Every lan party I have ever been to has been anti-social folk. That is why we are at a lan party, and not out drinking, and sleeping with the opposite sex.
Because, of course, being social is defined as getting drunk and sleeping around, and anything else is defined as anti-social. After all, alcohol and sex are the only things of importance.
Those people who are out getting drunk all the time and sleeping around are doing it because they have serious problems, and you shouldn't be looking at those people as somehow better - that behavior is actually sometimes anti-social, and definitely self-destructive. It's better to be having fun at lan parties than sitting in a doctor's office checking to see how far your HIV has progressed, which you caught because you were too drunk to care who you were sleeping with.
Trust me, us geek girls that do hang around gamers are much better to be around than most bar sluts - you can actually have a conversation with us.
However, Sinistar did, and they could be downright eerie at first, especially since the game always makes you feel like you're fighting an unwinnable battle. (Yes, you are, like most games of that era, but still...)
I will so definitely be picking this up for my Gamecube! I bought the original Midway Arcade Classics for the PC back when it came out, with the 6 games it has on it, and played it a lot.
This does so much better, with so many more games, and the Gamecube control should work wonders with most of these. Even Marble Madness should be decent, since we've already seen what can be done in that vein with Super Monkey Ball.
Absolutely lovely - I look forward to an evening of Robotron on a 27 inch TV with the stereo cranked up!
The commander is a pretty darn wonderful controller, with a lot of flexibility.
While it was clearly intended for RTS games, there is absolutely no reason to restrict it to such uses. I first bought mine for playing Quake 2, as with the 26 buttons at my fingertips, along with the movement controls, it was so much easier to use than the keyboard. It took a week or so to adjust, and before long, I was much better than I ever managed when trying to use the keyboard.
Any game that I play that has any significant amount of keyboard use during the game ends up with me using the Strategic Commander. Diablo II is great with it, all the hotkeys right there.
I'm glad I just picked up a second one while I still can. (Actually, a friend who works at MS did for me) The first one took a lot of abuse during the endless days of manic FPS action, and I had to glue a button back together, and do a little playing around with the insides to keep it working. Now when the second dies, hopefully I can cannibalize the two into one fully working one. Because I plan on keeping the thing around and using it until I'm forced to get rid of it.
This is the same guy that claimed that the odds of an apocalyptic disaster striking Earth are 50-50. Of course, he never bothered to qualify the time frame (that I'm aware of), so it shows a horrible understanding of probability (after all, there's a 100% chance of disaster if you don't add a time limit), not even counting his seeming inability to properly judge the disasters he considers, instead opting just to disasterbate.
True, there's not exactly a ton of economic use at the time for space exploration. So? Like many things, the more time and money and effort spent on exploring space, the better the technology becomes around it, technology which will find other uses. It will also increase our knowledge as a species, which is definitely a good thing (as opposed to those who increase their knowledge only to keep it secret, or those who think knowledge is bad)
Given the infrastructure it takes for space exploration of any significant magnitude, how many individuals are going to pursue it just because they can? I would suspect not many. Of course, that doesn't count all the issues that would come up when private individuals start creating craft able to launch itself (and cargo) into space.
We could just let all the corporations do the exploring. And let them own everything they touch out there, to pillage as they see fit. After all, if they're not allowed to do such things, what can they do to make money? They won't bother.
Let's see a show of hands for everyone who thought Nemesis was the best Star Trek yet?
Best Star Trek overall? Nope. Wrath of Khan seems to be unbeatable.
Best Next Gen movie? I'd raise my hand there - based on the fact that it seems to have the fewest plot holes out of the four. Neither Generations nor First Contact should have made it anywhere near production if anyone had a clue what they were doing - I am unable to enjoy either one of them because the plot holes are utterly ridiculous.
Meaning I can only compare Nemesis to Insurrection. Anyone want to pick a favorite between those two? Surely Nemesis is the only one to choose there.
It just clicked with me why they don't - and likely won't - do this.
