"despite Universal's best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million."
I call bullshit on this one. Most people I know never heard of the movie. When I went to the theater, there was no movie poster nor a listing on the Marque. The screen number that it was showing in, rather than having a lit sign over the number, had a hand written tag taped to the light, and this is no "small" theater. This was the largest in the area.
I'm not even going to defend the movie, because it had it's critics, but it's certainly far better in many ways to other very popular films this year, and it had a psychotic fanbase. The fact that I know several Firefly fans that didn't even KNOW the movie had already come and gone before they found out about the DVD just further goes toward making me think their "best marketing efforts" were utter rubbish.
If I were the the paranoid type I'd say Hollywood intentionally made it a point to show fans with this movie that yelling loudly about the things you want to see will get you what you want. They tell YOU what you're going to watch, not the other way around. It's the only way they can use the media to brainwash the masses. It just doesn't work as well when we actually get some say so in the matter.
What's so difficult to believe about it? You make it sound like a "VP" (whatever that title is worth anyway) would have better things to do than read geek news, and occassionally amuse himself reading and writing comments.
Many people consider THIS more important than work.:)
And while I agree that he was not being paid enough, I would certainly argue that his peers are being paid WAY too much.
He isn't poor. And depending on where he is, he may very well be living pretty well. These people who have it in their heads to believe all executives deserve millions of dollars are the reason that US companies are run so poorly. Very few people in an organization deserve more than a certain amount, and while that amount is subjective, I've found that in most companies the amount they are getting paid up top is normally way too high, and the people getting paid at the bottom is way too low.
It didn't used to be this way in America, and now it is. Is it any wonder our economy is now so broken?
I'm glad people find that post amusing. After reading it, however, I discovered all of the horrible typos. Sorry about that. I need to remember to PREVIEW before I submit stuff.:(
But this selfish, "I am offended" bullshit has got to stop.
That really all depends on why the person is offended. If the person is being singled out, constantly sought out to be pulled into religious debates, or otherwise being annoyed by zealots who think they might "score" some kind of "victory" over someone who is automatically an "enemy" simply because he does not believe in God, then he has every right to to scream "stay out of my business!"
That was all of my original point.
I personally get along great with the Christians who share their message through action. I wish there were more of them. The ones that bother me are the ones that open their mouth and direct their stupidity in my direction way too often (daily, here lately).
*(Not quite on the topic, but an interesting little story: At work one of my co-workers was saying to others that I and another co-worker could not be trusted. Nothing we said could be taken at face value, because we were atheist and thus not above lying (nevermind the fact that I have never actually claimed to be an atheist). This of course got back to us, and when asked why he would call us liars, he said he had said no such thing. When using his exact words back at him, he began to defend that stance. So I asked "Which is it, are you saying we're liars or are you not?" He said he wasn't calling us liars, we just couldn't be trusted not to lie. In my book that's like saying the same thing. First, he's giving the impression that we were in fact likely to lie, and second, he's implying that atheists are liars while for some reason Christians are not. I know this is far off topic, but I figured I'd rant about it anyway.)
Cue for someone to tell me their stories about spontaneously combusing registries that always seem to happen to MS haters.
Here goes!
Okay, so one day I was using my PC, right? Needless to say it runs Windows, because all serious computer users use Windows. Microsoft has a monopoly and we have no choices. You can't buy a good alternative, so you might as well just give up the idea of downloading one for free!
Anyway I was sitting on my ass, browsing for porn, eating pizza, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer like any good computer geek when suddenly I smelt something burning. No, it wasn't a cigarette that I hadn't put out. It was something worse. MUCH worse! What I smelled was the unmistakable scent of a burning REGISTRY!
That's right! My REGISTRY had caught on fire! As with all major Windows problems, I immediate ran to the one fool proof solution. I hit my ever useful Windows key, brought up the start menu, then moved my mouse mouse pointer over to Shut Down because what I needed a RESTART, and FAST! That always solves everything!
But before I could select Shut Down, some obnoxious program stole focus. It's this program you may have heard of, called Outlook Express! I had a new e-mail! Clearly in the preview pane I could see an e-mail with an attachment, but before I could do anything my antivirus software popped up a warning telling me that my registration had expired and if I wanted to protect my system I needed to pay $49.95!
I felt my mouth go dry and my stomach sink, I knew what this meant! I needed to run an antispyware program! Unfortunately I was unable to do anything at this point because I bought my system at Wal-Mart and the hard drive was grinding away trying to respond! It was so obvious that my system was not going to respond that my Window even said "NOT RESPONDING!"
Then it happened. Windows asked me if I wanted to report a bug. I thought "that's very thoughtful of them, I'm sure Microsoft will get right on with fixing my problem" but before I could send the bug report the screen when blue and filled with a really cryptic message.
