I think what's missing from the article is the place of gender roles in the various RPGs that have dotted video game players. I remember playing Final Fantasy II for the SNES (IV in Japan), and the whole story with Rydia, and the love story between Rosa and Cecil. Past that, the Final Fantasy games have given us strong female characters that didn't function as Sex Symbols (until FF VII, that that wasn't direct). Then there was Parasite Eve, and Resident Evil that gave us strong heroines.
Of course, Tomb Raider wasn't just about sex appeal, it was putting a female character into a strong role as well. With the upcoming FF X-2, I'd be curious to see how Square handles the female role. My experience with computer entertainment, outside of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and similar games, most female characters are set as a little more "immature," being more motivated by clothes, boys, and giggling (Say, DOA Beach Volleyball) than by actual Plot.
Re:How is it a Linux Review without the Distro?
on
Linux SMP Round-Up
·
· Score: 1
Actually, the specific Mandrake release was 8.0, at it was just slow as all hell. That was inside KDE, I can't remember what release. I can't remember what Debian release it was.
Like I had said, while the kernal itself should be the same, that's not the most important part of Linux, at least not in my mind. Being a long-time windows user, I have always been more concerned about usability, and not power. What I want to know in a review is how hard is it to get something working and how well it performs in those ares, as compared to how is rates on a number system.
And you can get Mandrake for serveral platforms, however I have had zero luck installing it on my new system. So I'm stuck inside Windows (SuSE and Mandrake both lock during install).
How is it a Linux Review without the Distro?
on
Linux SMP Round-Up
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
An actual comment on the story...
When reading through the review, I noticed that they only list standard benchmarks, and then a kernal compile benchmark. They never list the actual distribution of Linux used for testing the system. In my experience, the actual performance of a system is dependant on that. I know I had a system that just dragged running Mandrake, but loved Debian to no end. I'm not sure if it's just the kernal base of the system, but most of the actual distributions have some sort of performance optimization (I think) for the overall system performance. I mean, kernal complilation time is great, but what I'm more curious about is the day-to-day operation.
I guess I've just read too many reviews over the years that focused on benchmark numbers and didn't give any information about performance under everyday use. If this is something geared for Linux, I'd be more curious about numbers like Networking performance, data-access numbers and things like that.
My other curious question is how accurately does UT2k3 and Quake 3 show the power of a Dual Processor Xeon system? Quake 3 supports MP systems, but it has never been shown to make much difference except on large server environments. They give us video-benchmarks, and for Quake in particular, there's a limit that was hit long before these processors and chipsets that was somewhere next to overkill.
I guess I'm just being nit-picky, but I think a Linux Review for a system should concentrate on strengths, and not benchmarks that would be similar on a Windows system made to run games.
The push on Cell Phones almost seams contradictary at times. I have a Sprint PCS vision phone, with a list of features as long as my arm, and I know how to use three of them. Maybe. It's not that I can't figure it out, it's that the phones are not condusive to such things.
3D graphics wouldn't be so hard to do in this environment, assuming they stick with the little screens and the bad interfaces. I know that my phone can actually have some pretty cool games, but the actual buttons on the phone, or the "control stick" as well, are about as accurate as using a half-chewed pretzel on an older PDA. Especially if you have fingers larger than your average six-year old.
I'd have to agree that it'd be nice to see work done on the networks. My phone has a habit of wandering out of it's calling coverage (a tower less than a mile away) if held sideways or at an angle (say, against your ear. But how often will that happen). The push for more features that would imply something a little larger and nicer is in opposition to a smaller package you're finding phones in. Unless they all start to look like PDA's, or better yet, Game Boys, I just see this as another feature to add $5 to my bill that I'll never use.
Microsoft has been itching to get a piece of the Unix/Linux dominated server market (and while their share has been slowly growing, Linux has been thumping it for years), so it's not all that suprising to see them support the upstart. Every so often they do make a good choice. Every so often...
Beyond that, Microsoft has been slowly helping AMD over the years, if by just using the 3D-Now optimizations on the early K6-2 processors. Of course, you'll never get Intel and Microsoft out of bed together, but then again, you'll never see them be exclusive either.
