My point wasn't that it should be touch-screen only. My point is that by incorporating the regular layout with an otherwise-familiar touchscreen, they bring in the "too complex" factor that can scare off casual consumers, especially the older crowd. I don't think it's a bad idea for a controller, but it's not helpful to capture the casuals. (Also that having a touchscreen isn't a big deal these days.)
I actually like the idea of controller with a touchscreen; I was quite sad that the GamecubeGBA link didn't go very far. However, I don't think Nintendo's implementation is a good one. But the question being asked here is if Nintendo can capture the casuals, not about the merits of the system overall.
No. But it goes beyond just the law, for a number of reasons:
Economy. Wii was introduced before the housing bubble burst and long before the global economic recession. People had the idea that they had money to spare, whether or not they actually did. This helped fuel generic consumer interest along with the "newness" that is motion controls. In addition, the new price points puts Nintendo out of that "sweet number" they had in 2006. The $250 price point for the Wii at release in 2012 dollars is $285; the cheapest model is $299, and wages haven't kept up with inflation.
Wow-factor. Motion controlling was a big thing when the Wii released--while it was not exactly new tech, Nintendo managed to mainstream it and make it work (sort of, the Wiimote Plus greatly improved this but still had issues.) Furthermore, the controllers for other consoles were seen as "intimidating" to your average consumer due to the myriad of buttons and inputs on them (whether or not this is true I don't know, but it was common thought both then and now). The Wiimote was extremely simple and could be used as a controller harking back to the NES days. The Gamepad doesn't offer anything in the "wow-factor" to pull consumers in. Touch-screens have been around for quite some time (the original DS had a touch screen, after all) and everyone is tablet-crazy these days so it acts like a me-too. In addition, it integrates all those scary buttons. Furthermore, at least to someone like myself who is a regular gamer, the controller looks horribly clunky (my understanding from reading testimonials of those who have been able to hands-on is that it actually works decently, but that's not going to stop perception of those on the outside.)
Power. The Wii U is, from my understanding, about as powerful as the 360. While I can understand that Nintendo wants to focus on user interface, they can't ignore that having a lower-powered system hurt them greatly this last gen. It wasn't the controller, it was the system processing power that kept a lot of otherwise-multi-console games from coming to the Wii (and when they did they were relatively bad). Nintendo has caught up, but as soon as the PS4 and XBox720 come out (supposedly in the next 18 months), they'll be lagging behind once again. Furthermore, by tipping their hand this early, it gives Microsoft and Sony a chance to integrate whatever features into their next system and likely do it better (the Kinect and Move have their own issues that will likely be firmed up and integrated better for the next console cycle).
Games. A big selling point for the Wii was that it came with Wii Sports. The Basic (read: cheap) version of the Wii U comes with no games (except whatever demos or utilities they have on the system, like TVii), which only intensifies the economic issue. This may be intentional, though, as the tie-in (how many game were sold per console) for the Wii is extremely low, especially compared to the other consoles. By forcing "casual" consumers to buy games off the bat they can increase that number this time around; many bought the wii, played Wii Sports, and then never bought another game.
Nintendo also has a lot of uphill battles with 'core' gamers, too: --Their online capabilities seem to still lag entire generations behind the competition (those horrible friend codes will apparently make an appearance on Wii U) --Aforementioned power --A number of AAA games they have announced are mere ports of games have been out for some time --Internal Storage is limited to a max of 32GB, important as digital sales increase; however, this can be expanded (supposedly easily) --Games, games, games, games. Nintendo didn't learn from the 3DS, apparently--the launch window library is fairly "meh", and we don't even know launch titles except for NSMBU
I've been a devout Nintendork for my life, fighting many a troll online for the Gamecube
I am on depression medication as well (generic Celexa), was incredibly awkward in high school and the majority of college, and only recently have I started to mostly comprehend social interactions above ordering food or asking directions. I had some crushes early on, especially near the end of College, and I chickened out on all of them (one of which I still greatly regret, because I think she was crushing on me as well after we had a few private, nervous conversations--but that could be rose-colored glasses). Five years hence and I've given up on any kind of romantic interaction or interest. I was on one date (at the other's request) a year ago and it went horribly for a number of reasons. I feel that even if I could find someone I'd be interested in and could muster the courage to approach them, I wouldn't want to hinder them with my disconnectedness, depression, and overall pessimism.
In fact, I keep most people at arm's length, including the large number of family I have living in the immediate area. I have no friends and spend my days at home playing vidya, at work (where I sit and code for 8 hours, or post on/.), or, for four hours a week, volunteer at a cat shelter. (Interestingly, my job there is to be the initial contact of anyone who enters--helping them pick out a cat to adopt, answer questions, and explain the rules--and, as far as I know, the director and others are quite happy with me. So I can interact with the public, I just don't want to.)
I haven't tried actively being a dick to attract women, but anytime I am an asshole (usually out of nervous reaction more-so than intention) I feel horrible about it afterward.
Not the parent, but most places only require $5 or $10 down for a pre-order; while that's still not "free", ten years after the fact of that deposit and not having to pay the remaining $40-$50 sounds relatively "free" to me.
I'm American, and I plan on voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. I'm not a big fan of the party, nor am I a big fan of his (though according to various political "match ups" I agree with him more than any other candidate), but I'm casting my vote to a third person (who I know will not get elected) to make the other two squirm. I believe that just as even competition leads to a better market, it can lead to better politics. If people keep voting for one or the other because of party lines or (worse) because "he's not the other guy", the two majority parties will happily continue sitting across from each other at the table, shaking a fist at each other above it and exchanging handjobs below it.
It's going to take a major incident in both parties at about the same time to make the American public really change their voting habits to the point of electing a third party; however, in the mean time, if we can get people to diversify their voting (especially to the person instead of the party), it will put extra pressure on the Republicrats to actually, you know, represent those who elected them and shape up a little bit.