I had been through this a dozen times, and knew at this point the reset button was the only remaining option. As I reached for the system it just exploded. Bits of plastic were thrown everywhere, and one even got stuck in my eye.
So that's why I tell people we need band together and search for some kind of alternative. Something different, free, stable, or all of those things. Tell everyone you know. Microsoft really suck, and I only have one eye to prove it!
That's like saying, "I'm a die-hard believer in absolutely nothing!" Or, "I'm going to die for my belief in no greater purpose!" It always struck me as funny.
I mostly agree with your post. Let me just add...
Just because someone is an atheist does not mean they do not believe in something. It just does not exactly mesh well with theories about an omnipotent reality creating deity.
Perhaps an atheist would be willing to die for his right to be free of persecution by the religious? Even in today's day and age there are places where it is dangerous to proclaim yourself an atheist. I consider this to be extremely wrong. If fighting for everyone else's right to believe (or not believe) as they choose means I may have to die in that fight, then so be it.
Also, one doesn't have to believe in a "greater purpose" to believe that there are basic ideas of what should be considered "good" and what should be considered "bad". As a general rule, an intelligent atheist will know that living by societies accepted moral standards is generally a wise thing. Unless you are lucky enough to be far secluded, odds are you are going to have to interact with the rest of the population, and if you go around generally being a total jerk eventually it very well could come back to haunt you.
We shouldn't need horror stories about afterlife punishment to teach us that sometimes playing nice is the only logical way to go about things. Because if nobody played nice eventually you're going to get the raw end of the deal with a bigger, meaner, badder mo-fo decides you are in his way.
And in my experiences the atheists I know are generally much more tolerant of the religious. They keep their mouths shut around vocal zealots. It's generally considered okay for the religious to flaunt their belief in (whatever), yet somehow it's considered rude to make references to the non-existance of God.
I've heard religious people say that if an atheist really does not believe in God it should not be offensive to them to be told they are sinners, and are going to burn in hell. But let's return the favor and see if it's offensive. If a person really does have faith in their religion, then it should not offend them when someone says "the bible is all bullshit", "pray all you want, nobody is listening", and "Jesus got nailed for nothing". Naturally, this IS offensive to some people for the same reasons. Not because the person doesn't have faith in their beliefs, but rather they believe that an insult on the belief system is an insult towards the believer.
As a general rule, I just wish everyone were more considerate of everyone else's feelings. It might cut back on most of the world's problems. God or no God.
And how is it not? Consider the following Atheist view:
"I, insert Athiest name here, believe there is no self aware sky fairy behind the wheel of our so called universe. I believe that while there may be forces at play in the universe that are not yet explained by modern day theories, they are not adequately explained by existing "God" theories."
Just because an atheist does not believe in God does not mean they do not believe in SOMETHING. Disbelief is often a defining part of many belief systems.
If, on the other hand, you mean to say that not all atheist hold the SAME belief system then I would tend to agree. There are those who put faith in physics and do not believe in God and there are those that believe neither the scientists nor the religious have things right. They're both a type of atheistic belief system, though not the same.
You have exactly two months to make a module in NWN.
I attempted to build a remake of the original Bard's Tale with Neverwinter Nights, and came along pretty far with it. I even had a great and nearly perfect recreation of Skara Brea.
The problem was that as the project grew in size and become more complex the Aurora toolset became slower and slower, esspecially when laying down some of my scripted "zones".
I think the reason I gave up on my Bard's Tale recreation was because I became frustrated with the increasing slowness of Aurora as the project grew, and because I quickly realized how tedius it was trying to put together a worth "recreation" rather than doing something original.
Still, it's a decent toolset and this contest is an incentive for me to begin work on a new project. 60 days might be enough to put together something really slick if you weren't trying to build something too large.
(As an aside, I don't suppose anybody would be interested in taking over that NWN recreation, would they? The Skara Brae related maps alone might be fun for someone to play around with if they were old Bard's Tale fans...)
So overall I think I gave it a [5/10] because for an amateur production it's 10/10
I don't think it's really quite fair to make that comparison. I've seen "professional" films that weren't this good, and they weren't even subtitled! This is one of those films that it pays to watch a second or third time to catch the little things. It's really quite funny. It also helps catching everything watching over because it is subtitled, after all.
There is a lot of humor here, including a lot of concept gags. The very idea that an Alien Warrior could be running a hot-dog stand cracks me up. There really is LOTS of funny stuff in this, at least to me.
I'd rather watch stuff like this than pay to see the garbage on cable or sat. It's more entertaining to me, it's legal for me to download, it was made for entertainment purposes, NOT profit, and I can legally share it with my friends.
In particular, something like rendering an environment in real-time won't be helped because there's an unpredictable input (the human).
Durring the 1/60th (or less) of a second that your system is rendering a single frame in that game, the state of the scene and all objects (as well as light positions, textures, and overlays) is very static. It just doesn't seem like it to you, because you are very slow compared to your computer.
