The Wii is a great game system, its just that game studios didn't think it would take off, so most of the games are the Mario varity.
<rant>
I believe that even after game producers remove their collective heads from their asses that the Wii is still destined to fail, for two reasons. First and foremost, we have well-established, risk-averse publishers. The big houses have found a niche that they know will sell sans innovation (think "pop-gaming"). Why experiment with the Wii's controller when the graphics fall far short of Advanced Console Theta? When we can co-brand games with other mass-media? When our development staff knows nothing beyond button mashing? Why experiment when we can repeat the mold with guaranteed profit?
Initially the WiiMote was hyped to break the mold. It could bring 1992's VR hype (see: the evil Sys Admin in hackers) to the masses! Look at the market, though. Developers approach the WiiMote superficially, grafting functionality onto their games instead of incorporating it into the experience. Face it: most games treat the Wiimote as a gimmick. What's worse, consumers are beginning to hold the same belief as developers--the only thing the WiiMote is good for is gimmick after gimmick. That's why this console, for all of its potential, is withering on the branch. It could be said that the market lacks an "entrepreneurial spirit"--the vision of change, and the inclination to do it.
So, where are the entrepreneurs? Written out of Nintendo's business strategy, it seems. Nintendo caters solely to the massive, stagnating atmosphere of the past 5 or so years. In a seemingly schizophrenic move, Nintendo priced the Wii development kit at $2000, but they refuse to license it to anyone without prior success in the market. WTF? Likewise, Nintendo built an innovate console, but they didn't innovate their market for content. Presenting a novel platform to a stagnant environment accomplishes nothing except stagnating the platform. That's why Wii games are, and will continue to be, the same, lifeless crap as on every other system.
If Nintendo wants their 'Revolution' to be successful, they must dedicate themselves to the cause. They should encourage variety and competition. Likewise, the developers who play the "Wii Game" should have an "innovate, or die" mentality.
Why? More innovation forces developers to investigate every nook and cranny of the system, to push it beyond what the console developers originally expected. Leave no feature unexamined, because that could give your competitor an edge.
How do you accomplish this? Invite new players--entrepreneurs-- with new projects and new ideas to the market. Entrepreneurs don't have the opportunity to rest on their laurels, because that bed of flowers hasn't been made. Their incentive is intrinsic to their goal. in addition they may force the big players to shift as well.
And if the big guys don't shift? So what? The new developers provide your content.
Companies like Microsoft encourage this form of development. They give away an XBox360 development kit (XNA Game Studio), and XBox Live gives indie game developers a market for their games. XBox Live flourishes (even if it flourishes with crap), while the Wii Shopping Channel rots. Furthermore, every developer tied to MS is one less available for Nintendo. Their "potential content network" dwindles daily.
As a budding entrepreneur who is highly interested in game development--particularly on the Wii--I'm pissed they're excluding me. But what really pisses me off is knowing that, when I finally make my case for the Wii, the market may have passed it by for Game Iteration X++ only on Advanced Console Theta.
Lang and Geiger are not less the artist because they got paid, nor did they necessarily compromise their vision to satisfy profitability. Both leveraged their vision to make money. I (and, possibly the GP) posit that game designers are in the same camp, and the compromise between inspiration and cash-dollars is between the artist/designer and their employer.
All it serves to do is make it even more confusing where you actually are in relation to everything else.
I'd say this is the fault of poor cut-scene design. If the scene started from where you were and panned to wherever it wanted to be, it wouldn't be nearly as disorienting. (Harder to keep interesting, though. Ah, opportunity costs...)
It's also incredibly fun to mess with people, only to reveal your "true nature" over Teamspeak. In all seriousness, though, I choose to play female characters for several reasons:
1) They're treated more kindly than male characters. This includes when others know you're male. (However, as in real life, you shouldn't abuse your figure to get free stuff.)
2) I don't usually find a male model that I can tolerate. Most games limit you to exaggerated, muscle-bound models; I prefer ones that resemble me in RL--I'm a thin, pale, hippy-looking guy. When I can fit the look to my RSI, I tend to take it. For example, the month I played WoW, I played an undead sorcerer (pale, short, bossy, scrawny). Likewise, my character in Eve Online is a reasonably close facsimile (except he has jaundice and radiation poisoning).
Of course there's always (3): If I'm gonna play a game 20+ hours a week, and pay 15 dollars a month for the privilege, I don't want to stare at a mans ass, real or virtual, the entire time.
