My wife plays Animal Crossing quite a bit. Course, it's like the Sims meets Playmobil, but still:) She even has an eReader, a bunch of cards, etc for it.
The wife also plays RPG's sometimes (though as someone that reads a lot of classic literature, the juvenile plots and terrible writing drives her nuts sometimes) and she loves PopCap games too. She enjoys Bust a Move as well.
She doesn't like playing the "M" rated games, but she enjoys watching me play them (NGC Resident Evil, Vice City, etc) and yell encouragement like, "Honey, grab the katana and gut those fuckers!"
At least in The Two Towers they winked at those of us that were tempted to yell at the screens when Frodo and Sam were taken into Gondor and Sam says, "I know, by right we shouldn't even be here."
(IIRC, that's what IMDB says anyhow - i hope this is the right context)
Remember that a lot of animation is done with motion capture these days... such as Gollum in LOTR - and most people agree that Gollum is one of the best pieces of animation around!
You described the typical admin job, where people don't die because the admin is overworked.
Working at a nuke plant isn't really typical - or at least I hope it isn't treated as typical... so I venture to say that the admin's in this case weren't overworked and understaffed.
Ironically, I think the reason it's hard to get those tapes is due to "privacy concerns" - I totally agree with you that it should be totally transparent.
There are two thoughts here - should they be freely available for free (and thus paid for by taxes) or should the cost be put to the requestor? Either way though, I feel it should be easy enough for private citizens to get access to these tapes.
Speaking as an athiest as well, when someone decides to proselytize to me I usually just do it back. It's really fun when you tell them that they are 99% of the way to being a total athiest, just like me, and they get all shocked. Then I tell them,
"When you understand why you deny the existance of all gods but the one you worship, then you will understand why I deny yours as well."
The logical extension is cameras in homes. Get robbed? No problem, the police have all your video on file, and can just pull up the footage to see who broke into your home.
No, that's the illogical suggestion. A slippery slope fallacy, if you will. X does not follow Y.
Or maybe there are pesky political demonstrators marching down the street, interrupting traffic. With the cameras in place, it will be easy to convict them for something to shut them up for a while.
Protesters use their own camera's. It helps prevent police brutality. If a protestor takes part in an illegal protest they are well aware that they can get arrested - often times, that is the whole point. Police already use video provided by the media in cases such as these as well. Should we ban the free press because it's infringing on your (misguided) expectations of privacy in public?
It's not as much what their doing now, it's that the same arguments for what they are doing now can be used to justify real loss of freedom.
CCTVs in public are no different than having a cop on every corner as long as people are aware that the camera's are there. In fact, in a few ways, they are better than a cop. A camera can't be racist or sexist. A camera can't plant drugs on someone or entice them to commit a crime.
It's also much better to secure a conviction based on an image rather than someone's description as well. It has been proven numerous times that people are downright useless when it comes to recalling a person's face.
Basically, what I am saying is CCTV can put more criminals in jail and keep more innocent people out of jail if it is properly used.
If you are going to have a Vietnam game, then, you have to remove the massacres of civilians. Doing that risks whitewashing history. It is this whitewashing that is the question.
Are there any WW2 games that let you take part in the Rape of Nanking?
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with Vietnam games, but have we really treated WW2 games all that differently?
Multi-language? Five main languages isn't that hard, really. You'd need five translators on the payroll. The appliances company I worked for simply used their marketing departments overseas to do the translation of their web sites and sent the translations back to the UK for input. I don't see how hard/expensive Nintendo thinks translation must be.
I think Nintendo knows a little better than you seeing as they have been doing it for almost two decades. Localization of video game software is a few orders of magnitude harder than translating a website. Localization can take up to two years for a single game and often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Multiply by 5 or 6 different languages and you see your margin disappear.
The localization for Animal Crossing would be particularly hard because Animal Crossing is very much a culture driven game. For example, it is full of US holidays (much to the annoyance of my fiance since we are Canadian) that would have to be changed.
If there really is a big dollar to be made in Europe and Nintendo isn't jumping on it, someone else will. Course, from what I have seen, nobody else is so maybe everyone in the industry has done their homework and decided Europe ain't worth it.
Yeah, I forgot to mention (or brag, whatever:) - I was working before I even went to college as a computer technician + computer instructor + programmer + network admin, mostly as an independant contractor since I couldn't find steady work.
In the end I decided to get my piece o' paper and move to an area with more jobs and now I'm a company man.:)
My fiance has had trouble getting "shitty" jobs with her degree. They tend to prefer people that are going to be around for awhile, though turnover is quite high in those types of jobs anyway.
and I'm making well above the average salary for a programmer/analyst in Canada for the age 21-29 range (i'm 23). I started at a standard salary but worked hard (and smart) and proved that I deserved to be making as much as the more experienced guys. It looks like I will have a senior on my title within 2 years at this rate. All this with surfing slashdot on a regular basis as well.
