Well, the helmets are designed primarily to be bullet resistant. One of the features it has that makes it bullet resistant is that the helmet doesn't sit on your head, it sits on a web suspension, and the helmet itself surrounds your head by about 1.3cm. That gap helps prevent rounds from penetrating the helmet.
What the study is saying is that the same gap, put there on purpose because it's beneficial against bullets and shrapnel, allows the shockwave blast from an explosion to be more effective against the skull and brain than helmets without the gap.
So now the next generation of helmets will likely try to find a happy balance between the gap, and perhaps some kind of foam solution as the article discusses. It's just more data to further refine designs with for the next generation of this particular technology.
Unlikely. I have no idea if it's a real disease or not, or a popular misdiagnosis for a lot of other unrelated things. However, a great number of Gulf War Syndrome cases are with personnel who were not exposed to combat. Airmen on airbases, logistics folks, troops who never saw any real resistance in action, etc., etc.
In other words, not a lot of soldiers were exposed to explosions at close range, and a great many more folks than that tiny cross section reported GWS.
If it's real, it would have to be caused by something either pathogenic (unlikely, given that it seems the disease was not brought back home and spread to others) or environmental.
Environmental causes seem more likely because of the sheer number of possible candidates.
Burning oil wells, and the chemical muck that produced
The first wide scale use of depleted uranium munitions
Exposure to chemical weapons. Although chemical erapons were not deployed by Iraq during the war, some troops were exposed incidentally when storage facilities were destroyed.
Chemical agents and vaccines used to protect against chemical and biological weapons
All of these are suspect. There are studies saying yes, and no to most, if not all of these possible sources. Compound that with the real probability, that even if it's real, a great number of cases are probably folks who are scared and have some other disorder, who have convinced themselves otherwise, on top of the unscrupulous folks who are trying to turn this into a personal payday... we may never know if it's real, let alone what causes it if it is.
Great source you linked to, very thorough in it's data. It's layout and readability leave much to be desired, however.
Unfortunately, despite that, you're still wrong. It *is* remotely true, though not for the reasons stated. The data you linked to even correlates with what I'm about to explain.
Air-to-air rules of engagement during the Gulf War required two separate means of identifying an aircraft as hostile. These means could be different IFF systems, visual, or anything. so long as they were separate.
Now the ROE didn't require visual contact per se, as has been stated. However if you go over that list, you will note that all BVR kills, except for one BVR kill by an F-16 on 17 January 1993 (two years after the end of the Gulf War) were by F-15s.
The F-15 was the only fighter in the coalition forces at the time of the war that was equipped with two separate electronic means of identifying an enemy aircraft.
So in effect, the ROE for everything else was "double check visually". F-15s had a secondary system they could use. The U.S. Navy was not happy about this, and complained loudly at the time that it was why the Air Force racked up the lion's share of the kills.
I don't have them with me to check now, but I'm 99% sure that these ROE are explained in one of two excellent books regarding the Gulf War either Every Man A Tiger by Tom Clancy and General Chuck Horner, (Schwarzkopf's deputy who commanded the Gulf Air War), or Prodigal Soldiers by James Kitfield.
Both are good reads regardless of where the info is from. Particularly Every Man A Tiger as it's much more air component and Gulf War-centric. Kitfield's book kind of examines how we went from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf, and how much impact Vietnam had on how we fought the Gulf War. I believe it goes fairly deep into ROE, but it's been years since I've read it.
I just did some Googling, and found some confirmation here as well. Scroll down to, or ctrl+f for "Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Rules of Engagement (ROE)". It's explained there.
I'm getting besides the point though. The AC's point may be technically wrong, but in practice, it's nearly true. We've only been in *one* modern air war since 1980. The Gulf War. And during that war, all but one aircraft were required to visually ID an enemy aircraft before firing. So he or she is correct with one big exception.
The harrier is a different beast entirely, and is not the type of vectored thrust I was discussing. STOL / VTOL thrust vectoring is more about generating lift and supporting a completely different flight mode than it is about ACM.
The type of vectored thrust that the F-22 and other "fifth generation" Air Superiority / Air Supremacy fighters employ is designed to translate forward thrust yawing or rolling thrust relative to the center of gravity of the aircraft.
The Harrier is an impressive machine. It's a tribute to both Hawker and Bristol (who designed the Pegasus power plant). But it doesn't have much relevance here. In practice, it has more in common with the V-22 Osprey. Mechanically, the only thing they have in common is that both are jet engine based systems.
Yes, the Harrier can pull a few neat tricks in an air-to-air engagement. But that's not what it was built for, and it's not really what it's good at.
I recall exercises that were done when AH-1 Cobras were still in service. They would play wargames against aggressor units that included F-4s. The results were what you would expect. Until they would run engagements where the Cobras were able to use the landscape to their advantage, and the F-4s were forced under a certain ceiling. Then occasional the Cobras would score some kills on the F-4s.
The problem with that is you'd have to be retarded to put yourself in that position in the real world as an F-4 pilot. Likewise with Harrier vs. virtually anything.
Datalink is capable of two way communication, yes. But that is by no means it's main strength. It's main strength lies in it's ability to work with other aircraft, while one or more aircraft cruise undetected at a higher "stealthiness" level. They can get their data from other F22s, AWACS, ground stations, or other aircraft with similar systems once they come online.
So picture a CAP flight of four F-22s. Two are flying forward, with a 5-10 Nautical mile separation from the trailing pair of aircraft.
The lead planes are radio silent, they are on passive sensors only, and all the other features that make an F-22 as stealthy as possible are in use.
Meanwhile the two trailing aircraft are lit up like Christmas trees. Active radar, data link, talking to each other, talking to AWACS, ect, etc, etc.
The "stealthed" planes aren't blind. They have a composite of their passive sensors, the uplink from both of their flight mates, AWACS, and possibly dozens of data points. They don't *need* radar, they can see just as well without it, through the (for them) passive data link.
The flight sees a flight of four unfriendlys off somewhere and vectors to engage. The unfriendlys see this, and figuring they have numerical advantage turn to engage.
Meanwhile, the two aircraft they do see are cruising toward them nice and slow at say, 400 knots or so, while the two stealthy aircraft have gone supersonic. They're in weapons range before the enemy aircraft even know they exist. With a little luck, they're out of the sky before with know they exist too.
This is just one very simple, basic tactic that uses this concept. There are many more tactics you can build on this new technology.
As it comes into it's own, Air Forces will adapt, and come to expect these tactics, and they will have to evolve further. But it's still an edge.