I believe in this so much that I am going to put a Gary Johnson support sticker on my car (and it will be the only one), but only if I can easily remove it or it's magnetic because I hate bumper stickers in general.
That reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately (for no real reason): If an asteroid sufficiently large enough to cause world-wide panic was going to enter the Earth's atmosphere, and we had no way to "Armageddon" it, would parking all the world's military vessels (planes, boats, tanks if possible) near the calculated landing point and just hammering it with literally everything when it got within range do anything (decrease force, break it up, cause it to vaporize on entry, etc.)?
I'm talking the asteroid is entering the atmosphere, going through the entry burn (I forget the actual term), and then it's just being hammered with rockets and high-caliber ammunition.
Your post suggests that it would do a lot of something; I wonder if someone smarter than I could come up with a formula for just how much force would be necessary at what height for what size asteroid (assuming uniformity in the asteroid, which, yeah, is not likely).
For my Phys I class (circa 2004) in college I used my laptop and a pad of paper. Anything the professor wrote on the board I would type (in word); any time he drew, I'd use a small notebook sitting next to my laptop to draw the diagram, give it a Fig number, type the Fig number into my notes, and carry on. Once a week I'd go into my notepad, go to each drawing, draw it out in Paint Shop Pro, then insert it into my notes. While it sounds convoluted, this process had a lot of benefits:
1) I could actually listen to the professor. I'm a proficient touch-typer, so as he wrote I would just wait for him to finish, listen as he talked, then quickly type it in. This was also handy when he said something I thought was useful and could type it in, instead of trying to somehow shorthand it. For the few classes where I had to write, I would be focusing more on copying the words clearly and missing what the professor was actually saying, to my detriment.
2) My handwriting would make a doctor jealous, and paper has no search feature if I'm trying to find a tip on something. This also made it easy to share my notes with others, something that many asked of me at the end of the term.
3) By having to go back through my notes to re-create drawings in PSP, it would force me to not only re-read my notes but actually understand what the drawing was about, as the aforementioned handwriting could cause problem with vector labels and such. Compare that to other subjects where I'd take notes and then never look back at them.
There were draw-backs, of course. I might forget to mark in the notes where a certain figure goes or if my battery drains I might lose some sections of the notes if Autosave didn't run recently. The biggest thing was math notation; I eventually figured out a system for shorthand in my typed notes--at this point I didn't know about any of the math-formatting assistants, Maple, etc.
I imagine you could recreate this system better using a tablet (PC), face-up, and a bluetooth keyboard (just reaching forward with a stylus) for better results; or a laptop and a small Wacom drawing tablet, etc. If you want pen/paper for sure, you're not totally out; there are a few devices out there that use a special pen or paper/reader so that you can write as normal and later upload the movements to computer for digitizing and (maybe) OCR.
(I also belonged to a fraternity and we had a crib system, digital and physical, to share notes and more, so having these digital was also useful.)
There are a metric ton of games that are not from EA/Activision that would still be available on such a Steam console. This would, of course, require a lot of devs to port their game to Linux, but Valve would probably offer some sort of motivation (likely a bigger chunk of sales for a certain period of time); I highly doubt EA and Activision care to port in any case, Steam console or not.
And even if they threatened to take all their stuff off Steam (EA has done so in part, anyway), Gabe would just laugh at them from behind his desk made entirely of Benjamins (and then with more bills piled on it) as they walk out and suddenly have no easy way to entice people to their services (has anyone installed Origin without having been forced to by purchasing an EA game?)
Whatever console Valve makes (if they are indeed doing so) will, at the least, be break-even for them on the hardware sales and they will continue to rake in massive bucks by selling games new and old (and then putting the old games on massive discount, just like their currently-running Steam Summer Sales; plenty of articles have been written about just how profitable those are (hint: very).) If they implement an XBox Live-like interface with easy one-click purchases (or, at least, one-click demos) from the main screen for Sale Du Jour, they'll continue to roll in the dough. In addition, not only can they use that to entice people to buy at a great discount, they'll probably wind up getting developers to pay them to put their games in that one lone location at a huge discount. Double whammy for Valve.
In short, though EA and Activision are indeed massive, they are far from the lone players in the market, and I bet that the money Valve makes off them is trivial compared to a lot of other companies. I doubt Valve would have any problem showing them the door if they started threatening to leave.
(It should also be noted that every game from every one of the popular Humble Bundles is playable on Linux, and almost every one of those titles is also available on Steam; guess which games will get heavily promoted once Steam does a Linux client? (And often rightfully so, games like Bastion are amazing.))
Nor does it do anything about the control problems, if not making them a bit worse since a Circle Pad Pro hasn't been announced for the XL.
This, right here, is what tells me Nintendo hasn't gotten it for a while. You have more room, why not add the second Circle Pad? We already have a few6 games that do use it, and many more that would probably take advantage if it was there. They were fairly aware back in 2006-2008 and did a lot of good moves with the Wii (and some bad ones). Now, six years later and the dominant force in both home consoles and handhelds, they have the chance to not only progress but also fix any previous mistakes. And what do they do?
The N64 2. They've gone back to the ego-centric and closed-mindedness that led to the N64 from the SNES and will suffer exactly the same for it. Don't believe me?
They ignore format upgrades With SNES->N64, it was not going from cartridge to CDs.[1] For Wii->U, it's ignoring the now-huge HDTV market. Wii U games run in 720p, including their much-hyped NSMBWU2BBQ. While not as dire as the cartridge mishap, it still shows that they don't understand the high-end consumer, which is the one that is far more likely to have a higher attach rate[2]
They ignore storage capacity Once again about the whole cartridge/CD decision, except this time it's about internal storage. The Wii U will only have 8 GBs internal storage. Supposedly they'll support external hard drives in some fashion, but they could still really hurt themselves as they try to expand their downloadable market (and heaven help us if a developer wants to install files to it to help a game run faster.)
