Used Comcast cable TV for the first few years when I came to Dallas in 1994. When we could not get service for 50% of the month and customer service said there was nothing they could do, my wife sent them a check for 50% of the bill and we bought DirecTV. Stayed there until FiOS came in.
Jumped onto @Home cable internet service. 10Mb for $45/mth. was pretty good. Then AT&T took over. Speed went to 5Mb and price went to $50. Comcast came in, reduced the speed to 3Mb, raised the price to $55/mth., somehow screwed up the infrastructure so that disconnection was a weekly if not nightly occurance and gave the same crappy customer service as we had with their TV service. We added the phone service regardless and also experienced dropped calls and times when we had no dial tone. Thankfully we were still using DirecTV so we didn't have to suffer the pains of a triple play.
Decided to finally get a mobile phone again in January 2004 and chose Verizon based upon several reports that their service, coverage and customer service was marginally better than all the others. I've never had any issues with my wireless except for one billing mistake that was taken care of with one phone call.
I saw the orange cable in May 2005 and knew what was coming. I kept checking the website and signed up for the e-mail list. Finally when a co-worker who lived near me mentioned that he had FiOS, I called and discovered it was available. December 2005 my Verizon FiOS internet came online and I've never had any trouble with it to this day.
In March 2006 we added FiOS TV. DirecTV was sad to see a 10 year customer depart, but I told them they simply could not compete with the offering, the savings or the fact that I'd never again lose a signal due to a storm. Best purchase I've ever made. HD is freaking awesome, hands down. The DVR has altered how and when I view TV and has actually reduced how much total TV I watch. Live sporting events are the only things I watch on their schedule now.
In May 2006 we finally added a land line back to our house and, of course, chose Verizon. We've never lost a call, the sound quality is great, and all the features we want and long distance are included. It's simply the best phone service we've ever had.
The few times I've had to call Verizon customer service I have always been treated well and in a professional manner. I'm typically surprised by people who complain of Verizon's service, mostly because there are so few reasons to ever call them but also because I've never had a bad call with Verizon support.
I'm a Verizon customer for all their services for the foreseeable future. It will take a major screw up or an outstanding replacement to make me leave.
Reading the article and those linked within it, I could not help but think of Ultima IV and some sequels. It was all about the correct moral choices, but it was too binary to provide a sophisticated model as could be done today. Still it reinforced that performing good actions, being honorable, etc. would progress the game and allow you to win. Performing negative actions would bring your "social standing" back to zero and force you to start completely over.
In Ultima VII a friend of mine loaded my save game (very late in the game, fully geared with the black sword, etc.) and proceeded to fight and kill Lord British. Not only did the castle guards react, but everywhere the character went after that he was scorned and the guards were called. Rather intelligent coding, I though.
(***spoiler alert***) Ultima IX was a game that made me cry as the article's author asked. In the end the Avatar (me) not only sacrificed himself to save Britannia, but it absolutely closed off any chances of another game. Both thoughts brought tears to my eyes.
I think all of these are some of the best examples of how morality choice effects within games and how the games can affect the player.
For years I thought the way you do: "Better they are performing these fantasy killings in virtual worlds than in real life." I've seen plenty of examples to counter this.
I think instead of providing a carthatic environment where all of these negative actions and emotions are expelled, performing such actions reinforce negative behavior. To your brain you're processing the same information; good choice, bad choice - it's the same chemicals and electrical impulses whether it's real or virtual. I'm not saying that people playing FPS will be the next Columbine f*#$heads to commit a real crime, but I do see and hear many people (who I can tell are gamers by their dress or conversation) acting rudely, inconsiderately to those around them and as if there are no consequences to their actions. When you try to reprimand them, they immediately scream abuse, discrimination or whatever other term applies to the situation.
As much as players enjoy anonymity for their actions online, by "practicing" such actions they are building confidence that they can do whatever they wish without consequences. I'd even extrapolate this to "road rage" - being in your car offers a certain amount of anonymity, too. As long as you don't get caught, you can do whatever you wish (speeding, no signalling, cutting people off). Whether or not this could be tied to these drivers being video game players would be an interesting survey.
Yes, they are games and everyone should grasp the difference between virtual and real life. Can everyone's brains filter out the decisions and emotions and leave them in the game? I don't think so.
Exactly. "Fail in good spirit" is a new belief I picked up during an Improv course. It's okay to fail, as long as you learn from it, get up and try again. I really wish I had learned that early on.
Like the fictional composite kid in the article, I breezed through school without even trying. I could have been valedictorian if I had only applied myself a little bit. Instead I started seeing high school as "I already know this crap" and instead ignored homework and took numerous zeroes on assignments my last two years. Aceing tests balanced that out some (or the whole system was extremely skewed) so I still ended up 6th out of ~200 with an average of 96.5.
