Interesting, I want to check out ESPN. What format would you recommend?
Sadly I just declared war on the Ottomans and they had a @#$^@$ mutual defense pact with the Germans, who somehow had 25-30 infantrymen in my neighbor's land of France...
It is unequivocally a better game than last year's. It's also a terrible game in comparison to ESPN NFL Football.
ESPN = Sega's NFL series?
I loved NFL 2k2. Awesome game. Enter NFL 2k3 stage left. Horrible disapointment, I hated the gameplay mechanics. Haven't had a chance to check out the newest installment.
One thing I like about Madden is the Mini-Camp mode. Awesome stuff, it basically teaches you how to play. I feel 100% more educated about football and I have more of an appreciation for skills like pocket presence on TV. Seems more...realistic.
Games I've played over the past few weeks...working 40+ hours a week for this comment;)
STAR WARS GALAXIES (PC) The big MMORPG is promising and I have invested 200+ hours in it. However it's full of as much frustration as promise--vaporware gone horribly. Would NOT recommend to anyone even without the $15/mo fee.
MADDEN 2004 (GAMECUBE) This cash cow for EA Sports is better than last year's. I've seen so many bad sequels (coughMatrix) that I'm impressed. I like the well-done execution as well as the fact that it's a party game that people can get into fairly quickly. In addition, there is added depth in the mini-camp and owner modes. Is it worth $50? Maybe, maybe not. But it IS unequivocally a better game than last year's, which is more than I can say for...
MARIO KART: DOUBLE DASH (GAMECUBE) Welcome to Mario Kart, rehashed. I've seen companies get fried for "tinkering with the original formula" and Nintendo took this one to heart by producing...well...the same game. You'll see "clever" re-releases of each track (read: the same thing, rehashed a little and with new names to boot) along with the somewhat-gimmicky two-person-in-one-kart feature. THERE IS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT THIS IS A GOOD GAME--just like its predecessor--but I feel like I'm playing the exact same game as before. Having said that, it's still a great party game and the learning curve is low, low, low. That makes this game still a "safe" buy for anyone who has a GameCube.
CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER 2003/2004 (PC UK) Good luck finding this one in the US. The best selling game in the UK last year, CM4, was a good game with horrible execution. Bugs, crashes, everything. This feels like the finished product of Championship Manager. However this game is relatively time-intensive and some people just don't like the idea of not controlling Ronaldo running down the field. Having said that, this game has rabid fans (including me) and the execution is relatively flawless. I'd rate this a strong buy towards folks into management games--the soccer knowledge can come later.
CIVILIZATION 3: CONQUESTS (PC) Welcome to Crack, redone. I played the original Civ, Civ2, Col, CTP2, SMAC, SMACX and limited doses of Civ3, so I'm a Civ fanatic at heart. Having said that, I realize this game is not for everyone. It's an expansion pack for CIV3 so prior purchase may be necessary (but inexpensive). Yet while a safe gift for Civ3 enthusiasts, how much value this game adds is questionable. Perhaps I'm spoiled from Half-Life and its endless string of free MODS. This pack honestly feels like a MOD--decent-looking campaigns added on that DO drag on for me (I'm talking about 20+ hours). I wouldn't buy this game for myself if I were worried about money. Yet as much as it doesn't do much good, it does no bad.
SIMCITY 4: RUSH HOUR Disclaimer: I love public transportation. I couldn't wait for this expansion pack to SC4. I bought it from EBGames the first day it came out. Last week, I saw it FAR (free after rebate) on Black Friday. Perhaps free is too low of a valuation (SC4 required, but you can buy the deluxe version at Costco which includes both) but the added value is questionable after a few hours/days of play. One-way streets are cool, and I love watching the variation of traffic patterns, but I fear that it's too nerdy for the rest of you. Plus, the U-Drive-It feature is kind of lame IMHO. If you really want to drive around a city, go check out GTA3 for a much more fun implementation. This is a risky bet IMHO.
