Yes, this is a problem with Microsoft's DRM. Apple's DRM is tied to a username & password, not hardware. The authorization is stored on your computer for convenience, of course, but you can authorize any other computer easily. And multiple people's music can be authorized on the same computer. Cool, eh?
Very cool. Points to Apple for having thought this through.
How does iTunes' DRM handle a full OS re-install? Or a hardware migration? What does Apple recommending doing when, in 2 years, our hardware is outdated and needs to be replaced? Or in 3 months when XP has an irrecoverable crash and we have to reinstall everything from scratch?
Restricted file formats are a frustrating thing. But restricted file formats tied to a piece of hardware that is replaced on average every 3 years is foolish.
And buying restricted files once you realize this failing is just plain stupid.
How hard would it be to create a fake CDR drive that serves both as the output for any music ripping application and as the input for CDex? I know such ghost drives have been used for years for playing games without the original disks, but they have far less interaction with the program. How hard is it to fake a CD write?
Why not have academy members votes be weighted based upon which movie they have seen? If, for example, Finding Nemo recieved 40% of the vote of the 1,000 members registered as having seen it, it still could lose against the 50% vote given by the 150 members who saw "Whale Rider."
Such a scheme sounds more fair, if it isn't possible to see a movie in the intended format.
This week's tops at the box office is Time Warner's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which took in a whopping 28 million dollars for a 9 thousand dollar per screen average, yet only featured one dismemberment every 20 minutes. It dethroned Disney's ultraviolent Kill Bill, which continued to charge ahead at the box office. With an enviable 3 week total of 43.2 million dollars it's averaging 240 thousand dollars for every man woman and child disembowled, dismembered, or decapitated for your viewing pleasure.
In other news, a spat of school violence is sweeping across the nation. "I didn't even realize that trenchcoat wearing freak existed before he put on a hockey mask, pulled out a 2-foot machete, and started lumbering towards everyone" one spunky but virtuous survivor at a Des Moines High School told reporters. "We usually just laughed at him. Then he started killing us. Then the cops shot him dead. Who is laughing now Freak?"
Parents across the nation have uncovered the source of the violence: games that you play on your television, AKA "Videoed-Games" were present in all of the troubled children's rooms. "My son was a model student," the mother of one such corrupted child told reporters Tuesday, "the babysitter said he always came home from school on time, he never missed a meal (food disappeared regularly from the refridgerator), and he was so quiet and respectful those times we took him to see House of the Dead, 28 Days, House of 1000 corpses, and Spy Kids 3D. The other kids roughed him up a bit, but you know... boys will be boys. And then... And then..." The mother broke down into tears, "And then we accidentally opened the door to his room, and discovered these shiny little disks everywhere. They all had names like 'Devil Dice,' 'Dark Savior,' and 'Speed Devils Online'. He had a House of the Dead game that was so realistic it integrated footage from the movie! I immediatly increased his beatings from one to four per day. But even that wasn't enough to save him from the influence of these Demon Games."
"His father will be furious when the warden tells him," she added. "I'm so upset by this gaming-inspired lack of morality, I need to go watch 'Special Victims Unit.'" The mother then left the interview, forgetting the small baby she had brought with her.
but how many non-despicable rape-related manga are there?
Mainstream manga explores the theme of rape as often as mainstreem American literature, often times written by women for women. To point out a popular example, The Wings of Honneamise featured a disturbing but mature look at rape as an aspect of hero worship.
I agree with the fundamental precept that the "avatar effect" of gaming is very different from the "voyeur effect" of the written word. I disagree that this creates a fundamental disjunction with deeper sensations. Celes's suicide attempt in Final Fantasy 3 had a tremendous emotional impact upon a generation of gamers. The avatar was used to make a player deeply care about the character, and the difference between the player's choices and the avatar's actions lead to deep emotional distress. Final Fantasy 7 took this disjoint even deeper, flipping between what the player thought they did and what really happened, as they watch their character first acknowledge then slowly emerge from their madness.
