I'm considering to getting a PCS-compatible Visor phone module. Should be available next month for $250 through Sprint. Myself, I currently leave the PDA in the car and take along the mobile phone in my pocket. Pocket real estate is just too valuable.
Of course, don't overlook Jerry from Parker Lewis Can't Lose -- a properly equipped trenchcoat can hold almost anything. Of course, you'll probably be subjected to excessive searches if you're even allowed to wear one at an American high school these days, but hey, you've got to suffer for fashion.
To be fair, BMRT is Exluna's rendering software. Pixar's substantially more expensive rendering software is Pixar's Renderman (formerly known as PhotoRealistic Renderman).
Faster than sending a letter, but more expensive:
on
Still in DMCA Prison
·
· Score: 2
On the positive side, it's just $9.95 (for 1000 characters), is delivered to your recipient's address rather than just showing up in that day's mail, and you can send it over the net. However, telegrams of today are not what they were in the fifties. Apparently, Western Union just prints your message out on telegram stationery and sends it next-day on Airborne Express. And if you're sending it to a congressperson, they may regularly get several telegrams a day anyhow.
I've never sent or received a telegram -- this is all gleaned from Western Union's site. But that's the thing, although just about everyone knows what a telegram is, they're quite rare in this country these days (even in Washington, D.C. when compared to a generation or two ago). They used to be common before affordable long-distance calling, but now they're a surprising curiosity. Most people in the US under the age of forty or fifty have probably never gotten a telegram in their life. So this looks like a possible way to register your opinion with some impact without ever having to leave your computer.
Anyone have experience sending or getting telegrams with WU's current system?
Eventually a deal was struck with Ion Storm to create an Ion Storm Austin office, as none of us wanted to move to Dallas (can you blame us?)
Dear God, no. Despite that they moved into perhaps the nicest office in Dallas (and you can see for miles and miles up there since everything's so flat), it's still Dallas. More power to everyone who likes living in Dallas, and it may just be because I'm from California, but I never cared for the place. It probably didn't help that I got there in August during a 98%-humidity heat wave. Bad first impression. But the city also didn't seem that friendly, interesting or active to me.
Not having been in Texas before, I thought it might be nice to hop over to Austin for a day on the weekend. Then I checked the scale on the map -- doh! Let's just say it's more than a hop away...
Yeah, after Daikatana was wrapped up (about a year ago), there was basically nothing to do in Dallas but help out on Anachronox (to whatever extent was possible that late in the project). Maybe things were just up in the air all that time over what to do. Go figure.
As far as what happened to the rest of Ion Storm Dallas, check out what's left of Stormtroopers. This was a complete surprise to absolutely no-one, of course. Eidos just wanted to ship Anachronox and get things over with.
So what's next? Dunno, but there is the matter of those domain name registrations. I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking Monkey Stone would be Tom's choice. I hear primates are the in thing for developer names these days anyhow...
It appears that the exact terms of the license in question are not subject to a student's discretion. So any license that a student does offer is superfluous.
The policy says works shall be "owned by the creators but licensed to the University." The important distinction is that it does not say that the creators shall license (actually perform the task of licensing) it to the University. Instead, it simply asserts the license's existence and minimum terms.
Except when The Mole does
anything the movie is entertaining.
So, you're saying that in this movie, The Mole is The Mole?
Well, that's about right, seeing how Moliere (who on occasion looks frighteningly like Totoro, but then the directors are avowed Miyazaki fans) is the one major concession to the kids in the audience.
For what it's worth, here's my one-sentence review of Atlantis: The Lost Empire. I enjoyed and am quite fond of this movie, but I'm somewhat disappointed that it had a lot of things that could and should have been tightened up.
NB: I'm unrelated to the previous poster. I just thought I'd chime in with my own depressing take on things.
Excellent, I was hoping to get a reply from a developer.
1) Do you use Linux much? Have you used it for any game/non-game development? It is definitely capable of running games. Windows is only worthy of games because of the huge marketshare, not because it is a better gaming platform. It is also obvious that the Linux community wants games. Are you part of that community? Do you not agree?
I think you would be better off asking a major publisher these questions. Developers who would like to support Linux and can afford to often do so. Also, BeOS was an even better gaming platform than Linux or Windows, but look how far quality gets you in this race.
Also, porting to the Mac tends to be an afterthought. As in, let's worry about making the "real game" (on the primary platform) as freaknasty as possible, and think about possibly offloading the code on a Mac developer later.
