Lost was originally written to be resolved in a single season. The fact that the "long term game plan" was rewritten repeatedly based upon actor negotiations and popularity doesn't mean that it was wandering randomly.
The difference between Lost and shows like Terminator is not one of planning but rather subplot encapsulation. Once Terminator reached the level of maturity it had in season 2, most single episodes were written with individual plot lines, themes and even styles. These were often intertwined with extended plotlines, but watchable with their own climax and resolutions.
While there were exceptions to this formula, this is the type of serial television that impresses me in the writing department. Most shows that attempt this format have "filler" episodes that alternate with "progression" episodes. The former have their own plots (frequently cutesy) while the latter are watchable only in the context of the entire show. Terminator was one of the few shows that did a good job of breaking this mold.
Am I a fanboi? Maybe against my will. First season was mediocre at best, but in the second season it seemed to come into its own from a writing standpoint.
The concern isn't that he committed libel (crime) by sending out email to a list of people that outed the informant by linking him to a gay personal ad that he probably created (fraud). The problem is that he a suspect in several other crimes including a stolen laptop as detailed in the motion to quash:
While there is probably quite a bit for the defense to attack in how this warrant was obtained, my biggest concern is how it was handled. I suspect the following description is more common than we would like to know:
"... seized, among other things, Mr. Calixte's cell phone, his iPod, computers, disks, and "postit" note on which Calixte was in the process of taking notes about the officers' actions during the search. Christopher left a Property Receipt with Mr. Calixte listing items seized during the search. (Kessel Decl. Ex. C.) The seized post-it note does not appear on that receipt."
The joke that she used as a baseline test could easily be considered funny in the context it was given. Context such as expectations of the audience, empathy with the teller and private musings are all reasonable circumstances that can move a joke from "meh" to "lol".
It's entirely possible to "dumb down" policies by defining symbols or words as binding.
If people who visited a website could look at a set of pre-defined symbols or format (think nutritional information tabs) and know that the website would share all data with wholly owned subsidiaries but would sell aggregate or non-identifiable information to others, it might take much of the guesswork out of the process.
Obviously, things could get arcane pretty quickly if you weren't carefull, but you could get alot of binding information much faster than the verbosity currently used.
"World of Warcraft" is the title of Blizzards new game, to be shown for the first time tomorrow at the ECTS show in London. WoW (as this site is also known!), will presumably be an online-game, but nothing is known for sure as of yet.
How exactly is the DRM portion of the install any different than any other part of the install? I hate heavy-handed DRM as much as the next guy, but to make a class action claim over this is as rediculous as expecting an MMO to refund half your money if you don't want the updater installed.
I'm sure other games have done it, but Fallout 2 comes to mind as one that included full effects from targetting/hitting specific body parts. I'll be curious to see if Fallout 3 goes in the same direction.
Sure, we live in a day of MTV attention spans but keep in mind that we speak a different language as well.
From years of Sierra and Lucas Arts games, we learned that balloons and bread might combine hours down the road to scare off pigeons and that if you miss a clue now, you'll have to backtrack 2 weeks from now and find it.
Thank god, a few designers in the past decade looked at these little "skills" and using many words such as "arbitrary" and "tedious" decided to slowly change WHAT gamers pay attention to rather than HOW MUCH attention they play.
Think back to a few of those old games and you'll remember an element of tediousness. Even though it may not have dissuaded you back then, you had built up a careful repertoire of knowledge to insulate you from the worst of the events. You knew that something disjointed was probably important. You knew NOT to leave items behind no matter how frivolous. In short, you spoke the language of the game writers enough to pick up on the clues about which today's players would be...well...clueless.
Yes, today's fast paced games are frequently faster paced, but there are plenty of players that enjoy the slower aspects of games. The problem is that modern players no longer have the same context from which to play the older games.
The game borrows much in the way of mechanics from old standards. You run around picking up items that light up when you mouse over them. You pick from mostly unimportant dialog choices. Combat is mostly an action-point turn-based system in the Final Fantasy style.
