My first thought exactly. The mark to beat is an extremely imperfect one. We meat popsicles are hovering around 11 million reported accidents per year. Though on a general decline, I think the google-mobile can give us a run for our money.
But now the tripe is better disguised behind shiny graphics, amusing rag-doll physics and multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, the good and unique games are discarded because they don't carry the N+1 title scheme of an established franchise that's been floating on the reputation of 1 well done game many many years ago. Spec Ops : The Line was brilliant cutting satire of the whole genre, meanwhile CODBLOPS, ME3 and every Halo since, well... since Halo 1, have been getting worse and worse. Poor writing, terrible pacing, over-reliance on cut scenes, and microtransactions required to actually play the full game. Oh, you paid $60 and thought that was it? HA. Now go buy a coke for a code you can redeem for more bullets, and pre-purchase at this store or that to get a better gun, and then drop another $10 for day 1 DLC...
That's the main reason I'm looking forward to Ouya, and others like it. Sure there will be garbage, there will always be shovelware looking for an easy buck... but hopefully the good games will actually stand out and be rewarded for their efforts. That, and I just want to play FF6 (3) again.;)
There's a grocery store in my area that's definitely using a jammer of some kind. Inside, and even out to the first few rows of the parking lot... complete dead zone. Across the parking lot, perfect LTE coverage.
Devs these days are more concerned about rendering amazing graphics, and epic cut scenes, and *hey put down the controller you're screwing up all my hard work... just sit there and watch the awesome happen. When the cutscene is over you can walk down the hallway to the next cutscene.* Video games used to be a method to tell stories, now all the time and budget for narrative has gone by the wayside in order to cram more pixels into each frame. Plus, there's only so much real estate on physical media. Bluray is, what, 25 - 50 GB. And the aforementioned cut scenes take a lot of room, so instead of 50+ hour epics, we get a lot of 10-hour quickies, for the same price. (just plowed through dishonored over the weekend, hard mode, "Clean Hands," 9 hours)
And two : Because right now, that really isn't a choice.
XBox and PS3 are mostly focused on annual franchises that are near sure-fire hits : Battlefield, Modern Warfare, Call of Duty, Madden, FIFA, Halo, etc. Release a new game each year with Title n+1, same graphics, add a few bells and whistles, maybe a new map or two, and you're printing money. WiiU has a grand total of like 2 games that aren't Dance or Party games (or dance-party games)
Asking for both is even less of an option when you factor in the $100 mark. Less than 1/3 the price of a current iPod Touch. This is a toy, at the moment. A playground for developers to see what they can do, and for people to run old emulators, XBMC or whatever else they can think up. If it catches on, and sw devs enjoy it, maybe it'll pick up steam and release a more powerful version... Time will tell. At the very least, it's nice to see someone else trying.
Just a bit of devil's advocate : they're all unique, to an extent. My genome is different from yours. Both of ours differ from any previously discovered. It would be like trying to claim all book copyrights are invalid because books have existed previously
That's not to say genes should be viable for patents. They most certainly should not; mostly because no one invented them. All we can do is observe and possibly manipulate them. There's no invention there, no creation. There's nothing to patent in the genome. If someone wants to patent a procedure for mapping, sure. Or a method by which to manipulate a genome, that's fine. But the genome itself, the sequence of building blocks both before and after any manipulation... that simply should not be up for purchase.
"I've detected that you are leaving the bar alone. I found 14 houses of ill repute in your area, and 3 are fairly close to you. Shall I make a reservation?"
Libertarians are nice, but what we really need is more sane people.
TFS says that as many as 47% of voters were open to changing their minds, but what percentage of those for whom we vote fall into that category? Other than drastically changing positions for the purpose of pandering to different crowds, how many politicians can hear a reasonable argument for/against a certain topic and actually be swayed?
On the other hand, how many politicians are pure party line? Repub? Must be super rich, at least slightly racist and misogynist, oppose gay rights, strongly support the 2nd amendment, love wars, hate abortion or a woman's right to chose, etc etc. Liberal? The exact opposite of all of that... with no room for middle ground. When the people we vote into office (and the talking heads on Fox, MSNBC, etc) join the 47% willing to change their minds, then we might actually be getting somewhere.