To answer your point about the MiG-31: Data links have existed in American inventories for years as well. The F-22s use a new standard called Link 22, which replaces a roughly 10 year old standard called Link 16. Link 4 was introduced in the 1950s... But they've never been this mature, nor well integrated, or "smart". I don't know much about Russian MiG-31 data systems, but I believe you may be referring to the MiG-31BM variant. It's only about 10 years old, and exists in very few numbers. It's possible the Russians have had data link capability longer than that, but again, the existing of data links themselves are not what people who understand this plane are excited about.
Even so, the West has trailed behind the Soviets / Russians in other ways in the past. The passive sensor suites on the MiG 29 for example shocked western analysts when we finally got our hands on them. They weren't out of our capability to produce, but they far outstripped anything we had deployed. Vectored thrust is another area they've lead. The F-22 is the first serious production attempt at vectored thrust by the U.S., where the Russians have had several aircraft in production for years that utilize it.
All this is besides the point though. Data link is nice. Stealth is really nice. Having both in a well integrated package along with well trained pilots who understand how it works, who can coordinate attacks together to exploit it's advantages? That's a potential game changer.
I see your point, but I am disappointed none the less.
Brood Wars was not the same thing.
Starcraft was three campaigns with three playable races. There was a sense of completion at the end, as you had a chance to play a full fledged campaign with every race you encountered.
Brood Wars was just more of the same, continuing the story, shorter campaigns, because it was just "extra" content, and new units and some tweaked play mechanics.
What they are doing with Starcraft 2 doesn't seem the same. It seems less like adding more on to a complete product, and more like taking a complete product and breaking it up into three separate pieces and trying to sell it as more value.
As I've said before. I'll be the first sucker in line. I don't play a lot of single player games through multiple times, but Starcraft is up there for me with Zelda, Mario 3, and Half-Life. Every couple years I dust it off and play it again. I adore Starcraft single player. But the loss of the other two races from day 1 is going to drive me nuts.
This is also an issue of modernization, industrialization, and establishment of reliable, fast supply lines.
People often talk about tools, and how they used to last a lifetime, or plows, or whatever. But when that was the case, you didn't have a Sears and a Wal*Mart and a Pep Boys and a hundred other stores within 30 minutes travel time who carry tools. Go back a hundred years. You're a farmer in rural Virginia somewhere... you need tools to do your job day in and day out... there is Sears catalog, maybe, or you can trek a full day or three into the nearest town's where the general store may have what you need. If something broke then, it was a much bigger deal than it is today!
I'm not saying that this disposable mentality is a good thing by any means. But I do think it's a natural consequence of supply lines improving along with industrialization. Not to mention the fact that the savings of making something on an assembly line more cheaply can be much greater than the savings of making something by hand more cheaply.
Let's assume, exceptionally high quality bitrate files... So an average of 10MB each. And let's assume that each song is short at that size as well, so around 3 minutes in length on average...
40 GB = 40,000 MB
40,000 MB / 10 MB each = 4000 songs.
4000 songs * 3 minute each = 12000 minutes.
12000 minutes = 200 hours.
200 hours = 8.333 days (nonstop).
All in one week, eh?
Keep in mind that a 320kbps CBR MP3 will eat up about 2.2MB per minute, meaning that a 3 Minute MP3 at that bitrate would be only 6.6MB... So the 10 we used in this example is quite... liberal. And of course, rounding errors for using HDD manufacturer's definition of "GB". Also, unless you listen to some very specific genres of music, 3 minutes is not overly long for an average song length.
All that aside, if you like to have a ridiculous amount of music on you at all times, just say so. But for some reason it irritates me when people insist they listen to impossible amounts of music on a regular basis, so flash based players are inadequate.
I can see the qualitative argument for carrying a separate digital camera. Phone cameras run the gambit from "what is that supposed to be a photo of?" to "It's okay, but I wouldn't frame it, and I payed a fortune for this phone". But digital audio playback is great even on some cheap phones. Higher end smart phones are as well. Add that the fact that flash memory is cheap and abundant, and I don't see a reason to purchase a separate MP3 player unless the size of your phone, or battery life are issues.
Although the SNES2 (or Junior, or whatever) very clearly is aesthetically inspired by the Super Famicom, and not by the North American "Betty Crocker" design of the SNES - It was the SNES2, and it was indeed released in North America.
Nintendo probably didn't see a need to re-redesign the Japanese re-design of the Super Famicom at the very end of the SNES' lifespan.
Though looking closer at the image they used, yeah, that clearly is the Japanese Super Famicom version of the re-design.
But as you can see, other than a slight shade difference on the buttons, and the logo text on the console itself, there's no difference aesthetically. Here's the North American SNES2 for comparison.
Blizzard effectively has only three franchises. (Lost Vikings, and other older franchises seem long since abandoned).
Warcraft: which has morphed completly into WoW in much the same way that Apple Computer morphed into "The iPod Company". Diablo: which will soon be getting a sequel. It looks like a great modern refresh, but not much more than that. Evolutionary, but solidly rooted in the past. Starcraft: Also with a highly anticipated sequel on the way, which again seems more evolutionary than revolutionary.
I'm not saying that more of a good thing can't be a good thing. It's been a decade since we had a Starcraft release. It's not exactly a done-to-death franchise...
But at the same time, I want to know what else Blizzard has in it. Do you have any plans to visit new worlds, new stories, or new kinds of gameplay?
The project I was looking forward to myself the most was Starcraft: Ghost. Then as time went on, it seemed to progress from a StarCraft universe centered tactical rouge-like shooter/stealth game into some kind of online multiplayer, take the focus off of storyline atrocity... I understand why it was canceled.
But that kind of new direction, even with existing IP is what some of us get excited about.
What do you plan on doing that's new? Not just a refreshed version of what you've already done? I don't mean this as a slight. I recognize the quality and workmanship that goes into all of your games, even the ones I don't personally care for. I'll even be first in line to pick up (all three editions of) StarCraft 2. I'd just really love to see what can happen when you take the company's considerable talent in new directions again. Particularly with a game with a rich single-player experience.
That doesn't account for younger generations taking up gaming.
It also doesn't account for the fact that it it likely that through any adult generation, the gaming population is falling, not rising, as we have less leisure time. Work, school, kids, relationships... I know of a lot of folks who simply don't game any more because of their lives have changed since they were younger. I suppose that it's likely that gaming populations are rising for those above or near retirement age. But I would imaging this rate to be trivial, and only to be rising because it has nowhere to go but up.
Now compound that with the fact that the population is growing. Each younger generation is larger than the older generations before it. That means that on top of the 5-14 year old generation having a higher percentage of gamers than the 15-24 year old generation, they also have a higher population. Further pushing the average age downward.
This is why I find it hard to believe that the average gamer's age isn't in the 20s somewhere. I don't deny that it's possible, but I'd like to see some real data.
