Started and died out. Similarly to most PC sim-style games, actually.
On consoles OTOH...there is still a sizable number of popular games in which you move in full 3D.
(yes, this is all tongue-in cheek obviously, directed mostly at people who blame all that is bad in the world on consoles...not knowing them at all in reality; seeing only what they want to see)
BTW, "classic" FPS games became popular on consoles only starting with first Xbox. Yes, obviously there is some demand for them (with that I'm fine TBH, as long as I have many other great games).
But the root cause might be simply, mentioned by me previously, that it appears "sensible" for publishers to launch such games on both kinds of systems (majority of "classic" FPS games are, contrary to what you claim, multiplatform). The code/devtools/assets are almost the same (those are not ports, in either direction! There is no porting effort present). And since on PCs mouselook is one of the very few natural control options...
In case of Big Bang theory, it's perhaps as close as you can get: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBE#Black-body_curve_of_CMB Early observation only hinted at the Big Bang, were for a long time inconclusive/incomplete. First we had the theory with testable conclusions, only at some later point in time we were technically able to do the necessary observations. They confirmed those conclusions.
After xkcd:
Science: We finally figured out that you could separate fact from superstition by a completely radical method: observation. You can try things, measure them, and see how they work! Bitches.... data from the COBE mission, which looked at the background microwave glow of the universe and found that it fit perfectly with the idea that the universe used to be really hot everywhere. This strongly reinforced the Big Bang theory and was one of the most dramatic examples of an experiment agreeing with a theory in history -- the data points fit perfectly, with error bars too small to draw on the graph. It's one of the most triumphant scientific results in history.
The "beam" might have been the ultimate explosive destruction of the remains.
Also, one thing must be said clearly - the gravity isn't factored out. It still influences the trajectory. But because it's happening above the atmosphere, it influences all pieces in exactly the same way, so the only apparent movement the dumped fuel might have, comes from the venting. After that each portion of it mostly coasts along the rest.
Your place is very decent, but there are still countries that most likely beat you...most notably Czech Republic and Estonia, perhaps Germany too, in a way (the stats are a bit misleading, former East Germany regions are close to Czech Republic & Estonia); maybe also Sweden, for example.;p
Granted, it's a bit muddled because of the "Belief in a spirit or life force" category. Which still is much better than living in, say, Poland (just look at the stats...if you, hopefully, don't hear in your media about ridiculous stuff that's happening here). Certainly good enough that I'm seriously considering moving to one of places where people aren't detached from reality in a considerable way. I'm determined to put up with "my" (I can hardly call it like that) place at most short few more years... (getting education & finances to adequate levels, so I won't come with nothing; while being careful not to "tie" myself here)
BTW, how is it Norway regarding situation that I mentioned in case of Germany? How do regions differ?
Consider: rocket launches fine and leaves behind a long plume of gasses (that stay more or less in place because they were exhaust of the engines; you can see them in the photos). But later (say, during 1st stage separation) something goes wrong (perhaps one explosive bolt went awry?), the rocket loses all power and guidance, but before that happens the forces acting on it were slightly asymmetrical, so it starts spinning a bit. Now, above the atmosphere, it's purely ballistic, no forces acting on it. But for some reason it's dumping fuel (perhaps the uneven dumping of it causes spinning?). Because it's happening in near vacuum, everything just coasts for the ride and creates that effect. The plume moved in the general direction of the rocket, but every "sweep" of it grew outward at fairly low and constant rate.
Well, then we're in totally different kinds of market. I always wait quite a long time before jumping on next generation (hell, I still haven't touched X360/PS3/Wii), not only because of cost (and, it seems, reliability problems that you mention), but also because 1st gen games are mostly about "shiny", while the previous system still gets new games with refined gameplay and which soak everything from the console GFX-wise (PS2 is still getting big titles in 2010...)
