For those of you who are non-hokies, the Math Emporium is a slightly off-campus location that people go to to take their math tests/quizzes (among other things, too, but that's why I have to go there.) It's in, of all places, a mall (a very small one, at that.) I just went there the first time a few hours ago, and my first thought upon entering there was "Wow. I didn't know Apple PRODUCED that many of those iMacs..."
Imagine, if you will, a room about the size that a mall deparment store might be if they took out all the walls separating the individual departments. And in there, there are HUNDREDS of iMacs (the 700 mHz ones with the LCD screens- I checked the clockspeed myself on the one I used.) And along (at least) one wall, there were god-only-knows how many more G4 towers and monitors. It was an Apple geek's nerdvana.
At first, I figured it was just because the math department liked Macs better. But now that I think about it, all that people did on these computers was take tests and quizzes through a web browser. You really don't need that much power to do that, and the iMacs were the cheapest, easiest-to-set-up (remember, there were HUNDREDS of these fuckers in there) option they had.
Ultra64...Yeah!!!... nope
N64... great!! Cartridges are good..they give no load times!!!....
Actually, the Ultra 64 was the name that they were originally going to give the N64 in America, but they later on decided to just give the system the same name on both sides of the Pacific.
Zero Wing may have had one of the worst translations ever, but FF4's translation to FF2 was also pretty bad (especially with all the censorship- but we already talked about that stuff a few days ago) but the game itself was still great. Zero Wing was actually a pretty mediocre game; it was you basic side-view shooter along the lines of Gradius and R-Type, with the added gimmick of being able to grab some enemy ships with a tractor beam and either shoot them back at another enemy or use it as a shield. It kept my attention about as long as any other game of its kind.
So, to conclude, bad translation != bad game. It can make a crappy story, though- imagine if Metal Gear Solid was written in Zero Wing-ese.
Another censorship: It's Metal Gear tradition that Snake always has his cigarettes with him at the beginning of each mission. They didn't censor this for the NES games, but in this post-tobacco lawsuit world, the Game Boy Color version of Metal Gear Solid (actually Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, but that's another story,) which I just played a few hours ago, has apparently renamed Snake's cigarettes to the "Fogger," mostly keeping it because it's useful for detecting infrared censors. I'm sure any idiot could figure it out, though, since the "fog" comes from Snake's mouth.
I just graduated from high school a few months ago. A lot of the teachers who I have learned the most from would have been fired, or at least gotten into a lot of trouble by now, if they were under 24/7 surveilance from our Nazi administrators. A couple of them were fired anyway.
Play Paper Mario sometime. Hell, look at some SCREENSHOTS of Paper Mario sometime. Mario ain't the only one at Nintendo who's doing drugs. Three words: Penguin Murder Mystery.
(To potential flamers: Paper Mario is still a GREAT GAME. It's just an incredibly bizarre one, that's all.)
Oh, it continued after MK1. Perhaps they stopped censoring blood and guts, but in the US version of Final Fantasy 6(Called Final Fantasy 3 here in the US) they turned every single pub into a "cafe." They changed the name of the magic spell "Holy" to "Pearl" (not much of an improvement over the name it had in FF4/2, "White.") Some monster designs that contained partial nudity were covered up. They also got rid of Cyan's porno magazine. Chrono Trigger did the same pub-cafe conversion, plus they changed Toma's sake to soda pop. Both of these games came AFTER Mortal Kombat.
They did some more censoring in the N64 era as well. The original Zelda 64 US cartriges were unaltered (I think,) but later 'prints' of the game changed the music in the Fire Temple because it was a Muslim chant (or at least it sounded like one,) changed the design on the Mirror Shield because that was a muslim symbol, and in one scene where Ganan coughs up blood, they changed the color of the blood from red to green. Yes, they changed the color of the blood, the EXACT same thing that they did to censor Mortal Kombat.
So, in conclusion, Nintendo DOES still censor their games. They leave violence alone (for the most part,) but cursing, religion, sex, and booze were still big no-nos for a long time after the ratings were introduced. Perhaps they still are; it's been a while since I've played a game on a Nintendo system. The MK1 debacle, along with getting their asses kicked around by Sony has made them shape up a lot, but old habits die hard.
