One might think that notifying GameSpy about its security problems might be A Good Thing (R) because they could be fixed before being exploited. Just another reminder that, in the United States of America, no good deed goes unpunished.
Grand Theft Auto has become the Dungeons and Dragons of the 21st century. The game has a strong following and offers a form of entertainment that is sometimes or often socially deviant. Like D&D, GTA has become a target for criticism, largely because the gaming is not usually the 'cool' thing to do and a small fraction of people take the game too far.
What we have in this case is a failure to accept personal responsibility, which is an unfortunate trend here in the USA as of late. The central issue here is not the content. It is that these children were not taught the difference between the virtual world and the real world and were not supervised well enough for parents to realize that they were playing a game that they probably shouldn't be. (I find it hard to believe that a parent didn't take note of the constant sirens going off during long chases. My wife complains about them all the time.)
There was a South Park episode about this. Kyle and Stan were caught trying to hang Stan's grandpa because they weren't paying attention to his suicide attempt while watching the Terrance and Philip Show. The parents left town to go protest the network, leaving their children to keep watching television. The moral of the story was that the problem was not the television show; rather, if parents paid more attention to their children, the television wouldn't be the lone source of moral education.
I commend the parent post that stated his personal choice to forbid his children from being exposed to Grand Theft Auto. This is a responsible choice and many should benefit from the idea that 14-16 year old children probably shouldn't be playing GTA. However, such entertainment should not be banned from adult purchase, nor should developers be sued for creating a game clearly meant for adults.
Ironically enough, my new laptop installs Red Hat 9 better than Windows XP Professional. True story.
I got my IBM ThinkPad R40 about four weeks ago, so I could do my graduate research on it. I do most of my work in Linux, but some programs require a Windows platform. However, the first time I turned on the computer, it NTFS'ed my entire drive, making installing Linux a pain.
Since I go to a school with a pretty snazzy Microsoft student license agreement (and IBM opted for a 4GB backup partition rather than install CDs), I went down to the student union and got a copy of XP for $5. I repartitioned the drives and began the reinstall process. Windows failed to recognize my sound card, video card, USB, power features (it didn't even recognize it as a laptop), and most importantly, my Ethernet connection. I couldn't get online to download my drivers for all the other things that XP Pro couldn't find.
As for Red Hat, I popped in the CDs and ran the installer. Everything worked out of the box.:) How's that for hardware support? I used Linux to download my XP drivers. After that, I debated whether to keep Windows at all... and I wouldn't, if a Linux version for those pesky research tools were available.
I have left my phone between the 70-100% charge range and it went out of service. My wife power cycled hers and it actually started working again for a little while.
Actually, the motivation for the US Civil War was over the southern states secession from the Union. Slavery was a part of the reason why the Confederacy wanted to secede from the Union, but there were many other factors, including these, directly from the historical statements from the CSA to the USA. Basically, the South felt that it was being excluded from national government because it had less population (hence, less House representation), less industrial might, and the nasty offront to American integrity that is slavery. The abolitionist movement merely focused the political spotlight on them.
The Confederate States were strong advocates of states' rights, the principle that all rights not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitiution were bestowed to the individual governing states. Congressional action and rhetoric violated their principles, so they felt that they didn't need to be part of the United States.
It's actually a fascinating study to see how the Civil War history classes vary from region to region and over time. I went to high school in Vicksburg, Mississippi and studied US history under a national Teacher of the Year award winner (you may have seen Mr. Wong on a stay-in-school commerical). Given our location, we spent a long time talking about the Civil War. He took his job very seriously and didn't cut corners, telling a fairly unadulterated view of our (the United States of America's, not the South's) history.
I don't want to brow-beat your comment, but that's just one of those statements that I feel necessitates clarification. Call it a pet peeve from a Southerner living in Indiana.
