There is no reason to turn 55% of the population into some kind of object meant to be lusted, groped, and swapped like so much coin.
Sure there is, and you seem to even know what it is: the swappage of coin.
It's a well known fact in advertising that sex sells. And let's not kid ourselves—E3 these days is more about companies selling their products than anything else.
So until I start seeing beer commercials stop featuring cheerleaders, jeans commercials stop featuring super-skinny models, new television shows stop featuring bright-eyed perky actresses portraying "normal" people, and so forth, I don't see anything surprising or particularly wrong with E3 featuring "booth babes."
If you have a problem with that, you've got a problem with a hellova lot more than just E3, and frankly, E3 should be waaaay down on your list of things to be upset about.
Incidentally, the whole "whatever sells" notion is the source of a lot of other of the guy who wrote this article's complains. Why is there music louder than jet engines? Because companies are desperately trying to get your attention. (Ever turn your radio down when a car dealership commercial comes on? Same principle.) Why do they let 70,000 people in the show? So that there will be 70,000 bloggers writing about their games. Why do they give away so much swag? So people will come to their booth instead of the schmuck's who forgot to bring FooSoft sticky-note cubes. Why do they charge so much for food and parking? Well, you've got me there.
My point is that if you want to change the world, then change the world. If people stop flocking to see booth babes, then you'll see booth babes go away. But it has to work in that order, not the other way around. Until that happens, when people wonder why this demeaning display of blatant sexual pandering continues, I can only say, "Duh..."
Well, I expected them to charge a slightly higher fee (not double) if you played both games. If you're paying $14.95 a month now (I actually subscribe six months at a time), then you'll pay $19.95 to play both games. They could have easily justified it by saying, "Even if you only play City of Heroes, you will have access to significant additional content and features by being a City of Villains member, too."
However, it looks like they're thinking along the same lines that you are: if they had charged a higher fee for both, then they would have more players playing either/or, and fewer players buying City of Villains (or new copies of City of Heroes).
I say kudos to NCsoft for actually using their heads in figuring this out instead of taking the typical corporate knee-jerk reaction of, "Players get more stuff, let's charge 'em extra for it!" I think in the long run, what they're doing is a smarter move and will earn them more marketshare and profit, so everyone wins.
My only concern is that they might have a tough time maintaining any kind of reasonable release schedule for new content now that they'll have to do it for two games. I hope that all the hoopla surrounding City of Villains doesn't cut into releasing new stuff for City of Heroes. I guess we'll see!
It should be free, its the same damn game with a red interface
No, it's not. There are a bunch of differences between City of Heroes and City of Villains. Sure, they share the same concept and a lot of the same game mechanics, but this is a LOT more than just an upgrade to City of Heroes. If nothing else, the content alone is as big as City of Heroes is, and that doesn't even take into account that a lot of features will be added for existing City of Heroes players.
If you're in the beta, you know that already. If you're not, well, I'd love to expound upon the differences, but I can't. Here are some that are already public knowledge:
Bases (for villains and heroes)
PvP "Crossover" zones
Many new zones, not just the one-off that comes with a game update
All new graphics (already pointed out) and animations
Many new villains in addition to (not instead of) the old ones
New mission types
...plus, a bunch of other stuff you can read just as well from the press releases (flash site). I'll stop now because this is starting to sound more like an ad than a comment.
Anyway, the point is that this game is much more that just an update, and NCsoft is reasonable in expecting people to go out and buy it, and I think it's pretty nice of 'em to not ding existing subscribers with an extra service fee for playing it, because now we don't have to choose which one we want to play or go broke playing both.
First, I said, "Let there be PS2," and there was PS2, and PS2 was good.
I hadn't owned a console system since my old NES, and I was blown away by the graphics, sound, and playability of the latest generation of games. I bought Tekken. I bought Madden. I bought Ridge Racer. I bought SSX.
Then, I said, "Let there be Xbox," and there was Xbox, and Xbox was good.
Several of my friends passed up the PS2 in favor of the Xbox, and I ended up buying on purely out of peer pressure. I hosted a few cookouts where they brought their Xboxes, hooked them up to my spare tv's, and we kicked each other's asses on Halo. I bought DOA Volleyball, and said, "Wow, a really unique and original game. (Oh, and by the way, Hitomi is a goddess...)"
Then, I said, "Let there be Gamecube," and my wallet reached up and punched me in the eye, so I had to pass up that system.:-(
I bought a few more games for each of the systems I had, and slowly came to the realization that the impossible had happened—I was bored with them. I bought Generic Fighting Game #362, Generic First Person Shooter #178#, Generic Role Playing Game #204, Generic Racing Game #140, and a bunch of others. (I've got to admit, Generic Stealth Mission Game #78 was not half bad...)
At this point, I am thinking that I will forego the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in favor of the Revolution. Why? Because what I need now aren't better graphics and sound. I've been there and done that, and it's no longer enough. What I need are new and original games, games that leave me saying, "Wow, that's pretty cool, the first of a new generation of Generic Games that will inevitably follow on the other systems. But until now, I haven't been there, and I haven't done that!" All indications I've seen so far from Microsoft and Sony point to just a bunch more Generic Games.
