If you look here, you'll see an unusually straight river alongside a white line. I think that this is the Great Wall of China, you can follow it pretty far. It looks right compared to a couple of maps I found on other sites, it just looks like the color software tried to make it a river as well, by drawing a blue line over it. Over other parts of China, you can see all sorts of thicker rivers with blue scribbles over them. Funny.
I got to looking for the Great Wall of China, and in Beijing I think I found Tianmen Square?
Anyone who has been might be able to verify.
Linky
Also, the Great Wall is really hard to find because the colorers didn't do a good job in China, and most of the rivers are white. So anything long and winding is white. Good luck to whoever else is looking.
Roms? Why not fish out your originals? I can't stand playing on a keyboard honestly, and I can't justify the 26 bones it costs to buy this, so I just stick to my old NES. Somehow I managed to take care of it and my games, so I haven't had to blow into my old cartriges yet. But seriously, I'd gladly pay $5, $10 on eBay for the actual game. Much better experience, if you ask me.
Have you ever checked out half.com? Owned by E-bay, same system, and you may not have to deal with the California tax. You just pay E-bay with a credit card, and they pay the guy, and send you the item. It is incredibly similar to the Amazon "new and used" resell system.
This mouse makes a "click" sound every step that it goes down, to simulate that tactile feedback. It is really easy to use, and you get a feel for how far "one click" is pretty quickly. It is just about the same as using your average scroll mouse. Honestly though, the side-to-side scrolling on this mouse is much smoother than other side-scrolling mice that I've used. I like it a lot better.
No, just because someone is talking about their problems doesn't mean they are looking for a solution. Every woman I've ever had a relationship who had a problem already knew how they were going to treat the solution, they just wanted to talk through the problem to get sympathy. Everytime I offer a solution when they talk about those problems, I get bad responses.
And, the women I spend my time with (particularly the one I am marrying) are not lazy or mentally underdeveloped. Typically, if a man has a lot of problems, he doesn't talk about it to anyone and just deals with the emotions involved. And typically, as the grandparent suggests, if a woman has a lot of problems, she talks about them to those close to her in order to feel better about her approach to the problem. Maturity or intelligence level have nothing to do with a woman's tendencies to follow her feelings and be sympathetic of others, be it a natural instinct or societal influence.
Besides, wouldn't the more intelligent approach be to have a fluid solution, so it can adapt to failure?
Re:Please get some journalistic integrity...
on
Korean MSN Site Hacked
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
You don't get the major point here. It's an embarassment because it is a major, high-traffic website that requires more security than piddly local paper server number twenty seven that doesn't get a hundredth of the traffic, isn't nearly as popular, and isn't kept up to snuff on the patches.
Now, when a major linux distribution website like RedHat or Suse or Ubuntu or Debian's gets hacked, then you'll have a case for comparison.
If you pay attention to what Nintendo has been saying, and you look at their strategy, and you notice that they make big, bold moves, you'll notice that Nintendo tries to make moves to stay in the game. They've even said as much, in many interviews. All this talk of "Nintendo should do what Sega did" has been wishful fanboy flaming and speculation to begin with. It's hardly news, Nintendo knows what it is doing. They're a business, they aren't going to fold so easily, and they have the cash reserves to make moves that Sega couldn't afford.
Now, if Nintendo made two or three consoles that had lukewarm sales and they had to dive into their reserves, I would be deeply concerned. But, they still post profits, so as far as I'm concerned all comparisons to Sega are flamebait.
The "Bull" statistics weren't numbers of systems sold. It was profit margins for the video game divisions of the three big competing video game companies. Sure the graph includes hand-held gaming, but Nintendo has never shown themselves to be weak competitors.
And that, quite frankly, is what matters the most. As long as Nintendo competes they will make new products that other companies will adopt and copy, and we as consumers can win by buying what we like. If you don't like Nintendo's products as much as Sony's, fine. But don't wish for their demise, it helps ensure that video games are made so people have fun.
Gamer is a loaded term anyway. And people are entitled to their opinions, regardless of how misguided or influenced by popularity they may be.