The problem with gaming in general as the previous poster pointed out is that most of it is pulp fiction: 50% of games released on the computer are a First Person Shooter with no underlying emotional pull besides that which you would find at a basketball game. But that doesn't mean they all are, and that doesn't mean that Metal Gear Solid should be afforded any less artistic license than Full Metal Jacket.
For ever crappy war-based videogame the industry puts out, the movie studios put out a Courage Under Fire. For some reason this leads people to yell at the movie studios to raise their quality level, and to yell at the gaming industry to not make war games.
If we are going to prove ourselves as a viable medium, we need to continue to make games of all subject matters, need to continue to push the emotional and storytelling boundaries of the medium, and we need to release quality. Only then will people stop assuming that anything done in a videogame will be immature garbage. Only then will no subject be taboo.
IMO What ever happened to the free net2phone apps that were out there??? They ones I know charge now.
Net2Phone switched to charging for computer to phone service about 3 years ago. It wasn't a very big loss, as the service was plagued by bad lag and server outages. Hopefully the money they are making now goes into fixing those problems.
The difference between XBox Live and Counterstrike is that Counterstrike was a player-made mod, and didn't "go pro" until it was already a smashing success. People may play mostly stock Counter-Strike maps, but those maps are the cream of the crop of Counter Strike maps that were created over the years and added to the distribution. If the players themselves didn't have access to modifying the game, people would still be playing Half-Life.
On the other hand, for Mechassault and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the publishing company has to create and approve the content. There may be a lot of maps that ID can create, but they can't compete with the thousands of maps, skins, and mods available for Quake 3 made by gamers for gamers.
Player-generated content really separates a fun game with a normal life from a fun game which manages to grab hold of you and not let go for years.
Ngo Dinh Diem won Saigon with 600k votes out of a total 450k registered voters in the US sponsored Vienamese election of 1954. Of course, we don't do that sort of thing anymore... we cap voterigging at 100% now.
"Kerry... Liberman... Bush... Gautier... You have selected 'Marvin Glen Gautier of the Klu Klux Klandidacy.' If you wish to make a different selection, touch the screen now."
"Hey, what's that little fuck doing!?"
"You have selected 'different selection.' Touch the screen when the name of your preferred candidate is read. Kerry... Liberman... Bush..."
You mean to tell me that the ownership of fucking western civilization and control over enough nukes to crack the planet into pop rocks is resting on the adamantine uncrackability of WinCE?
[baffled] Canada doesn't have nukes.
Oh. You must be using a different definition of civilization.
I actually torture tested a few disks for a HS project to see what would cause immediate data loss.
Several 1.44 MB 3.5" floppys were 1. Stomped on 2. Driven over 3. Wiped with a kitchen magnet 4. Left in the sun for 7 days 5. Baked at 250 for 20 minutes 6. Left at the bottom of a filthy pool overnight 7. Thrown off a roof
In all cases, the data was perfectly intact. Throwing off the roof had shattered 2 of the housings, but there was no data loss.
Ironically, when I went back to look at them several years later, they had all died of natural causes.
Those little floppys are tough, but don't count on them for long-term storage.
This sort of thing always amazes me... companies give away products which cost them huge ammounts to produce, with minor limitations, and as thanks some script kiddie decides they didn't give away enough of the program.
Don't like them not giving away the whole thing... go find something that *is* free, or get a job with Alias, and change their policy.
Or release a script that changes the system to do what you want it to do.
Let's be honest... I congradulate Alias Wavefront for introducing low-cost versions of Maya, but it was a necessary step to prevent their irrelevance to most major companies. 3D Studio Max is 500 dollars or less, and has 15 years of artist and programmer acceptance. There is a huge knowledge pool behind the product. Maya is a superior package, but it costs about the same as a used family sedan. In order to sell Maya to corporate users, they need artists who have experience using Maya as a tool. Artists are unlikely to have the 2 grand necessary to use the tool, and may not have the technical savvy to pirate it.
