There was a time when simply going to space, sending a probe, and asking "What's out there?" was valid. That time is over for the most part. We have already had our proof of concept missions to Earth orbit and the Moon. Probes to Mars have revealed nothing worth risking the billions upon billions the most basic mission would cost before we have enough experience, technology, and infrastructure in space to reasonably assure that the people we send will get there alive. And mind you, I don't really care about the lives of the Mars astronauts. I'm sure there are literally thousands who read this site who would wait in line to sign up for a Mars mission even if they knew it was a suicide mission. The problem is that if they do die, every penny we spend is flushed down the toilet.
For the places we have already been, it is time to realize some of the possibilities we can see. More will open up as we do so. For Mars, we need to sit back and ask ourselves, "Is it responsible or even useful to send a mission there without laying the groundwork here?"
The one thing that the Space Station has demonstrated is that building infrastructure without a serious plan of what you want to do with it is a waste of money.
This is what I was talking about... a plan. A station to put very large satellites together would be a good start. Start with something useful but basic, learn the ropes, and start expanding on the idea.
Mining the moon for anything other than helium-3 is also a complete waste of time; there's nothing there that's not available in abundant quantities back on Earth, or, if you want to go sci-fi on us, from the asteroid belt (where you don't have to lift it out of a gravity well).
Mining is only a suggestion. We need a purpose to be there. I'm tired of astronauts playing with fucking yo-yos. The moon has 1/6th the gravitational force of Earth at the surface, it has no atmosphere, and a bit of extra angular momentum. There has to be something useful we can do with it.
Oh, and as far as Mars goes, what are these compelling threats that are so insurmountable that warp drive is required to get them there and back safely? The chronic radiation dose isn't *that* scary (have you seen the latest report on Chernobyl?), and a fast ship will require just as much shielding from solar storms as a slow one.
I'm not talking "warp drive." We need to be able to reach there in weeks not months or years. Equipment failures, micro meteors, or simple mistakes will likely doom the flight well before it reaches Mars. Not only that, but without an orbital platform to construct the ship, we will have to rely on the whole thing being launched in one piece with no chance to inspect it before it leaves and no chance to do repairs. It took us three days to get to the Moon and we nearly lost a crew. With current technology it would take us one to three years to get to Mars. The longer it takes, the easier a seemingly insignificant problem can complicate.
NASA as it stands is a detriment to the country. The ISS is nothing but a pointless money pit, the Shuttle has become little more than a glorified satellite launch vehicle, and the entire agency suffers from a serious, debilitating lack of vision.
I want to be the first to say that the Mars mission talk must stop. We are not ready for a manned Mars mission and most of the unmanned missions have only been very expensive sandbox toys.
NASA needs to start working toward sustaining space travel and giving it a purpose. We need space station around Earth that can serve as orbital manufacturing and construction facility as well as a terminal for people to stay and move onward to a moon station, a space station around the moon that will shuttle people to a moon base, launch interplanetary ships, and transfer materials to and from the moon, and a moon base that we can mine from, build telescopes (SCIENCE!), and other things.
We can do all this while waiting for propulsion to catch up and give astronauts a reasonable chance to survive the trip to Mars.
If NASA is unwilling to do this, someone will have to pick up the slack.
Please tell me you arent suggesting that a teacher could improve their classroom budget by complaining to their students..
You miss the point. The original post did not talk about complaining in the classroom. It said nothing about bringing these complaints to the students.
The reply was broadly implying that the post on slashdot and possibly (we don't know how he or she actually teaches) the teacher's lack of enthusiasm in the classroom was communicating this message to the students. I'm sorry, but that is crap.
I agree. The Wind Waker made good on the lie that was arcade Dragon's Lair. The in-game footage was better than most games' cutscenes. I would love to see an animated series made solely on that engine. It was one of the first games that I could actually forget a computer was rendering it
I think what the parent is saying is that he or she has the responsibility to teach the children, but no responsibility in how to teach the children. This teacher may have great ideas that may save the district money or teach the children better, but has no financial freedom to make any changes.