It would be interesting to see, since the Beta for Windows 2003 (I actually have a legitimate copy, just no legitimate reason to use it) was kinda slick. Though i doubt if I was running a business I'd consider anything but Linux for base server operation.
Excel was made to compete with Lotus 1-2-3, and could be used on a lot of different platforms, I believe, but was the primary focus of the Mac. It was before the OS/2 fiasco, but it was the main justification behind computers entering into the business world for day-to-day use.
I understand how this could be useful, but I'm not sure I understand the practical scientific application. We can see things on the other side of the Gas Cloud, but if this is the only one they know of close to Earth, we should only be able to see a set number of objects through this "lens".
We have the one test object, and we can refine it through this, but that would imply that we can only see a set number of objects. If the actual Gas pocket is too far away, would it still be as practical.
I guess it would be nice to look at quasars, but I've always preferred pretty pictures to scientific readings. I guess that's why I'm not a professional astronomer.
Actually, he was offered the tour, and allowed the rights to use the idea of GUI. He never paid rights to use the idea. I'm not sure about paying for the tour.
IBM requested a GUI OS and then allowed MS to use the concepts behind it, the same as they had allowed them to market MS-DOS, as compared to IBM's PC-DOS. And Windows 2.0 was the first to properly implement the GUI idea conceived for OS/2.
The thing I love about Xerox is that it reminds us all that Windows didn't rip off Apple, they ripped off Apple who was ripping off Xerox. It's interesting to think about what it would have been like if Xerox would have been in control of the computer market, since they had everything that we use today, and gave it away when they could have sold it.
That's why we don't have a democracy in America. We have a Rebublic Democracy. Or, a nation of idiots that expects to be used by a few. Remember, there's a reason that the governemt hates that you can register to vote at the DMV. Because that makes it so anyone who can drive (or at least attempt to) can vote. They'd rather have the Rich White people do it.
The government out of control has been around for ever. There was the whole North/South thing, and the sympathizers then. After that there was the Red Scare. Then Race Sympathizers. And now terrorists.
What I hate is not that they're going after terrorists, but that by limiting privacy they assume that every common person is a terrorist until proven otherwise. Just think, you'll be afforded more rights once you break the law than when you follow it.
The biggest problem that I have with the push of allowing the government to violate so many traditionally private areas is that it restricts the freedom and rights of most people.
Sure, someone can look that if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, but the problem is that sometimes we hide things because we don't want people to see them, and not because they are something "wrong." Take for example personal emails. I email my girlfriend something personal, and suppose I say something in it like "You're the bomb." Regardless of what else I say, there is a push that the hunt to find terrorists alone would be enough to search my message for meanings, and search any other messages.
Terrorists did not just suddenly appear in America, no matter what they want us to believe. Restricting what people can say in private for fear of observation and prosicution is worse than violating someone's rights to Freedom of Speech in public (where the constitution truly applies). At that point, their is no private sayings, their is no right to think what you want.
There is a fine line between security and privacy, and is somewhere around that line. The paranoia looking for terrorists has the potential to turn into another Red Scare. Sure, for every person you find pushing terrorist activities, you probably harass and punish 30 who didn't. Beyond that, we've already seen the push for this movement against people who have nothing to do with fighting terror. How long before the privacy crackdown starts busting people just for music because Peer-to-Peer networks can facilitate terrorism?
This is the second major deep space probe in the last few months that has gone south. Sad, because Pioneer 10 was the one that paved the way for so many other missions (like the Voyager Missions).
Here's to a long and steady life to the remaining deep space missions out there.
Since when did them having no say stop them?
on
Instant Concert CDs?
·
· Score: 1
The RIAA is a legal entity, and it would not be hard for them to stretch a little farther.
And yes, the easiest way to support the artist is to go to their concert. Buying a CD for $15 there ensures that $15 of it goes to the artist, and they pay people from there.
All concerts, however, have backers. And ususally those are the various labels of the artists in the first place.
Given that live music is the best music...
on
Instant Concert CDs?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Well, most of the time anyway.