When I hit college, however, I was in for a rude awakening. College is ALL about effort and work. Everyone (to some degree) at college is smart so it's an even playing field. If you don't put in the effort, you will fail. I did. I received my first failing grade not of my choosing and it sent me into a downward spiral: depression, drinking and basically an attitude of "what does it matter?" I received my associate's but not my bachelor's. Nearly 20 years later I'm a certified systems engineer with 23 years of professional computer experience, but that incomplete degree haunts me and hinders me in several ways from achieving the upper levels of my career.
I'm taking this article and a few others I found Googling "grow your brain" to heart so I don't allow my daughters to make my same mistakes, or actually allow them to make plenty of their own mistakes. They're both naturally gifted in different ways, but I'll encourage them to grow their abilities to apply effort, learn from mistakes and to fail in good spirit.
The pain from most shots is not necessarily from the delivery of the shot. Some, like Tetanus boosters, use large needles due to the syrupy nature of the drug and those DO hurt going in. You can stare down the bore of a tetanus needle.
I think this breakthrough is dealing more with the after affects pain caused by the dermis having to repair itself from a "rip." Some people bruise, others develop a knot and most simply have a tender spot for 12-24 hours. Whereas the epidermis repairs quickly and painlessly all the time.
Either way, hypodermics are the only phobia I have. For years it was because of the pressure changes I felt when given a shot and feeling cold fluids enter my blood stream, but in later years my phobia has developed more into the fear of NOT feeling a shot and having chemicals delivered into my system without my knowledge. At least my tinfoil hat can deflect hypos to the head.:-) While I'll welcome the removal of the pain during and after the shot from this technology, it may make my paranoia of secretive drug delivery worse.
Do you have to get permission from the target movie's owning company to use/abuse it? Has this caused limitations of content for your treatment? What movie(s) did you really want to review but were denied for some reason?
One of my favorite parts of the show was the creative use of inexpensive materials for the set (except that Millenium Falcon on the door might be worth something now). Will your current project use the same creativity, or will it be more funded and "polished?"
"What the fuck? Who cares! This cannot possibly be useful!"
That's my general sentiment of the entire interview and all his circle speak about the game grammar.
Seems to me that game designers and companies are speaking the language just fine. Are there a variety of systems that cannot relate to each other because they use different game systems? Sure. That's called variety. That's called different points of origin. It's called originality of the designers.
Should game designers learn to speak a universal language of game concepts, design elements and terms? Why should they? This would imply that they're going to be collaborating on the games they make. Do game designers of different companies need to speak to each other in a common language of terms? No, because the level of detail about their games should not be discussed with others outside of the company due to IP and NDA limitations.
I compare this to the music writing systems (like Raph did). Yes, having a notation system makes it easier for those with the creative skill to create something in the technical realm so that technical people can analyze it. Can the techs then improve on the creativity by crunching numbers, changing the flowchart and tweaking the terminology? Doubtful. Great games are works of genius and inspiration, not the digital architecture underneath. Granted the implementation affects the overall outcome of the game, but the soul of the game is what keeps people playing. Two examples comes to mind. Magic (Microprose, early 90s) was a fantastic, turn-based game. It had major technical issues that caused sound incompatibilities and frequent crashes, but people kept playing it and clamored for a sequel. Even Ultima IX I considered a success because of the story it concluded and the elements of the story that unfolded while I played it. Technically it was crap because EA wanted to hit the Christmas rush and wouldn't let Origin quality test it.
Just because you can break something down into its components and analyze it does not mean you'll be able to improve upon it or even make any noteworthy discoveries about it. Obviously, Blizzard found the magic formula of MMOs. I doubt any game grammar or analysis could help them improve it any further. It will take a step in evolution of MMOs to unseat Blizzard as the MMO king. With a common gaming grammar, I foresee more cookie cutter games with the exact same mechanics but with different skins. Hmm... sounds just like what Raph's company is trying to produce: a generic MMO engine.
Also sounds like Raph would be a great EA employee getting all the assimilated studios to use the same gaming grammar to more easily fit into the EA template.
Sure. If you've ever read any article by Koster, it will sound about the same. Fairly formulaic acutally.
"|current trend| is going to fail."
"I have weird, out there ideas about |idea1| and |idea2| that are like 'whoa!'... ya know, out there."
"All this |concept| about |genre| is 10 years old now, so we're seeing a, ya know, 10 year cycle."
"|produce1| and |producer2| think my |pulled-out-of-my-ass concept| has some merit, so they're on board with it."
"|random shit| is consuming all my time right now, so I'm not up on |most popular game in the world|"
That's about what I got out of it. How can a game designer/producer not be interested and involved in all variety of games, or at least trying/testing/playing a handful of the genre in which he's supposed to be an expert? I really need to quit reading interviews of Raph. He keeps disappointing me.