There is a huge incentive for IronPort to stay on the legitimate side of things. Spamcop rocks (thanks Julian!) - but only because of the constant vigilance of the many users who report instances of spam. This is a human-based review system of millions of junk messages... without the users, there is no Spamcop, and Ironport bought nothing. They can't afford to risk being the bad guy here or they risk losing the reviewers !
Not Flamebait.
We've seen an example of a national leader citing poorly substantiated "facts". Whether or not an implied conspiracy is going on behind the scenes seems to have less correlation with widespread approval than you or I previously thought.
The analogy needs to be furthered a bit: this would be like a pharmaceutical company not only spreading that which they themselves sell the cure for, but above it all, that cure being phony, so that the market for the cure is maintained. Think, do you think IronPort's spam protection measures will stop their own supported spam? This reminds me of a bond-type plot where evil villains pay an evil company to let them continue ravaging the world. Even though this obviously would only last so long in the pharmaceutical industry, I'd call it a feasible, profitable, and despicable practice for the e-mail industry, with all the sources of spam floating around.
What about the companies that are exclusively anti-spam? Maybe they don't even have to have a spamming component.
What if they DO perform the high and mighty task of eliminating spam in one fell swoop? Then what? Their market is gone as that product becomes assimilated. There goes the cashflow.
This is analagous to CURING a disease rather than selling many more pills to TREAT a disease.
The point is that whether or not a company does the "right" thing is the important thing, not whether it offers x product.
IronPort, which is private and backed by venture capital, expects to turn its first profit next year on revenue of more than $10 million. It was founded by Mr. Weiss, who worked at Hotmail, the free e-mail provider, and Scott Banister, who founded ListBot, a service that lets companies manage e-mail lists. Both companies were acquired by Microsoft.
Actually the article leads me to believe that these guys are not MS-bred.
One reason why we don't have trains is because of AMTRAK. Sad to say even Mr. Dukakis as captain couldn't solve it (surprising?)
The CEO of JetBlue (a low cost airline) claims this is because of AMTRAK's government affiliation, and in particular because local politicians insist on running routes to non-profitable and perhaps non-interesting destinations. link to JetBlue interview
And you'll see that in the US, the alternatives seem to be working OK. We spend billions of dollars on highways and I can fly 500 miles on Southwest Airlines for $26 each way.
As I drove back from class today, I wished I could be a benevolent dictator and build mass transit everywhere. Yet I agree with earlier posts in that the public desire just doesn't exist at this point. For a case study, check out Orange County, CA, where the City of Irvine voted down plans to have a light-rail system connecting to its university. You don't have to look too much further down to South OC to see the consequences of exclusive car dependence. These are the kinds of attitudes that motivate my desire to live somewhere else.
What I want to know is this: How can we get people to move via public transport? It seems there are only two ways to go with this. a) Make public transport more appealing b) Make car travel less appealing
I'm not sure (b) is working out. The summed costs of cars are enormous--$200/mo for insurance, $60/mo for parking, ~$60/mo for gas, and then however much you pay to lease/finance the car and the possible risk of an accident, etc. And these are the only ones I can measure..
The rights and freedoms this country was founded upon are far more important to our collective future than red-herring issues like abortion.
You have a point. However, Americans seem to vote for people not based upon issues at all (whether you like or not), and perhaps you could do better with someone who can provide the intangibles that win elections as well as the sound fundamentals you mention.
Being a Californian, I have seen one of these intangibles in play: Hope. Confidence, a promise of happiness, better times, whatever you want to call it. I think politicians are doing well now selling hope, not freedom.
This is bullcrap. If I don't care and feel no moral object to downloading music, why would 'risk-sharing' upset me. I don't even know what risk sharing is!
The moral impact of downloading music for me is ZERO, in spite of what some MBA monkey tells me. 'Risk sharing' isn't going to scare me into sharing less.
I understand the author cites Risk Sharing as a primary reason why people aren't buying music. Read the article, and you can see some definite implications of record companies' misjudgements.