I can only imagine that the RIAA would squash this one, since traditionally, there would be all sorts of copyright issues here. Royalties go to the Label, Producer, Studio, Artists, RIAA, and who knows who else. Beyond that, a lot of the great artists play cover songs and unreleased material, which they'd have to cover royalties or permissions for that.
However, I would say that I'd pay for concerts of a lot of bands. People like BNL, Dave Matthews, etc. that throw some of the best live shows on earth would be worth it. Of course, since this article implies that you have to attend the concert, and the RIAA has little sway there, this is something that benefits the artists (and Clear Channel).
This would be great, if you can afford a ticket or get a chance. But what about the people in South Dakota that never see anyone, or people overseas who can't make a concert?
If this is something that the artists support, it would be easy to have the recordings ready. Fast burners and digital recording equipment tied into the sound system would make it easy to get these discs out minutes after a concert ends. What would be sad is that most likely, encores and bonus sets would be lost if they cut the recording early.
However, since this looks like something they're going to start in club shows, I'd imagine it's meant to boost new and smaller artists, which is great. I've seen enough small bands that never even crossed the radar of most radio, and it would have been great to hear their sets again.
Live of sight is what compares to 802.11a. While it can sometimes work without it, it just isn't effective unless line of sight is in place.
I was talking about overall solutions, not just the cards themselves. Most major manufactuers offer them as an upgrade, and there are several issues with the major solutions (Orinoco and Intel, which I have to support).
Major manufacturers are still reluctant to put in b solutions, and a solutions have all but vanished for laptops (line of sight requirements). The g standard hasn't been finalized for wide market production. As it is, most wireless is still a pain to deal with, especially the Intel products.
Actually, I'd heard of most of those. I was talking about high profile missions, the one that they use both for exploration and for PR relations.
I was talking about the greater Mars initiative, and coming off of the outstanding success of the Pathfinder, they put a lot of PR power into the Polar Lander and Climate Orbiter. The real black eye is when the reason for failure on the MPL came out... meters or feet, who knew?
Things like the Deep Space missions, Cassini, Earth mapping mission and countless other probes have been launched, and no, the press does not cover successes of most missions, but failures are big time.
And don't criticize my understanding until you talk to me, not based on one of my posts. If you would have looked at some of the other posts I made in response, I said I had put MGS where I had meant to put Mars Exploration Initiative, which has included some 2 dozen mars related missions.
It wasn't about justification. The loss of a person will always be greater than the loss of any number of space craft. The experiments they perform have a lot to do with how humans exist in space, and how other animals would. It's looking at a sustainable environment. Some experiments are more important than others, but life is more important than experiments.
True, but the cost of a shuttle mission is directly related to the people involved in them. Manned missions are a much greater stake.
Don't get me wrong, I love almost everything NASA does. I followed Gallileo from launch day and have been keeping tabs on Cassini. The Voyager, Pioneer, and Viking missions were things that I loved, but the manned missions are what embody the spirit of NASA.
And as for success failure, the cost is lower, but it gets a little harder. 113 Shuttle missions and two accidents, that's much higher than the success/failure of the un-manned launches. But I'd believe that everyone involved in one of those unmanned successes would gladly watch it fail if there would be no more accidents like Columbia.
Not part of MGS, but they were all part of the greater Mars Initiative that included the Pathfinder, Polar Lander, Climate Orbiter and MGS. Pathfinder and MGS were successful, the others were an assumed rather splendid crash. They were all separate missions, but part of the same program.
Given the current competition to Nintendo in the handheld market, Cell Phones and PDA's, this would make sense in a move to position themselves in the market's future. That's what all companies have to do to be successful. In fact, Nintendo has already been burned for being behind the curve (PSX taking their console crown, for example).
However, with Nintendo's hard stance of having all control of content and copy-protection, they would have a hard time surviving in this business. What I would invision is more of the closed model in this area, not so much a PDA but rather a Cell Phone with PDA-functions and game capability. Tie it to an account, and prevent a lot of the transfers without using the minutes, etc.
