In the past couple years, Apple has been releasing really great pro-level apps for music, video, and now photography. This is good, but what *I* really want is a competitor for MakeMusic's Finale, which is a professional-grade program for music notation (like Microsoft Word, but for musical scores).
Finale is actually really powerful (and expensive). It can do pretty much anything most people need for their notation. Unfortunately, it is the worst UI trainwreck I have ever encountered. It is lacking in a clear, simple, unified interface or an intuitive organization. Seemingly simple and basic options are buried deep in the mess. And the help files are almost worthless.
For example, instead of clicking notes in, you can use your keyboard to enter notes.
But I don't know what key does what. So I go into the key map options, but I still can't find the default key map. It just allows me to create a custom key map.
I'm like 'okay the help files will learn me where the default or current key map is--or maybe even tell me WHAT it is!'
Nope. No search results for "key map" in the really outdated help software that comes with it (it looks like it is a port from OS 9).
This kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Apple, please release "Notes" or something! You could make a killing!
I have downloaded Firefox at least 5 times or so just for myself (upgrades, reinstalls, different computers, etc). I wonder what the statistics are on average number of downloads per person.
Well even if they're ridiculously high, 100 million is a freaking huge number. Even if the average person has downloaded it 10 times, that still means over 10 million people are using it worldwide.
Speaking of "no monthly fee", does anybody know how much this costs? I noticed it is not free, but I couldn't find how much it costs to be a member, and when/why they take the fees.
If you were wondering why Peter Ludlow was banned from the Sims Online for doing is job "too well"... well, so was I. So I googled and found the answer.
The BBC says"Mr Ludlow thought the people behind the game should know what was going on inside Alphaville, not least because some things - child prostitution, for example - are morally and legally troubling.
But when they found out, Maxis, the game's developers, and Electronic Arts, the distributors, banned all in-game mention of The Alphaville Herald, says Mr Ludlow.
Then, says Mr Ludlow, he was thrown out of the game and his accounts closed down, cutting him off from his Sims."
You can find more information in this Wikipedia article. Apparently the general time of the launch has been known for a while, because at the moment the article states a September or October launch (and a different Wikipedia article on the rockets themselves specifically states an October launch).
By the way, it looks as though it is shaping up to be a very interesting flight
The crew will change out of their new lighter space suits, conduct scientific experiments, and enter the orbital module. In addition, their menu will be expanded from 30 to 50 courses. A new toilet will also be available.
Exactly! In Japan (and to a lesser extent Korea) their arcades are Godly, and the scene is HUGE compared to the US. That is why every year, at the biggest fighting game tourney in the US the Japanese always fly over and kick our asses. How humiliating.
Dragon's Lair and Space Age were both released in 1983... Which I think goes to show that this article might have been useful about 20 years ago. But now he's just stating the incredibly obvious.
I think there's a difference betwen insulting the player (what the article seems to dislike) and insulting the player's character (what you're talking about). Having an NPC call my character "a fat, smelly elf" is much different from a game actually insulting me.
I will say that the article was complete trash though... most of these aren't "rights", they're just guidelines for good games--and incredibly OBVIOUS ones at that! I mean, c'mon, look at these:
-The Right to Quit, Pause, Save and Resume the Game -The Right to Instructions -The Right to Win
I'm looking through my collection of games right now (from all the major consoles), and I can't find a single one that didn't come with a playing manual, didn't allow you to save your progress, or which I felt was impossible to beat.
From the article: The majority of the time a player spends in a game, he should be making decisions, exploring, creating, overcoming challenges, or otherwise acting upon the game world in some way. Players come to play, not to watch cut-scenes. Notice that I say the majority of the time. Non-interactive elements are not forbidden, but they should not take up more than 50% of the playing time of the game. (This is the absolute maximum; many gamers would contend that non-interactive elements should take up no more than 1% of the playing time of the game, if that.)
Uh, well the Metal Gear Solid franchise seems to be doing just fine, and that series is notorious for its long and numerous cut scenes... But whatever.
I have an idea: Why don't we just let the market decide which games people will buy, instead of some guy who is spouting off his opinions and calling them "rights."
Interesting commentary on today's society...people would rather invest in a virtual dog than accept the responsibility of owning an actual pet.
That's going a little far. There are plenty of people who shouldn't or can't have a real dog for whatever reason: living in a dorm or apartment that forbids pet ownership, too young, too old, allergies, have a job where they are out of town a lot, etc.
Also, it is just a game. You might as well look at a RTS game and say "interesting commentary on today's society... people would rather invest time in a virtual war with no consequences than accept the responsibility of starting an actual war." Or you could say the same thing for birth control: "people would rather invest in consequence-free sex than accept the responsibility of a child." Well, yeah... Having a virtual dog is fun. It's not a sign that people nowadays are all flakey and less responsible than previous generations.