And (4): I like customizing my appearance (clothes, weapons, etc), and female characters tend to have more options.
Reinstating gold-backed currency would do several bad things, because it artificially constrains the value of gold as a commodity metal.
With that reasoning, currency artificially constrains the value of debt as a commodity. I honestly don't like currency. You have to stick it to something to derive value, and everything we could use is (or becomes) commodified.
Directly before I wrote this post, I was thinking "Hey, time would be great"... but time has been a commodity since man discovered the inclined plane, if not before that. (Not to mention that relativity makes for a particularly interesting conundrum given this state of affairs). Sovereign fiat would likewise be interesting, but (at least in the US), the will of the people is traded as well.
On the other hand, it's not like we can scrap currency altogether--the market wouldn't stand for it, and everything would get incredibly confusing for a while. Damn catch 22s.
Just because we know that trying to blame software for hardware failures is ridiculous, there are even more people out there who have no clue that they're separate issues and will just give up.
Sorry, but anyone who believes that software cannot induce hardware failure doesn't understand the relationship between hardware and software, much less the constraints imposed by embedded systems.
Here's some personal anecdote: A while back, when I was still a Gentoo fan, I was recompiling my kernel. I wasn't paying attention and "accidentally" enabled the pass arguments via registers feature.
I installed the kernel, rebooted the machine, and left to grab a soda. Returning, Pepsi in hand, X greeted me with the delightfully tangy fragrance of a spring shower (ozone), and I could swear I heard the faint pitter-patter of rain (exploding transistors).
Then the monitor went dark, and it slowly dawned on me this wasn't some great feature of my new kernel. I rebooted.
The monitor stayed dark; my inner penguin cried.
It turns out that the NVidia driver was expecting values to be passed on the stack. Meanwhile the kernel was fine and dandy, but in register-land. The driver read just the right values to fry the card.
Here's the great part: you don't have to destroy the hardware to render it inoperable. Say we have an OS running on a CPU, a peripheral including CPU-controlled firmware, and a bus to connect them. Now say I modify (intentionally or not) the firmware-CPU interface. The hardware operates (albeit it has no clue what I want it to do); the CPU operates; the bus signals the peripheral just fine. Everything except the firmware, which isn't capable of understanding the signal, is in order. Oops, Borked.
Or, say that the firmware is ok, but there's some value (such as a lock code) stored in nvram/flash/PROM, and I modify that value. Then a firmware update changes how the value is interpreted, so my value is no longer valid (but the unmodified value would have been fine). Oops, borked.
This completely ignores the design of embedded devices. There's not many resources, so the coupling tends to be tighter between components, and most components aren't designed for general computing... Long and short, everything has to be tiny, tight ant integrated.
The reality is that most geeks don't understand low-level computing (even me), and it shows in conversations like this one.
Are you saying that because Apple fixes firmware defects, people are obligated to let Apple dictate arbitrary terms of usage?
Announcing that an update may brick a phone is far from an arbitrary term of use.
Updates and patches are developed with the assumption that the system operates under several environmental invariants (e.g. code locations and instructions). When these invariants change, they cause unexpected behaviors*. Unexpected behavior damages system integrity. Thus, it can be said that modifying invariants decreases system integrity.
Hacking a device can damage system integrity directly or indirectly. Hacks that adjust environmental invariants, such as firmware replacements, compromise integrity directly. Others operate indirectly: they adjust variants in a manner inconsistent with established invariants. To complicate matters, many hacks intentionally subvert existing update mechanisms by installing software management tools. It merely follows that an update (or the update mechanism itself) may behave unpredictably and brick the device.
Now, let's say that:
Apple's update modifies program A.
Program A has been exploited to unlock the phone.
The process used to unlock the phone may modify or conflict with an invariant.
Then it is possible that Apple's update may have the unfortunate side effect of bricking the phone. Sans testing or formal analysis, you can't be sure.
Let's further say:
That Apple knows that their patch & the hack may conflict. (unknown, but likely)
That Apple has stated they won't support broken, hacked iPhones. (true)
That the opportunity cost of testing hacked iPhones is expensive. (unknown, but not unlikely **)
Given (2) and (3), Apple lacks an incentive to test the effects of a patch on a modded iPhone. But, knowing (1), they can inform their customers that upgrading may be dangerous***. However, I say that a user accepts the risk of brick as soon as they mod it.