It'll be hard to play monopoly if you're short whatever mix of bills you put together for that much. I'd just go to the dollar store or something and get some play money.
Personally, I'm going to follow the example of another poster and also throw in a picture of my middle finger.
As I mentioned in a post above, the big thing with Eva is that it has an incredibly rabid fanbase, (of which I am a member.) So if they screw this up, ADV will be burned at the stake.
I dunno about NC-17. Most of the blood and guts is giant monster blood and guts, so it may not count. I don't see why the religious stuff would get it NC-17. We just won't have Rei walking around naked like she did in the ENTIRE MOVIE, which wouldn't detract from the plot at all. Putting clothing on Giant Naked Rei would be another matter entirely; however.
All right, before I go on to anything, let me just say that I watch Evangelion wayyyyyyyyyyyy too much.
Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, on to an explanation of the series (I'll try not to have too many spoilers.) For the first half of the series(up until around episodes 14-16,) Evangelion is your average Japanese anime about teenagers piloting giant robots and figthing giant monsters to save the world that attempts to be somewhat more deep and intelligent than your average giant robot anime and succeeds somewhat. In the second half, Evangelion is a giant robot anime which is incredibly successfull at being more deep and intelligent than your average giant robot anime.
The protagonist is Shinji, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, who most people agree is a bit of a wuss. Personality-wise, he kinda reminds me of Charlie Brown. He believes that he is worthless as a human being unless he pilots Evangelion; that piloting Evangelion justifies his existence, which is the sole reason why he pilots it.
Then there's Asuka, the pilot of Unit-02. Personality-wise, Asuka seems to be the exact opposite of Shinji: she's loud, proud, and kinda bitchy (okay, she's very bitchy.) She's actually very much like Shinji in that she's entierly dependent upon the Eva to justify her existence, to the point where she tries to kill herself when she can no longer pilot it.
That's just two of the main characters; I don't want to ramble on for too long. The thing is, Evangelion is much more about the characters than the giant robot battles, especially in the second half, which is when they stop having angels(the giant monsters the Evangelions fight) every episode just because they feel obligated to. There are still battles against angles about every other episode, but they serve to advance the overall story along as opposed to just being there to have a cool fight scene. The second half of the series is when the characters' lives go from being on the verge of some sort of happiness to pure hell.
And then there's the ending. Here's the story with that: Hideaki Anno's(the writer and director) script for episode 25 got rejected for being too violent (or some say they just didn't have enough money; perhaps it was both,) so he decided to make 25 more of what he planned on 26 being- more about the internal conflicts than the external ones. 25 was a look inside the minds of all of the main characters; 26 was mostly about Shinji. The fans hated it, so they decided to make a movie out of their original script. They apparently got enough money to make two movies: Death and Rebirth; which was a 60-minute recap of the series (which was more of a refresher for those who had seen the series a long time ago and forgot some stuff than a summary for those who had never seen the series) followed by the first 30 minutes of the second movie, and The End of Evangelion, which consists of episode 25' and 26'.
Some people think of the movie as the 'true' ending, whereas some actually like the TV ending better. I think that the two endings are compatible, that the TV episodes can be seen as deleted scenes from the movie: they can feasibly fit into the movie, but not without screwing up the pacing of the whole thing. The ending of the series as a whole is very much open to interpretation.
As for the live action movie, I'm hopeful. Yes, US live-action adaptions of Japanese shows have tended to suck; but none of the shows attempted thus far has nearly as rabid a fanbase as Evangelion. If ADV screws this up, then they will be burned at the stake; however, if ADV uses this fanbase to their advantage and hire some of them to make sure that nobody screws it up, this movie could be truly great. It will be a challenge to keep it true to the original and still have it make sense to your average American, but I think it can be done.
And as soon as I post this, I'm going to e-mail ADV and ask them when/where they're casting. I want to play Hyuga.
Pen & paper RPG's have several advantages over online, in that the players interact face to face, there is more room for creative input, more options for character development, and ultimately costs less. It still won't get you laid, though:)
Depends on whether or not any of the people you're playing with are female. Then the probability is roughly equal to that of any other real-life social interaction. It is greater than the probability of getting laid via EQ. Unless you count cybersex.