I was on Comcast TV for years. In 1994 when our service was out approximately half of the month, my wife sent them half our bill and canceled our account. We purchased DirecTV. Stayed with it for 10 years. Only issue was heavy storms that interfered with reception.
Had Comcast (@home, ATTBI, Comcast) cable internet from 1998 to 2004. Had a problem every month: service dropped, area switch down for maintenance for hours, hours wasted on the phone to customer service with no resolution, faulty equipment that Comcast would not replace and a policy of "If the technician finds it is not our network, you'll be charged the house call." I'm certain they are more trained on proving the network healthy as opposed to fixing the real issues.
Spring of 2004, I see the orange cables start showing up on our street. They're buried over the next month. I check Verizon's website and get on their mailing list multiple times. I'd nearly given up, but finally, in December a co-worker who lived near me mentioned he had it and loved it. I called and scheduled the appointment immediately. Tech showed up a week later, on time. Install went smoothly and quickly. I was flying on the internet in a few hours. In March FiOS TV was rolled out to our neighborhood. We signed up with the HD DVR package. HD, DVR, more channels and cheaper than DirecTV. Win-win-win-win. In May we added the phone service. Excellent quality and lots of features included with base price. BTW, the DVR (Motorola?) is very smart. I set a schedule to record a weekly show (Top Chef, Doctor Who, Heroes). Several of those shows are repeated. If the DVR sees the show has already been recorded (checks descriptions, I guess), it will not record it again. If I delete it before the repeat, it *might* record it. It has completely changed the way I watch TV. Plus, Dallas Stars hockey in HD is SCHWEEEETT!!
Yes, Verizon takes some time to get distributed but it's because of the high demand. They'll get to you and they'll do it right, the first time. I've had no issues at all with any service. I've seen many post here about their issues with Verizon. I'm always surprised because having been a customer of Verizon in some form since 2002, the few problems I had were solved within 15 minutes when I called them. (that includes hold time)
Wait for it. It's worth it. When you do switch, please, be sure to give Comcast a piece of your mind. They'll completely ignore you, won't ask why you're leaving or how your experience has been with them, but it will feel good to vent. Comcast is deluded. The only reason they *think* they're customers are satisfied is because most of their customers give up (or die) trying to get through to customer service to complain. What's the point? Not as if Comcast will fix it or change their ways.
EA is too efficient to allow freedom and independent thought.
They're so careful with they're money, I would wager that this press release was printed at the same time as the notifications to Bioware developers stating "Join us in Redwood, CA... or else."
That's exactly what happened to Origin in Austin. Whatever talent Bioware has and EA hopes to assimilate and abuse will depart for greener, freer pastures once the corporate shredder turns to Bioware's studios.
Let's consider the real winners here: the stockholders. They're rich off of Bioware's efforts and production. Now they get a huge lump sum of money for doing NOTHING. In a few days/weeks/months, they'll turn some of those millions back towards an independent studio who will come out with the next great must-have game, make more money and sell out again to make even more money.
Can someone loan me a million dollars so I can start my own build-up/sell-out cycle and replace my heart with a stock ticker? I'll pay you back 5x times the amount after two sellouts.
Maybe we'll start seeing all that great talent EA assimilated start struggling and freeing itself back to independent, free-thinking studios that can create real products with value.
Perhaps I'm not reading it as broadly as the poster, but it doesn't sound like Randi is offering the reward to anyone. Instead it reads that he is challenging Dave Clark or peers to prove the claims.
That said, we offer the JREF million-dollar prize to - for example - Dave Clark, Editor of the audio review publication Positive Feedback Online, who provided the above rave review.
A few of you touched on this, but I thought I'd state it plainly: these shows are not celebrating geeks/nerds, but instead continuing to make fun of us.
Did Bill Gates earn the respect of the general masses when he became the richest geek in the world? Not really. People are in awe of his money-making skills, but I'd wager very few people would want him as a guest speaker, a co-worker or even a guest for dinner. I sure wouldn't.
Yes, there are nerds out there who live and act like these characters in these shows. Are they considered IT professionals? I don't think so. When is the last time anyone here actually took the advice of someone at a Best Buy/Frye's/Geek Squad/etc. ? IT professionals have pretty dull lives. No one would care to watch any part of our lives on TV. They end up looking like the mathematical savant protagonist in "Numbers," a fairly interesting, but mostly boring show. Hollywood's characterization of geeks is interesting, though, regardless of how untrue it is.
I consider geek shows to be the ones that appeal to us: "Doctor Who," "Battlestar Galactica" and "Heroes." I'll pass on all of these listed, though "Reaper" at least made me consider watching it.
I'd like to live in the ideal world Raph envisions where everyone is nice to each other, they all follow the rules and no one is every a jerk for no reason at all. He had this vision for Ultima Online, and about 250,000 of us know what a player killing free for all fiasco that was. Meanwhile in the real virtual world, the mantra has been proven, "If you build it, someone will take a crap all over it."