-- Footnotes --
* In fact, most bugs occur because a developer treats a variant as invariant.
** Additional testing costs more time and money, in addition to pulling developers away from product enhancements. Furthermore, encouraging iPhone unlocking (by supporting unlocked devices) exposes the company to litigation from AT&T.
***Deciding the appropriate course of action is left as an exercise to the corporation.
You can call it gouging if you want, but what if they'd instead just run out of stock immediately? Think "tickle me iPhone" - I don't think consumers would have been impressed by that.
Considering the recent press concerning manufacturers artificially limiting supply to get press (XBox 360, etc), I'm somewhat glad that Apple decided to manipulate demand instead. The blowback seems less damaging, too. It's far cleaner to say "Oops, here's a rebate" than to get caught with no means of recourse.
Jobs did exactly the right thing. Price no lower than where you meet demand, and only once production has ramped up (which usually takes about two months - go figure) THEN price it at the sweet spot. Also consider seasonal factors which made it necessary to do this before the Xmas shopping season, which for the gadget industry begins right now.
I have been thinking about Apple's move in relation to sub-prime lending woes./IANA.+/, but I know that the dollar took a big hit recently. When that happens, consumers are more cautious spenders; they tend not to take big risks, buy flashy toys, and what not. Thus, while far from a primary motivator, the price reduction aids the climb to Apple's target market share. Or it could be a (an?) RDF hardener/marketing device.
On release, the iPhone was too expensive to justify my expense, especially considering OSX Tiger and the opportunity cost of early-adopting*. The 200 dollar drop allowed me to justify the expense in several ways:
I needed to replace my iPod (stolen) and cellphone (borked). Purchasing each individually only cost about 50 bucks less than the iPhone.
The price was already cheaper than my former carrier's offers**. The drop exaggerated the difference.
I could spend the 200 bucks "left over" on Tiger. (It's great when you can have your cake and eat it too).
Disclaimer: I am a fanboy, and I love the iPhone. However, it's a dangerous device. Its such a blast to use that I've upgraded my plan already, and can foresee spending additional dollars tricking it out. Damn Apple to hell, but I love their products.
* I was an early-adopter for the MacBook, and was disappointed when Apple upgraded the product six months after it debuted.
** Over the lifetime of the contract, with a phone of comparable functionality, including Apple's battery replacement fee.
If you're taken prisoner as a combatant civilian and subjected either to the local (if deemed friendly) or American legal system, you'll be tried for attacking military personnel. Your friendly nation can't bail you out and you can be held accountable for your actions.
In either case, you receive representation by an agent of the law. In the case of a civilian, your representation is a lawyer. In the case of military personnel, your representation is the state employing you. The problem with the "unlawful enemy combatant" status is that you receive no representation whatsoever. Being a combatant, you are not a civilian, and thus are not entitled to a lawyer. But, by acting independently of any state, you lose the benefits of diplomatic formality as well. The lack of formality prevents you from making any case against your detainors, or asserting guarantees of oversight, transparency, or other forms of legal diligence normally afforded to a detainee.
Thus, while the consequences may be harsh, your voice may be heard--you're given the freedom to make a case against the government. And that freedom is on the chopping block, so to speak.
Expect to watch the baby boomers frantically waving money and deeds around in the coming years, desperate for some young person to care for them, only to be confronted by the fact that they traded those who might have been able and willing in exchange for birth control, a desk job and an extra zero on their bank statement long ago.
What were you referring to here?
Re:I really wanted to like bioshock...
on
BioShock Review
·
· Score: 1
Neh. You got plasmids and are a super-assassin.
Largest problems I found with BioShock:
Capitalist paradise (at least, initially) but no competing transportation networks? (Only the bathyspheres, and you don't have to pay for them).
Except the surgeon in the first level, the characters weren't compelling, and seemed flat.
If you save all of the little sisters, you can buy all of the plasmids from Gatherer's Garden and still have ADAM left over. Furthermore, the best plasmids aren't in Gatherer's Gardens anyway. Thus, harvesting is just stupid.
The entire game is on rails. e.g.
The "bad" choice (harvesting) is too obvious--how can there be a moral question when one of the options is called "rescue"?
The hype said Rapture was open-ended, and I could go where I want. I was pissed when I figured out the whole damn thing was linear.
Invisible walls (mentioned elsewhere).
