My point is this: why is it so bad to ask these questions?
I don't think it's bad to ask the questions. However, when people start constructing massive theories based on scant evidence and then cling to them madly, that's a different matter.
Scientists are smart people, and many of them are happy to answer questions from people who don't specialize in that area. It can be frustrating, though, when one of those people is dead set on believing something that is completely crazy.
For comparison, I went to a lecture by Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe) last night. He's a very, very smart guy, but he is also good at explaining things like quantum mechanics and string theory to non-physicists like me.
At the end of the lecture, there was a question and answer session.
One of the people asked a lengthy question about similarities between the language of mysticism (the "word of God" and the vibrational jibber-jabber that some people are into now) and that of advanced physics (e.g. string theory and the idea that all particles are actually the result of vibrations). He was obviously a misguided UFO guy, but because he asked the question in an open-minded way, Greene was able to turn it into an interesting topic.
Later, a woman came to the microphone and started off by accusing him of being biased towards "European mathematics," and that if he's interested in the higher dimensions that string theory predicts, he should be investigating the Africans who can enter the fifth dimension and that Einstein was looking for some Buddhist chant that would function as a unified theory. Because she was dead set in her crazy ways, he couldn't turn it into an interesting discussion and basically had to just tell her she was wrong.
Yet the price of the game is still the same if not higher.
That's partly because game *production* costs are increasing.
It is a lot more expensive to produce a modern 3D game than it was to make an SNES title, which is why Nintendo can get away with selling Metroid Zero Mission (which could pretty much have been done on the SNES) for $30 on release day, but a new PS2 or Xbox game is $50.
i couldn't figure out from the pictures whether the guard was plastic that had been chromed or if that was a wax mold the smith used in the forging process.
The ALT tag for the image identifies it as the wax mold.
I guess your right. I guess most people have never really heard silence. What an odd thought. Next to no one has ever heard nothing.
Years ago I read an account of John Cage visiting an anechoic chamber to hear what silence really sounded like. Apparently when it's that quiet, you can hear your blood pumping and your nervous system running.
I'm sure many non-console-owning cable customers would just love being able to play solitaire and bejeweled on their television
I'm not so sure. Remember the Nuon? It was basically the same concept, except it bundled the game system into your DVD player. It failed pretty spectacularly.
There's just no room for a new player in this area right now.
Yeah, the plans they've got are the same kind that led to the videogame crash in the 80s.
Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are too popular for something like that to happen again IMO (especially with the greater quality of games on modern consoles versus e.g. the Atari 2600), but I am sure that systems on the periphery (e.g. N-Gage, Phantom, this one) are going to be as forgotten in a few years as the Bally Astrocade and Fairchild Channel F.
The article included actual photographs of actual working (though tethered by hoses to a static power pack) units that were being developed by/for the US Army.
You're thinking of GE's Hardiman exoskeleton. They built a prototype, but never had anyone wear the full suit because they couldn't get it working properly.
While a movie would be nice, I would rather have the series returen.
Allegedly Whedon's plan is to use a successful film as a springboard for a follow-up series.
I would be happy with him either keeping it in theatres or switching back to TV, as long as he gets to finish the story one way or another.
Also, is it me, or is this "press release" more of a series of writer's notes?
To that end, he said he went out of his way while penning the "Serenity" script to make sure that it is accessible to auds who never tuned into "Firefly."
"Auds"? Obviously this is short for "audience," but still. Let's move on.
Series was a space oater set 500 years in the future, tracking the journeys of the crew aboard the Serenity.
Ah yes, a "space oater." I'm fond of those.
Chris Buchanan of Mutant Enemy, Whedon's shingle, and Mendel exec Alissa Tager are exec producing.
Yes, it does, and that's why almost no one releases PC-exclusive games anymore.
Someone else posted the figure I was going to quote, which is that the console market is literally ten times more profitable than PC (~US$10 billion versus a little over US$1 billion last year).
Factor in the difficulty of PC support versus console support, and the ease of which PC games are pirated compared to consoles, and the reasons are obvious.
