If they ever make the UI of OS X more user-friendly, I might even buy a computer from them...
Just like Apple to make things unnecessarily complicated, isn't it? I don't know how many times I've stared at the OS X desktop and said, HUH?! Where's the damn prompt???;-)
A certain kind of Mac lover--not the majority, in my view--loves to say gloatingly, on message boards, in a voice that I always imagine sounds like a cross between Alistair Cooke and Leonard Pinth-Garnell:
Apple shall nevah make a low-end product just as BMW shall nevah stoop to competing with Saturns
Or some such. You know what I'm talking about.
But the fact is, Apple's now an mp3 player company that happens to sell a tiny number of computers, too. And they're nice computers. I sure like ours. But if it or Wall Street thought iPods would translate into Powerbook or PowerMac sales, they were dreaming.
iPods might translate into sales of inexpensive headless boxes, though. They might if you can say, "Well, that cheap-ass Dell is no deal when I can get a decent machine for the same price." And it might work on impulse terms, too, especially if Apple builds on the kind of this-is-an-iPod-styled-computer metaphor it used in the introduction of the recent iMac. Oddly and ironically, you'd be accessorizing your iPod with a new computer. Hell, why not? Paradigms shift.
Then again, maybe the Pinth-Garnell set is right, and Apple will never stoop. But Jobs is shrewd, and the economic forecast for USA, Inc., is gloomy and getting gloomier. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to stoop!
the ignorant masses will say "look at the big mean corporation beating up on the little guy!"
What planet do you live on? Mine is the one where the "ignorant masses" have made Wal-Mart the largest retailer (and employer) in America; where everybody wants a brand name product; where people get their "news" from TV shows sponsored by giant agriculture, car and technology companies; where they watch hours of corporate commercials on TV per week.
Concern for the little guy? What year do you think this is--1965?
...the utter, complete overthrow of traditional publishing authority represented by user-driven review sites. I'm talking about gems like mobygames.com or even, say, epinions.com, which are themselves just groupings of the kind of everyday opinion that has gone on for years in message boards and on Usenet. Rather than read Kieron Gillen wank off about "money men" who don't properly appreciate their little on-staff genuises offering up the latest fresh batch of adjectives to Bungie, go read the reviews of people who are more interested in the fun (or lack thereof) they had playing. It's easy: trust the individual, not the institutional voice.
The paradigm for this might be the indispensible Internet movie database (imdb.com). Here everyone reviews. No, not everyone's opinion will matter to you, but somewhere in the mix you'll find the voices that you do rate, do follow. And beyond their utilitarian value, these sites are fascinating extended conversations, much like Slashdot.
There is specialized knowledge in every field, and there might be a very small handful of professional game journalists somewhere whose knowledge is useful in reviewing a game. If you find members of that tiny fraternity, read them. I've neither cared for the insights nor the style of a single reviewer in a gaming magazine to notice any names; there don't seem to be any gaming Roger Eberts or Anthony Lanes (probably because if you can write as well as either man, you aren't going to work for Ziff Davis describing the latest Madden sequel, are you?). In fact, the free subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly that I found (through cheapassgamer.com, if anyone else wishes one) has only delivered such a noisy piece of hysterically-written shit that each month it goes into the recycling, unread.
Do we need full-time reviewers to sit about churning out more hype-laden press releases in disguise? Why, when we can quite readily find gamers who have delivered their opinions free of the taint of sponsorship and ad-revenue--gamers whose opinions are far more immediate, un-mediated by corporate duty or stylistic one-upmanship, and arguably more worthwhile than the stuff you have to pay for.
It was never a good idea to rely on a third party such as Gamespy to provide a branded in-game browser. For one, that reliance drives up development costs for licensing fees. For another, it leaves you in a pickle when Gamespy decides to take its ball and go home.
In the PC world, hardcore gamers avoid Gamespy like the plague (and we don't bother to read its crappy ad-driven "content" online, either).
Apple can easily remedy the problem we're discussing by making a gaming browser part of OS X. No need to let a third party squat on what should be a seamless interchange between client and server, managed by the OS.
Here's a 3d engine with a decent camera system. I propose that someone remove the tanks, jeeps, cannons, etc., and retrofit the game with the world of one of the old pre-graphical RPGs--Moria, Dungeonhack, etc.
You're missing nothing. The memo is a masterpiece of doublespeak.
EA is suggesting that because creative people traditionally work "flexible" (i.e., long/obsessive) schedules, EA doesn't need to pay them more for their time. That's crap, of course. Anyone who is self-employed has experienced long hours; but the rewards of self-employment aren't present when you sign your soul away to make NHL 2006 in an EA sweatshop.