We had this discussion during an article review in one of my engineering courses. Regardless of the quality of the software or the hardware, our election system concedes a recounting of ballots in the event of a contested election. Sure, the touchscreen gives a very easy interface that punch card systems do not have, but without a physical ballot, there can be no recount.
For those of you who thought Florida in 2000 was ugly, can you imagine an election where a whole voting presinct lost its votes? How about a whole presinct voting for a single party?
Without even getting into political conspiracy, campaign contributions, and party alignment, it is simply too important to the foundation of the United States of America to put our faith in a company without a clear physical layer of voting record. I will concede to electronic voting if and only if I receive a legible certificate that I submit to a monitored sealed election ballot box as an *official* voting ballot.
With respect to the need for electronic voting in the first place, I always thought my home town of Vicksburg, MS had a really easy paper voting system. Just draw a line connecting your candidate's name on the left to his or her name on the right. Honestly, I don't see why everyone else tries to make it so difficult with punch cards and such.
True, virtually every area in FFX began and ended with a cut-scene, but I have to say that the animation was so good that I hardly cared. I would say that it was one of Square's best games, on par with FF7 and Chrono Trigger.
As long as the story keeps moving along and gets fixed up with striking animation and grand soundtracks, I think Square's going to be in good business. When it starts turning into Metal Gear Solid 2, where you go through a room and get to watch 10 minutes of the main character talking on the radio, then I'll start complaining a little louder.
With regards to the skin factor, if it is in context with a character, then it doesn't really bother me. The Ah Bhed in FFX were a desert people, so skimpy outfits made sense. Pop stardom may bring with it a new sense of style, but I trust Sakaguchi and the gang with will keep it respectable above the level of Christina Aguilera, who has somehow managed to turn herself from one of the most beautiful females on the planet to the image of a low-budget smut peddler.
In short, Square has impressed me too much for me not to be stoked about the release of FF-X2.
The Honda Insight runs around $19,500 from Edmunds. The hybrid Civic is comparable. The Toyota Prius is roughly $20,500. My Saturn SL sedan cost $13,200 with an extended service plan and gets between 34-40 mpg, depending on location and traffic conditions.
solve( 13200+1.69(miles/{34,40}) = 19500+1.69(miles/57), miles )
Given that the Insight gets 57 mpg, at the current cost of gasoline of $1.69 (in my locale of Lafayette, IN), it would take between 314,108 and 499,965 miles for the costs to become equivalent. Even if the price of gasoline jumps to $3.00 a gallon, it still requires a minimum of 176,947 miles to equalize.
Keep that in mind next time that you're shopping for hybrids. They'll save you a buttload of money with respect to a big ol' SUV, but it takes a long time to catch up to a less expensive compact.
By the way, I love driving my car... and it doesn't look goofy.:)
Congratulations! You've just committed a major academic honesty offense! Do not pass go. Do not collect $200... and for damn sure, do not collect your diploma.
Keep in mind that although you may not get caught, you might get even worse than caught. Any reputable college will likely set up an expulsion hearing for academic fraud. Even worse, in my home state (Arkansas), it is a class D felony to modify academic records at a higher institution. Actually, they busted a couple of people working in the transcript office for altering grades last fall at my college. w00t! H4x0r5 uN1T3!
Re:Why reboot systems at all?
on
In-Flight Reboot?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
It's called concurrent engineering. Obviously, the flight control systems are working within a level of tolerance to test the mechanical systems. Targeting and sensor systems are useless if there isn't a functioning platform. If they sat around waiting for the complete software package to be completed before testing the F-22's basic flight capability, they would be way behind their current state. Keep in mind that this is still in test, not production.
I agree with you on this one. I work for the company that designed position encoders for the HST, and NASA has long since worn out its design life on the parts. The good news is that they still work very well, but the HST wasn't supposed to last this long. NASA is doing the right thing by exploring all options before they are left with none.
Actually, SolidWorks 2003 (3D drafting program) has an incentive program to report bugs during beta testing. They give out prizes to those who report the most... or so my lab-mate Mech-E tells me.
