I'm seeing a lot of interesting 1-shot comments here now.
I'm thinking that a prime candidate for a reboot has to meet certain criteria.
* There has to be some lore. If the game is pure play style without a story, then it's not really a reboot. If you changed the play style, you change the genre, and that's the most defining characteristic of a game. (Would you reboot Guitar Hero as a band sim?) * The franchise is a series. (You can't reboot Hellgate: London, for example; it's either a sequel (if you liked the story) or a remake (you didn't).) * The first of the series was considered great. If it wasn't, you either build on it (a bad reboot), or redo it (a remake). * At some point, the rest of the series was considered less than great. At some point, the sequels just added too much. It became feature-ridden, self-inconsistent, or silly.
That last point is the crux. It's like you made this great base camp in the jungle, and it had several great-looking treks you could take, and you took one, but it turned out to suck, so now you have to go back to base camp and try a different route.
Good candidates I'm noticing include Deus-Ex, Doom, Duke Nukem, Everquest, Half-Life (rebootable, even though I personally love the current line), King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest, Star Control, Tomb Raider, Ultima, and Zork.
Lately I've been hearing anecdotes from people unhappy with the way elections went in their country. Now I see this poll saying that their guy actually did lose by millions of votes.
For the best use of special effects, my favorite director is still Robert Zemeckis. For someone who's done as many high-concept sci-fi pieces as he has, his use of FX is remarkably sparing, and artfully placed. Consider Dan Taylor's legs in Forrest Gump, and the giant device in Contact. Even the footage of Gump with various US Presidents, while receiving some criticisms, is arguably in the same vein.
He seems to try very hard to get a realistic look out of something that you know couldn't possibly exist. A lot of this mileage is achieved by placing the effect into an ordinary, present-day setting, as opposed to inundating you in an entire lavish otherworld. Even in a futuristic universe like Star Trek, numerous opportunities exist to juxtapose the ordinary and the fantastic; in fact, Trek stands out as begging for such moments, since one of its motifs is that it presents allegories for our present time.
Aye, never carried a Grid. I did, however, carry around my dad's Osborne 1. I think that came in at over 20 pounds. Of course, I was only ten years old at the time, so I didn't come in much heavier.
Turn that around, and we have the new alien scare: "Aliens want to invade your planet and not only sleep with your women, but deliver CORNY MONOLOGUES!!"
Indeed. I liked that feature ever since Lost Coast; Valve really made a good move there. Guarantees I'll play the whole game through a second time, right off the bat.
In Portal's case, it's wonderful to hear commentary from Ellen McLain herself. I confess I never bothered to know who she was until those commentaries. And now I learn of the past work she's done for Valve. Portal should result in an enormous boost in her notoriety, and IMO she deserves every bit of it for what she did in just that game alone.
I don't think it's a pity at all. Wikipedia was designed with this sort of editing in mind. Everything is logged. Draw attention to yourself by hiding from anyone trying to shine a light on you, and you run the risk of an even BIGGER light. Or, do the work and source your research saying you're the victim of a smear campaign, and that will show on the log, too. In the end, the truth may not out, but that log will at least make it as likely as it can.
I also suspected that the more some pattern of behavior was exhibited on Wikipedia, the more likely someone would figure out a way to uncover it automatically with software - and sure enough, there's this search now.
With Britannica, you wouldn't be able to see all of this. Their information is controlled by gatekeepers, whose credibility is unknown (albeit admittedly excellent on the whole), so corrections are deliberate, not current, and obscured.
For every AMD, there's a Vatican. Just because you subscribe to one method of proof and not the other, doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.
As for you piling on hard evidence, pile up all you want. You've already lost, because you didn't reach agreement with the "religious nuts" on what constitutes hard evidence. Meanwhile, they have their own system of self-supporting evidence.
You say the "evidence is in the result. We have computers." Yes. And we have horses and rivers and stars. They're there. You can touch them. You say, "ask them for evidence. They have not a scrap", and when I ask where your evidence is, you just point to your computer as if that was any more conclusive than Father Sayles pointing at a beautiful sunrise. It's not enough; you haven't proven the link, because you're too busy accusing me of having failed basic logic.
The OP wasn't even making an argument to incredulity. He's merely stating that such an argument exists.
For every computer, television, refrigerator, and other of a myriad innovations directly or indirectly caused by the presentation of Newtonian physics, and whatever contribution it made to the rate of scientific progress - and again, I find it amusing that you think I deny any of it - there are cathedrals, mosques, paintings, symphonies, hymns, and poems written to glorify God, Allah, Buddha, and any of a host of other perceived deities and ideals. The Renaissance wasn't just about Viva La Method Scientific, y'know. It sounds from your post as if you just write off all that stuff as dross, so that your vitriol can flow all the bitterer.
