Well I remember seeing recently: - A "drum karaoke" (in Japan) - A soccer game where you could actually kick a ball - and even a flight simulator with a moving cockpit All of them are probably newer than the light gun.
So you might have a valid point, but DDR is definitely not the only "controller" specific to arcade.
When I actually see those control schemes used in more than a couple of games, then they'll fit. But DDR breathed the first new life arcades have had in a while.
"flight simulator with moving cockpit" You mean like the gyroscopic shooters we had way back when, like Solvalou (I think)? Not the same, of course, but the same general idea.
Yes, I had one.:) And Sega had the Activator, etc. But I was specifically referring to *arcade* control schemes. Joysticks; light guns; steering wheels; handlebars; trackballs; but DDR was the first one with more than a few games to pop up in a very long time.
So Sega has cancelled their merger with Sammy. The other options now are Namco, Microsoft and Electonic Arts. I hope Namco wins, or maybe even Microsoft. Microsoft, to be frank, would not be a bad choice at all. Microsoft and EA are kind of polar opposites; they are the two largest entertainment PC software publishers, I do believe, but while EA buys a company and siphons all its talent into what a boardroom wants to see published -- works for earning money, but kills the spirit and originality of the companies like Bullfrog and Westwood -- Microsoft has a tradition of "do as thou wilt" when it comes to its attendant developers. MS gives them money, they give MS good games.
There is, however, one possible problem with Namco merging with Sega -- there would be no more competition left in arcades except between divisions of the same company, and while internal competition can be fierce, it's no replacement for honest to god competition. Witness the WWE. When it bought WCW, it changed its structure to be the Monday show vs the Thursday show. But its quality and ratings have faltered since it lost its real competition.
Dance Dance Revolution was the last great major revolution in arcade gaming. It did what arcades used to do, but haven't done for some time - Provided a gaming experience you cannot get at home. Note the past tense, since I know home pads are now available, but I do believe DDR revitalized a lot of arcades. The atmosphere around a DDR machine is something you simply can't get at home. If I'm not mistaken, DDR had the first new control scheme (used in more than a couple of games) since the light gun.
Arcade competition tended to be between Namco, Williams and Sega. Capcom had its own private war with SNK as well. Then Williams completely folded its arcade division, which leaves Namco and Sega, with Konami running DDR machines. So instead of incrementally improving fighters, racers and light gun games (Tekken vs VF, Time Crisis vs House of the Dead, etc) maybe this would give them a chance to truly compete with the home market and provide games that can only be provided in an arcade setting.
How do you compete with the home market? Present games that the home market cannot handle. Again, I give you DDR. Focus on games that are completely impossible, at the present time, to do at home. DDR did that. A huge eight player fighting game would do that. Daytona's multi-racer network did that. Light gun games do that, for the most part, since the atmosphere is different, which is why arcade light gun games are still being made I suppose.
Instead of trying to increment the quality of competing fighters and racers, how about making them more of an arcade experience? Instead of competing with each other, compete directly with the home market. Gyroscoping shooting games. Masive light gun games. Massive fighting games, with huge screens. Networked arcade games, particularly shooting and driving. And, of course, DDR started this trend, so improve upon that some more.
Make arcades a place to go to to play games you can't play at home. Apart from DDR, arcades haven't been like that for a very, very long time.
(sorry if this rambles a bit, it was originally brainstormed on IRC and reformatted for this post)
The speedrun is one of the ultimate challenges. The first time through the game, people will play it normally, at their own pace. Then they might play again. Then, feeling that they have done everything, they might seek a new challenge. In the case of a game like Metroid Prime, that challenge is the speed run. In a game like Final Fantasy X, the challenge might be to beat the game at a low level.
Once we've played out a game - one can only play Metroid Prime for the first time once - people want to find something to breathe new life into their most favorite games. Speedrunning and sequence breaking/low percentage games (People have managed 24% games in Metroid Prime by skipping such "necessary" items as the charge beam, gravity suit and grappling hook!) is one way to give new challenge to a beaten game.
Yeah, when I posted I didn't realize Silicon Knights was doing it. While I never played Eternal Darkness, I did play Legacy of Kain, which oozes polish and atmosphere more than any other game like it.
I wonder if this is a trend? The old houses outsourcing their biggest franchises to smaller, more focused developers? Jedi Knight 2 went from Lucas to Raven; Quake 4 went from id to Raven (I think?); MGS Cube went from Konami to Silicon Knights...
