Perhaps a Chinese person could come to the conclusion that the US government is censoring information about the civil rights movement, because when "Lincoln Memorial" is typed into google.com, there is no mention of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in the top results.
That sounds like a bit of a stretch to me. Probably the closest equivalent to Tiananmen Square in the U.S. would be Kent State, and when I type that into google I get refrences to the university but many more to the shootings. Searching "google images" for Kent State gives lots of pictures of the incident.
This hi-res movie of Quake Wars went up recently, and honestly it doesn't look that great. The ground textures looks flat and splotchy. I understand that the "MegaTexture" tech may be about making games run faster, not necessarily a graphical imporvement, but, for example, I've seen screenshots and videos of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from a couple years ago that looked much more photorealistic (the environment, not the character models which were below average looking) and when I played a leaked version it ran really fast and had huge draw distances and enviroment to explore.
The weak dollar is an interesting point, in Canada the 20 gig PS3 is priced at $550, and the PS2 was priced at launch at $450, which is less of a jump than the U.S. launch prices of $500 for the PS3 and $300 for the PS2. The U.S. dollar has fallen a lot in the past five years, I'm surprised more Americans aren't upset about this, in Canada almost every fluctuation in the currency is front page news.
I'm talking about those people who watch standard def contents on their HDTV sets without even realizing it/knowing the difference.
Heck, I've met people who can sit through a 16:9 film that's been stretched to fill a 4:3 screen and not realize anything is wrong (and vice versa). I've seen the aspect ration in stores set wrong (I hope this is out of laziness). It makes me wonder how much visual imformation some people are actually pulling in.
I remember those sorts of arguments in another form years ago, back in the early nineties. ISPs were complaining that flat-rate pricing wasn't going to last because while they were making money on customers that used just an hour or two a day, they were losing money on "hogs" that were online 5-6 hours or more.
But the problem with hourly rates is that people want consistent, predictable billing. AOL switched to flat-rate pricing because they were losing too many light users, people who liked the idea of unlimited usage even though it would have been cheaper for them to pay by the hour. I know people were leaving AOL for other reasons (AOL sucks) but the appeal of competing flat-rate ISPs was a big one.
I think that's the problem ISPs are going to face, if they implement throttling and bandwidth charges they'll lose the unprofitable bandwidth hogs, but they'll lose profitable light users as well, more than they were expecting.
I'm running IE 6.0.2800.1106 on Win2K and the flaw worked. I upgraded flash from 8,0,22,0 to 8,0,24,0 and it still worked. Windows update says I'm up to date.
One technique they could probably use is "instances", so you have parts of the world that are like a single player game, the wikipedia article mentions that the idea of instances as being proposed by Garriot himself.
Its no wonder that Lionhead has to downsize; they're not trying to make 'popular' or 'successful' games... they're still trying to make 'innovative, groundbreaking games' and failing.
Fable was a successful game, it got good reviews and had very good sales, I liked quite a bit... I shudder to think what the development costs were, I've heard development was so unfocused they tried out lots of features that they ended up ditching (real time tree growth? a dog that shows you around instead of using your map? 4 player co-op?).
As for the other games, The Movies looked to me like a blatant attempt to cash in on popularity of The Sims (so they were trying to make a popular, successful game). And I didn't even know Black & White 2 came out, I don't play a lot of PC games but all I would hear about was Civ 4 and FEAR and Call of Duty 2.
Ok, the industry goons look at the current model and say "we could make more money if we installed limits."
They've been saying that for a long time. Here's a quote from an industry goon:
that, so far as large cities are concerned, unlimited service is unjust to small users, favors large users unduly, impedes expansion of the telephone business, tends to inefficientservice, and that, as a financial proposition, is unsound.
And this was written in 1905! That quote's from good paper on the tendency for flat-rate pricing in communications. Basically, most people are willing to pay extra for flat-rate service even if it's more expensive.
My guess would be that Sony leaning towards free. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 came with some free service for messaging and starting up games, like Xfire or All-Seeing Eye, with developers left on their own for dealing with online play, which is pretty similar to the PC model of online gaming. This is just my guess.