You're even wrong about my ability to grasp different meanings in different contexts, so caught up as you are in your own prose. Sure, yes, I admit the notion of "belief" in something behaving as I expect it to, with the calm sense of the routine, only to see it either live up to my expectations and warrant no further thought, or defy them, and incur wonderment from me until I uncover what was true that I did not know before.
I also admit the existence of stubborn "belief" that something must be true, even as evidence mounts to the contrary, for to change it would shake too much that is fundamental. For example, your apparent belief that I fail basic logic.
Ask the devout what God did, and he will point to rivers, horses, birds, ants, you, me, and the stars.
No evidence, you say. This is Seraphim_72's [author of this post's grandparent] point. Where is YOUR evidence? Did you do research on that computer to make absolutely sure it was created by science, and not by magic, underpants gnomes, or God?
Perhaps you happen to be a microchip manufacturer, and so you CAN prove how so much sand and metal became capable of adding 2 and 2 several billion times a second. If so, superb; good job. Now prove the same for Space Shuttle Enterprise. And Cairo. And a Boeing 737. And a Prius. And the DC Beltway. And Brita.
I'm betting you can't explain the above well enough to organize projects to create them yourself. If you were, you wouldn't resort to insults to attempt to make your point. After all, that's the sort of rhetoric I would expect from a demagogue with a bully pulpit, not a scientist.
The manmade world, as far as I can tell, has become more complex than I can account for in my head. And so, I, too, am forced to accept much of it on faith. I happen to think it is well-placed in scientific principles, but even I am savvy enough to realize that if I can't explain it, then at the end of the day, I'm operating on that which I have not proven, just as a God-fearer does. I tell myself that I COULD prove it if I wanted to, and had the time, but the truth is still that I haven't. And for much of it, I'll never prove it, and yet believe it for the rest of my life.
Slashdot Mirror
...and human, to answer your next question.
I'm seeing a lot of interesting 1-shot comments here now.
I'm thinking that a prime candidate for a reboot has to meet certain criteria.
* There has to be some lore. If the game is pure play style without a story, then it's not really a reboot. If you changed the play style, you change the genre, and that's the most defining characteristic of a game. (Would you reboot Guitar Hero as a band sim?)
* The franchise is a series. (You can't reboot Hellgate: London, for example; it's either a sequel (if you liked the story) or a remake (you didn't).)
* The first of the series was considered great. If it wasn't, you either build on it (a bad reboot), or redo it (a remake).
* At some point, the rest of the series was considered less than great. At some point, the sequels just added too much. It became feature-ridden, self-inconsistent, or silly.
That last point is the crux. It's like you made this great base camp in the jungle, and it had several great-looking treks you could take, and you took one, but it turned out to suck, so now you have to go back to base camp and try a different route.
Good candidates I'm noticing include Deus-Ex, Doom, Duke Nukem, Everquest, Half-Life (rebootable, even though I personally love the current line), King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Space Quest, Star Control, Tomb Raider, Ultima, and Zork.
LSL: Magna Cum Laude was essentially a console/PC dual release. You can tell from the gameplay.
Lately I've been hearing anecdotes from people unhappy with the way elections went in their country. Now I see this poll saying that their guy actually did lose by millions of votes.
I wonder who to believe.
For the best use of special effects, my favorite director is still Robert Zemeckis. For someone who's done as many high-concept sci-fi pieces as he has, his use of FX is remarkably sparing, and artfully placed. Consider Dan Taylor's legs in Forrest Gump, and the giant device in Contact. Even the footage of Gump with various US Presidents, while receiving some criticisms, is arguably in the same vein.
He seems to try very hard to get a realistic look out of something that you know couldn't possibly exist. A lot of this mileage is achieved by placing the effect into an ordinary, present-day setting, as opposed to inundating you in an entire lavish otherworld. Even in a futuristic universe like Star Trek, numerous opportunities exist to juxtapose the ordinary and the fantastic; in fact, Trek stands out as begging for such moments, since one of its motifs is that it presents allegories for our present time.
#0000FF! No, #FFFF0-- Auuuuuuuugh...
Perhaps he was spelling in base P.
(although that wouldn't explain the "r")
(or the sole "n" - man, that economy hits everything)
(okay, this joke fails)
if you'll allow me to make an arse out of you and me
Sorry, but honestly, I have no clue what happens when you arseume.
It's getting closer and closer to the point where I'll say a two-day drive is preferable to eight hours of dealing with the airport.
Read this, and do your utmost to grok it as deeply as you can.
Aye, never carried a Grid. I did, however, carry around my dad's Osborne 1. I think that came in at over 20 pounds. Of course, I was only ten years old at the time, so I didn't come in much heavier.
What makes a programming language successful?
Same thing that makes a religion successful. Adherents.
If you're right, then a previous poster's woes over his Coppertone holdings should be very unfounded...
