The movie I wanted and would have paid to see? Something along the lines of 'daughters of the original Ghostbusters' would definitely be it.
In that case, I will put forward for consideration this pair of ideas I've had fermenting for some time now...
First, do a proper sequel... a decade or two after the second movie, wherein the OGBs (less Egon, seeing as Raimis is no longer with us) realize that it's high time they train up their successors, as it were... one of which could be a daughter of theirs. This would have the additional benefit of world-building - we'd be able to explore how the state of the art of paranormal investigation and elimination has advanced, considering that they won't be the only interested folks...
Or... back in the original movie, Peter noted the franchise rights would be worth a pretty penny (and if I recall right, the pen-and-paper RPG and some of the older computer game treatments had as conceit that the players were a franchise!). You could go with this - not only presenting an all-new team, but freedom of setting. Consider the paranormal potential of someplace like Los Angeles, or Miami, or New Orleans...
Thank you, sir, for invoking the Stainless Steel Rat; now I'm motivated to see if I can find any of those books at the library. He did a nice job at Paradiso Aqui, as I recall...
Rumble is annoying, and begins to make my hands go numb after so long...
Both of Koei's Warship Gunner games give the PS2 controller's rumble feature a workout... especially if your ship's armament is heavy on 'special machineguns' (dubbed 'Vulcans in WG2); these can get up to 406mm in caliber, and shred most everything you'll run across in WG; they were toned down a bit in WG2. Fortunately, such lead-hose fans can disable vibration from the options menu.
We had forgotten about the kamikaze attacks which had been a hallmark of WW2's Pacific campaign; and terrorists using box cutters to take over airplanes were far beyond what we could imagine.
I think that might be a more accurate take on it. Discounting the above, was it really that big a leap of logic to believe that people dedicated enough to die for a cause (by using explosive-laden vests or ground vehicles) would someday 'graduate' to commercial airliners?
Far from some Spielberg-like ILM production house operating in Dr. Evil's secret volcano (see, err, heck I've forgotten which Bond movie, the one with Little Nellie)
That would be You Only Live Twice. Kudos for remembering 'Little Nellie', by the way. Flamethrowers, rockets, and aerial mines, oh my.
Interesting points (though whether or not 'cyberterrorism' is actually viable is a debate I will not touch upon here). That said:
That's almost as dumb as ignoring the warnings about people flying planes into buildings because someone hasn't done it yet.
Well yes, the end of 'Debt of Honor' could be interpreted as a warning. Laying that aside for the moment, someone has used an airplane itself as a weapon. Quite a few someones have, actually. Does the word 'kamikaze' not ring a bell...?
Thanks for making that general point; you saved me the trouble. As for the specific case of airplanes-as-weapons... it surprises me that, to my knowledge, the fact of real-life precedent existing in World War 2 seems to have eluded attention. Specific reference is made to the kamikaze aircraft and their naval counterpart, Kaiten manned torpedoes.
You're right, it's not a popular idea.
"Why?" you ask.
Quite simply: a credit card is not, repeat not, an identification card, and must not be presumed to be such. And this is discounting the fact of its opening up another potential fraud vector.
I would not be surprised if some enterprising tangos decided that selling Viagra/Cialis/whatever of dubious provenance via spam wasn't just a spiffy way of accruing funds... but an attack vector in its own right. If you're getting Batman flashbacks, you're catching on - such a scheme would not have to be quite as complicated as Joker's.
And as I recall, the third season of '24' involved some tangos trying to pass off spiked cocaine (or was it heroin? Or Ecstacy?) to unknowing street-level distributors.
So yes, there are good arguments for taking this seriously. To make the point without reference to Hollywood (and resultant invocation of 'movie-plot threat' dismissal), one need only look over MSNBC's investigation of counterfit pharmacuticals, and recent issues with goods from China.
One problem I see with this alone is that car manufacturers are not willing to put their car in a game if it has realistic/any damage modelling...
I've always considered that position something of a double standard, given that they seem to have no problem being featured in action movies. For what it's worth, NFS Carbon does have an option for damage modeling, but it's visual only. The Ridge Racer games - all of whose cars are made up in-house from whole cloth - do not have damage modeling, but there it seems more a design decision than anything else.