AC actually has a point (crazy times we're livin in)
The company knows that someone downloaded their movie. And so someone has to pay the piper. The company doesn't care if they're playing Russian Roulette and just accusing people at random. They're putting the onus on every random old lady to prove that they didn't download this tripe.
I agree, terrible ruling. Now if you'll excuse me, my Thomas Brothers guide says that this street is on paage... 637... grid square... umm F3, and I'm headed to pag***CARRIER LOST***
Purpose is simply looking important, at least for a little while. Hopefully long enough to gather some real followers before the fake accounts all get terminated.
Seems like google wants to be Big Brother in all aspects of the term. Snoop, spy and record every facet of you life, while simultaneously protecting you from bullies.
The only problem (albeit a very solvable one) is that the ESRB ratings are not strictly enforced, and afaik there are no penalties for selling Mature-rated games to minors.
That actually may be another issue, that the common top-level rating is called "Mature" (there's "Adult's only" for pron simulators, but that's a whole different category.) The word Mature, to me, doesn't equate with blood, gore, violence and naughty language the same way that "Restricted" does. Mature could be any number of things : an abstract new way of looking at life, a fine wine, or an evening at the Louvre. Most "Mature" games are full of dick and fart jokes.
Reminds me of a comment I heard, back when Governator Schwarzenegger was in office. There was some ruffling of feathers about him trying to work on a Violent video games ban (the more things change, the more they stay the same) and the whole thing became a conspiracy theory that Arnold, being a movie star, was trying to kill video games to make Hollywood more profitable.
I'm pretty sure it was Moviebob who pointed out that most people who play violent video games are adults, and are likely to have the disposable income to see a movie AND buy a game... plus, most of the real big money makers are kid flicks anyway. If he really wanted to help out Hollywood, he would have tried to ban Wii Bowling!
The "more than 100 percent" claim is a bit strange, but might just be poor syntax. Perhaps they meant a more than 100% gain vs simply burning, or just classify biodesel as the 100% starting point, so a 10% increase means we are actually giving 110%
As for the low temperature bit, isn't that exactly what the first law of thermodynamics dictates? Energy can't simply be created, so the total amount of energy produced will always be constant. If we lost less energy to heat, more energy would be converted to force, or some other part of the reaction
Yes, I have a stable internet connection... that doesn't mean Microsoft's servers will be capable of handling day 1 user loads, or that they'll still be up and running 10 years down the road if I want to play an older game.
I'd rather not be tied to a company with no real motivation for keeping those servers running after initial sales. In fact, as we saw with SimCity, there's a real drive by the companies to kill off older variants of the game when a new version is released. Were you having fun playing Killer Zombie Apocalypse 3? Well, we've just release K.Z.A. 4, so the K.Z.A. 3 servers have been shut off. Please deposit $60 at our website to continue playing.
Somehow, I doubt the NSA has the time, or even the desire, to track down every smack dealer in the hood who does business via iphone, contact their local Police Dept, triangulate their location, etc.
The "victims" here have been targeted because of their wanton disregard for laws. If the "criminals" who leaked the information have deeper goals that simply name and shame... fine by me.
Sociopath... I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Sociopaths are characterized by a lack of empathy; a complete disregard for the feelings or plight of others. I have plenty of empathy, just not for the criminals named and shamed in the documents provided. I feel sympathy for the people living below the poverty line because these fat cats want to buy a 3rd yacht without paying taxes on it.
Slashdot Mirror
My first thought exactly. The mark to beat is an extremely imperfect one. We meat popsicles are hovering around 11 million reported accidents per year. Though on a general decline, I think the google-mobile can give us a run for our money.
If full size PC rigs become the niche of the nerd or gamer, then wouldn't it stand to reason that Linux gaming might make a rise.
[voice of Jack Black] That's fuckin teamwork!