There could be hundreds of applications of a Quantum Co-Processor in a game, from testing for occlusion in a 3D scene, to making AI decisions in computer controlled characters.
Quantum Computing may very well not be immediately useful in many traditional computation tasks ("While this value is true then do that") but it will open up whole new ways of tackling processes that are time consuming with today's methods ("do any of these things give us this, that, or something in between?").
Just thinking about it gives me that Fuzzy Logic Feeling...
Yeah but you are assuming that there won't be a shortage of PS3/Revolution when they come out.
There might be, but it won't be nearly as bad nor will it be artificial. Instead if there is a shortage, it will be a sure sign of strong sales, unlike the XBox 360.
The fact of the matter is, Nintendo has demonstrated time and time again that they are quite capable of meeting product demands even better than Sony, and that's quite a feat. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Nintendo cranks up production of the units many months in adavance and stockpiles them for release. Sony has hadn't done as well as Nintendo in this area, but they've now got the advantage of three systems worth of experience to draw upon.
I'm going to put a silver bullet in this stupid cartoony-no-fun crap right now.
First off, let me say that I'm really old school myself. I like games that ar cartoony, unrealistic, with bright colours, lots of frames of surreal animation and lighting. Unrealistic "Boinky Tink-Tonk" sounds, and very happy japanese corndog music. But that's my taste.
The more realistic games become, the less different they begin to look from each other. Grand Theft Auto could at first glance be mistaken for a few other games out there if viewed by the uninitiated. Some might go as far as to say games like True Crimes almost pass for GTA, though I don't see it being a gamer, and I also don't consider GTA too realistic. (I consider both good games, though).
Esspecially guilty of being too much alike are recent first person military based combat games, none of which have any real personality and the more realistic they all become the harder it becomes to tell any of them apart. The games themselves, to a hardened gamer, aren't really all that great even for what they are, and only a few of them really stand out though you wouldn't know because you have to wade through so many that look and feel just like them that you're not likely to ever give any of them a try unless you play all of them (which unfortunately, I have had to, seeing as how they're given to me).
I do understand that there are dedicated fans of this genre, though. Fans who like them so much that they can tell the minor little differences between them all, and thus the battle ques up over which of them is better.
They have become a group of games all their own, similar to the way sports games have. True hardened gamers, unless diehard sports fans, do not like sports games. They're rarely all that innovative. The same now applies to most combat FPS games. You're either a fan, or you aren't.
Cartoony, Surreal, action titles have a much wider diversity in play styles. The Glowing Lolipop of Ultimate Power is going to be much different from the Red Mushroom or the Magic Running Shoes, in the surreal action cartoon games. The music diversity is going to be original, fun, and catchy, not slow, drab, and generic like you're going to find in a modern FPS. And let's face it, an AK-47 is an AK-47. A grenade is -- well...
Saying one of these styles is "for adults" and the other is "for children" is about as well drawn a conclusion as saying Anime is exclusively for geeky teenage boys. It's clearly not that simple.
Would I say a Lilo and Stitch Action Adventure is for kids? Sure I would. Would that make the game any less fun? I wouldn't know, I've had very little chance to play any of the games, but from my first impressions I would say there is an amazing amount of depth there. And there SHOULD BE! Let's face it, children have a knack for uncovering things in games that many unseasoned adult players would never find.
As an aside, if you're a keen-o-rific l337 ass Halo shooter, there still is a good chance you'd never get more than 40% of item finds in Metroid Prime. Different styles of play, different goals, different types of fun. Maybe you just wnat to shoot shit? That's fine. I personally find that dull. In any and all first person shooter games I've played in the past several years, I can honestly say no joy outshines the pleasure I recieved from aquiring the Wave Blaster in Metroid Prime, or beating Flagra for the first time. Why? Because I knew that a lot of people weren't going to be able to do it without reading Hints or Cheats, and because I it was simply fun.
On that same note, I did enjoy Halo, and to a lesser extent, Halo 2. Liking one style over the other is personal taste. If you ask me, Metroid Prime was more fun. But that's a choice. Mario Sunshine to me was a hell of a lot more fun to me than a lot of other games out at that time. God of War to me was more fun than Jade Empire, though the games are not exactly directly comparable. Maybe a better example would be
The Metroid Prime 2 GUI/Menu is a poor example, since ideally you would use it as little as possible. No, it wasn't great, but you could pretty much enjoy the game with very little interaction with it. If you were using the GUI too much, you obviously didn't play Metroid Prime 2 very much yourself.
It's also a poor example of ruining the experience of a game because it's not standard across all Gamecube titles.
On both sides of the other hand, the 360's interface seems to chime in the same no matter what game you are playing. So in that respect it's a good thing that the GUI is as good as it is, because if it weren't people would get frustrated quickly. On top of that, this is only the GUI for the system and system related functions. Each game within itself will obviously have it's own GUI seperate from that of the system.