In online forums, comments and rumors about me are all but permanent, and available for any potential employer (or private investigator) to see.
The other half of the problem would be those people who assume said comments and rumors to be truth. That, in turn, leads me to ask 'why would they make such an assumption?'
Clerks do not enforce it so Target and Walmart will just refuse to stock your item instead.
From the above I get the following:
Target and Wal-Mart have sales policies to the effect of 'respect the ratings'; and
[some/many; pick one] clerks at said stores do not adhere to said policies;
If said policies are not being adhered to by the clerks, that points to:
clerks are unaware of the policy; and/or
sanctions for violation of said policy are not applied
So rather than fix this deficiency, Target and Wal-Mart are trying to sweep the problem under the rug. Wait, both chains also sell movies, do they not? Would I be correct in assuming that they have an effectively communicated and enforced 'respect the ratings' policy with respect to movie sales? Do their movie offerings happen to include the likes of Saw and Hostel?
If the answer to either of the last questions is 'yes', then said chains are leaving themselves open to accusations of having a double standard in this matter.
Many people are not concerned with rape because our culture teaches that women are disposable...
It does?
...porn teaches that all women welcome any kind of sex act, that no really means yes, and that any woman that accuses a man of rape is a dirty liar.
On the other tendril, porn's 'teachings' can be easily argued to be specious because if they were the normal rules of engagement, it'd be pretty obvious...
That's why rape conviction rates are so dismally low.
They are? Hmmm, this calls for further investigation...
Torture is not a concern for most people because they can ignore it, and the US government actively does it.
If that's so, something is wrong with 'most people', and I for one am happy to not be like them. And 'the US government actively does it' is a statement we both know to be no excuse.
If the makers of such games merely exercised a minimum of discretion and found some way to ensure that their games would not be played by 10 year olds, or in many cases 6 or 8 year olds, I don't think any government on the planet would have a problem with them.
And exactly how are the game makers supposed to do this? It's a strange thing for you to ask, given what you say in the very next paragraph...
Walk into any retail gaming store in my town and you will find hordes of prepubescent boys walking out with "R" and even "X" rated games. The odd time that the store clerk won't give a kid a game, his older brother or Dad will certainly buy it for him.
Okay, now you're getting to the meat of the matter. I'm curious: do the stores/chains in question have a sales policy to the tune of 'respect the ratings'? And if they do, what you're describing is the result of one or both of the following:
poor awareness of said policy at the retail level;
laxity in application of sanctions when said policy is contravened
Either way, you'd have something all the brouhaha can be legitimately focused on.
...in France, the Eiffel Tower name and image must be "licensed" for use on postcards and other merchandise.
I can only imagine what the folks behind that would say about a certain mission in the RA2 Soviet campaign. You know, the one that ends with the Eiffel Tower being used as an uber-Tesla Coil...
The next step will be mind-controlled Gundam-style robots for everyone.
Actually, I think the MiG-31 Firefox and XF-34A DreamStar beat them to it...
And since someone brought it up, I for one believe Gundams and their contemporary mobile suits are more militarily viable than Evangelions. On which note, a colleague brought to my attention recently a rather interesting tidbit: the Gundams and other mobile suits were originally intended to be powered armor (ala BGC's K-12s, SHIELDs/CIDs in recent Dale Brown novels, or Zone Trooper gear in C&C3), but someone figured the best way to compete with all the 'super robot' shows airing at the time was... with another 'super robot' show.
a cyber-attack that criples South Korean internet during the launch week of StarCraft 2?
Yeah, scary.
And probably being planned as we speak. Whether as the 'or else' for an extortion of unprecedented scale, or Terra's biggest 'look what we can do' is a question I leave to your respective imaginations.
If nothing else, it'd be an interesting news story...
That sounds cool until you consider that it takes a lot of the skill out of the game.
