No, I've gotta go on Rea on this, and I am a fanboy for SCHMUPs. Ikuraga was highly overrated - it's just that the fanboys have gotten to the point of mistaking "difficult" for "fun." It was almost without a doubt the hardest SCHMUP to come out, ever. But fun?
Yeah, the graphics and sound were really nice, but as far as that goes, they primarily shot their wad in the first level. After that, none of the graphics really impressed me. And the complete lack of powerups was annoying as hell. I thought the point of playing a shooter WAS strugging to get the 10-way ultra-kill railgun that decimates the screen. Design was meh, bosses were so-so. And all throughout, again, the designer seemed to have little regard for anything except creating his much-vaunted "maze of bullets" to maneuver through.
And while the black\white bullet thing was a fairly interesting concept, there wasn't enough reward to it. The "superweapon" wasn't all that special and in the end, it seemed like the entire exercise was just so that the designers could fill the screen with more bullets than are humanly possible to dodge.
And then JUST to kick the gamer in the balls a little harder, the fscking thing cannot even be properly viewed on a normal TV. To ACTUALLY play it well, you have to turn your TV on its SIDE because the damn gamn is reverse-letterboxed and no one thought to change the aspect ratio or otherwise make it TV-friendly.
No, I picked it up after hearing so much about it, and ended up being MASSIVELY disappointed.
That the provenance of the donated eggs is questionable OBVIOUSLY invalidates all the rest of his research! Guess there's STILL no human cloning after all, huh? And good thing too!
/sarcast
I mean, seriously. Am I alone in thinking that this sounds MORE like the morality police casting about desperately for a reason to discredit the man and his work?
I mean, seriously. Where is it? Why are none of the major brands seriously trying to push the price point down?
HD-based players are still too pricy for the average consumer. Yet the price of them hasn't changed significantly in years. Surely the drives in them are cheaper and easier to produce than they were in 2001 - so why has the price not come down significantly?
Instead, the consumer is forced to make ridiculous compromises like "will you pay $100 less and get 1/10 the storage?" Or, "How about $200 less, and you don't get a screen or any control over the playlist either."
I look over that list, and pretty much all of them, within their subclass, are IDENTICAL. The only difference is the brand name and the particular shape of the player. And, in fact, it seems like the entire industry is becoming LESS innovative, not more, especially with Rio leaving the market. I couldn't even tell you the difference between most of those.
And then people wonder why Apple has all the market share. It's the only brand name most people can name, the only one they've heard of, and none of the other models offer ANYTHING substantial to recommend themselves over it. And in the meantime, no one seems willing to try to open the market up a bit by making good players available at affordable prices.
It seems like, once again, an example of the music industry collectively shooting itself in the foot, and then whining about why no one else lives in the same world they do.
/uses a buggy out-of-production player he found on clearance for $50
Gum was considered an ideal solution because the Army already issues gum to soldiers in their field rations...
...Dr. Patrick DeLuca, a University of Kentucky drug product developer, is working to perfect the prototype, trying to make it taste better and ensure that it retains its flavor and bacteria-fighting ability for 30 minutes to an hour.
Understand? It does not taste good enough to include in *MREs.*
I think that says ALL you need to know about the taste at this point.
I'm asking this in all seriousness. Let's say you write the next Great American Novel. The next Gone With the Wind or Catcher in the Rye or whatever. And you sell a few copies, but a large publisher sees it. They grab the book, print it themselves, mass-market it, and stick, I don't know, CDs or DVDs or something to make sure their edition of the book is so good no one would ever buy yours.
And you would be OK with them reaping the profit from your work?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we go all-digital, wouldn't that be an invitation to the broadcasters to encrypt everything and make people pay for the decryption hardware? Whether it's overtly, in the form of a settop box with monthly fees, or just higher prices on all TVs and PVRs, isn't this little handout effectively going to spell the end of free television as we know it? Once the transition happens and the old spectrum is sold off, there's really no going back... and even if there's a law against it TODAY, does anyone want to place a bet on it remaining illegal 10 years from now?
Now just assume that the DMCA doesn't go away and, in all liklihood, just gets more restrictive... The idea of a future where no broadcast media can be taped or even viewed without the explicit permission of the broadcaster is not a happy one...
USE the contract! If someone signs a contract legally agreeing to not unlock the phone, or to pay the cost of the phone if they jump service, in knowledge of what they're doing... I have no problem with that. At all. That's just doing business.
(and if people won't agree to that prospect, then perhaps it's not a good deal and people acting in their own best interest are right to avoid it.)
What I have a problem with is Congress passing sweeping laws dictating things I, the consumer, CANNOT do with my own property... which then allows companies to prop up faulty business models with legal threats.