I wouldn't say that this is a bad place for Nintendo. In fact, I would say this is where it needs to go. However... I have a problem imagining them having the success in this market that they would with the GBA and handhelds. Could you really look at a Nintendo PDA and think of it as a business tool, or a toy.
However, the GBA and the GameCube are both shining examples of compact technology integration, and the ability to play old nintendo games without special equipment would be rather cool...
See above, I meant the polar lander and weather surveyor mission in the same MGS project. Need to check what I type more often
Disposable missions have been economically sound, and the space shuttle had proven that point well. One of the most interesting points of the pathfinder mission was the landing method that was chosen (take this thing and let gravity do the work. Kinda playing bouncy ball with a planet and our little rover).
Any mission involving people will be a huge mission. Our way of life puts the value of human life higher than that of machines, so that is what complicates matters greatly. Unmanned missions are wonderful for scientific advancement and testing, but they have never held the interest of the public as long as the manned missions.
One of the main problems with NASA being paid to be experts is that they are paid by our government. They come in there being experts on aerodynamics and astrophysics, and eventually become experts on proposal documentation and red-tape navigation instead. The glory days of the Apollo program had NASA leading with their hearts, doing what they loved. It was about achieving something, even if that was working on beating the Russians in space.
Then, in the 80s, it became about military projects and defense initiatives. Putting up surveylance stations and communications arrays. They still have exploration, but they are essentially at the bidding of the military for a lot of things.
NASA right now lacks a goal. The last (successful) big project they had was the unmanned Pathfinder mission. It was a great success for them, but was followed by two failures (Mars Global Surveyor and it's sister lander). The Galleleo showed that they could get over major technical hurdles (damage to main array and then an extra-long mission life), but these are not pushing how far man can go into space.
What NASA needs is a dream to get going, something that won't be cut down by beuracracy and red-tape. A non-military initiative that can get both the world and the government behind it. There is not really a bigger government PR entity in our country (the Military only has PR for recruitment), and that is something that NASA hasn't been using effectivly lately.
I think if the project was risky, but captured that same spirit as the Apollo and Early Space Shuttle missions, the people would step up to get it done, despite those risks.
Slashdot Mirror
I think what's missing from the article is the place of gender roles in the various RPGs that have dotted video game players. I remember playing Final Fantasy II for the SNES (IV in Japan), and the whole story with Rydia, and the love story between Rosa and Cecil. Past that, the Final Fantasy games have given us strong female characters that didn't function as Sex Symbols (until FF VII, that that wasn't direct). Then there was Parasite Eve, and Resident Evil that gave us strong heroines.
Of course, Tomb Raider wasn't just about sex appeal, it was putting a female character into a strong role as well. With the upcoming FF X-2, I'd be curious to see how Square handles the female role. My experience with computer entertainment, outside of Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and similar games, most female characters are set as a little more "immature," being more motivated by clothes, boys, and giggling (Say, DOA Beach Volleyball) than by actual Plot.
Actually, the specific Mandrake release was 8.0, at it was just slow as all hell. That was inside KDE, I can't remember what release. I can't remember what Debian release it was.
Like I had said, while the kernal itself should be the same, that's not the most important part of Linux, at least not in my mind. Being a long-time windows user, I have always been more concerned about usability, and not power. What I want to know in a review is how hard is it to get something working and how well it performs in those ares, as compared to how is rates on a number system.
And you can get Mandrake for serveral platforms, however I have had zero luck installing it on my new system. So I'm stuck inside Windows (SuSE and Mandrake both lock during install).
An actual comment on the story...
When reading through the review, I noticed that they only list standard benchmarks, and then a kernal compile benchmark. They never list the actual distribution of Linux used for testing the system. In my experience, the actual performance of a system is dependant on that. I know I had a system that just dragged running Mandrake, but loved Debian to no end. I'm not sure if it's just the kernal base of the system, but most of the actual distributions have some sort of performance optimization (I think) for the overall system performance. I mean, kernal complilation time is great, but what I'm more curious about is the day-to-day operation.
I guess I've just read too many reviews over the years that focused on benchmark numbers and didn't give any information about performance under everyday use. If this is something geared for Linux, I'd be more curious about numbers like Networking performance, data-access numbers and things like that.
