If they really want to make a sick commentary and make a killing... they should let the average citizen sign up and sell their votes.
You could categorize citizens by profession, perceived clout, public esteem, thugability, mindshare... and Joe Sleeze^H^H^H^H^H^politician would simplly just purchase an entire class or subset of society to back his personal agenda!
Myself, classified as the Thorouglhy Mindfugged But Zealously Insane... I figure my own vote should be worth enough to elimate any moral qualms I'd otherwise have...
I'm glad I read this. I was wondering why the hell I couldn't get thru to my student loan account & forms online last night. I mean, surely they didn't forget about what I owe? Oh well.
Verisign, Inc: slashdotting the rest of the internet since 2003..."
Now, I've yet to RTFA because I don't have much time right now... I'd like to see what markets and stations are uising this... but right now, I have to say I really don't see the point. The problem I have with radio isn't so much the sound quality as it is the content.
I wouldn't want to listen to music CD's with annoying DJ's yabbering over the into & closing seconds of every song, annoying station ID bumpers, and 25 minutes of commercials per 60 minute disc. So why would I pay for CD quality sound on the air?
There is some decent radio content out there... talk shows can be entertaining, and some shows feature old recordings (even some 78s!) and serials (who knows? The Shadow knows). But in the case of live talk... the modulation of sound helps make it seem authentic to me... I like the way callers sound "phoned" and DJ's sound "miked". And for re-airing old classic recordings, well, you're still going to be stuck with the fidelity or the original, as part of its charm.
Now if Radio content was generally better, I'd really consider this. But as of now, the prospect of Digital Clear Channel Crapola isn't very enticing.
Re:Won't someone think of the bandwidth
on
Superball!
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· Score: 1
Yeah, They used it for the "Extremely nice 30 FPS 720x480 with premium quality sound (423,545.4 megabytes - can be choppy on slow computers)"
423,000+ MEGAbytes? Where can I get one of those drives?
Or maybe that Beowulf Cluster of Superballs smote the local math / CS club?
Dang, if I'd had some mod points I would have bumped the parent up...
You raise an excellent point. Sometimes I wonder if the appearance of vast, open space is intentional, making an association with the idea of "utopia", or if it was a simple oversight. On the other hand, suppose a piece of "utopian" atrwork DID in fact show a crowded, modern (as we know it to be) society... would the very elements that make the illustration utopian be lost amongst the clutter, hidden in the background?
It's amazing how a pice of artwork's perspectives and presentation can totally warp reality. For instance, look at some conceptual drawings of planned communities, or even some overhead satellite images. They seem to have a vast, open quality that is most often fairly accurate... until you drive through these exact same communities. While they may look just like the sales brochure, and the streets and parks are exactly where the satellite map said they would be, they always seem more crowded when enveloping you in 360 degrees.
Conversly, consider artwork that accompanies visions of Distopian societies. I offer the comic series Transmetropolitan as an example. The cover and story artwork shows exactly what you pondered: A society with energy/matter replicators and communications devices and other technological advances galore, BUT replete with all the overcrowding and societal ills and technological misuses common to a typical urban setting. I've encountered a few other works where "distopia = overcrowding", but can't recall them to mind here.
(oh yah, FWIW, in Transmet they don't have flying cars, either...)
"If one airline gave consistently affordable rates and decent service, customers would come back to that airline with confidence..."
At the risk of sounding like a corporate shill (which I am not) for them, I believe you are referencing Southwest Airlines. Their fares are pretty much solid and reasonable, AND in my experience the service has been pretty good (at least as good if not better than my experiences with United, Delta and American).
It should be noted that Southwest is THE one airline mentioned in the article that does NOT belong to ATPCO. They don't list fares through Orbitz either. And even though you hear airline after airline complaining about the economy and begging for concessions and bailouts these days, Southwest is actually continuing to MAKE money... coincidence? I think not...
Granted, the secret to Southwest's success goes beyond their pricing strategy. Their fleet standardization (B-737) and other ingenious cost-saving maneuvers ("no frills", no assigned seating, no class-sorting of fares, etc) also have a big part. It will be interesting to see if the new low-cost carriers announced by United and American (to emulate who else but Southwest, natch) will use those strategies as well.
I was hankerin for some spam and oreos the other day. I wanted to hoover them suckers right up, then wash it down some coke from my thermos. But as I was closing the frigidaire I tripped and fell smack into the xerox machine. Then I started bleeding so I held kleenex on the wound till I could find some band-aids. I got a dustbuster to suck up the crumbs, but when I plugged it in the power surge borked my server as if it was slashdotted, and I can't google for the solution! I'm gonna go postal!
So a guy with a camera hops a fense in the middle of a radioactive desert, and snaps a few pics of some ominous-looking signs near said fence. Big friggin' deal. Just like those photos of Area 51. Who cares? Did he try to go any deeper? Has he asked or thought about why that section was so accessible?
