About Star Wreck being the most popular: can you really compare a strictly finnish audience with a potentially global audience?
Yes, you can, but can you really compare people who saw Unknown Soldier in movie theaters to the number of people who downloaded/bought Star Wreck? I've seen Unknown Soldier maybe 5 times. It's shown on TV almost every year, and it's probably the only war movie parents generally let even small kids watch. I don't know anybody who has seen Unknown Soldier in a theatre, because that was decades ago!
So I don't think the comparison is fair, and I don't think Star Wreck is the most popular Finnish movie, at least not yet.
"The man without a past"? absolutely dreadful movie, not from an artistic point of view, but from a content point of view.
Today's cinematographers have forgotten how to tell a meaningful story. All they want is to convey their own feelings to the public.
I would like you to be a bit more elaborate on why you think The man without a past lacks content and has a meaningless story. I thought it was a great film with critique of the society and sharp observation about the human nature. It was about Life.
I wonder, how would someone tell a meaningful story without conveying their own feelings to the public? Please, give us some examples of such movies! And how exactly could you, for example, critisize the society without being somewhat subjective? There's no ideal society you could objectively compare to.
Of course, your mileage may vary. Familiarity with the Finnish culture, mentality and language might make a big difference in this case, even though the world of Kaurismäki is just one view of it.
Despire the wireless connectivity issues - the 770 ROCKS.
Yes, it is quite astonishing, but there are two points that disappoint me a bit: 1) There's no hardware to support timed wake ups e.g. for calendar alarms, and 2) Performance is not quite what you'd expect, e.g. starting of applications is painfully slow.
Somehow all of this "IP-based society" stuff reminds me of the people that landed on pre-historic Earth in a Douglas Adams book. One of their first decisions was starting to use tree leaves as currency, essentially making money out of nothing (and also creating a huge inflation that lead to burning down forests).
While IP isn't exactly nothing, I really feel we are going towards the society described above. We are creating new abstract property types all the time just to increase the economy. Something new to own, something new to have legal battles about. (Yeah, a flawed analogy, but you get the idea.)
For the native Americans it was incomprehensable how anyone could own land. At least that's what I was taught in school. Anyway, I'm beginning to understand them more all the time.
I remember the craze. I got one cube, my brother too, my friends too, almost every pupil had one. I never could do more than two lines but some could in 1'30.
My observation was that most people eventually learned how to solve it - one way or the other. In general, the boys usually used a screwdriver, while the girls just moved the stickers.
In fact, I came across a dusted 20-year-old cube this summer, and finally learned to solve it the right way for the first time. It was actually quite satisfying not having to use a screwdriver. Just twisting the cube is faster, too.
...IDEs are a great tool for managing larger programming projects.
Last time I looked (and admittedly, this wasn't recently), the IDEs on Windows always brought dependencies on the particular user's environment. Dependencies such as absolute file names, environment variables, registry settings, etc. For the solo programmer, this may not be a big deal. But in my job, every single member of the development team has to be able to build the exact same binary from the same sources. The dependencies on the environment made this practically impossible, and we switched to using command line compilers/tools and GNU Make (which also has its wrinkles, but that's beside the point). In addition, the project files containing the compilation options etc. were usually binary files, and the actual changes to them from version to version were painful to trace.
My question is, have these issues been addressed in recent versions of Visual Studio? If not, I really couldn't recommend it for managing larger programming projects with more than one developer.
I'd be willing to believe there's no GPS or anything real cab positioning system involved.
I am playing the game right now. The game gives you updates every 15 minutes. And every 15 minutes I end up paying rent to someone. Consider a city the size of London, the traffic there, less than 40 locations spread about the city, and a cab driving around. There is no way the cab could pass one of those locations every 15 minutes.
My judgement is that the game is a hoax. (Although a nice one at that.)
Well, it actually is difficult to pick a good name these days that can be a registered trademark around the globe.
IMHO, it is quite interesting that some of the most popular Microsoft products have the simplest names, names that most likely could not be registered: Windows, Office, Word, Internet Explorer. If the Windows vs. Lindows dispute had gone to court, Microsoft might have lost their best known trademark. (Of course, IANAL.)
The open source world is filled with clever names, but it is uncertain whether this is actually a good thing for mainstream software, such as Firefox. Not only because of trademark issues, but also because the name convoys no information whatsoever about the program to Joe Sixpack.
Well, since he's using unorthodox methods to cool down his room, I assume he's got a fancy beer cooler as well...
On the high cost of development
on
A Gamer's Manifesto
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Today, console games have high cost of development because the systems are so locked up. You need to license a development console and the SDK from the console provider for big bucks, and not everyone gets the license anyway. Then you need to pay the console manufacturer for each box sold.
It's just impossible for a small company to create a small, nice, innovative game for a console. A new great idea along the lines of Tetris would never make it, no matter how addictive or playable the game was. All the new games are gigantic with minimized risks and huge budgets, and the price will be set accordingly. (The Sega Sports NHL/NBA/NFL 2K5 games being a notable exception to the rule.)
Game budgets have risen to the same ballpark as movie budgets, but, for console games, there is no alternative analoguous to independent films.
I have these new games that are pretty to look at and everything, but why do I miss a bunch of old, simple games from the C64 and Amiga days?
He's just too old, and I feel that they could have brought new life to the Indiana Jones franchise with a new actor.