We could give two shits about anyone else dying, our bombings kill innocent people all the time, with no remorse on our part, hell, we're so happy to kill anyone in our bombings we don't care who we hit. We're at war with a country because of a band of terrorists, sick isn't it. We want to kill one man, but our bloodlust is so HUGE we can't stop there, we need to continue to kill, to exact our vengence, we won't be satisfied until we kill a number of people ten fold of our own, regardless of they're just as innocent as the business people in the WTC.
Do not BEGIN to compare the US to the people we are fighting now. Yes, innocent people die in our bombings. But when that happens, it is an accident. Unlike the terrorists, we are not intentionally targeting innocent civilians. The reason why we are at war with an entire country is (officially) because they are(or were, anyway) harboring these terrorists. Of course, even if they weren't, I think that the Taliban should have gotten their asses kicked anyways, just because of the oppresive fundamentalist regime that was causing the deaths of many innocent women (I'm sure you remember the chain letters that circulated around a while before 9/11 about that situation). In my opinion, any regime that oppresses and kills its people should be destroyed, and replaced with a just government. This includes a lot of fundamentalist countries in the middle east (Pakistan, Iraq, etc.) and pretty much all the communist countries (China, Cuba, etc.) And the US is in the best position to do this.
Erm... As far as that first one goes, you might wanna click here.
And not to be rude, but if you seem to hate/. so much, why do you even bother going here, let alone posting here? Do you just get a kick out of bitching about stuff like this?
I do predict however that the revenues on Part Two will be lower. This because of the perceived downturn in the economy and parents therefore less willing to shell out large amounts of money around december.
No, you're wrong. It'll be because EVERYONE will just download it off the internet because EVERYONE with a computer is a CRIMINAL- ah, you know the rest.
But seriously, you've got a point there. Until the average geek gets A LOT more bandwidth and HD space, people won't be able to enjoy movies in anything more than in grainy 300someX200some resolution, so they'll always get better quality on DVD and in the theatres. All the MPAA has to do is make sure that the quality of their movies grows with computer technology. But of course, that requires EFFORT, doesn't it? It's so much easier to just buy a few congressmen...
You think the PARENTS are going to complain, just think of the big businesses complaining when these things effortlessly hack into their networks and open all their doors and stuff. Or, worse yet, close and lock all the doors and HOLD THEM ALL HOSTAGE! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Maybe it's wrong to discriminate against a people just because they occasionally blow up a plane, but I'm going to try to talk you into it. Say, for example, you're an Arab at the airport. First of all, welcome to one of my country's beautiful airports, suspicious traveller from afar. You'll notice that security searches everyone in the airport including you. That means you have to wait in line for three to four hours while they go through the luggage of all the old ladies ahead of you for no good reason other than try to not hurt you and and your people's feelings. Now imagine how nice it would be if they ignored everyone else and went straight for your luggage. You just saved four hours of standing in line, and all you have to do to get on the plane is not carry a bomb. I want to make it clear that no one is accusing you of being a highjacking murderer, we're only accusing you of being of the only race that has a CHANCE of being a highjacking murderer. Searching white people and hoping to find a terrorist is like searching white people and hoping to find a talking birthmark that can predict the future. It's certainly possible, but mostly you're just wasting everyone's time, you god damn idiot.
the US is always at war with somebody since they can't mind their own business and feel any problem in the world is theirs to solve.
What, do you think that the US should just mind its own damn business and let innocent people in other countries die and suffer? Tyrannical regimes (Communist countries like Cuba/China, extreme-fundamentalist countries like Pakistan and (formerly)Afghanistan) have to be delt with by SOMEONE, and the US, being the most powerful country in the world, is in the best position to do so. It's not being nosy, it's being altruistic.
Think about that for a second. That would mean that you would essentially haveto outlaw any and all physical objects, including people. Think about it- you can use ANY solid object to beat a person to death with. From a hammer to a dog treat, anything can do serious damage if you use enough force with it. Of course, things like cloth and paper would be hard to beat someone to death with, but you could smother or choke someone with those. You can drown someone with liquid, and gas... well, you can freeze gas and then it's a solid, which means you can beat someone to death with it. Plasma... well, I'm not enough of a chemistry/physics person to know what you can do with that.
