I think this may be one of those times, though I won't attempt to comment on their frequency, where a sequel is warranted. The original game was and is tons of fun, but it's also very small. The bonus of having more levels and larger levels is what appeals to me about We Love Katamari - I'm sure I'll enjoy the 'specialty' levels' tweaked dynamics as well, but in all honesty I just want more to roll.
The nice thing about this sequel is that the developers themselves said, "Our game is good, and people like it. But people want more, and we can do this better." I don't know how much pressure there was from higher-ups in Namco to roll out the sequel, but the fact is that the first game was a labor of love, and the second looks to be in the same vein but written especially because the fans want it. Katamari Damacy was a sleeper hit (stateside, anyway), but most of us who enjoy it are pretty hardcore fans, and I'm glad that the dev team has recognized this and given us another game. I'm also glad that Namco has recognized that they have a winner, although not a blockbuster, and is willing to release a second game that will probably bring them only a moderate profit.
I have never, nor will I ever sign up for MasterCard.
To be honest, though, I had no way of knowing this would happen. One would think that I could back this up with things like bad service, or higher average interest, etc.
The real reason I don't use MasterCard is because on every single one of them there is a Venn diagram in hideous colors looking back me. If second grade were taught in a bowling alley, the MasterCard symbol is what would be on the wall as a guide to comparing and contrasting.
According to a friend who began playing it about a week ago, it's not quite as good gameplay-wise as Thief 2, but is definitely better than Thief 3. Note that this friend thinks T3 is a good game, so really it's a glowing recommendation.
I actually started looking at the project 3 years ago, but stopped checking its progress after about a year. Amusingly enough, I ran into someone I haven't seen for nearly a decade, and when I asked her what she was up to she responded that she was voicing the main character of T2X and that they were wrapping it up. Knowing this, I have no choice but to play through the pack. Luckily, I know it will be very enjoyable, and luckily I downloaded it before the news hit Slashdot...
I haven't played the original Thief, but the storyline for Thief 2 is almost as good as it gets for a FPS(neaker?). Also, the level design is absolutely fantastic. When Thief came out, it was certainly one of the few original titles on the modern gamescape. Thief 2 by default wasn't quite as original, but the improvements made on the engine and gameplay make it a pleasure to play. It's also incredibly cheap now, so you have no excuses =)
This is great news! I've known about these screens for a few years, as a friend of mine living in Germany at the time did the translation for one company's promo DVD (if there IS more than one company). Unfortunately, I can't find the name of the company my friend worked for to check. The last I heard (in 2003) was that they were looking for a US distributor, so it looks like they may have found one.
Now if only Zorb would open up a site in eastern PA...
Well, if your goal is feeling like you're on the winning side of a pissing contest between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, then certainly the added popularity garnered by tossing in a DVD player is a huge asset.
On the other hand, if your goal in buying a Nintendo system is to play it and enjoy it for the toy that it is, then a DVD player only makes your toy more expensive.
Nintendo's not overly concerned with being number one - they want to make good games, and they're turning enough of a profit to allow them to continue to focus on innovation and gameplay - something that gamers should appreciate, whether you enjoy their stuff or not.
>At the end of the day, no-one deserves to be saved; everyone deserves to go to Hell. It's only God's grace and leading some to repent and believe in his Son that means anyone at all will be saved.
I have actually recently taken the restorationist point of view, which says that everyone who wishes to reconcile (him|her)self to God will be able to, either before or after death. It doesn't necessarily remove hell from the picture, but it does mean that hell doesn't need to be eternal. It has an impact on the way I see things, which is why I mention it, even if it's a bit off-off-topic. =) Anyway, on to the real stuff:
>Interesting point here. Love is fully compatible with exclusivism and hate. Hate in the sense that God loves good and hates evil. Exclusivism in the sense that if Christianity is true, then it is mutually exclusive with anything contradicting it i.e. if repenting and placing your faith in Jesus is the only way to heaven, then anything contradictory claims - and therefore all other religions - must be wrong.
