Kids don't read comics anymore. Most comics readers _are_ over 30. I'm 23, and most people I see at the comic shop are older than me.
I'd say this is because kids don't go to the comic shop, kids download eComics from torrent sites. Digital scans of comics distributed as comic book archives being read with specialized comics viewers are getting more and more common. eComics don't need physical storage space, are easy to carry around provided you have a laptop and don't have any wear and tear.
The white keyboard coming with the first generation G5 Power Mac was the worst I've ever used. It had hardly any space between the keys, and I constantly pressed more than one key. Apart from that, it was super elegant and didn't have any cover. So huge amounts of dust, dirt and food collected over they years. And as with many things coming from Apple, it was almost impossible to open up and clean.
While the C64 keyboard was somewhat unpleasant to use, it didn't have any of these problems.
As regards the female characters thing, I'm afraid I think it's giving male creators a bum deal. The list does read pretty shocking at first until you think of everything the male heroes have gone through, too, in terms of deaths/mutilations/etc. Granted, the female stuff has more of a sexual violence theme and this is something people should probably watch out for, but rape is a rare thing in comics and is seldom done in an exploitative way.
You can be sure that while sacrificial lambs get jail time, the gang bosses and the real botnet builders will continue to prosper. Until, that is, law enforcement, the judiciary and governments around the world start to take the spam problem as seriously as they do the drugs one.
Listen to the man! Remember, back then, when drugs got out of control, a war on drugs was declared and now there are no drugs anymore. When the whole terror thing got out of control and people started to land aeroplanes in skyscapers and stuff, a war on terror was declared and now there is no terror anymore. So let's just declare war on spam and... oh, wait.
Let's give people financial incentive to create bigger, better, and less detectable aimbots with the purpose of scamming people.
This has the very real potential to ruin public servers.
On the contrary. All cheaters will go to money servers, ruining their day competing with other cheaters while us honest gamers can hang out on now cheater free public servers. We won't get rich, but we'll have a good time. Hooah!
Forget about clever puns, double entendres and witty analogies
It doesn't have to be this way. As a couter example, consider The Register: they typically use a main caption that is informative, and a smaller sub caption that attempts to be witty. Some quotes from their current front page:
Vista encryption 'no threat' to computer forensics
Who needs a backdoor when users leave the Windows open?
Officials sued for $3m for disciplining MySpace spoofers
Bloodied principal, muzzled students
Internet users play tag with online content: study
Folksonomies
Romania: Software piracy made us what we are today
Thank-you, Mr Gates
I wish corpses remained solid. It would add a whole new element to gameplay, making it a priority to get your butt through a hallway before the corpses pile up to the ceiling.
Apart from that, immaterial corpses allow tactics that don't make sense in games that are geared towards realism.
For example, take America's Army. Many maps encourage a "slow and low" approach. Being silhouetted against the sky can mean instant death. To avoid that, you can look for a body and crawl inside it, sharing its silhouette. The opposing forces know that there's a stiff at your place (after all, they just shot him), and won't notice you. So you can pick your sniper rifle and start to take them down without them knowing what hit them. Which I think is kinda stupid.
If you want to gamble, go to Vegas. If you want to invest, try mutual funds.
If you want to gamble and invest, try the stock market. For example, Nintendo has more than doubled its value within a year and keeps rising. For even more thrill consider buying stock options - if for instance you want to bet on the Sony stock price going down, get some put options. This is particular useful if you bet against the market and end up being right.
Pity new high profile consoles show up only about every five years. Good thing there are game developers that have highs and lows all the time, for example Electronic Arts...
One of the worst misfeatures of Windows (and its developer community) is the retarded design of dialogs. AFAIK the pre-Vista API has a bunch a simple functions to do Yes/No and Ok/Cancel dialogs, but nothing to label buttons sensibly. So it's quite common to have a dialog with "Yes" and "No" buttons, and and huge text explaining what these options mean. Despite the fact that every at least semi-decent article or book about dialog design recommends to use verbs for button labels.
Use positive commit buttons that are specific responses to the main instruction instead of generic labels (such as "OK"). Users should be able to quickly grasp the options by reading the button text alone. Always start commit button labels with a verb.
Yeah again!
However, above this guideline we can see a screenshot of the classic, super retarded Windowesque "Save changes? Yes/No/Cancel" dialog.
I suggest for the final document they just copy this dialog from any random Mac OS application and put a Vista theme on it.