To justify people paying full card price for online "card" objects, they give people the option to be able to "redeem" any of their online cards, the actual cards in print. If you get tired of playing online, you can turn your virtual collection into a collection of real cards.
If they were to offer older cards, they'd have to print more of them up to allow people to redeem them, and that will violate their policy that once a set goes out of print, it stays out of print in black border format. Surely collectors would get a bit pissy if they started offering older cards again in black border form - and besides, certain cards are promised to never be reprinted in any form.
I do wonder how they will handle older sets if the online game sticks around for a while. Will they force people to redeem the online cards for the real thing at some point, or end the offer to replace them with real cards? Or will they be forced to keep amounts of older sets around and ready to mail out incase some player, years down the line, wants to redeem their 7E cards when they're in the middle of printing 9E?
That was where I really dedicated myself to the game for a short while also. It was nice to see red playing more on the weenie side and less on the burn then - though there was some nice cheap burn, and Fireblast was an amazing finisher.
It sounds like they're seriously hamstringing blue then. Blue lives and dies by countermagic, as there's really no other strong ability that the color has - everything else comes and goes, and usually is done better somewhere else. There have been good blue creatures here and there (Rainbow Efreet, Mahamoti), but they require countermagic support to either hit the board, or keep themselves alive. And you need that 2 mana slot to be able to defend them and actually be able to do something else.
One more reason I miss the Mirage/Tempest block... the sheer counterpower that blue had over a range of mana costs, able to deal with threats in multiple ways, along with Whispers to keep the cards coming if you manage to scare your opponent into not doing anything.
Yes, those of us who loved the game will always point to the existance of the Urza's block as probably the biggest mistake they've made.
Before that set (and Exodus), things were pretty damn well balanced - my favorite block (Mirage/Tempest (w/o Exodus)/5E) had a lot of different archetypes, both ends of the speed spectrum, and there was a lot happening before Exodus came and gave a taste of the combo-based brokenness that would be Urza's Saga.
Though to be fair, there's always going to be a weak spot in my heart for the truly broken Type I cards - I have a Library of Alexandria, a Time Walk, 4 Mana Drains - and they're always so much fun to play, even if it's not fun for the other person when they watch me Time Walk for 8 free turns in a row.
The thing I would love to see with MTGO, that which would probably actually get me to subscribe and play, would be the addition of the older cards, and having tournaments for ALL of the formats of the past. I'm not really interested in playing the current Type II of the moment, but it would be incredibly fun to be able to go back and play Type II for my favorite block (Mirage/Tempest/5E), along with perhaps some of the older Type I environments (Everything up to FE only), and so on.
That's the thing that MTGO lacks big time - there are years of history of M:TG that are being totally neglected.
There was a time when M:TG was a very enjoyable game, a lot of fun to play, and the game shops where it was played were full of fun people to be around.
That was the past. I played for years, starting when The Dark was out, and played through the introduction of Urza's Saga (with a break inbetween). I enjoyed the game, spent a lot of money and time on it, and enjoyed the shops I'd go to, where the other people were fun to be around, interesting to talk to, and the game had an interesting environment.
However, I quit when Urza's Saga came out, and brokenness and ridiculous combos and speed ruled the environment, along with the crowd at the shops changing from the older gamers to 10-year old "my mommy bought me all the best cards and you suck" brats that you just want to smack across the face.
I tried playing again, about a year and a half ago, and the crowd at the game shop was just as bad, if not worse due to even fewer people with any semblance of maturity, and some of the stupid things they've done with the game (split cards? looks like something off of a web site with poorly-made fan cards).
I suppose I probably would play the game again (the real thing, not the online version, as the social aspect is a big part of the game that can't be copied on computer) if I could find a place that wasn't full of obnoxious brats.
But you might also think that just about anyone would have better things to do with their time than post messages to a website to do little more than comment on someone else's use of their time.
Some people have an insatiable sense of curiousity about some things, and you never know what or when will trigger that curiousity. Apparently his was triggered by the cipher and the obscure symbols.