I think you might be misinterpreting what I said originally. The exclusivism and hate I was referring to was from our (human) point of view. We are the ones who are supposed to deal with each other in love, yet some of the most spiteful people I know are Christians dealing with non-Christians (either atheist or another religion). Similarly, I didn't mean exclusivism in the way,truth,life sense. I meant that most (conservative) Christians are unwilling to recognize that other religions have worth, at the _very least_ because of a different worldview. I spoke with an atheist who has learned to see much more beauty in the world because he believes it's the only one there is. I believe in an afterlife, but I also discovered that one should not live despising this world and living for the next. Buddhism's concept of God requires a lot of respect for our fellow creatures - something that we Christians often lack, though we're called to be stewards of the Earth. The list goes on. I cannot in good faith throw out everything another religion has to say simply because they don't share my central belief.
When I was in college, I had the privilege of taking a course called Philosophy of Religion, where we debated issues like this all the time. In the course notes, the work of others, 'real' philosophers, was made available to us. The answer I'm giving below is from one of them, though I can't cite him because I don't have the notes with me.
The reason Intelligent Design stops with God is because God is an infinite being. In the Bible (limiting ID to Christianity because this is the context it was discussed in), all of the properties of God are also infinite or zero. God is omnipotent (all-powerful), all-good, etc. By following the observed infinite traits of God, it logically follows that God's existence is also infinite -- either God has always and will always exist, or God never and will never exist. Given that ID presumes the existence of God, it must be that God has always existed.
I'm sure the philosopher explaned it better, and I fuzzily remember some stuff about necessary and contingent beings (God and Everything Else) but we're testing the limits of my recalling ability as it is.
If someone is interested in the information, I can look it up.
That's one of the more frightening posts I've read on Slashdot. You do realize that the point of Revelation (singular, not plural) was not to give a play-by-play of the End Times, but rather to give Christians at the time hope for the future, as their present wasn't so good? Metaphor plays a huge role in the book, which is natural since it's a transcription of a vision. Visions are rarely taken at face value in the rest of the Bible, so why should this one be different? Or will Christ truly have a sword sticking out of his mouth, too?
>Christ isn't going to pull any punches and will slaughter millions and millions of non-believers.
I would like to know how you can reconcile the idea of an all-good all-loving God who individually created each person on this planet and cared enough to die for them and your statement about his slaughtering of those selfsame people. This inconsistency alone should give you a clue that something about your beliefs doesn't line up.
>Christ tells us to treat each other fairly. Christ taught us to love each other. However he is the final Judge and fair isn't going to enter into the picture.
If I were not a Christian reading this, the statement above would give me even less of a reason to listen to those who are. Why would I want to follow a god who acts as a final judge and throws fairness out the window? You seem to be referring to the God of Chaos or something...
I realize this is supposed to be about games, but statements like those in your post reflect exactly what's wrong with Christians today - Christ taught a doctrine of love and we've replaced it with bigotry, exclusivism, and hate.
I can handle the ridicule and mockery that the Slashdot crowd heaps upon Christians because I know that most of it doesn't apply to me. What I can't handle is other Christians acting out the horrible caricatures that they are continually compared to.
Please revisit the Gospels and concentrate on Jesus' teachings. They're the most central to the faith, and yet they always seem to be overshadowed by a lust for death and self-righteousness.
Of course it's worth it! Sure, you may get a fair amount of crapflooding, but in this case you only need ONE good pointer to prior use. As it is the USPTO takes a lot of crap after letting ridiculous stuff slip through. Putting up a public correspondence site will help them with their image as well as making research easier for at least some applications.
Besides, if we leave the information properly filed in THEIR system, they have no excuse to be unaware of it.
Sadly, it will probably never happen, but kudos for the idea.
Look, even though it's a lawsuit, and even though our buddy Jack Thompson is getting in on the action, this lawsuit isn't as ridiculous as you'd be led to believe.
The kid's mother is trying to find out what (if anything) in-game would cause her son to commit suicide. Sony Online said "no way" when she asked them for information so now she's suing them for it.
