I can't imagine how it would be possible to fund anything through tax money and not expect the outcome to be determined by the power elite who control that money.
It's fair enough to assert that control has to be exerted somewhere in any exchange of money, even where that money is being used for the good of all. But I think this stance assumes far more than that - I think you're assuming that ANY administration of ANY government using ANY tax system is inherently going to be ultra-biased and spend that money to promote their own causes at the pure cost of everyone paying taxes.
Science has value. Value that doesn't tend to happen without public investment. Value that doesn't promise a financial return - only more questions.
Governments matter. When they quash an environment of open scientific inquiry for their own petty goals, they crush that value that can come from science.
Also, bias isn't really the issue - a person can be as biased as they can be, so long as their data and circumstances can be openly reproduced by others, and they don't act to cut off the results other get in any way.
Costs are inevitable in life. You can live on your own resources in a harsh world paying for every person you need to interact with, or you can cooperate with others to build roads and an environment you can all live in. Taxes are the imperfect result of what humanity has done to build a world for itself. Science is our shared resource for what reliable evidence we have for how the world works. It ends up being a drastically lower cost to everyone to cooperate on many resources, than it is for everyone own their own slice of everything - especially when it comes to the evidential truths of the universe.
Dismissing the loss of science, because you disagree that any government should pay for it sounds like me like a man disingenuous man complaining that the rest of the world wants to cooperate to paint a (evidence based) larger picture for everyone. The reason? You don't like to see them wasting paint.
Certainly agreed there - FFVI is one of those games I have to replay every few years just for the timeless combination of unequaled music, profoundly artistic story, and sharpened gameplay mechanics perfected from the previous 5 games. I didn't want to mention it under the circumstances, as every time I find I mention it, a FF6 vs. FF7 argument ensues where I can't help but be partisan and mention my relative disgust for FF7 compared to what came before - my taste only though, and I can still find charming aspects to FF7 despite those tastes.
I'd also mention the Ultima series, particularly Ultima 7 and the Underworlds, though that was in an age where gameplay development only dreamed of the luxury of content (even in mere word count) compared to other media. Like a Moog synthesiser, I consider the result art in terms of pure economy of basic constructed content - such wonderful expression in such limited, carefully shaped environments.
Really. If you ever want a game to show you that an interactive experience can be as much art as any book, try that game. There's many other examples, across all other aspects of art, but games hold many forms of artistic content, and the addition of choice does not lessen that expression.
So, Nintendo wants to try something REALLY new with this machine of theirs, outside of the usual multiple-choice stories with little educations of social value of most console developers, and this article slams them for that. These reviewers want more progress of the arts, and not so much progress of the _useful_ arts. Fine. But calling the new Mario/Zelda/Metroid games relics, as if they're just a rehash? I'd highly disagree with that - the new Zelda games, for instance, on the DS and Wii, just with the control alone have very much changed the very feel of the games. Not that each aren't sequels, but the rate of change over previous sequels is relatively huge in this generation, and in every case I've seen and played has been an unusual improvement for what I want out of pure artistic/storytelling/interactive gaming.
Yes, we're not seeing many new protagonists this first generation of first party games from Nintendo for the Wii. Nintendo is playing it safe in their newly reformed gaming environment. So, they gauge the response to this first generation, and try to maximize the latent demand for existing worlds of imagination before making new ones... I definitely understand that process. That means they aren't gamblers going for broke, they wait until there's standing capitol for a venture before letting the allotment of risk increase. They also get to spend more time in development in play testing and improvement this way... which has certainly played out well for the end result, from what I've played so far.
Want to call Zelda, Mario, Metroid relics? That's fine. It's ad-hoc, but a valid opinion if you want to always prefer newly created worlds. But give them a chance if you ever want to try some of the most finely refined mix of new gameplay elements and old out there. I still appreciate such 'relics'.