Last year as an April Fools joke I wrote an article which included "exclusive coverage" of a Legacy of Kain spinoff called Vehiculum Furtus Maximo (yes, I know, my Latin is terrible). Most fans were horrified, but I still get people asking every once in awhile about making it into a Flash game or something, and a few that didn't realize it was a joke and wonder what happened to it.
My friend Willow and I were both pleasantly shocked to find out that his design for the main character made it into the real new Legacy of Kain game. You can unlock him with a code on the controller =).
The PS1 game Driver was set in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, with the maps based on the real streets.
If the maps of NY and Miami were on the same level as San Francisco's, they were only loosely based on the real layout of the cities (although I suspect that this was due to limits of the game engine).
I went on vacation to SF a year and a half ago, and beforehand I spent a bunch of time doing the free drive mode in Driver's SF level, foolishly thinking that it might give me a little bit of familiarity with the real layout.
Not only is the real SF much different (although I guess the hills and a few landmarks are in roughly the same places), but the Driver level greatly compresses even the small area of the city that it actually encompasses.
The real SF is an incredibly complex place to drive in, but everybody there seemed to be laid back enough that it wasn't stressful. If Rockstar could accurately map out all the crazy diagonal streets and super-steep hills, it would be an excellent setting for a GTA title.
LA would be fun too, as long as there was at least one mission paying tribute to Heat.
Now, I have not played Deus Ex 2 because of the above reasons, however, I have played every other game that Warren Spector was involved in with the exception of Terra Nova.
If you are that big of a Spector fan, I'm a little disappointed that you wouldn't at least rent DX:IW to see if you liked it.
People have said bad things about pretty much every game I've ever enjoyed. It seems to me that my opinion on the matter of whether or not I should have bought it is more important than theirs.
(Nobody can exactly figure out why Mario characters were stuffed into Doki Doki Panic [emuverse.com] for the US sequel.)
Have you played The Lost Levels? Imagine Super Mario Brothers as designed by a team of sadists who get off on making gamers suffer.
Seriously, it's level after level of the meanest jumping puzzles ever designed. Also, the original's graphics were identical to SMB1, which IMO would not have been a good selling point.
I'm sure Nintendo needed a sequel that would sell well, and the US SMB2 was a much better choice. It had nicer graphics and wasn't impossible for all but a tiny portion of gamers to ever finish.
Yeah, this line alone basically ensures that it's someone's personal pipe dream that will not and cannot be made:
Our thermodynamic laws were formed by observation of nature. They are not proven, merely not disproved.
This is just another fanciful idea like those ring-shaped "reactionless drives" that have a ball circulating inside them, or the "lifters" that are actually ion engines incapable of lifting anything heavier than a balsawood frame.
Imagine purchasing your shows direct from the producing company. One new copy made available per week. Mine to download and then view when I felt like it. No 'channels' or 'networks' in the traditional sense. No adds.
If someone were to do this with reasonably high quality (say a 300-400MB DivX file for a single 40-60 minute episode, $25 or so per "season"), I might start watching TV again.
Right now I just wait until the series I want is out on DVD and buy that. I lost my patience for commercials when broadcasters started split-screening them into the ending credits of the few shows I was still watching.
I would be willing to pay more (e.g. $30+ per season) if I could get a discount when the DVDs were released if I wanted high quality copies.
I don't know about other online retailers, but I was using CDConnection before there was even a world wide web to browse on, back in 1991 or 1992 (they've been around since 1990).
They had a telnet-based system that used something very much like the shopping carts of today, although I can't remember if it was actually called a "shopping cart."
I always try and get an open source-coding friend of mine to understand this, and it never seems to sink in.
Interface design is an incredibly important part of any software project - it's like the clothes you wear to a job interview. Sure, you *might* get the job if you wear your regular jeans and t-shirt, but if you take the time to dress up, you will create a much more favourable impression on the potential employer you are meeting.
Similarly, taking the time to make your user interface polished and intuitive is one of the best ways to end up with happy end users who tell other people how great your software is. It lets them know that you care enough about the software you create to spend a few extra hours making it look nice instead of shoving it out the door as fast as possible.
