Who cares? Transparent tanks are not a plot point
on
Transparent Concrete
·
· Score: 2
I don't think "Why was the tank transparent??" is on the same level as "How can a Macintosh computer talk to an alien computer, give it a virus, and disrupt the defensive shields on every single alien ship attacking?"
The truth is, I don't think "why does this need to be transparent?" was much of a plot point. They needed materials to build a tank, and plexi-glass suited their needs. It really doesn't need to be more complex than that. I don't think anybody was on the edge of their seats going "Why do they need plexi-glass!?!?!? Yeesh, what a crappy movie.".
This type of detail sounds more like you were fishing for an inconsistency in the movie so you could make yourself look more observant. It seems like everybody nowadays is looking for flaws in movies so they can appear smarter to everybody else. The problem with doing this is that you ruin the movie for youself. What's embarrasing is that both Star Trek and Star Wars fans do this alot.
One of my favorite examples of these ludicrous debates is "Turbo Lasers aren't lasers! They don't act like lasers, they can't be lasers!" I actually watched a forum grow out of control over this topic about Star Wars. People got upset! There was name calling and everything. This type of behaviour makes people say "Damn dudes, get a life!!". This makes me afraid to admit I like any of these shows/movies for fear that I might get grouped along with these people.
It's fun to have discussions about it, but to get heated about it is absurd.
Anyway, it's not my intention to flame you, btempleton. I just thought it'd be right of me to bring to your attention the way I interpreted your post.
I think this is academic since we're two different people with two different ideas about how CD's are valuable. I buy songs, not artists. I have purchased, in my life, maybe 4 CD's that had at least 6 songs I loved on them. That's pretty bad given my collection. I could very well be in the vast minority here. *Shrug* I will say this though, with the exception of sound track MP3's, no MP3 I've ever run across identifies which CD it came off of.
Is this proof that people want individual songs and not albums? I think it is, but I don't have a scientific way of proving it. I do think it'd be interesting if Napster was to run statistics on their usage patterns and tell us how many people look for individual songs instead of albums. My hypothesis is most people look for a particular song. In which case, the argument that Napster hurt CD sales can go into the toilet since CD's average about 10 songs each. I also think it would definitively prove to the industry that they either need to produce more singles, or provide a legal way to get a CD with whatever songs you want on it made. Until they do that, I have no sympathy for their alledged losses due to Napster.
It's a pity, though, that the MPAA may find themselves in a similar position. So far, though, it looks like nobody is ripping the additional features of the DVD as well as the movie itself. This means DVD's still have value. The problem, though, is you know somebody's going to figure out a way to preserve the interactive menus and extra features too. In which case, the MPAA may be in real trouble. I hope a solution presents itself too, http://www.intertainer.tv is a good start. You can 'rent' a 24-hour period to see a movie that is streamed to you over the internet. I think this is the start of embracing the internet for change like this.
The Director's Edition of Robocop was $40 (and worth buying btw). T2 *was* $40 when it came out, it's cheap now because it's been out a while. Could it have been purchased cheaper? Sure. But I'm an impulse buyer. If I want it and it's there, I'll get it. If I want it cheaper, I can try eBay or Amazon or something. To get either of those movies for $32 back then would have either required a ride to a local Costco (membership fee) or waiting a few days to get it from Amazon (shipping fees).
The last few DVD's I've purchased were about $20 each. They don't have any special features to speak of though, not on the same level as T2 or RC. The only reason these were worth $20 for me was that I'm a fanatic for MST3k. Frankly, though, I would have bought VHS versions for cheaper if I had known they were so light on features.
I saw a blurb on CNN last night where the RIAA made a claim that MP3 trading (like Napster) cost them four billion dollars. I think their math is based on "everybody that has MP3 is worth the CD that it was on."
I just don't think they can make this claim. What's going on with MP3 trading is not so much piracy, but demand for a new type of service. People want individual songs, not over-priced CD's full of crap. They want it on a non-CD media so they don't have to juggle CD's. And finally, they don't want to have to look very hard to find it. You'd have thought somebody would have said "hmm.. there's demand here, we should fill it!".
Then the RIAA would have created a business model for purchase and download of MP3's. If they had done that, I'd understand if their case that Napster is costing them money. But they're not even in that market, instead they're trying to sue it out of existence. Ever wonder if phone companies tried to sue cell phone companies?
The market has spoken about what it wants, and the RIAA is stupid enough to try to fight it. The movie industry is going to learn a harsh lesson too if they follow suit. People want to rent DVD's instead of buying them. Their best bet is to make the content on the DVD's worth owning. Compete with the rental companies by being better than them. Man I'm so glad Warner Brothers lost that case.
I just don't understand all the negativity here. Here's how I see it: WB was playing games with what a DVD really is in order to squeeze more money out of rental places in questionable ways. They lost that right, and were punished. Customers at rental places are renting MOVIES, no matter what kind of 'software' is on the DVD. They're not renting DVD's to solve a problem, virus scan their hard drive, or render images in 3D.
Most DVD's aren't worth owning. I don't want to spend $40 or so on a DVD unless it's the type of thing I think I'll come back to again and again, like I did with T2. However, I do rent quite a few DVD's. And what Warner Bros. basically did was try to take that right away from me by jacking up the prices on their DVD's specifically for rental stores. That was not right. Tough noogies if WB doesn't get money for each rental. If their content isn't worth owning, that's their fault. Don't punish the consumers for it.
I do have concerns of the ramifications this might have in the future, though. So far, I'm encouraged though. By defining DVD's as movies, then movie rights are seperate from Software rights. At least Warner Bros. can't grease up some politician to take movie rights away that affect how I use software.
Broad patent? Ok. Only if they protect service.
on
AvantGo Gets a Patent
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I don't know much about the patent, legalese is beyond me so I'm not going to comment on if the patent is overly broad or not. With this type of thing, it's hard to say. Some could argue that what AvantGo is doing isn't a whole lot different than how a browser works.
Here's the thing though, even if it is very similar to a browser, it's still a unique and worthwhile service. Basically it takes existing sites and digests them into a format my PocketPC/Palm Pilot can handle. I like this because it turns my PocketPC into a little entertainment device. The Onion is one of many sites that is support AvantGo. It's pretty cool that in a meeting I can flip open my PocketPC to 'check my calender', only to be reading an article about an Ancient Race of Skeleton People Unearthed in Egypt.