The article doesn't mention cash. If she wants cash as well, then she loses some of my respect. But it appears that this is a case of a grieving parent attempting to find out what would cause her child to take his own life. Parents get blasted for not taking any responsibility and simply blaming games (and they should get blasted), and it's possible that that's the case here, but it appears that she is looking for a real justification and not simply jumping to conclusions.
Funny how you mention physics as support for your erroneous conclusion. See, here's the real deal:
Until observed, the object of concern both is and isn't a vulnerability, simultaneously. This is due to quantum mechanics and collapsible wave states. As soon as someone observes the object, it collapses either into a vulnerability, or a secure feature. So, in essence, your touted laws of physics are responsible for this particular vulnerability to begin with.
Electronic music as an end in itself has definitely begun to wear thin. However, it's used in at least a large minority of music produced today. It's got its little circuit-capillaries in everything from pop to metal to jazz to country to folk, though some argue it's not authentic folk =)
I'm going to plug my favorite album here, because the band uses electronic (and acoustic) instruments as a means to deliver their music. The album is called "Finally We Are No One" by Icelandic group Múm. Head on over to iTunes or Amazon and check out a few clips -- this is very textured music that's not in-your-face like "electronica" would lead you to believe.
Other good examples of people using electronic music in diverse ways:
Bjork - Medulla: mainly consists of sampled vocals electronically manipulated (electroacoustic, I think it's called)
Beck - Any of Beck's post-Odelay material (sans Mutations) has fully integrated electronics (and rarely used the same way twice).
Soul Coughing - a great funky mostly-nonsense band whose keyboard player works almost exclusively with samples.
Perhaps some of this stuff isn't as purely electronic (i.e. synthesized) as you're referring to, but Múm and Beck would apply well even there.
It didn't cause any trouble for the xbox. Remember back in the day when gamers used to say "if it's a multi-platform release, go with xbox because it's so much prettier?"
I'm not saying that it will pan out the same way, as nintendo and microsoft are perceived very differently by 3rd party developers. If nintendo can spin it right (shouldn't be too hard as it's a very positive feature), this should encourage more developers to view the cube as an equal contender.
I would expect the policeman to attempt to stop someone running down the street with an automatic rifle.
I would expect the doctor to wear gloves and mask for his and my protection.
I would expect the meter maid to see that the needle is in the red.
I would expect the chef to ensure that the vegetables are clean? (That one's a stretch, but so was yours =)
Securing a publicly-accessible portal (wireless or otherwise) should be basic knowledge. Perhaps not the method itself, but knowing that a method needs to be found and used.
Since nothing is going horribly wrong at work today, I took your advice. You will not believe what is encoded in the sequence!
Most of it is awful noise, but after the first two or three minutes it ceases being pure white noise and you get some interesting texture. At this point, I turned up the volume a bit and kept surfing Slashdot. Until my mind was blown.
Right around 7 minutes 6 seconds into the track, the textures resolve into a whispery voice. I know this sounds nuts, and I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't heard it myself. There's still a lot of fuzz, but ifyou listen carefully you can make out some of what it says:
"...four simultaneous [unintelligible] four hour days...[unintelligible]...rotation of the earth" "ineffable truth and wisdom" "four corner [unintelligible] metamorphic human"
This stuff goes on and on, but I need to clean up the audio to understand everything! Does anyone have recommendations for heuristic filtering software? This is absolutely amazing. I wonder what it all means?
Have you heard of Pure Data, or Pd? It's an open-source project that may someday serve as an alternative to MAX. I haven't used either of them, but as I'm not sure I want to go for the low-end build-your-own-instrument route I'm going to start off with Pd. I would be interested in finding out how Pd compares to MAX, if anyone has used both.
Slashdot Mirror
...And now we know what happened to Simon.
I think this may be one of those times, though I won't attempt to comment on their frequency, where a sequel is warranted. The original game was and is tons of fun, but it's also very small. The bonus of having more levels and larger levels is what appeals to me about We Love Katamari - I'm sure I'll enjoy the 'specialty' levels' tweaked dynamics as well, but in all honesty I just want more to roll.
