I was just making an example and relating the story summary to around 15 years ago when those bands were both popular. The summary makes a point of people being ashamed of what they're listening to, and I ran with that concept.
How does any of the write-up make sense? If I wanted to listen to New Kids on the Block without letting my Metallica friends know, I'd just go out and buy the tape and hide it in a different place than my regular tapes. The only person who'd know is me and the record store guy, and he cares less than some server somewhere since he probably doesn't keep records of every customer and every tape they bought. Whereas now, who cares if you could reset the play counter? Your friends are still gonna know if you have an N'Sync album on your iTunes because it's all there on the list.
Imagine being frozen for 50 years, then brought back so you could see the world for 1 year, then frozen for another 50, and so on until your natural death. You could witness the world thousands of years from now.
Eh, when that happens, just send me a postcard from the future. With your plan, there's gonna be thousands of people waking up every 50 years and pissing off the current generation with their "back in my day..." rants. Then there's probably gonna be "20th century ghettos" where they'll build replica stores like Starbucks and McDonalds to make the 20th century people feel right at home - and stay the hell out of the real future.
It's not the fault of the video games. It's the fault of negligent parents and a society that doesn't seem to take any interest in disciplining children anymore.
Ummm... when did parents ever take any interest in disciplining children? Parents have never known "the right way" of raising kids for them not to be violent sociopaths, and that's why there have been 20 year old violent sociopaths throughout history. In the past, it was just considered good parenting to discipline your kids by hitting them when they display bad or violent tendencies.
Oh yeah? Well I bet every single one of your predictions is wrong. Your talk about it being too expensive is off base seeing as how it's still going to be the cheapest console on the market when it comes out. The controllers are what, $10 bucks more than the competitor's controllers? So a new XBox360 - just the core system, plus 3 more controllers comes out to $450 and that doesn't even include the game. Add the game and that's $510 for the total. With your estimate of the console with 3 more controllers coming to $430, that's still $80 bucks less than the 360 for pretty much the same package (although you could argue you're getting a technically better system with the 360, I'll argue that the controller functionality on the Wii makes for a better system). Let's also not forget that that $430 is still $170 less than a bare bones PS3 with 1 controller and no games. I don't understand how it's news to you that you have to buy extra peripherals and games with your console these days, being a Sony tester and gamer. I remember being disappointed that the N64 came with only 1 controller and I had to buy more, but that's just how it goes these days, and that's how it's been since the PS1 came out.
Also, your argument that Nintendo has some nerve admitting to actually making a profit off the console is ridiculous. Nintendo doesn't have a music and electronic division that could subsidize their game division for years while they gain marketshare. They also don't have a monopoly on operating systems and office products on desktop computers. They're a pure game company and as such don't have the money to spend losing hundreds of dollars on every console when they're ALREADY the lowest priced in the group. For a more detailed discussion on how ludicrous your argument is, I'll bring your attention to this post.
What's the difference between cheating and learning? When I was in middle school, I used to take paragraphs from sources and paraphrase them and dumb them down so that it would sound like I wrote it, and I was a straight A student. What's the point of this intermediate step? If I decide to read a Wikipedia entry about Thomas Edison to learn more about him, why the hell should I have to paraphrase something that's in that article? And if I paraphrase, how does it make my work any less "cheating" than someone who copies word for word from the same source? What exactly is the definition of learning when you're not allowed to use sources with the actual information on the topic without being considered a cheater? If the point of an assignment is to find information about a topic and then use that information to make an informed decision, then there is no cheating - you either have the opinion or you don't. Sadly, most school assignments are basically reduced to rewriting what you found out either through the textbook or through online sources instead of encouraging you to think about what you've learned and make decisions based on that information.
I think the problem is overstated. Kids don't sit in front of puppet shows all day every day. Lots of my friends have kids and they are very involved in all kinds of things that I was involved in as a kid. You make it sounds as if all kids these days are zombies with their eyes glued to the screen all the time but I haven't seen a single kid like that.
Even if there is a problem, the only feasible solution is adaptation. Should parents just get rid of their tvs, video games, and computers so that kids can live the good ol' life of growing up bored in a corn field like our ancestors? No, that's silly. As always, parents just have to pay attention to what their kids are doing and moderate what activities they're partake in, and kids will have to adapt to the environment that they're raised in.
There are lots of people saying that this is no big deal since every other console hasn't come with a high-end cable either, and that's a good argument. The thing is that people are already outraged that Sony's console is so expensive, that it's just another black eye for them to nickle and dime on the cables as well. It seems like everything that Sony does just increases their image as a company that doesn't care about the consumer.