Yes, you can silence old boxes of course...with some waste of time instead of actually playing games; that's why I'm talking about here (no passive / big & slow fan options to be found, you have to build them; noisy and failure prone HDD; a need to unclog the insides of PSU; and frankly - I hardly remember how I was setting up/tweaking those machines back then)
Digital KVMs are quite a bit more expensive. The only reasonable option IMHO is to have a monitor with two independent inputs.
And again...drawers are fine to keep consoles in them. Who says they all have to be constantly wired to the TV?
Who says it was stationary? Certainly it already had considerable speed; and since this likely happened above most of the atmosphere, fuel dumped from it after malfunction would travel in roughly the same direction...
And it also came largely from PCs! In the past consoles where a stable, unchanging platform for games running always at 30+ FPS. Yes, the devs would show off their skills at later stage of console life, but this stage also had refined gameplay (well, there was a stage with focus only on "shiny!", the first gen games; but most sensible people would play previous console then, with very refined gameplay and getting the last juices out of the system)
A little over a decade ago, when the race of 3D accelerators came, PC publishers started to emphasize shiny GFX above all else. And the disease spread to consoles. Needlessly overpowered, expensive systems. And "shiny" so important that games are left to run at 20fps...
Anyway, you fail to see that with consoles there's less "chance" to "waste time" with trying out old titles. The machine is either immediately working or not. If it's working, you pop in a game and off you go.
It's also easier to keep old consoles, stacked in some drawer most of the time.
As for playing games from 14 years ago on current consoles...well, while that's not what I was talking about, it is doable in some cases. Even 15 years (PS1 debuted 15 years ago). BTW, you will still have problems especially with PC games from around 12 years ago (think DOS Glide games)
Since the rocket doesn't really have to move in a spiral, just tumble/spin in a relatively stable way in the center of it, perhaps it's not so unlikely...
Pffff, the old fart decided to scatter billions of billions of stars throughout Universe and didn't give us even small another one in far-spaced binary system.
But you're describing more or less what I'm talking about.
a) also cheap / free aftermarket console sitting mostly in a drawer. All compatible games work, all TVs work, small, quiet, uses little power. That's it.
b) getting KVM switch (we're moving to DVI btw; doing this properly is a bigger problem than you think)...and place for another box...maintaining it a bit...keeping up with noise possibly (PCs from that time generally disregarded silence)...remembering how to actually maintain/fix things or getting some games to work at all. All this during time when I'm either doing other things or playing.
(how did you manage to kill so many consoles?...I've never had any die on me. And we're talking here also about 15-year old Russian clone of NES)
Yes, they were mostly free in the past, but the idea is the same. Milking gamers for them is a matter of people like Activision CEO, not because of the mechanism itself.
Console games almost never had any kind of expansions (the few instances were more or less separate, full games). OTOH expanding the gameplay/story/etc. of a game is a concept that has a long tradition on the PC.
What does it matter that the pricing structure changed? It's a case of publisher, not platform.
Well...yes, that's what I'm talking about. Some games have problems, some don't; and you're on your own to waste time figuring this out if it's a less popular one.
Consoles OTOH...every game works with compatible system. Every TV has required input. And...that's pretty much it.
Yeah, supposedly the arguments "it was better" are mostly about feeling better past primetime...
Anyway, independents (not some genre; mode of action) are most plagued by the error of choosing Myspace. Local bands (yes, even in countries where Myspace doesn't exist otherwise), real jobs, no managers, little side money from small number of CDs & concerts.
Slashdot Mirror
You have no chance against Chinese, with their widely practiced cloud dispersion methods.
Stephen Hawking is a celebrity astrophysicist, don't you agree?
Started and died out. Similarly to most PC sim-style games, actually.
On consoles OTOH...there is still a sizable number of popular games in which you move in full 3D.
(yes, this is all tongue-in cheek obviously, directed mostly at people who blame all that is bad in the world on consoles...not knowing them at all in reality; seeing only what they want to see)
BTW, "classic" FPS games became popular on consoles only starting with first Xbox. Yes, obviously there is some demand for them (with that I'm fine TBH, as long as I have many other great games).