The nice thing about this sequel is that the developers themselves said, "Our game is good, and people like it. But people want more, and we can do this better." I don't know how much pressure there was from higher-ups in Namco to roll out the sequel, but the fact is that the first game was a labor of love, and the second looks to be in the same vein but written especially because the fans want it. Katamari Damacy was a sleeper hit (stateside, anyway), but most of us who enjoy it are pretty hardcore fans, and I'm glad that the dev team has recognized this and given us another game. I'm also glad that Namco has recognized that they have a winner, although not a blockbuster, and is willing to release a second game that will probably bring them only a moderate profit.
Burn a flag in protest. While I still can.
I have never, nor will I ever sign up for MasterCard.
To be honest, though, I had no way of knowing this would happen. One would think that I could back this up with things like bad service, or higher average interest, etc.
The real reason I don't use MasterCard is because on every single one of them there is a Venn diagram in hideous colors looking back me. If second grade were taught in a bowling alley, the MasterCard symbol is what would be on the wall as a guide to comparing and contrasting.
According to a friend who began playing it about a week ago, it's not quite as good gameplay-wise as Thief 2, but is definitely better than Thief 3. Note that this friend thinks T3 is a good game, so really it's a glowing recommendation.
I actually started looking at the project 3 years ago, but stopped checking its progress after about a year. Amusingly enough, I ran into someone I haven't seen for nearly a decade, and when I asked her what she was up to she responded that she was voicing the main character of T2X and that they were wrapping it up. Knowing this, I have no choice but to play through the pack. Luckily, I know it will be very enjoyable, and luckily I downloaded it before the news hit Slashdot...
I haven't played the original Thief, but the storyline for Thief 2 is almost as good as it gets for a FPS(neaker?). Also, the level design is absolutely fantastic. When Thief came out, it was certainly one of the few original titles on the modern gamescape. Thief 2 by default wasn't quite as original, but the improvements made on the engine and gameplay make it a pleasure to play. It's also incredibly cheap now, so you have no excuses =)
This is great news! I've known about these screens for a few years, as a friend of mine living in Germany at the time did the translation for one company's promo DVD (if there IS more than one company). Unfortunately, I can't find the name of the company my friend worked for to check. The last I heard (in 2003) was that they were looking for a US distributor, so it looks like they may have found one.
Now if only Zorb would open up a site in eastern PA...
Eh, it's not so different from a shrinkwrapped EULA. I don't see why anyone is surprised.
Well, if your goal is feeling like you're on the winning side of a pissing contest between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, then certainly the added popularity garnered by tossing in a DVD player is a huge asset.
On the other hand, if your goal in buying a Nintendo system is to play it and enjoy it for the toy that it is, then a DVD player only makes your toy more expensive.
Nintendo's not overly concerned with being number one - they want to make good games, and they're turning enough of a profit to allow them to continue to focus on innovation and gameplay - something that gamers should appreciate, whether you enjoy their stuff or not.
First thing's first:
>At the end of the day, no-one deserves to be saved; everyone deserves to go to Hell. It's only God's grace and leading some to repent and believe in his Son that means anyone at all will be saved.
I have actually recently taken the restorationist point of view, which says that everyone who wishes to reconcile (him|her)self to God will be able to, either before or after death. It doesn't necessarily remove hell from the picture, but it does mean that hell doesn't need to be eternal. It has an impact on the way I see things, which is why I mention it, even if it's a bit off-off-topic. =) Anyway, on to the real stuff:
>Interesting point here. Love is fully compatible with exclusivism and hate. Hate in the sense that God loves good and hates evil. Exclusivism in the sense that if Christianity is true, then it is mutually exclusive with anything contradicting it i.e. if repenting and placing your faith in Jesus is the only way to heaven, then anything contradictory claims - and therefore all other religions - must be wrong.