I used to work in a large engine manufacturing plant, that was built during WWII. The sprawl was almost incomprhensible, and even more so when you realized there were caverns underneath the entire complex. Not much went on down there in the late 90's, and most of it was unlit.. nobody really had any business going thru there. Nonetheless, I wandered around one day, and found a room full of dusty forgotten file cabinets, filled with, among other things, the full and complete HR records of people who had worked for the comapny and since died, long before I was even born. Birthdates, positions held, SSNs, all that. Another cabinet had some old drawings, and who knows what else I could have found. Some would see this was a huge deal (I guess leaving all sorts of personnel records around IS pretty stupid), but come on!
One floor above, and barely 100 yards away was a maximum-security area for prototype testing and research. I only got to go back there with escorts ranking up with the plant manager.
Yeah, I probably would have gotten in deep doodoo if I'd been caught snooping in the caverns, but the real areas of interest were protected. I'm sure that goes on in Los Alamos and evereywhere else. At least I HOPE so!
The use of these categories, liberal and conservative, in American politics has always confounded me... I don't think they mean much, really.
Hear, hear! Especially considering that the same media never EVER defines the "neutral zone". Liberal, as compared to what? A conservative? Well conservative as opesed to what? If you compare an apple to an orange all day, you'll have one hell of an argument and starve in the process.
The idea of throwing everyone in the country into one of only two categories seems ludicrous... People aren't one of two things. And they don't stay as such from one government to the next. And I don't see why it should be asserted that Americans do. Even if they DO vote for one party consistently, the suggestion that all voters for that party have one way of thinking is one to which I object.
Unfortunatley, I have had to deal with people who blindly vote straight-ticket, and no amount of reasoning is possible with them. They get so brainwashed it's not funny. They'll trump and shout party support without realizing their own personal tendencies cross the line. It really is sad.
It doesn't help either when you live in a state that REQUIRES you to declare party affiliation to vote in a primary election. Now I can see the intention of keeping registered members of the "other party" from stuffing the ballot against a strong opponent... but then in a system where the final vote comes down to a choice of the lesser of two evils, I would like to be able to vote in both primaries... and thus pit my two choices on either side of the fence against each other in the end. To assume that a straight ticket vote, or even "my party's" (I am Independent, for the record) candiate is blindly going to stand for me just because of their party name, is folly. Hell, they could switch parties mid-term!
Not that I want to make a habit of multiple posting within a subject, but I just noticed this:
From the site's Privacy & Usage page: "An interagency partnership, led by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in association with the Food and Drug Administration, the National Archives and Records Administration Office of the Federal Register, and the Government Printing Office, operates this website....
"...The electronic comments you submit directly through the Regulations.gov website are temporarily maintained by EPA before being forwarded once per day to the proper agency. The agency receiving your comment is considered the official custodian of the comment. Your comment will not be considered until it has been properly received by that agency..."
WTF? They spent who knows how much taxpayer money to develop and implement a system for public comment, a system that can handle INSTANTANEOUS communication, that as such could expedite timely commentary and consensus...
...and decide to route EVERYTHING through the dang EPA (!), and withhold all public commentary for an entire DAY before sending it off to whom it was actually addressed via the website? Where it will no doubt languish further before actually being SEEN by someone knowledgable on the respective subject?
Ya ya I know me complaining isn't going to do anything, and I still think it's a good idea. But goddammit! What the hell does the EPA have to do with most of these regulations? Who made them the comment-censoring police? And I can almost understand red tape being implemented retroactively, but what's with building it in - it makes a the site seem like a big honking red herring.
This is a small step in the right direction. On the other hand, I hope there are people on the other end actively taking the public's view into account, and not just shoving comments lacking $$$ contributions aside...
It would be even better if there were a similar site for bills being considered. I did a keyword search for CBDTPA and got 0 results... hmmm.
(note: I've owned every Nintendo console made, and I also a PS1 & 2. I'm no expert, but IMHO I call Nintendo's slow demise due to the following)
Historically, the 8-bit NES got a jump on the Sega Master system. This was probably the ONLY time that "first-to-market" was an advantage. Remember, the VG market had flamed-out bigtime in 1984, and Nintendo took a huge risk... kudos to them (heh, otherwise we might not be having this discussion!)... word of mouth and some revolutionary games garnered them a HUGE installed base, one that the technically superior Sega Master System couldn't overcome.
Sega got the 16-bit jump, and did well. However, they could not sustain this as Nintendo gradually crushed them with the SNES, which was behind by over a whole year. It was a slow start, but eventually the same credo of quality games and good characters (something that Sega still hadn't mastered) gave them an edge. Oh, all that anti-trust stuff helped too, no doubt... but for a time Sega CLEARLY had an edge... that gradually dissipated.