Sounds like a nice idea, but I wonder the following things:
1. How's the refresh rate? If it doesn't have to constantly refresh, how fast CAN the entire image be changed? 2. What's the energy cost to change the whole image, for a given size surface? Worst case/best case? Partial image change cost? 3. Can I get random access to setting a single pixel without having to recalculate & resend the entire image? 4. What are the predicted cost of materials/cost of manufacture? What sizes could be produced for what costs? 5. Any potentially toxic elements that would keep these devices out of the hands/mouths of children? How would that compare to everyday paper/ink? 6. What is the resolution in terms of computer pixels per size? What is the smallest a 640x480 display equivalent (non-lossy) could be? 7. How much 'room' do the components of this technology take up in the 'substrate' of the surface it is embedded in? How much could be added and still have a flexible display? 8. How durable/redundant can this technology be made to be?
These things will determine how it can be used in the greater marketplace. Can it become the virtual paper of science fiction? Will it become a common part of commercial advertising, from billboards to clothing? Or, will it be limited by fragility or technical shortcomings to isolated or expensive consumer products where it can serve a niche? Or will it just drop off the radar, like countless 'investment opportunity' technologies?
In case you haven't read it, Flatland (The first non-wiki link in google) is the tale of a square named (conveniently) A. Square living in his comfortable home in a two dimensional world, who is eventually visited by a sphere from a *third* dimension and is both vexed and eventually exhilarated (and then vexed again) by what he learns in terms of geometric and social implications.
It's a wonderful bit of British satire and more written by Edwin A. Abbott around 1884. Check it out - it's a wonderful short story, and a very nice example of the treasures that lie within the public domain.
Odin Sphere implements what they speak of (though in a mostly-2d world), with button-presser-for-combos, and button-holds-for-defense approach for many of the characters. It doesn't really work that well at all. It's much better to be able to guard-cancel with another button, or just get out of the way, rather than risk being there when a guard-breaking attack can get you, just so you can be closer once the attack ends. Not that guarding itself is always bad, but the flow of having to wait with a button down for guards to 'kick in' just isn't that useful, and doesn't end up intuitive, even with practice.
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. (Lt.) Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he [Yossarian] observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Instead, it's fear of terror that's the new catch, completely unaccountable in its all-enforcing secrecy from the people the system is supposed to represent, and completely against the constitution that gives it the charter it exists to serve.
When an organization doesn't have enough money to do something, that is known as underfunding. When an organization _does_ have the money, but spends it inappropriately so they can't deal with the issues they are responsible for (including their own internal upkeep), then that is known as misappropriation.
The NSA had the money they needed to deal with their infrastructure problems, but did not. Wasn't this the kind of cooperation and organizational problems the whole "post 9-11" reorganization efforts were intended to fix? I will not argue that it is a failure of previous administrations that this did not get fixed earlier - just that these exact kinds of deep organizational failures coming to a dramatic conclusion are exactly in keeping with this administration's practices so far.
For a small sample of supporting evidence for my arguments, assertions and conclusions, see:
This doesn't sound like underfunding at all. It sounds like highly misappropriated funds going to prioritized sub-groups with an inherent motivation to see the other subgroups suffering and failing for the sake of their own relative gain. This is completely in keeping with the current administration's modus operandi of finding subgroups in organizations (lobbyists, regulators, etc.), that will play ball, and finding a way to eliminate or functionally undercut everyone else, then blame those who were undercut for the resulting general failure.
It's certainly a request they can no longer ignore as much - but ultimately, what are the consequences if they don't comply? Will the president or any of his men be lead away in handcuffs, or will we have another 6 months of someone saying they have to do something, then they REALLY have to do something.
When Bush's team mentioned bringing 'ingegrity' back to the White House, they meant the kind of integrity that doesn't waver from their beliefs... at all costs, everyone else be damned. And they meant it.
It's cool that they're able to find 'blobs' of activity in the brain, and trigger results based on general activity... but I wonder what it would take to be able to actually map a brain the same kind of way a circuit is mapped when a ROM image is read off one.
