Actually, I got a 360 on launch day, and was able to redeem my warranty last month when the whole thing up and died (3 red lights). It took about a week and a half, and they replaced my original console with a newer one. My guess is that the launch day 360's were a little more problematic than later versions, leading Microsoft to extend the original warranty.
Parent makes a good point. In addition to availability, what about the content of the media itself, even if it is still available?
If we move completely over to a download on demand format, what's to keep studios from changing the content on a whim? People are already complaining about that, what with the 'remastered' versions of Star Wars (IV-VI) being the only ones available on DVD. What if they were originally released only through live streaming?
I've been playing it recently, and I'm really impressed with just about every aspect of it. Apparently it isn't selling very well despite critical acclaim...very sad.
Well, there are currently known procedures that enable someone to become their own grandpa. So I suppose once 'science' got involved, this was an inevitable extension.
It's just one more thing to worry about. They're avoiding it because they don't want to have to search though thousands of lines of text in five languages every time a voice over changes, or do the same thing correct obscure spelling errors.
Oh the other hand, In lower budget games, there are subtitles there because it's a lot easier to and cheaper just have the voices in one language, and provide for the others with translated subtitles.
I personally think more games should have them, particularly Halo, but working at a game studio, I can understand why they often don't.
I did character voiceovers for a smaller (and sadly still unpublished) video game a couple years ago.
The sound studio we went to was actually in the back of some guy's suburban home. Once we were inside, it was a very interesting experience, putting the headphones on and talking into the microphone in the sound booth all by yourself while a few people sit ouside and fiddle with the computers. Oh yeah, and every so often you hear "(click) ok, let's try it again, but this time..."
Initially I thought that it was going to be easy - just say the line, right? After you try it, you begin to realize that there are a _ton_ of subtleties for every word you say. I would do a line a half dozen times, and only one of those would be even halfway decent. Every so often, I would say a line and know I had it, but most of the time it was just trial and error.
After being in the recording booth for an hour or so, I had quite a headache, but was excited to see what it would sound like in-game. Turns out that it's odd to hear your own voice coming out of a computer paired with a person who looks nothing like you.
We were a small time studio, so everyone who did voices for the title already worked at the company (I was a programmer) in some capacity, but, IMHO, the resulting voice overs were far better than a lot of the laughable, flat performances I've seen in other games recently.
All in all, It was facinating to see how much equipment, time, and effort goes into even small-time game voiceovers.
I'm not sure Hollywood is the best place to look for a standard of well thought through 'quality' projects. Don't believe me? Take a look at the "major" releases that came out this week. I'm thinking there are some 'quantity' films there.
Don't let the flash and glamour of tinsel town fool you, games are pretty much at the level of movies right now. For every Lord of the Rings there's a Tony Hawk, and at the same time, for every Fugitive Hunter, there's a Battlefield Earth.
When I first glanced at this headline, I thought it said "RIAA Files 477 New Filesharing Laws".
The scary part is I thought it might be possible: a new strategy where they get their whims written into law by flooding lawmakers with proposals introduced by their congressional and senatorial 'pets'.
I guess the real headline isn't quite as frightening.
If so much spam actually finds buyers, why don't any of these people honor opt-outs?
My guess would be that they figure somewhere down the line they may 'get you', and in the mean time it doesn't cost them anything to leave you in their list, heck, it's probably more convenient to do so.
And if there's really people like Mr. Soto, what's the problem with actually having opt-in?
It seems the target market for things like back-alley viagra and enlargement pills are people who are to ashamed to go looking for them, so they're not very likely to bring attention to themselves by opting in.
Not that I'm saying anything new, but certain products are only really sellable when they're foisted onto people like the snake-oil of old.
I just used a service called Domains By Proxy to keep my personal information just that on my registered domain. It was $9 a year (I just missed the $7 deal they were running) which isn't too bad considering my registrar only charges me $8 so the grand total is $17.
I think it would be great if the service were free, but as I'm still paying less than I would if I had registered at Internic.ca, I can't complain too loudly.