There is no - absolutely ZERO - reason that I should not be legally allowed to mod the X-Box I paid $200 for to run Linux, and never buy a MS-licensed game title in my life. Yet I am not. And therefore MS can sell these highly useful mini-computers at a loss (we think) and use legal threats to keep me from using my own property.
THAT is what I have a problem with. Laws that strip me of my rights as a consumer so that businesses can implement flawed plans which are backed up, not by good logic or economics, but by the FBI.
Sorry to rain on the collective parade, but I seem to be the only one saying this:
What reason does the average consumer have to upgrade?
Just ponder that one for a minute. What do EITHER of the formats actually offer?
1 - increased storage space. OK, we'll now have the ability to watch the expanded Return of the King, all 4 1/2 hours of it, without once getting up out of our seat to change discs. Since standing up every 3 hours is such an inconvenience. (not to mention the tiny number of movies which can't fit onto a current DVD)
And 2 - Full support for high-def televisions. Except that despite years on the market, penetration is TINY and still only the top couple percent of people own them.
And that's pretty much IT. (We won't even discuss "draconian DRM" or such things) Now, look at all the advantages of DVD over VHS that convinced the public to convert.
See my point? The *ONLY* way that the public will switch over to a new DVD format is if the studios force them to. (by dropping support for old DVD entirely) But since the studios won't agree on a format, even THAT won't work. Like hell the public will buy TWO new players just to be able to play all the new releases they want.
These new technologies, BOTH of them, are set to fail spectacularly. They'll end up just being proprietary formats for the various video game consoles. But unless everyone starts cooperating in a BIG way there's no chance whatsoever of them supplanting DVD as the home movie format of choice.
There's one important difference. The razor blade model works because there is absolutely nothing useful one can do with a razor blade HANDLE without the blades.
What these companies are doing is selling a VERY useful item at an incredible loss, and attempting to legislate the consumers' USE of the product. In a very real sense they are attempting to use social controls to *force* the public into doing business their way.
This is, to my mind, outright evil for fairly obvious reasons. But from a strict business sense, it's idiocy. Look at Microsoft and the X-box. They sell a repackaged PC with crackable hardware at (we think) a loss... so they use laws and threats and intimidation to stop people from using their purchased X-Box as they see fit.
That's not the razor blade model. I can't convert my razor blade handle into a hammer or screwdriver or something. But I CAN convert a mobile phone or an X-Box into something entirely useful that negates their business model. And all they can use are laws to force me to play the game their way. Laws that undermine the very definition of legal possession that is a requirement for a capitalist system to function.
For if we don't have the right to use products we purchase as we please, what worth are they?
Did anyone read the actual policy document? The arrogance in it is just stunning. It has a list of things the consumer is "entitled" to do, every one with a legality-related caveat.
The FCC appears to truly believe that they have been granted power to regulate Internet usage as they see fit.
It's not just the wording, it's the mentality. Everything about the document suggests that the FCC is the source from which the right to use the Internet flows. AND that the *consumer* is ultimately responsible for anything "illegal" that is on his computer. Even if it's just a matter of unknowningly using a VoIP protocol that doesn't allow tapping.
There's no other way to read it, and furthermore, it's the only "logical" (in terms of the logic of empire) way of dealing with the situation. Since they can never regulate the internet COMPANIES - who will all swiftly relocate to another country - they will have to regulate the PEOPLE to make sure their laws are followed. And they have to do that since, of course, laws passed must be enforced.
Mentioned as having been brought up on a Misdemeanor for giving away a copy of Million Dollar Baby...
I did a little Googling and found this Stuff article which talks about these cases. And, it appears, the article we were reading omits one vital word: Promotional. It was a promotional copy that he gave away, and in violation of a contract he had signed.
So it's really nasty that they're going after him for this, since no one ever asks for promo copies back, but they're within their rights. And it's a totally different case than if he had just given away a copy of a retail DVD.
Running a Google search on Liaoning dinosaur brings up a number of useful articles.
This one at the BBC discusses the find in more depth and also mentions that the feathers were primarily on smaller dinosaurs, but even our beloved T-Rex may have hatched cute li'l chicks.
And this American Museum of Natural History article discusses a diorama they're putting up based on the find, including pictures of their conceptions of the dinosaurs today.
Really, submitter could have contributed a lot more information with a little basic research.
My first thought upon watching the trailer was "This is so going to ignite a firestorm." There are a lot of very scary people in the US - CITIZENS, mostly, which is the worst part - who would make it their life's mission to stop the public from ever seeing a movie which glorified a terrorist hero. It would be condemned on talk radio, FOX would feature exposes on how one of the brothers is transgendered and therefore, of course, an evil communist prevert, and so on and so forth.