I may be mistaken, but Nintendo seems to be the only company right now thinking outside of the proverbial box. When I first saw the controller, I thought, "Are you kidding me? How can you play a decent game with a remote control?" The more I think about it, though, the more I think that it's probably not a bad idea after all. And more importantly, I respect Nintendo's willingness to say, "We know you haven't seen anything like this before, and that's what we're going to sell you: something different, and really, it won't suck!"
Next time I buy, that's exactly what I'm going to look for. If you're looking for prettier pictures, buy your Xbox 360 or PS3 and have fun. As for me, I'm going to wait until something more interesting comes along before I plop out hundreds of dollars.
No, it's not a matter of agreement, it's a matter of open source alternatives not even being considered. I can't tell you how many times I've had converstaions like this:
Me: Has anyone considered deploying Firefox?
Them: No, IE already comes with Windows and that's what all of our internal sites have been developed for.
Me: So has anyone considered implementing a policy of developing internal sites with cross-browser support so that maybe someday we will have a choice?
Them: No, that would be too expensive. Besides, IE is free and Firefox is free, what's the difference?
Side note: 99% of our internal sites work fine with Firefox. (I run it even though it's not an authorized application, because I often use it for troubleshooting issues.) Of the remaining 1%, most of them are just minor issues with Javascript incompatibilities that could probably be easily fixed within a half hour or so.
I've even had this conversation, which just makes me shake my head in shame at my company:
Me: Has anyone considered using Filezilla instead of paying for WS FTP Pro?
Them: No, that wasn't a consideration.
Me: Why? It's got all of the features of WS FTP Pro and it's free.
Them: Because it's open source.
Me: So?
Them: So, we don't use open source software.
Another side note: Because IBM has made it such a big deal, we are just now getting around to evaluating Linux on some test servers, which is a welcome change of policy. When I started here six years ago, I was told flat-out that if the higher-ups caught you installing Linux on a machine, you would be fired. Who knows? Maybe by 2050, we'll actually (gasp!) start coming to our collective senses.
So I agree, there is definitely an Orwellian feeling to this, but IMHO, it's not from me. And that's why I'd like to send them to this class. That way, maybe they'd know what the hell they were talking about, and if they decided against open source, maybe they'd at least be able to give me some sort of valid reason(s), and not just stuff like, "we didn't consider it for the sole reason that it's open source," as if that somehow magically implies that a piece of software is automatically inferior. >:-(
The RIAA is pure black nasty evil with absolutely no redeeming qualities. It is trying to crush entire Western civilization, nay, the entire world between its slavering jaws of DRM and DMCA, and swallow the shattered remains to be digested in its guts of greed alongside the poor victims whose personal fortune it has already taken by blackmail.
Dude, don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration?
Nah, it sounds pretty much on the mark to me, too. Other than that, though, they're not so bad...
I agree, I would too. But even better, I'd like to send some people to that course, especially intermediate manager/technical types at my company. They're the ones, unfortunately, who just don't get it and need to be educated about the principles of Open Source and what makes it worthwhile.
We didn't, at least, we used to not. At one time, our whole legal system was just a few pages long. But our government decided that it wasn't enough, and so we've ended up with the billions of pages of legal code we have today.
In a utopian world, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, there are just too many people who look for too many loopholes trying to screw other people over. And even that doesn't take into account the many gray areas. For example, I think that all copyrights are bad because they protect a small minority at the expense of putting artificial limits on the creativity and innovation of the vast majority. Some think they're good because it allows people to have financial incentive to be creative and innovative. Who's right? It's hard to say, but unfortunately, those aforementioned pages have sided with the latter folks.
You also neglect the fact that qualified judges are easily corrupted with that much power, and justified decisions will always be viewed as unfair by someone.
I agree that many laws are unneeded, and some are downright harmful to the public good, and like everyone else, I wish someone would come along and restore some sanity. But that doesn't imply that we need to almost completely do away with the legal system.
God had the right idea when he gave Moses ten laws, provide us the bible as a sort of guideline to acheiving those laws. Not kidding.
That's actually a good analogy, because even today, we still have Muslims and Christians, who worship the same God of Moses, trying to wipe each other—and other groups along with them—out because they just can't agree on which rules are okay to ignore out of convenience and which makes someone an infidel or heretic.
So we've ended up with large organized religions to break it all down for us into rules such as you can't use contraception, women have to wear burquas, you can't eat pork, etc.
According to your philosophy, we need to do away with religion altogether, and indeed some people believe that. I don't, but as with the legal system, I wish that someone could come along and restore some sanity.
Map reactive is cool, but player reactive better
on
Ask The Civ IV Dev Team
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I like the idea of an AI reacting to the subtleties of the map.
But what I would like to see is an AI that reacts to how its opponent is playing.
For example, I would like an AI that evaluates how aggressive a player is. If a player is constantly attacking the AI, it should react by foregoing some research to build up a defensive army. If a player is defensive, on the other hand, the AI should patiently build up an overwhelming attack force, complete with research upgrades and such.