Realize that the video game business is pretty new. Only recently, relatively, have games been mature enough (technologically and theme-wise) to really handle wars. Sure, there were strategy games but those are abstract, and there was the odd Nintendo war game, but again, hardly immersive. Now, just in the past five years, we have incredibly realistic and immersive games, and they're using wars as themes - World War 2 primarily, but also a couple of Vietnam games and now a lot of Gulf War/Somalia games.
So the influx of Gulf War games wasn't because "enough time had passed" - it was because the technology really wasn't there yet for the immersive wartime experience. The game "Black Hawk Down" came out within months of the movie of the same name, and what, 8-10 years after the actual Somalia conflict? Since most companies designing war-based games already have a desert tileset, if any Gulf War 2 games are to come out, they shouldn't take more than a year to pop out. (Realize though that due to the nature of the war, the only games worth playing would be special ops ones, or maybe a defensive game as the Iraqis) I wouldn't be surprised if a POW rescue game came out in the next 12 months.
Basically, it's not the time after the war that has made the difference, because all these great, immersive games (Delta Force, Battlefield 1942, etc) needed a certain power to drive them.
After all, the quickest turnaround for a war to game I can recall was Super Battletank for SNES, where you commanded a tank in the Kuwaiti desert, and that came out in 1992 I think. So time after the war didn't matter then. It might matter more now, however, since the game experiences can be much more visceral and less abstract.
This post rambles but that's basically my point - The turnaround from war to game is probably going to shrink, and any previous long-time lag was because the processing power didn't exist during that war.
In some cases, it's good to let you save any time you want, but then personally limit yourself. For example, in Tomb Raider, the levels are huge, and while my first time through I saved CONSTANTLY (something like 200 quicksaves by the time I finished the game), my next time through I saved only at the beginning of the level, or when I had to leave the game alone mid-level. I found the game much more suspenseful and true to its atmosphere, in that I had to actually fear. I also did this with Quake, and learned to dread the Vore much more.
Of course, the ultimate representation of the "Don't quicksave the hell out of it, live through it and be scared as hell" principle is the classic Aliens TC. Just thinking about that still gives me shivers.
So, basically, give us the ability to save often, but leave it to us to use it or abuse it.
One thing - What will Liquid look like? I never imagined Liquid looking anything like the mulletfied Snake from MGS2, so I hope they put particular care into making them twins, yet making them unique.
This is great news! It'll be great to see if the Cube can truly compete with the PS2. However...
The original Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation, for all its (now) primitivity, has a certain beauty of its own. Back then, we truly appreciated the things it held -- The beauty of the snow, the motion blur, the impressive power of Rex. In its primitive (again, compared to now) graphics lie a certain beauty, and I hope the new game doesn't have a sterile feel like some rehashes do. Do not simply make the game with new graphics - Make the graphics fit the game and be a logical offshoot from the old, don't go changing things. I still want the HIND fight to be immersive, I still want the Comm Tower to take place at that central angle, and I still want the same basic feel to everything.
You misunderstood. He want a third button, but he doesn't like the scroll wheel being the third button. He considers it clunky.
To the asker: Sorry, but it's not going to change. People are used to clicking their mwheel as the third mouse button, and it seems a waste to add a third button and remove the mwheel's click.
If you really don't want to use the mwheel to click the third button, perhaps you can get an Intellimouse Explorer and remap the fourth or fifth button to the functions the third button typically handles, and use those instead? Otherwise, I don't think it's going to happen, unless a company brings out an optical mouse without a wheel. And some things are too useful to discard - How many keyboards don't have the numpad? Not many, if any at all. It's a lot more useful than ScrlLock.:P
Oh, one caveat - If she's as much a geek as I presume you are, then maybe she WOULD appreciate such a functional ring. So, in that case, I guess this is just a request for comments, and then you two will filter the comments. In that case, I have little to add, really... Sorry:P In time, I might say add a small encryption chip, or a tiny tiny ramdrive, so that you can transfer purely private data amongst yourselves. But that's not really useful, yet...
If that she's a geek too is the case, more power to you - Two geeks getting paired functional rings? Now THAT is something that will tell everyone how much in love you are. Good luck!
Ever thought of becoming a Green Lantern? That has a ring that's both functional AND pretty!