It's likely that the patent could be too similar to how a browser works I suppose. Here's the thing though, AvantGo has a pretty focused business. "Convert web pages into useful docs on a PocketPC." I'd say that the chances are real good that the only people they'd go after would be the 'me too!' places that take AvantGo's idea and run off with it to make a competing service. Since AvantGo did such a wonderful job of making this a useful service, I'd hate to deny them protection. I don't think this is on the same level as Amazon patenting 'one-click shopping.' The steps AvantGo has to go through are rather complex.
I tell you what though, my tone would change really fast if they unfairly sued somebody.
So what you're saying is that it's perfectly ok that they advertise 'unlimited bandwidth, always on' and so on, but when you sign up they act exactly the opposite? "Don't do anything that actually uses the bandwidth."
It's funny how over-simplifying a problem makes a simple solution seem so obvious.
There was a slashdot article a few weeks back that ISP's were worried about 802.11 making 'free providers' out of everybody. I don't remember much about the article, otherwise I'd hunt it down and get you the link. I recall the gist of it was that they had some crazy idea that 802.11 networks were going to cost them a good deal of money by people sharing their connections.
Whether or not they actually do something about it is up in the air, but I do worry about several major industries having too wild of imaginations and trying to 'control' what every single person does. They seem to think things like "well, if people can wirelessly transmit their internet service to their neighbors, so they will ALL do it! We better put technology in place to prevent that." They fail to realize that today I could cheaply and easily run cable to like 6 people near me in my complex and share a connection with them. But I won't. Not worth the time. If we all had wireless cards, I think it'd be fun to get a little lan going and play games, etc. But I don't want to be dependent on somebody else, and I don't feel like letting people leech off me. There's really no reason to believe that enough people would be willing to go through all that. So any over-reactive steps these companies take to take away my freedoms I find offensive.
Right now, my biggest concern is that the broadband ISP's will kill off P2P. I think everybody should kick the ISP's every time they take a step to do that. I think it was Princess Leia who said "the more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers."
At what point do these ISPs stop being 'Internet Providers', and start becoming 'Web Page Providers'? As early as a year ago, an 'Internet Connection' meant that my computer could talk to any other computer that is also on an 'Internet Connection.' Nowadays, though, ISP's are playing games with blocking off what you can do with this connection. It seems like companies like ATTBI really only want to provide you the ability to do what Internet Explorer allows you to do. Anything beyond that and they try to nix it.
They don't want me doing P2P, they don't want me to play games, they don't want me to have more than one computer hooked up, and they don't want me going wireless. How much more can they block off before its no longer really an Internet Connection?
It seems to me that if they are going to behave this way, then they shouldn't be considered Internet Service Providers anymore. They're not! You can't call it an ISP if they're telling you you can't do the things that makes the Internet the Internet. I have two computers on the net at home. One I use just as an email terminal (very low bandwidth), and the other is where I go cruising the web and do IM etc. Until they tell me that I can only use so much bandwidth, they have no business telling me I can't use more than one computer. They advertise "unlimited bandwidth, 24-7", and then they play these silly games with me. It really makes me want to sue for false advertising.
Hmm... my post 'Mac users don't have to worry about using the term gigahertz' post got modded down as flamebait.
The original post of 'Mac users don't have to worry about this [the Athlon bug]' is flame bait, my response was a humorous way of saying why 'this is why buying a Mac won't solve my problem.'
An Off-topic moderation wouldn't have bothered me since I didn't spell out my reasoning, but I do feel the flamebait call was bad.
The demonstration they did was hardly conclusive. As a matter of fact, it's so vague that it pretty much fails to impress the most imaginitive person. The biggest proof that this is a hoax is how empty the 'demonstration' is. I find it difficult to believe that somebody who's so clever they can solve a problem that has been bugging scientists for such a long time, but they cannot do a demonstration that anybody could cobble together fraudulently. I am not electrically minded, but like some people that posted here already my first thought was that they built a capacitor.
Here's what bugs me, hoaxes along these lines are a dime a dozen. You'd think that somebody that's out to prove they invented something 'bigger than the wheel', they'd be loaded with tons of different demonstrations ready to go. I can imagine they'd at least have one big DEFINITIVE demonstration that'd make people go "wow!". But their choice... well I find it laughable.
Unfortunately, my 'proof' isn't very definitive either. I admit that. You'd think, though, that if they really invented such a big thing, they'd know that people would immediately be skeptical. Throwing in a demonstration that is hardly a measure of their claims would seem like a stupid move for a legitimate claim, and a likely move from a fraudulent one.
Thank you. I see your point. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing Netscape in stores a long time ago. Was there a time where you could buy it in stores but not download it for free? (All that happened before I was a net guru heh.)
That does suck though. Now that you mention that, it stinks that Opera may have trouble getting out of the gate. They charge roughly $30 for their browser. I gawked at that when I first saw it. I was so happy when they offset it with an ad version. Now I feel kind of bad though. I'm probably going to go ahead and buy their browser, but what about convincing other people to do it? If nobody buys it.... and if ad revenue drops (and it will, mark my words), then Opera will likely fail.
I think I see now why they want computer manufacturers to control which browser comes with what computer. If I could click a checkbox at Dell.com and say I want Opera instead of IE, then Opera would (in theory) get paid by Dell for it.
Thanks man, you really clarified things for me. I really think my next computer will be a Mac. Too bad Lightwave and AfterEffects aren't on Linux though.
I'm a little confused about something. How does a lot of people using Netscape help them financially? They give it away free. Is it ad revenue? Are there people that pay for it?
I'd like to understand this before I comment much more. At the moment I can't see how they can prove any monetary damage was done. If more people downloading browsers (at Netscape's expense) is helping Netscape, then it seems to me they should have fought harder to keep their market share.
Every new version of IE has *something* new and interesting about it, but Netscape's releases seemed to do little more than fix bugs. I have never seen a commercial on TV or in a magazine for it, nor has Netscape given me any real reason to want to upgrade.
