Not to be a wet blanket, but the Entertainment Software Association doesn't exactly sound like the most unbiased source. While my personal intuition would lend me to believe their results, the whole point of doing these studies is that personal intuition is full of crap.
If Pat Robertson had published a study saying that 83% of all gamers are pedophiles, we would have screamed that the study was obviously biased. Well, if we're going to convert over people who are actually against games, we're going to need studies that aren't going to appear totally biased to the Censor-Happy crowd.
I've heard this argument before, but it's never quite worked for me. I think there's two ways it can be interpreted and both have flaws. Another (supportive of Gentoo) poster has already said that Gentoo simply requires that you can follow EXACT instructions. That makes me nervous, as it sounds like it's not really learning, but rather just memorizing a bunch of commands. If that's the case, I don't think Gentoo really leaves you all that better trained than the ape at phone-tech support who flips through a manual and tells you to do whatever the book said without and actual cognitive thought.
Conversely, though, it might be that Gentoo actually has good documentation that tells you WHY things work as opposed to just a list of key commands. If that's the case, however, why do I actually need the distro? Can't I just read the Gentoo documentation, learn about Linux's innerworkings, and then just apply that to whatever distro I see fit. After all, if I can edit an XF86Config file by hand under Gentoo, I can edit it by hand under RedHat. The GUI tools may change between distros, but the important stuff is always the same, so the Gentoo docs should be universal, making Gentoo a doc project that just has some sample software attached to it.
Yeah, North America is really skewing the results here. Once Brazil and Argentina weight in, all those damn democrats in Mexico will get cancelled out.
Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.
Actually, TiVo already supports playing MP3s over the home network. As for videos, you must have different friends than I do, since I haven't really seen any clamor for that functionality.
I'm also a Hoosier and was just checking out Craigslist, since the article was making such a big deal out of it. My personal favorite:
PINK GAME BOY........ - $85
(Was originally going to post this comment as AC, but if you're brave enough to let people know you're from Indiana, then I too shall come forth in my shame)
Our apartment was being reroofed when the contractors got into an argument with the apartment manager. Net result: two months with a hole in the roof above the den. At the time we had an old Tandy 386 (actually, just the fact that it was a Tandy might qualify it as hardware abuse). Well, after coming home from dinner one evening, we throw the switch and it wouldn't come on. After flipping it a couple more times, we unplug it and go to check out the machine. We slightly tilt the case only to have water come pouring out of it. Well, we pour the water out and a few hours later it's fine.
Of course, the hole was still in the roof, so the same thing happened again a few days later, except this time the machine was rained on while it was running. Of course, the machine shorted and shut off. It wouldn't boot, even after it dried off, so we celebrated the upcoming insurance money. Of course, the day the insurance guy arrives, we plug it in and it boots right up. We were left with a bunch of bad sectors on the hard drive, but other that than the darn thing still ran.
Sadly enough, I actually saw a guy dislocate his shoulder during a poetry recitation at a speech meet. Haven't been to enough math competitions to see any injuries yet (though, in my eternal quest for greater nerdom, I have actually gone to math competitions).
Sorry, but being a game nerd, I need to point out that the 3DO had a hard drive way back in the elder days of 1993. Now, if you want to say that the XBox was the first console that actually matter that had a hard drive, you can take credit for that.
While I might grouse as much as anyone that the XBox wasn't innovative, the 3DO had innovation out the wazoo, but still managed to be a bad idea, so innovation isn't everything.
Are you telling me that these whores who go after guys in bands and sports are there for any reason other than the fact that the dude is rich and/or famous?
After all, women have never been attracted to muscular or atheltic men.
I had dinner with a friend of mine last night. Unfortunately, I got over to his apartment complex before I discovered that I couldn't remember his apartment number. Now, years of playing old school games like Zelda and Metroid told me the obvious solution to this problem. I went through the entire complex and knocked on each and every door. A half hour later, I was walking into his apartment. Of course, he asked me why I didn't just call him up on my cell phone and ask which apartment was his but I told him that I wasn't an idiot and that I had critical thinking skills.
I love old school games just as much as everyone else. Back when Mario 3 was out, I had memorized all the card layouts to the memory card games, so I would get all the items each and every time. However, the "bombed every wall, shot every guy, flicked every combination of switches" school of game design is a really terrible idea. I mean, in Legend of Zelda, did you really try out all 256 possible combinations for the path through the Lost Woods, because I just talked with the old lady in the cave who told me the path. In fact, most of the time in Zelda, you could figure out where the hidden doors were by just looking at the symmetries in the dungeons. I would hardly call wasting bombs on walls that weren't going to have hidden doors a shining example of thinking. As for Metroid, it's pretty clear that you were not intended to just go around bombing every wall and floor. Remeber what happens if you bombed the wrong passage while looking for the ice beam in Brinstar? A giant pit that would take a ridiculous amount of time to escape, even if you had the ice beam to begin with. If bombing every wall was such a great idea, why was the designer punishing it?
If you want a better example of critical thinking, look at Simon's Quest or Dragon Warrior. Yeah, the stuff was pretty obscurely hidden, but you didn't just have to randomly look everywhere; you could find out what you needed from information presented to you in the game. If you want to just mindless try every possible combination, you aren't gaming's target audience. Actually, may I recommend trying to figure out Bill Gate's PIN number instead? It's the exact same activity, but infinitely more rewarding.
I know exactly what you mean. I mean, the way that the government has surveillance cameras in public places is just creepy. Or how about the complete insult to freedom of religion when they started banning Muslim head scarves in our schools? Not to mention the extrordinary stupidity of when they required the characters in Contra to be changed from people into robots because it seemed to violent for the children.
