It seems to me that a good storyline cannot be linear. That's why "choose-your-own-adventure" books are not considered fine literature. Besides, look at the orig. Half-Life - very linear and also one of the best games of all time.
I find this quote from the writer of the half-life story very applicable to your comment... " Marc Laidlaw: Branching storylines are part of an unholy grail of open-ended interactive story design which I have little interest in pursuing. I'm told that The Way of the Samurai does a fine job with a branching storyline that differs each time you play it, depending on choices you make. However, the people who recommended this game didn't play it more than once or twice, so what exactly is all that branching worth to the player? Part of the allure of the concept of the branching storyline, to some developers, is this notion that it is somehow superior to a linear storyline. I really haven't seen any evidence to support this. So far, the Grail is useful mainly as a thing for game theoreticians to point at when they're saying, "See that insubstantial golden thing way up there? That's a whole lot better than the dribble glass you made." To which I'd say, "I'll stick with my dribble glass, thanks. Some of what I'm drinking might run down my chin, but most of it gets in my mouth."
Replayability is another matter. I think people replay Half-Life not because they want different story outcomes, but because they enjoy the gameplay and the scenarios. The fun of non-scripted events is that they fall out differently for each player, and on every play-through, not that they lead to completely different outcomes. Sometimes the variations are very small, but enough to let you know that you're not simply watching a movie.
Okay, so Daniel Soong can't get a job in India? The Indian gov't must not be very smart considering that Daniel's great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Dr. Noonien Soong, will invent the first sentient artificial lifeform. But now that I've posted this comment I've polluted the time-space continuum and Data may not be created. And without Data, how will Picard convince Q and various other omnipotent alien entities that the human race is worth preserving!
No one who lives in a 10,000 sq. ft. mansion would *EVAR* buy a cadillac. Are you kidding? A beamer, 911 turbo and a cadillac? "One of these thigns, is not like the other."
I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying, but I'll try to explain anyway...
The 2 inputs allow two programs to be recorded silmultaneously. You can actually record two different shows and watch a third show that was prerecorded. If what you're saying is that one tuner should be able to record two shows, then you might not know that satellite signal cannot be split, but only multiplexed. This allows the recorder to get multiple shows at the same time, even if they are on different transponders or even different satellites.
Is Valve going to disable the whole WonID authorization system (by switching to the new SteamID's)? If so, (which is the impression I have), then every HL player anywhere is being forced to switch to steam. All complaints about the beta aside, I see *NO* advantages to steam from my perspective. I still want boxed versions of all of my games and not have to worry about whether or not Valve will be in business 10 yrs from now. I've bought too many "download only" software packages from companies that have gone out of business or bought up by other companies who are not interested in supporting old software. I just want a CD that works. I want to use a comprehensive server browser like ASE. In short, I don't want to use steam for anything, ever.
Users like choice. They like to choose how and when they play games. Steam seems to be the antithesis of that.
When has any product ever "lived" up to the marketing claims? If I expected everything I bought to live up to their claims, I'd be dissapointed with every bar of soap, every beer, and every Big Mac.
And every penis enlargement pill. Umm, that is, umm, that's assuming I've actually tried them.
Everyone seems to be thinking that it is very difficult to generate the same MD5 from a mp3, I don't agree.
FileDonkey allows you to search for files that have traversed their network by name, and displays the MD5 hash so that you can specifically search for THAT file.
Anyway, if you use their interface to search for "Oops I did it again" or any other drivel by britney spears, you'll get about 100 different files. Again, these are files that have traversed the relativley large file donkey network at some point, not files that are currently available for download. It seems to me that way more than 100 people have ripped that song and shared it.
Anyway, there aren't that many different MD5 sums for just about any song, yeah there are more than a few, but they are FAR from unique.
Dish is a superior alternative, and should be rewarded for not acting like DirecTV (or your typical cable provider, for that matter). This reward is provisional, but there are other reasons to go with Dish:
1. Doesn't compress its signals as much as DirecTV. 2. Isn't owned by Murdoch (Mr. "Fair and Balanced"), but is run by Americans. 3. Offers good PVR's, and doesn't charge extra for using them like DirecTV does (you'll hardly notice it's not a Tivo). 4. Offers lower-priced basic service.
I'm quite happy with Dish so far.
Sorry to go OT, but you went OT and got modded up, so what the hell... Although I can't argue with the fact that DirecTV employs some very scummy tactics, they're service is pretty decent.
As for your points... I can't speak for 1 or 2, however 3. According to some people who've defected from Dish Network, the TiVo's are vastly superior to the Dish Network offerings. They don't lock up, the software is more user friendly etc.