My other curious question is how accurately does UT2k3 and Quake 3 show the power of a Dual Processor Xeon system? Quake 3 supports MP systems, but it has never been shown to make much difference except on large server environments. They give us video-benchmarks, and for Quake in particular, there's a limit that was hit long before these processors and chipsets that was somewhere next to overkill.
I guess I'm just being nit-picky, but I think a Linux Review for a system should concentrate on strengths, and not benchmarks that would be similar on a Windows system made to run games.
The push on Cell Phones almost seams contradictary at times. I have a Sprint PCS vision phone, with a list of features as long as my arm, and I know how to use three of them. Maybe. It's not that I can't figure it out, it's that the phones are not condusive to such things.
3D graphics wouldn't be so hard to do in this environment, assuming they stick with the little screens and the bad interfaces. I know that my phone can actually have some pretty cool games, but the actual buttons on the phone, or the "control stick" as well, are about as accurate as using a half-chewed pretzel on an older PDA. Especially if you have fingers larger than your average six-year old.
I'd have to agree that it'd be nice to see work done on the networks. My phone has a habit of wandering out of it's calling coverage (a tower less than a mile away) if held sideways or at an angle (say, against your ear. But how often will that happen). The push for more features that would imply something a little larger and nicer is in opposition to a smaller package you're finding phones in. Unless they all start to look like PDA's, or better yet, Game Boys, I just see this as another feature to add $5 to my bill that I'll never use.
Microsoft has been itching to get a piece of the Unix/Linux dominated server market (and while their share has been slowly growing, Linux has been thumping it for years), so it's not all that suprising to see them support the upstart. Every so often they do make a good choice. Every so often...
Beyond that, Microsoft has been slowly helping AMD over the years, if by just using the 3D-Now optimizations on the early K6-2 processors. Of course, you'll never get Intel and Microsoft out of bed together, but then again, you'll never see them be exclusive either.
It would be interesting to see, since the Beta for Windows 2003 (I actually have a legitimate copy, just no legitimate reason to use it) was kinda slick. Though i doubt if I was running a business I'd consider anything but Linux for base server operation.
Excel was made to compete with Lotus 1-2-3, and could be used on a lot of different platforms, I believe, but was the primary focus of the Mac. It was before the OS/2 fiasco, but it was the main justification behind computers entering into the business world for day-to-day use.
I understand how this could be useful, but I'm not sure I understand the practical scientific application. We can see things on the other side of the Gas Cloud, but if this is the only one they know of close to Earth, we should only be able to see a set number of objects through this "lens".
We have the one test object, and we can refine it through this, but that would imply that we can only see a set number of objects. If the actual Gas pocket is too far away, would it still be as practical.
I guess it would be nice to look at quasars, but I've always preferred pretty pictures to scientific readings. I guess that's why I'm not a professional astronomer.
Actually, he was offered the tour, and allowed the rights to use the idea of GUI. He never paid rights to use the idea. I'm not sure about paying for the tour.
IBM requested a GUI OS and then allowed MS to use the concepts behind it, the same as they had allowed them to market MS-DOS, as compared to IBM's PC-DOS. And Windows 2.0 was the first to properly implement the GUI idea conceived for OS/2.
The thing I love about Xerox is that it reminds us all that Windows didn't rip off Apple, they ripped off Apple who was ripping off Xerox. It's interesting to think about what it would have been like if Xerox would have been in control of the computer market, since they had everything that we use today, and gave it away when they could have sold it.
Thanks Xerox.
That's why we don't have a democracy in America. We have a Rebublic Democracy. Or, a nation of idiots that expects to be used by a few. Remember, there's a reason that the governemt hates that you can register to vote at the DMV. Because that makes it so anyone who can drive (or at least attempt to) can vote. They'd rather have the Rich White people do it.
The government out of control has been around for ever. There was the whole North/South thing, and the sympathizers then. After that there was the Red Scare. Then Race Sympathizers. And now terrorists.
What I hate is not that they're going after terrorists, but that by limiting privacy they assume that every common person is a terrorist until proven otherwise. Just think, you'll be afforded more rights once you break the law than when you follow it.