Searching google, I keep coming across this "Fact sheet" by the Entertainment Software Association. It cites no sources, nor does it mention survey methodology. It's further suspect, because it's an industry trade agency. It can be argued that Electronic Gaming as an industry wishes to shed it's image as something just the young do. If it's true, then older people represent an untapped demographic, and shedding that image can go toward correcting it. There is also a more detailed version here (PDF). This version does mention:
The annual research was conducted by Ipsos MediaCT for the ESA. The study is the most in-depth and targeted survey of its kind, gathering data from almost 1,200 nationally representative households that have been identified as owning either or both a video game console or a personal computer used to run entertainment software.
But still no definitions.
A British group also did a survey. Unfortunately, again, no methodology data. Their numbers are quite different too.
I'd love to see some numbers where the questions asked and survey methodology are shown. Especially for a poll that so many have parroted for so long.
That's not the same thing at all. It just proves the old adage "A witty saying proves nothing".
The perfect example is Halo, since it's more popular on the X-Box, and the X-box controller is usable on the PC, where there is also a port.
A lot of players are really, really good with the X-Box controller. My ex girlfriend worked with one of these players who would decimate both of us whenever we went over to play him on the his X-box. He'd also be at the top of the ladder in online torments, etc.
So I proposed an experiment. He'd come over and play a game at our place. One of us would play one one of our PCs with keyboard and mouse, and he would play on the other with an X-Box 360 controller plugged in. He could map the controls however he liked.
He was unable to win a match, ever.
The controller is simply an inferior tool for the particular job of controlling a FPS. It works okay when your opponents are similarly handicapped. But against a superior control scheme against a competent opponent (even a less skilled, but still competent opponent), you have very little chance, beyond the occasional lucky shot. Occasional lucky shots don't happen enough to win matches.
The Wii makes for some fun Light-gun style shooters. But the control scheme... well I just don't see how you could move more efficiently than a keyboard / mouse setup. Circle strafing, yaw... they would be sloppy and slow. No way you would be competitive. I'll admit this is less clear-cut than a controller though.
We keep hearing about how the average age of a gamer is around 30. It's surprising, but I can deal with that. Not unreasonable. Now 35? That's a little tougher to swallow, and a cursory look at the article shows why.
Investigators from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University and Andrews University analyzed survey data from 552 adults in the Seattle-Tacoma area. The subjects ranged in age from 19 to 90, according to the study, published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
(Emphasis mine).
The study excluded kids. It's just adult gamers.
Still it's a little tough to believe that the average age is 35 unless there were few members of the study outside their 30s, or their definition of "gamer" is quite loose. They may consider going to Atlantic City and playing video poker a "gamer", but just because someone Skis once a year or so, are they a Skier? I know we want to count casual gamers, but we still need to exclude "irregular" gamers for the purposes of studies like this, or the findings are quite meaningless.
I vaguely remember looking at some service called People that a friend had an account with. Much later, in 1994 or 1995, I had a free web site account with a brand new service called Turnpike.net, back when you created pages by careful hand editing. Then when they started charging I moved to another relatively new web host called GeoCities (but I don't recall what city/neighborhood I was in).
I think the original BSG stunk, but in it's defense, comparing the effects to those of feature films with budgets beyond what a single season of the series had isn't exactly fair.
The technology wasn't there in those days, so achieving what Kuberick did with 2001, and Lucas did with Star Wars took time and lots of tedious, detailed hard work. The production schedule and demands of a (weekly?) television series probably just didn't leave room for those effects even if they had the budget for it.
That said, I don't think the show was won any awards for it's effects either.
Wrong. There are no establishing shots with recognizable land masses in the episodes that they spend on nuked Earth.
They even show it from space, when the ships descend through the atmosphere, but you can't make out anything through the clouds.
We know that Starbuck died there, or that at least her viper and body wound up there. We know that the 13th tribe lived there.
We don't know that it is "our Earth".
The only establishing shots of earth with visible geography are in:
"Crossroads, Part II" Starbuck: "I've been to Earth, Lee. And I'm going to take us there..." Camera zooms out to fleet, to solar system, to entire galaxy, then zooms in to a close up on Earth, with the Americas clearly visible.
and "Daybreak, Part II", after the battle at the Cylon Colony. After The Galactica jumps away, and finds that she's crippled and will never jump again, there is a shot of the Earth rising over it's moon. Africa and the Arabian peninsula are clearly visible.
In "Crossroads, Part II", they imply that Starbuck had been to "our earth". But they never back that up.
Further, the shot of "Our Earth" in "Daybreak, Part II" makes it very unlikely (and stupid) that the "other Earth" would be the one shown in "Crossroads, Part II", because that would mean that both Earths would have to be twins with identical geographies.
The most reasonable conclusion is that 13th Tribe Earth was a completely different planet with completely different geography, but that they didn't *show* that, because it would have given away the reveal at the end of the Series when they find "Our Earth". The only thing they have in common is what Adama and Roslyn talk about in the finale: Earth is an idea. Humanity has earned it, and so they'll call this planet "Earth" too.
You are right about making it up as they went along. But then never denied that.
But I believe they knew where they were going with the finale by the time that "Crossroads" was written (or at least produced), because that explains why they went out of their way not to show enough of the planet to tell if it's "Our Earth" or not.
They made it up as they went along season by season, not episode by episode (for the major points).
And EFS before that (in XP, and I believe 2000). Seriously, this is not a new thing. I completely agree with you. I'll go out on a limb and call Windows "common".
What the author fails to mention, is that the application not only has to be very common, but it has to leave no obvious trace of encryption. It would be trivial to write a batch file, or application that lives on a flash drive, and you plug into a notebook, when then interrogates the notebook, and says, "hey, have any BitLocker / EFS stuff?" and then the OS gives it up. The hooks are there FOR that purpose, right in the OS, right next to the ones that say "show me all shared files" and "show me all files named 'bob*.*'"
Instead, the author really wants something common, but with Trojan Horse functionality. Like if Photoshop had a built-in function to store a tiny bit of data in each and every jpg on a hard drive, evenly distributed among all of them. Then it becomes a question of "our scans detected encrypted data. Please decrypt it so we can check it out".
Hell, Winzip, 7zip, and WinRAR are very common too. They all support (admittedly weak) encryption. but they also fail the first test. The presence of the files is easy enough for any smart app to find, and determine the encrypted nature of.
Apple isn't stopping you from going swimming with your ipod, or driving over your macbook with a truck.
They're just telling you that they won't honor a warranty claim if they detect that these things have happened. Which is reasonable.
Apple isn't even alone here. Sony, Microsoft, Creative, Toshiba, Dell, Panasonic, etc, etc. Show me a major electronics manufacturer who doesn't have a similar policy in place for their warranties.