In short, it's not a gift, it is a seed: a seed which may grow into a sale, and which helps support their ridiculous price structure.
BTW, a "script kiddie" is someone without technical skill who runs automated software in an attempt to do something which would otherwise require knowledge and ability. The person you are referring to is a "hacker," or possibly a "haxor," or (more likely) an "engineer."
When will someone make a realistic crime game?
I want to get rich and buy cool stuff and flaunt my cash, drugs and guns to my buds.
I wanna get mixed up with "made men" who might hook me up, or might mark me. I don't want there to be random "scooby snacks" hidden away to heal me or hide me from the cops. When I get hit by a bullet - I want it to suck - bad.
So... You want a game where you camp out watching a target for 3 days, you want to hire a group of thugs to help you, and you want to be chased by real people playing cops who have no reprocussions for shooting criminals.
I assume you then want to run to mexico and spend the rest of your $10 a month subscription getting drunk in a language you don't understand and crying about not being able to go home?
Do you have any conceptualization about crime beyond what you are shown in movies? I'll give you a hint... It's really boring. A realistic crime game would consist of buying stolen goods from character X and selling them to character Y, trying to hide the fact that you are making money by not buying anything fancy, until suddenly an overwhelming force of police officers busts down your door that you put your hands up and lie down. Even if it was a heist game, very few criminals are ever "caught in the act." The game would be several days of scoping out a location and doing research, 60 seconds of busting in and taking things, and 4 weeks of laying low trying not to get fingered. And the cops get to have the joy of interviewing NPC's for information, picking up clues from things lying around the scene, and having crimes go unsolved for upwards of 10 years.
You want all buildings to have a purpose, yet you want no "scooby snacks?" You want a realistic crime game where you can flaunt your cash?
It sounds like what you really want is Scarface Online.
As far as I can tell, our satellites are useful for A: GPS recievers, which can be jammed more cheaply on the ground B: Communications, which can be jammed more cheaply on the ground... and would take out their own comm satellites and C: Intelligence satellites, which are in high geosynchronous orbit.
If someone decided to attack satellites in their area, the result would look less like a war (with two sides firing), and more like someone shooting at passing cars on the highway. By treaty, satellites have no defensive or offensive capability.
So really, the general is saying that at some point our sitting ducks will be shot down.
There was a wall of them at Target for about 6 months. Systems ran 15 dollars, games for 5. TeleroBoxer was definitly worth 20 bucks.
If you really think they are valuable collectors items, feel free to head over to Ebay and pick one up for 25. Or pull out a shovel and go digging: I'm sure there is a cache somewhere around New Mexico.
Actually, Game Informer did a head-to-head comparison with a taco supreme. Citing a lack of final hardware, they declined to declare a winner... but the taco looked like it was coming out on top.
All of the NDA's I've signed in the past covered secrets that could cost the company a competitive edge, not that the actual employment took place. Why would Morgan Stanley be harmed if Goldman Sachs knew you had been in their building? Check the terms of the NDA carefully, first by yourself then with a lawyer. An NDA is not a gag order.
And secondly, if you are prohibited from revealing any of the details from the project including the employer name, list the goals and the results in way that a manager would understand. "Reduced total database spending by 40% through the use of custom human-centric software at one of America's top 5 financial institutions." The HR person will love it, but you haven't really said anything.
A little leading cellular handset company had a long list of shareholders to satisfy.
Her products sold very well until the market was saturated. But then, no matter how hard she tried; she could not satisfy her investors and debtors.
She pulled, and she pulled. She puffed and she puffed. She chopped lines and started up others. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
But no! The company would not return to easy profits.
At last she left her primary market and ventured out alone. Do you think she had stopped working? No, indeed! She was going for help.
"Surely I can find something to help me," she thought.