The name I don't know that the N64 ever got a lot of flack for its name, but it was extremely generic. Using "Wii U" as the successor to "Wii", which already had plenty of jokes to go with the name (though those were quickly shut down by sales numbers) has only led to a lot of confusion; Jimmy Fallon thought it was a new controller for the Wii during Reggie's recent late-night visit, and the day of Nintendo's E3 conference a prominent newspaper (I want to say USA TODAY) also referenced the Wii U as merely an extension of the Wii, though I can't find the article and they likely updated it to correct that bit of mis-info.
For someone like me, it just makes me think of more shovelware, bad online presence, and a focus on things like "Wii Play" instead of, I dunno, getting something like Xenoblade Chronicles to the states in less than two years after it's Japanese release (and nearly a year after the EU/AUS release!).
And there are plenty of brand-new screw ups, like still using those horrible friend codes in some capacity. I don't care if they're "Simplified", they need to die completely. Even the hardware looks generic, doing away with the sleek and minimalist design that a lot of people liked about the Wii. I could go on and on, like how the controller looks like crap (after they gave us the Gamecube controller, which I still believe is the best controller design of any console thus far).
The decisions behind the Wii U and 3DS XL (and their E3 conference, which investors apparently didn't care for, either) just show me that Nintendo has once again lost its way, and we've got a good two generations before they realize this and do something understandable again. What makes this worse is that even while their consoles were floundering, Nintendo's handhelds were still going strong and every iteration made huge strides (such as from the original GBA to the GBA SP and pretty much every change to the original DS hardware). Now that no longer seems the case. The Nintendo fanboy within me weeps in a corner as I start eying the
I'm 27, but I'm not sure if I fit into the "young listeners" category of the article. Certainly man here would yell at me to vacate their lawn.
I have a decent CD collection, about 100 albums if you include the few albums I've bought in full off iTunes and other digital sources. When I'm at driving, I will listen to ripped MP3s of those CDs. However, at home and work I listen to Pandora. I listen to Pandora for literally 60-70 hours a week, as I have it on all day at work. The reason I do this instead of listen to my own songs is two-fold: 1) Discovery. About half of my CD collection was purchased after learning about the band through Pandora. By continually listening and tuning my music preferences, I can discover even more (and eventually buy CDs from those bands, as well). 2) "Side" music. That is, music that I like, but not enough to really purchase.
That second reason is the big one--listening to my own music that often would invariably repeat a few songs and make me tired of it. Pandora is less likely to, because it also plays a lot of songs that I like but not enough to want to own. I would have at least twice as many CDs if I bought every CD containing every song I've thumbed-up. For instance, I like a lot of System of a Down songs, but not to the point of ever buying the CD. I get more variety than my own collection offers, with the added bonus of not wearing down the interest in my current collection.
Economics and commerce, mainly in taxes and when it comes to substances to be legal/illegal. Human rights are a global issue, so they can't be contained within a state's borders. That's one of the things I disagree with him on.
That's okay, if he's not on the ballot come November I'll write in his name anyway.
I disagree with Ron Paul on a lot of stances, including most of his core ones. However, of all the politicians I've followed for any kind of time (which is only a few dozen), he has been the most steadfast in his ideals (i.e. he doesn't change with the direction of the wind) and he'll tell it like it is. I also completely agree with his States' Rights stance. While I think he would make a terrible President, I think he makes a great candidate since his participation usually calls out the other guys on something or other, and he at least questions the status quo. I will write him in because I want to encourage him to continue running for President (but never win.)
Also because the other choices don't interest me in the least.
You know, I never understand why everyone pits this as an either-or thing. Why can't we have both? An electronic machine to allow people more information on something if they are unfamiliar with the ballot issue, the better possibility of preferential voting, and quicker tallying and communication of said votes. When a person is done voting, the machine prints a simple voting card that the person can check and take to a designated location and drops in a sealed box. If there is an issue with the card, one of the officials is notified, a per-person code is entered to wipe the last vote, the card printed is publicly cross shredded, and the person can re-vote. If there is contention about the electronic record, they turn to the cards which will use the same process as previous.
The difference is the extra availability of information to the voter on issues or candidates, the ease of more complex but robust voting methods, and the faster and more accurate tallying. This might also improve voting for the blind (I don't know if they do braille cards or have someone there to read it to them or what). Yes, the printer addition will cost more, but we already pay to print out ballots with tax money, so the difference won't be as great as some might think.
While I see your point, the result of this will be that we're going to see "refueling stations" pop up in a lot of heretofore unexpected places. To start, without the need for gas to be trucked in and stored locally they don't need the same infrastructure that a regular gas station does. Because of this, you can simply install one or two of these in common parking areas. Then, imagine going to a mall where you can park, plug in to a station (I'd imagine a handful per row, not one per spot) and do your shopping. Even if you're not in there long enough to get a full charge, you're still better off than you once were. It's also an extra feature that can be touted by various shopping locales to get people to shop there, and then combined with loyalty cards for "fuel" discounts for further enticements.
The main issue I see with this is how to make sure that while you're away someone doesn't unplug the charger, plug it into their own car, charge for a few minutes, and drive off. I haven't seen the spec, but including the ability (if not making it mandatory) that when unplugging the charger the transaction ceases sounds like a good idea. That opens its own problems to pranking, but I'd think most people would prefer not having a fully-charged car to having a fully-charged car and also paying for someone else's fully-charge car.
Some sort of locking mechanism with a key (like subway/airport lockers, before TERRERISTS made them go away) might be an option, but that introduces another set of problems and seems outside the goal of this spec.
I can also see large companies with their own campuses, especially the likes of Apple or Google, installing these in their parking lots for employees and using a "co-op" setup, where the employees get the charge at cost or barely above. If they included some sort of valet system (I wouldn't be surprised if they already had something like that at the larger facilities), cars could be dropped off, charged, and parked once done on a rotating basis.