It pissed me off that I spent the first two levels maxing out my special ammo, only to have it taken from me at the end of Neptune's Bounty.
All of this boils down to the same problem, though: I was promised a "paradigm shift" in the FPS genre, and I got the same old shit with a prettier bow.
The essay was interesting, but is poorly presented. The argument is left as an exercise for the reader; the description of gameplay and the story is disorganized and fragmented; and the essay lacks a definitive conclusion. (Additionally, it doesn't seem like appropriate flamebait for the front page.)
Long story short, its difficult to understand where you're going with the argument. I can understand why it was rejected from the front page.:/
Thanks for pointing this resource out. I was a lurker on the old list, and was quite disappointed when it died. It's great that the community resurrected it elsewhere:)
A few years ago, I worked for a technology company, Smiling Screens Inc., as an intern. They were developing a program specifically for this scenario, SimpleC. Their idea was to create a program that provided basic functionality--pictures, email, internet, games (solitaire), and an internet browser--to the user. Their focus, as of a few years ago, was specifically the elderly, so you may want to get ahold of them.
Slashdot Mirror
<rant>
I believe that even after game producers remove their collective heads from their asses that the Wii is still destined to fail, for two reasons. First and foremost, we have well-established, risk-averse publishers. The big houses have found a niche that they know will sell sans innovation (think "pop-gaming"). Why experiment with the Wii's controller when the graphics fall far short of Advanced Console Theta? When we can co-brand games with other mass-media? When our development staff knows nothing beyond button mashing? Why experiment when we can repeat the mold with guaranteed profit?
Initially the WiiMote was hyped to break the mold. It could bring 1992's VR hype (see: the evil Sys Admin in hackers) to the masses! Look at the market, though. Developers approach the WiiMote superficially, grafting functionality onto their games instead of incorporating it into the experience. Face it: most games treat the Wiimote as a gimmick. What's worse, consumers are beginning to hold the same belief as developers--the only thing the WiiMote is good for is gimmick after gimmick. That's why this console, for all of its potential, is withering on the branch. It could be said that the market lacks an "entrepreneurial spirit"--the vision of change, and the inclination to do it.
So, where are the entrepreneurs? Written out of Nintendo's business strategy, it seems. Nintendo caters solely to the massive, stagnating atmosphere of the past 5 or so years. In a seemingly schizophrenic move, Nintendo priced the Wii development kit at $2000, but they refuse to license it to anyone without prior success in the market. WTF? Likewise, Nintendo built an innovate console, but they didn't innovate their market for content. Presenting a novel platform to a stagnant environment accomplishes nothing except stagnating the platform. That's why Wii games are, and will continue to be, the same, lifeless crap as on every other system.
If Nintendo wants their 'Revolution' to be successful, they must dedicate themselves to the cause. They should encourage variety and competition. Likewise, the developers who play the "Wii Game" should have an "innovate, or die" mentality.
Why? More innovation forces developers to investigate every nook and cranny of the system, to push it beyond what the console developers originally expected. Leave no feature unexamined, because that could give your competitor an edge.
How do you accomplish this? Invite new players--entrepreneurs-- with new projects and new ideas to the market. Entrepreneurs don't have the opportunity to rest on their laurels, because that bed of flowers hasn't been made. Their incentive is intrinsic to their goal. in addition they may force the big players to shift as well.
And if the big guys don't shift? So what? The new developers provide your content.
Companies like Microsoft encourage this form of development. They give away an XBox360 development kit (XNA Game Studio), and XBox Live gives indie game developers a market for their games. XBox Live flourishes (even if it flourishes with crap), while the Wii Shopping Channel rots. Furthermore, every developer tied to MS is one less available for Nintendo. Their "potential content network" dwindles daily.
As a budding entrepreneur who is highly interested in game development--particularly on the Wii--I'm pissed they're excluding me. But what really pisses me off is knowing that, when I finally make my case for the Wii, the market may have passed it by for Game Iteration X++ only on Advanced Console Theta.
</rant>
A for loop doesn't cope with branching all that well. Recursion FTW.
A pet peeve I have about games, particularly those on the Wii: If you have the resources to allow for a variable "N" saves, don't limit me to 3 or 4!
Lang and Geiger are not less the artist because they got paid, nor did they necessarily compromise their vision to satisfy profitability. Both leveraged their vision to make money. I (and, possibly the GP) posit that game designers are in the same camp, and the compromise between inspiration and cash-dollars is between the artist/designer and their employer.