Of course, reading a brain in many ways would be functionally equivalent to writing to it, so we'd have to find a non-destructive way somehow, or at least a way that is minimally invasive and even in reading all content that is accessed. With this current method, for instance, people would spend a lot of time doing generic 'forced thinking' to trigger external response, without any results in their own head for those thoughts... will these constantly reinforced 'dead end' thoughts have any ill effects beyond everyday equivalents?
Really interacting deeply with the brain, however, would be a very different thing. Being able to correct brain-based visual impairments, for instance, would involve actually finding the locations along the visual pathways to intercept messages, interpreting the message, and replacing the output or altering a processing stage in some way. Being able to create a toolset that could achieve such results would be a fascinating development cycle, to say the least. It would deeply change not only how we can think, but how we think of ourselves and our very existence.
This seems to be an odd thing for a law to do. To force a public contract, where as long as you receive content in the form of a specific type of consumer-oriented layered disk, you suddenly may not read that content and then write that same content to another layered disk - but only in that case. Seems like an absurd way to essentially throw away the DVD format as a source for future (and current) general information use.
Sounds like something from the Mercantile age, where protection of companies was more important than the potential of knowledge or any future technology.
Ryan Fenton
I'd like this decision to be reinforced at every level of the American justice system: No matter what you force someone to sign, you can't take away their right to challenge you on a legal issue in a public court.
America shouldn't be in the business of forcing people to obey the random "magical wishes' contained within every contract some jerk forces people to sign.
The next thing I fear: We'll have to find a federal judge to sign our EULAs to authorize the active denial our own rights before we get to play a game. Either that, or a law passed by congress or a new ruling by the justice department to take away the rights they can't get by contract anymore.
...on average, what percentage of a patent examiner's net worth is actually wages, and what percent is some form of bribes and hush money.
It just seems an inherently corruption-friendly system that allows any examiner of proper rank to step in and hand monopolies out to companies at a moment's notice.
This definitely seems like attack on law and order - when properly authorized and overseen, undercover investigations are one of the few legitimate means of acting to prevent crime in a way that can be ethically and logically defensible for a state. And I'm very much in favor of more prevention (where compatible with human and civil rights), and less mindless punishment in terms of law and public order.
If this was a site devoted to outing torturers or other players in indefensible state actions, I'd understand - but this is just horrible. Oversight is certainly needed more over the modern executive branch, but this is just cruel undermining.
Stories are stories, whether interactive or not. Some need to be refreshed over time to maintain value - others become timeless, only increasing in value with the fidelity with which they are told.
The Legend of Zelda series is not completely timeless, but most of it's aspects hold a very high value, even when they are not radically rehashed with each telling. It's a fairy tale where a boy with a sword rescues a princess, with some interesting action, oddness and strategy along the way.
No need to take away any of that when making a new Zelda game - you just have to make sure the core timelessness of the story isn't too overexposed, so that it doesn't become stale. No need to transform it into a guitar-based rock game with pinball elements or anything.
I tend to like a little bit of everything - but the real incentive to get a 360 were the Bioware and other RPGs coming out later. That's not to say I don't like FPSs - I've even gone so far as to do some Unreal modding and dabbled with the classic OpenGL tutorials with FPS stuff in them. I also highly enjoy FPS speedruns and other tricks.
The problem with console FPSs isn't that I don't understand the subtleties of them - I very much appreciate what makes them compelling tactically and socially. I just tend to see the metagame too quickly with them, and then I end up seeing them as hampered social interaction, rather than a game with much new content.
I recently purchased a used copy of Crackdown along with other used titles for my first purchases for my Xbox360. The guy at the store warned I wouldn't be able to play Halo with it, but I honestly didn't care.
But, after setting up my home network, I found I could download the beta, so, pleasantly surprised, I tried it out.