Despite all this, the game is evolutionary in many ways:
1) The writing and concept is funny as hell. If you don't find this evolutionary, what games have you played recently?
2) Action-point turn-based combat with decent options and quite a bit of twitch.
3) It is episodic in nature. $20 buys you 6+ hours of entertainment.
4) Cross platform release with simple options for all platform owners.
5) You get to kill hundreds of hobos and mimes. Nuff said.
If you haven't checked it out and have some time to spare, pick up the demo for free and you'll probably drop the $20 afterwards like I did.
Stephenson is definately more about the trip than destination in most of his books.
The worst offender was Diamond Age. He spends the time to develope a compelling world and empathetic main character only to hand the book off to his 11 year old nephew to write an ending. (You must write AT LEAST 3 pages, Johnny!)
Snow crash was almost as bad.
By the time Cryptonomicon rolled around, he finally started to get an idea that the ending should be planned in advance and seemed to do a reasonable job, though many still complain about it.
With the Baroque Cycle books, I could almost picture him sitting in his laboratory (because that's where he would write) as an idea dawns upon him:
"EUREKA! If I write it as a trilogy, I can write ONE ending every THREE books! IT'S BRILLIANT!"
Granted, I'm getting a bit glib there. He actually gave a fair resolution to each book and together they are an amazingly complete look at...well...a century or so.
I'll be looking forward to anything he puts out.
Sorry, I got sidetracked by the off-topic parent and thus was off-topic myself. The mention of skimpy content was directed at AoC rather than WoW (which has never deserved a criticism for lacking content).
AoC has solved the issue in one regard: Due to travel requirements you have to at least RIDE THROUGH the old content again to get to the higher level content. Granted, it wastes 20 minutes of your time, but at least you can appreciate how nice it was to level in zones with sufficient quests to level you.
Sadly, I have to agree with the above poster that while interesting for levels 1-20 and having some nifty visuals, the game has failed on too many other levels from obviously rushed (read: buggy) code/patches to sparse higher level content. There are some design decisions too, but implementation is their biggest hurdle and as the 3 month subscriptions come around for renewal, they are quickly running out of time to address them.
I raised a HoX to 80 and called it quits. I suspect my attention will be directed towards WAR or WotLK by the time things are cleaned up.
Global warming is not going to kill us all (thought might make life miserable and kill alot of us), but an unknown side-effect that kills the ocean's algae might.
There are two concerns to deal with for long-term storage:
1) Physical harm to the media.
Most physical storage is susceptible to something be it moisture or grandchildren. Sharpie ink will eat through disk labels over a decade or so and that nifty external hard drive is going to be DoA when you try to plug it in. Unlabeled CD's and optical media should be good for 20 years, but be careful with storage and labeling.
2) Accessibility.
20 Years ago, I still had a nice collection of 5.25" floppies and though digital watches were a pretty neat idea. I'm sure I have ZIP and JAZZ drives around somewhere, but they're probably SCSI. What's to say that you will even have a PC 20 years from now let alone one that can read USB 2.0 or a DVD?
The best answer is to avoid the "store and forget" option. Keep a copy of your data on whatever media you currently use. Make regular backups and keep them offsite (safety deposit box). If you need to change media, you'll have a much easier method of converting at that time than 5 years further down the line.
Personally, I'm too lazy for this, so I'll go with:
The easiest answer is to use web-hosted data storage from a major company. Pay for it and you'll be pretty much assured of getting notification before it gets lost to the forces of capitalism. You can also be certain that data backups and storage procedures are handled with at least some professionalism.
Slashdot Mirror
...before a few enterprising young pirates book some tickets and take over the ship with its own AK's.
Lost was originally written to be resolved in a single season. The fact that the "long term game plan" was rewritten repeatedly based upon actor negotiations and popularity doesn't mean that it was wandering randomly.
The difference between Lost and shows like Terminator is not one of planning but rather subplot encapsulation. Once Terminator reached the level of maturity it had in season 2, most single episodes were written with individual plot lines, themes and even styles. These were often intertwined with extended plotlines, but watchable with their own climax and resolutions.