Even so, you shouldn't be communicating to your students that you're "unenthused" because you have a tiny budget.
Now this sentence is just a load of crap. If people don't speak up, how do things change? Reminds me a lot of things Bush says about those that criticize the war. Hurting the troops with your dissention and what not.
Except that DVD movies existed well before the PS2. People were buying DVD players already, and there was a demand for them. The PS3 including the Blu-Ray drive is a much bigger gamble.
Here is how it went in Japan. Nintendo and Sony both sold about all the units they released in 2004 (DS: 1.5 mil, PSP: 0.5 mil). In January, the DS was ahead for the first couple weeks, then Sony pulled ahead on the weekly numbers. All the early adopters were able to get thier hands on a DS, but the PSP had suffered from low production, so it wasn't a surprise that the DS sales dipped more quickly.
By Feb, the weekly sales settled into a routiene. The PSP would sell ~30-40K and the the DS would sell ~15-25K depending on releases.
Catch! Touch! Yoshi!, Touch! Kirby, and Another Code were released in this time for the DS without significantly increasing sales.
Then Nintendogs hit shelves in April. Since its release the DS has not dipped below the PSP once in weekly sales.
After the Nintendogs spike, the DS sold ~30K/week and the PSP ~20K. Brain Training for Adults spiked DS sales when it was released and increased weekly DS sales afterward to ~35-40K. The sales spike you see in the past 2 weeks is due to the release of Jump Superstars.
The PSP has maintained its 20K/week level through all this.
We still have a few months left in the year so first year sales shouldn't be calculated yet. The GBA was also phenominally successful, and I think that the DS does not have to meet those numbers to be classified an unqualified success.
Those are a couple of good links, but the comments were made before and as the DS was introduced. I think between E3 2004 and November 21, 2004 Iwata and the brass at Nintendo became much more confident in their vision. Iwata has been talking about the stagnation of the industry for a while, but his vision had not had the oppertunity to show its merit in sales. I'm sure, after the luke warm reception of previous controversial visions like the Wind Waker, he was unsure of the DS's appeal.
"If we are unsuccessful with the Nintendo DS, we may not go bankrupt, but we will be crushed."
I've always felt like Nintendo thought the DS was an idea should succeed, but they were worried that the idea was to idealistic for the industry.
Nintendo may have stumbled upon a recipe for success with the DS, and it may not have worked without a combination of things. I'm sure the backwards compatibility, production capacity, innovative controls, ease of development, copious demo units, price, and games all have played a role. However, from about Oct 2004 onward, Nintendo has held their heads high and have become much more confident.
It's almost like Iwata said, "Fuck it. If we go down, we will do it our way." Then was suddenly vindicated. I wasn't talking about what Nintendo thought initally. Now it appears that they are looking to the DS as real staple.
Even Nintendo regards the DS as just a gimmicky, experimental product and pushes it as a separate architecture from their flagship Game Boy line.
I don't believe this is true. I can't remember a single piece of hardware that Nintendo has pushed harder. From launch to selling world-wide in under 4 months? That hasn't happened from the big N. (Well, I don't think it has hit China yet, but even that is comming soon)
Nintendo may consider the DS experimental, but they are not acting like they consider it "just" experimental. Nintendo are marketing it like it's the greatest thing they have ever made.
1) a) Having reached full natural growth or development: a mature cell.
b) Having reached a desired or final condition; ripe: a mature cheese.
Games haven't reached full growth yet. And Rockstar keeps making more sequels, so it is obviously not satisfied with the current condition. Buzzt! Not mature.
or definition 2:
2) Of, relating to, or characteristic of full development, either mental or physical: mature for her age.
Certainly GTA: SA has not reached full mental development. Hey! Let's shoot cops! Good idea!
Full physical development? The adult body has more than seven polygons in real life.
Bzzzt! Not mature.