As a side note, I like the fact that you can lookup who owns which domain. (It allows me to wonder why some guy in Rhode Island registered the.net and.org to my almost useless.com) I just wish that I could keep spammers of all flavors from seeing/using it.
Essentially, the difficulty of the boss at the end of the level was determined by how well you;d done leading up to it. It was kind of like a reward for doing well, and added some replayability, because the enhancements the boss would get going from normal to hard were somewhat obvious. Once I knew this was happening, I got a charge from knowing that I had earned the 'super' boss.
It also meant that if you weren't that good yet, you'd stand a better chance of getting to see the next level anyway, plus have some incentive to try again.
This is the only game I know of off hand that does this, but I'm sure there are others.
When I built my most recent computer a couple years ago, 98SE was the best winOS to run for games. It was more stable than regular 98, but didn't carry the overhead that the newer versions did. I made the system a dual boot with Mandrake, but spent most of my time in windows enjoying my (then high-end) video card.
I am personally pleased by this because it means that the new DirectX updates will work on my computer for a while to come. Not that my hardware can really handle all the games that are coming out now, but it's nice to know that my system will continue to be 'good enough' for a couple more years.
I didn't think I'd like it as much as I do
on
Where Is The Broadband?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
For a long time, I swore I'd never get broadband at home. It's at least $30 more than a dial-up connection, and if I really need to download a huge file, I could generally do so at school or work. For checking email, or basic web surfing, the 50k speeds I was getting were fine, it took a minute for some websites to load, but it wasn't bad.
Then I moved to a place where I got free broadband with my rent (a rarity I'm sure) and have really grown accustomed to it. It's nice to be able to instantly check on a website whenever your computer is on. I always know right away when I have new email, and bittorrent is actually viable for me.
When I move, it will be a much harder decision than I would have guessed whether or not to get broadband in my new place. I just hope that the companies in the area have decent terms of service.
One nice thing about webcomics, is that anyone can do one, ie: me.
I have actually been doing mine two days a week for over a year on keenspace.com, and have really enjoyed it. Since the hosting is free, the only thing I have to worry about is setting aside the time to do it - usually at 2am.
It's really been a good creative outlet, and I've even written a game to go along with it. And though it's not a stand-up great comic, I do have a few fans.
As far as goals, I don't make any money from it, and don't ever really expect to, but I'll keep doing it because I enjoy it.
I too, used to work for SAIC
on
Inside SAIC
·
· Score: 1
I was surprised to see that they were mentioned on slashdot. Ever since working for them, I've rarely met anyone who has even heard of the name. But I guess they don't need to advertise to the general public.
Contracting for them was actually my first professional programming experience, as I had only completed two years of a four year degree when I started. I wasn't working on any of the cutting edge stuff mentioned in the article though, our project was an internal website.
It was a good experience, even though I never really got any ownership of my own...and we had to wear ties.
This quote is from an article titled "Stop Calling Games Addictive" by Ernest Adams.
"I don't think there can be any doubt that the game industry has very good aim. No, I'll go farther than that. It's an expert marksman, a crack shot.
As least, so long as what it's aiming at is its own foot.
..small groups of individuals shoot the rest of us in the foot for the sake of a quick buck. Kingpin, Postal!, Carmageddon, Grand Theft Auto 3, State of Emergency; there's always someone who's prepared to ratchet down the taste threshold to a new low without any regard for what it does to the rest of the industry. It's especially unfortunate in the case of Grand Theft Auto 3, where an unusually well-crafted game has been used to propagate racist stereotypes and celebrate sexual exploitation. The consequences for children or society as a whole are as yet uncertain, but the consequences for us -- game developers -- are pretty clear. When I'm introduced to someone at a cocktail party as a computer game designer, and they stiffen and turn away, it's not my own games they're reacting to. So kind of my colleagues to provide the tar that smears me."