While there were exceptions to this formula, this is the type of serial television that impresses me in the writing department. Most shows that attempt this format have "filler" episodes that alternate with "progression" episodes. The former have their own plots (frequently cutesy) while the latter are watchable only in the context of the entire show. Terminator was one of the few shows that did a good job of breaking this mold.
Am I a fanboi? Maybe against my will. First season was mediocre at best, but in the second season it seemed to come into its own from a writing standpoint.
The concern isn't that he committed libel (crime) by sending out email to a list of people that outed the informant by linking him to a gay personal ad that he probably created (fraud). The problem is that he a suspect in several other crimes including a stolen laptop as detailed in the motion to quash:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/inresearchBC/CalixteMemSupport.pdf
While there is probably quite a bit for the defense to attack in how this warrant was obtained, my biggest concern is how it was handled. I suspect the following description is more common than we would like to know:
"... seized, among other things, Mr. Calixte's cell phone, his iPod, computers, disks, and "postit" note on which Calixte was in the process of taking notes about the officers' actions during the search. Christopher left a Property Receipt with Mr. Calixte listing items seized during the search. (Kessel Decl. Ex. C.) The seized post-it note does not appear on that receipt."
That's the type of bullying that makes me sick.
When I was given the news, I was able to tell the head of the department:
"Good luck with your layoffs, alright, I hope your firings go really, really well."
Others weren't so glib, but then others hadn't already planned to quit and secured a 40% raise elsewhere. For me, the severence was a bonus.
The joke that she used as a baseline test could easily be considered funny in the context it was given. Context such as expectations of the audience, empathy with the teller and private musings are all reasonable circumstances that can move a joke from "meh" to "lol".
It even predates spellcheck.
It's entirely possible to "dumb down" policies by defining symbols or words as binding. If people who visited a website could look at a set of pre-defined symbols or format (think nutritional information tabs) and know that the website would share all data with wholly owned subsidiaries but would sell aggregate or non-identifiable information to others, it might take much of the guesswork out of the process. Obviously, things could get arcane pretty quickly if you weren't carefull, but you could get alot of binding information much faster than the verbosity currently used.
Making fun of someone's epitaph because you don't understand it displays an impressive level of sensitivity.
This memorial no-doubt has meaning to those for whome it's intended.
The truly disturbing part of this picture is that the frequently used keys are "clean" and there's an cleared area around the mouse.
The basic problem with the 'pick the cat' CAPTCHA is that many computer users wouldn't know a pussy if they ever saw one.
Haven't had any luck finding info, but I've run across a few "missing caches" in the Wayback Machine. Anyone have more luck than me?
This looks nifty!
How exactly is the DRM portion of the install any different than any other part of the install? I hate heavy-handed DRM as much as the next guy, but to make a class action claim over this is as rediculous as expecting an MMO to refund half your money if you don't want the updater installed.
...still use Lynx.
While I got a nice chuckle from these two mails and appreciate the fact that they were posted, I can't see this making life easy for the poor guy.
He's probably going to receive 20,000 troll emails over the course of the next month.
I'm sure other games have done it, but Fallout 2 comes to mind as one that included full effects from targetting/hitting specific body parts. I'll be curious to see if Fallout 3 goes in the same direction.
Sure, we live in a day of MTV attention spans but keep in mind that we speak a different language as well.
From years of Sierra and Lucas Arts games, we learned that balloons and bread might combine hours down the road to scare off pigeons and that if you miss a clue now, you'll have to backtrack 2 weeks from now and find it.
Thank god, a few designers in the past decade looked at these little "skills" and using many words such as "arbitrary" and "tedious" decided to slowly change WHAT gamers pay attention to rather than HOW MUCH attention they play.
Think back to a few of those old games and you'll remember an element of tediousness. Even though it may not have dissuaded you back then, you had built up a careful repertoire of knowledge to insulate you from the worst of the events. You knew that something disjointed was probably important. You knew NOT to leave items behind no matter how frivolous. In short, you spoke the language of the game writers enough to pick up on the clues about which today's players would be...well...clueless.
