If you haven't played before, think of Carcassonne the beautiful child of a marriage between Dominos and Risk -- you keep laying new tiles onto the map even as you're trying to take it over.
One of the great advantages of Carcassonne, IMHO, is that a complete game takes only about an hour (if all players have played before). So few of our favorite board games can produce a satisfying, complete experience in that short a time. A round of Carcassonne takes about the same time as some games of cards.
But when the fully 3D, story-driven sequel fails, they point at the original on its lofty pedestal and demand an experience that lives up to their memories. It's a double standard that's next to impossible to satisfy.
I Nostalgia 11:13 "When I was a child, I played as a child, I gamed as a child, I bought as a child. Now that I have become a prime demographic, I demand sophistication of my childish things."
When we say we loved an old game, we forget that our then selves wanted something very different for entertainment from what we desire today. It's not that the platform has changed or the game design -- it's us.
The James Bond franchise has more or less survived 20 films. Star Wars had 3 good films, but the last 3 have balanced its force but good. Star Trek is on 10 films, the evens being generally good and the odds generally bad.
What else compares? Superman? Batman? Both of those series have 'gone back to the beginning' lately. So did Star Wars. It's hardly surprising to see them do the same with Star Trek.
Money and "power over the masses" are neither completely coextensive nor completely fungible (although they do overlap significantly).
While money can be used fairly simply to exercise political/legal power, that kind of power can not be used nearly as easily to acquire money. (For example, a person with money who wants a law can buy advertising to sway public opinion or contribute to political campaigns. An office-holder must be much more careful about accepting money for votes or passing laws to enrich himself.)
More importantly, the O.P.'s reason 2 ("To try to give more power to the few who love power over the masses.") only dealt with people who want power for power's sake. It said nothing about those who want money for money's sake. Not all of them care whether "power over the masses" is involved in getting them their money or not.
Not recognizing the differences between the desire for money the desire for power leads to a limited understanding of the legislative dynamic.
They're using two different players. Doesn't that invalidate this test?
No, it's just a known limitation of the experimental setup. This is a little like trying to compare 9mm and.35 caliber ammunition -- they can't be fired from the same gun.
These two disc formats can't be played using the exact same equipment. Even if there were a player out that played both, it would need separate sensing and decoding hardware, so the processing path will never be fully identical.
The best that can be done is to use several players of each format so that player-specific issues can be recognized. (Which, to be sure, this article doesn't do.) It would also be a good idea to review titles that weren't all transferred by the same shop, once some are available. It's possible that some of the problems with these blue ray discs have to do with WHV's transfer process rather than the format. These are early days.
We have to realize that EVERY law that goes into existence does so for two reasons: 1. To try to fix some problem that exists TODAY. 2. To try to give more power to the few who love power over the masses.
You missed: 0. Because some one thinks he can make $$$ from it.
Doesn't this sound like the RIAA's method for calculating sales lost to piracy? No, no, hear me out.
RIAA 1. Assume that RIAA labels should make n sales. 2. Declare anything less to be the result of piracy. 3. Pass new laws to combat increasing piracy.
TSA 1. Assume there are n suspicious people on each flight. 2. Put n people per flight on the watch list. 3. Pass new laws to combat increases in potential terrorists.
So my body has built in DRM?! You'd darned well had better hope so.
All the organs of the body were having a meeting, trying to decide who was the one in charge
"I should be in charge," said the brain, "because without me, you would not know what to do".
"I should be in charge," said the stomach, "because without me, you would starve for energy."
"I should be in charge," said the legs, "because without me, we could not go anywhere."
"I should be in charge," said the eyes, "because without me, we could not find the things we need."
"I am in charge," said the rectum, "And that's final."
All the other body parts laughed at the rectum and insulted him, so he shut down tight. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible head ache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got stiff, and the eyes got watery.
Moral: this is how the asshole get to be in charge.
Seriously, are you telling me that they didn't know that slowing down checkout increased impulse buys? Surely the guys selecting items for the checkout aisle had that figured a long time ago.
And Skynet built the rib that It had taken from Man into a Cyberdyne Enhancement Model T-5; and brought it to Man. And Man said, This time it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: this shall be called bionics, because this was taken out of a man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his bionics; and they shall become one flesh. And they shall have no fate but what they make.
It's a well-known sign of the apocalypse. Every gaming system starts out with a few cool options (e.g. paladinhood) that are only available to certain characters. While the game system is new, everything is fine. Players pine for permission to create ever more potent combinations, but the game masters hold their ground and maintain order.