This toolkit sounds like it will have great potential, but because people are jerks, it will be misused to full extent and Raph will be attributed with providing tools to someone who gets 15 minutes of infamy for the porn/gay-bashing/raping/killing/unsocial MMO they create with these tools. Meanwhile, some good quality MMO will be completely ignored and eventually lost. All along the way will be thousands of MyMMO's cluttering the bandwidth with tons of empty promises.
To each his own, but I have to say, if you only played long enough for 10 quests, you didn't give it much of a try. If you consider WoW repetitive then you haven't played many MMOs. Dark Age of Camelot was much more repetitive as far as level or skill gain, Ultima Online was repetitive to get skills to certain levels and Everquest (I heard) was a pure grind fest for leveling and money gain. WoW has substantially more variety than any of those.
At launch there were 2500 quests per faction (Alliance or Horde). With the numerous content patches and the release of Burning Crusade, I'd guess there are at least 4000 quests per faction now. I've been playing nearly three years now, and I'm still discovering new places and new quests.
I'd suggest you simply did not discover which part of WoW appealed to you. Exploring, crafting, dungeon crawling? Huge variety of things to do that appeal to a vast number of play styles. Granted not all of those play styles are free to do whatever they wish (i.e. crafting requires that you reach certain levels to keep improving your skill), but WoW is still the best MMO I've played since I started in 1997.
The original WoW quests did lack variety in style, so much so they could be categorized as kill counts, drop counts and FedEx quests. There are numerous exceptions, but those were the majority. With the release of BC, several new styles of quests were added at the beginning zones for new races, in the Outland zones and a few scattered in the "old" world.
There is so much variety in WoW, I'm very surprised when I hear anyone who considers themselves a gamer say they didn't find anything in it that interests them.
*** warning - a few horror film spoilers here if you haven't seen them. ***
I really enjoy horror films. It's a shame there are so few good ones. Blood and gore aren't scary, they're just gross. Pulling your audience in, making them believe one thing and then jerking the carpet out from under them leaves a much deeper impact. The gaming industry is learning this.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Saw" for it's suspense. It wasn't really a gory film at all despite what the author of TFA says. I'd wager only a few gallons of fake blood were used in both Saw movies. "Saw II" and the pit of needles... that freaked me out enough that I was squirming in the theater seat and turning my head away from the screen. We each have our own deepest fears. "Dusk til Dawn" had blood by the 55 gallon drum, but it wasn't scary at all. "Hostel," rated as the scariest movie of 2006, was pathetically tame and generally stupid. (Push the eye back in, idiot, don't snip it off.) The wife discovering her husband had killed in "What Lies Beneath" or the little boy's reaction of "You weren't supposed to help her," in "The Ring" were classic, gut-wrenching twists.
I played the BioShock demo. Once I got past the immature gore, it did develop into a layered, creepy environment with a fairly original story. I didn't like it well enough to buy it, but with the lack of quality horror films, I may start turning to horror games more often. I just hope they aren't all FPS since that's my least favorite genre.
I thought I was some kind of a wuss because I couldn't beat Defender, Stargate or Sinistar in the early 80's. I guess I was just average like everyone else.
But hey, I was one of the first in my city to know about the transmolecular dot in Adventure. I feel avenged!
minutes/year * number of servers * $$/hour company generates = productivity
Say you have 20 servers and the company generates $114/hr ($1 million/yr company) [I'm going purely on 24x7x365 not business days] then the above would generate:
(60*24*365) * 20 * 114 = 1,198,368,000 server dollar revenue you generate
Now subtract any downtime you might have multiplied by the same $$/hour rate. Say you had a total of 5 minutes downtime on each server over the past year (doubtful on *nix, but just for sake of argument), so that's 100 minutes * (114/hr/60) or 100 * 1.9 = $190 lost to downtime.
If someone asks for stupid numbers, give them stupid numbers.
I lost faith in PC Mag in the late 80s when I could see sponsors influencing if not controlling the reviews. Regardless, I think you did a good job during your reign.
I always felt your personality comes across much better on the TV shows than it did in print. One of your best attributes is explaining technical items, features and details in such a way that non-techs can understand it but you don't bore the techs with layman's terms. I think the video media job you mentioned is right up your alley, especially if you'll be hosting or in front of the camera in some way.
From my own Vista experience, I doubted and scoffed any review I read that mentioned Vista working or living up to expectations. I purchased a brand new, dual core, SLI gaming machine in February. I tried Vista out for 3 hours and discovered way too many complications and disappointments in that time. It ruined my new PC experience. You're much more patient than I am if you could stomach Vista for over a week.
If it weren't for PC games, I'd be on Mac or Linux in a heartbeat. As those systems get better at running Windows games or the games I play run on those environments, I'll be leaving MS behind ASAP.
Rather interesting that warming and WNV are linked as well.
