I loved Pushing Daises but it failed fair and square. Nobody monkeyed seriously with the time slot. It was a lead-in to mega-popular Grey's Anatomy for most of its run. Nobody watched Pushing Daisies though. I'm a little hesitant for the creator of that show to take the production helm of Star Trek. It would be awesome, but I'm a afraid it will be a fringe show with too small an audience.
They were comparatively just as risque as Spears, if not more so. The bigger than Jesus remark... The bad-boy leather jacket look early in their career... The long-haired hippie image later in their career... The utter lack of humility when talking to reporters... The fairly open drug experimentation... They were VERY risque for the time.
Not only album sales but radio play as well. I don't think it's a coincidence that I heard two different radio stations play Jet the day it was released as a Guitar Hero download. Not that it's a bad song, but it's usually not one of the McCartney song radio stations choose to play. On the way to my in-laws house in south GA, I heard five songs in a row that all happened to be on Guitar Hero World Tour.
Ooooh, surveys! We're getting so MySpace these days.
"When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel?"
Changeling
"When was the last time you saw a TV show end without some form of cliff-hanger?"
Off the top of my head, Life on Mars which is extremely ironic since the TV show has a sequel and the sequel is actually pretty decent once you get past the first two episodes.
"And yes... when was the last time you saw a game end without a plug for a sequel?"
Mario Galaxy (also ironic since there will no doubt be a sequel)
"Can you imagine if Hamlet never came to an end (ok, if you've ever sat through a bad student production, it might have felt like that) but instead ran on for 17 plays, with 8-12 comprising the little-loved Finland arc, play 4 introducing a new love interest who got written out in play 9 and then the whole thing stopped abruptly after play 17 because the Globe burned down?"
Yes.
"How many modern TV stories have been ruined by this kind of thing? The X-Files? Lost? Buffy?"
42
Now pass this along to 6 other friends or you will be cursed forever and your wang will fall off (if equipped).
I'll admit I fell for it. But in my defense, they showed it to me in the morning and I was really tired that morning for some reason. It's like someone switched out my usual high quality Columbian coffee with Folgers or something that day.
Yeah, this isn't a list. I don't know how Halo 3 stacks up other than "not $1,000,000,000." For what it's worth, Guitar Hero III is also not hampered by the single console or lack of universal appeal that are the weak points of Halo 3. Halo 3 has admittedly done a better job of sales given what they have to work with but that's not at all what the article is about. Given that Activision is getting a $10-$15 premium over the typical $60 current gen game for including a guitar-shaped Simon board only makes it more impressive that they're the first to reach $1,000,000,000.
"First of all, when someone writes "football" on slashdot. Is he referring to what is commonly known as "football" all over the world, i.e. "soccer" or what is commonly referred to all over the world as "american football"?"
Sometimes a single word has more than one meaning, especially among different cultures. When that is the case, you have to use something called context to derive which meaning the word has. So "football" could mean a few different things when written on Slashdot depending on who wrote it. Lucky for us, we're given a LOT of context here. Given that we're talking about first down lines and there's ample video showing the sport in question, the context should be pretty obvious. But since you're confused, what they're referring to would likely translate to "American football" in your vernacular.
Not enough people had ME to hate it more than Vista. It's the same reason MS-DOS 6.0 isn't most hated. You think ME was bad? How in the holy hell can an "OS" that does absolutely nothing but pass the entire computer off to whatever program is running leak memory as badly as DOS 6.0?
From the perspective of being able to implement, most "standard" texts fall very short. What I learned from my compilers class is indeed parsing. I don't build compilers but when I'm faced with a task that involves parsing, I have a clear plan of what to do thanks largely to my coursework in compilers and this book. Just like when I'm faced with a task that requires scheduling or threading, I find what I learned from OS very useful though I've never implemented an actual operating system (unless you count nachos).
I could see if your goal were to build a fully-functioning compiler not liking this book. If I had to do that and could only use one book, I'd probably opt for Modern Compiler Implementation in C/Java/ML.
"Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Avo, Sethi, and Ullman.
To be fair, I'd like to point out that the 2nd Edition just came out when I picked it up and that's what I'm basing my opinion on. I've never read the 1st Ed (though it has a much cooler cover).
Honorable mentions: The C Programming Language Any of Tannenbaum's OS books (I'm kind of partial to the Design and Implementation one that uses Minix as a case study) Deitel & Deitel's Java book (To be fair, it is good but overpriced if you don't already have to buy it as a textbook.)
I don't think you can blanket statement DRM. It's been implemented in too many ways. The average Joe probably hasn't even noticed the Apple DRM because they probably haven't tired to do something that's not allowed by it. On the other hand, I imagine at least a few average Joes have noticed the horror that is SecureROM.
Even if I'm wrong about the average Joe's run-ins with DRM, I don't think an Apple DRM boycott will be effective because the number of people who dislike Apple's DRM, use it anyway, and are willing to boycott it is probably very small. I'd wager it's very near 0. If they'd be willing to boycott it in the first place, they're probably not using it now.
"And for all those that blame GMs' problems on the unions, wake up - GM makes crap cars nobody wants - THAT is the problem with GM."
That's why Toyota and Honda are beating GM in domestic sales. Oh, wait a minute... They're not. Nobody sells as many cars in the US as GM and that's been the case for a very long time. It was only in the past year or so that GM lost it's world-wide #1 spot to Toyota. Gm is still #2 in that arena. I fail to see how any company selling that many vehicles "makes crap cars nobody wants." You obviously don't like them and neither do I but someone sure as hell does. Talk about self-defeating myths...
It's easy to support changing the voting process when it would benefit your political leanings. Personally, I like the idea that one of the last vestiges of real power sharing between the federal government and the states is alive and well. I like that the states choose the only elected official who represents the entire nation. It was part of their buy in to convince them to join the union in the first place. If the states want to cast their votes all for the same candidate, then more power to them. Any restrictions requiring the state to even listen to the will of the individual voter is entirely self-imposed.
And you're right that getting rid of the electoral college would be difficult because the real voters in the Presidential elections are the states and there just aren't 38 states that come out on the winning side of that one. Even changing the winner-takes-all policy of most states is problematic. That sort of thing is usually defined in the state constitution and will require an ammendment there.
Is F# part of as in right out of the box? That's pretty cool if so. In Visual Studio 2005 it was hidden in a room in Microsoft's basement with a sign reading "Beware of the leopard" on it.
I don't think that's such a good idea. Un-goatse yourself now and next thing you know you'll be clicking through a lively discussion, see a good point with a reference so some "goatse" site (probably some sort of wiki), click the link, and then NOOOOOOO!!!! There's the goatse all over again.
"Companies like Sony don't want to have to wear a bunch of customer service complaints about a retail outlet that "can't afford" to take a lot of time taking care of a customer's problem because they gave away all of the margin on the sale."
Ironic that you mention Sony here. Sony is a lot happier selling their products in big box stores where not only do the stores give away the vast majority of the margin on the sale but they also "take care of customers" by expecting Sony to take back any broken hardware, oftentimes long after the warranty would've run out on it. I don't know about Sony specifically but when I bought my HP laptop, there was a sticker just under the top flap begging me to go through warranty rather than return the laptop to the store.
That's not the seal of the President of the US. That's just a sticker for the "Office of the President Elect." The office doesn't really exist. He just made it up a few weeks ago to look more Presidential.
"The game will probably be rated 'M' simply due to the language content, but being completely devoid of sexual or violent content, it's still fine for a child to play assuming you don't care if they pick up any fowl language."
To accentuate your point here, my kids both have a strong interest in learning new words. That's just where they're at in development right now. I'm more concerned over them playing a game (or being exposed to me playing a game) with strong profanity than I am with them playing a game with types of violence they're not likely to encounter in real life. If a game has strong language, it goes straight to the "do not play" category. I'd like to see each category ranked but I think the written summary would be sufficient.
