And I suppose any money and other property you own should be forfeited to the public as well? Copyrights like this allow an author to provide for his family after death, just like any other property. And by controlling it, the family is able to influence how it is used, in order to properly protect the author's memory. At some point in time, the copyright will eventually expire, but until then, the family should be able to protect their rights. I want to see a Hobbit movie as much as anyone, but your opinion is really misguided.
You probably need to go see the trailer again. There is a nice close-up of his face for a few seconds, and you can pretty clearly see the shapes moving.
I didn't have any problem with the inventory or barter system until about 60% of the way through the game. As you mentioned, I started getting the messages about having too many items. From that point on, I'm pretty sure I spent almost half my gameplay time trying to sell items or convert them to omni-gel just so I could collect more stuff. It's the worst with the gel conversion, because every time I convert something, it kicks me back to the top of the list, and I've got to scroll all the way down (and scrolling is reeeeally slow). Like you said, a page-down would have been nice, but also maybe a wrap-around to the bottom of the list if you pressed up from the top (since most stuff I wanted to convert was at the bottom).
I guess maybe I should have been getting rid of extra items as I went, but I didn't really have much incentive to (I always had plenty of omni-gel, and stuff at the store didn't usually seem worth the price). But if you ever hit that inventory limit, congratulations, you're going to be spending a half hour trying to get rid of enough stuff so that when you collect new stuff, it doesn't get thrown away (and without giving you the chance to trade it out).
Overall, the foundation wasn't that bad though. With a few minor adjustments and features, they could really change an extremely clunky system into a fairly decent one.
Every year, I see these lists and I wonder, do most people really spend that much on a single Christmas gift? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying anyone a $2500 self-tuning electric guitar (CBS list), or a new $2299 Apple iMac (MSNBC list) or even a $400 iPhone this holiday season. I swear these lists must be created by retailers or someone trying to convince you that you have to go all out and spend all your savings every Christmas, just so your friends and family will love you.
At least some of these lists are surprisingly decent - the Dallas and Detroit ones are actually pretty reasonable - accessories for your friends and family that already bought their gadgets. Now those make good gift items.
I met him at E3 a few years back at the unveiling of the Nintendo DS. They filed us into a small theater space, and all of a sudden, Mario's head appears on the screen in front of us and starts talking. He welcomes us, and then starts making comments about people's clothes and appearance, and asking audience members direct questions. It was really wild! After a minute or so, a small curtain opens up, and like the Wizard of Oz, Charles Martinet steps out. They had hooked up facial recognition to him so Mario would match his facial movements, and use his voice. Then he did samples of voices of other Nintendo characters, like Wario and so on. It was pretty much the coolest game fan moment ever. Afterwards, we got to go up and actually meet him. Nice guy.
That's exactly what happened to me too. Their site was crawling the first two days - so I got it via other means (my friend gave me a copy), and then gave Radiohead five bucks for it a couple days later.
It looks like a WiiMote, only because it looks like any other remote control, except with a trigger button. The Wii controller was specifically designed to look like a TV remote control.
If you look at the complaint, it doesn't specifically say what part of the patent is being infringed upon. But considering the patent is called "Trigger Operated Electronic Device", and the provided diagrams don't indicate any other outstanding technology (pointing mechanisms, accelerometers), you've gotta assume the trigger is what the complaint is about.
Look at the front of the remote in their patent diagrams. All it has there is an infra-red LED, just like any remote you have at home. And even though they call it a pointing device, there is no pointing mechanism. Under "Example 1" they say that in order to move the cursor, you use your thumb to press the digital buttons on the top of the remote. Just like a DVD player remote.
So, I'm no patent expert, but it seems clear to me that this complaint is B.S.
Seriously, as long as they keep making new levels, I'd keep buying these games. I don't think I could get enough. I hope this is only the first in a long series of DS Mario platformers.
If I knew I could convert my DVD's to UMD format, I would have bought a PSP on release day. That would have been sweet.