The biggest problem that I have with the push of allowing the government to violate so many traditionally private areas is that it restricts the freedom and rights of most people.
Sure, someone can look that if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide, but the problem is that sometimes we hide things because we don't want people to see them, and not because they are something "wrong." Take for example personal emails. I email my girlfriend something personal, and suppose I say something in it like "You're the bomb." Regardless of what else I say, there is a push that the hunt to find terrorists alone would be enough to search my message for meanings, and search any other messages.
Terrorists did not just suddenly appear in America, no matter what they want us to believe. Restricting what people can say in private for fear of observation and prosicution is worse than violating someone's rights to Freedom of Speech in public (where the constitution truly applies). At that point, their is no private sayings, their is no right to think what you want.
There is a fine line between security and privacy, and is somewhere around that line. The paranoia looking for terrorists has the potential to turn into another Red Scare. Sure, for every person you find pushing terrorist activities, you probably harass and punish 30 who didn't. Beyond that, we've already seen the push for this movement against people who have nothing to do with fighting terror. How long before the privacy crackdown starts busting people just for music because Peer-to-Peer networks can facilitate terrorism?
This is the second major deep space probe in the last few months that has gone south. Sad, because Pioneer 10 was the one that paved the way for so many other missions (like the Voyager Missions).
Here's to a long and steady life to the remaining deep space missions out there.
The RIAA is a legal entity, and it would not be hard for them to stretch a little farther.
And yes, the easiest way to support the artist is to go to their concert. Buying a CD for $15 there ensures that $15 of it goes to the artist, and they pay people from there.
All concerts, however, have backers. And ususally those are the various labels of the artists in the first place.
Well, most of the time anyway.
I can only imagine that the RIAA would squash this one, since traditionally, there would be all sorts of copyright issues here. Royalties go to the Label, Producer, Studio, Artists, RIAA, and who knows who else. Beyond that, a lot of the great artists play cover songs and unreleased material, which they'd have to cover royalties or permissions for that.
However, I would say that I'd pay for concerts of a lot of bands. People like BNL, Dave Matthews, etc. that throw some of the best live shows on earth would be worth it. Of course, since this article implies that you have to attend the concert, and the RIAA has little sway there, this is something that benefits the artists (and Clear Channel).
This would be great, if you can afford a ticket or get a chance. But what about the people in South Dakota that never see anyone, or people overseas who can't make a concert?
If this is something that the artists support, it would be easy to have the recordings ready. Fast burners and digital recording equipment tied into the sound system would make it easy to get these discs out minutes after a concert ends. What would be sad is that most likely, encores and bonus sets would be lost if they cut the recording early.
However, since this looks like something they're going to start in club shows, I'd imagine it's meant to boost new and smaller artists, which is great. I've seen enough small bands that never even crossed the radar of most radio, and it would have been great to hear their sets again.
This man is my new official hero. I'd just hope that the beer wouldn't get a soapy aftertaste.
However, it might be nice to drink and leave my breath with that Mountain-Fresh straight off the line feeling
Live of sight is what compares to 802.11a. While it can sometimes work without it, it just isn't effective unless line of sight is in place.
I was talking about overall solutions, not just the cards themselves. Most major manufactuers offer them as an upgrade, and there are several issues with the major solutions (Orinoco and Intel, which I have to support).
Major manufacturers are still reluctant to put in b solutions, and a solutions have all but vanished for laptops (line of sight requirements). The g standard hasn't been finalized for wide market production. As it is, most wireless is still a pain to deal with, especially the Intel products.
Actually, I'd heard of most of those. I was talking about high profile missions, the one that they use both for exploration and for PR relations.
I was talking about the greater Mars initiative, and coming off of the outstanding success of the Pathfinder, they put a lot of PR power into the Polar Lander and Climate Orbiter. The real black eye is when the reason for failure on the MPL came out... meters or feet, who knew?
Things like the Deep Space missions, Cassini, Earth mapping mission and countless other probes have been launched, and no, the press does not cover successes of most missions, but failures are big time.