Instead, I dumped them both and I switched to Opera. Opera is radically different than NS or IE, and I hope some day it gets some more visibility out there because it's a damn fine browser. If Netscape were more like Opera, I not only think that the market share would be closer to even, but IE would be radically different too because it'd force MS to keep up. The way things are, though, it's hard to imagine that MS's dominance in the market is a result of it being a bully when IE is arguably superior to Netscape.
I've been thinking about the online comic book business because one day I want to start one myself. Actually it's an online animated cartoon, but I think the model would be similar. I have issues with things like "what happens if people constantly distribute copies of the animations to each other and bypass my income generator?"
I think there are people scared of the idea of once they sell a few copies, they propogate virally and nobody pays for it. I know that has me a bit spooked, but I have a few ideas that might be useful.
- There needs to be new content regularly. The faster, the better. That keeps people checking with the site instead of checking Morpheus every so often.
- Sell things besides the content itself. You can transmit comics/animations/movies etc around the web, but you cannot transmit T-shirts, coffee mugs, and little figurines etc.
- Make distributed content worth something. I want to do an animated cartoon, right? One approach is the 'to be continued...' story that requires multiple parts to get the whole thing. If somebody gets only one or two episodes, the best way to get the rest is from my site. I think comics could work this way too, admittedly they'd propogate easier though given their smaller file size.
- Include a coupon with the content. "Mention this comic and you'll get $2 off a T-shirt, go to our site at www.comicbookname.com." With this approach, even pirated works are of value because it's possible some people will buy some of your merchandise. If the ads/coupons aren't too intrusive (don't put a 30 second commercial in it! >:I ) nobody'll edit them out.
- Consider a subscription model. Give away a few episodes, ideally so they have some type of cliffhanger that just keeps your eyes glued, and say 'for $x a year you can have unlimited access to downloads' or something like that. Even if that isn't too profitable, at least you have SOME people out there getting vids and getting them around the web.
- Use the content as a commercial for merchandise. Do you all remember the Transformers cartoon? That cartoon was seriously a 20 minute commerical for toys disguised as a cartoon. If the artwork of the comic/cartoon is interesting and unique enough, turning it into a marketing device for t-shirts/posters/coffee mugs etc really isn't that difficult. I'll give you an example, there was a Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert had a doll of his boss sitting on his monitor. The boss asked what that was about, Dilbert replied "It lifts my spirit to have a likeness of you near by." The boss left, feeling good about what Dilbert told him. As soon as he walked out, Dilbert backhanded the doll off his monitor and said "Stop barging in while I'm working!" From what Scott Adams said in one of his books, a bunch of people wrote in wanting one of those dolls.
I think one thing Hollywood and the Record Industry needs to learn is that they should care about the money they are getting instead of worrying about the money they aren't getting.
First off, thanks for the link to Spiderweb Software, going to take a look at it soon.
You mentioned no good ST licenses, Star Trek 25th Anniversary (back in the 386 days) is still regarded as a pretty good game. Interestingly enough, it's kind of a mix of Wing Commander (for the space battles), and the Day of the Tentacle style adventure interface. It was made (or published?) by Interplay I think. (my memory is a bit fuzzy there)
That game not only had style, but it was fun to play too. It's a wonderful example of what I mean, wish I had remembered it when I made my original post.
Voyager Elite Force was a step in the right direction, but it dissolved into 'shoot everybody in this level'. I was kind of offended by that. Early in the demo there was a part where a crewman was trapped behind a pair of forcefields. On the other side of him was a hull breach. You had to shut down the right forcefield to get him out. If you shut off the wrong one, he got blown out into space. Heh that kicked ass. I was hoping for more of that, but the demo let me down. So I never bought that game. Shooting Borg drones endlessly does not a game make.
I think Armada got really good reviews if memory serves, but that's an example of the ST license not adding all that much to it. Essentially it was Command and Conquer in Space that used ST vehicles. I enjoyed the demo though.
Yes, Wing Commander was a franchise, but it earned it's place there. If Wing Commander had used the Battlestar Galactica license originally (I just pulled that out of the air, WC reminds me of Galactica a little) then the chances are we would have seen just the first game. I believe that the reason it became the success it did was because it was original and they could go places with it. It took on a life of it's own and became a franchise. If they had used another license, they'd be at the mercy of what's going on in the show. They can't have any of the main characters die, and they wouldn't be able to change anything. Using the Galactica example, the game wouldn't be able to have Galactica returning home. That would stink since that's the point of the show!
"I am getting really tired of all these magic, foolprof ways that could have prevented 9/11"
I agree with you that every SINGLE solution doesn't seem like a likely candidate to avoid that particular tragedy. I think one of the big concerns people have is the lack of information on what really happened. I'm really curious about what happened to the plane that went down when the people took out the hijackers. A 2 megabit two-way connection on an airplane can transmit a heck of a lot of data, at least when it's compressed.
It is widely believed that the people on board that plane got wind of what happened in NYC and DC and that's why they decided to pay the ultimate price to stop it. Now lets say that this information made it to the plane that hit the second tower. Could the people on board that plane prevented it from hitting the tower? It's alot easier to prevent 300+ people from using a phone on a plane than it is to prevent them from typing/reading a text message.
This is probably irrelevent now because I believe that anybody who hijacks a plane today is likely to get overwhelmed by the passengers, even if they don't intend to take out a building with it. I do believe, though, that having the blackbox actually transmit what is going on is vitally important. Remember that plane that crashed in NYC shortly after takeoff? It was impossible to tell for at least a day or two if that was a terrorist related attack. The reason for the delay was it took that long to find the black box.
If the black box were transmitting somewhere, even in a lossy data format, at least we'd have a clue as to whether or not it was an accident. What difference does a day make? A day is an eternity for somebody to disappear.
Getting back on topic, would this device work on an airplane? I don't think so. Im looking at the picture of the device and it shows a dish. My understanding is that the dish would need to be pointing at a satellite. I'm not sure an airplane would be able to track it. Even if it could, mounting the dish on the plane would be an aerodynamics problem, at least the way its designed now.
Is it possible to modify this device for air travel though? My knowledge of satellite technology is really limited, if somebody could educate me on this topic I'd really appreciate it.
