You should have taken the LOTR uncut plus extras on one disk to it's logical conclusion. Specifically, you can cram a lot more of the same quality on one disk. Say, an entire season - or even run - of DVD quality television, encoded at high bitrate, without having to sacrifice any "extras" like alternate audio tracks. Plus extras galore. (and the disks we have now could stand to support much broader data and functionality, but that's another story).
It's not even that novel an idea
on
Virtual Girlfriend
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
The Japanese have been pumping out dating sims for years now. Very few of them have moved outside of Japan though, and the few that have are usually hentai.
When I pondered the nature of this phenomena I could draw only one conclusion - they're much like flight sims in the sense that you could theoretically apply the skills you've built there to real life. Remember key facts about her. Give gifts. Manage your time so you can work to earn money to buy said gifts while still maintaining a relationship. Say the right things. Do everything right on a date. Climb the relationship ladder so she'll put out.
Of course the details vary by game and all of them have a distinctly Japanese sense of relationships, which is why you see so few outside of Japan. And it doesn't have anything like the nuance of real relationships - it practically trains you not to do or expect anything unique either. And when it comes to the hentai, the "lessons learned" are frequently worthless and often morally repugnant, but nevertheless fit into some twisted perception of dating.
So, this expensive mobile realtime version of a dating sim is just an evolution of the concept. Albeit a rather expensive one. Frankly, it doesn't seem like it needs to be online. And the fact that all "girlfriends" look alike reeks of encouraging either mental or programming laziness. It must have some other special realtime hooks, like an advanced voice synthesis and interpretation engine, or an extensive and up-to-date library of keywords and responses.
when prices go back to $ 0.99 each I doubt that most people will stay with Real
But by then they'll be locked in to their drm system, unless they can find a way to move that music to another one. Of course this is true of ITMS as well, but at least they have the virtue of having the best interface with the widest selection.
There are two answers as to why Apple should be upset. The first is the long boring one about how Apple is maneuvering for a central position in online distibution of media of all kinds, which has been explored in some depth.
The second explanation (which should not be dismissed lightly) is that Real has been marketing crappy obnoxious invasive software for years, and their mac versions were doubly crappy and obnoxious, not to mention rarely being up-to-date. Despite these fundamental flaws their early lead in streaming video and audio entrenched them in the marketplace. Now that they are losing their advantage and dying as they should have long ago, they have decided to latch their crappy obnoxious invasive software and systems onto Apple's golden boy - the iPod - , whilst bad-mouthing Apple and the iTMS itself. Mac users have every reason to be pissed off. If you're wondering why you're seeing so much vitriol from the Apple rank-and-file, this is why.
...Therefore I wouldn't expect to see the middle finger much, but I would expect to see all the standard manga/anime visual icons. There's a good list of them here, along with all the appropriate emoticons, although they left out a bunch of other less common stuff (bloody nose for sexual overstimulation, snot bubble for sleeping, escaping spirit for half dead, completely white from shock, puking looks kind of like a waterfall), and certain mouth patterns (aggressive fangs).
In particular, expect to see sweat drops, popping veins, and funny eyes. ^_^;
The touchpad wheel was a 2nd generation iPod thing. The 1st generation used a mechanical scrollwheel, which gave very pleasing feedback. That was the thing I didn't like about 3rd Gen: no feedback on wheel or buttons. OTOH, the non-mechanical one is almost certainly more durable.
However a mechanical wheel would be incompatible with the current click-wheel, which is the first really novel interface I've seen in a while.
His ass was on the line, of course he was very interested. Can you imagine what could have happened if the iPod had a crappy interface or really bad battery life? It would never have gotten off the ground. If they could satisfy Steve Jobs they could satisfy anyone that could afford to give it a shot.
What I would have liked to hear about the iPod was how they came up for the idea of the scroll wheel. AFAIK that's Apple's patent, and the defining feature of the iPod's interface that sets it above the competition. The current click-wheel is an even bigger improvement.
Unfortunately, due to the way hard drives are constructed, the major part of the cost is the base cost of the hard drive mechanics. Using multiple platters (the actually disks) for large capacity costs relatively little in comparison; using denser platters raises cost virtually not at all. Thus small hard drives still cost a lot, and larger ones cost only marginally more, and the cost of the cheapest models never really drops even as capacity increases. Likewise, the cost of the rest of the iPod electronics is exactly the same for all same generation models.
I've been waiting for my magic price point, $200, for some time now. I'm probably going to keep waiting.
No, it's not some kind of python coding competition. As it turns out, besides the ancient Olympic games there were three other large competitions: The Pythian Games at Delphi (Apollo); The Isthmian Games (Poisedon); and the Nemean Games (Zeus).