The author claims that the reason why people aren't buying music is that because they don't know whether it is any good. This risk, the risk that the music you just bought for $18 totally sucks, is the risk he talks about.
When he says that people are mitigating risk via file-sharing (i.e. risk-sharing) he implies that by one person buying the cd (or taking some other cost to self, including risk of legal action) and distributing it to others, then others get to "try" the music without risk.
Of course, this brings up the fundamental problem which I believe lies within--Are people willing to pay for music? Currently Steve Jobs and others are trying to prove their particular answer.
OH MY GOD! A heretic! Someones pass me the noose! Dude, calling The Egg "fairly reputable" amongst geeks is like drinking your gruel with extended pinky on a Viking longboat.
This "Anonymous Coward" character seems pretty shady. Better keep an eye on him.
There are 28 different claims as to what the system patented by ATT is. A cursory layman's look gives the impression that it covers all kinds of commerce done over telcommunications networks.
I am seeing a situation where ATT would require licensing for every credit-card accepter on the Internet. That's not so fun.
I'm seventeen. I wouldn't mind paying for stuff if its good, but there's always one thing I run into that I can't do anything about. I'm underaged, so I can't get a credit card. Internet payments would be its only use, so getting one to the family wouldn't be meaningful either. And when I become a poor student, no bank in their right mind will want to give me one either. Nor am I sure I want to even get one, with the trail it leaves behind.
Actually, it's really easy to get a VISA. You can get a checking account from Washington Mutual and have a card with VSIA on it for free. All of my transactions are free--it's beautiful. And I've had it since before I was 18.
And you'd be surprised how EAGER CC companies are to get you a credit card in college. I guess the idea that parents will probably bail you out prevails in their head. Seriously, I walk to school and mastercard and visa are competing trying to give me freebies to sign up for their cards.
I am convinced that the passive nature of television is to a great extent to blame for the laziness of modern society (don't stop feeding your kid soda and candy, give him ritlin and be done with it). Seeing a shift towards a pass-time which requires active thought (and in the case of the mod community, programming) is a thoroughly encouraging.
I'm not sure that computer games, while they are indeed a substitute for TV, are helping me out. If anything the interactive nature is something that I find more addicting and something that really distracts me from the things that I realize that I want to do after I've played SWG for 16 hours straight.
My first response to the article was "WTF?" but I decided to do something more productive than that. Perhaps you might find this more accessible to you as well:
The Sun today unleashed what appears to be the third most powerful flare in recorded history, a storm of charged particles that could hit Earth mid-day Wednesday with more effect than any since 1989, when an entire Canadian province had its power knocked out.
Depending on the storm's magnetic orientation, it could set off a dramatic display of colorful northern lights well into mid-latitudes of the United States and Europe.
Meanwhile, satellite operators and power grid managers are preparing to endure a potentially damaging event. And astronauts aboard the International Space Station have taken cover from heavier radiation sent out by the flare. They are not expected to be in any serious danger.
Kicked up at 6 a.m. EST (1100 UT) today, the major solar outburst comes on the heels of four other flares late last week and over the weekend. All were considered fairly severe, but the latest eruption makes the others seem like solar sneezes.
Today's blast is classified as an X17, where X denotes a major flare and larger numbers are stronger. That compares to two flare-ups over the weekend that were rated less than X2.
"The flare today may be the third strongest X-flare on record," said Paal Brekke, deputy project scientist for the SOHO spacecraft, which first spotted the event.
A slightly stronger flare on April 2, 2001 was not pointed at Earth. Today's storm is headed directly at us and could generate fantastic colorful lights in the atmosphere, known as aurora. The storm associated with the flare is called a coronal mass ejection, an expanding bubble of charged particles that race outward.
I am inferring from the article that the rate at which these abundances are increasing far surpasses the "natural" forces that you call the "self-limiting" forces.
Slashdot Mirror
Interesting, I want to check out ESPN. What format would you recommend?