(;)
I would say that what really matters is how well you perform on the job. A phd may affect your ability to get your foot in the door (whether because a phd would command more respect or, in contrast, reek of "academia") and may affect your starting wages, but that's all moot after your first review.
About the only thing I can say is you may be making a bit less than someone with only a masters because you don't exactly get to use a lot of the theory you picked up. And you may have a catch-22 with the whole "over-qualified" for entry level (because of the PHD) but under-qualified for senior positions (due to lack of practical experience). And in the end, you may be bored a lot of the time with easy work - I know I am.
I have a co-worker with a phd (but not in comp eng) and he's pretty much treated the same as all the others around here. He's not an exceptional programmer, but he never complains about his salary (unlike, say, the guys in PC support:).
Of course, this is Ask Slashdot, so you're only going to get a bunch of anecdotes anyways =) YMMV
Of course!! That's why I keep getting raises while I spend time on Slashdot. I guess I should spend more time here and I should be making seven figures in a year or two!
Sorry, but this is the kind of thing that only years of experience can help with. If you didn't look at it and already know how to approach the problem, you probably shouldn't be messing around in there, unless you have all the time in the world to experiment and learn your way through the mess.
First I was surprised that IANAL advice hasn't landed some "Ask Slashdotter" in prison. Now we're aiming for our first fatality?
Slashdot Mirror
Why not show a naked guy?
:)
Mostly true, but haven't you seen those Herbal Essences shampoo commercials?
I seem to see more and more ads aimed at women featuring hot guys as time goes on... (that's an observation, not a fact though
I dunno about that, but I do feel kinda embarrassed and yet titillated playing with my laptop nipple...
[kidding]
That's cuz dwarven females have beards too and us humans can't tell the difference... Geeks are mostly human, or so I am told...
[/kidding]
Hell, a lot of us are even married... but that's nothing. There are, get this, FEMALE slashdotters!
I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but trust me, it's absolutely true.
My wife plays Animal Crossing quite a bit. Course, it's like the Sims meets Playmobil, but still :) She even has an eReader, a bunch of cards, etc for it.
The wife also plays RPG's sometimes (though as someone that reads a lot of classic literature, the juvenile plots and terrible writing drives her nuts sometimes) and she loves PopCap games too. She enjoys Bust a Move as well.
She doesn't like playing the "M" rated games, but she enjoys watching me play them (NGC Resident Evil, Vice City, etc) and yell encouragement like,
"Honey, grab the katana and gut those fuckers!"
She's a great woman =)
At least in The Two Towers they winked at those of us that were tempted to yell at the screens when Frodo and Sam were taken into Gondor and Sam says,
"I know, by right we shouldn't even be here."
(IIRC, that's what IMDB says anyhow - i hope this is the right context)
Remember that a lot of animation is done with motion capture these days... such as Gollum in LOTR - and most people agree that Gollum is one of the best pieces of animation around!
>> So, this means it will be able to see through those bikinis, eh?
>First you'd have to spot one among the heavens. Aren't you being a tad optimistic?
Haven't you seen Star Trek? I know how this is supposed to work!
Wait, you mean Star Trek: TOS lied to me?
Blasphemer!
Mario Kart is (and always was) the ultimate party (video) game. Whether you're sober, drunk, or stoned, it's a blast to play with your friends!!
:D
Too bad I suck at it #:\
Looking forward to this one though, despite my lack of kartin' skillz
I saw FFX last week at EB here in Calgary, AB, Canada as a greatest hits title.
:)
Makes me wish I didn't pay $60 CAD for it back in January
You described the typical admin job, where people don't die because the admin is overworked.
Working at a nuke plant isn't really typical - or at least I hope it isn't treated as typical... so I venture to say that the admin's in this case weren't overworked and understaffed.
I sure hope I'm right about that...
Ironically, I think the reason it's hard to get those tapes is due to "privacy concerns" - I totally agree with you that it should be totally transparent.
There are two thoughts here - should they be freely available for free (and thus paid for by taxes) or should the cost be put to the requestor? Either way though, I feel it should be easy enough for private citizens to get access to these tapes.
Speaking as an athiest as well, when someone decides to proselytize to me I usually just do it back. It's really fun when you tell them that they are 99% of the way to being a total athiest, just like me, and they get all shocked. Then I tell them,
"When you understand why you deny the existance of all gods but the one you worship, then you will understand why I deny yours as well."
(Para-phrased quote by Stephen F. Roberts)
I try not to be smug when I say it... =]
The logical extension is cameras in homes. Get robbed? No problem, the police have all your video on file, and can just pull up the footage to see who broke into your home.
No, that's the illogical suggestion. A slippery slope fallacy, if you will. X does not follow Y.