If a player shows a preference for attacking with one particular type of unit, the AI should "realize" it and start building counterunits. It would even be nice if the AI would do things like sacrifice some scouts to find out what its opponents are up to and compensate for it. Does the scout see some lots of planes in a city? Build some anti-aircraft missile batteries in surrounding areas. I've beaten lots of various players at various strategy games using these kinds of tactics. If an AI used them too, it would add a whole new dimension to player-vs.-computer strategy games.
Plus, it would be nice for developers to observe some really good players playing, make some notes, and ask the players why they do things that the developers don't understand. Are there any general rules that can be programmed that a human uses in making decisions like when he or she starts building military units, how those units are deployed, how much and what kind of research he or she conducts and when, and so on.
I think a cool AI feature of a game would be for the AI to "learn" how a player plays over the course of the player's games. If I beat the computer one way, it will know where it went wrong and play the next game differently, under the assumption that the player will still use some of the same tactics. Perhaps a game would even include some sort of profile manager so that if my brother plays the game, the computer will play against him differently. I've used that tactic several times in AoE2—record the games so I can go back later and study why my opponent did to spank me so badly. Next game I play against that opponent, he or she will be pwned by someone who has prepared for his or her tricks and strategies.
I think it would also be cool for the AI to try a few odd tactics now and then to see how a player reacts. Start building a wonder. What did the player do? Immediately start one of his or her own? Use that knowledge to make him or her waste resources that could otherwise be alloted to the military. Declare war on a player out of the blue and see what happens. Does the player start making concessions to re-establish peace? If so, that player can be bluffed. Send a lone military unit to camp close to another city. Does the player attack him immediately, though he's no threat? If so, do the same thing, but have a larger army waiting on the other side of the city to go in while it's not as heavily defended.
I guess what I'm saying is that if we could get to the point where computers are "thinking" like humans, I can finally shed the last vestiges of my need for friends to play with, and that can't be a bad thing, right?:-)
It's probably small consolation, but I don't know why you got modded flamebait. I guess someone here wanted to avoid the inevitable flamewar that comes from belittling stepchildren. (?)
Most of the stuff modded "funny" here really isn't but I did laugh at your post. It was harsh, and if I were your wife I'd smack you in the head for saying it, but it was funny.
For what it's worth, I don't really call it a joke, more of a mildly amusing self-deprecating quip. I wasn't trying for a funny mod, I was just shooting for trying to alleviate some of the embarrassment at the fact that I screwed up and what I said really didn't make much sense.
I have DirecTV, and my service only goes out two or three times a year, and only because of weird atmospheric interference, and only for twenty minutes or so. I've had rain, snow, and wind. Hell, I even had service during a tropical storm that managed to survive until it reached Atlanta. I remember one night, the wind and rain got so bad that my power went out around 10 minutes before the end of Survivor, and because I have a UPS, I was still able to watch the end of it and see who got voted out.
Maybe your dish isn't aligned correctly. I set my own dish up, and on a clear day, my signal strength is a steady 100%. My dad complained about his service going out, and when I checked his signal strength on a clear day, it was only around 80%, thanks to an installation company that settled for "good enough." I adjusted his dish, and he didn't have much trouble after that.
But when I had cable, the damn thing was out at least once or twice a month. Once, I went three whole days without service. IIRC, someone cut the cable while doing construction, and somehow my box got deactivated, and it totally blew their minds. That kind of thing has never happened with my satellite service.
In spite of all of that, I recently tried cable again, because I can get HDTV from Comcast for a lot less than with DirecTV. I had it taken out after less than a week of service because of several insurmountable problems. Needless to say, I won't make that mistake again.
Er, I mean in my quote, "Normally, people listen to music on their computers. If you are a car or home stereo user, you should consider purchasing a computer."
Damn, those people who don't hit Preview and re-read their messages before posting!
Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra privilege. Normally, people listen to music on their car or through their home stereos. If you are a Linux or Mac user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player.
Funny, I was just thinking something kind of similar, but slightly different:
Now, we need to understand that listening to music in your car or through your home stereos is an extra privilege. Normally, people listen to music on your computer. If you are a car or home stereo user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player.
Given that when I pay for a CD, I'm paying for the music, not the plastic and mylar, can any RIAA person please explain to me why my position is any less valid than Tommi Kyyrä's?
You're right, the following sentence is totally incorrect:
The [The Online Freedom of Speech Act], if passed, would make the Internet into a form of media subject to campaign finance laws.
The purpose of that specific act is actually to protect blogs as free speech.
However, it is true that the FEC is trying to bring blogs under the regulations of campaign finance. The summary got The Online Freedom of Speech Act confused with FEC regulations.:-(
This is definitely not a "nothing to see here" story, it is a "whoops, I accidentally confused 'black' with 'white'" story. Nice external reference, by the way, it makes what the author and editor of this/. story tried to say perfectly clear.
That's actually a good suggestion that I agree earns the Interesting mod, but it's also a very sad reflection on us as a country. In the land where free speech is supposed to be sacred, people are starting to understand that the only way to use it is to talk from overseas.
(sigh) Oh well, it was a good Constitution for the 200 years or so while it lasted...