There's a second audience for this memo, too: lawmakers. EA is begging the GOP to give it legislation that will protect its massive profits from the fair and just demands of its workforce. I bet they get it. This will be a useful lesson for the right wing kids--and for right wing adults--who are going to discover first-hand what they've voted for: their own economic exploitation.
What's so snazzy about these graphics, anyway? The cartoonishness makes it look like a Hannah Barbara version of Morrowind. Fred Flinstone would not be out of place in WoW.
It's not the graphics quality as much as style that's at issue. Playing RPGs or adventures I find that attempts by designers at realism--e.g., Morrowind, Blade of Darkness--nearly always is more satisfying than stylized illustration. Maybe I just don't want to run around in a simplified cartoon world; to each his own.:-)
These are our tax dollars that they're shipping off to universities and I think we (the tax payers) do have a right to know what's being done with it.
My dear fellow, you're acting as if paying taxes entitles you to some form of control over your fellow citizens. Whatever gave you this ridiculous idea? You pay taxes to live in a civilized society, one in which education is prized as a badge of human endeavor that benefits the larger community. Think on that, would you; and steer clear of the noxious temptation to imagine that you somehow have deed to the privacy of others. Paying taxes is a banal necessity, like death. Yet it hardly ennobles voyeurism.
If a university has a 75% drop-out rate should they be funded the same as, less then or more then a university with a 5% drop-out rate? That's worthy of debate, something not possible without this data.
Wrong; it's entirely possible without building an intrusive, Hooveresque database.
While you go on about your imaginary "rights" and preach performance-based funding, you're missing the point. The highest value in this argument--and especially in the context of government registries in a nation notorious historically for the abuse thereof--is privacy. That you are eager to have the government reduce privacy is bad enough; but do not ask us to be lemmings with you.
Slowing? Given their pace, how could anyone tell? Not that I blame those two guys; their generosity is truly appreciated and even somewhat astonishing, given the attitudes of their peers.
It's disappointing that the Apple community can't produce more open source contributors. With everyone and his brother schlepping another icon manager or DVD collection database, there's an abundance of frivolous software and a shortage of work on truly useful, liberating products like OOo.
Parent is not a troll. No reviewer who has failed to do the courtesy to the author(s) of finishing a game, book, movie, etc. should be taken seriously.
Note: one of the reasons game "journalism" is such crap is that it's built on hype that begins even before the game's released, usually based on the slightest sample of the forthcoming game ("XYZ looks like a real winner from what we've seen").
You don't want the rich to go without, do you?
on
U.S. to Get New IP Czar
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
So, along with the airline industry, the auto industry, etc., etc., I suppose you think it's ok for MY tax dollars to be stolen from me (at gunpoint) to bail out the music industry? Well, then, fuck you.
You raise in your good post an important point about fairness in America: life is unfair for the majority, but it always must be made fair for our masters.
In practice, this plays out through the operation of two seemingly diametrical systems. The laissez-faire economy is operated for the poor and working classes, who must either sink or swim, while a kind of socialism is provided for the rich. They are entitled to sink all they like. Their political servants--the US government--will always be on hand at poolside to revive them, pump their waterlogged bellies, and towel down the poor dears while delivering fulsome praise for their bravery and daring in plunging to the bottom.
Europeans already enjoy ready travel to other nations, speak different languages, understand other societies.
But US citizens, famously provincial, could benefit from living and working abroad. No, you won't earn as much money, and you may find it hard to keep up with the latest pensées of Bill O'Reilly, and you'll have to learn to be tolerant and respectful of other cultures; but that seems like a decent trade-off, especially if the new migration creates better world citizens who can bring a measure of insight back to their own society.
Probably it's too late for those in their 30s and 40s, who, having show determination to vote against their own economic interests, now face being relegated to lower-paying jobs and ultimately being forced out of the field by the very corporate interests who control their politicians. But the new generation coming along could try this. Remember, kids: buy your airline tickets before you're drafted. Better an adventure next Spring in New Delhi than in Fallujah.
Discerning players will look for deeper, more immersive experiences. They will be less tolerant of "big problems" (note: that's not a synonym for "failure," as you confusedly imply). I pointed out what I think is "brilliant" and yet also why I think HL 2 is woefully overrated, a position I can defend. But you make no point at all, other than attacking my motives and blurting out rudely.
I wonder what you were looking for while you played the game. Were you looking to have fun and enjoy it, or to pick holes in it?
Heh. You need to examine your own tendencies to quash criticism before you go theorizing about the motives of critics.