"Anyway... like alot of things , it may be expensive for these now.. but give it 6 months or a year."
I doubt it. This is the type of thing that the military would really find interesting, and as long as it's interesting to the Gov't, the price will stay up. It's an interesing concept though. Imagine a command tank that has one of these guys in it sending/receiving that much data. Then it relays the connection to nearby soldiers wirelessly (like 802.11 only secure?) so they can get information to their HMD's.
And then the army commanders can move their soldiers around point and click just like Command and Conquer!
Re:You know what would make me play a Farscape gam
on
Farscape Video Game
·
· Score: 2
Wing Commander wasn't very good, no. Think about video games, though. They are nearly *always* ridiculous situations for real people to be involved in. Mortal Kombat is a good example of that, so is Super Mario Bros. If they had animated these instead, then they could get away with the stupid lines and the unpractical physics.
Unfortunately, though, it still takes a decent story idea to make a good cartoon. "Swing your arms, from side to side, come it's time to go DO THE MARIO!!" Hee heee Anybody remember that?b
I should start by saying I haven't read the article yet, can't get to it. *hopes the/. traffic dies down soon...*
If it is a defect in the processor, I wonder if AMD will replace my existing processor. It may not seem like all that big of deal to most people here at Slashdot, but as a 3D artist I am *dependent* on OpenGL.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not having this problem now. (I'm not a Linux user.) But when I built my Athlon I had to install a patch for a similar type of problem in order to get the machine to work. At what point do we say "it's no longer ok to work around a CPU bug"?
If Intel has one set of bugs in their processors, and AMD has another, that divides the market. Software companies shouldn't have to put the effort into scrutinizing their code based on which CPU they are on, it's bad enough they are trying to optimize for one or the other. What happens when they get used to the workaround, but then it gets fixed? Worse yet, what happens when a company says "I'm sick of this, I'm only supporting one processor."
So it's not so much that I think AMD should replace the processors with this specific bug, but I think we should be vigilent in not allowing them to let errors like that run rampant.
AMD didn't turn interesting until the Athlon came out. The previous versions of its processors were decidedly inferior. This is *worse* than recalling for a bad, rarely used function call. I can't take a processor back 6 months after I bought it because it sucks, but I can get it replaced if it has a bona-fide bug.
If this is a bug in the processor, AMD really should fix it and offer replacement processors to those who need it. If they don't, and they expect you to patch your OS instead, then that definitely shakes my faith in that company. When you're an artist dependent on OpenGL, you can't have problems like this.
And finally...
Why are you worried about running 32-bit code on a 64-bit processor? 64-bit processors are supposed to run 64-bit code. Intel's not marketing 64-bit processors to replace desktop computers (today), they're for servers and high-end graphics with custom code. They don't NEED to run 32-bit code. I hardly think that's a point against Intel, especially considering they don't make it a big secret that 32-bit code runs slower on it.
Shouldn't be modded down, interesting point....
on
Farscape Video Game
·
· Score: 2
I think Gowdy has an interesting point. (assuming he is making this point, hee hee) Licenses can really backfire.
If the true value of any game is the license (hah! I smirked at that), then it seems the only the people who are interested in the movie/tvshow/comic it's based on will pick up the box. Shows like Farscape tend to divide people into groups of "I love this show!" and groups of "The show sucks, and the ppl that watch it suck even more!!!"
Farscape's not so bad about this, but I can imagine a bunch of Star Trek fans laughing at the idea of a Babylon 5 game, even though there's been very little good to say about the Trek gaming franchise.
No matter how good the game is, using the Farscape license is a bit of a risk. I'm not that confident that the fan base that would buy the game on PC is broad enough to earn a profit.
You know what would make me play a Farscape game?
on
Farscape Video Game
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
If they made it a point and click adventure game like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, or Day of the Tentacle. (all Lucas Arts games I might add...)
The problem is, very few action based games based on a license are good because the license made them good. Take Rogue Squadron II for the GameCube, that game is awesome. But does it really need to be set in the Star Wars universe to be a hit? Not really. That game is probably the best use of a movie license in recent years. But as Wing Commander proves, you don't need to base a space combat game on a license just to make it good.
Judging from the preview, it really doesn't look like the Farscape game is all that dependent on the Farscape universe. It's because of that alone I won't pay any attention to it. You might tell me to not judge a game by it's title, which is a fine argument. However, I'm the type of person who really appreciates inspired games. If they can't sell me in the marketing literature on why it needs to be Farscape and it can't be a brand new license, then chances are pretty good it's going to be mediochre at best. I mean read the preview, they're trying to excite me by saying "Yah they gave us a lot of freedom and let us make our own environments...". This concerns me because because it really smells like this was originally a different game and they were able to band-aid the Farscape license into it. "Lots of people will see 'Farscape' on the title and flock to buy it!". I'm insulted.
Farscape doesn't lend itself too well as an action game, but I really do think it's storyline could be made into an interesting adventure game like the ones I mentioned above. Imagine if they created it as a bunch of episodes that lead to one big conclusion, and you are control the characters through the development of the story. If any of you are fans of games like Day of the Tentacle then you will probably immediately see my enthusiasm for Farscape to be used this way. The uniqueness of Farscape is it's characters and its situations. But if you play a game where you run aruond shooting anybody, how can you expect it to make really good use of the license? From what little I've seen of Farscape, episodes rarely end in shootouts.
Personally, I think Quantum Leap would also translate well into this genre. Man, when I think about having a Quantum Leap story told in this fashion I get pretty hyped. That would be so cool to leap in, walk up to a mirror, and see a different reflection. Or to have the imaging chamber door open and have Al walk through and let you know what's up. Damn that'd be awesome. Man... I think Doctor Who could work that way too.
Pity the game industry thinks that the only genre out there is 'make your computer obsolete action'.
It's too bad Hollywood's trying to prevent these shows from living forever by existing on the internet. Yep... all that talent wasted. I hope that when Eisner dies, the DMCA prevents anybody from visiting his grave.