Anyway, yeah. I agree with a previous poster; with most women, the best "functionality" a ring can probably have is that it cuts glass. Face it; while you may be thinking logically, and want something that costs x thousands of dollars to actually *do* something, love and lust never respect logic. Just get something pretty.
Oh, wait, there's one more functionality - Whenever she sees it, she thinks of you. And the pricetag. Ye gods, the pricetag...
What were they expecting? This is like walking into a country as well-gridded as ours and saying, ok, let's try this new type of electricity! But it needs completely new power plants to do it, and it is less convenient. People will look at you like you're crazy.
Electronic cars - even ones you have to plug in every few hundred miles - may have their day, someday. But not yet. Not while oil is so cheap. Cost of gas + Convenience of being about to fuel up anywhere at any time = Lower cost, for most people, all things considered (remember, price is but one factor) than driving an electric car.
I want to know why only 1000 were made. They spent a billion on a program and only sent it out to a wishlist? Or did they withhold it from the market because the infrastructure didn't exist?
When the time is right, both the cars and the infrastructure will change as needed. The time is not right.
Just a question on the "Best Animated Film" category that they put good animated movies in in order to make the Best Picture category otherwise competitive - Which category would you put Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I think that the Academy will adapt to the times, and will probably figure out the best awards. And, if not, there's always all the other awards shows, should the Oscars become irrelevant. "Direction," in the common sense is mostly useless, I would think, in a digital production, yet it still has direction of a kind. Camera angles, movement... but not dealing with live actors, or with a certain lighting, or an odd camera angle that is nearly impossible to pull off... none of these are problems with digitial productions. That doesn't dilute their contribution; it's simply different.
A splintering of categories might be premature, might not. The fact that there were only two contenders in "best animated picture" probably says it was too early. But within a few years, it could be a fully stocked category. If not, they should probably reincorporate it back into the normal categories. It's all about trying to figure out the best distribution of categories and recognizing the diverse talents.
i was thinking the same thing. the definition put forward contains:
a planet must orbit a star, not another planet, and it must be round
There's also a simple, major error with that definition - if I launch a sphere into solar orbit, that would then become a planet. Which means there has to be a better definition. However, I dislike definitions based on size/mass alone as well. That is, a number of size/mass (>1400km diameter, or more than x kilograms, etc.). A DESCRIPTION of the size/mass would be more useful, and the only useful description would seem to be roundness.
The way I forsee it, a "planet" will end up being a round, massive (i.e. round due to its own gravity) object whose primary gravitational partner is a solar body. This rules out asteroids; does it rule out comets? Comets are typically depicted as round, but I'm not sure if they actually are.... Either way, I doubt any comet is massive enough to be round under its own gravity.
This keeps it from being too arbitrary, except in the case of "not quite round enough." Let the discoverers', and examiners', judgment be the guide.
A problem might pop up if the Kuiper Belt, et.al., are made up of massive, spherical bodies... does anyone know if it is?
Keep Pluto a "planet" as far as we're concerned. After all, for such a word as "planet," realize that there are only 9 highly studied examples. That's like trying to debate what a "bear" is after seeing only a Panda, Black Bear and Koala. Let's stop trying to define the word til we have many many more samples.
Umm... Charon is already known to be smaller than Pluto. It's about half the size, though some people like to consider them a binary planet anyway since their sizes are similar.
Aye, I learned that just after posting that. An error in memory, I thought I had read some time ago that Charon may actually be bigger. As I said in another post, that's apparently false.
No, the definition of planet says that the body must revolve around a star, not another planet. Bodies that revolve around a planet are moons.
Two issues with that... one is, everything in the solar system revolves around the Sun, it's just that most of them have a particular wobble to their orbit caused by the fact that they also revolve around their planet. One could look at it that way. Second is, what about a binary planet (which Pluto/Charon might be)? Then you have planets orbiting each other and orbiting the sun...
And if we allow for a binary planetary system in that case, then what are the Earth and Moon? In such a case, would we simply term the more massive body the planet, and the less massive body the satellite? (And aren't all gravitational systems binary in this fashion anyway? All the differences are is mass and size... which lends an air of arbitariness to it)
That's why I put "geosynchronous" in quotes. It wouldn't be a geosynchronous orbit, per se, but from what I've read, the end result of tidal forces, is that eventually, the Moon will take up station a further distance away from the Earth, and slow the Earth down so that an Earth day is equivalent to a month - the same faces always facing. It's known that the Earth is slowing and that the Moon is moving away; but my understanding was, eventually these cease - the Moon will stop moving away as soon as the Earth is rotating at the same rate that the Moon orbits.