And who knows, perhaps your message here will trigger someone else's quest to figure out just how much free time Garrison has in his life to devote to solving such puzzles.
CALEA - C(something) Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.
The law was passed, requiring cellular providers to add technology into their systems that would allow law enforcement to surveil cell phone users, and see who they are calling/are being called by, and optionally hear the audio for the call.
Well, some of us would like to stop using Netscape 4 at work, but our IT department seems unwilling to offer another browser for our Sun development machines.
Well, actually they do have a.8 version of Mozilla available, which they seem unwilling to upgrade for some reason...
It's all about when you need short term communication. If you need to ask someone a quick question, it is a lot easier just to tap the PTT button and ask the question, get a quick answer, and be done with it.
I've noticed from my time using it that it's a different type of "commitment" than a phone call. A phone call is like stopping to have a long conversation with someone. A private call (direct connect) is like popping your head in a cube just to ask a short question.
It's a much more casual form of communication. It's hard to describe, but it really is not the same as a phone call.
It's not hard to tap. The ability for law enforcement to get surveillance on direct connect calls has been part of the software for a while now - I helped (not completely willingly) add that into the the software. Law enforcement can either just get call information (who you talk to, and when you talk to them), or that information with full audio.
There's nothing difficult about it.
Of course, it was added due to the CALEA laws that forced us to add it.
Hmmm, seems possible, as the direct connect and the cellular parts of the systems are pretty distinct. They've been unclear to us about what's been happening with Nextel and their possible future cell choices. Regardless, there's plenty coming on the direct connect end for years. I have a hard time believing that other cell companies can just start offering a walkie-talkie service that has enough features to compare with iDEN, considering the amount of time it's been around, and the amount of development done on it.
I also know there are plenty more color phones coming down the pipe, a number with cameras (seems the big thing for cell phones now), and some really nice designs. Oh, and one rather disposable-looking phone, that at least looks better than that horrid low-end thing currently out there with the little "joystick" thingy... And to believe, the first iDEN phones were about the size and shape of bricks.
Even if they do really get to keep such a trademark, there's not a chance in hell that they'd dare deny Motorola the use of the trademark whenver they want. After all, their current cellular system, iDEN, is completely done by Motorola - and surely Nextel wants to continue to get new features for their system, right? If they get all uppity, how might Motorola start treating them?
Nextel is not part of Motorola in any way, shape, or form. They're a cellular provider that happens to be by far the biggest customer of Motorola's iDEN cellular system, which has the push-to-talk system. Nextel's cellular system is not completely 100% Motorola - there are a few parts to the system from other companies, though I believe they are parts that Motorola does not currently make.
Nextel's done some looking for an eventual replacement/compliment to the iDEN service, and I believe has received a number of proposals from many companies, not just Motorola, so there's no guarantee they will stay with Motorola cellular systems in the future.
Also, there are plenty of cell providers around the world that use the iDEN system that are not Nextel - Mike in Canada, for example, and I believe there's a small provider in the south (SoLinc?) that uses it. Not to mention a number of other companies in Asia.
Good point - I wonder what the typical proportion is among Cube owners of first-party to third-party titles that they own.
Out of the 8 games I have, 5 are first-party (Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, Smash Bros: Melee, Eternal Darkness, Zelda), while 3 are third-party (THPS4, Super Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball 2). My friends who have cubes all have more first party than third also, and my father is about a 50-50 split, but then again, he seems to randomly purchase cheap games for it.
From where I currently live, if I wanted to commute into Chicago itself, I'd be looking at a 1 1/2 hour commute easily. Fortunately, I knew better than to move far away from where I work, so I can go from my apartment door to my cube at work in about 15 minutes.
I've had evenings where I went to drive into Michigan or Indiana, where I left my apartment at 6:30 on Friday, to drive what would take about 45 minutes without traffic - and spent 2 1/2 to 3 hours sitting traffic. I've been in parking lot style traffic on 90 on a Saturday afternoon - not even trying to go into the city, but only to closer suburbs. And we won't even discuss traffic IN Chicago during the day on any day of the week.