As the game system matures and options are added and tweaked, there is a progressive relaxation of the old restrictions. Eventually, the players get their way and anything is allowed. Shortly thereafter, the game system is swarmed under by a tsunami of half-fiendish self-healing incoporeal supersneaking uber-paladin arcanists.
The player base melts away to a new "low-powered" game system with "balance" and the cycle repeats. There's no use being upset about it; that's just the way the Wheel turns.
I see that you're one of those who feels that knights who are devoted adherents of their alignment and champions of their people should only gain special powers if that alignment happens to be lawful good.
The government has abruptly ended an inquiry into the warrantless eavesdropping program because the National Security Agency refused to grant Justice Department lawyers the necessary security clearance to probe the matter.
The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, or OPR, sent a fax to Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., on Wednesday saying they were closing their inquiry because without clearance their lawyers cannot examine Justice lawyers' role in the program.
"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey.
Of course the prices are too high. Of course the offerings are limited to films that studios are willing to risk (i.e. ones that they think are not popular enough to have much value).
They're not testing demand here, they're testing their infrastructure. Does the download process work? Will the disks play in most DVD players? How quickly/thoroughly will the DRM be cracked?
Once they have a working platform, then they can drop prices and/or release the popular/valuable films any time they want.
The movie studios do NOT want to be beholden to Apple. They do NOT want flat pricing. And they do NOT want the films to get loose from their DRM easily. Today's news is nothing more than a beta test with dummy data.
OK, so a tough movie has sometimes sat in my house for a month while light movies have come in, been watched, and been returned because I wasn't "in the mood for something heavy". That's not a problem until so many tough movies accumulate that they occupy all of the Netflix "bandwidth" I'm paying for.
There are two lessons from this, and no need to get traumatized about either of them. First, the one-at-a-time netflix plan is no good; you need three-at-a-time, at least, to ameliorate bottlenecks.
Second, you need to come to terms with your own taste. Learn to live with the fact that you mostly want movies for light entertainment, not life-altering enlightenment. Feeling guilty over this makes about as much sense as the people who falsely claim to watch lots of PBS in their Nielson diaries because their ashamed of the TV they actually watch.
Slashdot Mirror
If you haven't played before, think of Carcassonne the beautiful child of a marriage between Dominos and Risk -- you keep laying new tiles onto the map even as you're trying to take it over.
One of the great advantages of Carcassonne, IMHO, is that a complete game takes only about an hour (if all players have played before). So few of our favorite board games can produce a satisfying, complete experience in that short a time. A round of Carcassonne takes about the same time as some games of cards.
But when the fully 3D, story-driven sequel fails, they point at the original on its lofty pedestal and demand an experience that lives up to their memories. It's a double standard that's next to impossible to satisfy.
I Nostalgia 11:13 "When I was a child, I played as a child, I gamed as a child, I bought as a child. Now that I have become a prime demographic, I demand sophistication of my childish things."
When we say we loved an old game, we forget that our then selves wanted something very different for entertainment from what we desire today. It's not that the platform has changed or the game design -- it's us.
The James Bond franchise has more or less survived 20 films.
Star Wars had 3 good films, but the last 3 have balanced its force but good.
Star Trek is on 10 films, the evens being generally good and the odds generally bad.
What else compares? Superman? Batman? Both of those series have 'gone back to the beginning' lately. So did Star Wars. It's hardly surprising to see them do the same with Star Trek.
Money and "power over the masses" are neither completely coextensive nor completely fungible (although they do overlap significantly).
While money can be used fairly simply to exercise political/legal power, that kind of power can not be used nearly as easily to acquire money. (For example, a person with money who wants a law can buy advertising to sway public opinion or contribute to political campaigns. An office-holder must be much more careful about accepting money for votes or passing laws to enrich himself.)
More importantly, the O.P.'s reason 2 ("To try to give more power to the few who love power over the masses.") only dealt with people who want power for power's sake. It said nothing about those who want money for money's sake. Not all of them care whether "power over the masses" is involved in getting them their money or not.
Not recognizing the differences between the desire for money the desire for power leads to a limited understanding of the legislative dynamic.
Just make sure your 12-sided dice don't clog up the tubes...
Oh, be nice to the uninitiated.
Good god, is it April 1 already again?
Next up: Microsoft elected chair of OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee
They're using two different players. Doesn't that invalidate this test?
.35 caliber ammunition -- they can't be fired from the same gun.