Hollywood seems to think that people share TV shows because they are thieves. That isn't true. You cannot buy or rent a TV Show that was aired a week ago. If you missed it's airing (frankly, any element of life takes priority over TV), then you're stuck. Either you go to the web and download it or... well.. you really don't have a lot of choice because Hollywood's 'oh so valuable content' isn't available to acquire legally.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think "Why was the tank transparent??" is on the same level as "How can a Macintosh computer talk to an alien computer, give it a virus, and disrupt the defensive shields on every single alien ship attacking?"
The truth is, I don't think "why does this need to be transparent?" was much of a plot point. They needed materials to build a tank, and plexi-glass suited their needs. It really doesn't need to be more complex than that. I don't think anybody was on the edge of their seats going "Why do they need plexi-glass!?!?!? Yeesh, what a crappy movie.".
This type of detail sounds more like you were fishing for an inconsistency in the movie so you could make yourself look more observant. It seems like everybody nowadays is looking for flaws in movies so they can appear smarter to everybody else. The problem with doing this is that you ruin the movie for youself. What's embarrasing is that both Star Trek and Star Wars fans do this alot.
One of my favorite examples of these ludicrous debates is "Turbo Lasers aren't lasers! They don't act like lasers, they can't be lasers!" I actually watched a forum grow out of control over this topic about Star Wars. People got upset! There was name calling and everything. This type of behaviour makes people say "Damn dudes, get a life!!". This makes me afraid to admit I like any of these shows/movies for fear that I might get grouped along with these people.
It's fun to have discussions about it, but to get heated about it is absurd.
Anyway, it's not my intention to flame you, btempleton. I just thought it'd be right of me to bring to your attention the way I interpreted your post.
I think this is academic since we're two different people with two different ideas about how CD's are valuable. I buy songs, not artists. I have purchased, in my life, maybe 4 CD's that had at least 6 songs I loved on them. That's pretty bad given my collection. I could very well be in the vast minority here. *Shrug* I will say this though, with the exception of sound track MP3's, no MP3 I've ever run across identifies which CD it came off of.
Is this proof that people want individual songs and not albums? I think it is, but I don't have a scientific way of proving it. I do think it'd be interesting if Napster was to run statistics on their usage patterns and tell us how many people look for individual songs instead of albums. My hypothesis is most people look for a particular song. In which case, the argument that Napster hurt CD sales can go into the toilet since CD's average about 10 songs each. I also think it would definitively prove to the industry that they either need to produce more singles, or provide a legal way to get a CD with whatever songs you want on it made. Until they do that, I have no sympathy for their alledged losses due to Napster.
It's a pity, though, that the MPAA may find themselves in a similar position. So far, though, it looks like nobody is ripping the additional features of the DVD as well as the movie itself. This means DVD's still have value. The problem, though, is you know somebody's going to figure out a way to preserve the interactive menus and extra features too. In which case, the MPAA may be in real trouble. I hope a solution presents itself too, http://www.intertainer.tv is a good start. You can 'rent' a 24-hour period to see a movie that is streamed to you over the internet. I think this is the start of embracing the internet for change like this.
The Director's Edition of Robocop was $40 (and worth buying btw). T2 *was* $40 when it came out, it's cheap now because it's been out a while. Could it have been purchased cheaper? Sure. But I'm an impulse buyer. If I want it and it's there, I'll get it. If I want it cheaper, I can try eBay or Amazon or something. To get either of those movies for $32 back then would have either required a ride to a local Costco (membership fee) or waiting a few days to get it from Amazon (shipping fees).
The last few DVD's I've purchased were about $20 each. They don't have any special features to speak of though, not on the same level as T2 or RC. The only reason these were worth $20 for me was that I'm a fanatic for MST3k. Frankly, though, I would have bought VHS versions for cheaper if I had known they were so light on features.
I saw a blurb on CNN last night where the RIAA made a claim that MP3 trading (like Napster) cost them four billion dollars. I think their math is based on "everybody that has MP3 is worth the CD that it was on."
I just don't think they can make this claim. What's going on with MP3 trading is not so much piracy, but demand for a new type of service. People want individual songs, not over-priced CD's full of crap. They want it on a non-CD media so they don't have to juggle CD's. And finally, they don't want to have to look very hard to find it. You'd have thought somebody would have said "hmm.. there's demand here, we should fill it!".
Then the RIAA would have created a business model for purchase and download of MP3's. If they had done that, I'd understand if their case that Napster is costing them money. But they're not even in that market, instead they're trying to sue it out of existence. Ever wonder if phone companies tried to sue cell phone companies?
The market has spoken about what it wants, and the RIAA is stupid enough to try to fight it. The movie industry is going to learn a harsh lesson too if they follow suit. People want to rent DVD's instead of buying them. Their best bet is to make the content on the DVD's worth owning. Compete with the rental companies by being better than them. Man I'm so glad Warner Brothers lost that case.
I just don't understand all the negativity here. Here's how I see it: WB was playing games with what a DVD really is in order to squeeze more money out of rental places in questionable ways. They lost that right, and were punished. Customers at rental places are renting MOVIES, no matter what kind of 'software' is on the DVD. They're not renting DVD's to solve a problem, virus scan their hard drive, or render images in 3D.
Most DVD's aren't worth owning. I don't want to spend $40 or so on a DVD unless it's the type of thing I think I'll come back to again and again, like I did with T2. However, I do rent quite a few DVD's. And what Warner Bros. basically did was try to take that right away from me by jacking up the prices on their DVD's specifically for rental stores. That was not right. Tough noogies if WB doesn't get money for each rental. If their content isn't worth owning, that's their fault. Don't punish the consumers for it.
I do have concerns of the ramifications this might have in the future, though. So far, I'm encouraged though. By defining DVD's as movies, then movie rights are seperate from Software rights. At least Warner Bros. can't grease up some politician to take movie rights away that affect how I use software.
I don't know much about the patent, legalese is beyond me so I'm not going to comment on if the patent is overly broad or not. With this type of thing, it's hard to say. Some could argue that what AvantGo is doing isn't a whole lot different than how a browser works.
Here's the thing though, even if it is very similar to a browser, it's still a unique and worthwhile service. Basically it takes existing sites and digests them into a format my PocketPC/Palm Pilot can handle. I like this because it turns my PocketPC into a little entertainment device. The Onion is one of many sites that is support AvantGo. It's pretty cool that in a meeting I can flip open my PocketPC to 'check my calender', only to be reading an article about an Ancient Race of Skeleton People Unearthed in Egypt.