I think you might be misinterpreting what I said originally. The exclusivism and hate I was referring to was from our (human) point of view. We are the ones who are supposed to deal with each other in love, yet some of the most spiteful people I know are Christians dealing with non-Christians (either atheist or another religion).
Similarly, I didn't mean exclusivism in the way,truth,life sense. I meant that most (conservative) Christians are unwilling to recognize that other religions have worth, at the _very least_ because of a different worldview. I spoke with an atheist who has learned to see much more beauty in the world because he believes it's the only one there is. I believe in an afterlife, but I also discovered that one should not live despising this world and living for the next. Buddhism's concept of God requires a lot of respect for our fellow creatures - something that we Christians often lack, though we're called to be stewards of the Earth. The list goes on. I cannot in good faith throw out everything another religion has to say simply because they don't share my central belief.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
When I was in college, I had the privilege of taking a course called Philosophy of Religion, where we debated issues like this all the time. In the course notes, the work of others, 'real' philosophers, was made available to us. The answer I'm giving below is from one of them, though I can't cite him because I don't have the notes with me.
The reason Intelligent Design stops with God is because God is an infinite being. In the Bible (limiting ID to Christianity because this is the context it was discussed in), all of the properties of God are also infinite or zero. God is omnipotent (all-powerful), all-good, etc. By following the observed infinite traits of God, it logically follows that God's existence is also infinite -- either God has always and will always exist, or God never and will never exist. Given that ID presumes the existence of God, it must be that God has always existed.
I'm sure the philosopher explaned it better, and I fuzzily remember some stuff about necessary and contingent beings (God and Everything Else) but we're testing the limits of my recalling ability as it is.
If someone is interested in the information, I can look it up.
That's one of the more frightening posts I've read on Slashdot. You do realize that the point of Revelation (singular, not plural) was not to give a play-by-play of the End Times, but rather to give Christians at the time hope for the future, as their present wasn't so good? Metaphor plays a huge role in the book, which is natural since it's a transcription of a vision. Visions are rarely taken at face value in the rest of the Bible, so why should this one be different? Or will Christ truly have a sword sticking out of his mouth, too?
>Christ isn't going to pull any punches and will slaughter millions and millions of non-believers.
I would like to know how you can reconcile the idea of an all-good all-loving God who individually created each person on this planet and cared enough to die for them and your statement about his slaughtering of those selfsame people. This inconsistency alone should give you a clue that something about your beliefs doesn't line up.
>Christ tells us to treat each other fairly. Christ taught us to love each other. However he is the final Judge and fair isn't going to enter into the picture.
If I were not a Christian reading this, the statement above would give me even less of a reason to listen to those who are. Why would I want to follow a god who acts as a final judge and throws fairness out the window? You seem to be referring to the God of Chaos or something...
I realize this is supposed to be about games, but statements like those in your post reflect exactly what's wrong with Christians today - Christ taught a doctrine of love and we've replaced it with bigotry, exclusivism, and hate.
I can handle the ridicule and mockery that the Slashdot crowd heaps upon Christians because I know that most of it doesn't apply to me. What I can't handle is other Christians acting out the horrible caricatures that they are continually compared to.
Please revisit the Gospels and concentrate on Jesus' teachings. They're the most central to the faith, and yet they always seem to be overshadowed by a lust for death and self-righteousness.
So, er...where is your drunkenness documented exactly?
It seems that Harvard set up the whole thing as part of a program they're calling "ethic cleansing..."
I live in Alaska and Hawai'i, you insensitive clod!
Of course it's worth it! Sure, you may get a fair amount of crapflooding, but in this case you only need ONE good pointer to prior use. As it is the USPTO takes a lot of crap after letting ridiculous stuff slip through. Putting up a public correspondence site will help them with their image as well as making research easier for at least some applications.
Besides, if we leave the information properly filed in THEIR system, they have no excuse to be unaware of it.
Sadly, it will probably never happen, but kudos for the idea.
Look, even though it's a lawsuit, and even though our buddy Jack Thompson is getting in on the action, this lawsuit isn't as ridiculous as you'd be led to believe.