I find it to be a very mediocre chair that is incredibly difficult to adjust.
I agree.
We all got Aerons a few years ago at work, and I really wish I could exchange it for the nicely padded non-price-gouging office chair I had previously.
I don't think the Aeron is a *bad* chair, it's just not the Divine Throne that some people make it out to be. It's not even really superior to regular desk chairs, IMO.
At this point, I think people worship the name more than anything else. I've run across some who turn into puddles of ji^Hoy over the hideous plywood chairs that Herman Miller makes too.
How about all those UN resolutions and the 11 years when nothing was done?
Nothing was done about what? The complete lack of threat from Iraq to any other nation?
If international law alone is so important (IE enough so to go to war because someone is ignoring some memos from the UN), why is the Emperor and his corporate advisory board so adamant that US citizens must be immune to the ICC?
The real reason wasn't just to get saddam, it has changed the middle east
You're right - in a few years, the Middle East (except for Israel of course) will be entirely under hardline Islamic law.
Implementing security measures will make people feel safer because it will make people safer.
Did I suddenly tune into Fox News? There is more to logic than saying "A = A."
And as a preemptive response to the typical dogmatic "those who sacrifice a little liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" statement: have you ever worn a seatbelt in your car?
No, wait, even Fox News wouldn't stoop to using that kind of straw man argument. How does wearing a seatbelt restrict personal liberties? *Forcing* someone to wear a seatbelt might, but that is a not what you said.
Slashdot Mirror
My point is this: why is it so bad to ask these questions?
I don't think it's bad to ask the questions. However, when people start constructing massive theories based on scant evidence and then cling to them madly, that's a different matter.
Scientists are smart people, and many of them are happy to answer questions from people who don't specialize in that area. It can be frustrating, though, when one of those people is dead set on believing something that is completely crazy.
For comparison, I went to a lecture by Brian Greene (author of The Elegant Universe) last night. He's a very, very smart guy, but he is also good at explaining things like quantum mechanics and string theory to non-physicists like me.
At the end of the lecture, there was a question and answer session.
One of the people asked a lengthy question about similarities between the language of mysticism (the "word of God" and the vibrational jibber-jabber that some people are into now) and that of advanced physics (e.g. string theory and the idea that all particles are actually the result of vibrations). He was obviously a misguided UFO guy, but because he asked the question in an open-minded way, Greene was able to turn it into an interesting topic.
Later, a woman came to the microphone and started off by accusing him of being biased towards "European mathematics," and that if he's interested in the higher dimensions that string theory predicts, he should be investigating the Africans who can enter the fifth dimension and that Einstein was looking for some Buddhist chant that would function as a unified theory. Because she was dead set in her crazy ways, he couldn't turn it into an interesting discussion and basically had to just tell her she was wrong.
Yet the price of the game is still the same if not higher.
That's partly because game *production* costs are increasing.
It is a lot more expensive to produce a modern 3D game than it was to make an SNES title, which is why Nintendo can get away with selling Metroid Zero Mission (which could pretty much have been done on the SNES) for $30 on release day, but a new PS2 or Xbox game is $50.
i couldn't figure out from the pictures whether the guard was plastic that had been chromed or if that was a wax mold the smith used in the forging process.
The ALT tag for the image identifies it as the wax mold.
Is there an equivalent to what I've been telling the Hot Topic [hottopic.com] goth kiddies...
... for the script kiddie set?
"Go home, wash that sh*t off your face, and apologize to your mother"
I'm sure you think you're very clever, too. What do you want, a pat on the head for your efforts?
The world would be a much nicer place if some people didn't feel the need to tell everyone they meet what they think of them.
I guess your right. I guess most people have never really heard silence. What an odd thought. Next to no one has ever heard nothing.
Years ago I read an account of John Cage visiting an anechoic chamber to hear what silence really sounded like. Apparently when it's that quiet, you can hear your blood pumping and your nervous system running.
I'm sure many non-console-owning cable customers would just love being able to play solitaire and bejeweled on their television
I'm not so sure. Remember the Nuon? It was basically the same concept, except it bundled the game system into your DVD player. It failed pretty spectacularly.