I was able to listen to folks shout at eachother over their headsets, then join a game, and run around and shoot other Spartan soldiers. I'd say it was OK, but mostly revolved around people popping out enough to expose themselves to a little firepower, then either dying or falling back to recharge shields. I was disappointed by the firepower of the weapons, compared to the cheapness of either walking through a hailstorm of bullets to melee someone, or just hitting people while they were already engaged. The weapons and even grenades just didn't seem a good trade of deaths per kill compared to the reliability of the pure melee approach.
It was nice to try, but I think I'll stick to single player. My philosophy is that when I play games, I want to fully play games and experience a created world. When I want to interact with other people, I'd rather just have a fully engaged conversation - playing a glorified version of rock-paper-scissors rather than really talking to someone has always been disappointing for me. Though playing coop with another person may be cool - I just feel stagnation whenever playing these "kill eachother and start over, and start over, and start over" games, no matter how subtle the interactions.
Your children have overwhelmingly likely been "pirates" of content. Your other relatives and loved ones too. Ever tape a song off the radio? That's unauthorized copying. Ever make, or ask someone to make a copy of something for a hearing? That's unauthorized copying. You have overwhelmingly likely copied a lot of material that was not exempted from copyright protections... because virtually EVERYTHING that anyone creates is protected by copyright.
This idea of jailing people for 'attempted' copyright violation is so absurd, I have to ask: Is this just a distraction for some reason?
Yes, it's a nice sizable article, featuring women in bikinis enjoying a nice drink on a hot day, quotes from important figures, official-looking charts, and subtext in places like "a warm future" under a simplistic image of warmer-colored earth.
The problem is that I don't see it citing many sources, and when it does, it seems to selectively quote them, such as limiting it's considerations to "gradual thawing of the Greenland ice sheet" only when considering sea level changes. I'm not going to call this a whitewash, but it seems to be a sales job for a point of view, rather than a well-founded findings of a respectable research effort.
It makes sense that when making an Unreal engine game (which implies an "anything-but-Nintendo systems" release), they'd start the design with a highly western-friendly set of themes, based on the fact that non-Nintendo consoles just don't seem competitive right now in Japan. I doubt we'll be seeing Planescape: Torment or anything, but it'll be interesting to see if they can make an interesting title when learning such new sets of technology (likely training a lot of developers for the future with this project), and attempting to cater to a somewhat alien audience.
I don't know what it is, but a lot of their non-Final Fantasy games have seemed sort of, well, disingenuous or empty in similar circumstances, even if still good in some ways. Here's hoping it's not a Brave Fencer Musashi.
Looking back, I think you can probably guess what the game is going to be like by looking at the title - Final Fantasy is not going to end. Musashi is going to be an unfocused, unhistorical romp. Last Remnant, therefore, is going to involve drowning in remnants.
Than the idea of disposable soldiers. And that's really the design ideal here - the cheaper and more disposable the robot can be while meeting reliability requirements, the more extremely dangerous jobs can be done by robots.
Robots really are replaceable - you can have empathy for a robot doing a hard task, but the next one off the assembly line really is the same thing as the previous one. Robots are not unique little snowflakes, compared to the valuable human beings they protect by proxy.
The danger is, of course, when cheap, highly replaceable robotics replace enough of the work of war, that the perceived cost of war itself becomes less and less. We're in little danger of that occurring now, and I'd gladly see any human life saved by our current efforts, but I do worry about the possible increased use of war once a poor village could be suppressed entirely with mobile automated turrets with a few controllers hidden in a safe zone.
Slashdot Mirror
I can't imagine how it would be possible to fund anything through tax money and not expect the outcome to be determined by the power elite who control that money.
It's fair enough to assert that control has to be exerted somewhere in any exchange of money, even where that money is being used for the good of all. But I think this stance assumes far more than that - I think you're assuming that ANY administration of ANY government using ANY tax system is inherently going to be ultra-biased and spend that money to promote their own causes at the pure cost of everyone paying taxes.
Science has value. Value that doesn't tend to happen without public investment. Value that doesn't promise a financial return - only more questions.