And that brings your definition, number 3 on the list. This definition of mature was conveniently coined by the entertainment industry so they didn't have to say things like "Cop Killing" on the box. Also, rarely are the words "maturation" or "maturity" used to describe the ascendance of anything to the state of being "intended for adults."
Oddly enough, this definition can directly contridict the first two. Killing a policeman is mature in that it not for children to watch, but immature in that no mentally developed adult would do it.
Ever hear of context? It is how we know what definition we are using. The writer uses "maturation" in the subtitle of the article in a very definition 2 way. But alas, he is a two bit hack and describes definition 3 examples with it.
Are you serious? Band Brothers needs tons of localization. They would need to aquire and arrange (in their MIDI-esque instruments) an entirely new roster of songs. Unknown J-Pop and Anime music is really cool to someone like me, but wouldn't move american copies.
Electroplankton is a different story. It didn't sell that well. They keep showing it at press conferences, but I have a sinking feeling that they won't spend the money to launch it here.
There was a reason backpacks were invented. Though I seriously doubt that you could carry your wallet, keys, cell phone, PSP, PSP charger, and PSP games and movies in a typical pair of pants.
Slashdot Mirror
There was a time when simply going to space, sending a probe, and asking "What's out there?" was valid. That time is over for the most part. We have already had our proof of concept missions to Earth orbit and the Moon. Probes to Mars have revealed nothing worth risking the billions upon billions the most basic mission would cost before we have enough experience, technology, and infrastructure in space to reasonably assure that the people we send will get there alive. And mind you, I don't really care about the lives of the Mars astronauts. I'm sure there are literally thousands who read this site who would wait in line to sign up for a Mars mission even if they knew it was a suicide mission. The problem is that if they do die, every penny we spend is flushed down the toilet.
For the places we have already been, it is time to realize some of the possibilities we can see. More will open up as we do so. For Mars, we need to sit back and ask ourselves, "Is it responsible or even useful to send a mission there without laying the groundwork here?"
The one thing that the Space Station has demonstrated is that building infrastructure without a serious plan of what you want to do with it is a waste of money.
This is what I was talking about... a plan. A station to put very large satellites together would be a good start. Start with something useful but basic, learn the ropes, and start expanding on the idea.
Mining the moon for anything other than helium-3 is also a complete waste of time; there's nothing there that's not available in abundant quantities back on Earth, or, if you want to go sci-fi on us, from the asteroid belt (where you don't have to lift it out of a gravity well).
Mining is only a suggestion. We need a purpose to be there. I'm tired of astronauts playing with fucking yo-yos. The moon has 1/6th the gravitational force of Earth at the surface, it has no atmosphere, and a bit of extra angular momentum. There has to be something useful we can do with it.
Oh, and as far as Mars goes, what are these compelling threats that are so insurmountable that warp drive is required to get them there and back safely? The chronic radiation dose isn't *that* scary (have you seen the latest report on Chernobyl?), and a fast ship will require just as much shielding from solar storms as a slow one.
I'm not talking "warp drive." We need to be able to reach there in weeks not months or years. Equipment failures, micro meteors, or simple mistakes will likely doom the flight well before it reaches Mars. Not only that, but without an orbital platform to construct the ship, we will have to rely on the whole thing being launched in one piece with no chance to inspect it before it leaves and no chance to do repairs. It took us three days to get to the Moon and we nearly lost a crew. With current technology it would take us one to three years to get to Mars. The longer it takes, the easier a seemingly insignificant problem can complicate.
Screw Tetris Attack... I want The New Tetris... ONLINE!
NASA as it stands is a detriment to the country. The ISS is nothing but a pointless money pit, the Shuttle has become little more than a glorified satellite launch vehicle, and the entire agency suffers from a serious, debilitating lack of vision.
I want to be the first to say that the Mars mission talk must stop. We are not ready for a manned Mars mission and most of the unmanned missions have only been very expensive sandbox toys.