I think this is a wonderful method of stress testing. You get virtually free testing, and they enjoy doing it.
I tend to agree with many of the above points. However, I would like to extend my experiences with one of them. I attended a two day seminar in the newly designed (at no small expense, mind you) classrooms at my university and participated in a study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to evaluate the effectiveness of using the Internet to instruct collegiate-level students. I managed to graduate Summa Cum Laude, so don't give me any of those "you're just a [stupid|cracktarded|etc.] person" replies, please.
Good:
Having the teacher give the give the lecture as a power point presentation with a LCD projector. The slides can then be published on the web for later consumption.
My experience has also shown that most professors tend to avoid using the technology. We had a classroom with SmartBoards, LCD projectors, and all sorts of multimedia crap, and every professor I had in that classroom ignored it. They always grabbed the markers and wrote on the SmartBoards in whiteboard ink... including the ABET president.
My B.S. degree is in Electrical Engineering. I have found that many topics can be discussed using PowerPoint, but examples are typically lost in translation. Most professors that use PowerPoint talk around the examples with an inadequate level of depth such that the printable notes are not sufficient to replicate the work outside of class.
Personally, I don't foresee many fields entirely leaving the realm of chalk/marker and board in the near future. The "traditional" learning style requires that instructors pace themselves with handwriting, whereas a preprepared slide collection usually results in a mind-boggling flight through material. My suggestions to those faculty insisting upon using PowerPoint and other technological conveniences are thus:
1. Technology is meant to be an aid, not a crutch. Having material on a slide does not absolve an instructor from explaining said material at an appropriate level.
2. Use animated graphics rather than static ones when describing the motion of an object. One example is to include arrows rotating around a magnet to indicate field lines.
3. Slow down. Some people out there like to have time to read the slide.
Anarchy Online actively recruits ARKs for in-game help. I believe the only requirement is to have at least one level 50 character, though I imagine they can be as selective as necessary.
However, having sat in a petition queue for over two hours without advancing in priority, I'd like to mention that they should be less selective in their help and look for more quantity. I mean... I was only stuck inside a mission. Beam me up, Scotty!
...it makes me truly appreciate the reasonable nature of my mother, who bluntly told the Holy Roller Jesus-freak that saw me listing to Type O Negative while playing Quake, to go shove it.
Her point was simply that she knew I wasn't going to go out and shoot up a schoolyard despite being picked on. Why? She asked me. Simply, she casually asked me over dinner why I played "violent video games" (Quake, Unreal... circa 1997-98, here) and how they made me feel. You'd be surprised what your kids will tell you if you just ask.
She acted like a parent and made me tell her where I was going and when I was expected back. I didn't have a curfew because she had taught me that being "good" brought more rewards than being "bad." If I made sure to remain well kept, I could wear whatever was available and listen to whatever I felt like, all because I acted like a model citizen and did my homework.
Was I ever angry at so-and-so, what's-her-face, cheerleader, and the-ugly-one for being totally insulting? Yes. However, I was taught a difference between the 2-3 hours of Quake a day and the 7 hours at school.
Children are not inherently evil. Video games are not inherently evil or manipulative. Parental attention and understanding make all the difference.
...and no, it wasn't because the lady was religious. We go to church, too.
"You four are calculating how to divide the cost of a CheapAss game?!"
Yes, I'm serious. Actually, I have been truly impressed by CheapAss games. Ben Hurt is awesome, especially with Gladiator running in the background and a couple of six packs of Corona Extra in the foreground.:)
With QBASIC, you can learn the fundamentals very easily, and that is why it is still used. Granted, these fundamentals are being taught in junior high and sometimes at high school.