While I may not have hit rush hour traffic on any of those days, and concede it may be pretty darn bad, I can say that non-rush hour traffic was a wonderful experience. Driving from a hotel in the First Hill neighborhood, to 5, to 90, to Redmond at 3:30 in the afternoon on a weekday was a happy, casual drive the likes of which I don't remember the last time I had around here.
And parking in downtown Seattle not a problem? You get anywhere near downtown in Chicago and you're looking at $30+ for a couple hours. There are hotels that charge people $15+ to park - or $25-30 if you want to be able to leave and come back without paying again. We drove down to 1st ave (which I know is not really downtown) to meet someone for dinner. We parked about 1/2 block away from the restaurant - for free. It was about 6:30 pm. I was in utter shock.
Oh, and rent in the Seattle area is significantly cheaper than where I'm at now. Heck, apartments across the street from Microsoft cost about $300 LESS than what I'm paying now for a comparable square footage.
I know the area's not perfect, but I'm having a hard time finding things about the area that I find less appealing than here in Chicago, land of traffic, pollution, heat, humidity, and no views. (OK, the shorter daylight in winter may be one of the few...)
Besides, I've seen studies which show that increasing the capacity of an expressway may only have short-term benefits for traffic. If they doubled the size of the expressways, then traffic would probably get significantly better - until more people move to make use of those expressways, returning to the equilibrium state, probably about where it is now.
Increasing road capacity is never, ever, ever going to solve traffic problems - and it will only make other things worse in the process.
The only long-term solution is to find other means of transporting people, or reducing/eliminating the need for people to move in such large quanity at the same time every day...
BTW, I have a hard time believing all this "Seattle traffic is so horrible" stuff. I visited Seattle for about 2 weeks about a month ago, and did driving at various times of the day, in various areas. Coming from the Chicago area, I never saw anything really even that close to the horrendous traffic disaster that is Chicago. I loved driving in Seattle - the only time I've enjoyed driving in Chicago is, oh, the middle of the night, Christmas morning, or other times when hardly anyone is out. Any other time, it's horrific.
It's only one of the reasons I want to move out there and away from here...
I've always wondered how successful a game might be that went in the other direction, such as in HC mode in Diablo II. Your character dies, and that's it, no matter what level you were. Because it would apply to not only the people being PK'ed, but those doing the PK'ing, also.
After all, how many players would take all the time to develop a strong character to PK people when they can lose it quickly? After all, you kill a couple players, get the rep for being a PK, and get hunted down and killed yourself. Thus you have to build a new character all over again.
When there's not much of a death penalty, sure, players that are PK'ed don't suffer much, but it also offers little incentive for people to hunt down PK'ers, since they don't suffer either.
It surely wouldn't appeal to everyone, but it seems like it could find a crowd that would enjoy it.
The entire original purpose of the iDEN system was the walkie-talkie style dispatch call feature. The first set of phones available for the system looked a lot like classic walkie talkies instead of the other cell phones that were available at the time. (IE, a big brick! But you could drop it down a flight of stairs with little damage, and some even worked after being in a fire)
The dispatch call made Nextel and iDEN quite popular with construction companies first, as they'd normally use walkie talkies for communication around sites, and this allowed that without the cost of setting up a system, along with giving employees a cell phone in the process. I believe that as some of the bigger companies started using the system, smaller contractors pretty much had to follow along.
Nextel has gained a LOT of regular customers, however, and isn't just for the business users anymore, as people are realizing that the private call ability is quite nice for quick, short communication.
And for those who use the system, there's a lot of interesting stuff coming down the pipe, both in system features and new phones. But I can't say any more about what exactly, just wait.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Every lan party I have ever been to has been anti-social folk. That is why we are at a lan party, and not out drinking, and sleeping with the opposite sex.