NASA needs to start working toward sustaining space travel and giving it a purpose. We need space station around Earth that can serve as orbital manufacturing and construction facility as well as a terminal for people to stay and move onward to a moon station, a space station around the moon that will shuttle people to a moon base, launch interplanetary ships, and transfer materials to and from the moon, and a moon base that we can mine from, build telescopes (SCIENCE!), and other things.
We can do all this while waiting for propulsion to catch up and give astronauts a reasonable chance to survive the trip to Mars.
If NASA is unwilling to do this, someone will have to pick up the slack.
(don't get me started on Metroid Prime: Hunters, what an abomination)
It's a freaking demo. It is not finished. I'm sure you got a better game bundled with your PSP.
Please tell me you arent suggesting that a teacher could improve their classroom budget by complaining to their students..
You miss the point. The original post did not talk about complaining in the classroom. It said nothing about bringing these complaints to the students.
The reply was broadly implying that the post on slashdot and possibly (we don't know how he or she actually teaches) the teacher's lack of enthusiasm in the classroom was communicating this message to the students. I'm sorry, but that is crap.
I agree. The Wind Waker made good on the lie that was arcade Dragon's Lair. The in-game footage was better than most games' cutscenes. I would love to see an animated series made solely on that engine. It was one of the first games that I could actually forget a computer was rendering it
Then it wouldn't realy be a Kart game, would it?
I think what the parent is saying is that he or she has the responsibility to teach the children, but no responsibility in how to teach the children. This teacher may have great ideas that may save the district money or teach the children better, but has no financial freedom to make any changes.
Even so, you shouldn't be communicating to your students that you're "unenthused" because you have a tiny budget.
Now this sentence is just a load of crap. If people don't speak up, how do things change? Reminds me a lot of things Bush says about those that criticize the war. Hurting the troops with your dissention and what not.
Except that DVD movies existed well before the PS2. People were buying DVD players already, and there was a demand for them. The PS3 including the Blu-Ray drive is a much bigger gamble.
1)People don't have the time or money to take every crime committed against them to court.
2)The store will just brand you a "Demon Customer" and refuse to accept your returns anyway.
Here is how it went in Japan. Nintendo and Sony both sold about all the units they released in 2004 (DS: 1.5 mil, PSP: 0.5 mil). In January, the DS was ahead for the first couple weeks, then Sony pulled ahead on the weekly numbers. All the early adopters were able to get thier hands on a DS, but the PSP had suffered from low production, so it wasn't a surprise that the DS sales dipped more quickly.
By Feb, the weekly sales settled into a routiene. The PSP would sell ~30-40K and the the DS would sell ~15-25K depending on releases.
Catch! Touch! Yoshi!, Touch! Kirby, and Another Code were released in this time for the DS without significantly increasing sales.
Then Nintendogs hit shelves in April. Since its release the DS has not dipped below the PSP once in weekly sales.
After the Nintendogs spike, the DS sold ~30K/week and the PSP ~20K. Brain Training for Adults spiked DS sales when it was released and increased weekly DS sales afterward to ~35-40K. The sales spike you see in the past 2 weeks is due to the release of Jump Superstars.
The PSP has maintained its 20K/week level through all this.
The one million mark was passed in June. There have been a couple of months since then.
More like the PSX.
Personally, I can't stand grammar nazi's myself, but come on.
Wait. Do you belong to the grammar Nazi? Oh! That was meant to be a plural! How adorable! Little Billy thinks he knows about grammar.
Well Billy, you should learn to write with flawless grammar before you point out the mistakes of others.
"but in order for the system to hold up at all against the technologically superior Xbox 360 (not to mention the original Xbox and PlayStation 2)"
Technologically superior XBOX and PS2?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
HA HA Ow! Ha ha
Oh my god. I haven't had a laugh that good in a while. Thanks internet idiot!
We still have a few months left in the year so first year sales shouldn't be calculated yet. The GBA was also phenominally successful, and I think that the DS does not have to meet those numbers to be classified an unqualified success.