The only "news" here is that Apple is being proactive in trying to detect these kinds of abuses. Again, they won't stop you from using the device out of spec, but if it fails from that, they've recorded the out of spec condition, and will absolve themselves of responsibility for the product's warranty.
Continue to use your stuff how you please. Apple won't stop you. Nobody cares.
No, please explain to me how preventing someone from playing "BACKUP games (and pirated games as a side effect)" is "evil". I really don't see the connection.
It may be disappointing. I may not like it. But murder is evil. Denying people their basic human rights is evil. Torture is evil.
It is hard for me to swallow that a law that prevents you from circumventing a digital copy protection scheme is "evil".
Perhaps I misunderstand the word evil? I don't believe I've ever actually looked up it's definition.
Unless you're talking about Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, or the like; "evil" is a word best reserved for use by comic books and George W. Bush.
Let me paint you a picture of how the DMCA might not only be "un-evil" but perhaps justified:
Like it or not, these publishers have a *legal* right to the works they create, or fund the creation of. So, they publish these works. Unscrupulous people pirate them.
They ask "please don't do that". Shockingly, this doesn't work.
Console makers decide that the situation is untenable and decide they have to do something. They take manners into their own hands, and implement protection schemes to make it very hard to run unsigned code. This has a tremendous effect on diminishing piracy / bootlegs, and unlicensed games. Both of which the publishers and console makers consider to be a "win".
Smart people who don't like this, because they feel this trods on some kind of inalienable rights to run unsigned code on bizzaro hardware come up with ways to bypass these protections
An arms race has started. Both sides realize there is no way that the console makers can ever stave off the bypassers forever. But the console makers have a legitimate concern for the protection of their works. So they lobby to have legislation passed to not only digitally protect their work, but legally make it a crime to pick the proverbial lock.
While there are of course *significant* differences between physical and digital goods. This is no diffrent in this respect than the way shoplifting laws evolved.
Shops came. They had goods. They charged for these goods.
Some people tried to get around paying for the goods by sneaking goods out of the store.
Shopkeepers invested in cases and locks to keep goods secure from shoplifters.
Some shoplifters were not deterred. Determined to shoplift, they learned to pick locks, or find other more creative ways to circumvent the protections shopkeepers had implemented to protect their goods.
Eventually, as a society, we decided that just because you *could* bypass the protections, because you are smart / talented / sneaky / whatever; doesn't mean you should have a *right* to. Eventually as society progressed, this is formalized in law.
You can walk into Wal-Mart if you like. Pick the lock on the electronics case, and browse all you like. Don't steal a thing. It's still illegal to bypass this protection, regardless of the fact that you just wanted to read the package.
I Realize the biggest problem is that you purchase the console. So it feels like you should have the right to do whatever you wish to it. Well currently, the law disagrees. And if there was no reason for it to disagree, I'd be 100% behind you. But I see the other side of the argument. And to me, it's more compelling. To tell publishers that they can't do anything, and anything they do will have zero backing from the laws that are supposed to protect their copyright... that strikes me as unrealistic and wrong.
I'd like to see some links in this thread. Someone send me pictures of your backup games. In front of your pile of originals. Like so:
I believe that *someone* out there does this. But I'll be surprised if I get even one response. I really do believe that there's next to nobody that chips their co
While I agree that there should be a debate over the penalties prescribed for these actions, your main point is not what I'd like to address here.
Please stop spreading FUD (knowingly or not).
It is *not* illegal to modify a console.
It is illegal to bypass a digital copyright protection scheme, which is just one specific way (out of limitless ways) of modifying a console.
You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with it. But there is nothing that says you can't solder in a VGA bridge and connector to the back of your Playstation. Nor does the law prohibit you from shoving all your Wii's hardware into 13" portable TV/DVD player combo unit, and adding a battery pack to it. Any mod you can think of is probably legal. So long as it doesn't bypass these protections. They are the *only* element that the law concerns itself with (perhaps there are some electrical safety laws in some locations as well).
You are so wrong, on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin.
For example, if I buy a console, and then write a manual about how to modify that console, then legally that is wrong.
Incorrect. You can modify or repair, or upgrade the system all you like. You can even write a manual instructing others how to do so.
If you want to change the LED colors, knock yourself out. If you'd like to solder in connector on your wii so you can plug a classic NES controller in, there is nothing stopping you. If you'd like to include a beefier (or quieter) cooling fan, go ahead. If you want to cover your case with stickers or add a plexiglass window and internal lighting, who's going to stop you?
The only legally prohibited element is that you can not bypass a digital copy protection scheme. If you want to jailbreak, and let the console run unsigned apps, that's a violation of the DMCA. This of course may varry by locality.
However, if I buy a car, and then write a manual about how to modify that car, then legally that is ok. (For example http://www.haynes.co.uk/ have been doing exactly this for decades).
Also, once again: wrong. Your car analogy falls flat. Yes Chiltons, Haynes, and others provide manuals on how to repair your car. But I've not seen one that instructs you on how to modify it beyond stock. Even though you're wrong here, it's not strictly relevant. If Haynes wanted to publish a "Carbon Fiber Hoods and Bigger Injectors 101" manual, they could, legally. They just don't. They tell you how to conduct routine repairs and maintaince.
However, your car analogy actually fails in another way: There are elements of a car which are illegal to modify too! It is unlawful (again, may vary by jurisdiction) to tamper with an emissions control device. Just because you don't like your catalytic converter, doesn't mean you can legally hollow it out, or remove it.
I'll give you that your next comment isn't so much wrong so much as it is something I simply have to disagree with.
The closed nature of consoles prevents other smaller companies growing to support 3rd party products without the expressed legal permission of the console makers. They therefore control the market and the government helps them. So much for Capitalism's concept of goods traded in a free market when that market is closed off to all but the console makers and anyone forced to pay console makers effectively protection money, preventing the console makers taking legal action against them for violating access to their turf.
Also, I'm not going to loose any sleep that consoles are closed systems. The free market doesn't prevent a console maker from releasing a system that's open. But there hasn't been a successful one since Atari's heyday. And that nearly brought the industry down. There have been other smaller players to come along since then, but none have had much success. There's your free market.
Also, nobody was ever stopped from developing a game for PCs. Generally if your idea is good enough to get traction in that free market, you can find a publisher, (or a publisher will find you) to get your game onto a console. It happens all the time.
Since we're in the mood for terrible analogies, this is like being an indie film maker, and complaining that your local Sony Zillionplex won't play the movie you made with your friends last summer. You can burn it to DVD, and sell it on the street corner. You just can't show it in the theater, because that's more or less a closed system, where the man wants to keep you down. Maybe if you're lucky, a major distributor will notice you and pick it up.
And yet the timeline given by Mr. Miyamoto is... unlikely, given events in the games.