Because, of course, being social is defined as getting drunk and sleeping around, and anything else is defined as anti-social. After all, alcohol and sex are the only things of importance.
Those people who are out getting drunk all the time and sleeping around are doing it because they have serious problems, and you shouldn't be looking at those people as somehow better - that behavior is actually sometimes anti-social, and definitely self-destructive. It's better to be having fun at lan parties than sitting in a doctor's office checking to see how far your HIV has progressed, which you caught because you were too drunk to care who you were sleeping with.
Trust me, us geek girls that do hang around gamers are much better to be around than most bar sluts - you can actually have a conversation with us.
That's Bezerk, not Robotron.
Robotron had no voices.
However, Sinistar did, and they could be downright eerie at first, especially since the game always makes you feel like you're fighting an unwinnable battle. (Yes, you are, like most games of that era, but still...)
I will so definitely be picking this up for my Gamecube! I bought the original Midway Arcade Classics for the PC back when it came out, with the 6 games it has on it, and played it a lot.
This does so much better, with so many more games, and the Gamecube control should work wonders with most of these. Even Marble Madness should be decent, since we've already seen what can be done in that vein with Super Monkey Ball.
Absolutely lovely - I look forward to an evening of Robotron on a 27 inch TV with the stereo cranked up!
The commander is a pretty darn wonderful controller, with a lot of flexibility.
While it was clearly intended for RTS games, there is absolutely no reason to restrict it to such uses. I first bought mine for playing Quake 2, as with the 26 buttons at my fingertips, along with the movement controls, it was so much easier to use than the keyboard. It took a week or so to adjust, and before long, I was much better than I ever managed when trying to use the keyboard.
Any game that I play that has any significant amount of keyboard use during the game ends up with me using the Strategic Commander. Diablo II is great with it, all the hotkeys right there.
I'm glad I just picked up a second one while I still can. (Actually, a friend who works at MS did for me) The first one took a lot of abuse during the endless days of manic FPS action, and I had to glue a button back together, and do a little playing around with the insides to keep it working. Now when the second dies, hopefully I can cannibalize the two into one fully working one. Because I plan on keeping the thing around and using it until I'm forced to get rid of it.
This is the same guy that claimed that the odds of an apocalyptic disaster striking Earth are 50-50. Of course, he never bothered to qualify the time frame (that I'm aware of), so it shows a horrible understanding of probability (after all, there's a 100% chance of disaster if you don't add a time limit), not even counting his seeming inability to properly judge the disasters he considers, instead opting just to disasterbate.
True, there's not exactly a ton of economic use at the time for space exploration. So? Like many things, the more time and money and effort spent on exploring space, the better the technology becomes around it, technology which will find other uses. It will also increase our knowledge as a species, which is definitely a good thing (as opposed to those who increase their knowledge only to keep it secret, or those who think knowledge is bad)
Given the infrastructure it takes for space exploration of any significant magnitude, how many individuals are going to pursue it just because they can? I would suspect not many. Of course, that doesn't count all the issues that would come up when private individuals start creating craft able to launch itself (and cargo) into space.
We could just let all the corporations do the exploring. And let them own everything they touch out there, to pillage as they see fit. After all, if they're not allowed to do such things, what can they do to make money? They won't bother.
Let's see a show of hands for everyone who thought Nemesis was the best Star Trek yet?
Best Star Trek overall? Nope. Wrath of Khan seems to be unbeatable.
Best Next Gen movie? I'd raise my hand there - based on the fact that it seems to have the fewest plot holes out of the four. Neither Generations nor First Contact should have made it anywhere near production if anyone had a clue what they were doing - I am unable to enjoy either one of them because the plot holes are utterly ridiculous.
Meaning I can only compare Nemesis to Insurrection. Anyone want to pick a favorite between those two? Surely Nemesis is the only one to choose there.
It just clicked with me why they don't - and likely won't - do this.
