Not all of them need awesome storylines to have great playability:
Zelda: Guy has girl, Guy loses Girl. Guy must find Girl. Mario: Guy has girl, Guy loses Girl. Guy must find Girl. Gauntlet: Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff. Archer needs food. Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff.
What about games with ridiculous "stories" like:
Pac-Man: What story is there here? Yellow dot eats little dots, runs away from colored ghosts. Asteroid: White triangle shoots at lined objects with a line.
Not all great games need amazing storylines, although they can certainly help matters (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Max Payne).
Actually, I attend the University of Maryland, and here they use what they call a Packet Shaper, which somehow manages (aparrantly by port) to grant priority to certain kinds of traffic in such a way (from highest to lowest):
1. All university offices and research facilities 2. FTP traffic 3. Game traffic (woot!) 4. Web surfing (Your pron dls go here unless you get it from an FTP server) 5. Kazaa/P2P crap
Now, realizing that there's a random port checker on the latest version of kazaa, it seems strange that they're able to regulate it's access, but they completely shut it down this past summer as a test, then started allowing it larger and slightly larger amounts of our bandwidth.
It's not impossible to stop Kazaa altogether, but I think if the RIAA wants to take the stance of some legitimacy to P2P, they need to understand that you either need to allow it all, or don't allow any of it, because you can either kill Kazaa via an ISP (and you'll get shit), or you let it go, but limit the bandwidth it takes up (which is now detectable, case in point UMCP).
I have come across a pretty good one, called simply, "Energizer Rechargeable".
It's a Nickel Metal Hydride AA, and although it doesn't run at the same voltage as other AA's (outputs a little more than 1.2 V most times, normal AA's rn output 1.5 V), I can substitute it for anything that uses AA's. Specifically I use it in my digital camera (Casio EX-3000) which is fond of eating alkaline batteries for breakfast, and I have actually found that they work better than just about everything other than duracell ultras or those energizer E3 (or whatever they call them).
These are more expensive than the high-end alkaline, but there's no doubt in my mind that they work as well, and you will get your money back by reusing them.
Note: I always keep a backup set of the AA's fully charged to change out in case the ones I have die. I have had really good sucess with these batteries though.
Maybe, but it depends on how you look at it.
on
Robots Without a Cause
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I think that the idea of robots is useful, even with what we have today. There have been robots that can mow the lawn for you, that can vacuum for you, and things along that line.
Things like Botball (kipr.org) really help to stimulate the idea of thinking about autonomous systems, and these are high school and sometimes middle school kids working on these projects. Sure, the contests that they run are really just getting the robots to move balls into cages and such, but the underlying point is a big deal. The future for robotics lies in autonomy, and it is a big problem.
It's rather difficult to get a system robust enough to last in an enviornment that you can only protect for as much as you predict (unless you plan on being able to "teach" the robot).
Maybe right now it seems like everything is just "ingenious", but there are some gems among it, and you just need to be a little more patient, the practical applications are the only ones that stick around in the end. Wait another 10 years, then see where we are.
Should be interesting to see how the Mac platform manages to incorporate intensive 3D graphics, especially now since they have radeons and nvidia chipsets in most of their newer/higher end computers.
Enter the complaints about one-button mouse commments, but keep in mind that most of these RPG's have a ridiculous amount of required buttons and commands... when the "Quick Guide" has 10 pages, you're spending too much time learning how to play, instead of actually just playing.
Slashdot Mirror
Not all of them need awesome storylines to have great playability:
Zelda: Guy has girl, Guy loses Girl. Guy must find Girl.
Mario: Guy has girl, Guy loses Girl. Guy must find Girl.
Gauntlet: Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff. Archer needs food. Shoot stuff. Shoot stuff.
What about games with ridiculous "stories" like:
Pac-Man: What story is there here? Yellow dot eats little dots, runs away from colored ghosts.
Asteroid: White triangle shoots at lined objects with a line.
Not all great games need amazing storylines, although they can certainly help matters (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Max Payne).
From Sunday.
Eventually this sort of behavior will get its comeuppance, but an awful lot of blood winds up on the floor before it happens. Unfortunately.
/Darl McBride shakes fist
"No comeuppance!"
Actually, I attend the University of Maryland, and here they use what they call a Packet Shaper, which somehow manages (aparrantly by port) to grant priority to certain kinds of traffic in such a way (from highest to lowest):
1. All university offices and research facilities
2. FTP traffic
3. Game traffic (woot!)
4. Web surfing (Your pron dls go here unless you get it from an FTP server)
5. Kazaa/P2P crap
Now, realizing that there's a random port checker on the latest version of kazaa, it seems strange that they're able to regulate it's access, but they completely shut it down this past summer as a test, then started allowing it larger and slightly larger amounts of our bandwidth.
It's not impossible to stop Kazaa altogether, but I think if the RIAA wants to take the stance of some legitimacy to P2P, they need to understand that you either need to allow it all, or don't allow any of it, because you can either kill Kazaa via an ISP (and you'll get shit), or you let it go, but limit the bandwidth it takes up (which is now detectable, case in point UMCP).
Don't you know that not reading the article is a prerequisite for commenting?
Once you read the article, your comments are disregarded.
I guess you really are new here =P
I have come across a pretty good one, called simply, "Energizer Rechargeable".
It's a Nickel Metal Hydride AA, and although it doesn't run at the same voltage as other AA's (outputs a little more than 1.2 V most times, normal AA's rn output 1.5 V), I can substitute it for anything that uses AA's. Specifically I use it in my digital camera (Casio EX-3000) which is fond of eating alkaline batteries for breakfast, and I have actually found that they work better than just about everything other than duracell ultras or those energizer E3 (or whatever they call them).
These are more expensive than the high-end alkaline, but there's no doubt in my mind that they work as well, and you will get your money back by reusing them.
Note: I always keep a backup set of the AA's fully charged to change out in case the ones I have die. I have had really good sucess with these batteries though.
I think that the idea of robots is useful, even with what we have today. There have been robots that can mow the lawn for you, that can vacuum for you, and things along that line.
Things like Botball (kipr.org) really help to stimulate the idea of thinking about autonomous systems, and these are high school and sometimes middle school kids working on these projects. Sure, the contests that they run are really just getting the robots to move balls into cages and such, but the underlying point is a big deal. The future for robotics lies in autonomy, and it is a big problem.
It's rather difficult to get a system robust enough to last in an enviornment that you can only protect for as much as you predict (unless you plan on being able to "teach" the robot).
Maybe right now it seems like everything is just "ingenious", but there are some gems among it, and you just need to be a little more patient, the practical applications are the only ones that stick around in the end. Wait another 10 years, then see where we are.
Should be interesting to see how the Mac platform manages to incorporate intensive 3D graphics, especially now since they have radeons and nvidia chipsets in most of their newer/higher end computers. Enter the complaints about one-button mouse commments, but keep in mind that most of these RPG's have a ridiculous amount of required buttons and commands... when the "Quick Guide" has 10 pages, you're spending too much time learning how to play, instead of actually just playing.