But then I wondered if they'll notice it after all. The US has a very long and proud history of slipping the most socially subversive material into its sci-fi movies and having the nanny-dictators completely miss it. Planet of the Apes anyone? Looking back, the political allegory in that film (in the first three, really) is so blatant it's almost insulting... but at the time, no one really noticed. At least no one with the power to stop the movie from happening.
Or more recently, War of the Worlds. Granted, the fact that it was a truly terrible film rather cut into its impact, but I'm really not sure if ANYONE inside the US really got what Koepp and Spielberg were doing with it. (hint: it was a POST-9/11 allegory. If you think it had anything to do with the attacks themselves, you're dead wrong.)
And many others, leading up to this. And I wonder. Being that it's sci-fi, and from a pair already known for dystopian action flicks... will the Powers That Be even notice it? I'm guessing they won't.
Which is the funny thing about nazis. They always miss what's right under their noses.
It sure didn't look sanitized to me. Unless you live in a very interesting country where the heroes of its movies are often depicted wearing suicide vests.
And it's been confirmed that they do indeedy blow up Parliament in the beginning.
And for Evey to go from hair to no-hair, well, you know what that means must happen.
So no, if anything, the trailer has brought back some of the hope I had.
Or, to be even more specific, it's his successors that want to take all their ideas from the public domain (or old anime) and then own everything forever.
I especially like to point at Sleeping Beauty. Not only is it adapted directly from the (public domain) Perault story (even using some of his narration) but it doesn't even have an original score! They just adapted Tchaikovsky's (public domain) ballet music.
It's insane to say they can do that, and yet none of their stuff can EVER go back into the public domain to then inspire new artists.
Really? Which 1984?
Very relatedly, my best find in $1 bins so far is the infamous 50s CIA-funded animation of Animal Farm... which is actually a pretty good movie, even if they did change the ending.
I'm just flabergasted. I mean, I knew Lucas had turned into a complete whore, but WTF? How would one even build a TV show out of that? The *only* subplot of any interest whatsofuckingever would be finding out how Han & Chewie meet. (although rumor has it Lucas's version is completely different, and considerably more dumb, than the version most fans have accepted over the years) And even then, it was LUCAS who introduced that discontinuity between the two series. If he hadn't gotten cute and put Chewie in Ep 3, it wouldn't even be an issue.
I suppose, on the other hand, this might explain why he cast Wayne Pygram as Tarkin's chin for the whole 10 seconds he was onscreen. (Yes, Farscape geeks, if you hadn't noticed - that was Scorpius "playing" Tarkin)
But really, showing Luke's childhood? Completely, utterly unnecessary. Showing Leia's is nearly as bad. (ooh, she's a tomboy princess rebelling against her horrible rich parents...) And in the meantime, there's no political subtext either - just the Empire slowly growing in power and crushing system after system. THAT will be an audience-grabber, I tell you.
The real pisser is that there ARE valid things he could do with a SW TV series. Get the hell away from the main characters. Follow, say, a privateer based out of Coruscant. Or an imperial recruit who ends up going over to the Rebellion. Or, even better, jump BACK in time a few hundred years and show the Old Republic at its height. Before the Jedi became assholes and before the Senate was corrupted. Show us why we should care about its fall in Eps 1 - 3.
But no, Lucas has to follow the quick and easy path. Episode 2 didn't even sink the franchise, and I do think Ep 3 was actually pretty good - but this sounds like it may finally break that damn camel in half.
I'm really impressed at how the Linux geeks in this thread are responding to his criticisms about as well as Bill O'Reilly handles criticisms of our military.
You bet your sweet bippy that was a troll. Do your worst, I've got karma to spare.
*NOW* is the time for Linux to get its collective head out of the sand and really reach out to the common users. You know how on a weekly basis we laugh at Microsoft for announcing yet another feature that will NOT be in Longhorn? Let me just put this one in bold:
Longhorn is going to suck. It's going to be the worst Windows since ME.
Microsoft has no plan for it. They know they have really taken Windows about as far as it can go, and any real changes are going to require years of work. But because of market pressures, they can't really take the time that would need - and yet, due to mismanagement, they're going to spend years wastefully. This is the PERFECT opportunity for Linux to finally rise to the forefront --
but only if the geeks get off their high horses and admit that a good OS has to be usable by common man. AND, right along side that, if they can come to understand criticism is NOT necessarily an attack. Reading responses on this thread, all I can think of is O'Reilly screaming 'Shup up! SHUT UP!' at anyone speaking facts he doesn't want to face.
I gave up on Linux for the same reasons as Zawinski. I want an OS that *works*. I don't want to tweak my sound drivers. I don't want to have my nVidia drivers FRICKING VANISH after a week of working right (after a week of work to get them running). I don't want to have to remember that completely ridiculous program names like "the GIMP" are actually usuable graphics applications and not, as the name would suggest to a normal human being, porn videos.