Governments matter. When they quash an environment of open scientific inquiry for their own petty goals, they crush that value that can come from science.
Also, bias isn't really the issue - a person can be as biased as they can be, so long as their data and circumstances can be openly reproduced by others, and they don't act to cut off the results other get in any way.
Costs are inevitable in life. You can live on your own resources in a harsh world paying for every person you need to interact with, or you can cooperate with others to build roads and an environment you can all live in. Taxes are the imperfect result of what humanity has done to build a world for itself. Science is our shared resource for what reliable evidence we have for how the world works. It ends up being a drastically lower cost to everyone to cooperate on many resources, than it is for everyone own their own slice of everything - especially when it comes to the evidential truths of the universe.
Dismissing the loss of science, because you disagree that any government should pay for it sounds like me like a man disingenuous man complaining that the rest of the world wants to cooperate to paint a (evidence based) larger picture for everyone. The reason? You don't like to see them wasting paint.
Ryan Fenton
Certainly agreed there - FFVI is one of those games I have to replay every few years just for the timeless combination of unequaled music, profoundly artistic story, and sharpened gameplay mechanics perfected from the previous 5 games. I didn't want to mention it under the circumstances, as every time I find I mention it, a FF6 vs. FF7 argument ensues where I can't help but be partisan and mention my relative disgust for FF7 compared to what came before - my taste only though, and I can still find charming aspects to FF7 despite those tastes.
I'd also mention the Ultima series, particularly Ultima 7 and the Underworlds, though that was in an age where gameplay development only dreamed of the luxury of content (even in mere word count) compared to other media. Like a Moog synthesiser, I consider the result art in terms of pure economy of basic constructed content - such wonderful expression in such limited, carefully shaped environments.
Ryan Fenton
Really. If you ever want a game to show you that an interactive experience can be as much art as any book, try that game. There's many other examples, across all other aspects of art, but games hold many forms of artistic content, and the addition of choice does not lessen that expression.
Ryan Fenton
So, Nintendo wants to try something REALLY new with this machine of theirs, outside of the usual multiple-choice stories with little educations of social value of most console developers, and this article slams them for that. These reviewers want more progress of the arts, and not so much progress of the _useful_ arts. Fine. But calling the new Mario/Zelda/Metroid games relics, as if they're just a rehash? I'd highly disagree with that - the new Zelda games, for instance, on the DS and Wii, just with the control alone have very much changed the very feel of the games. Not that each aren't sequels, but the rate of change over previous sequels is relatively huge in this generation, and in every case I've seen and played has been an unusual improvement for what I want out of pure artistic/storytelling/interactive gaming.
Yes, we're not seeing many new protagonists this first generation of first party games from Nintendo for the Wii. Nintendo is playing it safe in their newly reformed gaming environment. So, they gauge the response to this first generation, and try to maximize the latent demand for existing worlds of imagination before making new ones... I definitely understand that process. That means they aren't gamblers going for broke, they wait until there's standing capitol for a venture before letting the allotment of risk increase. They also get to spend more time in development in play testing and improvement this way... which has certainly played out well for the end result, from what I've played so far.
Want to call Zelda, Mario, Metroid relics? That's fine. It's ad-hoc, but a valid opinion if you want to always prefer newly created worlds. But give them a chance if you ever want to try some of the most finely refined mix of new gameplay elements and old out there. I still appreciate such 'relics'.
Ryan Fenton
Sounds like a nice idea, but I wonder the following things:
1. How's the refresh rate? If it doesn't have to constantly refresh, how fast CAN the entire image be changed?
2. What's the energy cost to change the whole image, for a given size surface? Worst case/best case? Partial image change cost?
3. Can I get random access to setting a single pixel without having to recalculate & resend the entire image?
4. What are the predicted cost of materials/cost of manufacture? What sizes could be produced for what costs?
5. Any potentially toxic elements that would keep these devices out of the hands/mouths of children? How would that compare to everyday paper/ink?