But the root cause might be simply, mentioned by me previously, that it appears "sensible" for publishers to launch such games on both kinds of systems (majority of "classic" FPS games are, contrary to what you claim, multiplatform). The code/devtools/assets are almost the same (those are not ports, in either direction! There is no porting effort present). And since on PCs mouselook is one of the very few natural control options...
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrFgRAcr0jg )
They tend to also forget that LCD, some of them color capable, ebook readers were the norm. They were simply ignored.
In case of Big Bang theory, it's perhaps as close as you can get: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBE#Black-body_curve_of_CMB
Early observation only hinted at the Big Bang, were for a long time inconclusive/incomplete. First we had the theory with testable conclusions, only at some later point in time we were technically able to do the necessary observations. They confirmed those conclusions.
After xkcd:
Science: We finally figured out that you could separate fact from superstition by a completely radical method: observation. You can try things, measure them, and see how they work! Bitches. ... data from the COBE mission, which looked at the background microwave glow of the universe and found that it fit perfectly with the idea that the universe used to be really hot everywhere. This strongly reinforced the Big Bang theory and was one of the most dramatic examples of an experiment agreeing with a theory in history -- the data points fit perfectly, with error bars too small to draw on the graph. It's one of the most triumphant scientific results in history.
(emphasis mine)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion
You never noticed how the Moon appears much bigger when it's near the horizon? (when in reality it's slightly smaller then)
The "beam" might have been the ultimate explosive destruction of the remains.
Also, one thing must be said clearly - the gravity isn't factored out. It still influences the trajectory. But because it's happening above the atmosphere, it influences all pieces in exactly the same way, so the only apparent movement the dumped fuel might have, comes from the venting. After that each portion of it mostly coasts along the rest.
Well, not exactly...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Europe
Your place is very decent, but there are still countries that most likely beat you...most notably Czech Republic and Estonia, perhaps Germany too, in a way (the stats are a bit misleading, former East Germany regions are close to Czech Republic & Estonia); maybe also Sweden, for example. ;p
Granted, it's a bit muddled because of the "Belief in a spirit or life force" category. Which still is much better than living in, say, Poland (just look at the stats...if you, hopefully, don't hear in your media about ridiculous stuff that's happening here). Certainly good enough that I'm seriously considering moving to one of places where people aren't detached from reality in a considerable way. I'm determined to put up with "my" (I can hardly call it like that) place at most short few more years... (getting education & finances to adequate levels, so I won't come with nothing; while being careful not to "tie" myself here)
BTW, how is it Norway regarding situation that I mentioned in case of Germany? How do regions differ?
You can't prove it.
But it didn't have to be under its own power.
Consider: rocket launches fine and leaves behind a long plume of gasses (that stay more or less in place because they were exhaust of the engines; you can see them in the photos). But later (say, during 1st stage separation) something goes wrong (perhaps one explosive bolt went awry?), the rocket loses all power and guidance, but before that happens the forces acting on it were slightly asymmetrical, so it starts spinning a bit. Now, above the atmosphere, it's purely ballistic, no forces acting on it. But for some reason it's dumping fuel (perhaps the uneven dumping of it causes spinning?). Because it's happening in near vacuum, everything just coasts for the ride and creates that effect. The plume moved in the general direction of the rocket, but every "sweep" of it grew outward at fairly low and constant rate.
Well, then we're in totally different kinds of market. I always wait quite a long time before jumping on next generation (hell, I still haven't touched X360/PS3/Wii), not only because of cost (and, it seems, reliability problems that you mention), but also because 1st gen games are mostly about "shiny", while the previous system still gets new games with refined gameplay and which soak everything from the console GFX-wise (PS2 is still getting big titles in 2010...)