There's less searches for Ultramax, Trance music, Madonna and Britney Spears than two years ago. Thats because those items are less popular than two years ago.
There are also less searches for Linux. Amiga has been been increasing recently. Look Mum, I can see a trend! Well, maybe not.
Equally disturbing was when I played SH2 and I realized that James had murdered Mary.
To put that in context for those who haven't played Silent Hill 2 (spoilers ahead):
James is the game character you play. It starts out as a creepy, but almost romantic story, where James receives a letter from his dead wife Mary. It that point all you know is that she died in Silent Hill in the hospital. Towards the end of the game you find a video tape that shows you killing her.
There are plenty of other disturbing things: There's a little girl that during the game does all kinds of annoying things to you for (then) no aparent reason. Turns out she befriended Mary in the hospital, and knows you killed her. Some of the monsters attack each other (without you having to trick them into it). In one sequence, the (male) pyramid head butchers (female) zombie manequins with you just watching. You can't really put these things in the proper place at the time when they happen, but once the whole "woman killer" theme is revealed when watching the video, they really hit you bad.
SH2 has several endings depending on how you react to certain events and items. In one of them (the "water ending"), James commits suicide. Not the "clumsy player does stupid things" kind of suicide but "official ending movie sequence" suicide.
For me, SH2 really went beyond from what I expected from a survival horror game - in a positive way. YMMW.
Jumpman (#47)
From the Totally Out of Ideas department comes Jumpman. Let's see...there's a man, and he jumps...
I think this name first the game perfectly. Jumpman was pure gameplay - no plot, no sense, just plain fun. What's so bad about a short, catchy name that in one word describes what the whole game is about?
region codes definitely have increased piracy as a whole. When someone in a given country can't get a DVD because its not available in their market yet, they'll more likely just download the movie.
I'm all for dissing region codes, but your logic is flawed. Even without region codes, many films will not be released in, say, US and Europe at the same time. So you still "can't get" the DVD (unless you're willing to pay import fees and stuff).
Likewise, even with region codes, a DVD could (in theory) be released in US and Europe at the same time with different codes. I guess not doing so in practice makes sense from a marketing point of view. If the DVD flops in the primary market, there is no point to invest in a release in the secondary markets.
Re:Copying your legally-owned DVDs...
on
No Video iPod Coming?
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I currently use Smartripper to rip the.vob files and separate my audio and video tracks, and DVDx to encode the audio to mp3 and video to DivX and package it all up in a nice.avi container.
Oh well, so much for selling my trusty first generation G5 for a reasonable amount of money on ebay next year. I suppose I have to put it in the vintage systems category with all those Commodore 64s and Amiga 500s.
As noted, the unusual feature of this contest is that contestants submit code that is immediately scored, ranked, and displayed for all to see. In fact, as with the "Edit this Page" button on a wiki page, the contest is specifically designed to encourage participants to steal each other's code.
I found it interesting that "steal" is used without any negative meaning. It's merely a shorter word for collaborating.
Consider that right now we are told regularly that all kinds of reasonable activities (p2p, using patented software algorithms, making backups of things we paid for,...) are "stealing". The intention would be that stealing is a crime, and hence these reasonable activities need to prosecuted and what not. However, if a culture emerges where stealing means collaborating, this represents a major backlash for the copyright cabal.
I just had to get this crap on my hard disk. Here's the direct download link: Get_Perpendicular.swf. A cool feature about flash movies is that they scale to the screen resolution, so you can watch it full screen. (The original web page specifies an absolute size.)
I read the developer quickstart guide, and still can't figure out if this will help me with integrating a Java application.
Right now, I use an installer based on IzPack, which works but results in an application that must be started from a shell script and does not integrate in the desktop. In particular, the user can not just double click files that have been created with my application. Also annoing is the fact that the installer includes trivial libraries like log4j, which causes bloat. And worse, some libraries have to be downloaded manually, in my case JAI. I'd say my application is a horrible user experience under Linux.
However, the developer quick guide just keeps talking about about C compilers, GTK and other stuff I don't use or care about. Is there any point in taking a closer look at autopackage?
I was at the festival in 2002 (may 15-26). AFAIR there were at least 40 cinemas showing movies all the day (starting around 9 in the morning). The more important movies are shown several times, but many only about twice.
Basically, you can just go and rent a cinema at Cannes, and show your movie. Not surprisingly, most films you see at Cannes just suck. (Of course, the rent is horribly expensive.)