According to my tour guide in Delphi (I was recently there, really a very interesting site) the Pythian games were originally and primarily artistic in nature, with musical, dramatic, and poetic competitions, with athletic competitions added somewhat later. Delphi was the most important religious site in Greece, and Apollo was the god of reason and music, thus the emphasis on these subjects.
So in that respect, I think intellectual and creative competitions should very well be regarded as sports. Perhaps resurrecting the Pythian games (and perhaps the others as well) alongside the Olympics would be a good idea.
On a side note, the winners of the Pythian games were not the ones who excelled in a single subject, they were the people who did well in all subjects. Balance in all things was considered a key virtue by Apollo. It would be nice if that were true today.
I guess they'll just have to make introductory games that fully utilize the hardware and get the fanboys drooling to buy them. Here's some possibilities:
GC2: Yet Another Legend of Zelda: Link saves the girl in an epic adventure of sword swinging and puzzles and quests. Inexplicably, it incorporates an interactive storyline with PG-rated dating simulation. Yet Another Mario - Mario jumps on stuff, whacks his head on bricks, and falls improbably large heights.
XBox2: Halo2 - Online or single player FPS. Scenarios and battles may be played by individuals or teams ranging from squads to armies, with bots filling the gaps and various roles from tactical commander to combat cargo pilot to infantry available. Whole wars are conducted online between hundreds of players. Services of the best players are actively recruited, and are even paid off to throw a battle, leading to the creation of online mercenary armies. Microsoft gets massively bad PR for trying to manipulate game standings and raising prices for the online service. Generic game: It's generic. It's not worth buying. You should be playing Halo instead.
PS2: Grand Theft Auto America: Massively multiplayer thug game. Join a gang and move up the ranks, defend your territory and increase your profits, throughout America and neighboring Canada and Mexico. Takes place in the mid-70's, featuring an absolutely badass classic rock, funk, and disco soundtrack. Meanwhile, politicians have fits, which everyone ignores until society collapses, not because of video-game inspired violence but because everyone's too busy playing it to work. Final Fantasy Orgasm: Gorgeous characters realistically rendered in a huge scripted adventure, from which you cannot deviate. Tits bounce in an exquisitely Japanese fashion, and often.
Do you suppose the console makers will grow a brain and utilize user-configurable USB peripherals? Namely controllers, joysticks, steering wheels, printers, keyboards, headsets, and hard drives? Or is that not part of the sales plan?
Well, taxmen are the same everywhere: if they want to fuck you over they will, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Al Capone was tossed in jail over taxes.
Where could you go? Hmm... I'm hard pressed to think of any non-terrorist countries that are looking to build up their missle capability on the cheap and aren't under the USA's thumb. Nearly all the good candidates are. Pretty much all the former communist countries, but a big chunk of those got absorbed into the EU. They're being integrated economically, not militarily yet, so maybe they do have a market, but OTOH if you're part of the EU that means you weren't involved in any outstanding conflicts and you have very powerful and reliable allies. Turkey buys from the US. Egypt's still too close to the fire. Might be a South American country or two, but that's well within the US's sphere of influence and probably a combat zone. India might be interested, if you can muck your way through the beauracracy. And then there's Russia.
The weak point in the LCCM is that it's guided by GPS, which can be compromised - if they see it coming, which is probably not how the relatively short-range LCCM would be used.
Or you could just dump the whole cruise missle thing and focus on the pulsejet side, which would probably make your life a whole lot easier. I'd say you've proved your point, at least well enough to get a government or two trying to actively shut you down.
I've wondered before - couldn't a pulsejet engine be used as a rocket motor? Say once you get above the point where it can breath air effectively, you start injecting oxygen and you get an unpulsed burn? I realize the shape would have to be heavily redesigned to incorporate an efficient rocket combustion chamber/pulse chamber/nozzle (a variable augmentor perhaps?) and a sturdier design would be necessary. But for sure you could make a hybrid engine that would be lighter and simpler than any other option, if not as powerful or efficient. I suppose in that case you'd want to talk to the experts on rocket engines, the Russians.
This article is complete garbage. Comparing proportions means nothing - particularly since they always add up to 100%! What matters is the actual number of exploits, and how likely they are to occur. The parent is absolutely right.
I mean here we have an entire generation that has been relentlessly consuming expensive games that have long since solidified into predictable formula. Maybe they're just not interested anymore, and are spending their time and money (recession) on other things.
Well, that's just pure speculation, but I can honestly say it's happened to me, at least. I just don't buy games anymore.