I learned QBASIC in my 10th grade computer science class. Looking back, it has several structures that we all know to avoid, i.e., GOTO speghetti code, but it was fairly easy to do "interesting" things. For example, as a first programming language, I was able to draw pictures with animation, as well as use the PC speaker to make music. For our final project, one of my friends and I made a likeness of Metallica (stick figures with cheesy guitars and drum set) come out on a stage and play "One!" (Yes, the whole song, single note for note...):)
The point is that easy languages like QBASIC teach younger students the basic premises behind programming and spark interest. There's plenty of time to learn the right way to do things.
most people there were just cruising by, (myself included sadly) and most of the professors didn't care about their subjects.
college has turned into grades 13-16 and it's depressing.
I have found through my experience that college is exactly what you choose to make of it. Yes, there are people who attend college and make no real attempt to truly learn the material. It has also been my experience that this comes back to haunt people when it comes time to exit the collegiate environment.
If one chooses to blow off classes and fail to cultivate a solid foundation for a mature understanding of advanced topics, he is destined for mediocrity.
Traditional classroom: Instructor works through some problems during class, talks about theory, etc. Assigns homework. You turn it in. Little to no conversation with your fellow students on these assignments, as it's considered to be cheating.
Having just finished my B.S. in Electrical Engineering, I can honestly say that my experience has been quite the opposite. With the exception of my Control Systems professor, who took great pride in the misery of others (and was subsequently demoted in the department), all of my professors in all of my math/science based classes encouraged group work on any assignment, unless specificially noted. In other words, homework and projects were okay to discuss, but take-home exams were not.
Before graduation, my friends and I sat around talking about the past few years, and this subject came up. We came to a consensus that if it were not for the group work, we would have led a miserable existence and wouldn't have learned half of what we did. By having to explain yourself to others, you discover the flaws in your own analysis and make necessary adjustments.
Overall, my experience with UOP has been great. Expensive - I wouldn't be attending if my employer wasn't footing the bill, as it will have cost around $50k when I'm done - but if someone else is paying for it, there's no better way to fly.
$50,000 for online instruction? I spent just shy of $72,000 for four years of out-of-state tuition at a major U.S. university (U. of Arkansas) which included full meal plans and a two-bedroom on-campus apartment. Assuming you cut back the housing and food, as you live within the real world, there are much more economically efficient ways to fly, if your employers were not paying for it.
I must have had this argument a million times with my friends. FF6 v. Chrono Trigger v. FF7 -- any one of these could be considered among the greatest games of all time, depending on your preferences in RPGs.
If you prefer the classic good against evil type with strong character development, FF6 is for you. Fans of interactive endings and non-linear game play lean towards Chrono Trigger. FF7 is typically preferred by gamers who crave dark story lines where the good guys don't always win.
Personally, I believe Final Fantasy VII is the best game of all time. Sephiroth is one bad motha-shut-yo-mouth kind of villain. The soundtrack rocks. It's easy to relate to a story that originates under the oppression of an evil corporation (something slashdotters know absolutely nothing about, right? *chuckle*). Good things don't always happen to good people, but they continue to work towards what they believe in. I enjoyed FF7 so much that I would purchase it again if it came out for PS2.
IANAL, but this should be a fairly clear case. It has legal precedent all the way to the Supreme Court. Remember Jerry Falwell's suit against Hustler magazine (1988) after printing a comic strip of him performing incestuous acts with his mother in an outhouse? Hustler won because parodies are protected as long as they exhibit "outrageousness" and are not written with "actual malice". It was so interesting that they even made a motion picture about it, "The People Vs. Harry Flynt."
American Greetings may elect to take Penny Arcade to court, but the legal expenses shouldn't be as extreme as some people might lead others to believe.
We recently encountered a similar event on our software project at work, where we have been developing a behavioral modeling package. However, we did not have our faculty supervisor in the country for about a month before our release date due to attending conferences in Montreal, Australia, and China, respectively. Therefore, the task for motivation and monitoring fell upon me, the interim project manager (and an undergrad at that).