I'm fairly sure that Nintendo never gave it any real thought. And when Miyamoto was asked about it in an interview, he felt put on the spot and basically winged it. "Sure there's a timeline! It's up... uh... well..."
This page lists some of the problems with Miyamoto's order.
Armada was an interesting experiment (as was Academy) but I was fondest of 1, The Secret Missions, 3 and 4. Prophecy upped the gameplay a LOT but it really dropped the ball on the interactive story side.
I played Descent Freespace briefly at a friend's house a few years back. It struck me as a (wonderful) rip-off of Wing Commander's gameplay style. Right down to the brilliant / funky 3D radar.
I feel almost like the Wing Commander Movie killed the Wing Commander series. That, and EA loves to buy up wonderful, storied brands like Origin and then destroy them. Wonderful company, EA.
Despite a growing interest in piecing one together by it's fanbase; Zelda has no definitive timeline.
Nearly each iteration of the series is a reboot.
Zelda 2 was a sequel to Zelda 1. Majora's Mask was a sequel to Ocarina of Time. And I suspect that the DS games I haven't played are related (Oracle series, Minish Cap series?)
The rest are independent of each other. Hell, the intro to Wind Waker basically spells that out.
We're talking about a series of like 12 or 13 games, where only 3 or 4 are direct sequels, and none of the series has 3 in the same series.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the helmets are designed primarily to be bullet resistant. One of the features it has that makes it bullet resistant is that the helmet doesn't sit on your head, it sits on a web suspension, and the helmet itself surrounds your head by about 1.3cm. That gap helps prevent rounds from penetrating the helmet.
What the study is saying is that the same gap, put there on purpose because it's beneficial against bullets and shrapnel, allows the shockwave blast from an explosion to be more effective against the skull and brain than helmets without the gap.
So now the next generation of helmets will likely try to find a happy balance between the gap, and perhaps some kind of foam solution as the article discusses. It's just more data to further refine designs with for the next generation of this particular technology.
Unlikely. I have no idea if it's a real disease or not, or a popular misdiagnosis for a lot of other unrelated things. However, a great number of Gulf War Syndrome cases are with personnel who were not exposed to combat. Airmen on airbases, logistics folks, troops who never saw any real resistance in action, etc., etc.
In other words, not a lot of soldiers were exposed to explosions at close range, and a great many more folks than that tiny cross section reported GWS.
If it's real, it would have to be caused by something either pathogenic (unlikely, given that it seems the disease was not brought back home and spread to others) or environmental.
Environmental causes seem more likely because of the sheer number of possible candidates.
All of these are suspect. There are studies saying yes, and no to most, if not all of these possible sources. Compound that with the real probability, that even if it's real, a great number of cases are probably folks who are scared and have some other disorder, who have convinced themselves otherwise, on top of the unscrupulous folks who are trying to turn this into a personal payday... we may never know if it's real, let alone what causes it if it is.
Great source you linked to, very thorough in it's data. It's layout and readability leave much to be desired, however.
Unfortunately, despite that, you're still wrong. It *is* remotely true, though not for the reasons stated. The data you linked to even correlates with what I'm about to explain.
Air-to-air rules of engagement during the Gulf War required two separate means of identifying an aircraft as hostile. These means could be different IFF systems, visual, or anything. so long as they were separate.
Now the ROE didn't require visual contact per se, as has been stated. However if you go over that list, you will note that all BVR kills, except for one BVR kill by an F-16 on 17 January 1993 (two years after the end of the Gulf War) were by F-15s.
The F-15 was the only fighter in the coalition forces at the time of the war that was equipped with two separate electronic means of identifying an enemy aircraft.
So in effect, the ROE for everything else was "double check visually". F-15s had a secondary system they could use. The U.S. Navy was not happy about this, and complained loudly at the time that it was why the Air Force racked up the lion's share of the kills.
I don't have them with me to check now, but I'm 99% sure that these ROE are explained in one of two excellent books regarding the Gulf War either Every Man A Tiger by Tom Clancy and General Chuck Horner, (Schwarzkopf's deputy who commanded the Gulf Air War), or Prodigal Soldiers by James Kitfield.
Both are good reads regardless of where the info is from. Particularly Every Man A Tiger as it's much more air component and Gulf War-centric. Kitfield's book kind of examines how we went from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf, and how much impact Vietnam had on how we fought the Gulf War. I believe it goes fairly deep into ROE, but it's been years since I've read it.
I just did some Googling, and found some confirmation here as well. Scroll down to, or ctrl+f for "Beyond Visual Range (BVR) Rules of Engagement (ROE)". It's explained there.
I'm getting besides the point though. The AC's point may be technically wrong, but in practice, it's nearly true. We've only been in *one* modern air war since 1980. The Gulf War. And during that war, all but one aircraft were required to visually ID an enemy aircraft before firing. So he or she is correct with one big exception.
The harrier is a different beast entirely, and is not the type of vectored thrust I was discussing. STOL / VTOL thrust vectoring is more about generating lift and supporting a completely different flight mode than it is about ACM.
The type of vectored thrust that the F-22 and other "fifth generation" Air Superiority / Air Supremacy fighters employ is designed to translate forward thrust yawing or rolling thrust relative to the center of gravity of the aircraft.
The Harrier is an impressive machine. It's a tribute to both Hawker and Bristol (who designed the Pegasus power plant). But it doesn't have much relevance here. In practice, it has more in common with the V-22 Osprey. Mechanically, the only thing they have in common is that both are jet engine based systems.
Yes, the Harrier can pull a few neat tricks in an air-to-air engagement. But that's not what it was built for, and it's not really what it's good at.
I recall exercises that were done when AH-1 Cobras were still in service. They would play wargames against aggressor units that included F-4s. The results were what you would expect. Until they would run engagements where the Cobras were able to use the landscape to their advantage, and the F-4s were forced under a certain ceiling. Then occasional the Cobras would score some kills on the F-4s.
The problem with that is you'd have to be retarded to put yourself in that position in the real world as an F-4 pilot. Likewise with Harrier vs. virtually anything.
You have a poor understanding of the systems.
Datalink is capable of two way communication, yes. But that is by no means it's main strength. It's main strength lies in it's ability to work with other aircraft, while one or more aircraft cruise undetected at a higher "stealthiness" level. They can get their data from other F22s, AWACS, ground stations, or other aircraft with similar systems once they come online.
So picture a CAP flight of four F-22s. Two are flying forward, with a 5-10 Nautical mile separation from the trailing pair of aircraft.
The lead planes are radio silent, they are on passive sensors only, and all the other features that make an F-22 as stealthy as possible are in use.
Meanwhile the two trailing aircraft are lit up like Christmas trees. Active radar, data link, talking to each other, talking to AWACS, ect, etc, etc.