So, in conclusion, if anything that could be used for an illegal purpose was illegal, then EVERYONE would be a criminal. We may as well build a gigantic cage around the whole damn planet.
Or just get rid of the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, and anyone else who wants to legislate such stupid things. Like the people who bitch about video game violence.
It doesn't really have anything to do with the content of the site, so much the fact that the RIAA is trying to get ISPs to block it. If they win, then all kinds of sites will be censored, such as warez sites and VillainSupply.com. Nevermind the fact that you can't really buy things there... warez sites have nothing but broken links.
And if someone gets away with banning porn... Jesus, they'd half to block half the fucking internet...
(Like the parent, this is quasi off-topic: it's about the license to hack article, not the Palladium one):
"The best defense is a good offense, and that's what counterattack is. Passive defense is making yourself harder to hit. Active defense is fighting back. Counterattack is turning the tables and attacking the attacker. It's by far the most effective means of defense, but it's also the most error prone.
In almost all of civilized society, counterattack is not legal. If you catch someone burglarizing your home, it's not legal for you to follow her home and shoot her. If you're being blackmailed by someone, turning around and blackmailing him back is just as illegal as the first crime. I can't think of any exceptions to this. Law enforcement is the sole purview of the police, an organization that has what I have previously described as "a state-sponsored monopoly on violence."
The exception to the above is warfare. In war, the rules about counterattack -- and preemptive attack -- are different. In war, attack and defense are so jumbled up that counterattack is the norm. In war, the difference between an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon is the direction it's pointing. But that's not what we're talking about here."
When you think about it, the MPAA and RIAA asking for the license to hack is, to an extent, a declaration of war on the consumers of America. They want to enslave us with DRM and the like, using the DMCA as their shield to prevent counterattack, and suck every penny out of us, just like any imperialist nation.
Slashdot Mirror
You could easily replace "Acclaim" with "Eidos" and this strip would still make perfect sense now.
Imagine, if you will, a room about the size that a mall deparment store might be if they took out all the walls separating the individual departments. And in there, there are HUNDREDS of iMacs (the 700 mHz ones with the LCD screens- I checked the clockspeed myself on the one I used.) And along (at least) one wall, there were god-only-knows how many more G4 towers and monitors. It was an Apple geek's nerdvana.
At first, I figured it was just because the math department liked Macs better. But now that I think about it, all that people did on these computers was take tests and quizzes through a web browser. You really don't need that much power to do that, and the iMacs were the cheapest, easiest-to-set-up (remember, there were HUNDREDS of these fuckers in there) option they had.
Actually, they have their own club, and I'm pretty sure you need more than six people to form your own club.
In my case, because Virginia Tech's CS department requires us to have XP Pro. The people who don't trust MS use Windows because they have to.
Actually, the Ultra 64 was the name that they were originally going to give the N64 in America, but they later on decided to just give the system the same name on both sides of the Pacific.
So, to conclude, bad translation != bad game. It can make a crappy story, though- imagine if Metal Gear Solid was written in Zero Wing-ese.
Another censorship: It's Metal Gear tradition that Snake always has his cigarettes with him at the beginning of each mission. They didn't censor this for the NES games, but in this post-tobacco lawsuit world, the Game Boy Color version of Metal Gear Solid (actually Metal Gear: Ghost Babel, but that's another story,) which I just played a few hours ago, has apparently renamed Snake's cigarettes to the "Fogger," mostly keeping it because it's useful for detecting infrared censors. I'm sure any idiot could figure it out, though, since the "fog" comes from Snake's mouth.
I just graduated from high school a few months ago. A lot of the teachers who I have learned the most from would have been fired, or at least gotten into a lot of trouble by now, if they were under 24/7 surveilance from our Nazi administrators. A couple of them were fired anyway.
(To potential flamers: Paper Mario is still a GREAT GAME. It's just an incredibly bizarre one, that's all.)