Rand's hyperbolic theories lead to the creation of ubermensches like Veidt, not the down and out like Rorschach.
Ditko's weirdness is in full bloom, by the way, in his Vengeful World material, which I was just looking at tonight. Moore has aptly described him as a nut.
As for Veidt, I like to read him as a pisstake on the idealized Ayn Rand concoctions of proto-capitalists. There's also the Charles Atlas/self-improvement riff.
On another tangent about Veidt, I recalled his TV monitoring station the other day while skimming through the headlines and summaries of several news sites on an rss reader. Twenty years ago, Moore's tyrannical overmind increased his grip by communing with mass media. Maybe world domination-by-TV-news was only possible in the 80s; the more I read in today's press, the less I know.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
Just like Apple to make things unnecessarily complicated, isn't it? I don't know how many times I've stared at the OS X desktop and said, HUH?! Where's the damn prompt??? ;-)
To which definition we can also add proprietary music format vendors.
Trust me: I'm over it. I just want stuff to work; no corporate worship for me.
Ok, I know it looks bad. But really, who can spare the free pr0n cycles?
Apple shall nevah make a low-end product just as BMW shall nevah stoop to competing with Saturns
Or some such. You know what I'm talking about.
But the fact is, Apple's now an mp3 player company that happens to sell a tiny number of computers, too. And they're nice computers. I sure like ours. But if it or Wall Street thought iPods would translate into Powerbook or PowerMac sales, they were dreaming.
iPods might translate into sales of inexpensive headless boxes, though. They might if you can say, "Well, that cheap-ass Dell is no deal when I can get a decent machine for the same price." And it might work on impulse terms, too, especially if Apple builds on the kind of this-is-an-iPod-styled-computer metaphor it used in the introduction of the recent iMac. Oddly and ironically, you'd be accessorizing your iPod with a new computer. Hell, why not? Paradigms shift.
Then again, maybe the Pinth-Garnell set is right, and Apple will never stoop. But Jobs is shrewd, and the economic forecast for USA, Inc., is gloomy and getting gloomier. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to stoop!
What planet do you live on? Mine is the one where the "ignorant masses" have made Wal-Mart the largest retailer (and employer) in America; where everybody wants a brand name product; where people get their "news" from TV shows sponsored by giant agriculture, car and technology companies; where they watch hours of corporate commercials on TV per week.
Concern for the little guy? What year do you think this is--1965?
In which you wish to be the constable.
Which is worse? The wannabe Hobbits, or the wannabee Hobbit cop?
A beautiful post in many respects. Thanks for bringing some needed clarity to this discussion.
will have to be redesigned around these things. ;-)
The paradigm for this might be the indispensible Internet movie database (imdb.com). Here everyone reviews. No, not everyone's opinion will matter to you, but somewhere in the mix you'll find the voices that you do rate, do follow. And beyond their utilitarian value, these sites are fascinating extended conversations, much like Slashdot.
There is specialized knowledge in every field, and there might be a very small handful of professional game journalists somewhere whose knowledge is useful in reviewing a game. If you find members of that tiny fraternity, read them. I've neither cared for the insights nor the style of a single reviewer in a gaming magazine to notice any names; there don't seem to be any gaming Roger Eberts or Anthony Lanes (probably because if you can write as well as either man, you aren't going to work for Ziff Davis describing the latest Madden sequel, are you?). In fact, the free subscription to Electronic Gaming Monthly that I found (through cheapassgamer.com, if anyone else wishes one) has only delivered such a noisy piece of hysterically-written shit that each month it goes into the recycling, unread.
Do we need full-time reviewers to sit about churning out more hype-laden press releases in disguise? Why, when we can quite readily find gamers who have delivered their opinions free of the taint of sponsorship and ad-revenue--gamers whose opinions are far more immediate, un-mediated by corporate duty or stylistic one-upmanship, and arguably more worthwhile than the stuff you have to pay for.
In the PC world, hardcore gamers avoid Gamespy like the plague (and we don't bother to read its crappy ad-driven "content" online, either).
Apple can easily remedy the problem we're discussing by making a gaming browser part of OS X. No need to let a third party squat on what should be a seamless interchange between client and server, managed by the OS.
Have that on my desk by Wednesday, please. ;-)
EA is suggesting that because creative people traditionally work "flexible" (i.e., long/obsessive) schedules, EA doesn't need to pay them more for their time. That's crap, of course. Anyone who is self-employed has experienced long hours; but the rewards of self-employment aren't present when you sign your soul away to make NHL 2006 in an EA sweatshop.