And finally, regarding developers that wish they could be working in Linux, I presume you weren't referring to artists, level designers, testers or producers.;^) Sorry to be brutally honest, but hey, remember the PS2 does run Linux kick-assedly (although it's only been available in Japan... so far)!
To me, the challenge for these systems is how to be interactive in a non-modal way. Things like radios and audio/video recorders are passive but can be used continuously. A well-understood interface. On the other hand, pocket computers and Game Boy Advances are interactive but used like tools, in a modal way. Also understood.
So how to make devices that combine non-modality with interactivity? Right now, it seems like these devices just divide modal interaction into smaller and smaller timeslices. That takes you from the five seconds to pull a pocket computer out of your pocket (or one second to access it once it's out of your pocket) to a fraction of a second. Definitely an improvement, but just an incremental one, and for this one is constrained to having to wear the thing. Judging by wearable beverage technology, this is a significant disadvantage. Personally, I don't even keep glasses on my face when I'm not using them, and they're pretty useful. But are there other approaches to the modality issue?
Obviously, there's also the added portability for users who walk around all day or are similarly on-the-go. Are there other significant advantages? I'd appreciate if anyone familiar with wearables could offer some references or example applications.
I've heard talk about protective attitudes at Japanese developers before. The usage of nicknames in credits instead of full names was widely rumored to be a defense against poaching. Have a look at some NES-era credits. For example, Golden Axe (Sega), Dragon Spirit (Namco), or Mega Man or nearly any other Capcom game. Sega later changed to normal credits, but Yuji Naka is credited with programming Sonic as "YU2" and Phantasy Star 1 and 2 as "MUUUU YUJI."
Personally, though, I think nickname credits are usually just meant to be cool. These kind of nicknames also go back a while -- remember "NAMCO ORIGINAL program by EVEZOO" from 1982? Then again, I'm sure protective companies like Koei would rather not credit their oh-so-treasured personnel by name...
Game development by nature has a severely accelerating pace. And it's certainly not unheard of to release a game for duplication a week and a half before it is scheduled to be on shelves, since all the packaging is printed in advance. Six, er, five and a half months is still a ton of time to fix crashes from the E3 demo, then put in all new crashes and fix those too. Also, developers are receiving actual Xbox hardware after the gray Xbox development PC systems have been out there for something like a year now, and the actual consoles are reportedly already in production south of the border. So all in all, I don't think they're in a lot of trouble right now.
Yerrrrs. Are you taking onboard that a MUD (replace with your favourite buzzword acronym) is defined by its community? EverQuest have gone psychotic with dictating how people are expected to play EQ - who you can play as, how you should play, what you can say. They're like the worst, most pig ignorant, egotistic GM you ever tabletopped with. I'd hate to see Star Wars go that way too.
Fair point there. I was talking about Lucas's policy in general. I really haven't read much on the subject, but the challenge of defining a play experience in an MMORPG is awesome and I'm sure good feedback is essential. Of course, the structure and degree of that feedback is the question. There are interesting ideas out there like A Tale in the Desert, but who knows if they'll work out. Anyway, EQ's strange restrictions on naming etc. seem pretty silly to me, primarily because the time wasted imposing them could be spent on more useful pursuits.
I think they're wise to do that, good for them. It seems to me that the alternative, to even give the slightest suggestion that they are interested what their fanatical following sends them, would give a tremendous amount of false hope to the many people who are heavily invested emotionally in their intellectual property. It would also bury them in email. The Star Wars fanbase is in my opinion way, way past the point (in gross fanaticism) where there's the possibility of a healthy two-way relationship. Please don't take this personally; it's more a reflection on the most vocal and arrogant fans that I've bumped into, and it's certainly not a problem unique to Star Wars (see any MMORPG).
And before someone proposes it - please - a letter writing campaign isn't the best way to make game companies support Linux. Buying the existing titles from Loki and the likes is.
Just wanted to repeat this in strong agreement. But in place of "a letter writing campaign" I'd subsititute "an online petition." Online petitions are the currently popular way of telling people who don't care that you have a single minute's worth of interest in something. Either way, it's about as useful as calling Exxon Mobil and telling them to lower the price of gas.
As an ex-Midway employee I suggest you examine their standard employee agreements - basically everything you ever thought of, they claim as theirs.
Midway's ownership of intellectual property is the default, yes. I'd venture a guess that this is the case for every game, movie and music contract in the country.
