employee bonuses, or other incentives for saving money, may go a long way toward quieting the inevitable bitching when change is made. You've already made the cost analysis (which you have found to be positive) now push the benefits.
If the XBox360 (XBO) is sold by MS at a loss like the original XBox (oXB) then my preference will be to buy the XBO with the intention of hacking it to run linux. You should do the same. 'Tis your DUTY.
As far as console games go, though, I will probably wait for the Nintendo. As you imply, having a large stable of _good_ games is important to selling a platform.
Without bothering to look up any reviews on imdb or netflix, rotten tomatoes etc. Many movies and television shows are panned as derivative and formulaic. I'm not sure relying on any formula will guarantee success, or even acceptance. I would hope that there are still creative people out there who are being taken seriously by producers and studios. Oh, wait, that's what indie is for.
OTOH, perhaps bad shows are merely based on the _wrong_ formula. I leave it as an excercise for the reader to find a review praising a show for being derivative and formulaic. Sarcasm doesn't count as praise.
even in an instance, can't the group leader boot a player who is screwing the party? I think if you are not in a group, you get teleported to the surface. I think it is better to go with 4 tight adventurers, than 4 guys and a loose cannon getting everyone killed regularly.
Retailer Alice wants to sell PSPs, contacts sony, signs contract, yada yada yada.
Consumer Bob buys 100 PSPs from Alice, puts them on ebay.uk, starting at full retail price, buyer pays shipping.
Consumer Carol (and 99 of her closest friends) buy said PSPs, at various prices from full retail to retail x2.
Bob makes out. Later, Bob begins email courtship with Carol, travels to Europe on the profits of several such ebay ventures, and he and Carol make out.
from the gamespy article: "As an end result of such heavy focus on interactive storytelling, the player becomes attached to his or her character like never before--they'll want to keep exploring the constantly changing, continually evolving world and keep forging their character's unique story."
This would be a perfect opportunity to implement a permadeath, which for some reason people keep demanding as an essential element in a good online RPG.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that the permadeath hardcore gamers always have the option to delete their own characters, and they should just leave the rest of us alone.
Roleplaying is possible even among massive populations of kiddie "hardcore" gamers. You just have to be patient, get into a lot of different groups. Note how you interact with them. Put the lamerz who use terms like 14m3Rz (or who act like jerks*) on your ignore list, put the mature players who play a character well on your list of friends. If there is a guild with a lot of your online friends in it, join that one, or start one with those on your friends list. Once you join or start your guild, remember to keep inviting new people to your group so you can add them to your friends or ignore list.
*some people really are just jerks, but be patient will low level characters who are not playing well, such as a tank who can't tank, or the mage who AoEs a bunch of mobs 2 levels up, or the healer who's always at the front of the fray. They may either be new to the game, or the genre, and you have the opportunity to gently set them straight, or they may be playing an unfamiliar alt, and are otherwise a decent roll player--so judge accordingly.
That would actually be a really cool thing. That yellow GM/server text could spam (well, not quite spam, perhaps a little less) all/3 (defense) channels stating that an oracle has revealed doom will fall on stormwind at such and such an hour (say, 8pm on a saturday, sometime when you can reasonably expect a large portion of the server's population to be able to play) so all the L60s can form raid parties and wait to defend their beloved city from the devastation they know will surely come. That would be awesome. Too bad Blizzard doesn't read slashdot at -1. Oh, yeah, and too bad stormwind isn't my beloved city, I play horde on bronzebeard. I hope stormwind burns. (But I'm sure GMs could pick any major city to trounce.)
Will intel incorporate a tasteful logo on the new macs? Or can I peel that sticker off? Seriously, doesn't intel have some licensing agreement with computer manufacturers s.t. they have to put that sticker on? Or do they actually want the sticker? Is Apple's brand strong enough that Jobs can just say no to the Intel co-branding? Of course I didn't RTFA
They are likely to force whatever they want through the PS3. If the console out-games xbox360 and nintendo rev. AND if the console out-media-centers MS media center and xbox 360, then they have a foothold in the consumer space for forcing blue ray and whatever non-CD CDs they want to use.
I agree, I would not want voicechat for RPGs because of the reason you mention (player does not match character). Another poster brings up the fine point that typing is too slow to communicate, especially during combat (and I hate when I accidentally open a chat command line during combat, and am effectively a mannequin until I hit 'esc' and can start attacking again). A third poster mentions text to speech, which would be cool, and keep the characters in character... but it is problematic, especially with the typical misspellings, typos, and 1337 5p33K that goes on.
I add another major problem with voicechat, that I simply cannot abide: that mouth breathing jackass who spams the voice channel with huffing and wheezing, and munching on fucking doritos... I ban you from my ventrilo server!