And don't criticize my understanding until you talk to me, not based on one of my posts. If you would have looked at some of the other posts I made in response, I said I had put MGS where I had meant to put Mars Exploration Initiative, which has included some 2 dozen mars related missions.
It wasn't about justification. The loss of a person will always be greater than the loss of any number of space craft. The experiments they perform have a lot to do with how humans exist in space, and how other animals would. It's looking at a sustainable environment. Some experiments are more important than others, but life is more important than experiments.
True, but the cost of a shuttle mission is directly related to the people involved in them. Manned missions are a much greater stake.
Don't get me wrong, I love almost everything NASA does. I followed Gallileo from launch day and have been keeping tabs on Cassini. The Voyager, Pioneer, and Viking missions were things that I loved, but the manned missions are what embody the spirit of NASA.
And as for success failure, the cost is lower, but it gets a little harder. 113 Shuttle missions and two accidents, that's much higher than the success/failure of the un-manned launches. But I'd believe that everyone involved in one of those unmanned successes would gladly watch it fail if there would be no more accidents like Columbia.
Not part of MGS, but they were all part of the greater Mars Initiative that included the Pathfinder, Polar Lander, Climate Orbiter and MGS. Pathfinder and MGS were successful, the others were an assumed rather splendid crash. They were all separate missions, but part of the same program.
Given the current competition to Nintendo in the handheld market, Cell Phones and PDA's, this would make sense in a move to position themselves in the market's future. That's what all companies have to do to be successful. In fact, Nintendo has already been burned for being behind the curve (PSX taking their console crown, for example).
However, with Nintendo's hard stance of having all control of content and copy-protection, they would have a hard time surviving in this business. What I would invision is more of the closed model in this area, not so much a PDA but rather a Cell Phone with PDA-functions and game capability. Tie it to an account, and prevent a lot of the transfers without using the minutes, etc.
I wouldn't say that this is a bad place for Nintendo. In fact, I would say this is where it needs to go. However... I have a problem imagining them having the success in this market that they would with the GBA and handhelds. Could you really look at a Nintendo PDA and think of it as a business tool, or a toy.
However, the GBA and the GameCube are both shining examples of compact technology integration, and the ability to play old nintendo games without special equipment would be rather cool...
See above, I meant the polar lander and weather surveyor mission in the same MGS project. Need to check what I type more often
Disposable missions have been economically sound, and the space shuttle had proven that point well. One of the most interesting points of the pathfinder mission was the landing method that was chosen (take this thing and let gravity do the work. Kinda playing bouncy ball with a planet and our little rover).
Any mission involving people will be a huge mission. Our way of life puts the value of human life higher than that of machines, so that is what complicates matters greatly. Unmanned missions are wonderful for scientific advancement and testing, but they have never held the interest of the public as long as the manned missions.
Not the Global Surveyor, I was thinking about the weather module of the same project. It was the one that was lost half-way between here and there.
Sorry, wrong name on my part
One of the main problems with NASA being paid to be experts is that they are paid by our government. They come in there being experts on aerodynamics and astrophysics, and eventually become experts on proposal documentation and red-tape navigation instead. The glory days of the Apollo program had NASA leading with their hearts, doing what they loved. It was about achieving something, even if that was working on beating the Russians in space.
Then, in the 80s, it became about military projects and defense initiatives. Putting up surveylance stations and communications arrays. They still have exploration, but they are essentially at the bidding of the military for a lot of things.
NASA right now lacks a goal. The last (successful) big project they had was the unmanned Pathfinder mission. It was a great success for them, but was followed by two failures (Mars Global Surveyor and it's sister lander). The Galleleo showed that they could get over major technical hurdles (damage to main array and then an extra-long mission life), but these are not pushing how far man can go into space.
What NASA needs is a dream to get going, something that won't be cut down by beuracracy and red-tape. A non-military initiative that can get both the world and the government behind it. There is not really a bigger government PR entity in our country (the Military only has PR for recruitment), and that is something that NASA hasn't been using effectivly lately.
I think if the project was risky, but captured that same spirit as the Apollo and Early Space Shuttle missions, the people would step up to get it done, despite those risks.