No, no, don't think that way. It's like that for every game/movie/music company with a large enough legal staff (horror story: ILM), sure, and for a lot of smaller companies as well. But in a situation where it's a small company or the applicant is friends with the principals, the terms are not as likely to be so gruesome. There are other just-as-safe options for the company than owning everything their employees ever do.
But from a large company's perspective, sure, why not make total universal ownership the default. You (the general you, not you specifically, Brian) can also negotiate things out of a paranoid boilerplate, especially if you're a desirable candidate or if you let the company know they're intolerable (like if you're a game designer who's also an author). Basically, if you can both laugh off over-restrictive boilerplate provisions as being for boilerplate employees, it's shouldn't be a problem.
But the key, in any case, is to see, understand and negotiate all terms of employment before agreeing to any offer. That means getting the proposed employment contract and all similar documents. A lot of people don't do that (I didn't use to), and end up in that uncomfortable situation of having to look over that stuff from the other side of the HR manager's desk on their first day of work. Just letting a company know that their employment contract is more important than the dental benefits they're quick to point out may be enough. If you've already signed everything away, well, I guess a performance review is a good time to renegotiate your contract.
I understand that some junior programmers out there are just happy to get a job, no matter what belongs to them or not. For them I would recommend what I did at my first job at Sega: keep things to yourself that you want to hold on to. Assume anything that you tell other people, or any code that you write, belongs to The Company. But be OK with that. When you're starting out, your actual code isn't nearly as important as what you learn in writing it, so actually it's kind of liberating. Focus on improving your knowledge and your skills, and understand that the code you write is expendable. If you have a great game design idea, develop it in your head or (believe it or not) maybe offer it to The Company. Sure, it might be the last good idea you ever have, but you may not be in a position to develop it better or more to your advantage than The Company is. Of course, there will come a time when doing is more important than learning.
That said, and I verified this before posting the article, you don't need anything but management's approval to start off on your own software.
Uh, what else would you ever need? I mean, you can also get twice the salary or not have to come in to work if you get management's approval. The terms of any agreement or contract can be modified if both parties agree. Come on, people, don't fall for this -- "management's approval" is as good as "no."
OK, as we all know, this post is more about having a laugh at Microsoft in OG Slashdot style than being informative. Let me explain the incredibly ordinary events that the article said happened.
A game demo on the Xbox crashed, and restarting it revealed that it was running on Xbox-like PC hardware. In the uncomfortable pause while the system was restarting, a PR droid gamely tried to explain that the demo systems don't have the unified memory architecture of the Xbox itself.
So, a pre-alpha demo of an Xbox game crashed? Shocking. No, actually, it would be news if a E3 demo of a game which is six months or more away from release never crashed during a demonstration.
Maybe the news is that the final hardware wasn't ready to show at E3. But everyone expected that. Again, it was news that Nintendo did have GameCube hardware at the show.
But hey, good excuse for a link to the GIA!
Re:You need to watch Mulan again
on
Reviews:Shrek
·
· Score: 2
I still think the first few seasons of DuckTales were *superbly* animated, especially for a series, with rich tones and well detailed backgrounds. They got cheap at the end.
Just wanted to point out that many of the best-animated DuckTales episodes (and all of the early ones) were animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. Tokyo Movie has a long and distinguished history in TV animation. You may have also seen their animation in their recent productions Monster Rancher or Cybersix, or in their classic work on The Mysterious Cities of Gold or Lupin III. They did the awesome collapsing brick floor seen in DuckTales' opening, the quality of which came as quite a pleasant surprise to the Disney TV Animation production team!
Just wanted to point out that even ESR doesn't envision a business plan where open-source software development itself is the core business. All the models in his essay are for companies that use the software in their real business, or that use it to add value to support, hardware, proprietary software, trademarks, content, t-shirts, etc. So maybe future businesses should take heed of this and work on their actual profit center first.
As we know, however, Eazel went into business developing open-source software because it was a useful buzzword to raise capital with. Nothing wrong with that, really. Like Super Chicken would say, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.
Slashdot Mirror
Plus they're the most effective form of male contraception ever.
HOW CAN YOU LOSE?!
Of course, don't overlook Jerry from Parker Lewis Can't Lose -- a properly equipped trenchcoat can hold almost anything. Of course, you'll probably be subjected to excessive searches if you're even allowed to wear one at an American high school these days, but hey, you've got to suffer for fashion.
