Unless he's a lot shorter than I remember, or full of air, he's much heavier than 235.
From his 2007 blog: "Lemme tell ya’ something: if I weight 230, I wouldn’t be blogging about losing weight; I’d be stuffing my fat maw with starches and sugars in a veritable orgy of food, glorious food. I dream of being 230. 230 is a months-away, pie-in-the-sky quasi-pipe-dream."
I think Google's point was that they're giving you a choice by not limiting you to a single provider (ala iPhone). It isn't their fault that AT&T is lame.
Hopefully this will pressure the service providers to actually provide services instead of making money with confusing long-term contracts and random fees (e.g. like the stupid 'activation fee' they charge for the 'Totally Free Phone' I got 3 months ago).
When you play tennis for the first time, you'll get your ass handed to you also. [...] Is it the fact that you might get chewed out by some 15 year old you'll never meet?
I don't mind losing at tennis, even to a 15-year old. It's a fun game and good exercise. But if my opponent is a smart ass, smack talker, I'll take my ball and go home.
I'm a better than average FPS player (and much better at Halo than tennis;)), but 90% of the time when I play a FPS it's full of nothing but smack talking racist (or worse). So I either play without the mic, or against bots.
..If I write a program on a rented laptop the program is OWNED BY ME not by the rental company...
IANAL, but if you signed a contract with the rental company that said they could claim any software developed on their rented equipment, you'd be screwed.
But we already have term limits to solve the problem (maybe because people are already living longer? I honestly don't know). Other laws would get passed to help deal with issues as they come up.
I also wonder how much stagnation is caused by the aging process itself (our bodies and brains slowing down). Imagine the crazy ass shit you could come up with if you lived for 300 years with the body of a 20 year old...
...because unless you're truly passionate about it and have your eyes wide open as to what it involves, it sounds like a no-brainer to avoid it.
That's the truth. I work in the industry. I work twice as hard as my friends in other computer-related jobs for about half the pay.
But I don't want to work anywhere else.
My co-workers (many in there late 20's and 30's) are highly skilled professionals. And the work inspires the best from you (fast, tight code that can handle anything a hyper-active 20-something can throw at it).
Working in the game industry isn't for everyone, but it suits me.
The VWE simulator 'pods' has 7 displays and over 50 buttons. Each unit new cost more than SUV, and some sites had 16 of them. They had sites all around the world. During its peak (mid-to-late 1990s), it could cost $8+ a game (which included a briefing video, mech-selection, mission, and post-mission review). Later they move the pods to normal arcades and dropped the price to about $4.50.
Now there are only a couple places where you can play. I bought a set of 8 two years ago for less than the cost of a Mini.
My point is, when an economy is doing good (like the US "geek-conomy" was in the late 1990s), you can find people to spend $$$ on something really cool. But these places are like the "canary in the coal mine", when the economy goes down they are the first to suffer.
I thought is was dead too. It was the only way I could sleep at night.
I didn't know they released it until I saw a movie poster while waiting in line for a *real* movie. My girlfriend had to remove me from the area (and I think kids standing nearby learned some new words).
We're coming close to 3 years since they released the original XBox360. It would be silly for early adopters to complain about adding an HD-DVD drive now. Tech improves over time. The same model of laptop I bought less than a year ago comes with a Blu-ray drive, twice the ram, and a DX10 video card (for the same price).
Also, remember Microsoft released the 360 only 4 years after the original XBox. Who's to say this HD-DVD/PVR rumor isn't actually about the next XBox release?
Have they done research between sports and aggression?
I'm not a behavioral scientist (INABS?), but how many stories do you hear about people overturning cars and breaking windows after a Halo game? How many sports figures have violent criminal records? Doesn't it seem like most of the football players in high school have a reputation for being violent jerks (in US at least)?
If you're going to test behavior, compare a GTA player to a Raider fan.;)
I think the problem isn't that they are testing for a link between games and aggression, but looking for one.
Good scientist will avoid biasing the results of the test, but bad politicians and ass-hat lawyers will.
I work in the industry, and if I saw clear evidence that what I'm doing was causing serious harm I'd stop. But it feels like they are trying to make a huge issue where there isn't one.
I hate to say bad things about fellow developers but, maybe nobody knows who Gamecock is because the sort of amateur bad-boy marking stunts they do don't work.