"This would also go a long way towards stopping games that are labeled "Adults Only" from essentially being banned from store shelves."
Stores didn't carry the raunchier titles long before there was an ESRB. Games like Custer's Revenge weren't carried by places like Sears and the places that did have such a game kept it hidden behind the counter and only available by request. Even games like Leisure Suit Larry would occasionally not get carried by someone for fear of offending some shoppers. I imagine games that fit in the AO category would have the same problems getting onto store shelves with or without the ESRB.
"and acting that was not as good as the originals as they are using new actors and actresses that hardly anyone heard of before and have not yet fully learned the art of acting."
I was going to write a snarky comment about how little experience the original series actors had before Star Trek but blimey if all of the main characters (Nimoy, Shatner, Kelley, and Doohan) all had a significant number of roles under their belts by then. But then I checked the new and old actors' profiles on the IMDB. Chris Pine probably has the weakest resume of the new main characters but he's not exactly wet behind the ears.
At the very least, they're already one step ahead of the Star Wars prequel. They put someone in charge who knows how to write dialogue.
Don't forget about the slideshow they show over and over and over again if you get there anywhere near showtime, especially the overly-simplistic movie trivia. Mrs. Doubtfire is the movie where Robin Williams played a British nanny? Really? I had no idea. I thought it was Mrs. Featherbottom...
We learned about the game long ago. It was supposed to be released already. The news is that the game found a new publisher after the old one passed on it for some reason. That doesn't make me too confident the game will be that good. If Activision is passing on publishing a game with the name recognition of Ghostbusters with all 4 lead actors reprising roles, it probably sucks.
Slashdot Mirror
I loved Pushing Daises but it failed fair and square. Nobody monkeyed seriously with the time slot. It was a lead-in to mega-popular Grey's Anatomy for most of its run. Nobody watched Pushing Daisies though. I'm a little hesitant for the creator of that show to take the production helm of Star Trek. It would be awesome, but I'm a afraid it will be a fringe show with too small an audience.
They were comparatively just as risque as Spears, if not more so. The bigger than Jesus remark... The bad-boy leather jacket look early in their career... The long-haired hippie image later in their career... The utter lack of humility when talking to reporters... The fairly open drug experimentation... They were VERY risque for the time.
The pricing right now for the whole package, can we divide it up any way we want? If I want to give less for the drum set, is that up to me?
Not only album sales but radio play as well. I don't think it's a coincidence that I heard two different radio stations play Jet the day it was released as a Guitar Hero download. Not that it's a bad song, but it's usually not one of the McCartney song radio stations choose to play. On the way to my in-laws house in south GA, I heard five songs in a row that all happened to be on Guitar Hero World Tour.
Ooooh, surveys! We're getting so MySpace these days.
"When was the last time you went to the cinema to watch a major release that didn't end with a blatant hook for a sequel?"
Changeling
"When was the last time you saw a TV show end without some form of cliff-hanger?"
Off the top of my head, Life on Mars which is extremely ironic since the TV show has a sequel and the sequel is actually pretty decent once you get past the first two episodes.
"And yes... when was the last time you saw a game end without a plug for a sequel?"
Mario Galaxy (also ironic since there will no doubt be a sequel)
"Can you imagine if Hamlet never came to an end (ok, if you've ever sat through a bad student production, it might have felt like that) but instead ran on for 17 plays, with 8-12 comprising the little-loved Finland arc, play 4 introducing a new love interest who got written out in play 9 and then the whole thing stopped abruptly after play 17 because the Globe burned down?"
Yes.
"How many modern TV stories have been ruined by this kind of thing? The X-Files? Lost? Buffy?"
42
Now pass this along to 6 other friends or you will be cursed forever and your wang will fall off (if equipped).
I'll admit I fell for it. But in my defense, they showed it to me in the morning and I was really tired that morning for some reason. It's like someone switched out my usual high quality Columbian coffee with Folgers or something that day.