I think the original GP was pointing out that a game console should not have a standard GUI as such, because it's one step closer to an operating system based game consoles, and that's precisely the one direction most of us really want game consoles going.
I've played with the 360 quite a bit and though I don't really like any of the first generation games (Not one of them are on my purchase list! Not a single one!) the console itself does seem quite nice. I'm a little disturbed by the jagged edges visible in some of the games even on high-definition, but that's more a case of poor quality in the software rather than the console itself because other games look absolutely beautiful.
I'll build a better opinion of the 360 as better titles start to trickle in. For now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't simply going to use it to play older games, or in the unlikely event that you actually feel you MUST have one of the launch titles.
Dvorak is impressed by the GUI and hyped about the system. The rest of the industry admits it's nice but have focused on the unexciting launch titles and are largely lukewarm to the system right now.:/ Why am I not surprised?
(As an aside, I am not a Sony or Nintendo fanboy. I own all consoles, normally before release dates.)
The thing is, that was 65 million years ago, at which time we -- and almost all other mammals -- were tiny furry insect-eaters trying our best not to get stepped on. So I hardly think we're going to find long-buried echoes of this event in our oral histories.
Funny you should mention that, because just the other day I was talking to this rat, and you'll NEVER believe what he told me....
Oh, and there was this one idea about a hot-chick-vending-machine...
Instead of Coke Classic, Mellow Yellow, 7 Up, it'll be Petite Blonde, Sexy Redhead, Seductive Brunette, Kinky Jet Black, Horny Asian, Senorita Bonita, and Hot Black Babe.
if the guy were to actually make something out of this then doesn't he deserve the patent?
I don't think that's how it should work. He should only deserve the patent if he can accurately describe HOW to build such a device, even if he currently does not have the means build or test the device himself.
Otherwise people could go around patenting any idea, no matter how far fetched, and then hoping one day someone will figure out a way so they can cash in. I realize this is essentially what the Patent database has turned into, but that doesn't mean it's right. Otherwise, I'd patent this list of ideas for teleportation devices I have. Oh, and there was this one idea about a hot-chick-vending-machine...
I've found that's a large part of the problem a good percentage of the time. The thing is, what can you do about it when better ones do not exist? If you buy a $400 PC and then have to spend another $200 replacing the video and sound card with premium components because those included had shitty drivers, then you're back up to a $600 PC, and it doesn't stop there. What are you going to do if the IDE controller is rubbish? What about an integrated sound solution that conflicts with your PCI audio card? And then there's always the chance that the other "thrown in" junk is garbage as well. You might have to replace that DVD burner, that mouse and Keyboard might have to be replaced with something that doesn't suck, and so on.
When you're finished making that $400 PC act like a modern system, you have a $1000 PC, and then it STILL might not work right.
Preloaded junk softwear is sometimes a nightmare all it's own.
I once serviced a HP machine that came with a version of some kind of internet security suite that would not install without a CD and Key, but the CD was not included with the system. To make matters worse, it was expired and would not allow internet access! Getting that off was a pain, but doable after a few google searches.
Dell makes some fine high end systems. We're talking low cost commodity PCs. The XPS gaming systems hardly qualify since you pay a price premium for them.
If you've ever done any amount of repair work, you would know that contrary to your (obviously) limited exposure the low end systems from practically any manufacturer are exactly worth what people pay for them. Shit.
Apple stands to win out in many ways and lose out in some. They stand to win out by people purchasing the OS to install on unauthorised PCs (which will happen, and they know it) but they don't have to support these people. They will see an increased amount of software support for their growing user base. They will, however, probably take a hit from piracy, though these people aren't going to buy a Mac so it's probably not going to effect their bottom line all that much. Still, even pirates count as installed userbase, adding even further the need for a growth in software support so once again they win this way.
When people start to notice the better support on Apple's own hardware, they're more likely to buy a Mac if they want the support. People will probably buy a MacIntel if the price point comes down a bit, and if the ability to dual boot OS X and Windows exists. And if these people don't buy a Mac, they may still count as a "switch" if they aren't buying Windows. Another win.
Apple's userbase is growing. That's undeniable. Dell and Gateway both have had slumping sales, and many think Dell may be past it's best days.
In the end though, if you don't like OS X or Apple, nobody is making you switch. Use whatever platform you like. I personally am a Windows and FreeBSD user, and there is major appeal for me to add an OS X system to my arsenal.
Slashdot Mirror
"despite Universal's best marketing efforts, the film only mustered $25 million."
I call bullshit on this one. Most people I know never heard of the movie. When I went to the theater, there was no movie poster nor a listing on the Marque. The screen number that it was showing in, rather than having a lit sign over the number, had a hand written tag taped to the light, and this is no "small" theater. This was the largest in the area.