In short, gas stations as we understand them will die off with the use of gasoline (assuming it ever does so) and new options will emerge that will work with the extended refuel time. Also, if the 15-20 minutes is from near-empty to full charge (What, RTFA? Please.), most people will probably only need 2 minutes worth of charging to make sure they can get back home for short hops. They'll plug in at home and do a long charge overnight.
I still have a twinge (only a twinge) of hope that by putting this in the court's lap we'll get to have actual facts during discovery and a real investigation by detectives, not the media.
But at this point it's been worked into such a frenzy that so many sides have put their hand in the pot that there's almost no soup left. Each group will be approaching both defense and prosecutors with all sorts of conflicting information, promises, leads, and threats. Then you have the political pressure you brought up, where I'm sure there's a DA or ADA who wants to look good for elections and will sweep tidbits under the rug to "prove" Zimmerman guilty. Or whatever lawyer announces to do it pro-bono to get his own high horse and sweep a different set of tidbits under the rug to "prove" him innocent, all until the rug resembles a mattress. Then the hard part will be to find 12 people who can't/won't get out of jury duty and at the same time either have not heard of the case or haven't let the media frenzy tell them what to think.
Agreed. Someone commented on the post about Santorum dropping out of the race as being offtopic for this site; I was preparing a rebutal about how politics is nerdy, too, but in the same breath I said you can also get nerdy about cars and sports, neither of which should get reported on day-to-day news here (unless they're car analogies). As I typed that, I realized that the Santorum article indeed had no place on/., even if/. has a politics section; it wasn't nerdy, there were no great debates to lead from it or nitpicking/research to do, just people commenting on how he should have dropped sooner or theorizing on "real" reasons he dropped.
This story, while of great national interest, is not about politics; government, sure, but not politics in the sense of wide-reaching leaders doing this or that, and, similarly to the Santorum article, doesn't appear on the face of it to have any "nerdy" qualities. So it doesn't belong on/. Then again, we've had articles regarding techuse in this case previously, so maybe this could be understood as followup/closure to issues raised in those articles.
But then I begin to wonder:/. has changed much over the years, adding sections like that, perhaps we need to seriously re-evaluate the purpose of/. is. Either it's expanded to be a more inclusive big-news discussion site with extra emphasis on tech/science, in which case we should drop the "News for Nerds" moniker; or, it's still a site just for tech/science-related stories, in which case the "politics" section needs to go unless we limit it to just politics story expressly about tech/science being used or abused by the government (which, yes, happens quite often.)
Consider various postings about the TSA. TSA gained relevance on/. due to their use of body scanners and so forth; however, at least a few of the more recent posts is about the gross ineptitude of the TSA, tech being merely one outlet for set ineptitude. Yet no one complains about TSA articles (that I've seen, anyway). How often do we get posts about censorship in general? Not even blocking the web/text messages, but just about laws regarding arresting people for speaking out by any means. These certainly don't deal with tech/science, but, once again, no outcry against them (again, AFAIK). In fact, those are often the most discussed posts on the site (both the tech and non-tech kind). Certainly, there are important matters outside of tech/science that require long, deep debates, and I've yet to find anywhere on the internet that can facilitate that as well as Slashdot does (take that as you will). The moderating system works well, though it has a serious bias from users.
So I think that we, as a collective site, need to ask ourselves what we want Slashdot to be: A place for news--science, tech, or otherwise--that begs, nay, requires deep discussion and insight? Or a site dedicated explicitly to tech/science (which can still have said discussion about just those issues)? And, if the latter, where do we draw a line about what is a relevant news story?
While we have editors (that we often passively rebel against) that ultimately choose what appears on the front page, the site is driven almost entirely by the community, from posts to comments to moderation, and so I believe it's up to the community to decide what the site should strive for.
While absolutely true, this doesn't improve what the Today show did; as well, from reading the article it looks like they didn't apologize until they were caught. The only difference between the two is that Fox News is a kid that's willing to lie for its own wants; NBC, on the other hand, is an adult that's willing to lie for its own wants.
They're still both ready and willing to intentionally misinform, and thus both still complete bullocks.
I can't wait for the app that will analyze a woman's clothing and give you a virtual facsimile of what she looks like naked. It's going to happen. And then it will be banned in the app store. And then it will be remade for the use of one pedophile on rooted glasses so they can see little kids naked out in the street. And then congress will get involved and the glasses will be banned.
I just pirate all I can. [...] I have no intention of giving the studios any money until they stop trying to take away my ownership right
So how about just not watching the movie? I can completely side with you on not supporting the media companies. They're an unscrupulous and greedy lot. But then you go and download the movie anyway. True, you're not depriving anyone of anything, and I'm not chastising you for pirating; but, when you do that, you completely lose any credence in what appears to be a boycott/protest. Plus, someone out there tracks torrent hits, and that goes to show some sort of interest/consumption on some manager's desk, even if it's not monetary.
It's like saying you are going to protest/boycott the Mars company and then steal a Snickers bar or ask a friend to buy a Snicker's bar for you. Again, it's not about the method of obtaining something, it's about the hypocrisy at hand. You may want to ask yourself just why you do these things, and just how useful your position vs. actions are.
To me, it seems like a weird reverse of the NIMBY crowd--they want cheap, local, 'safe' energy, but not when it takes up their roof or makes noise when it spins or has an extremely low risk of radiation spilling out.
Releasing DVDs soon after the theatrical release would also be a small boon to theaters. If the DVD were released two-three weeks after the theatrical release, the theaters would likely be still showing it and could put out displays for the DVD copies; if someone liked a movie, they're (probably) far more likely to purchase it immediately after seeing it than after having days/weeks to digest and perhaps lose interest. Supposedly theaters are hurting for cash, necessitating the $5 20oz drink, so even a small profit margin on DVD sales would be useful.
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My point wasn't that it should be touch-screen only. My point is that by incorporating the regular layout with an otherwise-familiar touchscreen, they bring in the "too complex" factor that can scare off casual consumers, especially the older crowd. I don't think it's a bad idea for a controller, but it's not helpful to capture the casuals. (Also that having a touchscreen isn't a big deal these days.)