If they are doing this for fun, more power to them. But, as a PR stunt, it doesn't work. They need to hire whoever Paris Hilton used.
Ah, but you need to buy an HDTV to really enjoy the output of the PS3 or XBox360. And a good sound system. Oh, and high-speed internet connection. Etc.
You can jerk the numbers around however you like. I own a Wii with the packed in controller and Zelda. Hours of fun for less than $400.
But how are we going to make the 1-2 percent of the elite "uber-gamers" feel special if we don't make 98% of our paying customers suffer?;)
But, seriously, that was the thing that hooked me on City of Heroes. In less than an hour, I could jump from roof-top to roof-top and beat up 2-3 armed thugs at once. And I never had to kill a single damn rat!
Consumer software, especially cutting edge stuff (which includes many game titles) is always buggy. They don't have to be, but its a trade-off. Fast, stable, cheap: choose two.;)
I think most people expected that Sony was going to release a game console, not a platform for Bluray movies that doubles as a Linux box.
Sony made some critical mistakes when they rushed the PS3 to market. It looks like they tried to jam too much stuff into it and couldn't work out all the issues before release.
I have to admit, I don't know much about how unions worked in the movie/TV industry. I assumed that everybody had to be part of a union to work in it (from director to the lunch wagon driver).
In which case it doesn't matter if the use The Pope or Kermit the Frog.
This is also why I *hate* news-as-entertainment. They figure out which "truth" will sell the most ad-space and then collect only the "facts" that support it. But this is a rant for another day...
But hopefully, video game laws will be passed in a Court of Law and not "Fox 'News'". In which case, Thompson's rants should hold as much water as a slotted spoon.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not a union expert, but I've been in the game business for over ten years.
Most of the major development houses are really interested in outsourcing to reduce dev costs.
Now, as a skilled programmer, I'm worth at least a dozen overseas developers. But two dozen? Three dozen?
I don't even blame my current bosses. I've seen them lose contracts to oversea dev houses who can do a project for half our lowest price.
From his 2007 blog: "Lemme tell ya’ something: if I weight 230, I wouldn’t be blogging about losing weight; I’d be stuffing my fat maw with starches and sugars in a veritable orgy of food, glorious food. I dream of being 230. 230 is a months-away, pie-in-the-sky quasi-pipe-dream."
I think Google's point was that they're giving you a choice by not limiting you to a single provider (ala iPhone). It isn't their fault that AT&T is lame. Hopefully this will pressure the service providers to actually provide services instead of making money with confusing long-term contracts and random fees (e.g. like the stupid 'activation fee' they charge for the 'Totally Free Phone' I got 3 months ago).
Sega actually *does* outsource some of its work to the US.
When you play tennis for the first time, you'll get your ass handed to you also. [...] Is it the fact that you might get chewed out by some 15 year old you'll never meet?
I don't mind losing at tennis, even to a 15-year old. It's a fun game and good exercise. But if my opponent is a smart ass, smack talker, I'll take my ball and go home.
I'm a better than average FPS player (and much better at Halo than tennis ;)), but 90% of the time when I play a FPS it's full of nothing but smack talking racist (or worse). So I either play without the mic, or against bots.
..If I write a program on a rented laptop the program is OWNED BY ME not by the rental company...
IANAL, but if you signed a contract with the rental company that said they could claim any software developed on their rented equipment, you'd be screwed.
But we already have term limits to solve the problem (maybe because people are already living longer? I honestly don't know). Other laws would get passed to help deal with issues as they come up.
I also wonder how much stagnation is caused by the aging process itself (our bodies and brains slowing down). Imagine the crazy ass shit you could come up with if you lived for 300 years with the body of a 20 year old...
...because unless you're truly passionate about it and have your eyes wide open as to what it involves, it sounds like a no-brainer to avoid it.That's the truth. I work in the industry. I work twice as hard as my friends in other computer-related jobs for about half the pay.
But I don't want to work anywhere else.
My co-workers (many in there late 20's and 30's) are highly skilled professionals. And the work inspires the best from you (fast, tight code that can handle anything a hyper-active 20-something can throw at it).
Working in the game industry isn't for everyone, but it suits me.
They've have a similar thing in the States called Virtual World Entertainment (VWE).