There's just no room for a new player in this area right now.
Yeah, the plans they've got are the same kind that led to the videogame crash in the 80s.
Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are too popular for something like that to happen again IMO (especially with the greater quality of games on modern consoles versus e.g. the Atari 2600), but I am sure that systems on the periphery (e.g. N-Gage, Phantom, this one) are going to be as forgotten in a few years as the Bally Astrocade and Fairchild Channel F.
While this is true, it is also unfortunate. Cooking on an electric range top sucks.
OTOH, electric range feed lines can't develop leaks of invisible, explosive gas.
When I buy a house, I plan on switching to an induction range to get the best of both worlds.
The article included actual photographs of actual working (though tethered by hoses to a static power pack) units that were being developed by/for the US Army.
You're thinking of GE's Hardiman exoskeleton. They built a prototype, but never had anyone wear the full suit because they couldn't get it working properly.
While a movie would be nice, I would rather have the series returen.
Allegedly Whedon's plan is to use a successful film as a springboard for a follow-up series.
I would be happy with him either keeping it in theatres or switching back to TV, as long as he gets to finish the story one way or another.
Also, is it me, or is this "press release" more of a series of writer's notes?
To that end, he said he went out of his way while penning the "Serenity" script to make sure that it is accessible to auds who never tuned into "Firefly."
"Auds"? Obviously this is short for "audience," but still. Let's move on.
Series was a space oater set 500 years in the future, tracking the journeys of the crew aboard the Serenity.
Ah yes, a "space oater." I'm fond of those.
Chris Buchanan of Mutant Enemy, Whedon's shingle, and Mendel exec Alissa Tager are exec producing.
"Whedon's shingle," uh huh...
Except that unlike cold fusion, the US Navy doesn't have researchers who have built working 200mpg carburetors and zero-point energy devices.
Our market SUCKS.
Yes, it does, and that's why almost no one releases PC-exclusive games anymore.
Someone else posted the figure I was going to quote, which is that the console market is literally ten times more profitable than PC (~US$10 billion versus a little over US$1 billion last year).
Factor in the difficulty of PC support versus console support, and the ease of which PC games are pirated compared to consoles, and the reasons are obvious.
Grand theft horse-carriage, baby! Whoooo!
Last year as an April Fools joke I wrote an article which included "exclusive coverage" of a Legacy of Kain spinoff called Vehiculum Furtus Maximo (yes, I know, my Latin is terrible). Most fans were horrified, but I still get people asking every once in awhile about making it into a Flash game or something, and a few that didn't realize it was a joke and wonder what happened to it.
My friend Willow and I were both pleasantly shocked to find out that his design for the main character made it into the real new Legacy of Kain game. You can unlock him with a code on the controller =).
The PS1 game Driver was set in San Francisco, New York, and Miami, with the maps based on the real streets.
If the maps of NY and Miami were on the same level as San Francisco's, they were only loosely based on the real layout of the cities (although I suspect that this was due to limits of the game engine).
I went on vacation to SF a year and a half ago, and beforehand I spent a bunch of time doing the free drive mode in Driver's SF level, foolishly thinking that it might give me a little bit of familiarity with the real layout.
Not only is the real SF much different (although I guess the hills and a few landmarks are in roughly the same places), but the Driver level greatly compresses even the small area of the city that it actually encompasses.
The real SF is an incredibly complex place to drive in, but everybody there seemed to be laid back enough that it wasn't stressful. If Rockstar could accurately map out all the crazy diagonal streets and super-steep hills, it would be an excellent setting for a GTA title.
LA would be fun too, as long as there was at least one mission paying tribute to Heat.
Now, I have not played Deus Ex 2 because of the above reasons, however, I have played every other game that Warren Spector was involved in with the exception of Terra Nova.
If you are that big of a Spector fan, I'm a little disappointed that you wouldn't at least rent DX:IW to see if you liked it.
People have said bad things about pretty much every game I've ever enjoyed. It seems to me that my opinion on the matter of whether or not I should have bought it is more important than theirs.
See you at Revelations time.