I'd really like to know what's going on with this game. At this point, it's taken longer than an operating sSystem to develop, and it's been an industry joke for many years. What gives? Do they have like, 1 programmer working half time on it? I can't imagine working on a single product for so long, so it's no wonder there are people leaving, I'd just like to hear the actual story of why it's taking so long, and not just a press release version of "we'll ship it when it's done."
there's only 1 thing anyone can really do to break through cliques no matter what the gender boundries... be friendly. If you want to incorporate yourself into a boys only group, just be friendly and courteous. Try to find opportunities to make conversation and joke around. IT and computer people are usually introverted and aren't used to conversing with people of the opposite gender (and lots of times with people of the same gender) so it will be usually up to you to break that barrier.
It's like buying a Ford and ripping the Ford emblem off the car and thinking that you're "sticking it to Ford." I have news for you: Ford (Apple) is laughing all the way to the bank.
Yeah, but if enough people rip off the ford emblem off their cars, maybe Ford will make a car without their emblem on it. It's not that people are ripping DRM music to "stick it to Apple" because they dislike Apple. They're doing it because they want music that doesn't have DRM on it.
=typing searches= pictures of dead people *no, that didn't work* killed people *hmm, no good, maybe try "dead pictures"* dead pictures *hmm, no results, lemme try again* dead pictures *0 searches, cmon! one more try* dead pictures *no, nothing... how about...* murder photo *ah fuck it, lemme go on Slashdot.* =reads ttys00's comment= Quick, make a bunch of bogus searches! That way you will have some plausible deniability when The Man knocks on your door with a list of your searches. *oh shit... he's right. Lemme go make some fake searches... um... hmm. Oh, I got it!* steak and cheese *hmm. What else?... damn, can't think of anything* photo of death...
Yeah, but I want my Citizen Kane videogame RIGHT NOW!!
All kidding aside, it's not really accurate to compare the timeline of the film industry to the timeline of the game industry because it discounts what's come before it. Humans started writing in the 4th millenium BC, and Plato came up with The Republic thousands of years later in 390BC. That's alot more than the 60 years it took the film industry to come up with a great representation of what the medium can do. Games are similar to film in that they have some history to work off of - books and film. It's arguable, though, that games haven't already came out with their Citizen Kane. I think Grim Fandango is one of the best games ever made and in my mind is equivalent to the best of films. I can also still remember and quote lines from Full Throttle, and moments and emotions from that game are still remembered as if I played the game yesterday. A great work of art is one that moves you, and video games have those works of art.
I'd like to know how the PR firm infiltrated all of these blogs to even get the movie seen. I saw it on Fark and when I watched it, I was wondering why the hell the thing even showed up there. It's technically awful, it's not funny, the pacing is slower than An Inconvenient Truth (which is hard to do for a 3 minute movie!), and basically didn't have any merit to it whatsoever besides the message that Al Gore is boring. Why would it be posted to all of these popular sites?
First thing, the quote you provided in nowhere states that an Al Gore criticizer believes what Al Gore has to say but doesn't want to admit it. It says "who is really critical of Al Gore and Global Warming," meaning that the person does not like Al Gore and doesn't believe the evidence surrounding Global Warming.
secondly, you're not being disingenuous if you are a president of a multi-million dollar corporation and say that Al Gore is a boring, irrelevant blowhard. You are disingenuous if you pay another corporation to make the same statement but make it look like it came from someone else. That is in fact, the very definition of disingenuous:
disingenuous - Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating
Yep, that's true. How is a calendar program "search?" But, as you said, Google is now about getting advertisers. If they get into the music business, that is a different can of worms than selling ads, as there's not much they can advertise to music customers besides more music, whereas their other products for the most part allow the google engine to gather relevant data for more efficient ad placement.
I love Wikipedia. It's more than an ideal source for a "starting point." It's probably one of the biggest collective sources of information that's available to the largest number of people in the world and should be treated as such. It has had information on most of what I've wanted to search for, and the information is accurate and detailed.
There's all this talk about how biased it is because of some controversy surrounding people editing articles based off of an agenda like the Ken Lay thing, but as has been said by a few posts in that slashdot article, Wikipedia isn't there for up-to-date news. It's for information. And as such, there's no better source of information than thousands of people editing articles for accuracy if they see something that's wrong. What's the alternative? A reporter or journalist taking a complex topic that is beyond their scope and education and paraphrasing it so that the "common man" can read it? I haven't read one New York Times technology article that hasn't had some glaring errors or ommissions that I could pick out even when I'm not an expert. I can't even imagine all the articles that I can't pick out the errors for because I'm not in the respective field.