Yes, you can silence old boxes of course...with some waste of time instead of actually playing games; that's why I'm talking about here (no passive / big & slow fan options to be found, you have to build them; noisy and failure prone HDD; a need to unclog the insides of PSU; and frankly - I hardly remember how I was setting up/tweaking those machines back then)
Digital KVMs are quite a bit more expensive. The only reasonable option IMHO is to have a monitor with two independent inputs.
And again...drawers are fine to keep consoles in them. Who says they all have to be constantly wired to the TV?
Who says it was stationary? Certainly it already had considerable speed; and since this likely happened above most of the atmosphere, fuel dumped from it after malfunction would travel in roughly the same direction...
Keeping with the theme... ;)
And it also came largely from PCs! In the past consoles where a stable, unchanging platform for games running always at 30+ FPS. Yes, the devs would show off their skills at later stage of console life, but this stage also had refined gameplay (well, there was a stage with focus only on "shiny!", the first gen games; but most sensible people would play previous console then, with very refined gameplay and getting the last juices out of the system)
A little over a decade ago, when the race of 3D accelerators came, PC publishers started to emphasize shiny GFX above all else. And the disease spread to consoles. Needlessly overpowered, expensive systems. And "shiny" so important that games are left to run at 20fps...
0%?...
Anyway, you fail to see that with consoles there's less "chance" to "waste time" with trying out old titles. The machine is either immediately working or not. If it's working, you pop in a game and off you go.
It's also easier to keep old consoles, stacked in some drawer most of the time.
As for playing games from 14 years ago on current consoles...well, while that's not what I was talking about, it is doable in some cases. Even 15 years (PS1 debuted 15 years ago). BTW, you will still have problems especially with PC games from around 12 years ago (think DOS Glide games)
Since the rocket doesn't really have to move in a spiral, just tumble/spin in a relatively stable way in the center of it, perhaps it's not so unlikely...
Pffff, the old fart decided to scatter billions of billions of stars throughout Universe and didn't give us even small another one in far-spaced binary system.
I don't think that makes things much easier...people have quite subjective perceptions when it comes to the size of Moon.
Oh, does it support Glide? (yes, wrappers...another part in the puzzle; "so, what is causing this? drivers in host? VM? Interaction with wrappers?")
Does it support some other obscure 3D API from the beginning of 3D hardware era?
But you're describing more or less what I'm talking about.
a) also cheap / free aftermarket console sitting mostly in a drawer. All compatible games work, all TVs work, small, quiet, uses little power. That's it.
b) getting KVM switch (we're moving to DVI btw; doing this properly is a bigger problem than you think)...and place for another box...maintaining it a bit...keeping up with noise possibly (PCs from that time generally disregarded silence)...remembering how to actually maintain/fix things or getting some games to work at all. All this during time when I'm either doing other things or playing.
(how did you manage to kill so many consoles?...I've never had any die on me. And we're talking here also about 15-year old Russian clone of NES)
You're forgetting about patches, small mods...
Yes, they were mostly free in the past, but the idea is the same. Milking gamers for them is a matter of people like Activision CEO, not because of the mechanism itself.
Yeah, keep telling that to yourself...
Console games almost never had any kind of expansions (the few instances were more or less separate, full games). OTOH expanding the gameplay/story/etc. of a game is a concept that has a long tradition on the PC.
What does it matter that the pricing structure changed? It's a case of publisher, not platform.
Well...yes, that's what I'm talking about. Some games have problems, some don't; and you're on your own to waste time figuring this out if it's a less popular one.
Consoles OTOH...every game works with compatible system. Every TV has required input. And...that's pretty much it.
Indeed, the daily experience, which is the simplest to emulate and apparently the only acceptable to PC players, happens on more or less 2S plane.
Gamers on other platforms can handle more than mimicking daily activities, though.
Yeah, supposedly the arguments "it was better" are mostly about feeling better past primetime...
Anyway, independents (not some genre; mode of action) are most plagued by the error of choosing Myspace. Local bands (yes, even in countries where Myspace doesn't exist otherwise), real jobs, no managers, little side money from small number of CDs & concerts.