I can't say I'm surprised with the way the comments turned out on this story. There are a lot of smart people who post here, that's why I visit so often. I enjoy the insights into other areas of life and science that I don't know that much about. I've learned a lot about the world around me, and the computers in my home. Really, it's a very impressive thing that's going on here.
A problem that I've observed is that a lot of people seem convinced that the body of scientific knowledge, as it stands, is irrefutable. Along with that, religion seems to be widely derided as a crutch and/or a dangerous thing.
I personally don't think science is a bunch of bunk, I believe we have a good grasp of the world, and most of my family makes a living off of it. But I also believe that we don't know 1% of everything there is to know. By the same token, I realize that some people do use religion as a crutch, and that religious sentiments have lead to many wars and deaths - but also that it has probably saved and bettered more lives than it has ended. I also think it should be noted that many people use religion to improve themselves, and not to think for them.
Where am I going with this? I just wanted to say, after all those disclaimers, that I wish that more respect was given to religious sentiment here. I got "you believe in God?! (snicker)" from several posts at higher ratings than I would have expected. There are intelligent people who believe in God and science both, and have good points to make. I think many are intimidated by the atmosphere here, and subsequently don't post. The rest may not get modded up to more than 2, but they're out there.
That all said, I've tried not to imply any disrespect with my post, just to make a point. Thanks for reading.
Consoles these days are upgradeable, have hard drives, modems, ethernet, DVD-ROM drives, keyboards, mice, external speakers, and monitor hookups. They seem to be slowly becoming PC's. Highly standardized and specialized PC's, but PC's all the same.
This book may not be exactly what your looking for, but it does put across some of the fundamental principles of real world physics in an easy to read format. One nice thing is that the equations are explained, but completely skippable. There's also a lot of interesting history pertaining to each topic.
I personally enjoyed reading it, even though I'm not a baseball fan.
Whenever my hard drive fills up, games are the first things I look at. It seems like most game installs these days weigh in at over 500 MB, even if you opt to load movies and other things from the disc. So if you have a dozen or so games installed at once, (and I usually do, just in case the urge to play one strikes me) you're looking at the majority of your (or my) 20 GB Drive being 'taken'.
The biggest game I've installed that I can remember was Diablo II, which was over a Gig, but I'm sure there are bigger ones out there.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I got a 360 on launch day, and was able to redeem my warranty last month when the whole thing up and died (3 red lights). It took about a week and a half, and they replaced my original console with a newer one. My guess is that the launch day 360's were a little more problematic than later versions, leading Microsoft to extend the original warranty.
The call center was pretty noisy though.
"Han shot first"
Parent makes a good point. In addition to availability, what about the content of the media itself, even if it is still available?
If we move completely over to a download on demand format, what's to keep studios from changing the content on a whim? People are already complaining about that, what with the 'remastered' versions of Star Wars (IV-VI) being the only ones available on DVD. What if they were originally released only through live streaming?
I've been playing it recently, and I'm really impressed with just about every aspect of it. Apparently it isn't selling very well despite critical acclaim...very sad.
8. You may be your own great great grandparent.
Well, there are currently known procedures that enable someone to become their own grandpa. So I suppose once 'science' got involved, this was an inevitable extension.
Here's a link to the NPR story that was mentioned.
The quick and dirty answer:
It's just one more thing to worry about. They're avoiding it because they don't want to have to search though thousands of lines of text in five languages every time a voice over changes, or do the same thing correct obscure spelling errors.
Oh the other hand, In lower budget games, there are subtitles there because it's a lot easier to and cheaper just have the voices in one language, and provide for the others with translated subtitles.
I personally think more games should have them, particularly Halo, but working at a game studio, I can understand why they often don't.
I did character voiceovers for a smaller (and sadly still unpublished) video game a couple years ago.
The sound studio we went to was actually in the back of some guy's suburban home. Once we were inside, it was a very interesting experience, putting the headphones on and talking into the microphone in the sound booth all by yourself while a few people sit ouside and fiddle with the computers. Oh yeah, and every so often you hear "(click) ok, let's try it again, but this time..."