But remember, nothing is really "free". If you don't pay a monthly fee you'll be paying somewhere else, it'll just be embedded in the cost of games and the console, monthly fees for specific games, and advertising maybe.
Here's an interesting blog post by Ari Paparo, who had an idea similar to del.icio.us back in 1999 called blink.com (don't bother going, the site is no longer the same) for people to store their bookmarks online.
What I find fascinating is even with 13 million dollars of investment and lots of publicity and technical know how behind it, del.icio.us succeeded and blink.com failed pretty much because of one simple thing, it used tags instead of folders. This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell's (The Tipping Point) observation that the difference between being accepted or not can often rest on a very narrow detail.
It can't be understated how much easier it is organizing stuff using tags, the folders within folders practice is useful for some types of data, but it becomes quite unwieldly quickly for things like photos and bookmarks.
I agree that wikipedia shouldn't be used as an authoratative source, and that it makes a good starting point.
Perhaps the term "thesis" in China is different from the Western term, with different expectations? This article mentioned an emphasis on "a lot of background information" in essay writing and that the "argumentative essay" was a somewhat foreign idea. I recall hearing similar criticism of the Chinese essay format anecdotally.
I've been waiting forever for an easy way to share files with my friends, but I'm not crazy about the idea of tying up 100MB of RAM leaving Firefox open all the time.
There are other similar programs, for example Foldershare.com, which was just bought by Microsoft a few months ago, which stands out from other P2P programs in that you can "autosync" a folder across multiple computers, so you download a mp3 on one computer and it's copied over to other computers automatically.
IGN reviewed it today, 9.0/10. While you shouldn't buy a game based on a single review (remember the Driv3r debacle, though IGN wasn't a part of that since they gave it a 5.4), everything I've read about the game by people that have played beta versions has been positive.
Web designers (and I am one) should not be paying/any/ attention to "resolution".
Surely the question isn't totally unreasonable. For example, say you have a 3072 x 2048 photo of a storefront that you'd like to have on a page. What's a good size for that to be reduced to?
I'm sure there are more, but my memory fails me right now.
F.E.A.R., Psychonauts, and my favourite game of this year (and the best game I've ever played, despite some framerate issues) Shadow of the Colossus. God of War was fun, and there were some really interesting games with some gameplay issues such as Indigo Prophecy, Killer 7 and Facade. Sort of sad how people complain about unoriginal sequels but when something new comes around it doesn't become a hit. And a lot of people are calling Resident Evil 4 one of the best games ever but it's sales on the PS2 have only been so-so.
I think it's unfair to compare things to 2004 though, the end of that year was unusual in that so many high profile sequels came out around the same time, many because of delay. The complaint last year was that too many games were coming out and that some publishers where going to get hurt.
I have my doubts this will work. Like, statistically speaking, John Ratzenberger, the guy that played Cliff on Cheers is very bankable actor, he'd been in Empire Strikes Back and a couple Superman films, and all six Pixar films, so his films have grossed billions of dollars. I guess a computer might pick him to play the villian in the next Batman film, but in real life there isn't a magic formula.
i think the bigger problem was that anyone could download a CDDB CD ID list and get whatever the fark they wanted form mp3.com
Nah, mp3.com would query for several random bytes of the cd in question, so the person would pretty much have to have a copy of the cd. I remember the security was considered strong but they lost in court anyway because it was deemed to still be copyright infringement, see Umg vs. Mp3.com.
Specifically, were there any games that had poor reviews but good revenue?
Enter the Matrix and Driv3r are two shining examples of games that games that got terrible reviews (most game review sites seem to go on a 7 to 10 scale, so anything less than that is pretty terrible) but sold millions.
Some of the most talented new directors have come from the music video scene, such as Spike Jonze, Michael Gondry and Johnathan Glazer (and further back, David Fincher). Having a background in music videos is a positive thing.
Candles and Incense
on
Safe Cigarettes?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That had me wondering, if all smoke is unsafe, what about going to church, are all those candles and incense unsafe? Turns out they may be, I found this bbc article... Church Air is 'Threat to Health'.