I actually like the idea of controller with a touchscreen; I was quite sad that the GamecubeGBA link didn't go very far. However, I don't think Nintendo's implementation is a good one. But the question being asked here is if Nintendo can capture the casuals, not about the merits of the system overall.
No. But it goes beyond just the law, for a number of reasons:
Wii was introduced before the housing bubble burst and long before the global economic recession. People had the idea that they had money to spare, whether or not they actually did. This helped fuel generic consumer interest along with the "newness" that is motion controls. In addition, the new price points puts Nintendo out of that "sweet number" they had in 2006. The $250 price point for the Wii at release in 2012 dollars is $285; the cheapest model is $299, and wages haven't kept up with inflation.
Motion controlling was a big thing when the Wii released--while it was not exactly new tech, Nintendo managed to mainstream it and make it work (sort of, the Wiimote Plus greatly improved this but still had issues.) Furthermore, the controllers for other consoles were seen as "intimidating" to your average consumer due to the myriad of buttons and inputs on them (whether or not this is true I don't know, but it was common thought both then and now). The Wiimote was extremely simple and could be used as a controller harking back to the NES days.
The Gamepad doesn't offer anything in the "wow-factor" to pull consumers in. Touch-screens have been around for quite some time (the original DS had a touch screen, after all) and everyone is tablet-crazy these days so it acts like a me-too. In addition, it integrates all those scary buttons. Furthermore, at least to someone like myself who is a regular gamer, the controller looks horribly clunky (my understanding from reading testimonials of those who have been able to hands-on is that it actually works decently, but that's not going to stop perception of those on the outside.)
The Wii U is, from my understanding, about as powerful as the 360. While I can understand that Nintendo wants to focus on user interface, they can't ignore that having a lower-powered system hurt them greatly this last gen. It wasn't the controller, it was the system processing power that kept a lot of otherwise-multi-console games from coming to the Wii (and when they did they were relatively bad). Nintendo has caught up, but as soon as the PS4 and XBox720 come out (supposedly in the next 18 months), they'll be lagging behind once again. Furthermore, by tipping their hand this early, it gives Microsoft and Sony a chance to integrate whatever features into their next system and likely do it better (the Kinect and Move have their own issues that will likely be firmed up and integrated better for the next console cycle).
A big selling point for the Wii was that it came with Wii Sports. The Basic (read: cheap) version of the Wii U comes with no games (except whatever demos or utilities they have on the system, like TVii), which only intensifies the economic issue. This may be intentional, though, as the tie-in (how many game were sold per console) for the Wii is extremely low, especially compared to the other consoles. By forcing "casual" consumers to buy games off the bat they can increase that number this time around; many bought the wii, played Wii Sports, and then never bought another game.
Nintendo also has a lot of uphill battles with 'core' gamers, too:
--Their online capabilities seem to still lag entire generations behind the competition (those horrible friend codes will apparently make an appearance on Wii U)
--Aforementioned power
--A number of AAA games they have announced are mere ports of games have been out for some time
--Internal Storage is limited to a max of 32GB, important as digital sales increase; however, this can be expanded (supposedly easily)
--Games, games, games, games. Nintendo didn't learn from the 3DS, apparently--the launch window library is fairly "meh", and we don't even know launch titles except for NSMBU
I've been a devout Nintendork for my life, fighting many a troll online for the Gamecube
Well, there's an easy solution: Go around cutting grass and smashing pots until you have enough rupees.
(You may have to buy a bigger wallet at some point, though.)
(Also be careful to not accidentally hit chickens while doing this.)
Ah, a kindred spirit. I feel for you, brother.
I am on depression medication as well (generic Celexa), was incredibly awkward in high school and the majority of college, and only recently have I started to mostly comprehend social interactions above ordering food or asking directions. I had some crushes early on, especially near the end of College, and I chickened out on all of them (one of which I still greatly regret, because I think she was crushing on me as well after we had a few private, nervous conversations--but that could be rose-colored glasses). Five years hence and I've given up on any kind of romantic interaction or interest. I was on one date (at the other's request) a year ago and it went horribly for a number of reasons. I feel that even if I could find someone I'd be interested in and could muster the courage to approach them, I wouldn't want to hinder them with my disconnectedness, depression, and overall pessimism.
In fact, I keep most people at arm's length, including the large number of family I have living in the immediate area. I have no friends and spend my days at home playing vidya, at work (where I sit and code for 8 hours, or post on /.), or, for four hours a week, volunteer at a cat shelter. (Interestingly, my job there is to be the initial contact of anyone who enters--helping them pick out a cat to adopt, answer questions, and explain the rules--and, as far as I know, the director and others are quite happy with me. So I can interact with the public, I just don't want to.)
I haven't tried actively being a dick to attract women, but anytime I am an asshole (usually out of nervous reaction more-so than intention) I feel horrible about it afterward.
Not the parent, but most places only require $5 or $10 down for a pre-order; while that's still not "free", ten years after the fact of that deposit and not having to pay the remaining $40-$50 sounds relatively "free" to me.
I'm American, and I plan on voting for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. I'm not a big fan of the party, nor am I a big fan of his (though according to various political "match ups" I agree with him more than any other candidate), but I'm casting my vote to a third person (who I know will not get elected) to make the other two squirm. I believe that just as even competition leads to a better market, it can lead to better politics. If people keep voting for one or the other because of party lines or (worse) because "he's not the other guy", the two majority parties will happily continue sitting across from each other at the table, shaking a fist at each other above it and exchanging handjobs below it.
It's going to take a major incident in both parties at about the same time to make the American public really change their voting habits to the point of electing a third party; however, in the mean time, if we can get people to diversify their voting (especially to the person instead of the party), it will put extra pressure on the Republicrats to actually, you know, represent those who elected them and shape up a little bit.