It's likely that the patent could be too similar to how a browser works I suppose. Here's the thing though, AvantGo has a pretty focused business. "Convert web pages into useful docs on a PocketPC." I'd say that the chances are real good that the only people they'd go after would be the 'me too!' places that take AvantGo's idea and run off with it to make a competing service. Since AvantGo did such a wonderful job of making this a useful service, I'd hate to deny them protection. I don't think this is on the same level as Amazon patenting 'one-click shopping.' The steps AvantGo has to go through are rather complex.
I tell you what though, my tone would change really fast if they unfairly sued somebody.
So what you're saying is that it's perfectly ok that they advertise 'unlimited bandwidth, always on' and so on, but when you sign up they act exactly the opposite? "Don't do anything that actually uses the bandwidth."
It's funny how over-simplifying a problem makes a simple solution seem so obvious.
There was a slashdot article a few weeks back that ISP's were worried about 802.11 making 'free providers' out of everybody. I don't remember much about the article, otherwise I'd hunt it down and get you the link. I recall the gist of it was that they had some crazy idea that 802.11 networks were going to cost them a good deal of money by people sharing their connections.
Whether or not they actually do something about it is up in the air, but I do worry about several major industries having too wild of imaginations and trying to 'control' what every single person does. They seem to think things like "well, if people can wirelessly transmit their internet service to their neighbors, so they will ALL do it! We better put technology in place to prevent that." They fail to realize that today I could cheaply and easily run cable to like 6 people near me in my complex and share a connection with them. But I won't. Not worth the time. If we all had wireless cards, I think it'd be fun to get a little lan going and play games, etc. But I don't want to be dependent on somebody else, and I don't feel like letting people leech off me. There's really no reason to believe that enough people would be willing to go through all that. So any over-reactive steps these companies take to take away my freedoms I find offensive.
Right now, my biggest concern is that the broadband ISP's will kill off P2P. I think everybody should kick the ISP's every time they take a step to do that. I think it was Princess Leia who said "the more you tighten your grip, the more will slip through your fingers."
At what point do these ISPs stop being 'Internet Providers', and start becoming 'Web Page Providers'? As early as a year ago, an 'Internet Connection' meant that my computer could talk to any other computer that is also on an 'Internet Connection.' Nowadays, though, ISP's are playing games with blocking off what you can do with this connection. It seems like companies like ATTBI really only want to provide you the ability to do what Internet Explorer allows you to do. Anything beyond that and they try to nix it.
They don't want me doing P2P, they don't want me to play games, they don't want me to have more than one computer hooked up, and they don't want me going wireless. How much more can they block off before its no longer really an Internet Connection?
It seems to me that if they are going to behave this way, then they shouldn't be considered Internet Service Providers anymore. They're not! You can't call it an ISP if they're telling you you can't do the things that makes the Internet the Internet. I have two computers on the net at home. One I use just as an email terminal (very low bandwidth), and the other is where I go cruising the web and do IM etc. Until they tell me that I can only use so much bandwidth, they have no business telling me I can't use more than one computer. They advertise "unlimited bandwidth, 24-7", and then they play these silly games with me. It really makes me want to sue for false advertising.
Hmm... my post 'Mac users don't have to worry about using the term gigahertz' post got modded down as flamebait.
The original post of 'Mac users don't have to worry about this [the Athlon bug]' is flame bait, my response was a humorous way of saying why 'this is why buying a Mac won't solve my problem.'
An Off-topic moderation wouldn't have bothered me since I didn't spell out my reasoning, but I do feel the flamebait call was bad.
Mac users don't have to worry about using the term 'Gigahertz' either.
The demonstration they did was hardly conclusive. As a matter of fact, it's so vague that it pretty much fails to impress the most imaginitive person. The biggest proof that this is a hoax is how empty the 'demonstration' is. I find it difficult to believe that somebody who's so clever they can solve a problem that has been bugging scientists for such a long time, but they cannot do a demonstration that anybody could cobble together fraudulently. I am not electrically minded, but like some people that posted here already my first thought was that they built a capacitor.
Here's what bugs me, hoaxes along these lines are a dime a dozen. You'd think that somebody that's out to prove they invented something 'bigger than the wheel', they'd be loaded with tons of different demonstrations ready to go. I can imagine they'd at least have one big DEFINITIVE demonstration that'd make people go "wow!". But their choice... well I find it laughable.
Unfortunately, my 'proof' isn't very definitive either. I admit that. You'd think, though, that if they really invented such a big thing, they'd know that people would immediately be skeptical. Throwing in a demonstration that is hardly a measure of their claims would seem like a stupid move for a legitimate claim, and a likely move from a fraudulent one.
Thank you. I see your point. Now that you mention it, I remember seeing Netscape in stores a long time ago. Was there a time where you could buy it in stores but not download it for free? (All that happened before I was a net guru heh.)
That does suck though. Now that you mention that, it stinks that Opera may have trouble getting out of the gate. They charge roughly $30 for their browser. I gawked at that when I first saw it. I was so happy when they offset it with an ad version. Now I feel kind of bad though. I'm probably going to go ahead and buy their browser, but what about convincing other people to do it? If nobody buys it.... and if ad revenue drops (and it will, mark my words), then Opera will likely fail.
I think I see now why they want computer manufacturers to control which browser comes with what computer. If I could click a checkbox at Dell.com and say I want Opera instead of IE, then Opera would (in theory) get paid by Dell for it.
Thanks man, you really clarified things for me. I really think my next computer will be a Mac. Too bad Lightwave and AfterEffects aren't on Linux though.
I'm a little confused about something. How does a lot of people using Netscape help them financially? They give it away free. Is it ad revenue? Are there people that pay for it?
I'd like to understand this before I comment much more. At the moment I can't see how they can prove any monetary damage was done. If more people downloading browsers (at Netscape's expense) is helping Netscape, then it seems to me they should have fought harder to keep their market share.
Every new version of IE has *something* new and interesting about it, but Netscape's releases seemed to do little more than fix bugs. I have never seen a commercial on TV or in a magazine for it, nor has Netscape given me any real reason to want to upgrade.