On the positive side, it's just $9.95 (for 1000 characters), is delivered to your recipient's address rather than just showing up in that day's mail, and you can send it over the net. However, telegrams of today are not what they were in the fifties. Apparently, Western Union just prints your message out on telegram stationery and sends it next-day on Airborne Express. And if you're sending it to a congressperson, they may regularly get several telegrams a day anyhow.
I've never sent or received a telegram -- this is all gleaned from Western Union's site. But that's the thing, although just about everyone knows what a telegram is, they're quite rare in this country these days (even in Washington, D.C. when compared to a generation or two ago). They used to be common before affordable long-distance calling, but now they're a surprising curiosity. Most people in the US under the age of forty or fifty have probably never gotten a telegram in their life. So this looks like a possible way to register your opinion with some impact without ever having to leave your computer.
Anyone have experience sending or getting telegrams with WU's current system?
Dear God, no. Despite that they moved into perhaps the nicest office in Dallas (and you can see for miles and miles up there since everything's so flat), it's still Dallas. More power to everyone who likes living in Dallas, and it may just be because I'm from California, but I never cared for the place. It probably didn't help that I got there in August during a 98%-humidity heat wave. Bad first impression. But the city also didn't seem that friendly, interesting or active to me.
Not having been in Texas before, I thought it might be nice to hop over to Austin for a day on the weekend. Then I checked the scale on the map -- doh! Let's just say it's more than a hop away...
You know, considering that Big Ape (a LucasArts spinoff) seems to have been the first in this particular trend, that sounds about right.
Yeah, after Daikatana was wrapped up (about a year ago), there was basically nothing to do in Dallas but help out on Anachronox (to whatever extent was possible that late in the project). Maybe things were just up in the air all that time over what to do. Go figure.
So what's next? Dunno, but there is the matter of those domain name registrations. I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking Monkey Stone would be Tom's choice. I hear primates are the in thing for developer names these days anyhow...
Good luck, guys.
Sure it does. I'm at least certain you're familiar with the conversion rate... a dime a dozen.
The policy says works shall be "owned by the creators but licensed to the University." The important distinction is that it does not say that the creators shall license (actually perform the task of licensing) it to the University. Instead, it simply asserts the license's existence and minimum terms.
So, you're saying that in this movie, The Mole is The Mole?
Well, that's about right, seeing how Moliere (who on occasion looks frighteningly like Totoro, but then the directors are avowed Miyazaki fans) is the one major concession to the kids in the audience.
For what it's worth, here's my one-sentence review of Atlantis: The Lost Empire. I enjoyed and am quite fond of this movie, but I'm somewhat disappointed that it had a lot of things that could and should have been tightened up.
JOE LUNIX
You should make your upcoming game for Linux. It is technically
superior in many obscure ways.
PC GAME DEVELOPER
Sorry, we could only pick one operating system, and it turned out
to be Windows. Better luck next time.
Also, porting to the Mac tends to be an afterthought. As in, let's worry about making the "real game" (on the primary platform) as freaknasty as possible, and think about possibly offloading the code on a Mac developer later.
And finally, regarding developers that wish they could be working in Linux, I presume you weren't referring to artists, level designers, testers or producers. ;^) Sorry to be brutally honest, but hey, remember the PS2 does run Linux kick-assedly (although it's only been available in Japan... so far)!
So how to make devices that combine non-modality with interactivity? Right now, it seems like these devices just divide modal interaction into smaller and smaller timeslices. That takes you from the five seconds to pull a pocket computer out of your pocket (or one second to access it once it's out of your pocket) to a fraction of a second. Definitely an improvement, but just an incremental one, and for this one is constrained to having to wear the thing. Judging by wearable beverage technology, this is a significant disadvantage. Personally, I don't even keep glasses on my face when I'm not using them, and they're pretty useful. But are there other approaches to the modality issue?
Obviously, there's also the added portability for users who walk around all day or are similarly on-the-go. Are there other significant advantages? I'd appreciate if anyone familiar with wearables could offer some references or example applications.
Personally, though, I think nickname credits are usually just meant to be cool. These kind of nicknames also go back a while -- remember "NAMCO ORIGINAL program by EVEZOO" from 1982? Then again, I'm sure protective companies like Koei would rather not credit their oh-so-treasured personnel by name...