Proper terminology please : flappy-paddle gear box.
Social media may not always be the perpetrator of hastily published misinformation ... but it certainly leads the charge on that front.
Very true, and I've not forgotten.
But now the tripe is better disguised behind shiny graphics, amusing rag-doll physics and multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, the good and unique games are discarded because they don't carry the N+1 title scheme of an established franchise that's been floating on the reputation of 1 well done game many many years ago. Spec Ops : The Line was brilliant cutting satire of the whole genre, meanwhile CODBLOPS, ME3 and every Halo since, well ... since Halo 1, have been getting worse and worse. Poor writing, terrible pacing, over-reliance on cut scenes, and microtransactions required to actually play the full game. Oh, you paid $60 and thought that was it? HA. Now go buy a coke for a code you can redeem for more bullets, and pre-purchase at this store or that to get a better gun, and then drop another $10 for day 1 DLC ...
That's the main reason I'm looking forward to Ouya, and others like it. Sure there will be garbage, there will always be shovelware looking for an easy buck ... but hopefully the good games will actually stand out and be rewarded for their efforts. That, and I just want to play FF6 (3) again. ;)
There's a grocery store in my area that's definitely using a jammer of some kind. Inside, and even out to the first few rows of the parking lot ... complete dead zone. Across the parking lot, perfect LTE coverage.
One : Because hardware tends to kill content.
Devs these days are more concerned about rendering amazing graphics, and epic cut scenes, and *hey put down the controller you're screwing up all my hard work... just sit there and watch the awesome happen. When the cutscene is over you can walk down the hallway to the next cutscene.* Video games used to be a method to tell stories, now all the time and budget for narrative has gone by the wayside in order to cram more pixels into each frame. Plus, there's only so much real estate on physical media. Bluray is, what, 25 - 50 GB. And the aforementioned cut scenes take a lot of room, so instead of 50+ hour epics, we get a lot of 10-hour quickies, for the same price. (just plowed through dishonored over the weekend, hard mode, "Clean Hands," 9 hours)
And two : Because right now, that really isn't a choice.
XBox and PS3 are mostly focused on annual franchises that are near sure-fire hits : Battlefield, Modern Warfare, Call of Duty, Madden, FIFA, Halo, etc. Release a new game each year with Title n+1, same graphics, add a few bells and whistles, maybe a new map or two, and you're printing money. WiiU has a grand total of like 2 games that aren't Dance or Party games (or dance-party games)
Asking for both is even less of an option when you factor in the $100 mark. Less than 1/3 the price of a current iPod Touch. This is a toy, at the moment. A playground for developers to see what they can do, and for people to run old emulators, XBMC or whatever else they can think up. If it catches on, and sw devs enjoy it, maybe it'll pick up steam and release a more powerful version... Time will tell. At the very least, it's nice to see someone else trying.
Just a bit of devil's advocate : they're all unique, to an extent. My genome is different from yours. Both of ours differ from any previously discovered. It would be like trying to claim all book copyrights are invalid because books have existed previously
That's not to say genes should be viable for patents. They most certainly should not; mostly because no one invented them. All we can do is observe and possibly manipulate them. There's no invention there, no creation. There's nothing to patent in the genome. If someone wants to patent a procedure for mapping, sure. Or a method by which to manipulate a genome, that's fine. But the genome itself, the sequence of building blocks both before and after any manipulation ... that simply should not be up for purchase.
"I've detected that you are leaving the bar alone. I found 14 houses of ill repute in your area, and 3 are fairly close to you. Shall I make a reservation?"
Libertarians are nice, but what we really need is more sane people.
TFS says that as many as 47% of voters were open to changing their minds, but what percentage of those for whom we vote fall into that category? Other than drastically changing positions for the purpose of pandering to different crowds, how many politicians can hear a reasonable argument for/against a certain topic and actually be swayed?