Or maybe there are pesky political demonstrators marching down the street, interrupting traffic. With the cameras in place, it will be easy to convict them for something to shut them up for a while.
Protesters use their own camera's. It helps prevent police brutality. If a protestor takes part in an illegal protest they are well aware that they can get arrested - often times, that is the whole point. Police already use video provided by the media in cases such as these as well. Should we ban the free press because it's infringing on your (misguided) expectations of privacy in public?
It's not as much what their doing now, it's that the same arguments for what they are doing now can be used to justify real loss of freedom.
CCTVs in public are no different than having a cop on every corner as long as people are aware that the camera's are there. In fact, in a few ways, they are better than a cop. A camera can't be racist or sexist. A camera can't plant drugs on someone or entice them to commit a crime.
It's also much better to secure a conviction based on an image rather than someone's description as well. It has been proven numerous times that people are downright useless when it comes to recalling a person's face.
Basically, what I am saying is CCTV can put more criminals in jail and keep more innocent people out of jail if it is properly used.
If you are going to have a Vietnam game, then, you have to remove the massacres of civilians. Doing that risks whitewashing history. It is this whitewashing that is the question.
Are there any WW2 games that let you take part in the Rape of Nanking?
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with Vietnam games, but have we really treated WW2 games all that differently?
That's a good way to snarl your dangly bits. Only peoples wearing skirts (women, Scots) can get away with that.
Actually, a lot of homeless people use computers at the library.
Multi-language?
Five main languages isn't that hard, really. You'd need five translators on the payroll. The appliances company I worked for simply used their marketing departments overseas to do the translation of their web sites and sent the translations back to the UK for input. I don't see how hard/expensive Nintendo thinks translation must be.
I think Nintendo knows a little better than you seeing as they have been doing it for almost two decades. Localization of video game software is a few orders of magnitude harder than translating a website. Localization can take up to two years for a single game and often costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Multiply by 5 or 6 different languages and you see your margin disappear.
The localization for Animal Crossing would be particularly hard because Animal Crossing is very much a culture driven game. For example, it is full of US holidays (much to the annoyance of my fiance since we are Canadian) that would have to be changed.
If there really is a big dollar to be made in Europe and Nintendo isn't jumping on it, someone else will. Course, from what I have seen, nobody else is so maybe everyone in the industry has done their homework and decided Europe ain't worth it.
Yeah, I forgot to mention (or brag, whatever :) - I was working before I even went to college as a computer technician + computer instructor + programmer + network admin, mostly as an independant contractor since I couldn't find steady work.
:)
In the end I decided to get my piece o' paper and move to an area with more jobs and now I'm a company man.
I know it's a joke, but you'd be surprised.
My fiance has had trouble getting "shitty" jobs with her degree. They tend to prefer people that are going to be around for awhile, though turnover is quite high in those types of jobs anyway.
( ;)
;)
:)
should be
(</bragging>
but I think I've revealed i'm as stupid as anyone else that posts here, so my point is made either way
and I'm making well above the average salary for a programmer/analyst in Canada for the age 21-29 range (i'm 23). I started at a standard salary but worked hard (and smart) and proved that I deserved to be making as much as the more experienced guys. It looks like I will have a senior on my title within 2 years at this rate. All this with surfing slashdot on a regular basis as well.
;)
:).
(
I would say that what really matters is how well you perform on the job. A phd may affect your ability to get your foot in the door (whether because a phd would command more respect or, in contrast, reek of "academia") and may affect your starting wages, but that's all moot after your first review.
About the only thing I can say is you may be making a bit less than someone with only a masters because you don't exactly get to use a lot of the theory you picked up. And you may have a catch-22 with the whole "over-qualified" for entry level (because of the PHD) but under-qualified for senior positions (due to lack of practical experience). And in the end, you may be bored a lot of the time with easy work - I know I am.
I have a co-worker with a phd (but not in comp eng) and he's pretty much treated the same as all the others around here. He's not an exceptional programmer, but he never complains about his salary (unlike, say, the guys in PC support
Of course, this is Ask Slashdot, so you're only going to get a bunch of anecdotes anyways =) YMMV
Of course!! That's why I keep getting raises while I spend time on Slashdot. I guess I should spend more time here and I should be making seven figures in a year or two!
Thanks dude, you've changed my life!
... then you shouldn't be doing it.
Sorry, but this is the kind of thing that only years of experience can help with. If you didn't look at it and already know how to approach the problem, you probably shouldn't be messing around in there, unless you have all the time in the world to experiment and learn your way through the mess.
First I was surprised that IANAL advice hasn't landed some "Ask Slashdotter" in prison. Now we're aiming for our first fatality?
Oops, it was Hemos. Sorry, when I see spelling and grammar comments, I kinda make assumptions about the editors identity...