Every single source of information has bias attached to it because it's written by people who are biased by nature. The only way to combat the bias is to have more viewpoints attached to the topic, and Wikipedia is an amazing representation of that. As the old saying goes "history is written by the victors." I think something like Wikipedia is needed because it gives the losers the chance to put in their perspective - something that has never been done before.
It's interesting that lots of people are quick to throw in their solution to the survival of the species and not many are questioning the messenger. Stephen Hawking probably knows a lot more about the species' survival than I do, as he and the people he hangs out with are a lot more influential and intelligent than me and the people I hang out with. Why would he ask the question on Yahoo? Is it for shits and giggles, research for a new book, or genuine concern on his part? If it's the latter, then I think we should be worried.
from TFA: Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it'll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.
That's complete bullshit. If I purchase a song from iTMS or any service, I should be able to download that song from a competing service free of charge since I purchased the rights to listen to that song already. Sure, MS is taking the costs in this case, but MS shouldn't even have to pay if the song was already rightfully purchased.
The kind where before you do anything you have to verify your fingerprint, which will call up your criminal record and all of the calls you've ever made in your life before you could send $100 bucks to your buddy - which will also have to do the same thing before he gets the money.
I'm also an animator, and it is pretty offensive that it's the human actors like Andy Serkis and not the human animators that get any recognition at all. The computer doesn't do anything. It's a high-tech equivalent of a pencil when it comes to this stuff, but nobody ever complimented Van Gogh's pencil as much as they complement computers for making such amazing images. It's always people behind them, every single frame of the way, and through every single line of code that makes the software that allows artists to create those images.
If you took Andy Serkis' performance straight out and into the computer, it wouldn't be nearly as good, because it was still up to the animator to capture the essence of that performance and make a CG character live.
I agree. Level design is a huge part of 3d gameplay. I've played dozens of games where I quit playing after 15 minutes because the level was so confusing to go through and there was a ton of backtracking. The best level design that I could think of was in No One Lives Forever. Those levels seemed to go on forever, you always felt like you're in the actual environment, but the level design was so good that you were never lost. That's a big part of what made that game a joy to play.
Slashdot Mirror
I was just making an example and relating the story summary to around 15 years ago when those bands were both popular. The summary makes a point of people being ashamed of what they're listening to, and I ran with that concept.
How does any of the write-up make sense? If I wanted to listen to New Kids on the Block without letting my Metallica friends know, I'd just go out and buy the tape and hide it in a different place than my regular tapes. The only person who'd know is me and the record store guy, and he cares less than some server somewhere since he probably doesn't keep records of every customer and every tape they bought. Whereas now, who cares if you could reset the play counter? Your friends are still gonna know if you have an N'Sync album on your iTunes because it's all there on the list.
Imagine being frozen for 50 years, then brought back so you could see the world for 1 year, then frozen for another 50, and so on until your natural death. You could witness the world thousands of years from now.
Eh, when that happens, just send me a postcard from the future. With your plan, there's gonna be thousands of people waking up every 50 years and pissing off the current generation with their "back in my day..." rants. Then there's probably gonna be "20th century ghettos" where they'll build replica stores like Starbucks and McDonalds to make the 20th century people feel right at home - and stay the hell out of the real future.
how about funding research into diseases that affect people at a young age
maybe because he's getting old so he doesn't give a crap about young people?
It's not the fault of the video games. It's the fault of negligent parents and a society that doesn't seem to take any interest in disciplining children anymore.
Ummm... when did parents ever take any interest in disciplining children? Parents have never known "the right way" of raising kids for them not to be violent sociopaths, and that's why there have been 20 year old violent sociopaths throughout history. In the past, it was just considered good parenting to discipline your kids by hitting them when they display bad or violent tendencies.
Oh yeah? Well I bet every single one of your predictions is wrong. Your talk about it being too expensive is off base seeing as how it's still going to be the cheapest console on the market when it comes out. The controllers are what, $10 bucks more than the competitor's controllers? So a new XBox360 - just the core system, plus 3 more controllers comes out to $450 and that doesn't even include the game. Add the game and that's $510 for the total. With your estimate of the console with 3 more controllers coming to $430, that's still $80 bucks less than the 360 for pretty much the same package (although you could argue you're getting a technically better system with the 360, I'll argue that the controller functionality on the Wii makes for a better system). Let's also not forget that that $430 is still $170 less than a bare bones PS3 with 1 controller and no games. I don't understand how it's news to you that you have to buy extra peripherals and games with your console these days, being a Sony tester and gamer. I remember being disappointed that the N64 came with only 1 controller and I had to buy more, but that's just how it goes these days, and that's how it's been since the PS1 came out.