To justify people paying full card price for online "card" objects, they give people the option to be able to "redeem" any of their online cards, the actual cards in print. If you get tired of playing online, you can turn your virtual collection into a collection of real cards.
If they were to offer older cards, they'd have to print more of them up to allow people to redeem them, and that will violate their policy that once a set goes out of print, it stays out of print in black border format. Surely collectors would get a bit pissy if they started offering older cards again in black border form - and besides, certain cards are promised to never be reprinted in any form.
I do wonder how they will handle older sets if the online game sticks around for a while. Will they force people to redeem the online cards for the real thing at some point, or end the offer to replace them with real cards? Or will they be forced to keep amounts of older sets around and ready to mail out incase some player, years down the line, wants to redeem their 7E cards when they're in the middle of printing 9E?
That was where I really dedicated myself to the game for a short while also. It was nice to see red playing more on the weenie side and less on the burn then - though there was some nice cheap burn, and Fireblast was an amazing finisher.
It sounds like they're seriously hamstringing blue then. Blue lives and dies by countermagic, as there's really no other strong ability that the color has - everything else comes and goes, and usually is done better somewhere else. There have been good blue creatures here and there (Rainbow Efreet, Mahamoti), but they require countermagic support to either hit the board, or keep themselves alive. And you need that 2 mana slot to be able to defend them and actually be able to do something else.
One more reason I miss the Mirage/Tempest block... the sheer counterpower that blue had over a range of mana costs, able to deal with threats in multiple ways, along with Whispers to keep the cards coming if you manage to scare your opponent into not doing anything.
Yes, those of us who loved the game will always point to the existance of the Urza's block as probably the biggest mistake they've made.
Before that set (and Exodus), things were pretty damn well balanced - my favorite block (Mirage/Tempest (w/o Exodus)/5E) had a lot of different archetypes, both ends of the speed spectrum, and there was a lot happening before Exodus came and gave a taste of the combo-based brokenness that would be Urza's Saga.
Though to be fair, there's always going to be a weak spot in my heart for the truly broken Type I cards - I have a Library of Alexandria, a Time Walk, 4 Mana Drains - and they're always so much fun to play, even if it's not fun for the other person when they watch me Time Walk for 8 free turns in a row.
Funny, but they're referring to the M:TG Online software as being a level 5 judge, meaning it is always available...
The thing I would love to see with MTGO, that which would probably actually get me to subscribe and play, would be the addition of the older cards, and having tournaments for ALL of the formats of the past. I'm not really interested in playing the current Type II of the moment, but it would be incredibly fun to be able to go back and play Type II for my favorite block (Mirage/Tempest/5E), along with perhaps some of the older Type I environments (Everything up to FE only), and so on.
That's the thing that MTGO lacks big time - there are years of history of M:TG that are being totally neglected.
There was a time when M:TG was a very enjoyable game, a lot of fun to play, and the game shops where it was played were full of fun people to be around.
That was the past. I played for years, starting when The Dark was out, and played through the introduction of Urza's Saga (with a break inbetween). I enjoyed the game, spent a lot of money and time on it, and enjoyed the shops I'd go to, where the other people were fun to be around, interesting to talk to, and the game had an interesting environment.
However, I quit when Urza's Saga came out, and brokenness and ridiculous combos and speed ruled the environment, along with the crowd at the shops changing from the older gamers to 10-year old "my mommy bought me all the best cards and you suck" brats that you just want to smack across the face.
I tried playing again, about a year and a half ago, and the crowd at the game shop was just as bad, if not worse due to even fewer people with any semblance of maturity, and some of the stupid things they've done with the game (split cards? looks like something off of a web site with poorly-made fan cards).
I suppose I probably would play the game again (the real thing, not the online version, as the social aspect is a big part of the game that can't be copied on computer) if I could find a place that wasn't full of obnoxious brats.
But you might also think that just about anyone would have better things to do with their time than post messages to a website to do little more than comment on someone else's use of their time.