They did some more censoring in the N64 era as well. The original Zelda 64 US cartriges were unaltered (I think,) but later 'prints' of the game changed the music in the Fire Temple because it was a Muslim chant (or at least it sounded like one,) changed the design on the Mirror Shield because that was a muslim symbol, and in one scene where Ganan coughs up blood, they changed the color of the blood from red to green. Yes, they changed the color of the blood, the EXACT same thing that they did to censor Mortal Kombat.
So, in conclusion, Nintendo DOES still censor their games. They leave violence alone (for the most part,) but cursing, religion, sex, and booze were still big no-nos for a long time after the ratings were introduced. Perhaps they still are; it's been a while since I've played a game on a Nintendo system. The MK1 debacle, along with getting their asses kicked around by Sony has made them shape up a lot, but old habits die hard.
Personally, I'm going to follow the example of another poster and also throw in a picture of my middle finger.
As I mentioned in a post above, the big thing with Eva is that it has an incredibly rabid fanbase, (of which I am a member.) So if they screw this up, ADV will be burned at the stake.
I dunno about NC-17. Most of the blood and guts is giant monster blood and guts, so it may not count. I don't see why the religious stuff would get it NC-17. We just won't have Rei walking around naked like she did in the ENTIRE MOVIE, which wouldn't detract from the plot at all. Putting clothing on Giant Naked Rei would be another matter entirely; however.
Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, on to an explanation of the series (I'll try not to have too many spoilers.) For the first half of the series(up until around episodes 14-16,) Evangelion is your average Japanese anime about teenagers piloting giant robots and figthing giant monsters to save the world that attempts to be somewhat more deep and intelligent than your average giant robot anime and succeeds somewhat. In the second half, Evangelion is a giant robot anime which is incredibly successfull at being more deep and intelligent than your average giant robot anime.
The protagonist is Shinji, the pilot of Evangelion Unit-01, who most people agree is a bit of a wuss. Personality-wise, he kinda reminds me of Charlie Brown. He believes that he is worthless as a human being unless he pilots Evangelion; that piloting Evangelion justifies his existence, which is the sole reason why he pilots it.
Then there's Asuka, the pilot of Unit-02. Personality-wise, Asuka seems to be the exact opposite of Shinji: she's loud, proud, and kinda bitchy (okay, she's very bitchy.) She's actually very much like Shinji in that she's entierly dependent upon the Eva to justify her existence, to the point where she tries to kill herself when she can no longer pilot it.
That's just two of the main characters; I don't want to ramble on for too long. The thing is, Evangelion is much more about the characters than the giant robot battles, especially in the second half, which is when they stop having angels(the giant monsters the Evangelions fight) every episode just because they feel obligated to. There are still battles against angles about every other episode, but they serve to advance the overall story along as opposed to just being there to have a cool fight scene. The second half of the series is when the characters' lives go from being on the verge of some sort of happiness to pure hell.
And then there's the ending. Here's the story with that: Hideaki Anno's(the writer and director) script for episode 25 got rejected for being too violent (or some say they just didn't have enough money; perhaps it was both,) so he decided to make 25 more of what he planned on 26 being- more about the internal conflicts than the external ones. 25 was a look inside the minds of all of the main characters; 26 was mostly about Shinji. The fans hated it, so they decided to make a movie out of their original script. They apparently got enough money to make two movies: Death and Rebirth; which was a 60-minute recap of the series (which was more of a refresher for those who had seen the series a long time ago and forgot some stuff than a summary for those who had never seen the series) followed by the first 30 minutes of the second movie, and The End of Evangelion, which consists of episode 25' and 26'.
Some people think of the movie as the 'true' ending, whereas some actually like the TV ending better. I think that the two endings are compatible, that the TV episodes can be seen as deleted scenes from the movie: they can feasibly fit into the movie, but not without screwing up the pacing of the whole thing. The ending of the series as a whole is very much open to interpretation.
As for the live action movie, I'm hopeful. Yes, US live-action adaptions of Japanese shows have tended to suck; but none of the shows attempted thus far has nearly as rabid a fanbase as Evangelion. If ADV screws this up, then they will be burned at the stake; however, if ADV uses this fanbase to their advantage and hire some of them to make sure that nobody screws it up, this movie could be truly great. It will be a challenge to keep it true to the original and still have it make sense to your average American, but I think it can be done.