As I asked just a little earlier, if Mario 64 wasn't the first, which game was?
There where quite a few 3d console games that where earlier, the SNES and Genesis with the 32x could do rudimentary 3d graphics, Starfox is a good example, and the Playstation came out over a year before the N64. I'm sure there are even earlier 3d console games depending on your definition of 3d. Mario 64 is considered a seminal 3d platformer, even though there where some games like Jumping Flash and Clockwork Knight out before, Mario 64 played a lot differently and a lot of 3d games base their controls on Mario 64.
I've heard Defender (1980) being called the first game with a scrolling screen, so that gameplay didn't take place in just one screen, and Rally-X from that same year had a screen that scrolled both horizontally and vertically... they both predate Mario Brothers by a few years so I don't know what the article is talking about.
I'm a little confused by the spyware allegations, like the program is looking at what you're running, but so does a virus checker or task manager, are those spyware programs too?
Slashdot Mirror
That sounds like a bit of a stretch to me. Probably the closest equivalent to Tiananmen Square in the U.S. would be Kent State, and when I type that into google I get refrences to the university but many more to the shootings. Searching "google images" for Kent State gives lots of pictures of the incident.
This hi-res movie of Quake Wars went up recently, and honestly it doesn't look that great. The ground textures looks flat and splotchy. I understand that the "MegaTexture" tech may be about making games run faster, not necessarily a graphical imporvement, but, for example, I've seen screenshots and videos of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. from a couple years ago that looked much more photorealistic (the environment, not the character models which were below average looking) and when I played a leaked version it ran really fast and had huge draw distances and enviroment to explore.
The weak dollar is an interesting point, in Canada the 20 gig PS3 is priced at $550, and the PS2 was priced at launch at $450, which is less of a jump than the U.S. launch prices of $500 for the PS3 and $300 for the PS2. The U.S. dollar has fallen a lot in the past five years, I'm surprised more Americans aren't upset about this, in Canada almost every fluctuation in the currency is front page news.
Heck, I've met people who can sit through a 16:9 film that's been stretched to fill a 4:3 screen and not realize anything is wrong (and vice versa). I've seen the aspect ration in stores set wrong (I hope this is out of laziness). It makes me wonder how much visual imformation some people are actually pulling in.
But the problem with hourly rates is that people want consistent, predictable billing. AOL switched to flat-rate pricing because they were losing too many light users, people who liked the idea of unlimited usage even though it would have been cheaper for them to pay by the hour. I know people were leaving AOL for other reasons (AOL sucks) but the appeal of competing flat-rate ISPs was a big one.
I think that's the problem ISPs are going to face, if they implement throttling and bandwidth charges they'll lose the unprofitable bandwidth hogs, but they'll lose profitable light users as well, more than they were expecting.
I'm running IE 6.0.2800.1106 on Win2K and the flaw worked. I upgraded flash from 8,0,22,0 to 8,0,24,0 and it still worked. Windows update says I'm up to date.
One technique they could probably use is "instances", so you have parts of the world that are like a single player game, the wikipedia article mentions that the idea of instances as being proposed by Garriot himself.
Fable was a successful game, it got good reviews and had very good sales, I liked quite a bit... I shudder to think what the development costs were, I've heard development was so unfocused they tried out lots of features that they ended up ditching (real time tree growth? a dog that shows you around instead of using your map? 4 player co-op?).
As for the other games, The Movies looked to me like a blatant attempt to cash in on popularity of The Sims (so they were trying to make a popular, successful game). And I didn't even know Black & White 2 came out, I don't play a lot of PC games but all I would hear about was Civ 4 and FEAR and Call of Duty 2.
They've been saying that for a long time. Here's a quote from an industry goon:
And this was written in 1905! That quote's from good paper on the tendency for flat-rate pricing in communications. Basically, most people are willing to pay extra for flat-rate service even if it's more expensive.Internet pricing and the history of communications
My guess would be that Sony leaning towards free. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS3 came with some free service for messaging and starting up games, like Xfire or All-Seeing Eye, with developers left on their own for dealing with online play, which is pretty similar to the PC model of online gaming. This is just my guess.