Basically, I found the best way to keep everyone working was to schedule a time (usually about an hour) every day where I would stop by the lab and ask to see what they had done that day. It would usually embarrass them to say that they didn't have anything to show for a day's work, so they started working harder. If they had any questions about how to do something or what they needed to be doing, I was there to answer in whatever gory detail it required. Therefore, I was able to expect a certain degree of progress every day.
These daily sessions were supplemented by a weekly group meeting. During this time, we would give definitive goals for the week and group lessons on programming in PyQt (our chosen language).
Give praise when needed and force deadlines when necessary. Always be willing to answer questions and respond quickly to keep them on task. Unfortunately, you will spend less time coding, but the quality of their code will eventually pick up once they get going. Just remember that being heartlessly negative will only amplify the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
One might think that notifying GameSpy about its security problems might be A Good Thing (R) because they could be fixed before being exploited. Just another reminder that, in the United States of America, no good deed goes unpunished.
What we have in this case is a failure to accept personal responsibility, which is an unfortunate trend here in the USA as of late. The central issue here is not the content. It is that these children were not taught the difference between the virtual world and the real world and were not supervised well enough for parents to realize that they were playing a game that they probably shouldn't be. (I find it hard to believe that a parent didn't take note of the constant sirens going off during long chases. My wife complains about them all the time.)
There was a South Park episode about this. Kyle and Stan were caught trying to hang Stan's grandpa because they weren't paying attention to his suicide attempt while watching the Terrance and Philip Show. The parents left town to go protest the network, leaving their children to keep watching television. The moral of the story was that the problem was not the television show; rather, if parents paid more attention to their children, the television wouldn't be the lone source of moral education.
I commend the parent post that stated his personal choice to forbid his children from being exposed to Grand Theft Auto. This is a responsible choice and many should benefit from the idea that 14-16 year old children probably shouldn't be playing GTA. However, such entertainment should not be banned from adult purchase, nor should developers be sued for creating a game clearly meant for adults.
I got my IBM ThinkPad R40 about four weeks ago, so I could do my graduate research on it. I do most of my work in Linux, but some programs require a Windows platform. However, the first time I turned on the computer, it NTFS'ed my entire drive, making installing Linux a pain.
Since I go to a school with a pretty snazzy Microsoft student license agreement (and IBM opted for a 4GB backup partition rather than install CDs), I went down to the student union and got a copy of XP for $5. I repartitioned the drives and began the reinstall process. Windows failed to recognize my sound card, video card, USB, power features (it didn't even recognize it as a laptop), and most importantly, my Ethernet connection. I couldn't get online to download my drivers for all the other things that XP Pro couldn't find.
As for Red Hat, I popped in the CDs and ran the installer. Everything worked out of the box. :) How's that for hardware support? I used Linux to download my XP drivers. After that, I debated whether to keep Windows at all... and I wouldn't, if a Linux version for those pesky research tools were available.
I don't think they really know what's going on.
The Confederate States were strong advocates of states' rights, the principle that all rights not explicitly granted to the federal government by the Constitiution were bestowed to the individual governing states. Congressional action and rhetoric violated their principles, so they felt that they didn't need to be part of the United States.
It's actually a fascinating study to see how the Civil War history classes vary from region to region and over time. I went to high school in Vicksburg, Mississippi and studied US history under a national Teacher of the Year award winner (you may have seen Mr. Wong on a stay-in-school commerical). Given our location, we spent a long time talking about the Civil War. He took his job very seriously and didn't cut corners, telling a fairly unadulterated view of our (the United States of America's, not the South's) history.
I don't want to brow-beat your comment, but that's just one of those statements that I feel necessitates clarification. Call it a pet peeve from a Southerner living in Indiana.
Go ahead and mod me off-topic. :)
For those of you who thought Florida in 2000 was ugly, can you imagine an election where a whole voting presinct lost its votes? How about a whole presinct voting for a single party?