As the temperature gets warmer in general, winters in many parts of the world never get cold enough to kill mosquito larvae and the increases in rainfall and humidity in many parts provide more abundant breeding grounds and a more favorable environment for mosquitoes thriving. I know in Texas due to nearly three months of constant rain, we're seeing a major surge in mosquitoes. WNV infection incidents are on the rise.
One more relationship demonstrating what a closed system we live in.
It also lists the major providers of the solutions. Avamar (now owned by EMC) and DataDomain offer a software only solution that may be the most cost effective if you can provide the storage.
This may not be cost effective for your company depending upon what current backup solution you have and which one of the many solutions you could choose.
With current de-duplication methodology you could get one backup image of the laptop while it is in the office and from that point forward backups could occur over a VPN connection because only changes would be transmitted.
There are numerous providers that offer de-duplication including Symantec (Netbackup), Quantum, Data Domain, Diligent and Sepaton. You might be able to justify replacing your entire backup solution as any of these would improve backup storage as well as enabling backing up laptops remotely. There might be some free versions out there somewhere as well.
I agree with several other posters that loss of the laptop itself and encryption of the data is just as important as data backup/recover.
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Used Comcast cable TV for the first few years when I came to Dallas in 1994. When we could not get service for 50% of the month and customer service said there was nothing they could do, my wife sent them a check for 50% of the bill and we bought DirecTV. Stayed there until FiOS came in.
Jumped onto @Home cable internet service. 10Mb for $45/mth. was pretty good. Then AT&T took over. Speed went to 5Mb and price went to $50. Comcast came in, reduced the speed to 3Mb, raised the price to $55/mth., somehow screwed up the infrastructure so that disconnection was a weekly if not nightly occurance and gave the same crappy customer service as we had with their TV service. We added the phone service regardless and also experienced dropped calls and times when we had no dial tone. Thankfully we were still using DirecTV so we didn't have to suffer the pains of a triple play.
Decided to finally get a mobile phone again in January 2004 and chose Verizon based upon several reports that their service, coverage and customer service was marginally better than all the others. I've never had any issues with my wireless except for one billing mistake that was taken care of with one phone call.
I saw the orange cable in May 2005 and knew what was coming. I kept checking the website and signed up for the e-mail list. Finally when a co-worker who lived near me mentioned that he had FiOS, I called and discovered it was available. December 2005 my Verizon FiOS internet came online and I've never had any trouble with it to this day.
In March 2006 we added FiOS TV. DirecTV was sad to see a 10 year customer depart, but I told them they simply could not compete with the offering, the savings or the fact that I'd never again lose a signal due to a storm. Best purchase I've ever made. HD is freaking awesome, hands down. The DVR has altered how and when I view TV and has actually reduced how much total TV I watch. Live sporting events are the only things I watch on their schedule now.
In May 2006 we finally added a land line back to our house and, of course, chose Verizon. We've never lost a call, the sound quality is great, and all the features we want and long distance are included. It's simply the best phone service we've ever had.
The few times I've had to call Verizon customer service I have always been treated well and in a professional manner. I'm typically surprised by people who complain of Verizon's service, mostly because there are so few reasons to ever call them but also because I've never had a bad call with Verizon support.
I'm a Verizon customer for all their services for the foreseeable future. It will take a major screw up or an outstanding replacement to make me leave.
In Ultima VII a friend of mine loaded my save game (very late in the game, fully geared with the black sword, etc.) and proceeded to fight and kill Lord British. Not only did the castle guards react, but everywhere the character went after that he was scorned and the guards were called. Rather intelligent coding, I though.
(***spoiler alert***) Ultima IX was a game that made me cry as the article's author asked. In the end the Avatar (me) not only sacrificed himself to save Britannia, but it absolutely closed off any chances of another game. Both thoughts brought tears to my eyes.
I think all of these are some of the best examples of how morality choice effects within games and how the games can affect the player.
For years I thought the way you do: "Better they are performing these fantasy killings in virtual worlds than in real life." I've seen plenty of examples to counter this.
I think instead of providing a carthatic environment where all of these negative actions and emotions are expelled, performing such actions reinforce negative behavior. To your brain you're processing the same information; good choice, bad choice - it's the same chemicals and electrical impulses whether it's real or virtual. I'm not saying that people playing FPS will be the next Columbine f*#$heads to commit a real crime, but I do see and hear many people (who I can tell are gamers by their dress or conversation) acting rudely, inconsiderately to those around them and as if there are no consequences to their actions. When you try to reprimand them, they immediately scream abuse, discrimination or whatever other term applies to the situation.
As much as players enjoy anonymity for their actions online, by "practicing" such actions they are building confidence that they can do whatever they wish without consequences. I'd even extrapolate this to "road rage" - being in your car offers a certain amount of anonymity, too. As long as you don't get caught, you can do whatever you wish (speeding, no signalling, cutting people off). Whether or not this could be tied to these drivers being video game players would be an interesting survey.