And I quote... "I was a Dish customer for years.I actually thought that mini-dish TV, and PVR's, meant you had to live with buggy software, and lousy hardware. Wow, was I ever wrong. The 6 months I've been with Directv have been pretty much painless. I hate Dish Network.I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!! Ok now, I'm sure glad I got that off my chest."
Besides, Dish just announced that they WILL start charging MONTHLY fees, sometimes in EXCESS of the DVR fees that DirecTV charges. See this thread for details.
4. Dish is 5 dollars cheaper per month ($29.99 vs. $34.99) for the most basic of service with local channels and you get less channels with dish for that price. Besides, if you use a DVR with this pricing scheme, the price is the same between the two, and as I mentioned, you get less channels.
Example... DishNetwork $29.99 basic package with locals (50 channels +locasl) $9.99 for DVR service =$40
DirecTV $34.99 for basic with locals (80 channels +locals) $4.99 for TiVo DVR =$40
Whatever, I'm done with my rangent (=rant+tangent) now.
Gateway put Quantum fireball lct10's in a bunch of there early celeron desktops. These drives logic boards blew on a regular basis. How could I tell it was the logic board? You could see/smell where a resistor or whatever it's called on the board blew. Oftentimes you could see where one of the chips on the board melted.
The quantum boards actually had an assembly number on them and are easily matched/replaced with new working boards. When looking for someone on ebay to sell me a replacement drive (for a gateway at work) a seller told me that the last quantum lct10 he sold, the buyer was buying for that exact same reason. This procedure doesn't appear to be anything all that new!
As a former Cleanflicks customer (I just cancelled my account 2 weeks ago), ummm, no.
You don't get a copy of the original DVD in a tamper-evident container. You just get a singal DVD (or if it's a two disc set, two discs) that has been edited for content.
I have not confirmed this myself, but supposedly it's not that the discs spin backwards, it's that the laser starts reading the disc from the outside and works its way towards the center.
This is different (of course) from the normal, start reading at the center of the disc and work your way out.
If this is the case, it seems like a incredibly simple yet effective method of copy protection.
Although I have not read "Stranger in a Strange Land", I completely understand and agree with all of your points.
However, it seemed like the "funny parts" of gollum's speach was him swearing. Maybe I just didn't pay much attention to the clip because I was immediately turned off by the swearing, but there didn't seem to be much humor, self depricating or otherwise.
sabNetwork posted... being the first comparable option in the Windows market
Uhhh, no.
Many other Rhapsody services have been around offering the same damn thing for some time. Real isn't even on listen.com's list of partners yet. Rhapsody has been around since at least September of last year.
Yes, there per song burn to CD price is 20 cents cheaper than the other Rhapsody partner companies, but so what.
Bravo for taking a risk. Bravo also to audiogalaxy, downbeat, jambase, lycos, musicclub, gateway, sony and 6 other companies that have already done this months ago.
Sure, real is offering cd burning at.20 cheaper than everyone else, but so what. I seriously doubt that Real was "Spurred on by Apple's success". There just the most recent of companies to negotiate a licensing deal with listen.com.
Despite the fact that a GameCube price drop seemed imminent (many rumors were flying as well as reports from retail employees claiming to have recieved new marketing kits with the GameCube priced at $99, Xbox at $150 and PS2 at $150 - the PS2 did drop to $179), Nintendo confirmed it would not be dropping prices as reported by Gamespot.
Here's the relevant bit...
he company proceeded into a Q&A session with the press, but not before ruling out rumors of a price drop for the GameCube and reaffirming the themes of the conference--that Nintendo will grow with the times, stick to what works, and stay in the thick of the console market while continuing to focus on its systems' innovative features.
This comes as a big dissapointment to gamers everywhere (namely, me).
I for one would be interested in this. There is a local public station that has a multitude of various radio shows featuring very different styles of music over the weekend. Often times, the shows that I want to hear are on very early or very late. For instance "Just Plain Folk" is on Saturday mornings between 7 and 9 am, while "DIY Radio" (punk rock) is on late Saturday evenings. It would be nice to schedule a "season pass" to these shows so that I could listen to them at my convenience. Granted, I'm certainly in the minority of radio listeners (most people only want to hear top 40), but I think that this product could have a nice niche market.
Slashdot Mirror
...down to the types of desks people sit at when they are working.
What do desk types have to do with sound quality? Is THX concerned with the comfort of sound engineers?
Does anyone have a WORKING link to Duality?
The crewoftwo.com website is completely bonked and is displaying an ad for the hosting provider.
I know that the Honda CRX was smaller than say, a Civic, but the CRX got 57mpg back around 1985. AND it was a relativley quick car.
http://www.welovehondas.com/crx.htm
I hate to burst your bubble, but Civics are very reliable. Do a quick search for Civic reliability and you'll see they're rated *VERY* well.