Instead, I dumped them both and I switched to Opera. Opera is radically different than NS or IE, and I hope some day it gets some more visibility out there because it's a damn fine browser. If Netscape were more like Opera, I not only think that the market share would be closer to even, but IE would be radically different too because it'd force MS to keep up. The way things are, though, it's hard to imagine that MS's dominance in the market is a result of it being a bully when IE is arguably superior to Netscape.
I've been thinking about the online comic book business because one day I want to start one myself. Actually it's an online animated cartoon, but I think the model would be similar. I have issues with things like "what happens if people constantly distribute copies of the animations to each other and bypass my income generator?"
I think there are people scared of the idea of once they sell a few copies, they propogate virally and nobody pays for it. I know that has me a bit spooked, but I have a few ideas that might be useful.
- There needs to be new content regularly. The faster, the better. That keeps people checking with the site instead of checking Morpheus every so often.
- Sell things besides the content itself. You can transmit comics/animations/movies etc around the web, but you cannot transmit T-shirts, coffee mugs, and little figurines etc.
- Make distributed content worth something. I want to do an animated cartoon, right? One approach is the 'to be continued...' story that requires multiple parts to get the whole thing. If somebody gets only one or two episodes, the best way to get the rest is from my site. I think comics could work this way too, admittedly they'd propogate easier though given their smaller file size.
- Include a coupon with the content. "Mention this comic and you'll get $2 off a T-shirt, go to our site at www.comicbookname.com." With this approach, even pirated works are of value because it's possible some people will buy some of your merchandise. If the ads/coupons aren't too intrusive (don't put a 30 second commercial in it! >:I ) nobody'll edit them out.
- Consider a subscription model. Give away a few episodes, ideally so they have some type of cliffhanger that just keeps your eyes glued, and say 'for $x a year you can have unlimited access to downloads' or something like that. Even if that isn't too profitable, at least you have SOME people out there getting vids and getting them around the web.
- Use the content as a commercial for merchandise. Do you all remember the Transformers cartoon? That cartoon was seriously a 20 minute commerical for toys disguised as a cartoon. If the artwork of the comic/cartoon is interesting and unique enough, turning it into a marketing device for t-shirts/posters/coffee mugs etc really isn't that difficult. I'll give you an example, there was a Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert had a doll of his boss sitting on his monitor. The boss asked what that was about, Dilbert replied "It lifts my spirit to have a likeness of you near by." The boss left, feeling good about what Dilbert told him. As soon as he walked out, Dilbert backhanded the doll off his monitor and said "Stop barging in while I'm working!" From what Scott Adams said in one of his books, a bunch of people wrote in wanting one of those dolls.
I think one thing Hollywood and the Record Industry needs to learn is that they should care about the money they are getting instead of worrying about the money they aren't getting.
First off, thanks for the link to Spiderweb Software, going to take a look at it soon.
You mentioned no good ST licenses, Star Trek 25th Anniversary (back in the 386 days) is still regarded as a pretty good game. Interestingly enough, it's kind of a mix of Wing Commander (for the space battles), and the Day of the Tentacle style adventure interface. It was made (or published?) by Interplay I think. (my memory is a bit fuzzy there)
That game not only had style, but it was fun to play too. It's a wonderful example of what I mean, wish I had remembered it when I made my original post.
Voyager Elite Force was a step in the right direction, but it dissolved into 'shoot everybody in this level'. I was kind of offended by that. Early in the demo there was a part where a crewman was trapped behind a pair of forcefields. On the other side of him was a hull breach. You had to shut down the right forcefield to get him out. If you shut off the wrong one, he got blown out into space. Heh that kicked ass. I was hoping for more of that, but the demo let me down. So I never bought that game. Shooting Borg drones endlessly does not a game make.
I think Armada got really good reviews if memory serves, but that's an example of the ST license not adding all that much to it. Essentially it was Command and Conquer in Space that used ST vehicles. I enjoyed the demo though.
Yes, Wing Commander was a franchise, but it earned it's place there. If Wing Commander had used the Battlestar Galactica license originally (I just pulled that out of the air, WC reminds me of Galactica a little) then the chances are we would have seen just the first game. I believe that the reason it became the success it did was because it was original and they could go places with it. It took on a life of it's own and became a franchise. If they had used another license, they'd be at the mercy of what's going on in the show. They can't have any of the main characters die, and they wouldn't be able to change anything. Using the Galactica example, the game wouldn't be able to have Galactica returning home. That would stink since that's the point of the show!
Man, I'm aching to play Indianna Jones 3 again.
"I am getting really tired of all these magic, foolprof ways that could have prevented 9/11"
I agree with you that every SINGLE solution doesn't seem like a likely candidate to avoid that particular tragedy. I think one of the big concerns people have is the lack of information on what really happened. I'm really curious about what happened to the plane that went down when the people took out the hijackers. A 2 megabit two-way connection on an airplane can transmit a heck of a lot of data, at least when it's compressed.
It is widely believed that the people on board that plane got wind of what happened in NYC and DC and that's why they decided to pay the ultimate price to stop it. Now lets say that this information made it to the plane that hit the second tower. Could the people on board that plane prevented it from hitting the tower? It's alot easier to prevent 300+ people from using a phone on a plane than it is to prevent them from typing/reading a text message.
This is probably irrelevent now because I believe that anybody who hijacks a plane today is likely to get overwhelmed by the passengers, even if they don't intend to take out a building with it. I do believe, though, that having the blackbox actually transmit what is going on is vitally important. Remember that plane that crashed in NYC shortly after takeoff? It was impossible to tell for at least a day or two if that was a terrorist related attack. The reason for the delay was it took that long to find the black box.
If the black box were transmitting somewhere, even in a lossy data format, at least we'd have a clue as to whether or not it was an accident. What difference does a day make? A day is an eternity for somebody to disappear.
Getting back on topic, would this device work on an airplane? I don't think so. Im looking at the picture of the device and it shows a dish. My understanding is that the dish would need to be pointing at a satellite. I'm not sure an airplane would be able to track it. Even if it could, mounting the dish on the plane would be an aerodynamics problem, at least the way its designed now.