I'm not even going to defend the movie, because it had it's critics, but it's certainly far better in many ways to other very popular films this year, and it had a psychotic fanbase. The fact that I know several Firefly fans that didn't even KNOW the movie had already come and gone before they found out about the DVD just further goes toward making me think their "best marketing efforts" were utter rubbish.
If I were the the paranoid type I'd say Hollywood intentionally made it a point to show fans with this movie that yelling loudly about the things you want to see will get you what you want. They tell YOU what you're going to watch, not the other way around. It's the only way they can use the media to brainwash the masses. It just doesn't work as well when we actually get some say so in the matter.
What's an amiga?
In order for that to be funny, you have to spell it "Omega".
Oh, wait, it still isn't funny. Looks like you failed.
What's so difficult to believe about it? You make it sound like a "VP" (whatever that title is worth anyway) would have better things to do than read geek news, and occassionally amuse himself reading and writing comments.
:)
Many people consider THIS more important than work.
Yes. Don't you see? By the logic you have just demonstrated the engineers behind this project know that even if it fails they can still claim success!
The Church of the Super Paranoid
Fnord?
Sounds like a Discordian cabal to me. Or maybe not? I can't really tell, they might be listening.
did it while making it look like an "Accident" and didn't have to fork out for a car for taco...
He doesn't get the car until after the dupe.
Let's face it, some people are just better driver with or without cell phones.
and compared to his peers he doesn't earn allot.
And while I agree that he was not being paid enough, I would certainly argue that his peers are being paid WAY too much.
He isn't poor. And depending on where he is, he may very well be living pretty well. These people who have it in their heads to believe all executives deserve millions of dollars are the reason that US companies are run so poorly. Very few people in an organization deserve more than a certain amount, and while that amount is subjective, I've found that in most companies the amount they are getting paid up top is normally way too high, and the people getting paid at the bottom is way too low.
It didn't used to be this way in America, and now it is. Is it any wonder our economy is now so broken?
I'm glad people find that post amusing. After reading it, however, I discovered all of the horrible typos. Sorry about that. I need to remember to PREVIEW before I submit stuff. :(
But this selfish, "I am offended" bullshit has got to stop.
That really all depends on why the person is offended. If the person is being singled out, constantly sought out to be pulled into religious debates, or otherwise being annoyed by zealots who think they might "score" some kind of "victory" over someone who is automatically an "enemy" simply because he does not believe in God, then he has every right to to scream "stay out of my business!"
That was all of my original point.
I personally get along great with the Christians who share their message through action. I wish there were more of them. The ones that bother me are the ones that open their mouth and direct their stupidity in my direction way too often (daily, here lately).
*(Not quite on the topic, but an interesting little story: At work one of my co-workers was saying to others that I and another co-worker could not be trusted. Nothing we said could be taken at face value, because we were atheist and thus not above lying (nevermind the fact that I have never actually claimed to be an atheist). This of course got back to us, and when asked why he would call us liars, he said he had said no such thing. When using his exact words back at him, he began to defend that stance. So I asked "Which is it, are you saying we're liars or are you not?" He said he wasn't calling us liars, we just couldn't be trusted not to lie. In my book that's like saying the same thing. First, he's giving the impression that we were in fact likely to lie, and second, he's implying that atheists are liars while for some reason Christians are not. I know this is far off topic, but I figured I'd rant about it anyway.)
Cue for someone to tell me their stories about spontaneously combusing registries that always seem to happen to MS haters.
Here goes!
Okay, so one day I was using my PC, right? Needless to say it runs Windows, because all serious computer users use Windows. Microsoft has a monopoly and we have no choices. You can't buy a good alternative, so you might as well just give up the idea of downloading one for free!
Anyway I was sitting on my ass, browsing for porn, eating pizza, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer like any good computer geek when suddenly I smelt something burning. No, it wasn't a cigarette that I hadn't put out. It was something worse. MUCH worse! What I smelled was the unmistakable scent of a burning REGISTRY!
That's right! My REGISTRY had caught on fire! As with all major Windows problems, I immediate ran to the one fool proof solution. I hit my ever useful Windows key, brought up the start menu, then moved my mouse mouse pointer over to Shut Down because what I needed a RESTART, and FAST! That always solves everything!
But before I could select Shut Down, some obnoxious program stole focus. It's this program you may have heard of, called Outlook Express! I had a new e-mail! Clearly in the preview pane I could see an e-mail with an attachment, but before I could do anything my antivirus software popped up a warning telling me that my registration had expired and if I wanted to protect my system I needed to pay $49.95!
I felt my mouth go dry and my stomach sink, I knew what this meant! I needed to run an antispyware program! Unfortunately I was unable to do anything at this point because I bought my system at Wal-Mart and the hard drive was grinding away trying to respond! It was so obvious that my system was not going to respond that my Window even said "NOT RESPONDING!"