Sadly I just declared war on the Ottomans and they had a @#$^@$ mutual defense pact with the Germans, who somehow had 25-30 infantrymen in my neighbor's land of France...
It is unequivocally a better game than last year's. It's also a terrible game in comparison to ESPN NFL Football.
ESPN = Sega's NFL series?
I loved NFL 2k2. Awesome game. Enter NFL 2k3 stage left. Horrible disapointment, I hated the gameplay mechanics. Haven't had a chance to check out the newest installment.
One thing I like about Madden is the Mini-Camp mode. Awesome stuff, it basically teaches you how to play. I feel 100% more educated about football and I have more of an appreciation for skills like pocket presence on TV. Seems more...realistic.
Games I've played over the past few weeks...working 40+ hours a week for this comment ;)
STAR WARS GALAXIES (PC)
The big MMORPG is promising and I have invested 200+ hours in it. However it's full of as much frustration as promise--vaporware gone horribly. Would NOT recommend to anyone even without the $15/mo fee.
MADDEN 2004 (GAMECUBE)
This cash cow for EA Sports is better than last year's. I've seen so many bad sequels (coughMatrix) that I'm impressed. I like the well-done execution as well as the fact that it's a party game that people can get into fairly quickly. In addition, there is added depth in the mini-camp and owner modes. Is it worth $50? Maybe, maybe not. But it IS unequivocally a better game than last year's, which is more than I can say for...
MARIO KART: DOUBLE DASH (GAMECUBE)
Welcome to Mario Kart, rehashed. I've seen companies get fried for "tinkering with the original formula" and Nintendo took this one to heart by producing...well...the same game. You'll see "clever" re-releases of each track (read: the same thing, rehashed a little and with new names to boot) along with the somewhat-gimmicky two-person-in-one-kart feature. THERE IS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT THIS IS A GOOD GAME--just like its predecessor--but I feel like I'm playing the exact same game as before. Having said that, it's still a great party game and the learning curve is low, low, low. That makes this game still a "safe" buy for anyone who has a GameCube.
CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER 2003/2004 (PC UK)
Good luck finding this one in the US. The best selling game in the UK last year, CM4, was a good game with horrible execution. Bugs, crashes, everything. This feels like the finished product of Championship Manager. However this game is relatively time-intensive and some people just don't like the idea of not controlling Ronaldo running down the field. Having said that, this game has rabid fans (including me) and the execution is relatively flawless. I'd rate this a strong buy towards folks into management games--the soccer knowledge can come later.
CIVILIZATION 3: CONQUESTS (PC)
Welcome to Crack, redone. I played the original Civ, Civ2, Col, CTP2, SMAC, SMACX and limited doses of Civ3, so I'm a Civ fanatic at heart. Having said that, I realize this game is not for everyone. It's an expansion pack for CIV3 so prior purchase may be necessary (but inexpensive). Yet while a safe gift for Civ3 enthusiasts, how much value this game adds is questionable. Perhaps I'm spoiled from Half-Life and its endless string of free MODS. This pack honestly feels like a MOD--decent-looking campaigns added on that DO drag on for me (I'm talking about 20+ hours). I wouldn't buy this game for myself if I were worried about money. Yet as much as it doesn't do much good, it does no bad.
SIMCITY 4: RUSH HOUR
Disclaimer: I love public transportation. I couldn't wait for this expansion pack to SC4. I bought it from EBGames the first day it came out. Last week, I saw it FAR (free after rebate) on Black Friday. Perhaps free is too low of a valuation (SC4 required, but you can buy the deluxe version at Costco which includes both) but the added value is questionable after a few hours/days of play. One-way streets are cool, and I love watching the variation of traffic patterns, but I fear that it's too nerdy for the rest of you. Plus, the U-Drive-It feature is kind of lame IMHO. If you really want to drive around a city, go check out GTA3 for a much more fun implementation. This is a risky bet IMHO.
oh man mod this up :)
Either you are actually a registered Democrat... since voting for the only person likely to beat Bush means voting for a left-wing Democrat.