Initially I thought that it was going to be easy - just say the line, right? After you try it, you begin to realize that there are a _ton_ of subtleties for every word you say. I would do a line a half dozen times, and only one of those would be even halfway decent. Every so often, I would say a line and know I had it, but most of the time it was just trial and error.
After being in the recording booth for an hour or so, I had quite a headache, but was excited to see what it would sound like in-game. Turns out that it's odd to hear your own voice coming out of a computer paired with a person who looks nothing like you.
We were a small time studio, so everyone who did voices for the title already worked at the company (I was a programmer) in some capacity, but, IMHO, the resulting voice overs were far better than a lot of the laughable, flat performances I've seen in other games recently.
All in all, It was facinating to see how much equipment, time, and effort goes into even small-time game voiceovers.
Staying with the made-from-folded-paper-but-not-oragami tangent, here are plans for a working paper trebuchet.
I made one myself, it works pretty well.
DRM technology is available, and I should have the right to use it. You certainly have the right to not buy it.
Personally, my big fear in all of this is that enough legislation will be passed by RIAA's lackeys that nothing will be available without DRM.
I'm not sure Hollywood is the best place to look for a standard of well thought through 'quality' projects. Don't believe me? Take a look at the "major" releases that came out this week. I'm thinking there are some 'quantity' films there.
Don't let the flash and glamour of tinsel town fool you, games are pretty much at the level of movies right now. For every Lord of the Rings there's a Tony Hawk, and at the same time, for every Fugitive Hunter, there's a Battlefield Earth.
When I first glanced at this headline, I thought it said "RIAA Files 477 New Filesharing Laws".
The scary part is I thought it might be possible: a new strategy where they get their whims written into law by flooding lawmakers with proposals introduced by their congressional and senatorial 'pets'.
I guess the real headline isn't quite as frightening.
If so much spam actually finds buyers, why don't any of these people honor opt-outs?
My guess would be that they figure somewhere down the line they may 'get you', and in the mean time it doesn't cost them anything to leave you in their list, heck, it's probably more convenient to do so.
And if there's really people like Mr. Soto, what's the problem with actually having opt-in?
It seems the target market for things like back-alley viagra and enlargement pills are people who are to ashamed to go looking for them, so they're not very likely to bring attention to themselves by opting in.
Not that I'm saying anything new, but certain products are only really sellable when they're foisted onto people like the snake-oil of old.
Ick.
I just used a service called Domains By Proxy to keep my personal information just that on my registered domain. It was $9 a year (I just missed the $7 deal they were running) which isn't too bad considering my registrar only charges me $8 so the grand total is $17.
.net and .org to my almost useless .com) I just wish that I could keep spammers of all flavors from seeing/using it.
I think it would be great if the service were free, but as I'm still paying less than I would if I had registered at Internic.ca, I can't complain too loudly.
As a side note, I like the fact that you can lookup who owns which domain. (It allows me to wonder why some guy in Rhode Island registered the
Rez did this to a certain extent.
Essentially, the difficulty of the boss at the end of the level was determined by how well you;d done leading up to it. It was kind of like a reward for doing well, and added some replayability, because the enhancements the boss would get going from normal to hard were somewhat obvious. Once I knew this was happening, I got a charge from knowing that I had earned the 'super' boss.
It also meant that if you weren't that good yet, you'd stand a better chance of getting to see the next level anyway, plus have some incentive to try again.
This is the only game I know of off hand that does this, but I'm sure there are others.
When I built my most recent computer a couple years ago, 98SE was the best winOS to run for games. It was more stable than regular 98, but didn't carry the overhead that the newer versions did. I made the system a dual boot with Mandrake, but spent most of my time in windows enjoying my (then high-end) video card.
I am personally pleased by this because it means that the new DirectX updates will work on my computer for a while to come. Not that my hardware can really handle all the games that are coming out now, but it's nice to know that my system will continue to be 'good enough' for a couple more years.