But here it is, more than a year after its release, and I own just about every major console and handheld, except a PSP. And I can't really see a purchase anywhere in the future. Maybe some day when they drop below the $99 mark I'll pick one up so I can play Katamari and Loco Roco.
Yeah, I remember being taught about this in high school (10 years ago). So its gotta be much older than that. We were taught that either the universe would expand forever and burn out, or gravity would slow down the expansion, and everything would come crashing back together, in readiness for another big bang. The only question was whether gravity was strong enough to overcome the outward velocity.
There are complete soundtracks available for the later Zeldas (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker). You can find those for sale on Japanese import sites and Amazon, I think. Anything earlier than that, you probably just want to search Google for the wav or midi files. That's what I did anyway. I have found game soundtracks and classical music in general to be really great to listen to while working, as they don't really have any words in them to distract me.
Every Colossus is different, though they all share similar qualities. First and foremost is their size.
Not true - while most of them are huge, a few of them are quite small. There are two that are only about the size of a car, and another is about the size of a bus.
I first I was a bit skeptical, but the more I think about it, the new controller is freaking sweet. I can't wait to play a FPS on it, using the right hand as a gun/flashlight, and the left hand for movement. Or swordfighting with the right hand and moving with the left.
And if that's all too weird, developers can still use the GameCube controllers that plug into the top of the system.
Yet again, Nintendo is the driving force of innovation in the industry. Revolution's release can't come soon enough for me.
I think I may be in the minority, but I got tired of Meteos pretty quickly. I don't know why - I just didn't get into it. I've enjoyed all of the Wario Ware games though, and still play them.
Glad we agree on Tetris. Though I think the best puzzle game since then was Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo.
Seriously, chill out. At least they're doing better than the PSP. I felt the same as you until the last couple of months. But I think with the combination of WarioWare, Kirby, Advance Wars, and Nintendogs, the purchase was well worth it to me. Then you have the other interesting, but not "must buys", like Meteos, Pac-n-roll, and Pac-Pix that round out the system pretty well.
And looking to the near future, next month we have Lost in Blue and Trace Memory, which both look promising. And by the end of the year, we'll have Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Castlevania, Mario and Luigi, Viewtiful Joe, and weird surgery and lawyer games. This is really a very exciting time for DS fans.
I can't imagine they would postpone Metroid that long without giving it an online component. I always thought it was dumb to not include that feature from the beginning. When it finally comes out, we'll have a great title to play, but in the meantime, there will be plenty of great titles to play.
I downloaded this movie several days ago (and I don't remember from where). It was identical to this one, except that instead of "revelation", the narrator said "revolution".
It struck me as a bit of a jab at Nintendo. I think its interesting that Microsoft would have changed it.
I've got to say I'm pretty excited about the design unveiling for all the new consoles. To tell you the truth though, I'm a little more excited about the PS3 and Revolution. The way I see it, Sony and Nintendo already have my purchase in the bag. As with the current generation, Microsoft will have a bit of convincing to do.
Sony's gotten burned by patents in the past. Now's there chance to be on the offensive and nab up any future innovations they may or may not choose to develop some day.
Now that I think of it, I'd better go patent time travel and warp drive. If they're ever invented, I'll be stinking rich!
Our Wal-Mart here in Lewisville (just north of Dallas) had those signs up too, even though they had around 25 PSP's in the display case. I went back a couple days later and the signs were gone, but not the PSP's.
I agree with you - I really like my DS, and will be even more happy with it once more games come out.
But the adapter you speak of is not a mass market product. You can't find it at Wal-Mart or GameStop. It is a hobbyist product, only found on import and mod sites. Because of that, I think you could hardly tout it as a system feature. I really think Nintendo dropped the ball on the media playback side. They made that "play-chan" thing and released it in Japan, but only from their website. And they have no plans to bring it to the US!
In an interview I read, Reggie hinted there would be an E3 announcement regarding this, but I think they really should have gotten moving earlier. A mass market player that takes cheap memory cards could really take some of the wind out of Sony's sails.