Yes, they are games and everyone should grasp the difference between virtual and real life. Can everyone's brains filter out the decisions and emotions and leave them in the game? I don't think so.
Like the fictional composite kid in the article, I breezed through school without even trying. I could have been valedictorian if I had only applied myself a little bit. Instead I started seeing high school as "I already know this crap" and instead ignored homework and took numerous zeroes on assignments my last two years. Aceing tests balanced that out some (or the whole system was extremely skewed) so I still ended up 6th out of ~200 with an average of 96.5.
When I hit college, however, I was in for a rude awakening. College is ALL about effort and work. Everyone (to some degree) at college is smart so it's an even playing field. If you don't put in the effort, you will fail. I did. I received my first failing grade not of my choosing and it sent me into a downward spiral: depression, drinking and basically an attitude of "what does it matter?" I received my associate's but not my bachelor's. Nearly 20 years later I'm a certified systems engineer with 23 years of professional computer experience, but that incomplete degree haunts me and hinders me in several ways from achieving the upper levels of my career.
I'm taking this article and a few others I found Googling "grow your brain" to heart so I don't allow my daughters to make my same mistakes, or actually allow them to make plenty of their own mistakes. They're both naturally gifted in different ways, but I'll encourage them to grow their abilities to apply effort, learn from mistakes and to fail in good spirit.
I think this breakthrough is dealing more with the after affects pain caused by the dermis having to repair itself from a "rip." Some people bruise, others develop a knot and most simply have a tender spot for 12-24 hours. Whereas the epidermis repairs quickly and painlessly all the time.
Either way, hypodermics are the only phobia I have. For years it was because of the pressure changes I felt when given a shot and feeling cold fluids enter my blood stream, but in later years my phobia has developed more into the fear of NOT feeling a shot and having chemicals delivered into my system without my knowledge. At least my tinfoil hat can deflect hypos to the head. :-) While I'll welcome the removal of the pain during and after the shot from this technology, it may make my paranoia of secretive drug delivery worse.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000
Has this caused limitations of content for your treatment?
What movie(s) did you really want to review but were denied for some reason?
One of my favorite parts of the show was the creative use of inexpensive materials for the set (except that Millenium Falcon on the door might be worth something now). Will your current project use the same creativity, or will it be more funded and "polished?"
Seems to me that game designers and companies are speaking the language just fine. Are there a variety of systems that cannot relate to each other because they use different game systems? Sure. That's called variety. That's called different points of origin. It's called originality of the designers.
Should game designers learn to speak a universal language of game concepts, design elements and terms? Why should they? This would imply that they're going to be collaborating on the games they make. Do game designers of different companies need to speak to each other in a common language of terms? No, because the level of detail about their games should not be discussed with others outside of the company due to IP and NDA limitations.
I compare this to the music writing systems (like Raph did). Yes, having a notation system makes it easier for those with the creative skill to create something in the technical realm so that technical people can analyze it. Can the techs then improve on the creativity by crunching numbers, changing the flowchart and tweaking the terminology? Doubtful. Great games are works of genius and inspiration, not the digital architecture underneath. Granted the implementation affects the overall outcome of the game, but the soul of the game is what keeps people playing. Two examples comes to mind. Magic (Microprose, early 90s) was a fantastic, turn-based game. It had major technical issues that caused sound incompatibilities and frequent crashes, but people kept playing it and clamored for a sequel. Even Ultima IX I considered a success because of the story it concluded and the elements of the story that unfolded while I played it. Technically it was crap because EA wanted to hit the Christmas rush and wouldn't let Origin quality test it.
Just because you can break something down into its components and analyze it does not mean you'll be able to improve upon it or even make any noteworthy discoveries about it. Obviously, Blizzard found the magic formula of MMOs. I doubt any game grammar or analysis could help them improve it any further. It will take a step in evolution of MMOs to unseat Blizzard as the MMO king. With a common gaming grammar, I foresee more cookie cutter games with the exact same mechanics but with different skins. Hmm... sounds just like what Raph's company is trying to produce: a generic MMO engine.
Also sounds like Raph would be a great EA employee getting all the assimilated studios to use the same gaming grammar to more easily fit into the EA template.
"|current trend| is going to fail."
"I have weird, out there ideas about |idea1| and |idea2| that are like 'whoa!'... ya know, out there."
"All this |concept| about |genre| is 10 years old now, so we're seeing a, ya know, 10 year cycle."
"|produce1| and |producer2| think my |pulled-out-of-my-ass concept| has some merit, so they're on board with it."
"|random shit| is consuming all my time right now, so I'm not up on |most popular game in the world|"
That's about what I got out of it. How can a game designer/producer not be interested and involved in all variety of games, or at least trying/testing/playing a handful of the genre in which he's supposed to be an expert? I really need to quit reading interviews of Raph. He keeps disappointing me.