Well, what I meant was, will the Earth remain "stationary" in that system, or will it "wobble" around a neutral point exactly between the two center of gravities?
And now that I put it that way, it seems clear that it will wobble, just as (I do believe) any gravitational system behaves. The sun and Earth wobble around a neutral point, even though that happens to be damn close to the sun's center of gravity, right?
Any state which fears the "Dangers of the Internet" probably has little reason existing, since it's obviously a despotism, or a pseudo-free government heading in that direction, which has reason to fear outside information.
Licensing is just another method to control access to information. Can you imagine having to be licensed to publish a book or magazine?
The fear of child porn is being used to institute harsher controls, just as the fear of terrorism is being used to implement things such as the USA PATRIOT act here in the states. Their primary goal is the limiting of freedom, not the elimination of the threat.
Then I must ask, though it's been mentioned here - Does that mean the Moon is (or will be) a planet? In a few billion years, the Moon and Earth will be a binary system, and the only thing signifying the Earth as the planet is the fact that it will be the larger one.
(Question - Does anyone know if, when that happens [the Moon rises to a high enough orbit to be "geosynchronous" and the same faces are towards each other always] will the two bodies orbit around a neutral point, which may or may not be above the surface of the earth, or will the Moon still completely orbit the Earth?)
Re:Why not set a defined width?
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Defining "Planet"
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· Score: 5, Informative
Because some moons are larger than Pluto... would they be considered planets?
In other words, simple definitions based on size are inadequate. Also, since they're debating whether or not Pluto is a planet, the criteria that it orbits the sun may also be inadequate.
A planet is something which: orbits a star AND is round AND is larger than an arbitrary size AND.. what? The above criteria still allows for a lot of things to be planets that aren't.
We know so little about massive, non-solar bodies outside our solar system. Let's do a little more research on them before we start redefining things.
The question is, what if it's eventually determined that Charon (presently considered Pluto's satellite) is as large or larger than Pluto? Can we have a binary planet?
And there are a few moons larger than Pluto... would they become planets, even though they orbit a planet? (Or, converseley, does a planet have to orbit a star? Can it orbit other things?)
Yeah, but again, Sprint's network only works with their own. I'm speaking of a coalition type of thing, with the express purpose of creating an open network. If they can do it, then it might work. Otherwise, they have no right to force the other networks to open up.
If Sprint's method is the most profitable and innovative, then it will survive. The other companies have no right to force Sprint to change.
Bah. Hey, guys. Yeah, you wireless phone manufacturers. I'm talking to you. I have the perfect, non-legislative/judicial solution for you.
MAKE YOUR OWN NETWORK.
See? It's quite simple. When the Internet was getting bogged down and the universities wanted it faster, did they sue AOL and Napster? No, they made their OWN NETWORK.
This is another arena for competition, and if it works right, it will force closed networks to open up - and if they don't, they die. Or, if it doesn't really work out, and the consumers (the only ones that matter) don't mind being confined to a single network, then it won't force the closed networks to open.
Personally, I'd prefer an open network, but not if it's the most profitable, no one has any right to tell them how to run their property.
Use the capitalist solution. Either play along with those who have put money and labor and resources into building a network - You have no intrinsic right to their labor - or combine money, labor and resources, and make your own network.
There's no need to drag the government into one of the most free markets we have.
Dude, if it's hundreds of kilometers, then maybe a phone line isn't the answer. This is why we have things like satellite phones and satellite internet and the like. Sometimes it's just not economical in any way, shape or form to wire someone in the middle of nowhere, no matter how much they want it, unless they're willign to pay for it.
Fewer middle men? I'd think each person in the government (tax collector, legislator, regulator, accountant, etc) accounts for a large number of middlemen.
What's so much better about making people pay more for their phone bill than for the direct cost, the food? People buy a lot more food than phone service, so the price increase would be much smaller if given directly to the customer.
I disagree that it makes economical sense. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree, because we clearly have conflicting philosophies and it would take too long and too much space to go into why one is better than the other.
There's no significant economic gain to be made? What about charging rates to use the cable? Why else would anyone build a transatlantic cable? And, since Africa is a more distant, less profitable location, they should have to pick up the slack. It could be worse; Africa could have no connection at all. If they don't like it, they can build their own backbone.