There's a second audience for this memo, too: lawmakers. EA is begging the GOP to give it legislation that will protect its massive profits from the fair and just demands of its workforce. I bet they get it. This will be a useful lesson for the right wing kids--and for right wing adults--who are going to discover first-hand what they've voted for: their own economic exploitation.
It's not the graphics quality as much as style that's at issue. Playing RPGs or adventures I find that attempts by designers at realism--e.g., Morrowind, Blade of Darkness--nearly always is more satisfying than stylized illustration. Maybe I just don't want to run around in a simplified cartoon world; to each his own. :-)
Well, how else are they supposed to get in on the $300 billion annual orgy of white collar crime? Or use this honcho's services?
My dear fellow, you're acting as if paying taxes entitles you to some form of control over your fellow citizens. Whatever gave you this ridiculous idea? You pay taxes to live in a civilized society, one in which education is prized as a badge of human endeavor that benefits the larger community. Think on that, would you; and steer clear of the noxious temptation to imagine that you somehow have deed to the privacy of others. Paying taxes is a banal necessity, like death. Yet it hardly ennobles voyeurism.
If a university has a 75% drop-out rate should they be funded the same as, less then or more then a university with a 5% drop-out rate? That's worthy of debate, something not possible without this data.
Wrong; it's entirely possible without building an intrusive, Hooveresque database.
While you go on about your imaginary "rights" and preach performance-based funding, you're missing the point. The highest value in this argument--and especially in the context of government registries in a nation notorious historically for the abuse thereof--is privacy. That you are eager to have the government reduce privacy is bad enough; but do not ask us to be lemmings with you.
Judging from the bitterness of those subject to the backdoor draft in Iraq, the only place to go with "morale and esprit-de-corps" currently is up.
Yes, I agree. With China economically ascendant and the US hooked on Asian debt relief, it will be helpful to know the names of our future bosses.
It's disappointing that the Apple community can't produce more open source contributors. With everyone and his brother schlepping another icon manager or DVD collection database, there's an abundance of frivolous software and a shortage of work on truly useful, liberating products like OOo.
It will be a delicious irony if Ballmer's sweaty Wal-Mart-style browbeating on pricing leads to an exodus from Windows.
Note: one of the reasons game "journalism" is such crap is that it's built on hype that begins even before the game's released, usually based on the slightest sample of the forthcoming game ("XYZ looks like a real winner from what we've seen").
In practice, this plays out through the operation of two seemingly diametrical systems. The laissez-faire economy is operated for the poor and working classes, who must either sink or swim, while a kind of socialism is provided for the rich. They are entitled to sink all they like. Their political servants--the US government--will always be on hand at poolside to revive them, pump their waterlogged bellies, and towel down the poor dears while delivering fulsome praise for their bravery and daring in plunging to the bottom.
But US citizens, famously provincial, could benefit from living and working abroad. No, you won't earn as much money, and you may find it hard to keep up with the latest pensées of Bill O'Reilly, and you'll have to learn to be tolerant and respectful of other cultures; but that seems like a decent trade-off, especially if the new migration creates better world citizens who can bring a measure of insight back to their own society.
Probably it's too late for those in their 30s and 40s, who, having show determination to vote against their own economic interests, now face being relegated to lower-paying jobs and ultimately being forced out of the field by the very corporate interests who control their politicians. But the new generation coming along could try this. Remember, kids: buy your airline tickets before you're drafted. Better an adventure next Spring in New Delhi than in Fallujah.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Discerning players will look for deeper, more immersive experiences. They will be less tolerant of "big problems" (note: that's not a synonym for "failure," as you confusedly imply). I pointed out what I think is "brilliant" and yet also why I think HL 2 is woefully overrated, a position I can defend. But you make no point at all, other than attacking my motives and blurting out rudely.
I wonder what you were looking for while you played the game. Were you looking to have fun and enjoy it, or to pick holes in it?
Heh. You need to examine your own tendencies to quash criticism before you go theorizing about the motives of critics.
Ditko's weirdness is in full bloom, by the way, in his Vengeful World material, which I was just looking at tonight. Moore has aptly described him as a nut.
As for Veidt, I like to read him as a pisstake on the idealized Ayn Rand concoctions of proto-capitalists. There's also the Charles Atlas/self-improvement riff.
On another tangent about Veidt, I recalled his TV monitoring station the other day while skimming through the headlines and summaries of several news sites on an rss reader. Twenty years ago, Moore's tyrannical overmind increased his grip by communing with mass media. Maybe world domination-by-TV-news was only possible in the 80s; the more I read in today's press, the less I know. ;-)