I'm desperate, what can I say. I plan on voting for Howard Dean.
Or, you are deluded into thinking that the Libertarian candidate will get 58% of the vote in November and win, when it will really be more like 2%.
I'm not sure that I even agree with a Libertarian candidate. I meant to highlight the fact that non-Democrats are unsatisfied with Bush as well.
There is a huge incentive for IronPort to stay on the legitimate side of things. Spamcop rocks (thanks Julian!) - but only because of the constant vigilance of the many users who report instances of spam. This is a human-based review system of millions of junk messages... without the users, there is no Spamcop, and Ironport bought nothing. They can't afford to risk being the bad guy here or they risk losing the reviewers !
Not Flamebait.
We've seen an example of a national leader citing poorly substantiated "facts". Whether or not an implied conspiracy is going on behind the scenes seems to have less correlation with widespread approval than you or I previously thought.
The analogy needs to be furthered a bit: this would be like a pharmaceutical company not only spreading that which they themselves sell the cure for, but above it all, that cure being phony, so that the market for the cure is maintained. Think, do you think IronPort's spam protection measures will stop their own supported spam? This reminds me of a bond-type plot where evil villains pay an evil company to let them continue ravaging the world. Even though this obviously would only last so long in the pharmaceutical industry, I'd call it a feasible, profitable, and despicable practice for the e-mail industry, with all the sources of spam floating around.
What about the companies that are exclusively anti-spam? Maybe they don't even have to have a spamming component.
What if they DO perform the high and mighty task of eliminating spam in one fell swoop? Then what? Their market is gone as that product becomes assimilated. There goes the cashflow.
This is analagous to CURING a disease rather than selling many more pills to TREAT a disease.
The point is that whether or not a company does the "right" thing is the important thing, not whether it offers x product.
IronPort, which is private and backed by venture capital, expects to turn its first profit next year on revenue of more than $10 million. It was founded by Mr. Weiss, who worked at Hotmail, the free e-mail provider, and Scott Banister, who founded ListBot, a service that lets companies manage e-mail lists. Both companies were acquired by Microsoft.
Actually the article leads me to believe that these guys are not MS-bred.
One reason why we don't have trains is because of AMTRAK. Sad to say even Mr. Dukakis as captain couldn't solve it (surprising?)
The CEO of JetBlue (a low cost airline) claims this is because of AMTRAK's government affiliation, and in particular because local politicians insist on running routes to non-profitable and perhaps non-interesting destinations. link to JetBlue interview
And you'll see that in the US, the alternatives seem to be working OK. We spend billions of dollars on highways and I can fly 500 miles on Southwest Airlines for $26 each way.
As I drove back from class today, I wished I could be a benevolent dictator and build mass transit everywhere. Yet I agree with earlier posts in that the public desire just doesn't exist at this point. For a case study, check out Orange County, CA, where the City of Irvine voted down plans to have a light-rail system connecting to its university. You don't have to look too much further down to South OC to see the consequences of exclusive car dependence. These are the kinds of attitudes that motivate my desire to live somewhere else.
What I want to know is this:
How can we get people to move via public transport?
It seems there are only two ways to go with this.
a) Make public transport more appealing
b) Make car travel less appealing
I'm not sure (b) is working out. The summed costs of cars are enormous--$200/mo for insurance, $60/mo for parking, ~$60/mo for gas, and then however much you pay to lease/finance the car and the possible risk of an accident, etc. And these are the only ones I can measure..
I've been recommending Apple to my family for a while now.
I agree with you completely.
Now how many of them have actually bought a Mac?
Help me out here, how can you sell it to someone who believes that he needs a PC to keep up with the world.
MIT Students Get an Education in Software Development
Whew, MIT! I guess I should have applied!
If you want an example of a "police state" just look at the USA right now, you don't need to look as far as China.