Yeah, it was great until you wanted to transfer your saved games. Many hard drive saves could not be put onto memory cards, so if you wanted to take your game to a friend's house, or transfer them from one xbox to another, you were out of luck.
I can't really explain it either - I just love the game. And I didn't like the Sims at all. Animal Crossing has this weird calming effect on me. Nothing is better after a stressful day than some fishing and bug catching in my town. Its kind of like that imaginary place with all the animals on Mister Roger's Neighborhood. For some reason, it just makes me feel like a kid again when I play it. Its just silly and relaxing and has a surprising amount of things you can do (though I wish there was more). And I really love the music.
I have eventually gotten sort of tired of it, and I haven't played it in months. But overall, I think its one of the most played game in my collection. And believe me, that is really saying something.
I'm really looking forward to the DS version. In fact, that is one of the main reasons I was an early adopter for the DS.
Maybe you can keep your digital pictures in pristene condition, copying it from one medium to another, but what happens if you don't keep up this vigil? Or what happens if you die suddenly? Would your survivors know where to look in your hundreds of gigs worth of data? Would they even realize that there were pictures to be found? Most likely, the digital record of your life would just be thrown out.
My family has many photos from generations ago - its easy to realize that when you find a shoebox filled with pictures in a closet, you've come across something special. I doubt most people would think the same if they found some old hard drives sitting around.
Also remember that even when a photo begins to degrade, the image will still be recognizable for a long time to come. When your digital storage degrades, your decendants will have to do some hardcore data mining in order to find anything. Maybe they wouldn't even bother. And yet another thing to consider is will people 100 years from now be able to read your jpeg files? You don't need file translators for ink and paper photographs.
Now, I'm certainly not saying that ink and paper rated to 30 years is going to solve all our problems. But maybe digital isn't the best way to go for photos?
Slashdot Mirror
And I suppose any money and other property you own should be forfeited to the public as well? Copyrights like this allow an author to provide for his family after death, just like any other property. And by controlling it, the family is able to influence how it is used, in order to properly protect the author's memory. At some point in time, the copyright will eventually expire, but until then, the family should be able to protect their rights. I want to see a Hobbit movie as much as anyone, but your opinion is really misguided.
You probably need to go see the trailer again. There is a nice close-up of his face for a few seconds, and you can pretty clearly see the shapes moving.
I didn't have any problem with the inventory or barter system until about 60% of the way through the game. As you mentioned, I started getting the messages about having too many items. From that point on, I'm pretty sure I spent almost half my gameplay time trying to sell items or convert them to omni-gel just so I could collect more stuff. It's the worst with the gel conversion, because every time I convert something, it kicks me back to the top of the list, and I've got to scroll all the way down (and scrolling is reeeeally slow). Like you said, a page-down would have been nice, but also maybe a wrap-around to the bottom of the list if you pressed up from the top (since most stuff I wanted to convert was at the bottom).
I guess maybe I should have been getting rid of extra items as I went, but I didn't really have much incentive to (I always had plenty of omni-gel, and stuff at the store didn't usually seem worth the price). But if you ever hit that inventory limit, congratulations, you're going to be spending a half hour trying to get rid of enough stuff so that when you collect new stuff, it doesn't get thrown away (and without giving you the chance to trade it out).
Overall, the foundation wasn't that bad though. With a few minor adjustments and features, they could really change an extremely clunky system into a fairly decent one.
Every year, I see these lists and I wonder, do most people really spend that much on a single Christmas gift? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying anyone a $2500 self-tuning electric guitar (CBS list), or a new $2299 Apple iMac (MSNBC list) or even a $400 iPhone this holiday season. I swear these lists must be created by retailers or someone trying to convince you that you have to go all out and spend all your savings every Christmas, just so your friends and family will love you.
At least some of these lists are surprisingly decent - the Dallas and Detroit ones are actually pretty reasonable - accessories for your friends and family that already bought their gadgets. Now those make good gift items.