It seems to me that a good storyline cannot be linear. That's why "choose-your-own-adventure" books are not considered fine literature. Besides, look at the orig. Half-Life - very linear and also one of the best games of all time.
I find this quote from the writer of the half-life story very applicable to your comment...
" Marc Laidlaw: Branching storylines are part of an unholy grail of open-ended interactive story design which I have little interest in pursuing. I'm told that The Way of the Samurai does a fine job with a branching storyline that differs each time you play it, depending on choices you make. However, the people who recommended this game didn't play it more than once or twice, so what exactly is all that branching worth to the player? Part of the allure of the concept of the branching storyline, to some developers, is this notion that it is somehow superior to a linear storyline. I really haven't seen any evidence to support this. So far, the Grail is useful mainly as a thing for game theoreticians to point at when they're saying, "See that insubstantial golden thing way up there? That's a whole lot better than the dribble glass you made." To which I'd say, "I'll stick with my dribble glass, thanks. Some of what I'm drinking might run down my chin, but most of it gets in my mouth."
Replayability is another matter. I think people replay Half-Life not because they want different story outcomes, but because they enjoy the gameplay and the scenarios. The fun of non-scripted events is that they fall out differently for each player, and on every play-through, not that they lead to completely different outcomes. Sometimes the variations are very small, but enough to let you know that you're not simply watching a movie.
Okay, so Daniel Soong can't get a job in India? The Indian gov't must not be very smart considering that Daniel's great-great-great-great-great-grandson, Dr. Noonien Soong, will invent the first sentient artificial lifeform. But now that I've posted this comment I've polluted the time-space continuum and Data may not be created. And without Data, how will Picard convince Q and various other omnipotent alien entities that the human race is worth preserving!
Oh No! I've ruined EVERYTHINGGG!!!!
I think you're missing the point.
No, you're missing the point.
No one who lives in a 10,000 sq. ft. mansion would *EVAR* buy a cadillac. Are you kidding? A beamer, 911 turbo and a cadillac? "One of these thigns, is not like the other."
I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying, but I'll try to explain anyway...
The 2 inputs allow two programs to be recorded silmultaneously. You can actually record two different shows and watch a third show that was prerecorded. If what you're saying is that one tuner should be able to record two shows, then you might not know that satellite signal cannot be split, but only multiplexed. This allows the recorder to get multiple shows at the same time, even if they are on different transponders or even different satellites.
Is Valve going to disable the whole WonID authorization system (by switching to the new SteamID's)? If so, (which is the impression I have), then every HL player anywhere is being forced to switch to steam. All complaints about the beta aside, I see *NO* advantages to steam from my perspective. I still want boxed versions of all of my games and not have to worry about whether or not Valve will be in business 10 yrs from now. I've bought too many "download only" software packages from companies that have gone out of business or bought up by other companies who are not interested in supporting old software. I just want a CD that works. I want to use a comprehensive server browser like ASE. In short, I don't want to use steam for anything, ever.
Users like choice. They like to choose how and when they play games. Steam seems to be the antithesis of that.
When has any product ever "lived" up to the marketing claims? If I expected everything I bought to live up to their claims, I'd be dissapointed with every bar of soap, every beer, and every Big Mac.
And every penis enlargement pill. Umm, that is, umm, that's assuming I've actually tried them.
Which I never have.
Everyone seems to be thinking that it is very difficult to generate the same MD5 from a mp3, I don't agree.
FileDonkey allows you to search for files that have traversed their network by name, and displays the MD5 hash so that you can specifically search for THAT file.
Anyway, if you use their interface to search for "Oops I did it again" or any other drivel by britney spears, you'll get about 100 different files. Again, these are files that have traversed the relativley large file donkey network at some point, not files that are currently available for download. It seems to me that way more than 100 people have ripped that song and shared it.
Anyway, there aren't that many different MD5 sums for just about any song, yeah there are more than a few, but they are FAR from unique.
which would probably explain why I cleared this article with IBM World Headquarters before running it (not!).
1995 called, they want their catch phrase back.
Dish is a superior alternative, and should be rewarded for not acting like DirecTV (or your typical cable provider, for that matter). This reward is provisional, but there are other reasons to go with Dish:
1. Doesn't compress its signals as much as DirecTV.
2. Isn't owned by Murdoch (Mr. "Fair and Balanced"), but is run by Americans.
3. Offers good PVR's, and doesn't charge extra for using them like DirecTV does (you'll hardly notice it's not a Tivo).
4. Offers lower-priced basic service.
I'm quite happy with Dish so far.
Sorry to go OT, but you went OT and got modded up, so what the hell...