1995 was the beginning of the decline. Nintendo had been dragging their feet forever on their "Ultra 64"... the Sega Saturn made it to market to compete with the Sony Playstation. Whereas Sega tried their best to rehash their now-tired franchises, Sony had some surprising original hits, and a console that doubled as a CD player while beating the Saturn on price. This was also when PC-to-console-to-PC porting became feasible, and the Playstation clearly had an edge over the Saturn in handling such games.
A year later, Nintendo FINALLY got the N64 out... with Pilotwings (yawn) and Mario64... a technically superior console with a pathetic game library. It didn't help that their arcade game ports (Cruisin' USA... what have you become???) were pathetic either. And we ALL know how laughable the decision to stay cartridge-based was. Had it not been for Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the N64 would have died MUCH sooner.
Fast-forward to now... the PS2 gets the hype machine running in late 1998... featuring new state-of-the-art technologies like DVD playback and expandable bays, again linking itself and taking advantage of PC-based and tested technologies.... Nintendo STILL has nothing announced. By the time they do, they still stick with game-only hardware... no other features, no additional "but mom, it does THIS too!" bang-for-the-buck... and MS announces their own eerily-PS2 like system. Both companies give Sony over a year's head start, and their own offerings a launch time pale in comparison.
Nintendo HAS to beat or at least tie Sony (and/or MS) to the punch this time. They can't rely on the same old characters forever. They need a system that can do more that just play games, as the ability to play CD's/DVDs/whatever can really swing a few extra sales. They would do well to follow Sony's lead in using PC-based games as a selling point, both to developers and gamers alike. But whatever type of games it will play, they need TONS of them... if the PS3 is indeed fully backwards-compatible, the library will be insurmountable.
Of course, had Nintendo NOT told Sony to "fuck off" on the original "Sony Trinitron w/ built-in SNES" Playstation design from 1989 (I have 2 magazines that detailed it), they might not even BE in this position. THAT was their biggest mistake.
I can't get too excited about this article... while the idea of the RIAA "dying" is a pleasing one, keep in mind that at this point it's still purely speculative.
I DO agree that the record companies are facing death threats on all sides. But they have an artillery of their own, too, not the least of which has been litigation and lobbying (which although cumbersome, seems to work all too well).
There will likely always be a place for some figurehead organization of some sort, if for no other reason than to manage the interests of players in an industry. Think about... what does RIAA stand for? "Recording Industry Association..." Virtually every industry/sector has groups like this. The Automotive industry, airlines, electronics manufacturers, educational standards/bodies/schools... textiles... pretty much everyone does (I only wish I could remember all the acronyms right now).
Without debating the moralities of their methods, The RIAA manages a lot... as long as there are Best Buys selling 1000's of CD's to get people to browse their other electronic junk for sale; as long as there are special-equipment manufacturers trying to market devices for playing music, as long as there are independent recording studios, instrument manufacturers, delivery providers (XM radio, etc) and the like out there (see the ripple effect here?) there will be some central organization with a mind toward controlling the commodity (music in this case) that is central to it all.
The central organization known now as the RIAA may not exist in 5 years (or 2 or 1) in the same form as it does today. But as long as there is some shred of money to be made, it WILL exists in some form.
"Save the Children from Drug-laced shroom hallucinations": (Super Mario Bros.)
"Protect our children from reckless race-driver wannabes": (Ridge Racer, Wipeout, etc etc)
"Save the children from mind-melt controller-tossitis" (Tetris)
"Teach children tolerance for ghosts of all colors" (Pac-man, Luigi's Mansion)
"The Crusade to stop anti-alien racism" (Contra, Half-life, etc etc)
Get a grip! I opine that ratings are a generally a good thing. But I hate the whole "Save the children" "Promote tolerance" angle politicians use... it's demeaning.
There are people who need, want, and/or should be informed for whatever reason about the content of media they may be interested in. Big deal. Settle on a standard and let the people make their own decisions, and parents assume their responsibility. Leave the Children (TM) out of it.
This is a concept intended as "proof of concept", and not for production.
If it were intended for production, there would be a lot more refinement of processes, materials, and even design elements involved, and a lot more details fothcoming about such elements. If it were intended for production, there would at least be focus groups involved in such things as its marketability in its current form (such as it is). Not to mention lobbying for the infrastructure necessary to get a car like this produced and feasably useable (hydrogen-refill stations, for one).
Instead, this seeks to prove that something, in theory, COULD be done. Recyclable body panels are nothing new (Ford had an aluminum concept several years ago, and the new Jaguar X-type owes its many production delays toward the use of aluminum). Even subassemblies can be salvaged. And Hydrogen fuel cells have been in limited use and testing for over a decade.
What's interesting about this, is the use of new materials for fluids (arguably the most cancerous of all automotive components) and plastics. I'm not a chemist, but the testing of new corn and soy-based polymers for everything from interior materials to fluids is fascinating to me. At the very best, if pursued such processes could finally wean the US (and manufacturing in other sectors outside of the auto industry) off petroleum-based plastics and fluids, which would be a gigantic leap forward for industry, without question.