Over the markets and up to trade shows the little company rolled. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
Pretty soon she saw a fat networking business standing on a sidetrack. He looked very rich and strong. Running alongside, she looked up and said,
"Will you help me get over this dip quickly with my shareholders in tow? The slow road to profit is so long and so steep."
The big networking business looked down at the little handset company. Then he said, " Don't you see that I am through with my own work? I have been all buffeted and scarred and am waiting for my white knight. No, I cannot help you."
The handset company was sorry, but she went on. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
Soon she cam to a second large multinational MP3 player market standing on a sidetrack. He was puffing and puffing, as if he were tired.
"He may help me," thought the little company. She ran alongside and asked,
"Will you help me over this ditch with my shareholders and debtors? Single-digit profits just don't satisfy like they used to."
Then the second big market answered,
"I have just come in from a 4 year long sprint. Don't you see how saturated I am? Can't you get some other market to help you this time?"
"I'll try," said the little company, and off she went. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
After a little while she came to a consumer electronics market just like herself (she thought). She ran alongside and said,
"Will you help me through the downturn with my shareholders and debt? A company this hip should see easy growth even in a downturn."
"Yes, indeed!" said the market for handheld gaming systems. "I'll be glad to help anyone I can. Just make a great system and easy money will roll in."
So the little company started back to where the impatient shareholders had been standing all this time, poking at their PDA devices. The little company aligned itself with what it thought was the market, and headed out.
Puff, puff! Chug, Chug! Choo, Choo! Off they started!
Slowly the company began to move. Slowly they developed hardware and software. As they climbed, the little company began to sing,
"I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!..."
The little handset company brought in experts from all fields. The little handset company built prototypes, models, and licensing agreements. The little handset company kept hyping away at the market.
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
People came from all around. They pointed at the little company and said "You'll never make it." "Your hardware is inferior." "How do you even put the cartridge in?"
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
The little company ignored the naysayers, and pushed forth. They worked trade shows, padded their game linup, bought sure hits like Tony Hawk and Super Monkey Ball. And they never stopped believing in themselves.
"What do you think you are doing?" "I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!"
The worst of the market was behind them. Their stock prices rose and rose! They were going to make it! Their agressive marketing policy and never-say-die attitude was paying
Ok, so this wasn't the reason phones saw widespread adoption. But it was cited by early telephone companies as a possible usage, and was banned from concert halls for that very reason.
I can't seem to find the relevant links at the moment (likely, it involved mashed wood pulp). However such a fear was present at the time.
Let's name some older technologies and their original uses.
Photography: Pornography Telephone: Illicit listening to live concerts Records: Illicit recording of live concerts VCR: Pornography Cinema: Pornography Cassette Tapes: Illicit recording of copyrighted audio World Wide Web: Pornography and Illicit playback of copyrighted audio Broadband: see above
And now Peer-to-Peer distribution systems have evolved as a technology into something mature and usable. It only makes sense that the technology can and will be harnessed for legal ends, rather than the very human desires that drive most new technological adaptations. It's only a matter of time before the copy of Kill Bill volume 1 and 2 that you rent from Blockbuster.com and download to Media Player will be downloaded from other Media Player users who already have the movie.
Gaming companies generally are the first adapters because they live and die on both emerging technologies and risk. When Apple realizes that they could add 5c to their 7c per song profit on songs sold through ITunes, they will certainly enable a controlled form of P2P sharing. When CinemaNow realizes the same thing, they too will jump at the chance to add profit where there once was a major fixed cost.
Just as VCRs started as an uncontrollable piracy distribution medium, so too will P2P evolve into a powerful cash-earning medium for the content companies. It's not a matter of if, but when.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, this is a problem with Microsoft's DRM. Apple's DRM is tied to a username & password, not hardware. The authorization is stored on your computer for convenience, of course, but you can authorize any other computer easily. And multiple people's music can be authorized on the same computer. Cool, eh?
Very cool. Points to Apple for having thought this through.