Also, your argument that Nintendo has some nerve admitting to actually making a profit off the console is ridiculous. Nintendo doesn't have a music and electronic division that could subsidize their game division for years while they gain marketshare. They also don't have a monopoly on operating systems and office products on desktop computers. They're a pure game company and as such don't have the money to spend losing hundreds of dollars on every console when they're ALREADY the lowest priced in the group. For a more detailed discussion on how ludicrous your argument is, I'll bring your attention to this post.
What's the difference between cheating and learning? When I was in middle school, I used to take paragraphs from sources and paraphrase them and dumb them down so that it would sound like I wrote it, and I was a straight A student. What's the point of this intermediate step? If I decide to read a Wikipedia entry about Thomas Edison to learn more about him, why the hell should I have to paraphrase something that's in that article? And if I paraphrase, how does it make my work any less "cheating" than someone who copies word for word from the same source? What exactly is the definition of learning when you're not allowed to use sources with the actual information on the topic without being considered a cheater? If the point of an assignment is to find information about a topic and then use that information to make an informed decision, then there is no cheating - you either have the opinion or you don't. Sadly, most school assignments are basically reduced to rewriting what you found out either through the textbook or through online sources instead of encouraging you to think about what you've learned and make decisions based on that information.
I think the problem is overstated. Kids don't sit in front of puppet shows all day every day. Lots of my friends have kids and they are very involved in all kinds of things that I was involved in as a kid. You make it sounds as if all kids these days are zombies with their eyes glued to the screen all the time but I haven't seen a single kid like that.
Even if there is a problem, the only feasible solution is adaptation. Should parents just get rid of their tvs, video games, and computers so that kids can live the good ol' life of growing up bored in a corn field like our ancestors? No, that's silly. As always, parents just have to pay attention to what their kids are doing and moderate what activities they're partake in, and kids will have to adapt to the environment that they're raised in.
There are lots of people saying that this is no big deal since every other console hasn't come with a high-end cable either, and that's a good argument. The thing is that people are already outraged that Sony's console is so expensive, that it's just another black eye for them to nickle and dime on the cables as well. It seems like everything that Sony does just increases their image as a company that doesn't care about the consumer.
You're confused... The internet is a prerequisite for e-mail which is only for old people in KOREA.
I'd really like to know what's going on with this game. At this point, it's taken longer than an operating sSystem to develop, and it's been an industry joke for many years. What gives? Do they have like, 1 programmer working half time on it? I can't imagine working on a single product for so long, so it's no wonder there are people leaving, I'd just like to hear the actual story of why it's taking so long, and not just a press release version of "we'll ship it when it's done."
there's only 1 thing anyone can really do to break through cliques no matter what the gender boundries... be friendly. If you want to incorporate yourself into a boys only group, just be friendly and courteous. Try to find opportunities to make conversation and joke around. IT and computer people are usually introverted and aren't used to conversing with people of the opposite gender (and lots of times with people of the same gender) so it will be usually up to you to break that barrier.
It's like buying a Ford and ripping the Ford emblem off the car and thinking that you're "sticking it to Ford." I have news for you: Ford (Apple) is laughing all the way to the bank.
Yeah, but if enough people rip off the ford emblem off their cars, maybe Ford will make a car without their emblem on it. It's not that people are ripping DRM music to "stick it to Apple" because they dislike Apple. They're doing it because they want music that doesn't have DRM on it.
=typing searches= ...
pictures of dead people
*no, that didn't work*
killed people
*hmm, no good, maybe try "dead pictures"*
dead pictures
*hmm, no results, lemme try again*
dead pictures
*0 searches, cmon! one more try*
dead pictures
*no, nothing... how about...*
murder photo
*ah fuck it, lemme go on Slashdot.*
=reads ttys00's comment=
Quick, make a bunch of bogus searches! That way you will have some plausible deniability when The Man knocks on your door with a list of your searches.
*oh shit... he's right. Lemme go make some fake searches... um... hmm. Oh, I got it!*
steak and cheese
*hmm. What else?... damn, can't think of anything*
photo of death
Yeah, but I want my Citizen Kane videogame RIGHT NOW!!
All kidding aside, it's not really accurate to compare the timeline of the film industry to the timeline of the game industry because it discounts what's come before it. Humans started writing in the 4th millenium BC, and Plato came up with The Republic thousands of years later in 390BC. That's alot more than the 60 years it took the film industry to come up with a great representation of what the medium can do. Games are similar to film in that they have some history to work off of - books and film. It's arguable, though, that games haven't already came out with their Citizen Kane. I think Grim Fandango is one of the best games ever made and in my mind is equivalent to the best of films. I can also still remember and quote lines from Full Throttle, and moments and emotions from that game are still remembered as if I played the game yesterday. A great work of art is one that moves you, and video games have those works of art.