If you're going to post an article about a new product, it might be helpful to post a link to the product. I kind of like being able to see pictures of what the article's about...
Call me crazy, but I think that AoE2 is still an awesome game. And I don't know if it counts as a "game" since it's just a cinematic, but I think that the opening is genuinely moving, and it immediately sucked me into the game before I even played for the very first time. Very well done, Ensemble!
if you and your pseudo-scientists spouting every little sign as global warming evidence would hold off
Me? The only thing I'm spouting is that more study is warranted, and that reasonable measures to cut greenhouse gasses are justified. I'm a liberal, but I wouldn't exactly classify myself as a tree-hugger.
"Pseudo-scientists?" You make it sound like there's a small group of crackpot hacks that came up with the weird little theory that greenhouse gasses contribute to global warming. Newsflash: It's actually quite a large number of respected real scientists who have dedicated their lives to collecting data and using it to learn about our climate and the possible roles that humans may or may not play in it.
Some real scientists also think that mankind's contribution to global warming is negligible, and I respect their work too, which is why I'm not writing to my Congresspeople demanding that they immediately ban gasoline or anything.
As weird as it sounds, it is possible for two people to look at the same set of data and draw two perfectly reasonable mutually exclusive inferences from it, and this is clearly the case with global warming. What that tells me is that more study is needed, and until more definitive answers are available, it is probably best to err on the side of our planet not being destroyed.
Do you realize what rate of climate change Mars would need to noticeably lose ice in the polar caps in a mere few years?
No, because I'm not one of the scientists that studies this stuff, and I never claimed to be. How many papers have you published on the subject? Enough to dismiss a lot of respected scientist's decades' worth of collective hard work as "pseudo-science"?
Not saying we don't have issues we need to address as well... but isn't that an interesting co-incidence?
I'm glad you wrote that first phrase, because the real answer to your question is... maybe, maybe not.
Undoubtedly, people are going to start screaming about how global warming on Mars proves that global warming on Earth is due to natural forces, not man's activities. I've already seen several comments here to that effect. To believe such a silly thing is scientific idiocy.
No one has ever said that a planet's climate is stable. It has been known for quite a while that Earth's climate goes through warmer and colder phases. While natural warming of the planet does exist, this is not what "Global Warming," in the sense of the political topic, is. The thing that is alarming about the temperature changes in our own planet is not the fact that it exists, but the rate at which it's changing and the possible consequences of the change.
<political>
Is our own global warming exacerbated by man's activities? Maybe, more study is needed. The Republican way is not to study, though, it is to simply dismiss it as untrue. Now that scientists have "proven" that there is climate change on Mars (something that is only logical), my fear is what seems to be happening right here: people are going to use it as "evidence" that our own global warming is just a bunch of tree-hugging liberals trying to scare people. If they manage to convince enough people of this, it will likely lead to significant environmental problems in our not-too-distant future (at best) or the ultimate destruction of our species (at worst).
Is that scary enough for you? While I don't go through life in constant fear of our extinction, it is of great enough concern to me that I think that scientists are warranted in wanting to check into the possibilities, and it wouldn't hurt to take some reasonable measures now to possibly prevent such dire consequences while we have plenty of time to do so, even if it is at the expense of slightly reducing the profit of rich oil companies and Washington lobbyists.
Worse, knee-jerk non-scientists will use this as an opportunity to dismiss decades of study that have already taken place as invalid and/or untrue, just as new discoveries that modify our understanding of our own planet's age, development of species, and other such finds is used as "proof" that the Theory of Evolution is wrong.
</political>
I just wish everyone would hold off on drawing wild inferences from these new observations until they can be studied and logical, well-thought-out hypotheses put forth.
Now THAT'S a side effect...
on
The New Face Lift
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· Score: 4, Informative
The summary doesn't make this clear, but this procedure is intended only for severely disfigured people due to burn scars and such.
The possible side effects are pretty scary, though. My favorite quote is from the CNN Article:
"[Critics] paint the frighteningly surreal image of a worst-case scenario: a transplanted face being rejected and sloughing away, leaving the patient worse off than before."
And I used to think that anal leakage was a scary side effect, that's nothing comparing to a soughing face! Thank god I'm not in a position for now where I have to make a decision like that, but it sure is a high price to pay for looking "normal" again.
I think the security concern isn't really OnStar's invasiveness, but it's whether the system could be hacked into fooling your car into thinking that the attacker IS OnStar and giving information about your car or (even worse) controlling systems in it.
Yeah, I've heard some people (I don't know if I'd say "many") complaining, too. Don't take this personally. Since "many people" are critical—not you—I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt that you're merely observing, not complaining.
COH is still lacking in any kind of end game content. Once you get the level 50, the only thing there is to do from there is to roll up a new character and start over.
(Insert standard lament about how people don't roleplay here, so I can move on to stuff that pertains to this comment...)
End game content? You mean after you've won? Isn't the point of a role-playing game that there is no end of the game?