The "stealthed" planes aren't blind. They have a composite of their passive sensors, the uplink from both of their flight mates, AWACS, and possibly dozens of data points. They don't *need* radar, they can see just as well without it, through the (for them) passive data link.
The flight sees a flight of four unfriendlys off somewhere and vectors to engage. The unfriendlys see this, and figuring they have numerical advantage turn to engage.
Meanwhile, the two aircraft they do see are cruising toward them nice and slow at say, 400 knots or so, while the two stealthy aircraft have gone supersonic. They're in weapons range before the enemy aircraft even know they exist. With a little luck, they're out of the sky before with know they exist too.
This is just one very simple, basic tactic that uses this concept. There are many more tactics you can build on this new technology.
As it comes into it's own, Air Forces will adapt, and come to expect these tactics, and they will have to evolve further. But it's still an edge.
To answer your point about the MiG-31: Data links have existed in American inventories for years as well. The F-22s use a new standard called Link 22, which replaces a roughly 10 year old standard called Link 16. Link 4 was introduced in the 1950s... But they've never been this mature, nor well integrated, or "smart". I don't know much about Russian MiG-31 data systems, but I believe you may be referring to the MiG-31BM variant. It's only about 10 years old, and exists in very few numbers. It's possible the Russians have had data link capability longer than that, but again, the existing of data links themselves are not what people who understand this plane are excited about.
Even so, the West has trailed behind the Soviets / Russians in other ways in the past. The passive sensor suites on the MiG 29 for example shocked western analysts when we finally got our hands on them. They weren't out of our capability to produce, but they far outstripped anything we had deployed. Vectored thrust is another area they've lead. The F-22 is the first serious production attempt at vectored thrust by the U.S., where the Russians have had several aircraft in production for years that utilize it.
All this is besides the point though. Data link is nice. Stealth is really nice. Having both in a well integrated package along with well trained pilots who understand how it works, who can coordinate attacks together to exploit it's advantages? That's a potential game changer.
I see your point, but I am disappointed none the less.
Brood Wars was not the same thing.
Starcraft was three campaigns with three playable races. There was a sense of completion at the end, as you had a chance to play a full fledged campaign with every race you encountered.
Brood Wars was just more of the same, continuing the story, shorter campaigns, because it was just "extra" content, and new units and some tweaked play mechanics.
What they are doing with Starcraft 2 doesn't seem the same. It seems less like adding more on to a complete product, and more like taking a complete product and breaking it up into three separate pieces and trying to sell it as more value.
As I've said before. I'll be the first sucker in line. I don't play a lot of single player games through multiple times, but Starcraft is up there for me with Zelda, Mario 3, and Half-Life. Every couple years I dust it off and play it again. I adore Starcraft single player. But the loss of the other two races from day 1 is going to drive me nuts.
This is also an issue of modernization, industrialization, and establishment of reliable, fast supply lines.
People often talk about tools, and how they used to last a lifetime, or plows, or whatever. But when that was the case, you didn't have a Sears and a Wal*Mart and a Pep Boys and a hundred other stores within 30 minutes travel time who carry tools. Go back a hundred years. You're a farmer in rural Virginia somewhere... you need tools to do your job day in and day out... there is Sears catalog, maybe, or you can trek a full day or three into the nearest town's where the general store may have what you need. If something broke then, it was a much bigger deal than it is today!
I'm not saying that this disposable mentality is a good thing by any means. But I do think it's a natural consequence of supply lines improving along with industrialization. Not to mention the fact that the savings of making something on an assembly line more cheaply can be much greater than the savings of making something by hand more cheaply.
Your music listening ability is staggering.
Let's assume, exceptionally high quality bitrate files... So an average of 10MB each. And let's assume that each song is short at that size as well, so around 3 minutes in length on average...
40 GB = 40,000 MB
40,000 MB / 10 MB each = 4000 songs.
4000 songs * 3 minute each = 12000 minutes.
12000 minutes = 200 hours.
200 hours = 8.333 days (nonstop).
All in one week, eh?
Keep in mind that a 320kbps CBR MP3 will eat up about 2.2MB per minute, meaning that a 3 Minute MP3 at that bitrate would be only 6.6MB... So the 10 we used in this example is quite... liberal. And of course, rounding errors for using HDD manufacturer's definition of "GB". Also, unless you listen to some very specific genres of music, 3 minutes is not overly long for an average song length.
All that aside, if you like to have a ridiculous amount of music on you at all times, just say so. But for some reason it irritates me when people insist they listen to impossible amounts of music on a regular basis, so flash based players are inadequate.
I can see the qualitative argument for carrying a separate digital camera. Phone cameras run the gambit from "what is that supposed to be a photo of?" to "It's okay, but I wouldn't frame it, and I payed a fortune for this phone". But digital audio playback is great even on some cheap phones. Higher end smart phones are as well. Add that the fact that flash memory is cheap and abundant, and I don't see a reason to purchase a separate MP3 player unless the size of your phone, or battery life are issues.
Although the SNES2 (or Junior, or whatever) very clearly is aesthetically inspired by the Super Famicom, and not by the North American "Betty Crocker" design of the SNES - It was the SNES2, and it was indeed released in North America.
Nintendo probably didn't see a need to re-redesign the Japanese re-design of the Super Famicom at the very end of the SNES' lifespan.
Though looking closer at the image they used, yeah, that clearly is the Japanese Super Famicom version of the re-design.
But as you can see, other than a slight shade difference on the buttons, and the logo text on the console itself, there's no difference aesthetically. Here's the North American SNES2 for comparison.
Blizzard effectively has only three franchises. (Lost Vikings, and other older franchises seem long since abandoned).
Warcraft: which has morphed completly into WoW in much the same way that Apple Computer morphed into "The iPod Company".
Diablo: which will soon be getting a sequel. It looks like a great modern refresh, but not much more than that. Evolutionary, but solidly rooted in the past.
Starcraft: Also with a highly anticipated sequel on the way, which again seems more evolutionary than revolutionary.
I'm not saying that more of a good thing can't be a good thing. It's been a decade since we had a Starcraft release. It's not exactly a done-to-death franchise...
But at the same time, I want to know what else Blizzard has in it. Do you have any plans to visit new worlds, new stories, or new kinds of gameplay?
The project I was looking forward to myself the most was Starcraft: Ghost. Then as time went on, it seemed to progress from a StarCraft universe centered tactical rouge-like shooter/stealth game into some kind of online multiplayer, take the focus off of storyline atrocity... I understand why it was canceled.
But that kind of new direction, even with existing IP is what some of us get excited about.