I'd say this is the fault of poor cut-scene design. If the scene started from where you were and panned to wherever it wanted to be, it wouldn't be nearly as disorienting. (Harder to keep interesting, though. Ah, opportunity costs...)
Whoohoo for the double post... Also: Maniac Mansion, Commander Keen, Raptor, VGA Planets, Wolfenstein 3D, The entire Hexen series, and Space Quest IV.
I'd like to see all 3 kyrandia games (Westwood studios).
Yeh, but later firmware updates may end up bricking your system...
It's also incredibly fun to mess with people, only to reveal your "true nature" over Teamspeak. In all seriousness, though, I choose to play female characters for several reasons:
1) They're treated more kindly than male characters. This includes when others know you're male. (However, as in real life, you shouldn't abuse your figure to get free stuff.)
2) I don't usually find a male model that I can tolerate. Most games limit you to exaggerated, muscle-bound models; I prefer ones that resemble me in RL--I'm a thin, pale, hippy-looking guy. When I can fit the look to my RSI, I tend to take it. For example, the month I played WoW, I played an undead sorcerer (pale, short, bossy, scrawny). Likewise, my character in Eve Online is a reasonably close facsimile (except he has jaundice and radiation poisoning).
Of course there's always (3): If I'm gonna play a game 20+ hours a week, and pay 15 dollars a month for the privilege, I don't want to stare at a mans ass, real or virtual, the entire time.
And (4): I like customizing my appearance (clothes, weapons, etc), and female characters tend to have more options.
With that reasoning, currency artificially constrains the value of debt as a commodity. I honestly don't like currency. You have to stick it to something to derive value, and everything we could use is (or becomes) commodified.
Directly before I wrote this post, I was thinking "Hey, time would be great"... but time has been a commodity since man discovered the inclined plane, if not before that. (Not to mention that relativity makes for a particularly interesting conundrum given this state of affairs). Sovereign fiat would likewise be interesting, but (at least in the US), the will of the people is traded as well.
On the other hand, it's not like we can scrap currency altogether--the market wouldn't stand for it, and everything would get incredibly confusing for a while. Damn catch 22s.
Sorry, but anyone who believes that software cannot induce hardware failure doesn't understand the relationship between hardware and software, much less the constraints imposed by embedded systems.
Here's some personal anecdote: A while back, when I was still a Gentoo fan, I was recompiling my kernel. I wasn't paying attention and "accidentally" enabled the pass arguments via registers feature.
I installed the kernel, rebooted the machine, and left to grab a soda. Returning, Pepsi in hand, X greeted me with the delightfully tangy fragrance of a spring shower (ozone), and I could swear I heard the faint pitter-patter of rain (exploding transistors).
Then the monitor went dark, and it slowly dawned on me this wasn't some great feature of my new kernel. I rebooted.
The monitor stayed dark; my inner penguin cried.
It turns out that the NVidia driver was expecting values to be passed on the stack. Meanwhile the kernel was fine and dandy, but in register-land. The driver read just the right values to fry the card.
Here's the great part: you don't have to destroy the hardware to render it inoperable. Say we have an OS running on a CPU, a peripheral including CPU-controlled firmware, and a bus to connect them. Now say I modify (intentionally or not) the firmware-CPU interface. The hardware operates (albeit it has no clue what I want it to do); the CPU operates; the bus signals the peripheral just fine. Everything except the firmware, which isn't capable of understanding the signal, is in order. Oops, Borked.
Or, say that the firmware is ok, but there's some value (such as a lock code) stored in nvram/flash/PROM, and I modify that value. Then a firmware update changes how the value is interpreted, so my value is no longer valid (but the unmodified value would have been fine). Oops, borked.
This completely ignores the design of embedded devices. There's not many resources, so the coupling tends to be tighter between components, and most components aren't designed for general computing... Long and short, everything has to be tiny, tight ant integrated.
The reality is that most geeks don't understand low-level computing (even me), and it shows in conversations like this one.
Announcing that an update may brick a phone is far from an arbitrary term of use.
Updates and patches are developed with the assumption that the system operates under several environmental invariants (e.g. code locations and instructions). When these invariants change, they cause unexpected behaviors*. Unexpected behavior damages system integrity. Thus, it can be said that modifying invariants decreases system integrity.