Congratulations, you've reached level 50. So what? Keep logging on and give advice to new players. Hang out in Atlas Park and act like, well, a hero. Listen to The Cape Radio and dance with the DJ's. Write some articles for my virtual newspaper or my CoH wiki. Join the Taxibots and volunteer to teleport heroes around. Host a costume contest. Host a trivia contest. Host a scavenger hunt. Jeez, man, show us why the MM in MMORPG makes a game more fun!
And what's so bad about rolling up a new character? So your badass übertank finally snagged the Hero of the City badge. What would you do if your primary power was the ability to heal other heroes? How would a Warshade fare in the Arena? How can you make the most of those weird powers that hardly anyone else has? In other words, there's always something different to try and do, so get back out there and have some fun!
Look, I know that sometimes the game can be tedious. Whenever I find myself getting bored, I finish what I'm doing if I'm with a team, and bounce to something different, usually something a little more creative than doing Officer Dave's missions yet again. If all fails, ping me at @KingSkippus and we'll figure out something to do to break the monotony. Whatever you do, just please don't become one of those folks who follow this guy's satirical advice. (non-Coral)
Slashdot Mirror
Sure there is, and you seem to even know what it is: the swappage of coin.
It's a well known fact in advertising that sex sells. And let's not kid ourselves—E3 these days is more about companies selling their products than anything else.
So until I start seeing beer commercials stop featuring cheerleaders, jeans commercials stop featuring super-skinny models, new television shows stop featuring bright-eyed perky actresses portraying "normal" people, and so forth, I don't see anything surprising or particularly wrong with E3 featuring "booth babes."
If you have a problem with that, you've got a problem with a hellova lot more than just E3, and frankly, E3 should be waaaay down on your list of things to be upset about.
Incidentally, the whole "whatever sells" notion is the source of a lot of other of the guy who wrote this article's complains. Why is there music louder than jet engines? Because companies are desperately trying to get your attention. (Ever turn your radio down when a car dealership commercial comes on? Same principle.) Why do they let 70,000 people in the show? So that there will be 70,000 bloggers writing about their games. Why do they give away so much swag? So people will come to their booth instead of the schmuck's who forgot to bring FooSoft sticky-note cubes. Why do they charge so much for food and parking? Well, you've got me there.
My point is that if you want to change the world, then change the world. If people stop flocking to see booth babes, then you'll see booth babes go away. But it has to work in that order, not the other way around. Until that happens, when people wonder why this demeaning display of blatant sexual pandering continues, I can only say, "Duh..."
Well, I expected them to charge a slightly higher fee (not double) if you played both games. If you're paying $14.95 a month now (I actually subscribe six months at a time), then you'll pay $19.95 to play both games. They could have easily justified it by saying, "Even if you only play City of Heroes, you will have access to significant additional content and features by being a City of Villains member, too."
However, it looks like they're thinking along the same lines that you are: if they had charged a higher fee for both, then they would have more players playing either/or, and fewer players buying City of Villains (or new copies of City of Heroes).
I say kudos to NCsoft for actually using their heads in figuring this out instead of taking the typical corporate knee-jerk reaction of, "Players get more stuff, let's charge 'em extra for it!" I think in the long run, what they're doing is a smarter move and will earn them more marketshare and profit, so everyone wins.
My only concern is that they might have a tough time maintaining any kind of reasonable release schedule for new content now that they'll have to do it for two games. I hope that all the hoopla surrounding City of Villains doesn't cut into releasing new stuff for City of Heroes. I guess we'll see!
No, it's not. There are a bunch of differences between City of Heroes and City of Villains. Sure, they share the same concept and a lot of the same game mechanics, but this is a LOT more than just an upgrade to City of Heroes. If nothing else, the content alone is as big as City of Heroes is, and that doesn't even take into account that a lot of features will be added for existing City of Heroes players.
If you're in the beta, you know that already. If you're not, well, I'd love to expound upon the differences, but I can't. Here are some that are already public knowledge:
...plus, a bunch of other stuff you can read just as well from the press releases (flash site). I'll stop now because this is starting to sound more like an ad than a comment.
Anyway, the point is that this game is much more that just an update, and NCsoft is reasonable in expecting people to go out and buy it, and I think it's pretty nice of 'em to not ding existing subscribers with an extra service fee for playing it, because now we don't have to choose which one we want to play or go broke playing both.
They may be developing an ulcer, but as we established in the previous front page article, it would be due to H. Pylori, not stress...
Nevertheless, I agree. OpenOffice for the Web? Brilliant!
First, I said, "Let there be PS2," and there was PS2, and PS2 was good.
I hadn't owned a console system since my old NES, and I was blown away by the graphics, sound, and playability of the latest generation of games. I bought Tekken. I bought Madden. I bought Ridge Racer. I bought SSX.
Then, I said, "Let there be Xbox," and there was Xbox, and Xbox was good.
Several of my friends passed up the PS2 in favor of the Xbox, and I ended up buying on purely out of peer pressure. I hosted a few cookouts where they brought their Xboxes, hooked them up to my spare tv's, and we kicked each other's asses on Halo. I bought DOA Volleyball, and said, "Wow, a really unique and original game. (Oh, and by the way, Hitomi is a goddess...)"