(yes, I know what the name stands for. That does not change the fact that Granny Average User would never in a million years click on something called a "gimp" looking for a way to take the redeye out of her pictures.)
The Linux community needs to get out of the 90s. There are modern solutions to every major problem with the OS, and within a year, two at max, they could make it REALLY user-friendly. The problem is that user-friendliness isn't sexy to Linux geeks. No one wants to spend time writing a new sound library that actually works when they can just look down their noses at anyone who doesn't know how to properly configure ALSA. And the only thing less sexy than THAT is not writing any actual code at all, but just going through the OS and making sure the user dialogues make some sort of sense to those who don't have PhDs and, as someone else mentioned, will actually fit on a screen resolution of less than 1024x768.
But you know what? Someone has to do it. Because if no one does, Linux will NEVER get past being a hobbyist OS, and whatever horrible things the next Windows introduces to the computing world, we'll be stuck with dealing with them. ('Cause god knows, I just *love* having mailboxes on Linux and Mac machines shut down because Windows-borne virii have filled them with spam. That helps my sense of superiority to no end.)
So this is truly put up and shut up time. There has never been a better opportunity for Linux to really make some inroads in the home market - but only if the contributors are willing to make some compromises and give the other 90% of users some reason to switch. So all I ask is, if you contribute to OSS, and you EVER spend any time online complaining about how Linux could be great if only it could get into the mainstream - use that time to tweak Linux's usability instead. Fixing bad error messages doesn't even require much programming skill at all. Make Linux usable for common people, and it can succeed. Period.
Re:The "arbitrary barriers" are what annoy me...
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 1
Yes, that was a Chocobo reference. I love the Final Fantasies, but sometimes they drive me slightly nuts.
It would have been a great side-quest - in another game. Or, at best, placed in the FIRST half of FFVII. But I found, in the second half, when supposedly you just had a couple weeks before certain doom (with the giant evil planet hanging overhead) that goofy breeding subplot took me COMPLETELY out of the game.
I understand there wasn't REALLY a time limit for the second half, and that's the problem. It should have FELT like there was. And including side quests like that killed the immersion.
Re:Better AI: do you really want it?
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I agree. I don't think most gamers WANT good AI. They want the experience of being super-heroes who can mow down fifty bad guys without breaking a sweat. This is FUN.
While I know there are people who would truly enjoy the intellectual challenge of out-smarting a really great AI, I suspect those people are few and far between. They would be greatly outnumbered by those who found such contests stressful and very UNfun.
I point at Metal Gear Solid. Remember how frustrating the Psycho Mantis battle was, until the trick to the fight was revealed? There you go. There's what computer AI could be, if the gloves came off. AI isn't really about making the computer smart enough to beat the player - it's making the computer dumb enough that the player can win.
That Metroid Prime isn't really a FPS doesn't change the central issue - why is it that MP's jumping sequences aren't annoying, and in fact are even FUN, when most times having a first-person jumping sequence is the kiss of death?
I've played through MP1 twice, and I'm now working on MP2, and I still can't entirely figure this out. What do they do right that no one else can?
My theory is that, although it's very well-hidden by the art design, the platforms are in fact almost always a uniform distance away. You know instantly whether you can make a jump or not. (and, accordingly, whether you need to space jump or not) And you don't have to play any silly games of only holding down the jump button for x milliseconds, or else you overshoot.
It also doesn't hurt that, as near as I can tell, they cheat the edges of the platforms to a rather ridiculous degree. I suspect that's why you can't see your feet - you'd be able to see that you were standing on thin air.
The "arbitrary barriers" are what annoy me...
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I've gotten really sick of arbitrary level design. What really irritates me is that they don't even TRY. They *could* make the door some sort of super-duper HellForce-powered starship-grade forcefield... but they don't. It's just a door. And despite having enough weaponry on you to level Myanmar, you have to find a key.
Basically, I think the rule is: a gamer should NOT be aware of the cruel hand of God fucking with him.
If you ever say, "Damn you, (programmer)!" then there is something wrong. (well, unless Will Wright is peeing on you, but that's another story) There should never be moments so arbitrary or evil that you're snapped out of the game universe to curse the designer. A door which you JUST walked through should not suddenly be locked, for no reason at all, just to prevent you from going back to that save point you passed two rooms before. (I'm looking at you, Metroid Prime 2 - and your older brother DIDN'T DO THIS!)