Turn that around, and we have the new alien scare: "Aliens want to invade your planet and not only sleep with your women, but deliver CORNY MONOLOGUES!!"
Indeed. I liked that feature ever since Lost Coast; Valve really made a good move there. Guarantees I'll play the whole game through a second time, right off the bat.
In Portal's case, it's wonderful to hear commentary from Ellen McLain herself. I confess I never bothered to know who she was until those commentaries. And now I learn of the past work she's done for Valve. Portal should result in an enormous boost in her notoriety, and IMO she deserves every bit of it for what she did in just that game alone.
You might not have noticed that the ratman room has a concrete floor...
"The US Constitution specifically states that all men* are created equal." - RingDev
The US Constitution never says that, much less specifically. You're thinking of the US Declaration of Independence.
I don't think it's a pity at all. Wikipedia was designed with this sort of editing in mind. Everything is logged. Draw attention to yourself by hiding from anyone trying to shine a light on you, and you run the risk of an even BIGGER light. Or, do the work and source your research saying you're the victim of a smear campaign, and that will show on the log, too. In the end, the truth may not out, but that log will at least make it as likely as it can.
I also suspected that the more some pattern of behavior was exhibited on Wikipedia, the more likely someone would figure out a way to uncover it automatically with software - and sure enough, there's this search now.
With Britannica, you wouldn't be able to see all of this. Their information is controlled by gatekeepers, whose credibility is unknown (albeit admittedly excellent on the whole), so corrections are deliberate, not current, and obscured.
For every AMD, there's a Vatican. Just because you subscribe to one method of proof and not the other, doesn't mean the other doesn't exist.
As for you piling on hard evidence, pile up all you want. You've already lost, because you didn't reach agreement with the "religious nuts" on what constitutes hard evidence. Meanwhile, they have their own system of self-supporting evidence.
You say the "evidence is in the result. We have computers." Yes. And we have horses and rivers and stars. They're there. You can touch them. You say, "ask them for evidence. They have not a scrap", and when I ask where your evidence is, you just point to your computer as if that was any more conclusive than Father Sayles pointing at a beautiful sunrise. It's not enough; you haven't proven the link, because you're too busy accusing me of having failed basic logic.
The OP wasn't even making an argument to incredulity. He's merely stating that such an argument exists.
For every computer, television, refrigerator, and other of a myriad innovations directly or indirectly caused by the presentation of Newtonian physics, and whatever contribution it made to the rate of scientific progress - and again, I find it amusing that you think I deny any of it - there are cathedrals, mosques, paintings, symphonies, hymns, and poems written to glorify God, Allah, Buddha, and any of a host of other perceived deities and ideals. The Renaissance wasn't just about Viva La Method Scientific, y'know. It sounds from your post as if you just write off all that stuff as dross, so that your vitriol can flow all the bitterer.
You're even wrong about my ability to grasp different meanings in different contexts, so caught up as you are in your own prose. Sure, yes, I admit the notion of "belief" in something behaving as I expect it to, with the calm sense of the routine, only to see it either live up to my expectations and warrant no further thought, or defy them, and incur wonderment from me until I uncover what was true that I did not know before.
I also admit the existence of stubborn "belief" that something must be true, even as evidence mounts to the contrary, for to change it would shake too much that is fundamental. For example, your apparent belief that I fail basic logic.
"What Happened 6012 Years Ago?"
(If you're going to jab at religion, at least be up to date with the literature. It's not like it changes much.)
Ask the devout what God did, and he will point to rivers, horses, birds, ants, you, me, and the stars.
No evidence, you say. This is Seraphim_72's [author of this post's grandparent] point. Where is YOUR evidence? Did you do research on that computer to make absolutely sure it was created by science, and not by magic, underpants gnomes, or God?
Perhaps you happen to be a microchip manufacturer, and so you CAN prove how so much sand and metal became capable of adding 2 and 2 several billion times a second. If so, superb; good job. Now prove the same for Space Shuttle Enterprise. And Cairo. And a Boeing 737. And a Prius. And the DC Beltway. And Brita.
I'm betting you can't explain the above well enough to organize projects to create them yourself. If you were, you wouldn't resort to insults to attempt to make your point. After all, that's the sort of rhetoric I would expect from a demagogue with a bully pulpit, not a scientist.
The manmade world, as far as I can tell, has become more complex than I can account for in my head. And so, I, too, am forced to accept much of it on faith. I happen to think it is well-placed in scientific principles, but even I am savvy enough to realize that if I can't explain it, then at the end of the day, I'm operating on that which I have not proven, just as a God-fearer does. I tell myself that I COULD prove it if I wanted to, and had the time, but the truth is still that I haven't. And for much of it, I'll never prove it, and yet believe it for the rest of my life.
I believe the correct term is seleneologically active.
/. would you see a thread like this.
And yes, only on
When I actually need PETA, then I'll get back to you.