What do you plan on doing that's new? Not just a refreshed version of what you've already done? I don't mean this as a slight. I recognize the quality and workmanship that goes into all of your games, even the ones I don't personally care for. I'll even be first in line to pick up (all three editions of) StarCraft 2. I'd just really love to see what can happen when you take the company's considerable talent in new directions again. Particularly with a game with a rich single-player experience.
That doesn't account for younger generations taking up gaming.
It also doesn't account for the fact that it it likely that through any adult generation, the gaming population is falling, not rising, as we have less leisure time. Work, school, kids, relationships... I know of a lot of folks who simply don't game any more because of their lives have changed since they were younger. I suppose that it's likely that gaming populations are rising for those above or near retirement age. But I would imaging this rate to be trivial, and only to be rising because it has nowhere to go but up.
Now compound that with the fact that the population is growing. Each younger generation is larger than the older generations before it. That means that on top of the 5-14 year old generation having a higher percentage of gamers than the 15-24 year old generation, they also have a higher population. Further pushing the average age downward.
This is why I find it hard to believe that the average gamer's age isn't in the 20s somewhere. I don't deny that it's possible, but I'd like to see some real data.
Searching google, I keep coming across this "Fact sheet" by the Entertainment Software Association. It cites no sources, nor does it mention survey methodology. It's further suspect, because it's an industry trade agency. It can be argued that Electronic Gaming as an industry wishes to shed it's image as something just the young do. If it's true, then older people represent an untapped demographic, and shedding that image can go toward correcting it. There is also a more detailed version here (PDF). This version does mention:
But still no definitions.
A British group also did a survey. Unfortunately, again, no methodology data. Their numbers are quite different too.
I'd love to see some numbers where the questions asked and survey methodology are shown. Especially for a poll that so many have parroted for so long.
That's not the same thing at all. It just proves the old adage "A witty saying proves nothing".
The perfect example is Halo, since it's more popular on the X-Box, and the X-box controller is usable on the PC, where there is also a port.
A lot of players are really, really good with the X-Box controller. My ex girlfriend worked with one of these players who would decimate both of us whenever we went over to play him on the his X-box. He'd also be at the top of the ladder in online torments, etc.
So I proposed an experiment. He'd come over and play a game at our place. One of us would play one one of our PCs with keyboard and mouse, and he would play on the other with an X-Box 360 controller plugged in. He could map the controls however he liked.
He was unable to win a match, ever.
The controller is simply an inferior tool for the particular job of controlling a FPS. It works okay when your opponents are similarly handicapped. But against a superior control scheme against a competent opponent (even a less skilled, but still competent opponent), you have very little chance, beyond the occasional lucky shot. Occasional lucky shots don't happen enough to win matches.
The Wii makes for some fun Light-gun style shooters. But the control scheme... well I just don't see how you could move more efficiently than a keyboard / mouse setup. Circle strafing, yaw... they would be sloppy and slow. No way you would be competitive. I'll admit this is less clear-cut than a controller though.
We keep hearing about how the average age of a gamer is around 30. It's surprising, but I can deal with that. Not unreasonable. Now 35? That's a little tougher to swallow, and a cursory look at the article shows why.
(Emphasis mine).
The study excluded kids. It's just adult gamers.
Still it's a little tough to believe that the average age is 35 unless there were few members of the study outside their 30s, or their definition of "gamer" is quite loose. They may consider going to Atlantic City and playing video poker a "gamer", but just because someone Skis once a year or so, are they a Skier? I know we want to count casual gamers, but we still need to exclude "irregular" gamers for the purposes of studies like this, or the findings are quite meaningless.
What do you mean, "back when"?
I think the original BSG stunk, but in it's defense, comparing the effects to those of feature films with budgets beyond what a single season of the series had isn't exactly fair.
The technology wasn't there in those days, so achieving what Kuberick did with 2001, and Lucas did with Star Wars took time and lots of tedious, detailed hard work. The production schedule and demands of a (weekly?) television series probably just didn't leave room for those effects even if they had the budget for it.
That said, I don't think the show was won any awards for it's effects either.
Wrong. There are no establishing shots with recognizable land masses in the episodes that they spend on nuked Earth.
They even show it from space, when the ships descend through the atmosphere, but you can't make out anything through the clouds.
We know that Starbuck died there, or that at least her viper and body wound up there. We know that the 13th tribe lived there.
We don't know that it is "our Earth".
The only establishing shots of earth with visible geography are in:
"Crossroads, Part II"
Starbuck: "I've been to Earth, Lee. And I'm going to take us there..."
Camera zooms out to fleet, to solar system, to entire galaxy, then zooms in to a close up on Earth, with the Americas clearly visible.
and "Daybreak, Part II", after the battle at the Cylon Colony.
After The Galactica jumps away, and finds that she's crippled and will never jump again, there is a shot of the Earth rising over it's moon. Africa and the Arabian peninsula are clearly visible.
In "Crossroads, Part II", they imply that Starbuck had been to "our earth". But they never back that up.
Further, the shot of "Our Earth" in "Daybreak, Part II" makes it very unlikely (and stupid) that the "other Earth" would be the one shown in "Crossroads, Part II", because that would mean that both Earths would have to be twins with identical geographies.
The most reasonable conclusion is that 13th Tribe Earth was a completely different planet with completely different geography, but that they didn't *show* that, because it would have given away the reveal at the end of the Series when they find "Our Earth". The only thing they have in common is what Adama and Roslyn talk about in the finale: Earth is an idea. Humanity has earned it, and so they'll call this planet "Earth" too.
You are right about making it up as they went along. But then never denied that.
But I believe they knew where they were going with the finale by the time that "Crossroads" was written (or at least produced), because that explains why they went out of their way not to show enough of the planet to tell if it's "Our Earth" or not.
They made it up as they went along season by season, not episode by episode (for the major points).
And EFS before that (in XP, and I believe 2000). Seriously, this is not a new thing. I completely agree with you. I'll go out on a limb and call Windows "common".
What the author fails to mention, is that the application not only has to be very common, but it has to leave no obvious trace of encryption. It would be trivial to write a batch file, or application that lives on a flash drive, and you plug into a notebook, when then interrogates the notebook, and says, "hey, have any BitLocker / EFS stuff?" and then the OS gives it up. The hooks are there FOR that purpose, right in the OS, right next to the ones that say "show me all shared files" and "show me all files named 'bob*.*'"
Instead, the author really wants something common, but with Trojan Horse functionality. Like if Photoshop had a built-in function to store a tiny bit of data in each and every jpg on a hard drive, evenly distributed among all of them. Then it becomes a question of "our scans detected encrypted data. Please decrypt it so we can check it out".
Hell, Winzip, 7zip, and WinRAR are very common too. They all support (admittedly weak) encryption. but they also fail the first test. The presence of the files is easy enough for any smart app to find, and determine the encrypted nature of.