I was on Comcast TV for years. In 1994 when our service was out approximately half of the month, my wife sent them half our bill and canceled our account. We purchased DirecTV. Stayed with it for 10 years. Only issue was heavy storms that interfered with reception.
Had Comcast (@home, ATTBI, Comcast) cable internet from 1998 to 2004. Had a problem every month: service dropped, area switch down for maintenance for hours, hours wasted on the phone to customer service with no resolution, faulty equipment that Comcast would not replace and a policy of "If the technician finds it is not our network, you'll be charged the house call." I'm certain they are more trained on proving the network healthy as opposed to fixing the real issues.
Spring of 2004, I see the orange cables start showing up on our street. They're buried over the next month. I check Verizon's website and get on their mailing list multiple times. I'd nearly given up, but finally, in December a co-worker who lived near me mentioned he had it and loved it. I called and scheduled the appointment immediately. Tech showed up a week later, on time. Install went smoothly and quickly. I was flying on the internet in a few hours. In March FiOS TV was rolled out to our neighborhood. We signed up with the HD DVR package. HD, DVR, more channels and cheaper than DirecTV. Win-win-win-win. In May we added the phone service. Excellent quality and lots of features included with base price. BTW, the DVR (Motorola?) is very smart. I set a schedule to record a weekly show (Top Chef, Doctor Who, Heroes). Several of those shows are repeated. If the DVR sees the show has already been recorded (checks descriptions, I guess), it will not record it again. If I delete it before the repeat, it *might* record it. It has completely changed the way I watch TV. Plus, Dallas Stars hockey in HD is SCHWEEEETT!!
Yes, Verizon takes some time to get distributed but it's because of the high demand. They'll get to you and they'll do it right, the first time. I've had no issues at all with any service. I've seen many post here about their issues with Verizon. I'm always surprised because having been a customer of Verizon in some form since 2002, the few problems I had were solved within 15 minutes when I called them. (that includes hold time)
Wait for it. It's worth it. When you do switch, please, be sure to give Comcast a piece of your mind. They'll completely ignore you, won't ask why you're leaving or how your experience has been with them, but it will feel good to vent. Comcast is deluded. The only reason they *think* they're customers are satisfied is because most of their customers give up (or die) trying to get through to customer service to complain. What's the point? Not as if Comcast will fix it or change their ways.
They're so careful with they're money, I would wager that this press release was printed at the same time as the notifications to Bioware developers stating "Join us in Redwood, CA... or else."
That's exactly what happened to Origin in Austin. Whatever talent Bioware has and EA hopes to assimilate and abuse will depart for greener, freer pastures once the corporate shredder turns to Bioware's studios.
Let's consider the real winners here: the stockholders. They're rich off of Bioware's efforts and production. Now they get a huge lump sum of money for doing NOTHING. In a few days/weeks/months, they'll turn some of those millions back towards an independent studio who will come out with the next great must-have game, make more money and sell out again to make even more money.
Can someone loan me a million dollars so I can start my own build-up/sell-out cycle and replace my heart with a stock ticker? I'll pay you back 5x times the amount after two sellouts.
Maybe we'll start seeing all that great talent EA assimilated start struggling and freeing itself back to independent, free-thinking studios that can create real products with value.
Did Bill Gates earn the respect of the general masses when he became the richest geek in the world? Not really. People are in awe of his money-making skills, but I'd wager very few people would want him as a guest speaker, a co-worker or even a guest for dinner. I sure wouldn't.
Yes, there are nerds out there who live and act like these characters in these shows. Are they considered IT professionals? I don't think so. When is the last time anyone here actually took the advice of someone at a Best Buy/Frye's/Geek Squad/etc. ? IT professionals have pretty dull lives. No one would care to watch any part of our lives on TV. They end up looking like the mathematical savant protagonist in "Numbers," a fairly interesting, but mostly boring show. Hollywood's characterization of geeks is interesting, though, regardless of how untrue it is.
I consider geek shows to be the ones that appeal to us: "Doctor Who," "Battlestar Galactica" and "Heroes." I'll pass on all of these listed, though "Reaper" at least made me consider watching it.
This toolkit sounds like it will have great potential, but because people are jerks, it will be misused to full extent and Raph will be attributed with providing tools to someone who gets 15 minutes of infamy for the porn/gay-bashing/raping/killing/unsocial MMO they create with these tools. Meanwhile, some good quality MMO will be completely ignored and eventually lost. All along the way will be thousands of MyMMO's cluttering the bandwidth with tons of empty promises.
I'll wait for the YouTube version.
They sate my curiosity about a game and typically prevent me from wasting money on it.
Then I take it you are a mage or hunter. :-)
At launch there were 2500 quests per faction (Alliance or Horde). With the numerous content patches and the release of Burning Crusade, I'd guess there are at least 4000 quests per faction now. I've been playing nearly three years now, and I'm still discovering new places and new quests.