Without even getting into political conspiracy, campaign contributions, and party alignment, it is simply too important to the foundation of the United States of America to put our faith in a company without a clear physical layer of voting record. I will concede to electronic voting if and only if I receive a legible certificate that I submit to a monitored sealed election ballot box as an *official* voting ballot.
With respect to the need for electronic voting in the first place, I always thought my home town of Vicksburg, MS had a really easy paper voting system. Just draw a line connecting your candidate's name on the left to his or her name on the right. Honestly, I don't see why everyone else tries to make it so difficult with punch cards and such.
As long as the story keeps moving along and gets fixed up with striking animation and grand soundtracks, I think Square's going to be in good business. When it starts turning into Metal Gear Solid 2, where you go through a room and get to watch 10 minutes of the main character talking on the radio, then I'll start complaining a little louder.
With regards to the skin factor, if it is in context with a character, then it doesn't really bother me. The Ah Bhed in FFX were a desert people, so skimpy outfits made sense. Pop stardom may bring with it a new sense of style, but I trust Sakaguchi and the gang with will keep it respectable above the level of Christina Aguilera, who has somehow managed to turn herself from one of the most beautiful females on the planet to the image of a low-budget smut peddler.
In short, Square has impressed me too much for me not to be stoked about the release of FF-X2.
Keep that in mind next time that you're shopping for hybrids. They'll save you a buttload of money with respect to a big ol' SUV, but it takes a long time to catch up to a less expensive compact.
By the way, I love driving my car... and it doesn't look goofy. :)
Keep in mind that although you may not get caught, you might get even worse than caught. Any reputable college will likely set up an expulsion hearing for academic fraud. Even worse, in my home state (Arkansas), it is a class D felony to modify academic records at a higher institution. Actually, they busted a couple of people working in the transcript office for altering grades last fall at my college. w00t! H4x0r5 uN1T3!
It's called concurrent engineering. Obviously, the flight control systems are working within a level of tolerance to test the mechanical systems. Targeting and sensor systems are useless if there isn't a functioning platform. If they sat around waiting for the complete software package to be completed before testing the F-22's basic flight capability, they would be way behind their current state. Keep in mind that this is still in test, not production.
I agree with you on this one. I work for the company that designed position encoders for the HST, and NASA has long since worn out its design life on the parts. The good news is that they still work very well, but the HST wasn't supposed to last this long. NASA is doing the right thing by exploring all options before they are left with none.
I think this is a wonderful method of stress testing. You get virtually free testing, and they enjoy doing it.
My B.S. degree is in Electrical Engineering. I have found that many topics can be discussed using PowerPoint, but examples are typically lost in translation. Most professors that use PowerPoint talk around the examples with an inadequate level of depth such that the printable notes are not sufficient to replicate the work outside of class.
Personally, I don't foresee many fields entirely leaving the realm of chalk/marker and board in the near future. The "traditional" learning style requires that instructors pace themselves with handwriting, whereas a preprepared slide collection usually results in a mind-boggling flight through material. My suggestions to those faculty insisting upon using PowerPoint and other technological conveniences are thus:
1. Technology is meant to be an aid, not a crutch. Having material on a slide does not absolve an instructor from explaining said material at an appropriate level.
2. Use animated graphics rather than static ones when describing the motion of an object. One example is to include arrows rotating around a magnet to indicate field lines.
3. Slow down. Some people out there like to have time to read the slide.
However, having sat in a petition queue for over two hours without advancing in priority, I'd like to mention that they should be less selective in their help and look for more quantity. I mean... I was only stuck inside a mission. Beam me up, Scotty!
Her point was simply that she knew I wasn't going to go out and shoot up a schoolyard despite being picked on. Why? She asked me. Simply, she casually asked me over dinner why I played "violent video games" (Quake, Unreal... circa 1997-98, here) and how they made me feel. You'd be surprised what your kids will tell you if you just ask.
She acted like a parent and made me tell her where I was going and when I was expected back. I didn't have a curfew because she had taught me that being "good" brought more rewards than being "bad." If I made sure to remain well kept, I could wear whatever was available and listen to whatever I felt like, all because I acted like a model citizen and did my homework.