Apple isn't stopping you from going swimming with your ipod, or driving over your macbook with a truck.
They're just telling you that they won't honor a warranty claim if they detect that these things have happened. Which is reasonable.
Apple isn't even alone here. Sony, Microsoft, Creative, Toshiba, Dell, Panasonic, etc, etc. Show me a major electronics manufacturer who doesn't have a similar policy in place for their warranties.
The only "news" here is that Apple is being proactive in trying to detect these kinds of abuses. Again, they won't stop you from using the device out of spec, but if it fails from that, they've recorded the out of spec condition, and will absolve themselves of responsibility for the product's warranty.
Continue to use your stuff how you please. Apple won't stop you. Nobody cares.
It would be more entertaining! Especially if he followed the advice, and there was some way to witness it being carried out.
No, please explain to me how preventing someone from playing "BACKUP games (and pirated games as a side effect)" is "evil". I really don't see the connection.
It may be disappointing. I may not like it. But murder is evil. Denying people their basic human rights is evil. Torture is evil.
It is hard for me to swallow that a law that prevents you from circumventing a digital copy protection scheme is "evil".
Perhaps I misunderstand the word evil? I don't believe I've ever actually looked up it's definition.
Unless you're talking about Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, or the like; "evil" is a word best reserved for use by comic books and George W. Bush.
Let me paint you a picture of how the DMCA might not only be "un-evil" but perhaps justified:
So, they publish these works. Unscrupulous people pirate them.
While there are of course *significant* differences between physical and digital goods. This is no diffrent in this respect than the way shoplifting laws evolved.
You can walk into Wal-Mart if you like. Pick the lock on the electronics case, and browse all you like. Don't steal a thing. It's still illegal to bypass this protection, regardless of the fact that you just wanted to read the package.
I Realize the biggest problem is that you purchase the console. So it feels like you should have the right to do whatever you wish to it. Well currently, the law disagrees. And if there was no reason for it to disagree, I'd be 100% behind you. But I see the other side of the argument. And to me, it's more compelling. To tell publishers that they can't do anything, and anything they do will have zero backing from the laws that are supposed to protect their copyright... that strikes me as unrealistic and wrong.
I'd like to see some links in this thread. Someone send me pictures of your backup games. In front of your pile of originals. Like so:
http://pyromosh.org/images/misc/show_me_the_backups.jpg
I believe that *someone* out there does this. But I'll be surprised if I get even one response. I really do believe that there's next to nobody that chips their co
While I agree that there should be a debate over the penalties prescribed for these actions, your main point is not what I'd like to address here.
Please stop spreading FUD (knowingly or not).
It is *not* illegal to modify a console.
It is illegal to bypass a digital copyright protection scheme, which is just one specific way (out of limitless ways) of modifying a console.
You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with it. But there is nothing that says you can't solder in a VGA bridge and connector to the back of your Playstation. Nor does the law prohibit you from shoving all your Wii's hardware into 13" portable TV/DVD player combo unit, and adding a battery pack to it. Any mod you can think of is probably legal. So long as it doesn't bypass these protections. They are the *only* element that the law concerns itself with (perhaps there are some electrical safety laws in some locations as well).
You are so wrong, on so many levels, it's hard to know where to begin.
Incorrect. You can modify or repair, or upgrade the system all you like. You can even write a manual instructing others how to do so.
If you want to change the LED colors, knock yourself out. If you'd like to solder in connector on your wii so you can plug a classic NES controller in, there is nothing stopping you. If you'd like to include a beefier (or quieter) cooling fan, go ahead. If you want to cover your case with stickers or add a plexiglass window and internal lighting, who's going to stop you?
The only legally prohibited element is that you can not bypass a digital copy protection scheme. If you want to jailbreak, and let the console run unsigned apps, that's a violation of the DMCA. This of course may varry by locality.
Also, once again: wrong. Your car analogy falls flat. Yes Chiltons, Haynes, and others provide manuals on how to repair your car. But I've not seen one that instructs you on how to modify it beyond stock. Even though you're wrong here, it's not strictly relevant. If Haynes wanted to publish a "Carbon Fiber Hoods and Bigger Injectors 101" manual, they could, legally. They just don't. They tell you how to conduct routine repairs and maintaince.
However, your car analogy actually fails in another way: There are elements of a car which are illegal to modify too! It is unlawful (again, may vary by jurisdiction) to tamper with an emissions control device. Just because you don't like your catalytic converter, doesn't mean you can legally hollow it out, or remove it.
I'll give you that your next comment isn't so much wrong so much as it is something I simply have to disagree with.
Also, I'm not going to loose any sleep that consoles are closed systems. The free market doesn't prevent a console maker from releasing a system that's open. But there hasn't been a successful one since Atari's heyday. And that nearly brought the industry down. There have been other smaller players to come along since then, but none have had much success. There's your free market.
Also, nobody was ever stopped from developing a game for PCs. Generally if your idea is good enough to get traction in that free market, you can find a publisher, (or a publisher will find you) to get your game onto a console. It happens all the time.
Since we're in the mood for terrible analogies, this is like being an indie film maker, and complaining that your local Sony Zillionplex won't play the movie you made with your friends last summer. You can burn it to DVD, and sell it on the street corner. You just can't show it in the theater, because that's more or less a closed system, where the man wants to keep you down. Maybe if you're lucky, a major distributor will notice you and pick it up.
And yet the timeline given by Mr. Miyamoto is... unlikely, given events in the games.
I'm fairly sure that Nintendo never gave it any real thought. And when Miyamoto was asked about it in an interview, he felt put on the spot and basically winged it. "Sure there's a timeline! It's up... uh... well..."
This page lists some of the problems with Miyamoto's order.
Enthusiastically seconded!
Armada was an interesting experiment (as was Academy) but I was fondest of 1, The Secret Missions, 3 and 4. Prophecy upped the gameplay a LOT but it really dropped the ball on the interactive story side.
I played Descent Freespace briefly at a friend's house a few years back. It struck me as a (wonderful) rip-off of Wing Commander's gameplay style. Right down to the brilliant / funky 3D radar.
I feel almost like the Wing Commander Movie killed the Wing Commander series. That, and EA loves to buy up wonderful, storied brands like Origin and then destroy them. Wonderful company, EA.
Despite a growing interest in piecing one together by it's fanbase; Zelda has no definitive timeline.
Nearly each iteration of the series is a reboot.
Zelda 2 was a sequel to Zelda 1. Majora's Mask was a sequel to Ocarina of Time. And I suspect that the DS games I haven't played are related (Oracle series, Minish Cap series?)
The rest are independent of each other. Hell, the intro to Wind Waker basically spells that out.
We're talking about a series of like 12 or 13 games, where only 3 or 4 are direct sequels, and none of the series has 3 in the same series.