The "modular interior/ exterior" BS is all just marketing of design concepts. That's there to show that designs can lead themselves toward being more eco-friendly in a subtler fashion. Going back to the salvage industry: It's a lot easier to find salvage parts from platform-sharing cars Cougar/Thunderbird/MarkVII, Cavalier/Sunfire, Chrysler K-car, etc etc etc) than it is for one-offs. This concept I think seeks to carry over that mentality on a larger scale, tho with the public's demand for unique vehicles I doubt we'll ever see swappable parts on a grand scale.
It will be years if not decades before something like this can be driven off the lot, but it's good to know that the ideas are being tested. This concept should be good for new materials processing if nothing more. The only trick will be to keep Ford and other companies pursuing this, as opposed to saying "Great, we know it's possible, now go mothball that POS in a barn somewhere and let's forget it ever saw the light of day".
From the Q&A interview, regarding the company founders: Combining skills from Telco, Data Communications, Digital Rights Management, Software Development and Security...
"Assume the role of Billary Rosen, crusader for the Ministry of Ancient-Business-Model Retention. Crusade against hordes of MaDd HaXXorS using your Congressional Bribery and E-lingo Headspin skills. Litigate your way toward financial stability and monolpolize your enemies into oblivion..."
Seriously... other than "software development", do any of the backers' credientials strike anyone as having ANYHTING to do with making GOOD games?
Contra should be alright because everybody hates aliens. (I mean, really, how are you going to associate a giant, disembodied beating heart thing with communism?)
Maybe it was the subtle effect of all the bad guys dressed in red... I mean, the alien stuff doesn't show up until the last level!
It will do nothing more than cement existing stereotypes. Much like it did with you.
Point well taken, but I guess I should have elaborated was more toward all the extra things in GTA3 that make up the whole scene. Things like all the goofy talk-shows on the radio (and the commercials for games and SUV's and renaissance fairs)...
I would suspect that they're all bad, to the point where "focusing on a Chinese theme" was designed to be their only selling point...
Does such a thing even exist? You make a good point about the SMB series (I guess acid trips are universal), but assuming there aren't many "purely chinese" games out there, would it be economical to develop new ones? I suppose it might if it could cultivate a market, but atthe same time it seems silly...
it changes every few decades anyway, with bloody purges in between
You mean just like my basement does every couple weeks?
This might be a little off-topic, but I got to thinking (uh oh):
Assuming that Nintendo (or anyone else for that matter) re-released an old console & games, what kind of editing would be necessary to make a game fit the culture?
Take for example, the classic NES games Rush N' Attack (say it out loud) and Contra. Those were clearly marketed toward the anti-communism sentiment prevalent in the US in the 80's. How would the Chinese take to that?
Or even something say like GTA3... which very vividly portrays a modern western society (scary thought). For the most part, that's stuff we believe the Chinese can only dream of. What would they think of it? How about games like Wall Street Kid ?
For that matter, what kind of Chinese-only games are there? Damn, I wish I knew more about the culture... I'm sure they would have games that are pure fun in context to them, but would have no chance of being appreciated over here.
Purchases of overpriced CD albums from 1995-2000 (that turned out to little more than one-hit-wonder crap): > $200
Settlement from class-action lawsuit (regarding the purchases of overpriced one-hit wonder crap):
The cost of filling out a marketing infomation form (to get your refund from one-hit wonder crap): Dead trees and spam
Trying out mp3's before wasting any more money on hard copy: Priceless
There are some things that are a ripoff. For everything else, there's P2P.
"Who would ever need storage at $1/GB? Heck, even if you copy Wolfenstein 3d and DOOM, you've STILL got space to spare. And with CD burners on the horizon, well that's over half/gig of space right there. You can already fit the whole flipping World Book onto just _one_!"
History doth repeat itself...
Not tyrin to mock ya or anything. Just pointing out, in 10 years (prolly less) you'll look back on the question and laaaaaugh....
I remember when I got my fiorst pc (a packard bell 486 in 1993), one of my friends was all drool-faced and couldn't wait to run these "demos" on it. Of course I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but I was freakin impressed to say the least. Beautiful imagery, funky sounds, ray-tracings... wow.
I had no idea back then what kind of work it took to make those things. Seems like they did even more work to do it all over again, finding hardware and building bozes and all that.
So why didn't they use emulation? If these people were so damn good, to literally push hardware and programming skills beyond their limitations, surely programming an emulator to run the code thru today's harware couldn't be too much of a stretch. Heck, it would seem right up the proverbial alley: a logical progression, making the most of today's hardware and programming abilities to duplicate stuff that no longer exists. (Or would that be a regression, to take today's stuff and make it run like a 286? ARRGH I hate contradicting myself)
Of course I can appreciate that maybe some hardware had strange nuances just just can't be matched thru emulation. But has anyone ever given it a try?
Slashdot Mirror
You could categorize citizens by profession, perceived clout, public esteem, thugability, mindshare... and Joe Sleeze^H^H^H^H^H^politician would simplly just purchase an entire class or subset of society to back his personal agenda!