I'd like to know how the PR firm infiltrated all of these blogs to even get the movie seen. I saw it on Fark and when I watched it, I was wondering why the hell the thing even showed up there. It's technically awful, it's not funny, the pacing is slower than An Inconvenient Truth (which is hard to do for a 3 minute movie!), and basically didn't have any merit to it whatsoever besides the message that Al Gore is boring. Why would it be posted to all of these popular sites?
well, 2 things.
First thing, the quote you provided in nowhere states that an Al Gore criticizer believes what Al Gore has to say but doesn't want to admit it. It says "who is really critical of Al Gore and Global Warming," meaning that the person does not like Al Gore and doesn't believe the evidence surrounding Global Warming.
secondly, you're not being disingenuous if you are a president of a multi-million dollar corporation and say that Al Gore is a boring, irrelevant blowhard. You are disingenuous if you pay another corporation to make the same statement but make it look like it came from someone else. That is in fact, the very definition of disingenuous:
disingenuous - Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating
Yep, that's true. How is a calendar program "search?" But, as you said, Google is now about getting advertisers. If they get into the music business, that is a different can of worms than selling ads, as there's not much they can advertise to music customers besides more music, whereas their other products for the most part allow the google engine to gather relevant data for more efficient ad placement.
I love Wikipedia. It's more than an ideal source for a "starting point." It's probably one of the biggest collective sources of information that's available to the largest number of people in the world and should be treated as such. It has had information on most of what I've wanted to search for, and the information is accurate and detailed.
There's all this talk about how biased it is because of some controversy surrounding people editing articles based off of an agenda like the Ken Lay thing, but as has been said by a few posts in that slashdot article, Wikipedia isn't there for up-to-date news. It's for information. And as such, there's no better source of information than thousands of people editing articles for accuracy if they see something that's wrong. What's the alternative? A reporter or journalist taking a complex topic that is beyond their scope and education and paraphrasing it so that the "common man" can read it? I haven't read one New York Times technology article that hasn't had some glaring errors or ommissions that I could pick out even when I'm not an expert. I can't even imagine all the articles that I can't pick out the errors for because I'm not in the respective field.
Every single source of information has bias attached to it because it's written by people who are biased by nature. The only way to combat the bias is to have more viewpoints attached to the topic, and Wikipedia is an amazing representation of that. As the old saying goes "history is written by the victors." I think something like Wikipedia is needed because it gives the losers the chance to put in their perspective - something that has never been done before.
It's interesting that lots of people are quick to throw in their solution to the survival of the species and not many are questioning the messenger. Stephen Hawking probably knows a lot more about the species' survival than I do, as he and the people he hangs out with are a lot more influential and intelligent than me and the people I hang out with. Why would he ask the question on Yahoo? Is it for shits and giggles, research for a new book, or genuine concern on his part? If it's the latter, then I think we should be worried.
from TFA:
Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it'll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.
That's complete bullshit. If I purchase a song from iTMS or any service, I should be able to download that song from a competing service free of charge since I purchased the rights to listen to that song already. Sure, MS is taking the costs in this case, but MS shouldn't even have to pay if the song was already rightfully purchased.
but what kind of system would work?
The kind where before you do anything you have to verify your fingerprint, which will call up your criminal record and all of the calls you've ever made in your life before you could send $100 bucks to your buddy - which will also have to do the same thing before he gets the money.
QFT.
I'm also an animator, and it is pretty offensive that it's the human actors like Andy Serkis and not the human animators that get any recognition at all. The computer doesn't do anything. It's a high-tech equivalent of a pencil when it comes to this stuff, but nobody ever complimented Van Gogh's pencil as much as they complement computers for making such amazing images. It's always people behind them, every single frame of the way, and through every single line of code that makes the software that allows artists to create those images.
If you took Andy Serkis' performance straight out and into the computer, it wouldn't be nearly as good, because it was still up to the animator to capture the essence of that performance and make a CG character live.
What's that you say? A prophet?! I'LL FOLLOW YOU ANYWHERE!
I agree. Level design is a huge part of 3d gameplay. I've played dozens of games where I quit playing after 15 minutes because the level was so confusing to go through and there was a ton of backtracking. The best level design that I could think of was in No One Lives Forever. Those levels seemed to go on forever, you always felt like you're in the actual environment, but the level design was so good that you were never lost. That's a big part of what made that game a joy to play.