Then, I said, "Let there be Gamecube," and my wallet reached up and punched me in the eye, so I had to pass up that system. :-(
I bought a few more games for each of the systems I had, and slowly came to the realization that the impossible had happened—I was bored with them. I bought Generic Fighting Game #362, Generic First Person Shooter #178#, Generic Role Playing Game #204, Generic Racing Game #140, and a bunch of others. (I've got to admit, Generic Stealth Mission Game #78 was not half bad...)
At this point, I am thinking that I will forego the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in favor of the Revolution. Why? Because what I need now aren't better graphics and sound. I've been there and done that, and it's no longer enough. What I need are new and original games, games that leave me saying, "Wow, that's pretty cool, the first of a new generation of Generic Games that will inevitably follow on the other systems. But until now, I haven't been there, and I haven't done that!" All indications I've seen so far from Microsoft and Sony point to just a bunch more Generic Games.
I may be mistaken, but Nintendo seems to be the only company right now thinking outside of the proverbial box. When I first saw the controller, I thought, "Are you kidding me? How can you play a decent game with a remote control?" The more I think about it, though, the more I think that it's probably not a bad idea after all. And more importantly, I respect Nintendo's willingness to say, "We know you haven't seen anything like this before, and that's what we're going to sell you: something different, and really, it won't suck!"
Next time I buy, that's exactly what I'm going to look for. If you're looking for prettier pictures, buy your Xbox 360 or PS3 and have fun. As for me, I'm going to wait until something more interesting comes along before I plop out hundreds of dollars.
No, it's not a matter of agreement, it's a matter of open source alternatives not even being considered. I can't tell you how many times I've had converstaions like this:
Side note: 99% of our internal sites work fine with Firefox. (I run it even though it's not an authorized application, because I often use it for troubleshooting issues.) Of the remaining 1%, most of them are just minor issues with Javascript incompatibilities that could probably be easily fixed within a half hour or so.
I've even had this conversation, which just makes me shake my head in shame at my company:
Another side note: Because IBM has made it such a big deal, we are just now getting around to evaluating Linux on some test servers, which is a welcome change of policy. When I started here six years ago, I was told flat-out that if the higher-ups caught you installing Linux on a machine, you would be fired. Who knows? Maybe by 2050, we'll actually (gasp!) start coming to our collective senses.
So I agree, there is definitely an Orwellian feeling to this, but IMHO, it's not from me. And that's why I'd like to send them to this class. That way, maybe they'd know what the hell they were talking about, and if they decided against open source, maybe they'd at least be able to give me some sort of valid reason(s), and not just stuff like, "we didn't consider it for the sole reason that it's open source," as if that somehow magically implies that a piece of software is automatically inferior. >:-(
Dude, don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration?
Nah, it sounds pretty much on the mark to me, too. Other than that, though, they're not so bad...
I agree, I would too. But even better, I'd like to send some people to that course, especially intermediate manager/technical types at my company. They're the ones, unfortunately, who just don't get it and need to be educated about the principles of Open Source and what makes it worthwhile.
We didn't, at least, we used to not. At one time, our whole legal system was just a few pages long. But our government decided that it wasn't enough, and so we've ended up with the billions of pages of legal code we have today.
In a utopian world, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, there are just too many people who look for too many loopholes trying to screw other people over. And even that doesn't take into account the many gray areas. For example, I think that all copyrights are bad because they protect a small minority at the expense of putting artificial limits on the creativity and innovation of the vast majority. Some think they're good because it allows people to have financial incentive to be creative and innovative. Who's right? It's hard to say, but unfortunately, those aforementioned pages have sided with the latter folks.
You also neglect the fact that qualified judges are easily corrupted with that much power, and justified decisions will always be viewed as unfair by someone.
I agree that many laws are unneeded, and some are downright harmful to the public good, and like everyone else, I wish someone would come along and restore some sanity. But that doesn't imply that we need to almost completely do away with the legal system.
That's actually a good analogy, because even today, we still have Muslims and Christians, who worship the same God of Moses, trying to wipe each other—and other groups along with them—out because they just can't agree on which rules are okay to ignore out of convenience and which makes someone an infidel or heretic.
So we've ended up with large organized religions to break it all down for us into rules such as you can't use contraception, women have to wear burquas, you can't eat pork, etc.
According to your philosophy, we need to do away with religion altogether, and indeed some people believe that. I don't, but as with the legal system, I wish that someone could come along and restore some sanity.
I like the idea of an AI reacting to the subtleties of the map.
But what I would like to see is an AI that reacts to how its opponent is playing.
For example, I would like an AI that evaluates how aggressive a player is. If a player is constantly attacking the AI, it should react by foregoing some research to build up a defensive army. If a player is defensive, on the other hand, the AI should patiently build up an overwhelming attack force, complete with research upgrades and such.
If a player shows a preference for attacking with one particular type of unit, the AI should "realize" it and start building counterunits. It would even be nice if the AI would do things like sacrifice some scouts to find out what its opponents are up to and compensate for it. Does the scout see some lots of planes in a city? Build some anti-aircraft missile batteries in surrounding areas. I've beaten lots of various players at various strategy games using these kinds of tactics. If an AI used them too, it would add a whole new dimension to player-vs.-computer strategy games.