The VWE simulator 'pods' has 7 displays and over 50 buttons. Each unit new cost more than SUV, and some sites had 16 of them. They had sites all around the world. During its peak (mid-to-late 1990s), it could cost $8+ a game (which included a briefing video, mech-selection, mission, and post-mission review). Later they move the pods to normal arcades and dropped the price to about $4.50.
Now there are only a couple places where you can play. I bought a set of 8 two years ago for less than the cost of a Mini.
My point is, when an economy is doing good (like the US "geek-conomy" was in the late 1990s), you can find people to spend $$$ on something really cool. But these places are like the "canary in the coal mine", when the economy goes down they are the first to suffer.
I thought is was dead too. It was the only way I could sleep at night.
I didn't know they released it until I saw a movie poster while waiting in line for a *real* movie. My girlfriend had to remove me from the area (and I think kids standing nearby learned some new words).
We're coming close to 3 years since they released the original XBox360. It would be silly for early adopters to complain about adding an HD-DVD drive now. Tech improves over time. The same model of laptop I bought less than a year ago comes with a Blu-ray drive, twice the ram, and a DX10 video card (for the same price).
Also, remember Microsoft released the 360 only 4 years after the original XBox. Who's to say this HD-DVD/PVR rumor isn't actually about the next XBox release?
True. Every well raised child knows the correct term is "sprog".
Maybe they wanted to save people countless wasted hours by not exposing them to the most addictive game since solitaire?
Have they done research between sports and aggression?
I'm not a behavioral scientist (INABS?), but how many stories do you hear about people overturning cars and breaking windows after a Halo game? How many sports figures have violent criminal records? Doesn't it seem like most of the football players in high school have a reputation for being violent jerks (in US at least)?
If you're going to test behavior, compare a GTA player to a Raider fan. ;)
I think the problem isn't that they are testing for a link between games and aggression, but looking for one.
Good scientist will avoid biasing the results of the test, but bad politicians and ass-hat lawyers will.
I work in the industry, and if I saw clear evidence that what I'm doing was causing serious harm I'd stop. But it feels like they are trying to make a huge issue where there isn't one.
I hate to say bad things about fellow developers but, maybe nobody knows who Gamecock is because the sort of amateur bad-boy marking stunts they do don't work.
If they are doing this for fun, more power to them. But, as a PR stunt, it doesn't work. They need to hire whoever Paris Hilton used.
Ah, but you need to buy an HDTV to really enjoy the output of the PS3 or XBox360. And a good sound system. Oh, and high-speed internet connection. Etc.
You can jerk the numbers around however you like. I own a Wii with the packed in controller and Zelda. Hours of fun for less than $400.
But how are we going to make the 1-2 percent of the elite "uber-gamers" feel special if we don't make 98% of our paying customers suffer? ;)
But, seriously, that was the thing that hooked me on City of Heroes. In less than an hour, I could jump from roof-top to roof-top and beat up 2-3 armed thugs at once. And I never had to kill a single damn rat!
While people who post as Anonymous Cowards are so cool.
Signed: PhoenixOne
Consumer software, especially cutting edge stuff (which includes many game titles) is always buggy. They don't have to be, but its a trade-off. Fast, stable, cheap: choose two. ;)
This is an MMO. The customers are the beta test group. ;)
Lots of stories are from Zonk (maybe the majority? I haven't checked), but I can tell you that not all of them are (I've even had a few myself).
It's good to find corruption where it is, but finding corruption where it isn't (or, at the very least, exaggerating it) hurts the cause.
By telling me something I know is untrue in your first paragraph, I have to doubt the truth in the rest of your post.
I think most people expected that Sony was going to release a game console, not a platform for Bluray movies that doubles as a Linux box.
Sony made some critical mistakes when they rushed the PS3 to market. It looks like they tried to jam too much stuff into it and couldn't work out all the issues before release.
You're probably right.
I have to admit, I don't know much about how unions worked in the movie/TV industry. I assumed that everybody had to be part of a union to work in it (from director to the lunch wagon driver).
In which case it doesn't matter if the use The Pope or Kermit the Frog.
This is also why I *hate* news-as-entertainment. They figure out which "truth" will sell the most ad-space and then collect only the "facts" that support it. But this is a rant for another day...
But hopefully, video game laws will be passed in a Court of Law and not "Fox 'News'". In which case, Thompson's rants should hold as much water as a slotted spoon.