Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply. (I've never had much money either for that matter, but the main reason I don't buy games now is that I don't run MS Windows.)
Used games are not only good for people who don't have money, but also for the ones who buy a lot of games (usually on the release date), play through them, and then never touch them again. This is of course highly dependent on the game. Some games just lose their appeal once you've defeated the final stage (or whatever). It happens to me a lot, so I decided to sell them again, preferring a couple of bucks in my hand (to buy beer, for instance) instead of a gazillion of games gathering dust somewhere in a drawer.
You are absolutely right to question the semantics of this conflict. Without truly indepdendent media coverage we have no way of knowing exactly what happened in these last days.
The consensus in my country is that it was a Georgian aggression, with an albeit disproportionate reaction by Russia.
From reading previous (modded up) posts I am getting the impression that most Americans are all to eager to step back into the cold war and blame Russia.
I mean seriously, the Georgian president talking about a Russian aggression (standing in front of an EU flag, no less) and asking the West (hey, wake up, Russia is the West!) to help, don't make me laugh....
I never got around to finishing my bachelor's because, frankly, I was too busy working. Now I'm doing it. And once that's done, I'm going to law school. Once I have a few years of experience with the law, I'm running for office, and I'm going to do everything I can to fix what's wrong with our government.
Many politicians start off with the same idealism like you are describing. Chances are that when you reach your goal, you will have been robbed of it. It's naive to think that you can stay true to your ideas and still become successful (i.e. appear appealing to as many voters as possible).
Excellent post. You put in to words what has been in my own and most of my friends' (who also happen to be software engineers) minds.
Although in retrospective I don't think I would have chosen a different subject - Computer Science can be exciting and extremely fulfilling, but right now, for most of us, it just isn't. Raising the salary might help, but it's really the point you made about being part of a "glorified assembly line" that struck home. Sometimes it seems like it's all about cost efficiency (never mind the quality) and appearing well on some visio chart drawn by a guy who doesn't have a clue about technology, and is being paid three times what you make.
It is up to us to change these conditions. Can they be changed?
I live in Switzerland, and I ordered an Ipod mini about three months ago. Due to a shortage, however, I waited for two months, and nothing happened. Then I decided I don't want to wait forever, so I'll go with a 4th generation Ipod with clickwheel. Ordered that one instead. After another month of waiting, I gave up completely. Stores all over Europe are complaining about massive shortage of Ipods. The only model they occasionaly have in stock here is the pink Ipod mini.
And now the talk of a new super-cool model! Come on Apple, first things first!
From the article: Five years ago, the Quebec-born Patry became the Starcraft world champion and was offered a job as a professional game player in South Korea, initially making about $100,000 a year.
His annual salary is now estimated at about $500,000 and, as the star of a Korean Starcraft TV program, he needs bodyguards to protect him from his fans.
Thanks, that made me feel really bad about my job.
I wonder if it would be possible to somehow locate those winning cans with sensor equipment. Are those GPS units entirely passive? You know, kind of like Fry and Bender using Professor Farnsworth's X-Ray thingy to spot the winning can of Slurm. Oh well, too much TV I guess;-)
I had problems viewing the 19MB Quicktime (SVQ3) File with mplayer, and no, it wasn't the corrupted version posted early on TORN and seeded via bittorrent.
Anyway, a colleague converted it to DivX, for your viewing pleasure...
You could probably use error-correcting codes (on the software level) or other means to increase redundancy and minimise the probability of an error. I mean if this was really an issue, they would have thought of it before starting a multi-million dollar project.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyway, why is the used market so good? For people who don't have any money, the used market allows them to get good games cheaply. (I've never had much money either for that matter, but the main reason I don't buy games now is that I don't run MS Windows.)
Used games are not only good for people who don't have money, but also for the ones who buy a lot of games (usually on the release date), play through them, and then never touch them again. This is of course highly dependent on the game. Some games just lose their appeal once you've defeated the final stage (or whatever). It happens to me a lot, so I decided to sell them again, preferring a couple of bucks in my hand (to buy beer, for instance) instead of a gazillion of games gathering dust somewhere in a drawer.
You are absolutely right to question the semantics of this conflict. Without truly indepdendent media coverage we have no way of knowing exactly what happened in these last days.
The consensus in my country is that it was a Georgian aggression, with an albeit disproportionate reaction by Russia.