What's hilarious about it? That looks freaking awesome!
I met him at E3 a few years back at the unveiling of the Nintendo DS. They filed us into a small theater space, and all of a sudden, Mario's head appears on the screen in front of us and starts talking. He welcomes us, and then starts making comments about people's clothes and appearance, and asking audience members direct questions. It was really wild! After a minute or so, a small curtain opens up, and like the Wizard of Oz, Charles Martinet steps out. They had hooked up facial recognition to him so Mario would match his facial movements, and use his voice. Then he did samples of voices of other Nintendo characters, like Wario and so on. It was pretty much the coolest game fan moment ever. Afterwards, we got to go up and actually meet him. Nice guy.
That's exactly what happened to me too. Their site was crawling the first two days - so I got it via other means (my friend gave me a copy), and then gave Radiohead five bucks for it a couple days later.
It looks like a WiiMote, only because it looks like any other remote control, except with a trigger button. The Wii controller was specifically designed to look like a TV remote control.
If you look at the complaint, it doesn't specifically say what part of the patent is being infringed upon. But considering the patent is called "Trigger Operated Electronic Device", and the provided diagrams don't indicate any other outstanding technology (pointing mechanisms, accelerometers), you've gotta assume the trigger is what the complaint is about.
Look at the front of the remote in their patent diagrams. All it has there is an infra-red LED, just like any remote you have at home. And even though they call it a pointing device, there is no pointing mechanism. Under "Example 1" they say that in order to move the cursor, you use your thumb to press the digital buttons on the top of the remote. Just like a DVD player remote.
So, I'm no patent expert, but it seems clear to me that this complaint is B.S.
Seriously, as long as they keep making new levels, I'd keep buying these games. I don't think I could get enough. I hope this is only the first in a long series of DS Mario platformers.
If I knew I could convert my DVD's to UMD format, I would have bought a PSP on release day. That would have been sweet.
But here it is, more than a year after its release, and I own just about every major console and handheld, except a PSP. And I can't really see a purchase anywhere in the future. Maybe some day when they drop below the $99 mark I'll pick one up so I can play Katamari and Loco Roco.
Yeah, I remember being taught about this in high school (10 years ago). So its gotta be much older than that. We were taught that either the universe would expand forever and burn out, or gravity would slow down the expansion, and everything would come crashing back together, in readiness for another big bang. The only question was whether gravity was strong enough to overcome the outward velocity.
There are complete soundtracks available for the later Zeldas (Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker). You can find those for sale on Japanese import sites and Amazon, I think. Anything earlier than that, you probably just want to search Google for the wav or midi files. That's what I did anyway. I have found game soundtracks and classical music in general to be really great to listen to while working, as they don't really have any words in them to distract me.
I got the same result using Opera. Couldn't get it to load at all when I later tried it in Explorer.
Every Colossus is different, though they all share similar qualities. First and foremost is their size.
Not true - while most of them are huge, a few of them are quite small. There are two that are only about the size of a car, and another is about the size of a bus.
I first I was a bit skeptical, but the more I think about it, the new controller is freaking sweet. I can't wait to play a FPS on it, using the right hand as a gun/flashlight, and the left hand for movement. Or swordfighting with the right hand and moving with the left.
And if that's all too weird, developers can still use the GameCube controllers that plug into the top of the system.
Yet again, Nintendo is the driving force of innovation in the industry. Revolution's release can't come soon enough for me.
I think I may be in the minority, but I got tired of Meteos pretty quickly. I don't know why - I just didn't get into it. I've enjoyed all of the Wario Ware games though, and still play them.
Glad we agree on Tetris. Though I think the best puzzle game since then was Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo.
Seriously, chill out. At least they're doing better than the PSP. I felt the same as you until the last couple of months. But I think with the combination of WarioWare, Kirby, Advance Wars, and Nintendogs, the purchase was well worth it to me. Then you have the other interesting, but not "must buys", like Meteos, Pac-n-roll, and Pac-Pix that round out the system pretty well.
