That's one thing that always drives me nuts when I'm watching computers being used on TV or in the movies... EVERY user interface element BEEPS. Text will scroll on the screen (no idea why it won't just show all at once) and as the computer renders each and every single character, it lets out a beep. That sort of machine would drive me nuts after about 3 minutes of use.
John Badham (director of WarGames) explains it quite well on the director's commentary for WarGames - Movie studio executives insist that when something happens on-screen, it must have an associated sound so the audience knows something is happening. Everyone knows a computer doesn't beep every time you press a key. But just like most people require tactile feedback when typing for optimum performance (one of the multitude of reasons Star Trek's LCARS input interface will never truly be embraced in reality), studios insist the audience needs aural feedback when something is happening.
actually, i was just thinking the same thing. would you be able to think "capital T" or would you somehow have to simultaneously think "hold shift key" and then "type T"?
i don't disagree, but your point really doesn't have anything to do with mine.
i'm pretty sure "let's call it the internet" and "we could use it to share stupid memes" weren't uttered in the same breath.
i'm also pretty sure karl benz first thought after inventing the modern automobile wasn't "you know what, i'd really like to get shitfaced drunk and give this baby a crash test" either.
Your number one priority in a Tiger Park is... to maintain the tiger population. How the fuck do you let 24 tigers die in 36 months? Am I the only one that thinks that maybe after the first 12 months someone should have said, "wait a minute, we've got less tigers now than 12 months ago" and tried to figure out what the fuck was going wrong? How the fuck do you not notice anything is wrong in three years? Surely 24 tigers did not die in the past few months, right?
Maybe I'm assuming too much; I was sick the day they taught tiger maintenance at tiger school.
For every example you gave, I don't see one that could not be achieved with more accuracy and less hassle than having a mouse in each hand with a different colored cursor. Except for maybe public access, which let's face it is served very well with current touch technology already.
But selling people another $5 mouse just wouldn't be as cool, hypeworthy or anywhere nearly as marketable now, would it?
Great game. Totally got me hooked after trying the demo. However:
- Way too easy. Or should I say, way too short. I finished the full game in just over 4 hours. And 1 of those hours was when I got stuck trying to force the intended solution for one level, finally got angry and came up with my own solution (One of the rocket levels, ended up not using the rocket).
- No, I was right the first time; way too easy. Once you find out you can pin stuff and lift the ball just using small 'lifts', it ends up being pretty easy and you don't need to conform to a lot of the preset layouts. Hell, a lot of the solutions don't require any of the preset 'furniture'.
- SPOILER ALERT - Last level is disappointing, simple and short. Was expecting it to go out with a bang but all I got was a whimper.
Overall, definitely worth the money but really needs to be tweaked a little.
I was at Marco Polo Airport (Venice, Italy) two weeks ago for the first time in a couple of years. While waiting for my flight out of the country, I noticed an internet kiosk near my boarding gate. I was shocked to find out that to 'unlock' the kiosk, I had to let it photograph my passport before usage. The first five minutes was free but it still insisted that I needed to slide my passport bio page into a slot before it would allow me to surf the internet.
Needless to say, I killed the time by having a nice cup of coffee and a pastry instead.
I have four GDM-5011P 21" Trinitrons made by Sony for Silicon Graphics in their trademark 'granite' finish. STUNNING build quality. They're about a decade old now but even with my three Samsung 244T 24" LCDs, I still find myself using the Trinitrons quite regularly. Crisp, clean and fantastic color.
Did anybody else see this movie the first time it was released when it was an episode of The Millennium several years back? The plot line is exactly the same. Another forum even posted that some of the lines in the movie match up with the episode.
Yeah, I got the same feeling too. The episode you're thinking of was called "The Mikado" - Series 2, Episode 13. I never watched too many episodes of Millennium but I did catch this on tv years ago and found it thoroughly entertaining. Definitely very, very, VERY similar to the premise of Untraceable.
Or people who move? I would have hated it if, when I moved from Europe to the US a few years ago, all my games stopped working.
If you'd lived in Europe and went to the US, you wouldn't have been affected. There's no regional restriction for copies sold in any of the European countries (except Russia, I think).
Then again, I could imagine it would be a reasonable compromise for Valve to check you actually played the game for an extended period of time in Russia before you legitimately moved to the US. If it showed you played it for a few weeks in Russia and now you want to play it in the US, then I would agree that they should allow it. If their records show the game was never played in its original country of purchase, then I think they'd have decent grounds to decline your request.
But we're just talking about Russia here. If you bought yours in the UK or Germany or whatever, you could play that in the US without any problems.
What about those that were and are in regions of the world where importing software is allowed like Australia?