6. What is the resolution in terms of computer pixels per size? What is the smallest a 640x480 display equivalent (non-lossy) could be?
7. How much 'room' do the components of this technology take up in the 'substrate' of the surface it is embedded in? How much could be added and still have a flexible display?
8. How durable/redundant can this technology be made to be?
These things will determine how it can be used in the greater marketplace. Can it become the virtual paper of science fiction? Will it become a common part of commercial advertising, from billboards to clothing? Or, will it be limited by fragility or technical shortcomings to isolated or expensive consumer products where it can serve a niche? Or will it just drop off the radar, like countless 'investment opportunity' technologies?
Ryan Fenton
In case you haven't read it, Flatland (The first non-wiki link in google) is the tale of a square named (conveniently) A. Square living in his comfortable home in a two dimensional world, who is eventually visited by a sphere from a *third* dimension and is both vexed and eventually exhilarated (and then vexed again) by what he learns in terms of geometric and social implications.
It's a wonderful bit of British satire and more written by Edwin A. Abbott around 1884. Check it out - it's a wonderful short story, and a very nice example of the treasures that lie within the public domain.
Ryan Fenton
Odin Sphere implements what they speak of (though in a mostly-2d world), with button-presser-for-combos, and button-holds-for-defense approach for many of the characters. It doesn't really work that well at all. It's much better to be able to guard-cancel with another button, or just get out of the way, rather than risk being there when a guard-breaking attack can get you, just so you can be closer once the attack ends. Not that guarding itself is always bad, but the flow of having to wait with a button down for guards to 'kick in' just isn't that useful, and doesn't end up intuitive, even with practice.
Ryan Fenton
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. (Lt.) Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he [Yossarian] observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Instead, it's fear of terror that's the new catch, completely unaccountable in its all-enforcing secrecy from the people the system is supposed to represent, and completely against the constitution that gives it the charter it exists to serve.
Ryan Fenton
When an organization doesn't have enough money to do something, that is known as underfunding. When an organization _does_ have the money, but spends it inappropriately so they can't deal with the issues they are responsible for (including their own internal upkeep), then that is known as misappropriation.
...and most political news appearing outside FOX news for the past 4 years.
The NSA had the money they needed to deal with their infrastructure problems, but did not. Wasn't this the kind of cooperation and organizational problems the whole "post 9-11" reorganization efforts were intended to fix? I will not argue that it is a failure of previous administrations that this did not get fixed earlier - just that these exact kinds of deep organizational failures coming to a dramatic conclusion are exactly in keeping with this administration's practices so far.
For a small sample of supporting evidence for my arguments, assertions and conclusions, see:
The Republican War on Science (Book)
Most of the recent works by John W. Dean (Several books)
One of many powerfully incisive books by George Lackoff
Countless other books, including these
Ryan Fenton
This doesn't sound like underfunding at all. It sounds like highly misappropriated funds going to prioritized sub-groups with an inherent motivation to see the other subgroups suffering and failing for the sake of their own relative gain. This is completely in keeping with the current administration's modus operandi of finding subgroups in organizations (lobbyists, regulators, etc.), that will play ball, and finding a way to eliminate or functionally undercut everyone else, then blame those who were undercut for the resulting general failure.
Ryan Fenton
It's certainly a request they can no longer ignore as much - but ultimately, what are the consequences if they don't comply? Will the president or any of his men be lead away in handcuffs, or will we have another 6 months of someone saying they have to do something, then they REALLY have to do something.
When Bush's team mentioned bringing 'ingegrity' back to the White House, they meant the kind of integrity that doesn't waver from their beliefs... at all costs, everyone else be damned. And they meant it.
Ryan Fenton
It's cool that they're able to find 'blobs' of activity in the brain, and trigger results based on general activity... but I wonder what it would take to be able to actually map a brain the same kind of way a circuit is mapped when a ROM image is read off one.