What are you doing about it? Apparently posting websites isn't fixing the problem.
Let's do something. Give me your idea.
The rights and freedoms this country was founded upon are far more important to our collective future than red-herring issues like abortion.
You have a point. However, Americans seem to vote for people not based upon issues at all (whether you like or not), and perhaps you could do better with someone who can provide the intangibles that win elections as well as the sound fundamentals you mention.
Being a Californian, I have seen one of these intangibles in play: Hope. Confidence, a promise of happiness, better times, whatever you want to call it. I think politicians are doing well now selling hope, not freedom.
Too bad.
This is bullcrap. If I don't care and feel no moral object to downloading music, why would 'risk-sharing' upset me. I don't even know what risk sharing is!
The moral impact of downloading music for me is ZERO, in spite of what some MBA monkey tells me. 'Risk sharing' isn't going to scare me into sharing less.
I understand the author cites Risk Sharing as a primary reason why people aren't buying music. Read the article, and you can see some definite implications of record companies' misjudgements.
The author claims that the reason why people aren't buying music is that because they don't know whether it is any good. This risk, the risk that the music you just bought for $18 totally sucks, is the risk he talks about.
When he says that people are mitigating risk via file-sharing (i.e. risk-sharing) he implies that by one person buying the cd (or taking some other cost to self, including risk of legal action) and distributing it to others, then others get to "try" the music without risk.
Of course, this brings up the fundamental problem which I believe lies within--Are people willing to pay for music? Currently Steve Jobs and others are trying to prove their particular answer.
Time Magazine, a recent issue from the last 4-5 weeks.
Reportedly was at a Florida cabinet meeting.
YMMV on this lawsuit :)
OH MY GOD! A heretic! Someones pass me the noose! Dude, calling The Egg "fairly reputable" amongst geeks is like drinking your gruel with extended pinky on a Viking longboat.
This "Anonymous Coward" character seems pretty shady. Better keep an eye on him.
Gotcha! There is no Fry's in Oakland!
I gotta drive all the way down to Fremont to get my gear.
Alternatively, I think the point was that even SF hasn't gotten into the act.
Read the patent.
There are 28 different claims as to what the system patented by ATT is. A cursory layman's look gives the impression that it covers all kinds of commerce done over telcommunications networks.
I am seeing a situation where ATT would require licensing for every credit-card accepter on the Internet. That's not so fun.
I'm seventeen. I wouldn't mind paying for stuff if its good, but there's always one thing I run into that I can't do anything about. I'm underaged, so I can't get a credit card. Internet payments would be its only use, so getting one to the family wouldn't be meaningful either. And when I become a poor student, no bank in their right mind will want to give me one either. Nor am I sure I want to even get one, with the trail it leaves behind.
Actually, it's really easy to get a VISA. You can get a checking account from Washington Mutual and have a card with VSIA on it for free. All of my transactions are free--it's beautiful. And I've had it since before I was 18.
And you'd be surprised how EAGER CC companies are to get you a credit card in college. I guess the idea that parents will probably bail you out prevails in their head. Seriously, I walk to school and mastercard and visa are competing trying to give me freebies to sign up for their cards.
I am convinced that the passive nature of television is to a great extent to blame for the laziness of modern society (don't stop feeding your kid soda and candy, give him ritlin and be done with it). Seeing a shift towards a pass-time which requires active thought (and in the case of the mod community, programming) is a thoroughly encouraging.
I'm not sure that computer games, while they are indeed a substitute for TV, are helping me out. If anything the interactive nature is something that I find more addicting and something that really distracts me from the things that I realize that I want to do after I've played SWG for 16 hours straight.
more
Or similarly, should you "meddle" in population control?
I am inferring from the article that the rate at which these abundances are increasing far surpasses the "natural" forces that you call the "self-limiting" forces.
Personally, I'm happy to slaughter the sacred cow of "scarcity." Imagine fitting all your porn on a 1GB hard drive. Now scarcity is not so cool.