If without the poor they wouldn't be rich, then why do you need to force the rich to be nice? Sounds like common sense does that anyway. Ever wonder why Ford and Wal-Mart are the world's largest, most profitable corporations? Because they sell to the little guy. Ferrari sells to the rich; they are nothing compared to Ford.
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Well I remember seeing recently :
- A "drum karaoke" (in Japan)
- A soccer game where you could actually kick a ball
- and even a flight simulator with a moving cockpit
All of them are probably newer than the light gun.
So you might have a valid point, but DDR is definitely not the only "controller" specific to arcade.
When I actually see those control schemes used in more than a couple of games, then they'll fit. But DDR breathed the first new life arcades have had in a while.
"flight simulator with moving cockpit" You mean like the gyroscopic shooters we had way back when, like Solvalou (I think)? Not the same, of course, but the same general idea.
Sorry, but Nintendo beat Konami to it: Power Pad
:) And Sega had the Activator, etc. But I was specifically referring to *arcade* control schemes. Joysticks; light guns; steering wheels; handlebars; trackballs; but DDR was the first one with more than a few games to pop up in a very long time.
Yes, I had one.
So Sega has cancelled their merger with Sammy. The other options now are Namco, Microsoft and Electonic Arts. I hope Namco wins, or maybe even Microsoft. Microsoft, to be frank, would not be a bad choice at all. Microsoft and EA are kind of polar opposites; they are the two largest entertainment PC software publishers, I do believe, but while EA buys a company and siphons all its talent into what a boardroom wants to see published -- works for earning money, but kills the spirit and originality of the companies like Bullfrog and Westwood -- Microsoft has a tradition of "do as thou wilt" when it comes to its attendant developers. MS gives them money, they give MS good games.
There is, however, one possible problem with Namco merging with Sega -- there would be no more competition left in arcades except between divisions of the same company, and while internal competition can be fierce, it's no replacement for honest to god competition. Witness the WWE. When it bought WCW, it changed its structure to be the Monday show vs the Thursday show. But its quality and ratings have faltered since it lost its real competition.
Dance Dance Revolution was the last great major revolution in arcade gaming. It did what arcades used to do, but haven't done for some time - Provided a gaming experience you cannot get at home. Note the past tense, since I know home pads are now available, but I do believe DDR revitalized a lot of arcades. The atmosphere around a DDR machine is something you simply can't get at home. If I'm not mistaken, DDR had the first new control scheme (used in more than a couple of games) since the light gun.
Arcade competition tended to be between Namco, Williams and Sega. Capcom had its own private war with SNK as well. Then Williams completely folded its arcade division, which leaves Namco and Sega, with Konami running DDR machines. So instead of incrementally improving fighters, racers and light gun games (Tekken vs VF, Time Crisis vs House of the Dead, etc) maybe this would give them a chance to truly compete with the home market and provide games that can only be provided in an arcade setting.
How do you compete with the home market? Present games that the home market cannot handle. Again, I give you DDR. Focus on games that are completely impossible, at the present time, to do at home. DDR did that. A huge eight player fighting game would do that. Daytona's multi-racer network did that. Light gun games do that, for the most part, since the atmosphere is different, which is why arcade light gun games are still being made I suppose.
Instead of trying to increment the quality of competing fighters and racers, how about making them more of an arcade experience? Instead of competing with each other, compete directly with the home market. Gyroscoping shooting games. Masive light gun games. Massive fighting games, with huge screens. Networked arcade games, particularly shooting and driving. And, of course, DDR started this trend, so improve upon that some more.
Make arcades a place to go to to play games you can't play at home. Apart from DDR, arcades haven't been like that for a very, very long time.
(sorry if this rambles a bit, it was originally brainstormed on IRC and reformatted for this post)
The speedrun is one of the ultimate challenges. The first time through the game, people will play it normally, at their own pace. Then they might play again. Then, feeling that they have done everything, they might seek a new challenge. In the case of a game like Metroid Prime, that challenge is the speed run. In a game like Final Fantasy X, the challenge might be to beat the game at a low level.
Once we've played out a game - one can only play Metroid Prime for the first time once - people want to find something to breathe new life into their most favorite games. Speedrunning and sequence breaking/low percentage games (People have managed 24% games in Metroid Prime by skipping such "necessary" items as the charge beam, gravity suit and grappling hook!) is one way to give new challenge to a beaten game.