Myself, classified as the Thorouglhy Mindfugged But Zealously Insane... I figure my own vote should be worth enough to elimate any moral qualms I'd otherwise have...
Verisign, Inc: slashdotting the rest of the internet since 2003..."
I wouldn't want to listen to music CD's with annoying DJ's yabbering over the into & closing seconds of every song, annoying station ID bumpers, and 25 minutes of commercials per 60 minute disc. So why would I pay for CD quality sound on the air?
There is some decent radio content out there... talk shows can be entertaining, and some shows feature old recordings (even some 78s!) and serials (who knows? The Shadow knows). But in the case of live talk... the modulation of sound helps make it seem authentic to me... I like the way callers sound "phoned" and DJ's sound "miked". And for re-airing old classic recordings, well, you're still going to be stuck with the fidelity or the original, as part of its charm.
Now if Radio content was generally better, I'd really consider this. But as of now, the prospect of Digital Clear Channel Crapola isn't very enticing.
Yeah, They used it for the "Extremely nice 30 FPS 720x480 with premium quality sound (423,545.4 megabytes - can be choppy on slow computers)"
423,000+ MEGAbytes? Where can I get one of those drives?
Or maybe that Beowulf Cluster of Superballs smote the local math / CS club?
Dang, if I'd had some mod points I would have bumped the parent up...
You raise an excellent point. Sometimes I wonder if the appearance of vast, open space is intentional, making an association with the idea of "utopia", or if it was a simple oversight. On the other hand, suppose a piece of "utopian" atrwork DID in fact show a crowded, modern (as we know it to be) society... would the very elements that make the illustration utopian be lost amongst the clutter, hidden in the background?
It's amazing how a pice of artwork's perspectives and presentation can totally warp reality. For instance, look at some conceptual drawings of planned communities, or even some overhead satellite images. They seem to have a vast, open quality that is most often fairly accurate... until you drive through these exact same communities. While they may look just like the sales brochure, and the streets and parks are exactly where the satellite map said they would be, they always seem more crowded when enveloping you in 360 degrees.
Conversly, consider artwork that accompanies visions of Distopian societies. I offer the comic series Transmetropolitan as an example. The cover and story artwork shows exactly what you pondered: A society with energy/matter replicators and communications devices and other technological advances galore, BUT replete with all the overcrowding and societal ills and technological misuses common to a typical urban setting. I've encountered a few other works where "distopia = overcrowding", but can't recall them to mind here.
(oh yah, FWIW, in Transmet they don't have flying cars, either...)
"If one airline gave consistently affordable rates and decent service, customers would come back to that airline with confidence..."
At the risk of sounding like a corporate shill (which I am not) for them, I believe you are referencing Southwest Airlines. Their fares are pretty much solid and reasonable, AND in my experience the service has been pretty good (at least as good if not better than my experiences with United, Delta and American).
It should be noted that Southwest is THE one airline mentioned in the article that does NOT belong to ATPCO. They don't list fares through Orbitz either. And even though you hear airline after airline complaining about the economy and begging for concessions and bailouts these days, Southwest is actually continuing to MAKE money... coincidence? I think not...
Granted, the secret to Southwest's success goes beyond their pricing strategy. Their fleet standardization (B-737) and other ingenious cost-saving maneuvers ("no frills", no assigned seating, no class-sorting of fares, etc) also have a big part. It will be interesting to see if the new low-cost carriers announced by United and American (to emulate who else but Southwest, natch) will use those strategies as well.
I was hankerin for some spam and oreos the other day. I wanted to hoover them suckers right up, then wash it down some coke from my thermos. But as I was closing the frigidaire I tripped and fell smack into the xerox machine. Then I started bleeding so I held kleenex on the wound till I could find some band-aids. I got a dustbuster to suck up the crumbs, but when I plugged it in the power surge borked my server as if it was slashdotted, and I can't google for the solution! I'm gonna go postal!
Oh come on... what a disappointing article.
So a guy with a camera hops a fense in the middle of a radioactive desert, and snaps a few pics of some ominous-looking signs near said fence. Big friggin' deal. Just like those photos of Area 51. Who cares? Did he try to go any deeper? Has he asked or thought about why that section was so accessible?
I used to work in a large engine manufacturing plant, that was built during WWII. The sprawl was almost incomprhensible, and even more so when you realized there were caverns underneath the entire complex. Not much went on down there in the late 90's, and most of it was unlit.. nobody really had any business going thru there. Nonetheless, I wandered around one day, and found a room full of dusty forgotten file cabinets, filled with, among other things, the full and complete HR records of people who had worked for the comapny and since died, long before I was even born. Birthdates, positions held, SSNs, all that. Another cabinet had some old drawings, and who knows what else I could have found. Some would see this was a huge deal (I guess leaving all sorts of personnel records around IS pretty stupid), but come on!
