This is probably why the iPod has been so successful. It doesn't have all the features you could hope for (FM tuner, voice recorder built in, Ogg Vorbis support, etc), but it does what it does so well that even technophobes can "get it."
Part of the Audion Story from Panic software details how iTunes didn't have all the features of Audion, but how they (Panic) had a breakthrough realization that they didn't NEED to have all these great features (that only few people would use) to make a great app.
Then I wonder who suggested Coldstone... I bought Coldstone when it first came out, because Ambrosia is such a great developer (they're the distributor of CS, but not the creator) and most of the games I'm interested in making are of the Coldstone type. It was buggy, unstable, and pretty much unusable even after the 1.1 release. And then they stopped selling it less than a year after its original release IIRC. I don't think anybody but Ambrosia ever developed anything with it and they even pulled their game because it just didn't work right.
I'm surprised Flash and Director didn't make the list. Some of those tools I've never heard of and I did a pretty long search for a crossplatform game development tool not too long ago, when I decided RealBASIC wasn't going to cut it for me.
I think I tried about three times to play RPGs by email in college. Each time the GM lost interest after the first week, while he or she was trying to round up all the people to finish making up their characters. Always thought it was a neat idea though and I might be interested in something still if I had confidence it wouldn't die before it became fun.
Did the site say it was "out of stock until mid-November" (as it does now) when his article went up, or did they sell out that quickly? I for one would like to see some photos of what it looks like, because my first thought is that it might be bigger than your average cartridge.
From the article: "One person's "knowledge," unfortunately, may be another's ignorance."
Isn't that a reason why one or two persons writing and editing a "real" encyclopedia entry has just as much (if not more) of a chance of printing an incorrect statement than many people correcting each other?
Wikipedia is not a perfect approach, but neither is/was Britannica. I wouldn't take either as gospel truth if my life depended on the accuracy--but I might start at either source as a first place to look for general information.
Alex.
... put a Flash Player on other Palm-Powered products. Other than an exclusive deal with Sony or something, I can't imagine why they can have a Flash Player on CLIEs, but on no other Palms.
Even without that agreement, Tivo keeps track of what people watch, but says they do it entirely anonymously. Which is why they got to know the "most replayed' moment during the Superbowl half time. I'm surprised Neilson doesn't just pay for that data directly from Tivo. They did that, and I'd even Tivo the Whedon episodes I have on DVD.
For more details about how to clean your NES without a cleaning kit, I wrote up a set of instructions back in college:
How to Clean your NES and Games.
I run an audiobook project called Telltale Weekly. Cheap now in Ogg Vorbis, AAC, and MP3 formats via Bitpass. Free later with a Creative Commons License after five years or 100,000 sales, whichever comes first. RSS 2.0 feed. You set 'em up, I'll at least bunt.
...kids will sneak textbooks into the classroom and read them under their desk.
Interactive learning tools have a lot of potential, especially for learning outside the classroom, but I have trouble believing that a video game can be more engaging than a good teacher.
I was considering going to the local 30th anniversary game yesterday, having not played since 2nd ed. AD&D a few years ago. But when I heard they were running two "D&D" games (no "Advanced") I figured no big deal if I didn't go, since Dungeons and Dragons is a different game from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Now I'm learning that they took the "Advanced" from the title and now the third (or 3.5 edition) of AD&D is simply called "D&D" (and they discontinued the regular D&D?) now and I probably would have been right at home, or at least only 1.5 versions away from being current.
I know it's for simplification reasons, but boy is it confusing for a guy who's only been out of it a few years. I even had an article published in Dragon in '01, so I don't feel that I should be a newbie.
Improvement options for the iPod? Increased reliability, FM/AM Radio, built-in microphone, audio inputs, more formats supported, smaller sizes, customizable styles, waterproofing, convergence with cell phones, convergence with Palm devices, convergence with GameBoy, convergence with Leatherman, Bluetooth.
I think there's options for improvement. I have a 40gig iPod loaded almost to the brim with audiobooks, but I might look to trade up eventually if a few of the above options (but not just any of them) were added. I don't always walk around with my purse, so I often have to choose among wallet, iPod (w/headphones), Palm, cell phone, and gold bullion, all of which weigh heavy in my pockets, except for the bullion, which is imaginary.