Hacking a device can damage system integrity directly or indirectly. Hacks that adjust environmental invariants, such as firmware replacements, compromise integrity directly. Others operate indirectly: they adjust variants in a manner inconsistent with established invariants. To complicate matters, many hacks intentionally subvert existing update mechanisms by installing software management tools. It merely follows that an update (or the update mechanism itself) may behave unpredictably and brick the device.
Now, let's say that:
Then it is possible that Apple's update may have the unfortunate side effect of bricking the phone. Sans testing or formal analysis, you can't be sure.
Let's further say:
Given (2) and (3), Apple lacks an incentive to test the effects of a patch on a modded iPhone. But, knowing (1), they can inform their customers that upgrading may be dangerous***. However, I say that a user accepts the risk of brick as soon as they mod it.
-- Footnotes --
* In fact, most bugs occur because a developer treats a variant as invariant.
** Additional testing costs more time and money, in addition to pulling developers away from product enhancements. Furthermore, encouraging iPhone unlocking (by supporting unlocked devices) exposes the company to litigation from AT&T.
***Deciding the appropriate course of action is left as an exercise to the corporation.
Considering the recent press concerning manufacturers artificially limiting supply to get press (XBox 360, etc), I'm somewhat glad that Apple decided to manipulate demand instead. The blowback seems less damaging, too. It's far cleaner to say "Oops, here's a rebate" than to get caught with no means of recourse.
I have been thinking about Apple's move in relation to sub-prime lending woes. /IANA.+/, but I know that the dollar took a big hit recently. When that happens, consumers are more cautious spenders; they tend not to take big risks, buy flashy toys, and what not. Thus, while far from a primary motivator, the price reduction aids the climb to Apple's target market share. Or it could be a (an?) RDF hardener/marketing device.
On release, the iPhone was too expensive to justify my expense, especially considering OSX Tiger and the opportunity cost of early-adopting*. The 200 dollar drop allowed me to justify the expense in several ways:
Disclaimer: I am a fanboy, and I love the iPhone. However, it's a dangerous device. Its such a blast to use that I've upgraded my plan already, and can foresee spending additional dollars tricking it out. Damn Apple to hell, but I love their products.
* I was an early-adopter for the MacBook, and was disappointed when Apple upgraded the product six months after it debuted.
** Over the lifetime of the contract, with a phone of comparable functionality, including Apple's battery replacement fee.
source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/facetious
Side note: Slashcode really needs Unicode (or at least UTF-8) support.
Did I miss a memo? When did the marketplace end?
(note: US-centric post).
In either case, you receive representation by an agent of the law. In the case of a civilian, your representation is a lawyer. In the case of military personnel, your representation is the state employing you. The problem with the "unlawful enemy combatant" status is that you receive no representation whatsoever. Being a combatant, you are not a civilian, and thus are not entitled to a lawyer. But, by acting independently of any state, you lose the benefits of diplomatic formality as well. The lack of formality prevents you from making any case against your detainors, or asserting guarantees of oversight, transparency, or other forms of legal diligence normally afforded to a detainee.
Thus, while the consequences may be harsh, your voice may be heard--you're given the freedom to make a case against the government. And that freedom is on the chopping block, so to speak.
What were you referring to here?
Neh. You got plasmids and are a super-assassin.
Largest problems I found with BioShock:
All of this boils down to the same problem, though: I was promised a "paradigm shift" in the FPS genre, and I got the same old shit with a prettier bow.
The essay was interesting, but is poorly presented. The argument is left as an exercise for the reader; the description of gameplay and the story is disorganized and fragmented; and the essay lacks a definitive conclusion. (Additionally, it doesn't seem like appropriate flamebait for the front page.)
Long story short, its difficult to understand where you're going with the argument. I can understand why it was rejected from the front page. :/
Thanks for pointing this resource out. I was a lurker on the old list, and was quite disappointed when it died. It's great that the community resurrected it elsewhere :)
The alternative is kind of sickening. "See how deep the rabbit hole goes"... *shiver*
A few years ago, I worked for a technology company, Smiling Screens Inc., as an intern. They were developing a program specifically for this scenario, SimpleC. Their idea was to create a program that provided basic functionality--pictures, email, internet, games (solitaire), and an internet browser--to the user. Their focus, as of a few years ago, was specifically the elderly, so you may want to get ahold of them.
Sociologist.