Of course, reading a brain in many ways would be functionally equivalent to writing to it, so we'd have to find a non-destructive way somehow, or at least a way that is minimally invasive and even in reading all content that is accessed. With this current method, for instance, people would spend a lot of time doing generic 'forced thinking' to trigger external response, without any results in their own head for those thoughts... will these constantly reinforced 'dead end' thoughts have any ill effects beyond everyday equivalents?
Really interacting deeply with the brain, however, would be a very different thing. Being able to correct brain-based visual impairments, for instance, would involve actually finding the locations along the visual pathways to intercept messages, interpreting the message, and replacing the output or altering a processing stage in some way. Being able to create a toolset that could achieve such results would be a fascinating development cycle, to say the least. It would deeply change not only how we can think, but how we think of ourselves and our very existence.
Ryan Fenton
This seems to be an odd thing for a law to do. To force a public contract, where as long as you receive content in the form of a specific type of consumer-oriented layered disk, you suddenly may not read that content and then write that same content to another layered disk - but only in that case. Seems like an absurd way to essentially throw away the DVD format as a source for future (and current) general information use. Sounds like something from the Mercantile age, where protection of companies was more important than the potential of knowledge or any future technology. Ryan Fenton
I'd like this decision to be reinforced at every level of the American justice system: No matter what you force someone to sign, you can't take away their right to challenge you on a legal issue in a public court.
America shouldn't be in the business of forcing people to obey the random "magical wishes' contained within every contract some jerk forces people to sign.
The next thing I fear: We'll have to find a federal judge to sign our EULAs to authorize the active denial our own rights before we get to play a game. Either that, or a law passed by congress or a new ruling by the justice department to take away the rights they can't get by contract anymore.
Ryan Fenton
...on average, what percentage of a patent examiner's net worth is actually wages, and what percent is some form of bribes and hush money.
It just seems an inherently corruption-friendly system that allows any examiner of proper rank to step in and hand monopolies out to companies at a moment's notice.
Ryan Fenton
They're going through historic trends, and guessing what the current outcome is going to be. That is NOT evidence - that is conjecture.
Ryan Fenton
This definitely seems like attack on law and order - when properly authorized and overseen, undercover investigations are one of the few legitimate means of acting to prevent crime in a way that can be ethically and logically defensible for a state. And I'm very much in favor of more prevention (where compatible with human and civil rights), and less mindless punishment in terms of law and public order.
If this was a site devoted to outing torturers or other players in indefensible state actions, I'd understand - but this is just horrible. Oversight is certainly needed more over the modern executive branch, but this is just cruel undermining.
Ryan Fenton
Stories are stories, whether interactive or not. Some need to be refreshed over time to maintain value - others become timeless, only increasing in value with the fidelity with which they are told.
The Legend of Zelda series is not completely timeless, but most of it's aspects hold a very high value, even when they are not radically rehashed with each telling. It's a fairy tale where a boy with a sword rescues a princess, with some interesting action, oddness and strategy along the way.
No need to take away any of that when making a new Zelda game - you just have to make sure the core timelessness of the story isn't too overexposed, so that it doesn't become stale. No need to transform it into a guitar-based rock game with pinball elements or anything.
Ryan Fenton
>To Ryan, what games do you like?
I tend to like a little bit of everything - but the real incentive to get a 360 were the Bioware and other RPGs coming out later. That's not to say I don't like FPSs - I've even gone so far as to do some Unreal modding and dabbled with the classic OpenGL tutorials with FPS stuff in them. I also highly enjoy FPS speedruns and other tricks.
The problem with console FPSs isn't that I don't understand the subtleties of them - I very much appreciate what makes them compelling tactically and socially. I just tend to see the metagame too quickly with them, and then I end up seeing them as hampered social interaction, rather than a game with much new content.
Ryan Fenton
I recently purchased a used copy of Crackdown along with other used titles for my first purchases for my Xbox360. The guy at the store warned I wouldn't be able to play Halo with it, but I honestly didn't care.