How does iTunes' DRM handle a full OS re-install? Or a hardware migration? What does Apple recommending doing when, in 2 years, our hardware is outdated and needs to be replaced? Or in 3 months when XP has an irrecoverable crash and we have to reinstall everything from scratch?
Restricted file formats are a frustrating thing. But restricted file formats tied to a piece of hardware that is replaced on average every 3 years is foolish.
And buying restricted files once you realize this failing is just plain stupid.
BTW, thanks for the Magnatune link!
Mix. Burn. Rip.
The idea is to keep people from mass-producing CDs.
Except that you could just duplicate the 1st burned disk as a master, with no difference in audio quality.
I'm fairly certain this is just there to placate the labels. It's neither effective nor annoying, it's just odd.
Driver Heads:
How hard would it be to create a fake CDR drive that serves both as the output for any music ripping application and as the input for CDex? I know such ghost drives have been used for years for playing games without the original disks, but they have far less interaction with the program. How hard is it to fake a CD write?
Why not have academy members votes be weighted based upon which movie they have seen? If, for example, Finding Nemo recieved 40% of the vote of the 1,000 members registered as having seen it, it still could lose against the 50% vote given by the 150 members who saw "Whale Rider."
Such a scheme sounds more fair, if it isn't possible to see a movie in the intended format.
I tend to think that a "special security code" would make the copy more valuable, as it becomes a one of a kind (or a knockoff of a one of a kind).
I'd pay good money for a screener of Jurassic Park verifiably sent to Stephen Spielberg.
This week's tops at the box office is Time Warner's remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which took in a whopping 28 million dollars for a 9 thousand dollar per screen average, yet only featured one dismemberment every 20 minutes. It dethroned Disney's ultraviolent Kill Bill, which continued to charge ahead at the box office. With an enviable 3 week total of 43.2 million dollars it's averaging 240 thousand dollars for every man woman and child disembowled, dismembered, or decapitated for your viewing pleasure.
In other news, a spat of school violence is sweeping across the nation. "I didn't even realize that trenchcoat wearing freak existed before he put on a hockey mask, pulled out a 2-foot machete, and started lumbering towards everyone" one spunky but virtuous survivor at a Des Moines High School told reporters. "We usually just laughed at him. Then he started killing us. Then the cops shot him dead. Who is laughing now Freak?"
Parents across the nation have uncovered the source of the violence: games that you play on your television, AKA "Videoed-Games" were present in all of the troubled children's rooms. "My son was a model student," the mother of one such corrupted child told reporters Tuesday, "the babysitter said he always came home from school on time, he never missed a meal (food disappeared regularly from the refridgerator), and he was so quiet and respectful those times we took him to see House of the Dead, 28 Days, House of 1000 corpses, and Spy Kids 3D. The other kids roughed him up a bit, but you know... boys will be boys. And then... And then..." The mother broke down into tears, "And then we accidentally opened the door to his room, and discovered these shiny little disks everywhere. They all had names like 'Devil Dice,' 'Dark Savior,' and 'Speed Devils Online'. He had a House of the Dead game that was so realistic it integrated footage from the movie! I immediatly increased his beatings from one to four per day. But even that wasn't enough to save him from the influence of these Demon Games."
"His father will be furious when the warden tells him," she added. "I'm so upset by this gaming-inspired lack of morality, I need to go watch 'Special Victims Unit.'" The mother then left the interview, forgetting the small baby she had brought with her.
but how many non-despicable rape-related manga are there?
Mainstream manga explores the theme of rape as often as mainstreem American literature, often times written by women for women. To point out a popular example, The Wings of Honneamise featured a disturbing but mature look at rape as an aspect of hero worship.
I agree with the fundamental precept that the "avatar effect" of gaming is very different from the "voyeur effect" of the written word. I disagree that this creates a fundamental disjunction with deeper sensations. Celes's suicide attempt in Final Fantasy 3 had a tremendous emotional impact upon a generation of gamers. The avatar was used to make a player deeply care about the character, and the difference between the player's choices and the avatar's actions lead to deep emotional distress. Final Fantasy 7 took this disjoint even deeper, flipping between what the player thought they did and what really happened, as they watch their character first acknowledge then slowly emerge from their madness.