Or if you're near the endgame... You've got all the keys and magic spells... And all you have to do is march into the Temple and kill the evil wizard... this is NOT the time to make you go on a scavenger hunt all over the fucking map for a ludicrously high number of pieces of an arbitrary key which has no purpose except to draw out the last act! *cough*WindWaker*cough*
(if I pick on Nintendo, it's because if any game design company should know better, it's them)
It's really simple. Just ask yourself - if this were a MOVIE, would I believe in this event? (Paul Anderson and Uwe Boll movies excepted) Would I believe that the characters need to spend three months item-gathering? Would I believe it's necessary for the heroes to take a break from the plot to crossbreed giant chickens? Could I conceive of a world in which a character is unable to climb over a ten-inch high barrier?
If the answer is "no" then there is no excuse for having it in the game.
I'm beyond stunned that all the Television powers-that-be would rather spend millions lobbying Congress, paying lawyers, bribing the FCC, developing new tech, etc etc when a very simple solution exists to the problem.
All, I repeat, ALL you have to do is embed the ADVERTISING so that it cannot be stripped out.
Television is a medium for delivering advertisements to people. Period. If you believe otherwise, you're delusional. Tivo and file-sharing threaten televsion, not because of any nonsense about copyrights, but because they get in the way of this delivery network and allow people to watch TV without watching the commercials that are needed to keep it running.
(a copyright is a completely intangible thing. It is merely a route to profit, worthless in and of itself. Accordingly, if copyrights become a barrier to profit, they will fall into disuse.)
So, you just have to eliminate commercial breaks. This is pretty much a win-win scenario for EVERYONE, since it means (hypothetically) the entire TV show is one gigantic advertisement, and in the meantime, the TV-viewing public gets shows that are *actually* an hour long, rather than 40 minutes. Use product placement and scrolling banners, or perhaps a PnP in the corner flashing up logos and quick animations.
(won't work? Go look up studies about people who watch TiVo'ed commericals on muted fast-forward. They often have *better* ad retention than those who watch the commericals at normal speed with sound.)
So, that's it. Do that and no one will give the slightest crap how many people pirate a TV show, because every pirated copy is just one more person seeing the wonderful, wonderful advertising that makes the world go round. I can see a future just a few years away where TV producers are actively working to increase the number of shared copies, and including pirates in their viewing statistics when pitching to advertisers.
Slashdot Mirror
Either you deliberately misread me, or you haven't even played the game.
Yeah, the graphics and sound were really nice, but as far as that goes, they primarily shot their wad in the first level. After that, none of the graphics really impressed me. And the complete lack of powerups was annoying as hell. I thought the point of playing a shooter WAS strugging to get the 10-way ultra-kill railgun that decimates the screen. Design was meh, bosses were so-so. And all throughout, again, the designer seemed to have little regard for anything except creating his much-vaunted "maze of bullets" to maneuver through.
And while the black\white bullet thing was a fairly interesting concept, there wasn't enough reward to it. The "superweapon" wasn't all that special and in the end, it seemed like the entire exercise was just so that the designers could fill the screen with more bullets than are humanly possible to dodge.
And then JUST to kick the gamer in the balls a little harder, the fscking thing cannot even be properly viewed on a normal TV. To ACTUALLY play it well, you have to turn your TV on its SIDE because the damn gamn is reverse-letterboxed and no one thought to change the aspect ratio or otherwise make it TV-friendly.
No, I picked it up after hearing so much about it, and ended up being MASSIVELY disappointed.
I mean, seriously. Am I alone in thinking that this sounds MORE like the morality police casting about desperately for a reason to discredit the man and his work?
I want to quote it to future generations.
HD-based players are still too pricy for the average consumer. Yet the price of them hasn't changed significantly in years. Surely the drives in them are cheaper and easier to produce than they were in 2001 - so why has the price not come down significantly?
Instead, the consumer is forced to make ridiculous compromises like "will you pay $100 less and get 1/10 the storage?" Or, "How about $200 less, and you don't get a screen or any control over the playlist either."
I look over that list, and pretty much all of them, within their subclass, are IDENTICAL. The only difference is the brand name and the particular shape of the player. And, in fact, it seems like the entire industry is becoming LESS innovative, not more, especially with Rio leaving the market. I couldn't even tell you the difference between most of those.
And then people wonder why Apple has all the market share. It's the only brand name most people can name, the only one they've heard of, and none of the other models offer ANYTHING substantial to recommend themselves over it. And in the meantime, no one seems willing to try to open the market up a bit by making good players available at affordable prices.
It seems like, once again, an example of the music industry collectively shooting itself in the foot, and then whining about why no one else lives in the same world they do.
Gum was considered an ideal solution because the Army already issues gum to soldiers in their field rations...
Understand? It does not taste good enough to include in *MREs.*
I think that says ALL you need to know about the taste at this point.