Oh, no, wait. That's Britain, France, and Germany. I recognize that Europe does tend to keep a more level head than America, but I would kind of hope that you would start holding yourself to a higher standard than the bar we set.
IANAB either, but I am an amateur physicist. The difference between this and that standard scenario is that, instead of finding life where it should be missing the things it needs, we found it where there are things that should kill it. When we find life in pitch black portions of the ocean, we're surprised because life normally needs the sun to live, but here they have found a different energy source. The radioactive waste is different, however. We're not saying that life shouldn't live here because it's missing some crucial componenent, but because the radiation should destroy it. To put it differently, the ocean depths would kill most life forms, but we aren't surprised when a submarine makes it down there. With the nuclear waste, we're amazed every time it doesn't destroy things that aren't even alive. So to see things living where the inanimate die is quite remarkable.
To put it differently, finding life in a closed ice source in the arctic is like finding an astronaut in a space suit on the moon. Finding life in nuclear waste is like finding an astronaut in bermuda shorts on the moon.
How about Hitckcock's Dial M for Murder? It was originally shot with 3D in mind. From what I've heard from people that actually saw it in 3D, it really does add to the film and isn't just used for cheap novelty.
If this kind technology actually takes off, it might encourage serious directors to use it. Since it won't be visible in the theater, it won't be the cheap novelty that they usually do, but they might keep in mind how it will look in 3D on the DVD.
Slashdot Mirror
Or does this only apply to Marvel characters?
If Pat Robertson had published a study saying that 83% of all gamers are pedophiles, we would have screamed that the study was obviously biased. Well, if we're going to convert over people who are actually against games, we're going to need studies that aren't going to appear totally biased to the Censor-Happy crowd.
Then some joker invents the FTL drive and there's a colony on the planet before the first ships were even built.
Robin William's Genie in Disney's Aladdin. "Phenomenal cosmic powers! Itty bitty living space"
japh = just another perl hacker
Conversely, though, it might be that Gentoo actually has good documentation that tells you WHY things work as opposed to just a list of key commands. If that's the case, however, why do I actually need the distro? Can't I just read the Gentoo documentation, learn about Linux's innerworkings, and then just apply that to whatever distro I see fit. After all, if I can edit an XF86Config file by hand under Gentoo, I can edit it by hand under RedHat. The GUI tools may change between distros, but the important stuff is always the same, so the Gentoo docs should be universal, making Gentoo a doc project that just has some sample software attached to it.
Yeah, North America is really skewing the results here. Once Brazil and Argentina weight in, all those damn democrats in Mexico will get cancelled out.
Actually, I'd just be willing to settle for having it make my girlfriend look like Jessica Rabbit.
Plus, what QWERTY keyboard has the punctuation on the left?
Of course, the hole was still in the roof, so the same thing happened again a few days later, except this time the machine was rained on while it was running. Of course, the machine shorted and shut off. It wouldn't boot, even after it dried off, so we celebrated the upcoming insurance money. Of course, the day the insurance guy arrives, we plug it in and it boots right up. We were left with a bunch of bad sectors on the hard drive, but other that than the darn thing still ran.
Sadly enough, I actually saw a guy dislocate his shoulder during a poetry recitation at a speech meet. Haven't been to enough math competitions to see any injuries yet (though, in my eternal quest for greater nerdom, I have actually gone to math competitions).
While I might grouse as much as anyone that the XBox wasn't innovative, the 3DO had innovation out the wazoo, but still managed to be a bad idea, so innovation isn't everything.
I love old school games just as much as everyone else. Back when Mario 3 was out, I had memorized all the card layouts to the memory card games, so I would get all the items each and every time. However, the "bombed every wall, shot every guy, flicked every combination of switches" school of game design is a really terrible idea. I mean, in Legend of Zelda, did you really try out all 256 possible combinations for the path through the Lost Woods, because I just talked with the old lady in the cave who told me the path. In fact, most of the time in Zelda, you could figure out where the hidden doors were by just looking at the symmetries in the dungeons. I would hardly call wasting bombs on walls that weren't going to have hidden doors a shining example of thinking. As for Metroid, it's pretty clear that you were not intended to just go around bombing every wall and floor. Remeber what happens if you bombed the wrong passage while looking for the ice beam in Brinstar? A giant pit that would take a ridiculous amount of time to escape, even if you had the ice beam to begin with. If bombing every wall was such a great idea, why was the designer punishing it?
If you want a better example of critical thinking, look at Simon's Quest or Dragon Warrior. Yeah, the stuff was pretty obscurely hidden, but you didn't just have to randomly look everywhere; you could find out what you needed from information presented to you in the game. If you want to just mindless try every possible combination, you aren't gaming's target audience. Actually, may I recommend trying to figure out Bill Gate's PIN number instead? It's the exact same activity, but infinitely more rewarding.
Oh, no, wait. That's Britain, France, and Germany. I recognize that Europe does tend to keep a more level head than America, but I would kind of hope that you would start holding yourself to a higher standard than the bar we set.
To put it differently, finding life in a closed ice source in the arctic is like finding an astronaut in a space suit on the moon. Finding life in nuclear waste is like finding an astronaut in bermuda shorts on the moon.
If this kind technology actually takes off, it might encourage serious directors to use it. Since it won't be visible in the theater, it won't be the cheap novelty that they usually do, but they might keep in mind how it will look in 3D on the DVD.