I beg to differ, sir: semi-automation, as seen in Total Annihilaiton and Supreme Commander, does not remove skill from the game; it just changes the focus of the micromanagement and multitasking you mention. You still need to know (and scout) the map, still have to be able to anticipate your enemy moves in both tactical (will they field mass marines + medics, or are they going for battlecruisers backed up by Wraiths and Valkyries?) and physical senses (are they trying to set up an expansion elsewhere?) senses. One still has to be on alert for the unexpecetd and ready to react to it...
It's really simple too - take a cue from Pokemon and make units persistent somehow between battles. Not just heros, either, but units should be able to gain experience, have morale, be decimated even if it doesn't technically die, etc...
This sounds like a mix of what Massive tried with Ground Control back in 2000, and Relic's handling of infantry in Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War... and yes, it would be a good thing.
Sup Com is much more agressive in pushing the limits by allowing thousands of Units and allowing battlefield zooming and dual monitors. Sup Com also has massive experimental units and sea and land battles.
Now you've got me imagining the sheer awesome of 'what if Blizzard and GBG had collaborated on Starcraft 2?'...
In Starcraft 1 I thought the Protoss Zealots were poorly designed in having short range swords. In modern warfare battles aren't fought hand to hand but from hundreds of feet apart and often you don't see your oponent. So a Protoss warrior sword rushing is really nutzo. Zealots would often get killed in the rush attack on bunkers.
Whatever the in-universe reasoning for Zealot loadout is, I find it odd that they aren't complemented by riflemen (Dragoons/Immortals are okay and all, but they can't go everywhere). Now, if you don't want to add another Protoss infantry unit, you could make Zealots dual-mode units, like Arclites or Act of War's battlesuits...
As for Immortal (and, IIRC, Warpray and maybe some other units') shields holding up very well against heavy fire but not doing so well against massed lesser weapons - does anyone else remember the account of a match decided by a score of stimmed, D-Matrixed marines back in the pre-BW days? - well, I could just be reading too much into it, but it sounds like the developers are trying to encourage combined-arms play (for which I thought there was more than enough incentive in original SC).
And when I heard that the Warpray's DPS scales with continuous fire, I was immediately reminded about gatling weapons in Yuri's Revenge and Generals. No, this isn't bad (and does mean this artillery ship is best used against big things like, say, battlecruisers), but the idea of the soundbites from the abovecited games' gatling tanks being delivered in a 'Protoss' voice is just so amusing.
And... kudos for The Last Starfighter tribute.
I owe an apology, it seems. First, for assuming (and we know what 'assume' breaks down into) that in this statement...
If the seller does not disclose both facts (that it is a modded 360 and it is exiled from Live), I believe that's sufficient fodder for a lawsuit.
...it was clear that the defendant in said suit would be the seller, not Microsoft. And in the case of
Back to the first case: aside from getting out of the suit funds sufficient to buy a new 360, what recourse does this notional plaintiff have?
for failing to make crystal clear that the 'first case' refers to the first scenario I had cited earlier (when someone sells a 360 without mentioning that it was 1: modded; and 2: exiled from Live).
Am I the only one that reads the verbose EULAs anymore?
I'll see that good question and raise you another: if, as I believe, the readability and comprehensibility of these things has been studied (and found lacking), why has no effort been made to address it?
And if it looked like Bumblebee when it turned into a robot, I'd have the MPAA, Hasbro, and Takara all after me.
If you pulled that off, I think Hasbro and Takara would be after you all right... to negotiate an advertising contract (honestly, would you sue someone who's just gone and developed perhaps the best ad for the franchise?). And some other folks would be waving job offers and tech-licensing deals. The MPAA has no dog in this fight, and would hopefully be reminded of that very quickly.
Slashdot Mirror
The movie I wanted and would have paid to see? Something along the lines of 'daughters of the original Ghostbusters' would definitely be it.
In that case, I will put forward for consideration this pair of ideas I've had fermenting for some time now...
First, do a proper sequel... a decade or two after the second movie, wherein the OGBs (less Egon, seeing as Raimis is no longer with us) realize that it's high time they train up their successors, as it were... one of which could be a daughter of theirs. This would have the additional benefit of world-building - we'd be able to explore how the state of the art of paranormal investigation and elimination has advanced, considering that they won't be the only interested folks...