Yeah, I don't see anything there that approximates LaunchBar's on-the-fly-abbreviation method for accessing things. Just a souped up search tool. The two functionalities are not the same thing and they're not used in the same way.
The Lowes theater chain has just been acquired by Bain Capital, Spectrum Equity... and the Carlyle Group, which has rather extensive ties to the Bush Family/Administration and the Bin Ladens, and plays a rather prominent role in Farenheit 9/11 if I understand correctly.
I wouldn't take anything the Washington Times says without a a few shakers of salt. The thing that first caught my eye was their obvious right-wing bias; but what really took the cake for me is that the paper is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Au contraire - video games ARE bad. It's just that society has admitted defeat in the fight against them. And compared to the current offerings retro games are tame. Hell, they were downright social - at least you had to get out of the house to go to the arcade!
Floundering most likely. NeXT brought a lot of things, but probably the most meaningful was the ability to tap into the *nix software universe. Lack of apps has always been Apple's Achille's heel.
In your face, Japan! Sure, you may go on and on about origami and robots, but some gaijin in a city you never even heard of beat you to the punch of putting them together in the real world!
Best watch out. I kinda feel like writing an interactive virtual reality edutainment tea ceremony that would put the most refined of geishas to shame.
IMHO - The TPF is one of the most exciting plans in space exploration, ever (right up there with thorough investigations of the chemically interesting planets and moons in our system). It can answer a whole host of questions regarding planetary formation, not the least of which is looking for the presence of life (including non-earth-like life). Even if it doesn't find any indication of it, the data gathered on how and where planets form will substantially flesh out the variables in the Drake equation (specifically the Fp and Ne).
I don't think technology will make that big of difference. There's no substitute for resolution when it comes to optical astronomy - it's all a matter of lenses.
Let it replace all the other electronic devices you have on you. Like:
1) A LED flashlight. So handy, so simple. 2) Built-in usb plug letting it operate as a combination modem and flash drive. Of the generic variety, so you don't need to install special software to use it as such. 3) AM/FM/Weather radio. Keep up with news and sports. 4) Civilian band walkie talkie. Generic analog or smarter digital, with encryption. If it can use bluetooth, it is already capable of using the right frequencies.
Slashdot Mirror
You should have taken the LOTR uncut plus extras on one disk to it's logical conclusion. Specifically, you can cram a lot more of the same quality on one disk. Say, an entire season - or even run - of DVD quality television, encoded at high bitrate, without having to sacrifice any "extras" like alternate audio tracks. Plus extras galore. (and the disks we have now could stand to support much broader data and functionality, but that's another story).
The Japanese have been pumping out dating sims for years now. Very few of them have moved outside of Japan though, and the few that have are usually hentai.
When I pondered the nature of this phenomena I could draw only one conclusion - they're much like flight sims in the sense that you could theoretically apply the skills you've built there to real life. Remember key facts about her. Give gifts. Manage your time so you can work to earn money to buy said gifts while still maintaining a relationship. Say the right things. Do everything right on a date. Climb the relationship ladder so she'll put out.
Of course the details vary by game and all of them have a distinctly Japanese sense of relationships, which is why you see so few outside of Japan. And it doesn't have anything like the nuance of real relationships - it practically trains you not to do or expect anything unique either. And when it comes to the hentai, the "lessons learned" are frequently worthless and often morally repugnant, but nevertheless fit into some twisted perception of dating.
So, this expensive mobile realtime version of a dating sim is just an evolution of the concept. Albeit a rather expensive one. Frankly, it doesn't seem like it needs to be online. And the fact that all "girlfriends" look alike reeks of encouraging either mental or programming laziness. It must have some other special realtime hooks, like an advanced voice synthesis and interpretation engine, or an extensive and up-to-date library of keywords and responses.
when prices go back to $ 0.99 each I doubt that most people will stay with Real
But by then they'll be locked in to their drm system, unless they can find a way to move that music to another one. Of course this is true of ITMS as well, but at least they have the virtue of having the best interface with the widest selection.
There are two answers as to why Apple should be upset. The first is the long boring one about how Apple is maneuvering for a central position in online distibution of media of all kinds, which has been explored in some depth.
The second explanation (which should not be dismissed lightly) is that Real has been marketing crappy obnoxious invasive software for years, and their mac versions were doubly crappy and obnoxious, not to mention rarely being up-to-date. Despite these fundamental flaws their early lead in streaming video and audio entrenched them in the marketplace. Now that they are losing their advantage and dying as they should have long ago, they have decided to latch their crappy obnoxious invasive software and systems onto Apple's golden boy - the iPod - , whilst bad-mouthing Apple and the iTMS itself. Mac users have every reason to be pissed off. If you're wondering why you're seeing so much vitriol from the Apple rank-and-file, this is why.