Yeah, when I posted I didn't realize Silicon Knights was doing it. While I never played Eternal Darkness, I did play Legacy of Kain, which oozes polish and atmosphere more than any other game like it.
I wonder if this is a trend? The old houses outsourcing their biggest franchises to smaller, more focused developers? Jedi Knight 2 went from Lucas to Raven; Quake 4 went from id to Raven (I think?); MGS Cube went from Konami to Silicon Knights...
Realize that the video game business is pretty new. Only recently, relatively, have games been mature enough (technologically and theme-wise) to really handle wars. Sure, there were strategy games but those are abstract, and there was the odd Nintendo war game, but again, hardly immersive. Now, just in the past five years, we have incredibly realistic and immersive games, and they're using wars as themes - World War 2 primarily, but also a couple of Vietnam games and now a lot of Gulf War/Somalia games.
So the influx of Gulf War games wasn't because "enough time had passed" - it was because the technology really wasn't there yet for the immersive wartime experience. The game "Black Hawk Down" came out within months of the movie of the same name, and what, 8-10 years after the actual Somalia conflict? Since most companies designing war-based games already have a desert tileset, if any Gulf War 2 games are to come out, they shouldn't take more than a year to pop out. (Realize though that due to the nature of the war, the only games worth playing would be special ops ones, or maybe a defensive game as the Iraqis) I wouldn't be surprised if a POW rescue game came out in the next 12 months.
Basically, it's not the time after the war that has made the difference, because all these great, immersive games (Delta Force, Battlefield 1942, etc) needed a certain power to drive them.
After all, the quickest turnaround for a war to game I can recall was Super Battletank for SNES, where you commanded a tank in the Kuwaiti desert, and that came out in 1992 I think. So time after the war didn't matter then. It might matter more now, however, since the game experiences can be much more visceral and less abstract.
This post rambles but that's basically my point - The turnaround from war to game is probably going to shrink, and any previous long-time lag was because the processing power didn't exist during that war.
In some cases, it's good to let you save any time you want, but then personally limit yourself. For example, in Tomb Raider, the levels are huge, and while my first time through I saved CONSTANTLY (something like 200 quicksaves by the time I finished the game), my next time through I saved only at the beginning of the level, or when I had to leave the game alone mid-level. I found the game much more suspenseful and true to its atmosphere, in that I had to actually fear. I also did this with Quake, and learned to dread the Vore much more.
Of course, the ultimate representation of the "Don't quicksave the hell out of it, live through it and be scared as hell" principle is the classic Aliens TC. Just thinking about that still gives me shivers.
So, basically, give us the ability to save often, but leave it to us to use it or abuse it.
One thing - What will Liquid look like? I never imagined Liquid looking anything like the mulletfied Snake from MGS2, so I hope they put particular care into making them twins, yet making them unique.
This is great news! It'll be great to see if the Cube can truly compete with the PS2. However...
The original Metal Gear Solid on PlayStation, for all its (now) primitivity, has a certain beauty of its own. Back then, we truly appreciated the things it held -- The beauty of the snow, the motion blur, the impressive power of Rex. In its primitive (again, compared to now) graphics lie a certain beauty, and I hope the new game doesn't have a sterile feel like some rehashes do. Do not simply make the game with new graphics - Make the graphics fit the game and be a logical offshoot from the old, don't go changing things. I still want the HIND fight to be immersive, I still want the Comm Tower to take place at that central angle, and I still want the same basic feel to everything.
I hope it will be worthy of the name.
You misunderstood. He want a third button, but he doesn't like the scroll wheel being the third button. He considers it clunky.
:P
To the asker: Sorry, but it's not going to change. People are used to clicking their mwheel as the third mouse button, and it seems a waste to add a third button and remove the mwheel's click.
If you really don't want to use the mwheel to click the third button, perhaps you can get an Intellimouse Explorer and remap the fourth or fifth button to the functions the third button typically handles, and use those instead? Otherwise, I don't think it's going to happen, unless a company brings out an optical mouse without a wheel. And some things are too useful to discard - How many keyboards don't have the numpad? Not many, if any at all. It's a lot more useful than ScrlLock.
Oh, one caveat - If she's as much a geek as I presume you are, then maybe she WOULD appreciate such a functional ring. So, in that case, I guess this is just a request for comments, and then you two will filter the comments. In that case, I have little to add, really... Sorry :P In time, I might say add a small encryption chip, or a tiny tiny ramdrive, so that you can transfer purely private data amongst yourselves. But that's not really useful, yet...