But remember, nothing is really "free". If you don't pay a monthly fee you'll be paying somewhere else, it'll just be embedded in the cost of games and the console, monthly fees for specific games, and advertising maybe.
What I find fascinating is even with 13 million dollars of investment and lots of publicity and technical know how behind it, del.icio.us succeeded and blink.com failed pretty much because of one simple thing, it used tags instead of folders. This reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell's (The Tipping Point) observation that the difference between being accepted or not can often rest on a very narrow detail.
It can't be understated how much easier it is organizing stuff using tags, the folders within folders practice is useful for some types of data, but it becomes quite unwieldly quickly for things like photos and bookmarks.
Ari Paparo Dot Com : Getting It Right
Perhaps the term "thesis" in China is different from the Western term, with different expectations? This article mentioned an emphasis on "a lot of background information" in essay writing and that the "argumentative essay" was a somewhat foreign idea. I recall hearing similar criticism of the Chinese essay format anecdotally.
There are other similar programs, for example Foldershare.com, which was just bought by Microsoft a few months ago, which stands out from other P2P programs in that you can "autosync" a folder across multiple computers, so you download a mp3 on one computer and it's copied over to other computers automatically.
I haven't played Kingdom Hearts I. Could I start with II or would I be completely lost?
IGN: Dead or Alive 4 Review
Surely the question isn't totally unreasonable. For example, say you have a 3072 x 2048 photo of a storefront that you'd like to have on a page. What's a good size for that to be reduced to?
F.E.A.R., Psychonauts, and my favourite game of this year (and the best game I've ever played, despite some framerate issues) Shadow of the Colossus. God of War was fun, and there were some really interesting games with some gameplay issues such as Indigo Prophecy, Killer 7 and Facade. Sort of sad how people complain about unoriginal sequels but when something new comes around it doesn't become a hit. And a lot of people are calling Resident Evil 4 one of the best games ever but it's sales on the PS2 have only been so-so.
I think it's unfair to compare things to 2004 though, the end of that year was unusual in that so many high profile sequels came out around the same time, many because of delay. The complaint last year was that too many games were coming out and that some publishers where going to get hurt.
I have my doubts this will work. Like, statistically speaking, John Ratzenberger, the guy that played Cliff on Cheers is very bankable actor, he'd been in Empire Strikes Back and a couple Superman films, and all six Pixar films, so his films have grossed billions of dollars. I guess a computer might pick him to play the villian in the next Batman film, but in real life there isn't a magic formula.
Nah, mp3.com would query for several random bytes of the cd in question, so the person would pretty much have to have a copy of the cd. I remember the security was considered strong but they lost in court anyway because it was deemed to still be copyright infringement, see Umg vs. Mp3.com.
Enter the Matrix and Driv3r are two shining examples of games that games that got terrible reviews (most game review sites seem to go on a 7 to 10 scale, so anything less than that is pretty terrible) but sold millions.
Some of the most talented new directors have come from the music video scene, such as Spike Jonze, Michael Gondry and Johnathan Glazer (and further back, David Fincher). Having a background in music videos is a positive thing.
That had me wondering, if all smoke is unsafe, what about going to church, are all those candles and incense unsafe? Turns out they may be, I found this bbc article... Church Air is 'Threat to Health'.
There where quite a few 3d console games that where earlier, the SNES and Genesis with the 32x could do rudimentary 3d graphics, Starfox is a good example, and the Playstation came out over a year before the N64. I'm sure there are even earlier 3d console games depending on your definition of 3d. Mario 64 is considered a seminal 3d platformer, even though there where some games like Jumping Flash and Clockwork Knight out before, Mario 64 played a lot differently and a lot of 3d games base their controls on Mario 64.
I've heard Defender (1980) being called the first game with a scrolling screen, so that gameplay didn't take place in just one screen, and Rally-X from that same year had a screen that scrolled both horizontally and vertically... they both predate Mario Brothers by a few years so I don't know what the article is talking about.
I'm a little confused by the spyware allegations, like the program is looking at what you're running, but so does a virus checker or task manager, are those spyware programs too?