The problem with gaming in general as the previous poster pointed out is that most of it is pulp fiction: 50% of games released on the computer are a First Person Shooter with no underlying emotional pull besides that which you would find at a basketball game. But that doesn't mean they all are, and that doesn't mean that Metal Gear Solid should be afforded any less artistic license than Full Metal Jacket.
For ever crappy war-based videogame the industry puts out, the movie studios put out a Courage Under Fire. For some reason this leads people to yell at the movie studios to raise their quality level, and to yell at the gaming industry to not make war games.
If we are going to prove ourselves as a viable medium, we need to continue to make games of all subject matters, need to continue to push the emotional and storytelling boundaries of the medium, and we need to release quality. Only then will people stop assuming that anything done in a videogame will be immature garbage. Only then will no subject be taboo.
IMO What ever happened to the free net2phone apps that were out there??? They ones I know charge now.
Net2Phone switched to charging for computer to phone service about 3 years ago. It wasn't a very big loss, as the service was plagued by bad lag and server outages. Hopefully the money they are making now goes into fixing those problems.
The difference between XBox Live and Counterstrike is that Counterstrike was a player-made mod, and didn't "go pro" until it was already a smashing success. People may play mostly stock Counter-Strike maps, but those maps are the cream of the crop of Counter Strike maps that were created over the years and added to the distribution. If the players themselves didn't have access to modifying the game, people would still be playing Half-Life.
On the other hand, for Mechassault and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the publishing company has to create and approve the content. There may be a lot of maps that ID can create, but they can't compete with the thousands of maps, skins, and mods available for Quake 3 made by gamers for gamers.
Player-generated content really separates a fun game with a normal life from a fun game which manages to grab hold of you and not let go for years.
Ngo Dinh Diem won Saigon with 600k votes out of a total 450k registered voters in the US sponsored Vienamese election of 1954. Of course, we don't do that sort of thing anymore... we cap voterigging at 100% now.
"Kerry... Liberman... Bush... Gautier... You have selected 'Marvin Glen Gautier of the Klu Klux Klandidacy.' If you wish to make a different selection, touch the screen now."
"Hey, what's that little fuck doing!?"
"You have selected 'different selection.' Touch the screen when the name of your preferred candidate is read. Kerry... Liberman... Bush..."
You mean to tell me that the ownership of
fucking western civilization and control
over enough nukes to crack the planet into
pop rocks is resting on the adamantine
uncrackability of WinCE?
[baffled] Canada doesn't have nukes.
Oh. You must be using a different definition of civilization.
I actually torture tested a few disks for a HS project to see what would cause immediate data loss.
Several 1.44 MB 3.5" floppys were
1. Stomped on
2. Driven over
3. Wiped with a kitchen magnet
4. Left in the sun for 7 days
5. Baked at 250 for 20 minutes
6. Left at the bottom of a filthy pool overnight
7. Thrown off a roof
In all cases, the data was perfectly intact. Throwing off the roof had shattered 2 of the housings, but there was no data loss.
Ironically, when I went back to look at them several years later, they had all died of natural causes.
Those little floppys are tough, but don't count on them for long-term storage.
This sort of thing always amazes me... companies give away products which cost them huge ammounts to produce, with minor limitations, and as thanks some script kiddie decides they didn't give away enough of the program.
Don't like them not giving away the whole thing... go find something that *is* free, or get a job with Alias, and change their policy.
Or release a script that changes the system to do what you want it to do.