If that she's a geek too is the case, more power to you - Two geeks getting paired functional rings? Now THAT is something that will tell everyone how much in love you are. Good luck!
Ever thought of becoming a Green Lantern? That has a ring that's both functional AND pretty!
Anyway, yeah. I agree with a previous poster; with most women, the best "functionality" a ring can probably have is that it cuts glass. Face it; while you may be thinking logically, and want something that costs x thousands of dollars to actually *do* something, love and lust never respect logic. Just get something pretty.
Oh, wait, there's one more functionality - Whenever she sees it, she thinks of you. And the pricetag. Ye gods, the pricetag...
What were they expecting? This is like walking into a country as well-gridded as ours and saying, ok, let's try this new type of electricity! But it needs completely new power plants to do it, and it is less convenient. People will look at you like you're crazy.
Electronic cars - even ones you have to plug in every few hundred miles - may have their day, someday. But not yet. Not while oil is so cheap. Cost of gas + Convenience of being about to fuel up anywhere at any time = Lower cost, for most people, all things considered (remember, price is but one factor) than driving an electric car.
I want to know why only 1000 were made. They spent a billion on a program and only sent it out to a wishlist? Or did they withhold it from the market because the infrastructure didn't exist?
When the time is right, both the cars and the infrastructure will change as needed. The time is not right.
Just a question on the "Best Animated Film" category that they put good animated movies in in order to make the Best Picture category otherwise competitive - Which category would you put Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
I think that the Academy will adapt to the times, and will probably figure out the best awards. And, if not, there's always all the other awards shows, should the Oscars become irrelevant. "Direction," in the common sense is mostly useless, I would think, in a digital production, yet it still has direction of a kind. Camera angles, movement... but not dealing with live actors, or with a certain lighting, or an odd camera angle that is nearly impossible to pull off... none of these are problems with digitial productions. That doesn't dilute their contribution; it's simply different.
A splintering of categories might be premature, might not. The fact that there were only two contenders in "best animated picture" probably says it was too early. But within a few years, it could be a fully stocked category. If not, they should probably reincorporate it back into the normal categories. It's all about trying to figure out the best distribution of categories and recognizing the diverse talents.
The way I forsee it, a "planet" will end up being a round, massive (i.e. round due to its own gravity) object whose primary gravitational partner is a solar body. This rules out asteroids; does it rule out comets? Comets are typically depicted as round, but I'm not sure if they actually are.
This keeps it from being too arbitrary, except in the case of "not quite round enough." Let the discoverers', and examiners', judgment be the guide.
A problem might pop up if the Kuiper Belt, et.al., are made up of massive, spherical bodies... does anyone know if it is?
Keep Pluto a "planet" as far as we're concerned. After all, for such a word as "planet," realize that there are only 9 highly studied examples. That's like trying to debate what a "bear" is after seeing only a Panda, Black Bear and Koala. Let's stop trying to define the word til we have many many more samples.
And if we allow for a binary planetary system in that case, then what are the Earth and Moon? In such a case, would we simply term the more massive body the planet, and the less massive body the satellite? (And aren't all gravitational systems binary in this fashion anyway? All the differences are is mass and size... which lends an air of arbitariness to it)
That's why I put "geosynchronous" in quotes. It wouldn't be a geosynchronous orbit, per se, but from what I've read, the end result of tidal forces, is that eventually, the Moon will take up station a further distance away from the Earth, and slow the Earth down so that an Earth day is equivalent to a month - the same faces always facing. It's known that the Earth is slowing and that the Moon is moving away; but my understanding was, eventually these cease - the Moon will stop moving away as soon as the Earth is rotating at the same rate that the Moon orbits.
THAT is the scenario I was trying to paint.
Well, what I meant was, will the Earth remain "stationary" in that system, or will it "wobble" around a neutral point exactly between the two center of gravities?
And now that I put it that way, it seems clear that it will wobble, just as (I do believe) any gravitational system behaves. The sun and Earth wobble around a neutral point, even though that happens to be damn close to the sun's center of gravity, right?
Any state which fears the "Dangers of the Internet" probably has little reason existing, since it's obviously a despotism, or a pseudo-free government heading in that direction, which has reason to fear outside information.
Licensing is just another method to control access to information. Can you imagine having to be licensed to publish a book or magazine?