Plus, it would be nice for developers to observe some really good players playing, make some notes, and ask the players why they do things that the developers don't understand. Are there any general rules that can be programmed that a human uses in making decisions like when he or she starts building military units, how those units are deployed, how much and what kind of research he or she conducts and when, and so on.
I think a cool AI feature of a game would be for the AI to "learn" how a player plays over the course of the player's games. If I beat the computer one way, it will know where it went wrong and play the next game differently, under the assumption that the player will still use some of the same tactics. Perhaps a game would even include some sort of profile manager so that if my brother plays the game, the computer will play against him differently. I've used that tactic several times in AoE2—record the games so I can go back later and study why my opponent did to spank me so badly. Next game I play against that opponent, he or she will be pwned by someone who has prepared for his or her tricks and strategies.
I think it would also be cool for the AI to try a few odd tactics now and then to see how a player reacts. Start building a wonder. What did the player do? Immediately start one of his or her own? Use that knowledge to make him or her waste resources that could otherwise be alloted to the military. Declare war on a player out of the blue and see what happens. Does the player start making concessions to re-establish peace? If so, that player can be bluffed. Send a lone military unit to camp close to another city. Does the player attack him immediately, though he's no threat? If so, do the same thing, but have a larger army waiting on the other side of the city to go in while it's not as heavily defended.
I guess what I'm saying is that if we could get to the point where computers are "thinking" like humans, I can finally shed the last vestiges of my need for friends to play with, and that can't be a bad thing, right? :-)
It's probably small consolation, but I don't know why you got modded flamebait. I guess someone here wanted to avoid the inevitable flamewar that comes from belittling stepchildren. (?)
Most of the stuff modded "funny" here really isn't but I did laugh at your post. It was harsh, and if I were your wife I'd smack you in the head for saying it, but it was funny.
For what it's worth, I don't really call it a joke, more of a mildly amusing self-deprecating quip. I wasn't trying for a funny mod, I was just shooting for trying to alleviate some of the embarrassment at the fact that I screwed up and what I said really didn't make much sense.
I have DirecTV, and my service only goes out two or three times a year, and only because of weird atmospheric interference, and only for twenty minutes or so. I've had rain, snow, and wind. Hell, I even had service during a tropical storm that managed to survive until it reached Atlanta. I remember one night, the wind and rain got so bad that my power went out around 10 minutes before the end of Survivor, and because I have a UPS, I was still able to watch the end of it and see who got voted out.
Maybe your dish isn't aligned correctly. I set my own dish up, and on a clear day, my signal strength is a steady 100%. My dad complained about his service going out, and when I checked his signal strength on a clear day, it was only around 80%, thanks to an installation company that settled for "good enough." I adjusted his dish, and he didn't have much trouble after that.
But when I had cable, the damn thing was out at least once or twice a month. Once, I went three whole days without service. IIRC, someone cut the cable while doing construction, and somehow my box got deactivated, and it totally blew their minds. That kind of thing has never happened with my satellite service.
In spite of all of that, I recently tried cable again, because I can get HDTV from Comcast for a lot less than with DirecTV. I had it taken out after less than a week of service because of several insurmountable problems. Needless to say, I won't make that mistake again.
Er, I mean in my quote, "Normally, people listen to music on their computers. If you are a car or home stereo user, you should consider purchasing a computer."
Damn, those people who don't hit Preview and re-read their messages before posting!
According to TFA, his translated quote is:
Funny, I was just thinking something kind of similar, but slightly different:
Now, we need to understand that listening to music in your car or through your home stereos is an extra privilege. Normally, people listen to music on your computer. If you are a car or home stereo user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player.
Given that when I pay for a CD, I'm paying for the music, not the plastic and mylar, can any RIAA person please explain to me why my position is any less valid than Tommi Kyyrä's?
You're right, the following sentence is totally incorrect:
The purpose of that specific act is actually to protect blogs as free speech.
However, it is true that the FEC is trying to bring blogs under the regulations of campaign finance. The summary got The Online Freedom of Speech Act confused with FEC regulations. :-(
This is definitely not a "nothing to see here" story, it is a "whoops, I accidentally confused 'black' with 'white'" story. Nice external reference, by the way, it makes what the author and editor of this /. story tried to say perfectly clear.
That's actually a good suggestion that I agree earns the Interesting mod, but it's also a very sad reflection on us as a country. In the land where free speech is supposed to be sacred, people are starting to understand that the only way to use it is to talk from overseas.
(sigh) Oh well, it was a good Constitution for the 200 years or so while it lasted...
If you're going to post an article about a new product, it might be helpful to post a link to the product. I kind of like being able to see pictures of what the article's about...
Call me crazy, but I think that AoE2 is still an awesome game. And I don't know if it counts as a "game" since it's just a cinematic, but I think that the opening is genuinely moving, and it immediately sucked me into the game before I even played for the very first time. Very well done, Ensemble!
Me? The only thing I'm spouting is that more study is warranted, and that reasonable measures to cut greenhouse gasses are justified. I'm a liberal, but I wouldn't exactly classify myself as a tree-hugger.