One floor above, and barely 100 yards away was a maximum-security area for prototype testing and research. I only got to go back there with escorts ranking up with the plant manager.
Yeah, I probably would have gotten in deep doodoo if I'd been caught snooping in the caverns, but the real areas of interest were protected. I'm sure that goes on in Los Alamos and evereywhere else. At least I HOPE so!
Like Wired's servers, at the moment...
/. Los Alamos!
Hey, that's a GREAT idea! Let's all
The use of these categories, liberal and conservative, in American politics has always confounded me... I don't think they mean much, really.
Hear, hear! Especially considering that the same media never EVER defines the "neutral zone". Liberal, as compared to what? A conservative? Well conservative as opesed to what? If you compare an apple to an orange all day, you'll have one hell of an argument and starve in the process.
The idea of throwing everyone in the country into one of only two categories seems ludicrous... People aren't one of two things. And they don't stay as such from one government to the next. And I don't see why it should be asserted that Americans do. Even if they DO vote for one party consistently, the suggestion that all voters for that party have one way of thinking is one to which I object.
Unfortunatley, I have had to deal with people who blindly vote straight-ticket, and no amount of reasoning is possible with them. They get so brainwashed it's not funny. They'll trump and shout party support without realizing their own personal tendencies cross the line. It really is sad.
It doesn't help either when you live in a state that REQUIRES you to declare party affiliation to vote in a primary election. Now I can see the intention of keeping registered members of the "other party" from stuffing the ballot against a strong opponent... but then in a system where the final vote comes down to a choice of the lesser of two evils, I would like to be able to vote in both primaries... and thus pit my two choices on either side of the fence against each other in the end. To assume that a straight ticket vote, or even "my party's" (I am Independent, for the record) candiate is blindly going to stand for me just because of their party name, is folly. Hell, they could switch parties mid-term!
Not that I want to make a habit of multiple posting within a subject, but I just noticed this:
..."
...and decide to route EVERYTHING through the dang EPA (!), and withhold all public commentary for an entire DAY before sending it off to whom it was actually addressed via the website? Where it will no doubt languish further before actually being SEEN by someone knowledgable on the respective subject?
From the site's Privacy & Usage page: "An interagency partnership, led by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in association with the Food and Drug Administration, the National Archives and Records Administration Office of the Federal Register, and the Government Printing Office, operates this website....
"...The electronic comments you submit directly through the Regulations.gov website are temporarily maintained by EPA before being forwarded once per day to the proper agency. The agency receiving your comment is considered the official custodian of the comment. Your comment will not be considered until it has been properly received by that agency
WTF? They spent who knows how much taxpayer money to develop and implement a system for public comment, a system that can handle INSTANTANEOUS communication, that as such could expedite timely commentary and consensus...
Ya ya I know me complaining isn't going to do anything, and I still think it's a good idea. But goddammit! What the hell does the EPA have to do with most of these regulations? Who made them the comment-censoring police? And I can almost understand red tape being implemented retroactively, but what's with building it in - it makes a the site seem like a big honking red herring.
This is a small step in the right direction. On the other hand, I hope there are people on the other end actively taking the public's view into account, and not just shoving comments lacking $$$ contributions aside...
It would be even better if there were a similar site for bills being considered. I did a keyword search for CBDTPA and got 0 results... hmmm.
Nintendo's problems
(note: I've owned every Nintendo console made, and I also a PS1 & 2. I'm no expert, but IMHO I call Nintendo's slow demise due to the following)
Historically, the 8-bit NES got a jump on the Sega Master system. This was probably the ONLY time that "first-to-market" was an advantage. Remember, the VG market had flamed-out bigtime in 1984, and Nintendo took a huge risk... kudos to them (heh, otherwise we might not be having this discussion!)... word of mouth and some revolutionary games garnered them a HUGE installed base, one that the technically superior Sega Master System couldn't overcome.
Sega got the 16-bit jump, and did well. However, they could not sustain this as Nintendo gradually crushed them with the SNES, which was behind by over a whole year. It was a slow start, but eventually the same credo of quality games and good characters (something that Sega still hadn't mastered) gave them an edge. Oh, all that anti-trust stuff helped too, no doubt... but for a time Sega CLEARLY had an edge... that gradually dissipated.
1995 was the beginning of the decline. Nintendo had been dragging their feet forever on their "Ultra 64"... the Sega Saturn made it to market to compete with the Sony Playstation. Whereas Sega tried their best to rehash their now-tired franchises, Sony had some surprising original hits, and a console that doubled as a CD player while beating the Saturn on price. This was also when PC-to-console-to-PC porting became feasible, and the Playstation clearly had an edge over the Saturn in handling such games.
A year later, Nintendo FINALLY got the N64 out... with Pilotwings (yawn) and Mario64... a technically superior console with a pathetic game library. It didn't help that their arcade game ports (Cruisin' USA... what have you become???) were pathetic either. And we ALL know how laughable the decision to stay cartridge-based was. Had it not been for Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the N64 would have died MUCH sooner.