I propose instead a speech to text system, which would eliminate awkward typing, misspellings (except for synonym substitution) and leet speak clutter. It could even substitute more acceptable language for common insults... ("learn how to tank u fucking n00b!!1!" --> 'learn how to tank, o valiant warrior!')If one wants to get even cooler, translate the player's speech to a synthesized voice that would be appropriate for the character (although I think that would be harder to implement).
I wonder if I can write a plug in for the WoW interface s.t. I can implement speech to text locally...(prolly not though, I'm a poor to middling coder)
I actually did this, or something like it. I used white-out to cover the letters on my keyboard at work, and it really did help me stop watching the keyboard while I typed. I'm not a fast typist, though, because I can't do better than 55 wpm.
The real reason the console is delayed is because it will be based on Longhorn
Re:and everyone is still using floppies : )
on
Blu-Ray DVDs Hit 100 GB
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
"TFA says that Blu-Ray discs are still more prone to scratching than DVDs."
There was an article the other day about CVD diamonds. If diamond production becomes dirt cheap, coating CD's and DVDs with it would prevent scratching, and you could pack as much information on them as can fit, with less error correction than on current scratchable disks. Monitor screens could probably benefit, too, as well as cooking utensils... I'm running off topic here, so:
Is your name related to yoga in any way? I've not learned anything about yoga, but last year on my favorite radio station - wruw 91.1 FM (case western reserve university) www.wruw.org there was a half hour yoga news and information show hosted by a woman whose name sounded like Jigyasu Atma Darshan. Anyway, your name reminds me of her name, that's why I ask.
Is there any reason to give spoiler alert for star wars? I was watching a history show about the Jacobyte rebellion in Brittain on TV the other day, and facetiously commented " I know how this ends, Diana dies in a tunnel in France and Charles gets remarried". Same thing here, as it has to bridge eps. II and IV.
"How many and what type of plants would it take to convert the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts and convert it to enough oxygen for them to survive?"
Not sure, but I believe there was an experiment in Arizona which used a helluvalotta plants, and found that it wasn't enough. It was only a first attempt, though, and should give some idea what would be required for a permanet moon base --where you could also mine water and oxygen, so you needn't rely entirely on self sustaining ecosystem until you get it tweaked just right. You'd need extensive use of grow lights up there, with 350 hours or so of darkness in a lunar day.
The oxygen will last for 5 months, but what about the booze?
I imagine the morale of those aboard the station, and of those tapped to rotate onto the station is pretty low. The actual space station is a half assed effort at space colonization, and a money pit nobody wants. It was concieved in the Reagan era and in a spirit of Glasnost (or whatever the buzz word was at the time) as some kind of international gesture or that would herald in a great age of space exporation, or at least international cooperation. But there was no real goal or purpose in building it other than building it, and all the countries that began work lost interest in finishing it, but no one wants to be responsible for killing it off entirely. (I'm too lazy to look up references, but there are modules that were never completed, and perhaps were never even started)
The loss of the use of NASA's shuttle was the biggest blow, since resupply by soyuz is barely adequate for the current crew, and there is no hope of actually putting a working crew up there without it. Expect the station to be abandoned by the time the shuttle is finally retired, that is, if the shuttle ever flies again.
I suspect that the only way to get a permanent presence off planet is through private efforts--i.e. companies that hope to make a profit from space. If I weren't destined to die a virgin, I would like to honeymoon there.
I bought a mini to be my luggable computer, since my windows/linux laptop died. I bring it in to work, hook it up to my KVM switch and use it for general working tasks. Oh, yeah, and I'm stress testing it as my department's database "server" (more of a host, really, only about a dozen people max use it.) I haven't heard any complaints yet, as it is just as responsive as the old machine *cough G3 cough*
Come the weekend, I flip on the old machine, synchronize the databases and swap IP addresses, and take mine home. I take it to my nephews' house and we play world of warcraft on it. It is not great as a gaming machine, but neither was my laptop.
the laser inscription on "genuine" diamonds was ostensibly put in place to prevent the sale of "blood diamonds" which fund the slaughter in various west African countries--Sierre Leon among them (as opposed to funding the oppression of South African blacks in deBeers diamond operations). I agree though, that the real reason debeers natural diamonds have laser inscriptions is to disinguish them from high quality CVD diamonds. Natural diamonds are easily distinguished from older process artificial diamonds which have distinctive trace chemical signatures from the solvents used in the creation of the diamonds. Or so I've heard.
Slashdot Mirror
employee bonuses, or other incentives for saving money, may go a long way toward quieting the inevitable bitching when change is made. You've already made the cost analysis (which you have found to be positive) now push the benefits.
If the XBox360 (XBO) is sold by MS at a loss like the original XBox (oXB) then my preference will be to buy the XBO with the intention of hacking it to run linux. You should do the same. 'Tis your DUTY.
As far as console games go, though, I will probably wait for the Nintendo. As you imply, having a large stable of _good_ games is important to selling a platform.