However, you can't just go to Cannes with your movie and win any price (except maybe the "price of the audience"). There's a jury that selects movies for the competition. This alone already is a lot of honor, even if your don't end up winning a palm. The numberwas rather small (about 30). Still, it's no guarantee for quality (for example, Demonlover and Murder by Numbers were in the selection for 2002)
Most of the other films compeet on the "market", which is a big hall with lots of booths were film makers try to convince producers/investors/video store managers/... to license/buy/finance/... their movie. This features a lot of films that later go "dvd/video only", including ramboesque slaughterings, unfunny comedies, dumb chick flicks - you name it. Many of the movies a saw never made it to the cinemas.
BTW, I recall that Episode 2 had its Euro-premiere at Cannes 2002. Of course, I didn't watch it.:-P
Ever seen a movie on regular tv with no adverts? its heaven!
Actually no, it still sucks. More than 10 years ago, I got rid of TV for obvious reasons. With the rise of digital equipment to record movies from TV, a few years ago I bought a Formac Studio TV (which BTW does a pretty good job).
However, in the past years I got used to Cinema and DVDs, and quickly realized that even if you have add-free TV, many movies are crippled beyond recognition. Most violent or erotic scenes are shortened or removed. While this doesn't hurt the plot of your average Schwarzenegger flick, many artsy films involving such elements (think Coen) get totally destroyed and turn into a confusing waste of time.
So after a short intermezzo, I'm without TV again, and use the Formac Studio to play PS2 games on a 20 inch monitor at 85 Hz.
Slashdot Mirror
From the Q&A:
According to the Apple Store, it already has a "New" flag, but the graphics card still is the old 8600M instead of the new 9600M.
...a Nintendo DS and Super Mario Cart.
The white keyboard coming with the first generation G5 Power Mac was the worst I've ever used. It had hardly any space between the keys, and I constantly pressed more than one key. Apart from that, it was super elegant and didn't have any cover. So huge amounts of dust, dirt and food collected over they years. And as with many things coming from Apple, it was almost impossible to open up and clean.
While the C64 keyboard was somewhat unpleasant to use, it didn't have any of these problems.
- Vista encryption 'no threat' to computer forensics
- Officials sued for $3m for disciplining MySpace spoofers
- Internet users play tag with online content: study
- Romania: Software piracy made us what we are today
I could do without the clever parts though.Who needs a backdoor when users leave the Windows open?
Bloodied principal, muzzled students
Folksonomies
Thank-you, Mr Gates
Apart from that, immaterial corpses allow tactics that don't make sense in games that are geared towards realism.
For example, take America's Army. Many maps encourage a "slow and low" approach. Being silhouetted against the sky can mean instant death. To avoid that, you can look for a body and crawl inside it, sharing its silhouette. The opposing forces know that there's a stiff at your place (after all, they just shot him), and won't notice you. So you can pick your sniper rifle and start to take them down without them knowing what hit them. Which I think is kinda stupid.
Pity new high profile consoles show up only about every five years. Good thing there are game developers that have highs and lows all the time, for example Electronic Arts...
One of the worst misfeatures of Windows (and its developer community) is the retarded design of dialogs. AFAIK the pre-Vista API has a bunch a simple functions to do Yes/No and Ok/Cancel dialogs, but nothing to label buttons sensibly. So it's quite common to have a dialog with "Yes" and "No" buttons, and and huge text explaining what these options mean. Despite the fact that every at least semi-decent article or book about dialog design recommends to use verbs for button labels.
I recently read that Vista finally offers an API to easily change the button labels. Yeah! And guideline 5 (Use task dialogs for new or frequently used dialog boxes and error messages) specifically recommends:
Yeah again!
However, above this guideline we can see a screenshot of the classic, super retarded Windowesque "Save changes? Yes/No/Cancel" dialog.
I suggest for the final document they just copy this dialog from any random Mac OS application and put a Vista theme on it.
To put that in context for those who haven't played Silent Hill 2 (spoilers ahead):
James is the game character you play. It starts out as a creepy, but almost romantic story, where James receives a letter from his dead wife Mary. It that point all you know is that she died in Silent Hill in the hospital. Towards the end of the game you find a video tape that shows you killing her.
There are plenty of other disturbing things: There's a little girl that during the game does all kinds of annoying things to you for (then) no aparent reason. Turns out she befriended Mary in the hospital, and knows you killed her. Some of the monsters attack each other (without you having to trick them into it). In one sequence, the (male) pyramid head butchers (female) zombie manequins with you just watching. You can't really put these things in the proper place at the time when they happen, but once the whole "woman killer" theme is revealed when watching the video, they really hit you bad.