Some people have an insatiable sense of curiousity about some things, and you never know what or when will trigger that curiousity. Apparently his was triggered by the cipher and the obscure symbols.
And who knows, perhaps your message here will trigger someone else's quest to figure out just how much free time Garrison has in his life to devote to solving such puzzles.
CALEA - C(something) Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.
The law was passed, requiring cellular providers to add technology into their systems that would allow law enforcement to surveil cell phone users, and see who they are calling/are being called by, and optionally hear the audio for the call.
It's been in the field for a while now.
Well, some of us would like to stop using Netscape 4 at work, but our IT department seems unwilling to offer another browser for our Sun development machines.
.8 version of Mozilla available, which they seem unwilling to upgrade for some reason...
Well, actually they do have a
It's all about when you need short term communication. If you need to ask someone a quick question, it is a lot easier just to tap the PTT button and ask the question, get a quick answer, and be done with it.
I've noticed from my time using it that it's a different type of "commitment" than a phone call. A phone call is like stopping to have a long conversation with someone. A private call (direct connect) is like popping your head in a cube just to ask a short question.
It's a much more casual form of communication. It's hard to describe, but it really is not the same as a phone call.
It's not hard to tap. The ability for law enforcement to get surveillance on direct connect calls has been part of the software for a while now - I helped (not completely willingly) add that into the the software. Law enforcement can either just get call information (who you talk to, and when you talk to them), or that information with full audio.
There's nothing difficult about it.
Of course, it was added due to the CALEA laws that forced us to add it.
Hmmm, seems possible, as the direct connect and the cellular parts of the systems are pretty distinct. They've been unclear to us about what's been happening with Nextel and their possible future cell choices. Regardless, there's plenty coming on the direct connect end for years. I have a hard time believing that other cell companies can just start offering a walkie-talkie service that has enough features to compare with iDEN, considering the amount of time it's been around, and the amount of development done on it.
I also know there are plenty more color phones coming down the pipe, a number with cameras (seems the big thing for cell phones now), and some really nice designs. Oh, and one rather disposable-looking phone, that at least looks better than that horrid low-end thing currently out there with the little "joystick" thingy... And to believe, the first iDEN phones were about the size and shape of bricks.
Even if they do really get to keep such a trademark, there's not a chance in hell that they'd dare deny Motorola the use of the trademark whenver they want. After all, their current cellular system, iDEN, is completely done by Motorola - and surely Nextel wants to continue to get new features for their system, right? If they get all uppity, how might Motorola start treating them?
Nextel is not part of Motorola in any way, shape, or form. They're a cellular provider that happens to be by far the biggest customer of Motorola's iDEN cellular system, which has the push-to-talk system. Nextel's cellular system is not completely 100% Motorola - there are a few parts to the system from other companies, though I believe they are parts that Motorola does not currently make.
Nextel's done some looking for an eventual replacement/compliment to the iDEN service, and I believe has received a number of proposals from many companies, not just Motorola, so there's no guarantee they will stay with Motorola cellular systems in the future.
Also, there are plenty of cell providers around the world that use the iDEN system that are not Nextel - Mike in Canada, for example, and I believe there's a small provider in the south (SoLinc?) that uses it. Not to mention a number of other companies in Asia.
Good point - I wonder what the typical proportion is among Cube owners of first-party to third-party titles that they own.
Out of the 8 games I have, 5 are first-party (Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, Smash Bros: Melee, Eternal Darkness, Zelda), while 3 are third-party (THPS4, Super Monkey Ball, Super Monkey Ball 2). My friends who have cubes all have more first party than third also, and my father is about a 50-50 split, but then again, he seems to randomly purchase cheap games for it.
From where I currently live, if I wanted to commute into Chicago itself, I'd be looking at a 1 1/2 hour commute easily. Fortunately, I knew better than to move far away from where I work, so I can go from my apartment door to my cube at work in about 15 minutes.