Let's be honest... I congradulate Alias Wavefront for introducing low-cost versions of Maya, but it was a necessary step to prevent their irrelevance to most major companies. 3D Studio Max is 500 dollars or less, and has 15 years of artist and programmer acceptance. There is a huge knowledge pool behind the product. Maya is a superior package, but it costs about the same as a used family sedan. In order to sell Maya to corporate users, they need artists who have experience using Maya as a tool. Artists are unlikely to have the 2 grand necessary to use the tool, and may not have the technical savvy to pirate it.
In short, it's not a gift, it is a seed: a seed which may grow into a sale, and which helps support their ridiculous price structure.
BTW, a "script kiddie" is someone without technical skill who runs automated software in an attempt to do something which would otherwise require knowledge and ability. The person you are referring to is a "hacker," or possibly a "haxor," or (more likely) an "engineer."
When will someone make a realistic crime game?
I want to get rich and buy cool stuff and flaunt my cash, drugs and guns to my buds.
I wanna get mixed up with "made men" who might hook me up, or might mark me.
I don't want there to be random "scooby snacks" hidden away to heal me or hide me from the cops. When I get hit by a bullet - I want it to suck - bad.
So... You want a game where you camp out watching a target for 3 days, you want to hire a group of thugs to help you, and you want to be chased by real people playing cops who have no reprocussions for shooting criminals.
I assume you then want to run to mexico and spend the rest of your $10 a month subscription getting drunk in a language you don't understand and crying about not being able to go home?
Do you have any conceptualization about crime beyond what you are shown in movies? I'll give you a hint... It's really boring. A realistic crime game would consist of buying stolen goods from character X and selling them to character Y, trying to hide the fact that you are making money by not buying anything fancy, until suddenly an overwhelming force of police officers busts down your door that you put your hands up and lie down. Even if it was a heist game, very few criminals are ever "caught in the act." The game would be several days of scoping out a location and doing research, 60 seconds of busting in and taking things, and 4 weeks of laying low trying not to get fingered. And the cops get to have the joy of interviewing NPC's for information, picking up clues from things lying around the scene, and having crimes go unsolved for upwards of 10 years.
You want all buildings to have a purpose, yet you want no "scooby snacks?" You want a realistic crime game where you can flaunt your cash?
It sounds like what you really want is Scarface Online.
As far as I can tell, our satellites are useful for A: GPS recievers, which can be jammed more cheaply on the ground B: Communications, which can be jammed more cheaply on the ground... and would take out their own comm satellites and C: Intelligence satellites, which are in high geosynchronous orbit.
If someone decided to attack satellites in their area, the result would look less like a war (with two sides firing), and more like someone shooting at passing cars on the highway. By treaty, satellites have no defensive or offensive capability.
So really, the general is saying that at some point our sitting ducks will be shot down.
There was a wall of them at Target for about 6 months. Systems ran 15 dollars, games for 5. TeleroBoxer was definitly worth 20 bucks.
If you really think they are valuable collectors items, feel free to head over to Ebay and pick one up for 25. Or pull out a shovel and go digging: I'm sure there is a cache somewhere around New Mexico.
Actually, Game Informer did a head-to-head comparison with a taco supreme. Citing a lack of final hardware, they declined to declare a winner... but the taco looked like it was coming out on top.
...at $15 dollars, just like the Virtual Boy.
All of the NDA's I've signed in the past covered secrets that could cost the company a competitive edge, not that the actual employment took place. Why would Morgan Stanley be harmed if Goldman Sachs knew you had been in their building? Check the terms of the NDA carefully, first by yourself then with a lawyer. An NDA is not a gag order.
And secondly, if you are prohibited from revealing any of the details from the project including the employer name, list the goals and the results in way that a manager would understand. "Reduced total database spending by 40% through the use of custom human-centric software at one of America's top 5 financial institutions." The HR person will love it, but you haven't really said anything.
A little leading cellular handset company had a long list of shareholders to satisfy.
Her products sold very well until the market was saturated. But then, no matter how hard she tried; she could not satisfy her investors and debtors.
She pulled, and she pulled. She puffed and she puffed. She chopped lines and started up others. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
But no! The company would not return to easy profits.