I'd suggest you simply did not discover which part of WoW appealed to you. Exploring, crafting, dungeon crawling? Huge variety of things to do that appeal to a vast number of play styles. Granted not all of those play styles are free to do whatever they wish (i.e. crafting requires that you reach certain levels to keep improving your skill), but WoW is still the best MMO I've played since I started in 1997.
The original WoW quests did lack variety in style, so much so they could be categorized as kill counts, drop counts and FedEx quests. There are numerous exceptions, but those were the majority. With the release of BC, several new styles of quests were added at the beginning zones for new races, in the Outland zones and a few scattered in the "old" world.
There is so much variety in WoW, I'm very surprised when I hear anyone who considers themselves a gamer say they didn't find anything in it that interests them.
I really enjoy horror films. It's a shame there are so few good ones. Blood and gore aren't scary, they're just gross. Pulling your audience in, making them believe one thing and then jerking the carpet out from under them leaves a much deeper impact. The gaming industry is learning this.
I thoroughly enjoyed "Saw" for it's suspense. It wasn't really a gory film at all despite what the author of TFA says. I'd wager only a few gallons of fake blood were used in both Saw movies. "Saw II" and the pit of needles... that freaked me out enough that I was squirming in the theater seat and turning my head away from the screen. We each have our own deepest fears. "Dusk til Dawn" had blood by the 55 gallon drum, but it wasn't scary at all. "Hostel," rated as the scariest movie of 2006, was pathetically tame and generally stupid. (Push the eye back in, idiot, don't snip it off.) The wife discovering her husband had killed in "What Lies Beneath" or the little boy's reaction of "You weren't supposed to help her," in "The Ring" were classic, gut-wrenching twists.
I played the BioShock demo. Once I got past the immature gore, it did develop into a layered, creepy environment with a fairly original story. I didn't like it well enough to buy it, but with the lack of quality horror films, I may start turning to horror games more often. I just hope they aren't all FPS since that's my least favorite genre.
Any wagers on a Cthulu MMO?
But hey, I was one of the first in my city to know about the transmolecular dot in Adventure. I feel avenged!
Say you have 20 servers and the company generates $114/hr ($1 million/yr company) [I'm going purely on 24x7x365 not business days] then the above would generate:
(60*24*365) * 20 * 114 = 1,198,368,000 server dollar revenue you generate
Now subtract any downtime you might have multiplied by the same $$/hour rate. Say you had a total of 5 minutes downtime on each server over the past year (doubtful on *nix, but just for sake of argument), so that's 100 minutes * (114/hr/60) or 100 * 1.9 = $190 lost to downtime.
If someone asks for stupid numbers, give them stupid numbers.
I lost faith in PC Mag in the late 80s when I could see sponsors influencing if not controlling the reviews. Regardless, I think you did a good job during your reign.
I always felt your personality comes across much better on the TV shows than it did in print. One of your best attributes is explaining technical items, features and details in such a way that non-techs can understand it but you don't bore the techs with layman's terms. I think the video media job you mentioned is right up your alley, especially if you'll be hosting or in front of the camera in some way.
From my own Vista experience, I doubted and scoffed any review I read that mentioned Vista working or living up to expectations. I purchased a brand new, dual core, SLI gaming machine in February. I tried Vista out for 3 hours and discovered way too many complications and disappointments in that time. It ruined my new PC experience. You're much more patient than I am if you could stomach Vista for over a week.
If it weren't for PC games, I'd be on Mac or Linux in a heartbeat. As those systems get better at running Windows games or the games I play run on those environments, I'll be leaving MS behind ASAP.
Again, best of luck to you in your new endeavor.
As the temperature gets warmer in general, winters in many parts of the world never get cold enough to kill mosquito larvae and the increases in rainfall and humidity in many parts provide more abundant breeding grounds and a more favorable environment for mosquitoes thriving. I know in Texas due to nearly three months of constant rain, we're seeing a major surge in mosquitoes. WNV infection incidents are on the rise.
One more relationship demonstrating what a closed system we live in.
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2007/06/01
http://www.techworld.com/storage/features/index.cf m?featureid=2976
It also lists the major providers of the solutions. Avamar (now owned by EMC) and DataDomain offer a software only solution that may be the most cost effective if you can provide the storage.
With current de-duplication methodology you could get one backup image of the laptop while it is in the office and from that point forward backups could occur over a VPN connection because only changes would be transmitted.
There are numerous providers that offer de-duplication including Symantec (Netbackup), Quantum, Data Domain, Diligent and Sepaton. You might be able to justify replacing your entire backup solution as any of these would improve backup storage as well as enabling backing up laptops remotely. There might be some free versions out there somewhere as well.
I agree with several other posters that loss of the laptop itself and encryption of the data is just as important as data backup/recover.