Without bothering to look up any reviews on imdb or netflix, rotten tomatoes etc. Many movies and television shows are panned as derivative and formulaic. I'm not sure relying on any formula will guarantee success, or even acceptance. I would hope that there are still creative people out there who are being taken seriously by producers and studios. Oh, wait, that's what indie is for.
OTOH, perhaps bad shows are merely based on the _wrong_ formula. I leave it as an excercise for the reader to find a review praising a show for being derivative and formulaic. Sarcasm doesn't count as praise.
IDNRTFA
even in an instance, can't the group leader boot a player who is screwing the party? I think if you are not in a group, you get teleported to the surface. I think it is better to go with 4 tight adventurers, than 4 guys and a loose cannon getting everyone killed regularly.
How about this then:
Retailer Alice wants to sell PSPs, contacts sony, signs contract, yada yada yada.
Consumer Bob buys 100 PSPs from Alice, puts them on ebay.uk, starting at full retail price, buyer pays shipping.
Consumer Carol (and 99 of her closest friends) buy said PSPs, at various prices from full retail to retail x2.
Bob makes out. Later, Bob begins email courtship with Carol, travels to Europe on the profits of several such ebay ventures, and he and Carol make out.
from the gamespy article: "As an end result of such heavy focus on interactive storytelling, the player becomes attached to his or her character like never before--they'll want to keep exploring the constantly changing, continually evolving world and keep forging their character's unique story."
This would be a perfect opportunity to implement a permadeath, which for some reason people keep demanding as an essential element in a good online RPG.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that the permadeath hardcore gamers always have the option to delete their own characters, and they should just leave the rest of us alone.
Roleplaying is possible even among massive populations of kiddie "hardcore" gamers. You just have to be patient, get into a lot of different groups. Note how you interact with them. Put the lamerz who use terms like 14m3Rz (or who act like jerks*) on your ignore list, put the mature players who play a character well on your list of friends. If there is a guild with a lot of your online friends in it, join that one, or start one with those on your friends list. Once you join or start your guild, remember to keep inviting new people to your group so you can add them to your friends or ignore list.
*some people really are just jerks, but be patient will low level characters who are not playing well, such as a tank who can't tank, or the mage who AoEs a bunch of mobs 2 levels up, or the healer who's always at the front of the fray. They may either be new to the game, or the genre, and you have the opportunity to gently set them straight, or they may be playing an unfamiliar alt, and are otherwise a decent roll player--so judge accordingly.
That would actually be a really cool thing. That yellow GM/server text could spam (well, not quite spam, perhaps a little less) all /3 (defense) channels stating that an oracle has revealed doom will fall on stormwind at such and such an hour (say, 8pm on a saturday, sometime when you can reasonably expect a large portion of the server's population to be able to play) so all the L60s can form raid parties and wait to defend their beloved city from the devastation they know will surely come. That would be awesome. Too bad Blizzard doesn't read slashdot at -1. Oh, yeah, and too bad stormwind isn't my beloved city, I play horde on bronzebeard. I hope stormwind burns. (But I'm sure GMs could pick any major city to trounce.)
Will intel incorporate a tasteful logo on the new macs? Or can I peel that sticker off? Seriously, doesn't intel have some licensing agreement with computer manufacturers s.t. they have to put that sticker on? Or do they actually want the sticker? Is Apple's brand strong enough that Jobs can just say no to the Intel co-branding? Of course I didn't RTFA
With the next 3 big gaming consoles running on PPC variants (ps3, xbox360, revolution), it is obvious that PPC no longer meets the needs of Apple.
Go ahead mod troll. I do own 3 macs and play WoW on my mac mini, though. Most of the games _were_ on my PC, but since WoW--forget it.
I've got news for you, just like taxes, the full cost gets passed on to consumers no matter what mechanism is in place to collect the fees.
They are likely to force whatever they want through the PS3. If the console out-games xbox360 and nintendo rev. AND if the console out-media-centers MS media center and xbox 360, then they have a foothold in the consumer space for forcing blue ray and whatever non-CD CDs they want to use.
(except for synonym substitution)
*Homonym* substitution! D'oh! Speech to text can never eliminate stupidity on the part of the speaker
I agree, I would not want voicechat for RPGs because of the reason you mention (player does not match character). Another poster brings up the fine point that typing is too slow to communicate, especially during combat (and I hate when I accidentally open a chat command line during combat, and am effectively a mannequin until I hit 'esc' and can start attacking again). A third poster mentions text to speech, which would be cool, and keep the characters in character... but it is problematic, especially with the typical misspellings, typos, and 1337 5p33K that goes on.
I add another major problem with voicechat, that I simply cannot abide: that mouth breathing jackass who spams the voice channel with huffing and wheezing, and munching on fucking doritos... I ban you from my ventrilo server!