Was I ever angry at so-and-so, what's-her-face, cheerleader, and the-ugly-one for being totally insulting? Yes. However, I was taught a difference between the 2-3 hours of Quake a day and the 7 hours at school.
Children are not inherently evil. Video games are not inherently evil or manipulative. Parental attention and understanding make all the difference.
Yes, I'm serious. Actually, I have been truly impressed by CheapAss games. Ben Hurt is awesome, especially with Gladiator running in the background and a couple of six packs of Corona Extra in the foreground. :)
The point is that easy languages like QBASIC teach younger students the basic premises behind programming and spark interest. There's plenty of time to learn the right way to do things.
10. Use restroom more at work to save on toilet paper at home.
9. Sign up for the company's "unlimited long distance plan."
8. Safety glasses and window tint can make stylish sunglasses.
7. ESD footwear is not just for work anymore.
6. Eat all meals at work to take advantage of free break room condiments.
5. 2216 adhesive makes an excellent replacement for your child's Elmer's glue.
4. Collect old memos for burning during cold winter months.
3. Develop agreements with co-workers to nominate each other for peer recognition awards.
2. Thermal chambers can cook a mean pan of muffins!
and #1...
There ain't nothin' wrong with a blue conductive bathrobe.
If one chooses to blow off classes and fail to cultivate a solid foundation for a mature understanding of advanced topics, he is destined for mediocrity.
Before graduation, my friends and I sat around talking about the past few years, and this subject came up. We came to a consensus that if it were not for the group work, we would have led a miserable existence and wouldn't have learned half of what we did. By having to explain yourself to others, you discover the flaws in your own analysis and make necessary adjustments.
$50,000 for online instruction? I spent just shy of $72,000 for four years of out-of-state tuition at a major U.S. university (U. of Arkansas) which included full meal plans and a two-bedroom on-campus apartment. Assuming you cut back the housing and food, as you live within the real world, there are much more economically efficient ways to fly, if your employers were not paying for it.If you prefer the classic good against evil type with strong character development, FF6 is for you. Fans of interactive endings and non-linear game play lean towards Chrono Trigger. FF7 is typically preferred by gamers who crave dark story lines where the good guys don't always win.
Personally, I believe Final Fantasy VII is the best game of all time. Sephiroth is one bad motha-shut-yo-mouth kind of villain. The soundtrack rocks. It's easy to relate to a story that originates under the oppression of an evil corporation (something slashdotters know absolutely nothing about, right? *chuckle*). Good things don't always happen to good people, but they continue to work towards what they believe in. I enjoyed FF7 so much that I would purchase it again if it came out for PS2.
American Greetings may elect to take Penny Arcade to court, but the legal expenses shouldn't be as extreme as some people might lead others to believe.
We recently encountered a similar event on our software project at work, where we have been developing a behavioral modeling package. However, we did not have our faculty supervisor in the country for about a month before our release date due to attending conferences in Montreal, Australia, and China, respectively. Therefore, the task for motivation and monitoring fell upon me, the interim project manager (and an undergrad at that).
Basically, I found the best way to keep everyone working was to schedule a time (usually about an hour) every day where I would stop by the lab and ask to see what they had done that day. It would usually embarrass them to say that they didn't have anything to show for a day's work, so they started working harder. If they had any questions about how to do something or what they needed to be doing, I was there to answer in whatever gory detail it required. Therefore, I was able to expect a certain degree of progress every day.
These daily sessions were supplemented by a weekly group meeting. During this time, we would give definitive goals for the week and group lessons on programming in PyQt (our chosen language).
Give praise when needed and force deadlines when necessary. Always be willing to answer questions and respond quickly to keep them on task. Unfortunately, you will spend less time coding, but the quality of their code will eventually pick up once they get going. Just remember that being heartlessly negative will only amplify the problem.