Notice though that the poster didn't give the URL for his or her own site, but for the site that seems to be the cause of the problem. Same result as you suspect; just a little smarter in the planning.
When you say "forum," I'm picturing a bulletin board system of some type, not a chat room.
Set up a good number of monitors and/or a way for anyone to report inappropriate messages.
Or have a good number of monitors and make every message require approval by email (moderators receive an email and may approve the message with a click of the mouse) before posting anything. I don't know what the perfect number of moderators is to limit lagtime as much as possible.
Here's what I think Atari should do: Create a console on par with the SNES. That sort of hardware should be extremely cheap at this point, and could easily be manufactured for retail prices in the $20-$40 range.
I'd love to see this, but it kinda already exists in the used/retro gaming market. Sega and Nintendo systems are available for well under $40 and the used games can be cheap enough to be impulse buys.
Granted, there are drawbacks--dead saved-game batteries need to be replaced, finding instructions (when necessary) and game info can be difficult, cartridges are big and bulky, and some of the better games are rare and therefore expensive. And of course there's nothing new coming out.
But the selection couldn't be better, especially for someone who didn't have the cash as a kid to enjoy the systems the first time.
Have you actually done this? The chairs at all these warehouse style office supply places (Office Max, Reliable, Staples, etc.) SUCK.
Yup. That's why it's important to test them out. No matter how good and expensive they look in the catalog, there's no way of knowing their quality and how appropriate they are for an individual's situation until you test them out.
I agree that a dedicated dealer of furniture and/or office furniture is a better bet. But at an Office Max type store you'll be able to figure out what type of chair you're looking for because there's a pile of them to try out. And you might find an inexpensive piece of noncrap if you're lucky. I have.
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia lists a whole bunch of software, including at least one free one online:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_(board_game)
ALex.
Or what if it hits another planet where life exists, and it's got our return address on it?
Alex.
It wouldn't, really. But the lack of features even where it WOULDN'T clutter the design still hasn't hurt its success. Alex.
I didn't say I owned an iPod. But since you asked...
Alex.
This is probably why the iPod has been so successful. It doesn't have all the features you could hope for (FM tuner, voice recorder built in, Ogg Vorbis support, etc), but it does what it does so well that even technophobes can "get it."
Part of the Audion Story from Panic software details how iTunes didn't have all the features of Audion, but how they (Panic) had a breakthrough realization that they didn't NEED to have all these great features (that only few people would use) to make a great app.
Alex.
Then I wonder who suggested Coldstone... I bought Coldstone when it first came out, because Ambrosia is such a great developer (they're the distributor of CS, but not the creator) and most of the games I'm interested in making are of the Coldstone type. It was buggy, unstable, and pretty much unusable even after the 1.1 release. And then they stopped selling it less than a year after its original release IIRC. I don't think anybody but Ambrosia ever developed anything with it and they even pulled their game because it just didn't work right.
Alex.
I'm surprised Flash and Director didn't make the list. Some of those tools I've never heard of and I did a pretty long search for a crossplatform game development tool not too long ago, when I decided RealBASIC wasn't going to cut it for me.
Alex.
I think I tried about three times to play RPGs by email in college. Each time the GM lost interest after the first week, while he or she was trying to round up all the people to finish making up their characters. Always thought it was a neat idea though and I might be interested in something still if I had confidence it wouldn't die before it became fun.
Alex.
Ah, then that must mean you're PLANNING on having sex with Tim Robbins. When you're ready.
Alex.
Did the site say it was "out of stock until mid-November" (as it does now) when his article went up, or did they sell out that quickly? I for one would like to see some photos of what it looks like, because my first thought is that it might be bigger than your average cartridge.
Alex.
From the article: "One person's "knowledge," unfortunately, may be another's ignorance."
Isn't that a reason why one or two persons writing and editing a "real" encyclopedia entry has just as much (if not more) of a chance of printing an incorrect statement than many people correcting each other?
Wikipedia is not a perfect approach, but neither is/was Britannica. I wouldn't take either as gospel truth if my life depended on the accuracy--but I might start at either source as a first place to look for general information. Alex.
... put a Flash Player on other Palm-Powered products. Other than an exclusive deal with Sony or something, I can't imagine why they can have a Flash Player on CLIEs, but on no other Palms.