But, after setting up my home network, I found I could download the beta, so, pleasantly surprised, I tried it out.
I was able to listen to folks shout at eachother over their headsets, then join a game, and run around and shoot other Spartan soldiers. I'd say it was OK, but mostly revolved around people popping out enough to expose themselves to a little firepower, then either dying or falling back to recharge shields. I was disappointed by the firepower of the weapons, compared to the cheapness of either walking through a hailstorm of bullets to melee someone, or just hitting people while they were already engaged. The weapons and even grenades just didn't seem a good trade of deaths per kill compared to the reliability of the pure melee approach.
It was nice to try, but I think I'll stick to single player. My philosophy is that when I play games, I want to fully play games and experience a created world. When I want to interact with other people, I'd rather just have a fully engaged conversation - playing a glorified version of rock-paper-scissors rather than really talking to someone has always been disappointing for me. Though playing coop with another person may be cool - I just feel stagnation whenever playing these "kill eachother and start over, and start over, and start over" games, no matter how subtle the interactions.
Ryan Fenton
Note to politicians:
Your children have overwhelmingly likely been "pirates" of content. Your other relatives and loved ones too. Ever tape a song off the radio? That's unauthorized copying. Ever make, or ask someone to make a copy of something for a hearing? That's unauthorized copying. You have overwhelmingly likely copied a lot of material that was not exempted from copyright protections... because virtually EVERYTHING that anyone creates is protected by copyright.
This idea of jailing people for 'attempted' copyright violation is so absurd, I have to ask: Is this just a distraction for some reason?
Ryan Fenton
>And an even more interesting connection, how do they intend to collect these said royalties?
They same way they collect them now... by taking over the world! Er... I mean, by charging anytime you buy a complete computer system.
Ryan Fenton
Yes, it's a nice sizable article, featuring women in bikinis enjoying a nice drink on a hot day, quotes from important figures, official-looking charts, and subtext in places like "a warm future" under a simplistic image of warmer-colored earth.
The problem is that I don't see it citing many sources, and when it does, it seems to selectively quote them, such as limiting it's considerations to "gradual thawing of the Greenland ice sheet" only when considering sea level changes. I'm not going to call this a whitewash, but it seems to be a sales job for a point of view, rather than a well-founded findings of a respectable research effort.
Ryan Fenton
It makes sense that when making an Unreal engine game (which implies an "anything-but-Nintendo systems" release), they'd start the design with a highly western-friendly set of themes, based on the fact that non-Nintendo consoles just don't seem competitive right now in Japan. I doubt we'll be seeing Planescape: Torment or anything, but it'll be interesting to see if they can make an interesting title when learning such new sets of technology (likely training a lot of developers for the future with this project), and attempting to cater to a somewhat alien audience.
I don't know what it is, but a lot of their non-Final Fantasy games have seemed sort of, well, disingenuous or empty in similar circumstances, even if still good in some ways. Here's hoping it's not a Brave Fencer Musashi.
Looking back, I think you can probably guess what the game is going to be like by looking at the title - Final Fantasy is not going to end. Musashi is going to be an unfocused, unhistorical romp. Last Remnant, therefore, is going to involve drowning in remnants.
Ryan Fenton
Than the idea of disposable soldiers. And that's really the design ideal here - the cheaper and more disposable the robot can be while meeting reliability requirements, the more extremely dangerous jobs can be done by robots.
Robots really are replaceable - you can have empathy for a robot doing a hard task, but the next one off the assembly line really is the same thing as the previous one. Robots are not unique little snowflakes, compared to the valuable human beings they protect by proxy.
The danger is, of course, when cheap, highly replaceable robotics replace enough of the work of war, that the perceived cost of war itself becomes less and less. We're in little danger of that occurring now, and I'd gladly see any human life saved by our current efforts, but I do worry about the possible increased use of war once a poor village could be suppressed entirely with mobile automated turrets with a few controllers hidden in a safe zone.
Ryan Fenton