Then it happened. Windows asked me if I wanted to report a bug. I thought "that's very thoughtful of them, I'm sure Microsoft will get right on with fixing my problem" but before I could send the bug report the screen when blue and filled with a really cryptic message.
I had been through this a dozen times, and knew at this point the reset button was the only remaining option. As I reached for the system it just exploded. Bits of plastic were thrown everywhere, and one even got stuck in my eye.
So that's why I tell people we need band together and search for some kind of alternative. Something different, free, stable, or all of those things. Tell everyone you know. Microsoft really suck, and I only have one eye to prove it!
Was that what you had in mind?
That's like saying, "I'm a die-hard believer in absolutely nothing!" Or, "I'm going to die for my belief in no greater purpose!" It always struck me as funny.
I mostly agree with your post. Let me just add...
Just because someone is an atheist does not mean they do not believe in something. It just does not exactly mesh well with theories about an omnipotent reality creating deity.
Perhaps an atheist would be willing to die for his right to be free of persecution by the religious? Even in today's day and age there are places where it is dangerous to proclaim yourself an atheist. I consider this to be extremely wrong. If fighting for everyone else's right to believe (or not believe) as they choose means I may have to die in that fight, then so be it.
Also, one doesn't have to believe in a "greater purpose" to believe that there are basic ideas of what should be considered "good" and what should be considered "bad". As a general rule, an intelligent atheist will know that living by societies accepted moral standards is generally a wise thing. Unless you are lucky enough to be far secluded, odds are you are going to have to interact with the rest of the population, and if you go around generally being a total jerk eventually it very well could come back to haunt you.
We shouldn't need horror stories about afterlife punishment to teach us that sometimes playing nice is the only logical way to go about things. Because if nobody played nice eventually you're going to get the raw end of the deal with a bigger, meaner, badder mo-fo decides you are in his way.
And in my experiences the atheists I know are generally much more tolerant of the religious. They keep their mouths shut around vocal zealots. It's generally considered okay for the religious to flaunt their belief in (whatever), yet somehow it's considered rude to make references to the non-existance of God.
I've heard religious people say that if an atheist really does not believe in God it should not be offensive to them to be told they are sinners, and are going to burn in hell. But let's return the favor and see if it's offensive. If a person really does have faith in their religion, then it should not offend them when someone says "the bible is all bullshit", "pray all you want, nobody is listening", and "Jesus got nailed for nothing". Naturally, this IS offensive to some people for the same reasons. Not because the person doesn't have faith in their beliefs, but rather they believe that an insult on the belief system is an insult towards the believer.
As a general rule, I just wish everyone were more considerate of everyone else's feelings. It might cut back on most of the world's problems. God or no God.
And how is it not? Consider the following Atheist view:
Just because an atheist does not believe in God does not mean they do not believe in SOMETHING. Disbelief is often a defining part of many belief systems.
If, on the other hand, you mean to say that not all atheist hold the SAME belief system then I would tend to agree. There are those who put faith in physics and do not believe in God and there are those that believe neither the scientists nor the religious have things right. They're both a type of atheistic belief system, though not the same.
Right.
That's a work around that would work for some types of stories/modules.
Do you remember the original Bard's Tale? That wouldn't work well for the original Bard's Tale.
You have exactly two months to make a module in NWN.
I attempted to build a remake of the original Bard's Tale with Neverwinter Nights, and came along pretty far with it. I even had a great and nearly perfect recreation of Skara Brea.
The problem was that as the project grew in size and become more complex the Aurora toolset became slower and slower, esspecially when laying down some of my scripted "zones".
I think the reason I gave up on my Bard's Tale recreation was because I became frustrated with the increasing slowness of Aurora as the project grew, and because I quickly realized how tedius it was trying to put together a worth "recreation" rather than doing something original.
Still, it's a decent toolset and this contest is an incentive for me to begin work on a new project. 60 days might be enough to put together something really slick if you weren't trying to build something too large.
(As an aside, I don't suppose anybody would be interested in taking over that NWN recreation, would they? The Skara Brae related maps alone might be fun for someone to play around with if they were old Bard's Tale fans...)
So overall I think I gave it a [5/10] because for an amateur production it's 10/10
I don't think it's really quite fair to make that comparison. I've seen "professional" films that weren't this good, and they weren't even subtitled! This is one of those films that it pays to watch a second or third time to catch the little things. It's really quite funny. It also helps catching everything watching over because it is subtitled, after all.
There is a lot of humor here, including a lot of concept gags. The very idea that an Alien Warrior could be running a hot-dog stand cracks me up. There really is LOTS of funny stuff in this, at least to me.
I'd rather watch stuff like this than pay to see the garbage on cable or sat. It's more entertaining to me, it's legal for me to download, it was made for entertainment purposes, NOT profit, and I can legally share it with my friends.