Alex.
Even without that agreement, Tivo keeps track of what people watch, but says they do it entirely anonymously. Which is why they got to know the "most replayed' moment during the Superbowl half time. I'm surprised Neilson doesn't just pay for that data directly from Tivo. They did that, and I'd even Tivo the Whedon episodes I have on DVD.
Alex.
I know I'm probably dreaming, but I'd love something like an Open Source alternative to Director or Flash.
Alex.
For more details about how to clean your NES without a cleaning kit, I wrote up a set of instructions back in college: How to Clean your NES and Games.
Alex.
I run an audiobook project called Telltale Weekly. Cheap now in Ogg Vorbis, AAC, and MP3 formats via Bitpass. Free later with a Creative Commons License after five years or 100,000 sales, whichever comes first. RSS 2.0 feed. You set 'em up, I'll at least bunt.
Or War (the card game), or a slightly more complex turn-based card game.
Or, if you're terrible at programming or the programming language or compiler sucks, "Hello World!" might take a few hours.
Alex.
...kids will sneak textbooks into the classroom and read them under their desk.
Interactive learning tools have a lot of potential, especially for learning outside the classroom, but I have trouble believing that a video game can be more engaging than a good teacher.
I was considering going to the local 30th anniversary game yesterday, having not played since 2nd ed. AD&D a few years ago. But when I heard they were running two "D&D" games (no "Advanced") I figured no big deal if I didn't go, since Dungeons and Dragons is a different game from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Now I'm learning that they took the "Advanced" from the title and now the third (or 3.5 edition) of AD&D is simply called "D&D" (and they discontinued the regular D&D?) now and I probably would have been right at home, or at least only 1.5 versions away from being current.
I know it's for simplification reasons, but boy is it confusing for a guy who's only been out of it a few years. I even had an article published in Dragon in '01, so I don't feel that I should be a newbie.
Alex.
Improvement options for the iPod? Increased reliability, FM/AM Radio, built-in microphone, audio inputs, more formats supported, smaller sizes, customizable styles, waterproofing, convergence with cell phones, convergence with Palm devices, convergence with GameBoy, convergence with Leatherman, Bluetooth.
I think there's options for improvement. I have a 40gig iPod loaded almost to the brim with audiobooks, but I might look to trade up eventually if a few of the above options (but not just any of them) were added. I don't always walk around with my purse, so I often have to choose among wallet, iPod (w/headphones), Palm, cell phone, and gold bullion, all of which weigh heavy in my pockets, except for the bullion, which is imaginary.
Alex.
Notice though that the poster didn't give the URL for his or her own site, but for the site that seems to be the cause of the problem. Same result as you suspect; just a little smarter in the planning.
Alex.
When you say "forum," I'm picturing a bulletin board system of some type, not a chat room.
Set up a good number of monitors and/or a way for anyone to report inappropriate messages.
Or have a good number of monitors and make every message require approval by email (moderators receive an email and may approve the message with a click of the mouse) before posting anything. I don't know what the perfect number of moderators is to limit lagtime as much as possible.
Alex.
I thought they looked familiar.
Alex.
I'd love to see this, but it kinda already exists in the used/retro gaming market. Sega and Nintendo systems are available for well under $40 and the used games can be cheap enough to be impulse buys.
Granted, there are drawbacks--dead saved-game batteries need to be replaced, finding instructions (when necessary) and game info can be difficult, cartridges are big and bulky, and some of the better games are rare and therefore expensive. And of course there's nothing new coming out.
But the selection couldn't be better, especially for someone who didn't have the cash as a kid to enjoy the systems the first time.
Alex.
Have you actually done this? The chairs at all these warehouse style office supply places (Office Max, Reliable, Staples, etc.) SUCK.
Yup. That's why it's important to test them out. No matter how good and expensive they look in the catalog, there's no way of knowing their quality and how appropriate they are for an individual's situation until you test them out.
I agree that a dedicated dealer of furniture and/or office furniture is a better bet. But at an Office Max type store you'll be able to figure out what type of chair you're looking for because there's a pile of them to try out. And you might find an inexpensive piece of noncrap if you're lucky. I have.
Alex.