On the other hand, how many politicians are pure party line? Repub? Must be super rich, at least slightly racist and misogynist, oppose gay rights, strongly support the 2nd amendment, love wars, hate abortion or a woman's right to chose, etc etc. Liberal? The exact opposite of all of that... with no room for middle ground. When the people we vote into office (and the talking heads on Fox, MSNBC, etc) join the 47% willing to change their minds, then we might actually be getting somewhere.
AC actually has a point (crazy times we're livin in)
The company knows that someone downloaded their movie. And so someone has to pay the piper. The company doesn't care if they're playing Russian Roulette and just accusing people at random. They're putting the onus on every random old lady to prove that they didn't download this tripe.
Guilty until proven innocent.
Dial up connections use phone lines. My cell phone has a phone line ... problem?
It's even more distracting trying to read a map and drive at the same time. If you don't know where you are, it's one or the other.
"Honey, just pull over and ask for directions"
I agree, terrible ruling. Now if you'll excuse me, my Thomas Brothers guide says that this street is on paage ... 637 ... grid square ... umm F3, and I'm headed to pag***CARRIER LOST***
Purpose is simply looking important, at least for a little while. Hopefully long enough to gather some real followers before the fake accounts all get terminated.
Seems like google wants to be Big Brother in all aspects of the term. Snoop, spy and record every facet of you life, while simultaneously protecting you from bullies.
Not only that, but they have proof that people will happily use Linux that not advertised as Linus
See : Android.
The only problem (albeit a very solvable one) is that the ESRB ratings are not strictly enforced, and afaik there are no penalties for selling Mature-rated games to minors.
That actually may be another issue, that the common top-level rating is called "Mature" (there's "Adult's only" for pron simulators, but that's a whole different category.) The word Mature, to me, doesn't equate with blood, gore, violence and naughty language the same way that "Restricted" does. Mature could be any number of things : an abstract new way of looking at life, a fine wine, or an evening at the Louvre. Most "Mature" games are full of dick and fart jokes.
Reminds me of a comment I heard, back when Governator Schwarzenegger was in office. There was some ruffling of feathers about him trying to work on a Violent video games ban (the more things change, the more they stay the same) and the whole thing became a conspiracy theory that Arnold, being a movie star, was trying to kill video games to make Hollywood more profitable.
I'm pretty sure it was Moviebob who pointed out that most people who play violent video games are adults, and are likely to have the disposable income to see a movie AND buy a game... plus, most of the real big money makers are kid flicks anyway. If he really wanted to help out Hollywood, he would have tried to ban Wii Bowling!
The "more than 100 percent" claim is a bit strange, but might just be poor syntax. Perhaps they meant a more than 100% gain vs simply burning, or just classify biodesel as the 100% starting point, so a 10% increase means we are actually giving 110%
As for the low temperature bit, isn't that exactly what the first law of thermodynamics dictates? Energy can't simply be created, so the total amount of energy produced will always be constant. If we lost less energy to heat, more energy would be converted to force, or some other part of the reaction
Yes, I have a stable internet connection... that doesn't mean Microsoft's servers will be capable of handling day 1 user loads, or that they'll still be up and running 10 years down the road if I want to play an older game.
I'd rather not be tied to a company with no real motivation for keeping those servers running after initial sales. In fact, as we saw with SimCity, there's a real drive by the companies to kill off older variants of the game when a new version is released. Were you having fun playing Killer Zombie Apocalypse 3? Well, we've just release K.Z.A. 4, so the K.Z.A. 3 servers have been shut off. Please deposit $60 at our website to continue playing.
Somehow, I doubt the NSA has the time, or even the desire, to track down every smack dealer in the hood who does business via iphone, contact their local Police Dept, triangulate their location, etc.
"Pay evil unto evil."
The "victims" here have been targeted because of their wanton disregard for laws. If the "criminals" who leaked the information have deeper goals that simply name and shame... fine by me.
Sociopath ... I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Sociopaths are characterized by a lack of empathy; a complete disregard for the feelings or plight of others. I have plenty of empathy, just not for the criminals named and shamed in the documents provided. I feel sympathy for the people living below the poverty line because these fat cats want to buy a 3rd yacht without paying taxes on it.