I would love to see MORE of this kind of stuff.
In particular, something like rendering an environment in real-time won't be helped because there's an unpredictable input (the human).
Durring the 1/60th (or less) of a second that your system is rendering a single frame in that game, the state of the scene and all objects (as well as light positions, textures, and overlays) is very static. It just doesn't seem like it to you, because you are very slow compared to your computer.
There could be hundreds of applications of a Quantum Co-Processor in a game, from testing for occlusion in a 3D scene, to making AI decisions in computer controlled characters.
Quantum Computing may very well not be immediately useful in many traditional computation tasks ("While this value is true then do that") but it will open up whole new ways of tackling processes that are time consuming with today's methods ("do any of these things give us this, that, or something in between?").
Just thinking about it gives me that Fuzzy Logic Feeling...
Yeah but you are assuming that there won't be a shortage of PS3/Revolution when they come out.
There might be, but it won't be nearly as bad nor will it be artificial. Instead if there is a shortage, it will be a sure sign of strong sales, unlike the XBox 360.
The fact of the matter is, Nintendo has demonstrated time and time again that they are quite capable of meeting product demands even better than Sony, and that's quite a feat. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Nintendo cranks up production of the units many months in adavance and stockpiles them for release. Sony has hadn't done as well as Nintendo in this area, but they've now got the advantage of three systems worth of experience to draw upon.
I'm going to put a silver bullet in this stupid cartoony-no-fun crap right now.
First off, let me say that I'm really old school myself. I like games that ar cartoony, unrealistic, with bright colours, lots of frames of surreal animation and lighting. Unrealistic "Boinky Tink-Tonk" sounds, and very happy japanese corndog music. But that's my taste.
The more realistic games become, the less different they begin to look from each other. Grand Theft Auto could at first glance be mistaken for a few other games out there if viewed by the uninitiated. Some might go as far as to say games like True Crimes almost pass for GTA, though I don't see it being a gamer, and I also don't consider GTA too realistic. (I consider both good games, though).
Esspecially guilty of being too much alike are recent first person military based combat games, none of which have any real personality and the more realistic they all become the harder it becomes to tell any of them apart. The games themselves, to a hardened gamer, aren't really all that great even for what they are, and only a few of them really stand out though you wouldn't know because you have to wade through so many that look and feel just like them that you're not likely to ever give any of them a try unless you play all of them (which unfortunately, I have had to, seeing as how they're given to me).
I do understand that there are dedicated fans of this genre, though. Fans who like them so much that they can tell the minor little differences between them all, and thus the battle ques up over which of them is better.
They have become a group of games all their own, similar to the way sports games have. True hardened gamers, unless diehard sports fans, do not like sports games. They're rarely all that innovative. The same now applies to most combat FPS games. You're either a fan, or you aren't.
Cartoony, Surreal, action titles have a much wider diversity in play styles. The Glowing Lolipop of Ultimate Power is going to be much different from the Red Mushroom or the Magic Running Shoes, in the surreal action cartoon games. The music diversity is going to be original, fun, and catchy, not slow, drab, and generic like you're going to find in a modern FPS. And let's face it, an AK-47 is an AK-47. A grenade is -- well...
Saying one of these styles is "for adults" and the other is "for children" is about as well drawn a conclusion as saying Anime is exclusively for geeky teenage boys. It's clearly not that simple.
Would I say a Lilo and Stitch Action Adventure is for kids? Sure I would. Would that make the game any less fun? I wouldn't know, I've had very little chance to play any of the games, but from my first impressions I would say there is an amazing amount of depth there. And there SHOULD BE! Let's face it, children have a knack for uncovering things in games that many unseasoned adult players would never find.
As an aside, if you're a keen-o-rific l337 ass Halo shooter, there still is a good chance you'd never get more than 40% of item finds in Metroid Prime. Different styles of play, different goals, different types of fun. Maybe you just wnat to shoot shit? That's fine. I personally find that dull. In any and all first person shooter games I've played in the past several years, I can honestly say no joy outshines the pleasure I recieved from aquiring the Wave Blaster in Metroid Prime, or beating Flagra for the first time. Why? Because I knew that a lot of people weren't going to be able to do it without reading Hints or Cheats, and because I it was simply fun.
On that same note, I did enjoy Halo, and to a lesser extent, Halo 2. Liking one style over the other is personal taste. If you ask me, Metroid Prime was more fun. But that's a choice. Mario Sunshine to me was a hell of a lot more fun to me than a lot of other games out at that time. God of War to me was more fun than Jade Empire, though the games are not exactly directly comparable. Maybe a better example would be
The Metroid Prime 2 GUI/Menu is a poor example, since ideally you would use it as little as possible. No, it wasn't great, but you could pretty much enjoy the game with very little interaction with it. If you were using the GUI too much, you obviously didn't play Metroid Prime 2 very much yourself.