Yes, today's fast paced games are frequently faster paced, but there are plenty of players that enjoy the slower aspects of games. The problem is that modern players no longer have the same context from which to play the older games.
The game borrows much in the way of mechanics from old standards. You run around picking up items that light up when you mouse over them. You pick from mostly unimportant dialog choices. Combat is mostly an action-point turn-based system in the Final Fantasy style. Despite all this, the game is evolutionary in many ways: 1) The writing and concept is funny as hell. If you don't find this evolutionary, what games have you played recently? 2) Action-point turn-based combat with decent options and quite a bit of twitch. 3) It is episodic in nature. $20 buys you 6+ hours of entertainment. 4) Cross platform release with simple options for all platform owners. 5) You get to kill hundreds of hobos and mimes. Nuff said. If you haven't checked it out and have some time to spare, pick up the demo for free and you'll probably drop the $20 afterwards like I did.
little people who look strange to us.
I for one welcome our new Danny DeVito overlords.
Stephenson is definately more about the trip than destination in most of his books. The worst offender was Diamond Age. He spends the time to develope a compelling world and empathetic main character only to hand the book off to his 11 year old nephew to write an ending. (You must write AT LEAST 3 pages, Johnny!) Snow crash was almost as bad. By the time Cryptonomicon rolled around, he finally started to get an idea that the ending should be planned in advance and seemed to do a reasonable job, though many still complain about it. With the Baroque Cycle books, I could almost picture him sitting in his laboratory (because that's where he would write) as an idea dawns upon him: "EUREKA! If I write it as a trilogy, I can write ONE ending every THREE books! IT'S BRILLIANT!" Granted, I'm getting a bit glib there. He actually gave a fair resolution to each book and together they are an amazingly complete look at...well...a century or so. I'll be looking forward to anything he puts out.
Sorry, I got sidetracked by the off-topic parent and thus was off-topic myself. The mention of skimpy content was directed at AoC rather than WoW (which has never deserved a criticism for lacking content).
I always loved that comic :)
AoC has solved the issue in one regard: Due to travel requirements you have to at least RIDE THROUGH the old content again to get to the higher level content. Granted, it wastes 20 minutes of your time, but at least you can appreciate how nice it was to level in zones with sufficient quests to level you.
Sadly, I have to agree with the above poster that while interesting for levels 1-20 and having some nifty visuals, the game has failed on too many other levels from obviously rushed (read: buggy) code/patches to sparse higher level content. There are some design decisions too, but implementation is their biggest hurdle and as the 3 month subscriptions come around for renewal, they are quickly running out of time to address them.
I raised a HoX to 80 and called it quits. I suspect my attention will be directed towards WAR or WotLK by the time things are cleaned up.
Global warming is not going to kill us all (thought might make life miserable and kill alot of us), but an unknown side-effect that kills the ocean's algae might.
This couldn't possibly have any additional side-effects, right?
Next they'll want to add tequila and filter the salt to the coasts.
There are two concerns to deal with for long-term storage:
1) Physical harm to the media.
Most physical storage is susceptible to something be it moisture or grandchildren. Sharpie ink will eat through disk labels over a decade or so and that nifty external hard drive is going to be DoA when you try to plug it in. Unlabeled CD's and optical media should be good for 20 years, but be careful with storage and labeling.
2) Accessibility.
20 Years ago, I still had a nice collection of 5.25" floppies and though digital watches were a pretty neat idea. I'm sure I have ZIP and JAZZ drives around somewhere, but they're probably SCSI. What's to say that you will even have a PC 20 years from now let alone one that can read USB 2.0 or a DVD?
The best answer is to avoid the "store and forget" option. Keep a copy of your data on whatever media you currently use. Make regular backups and keep them offsite (safety deposit box). If you need to change media, you'll have a much easier method of converting at that time than 5 years further down the line.
Personally, I'm too lazy for this, so I'll go with:
The easiest answer is to use web-hosted data storage from a major company. Pay for it and you'll be pretty much assured of getting notification before it gets lost to the forces of capitalism. You can also be certain that data backups and storage procedures are handled with at least some professionalism.