At last she left her primary market and ventured out alone. Do you think she had stopped working? No, indeed! She was going for help.
"Surely I can find something to help me," she thought.
Over the markets and up to trade shows the little company rolled. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
Pretty soon she saw a fat networking business standing on a sidetrack. He looked very rich and strong. Running alongside, she looked up and said,
"Will you help me get over this dip quickly with my shareholders in tow? The slow road to profit is so long and so steep."
The big networking business looked down at the little handset company. Then he said, " Don't you see that I am through with my own work? I have been all buffeted and scarred and am waiting for my white knight. No, I cannot help you."
The handset company was sorry, but she went on. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
Soon she cam to a second large multinational MP3 player market standing on a sidetrack. He was puffing and puffing, as if he were tired.
"He may help me," thought the little company. She ran alongside and asked,
"Will you help me over this ditch with my shareholders and debtors? Single-digit profits just don't satisfy like they used to."
Then the second big market answered,
"I have just come in from a 4 year long sprint. Don't you see how saturated I am? Can't you get some other market to help you this time?"
"I'll try," said the little company, and off she went. Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo! Choo!
After a little while she came to a consumer electronics market just like herself (she thought). She ran alongside and said,
"Will you help me through the downturn with my shareholders and debt? A company this hip should see easy growth even in a downturn."
"Yes, indeed!" said the market for handheld gaming systems. "I'll be glad to help anyone I can. Just make a great system and easy money will roll in."
So the little company started back to where the impatient shareholders had been standing all this time, poking at their PDA devices. The little company aligned itself with what it thought was the market, and headed out.
Puff, puff! Chug, Chug! Choo, Choo! Off they started!
Slowly the company began to move. Slowly they developed hardware and software. As they climbed, the little company began to sing,
"I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!..."
The little handset company brought in experts from all fields. The little handset company built prototypes, models, and licensing agreements. The little handset company kept hyping away at the market.
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
People came from all around. They pointed at the little company and said "You'll never make it." "Your hardware is inferior." "How do you even put the cartridge in?"
I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!
The little company ignored the naysayers, and pushed forth. They worked trade shows, padded their game linup, bought sure hits like Tony Hawk and Super Monkey Ball. And they never stopped believing in themselves.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"I - think - I - can! I - think - I - can!"
The worst of the market was behind them. Their stock prices rose and rose! They were going to make it! Their agressive marketing policy and never-say-die attitude was paying
Ok, so this wasn't the reason phones saw widespread adoption. But it was cited by early telephone companies as a possible usage, and was banned from concert halls for that very reason.
I can't seem to find the relevant links at the moment (likely, it involved mashed wood pulp). However such a fear was present at the time.
Let's name some older technologies and their original uses.
Photography: Pornography
Telephone: Illicit listening to live concerts
Records: Illicit recording of live concerts
VCR: Pornography
Cinema: Pornography
Cassette Tapes: Illicit recording of copyrighted audio
World Wide Web: Pornography and Illicit playback of copyrighted audio
Broadband: see above
And now Peer-to-Peer distribution systems have evolved as a technology into something mature and usable. It only makes sense that the technology can and will be harnessed for legal ends, rather than the very human desires that drive most new technological adaptations. It's only a matter of time before the copy of Kill Bill volume 1 and 2 that you rent from Blockbuster.com and download to Media Player will be downloaded from other Media Player users who already have the movie.
Gaming companies generally are the first adapters because they live and die on both emerging technologies and risk. When Apple realizes that they could add 5c to their 7c per song profit on songs sold through ITunes, they will certainly enable a controlled form of P2P sharing. When CinemaNow realizes the same thing, they too will jump at the chance to add profit where there once was a major fixed cost.
Just as VCRs started as an uncontrollable piracy distribution medium, so too will P2P evolve into a powerful cash-earning medium for the content companies. It's not a matter of if, but when.
And it seems that now is the time.