:/ Why am I not surprised?
It's also a poor example of ruining the experience of a game because it's not standard across all Gamecube titles.
On both sides of the other hand, the 360's interface seems to chime in the same no matter what game you are playing. So in that respect it's a good thing that the GUI is as good as it is, because if it weren't people would get frustrated quickly. On top of that, this is only the GUI for the system and system related functions. Each game within itself will obviously have it's own GUI seperate from that of the system.
I think the original GP was pointing out that a game console should not have a standard GUI as such, because it's one step closer to an operating system based game consoles, and that's precisely the one direction most of us really want game consoles going.
I've played with the 360 quite a bit and though I don't really like any of the first generation games (Not one of them are on my purchase list! Not a single one!) the console itself does seem quite nice. I'm a little disturbed by the jagged edges visible in some of the games even on high-definition, but that's more a case of poor quality in the software rather than the console itself because other games look absolutely beautiful.
I'll build a better opinion of the 360 as better titles start to trickle in. For now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't simply going to use it to play older games, or in the unlikely event that you actually feel you MUST have one of the launch titles.
Dvorak is impressed by the GUI and hyped about the system. The rest of the industry admits it's nice but have focused on the unexciting launch titles and are largely lukewarm to the system right now.
(As an aside, I am not a Sony or Nintendo fanboy. I own all consoles, normally before release dates.)
The thing is, that was 65 million years ago, at which time we -- and almost all other mammals -- were tiny furry insect-eaters trying our best not to get stepped on. So I hardly think we're going to find long-buried echoes of this event in our oral histories.
Funny you should mention that, because just the other day I was talking to this rat, and you'll NEVER believe what he told me....
Oh, and there was this one idea about a hot-chick-vending-machine...
Instead of Coke Classic, Mellow Yellow, 7 Up, it'll be Petite Blonde, Sexy Redhead, Seductive Brunette, Kinky Jet Black, Horny Asian, Senorita Bonita, and Hot Black Babe.
if the guy were to actually make something out of this then doesn't he deserve the patent?
I don't think that's how it should work. He should only deserve the patent if he can accurately describe HOW to build such a device, even if he currently does not have the means build or test the device himself.
Otherwise people could go around patenting any idea, no matter how far fetched, and then hoping one day someone will figure out a way so they can cash in. I realize this is essentially what the Patent database has turned into, but that doesn't mean it's right. Otherwise, I'd patent this list of ideas for teleportation devices I have. Oh, and there was this one idea about a hot-chick-vending-machine...
due to bad drivers
I've found that's a large part of the problem a good percentage of the time. The thing is, what can you do about it when better ones do not exist? If you buy a $400 PC and then have to spend another $200 replacing the video and sound card with premium components because those included had shitty drivers, then you're back up to a $600 PC, and it doesn't stop there. What are you going to do if the IDE controller is rubbish? What about an integrated sound solution that conflicts with your PCI audio card? And then there's always the chance that the other "thrown in" junk is garbage as well. You might have to replace that DVD burner, that mouse and Keyboard might have to be replaced with something that doesn't suck, and so on.
When you're finished making that $400 PC act like a modern system, you have a $1000 PC, and then it STILL might not work right.
Preloaded junk softwear is sometimes a nightmare all it's own.
I once serviced a HP machine that came with a version of some kind of internet security suite that would not install without a CD and Key, but the CD was not included with the system. To make matters worse, it was expired and would not allow internet access! Getting that off was a pain, but doable after a few google searches.
Dell makes some fine high end systems. We're talking low cost commodity PCs. The XPS gaming systems hardly qualify since you pay a price premium for them.
If you've ever done any amount of repair work, you would know that contrary to your (obviously) limited exposure the low end systems from practically any manufacturer are exactly worth what people pay for them. Shit.
Apple stands to win out in many ways and lose out in some. They stand to win out by people purchasing the OS to install on unauthorised PCs (which will happen, and they know it) but they don't have to support these people. They will see an increased amount of software support for their growing user base. They will, however, probably take a hit from piracy, though these people aren't going to buy a Mac so it's probably not going to effect their bottom line all that much. Still, even pirates count as installed userbase, adding even further the need for a growth in software support so once again they win this way.
When people start to notice the better support on Apple's own hardware, they're more likely to buy a Mac if they want the support. People will probably buy a MacIntel if the price point comes down a bit, and if the ability to dual boot OS X and Windows exists. And if these people don't buy a Mac, they may still count as a "switch" if they aren't buying Windows. Another win.
Apple's userbase is growing. That's undeniable. Dell and Gateway both have had slumping sales, and many think Dell may be past it's best days.
In the end though, if you don't like OS X or Apple, nobody is making you switch. Use whatever platform you like. I personally am a Windows and FreeBSD user, and there is major appeal for me to add an OS X system to my arsenal.