And you would be OK with them reaping the profit from your work?
Now just assume that the DMCA doesn't go away and, in all liklihood, just gets more restrictive... The idea of a future where no broadcast media can be taped or even viewed without the explicit permission of the broadcaster is not a happy one...
(and if people won't agree to that prospect, then perhaps it's not a good deal and people acting in their own best interest are right to avoid it.)
What I have a problem with is Congress passing sweeping laws dictating things I, the consumer, CANNOT do with my own property... which then allows companies to prop up faulty business models with legal threats.
There is no - absolutely ZERO - reason that I should not be legally allowed to mod the X-Box I paid $200 for to run Linux, and never buy a MS-licensed game title in my life. Yet I am not. And therefore MS can sell these highly useful mini-computers at a loss (we think) and use legal threats to keep me from using my own property.
THAT is what I have a problem with. Laws that strip me of my rights as a consumer so that businesses can implement flawed plans which are backed up, not by good logic or economics, but by the FBI.
That way leads madness.
What reason does the average consumer have to upgrade?
Just ponder that one for a minute. What do EITHER of the formats actually offer?
1 - increased storage space. OK, we'll now have the ability to watch the expanded Return of the King, all 4 1/2 hours of it, without once getting up out of our seat to change discs. Since standing up every 3 hours is such an inconvenience. (not to mention the tiny number of movies which can't fit onto a current DVD)
And 2 - Full support for high-def televisions. Except that despite years on the market, penetration is TINY and still only the top couple percent of people own them.
And that's pretty much IT. (We won't even discuss "draconian DRM" or such things) Now, look at all the advantages of DVD over VHS that convinced the public to convert.
See my point? The *ONLY* way that the public will switch over to a new DVD format is if the studios force them to. (by dropping support for old DVD entirely) But since the studios won't agree on a format, even THAT won't work. Like hell the public will buy TWO new players just to be able to play all the new releases they want.
These new technologies, BOTH of them, are set to fail spectacularly. They'll end up just being proprietary formats for the various video game consoles. But unless everyone starts cooperating in a BIG way there's no chance whatsoever of them supplanting DVD as the home movie format of choice.
What these companies are doing is selling a VERY useful item at an incredible loss, and attempting to legislate the consumers' USE of the product. In a very real sense they are attempting to use social controls to *force* the public into doing business their way.
This is, to my mind, outright evil for fairly obvious reasons. But from a strict business sense, it's idiocy. Look at Microsoft and the X-box. They sell a repackaged PC with crackable hardware at (we think) a loss... so they use laws and threats and intimidation to stop people from using their purchased X-Box as they see fit.
That's not the razor blade model. I can't convert my razor blade handle into a hammer or screwdriver or something. But I CAN convert a mobile phone or an X-Box into something entirely useful that negates their business model. And all they can use are laws to force me to play the game their way. Laws that undermine the very definition of legal possession that is a requirement for a capitalist system to function.
For if we don't have the right to use products we purchase as we please, what worth are they?
The FCC appears to truly believe that they have been granted power to regulate Internet usage as they see fit.
It's not just the wording, it's the mentality. Everything about the document suggests that the FCC is the source from which the right to use the Internet flows. AND that the *consumer* is ultimately responsible for anything "illegal" that is on his computer. Even if it's just a matter of unknowningly using a VoIP protocol that doesn't allow tapping.
There's no other way to read it, and furthermore, it's the only "logical" (in terms of the logic of empire) way of dealing with the situation. Since they can never regulate the internet COMPANIES - who will all swiftly relocate to another country - they will have to regulate the PEOPLE to make sure their laws are followed. And they have to do that since, of course, laws passed must be enforced.
This is, as they say, doubleplus ungood.
I did a little Googling and found this Stuff article which talks about these cases. And, it appears, the article we were reading omits one vital word: Promotional. It was a promotional copy that he gave away, and in violation of a contract he had signed.
So it's really nasty that they're going after him for this, since no one ever asks for promo copies back, but they're within their rights. And it's a totally different case than if he had just given away a copy of a retail DVD.
This one at the BBC discusses the find in more depth and also mentions that the feathers were primarily on smaller dinosaurs, but even our beloved T-Rex may have hatched cute li'l chicks.
And this American Museum of Natural History article discusses a diorama they're putting up based on the find, including pictures of their conceptions of the dinosaurs today.
Really, submitter could have contributed a lot more information with a little basic research.
But then I wondered if they'll notice it after all. The US has a very long and proud history of slipping the most socially subversive material into its sci-fi movies and having the nanny-dictators completely miss it. Planet of the Apes anyone? Looking back, the political allegory in that film (in the first three, really) is so blatant it's almost insulting... but at the time, no one really noticed. At least no one with the power to stop the movie from happening.