For a long time, I swore I'd never get broadband at home. It's at least $30 more than a dial-up connection, and if I really need to download a huge file, I could generally do so at school or work. For checking email, or basic web surfing, the 50k speeds I was getting were fine, it took a minute for some websites to load, but it wasn't bad.
Then I moved to a place where I got free broadband with my rent (a rarity I'm sure) and have really grown accustomed to it. It's nice to be able to instantly check on a website whenever your computer is on. I always know right away when I have new email, and bittorrent is actually viable for me.
When I move, it will be a much harder decision than I would have guessed whether or not to get broadband in my new place. I just hope that the companies in the area have decent terms of service.
One nice thing about webcomics, is that anyone can do one, ie: me.
I have actually been doing mine two days a week for over a year on keenspace.com, and have really enjoyed it. Since the hosting is free, the only thing I have to worry about is setting aside the time to do it - usually at 2am.
It's really been a good creative outlet, and I've even written a game to go along with it. And though it's not a stand-up great comic, I do have a few fans.
As far as goals, I don't make any money from it, and don't ever really expect to, but I'll keep doing it because I enjoy it.
I was surprised to see that they were mentioned on slashdot. Ever since working for them, I've rarely met anyone who has even heard of the name. But I guess they don't need to advertise to the general public.
Contracting for them was actually my first professional programming experience, as I had only completed two years of a four year degree when I started. I wasn't working on any of the cutting edge stuff mentioned in the article though, our project was an internal website.
It was a good experience, even though I never really got any ownership of my own...and we had to wear ties.
I can't say I'm surprised with the way the comments turned out on this story. There are a lot of smart people who post here, that's why I visit so often. I enjoy the insights into other areas of life and science that I don't know that much about. I've learned a lot about the world around me, and the computers in my home. Really, it's a very impressive thing that's going on here.
A problem that I've observed is that a lot of people seem convinced that the body of scientific knowledge, as it stands, is irrefutable. Along with that, religion seems to be widely derided as a crutch and/or a dangerous thing.
I personally don't think science is a bunch of bunk, I believe we have a good grasp of the world, and most of my family makes a living off of it. But I also believe that we don't know 1% of everything there is to know. By the same token, I realize that some people do use religion as a crutch, and that religious sentiments have lead to many wars and deaths - but also that it has probably saved and bettered more lives than it has ended. I also think it should be noted that many people use religion to improve themselves, and not to think for them.
Where am I going with this? I just wanted to say, after all those disclaimers, that I wish that more respect was given to religious sentiment here. I got "you believe in God?! (snicker)" from several posts at higher ratings than I would have expected. There are intelligent people who believe in God and science both, and have good points to make. I think many are intimidated by the atmosphere here, and subsequently don't post. The rest may not get modded up to more than 2, but they're out there.
That all said, I've tried not to imply any disrespect with my post, just to make a point. Thanks for reading.
The picture here just about sums it up.
Consoles these days are upgradeable, have hard drives, modems, ethernet, DVD-ROM drives, keyboards, mice, external speakers, and monitor hookups. They seem to be slowly becoming PC's. Highly standardized and specialized PC's, but PC's all the same.
...but how much static electricity did those little feet pick up?
Kudos to the mirror host, by the way.
I'd like to see the infinite improbability drive really given the treatment it deserves.
The Physics of Baseball
by Robert K Adair, Ph.D.
This book may not be exactly what your looking for, but it does put across some of the fundamental principles of real world physics in an easy to read format. One nice thing is that the equations are explained, but completely skippable. There's also a lot of interesting history pertaining to each topic.
I personally enjoyed reading it, even though I'm not a baseball fan.
Whenever my hard drive fills up, games are the first things I look at. It seems like most game installs these days weigh in at over 500 MB, even if you opt to load movies and other things from the disc. So if you have a dozen or so games installed at once, (and I usually do, just in case the urge to play one strikes me) you're looking at the majority of your (or my) 20 GB Drive being 'taken'.
The biggest game I've installed that I can remember was Diablo II, which was over a Gig, but I'm sure there are bigger ones out there.