Fast-forward to now... the PS2 gets the hype machine running in late 1998... featuring new state-of-the-art technologies like DVD playback and expandable bays, again linking itself and taking advantage of PC-based and tested technologies.... Nintendo STILL has nothing announced. By the time they do, they still stick with game-only hardware... no other features, no additional "but mom, it does THIS too!" bang-for-the-buck... and MS announces their own eerily-PS2 like system. Both companies give Sony over a year's head start, and their own offerings a launch time pale in comparison.
Nintendo HAS to beat or at least tie Sony (and/or MS) to the punch this time. They can't rely on the same old characters forever. They need a system that can do more that just play games, as the ability to play CD's/DVDs/whatever can really swing a few extra sales. They would do well to follow Sony's lead in using PC-based games as a selling point, both to developers and gamers alike. But whatever type of games it will play, they need TONS of them... if the PS3 is indeed fully backwards-compatible, the library will be insurmountable.
Of course, had Nintendo NOT told Sony to "fuck off" on the original "Sony Trinitron w/ built-in SNES" Playstation design from 1989 (I have 2 magazines that detailed it), they might not even BE in this position. THAT was their biggest mistake.
I can't get too excited about this article... while the idea of the RIAA "dying" is a pleasing one, keep in mind that at this point it's still purely speculative.
I DO agree that the record companies are facing death threats on all sides. But they have an artillery of their own, too, not the least of which has been litigation and lobbying (which although cumbersome, seems to work all too well).
There will likely always be a place for some figurehead organization of some sort, if for no other reason than to manage the interests of players in an industry. Think about... what does RIAA stand for? "Recording Industry Association..." Virtually every industry/sector has groups like this. The Automotive industry, airlines, electronics manufacturers, educational standards/bodies/schools... textiles... pretty much everyone does (I only wish I could remember all the acronyms right now).
Without debating the moralities of their methods, The RIAA manages a lot... as long as there are Best Buys selling 1000's of CD's to get people to browse their other electronic junk for sale; as long as there are special-equipment manufacturers trying to market devices for playing music, as long as there are independent recording studios, instrument manufacturers, delivery providers (XM radio, etc) and the like out there (see the ripple effect here?) there will be some central organization with a mind toward controlling the commodity (music in this case) that is central to it all.
The central organization known now as the RIAA may not exist in 5 years (or 2 or 1) in the same form as it does today. But as long as there is some shred of money to be made, it WILL exists in some form.
"Save the Children from Drug-laced shroom hallucinations": (Super Mario Bros.)
"Protect our children from reckless race-driver wannabes": (Ridge Racer, Wipeout, etc etc)
"Save the children from mind-melt controller-tossitis" (Tetris)
"Teach children tolerance for ghosts of all colors" (Pac-man, Luigi's Mansion)
"The Crusade to stop anti-alien racism" (Contra, Half-life, etc etc)
Get a grip! I opine that ratings are a generally a good thing. But I hate the whole "Save the children" "Promote tolerance" angle politicians use... it's demeaning.
There are people who need, want, and/or should be informed for whatever reason about the content of media they may be interested in. Big deal. Settle on a standard and let the people make their own decisions, and parents assume their responsibility. Leave the Children (TM) out of it.
This is a concept intended as "proof of concept", and not for production.
If it were intended for production, there would be a lot more refinement of processes, materials, and even design elements involved, and a lot more details fothcoming about such elements. If it were intended for production, there would at least be focus groups involved in such things as its marketability in its current form (such as it is). Not to mention lobbying for the infrastructure necessary to get a car like this produced and feasably useable (hydrogen-refill stations, for one).
Instead, this seeks to prove that something, in theory, COULD be done. Recyclable body panels are nothing new (Ford had an aluminum concept several years ago, and the new Jaguar X-type owes its many production delays toward the use of aluminum). Even subassemblies can be salvaged. And Hydrogen fuel cells have been in limited use and testing for over a decade.
What's interesting about this, is the use of new materials for fluids (arguably the most cancerous of all automotive components) and plastics. I'm not a chemist, but the testing of new corn and soy-based polymers for everything from interior materials to fluids is fascinating to me. At the very best, if pursued such processes could finally wean the US (and manufacturing in other sectors outside of the auto industry) off petroleum-based plastics and fluids, which would be a gigantic leap forward for industry, without question.
The "modular interior/ exterior" BS is all just marketing of design concepts. That's there to show that designs can lead themselves toward being more eco-friendly in a subtler fashion. Going back to the salvage industry: It's a lot easier to find salvage parts from platform-sharing cars Cougar/Thunderbird/MarkVII, Cavalier/Sunfire, Chrysler K-car, etc etc etc) than it is for one-offs. This concept I think seeks to carry over that mentality on a larger scale, tho with the public's demand for unique vehicles I doubt we'll ever see swappable parts on a grand scale.