Yeah, this isn't a list. I don't know how Halo 3 stacks up other than "not $1,000,000,000." For what it's worth, Guitar Hero III is also not hampered by the single console or lack of universal appeal that are the weak points of Halo 3. Halo 3 has admittedly done a better job of sales given what they have to work with but that's not at all what the article is about. Given that Activision is getting a $10-$15 premium over the typical $60 current gen game for including a guitar-shaped Simon board only makes it more impressive that they're the first to reach $1,000,000,000.
"First of all, when someone writes "football" on slashdot. Is he referring to what is commonly known as "football" all over the world, i.e. "soccer" or what is commonly referred to all over the world as "american football"?"
Sometimes a single word has more than one meaning, especially among different cultures. When that is the case, you have to use something called context to derive which meaning the word has. So "football" could mean a few different things when written on Slashdot depending on who wrote it. Lucky for us, we're given a LOT of context here. Given that we're talking about first down lines and there's ample video showing the sport in question, the context should be pretty obvious. But since you're confused, what they're referring to would likely translate to "American football" in your vernacular.
Not enough people had ME to hate it more than Vista. It's the same reason MS-DOS 6.0 isn't most hated. You think ME was bad? How in the holy hell can an "OS" that does absolutely nothing but pass the entire computer off to whatever program is running leak memory as badly as DOS 6.0?
From the perspective of being able to implement, most "standard" texts fall very short. What I learned from my compilers class is indeed parsing. I don't build compilers but when I'm faced with a task that involves parsing, I have a clear plan of what to do thanks largely to my coursework in compilers and this book. Just like when I'm faced with a task that requires scheduling or threading, I find what I learned from OS very useful though I've never implemented an actual operating system (unless you count nachos).
I could see if your goal were to build a fully-functioning compiler not liking this book. If I had to do that and could only use one book, I'd probably opt for Modern Compiler Implementation in C/Java/ML.
"Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools" by Avo, Sethi, and Ullman.
To be fair, I'd like to point out that the 2nd Edition just came out when I picked it up and that's what I'm basing my opinion on. I've never read the 1st Ed (though it has a much cooler cover).
Honorable mentions:
The C Programming Language
Any of Tannenbaum's OS books (I'm kind of partial to the Design and Implementation one that uses Minix as a case study)
Deitel & Deitel's Java book (To be fair, it is good but overpriced if you don't already have to buy it as a textbook.)
I don't think you can blanket statement DRM. It's been implemented in too many ways. The average Joe probably hasn't even noticed the Apple DRM because they probably haven't tired to do something that's not allowed by it. On the other hand, I imagine at least a few average Joes have noticed the horror that is SecureROM.
Even if I'm wrong about the average Joe's run-ins with DRM, I don't think an Apple DRM boycott will be effective because the number of people who dislike Apple's DRM, use it anyway, and are willing to boycott it is probably very small. I'd wager it's very near 0. If they'd be willing to boycott it in the first place, they're probably not using it now.
Brian - Are you C Objective?
Member A - Fuck off! We're Objective C. Where is C Objective anyway?
Member B - There he is!
Member A - Splitter!!!!
"And for all those that blame GMs' problems on the unions, wake up - GM makes crap cars nobody wants - THAT is the problem with GM."
That's why Toyota and Honda are beating GM in domestic sales. Oh, wait a minute... They're not. Nobody sells as many cars in the US as GM and that's been the case for a very long time. It was only in the past year or so that GM lost it's world-wide #1 spot to Toyota. Gm is still #2 in that arena. I fail to see how any company selling that many vehicles "makes crap cars nobody wants." You obviously don't like them and neither do I but someone sure as hell does. Talk about self-defeating myths...