What a putrid pile of filth. I thought, "Gee, it must be at least unintentionally funny." I was wrong.
Starring Chris Elliot, in case you've never heard of it.
...Therefore I wouldn't expect to see the middle finger much, but I would expect to see all the standard manga/anime visual icons.
There's a good list of them here, along with all the appropriate emoticons, although they left out a bunch of other less common stuff (bloody nose for sexual overstimulation, snot bubble for sleeping, escaping spirit for half dead, completely white from shock, puking looks kind of like a waterfall), and certain mouth patterns (aggressive fangs).
In particular, expect to see sweat drops, popping veins, and funny eyes. ^_^;
The touchpad wheel was a 2nd generation iPod thing. The 1st generation used a mechanical scrollwheel, which gave very pleasing feedback. That was the thing I didn't like about 3rd Gen: no feedback on wheel or buttons. OTOH, the non-mechanical one is almost certainly more durable.
However a mechanical wheel would be incompatible with the current click-wheel, which is the first really novel interface I've seen in a while.
His ass was on the line, of course he was very interested. Can you imagine what could have happened if the iPod had a crappy interface or really bad battery life? It would never have gotten off the ground. If they could satisfy Steve Jobs they could satisfy anyone that could afford to give it a shot.
What I would have liked to hear about the iPod was how they came up for the idea of the scroll wheel. AFAIK that's Apple's patent, and the defining feature of the iPod's interface that sets it above the competition. The current click-wheel is an even bigger improvement.
Unfortunately, due to the way hard drives are constructed, the major part of the cost is the base cost of the hard drive mechanics. Using multiple platters (the actually disks) for large capacity costs relatively little in comparison; using denser platters raises cost virtually not at all. Thus small hard drives still cost a lot, and larger ones cost only marginally more, and the cost of the cheapest models never really drops even as capacity increases. Likewise, the cost of the rest of the iPod electronics is exactly the same for all same generation models.
I've been waiting for my magic price point, $200, for some time now. I'm probably going to keep waiting.
No, it's not some kind of python coding competition. As it turns out, besides the ancient Olympic games there were three other large competitions: The Pythian Games at Delphi (Apollo); The Isthmian Games (Poisedon); and the Nemean Games (Zeus).
According to my tour guide in Delphi (I was recently there, really a very interesting site) the Pythian games were originally and primarily artistic in nature, with musical, dramatic, and poetic competitions, with athletic competitions added somewhat later. Delphi was the most important religious site in Greece, and Apollo was the god of reason and music, thus the emphasis on these subjects.
So in that respect, I think intellectual and creative competitions should very well be regarded as sports. Perhaps resurrecting the Pythian games (and perhaps the others as well) alongside the Olympics would be a good idea.
On a side note, the winners of the Pythian games were not the ones who excelled in a single subject, they were the people who did well in all subjects. Balance in all things was considered a key virtue by Apollo. It would be nice if that were true today.
I guess they'll just have to make introductory games that fully utilize the hardware and get the fanboys drooling to buy them. Here's some possibilities:
GC2:
Yet Another Legend of Zelda: Link saves the girl in an epic adventure of sword swinging and puzzles and quests. Inexplicably, it incorporates an interactive storyline with PG-rated dating simulation.
Yet Another Mario - Mario jumps on stuff, whacks his head on bricks, and falls improbably large heights.
XBox2:
Halo2 - Online or single player FPS. Scenarios and battles may be played by individuals or teams ranging from squads to armies, with bots filling the gaps and various roles from tactical commander to combat cargo pilot to infantry available. Whole wars are conducted online between hundreds of players. Services of the best players are actively recruited, and are even paid off to throw a battle, leading to the creation of online mercenary armies. Microsoft gets massively bad PR for trying to manipulate game standings and raising prices for the online service.
Generic game: It's generic. It's not worth buying. You should be playing Halo instead.
PS2:
Grand Theft Auto America: Massively multiplayer thug game. Join a gang and move up the ranks, defend your territory and increase your profits, throughout America and neighboring Canada and Mexico. Takes place in the mid-70's, featuring an absolutely badass classic rock, funk, and disco soundtrack. Meanwhile, politicians have fits, which everyone ignores until society collapses, not because of video-game inspired violence but because everyone's too busy playing it to work.
Final Fantasy Orgasm: Gorgeous characters realistically rendered in a huge scripted adventure, from which you cannot deviate. Tits bounce in an exquisitely Japanese fashion, and often.