I propose instead a speech to text system, which would eliminate awkward typing, misspellings (except for synonym substitution) and leet speak clutter. It could even substitute more acceptable language for common insults... ("learn how to tank u fucking n00b!!1!" --> 'learn how to tank, o valiant warrior!')If one wants to get even cooler, translate the player's speech to a synthesized voice that would be appropriate for the character (although I think that would be harder to implement).
I wonder if I can write a plug in for the WoW interface s.t. I can implement speech to text locally...(prolly not though, I'm a poor to middling coder)
I actually did this, or something like it. I used white-out to cover the letters on my keyboard at work, and it really did help me stop watching the keyboard while I typed. I'm not a fast typist, though, because I can't do better than 55 wpm.
ala duke nukem joke:
The real reason the console is delayed is because it will be based on Longhorn
"TFA says that Blu-Ray discs are still more prone to scratching than DVDs."
There was an article the other day about CVD diamonds. If diamond production becomes dirt cheap, coating CD's and DVDs with it would prevent scratching, and you could pack as much information on them as can fit, with less error correction than on current scratchable disks. Monitor screens could probably benefit, too, as well as cooking utensils... I'm running off topic here, so:
Coat blu ray with diamond, problem solved.
Is your name related to yoga in any way? I've not learned anything about yoga, but last year on my favorite radio station - wruw 91.1 FM (case western reserve university)
www.wruw.org
there was a half hour yoga news and information show hosted by a woman whose name sounded like Jigyasu Atma Darshan. Anyway, your name reminds me of her name, that's why I ask.
Is there any reason to give spoiler alert for star wars? I was watching a history show about the Jacobyte rebellion in Brittain on TV the other day, and facetiously commented " I know how this ends, Diana dies in a tunnel in France and Charles gets remarried". Same thing here, as it has to bridge eps. II and IV.
Mod me off topic.
Oh, and Anakin becomes Darth Vader!
"How many and what type of plants would it take to convert the carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts and convert it to enough oxygen for them to survive?"
Not sure, but I believe there was an experiment in Arizona which used a helluvalotta plants, and found that it wasn't enough. It was only a first attempt, though, and should give some idea what would be required for a permanet moon base --where you could also mine water and oxygen, so you needn't rely entirely on self sustaining ecosystem until you get it tweaked just right. You'd need extensive use of grow lights up there, with 350 hours or so of darkness in a lunar day.
The oxygen will last for 5 months, but what about the booze?
I imagine the morale of those aboard the station, and of those tapped to rotate onto the station is pretty low. The actual space station is a half assed effort at space colonization, and a money pit nobody wants. It was concieved in the Reagan era and in a spirit of Glasnost (or whatever the buzz word was at the time) as some kind of international gesture or that would herald in a great age of space exporation, or at least international cooperation. But there was no real goal or purpose in building it other than building it, and all the countries that began work lost interest in finishing it, but no one wants to be responsible for killing it off entirely. (I'm too lazy to look up references, but there are modules that were never completed, and perhaps were never even started)
The loss of the use of NASA's shuttle was the biggest blow, since resupply by soyuz is barely adequate for the current crew, and there is no hope of actually putting a working crew up there without it. Expect the station to be abandoned by the time the shuttle is finally retired, that is, if the shuttle ever flies again.
I suspect that the only way to get a permanent presence off planet is through private efforts--i.e. companies that hope to make a profit from space. If I weren't destined to die a virgin, I would like to honeymoon there.
I bought a mini to be my luggable computer, since my windows/linux laptop died. I bring it in to work, hook it up to my KVM switch and use it for general working tasks. Oh, yeah, and I'm stress testing it as my department's database "server" (more of a host, really, only about a dozen people max use it.) I haven't heard any complaints yet, as it is just as responsive as the old machine *cough G3 cough*
Come the weekend, I flip on the old machine, synchronize the databases and swap IP addresses, and take mine home. I take it to my nephews' house and we play world of warcraft on it. It is not great as a gaming machine, but neither was my laptop.
I'm happy with it.
"Slashdotters who regularly vent their anger at Micro$oft's monopoly should read about the diamond industry, monopoly and de Beers."
Exactly! I may have [shame]bought microsoft products[/shame] in the past, but I will die a virgin before I buy a (natural) diamond.
the laser inscription on "genuine" diamonds was ostensibly put in place to prevent the sale of "blood diamonds" which fund the slaughter in various west African countries--Sierre Leon among them (as opposed to funding the oppression of South African blacks in deBeers diamond operations). I agree though, that the real reason debeers natural diamonds have laser inscriptions is to disinguish them from high quality CVD diamonds. Natural diamonds are easily distinguished from older process artificial diamonds which have distinctive trace chemical signatures from the solvents used in the creation of the diamonds. Or so I've heard.
queue the whip-crack sounds :-D