Or... back in the original movie, Peter noted the franchise rights would be worth a pretty penny (and if I recall right, the pen-and-paper RPG and some of the older computer game treatments had as conceit that the players were a franchise!). You could go with this - not only presenting an all-new team, but freedom of setting. Consider the paranormal potential of someplace like Los Angeles, or Miami, or New Orleans...
Thank you, sir, for invoking the Stainless Steel Rat; now I'm motivated to see if I can find any of those books at the library. He did a nice job at Paradiso Aqui, as I recall...
I seem to recall this sort of thing showing up in Ghost in the Shell...
From what I recall, that sounds like Cobra Commander's TV incarnation; his comic counterparts were/are more competent.
Thanks for making that general point; you saved me the trouble. As for the specific case of airplanes-as-weapons... it surprises me that, to my knowledge, the fact of real-life precedent existing in World War 2 seems to have eluded attention. Specific reference is made to the kamikaze aircraft and their naval counterpart, Kaiten manned torpedoes.
You're right, it's not a popular idea.
"Why?" you ask.
Quite simply: a credit card is not, repeat not, an identification card, and must not be presumed to be such. And this is discounting the fact of its opening up another potential fraud vector.
I would not be surprised if some enterprising tangos decided that selling Viagra/Cialis/whatever of dubious provenance via spam wasn't just a spiffy way of accruing funds... but an attack vector in its own right. If you're getting Batman flashbacks, you're catching on - such a scheme would not have to be quite as complicated as Joker's.
And as I recall, the third season of '24' involved some tangos trying to pass off spiked cocaine (or was it heroin? Or Ecstacy?) to unknowing street-level distributors.
So yes, there are good arguments for taking this seriously. To make the point without reference to Hollywood (and resultant invocation of 'movie-plot threat' dismissal), one need only look over MSNBC's investigation of counterfit pharmacuticals, and recent issues with goods from China.
The term was also immortalized in LucasArts' Dark Forces (Wikipedia entry) - the cheat code which gives all weapons and full ammo is LAPOSTAL.
- Target and Wal-Mart have sales policies to the effect of 'respect the ratings'; and
- [some/many; pick one] clerks at said stores do not adhere to said policies;
If said policies are not being adhered to by the clerks, that points to:- clerks are unaware of the policy; and/or
- sanctions for violation of said policy are not applied
So rather than fix this deficiency, Target and Wal-Mart are trying to sweep the problem under the rug. Wait, both chains also sell movies, do they not? Would I be correct in assuming that they have an effectively communicated and enforced 'respect the ratings' policy with respect to movie sales? Do their movie offerings happen to include the likes of Saw and Hostel?If the answer to either of the last questions is 'yes', then said chains are leaving themselves open to accusations of having a double standard in this matter.
- poor awareness of said policy at the retail level;
- laxity in application of sanctions when said policy is contravened
Either way, you'd have something all the brouhaha can be legitimately focused on.And since someone brought it up, I for one believe Gundams and their contemporary mobile suits are more militarily viable than Evangelions. On which note, a colleague brought to my attention recently a rather interesting tidbit: the Gundams and other mobile suits were originally intended to be powered armor (ala BGC's K-12s, SHIELDs/CIDs in recent Dale Brown novels, or Zone Trooper gear in C&C3), but someone figured the best way to compete with all the 'super robot' shows airing at the time was... with another 'super robot' show.
If nothing else, it'd be an interesting news story...
As for Immortal (and, IIRC, Warpray and maybe some other units') shields holding up very well against heavy fire but not doing so well against massed lesser weapons - does anyone else remember the account of a match decided by a score of stimmed, D-Matrixed marines back in the pre-BW days? - well, I could just be reading too much into it, but it sounds like the developers are trying to encourage combined-arms play (for which I thought there was more than enough incentive in original SC).
And when I heard that the Warpray's DPS scales with continuous fire, I was immediately reminded about gatling weapons in Yuri's Revenge and Generals. No, this isn't bad (and does mean this artillery ship is best used against big things like, say, battlecruisers), but the idea of the soundbites from the abovecited games' gatling tanks being delivered in a 'Protoss' voice is just so amusing.
And... kudos for The Last Starfighter tribute.