Or more recently, War of the Worlds. Granted, the fact that it was a truly terrible film rather cut into its impact, but I'm really not sure if ANYONE inside the US really got what Koepp and Spielberg were doing with it. (hint: it was a POST-9/11 allegory. If you think it had anything to do with the attacks themselves, you're dead wrong.)
And many others, leading up to this. And I wonder. Being that it's sci-fi, and from a pair already known for dystopian action flicks... will the Powers That Be even notice it? I'm guessing they won't.
Which is the funny thing about nazis. They always miss what's right under their noses.
And it's been confirmed that they do indeedy blow up Parliament in the beginning.
And for Evey to go from hair to no-hair, well, you know what that means must happen.
So no, if anything, the trailer has brought back some of the hope I had.
I especially like to point at Sleeping Beauty. Not only is it adapted directly from the (public domain) Perault story (even using some of his narration) but it doesn't even have an original score! They just adapted Tchaikovsky's (public domain) ballet music.
It's insane to say they can do that, and yet none of their stuff can EVER go back into the public domain to then inspire new artists.
Really? Which 1984? Very relatedly, my best find in $1 bins so far is the infamous 50s CIA-funded animation of Animal Farm... which is actually a pretty good movie, even if they did change the ending.
I suppose, on the other hand, this might explain why he cast Wayne Pygram as Tarkin's chin for the whole 10 seconds he was onscreen. (Yes, Farscape geeks, if you hadn't noticed - that was Scorpius "playing" Tarkin)
But really, showing Luke's childhood? Completely, utterly unnecessary. Showing Leia's is nearly as bad. (ooh, she's a tomboy princess rebelling against her horrible rich parents...) And in the meantime, there's no political subtext either - just the Empire slowly growing in power and crushing system after system. THAT will be an audience-grabber, I tell you.
The real pisser is that there ARE valid things he could do with a SW TV series. Get the hell away from the main characters. Follow, say, a privateer based out of Coruscant. Or an imperial recruit who ends up going over to the Rebellion. Or, even better, jump BACK in time a few hundred years and show the Old Republic at its height. Before the Jedi became assholes and before the Senate was corrupted. Show us why we should care about its fall in Eps 1 - 3.
But no, Lucas has to follow the quick and easy path. Episode 2 didn't even sink the franchise, and I do think Ep 3 was actually pretty good - but this sounds like it may finally break that damn camel in half.
You bet your sweet bippy that was a troll. Do your worst, I've got karma to spare.
*NOW* is the time for Linux to get its collective head out of the sand and really reach out to the common users. You know how on a weekly basis we laugh at Microsoft for announcing yet another feature that will NOT be in Longhorn? Let me just put this one in bold:
Longhorn is going to suck. It's going to be the worst Windows since ME.
Microsoft has no plan for it. They know they have really taken Windows about as far as it can go, and any real changes are going to require years of work. But because of market pressures, they can't really take the time that would need - and yet, due to mismanagement, they're going to spend years wastefully. This is the PERFECT opportunity for Linux to finally rise to the forefront -- but only if the geeks get off their high horses and admit that a good OS has to be usable by common man. AND, right along side that, if they can come to understand criticism is NOT necessarily an attack. Reading responses on this thread, all I can think of is O'Reilly screaming 'Shup up! SHUT UP!' at anyone speaking facts he doesn't want to face.
I gave up on Linux for the same reasons as Zawinski. I want an OS that *works*. I don't want to tweak my sound drivers. I don't want to have my nVidia drivers FRICKING VANISH after a week of working right (after a week of work to get them running). I don't want to have to remember that completely ridiculous program names like "the GIMP" are actually usuable graphics applications and not, as the name would suggest to a normal human being, porn videos.
(yes, I know what the name stands for. That does not change the fact that Granny Average User would never in a million years click on something called a "gimp" looking for a way to take the redeye out of her pictures.)
The Linux community needs to get out of the 90s. There are modern solutions to every major problem with the OS, and within a year, two at max, they could make it REALLY user-friendly. The problem is that user-friendliness isn't sexy to Linux geeks. No one wants to spend time writing a new sound library that actually works when they can just look down their noses at anyone who doesn't know how to properly configure ALSA. And the only thing less sexy than THAT is not writing any actual code at all, but just going through the OS and making sure the user dialogues make some sort of sense to those who don't have PhDs and, as someone else mentioned, will actually fit on a screen resolution of less than 1024x768.
But you know what? Someone has to do it. Because if no one does, Linux will NEVER get past being a hobbyist OS, and whatever horrible things the next Windows introduces to the computing world, we'll be stuck with dealing with them. ('Cause god knows, I just *love* having mailboxes on Linux and Mac machines shut down because Windows-borne virii have filled them with spam. That helps my sense of superiority to no end.)