A videogame network could be so cool with such little effort. Have people playing multiplayer online games and just televise it with maybe some commentating. Hell I'd flip it on to watch a cool deathmatch or Mario Kart or basically anything *other* than what is currently on G4. And the chance to get to play and have it televised would be pretty neat for gamers.
They actually already have this. It is called Arena, and it is actually pretty boring. First of all, all the teams have stupid names like "fragkillaz100" that makes them seem like idiots. Secondly, the specific multiplayer games they participate in are kinda boring to watch. They're so slow that they have to edit out a lot of the game time and just provide you with highlights. If they ever did a Street Fighter III or Guilty Gear battle I would be ecstatic, but I've never seen them do anything besides FPS or racing games.
Hells yes. And of the ones that *are* released, many don't even make it to the US market (Darkstalkers Collection, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload for the PS2... I'm looking at you!)
Seriously. As a young scamp of 21, I find it hard to believe that anyone got anything done in any reasonable amount of time before the existence of the internet. What did people do to obtain obscure information? The only things I can think of are 1) wade through a bunch of books at the library, *praying* that one contained the tiny piece of knowledge that you needed, or 2) to find an expert in that subject. Jeez that must have sucked.
Just as an example, say I wanted to know why some people have two different colored eyes. I wouldn't even begin to know where to look for that in a book, but it took me about 20 seconds on google to find an answer.
There are still hardcore nerd gamers. These are people who watch vids of Japanese speed runs of Kirby Super Star*, play 2D fighters for 10 hours straight with complete strangers (via tourneys and casual gatherings organized over the internet), and still hang out at arcades. We do exist, dammit!
*A 9 year old game for SNES. And yes, at the gathering I was at last Saturday, we actually *did* watch it!
Slashdot Mirror
In the past couple years, Apple has been releasing really great pro-level apps for music, video, and now photography. This is good, but what *I* really want is a competitor for MakeMusic's Finale, which is a professional-grade program for music notation (like Microsoft Word, but for musical scores).
Finale is actually really powerful (and expensive). It can do pretty much anything most people need for their notation. Unfortunately, it is the worst UI trainwreck I have ever encountered. It is lacking in a clear, simple, unified interface or an intuitive organization. Seemingly simple and basic options are buried deep in the mess. And the help files are almost worthless.
For example, instead of clicking notes in, you can use your keyboard to enter notes.
But I don't know what key does what.
So I go into the key map options, but I still can't find the default key map. It just allows me to create a custom key map.
I'm like 'okay the help files will learn me where the default or current key map is--or maybe even tell me WHAT it is!'
Nope. No search results for "key map" in the really outdated help software that comes with it (it looks like it is a port from OS 9).
This kind of stuff happens to me all the time. Apple, please release "Notes" or something! You could make a killing!
I have downloaded Firefox at least 5 times or so just for myself (upgrades, reinstalls, different computers, etc). I wonder what the statistics are on average number of downloads per person.
Well even if they're ridiculously high, 100 million is a freaking huge number. Even if the average person has downloaded it 10 times, that still means over 10 million people are using it worldwide.
That's an understatement.
Thanks a lot : )
Thanks.
Speaking of "no monthly fee", does anybody know how much this costs? I noticed it is not free, but I couldn't find how much it costs to be a member, and when/why they take the fees.
If you were wondering why Peter Ludlow was banned from the Sims Online for doing is job "too well"... well, so was I. So I googled and found the answer.
The BBC says"Mr Ludlow thought the people behind the game should know what was going on inside Alphaville, not least because some things - child prostitution, for example - are morally and legally troubling.
But when they found out, Maxis, the game's developers, and Electronic Arts, the distributors, banned all in-game mention of The Alphaville Herald, says Mr Ludlow.
Then, says Mr Ludlow, he was thrown out of the game and his accounts closed down, cutting him off from his Sims."
Slashdot also covered this previously and links to this Gamespot interview.
Well, someone had to do it.
The first GIS response for "teenage girls water sports"...
Not exactly what I was expecting o_O
I had no idea President Bush was a gamer.
Actually that links to a news article about some other game. Here is the correct link: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6132899/index.htm l?tag=boxcar_all_features_image
You can find more information in this Wikipedia article. Apparently the general time of the launch has been known for a while, because at the moment the article states a September or October launch (and a different Wikipedia article on the rockets themselves specifically states an October launch).
By the way, it looks as though it is shaping up to be a very interesting flight
The crew will change out of their new lighter space suits, conduct scientific experiments, and enter the orbital module. In addition, their menu will be expanded from 30 to 50 courses. A new toilet will also be available.
Exactly! In Japan (and to a lesser extent Korea) their arcades are Godly, and the scene is HUGE compared to the US. That is why every year, at the biggest fighting game tourney in the US the Japanese always fly over and kick our asses. How humiliating.