Yes, from what I can tell, Revelations explicitly mentions DNF going gold:
"...and the Seventh Angel poured forth his bowl into the air and a voice cried out from Heaven saying 'it is done!'"
(Nobody can exactly figure out why Mario characters were stuffed into Doki Doki Panic [emuverse.com] for the US sequel.)
Have you played The Lost Levels? Imagine Super Mario Brothers as designed by a team of sadists who get off on making gamers suffer.
Seriously, it's level after level of the meanest jumping puzzles ever designed. Also, the original's graphics were identical to SMB1, which IMO would not have been a good selling point.
I'm sure Nintendo needed a sequel that would sell well, and the US SMB2 was a much better choice. It had nicer graphics and wasn't impossible for all but a tiny portion of gamers to ever finish.
Yeah, this line alone basically ensures that it's someone's personal pipe dream that will not and cannot be made:
Our thermodynamic laws were formed by observation of nature. They are not proven, merely not disproved.
This is just another fanciful idea like those ring-shaped "reactionless drives" that have a ball circulating inside them, or the "lifters" that are actually ion engines incapable of lifting anything heavier than a balsawood frame.
Imagine purchasing your shows direct from the producing company. One new copy made available per week. Mine to download and then view when I felt like it. No 'channels' or 'networks' in the traditional sense.
No adds.
If someone were to do this with reasonably high quality (say a 300-400MB DivX file for a single 40-60 minute episode, $25 or so per "season"), I might start watching TV again.
Right now I just wait until the series I want is out on DVD and buy that. I lost my patience for commercials when broadcasters started split-screening them into the ending credits of the few shows I was still watching.
I would be willing to pay more (e.g. $30+ per season) if I could get a discount when the DVDs were released if I wanted high quality copies.
I don't know about other online retailers, but I was using CDConnection before there was even a world wide web to browse on, back in 1991 or 1992 (they've been around since 1990).
They had a telnet-based system that used something very much like the shopping carts of today, although I can't remember if it was actually called a "shopping cart."
I always try and get an open source-coding friend of mine to understand this, and it never seems to sink in.
Interface design is an incredibly important part of any software project - it's like the clothes you wear to a job interview. Sure, you *might* get the job if you wear your regular jeans and t-shirt, but if you take the time to dress up, you will create a much more favourable impression on the potential employer you are meeting.
Similarly, taking the time to make your user interface polished and intuitive is one of the best ways to end up with happy end users who tell other people how great your software is. It lets them know that you care enough about the software you create to spend a few extra hours making it look nice instead of shoving it out the door as fast as possible.
Its actually more powerful than a PSX.
Much more powerful, even. It's supposed to have about as much power as a Dreamcast.
I find it to be a very mediocre chair that is incredibly difficult to adjust.
I agree.
We all got Aerons a few years ago at work, and I really wish I could exchange it for the nicely padded non-price-gouging office chair I had previously.
I don't think the Aeron is a *bad* chair, it's just not the Divine Throne that some people make it out to be. It's not even really superior to regular desk chairs, IMO.
At this point, I think people worship the name more than anything else. I've run across some who turn into puddles of ji^Hoy over the hideous plywood chairs that Herman Miller makes too.
How about all those UN resolutions and the 11 years when nothing was done?
Nothing was done about what? The complete lack of threat from Iraq to any other nation?
If international law alone is so important (IE enough so to go to war because someone is ignoring some memos from the UN), why is the Emperor and his corporate advisory board so adamant that US citizens must be immune to the ICC?
The real reason wasn't just to get saddam, it has changed the middle east
You're right - in a few years, the Middle East (except for Israel of course) will be entirely under hardline Islamic law.
Implementing security measures will make people feel safer because it will make people safer.
Did I suddenly tune into Fox News? There is more to logic than saying "A = A."
And as a preemptive response to the typical dogmatic "those who sacrifice a little liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" statement: have you ever worn a seatbelt in your car?
No, wait, even Fox News wouldn't stoop to using that kind of straw man argument. How does wearing a seatbelt restrict personal liberties? *Forcing* someone to wear a seatbelt might, but that is a not what you said.