SH2 has several endings depending on how you react to certain events and items. In one of them (the "water ending"), James commits suicide. Not the "clumsy player does stupid things" kind of suicide but "official ending movie sequence" suicide.
For me, SH2 really went beyond from what I expected from a survival horror game - in a positive way. YMMW.
I'm all for dissing region codes, but your logic is flawed. Even without region codes, many films will not be released in, say, US and Europe at the same time. So you still "can't get" the DVD (unless you're willing to pay import fees and stuff).
Likewise, even with region codes, a DVD could (in theory) be released in US and Europe at the same time with different codes. I guess not doing so in practice makes sense from a marketing point of view. If the DVD flops in the primary market, there is no point to invest in a release in the secondary markets.
Oh well, so much for selling my trusty first generation G5 for a reasonable amount of money on ebay next year. I suppose I have to put it in the vintage systems category with all those Commodore 64s and Amiga 500s.
I found it interesting that "steal" is used without any negative meaning. It's merely a shorter word for collaborating.
Consider that right now we are told regularly that all kinds of reasonable activities (p2p, using patented software algorithms, making backups of things we paid for, ...) are "stealing". The intention would be that stealing is a crime, and hence these reasonable activities need to prosecuted and what not. However, if a culture emerges where stealing means collaborating, this represents a major backlash for the copyright cabal.
I know, it's just words, but still...
I just had to get this crap on my hard disk. Here's the direct download link: Get_Perpendicular.swf. A cool feature about flash movies is that they scale to the screen resolution, so you can watch it full screen. (The original web page specifies an absolute size.)
That's why "elite units" are elite, because they will actually voluntarily put themselves in harm's way rather than only trying to stay alive.
So that's what honor 25 does to you?I read the developer quickstart guide, and still can't figure out if this will help me with integrating a Java application.
Right now, I use an installer based on IzPack, which works but results in an application that must be started from a shell script and does not integrate in the desktop. In particular, the user can not just double click files that have been created with my application. Also annoing is the fact that the installer includes trivial libraries like log4j, which causes bloat. And worse, some libraries have to be downloaded manually, in my case JAI. I'd say my application is a horrible user experience under Linux.
However, the developer quick guide just keeps talking about about C compilers, GTK and other stuff I don't use or care about. Is there any point in taking a closer look at autopackage?
Actually, no.
I was at the festival in 2002 (may 15-26). AFAIR there were at least 40 cinemas showing movies all the day (starting around 9 in the morning). The more important movies are shown several times, but many only about twice.
Basically, you can just go and rent a cinema at Cannes, and show your movie. Not surprisingly, most films you see at Cannes just suck. (Of course, the rent is horribly expensive.)
However, you can't just go to Cannes with your movie and win any price (except maybe the "price of the audience"). There's a jury that selects movies for the competition. This alone already is a lot of honor, even if your don't end up winning a palm. The numberwas rather small (about 30). Still, it's no guarantee for quality (for example, Demonlover and Murder by Numbers were in the selection for 2002)
Most of the other films compeet on the "market", which is a big hall with lots of booths were film makers try to convince producers/investors/video store managers/... to license/buy/finance/... their movie. This features a lot of films that later go "dvd/video only", including ramboesque slaughterings, unfunny comedies, dumb chick flicks - you name it. Many of the movies a saw never made it to the cinemas.
BTW, I recall that Episode 2 had its Euro-premiere at Cannes 2002. Of course, I didn't watch it. :-P
Ever seen a movie on regular tv with no adverts? its heaven!
Actually no, it still sucks. More than 10 years ago, I got rid of TV for obvious reasons. With the rise of digital equipment to record movies from TV, a few years ago I bought a Formac Studio TV (which BTW does a pretty good job).However, in the past years I got used to Cinema and DVDs, and quickly realized that even if you have add-free TV, many movies are crippled beyond recognition. Most violent or erotic scenes are shortened or removed. While this doesn't hurt the plot of your average Schwarzenegger flick, many artsy films involving such elements (think Coen) get totally destroyed and turn into a confusing waste of time.
So after a short intermezzo, I'm without TV again, and use the Formac Studio to play PS2 games on a 20 inch monitor at 85 Hz.
Hence the stories of people [...] modding their Amigas to be a multimedia console
You don't have to mod an Amiga to be a multimedia console. That was the whole idea behind it from the beginning.