I believe in this so much that I am going to put a Gary Johnson support sticker on my car (and it will be the only one), but only if I can easily remove it or it's magnetic because I hate bumper stickers in general.
That reminds me of something I've been thinking about lately (for no real reason): If an asteroid sufficiently large enough to cause world-wide panic was going to enter the Earth's atmosphere, and we had no way to "Armageddon" it, would parking all the world's military vessels (planes, boats, tanks if possible) near the calculated landing point and just hammering it with literally everything when it got within range do anything (decrease force, break it up, cause it to vaporize on entry, etc.)?
I'm talking the asteroid is entering the atmosphere, going through the entry burn (I forget the actual term), and then it's just being hammered with rockets and high-caliber ammunition.
Your post suggests that it would do a lot of something; I wonder if someone smarter than I could come up with a formula for just how much force would be necessary at what height for what size asteroid (assuming uniformity in the asteroid, which, yeah, is not likely).
For my Phys I class (circa 2004) in college I used my laptop and a pad of paper. Anything the professor wrote on the board I would type (in word); any time he drew, I'd use a small notebook sitting next to my laptop to draw the diagram, give it a Fig number, type the Fig number into my notes, and carry on. Once a week I'd go into my notepad, go to each drawing, draw it out in Paint Shop Pro, then insert it into my notes. While it sounds convoluted, this process had a lot of benefits:
1) I could actually listen to the professor. I'm a proficient touch-typer, so as he wrote I would just wait for him to finish, listen as he talked, then quickly type it in. This was also handy when he said something I thought was useful and could type it in, instead of trying to somehow shorthand it. For the few classes where I had to write, I would be focusing more on copying the words clearly and missing what the professor was actually saying, to my detriment.
2) My handwriting would make a doctor jealous, and paper has no search feature if I'm trying to find a tip on something. This also made it easy to share my notes with others, something that many asked of me at the end of the term.
3) By having to go back through my notes to re-create drawings in PSP, it would force me to not only re-read my notes but actually understand what the drawing was about, as the aforementioned handwriting could cause problem with vector labels and such. Compare that to other subjects where I'd take notes and then never look back at them.
There were draw-backs, of course. I might forget to mark in the notes where a certain figure goes or if my battery drains I might lose some sections of the notes if Autosave didn't run recently. The biggest thing was math notation; I eventually figured out a system for shorthand in my typed notes--at this point I didn't know about any of the math-formatting assistants, Maple, etc.
I imagine you could recreate this system better using a tablet (PC), face-up, and a bluetooth keyboard (just reaching forward with a stylus) for better results; or a laptop and a small Wacom drawing tablet, etc. If you want pen/paper for sure, you're not totally out; there are a few devices out there that use a special pen or paper/reader so that you can write as normal and later upload the movements to computer for digitizing and (maybe) OCR.
(I also belonged to a fraternity and we had a crib system, digital and physical, to share notes and more, so having these digital was also useful.)
That sounds pretty nifty, and I wish the best of luck to him, but Slashdot seems to have really lost its way without a Taco to command it.
There are a metric ton of games that are not from EA/Activision that would still be available on such a Steam console. This would, of course, require a lot of devs to port their game to Linux, but Valve would probably offer some sort of motivation (likely a bigger chunk of sales for a certain period of time); I highly doubt EA and Activision care to port in any case, Steam console or not.
And even if they threatened to take all their stuff off Steam (EA has done so in part, anyway), Gabe would just laugh at them from behind his desk made entirely of Benjamins (and then with more bills piled on it) as they walk out and suddenly have no easy way to entice people to their services (has anyone installed Origin without having been forced to by purchasing an EA game?)
Whatever console Valve makes (if they are indeed doing so) will, at the least, be break-even for them on the hardware sales and they will continue to rake in massive bucks by selling games new and old (and then putting the old games on massive discount, just like their currently-running Steam Summer Sales; plenty of articles have been written about just how profitable those are (hint: very).) If they implement an XBox Live-like interface with easy one-click purchases (or, at least, one-click demos) from the main screen for Sale Du Jour, they'll continue to roll in the dough. In addition, not only can they use that to entice people to buy at a great discount, they'll probably wind up getting developers to pay them to put their games in that one lone location at a huge discount. Double whammy for Valve.
In short, though EA and Activision are indeed massive, they are far from the lone players in the market, and I bet that the money Valve makes off them is trivial compared to a lot of other companies. I doubt Valve would have any problem showing them the door if they started threatening to leave.
(It should also be noted that every game from every one of the popular Humble Bundles is playable on Linux, and almost every one of those titles is also available on Steam; guess which games will get heavily promoted once Steam does a Linux client? (And often rightfully so, games like Bastion are amazing.))
This, right here, is what tells me Nintendo hasn't gotten it for a while. You have more room, why not add the second Circle Pad? We already have a few6 games that do use it, and many more that would probably take advantage if it was there. They were fairly aware back in 2006-2008 and did a lot of good moves with the Wii (and some bad ones). Now, six years later and the dominant force in both home consoles and handhelds, they have the chance to not only progress but also fix any previous mistakes. And what do they do?
The N64 2. They've gone back to the ego-centric and closed-mindedness that led to the N64 from the SNES and will suffer exactly the same for it. Don't believe me?
With SNES->N64, it was not going from cartridge to CDs.[1] For Wii->U, it's ignoring the now-huge HDTV market. Wii U games run in 720p, including their much-hyped NSMBWU2BBQ. While not as dire as the cartridge mishap, it still shows that they don't understand the high-end consumer, which is the one that is far more likely to have a higher attach rate[2]
Once again about the whole cartridge/CD decision, except this time it's about internal storage. The Wii U will only have 8 GBs internal storage. Supposedly they'll support external hard drives in some fashion, but they could still really hurt themselves as they try to expand their downloadable market (and heaven help us if a developer wants to install files to it to help a game run faster.)