From reading previous (modded up) posts I am getting the impression that most Americans are all to eager to step back into the cold war and blame Russia.
I mean seriously, the Georgian president talking about a Russian aggression (standing in front of an EU flag, no less) and asking the West (hey, wake up, Russia is the West!) to help, don't make me laugh....
I never got around to finishing my bachelor's because, frankly, I was too busy working. Now I'm doing it. And once that's done, I'm going to law school. Once I have a few years of experience with the law, I'm running for office, and I'm going to do everything I can to fix what's wrong with our government.
Many politicians start off with the same idealism like you are describing. Chances are that when you reach your goal, you will have been robbed of it. It's naive to think that you can stay true to your ideas and still become successful (i.e. appear appealing to as many voters as possible).
Excellent post. You put in to words what has been in my own and most of my friends' (who also happen to be software engineers) minds.
Although in retrospective I don't think I would have chosen a different subject - Computer Science can be exciting and extremely fulfilling, but right now, for most of us, it just isn't. Raising the salary might help, but it's really the point you made about being part of a "glorified assembly line" that struck home. Sometimes it seems like it's all about cost efficiency (never mind the quality) and appearing well on some visio chart drawn by a guy who doesn't have a clue about technology, and is being paid three times what you make.
It is up to us to change these conditions. Can they be changed?
Definitely not the first school to offer a game design degree. This school in Zurich has been offering a program for over a year now.
http://gamedesign.hgkz.ch/
I live in Switzerland, and I ordered an Ipod mini about three months ago. Due to a shortage, however, I waited for two months, and nothing happened. Then I decided I don't want to wait forever, so I'll go with a 4th generation Ipod with clickwheel. Ordered that one instead. After another month of waiting, I gave up completely. Stores all over Europe are complaining about massive shortage of Ipods. The only model they occasionaly have in stock here is the pink Ipod mini.
And now the talk of a new super-cool model! Come on Apple, first things first!
From the article:
Five years ago, the Quebec-born Patry became the Starcraft world champion and was offered a job as a professional game player in South Korea, initially making about $100,000 a year.
His annual salary is now estimated at about $500,000 and, as the star of a Korean Starcraft TV program, he needs bodyguards to protect him from his fans.
Thanks, that made me feel really bad about my job.
Am I the only one who thinks that "SpaceShipOne" is a somewhat unimaginative name?
I mean for christ sake call it something like "Destroyer III" or "Killer MKII", show those aliens who's boss!
Can't offer you any real help, but maybe you should consider
a) consulting an expert in that field
b) not relating your sister's experience with some Hollywood movie (which is far from accurate by the way).
I wonder if it would be possible to somehow locate those winning cans with sensor equipment. Are those GPS units entirely passive? ;-)
You know, kind of like Fry and Bender using Professor Farnsworth's X-Ray thingy to spot the winning can of Slurm.
Oh well, too much TV I guess
400 Mhz processor, 320x240 screen... I wonder how long this thing will run without a recharge.
I had problems viewing the 19MB Quicktime (SVQ3) File with mplayer, and no, it wasn't the corrupted version posted early on TORN and seeded via bittorrent.
a iler.avi
Anyway, a colleague converted it to DivX, for your viewing pleasure...
http://n.ethz.ch/student/asuzuki/download/rotk_tr
Enjoy.
There's a swedish mirror site up now aswell, pretty fast.
a iler_480x280_fixed.mov
http://farbror.acc.umu.se/pub/test/maswan/rotk_tr
Ok, here's a direct HTTP link to the fixed version, as posted on TORN.
a iler_480x280_fixed.mov [20MB]
:-/
However, there seem's to be a problem with mplayer, it crashes instantly, strange because it seemed to player SVQ3 files with no problems whatsoever.
Anyway for all you Windows/Mac Users, a friend of mine confirmed that it works fine with Quicktime 6.
Here you go:
http://n.ethz.ch/student/asuzuki/download/rotk_tr
Have fun,
Alex
PS: If anybody could convert it to DivX or something, let me know, I want to see it aswell!!
You could probably use error-correcting codes (on the software level) or other means to increase redundancy and minimise the probability of an error.
I mean if this was really an issue, they would have thought of it before starting a multi-million dollar project.
I second that!
Switzerland, Europe.