Yeah, 20 years ago, these were issues. But the article wasn't written 20 years ago. Today it's just a no-brainer.
Er, "Space Ace", not "Space Age", sorry. (Hey, give me a break, it was released before I was born!)
Dragon's Lair and Space Age were both released in 1983... Which I think goes to show that this article might have been useful about 20 years ago. But now he's just stating the incredibly obvious.
I think there's a difference betwen insulting the player (what the article seems to dislike) and insulting the player's character (what you're talking about). Having an NPC call my character "a fat, smelly elf" is much different from a game actually insulting me.
I will say that the article was complete trash though... most of these aren't "rights", they're just guidelines for good games--and incredibly OBVIOUS ones at that! I mean, c'mon, look at these:
-The Right to Quit, Pause, Save and Resume the Game
-The Right to Instructions
-The Right to Win
I'm looking through my collection of games right now (from all the major consoles), and I can't find a single one that didn't come with a playing manual, didn't allow you to save your progress, or which I felt was impossible to beat.
From the article: The majority of the time a player spends in a game, he should be making decisions, exploring, creating, overcoming challenges, or otherwise acting upon the game world in some way. Players come to play, not to watch cut-scenes. Notice that I say the majority of the time. Non-interactive elements are not forbidden, but they should not take up more than 50% of the playing time of the game. (This is the absolute maximum; many gamers would contend that non-interactive elements should take up no more than 1% of the playing time of the game, if that.)
Uh, well the Metal Gear Solid franchise seems to be doing just fine, and that series is notorious for its long and numerous cut scenes... But whatever.
I have an idea: Why don't we just let the market decide which games people will buy, instead of some guy who is spouting off his opinions and calling them "rights."
Interesting commentary on today's society...people would rather invest in a virtual dog than accept the responsibility of owning an actual pet.
That's going a little far. There are plenty of people who shouldn't or can't have a real dog for whatever reason: living in a dorm or apartment that forbids pet ownership, too young, too old, allergies, have a job where they are out of town a lot, etc.
Also, it is just a game. You might as well look at a RTS game and say "interesting commentary on today's society... people would rather invest time in a virtual war with no consequences than accept the responsibility of starting an actual war." Or you could say the same thing for birth control: "people would rather invest in consequence-free sex than accept the responsibility of a child." Well, yeah... Having a virtual dog is fun. It's not a sign that people nowadays are all flakey and less responsible than previous generations.
A videogame network could be so cool with such little effort. Have people playing multiplayer online games and just televise it with maybe some commentating. Hell I'd flip it on to watch a cool deathmatch or Mario Kart or basically anything *other* than what is currently on G4. And the chance to get to play and have it televised would be pretty neat for gamers.
They actually already have this. It is called Arena, and it is actually pretty boring. First of all, all the teams have stupid names like "fragkillaz100" that makes them seem like idiots. Secondly, the specific multiplayer games they participate in are kinda boring to watch. They're so slow that they have to edit out a lot of the game time and just provide you with highlights. If they ever did a Street Fighter III or Guilty Gear battle I would be ecstatic, but I've never seen them do anything besides FPS or racing games.
Hells yes. And of the ones that *are* released, many don't even make it to the US market (Darkstalkers Collection, Guilty Gear X2 #Reload for the PS2... I'm looking at you!)
This would be a great idea... if only Saturday night TV didn't suck more than any other time of the week.
Yeah here are some more sites for arcade stick parts and research:
Himura Games for purchasing Japanese-style sticks, buttons, misc.
Shoryuken.com hardware forums for "talking shop" with other like-minded enthusiasts, or for just asking questions and getting feedback.
MAS Systems sells Complete systems and American (Happ) parts
It's a pretty standard (and oft used) logical fallacy. The Latin term is "tu quoque", which translates to, I believe, "and you also" or something.
Seriously. As a young scamp of 21, I find it hard to believe that anyone got anything done in any reasonable amount of time before the existence of the internet. What did people do to obtain obscure information? The only things I can think of are 1) wade through a bunch of books at the library, *praying* that one contained the tiny piece of knowledge that you needed, or 2) to find an expert in that subject. Jeez that must have sucked.
Just as an example, say I wanted to know why some people have two different colored eyes. I wouldn't even begin to know where to look for that in a book, but it took me about 20 seconds on google to find an answer.
There are still hardcore nerd gamers. These are people who watch vids of Japanese speed runs of Kirby Super Star*, play 2D fighters for 10 hours straight with complete strangers (via tourneys and casual gatherings organized over the internet), and still hang out at arcades. We do exist, dammit!
*A 9 year old game for SNES. And yes, at the gathering I was at last Saturday, we actually *did* watch it!
How the dinosaurs *really* died out.