Do you suppose the console makers will grow a brain and utilize user-configurable USB peripherals? Namely controllers, joysticks, steering wheels, printers, keyboards, headsets, and hard drives? Or is that not part of the sales plan?
Well, taxmen are the same everywhere: if they want to fuck you over they will, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Al Capone was tossed in jail over taxes.
Where could you go? Hmm... I'm hard pressed to think of any non-terrorist countries that are looking to build up their missle capability on the cheap and aren't under the USA's thumb. Nearly all the good candidates are. Pretty much all the former communist countries, but a big chunk of those got absorbed into the EU. They're being integrated economically, not militarily yet, so maybe they do have a market, but OTOH if you're part of the EU that means you weren't involved in any outstanding conflicts and you have very powerful and reliable allies. Turkey buys from the US. Egypt's still too close to the fire. Might be a South American country or two, but that's well within the US's sphere of influence and probably a combat zone. India might be interested, if you can muck your way through the beauracracy. And then there's Russia.
The weak point in the LCCM is that it's guided by GPS, which can be compromised - if they see it coming, which is probably not how the relatively short-range LCCM would be used.
Or you could just dump the whole cruise missle thing and focus on the pulsejet side, which would probably make your life a whole lot easier. I'd say you've proved your point, at least well enough to get a government or two trying to actively shut you down.
I've wondered before - couldn't a pulsejet engine be used as a rocket motor? Say once you get above the point where it can breath air effectively, you start injecting oxygen and you get an unpulsed burn? I realize the shape would have to be heavily redesigned to incorporate an efficient rocket combustion chamber/pulse chamber/nozzle (a variable augmentor perhaps?) and a sturdier design would be necessary. But for sure you could make a hybrid engine that would be lighter and simpler than any other option, if not as powerful or efficient. I suppose in that case you'd want to talk to the experts on rocket engines, the Russians.
This article is complete garbage. Comparing proportions means nothing - particularly since they always add up to 100%! What matters is the actual number of exploits, and how likely they are to occur. The parent is absolutely right.
I mean here we have an entire generation that has been relentlessly consuming expensive games that have long since solidified into predictable formula. Maybe they're just not interested anymore, and are spending their time and money (recession) on other things.
Well, that's just pure speculation, but I can honestly say it's happened to me, at least. I just don't buy games anymore.
Yeah, I don't see anything there that approximates LaunchBar's on-the-fly-abbreviation method for accessing things. Just a souped up search tool. The two functionalities are not the same thing and they're not used in the same way.
Because some folks have similar offers.
The Lowes theater chain has just been acquired by Bain Capital, Spectrum Equity... and the Carlyle Group, which has rather extensive ties to the Bush Family/Administration and the Bin Ladens, and plays a rather prominent role in Farenheit 9/11 if I understand correctly.
I wouldn't take anything the Washington Times says without a a few shakers of salt. The thing that first caught my eye was their obvious right-wing bias; but what really took the cake for me is that the paper is owned by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon.
Au contraire - video games ARE bad. It's just that society has admitted defeat in the fight against them. And compared to the current offerings retro games are tame. Hell, they were downright social - at least you had to get out of the house to go to the arcade!
What are you talking about? Us Mac users have had transparent aluminum since System 7.5.
Floundering most likely. NeXT brought a lot of things, but probably the most meaningful was the ability to tap into the *nix software universe. Lack of apps has always been Apple's Achille's heel.
In your face, Japan! Sure, you may go on and on about origami and robots, but some gaijin in a city you never even heard of beat you to the punch of putting them together in the real world!
Best watch out. I kinda feel like writing an interactive virtual reality edutainment tea ceremony that would put the most refined of geishas to shame.
Unfortunately Canadian beer sucks.
IMHO - The TPF is one of the most exciting plans in space exploration, ever (right up there with thorough investigations of the chemically interesting planets and moons in our system). It can answer a whole host of questions regarding planetary formation, not the least of which is looking for the presence of life (including non-earth-like life). Even if it doesn't find any indication of it, the data gathered on how and where planets form will substantially flesh out the variables in the Drake equation (specifically the Fp and Ne).
I don't think technology will make that big of difference. There's no substitute for resolution when it comes to optical astronomy - it's all a matter of lenses.
Let it replace all the other electronic devices you have on you. Like:
1) A LED flashlight. So handy, so simple.
2) Built-in usb plug letting it operate as a combination modem and flash drive. Of the generic variety, so you don't need to install special software to use it as such.
3) AM/FM/Weather radio. Keep up with news and sports.
4) Civilian band walkie talkie. Generic analog or smarter digital, with encryption. If it can use bluetooth, it is already capable of using the right frequencies.
Please add your own ideas...