"Pseudo-scientists?" You make it sound like there's a small group of crackpot hacks that came up with the weird little theory that greenhouse gasses contribute to global warming. Newsflash: It's actually quite a large number of respected real scientists who have dedicated their lives to collecting data and using it to learn about our climate and the possible roles that humans may or may not play in it.
Some real scientists also think that mankind's contribution to global warming is negligible, and I respect their work too, which is why I'm not writing to my Congresspeople demanding that they immediately ban gasoline or anything.
As weird as it sounds, it is possible for two people to look at the same set of data and draw two perfectly reasonable mutually exclusive inferences from it, and this is clearly the case with global warming. What that tells me is that more study is needed, and until more definitive answers are available, it is probably best to err on the side of our planet not being destroyed.
No, because I'm not one of the scientists that studies this stuff, and I never claimed to be. How many papers have you published on the subject? Enough to dismiss a lot of respected scientist's decades' worth of collective hard work as "pseudo-science"?
I'm glad you wrote that first phrase, because the real answer to your question is... maybe, maybe not.
Undoubtedly, people are going to start screaming about how global warming on Mars proves that global warming on Earth is due to natural forces, not man's activities. I've already seen several comments here to that effect. To believe such a silly thing is scientific idiocy.
No one has ever said that a planet's climate is stable. It has been known for quite a while that Earth's climate goes through warmer and colder phases. While natural warming of the planet does exist, this is not what "Global Warming," in the sense of the political topic, is. The thing that is alarming about the temperature changes in our own planet is not the fact that it exists, but the rate at which it's changing and the possible consequences of the change.
<political>
Is our own global warming exacerbated by man's activities? Maybe, more study is needed. The Republican way is not to study, though, it is to simply dismiss it as untrue. Now that scientists have "proven" that there is climate change on Mars (something that is only logical), my fear is what seems to be happening right here: people are going to use it as "evidence" that our own global warming is just a bunch of tree-hugging liberals trying to scare people. If they manage to convince enough people of this, it will likely lead to significant environmental problems in our not-too-distant future (at best) or the ultimate destruction of our species (at worst).
Is that scary enough for you? While I don't go through life in constant fear of our extinction, it is of great enough concern to me that I think that scientists are warranted in wanting to check into the possibilities, and it wouldn't hurt to take some reasonable measures now to possibly prevent such dire consequences while we have plenty of time to do so, even if it is at the expense of slightly reducing the profit of rich oil companies and Washington lobbyists.
Worse, knee-jerk non-scientists will use this as an opportunity to dismiss decades of study that have already taken place as invalid and/or untrue, just as new discoveries that modify our understanding of our own planet's age, development of species, and other such finds is used as "proof" that the Theory of Evolution is wrong.
</political>
I just wish everyone would hold off on drawing wild inferences from these new observations until they can be studied and logical, well-thought-out hypotheses put forth.
The summary doesn't make this clear, but this procedure is intended only for severely disfigured people due to burn scars and such.
The possible side effects are pretty scary, though. My favorite quote is from the CNN Article:
And I used to think that anal leakage was a scary side effect, that's nothing comparing to a soughing face! Thank god I'm not in a position for now where I have to make a decision like that, but it sure is a high price to pay for looking "normal" again.
I think the security concern isn't really OnStar's invasiveness, but it's whether the system could be hacked into fooling your car into thinking that the attacker IS OnStar and giving information about your car or (even worse) controlling systems in it.
Yeah, brag about all your games's updates. I'm just pissed that there hasn't been any updates to Progress Quest in, like, forever. :-(
Yeah, I've heard some people (I don't know if I'd say "many") complaining, too. Don't take this personally. Since "many people" are critical—not you—I'm giving you the benefit of a doubt that you're merely observing, not complaining.
(Insert standard lament about how people don't roleplay here, so I can move on to stuff that pertains to this comment...)
End game content? You mean after you've won? Isn't the point of a role-playing game that there is no end of the game?
Congratulations, you've reached level 50. So what? Keep logging on and give advice to new players. Hang out in Atlas Park and act like, well, a hero. Listen to The Cape Radio and dance with the DJ's. Write some articles for my virtual newspaper or my CoH wiki. Join the Taxibots and volunteer to teleport heroes around. Host a costume contest. Host a trivia contest. Host a scavenger hunt. Jeez, man, show us why the MM in MMORPG makes a game more fun!
And what's so bad about rolling up a new character? So your badass übertank finally snagged the Hero of the City badge. What would you do if your primary power was the ability to heal other heroes? How would a Warshade fare in the Arena? How can you make the most of those weird powers that hardly anyone else has? In other words, there's always something different to try and do, so get back out there and have some fun!
Look, I know that sometimes the game can be tedious. Whenever I find myself getting bored, I finish what I'm doing if I'm with a team, and bounce to something different, usually something a little more creative than doing Officer Dave's missions yet again. If all fails, ping me at @KingSkippus and we'll figure out something to do to break the monotony. Whatever you do, just please don't become one of those folks who follow this guy's satirical advice. (non-Coral)