No, it's just a known limitation of the experimental setup. This is a little like trying to compare 9mm and
These two disc formats can't be played using the exact same equipment. Even if there were a player out that played both, it would need separate sensing and decoding hardware, so the processing path will never be fully identical.
The best that can be done is to use several players of each format so that player-specific issues can be recognized. (Which, to be sure, this article doesn't do.) It would also be a good idea to review titles that weren't all transferred by the same shop, once some are available. It's possible that some of the problems with these blue ray discs have to do with WHV's transfer process rather than the format. These are early days.
We have to realize that EVERY law that goes into existence does so for two reasons:
1. To try to fix some problem that exists TODAY.
2. To try to give more power to the few who love power over the masses.
You missed: 0. Because some one thinks he can make $$$ from it.
Not that this law isn't bat-shit stupid, but kids-need-access-to-myspace-so-they-can-be-cool isn't anywhere on my list of reasons to do anything.
If that's the justification for providing kids computers, why not just buy them all a pair of Nike Mercuries instead?
(Heck, I thought the O.P. was joking until some one modded him "insightful".)
Doesn't this sound like the RIAA's method for calculating sales lost to piracy? No, no, hear me out.
RIAA
1. Assume that RIAA labels should make n sales.
2. Declare anything less to be the result of piracy.
3. Pass new laws to combat increasing piracy.
TSA
1. Assume there are n suspicious people on each flight.
2. Put n people per flight on the watch list.
3. Pass new laws to combat increases in potential terrorists.
Man, you can't BUY publicity this good.Er, well, I guess you can.
You'd darned well had better hope so.
You are adaptively self-programming software running on adaptively self-replicating hardware. TFA is more of a hardware issue.
Me, I'm just another steam engine trying to contain the pressure.
Seriously, are you telling me that they didn't know that slowing down checkout increased impulse buys? Surely the guys selecting items for the checkout aisle had that figured a long time ago.
To be sure, Apple wasn't making any claim that they were competing successfully on the big stage.
And, usually, when some one says "retail market", they mean NOT("wholesale market"), so the previous post could be off on a tangent.
It's a well-known sign of the apocalypse. Every gaming system starts out with a few cool options (e.g. paladinhood) that are only available to certain characters. While the game system is new, everything is fine. Players pine for permission to create ever more potent combinations, but the game masters hold their ground and maintain order.
As the game system matures and options are added and tweaked, there is a progressive relaxation of the old restrictions. Eventually, the players get their way and anything is allowed. Shortly thereafter, the game system is swarmed under by a tsunami of half-fiendish self-healing incoporeal supersneaking uber-paladin arcanists.
The player base melts away to a new "low-powered" game system with "balance" and the cycle repeats. There's no use being upset about it; that's just the way the Wheel turns.
I see that you're one of those who feels that knights who are devoted adherents of their alignment and champions of their people should only gain special powers if that alignment happens to be lawful good.
2005 World Notebook Market Share (estimate)
Forget how well the security system works. What homeowners want to know is: "Is it skinnable?"
Step 3. Profit.
Of course the prices are too high. Of course the offerings are limited to films that studios are willing to risk (i.e. ones that they think are not popular enough to have much value).
They're not testing demand here, they're testing their infrastructure. Does the download process work? Will the disks play in most DVD players? How quickly/thoroughly will the DRM be cracked?
Once they have a working platform, then they can drop prices and/or release the popular/valuable films any time they want.
The movie studios do NOT want to be beholden to Apple. They do NOT want flat pricing. And they do NOT want the films to get loose from their DRM easily. Today's news is nothing more than a beta test with dummy data.
nullix wrote: "...I can easily rent ... without having to pay $50 to see it in the theater ($10 for 2 people, $20 for food, $20 for a babysitter)."
$10 for 2 tickets? Around here, the dollar theatre costs more than that.
OK, so a tough movie has sometimes sat in my house for a month while light movies have come in, been watched, and been returned because I wasn't "in the mood for something heavy". That's not a problem until so many tough movies accumulate that they occupy all of the Netflix "bandwidth" I'm paying for.
There are two lessons from this, and no need to get traumatized about either of them. First, the one-at-a-time netflix plan is no good; you need three-at-a-time, at least, to ameliorate bottlenecks.
Second, you need to come to terms with your own taste. Learn to live with the fact that you mostly want movies for light entertainment, not life-altering enlightenment. Feeling guilty over this makes about as much sense as the people who falsely claim to watch lots of PBS in their Nielson diaries because their ashamed of the TV they actually watch.
OK, everyone! Listen up: the line to immigrate to his country forms right behind me. B-)