Is it possible to modify this device for air travel though? My knowledge of satellite technology is really limited, if somebody could educate me on this topic I'd really appreciate it.
"Anyway... like alot of things , it may be expensive for these now.. but give it 6 months or a year."
I doubt it. This is the type of thing that the military would really find interesting, and as long as it's interesting to the Gov't, the price will stay up. It's an interesing concept though. Imagine a command tank that has one of these guys in it sending/receiving that much data. Then it relays the connection to nearby soldiers wirelessly (like 802.11 only secure?) so they can get information to their HMD's.
And then the army commanders can move their soldiers around point and click just like Command and Conquer!
Wing Commander wasn't very good, no. Think about video games, though. They are nearly *always* ridiculous situations for real people to be involved in. Mortal Kombat is a good example of that, so is Super Mario Bros. If they had animated these instead, then they could get away with the stupid lines and the unpractical physics.
Unfortunately, though, it still takes a decent story idea to make a good cartoon. "Swing your arms, from side to side, come it's time to go DO THE MARIO!!" Hee heee Anybody remember that?b
I should start by saying I haven't read the article yet, can't get to it. *hopes the /. traffic dies down soon...*
If it is a defect in the processor, I wonder if AMD will replace my existing processor. It may not seem like all that big of deal to most people here at Slashdot, but as a 3D artist I am *dependent* on OpenGL.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not having this problem now. (I'm not a Linux user.) But when I built my Athlon I had to install a patch for a similar type of problem in order to get the machine to work. At what point do we say "it's no longer ok to work around a CPU bug"?
If Intel has one set of bugs in their processors, and AMD has another, that divides the market. Software companies shouldn't have to put the effort into scrutinizing their code based on which CPU they are on, it's bad enough they are trying to optimize for one or the other. What happens when they get used to the workaround, but then it gets fixed? Worse yet, what happens when a company says "I'm sick of this, I'm only supporting one processor."
So it's not so much that I think AMD should replace the processors with this specific bug, but I think we should be vigilent in not allowing them to let errors like that run rampant.
AMD didn't turn interesting until the Athlon came out. The previous versions of its processors were decidedly inferior. This is *worse* than recalling for a bad, rarely used function call. I can't take a processor back 6 months after I bought it because it sucks, but I can get it replaced if it has a bona-fide bug.
If this is a bug in the processor, AMD really should fix it and offer replacement processors to those who need it. If they don't, and they expect you to patch your OS instead, then that definitely shakes my faith in that company. When you're an artist dependent on OpenGL, you can't have problems like this.
And finally...
Why are you worried about running 32-bit code on a 64-bit processor? 64-bit processors are supposed to run 64-bit code. Intel's not marketing 64-bit processors to replace desktop computers (today), they're for servers and high-end graphics with custom code. They don't NEED to run 32-bit code. I hardly think that's a point against Intel, especially considering they don't make it a big secret that 32-bit code runs slower on it.
I think Gowdy has an interesting point. (assuming he is making this point, hee hee) Licenses can really backfire.
If the true value of any game is the license (hah! I smirked at that), then it seems the only the people who are interested in the movie/tvshow/comic it's based on will pick up the box. Shows like Farscape tend to divide people into groups of "I love this show!" and groups of "The show sucks, and the ppl that watch it suck even more!!!"
Farscape's not so bad about this, but I can imagine a bunch of Star Trek fans laughing at the idea of a Babylon 5 game, even though there's been very little good to say about the Trek gaming franchise.
No matter how good the game is, using the Farscape license is a bit of a risk. I'm not that confident that the fan base that would buy the game on PC is broad enough to earn a profit.
If they made it a point and click adventure game like Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, or Day of the Tentacle. (all Lucas Arts games I might add...)
The problem is, very few action based games based on a license are good because the license made them good. Take Rogue Squadron II for the GameCube, that game is awesome. But does it really need to be set in the Star Wars universe to be a hit? Not really. That game is probably the best use of a movie license in recent years. But as Wing Commander proves, you don't need to base a space combat game on a license just to make it good.
Judging from the preview, it really doesn't look like the Farscape game is all that dependent on the Farscape universe. It's because of that alone I won't pay any attention to it. You might tell me to not judge a game by it's title, which is a fine argument. However, I'm the type of person who really appreciates inspired games. If they can't sell me in the marketing literature on why it needs to be Farscape and it can't be a brand new license, then chances are pretty good it's going to be mediochre at best. I mean read the preview, they're trying to excite me by saying "Yah they gave us a lot of freedom and let us make our own environments...". This concerns me because because it really smells like this was originally a different game and they were able to band-aid the Farscape license into it. "Lots of people will see 'Farscape' on the title and flock to buy it!". I'm insulted.
Farscape doesn't lend itself too well as an action game, but I really do think it's storyline could be made into an interesting adventure game like the ones I mentioned above. Imagine if they created it as a bunch of episodes that lead to one big conclusion, and you are control the characters through the development of the story. If any of you are fans of games like Day of the Tentacle then you will probably immediately see my enthusiasm for Farscape to be used this way. The uniqueness of Farscape is it's characters and its situations. But if you play a game where you run aruond shooting anybody, how can you expect it to make really good use of the license? From what little I've seen of Farscape, episodes rarely end in shootouts.
Personally, I think Quantum Leap would also translate well into this genre. Man, when I think about having a Quantum Leap story told in this fashion I get pretty hyped. That would be so cool to leap in, walk up to a mirror, and see a different reflection. Or to have the imaging chamber door open and have Al walk through and let you know what's up. Damn that'd be awesome. Man... I think Doctor Who could work that way too.
Pity the game industry thinks that the only genre out there is 'make your computer obsolete action'.
It's too bad Hollywood's trying to prevent these shows from living forever by existing on the internet. Yep... all that talent wasted. I hope that when Eisner dies, the DMCA prevents anybody from visiting his grave.
Hollywood seems to think that people share TV shows because they are thieves. That isn't true. You cannot buy or rent a TV Show that was aired a week ago. If you missed it's airing (frankly, any element of life takes priority over TV), then you're stuck. Either you go to the web and download it or... well.. you really don't have a lot of choice because Hollywood's 'oh so valuable content' isn't available to acquire legally.