Those are a couple of good links, but the comments were made before and as the DS was introduced. I think between E3 2004 and November 21, 2004 Iwata and the brass at Nintendo became much more confident in their vision. Iwata has been talking about the stagnation of the industry for a while, but his vision had not had the oppertunity to show its merit in sales. I'm sure, after the luke warm reception of previous controversial visions like the Wind Waker, he was unsure of the DS's appeal.
I think Nintendo's former president, Hiroshi Yamauchi, shed a lot of light on this subject with this comment:
"If we are unsuccessful with the Nintendo DS, we may not go bankrupt, but we will be crushed."
I've always felt like Nintendo thought the DS was an idea should succeed, but they were worried that the idea was to idealistic for the industry.
Nintendo may have stumbled upon a recipe for success with the DS, and it may not have worked without a combination of things. I'm sure the backwards compatibility, production capacity, innovative controls, ease of development, copious demo units, price, and games all have played a role. However, from about Oct 2004 onward, Nintendo has held their heads high and have become much more confident.
It's almost like Iwata said, "Fuck it. If we go down, we will do it our way." Then was suddenly vindicated. I wasn't talking about what Nintendo thought initally. Now it appears that they are looking to the DS as real staple.
Even Nintendo regards the DS as just a gimmicky, experimental product and pushes it as a separate architecture from their flagship Game Boy line.
I don't believe this is true. I can't remember a single piece of hardware that Nintendo has pushed harder. From launch to selling world-wide in under 4 months? That hasn't happened from the big N. (Well, I don't think it has hit China yet, but even that is comming soon)
Nintendo may consider the DS experimental, but they are not acting like they consider it "just" experimental. Nintendo are marketing it like it's the greatest thing they have ever made.
All we DS owners can hope for is a port of "Smart Bomb" or "Coded Arms."
No. You see, the adjective describes the word it is modifying.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of full development of the noun the adjective is modifying, either mental or physical.
The word is not qualifying the "intended audience" only the video game.
How about definition 1, assclown:
1) a) Having reached full natural growth or development: a mature cell.
b) Having reached a desired or final condition; ripe: a mature cheese.
Games haven't reached full growth yet. And Rockstar keeps making more sequels, so it is obviously not satisfied with the current condition. Buzzt! Not mature.
or definition 2:
2) Of, relating to, or characteristic of full development, either mental or physical: mature for her age.
Certainly GTA: SA has not reached full mental development. Hey! Let's shoot cops! Good idea!
Full physical development? The adult body has more than seven polygons in real life.
Bzzzt! Not mature.
And that brings your definition, number 3 on the list. This definition of mature was conveniently coined by the entertainment industry so they didn't have to say things like "Cop Killing" on the box. Also, rarely are the words "maturation" or "maturity" used to describe the ascendance of anything to the state of being "intended for adults."
Oddly enough, this definition can directly contridict the first two. Killing a policeman is mature in that it not for children to watch, but immature in that no mentally developed adult would do it.
Ever hear of context? It is how we know what definition we are using. The writer uses "maturation" in the subtitle of the article in a very definition 2 way. But alas, he is a two bit hack and describes definition 3 examples with it.
Actually, it is supposed to drop on the 21st, the day before Nintendogs and Advance Wars DS.
Are you serious? Band Brothers needs tons of localization. They would need to aquire and arrange (in their MIDI-esque instruments) an entirely new roster of songs. Unknown J-Pop and Anime music is really cool to someone like me, but wouldn't move american copies.
Electroplankton is a different story. It didn't sell that well. They keep showing it at press conferences, but I have a sinking feeling that they won't spend the money to launch it here.
Three words: Cost/Benefit Analysis.
There was a reason backpacks were invented. Though I seriously doubt that you could carry your wallet, keys, cell phone, PSP, PSP charger, and PSP games and movies in a typical pair of pants.
As a hardened video game re-seller, I suggest half.com. EB will give you half of what they will sell it for if you're lucky.