I've had evenings where I went to drive into Michigan or Indiana, where I left my apartment at 6:30 on Friday, to drive what would take about 45 minutes without traffic - and spent 2 1/2 to 3 hours sitting traffic. I've been in parking lot style traffic on 90 on a Saturday afternoon - not even trying to go into the city, but only to closer suburbs. And we won't even discuss traffic IN Chicago during the day on any day of the week.
While I may not have hit rush hour traffic on any of those days, and concede it may be pretty darn bad, I can say that non-rush hour traffic was a wonderful experience. Driving from a hotel in the First Hill neighborhood, to 5, to 90, to Redmond at 3:30 in the afternoon on a weekday was a happy, casual drive the likes of which I don't remember the last time I had around here.
And parking in downtown Seattle not a problem? You get anywhere near downtown in Chicago and you're looking at $30+ for a couple hours. There are hotels that charge people $15+ to park - or $25-30 if you want to be able to leave and come back without paying again. We drove down to 1st ave (which I know is not really downtown) to meet someone for dinner. We parked about 1/2 block away from the restaurant - for free. It was about 6:30 pm. I was in utter shock.
Oh, and rent in the Seattle area is significantly cheaper than where I'm at now. Heck, apartments across the street from Microsoft cost about $300 LESS than what I'm paying now for a comparable square footage.
I know the area's not perfect, but I'm having a hard time finding things about the area that I find less appealing than here in Chicago, land of traffic, pollution, heat, humidity, and no views. (OK, the shorter daylight in winter may be one of the few...)
Besides, I've seen studies which show that increasing the capacity of an expressway may only have short-term benefits for traffic. If they doubled the size of the expressways, then traffic would probably get significantly better - until more people move to make use of those expressways, returning to the equilibrium state, probably about where it is now.
Increasing road capacity is never, ever, ever going to solve traffic problems - and it will only make other things worse in the process.
The only long-term solution is to find other means of transporting people, or reducing/eliminating the need for people to move in such large quanity at the same time every day...
BTW, I have a hard time believing all this "Seattle traffic is so horrible" stuff. I visited Seattle for about 2 weeks about a month ago, and did driving at various times of the day, in various areas. Coming from the Chicago area, I never saw anything really even that close to the horrendous traffic disaster that is Chicago. I loved driving in Seattle - the only time I've enjoyed driving in Chicago is, oh, the middle of the night, Christmas morning, or other times when hardly anyone is out. Any other time, it's horrific.
It's only one of the reasons I want to move out there and away from here...
I've always wondered how successful a game might be that went in the other direction, such as in HC mode in Diablo II. Your character dies, and that's it, no matter what level you were. Because it would apply to not only the people being PK'ed, but those doing the PK'ing, also.
After all, how many players would take all the time to develop a strong character to PK people when they can lose it quickly? After all, you kill a couple players, get the rep for being a PK, and get hunted down and killed yourself. Thus you have to build a new character all over again.
When there's not much of a death penalty, sure, players that are PK'ed don't suffer much, but it also offers little incentive for people to hunt down PK'ers, since they don't suffer either.
It surely wouldn't appeal to everyone, but it seems like it could find a crowd that would enjoy it.
The entire original purpose of the iDEN system was the walkie-talkie style dispatch call feature. The first set of phones available for the system looked a lot like classic walkie talkies instead of the other cell phones that were available at the time. (IE, a big brick! But you could drop it down a flight of stairs with little damage, and some even worked after being in a fire)
:)
The dispatch call made Nextel and iDEN quite popular with construction companies first, as they'd normally use walkie talkies for communication around sites, and this allowed that without the cost of setting up a system, along with giving employees a cell phone in the process. I believe that as some of the bigger companies started using the system, smaller contractors pretty much had to follow along.
Nextel has gained a LOT of regular customers, however, and isn't just for the business users anymore, as people are realizing that the private call ability is quite nice for quick, short communication.
And for those who use the system, there's a lot of interesting stuff coming down the pipe, both in system features and new phones. But I can't say any more about what exactly, just wait.