And looking to the near future, next month we have Lost in Blue and Trace Memory, which both look promising. And by the end of the year, we'll have Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Castlevania, Mario and Luigi, Viewtiful Joe, and weird surgery and lawyer games. This is really a very exciting time for DS fans.
I can't imagine they would postpone Metroid that long without giving it an online component. I always thought it was dumb to not include that feature from the beginning. When it finally comes out, we'll have a great title to play, but in the meantime, there will be plenty of great titles to play.
http://www.ps3grill.com/
I downloaded this movie several days ago (and I don't remember from where). It was identical to this one, except that instead of "revelation", the narrator said "revolution".
It struck me as a bit of a jab at Nintendo. I think its interesting that Microsoft would have changed it.
I've got to say I'm pretty excited about the design unveiling for all the new consoles. To tell you the truth though, I'm a little more excited about the PS3 and Revolution. The way I see it, Sony and Nintendo already have my purchase in the bag. As with the current generation, Microsoft will have a bit of convincing to do.
Sony's gotten burned by patents in the past. Now's there chance to be on the offensive and nab up any future innovations they may or may not choose to develop some day.
Now that I think of it, I'd better go patent time travel and warp drive. If they're ever invented, I'll be stinking rich!
Our Wal-Mart here in Lewisville (just north of Dallas) had those signs up too, even though they had around 25 PSP's in the display case. I went back a couple days later and the signs were gone, but not the PSP's.
Oh well, I'll get one once the price goes down.
I agree with you - I really like my DS, and will be even more happy with it once more games come out.
But the adapter you speak of is not a mass market product. You can't find it at Wal-Mart or GameStop. It is a hobbyist product, only found on import and mod sites. Because of that, I think you could hardly tout it as a system feature. I really think Nintendo dropped the ball on the media playback side. They made that "play-chan" thing and released it in Japan, but only from their website. And they have no plans to bring it to the US!
In an interview I read, Reggie hinted there would be an E3 announcement regarding this, but I think they really should have gotten moving earlier. A mass market player that takes cheap memory cards could really take some of the wind out of Sony's sails.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Yeah, it was great until you wanted to transfer your saved games. Many hard drive saves could not be put onto memory cards, so if you wanted to take your game to a friend's house, or transfer them from one xbox to another, you were out of luck.
I can't really explain it either - I just love the game. And I didn't like the Sims at all. Animal Crossing has this weird calming effect on me. Nothing is better after a stressful day than some fishing and bug catching in my town. Its kind of like that imaginary place with all the animals on Mister Roger's Neighborhood. For some reason, it just makes me feel like a kid again when I play it. Its just silly and relaxing and has a surprising amount of things you can do (though I wish there was more). And I really love the music.
I have eventually gotten sort of tired of it, and I haven't played it in months. But overall, I think its one of the most played game in my collection. And believe me, that is really saying something.
I'm really looking forward to the DS version. In fact, that is one of the main reasons I was an early adopter for the DS.
Maybe you can keep your digital pictures in pristene condition, copying it from one medium to another, but what happens if you don't keep up this vigil? Or what happens if you die suddenly? Would your survivors know where to look in your hundreds of gigs worth of data? Would they even realize that there were pictures to be found? Most likely, the digital record of your life would just be thrown out.
My family has many photos from generations ago - its easy to realize that when you find a shoebox filled with pictures in a closet, you've come across something special. I doubt most people would think the same if they found some old hard drives sitting around.
Also remember that even when a photo begins to degrade, the image will still be recognizable for a long time to come. When your digital storage degrades, your decendants will have to do some hardcore data mining in order to find anything. Maybe they wouldn't even bother. And yet another thing to consider is will people 100 years from now be able to read your jpeg files? You don't need file translators for ink and paper photographs.
Now, I'm certainly not saying that ink and paper rated to 30 years is going to solve all our problems. But maybe digital isn't the best way to go for photos?