Although I can't argue with the fact that DirecTV employs some very scummy tactics, they're service is pretty decent.
As for your points... I can't speak for 1 or 2, however
3. According to some people who've defected from Dish Network, the TiVo's are vastly superior to the Dish Network offerings. They don't lock up, the software is more user friendly etc.
And I quote...
"I was a Dish customer for years.I actually thought that mini-dish TV, and PVR's, meant you had to live with buggy software, and lousy hardware. Wow, was I ever wrong. The 6 months I've been with Directv have been pretty much painless. I hate Dish Network.I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!! Ok now, I'm sure glad I got that off my chest."
Besides, Dish just announced that they WILL start charging MONTHLY fees, sometimes in EXCESS of the DVR fees that DirecTV charges. See this thread for details.
4. Dish is 5 dollars cheaper per month ($29.99 vs. $34.99) for the most basic of service with local channels and you get less channels with dish for that price. Besides, if you use a DVR with this pricing scheme, the price is the same between the two, and as I mentioned, you get less channels.
Example...
DishNetwork
$29.99 basic package with locals (50 channels +locasl)
$9.99 for DVR service
=$40
DirecTV
$34.99 for basic with locals (80 channels +locals)
$4.99 for TiVo DVR
=$40
Whatever, I'm done with my rangent (=rant+tangent) now.
Gateway put Quantum fireball lct10's in a bunch of there early celeron desktops. These drives logic boards blew on a regular basis. How could I tell it was the logic board? You could see/smell where a resistor or whatever it's called on the board blew. Oftentimes you could see where one of the chips on the board melted.
The quantum boards actually had an assembly number on them and are easily matched/replaced with new working boards. When looking for someone on ebay to sell me a replacement drive (for a gateway at work) a seller told me that the last quantum lct10 he sold, the buyer was buying for that exact same reason. This procedure doesn't appear to be anything all that new!
As a former Cleanflicks customer (I just cancelled my account 2 weeks ago), ummm, no.
You don't get a copy of the original DVD in a tamper-evident container. You just get a singal DVD (or if it's a two disc set, two discs) that has been edited for content.
It seems like Steam is nothing but a DRM scheme full of hot air.
See my post here...
I have not confirmed this myself, but supposedly it's not that the discs spin backwards,
it's that the laser starts reading the disc from the outside and works its way towards the center.
This is different (of course) from the normal, start reading at the center of the disc and work your way out.
If this is the case, it seems like a incredibly simple yet effective method of copy protection.
Although I have not read "Stranger in a Strange Land", I completely understand and agree with all of your points.
However, it seemed like the "funny parts" of gollum's speach was him swearing. Maybe I just didn't pay much attention to the clip because I was immediately turned off by the swearing, but there didn't seem to be much humor, self depricating or otherwise.
Why is it funny then when a virtual character just starts spouting off swears and such? How is that humor?
If swearing is really all that funny to anyone than my post should be modded +5 funny because you're a fscking idiot.
sabNetwork posted...
being the first comparable option in the Windows market
Uhhh, no.
Many other Rhapsody services have been around offering the same damn thing for some time. Real isn't even on listen.com's list of partners yet. Rhapsody has been around since at least September of last year.
Yes, there per song burn to CD price is 20 cents cheaper than the other Rhapsody partner companies, but so what.
Bravo for taking a risk.
Bravo also to audiogalaxy, downbeat, jambase, lycos, musicclub, gateway, sony and 6 other companies that have already done this months ago.
Whoop de doo.
But why is this news?
.20 cheaper than everyone else, but so what. I seriously doubt that Real was "Spurred on by Apple's success". There just the most recent of companies to negotiate a licensing deal with listen.com.
Rhapsody has been around for some time, I've been a subscriber for about 6 months now. There are many different Rhapsody partners, Real is only the most recent. List of Other companies that have been selling this same stuff for a while.
Sure, real is offering cd burning at
Meh...
A use for my otherwise useless PS2 keyboard.
I just saw this posted on The Shack...
AllOutGames.com has a review out.
They give a 78% to the PC version.
Here's the relevant bit...
This comes as a big dissapointment to gamers everywhere (namely, me).
I for one would be interested in this. There is a local public station that has a multitude of various radio shows featuring very different styles of music over the weekend. Often times, the shows that I want to hear are on very early or very late. For instance "Just Plain Folk" is on Saturday mornings between 7 and 9 am, while "DIY Radio" (punk rock) is on late Saturday evenings. It would be nice to schedule a "season pass" to these shows so that I could listen to them at my convenience. Granted, I'm certainly in the minority of radio listeners (most people only want to hear top 40), but I think that this product could have a nice niche market.