Game development by nature has a severely accelerating pace. And it's certainly not unheard of to release a game for duplication a week and a half before it is scheduled to be on shelves, since all the packaging is printed in advance. Six, er, five and a half months is still a ton of time to fix crashes from the E3 demo, then put in all new crashes and fix those too. Also, developers are receiving actual Xbox hardware after the gray Xbox development PC systems have been out there for something like a year now, and the actual consoles are reportedly already in production south of the border. So all in all, I don't think they're in a lot of trouble right now.
Fair point there. I was talking about Lucas's policy in general. I really haven't read much on the subject, but the challenge of defining a play experience in an MMORPG is awesome and I'm sure good feedback is essential. Of course, the structure and degree of that feedback is the question. There are interesting ideas out there like A Tale in the Desert, but who knows if they'll work out. Anyway, EQ's strange restrictions on naming etc. seem pretty silly to me, primarily because the time wasted imposing them could be spent on more useful pursuits.
I think they're wise to do that, good for them. It seems to me that the alternative, to even give the slightest suggestion that they are interested what their fanatical following sends them, would give a tremendous amount of false hope to the many people who are heavily invested emotionally in their intellectual property. It would also bury them in email. The Star Wars fanbase is in my opinion way, way past the point (in gross fanaticism) where there's the possibility of a healthy two-way relationship. Please don't take this personally; it's more a reflection on the most vocal and arrogant fans that I've bumped into, and it's certainly not a problem unique to Star Wars (see any MMORPG).
But from a large company's perspective, sure, why not make total universal ownership the default. You (the general you, not you specifically, Brian) can also negotiate things out of a paranoid boilerplate, especially if you're a desirable candidate or if you let the company know they're intolerable (like if you're a game designer who's also an author). Basically, if you can both laugh off over-restrictive boilerplate provisions as being for boilerplate employees, it's shouldn't be a problem.
But the key, in any case, is to see, understand and negotiate all terms of employment before agreeing to any offer. That means getting the proposed employment contract and all similar documents. A lot of people don't do that (I didn't use to), and end up in that uncomfortable situation of having to look over that stuff from the other side of the HR manager's desk on their first day of work. Just letting a company know that their employment contract is more important than the dental benefits they're quick to point out may be enough. If you've already signed everything away, well, I guess a performance review is a good time to renegotiate your contract.
I understand that some junior programmers out there are just happy to get a job, no matter what belongs to them or not. For them I would recommend what I did at my first job at Sega: keep things to yourself that you want to hold on to. Assume anything that you tell other people, or any code that you write, belongs to The Company. But be OK with that. When you're starting out, your actual code isn't nearly as important as what you learn in writing it, so actually it's kind of liberating. Focus on improving your knowledge and your skills, and understand that the code you write is expendable. If you have a great game design idea, develop it in your head or (believe it or not) maybe offer it to The Company. Sure, it might be the last good idea you ever have, but you may not be in a position to develop it better or more to your advantage than The Company is. Of course, there will come a time when doing is more important than learning.
Uh, what else would you ever need? I mean, you can also get twice the salary or not have to come in to work if you get management's approval. The terms of any agreement or contract can be modified if both parties agree. Come on, people, don't fall for this -- "management's approval" is as good as "no."A game demo on the Xbox crashed, and restarting it revealed that it was running on Xbox-like PC hardware. In the uncomfortable pause while the system was restarting, a PR droid gamely tried to explain that the demo systems don't have the unified memory architecture of the Xbox itself.
So, a pre-alpha demo of an Xbox game crashed? Shocking. No, actually, it would be news if a E3 demo of a game which is six months or more away from release never crashed during a demonstration.
Maybe the news is that the final hardware wasn't ready to show at E3. But everyone expected that. Again, it was news that Nintendo did have GameCube hardware at the show.
But hey, good excuse for a link to the GIA!
Just wanted to point out that many of the best-animated DuckTales episodes (and all of the early ones) were animated by Tokyo Movie Shinsha. Tokyo Movie has a long and distinguished history in TV animation. You may have also seen their animation in their recent productions Monster Rancher or Cybersix, or in their classic work on The Mysterious Cities of Gold or Lupin III. They did the awesome collapsing brick floor seen in DuckTales' opening, the quality of which came as quite a pleasant surprise to the Disney TV Animation production team!
As we know, however, Eazel went into business developing open-source software because it was a useful buzzword to raise capital with. Nothing wrong with that, really. Like Super Chicken would say, they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.
Wow, the moderation guidelines were updated on the same day Sega launched the Dreamcast in the US (oh, and FF8, too). It seems so long, long ago...