I don't know that the N64 ever got a lot of flack for its name, but it was extremely generic. Using "Wii U" as the successor to "Wii", which already had plenty of jokes to go with the name (though those were quickly shut down by sales numbers) has only led to a lot of confusion; Jimmy Fallon thought it was a new controller for the Wii during Reggie's recent late-night visit, and the day of Nintendo's E3 conference a prominent newspaper (I want to say USA TODAY) also referenced the Wii U as merely an extension of the Wii, though I can't find the article and they likely updated it to correct that bit of mis-info.
For someone like me, it just makes me think of more shovelware, bad online presence, and a focus on things like "Wii Play" instead of, I dunno, getting something like Xenoblade Chronicles to the states in less than two years after it's Japanese release (and nearly a year after the EU/AUS release!).
And there are plenty of brand-new screw ups, like still using those horrible friend codes in some capacity. I don't care if they're "Simplified", they need to die completely. Even the hardware looks generic, doing away with the sleek and minimalist design that a lot of people liked about the Wii. I could go on and on, like how the controller looks like crap (after they gave us the Gamecube controller, which I still believe is the best controller design of any console thus far).
The decisions behind the Wii U and 3DS XL (and their E3 conference, which investors apparently didn't care for, either) just show me that Nintendo has once again lost its way, and we've got a good two generations before they realize this and do something understandable again. What makes this worse is that even while their consoles were floundering, Nintendo's handhelds were still going strong and every iteration made huge strides (such as from the original GBA to the GBA SP and pretty much every change to the original DS hardware). Now that no longer seems the case. The Nintendo fanboy within me weeps in a corner as I start eying the
I'm 27, but I'm not sure if I fit into the "young listeners" category of the article. Certainly man here would yell at me to vacate their lawn.
I have a decent CD collection, about 100 albums if you include the few albums I've bought in full off iTunes and other digital sources. When I'm at driving, I will listen to ripped MP3s of those CDs. However, at home and work I listen to Pandora. I listen to Pandora for literally 60-70 hours a week, as I have it on all day at work. The reason I do this instead of listen to my own songs is two-fold:
1) Discovery. About half of my CD collection was purchased after learning about the band through Pandora. By continually listening and tuning my music preferences, I can discover even more (and eventually buy CDs from those bands, as well).
2) "Side" music. That is, music that I like, but not enough to really purchase.
That second reason is the big one--listening to my own music that often would invariably repeat a few songs and make me tired of it. Pandora is less likely to, because it also plays a lot of songs that I like but not enough to want to own. I would have at least twice as many CDs if I bought every CD containing every song I've thumbed-up. For instance, I like a lot of System of a Down songs, but not to the point of ever buying the CD. I get more variety than my own collection offers, with the added bonus of not wearing down the interest in my current collection.
Economics and commerce, mainly in taxes and when it comes to substances to be legal/illegal. Human rights are a global issue, so they can't be contained within a state's borders. That's one of the things I disagree with him on.
That's okay, if he's not on the ballot come November I'll write in his name anyway.
I disagree with Ron Paul on a lot of stances, including most of his core ones. However, of all the politicians I've followed for any kind of time (which is only a few dozen), he has been the most steadfast in his ideals (i.e. he doesn't change with the direction of the wind) and he'll tell it like it is. I also completely agree with his States' Rights stance. While I think he would make a terrible President, I think he makes a great candidate since his participation usually calls out the other guys on something or other, and he at least questions the status quo. I will write him in because I want to encourage him to continue running for President (but never win.)
Also because the other choices don't interest me in the least.
With Hollywood accounting (very similar to music label accounting) you can guarantee it will never make a profit.
You know, I never understand why everyone pits this as an either-or thing. Why can't we have both? An electronic machine to allow people more information on something if they are unfamiliar with the ballot issue, the better possibility of preferential voting, and quicker tallying and communication of said votes. When a person is done voting, the machine prints a simple voting card that the person can check and take to a designated location and drops in a sealed box. If there is an issue with the card, one of the officials is notified, a per-person code is entered to wipe the last vote, the card printed is publicly cross shredded, and the person can re-vote. If there is contention about the electronic record, they turn to the cards which will use the same process as previous.
The difference is the extra availability of information to the voter on issues or candidates, the ease of more complex but robust voting methods, and the faster and more accurate tallying. This might also improve voting for the blind (I don't know if they do braille cards or have someone there to read it to them or what). Yes, the printer addition will cost more, but we already pay to print out ballots with tax money, so the difference won't be as great as some might think.
While I see your point, the result of this will be that we're going to see "refueling stations" pop up in a lot of heretofore unexpected places. To start, without the need for gas to be trucked in and stored locally they don't need the same infrastructure that a regular gas station does. Because of this, you can simply install one or two of these in common parking areas. Then, imagine going to a mall where you can park, plug in to a station (I'd imagine a handful per row, not one per spot) and do your shopping. Even if you're not in there long enough to get a full charge, you're still better off than you once were. It's also an extra feature that can be touted by various shopping locales to get people to shop there, and then combined with loyalty cards for "fuel" discounts for further enticements.
The main issue I see with this is how to make sure that while you're away someone doesn't unplug the charger, plug it into their own car, charge for a few minutes, and drive off. I haven't seen the spec, but including the ability (if not making it mandatory) that when unplugging the charger the transaction ceases sounds like a good idea. That opens its own problems to pranking, but I'd think most people would prefer not having a fully-charged car to having a fully-charged car and also paying for someone else's fully-charge car.
Some sort of locking mechanism with a key (like subway/airport lockers, before TERRERISTS made them go away) might be an option, but that introduces another set of problems and seems outside the goal of this spec.
I can also see large companies with their own campuses, especially the likes of Apple or Google, installing these in their parking lots for employees and using a "co-op" setup, where the employees get the charge at cost or barely above. If they included some sort of valet system (I wouldn't be surprised if they already had something like that at the larger facilities), cars could be dropped off, charged, and parked once done on a rotating basis.