It's easy to support changing the voting process when it would benefit your political leanings. Personally, I like the idea that one of the last vestiges of real power sharing between the federal government and the states is alive and well. I like that the states choose the only elected official who represents the entire nation. It was part of their buy in to convince them to join the union in the first place. If the states want to cast their votes all for the same candidate, then more power to them. Any restrictions requiring the state to even listen to the will of the individual voter is entirely self-imposed.
And you're right that getting rid of the electoral college would be difficult because the real voters in the Presidential elections are the states and there just aren't 38 states that come out on the winning side of that one. Even changing the winner-takes-all policy of most states is problematic. That sort of thing is usually defined in the state constitution and will require an ammendment there.
Is F# part of as in right out of the box? That's pretty cool if so. In Visual Studio 2005 it was hidden in a room in Microsoft's basement with a sign reading "Beware of the leopard" on it.
I don't think that's such a good idea. Un-goatse yourself now and next thing you know you'll be clicking through a lively discussion, see a good point with a reference so some "goatse" site (probably some sort of wiki), click the link, and then NOOOOOOO!!!! There's the goatse all over again.
"Companies like Sony don't want to have to wear a bunch of customer service complaints about a retail outlet that "can't afford" to take a lot of time taking care of a customer's problem because they gave away all of the margin on the sale."
Ironic that you mention Sony here. Sony is a lot happier selling their products in big box stores where not only do the stores give away the vast majority of the margin on the sale but they also "take care of customers" by expecting Sony to take back any broken hardware, oftentimes long after the warranty would've run out on it. I don't know about Sony specifically but when I bought my HP laptop, there was a sticker just under the top flap begging me to go through warranty rather than return the laptop to the store.
Just wait. The new Rock Band will have a USO mode where you can do old Bob Hope stand-up.
That's not the seal of the President of the US. That's just a sticker for the "Office of the President Elect." The office doesn't really exist. He just made it up a few weeks ago to look more Presidential.
"The game will probably be rated 'M' simply due to the language content, but being completely devoid of sexual or violent content, it's still fine for a child to play assuming you don't care if they pick up any fowl language."
To accentuate your point here, my kids both have a strong interest in learning new words. That's just where they're at in development right now. I'm more concerned over them playing a game (or being exposed to me playing a game) with strong profanity than I am with them playing a game with types of violence they're not likely to encounter in real life. If a game has strong language, it goes straight to the "do not play" category. I'd like to see each category ranked but I think the written summary would be sufficient.
"This would also go a long way towards stopping games that are labeled "Adults Only" from essentially being banned from store shelves."
Stores didn't carry the raunchier titles long before there was an ESRB. Games like Custer's Revenge weren't carried by places like Sears and the places that did have such a game kept it hidden behind the counter and only available by request. Even games like Leisure Suit Larry would occasionally not get carried by someone for fear of offending some shoppers. I imagine games that fit in the AO category would have the same problems getting onto store shelves with or without the ESRB.
Somebody set up us the bomb.
"and acting that was not as good as the originals as they are using new actors and actresses that hardly anyone heard of before and have not yet fully learned the art of acting."
I was going to write a snarky comment about how little experience the original series actors had before Star Trek but blimey if all of the main characters (Nimoy, Shatner, Kelley, and Doohan) all had a significant number of roles under their belts by then. But then I checked the new and old actors' profiles on the IMDB. Chris Pine probably has the weakest resume of the new main characters but he's not exactly wet behind the ears.
At the very least, they're already one step ahead of the Star Wars prequel. They put someone in charge who knows how to write dialogue.
Don't forget about the slideshow they show over and over and over again if you get there anywhere near showtime, especially the overly-simplistic movie trivia. Mrs. Doubtfire is the movie where Robin Williams played a British nanny? Really? I had no idea. I thought it was Mrs. Featherbottom...
We learned about the game long ago. It was supposed to be released already. The news is that the game found a new publisher after the old one passed on it for some reason. That doesn't make me too confident the game will be that good. If Activision is passing on publishing a game with the name recognition of Ghostbusters with all 4 lead actors reprising roles, it probably sucks.