerator).
So again, what's the point of this hoax?
Some excellent comments followed my thoughts, and so perhaps you'll appreciate my followup.
:)
1) One person thought I made a poor example with Beethoven, since he died a pauper. That wasn't my point. As I read it, the original post expressed the opinion that we needed "higher-tech" ways of storing music (read: digital & electronic), and we needed to move away from these archaic "physical" constructs (read: vinyl records, tapes, CDs, etc). CDs die, break, and the player technology is lost. With digital, it's forever. Well, as time has shown, that's not the case. The best means of preserving music for *very* long times is with the most mundane of physical things - the written score. As for higher-tech digital sotrage, I can't readily read my doc's from my Atari ST from my freshman year in college. Why should I expect to easily listen to MP3's 10 years from now?
Put simply, higher tech is not always better for archiving than lower tech.
2) Someone else commented about my lack of recognition of the different types of music and how they are distributed. That seems like an unnecessary distinction. We listen to music in the same ways: classical is broadcast and on CDs, like pop. Pop is heard at concerts, like classical. The core of a classical score is more readily expressed in written form, but as someone commented about it being hard to express the strange sounds and effects used in todays pop, the same is true of new and old classical. Classical music is strongly dependent on the interpretation of the musicians, something that is not readily written down. Also, the volumes and speeds of the instruments is not generally strongly indicated on the music (unless you were to take the time to write it in dB & beats/sec for each and every player, as well as giving a precise map of their positions, and an acoustal analysis of the stage. I'm not being facetious - audiophiles care about this stuff!) And that's not even considering the modern classical stuff that does use unusual instruments & timing (e.g. John Cage)
As for how music is disseminted - pop music is spread by memory/playing (e.g. the cover bands, and every high school garage band that's ever played) The same comments could be made about the other types of music.
Finally, about Beethoven being poor - that's exactly the attitude I get from a variety of posters in these discussions.
Metallica, I mean, Beethoven, should give his music away for free, and besides, no one should be that rich (at least not richer than me).
Besides, had Beethoven been smart, he would have made money from his concerts and T-Shirts, and horse-carriage bumper stickers.
I've seen such comments made throughout these discussions, and I feel that they impose a double standard on so-called "artists" versus every other type of professional.
:)
Would you say, "It's a sad day for all of us if engineers create their products only looking to the money they'll receive for it" ?, (or doctors, or waitresses, or Redhat PR people
Well, actually it would be sad if no one took any joy or valued their work as work, but only did it mechanically because because they must. (and unfortunately, there are people who have jobs they hate, but can't/won't get a different one).
Still, in these comments there is subtext which says, "a true artist will create art even if he doesn't get paid. Anyone else has 'sold out', and is just trying to be The Man." The reality is, with the exception of the wealthy, is that artists, like programmers, chefs, and day-care workers, must get paid for their work if they are going to continue to do it. We shouldn't expect free food from chefs, free health care from doctors, free programs from programmers, nor do we label them "Sell-outs" or less than "true-professionals" if they expect/require to be paid for their work.
Nor should we do so for artists. They're just a bunch of joes, like, trying to make a living doing what they like and/or good at. Like some here, a few make mucho bucks doing it. Like others here, they barely scrape by. That's just life.
(for the record, I am a scientist/engineer who could not write a decent song nor draw a decent picture if my life depended on it.)
The author of the quoted diatribe first writes, "...I want [my music] it to be available to my great grandchildren. But they will never hear it unless it's stored in some other medium than the material objects the record industry manufactured, all of which will be as mute as stones by then."
He then brings up some of the greats, "Of course, I wanted to be paid for it, and I was. Just as Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and countless others were paid, despite the absence of copyright protection."
I enjoy the irony that the music of Mozart, et. al., despite not having their work "stored in some other medium", rather only having the "material objects the record industry manufactured, all of which will be as mute as stones by then" (that is, sheet music) is still enjoyed today, centuries after their deaths.
The point being, ultimately it's not the technology, it's the music, that ultimately determines whether your grandchildren listen to your music. They'll be still listening to Beethoven in 100 years, but not Britney.
Just a side note, re: "Titanic...succeeded dispite [sic] having no...historical accuracy." While the basic story was fictional, the movie was dead-on accurate in the details (design/look of the ship; passengers; manner in which it sank; location of captain at the end; the string quartet play on the deck as it sank; etc.)
:)
You may now return to your regularly scheduled flame war
At the risk of (exceedingly) redundant, by your argument, I should be able to set up an organization dealing with slashes and dots, and then sue (and win) slashdot.org (since they are commerical now). And I could make a registrar named microsoft.net (I could could be wrong, but MS seems to be a commerical enterprise :)
.com, then .net, then .org. The meaning is now irrelevant; all that matters is how much "mindshare" your tld has with the public.
Well, actually, by domain name rules, I should be able to do just that. But, as many have pointed out, it would never happen. Rather, I would lose to the large, well financed businesses.
What it comes down to is that you go for
>Also, the article indicates that this is a temporary thing
According to the articles, ATI only leaked that Apple was announcing a new iMac and two new PowerMacs. No explicit mention of "cubes", colors, dual-processors, etc.
Further, they only say that Jobs prevented ATI from showing their hardware at the show, removed all mention of the cards from his keynote, and didn't allow ATI CEO from demo-ing. There is no indication that he replacing the new cards with older Rage 128's, or ceasing to do business with ATI.
From the article, it sounds only like ATI said a little more than Jobs wanted said, and he retaliated by publicly humiliating them. But the basic business between them is unchanged.