And as soon as I post this, I'm going to e-mail ADV and ask them when/where they're casting. I want to play Hyuga.
Depends on whether or not any of the people you're playing with are female. Then the probability is roughly equal to that of any other real-life social interaction. It is greater than the probability of getting laid via EQ. Unless you count cybersex.
Do not BEGIN to compare the US to the people we are fighting now. Yes, innocent people die in our bombings. But when that happens, it is an accident. Unlike the terrorists, we are not intentionally targeting innocent civilians. The reason why we are at war with an entire country is (officially) because they are(or were, anyway) harboring these terrorists. Of course, even if they weren't, I think that the Taliban should have gotten their asses kicked anyways, just because of the oppresive fundamentalist regime that was causing the deaths of many innocent women (I'm sure you remember the chain letters that circulated around a while before 9/11 about that situation). In my opinion, any regime that oppresses and kills its people should be destroyed, and replaced with a just government. This includes a lot of fundamentalist countries in the middle east (Pakistan, Iraq, etc.) and pretty much all the communist countries (China, Cuba, etc.) And the US is in the best position to do this.
And... yeah, there's my two cents.
And not to be rude, but if you seem to hate /. so much, why do you even bother going here, let alone posting here? Do you just get a kick out of bitching about stuff like this?
No, you're wrong. It'll be because EVERYONE will just download it off the internet because EVERYONE with a computer is a CRIMINAL- ah, you know the rest.
But seriously, you've got a point there. Until the average geek gets A LOT more bandwidth and HD space, people won't be able to enjoy movies in anything more than in grainy 300someX200some resolution, so they'll always get better quality on DVD and in the theatres. All the MPAA has to do is make sure that the quality of their movies grows with computer technology. But of course, that requires EFFORT, doesn't it? It's so much easier to just buy a few congressmen...
What, do you think that the US should just mind its own damn business and let innocent people in other countries die and suffer? Tyrannical regimes (Communist countries like Cuba/China, extreme-fundamentalist countries like Pakistan and (formerly)Afghanistan) have to be delt with by SOMEONE, and the US, being the most powerful country in the world, is in the best position to do so. It's not being nosy, it's being altruistic.
Think about that for a second. That would mean that you would essentially haveto outlaw any and all physical objects, including people. Think about it- you can use ANY solid object to beat a person to death with. From a hammer to a dog treat, anything can do serious damage if you use enough force with it. Of course, things like cloth and paper would be hard to beat someone to death with, but you could smother or choke someone with those. You can drown someone with liquid, and gas... well, you can freeze gas and then it's a solid, which means you can beat someone to death with it. Plasma... well, I'm not enough of a chemistry/physics person to know what you can do with that.
So, in conclusion, if anything that could be used for an illegal purpose was illegal, then EVERYONE would be a criminal. We may as well build a gigantic cage around the whole damn planet.
Or just get rid of the RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, and anyone else who wants to legislate such stupid things. Like the people who bitch about video game violence.
And if someone gets away with banning porn... Jesus, they'd half to block half the fucking internet...
"The best defense is a good offense, and that's what counterattack is. Passive defense is making yourself harder to hit. Active defense is fighting back. Counterattack is turning the tables and attacking the attacker. It's by far the most effective means of defense, but it's also the most error prone.
In almost all of civilized society, counterattack is not legal. If you catch someone burglarizing your home, it's not legal for you to follow her home and shoot her. If you're being blackmailed by someone, turning around and blackmailing him back is just as illegal as the first crime. I can't think of any exceptions to this. Law enforcement is the sole purview of the police, an organization that has what I have previously described as "a state-sponsored monopoly on violence."
The exception to the above is warfare. In war, the rules about counterattack -- and preemptive attack -- are different. In war, attack and defense are so jumbled up that counterattack is the norm. In war, the difference between an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon is the direction it's pointing. But that's not what we're talking about here."
When you think about it, the MPAA and RIAA asking for the license to hack is, to an extent, a declaration of war on the consumers of America. They want to enslave us with DRM and the like, using the DMCA as their shield to prevent counterattack, and suck every penny out of us, just like any imperialist nation.
Or maybe I'm just crazy. That could be it, too.
The article is about software, not music, but the same principle applies. I think.