In short, gas stations as we understand them will die off with the use of gasoline (assuming it ever does so) and new options will emerge that will work with the extended refuel time. Also, if the 15-20 minutes is from near-empty to full charge (What, RTFA? Please.), most people will probably only need 2 minutes worth of charging to make sure they can get back home for short hops. They'll plug in at home and do a long charge overnight.
But is that because the Canadians are not as powerful as America, or because the Canadians are more level-headed and less vengeful than America?
I still have a twinge (only a twinge) of hope that by putting this in the court's lap we'll get to have actual facts during discovery and a real investigation by detectives, not the media.
But at this point it's been worked into such a frenzy that so many sides have put their hand in the pot that there's almost no soup left. Each group will be approaching both defense and prosecutors with all sorts of conflicting information, promises, leads, and threats. Then you have the political pressure you brought up, where I'm sure there's a DA or ADA who wants to look good for elections and will sweep tidbits under the rug to "prove" Zimmerman guilty. Or whatever lawyer announces to do it pro-bono to get his own high horse and sweep a different set of tidbits under the rug to "prove" him innocent, all until the rug resembles a mattress. Then the hard part will be to find 12 people who can't/won't get out of jury duty and at the same time either have not heard of the case or haven't let the media frenzy tell them what to think.
Still, a twinge.
Agreed. Someone commented on the post about Santorum dropping out of the race as being offtopic for this site; I was preparing a rebutal about how politics is nerdy, too, but in the same breath I said you can also get nerdy about cars and sports, neither of which should get reported on day-to-day news here (unless they're car analogies). As I typed that, I realized that the Santorum article indeed had no place on /., even if /. has a politics section; it wasn't nerdy, there were no great debates to lead from it or nitpicking/research to do, just people commenting on how he should have dropped sooner or theorizing on "real" reasons he dropped.
This story, while of great national interest, is not about politics; government, sure, but not politics in the sense of wide-reaching leaders doing this or that, and, similarly to the Santorum article, doesn't appear on the face of it to have any "nerdy" qualities. So it doesn't belong on /. Then again, we've had articles regarding tech use in this case previously, so maybe this could be understood as followup/closure to issues raised in those articles.
But then I begin to wonder: /. has changed much over the years, adding sections like that, perhaps we need to seriously re-evaluate the purpose of /. is. Either it's expanded to be a more inclusive big-news discussion site with extra emphasis on tech/science, in which case we should drop the "News for Nerds" moniker; or, it's still a site just for tech/science-related stories, in which case the "politics" section needs to go unless we limit it to just politics story expressly about tech/science being used or abused by the government (which, yes, happens quite often.)
Consider various postings about the TSA. TSA gained relevance on /. due to their use of body scanners and so forth; however, at least a few of the more recent posts is about the gross ineptitude of the TSA, tech being merely one outlet for set ineptitude. Yet no one complains about TSA articles (that I've seen, anyway). How often do we get posts about censorship in general? Not even blocking the web/text messages, but just about laws regarding arresting people for speaking out by any means. These certainly don't deal with tech/science, but, once again, no outcry against them (again, AFAIK). In fact, those are often the most discussed posts on the site (both the tech and non-tech kind). Certainly, there are important matters outside of tech/science that require long, deep debates, and I've yet to find anywhere on the internet that can facilitate that as well as Slashdot does (take that as you will). The moderating system works well, though it has a serious bias from users.
So I think that we, as a collective site, need to ask ourselves what we want Slashdot to be: A place for news--science, tech, or otherwise--that begs, nay, requires deep discussion and insight? Or a site dedicated explicitly to tech/science (which can still have said discussion about just those issues)? And, if the latter, where do we draw a line about what is a relevant news story?
While we have editors (that we often passively rebel against) that ultimately choose what appears on the front page, the site is driven almost entirely by the community, from posts to comments to moderation, and so I believe it's up to the community to decide what the site should strive for.
While absolutely true, this doesn't improve what the Today show did; as well, from reading the article it looks like they didn't apologize until they were caught. The only difference between the two is that Fox News is a kid that's willing to lie for its own wants; NBC, on the other hand, is an adult that's willing to lie for its own wants.
They're still both ready and willing to intentionally misinform, and thus both still complete bullocks.
I can't wait for the app that will analyze a woman's clothing and give you a virtual facsimile of what she looks like naked. It's going to happen. And then it will be banned in the app store. And then it will be remade for the use of one pedophile on rooted glasses so they can see little kids naked out in the street. And then congress will get involved and the glasses will be banned.
You know what, let's just forget the whole thing.
So how about just not watching the movie? I can completely side with you on not supporting the media companies. They're an unscrupulous and greedy lot. But then you go and download the movie anyway. True, you're not depriving anyone of anything, and I'm not chastising you for pirating; but, when you do that, you completely lose any credence in what appears to be a boycott/protest. Plus, someone out there tracks torrent hits, and that goes to show some sort of interest/consumption on some manager's desk, even if it's not monetary.
It's like saying you are going to protest/boycott the Mars company and then steal a Snickers bar or ask a friend to buy a Snicker's bar for you. Again, it's not about the method of obtaining something, it's about the hypocrisy at hand. You may want to ask yourself just why you do these things, and just how useful your position vs. actions are.
To me, it seems like a weird reverse of the NIMBY crowd--they want cheap, local, 'safe' energy, but not when it takes up their roof or makes noise when it spins or has an extremely low risk of radiation spilling out.
Releasing DVDs soon after the theatrical release would also be a small boon to theaters. If the DVD were released two-three weeks after the theatrical release, the theaters would likely be still showing it and could put out displays for the DVD copies; if someone liked a movie, they're (probably) far more likely to purchase it immediately after seeing it than after having days/weeks to digest and perhaps lose interest. Supposedly theaters are hurting for cash, necessitating the $5 20oz drink, so even a small profit margin on DVD sales would be useful.