So this is truly put up and shut up time. There has never been a better opportunity for Linux to really make some inroads in the home market - but only if the contributors are willing to make some compromises and give the other 90% of users some reason to switch. So all I ask is, if you contribute to OSS, and you EVER spend any time online complaining about how Linux could be great if only it could get into the mainstream - use that time to tweak Linux's usability instead. Fixing bad error messages doesn't even require much programming skill at all. Make Linux usable for common people, and it can succeed. Period.
It would have been a great side-quest - in another game. Or, at best, placed in the FIRST half of FFVII. But I found, in the second half, when supposedly you just had a couple weeks before certain doom (with the giant evil planet hanging overhead) that goofy breeding subplot took me COMPLETELY out of the game.
I understand there wasn't REALLY a time limit for the second half, and that's the problem. It should have FELT like there was. And including side quests like that killed the immersion.
While I know there are people who would truly enjoy the intellectual challenge of out-smarting a really great AI, I suspect those people are few and far between. They would be greatly outnumbered by those who found such contests stressful and very UNfun.
I point at Metal Gear Solid. Remember how frustrating the Psycho Mantis battle was, until the trick to the fight was revealed? There you go. There's what computer AI could be, if the gloves came off. AI isn't really about making the computer smart enough to beat the player - it's making the computer dumb enough that the player can win.
I've played through MP1 twice, and I'm now working on MP2, and I still can't entirely figure this out. What do they do right that no one else can?
My theory is that, although it's very well-hidden by the art design, the platforms are in fact almost always a uniform distance away. You know instantly whether you can make a jump or not. (and, accordingly, whether you need to space jump or not) And you don't have to play any silly games of only holding down the jump button for x milliseconds, or else you overshoot.
It also doesn't hurt that, as near as I can tell, they cheat the edges of the platforms to a rather ridiculous degree. I suspect that's why you can't see your feet - you'd be able to see that you were standing on thin air.
Basically, I think the rule is: a gamer should NOT be aware of the cruel hand of God fucking with him.
If you ever say, "Damn you, (programmer)!" then there is something wrong. (well, unless Will Wright is peeing on you, but that's another story) There should never be moments so arbitrary or evil that you're snapped out of the game universe to curse the designer. A door which you JUST walked through should not suddenly be locked, for no reason at all, just to prevent you from going back to that save point you passed two rooms before. (I'm looking at you, Metroid Prime 2 - and your older brother DIDN'T DO THIS!)
Or if you're near the endgame... You've got all the keys and magic spells... And all you have to do is march into the Temple and kill the evil wizard... this is NOT the time to make you go on a scavenger hunt all over the fucking map for a ludicrously high number of pieces of an arbitrary key which has no purpose except to draw out the last act! *cough*WindWaker*cough*
(if I pick on Nintendo, it's because if any game design company should know better, it's them)
It's really simple. Just ask yourself - if this were a MOVIE, would I believe in this event? (Paul Anderson and Uwe Boll movies excepted) Would I believe that the characters need to spend three months item-gathering? Would I believe it's necessary for the heroes to take a break from the plot to crossbreed giant chickens? Could I conceive of a world in which a character is unable to climb over a ten-inch high barrier?
If the answer is "no" then there is no excuse for having it in the game.
All, I repeat, ALL you have to do is embed the ADVERTISING so that it cannot be stripped out.
Television is a medium for delivering advertisements to people. Period. If you believe otherwise, you're delusional. Tivo and file-sharing threaten televsion, not because of any nonsense about copyrights, but because they get in the way of this delivery network and allow people to watch TV without watching the commercials that are needed to keep it running.
(a copyright is a completely intangible thing. It is merely a route to profit, worthless in and of itself. Accordingly, if copyrights become a barrier to profit, they will fall into disuse.)
So, you just have to eliminate commercial breaks. This is pretty much a win-win scenario for EVERYONE, since it means (hypothetically) the entire TV show is one gigantic advertisement, and in the meantime, the TV-viewing public gets shows that are *actually* an hour long, rather than 40 minutes. Use product placement and scrolling banners, or perhaps a PnP in the corner flashing up logos and quick animations.
(won't work? Go look up studies about people who watch TiVo'ed commericals on muted fast-forward. They often have *better* ad retention than those who watch the commericals at normal speed with sound.)
So, that's it. Do that and no one will give the slightest crap how many people pirate a TV show, because every pirated copy is just one more person seeing the wonderful, wonderful advertising that makes the world go round. I can see a future just a few years away where TV producers are actively working to increase the number of shared copies, and including pirates in their viewing statistics when pitching to advertisers.