I'm assuming you still retain the right to use the Thai version whenever you find yourself in Thailand.
Fact is, the code you have is not for use in Australia - that's not Valve's problem. I would say it's either your problem for not reading the fine print when you purchased the code on a website or, more likely, it's your legitimate beef with the website from where you purchased the code for not telling you there were region restrictions. Then again, caveat emptor I guess whenever you decide to buy from sketchy online distributors.
Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from - you just wanted to save a few bucks on your Orange Box. But this is the risk you run when you can't justify spending that extra twenty bucks or whatever on a legit version from a local retailer. Sometimes it comes back and bites you in the ass and you end up paying even more. Thems the breaks.
Kojien (the Japanese equivalent of the Oxford dictionary) defines "nenpi" as "fuel consumption as represented by kilometers per liter".
Well of course it does. Kilometers and liters are used here in Japan, hence it would be measured in kilometers per liter. Or sometimes liters per 100km (xL/100km). But the characters used for nenpi do not have reference to kilometers or miles.
Take for example the phrase "Top speed". The phrase doesn't refer to kph or mph or meters per second or anything, but depending on its context, you can judge which is appropriate. If you're in the US, it'd be more appropriate to use mph, if you're in Japan, it'd be more appropriate to use kph. If you're talking about a satellite in orbit, maybe meters per second might be more appropriate.
The phrase "nenpi" is almost only purely used in reference to fuel consumption of cars. However I have seen it used in reference to physical fitness, so I think any jisho (dictionary) saying nenpi is purely measured in kilometers per liter is being too narrow in its definition.
Slashdot Mirror
It's a Beige Alert!
Short answer: Because at the end of the day, having a high-profile and appealing sports program makes them a lot more money than they invest in it.
G-R-A-M-M-A-R
grammar
--The Spelling Nazi
I'd really like to see a decent pic too.
That's one thing that always drives me nuts when I'm watching computers being used on TV or in the movies... EVERY user interface element BEEPS. Text will scroll on the screen (no idea why it won't just show all at once) and as the computer renders each and every single character, it lets out a beep. That sort of machine would drive me nuts after about 3 minutes of use.
John Badham (director of WarGames) explains it quite well on the director's commentary for WarGames - Movie studio executives insist that when something happens on-screen, it must have an associated sound so the audience knows something is happening. Everyone knows a computer doesn't beep every time you press a key. But just like most people require tactile feedback when typing for optimum performance (one of the multitude of reasons Star Trek's LCARS input interface will never truly be embraced in reality), studios insist the audience needs aural feedback when something is happening.
The audio industry being less than honest?
Say it ain't so!
if you're looking for an alternative to using your hands when you think "internet porn" and you think of this... you should get out more.
actually, i was just thinking the same thing. would you be able to think "capital T" or would you somehow have to simultaneously think "hold shift key" and then "type T"?
i don't disagree, but your point really doesn't have anything to do with mine.
i'm pretty sure "let's call it the internet" and "we could use it to share stupid memes" weren't uttered in the same breath.
i'm also pretty sure karl benz first thought after inventing the modern automobile wasn't "you know what, i'd really like to get shitfaced drunk and give this baby a crash test" either.
yes, because what we need is more twitter.
whenever i hear about groundbreaking advancements in the neurosciences, i for one automatically think about how it can improve my twitter feed.
sigh.
Your number one priority in a Tiger Park is... to maintain the tiger population. How the fuck do you let 24 tigers die in 36 months? Am I the only one that thinks that maybe after the first 12 months someone should have said, "wait a minute, we've got less tigers now than 12 months ago" and tried to figure out what the fuck was going wrong? How the fuck do you not notice anything is wrong in three years? Surely 24 tigers did not die in the past few months, right?
Maybe I'm assuming too much; I was sick the day they taught tiger maintenance at tiger school.
Or you could, you know, stick the thing in the microwave for ten seconds.
Enough to zap the chip, not enough to toast the paperwork.
Done and done, job well done.
Honestly, does it really fucking matter?
It doesn't matter if 100 used games are traded each year or 100 million. GAME COMPANIES GOT THEIR CUT WHEN THEY FUCKING SOLD IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I don't give a shit if it takes 5% or 95% of their 'potential revenue' away - JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE ENTITLED TO IT.
In the puntastic words of someone funnier than me, it's not rocket surgery. Geez.
Quick! Before the server gets eaten by a grue.
Here's a novel idea:
For every example you gave, I don't see one that could not be achieved with more accuracy and less hassle than having a mouse in each hand with a different colored cursor. Except for maybe public access, which let's face it is served very well with current touch technology already.
But selling people another $5 mouse just wouldn't be as cool, hypeworthy or anywhere nearly as marketable now, would it?