The fear of child porn is being used to institute harsher controls, just as the fear of terrorism is being used to implement things such as the USA PATRIOT act here in the states. Their primary goal is the limiting of freedom, not the elimination of the threat.
Then I must ask, though it's been mentioned here - Does that mean the Moon is (or will be) a planet? In a few billion years, the Moon and Earth will be a binary system, and the only thing signifying the Earth as the planet is the fact that it will be the larger one.
(Question - Does anyone know if, when that happens [the Moon rises to a high enough orbit to be "geosynchronous" and the same faces are towards each other always] will the two bodies orbit around a neutral point, which may or may not be above the surface of the earth, or will the Moon still completely orbit the Earth?)
Because some moons are larger than Pluto... would they be considered planets?
t s/nineplanets.html )
Diameters:
Pluto: 2274km
Charon: 1172km
Ganymede (orbits Jupiter): 5262km
Callisto (same): 4800km
Titan (orbits Saturn): 5150km
Triton (orbits Neptune): 2700km
Earth: 12756km
Moon: 3476km (Yes, our Moon is larger than Pluto)
Mars: 6794km
Deimos (orbits Mars): 12.6km
Phobos (same): 22km
(all figures courtesy http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplane
In other words, simple definitions based on size are inadequate. Also, since they're debating whether or not Pluto is a planet, the criteria that it orbits the sun may also be inadequate.
A planet is something which: orbits a star AND is round AND is larger than an arbitrary size AND.. what? The above criteria still allows for a lot of things to be planets that aren't.
We know so little about massive, non-solar bodies outside our solar system. Let's do a little more research on them before we start redefining things.
The question is, what if it's eventually determined that Charon (presently considered Pluto's satellite) is as large or larger than Pluto? Can we have a binary planet?
And there are a few moons larger than Pluto... would they become planets, even though they orbit a planet? (Or, converseley, does a planet have to orbit a star? Can it orbit other things?)
Yeah, but again, Sprint's network only works with their own. I'm speaking of a coalition type of thing, with the express purpose of creating an open network. If they can do it, then it might work. Otherwise, they have no right to force the other networks to open up.
If Sprint's method is the most profitable and innovative, then it will survive. The other companies have no right to force Sprint to change.
Bah. Hey, guys. Yeah, you wireless phone manufacturers. I'm talking to you. I have the perfect, non-legislative/judicial solution for you.
MAKE YOUR OWN NETWORK.
See? It's quite simple. When the Internet was getting bogged down and the universities wanted it faster, did they sue AOL and Napster? No, they made their OWN NETWORK.
This is another arena for competition, and if it works right, it will force closed networks to open up - and if they don't, they die. Or, if it doesn't really work out, and the consumers (the only ones that matter) don't mind being confined to a single network, then it won't force the closed networks to open.
Personally, I'd prefer an open network, but not if it's the most profitable, no one has any right to tell them how to run their property.
Use the capitalist solution. Either play along with those who have put money and labor and resources into building a network - You have no intrinsic right to their labor - or combine money, labor and resources, and make your own network.
There's no need to drag the government into one of the most free markets we have.
Dude, if it's hundreds of kilometers, then maybe a phone line isn't the answer. This is why we have things like satellite phones and satellite internet and the like. Sometimes it's just not economical in any way, shape or form to wire someone in the middle of nowhere, no matter how much they want it, unless they're willign to pay for it.
Fewer middle men? I'd think each person in the government (tax collector, legislator, regulator, accountant, etc) accounts for a large number of middlemen.
What's so much better about making people pay more for their phone bill than for the direct cost, the food? People buy a lot more food than phone service, so the price increase would be much smaller if given directly to the customer.
I disagree that it makes economical sense. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree, because we clearly have conflicting philosophies and it would take too long and too much space to go into why one is better than the other.
There's no significant economic gain to be made? What about charging rates to use the cable? Why else would anyone build a transatlantic cable? And, since Africa is a more distant, less profitable location, they should have to pick up the slack. It could be worse; Africa could have no connection at all. If they don't like it, they can build their own backbone.
If without the poor they wouldn't be rich, then why do you need to force the rich to be nice? Sounds like common sense does that anyway. Ever wonder why Ford and Wal-Mart are the world's largest, most profitable corporations? Because they sell to the little guy. Ferrari sells to the rich; they are nothing compared to Ford.