I, for one, wouldn't want to see Indiana Jones turn into another James Bond, with a new movie every other year and a new actor after a couple of movies. Don't get me wrong, I think Indy movies are great, but why not let it be? Why don't we let the character age as well?
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you can, but can you really compare people who saw Unknown Soldier in movie theaters to the number of people who downloaded/bought Star Wreck? I've seen Unknown Soldier maybe 5 times. It's shown on TV almost every year, and it's probably the only war movie parents generally let even small kids watch. I don't know anybody who has seen Unknown Soldier in a theatre, because that was decades ago!
So I don't think the comparison is fair, and I don't think Star Wreck is the most popular Finnish movie, at least not yet.
I wonder, how would someone tell a meaningful story without conveying their own feelings to the public? Please, give us some examples of such movies! And how exactly could you, for example, critisize the society without being somewhat subjective? There's no ideal society you could objectively compare to.
Of course, your mileage may vary. Familiarity with the Finnish culture, mentality and language might make a big difference in this case, even though the world of Kaurismäki is just one view of it.
Definitely. Remember the Dilbert strip:
Doctor to Secretary: "Switch to decaf for a while. That should help."
Secratary: "I'll change all the office coffee to decaf for my convenience."
(Everyone collapsed on the floor, holding mugs.) Wally: "Must... find... antidote."
I apologise for that. I think you'll find this a bit more interesting.
Yes, it is quite astonishing, but there are two points that disappoint me a bit: 1) There's no hardware to support timed wake ups e.g. for calendar alarms, and 2) Performance is not quite what you'd expect, e.g. starting of applications is painfully slow.
What are your opinions on these?
In addition, the 770 doesn't have any hardware to support a timed wake up, for e.g. calendar alarms, so IMHO it's not that useful as a PDA.
While IP isn't exactly nothing, I really feel we are going towards the society described above. We are creating new abstract property types all the time just to increase the economy. Something new to own, something new to have legal battles about. (Yeah, a flawed analogy, but you get the idea.)
For the native Americans it was incomprehensable how anyone could own land. At least that's what I was taught in school. Anyway, I'm beginning to understand them more all the time.
My observation was that most people eventually learned how to solve it - one way or the other. In general, the boys usually used a screwdriver, while the girls just moved the stickers.
In fact, I came across a dusted 20-year-old cube this summer, and finally learned to solve it the right way for the first time. It was actually quite satisfying not having to use a screwdriver. Just twisting the cube is faster, too.
Yeah, right. For me, it keeps downloading and installing the 1.5 beta 2 over and over!
Last time I looked (and admittedly, this wasn't recently), the IDEs on Windows always brought dependencies on the particular user's environment. Dependencies such as absolute file names, environment variables, registry settings, etc. For the solo programmer, this may not be a big deal. But in my job, every single member of the development team has to be able to build the exact same binary from the same sources. The dependencies on the environment made this practically impossible, and we switched to using command line compilers/tools and GNU Make (which also has its wrinkles, but that's beside the point). In addition, the project files containing the compilation options etc. were usually binary files, and the actual changes to them from version to version were painful to trace.
My question is, have these issues been addressed in recent versions of Visual Studio? If not, I really couldn't recommend it for managing larger programming projects with more than one developer.
Bigger laps, bigger laptops!
Seriously, this really sounds like a load of bs to me. Perhaps auto-generated?
Umm, you mean it's 2005-10-20?
You remind me of Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters:
It's been patented before by someone else. They're just avoiding the royalties to cut costs.
You mean like this:
"This /. article is reeeally interesting... oh, damn, the compile finished... hmm..."
"Let's see, where was I..."
I am playing the game right now. The game gives you updates every 15 minutes. And every 15 minutes I end up paying rent to someone. Consider a city the size of London, the traffic there, less than 40 locations spread about the city, and a cab driving around. There is no way the cab could pass one of those locations every 15 minutes.
My judgement is that the game is a hoax. (Although a nice one at that.)
IMHO, it is quite interesting that some of the most popular Microsoft products have the simplest names, names that most likely could not be registered: Windows, Office, Word, Internet Explorer. If the Windows vs. Lindows dispute had gone to court, Microsoft might have lost their best known trademark. (Of course, IANAL.)
The open source world is filled with clever names, but it is uncertain whether this is actually a good thing for mainstream software, such as Firefox. Not only because of trademark issues, but also because the name convoys no information whatsoever about the program to Joe Sixpack.
Number of persons killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the U.S. in 2002: 43,005.
"Oh no, there are cars everywhere..."
Recommended reading for you (and all Insightful modders, for that matter): Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century by Jonathan Glover.
Well, since he's using unorthodox methods to cool down his room, I assume he's got a fancy beer cooler as well...
It's just impossible for a small company to create a small, nice, innovative game for a console. A new great idea along the lines of Tetris would never make it, no matter how addictive or playable the game was. All the new games are gigantic with minimized risks and huge budgets, and the price will be set accordingly. (The Sega Sports NHL/NBA/NFL 2K5 games being a notable exception to the rule.)
Game budgets have risen to the same ballpark as movie budgets, but, for console games, there is no alternative analoguous to independent films.
I have these new games that are pretty to look at and everything, but why do I miss a bunch of old, simple games from the C64 and Amiga days?
This reminds me of a Far Side cartoon with dinosaurs having a barbeque, and one of them wearing an "Extinct and loving it" t-shirt.
The FAQ confirms that "the user interface has its roots in the smartphone Series 90 user interface."