Perhaps now we'll be able to see those massive floating garbage islands in the Pacific Ocean that we're always hearing about.
You mean New Zealand?
The dumb public will be just fine with it riiight up until the first lawsuit from some person who's relative died because they couldn't dial 911.
My two cents.
Great game. Totally got me hooked after trying the demo. However:
- Way too easy. Or should I say, way too short. I finished the full game in just over 4 hours. And 1 of those hours was when I got stuck trying to force the intended solution for one level, finally got angry and came up with my own solution (One of the rocket levels, ended up not using the rocket). - No, I was right the first time; way too easy. Once you find out you can pin stuff and lift the ball just using small 'lifts', it ends up being pretty easy and you don't need to conform to a lot of the preset layouts. Hell, a lot of the solutions don't require any of the preset 'furniture'.
- SPOILER ALERT - Last level is disappointing, simple and short. Was expecting it to go out with a bang but all I got was a whimper.
Overall, definitely worth the money but really needs to be tweaked a little.
I was at Marco Polo Airport (Venice, Italy) two weeks ago for the first time in a couple of years. While waiting for my flight out of the country, I noticed an internet kiosk near my boarding gate. I was shocked to find out that to 'unlock' the kiosk, I had to let it photograph my passport before usage. The first five minutes was free but it still insisted that I needed to slide my passport bio page into a slot before it would allow me to surf the internet.
Needless to say, I killed the time by having a nice cup of coffee and a pastry instead.
I have four GDM-5011P 21" Trinitrons made by Sony for Silicon Graphics in their trademark 'granite' finish. STUNNING build quality. They're about a decade old now but even with my three Samsung 244T 24" LCDs, I still find myself using the Trinitrons quite regularly. Crisp, clean and fantastic color.
Did anybody else see this movie the first time it was released when it was an episode of The Millennium several years back? The plot line is exactly the same. Another forum even posted that some of the lines in the movie match up with the episode.
Yeah, I got the same feeling too. The episode you're thinking of was called "The Mikado" - Series 2, Episode 13. I never watched too many episodes of Millennium but I did catch this on tv years ago and found it thoroughly entertaining. Definitely very, very, VERY similar to the premise of Untraceable.
Or people who move? I would have hated it if, when I moved from Europe to the US a few years ago, all my games stopped working.
If you'd lived in Europe and went to the US, you wouldn't have been affected. There's no regional restriction for copies sold in any of the European countries (except Russia, I think).
Then again, I could imagine it would be a reasonable compromise for Valve to check you actually played the game for an extended period of time in Russia before you legitimately moved to the US. If it showed you played it for a few weeks in Russia and now you want to play it in the US, then I would agree that they should allow it. If their records show the game was never played in its original country of purchase, then I think they'd have decent grounds to decline your request.
But we're just talking about Russia here. If you bought yours in the UK or Germany or whatever, you could play that in the US without any problems.
just some arbitrary policy that Valve probably buried deep in some EULA or something.
You know that EULA stands for End User License AGREEMENT, right?
Not their fault if you didn't read what you agreed to.
What about those that were and are in regions of the world where importing software is allowed like Australia?
I'm assuming you still retain the right to use the Thai version whenever you find yourself in Thailand.
Fact is, the code you have is not for use in Australia - that's not Valve's problem. I would say it's either your problem for not reading the fine print when you purchased the code on a website or, more likely, it's your legitimate beef with the website from where you purchased the code for not telling you there were region restrictions. Then again, caveat emptor I guess whenever you decide to buy from sketchy online distributors.
Don't get me wrong, I understand where you're coming from - you just wanted to save a few bucks on your Orange Box. But this is the risk you run when you can't justify spending that extra twenty bucks or whatever on a legit version from a local retailer. Sometimes it comes back and bites you in the ass and you end up paying even more. Thems the breaks.
Kojien (the Japanese equivalent of the Oxford dictionary) defines "nenpi" as "fuel consumption as represented by kilometers per liter".
Well of course it does. Kilometers and liters are used here in Japan, hence it would be measured in kilometers per liter. Or sometimes liters per 100km (xL/100km). But the characters used for nenpi do not have reference to kilometers or miles.
Take for example the phrase "Top speed". The phrase doesn't refer to kph or mph or meters per second or anything, but depending on its context, you can judge which is appropriate. If you're in the US, it'd be more appropriate to use mph, if you're in Japan, it'd be more appropriate to use kph. If you're talking about a satellite in orbit, maybe meters per second might be more appropriate.
The phrase "nenpi" is almost only purely used in reference to fuel consumption of cars. However I have seen it used in reference to physical fitness, so I think any jisho (dictionary) saying nenpi is purely measured in kilometers per liter is being too narrow in its definition.