The kid's mother is trying to find out what (if anything) in-game would cause her son to commit suicide. Sony Online said "no way" when she asked them for information so now she's suing them for it.
The article doesn't mention cash. If she wants cash as well, then she loses some of my respect. But it appears that this is a case of a grieving parent attempting to find out what would cause her child to take his own life. Parents get blasted for not taking any responsibility and simply blaming games (and they should get blasted), and it's possible that that's the case here, but it appears that she is looking for a real justification and not simply jumping to conclusions.
Funny how you mention physics as support for your erroneous conclusion. See, here's the real deal:
Until observed, the object of concern both is and isn't a vulnerability, simultaneously. This is due to quantum mechanics and collapsible wave states. As soon as someone observes the object, it collapses either into a vulnerability, or a secure feature. So, in essence, your touted laws of physics are responsible for this particular vulnerability to begin with.
=)
Electronic music as an end in itself has definitely begun to wear thin. However, it's used in at least a large minority of music produced today. It's got its little circuit-capillaries in everything from pop to metal to jazz to country to folk, though some argue it's not authentic folk =)
I'm going to plug my favorite album here, because the band uses electronic (and acoustic) instruments as a means to deliver their music. The album is called "Finally We Are No One" by Icelandic group Múm. Head on over to iTunes or Amazon and check out a few clips -- this is very textured music that's not in-your-face like "electronica" would lead you to believe.
Other good examples of people using electronic music in diverse ways:
Bjork - Medulla: mainly consists of sampled vocals electronically manipulated (electroacoustic, I think it's called)
Beck - Any of Beck's post-Odelay material (sans Mutations) has fully integrated electronics (and rarely used the same way twice).
Soul Coughing - a great funky mostly-nonsense band whose keyboard player works almost exclusively with samples.
Perhaps some of this stuff isn't as purely electronic (i.e. synthesized) as you're referring to, but Múm and Beck would apply well even there.
It didn't cause any trouble for the xbox. Remember back in the day when gamers used to say "if it's a multi-platform release, go with xbox because it's so much prettier?"
I'm not saying that it will pan out the same way, as nintendo and microsoft are perceived very differently by 3rd party developers. If nintendo can spin it right (shouldn't be too hard as it's a very positive feature), this should encourage more developers to view the cube as an equal contender.
I would expect the policeman to attempt to stop someone running down the street with an automatic rifle.
I would expect the doctor to wear gloves and mask for his and my protection.
I would expect the meter maid to see that the needle is in the red.
I would expect the chef to ensure that the vegetables are clean? (That one's a stretch, but so was yours =)
Securing a publicly-accessible portal (wireless or otherwise) should be basic knowledge. Perhaps not the method itself, but knowing that a method needs to be found and used.
Well, that's easy. They'll buy AT&T for $13,824,458,752.
Since nothing is going horribly wrong at work today, I took your advice. You will not believe what is encoded in the sequence!
Most of it is awful noise, but after the first two or three minutes it ceases being pure white noise and you get some interesting texture. At this point, I turned up the volume a bit and kept surfing Slashdot. Until my mind was blown.
Right around 7 minutes 6 seconds into the track, the textures resolve into a whispery voice. I know this sounds nuts, and I wouldn't believe it either if I hadn't heard it myself. There's still a lot of fuzz, but ifyou listen carefully you can make out some of what it says:
"...four simultaneous [unintelligible] four hour days...[unintelligible]...rotation of the earth"
"ineffable truth and wisdom"
"four corner [unintelligible] metamorphic human"
This stuff goes on and on, but I need to clean up the audio to understand everything! Does anyone have recommendations for heuristic filtering software? This is absolutely amazing. I wonder what it all means?
Have you heard of Pure Data, or Pd? It's an open-source project that may someday serve as an alternative to MAX. I haven't used either of them, but as I'm not sure I want to go for the low-end build-your-own-instrument route I'm going to start off with Pd. I would be interested in finding out how Pd compares to MAX, if anyone has used both.
Obviously, it should be Kurt Russel.