It will be years if not decades before something like this can be driven off the lot, but it's good to know that the ideas are being tested. This concept should be good for new materials processing if nothing more. The only trick will be to keep Ford and other companies pursuing this, as opposed to saying "Great, we know it's possible, now go mothball that POS in a barn somewhere and let's forget it ever saw the light of day".
Rip. Mix. Burn.
Has been superceded by
Track. Subpoena. Litigate.
Which had damn well better begotten by
Boycott. RIAA. NOW.
The ONLY way to get them to shut the hell up and off our backs, is to make sure their sales suck long after file-trading has been smacked-down.
From the Q&A interview, regarding the company founders: Combining skills from Telco, Data Communications, Digital Rights Management, Software Development and Security...
"Assume the role of Billary Rosen, crusader for the Ministry of Ancient-Business-Model Retention. Crusade against hordes of MaDd HaXXorS using your Congressional Bribery and E-lingo Headspin skills. Litigate your way toward financial stability and monolpolize your enemies into oblivion..."
Seriously... other than "software development", do any of the backers' credientials strike anyone as having ANYHTING to do with making GOOD games?
On the other hand, imagine a bunch of Trekkies on a bus en route to a convention:
"Dammit! For the last time! Those are not tricorders!"
Contra should be alright because everybody hates aliens. (I mean, really, how are you going to associate a giant, disembodied beating heart thing with communism?)
Maybe it was the subtle effect of all the bad guys dressed in red... I mean, the alien stuff doesn't show up until the last level!
It will do nothing more than cement existing stereotypes. Much like it did with you.
Point well taken, but I guess I should have elaborated was more toward all the extra things in GTA3 that make up the whole scene. Things like all the goofy talk-shows on the radio (and the commercials for games and SUV's and renaissance fairs)...
I would suspect that they're all bad, to the point where "focusing on a Chinese theme" was designed to be their only selling point...
Does such a thing even exist? You make a good point about the SMB series (I guess acid trips are universal), but assuming there aren't many "purely chinese" games out there, would it be economical to develop new ones? I suppose it might if it could cultivate a market, but atthe same time it seems silly...
it changes every few decades anyway, with bloody purges in between
You mean just like my basement does every couple weeks?
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.
This might be a little off-topic, but I got to thinking (uh oh):
Assuming that Nintendo (or anyone else for that matter) re-released an old console & games, what kind of editing would be necessary to make a game fit the culture?
Take for example, the classic NES games Rush N' Attack (say it out loud) and Contra. Those were clearly marketed toward the anti-communism sentiment prevalent in the US in the 80's. How would the Chinese take to that?
Or even something say like GTA3... which very vividly portrays a modern western society (scary thought). For the most part, that's stuff we believe the Chinese can only dream of. What would they think of it? How about games like Wall Street Kid ?
For that matter, what kind of Chinese-only games are there? Damn, I wish I knew more about the culture... I'm sure they would have games that are pure fun in context to them, but would have no chance of being appreciated over here.
Purchases of overpriced CD albums from 1995-2000 (that turned out to little more than one-hit-wonder crap): > $200
Settlement from class-action lawsuit (regarding the purchases of overpriced one-hit wonder crap):
The cost of filling out a marketing infomation form (to get your refund from one-hit wonder crap): Dead trees and spam
Trying out mp3's before wasting any more money on hard copy: Priceless
There are some things that are a ripoff. For everything else, there's P2P.
"...Their opinion is that no one knows where development effort needs to be spent better than the end-user."
...this is why you'll never see "It looks like you're writing a letter!" on your Linux box....
...to, oh lessay 1994-95...
"Who would ever need storage at $1/GB? Heck, even if you copy Wolfenstein 3d and DOOM, you've STILL got space to spare. And with CD burners on the horizon, well that's over half/gig of space right there. You can already fit the whole flipping World Book onto just _one_!"
History doth repeat itself...
Not tyrin to mock ya or anything. Just pointing out, in 10 years (prolly less) you'll look back on the question and laaaaaugh....
I remember when I got my fiorst pc (a packard bell 486 in 1993), one of my friends was all drool-faced and couldn't wait to run these "demos" on it. Of course I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, but I was freakin impressed to say the least. Beautiful imagery, funky sounds, ray-tracings... wow.
I had no idea back then what kind of work it took to make those things. Seems like they did even more work to do it all over again, finding hardware and building bozes and all that.
So why didn't they use emulation? If these people were so damn good, to literally push hardware and programming skills beyond their limitations, surely programming an emulator to run the code thru today's harware couldn't be too much of a stretch. Heck, it would seem right up the proverbial alley: a logical progression, making the most of today's hardware and programming abilities to duplicate stuff that no longer exists. (Or would that be a regression, to take today's stuff and make it run like a 286? ARRGH I hate contradicting myself)
Of course I can appreciate that maybe some hardware had strange nuances just just can't be matched thru emulation. But has anyone ever given it a try?