That said, I have to agree that dismissing (or for that matter, lauding) a game entirely due to the graphical style misses the point. You're playing a game, not watching a movie. And Ocarina of Time wasn't that dark anyway, most people didn't like the Wind Waker because Link was a kid. The art style just lent itself to attack. I never heard anybody talk about vomiting when they played XIII. It's just a straw man they can pin on to the argument.
I think you missed the memo on this. ESPN deserted Sega as well, so the EA game will be ESPN NFL 2006, or ESPN Madden, or something like that. Anyway, EA and ESPN are officially in it together, for something absurd like fifteen years.
Actually, no. The keyboard weight pattern isn't specific to any key layout. It is specific to the home key layout. The center keys take more weight to press because your index and middle fingers are stronger, the outer two rows of letter keys take fewer because pinkies and ring fingers are weaker. The thumb keys take the most since they are the most accidentally struck keys.
And get your facts straight on QWERTY, it wasn't designed to slow down typing. Rather, QWERTY was designed so the most common words alternate between left and right sides of the keyboard per letter. That helped the jamming issue, but it also (surprise) had the added benefit of making typing slightly faster.
The rest of the paragraph they got this "information" from is this:
Freedom of design: A dynamic development architecture equally accommodates both big-budget, high-profile game "masterpieces" as well as indie games conceived by individual developers equipped with only a big idea.
"Our next console proves small in size but big on ideas," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "We're throwing open the doors of gaming to wider audiences, from casual players to hard-core gamers who live for the thrill of defeating an endless army of wireless opponents."
Now, if you ask me, all this blathering from Nintendo's own is their way of saying "we made an accessible SDK that small teams can work with just as easily as large teams". That doesn't mean they won't charge to release the SDK, and that doesn't mean they won't make you sign certain rights over in order to develop for their console. It's a flimsy line, and it shows that Nintendo may finally be trying to woo third party support. That much is good. But I think the blog is reading wayyyy too much into this simple statement.
Recompiles on the fly? Huh? Look, there's currently two ways to get incompatible software to run efficiently.
1: Total recompile. Problem with that is, if it is closed source code, you have to re-release that, which is what the article implies.
2: Emulation. Meaning, you have an application that takes the instructions and "on the fly" converts them into useable instructions.
Now, what the heck is "recompiling on the fly"? If I understand correctly, you mean it re-interprets the source code as you go along. But the old games are in binary, so all you have is the instructions. Oh, wait that's emulation. Besides, if you tried compiling then running an executable before it is done compiling, you're going to run out of program to run before it is done compiling.
Anyway, all this talk of emulating the Xbox is a bit of hooey. You need a LOT more machine than you want to emulate in order to properly do it, without stutter. A lot more than the difference between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox.
Then you should know that flops are not good indicators of raw performance. If I remember correctly, the way that one calculates flops is by running an application that makes a preset number of floating point operations of varying types, timing it, and then dividing appropriately to get an average of sorts.
However, you can skew the results very easily by taking a sample of small flop count processes, or by skewing the types of floating point operations to ones that don't take as long, making the average "lean".
From dictionary.reference.com:
werewolf also werwolf Pronunciation Key (wârwlf, wîr-, wûr-)
n.
A person transformed into a wolf or capable of assuming the form of a wolf.
Well, you got one out of three. Not bad. I'm neither dumb nor a boy, but I am a fan. Oh, but not of the X-Box. I don't even own one of those. Shockingly, I run Linux (when I am not playing Half Life 2), and I own every Nintendo console.
Try reading my post before flying off the handle. How does a split of resources leading to a slowdown of production hurt your head? I mean really, is it so impossible to believe that one team split between developing for two consoles might be a bit slower out of the gate than another team who is just focusing on one competing console? Want me to draw a picture?
First of all, I'm wondering what X-Box 360 specs you were looking at. Secondly, we don't really have concrete, announced specs on any of the three consoles, so your argument has no real base. Third, do you honestly think that the most powerful console of this generation isn't going to have a loyal following at least as large as the current one? Do you not think that the thirst the PC gamer has for console games catered to their taste is going to last for a second console?
I may not like the X-Box myself, but I recognize that PC gamers like their X-Box games here in America, and that the X-Box caters to a very large niche. I don't think Microsoft is going to be dumb enough to sacrifice any sort of power, or risk the image they have worked so hard to garner. You're living in a dream world, and as sad as I am to say it, I'm truly afraid that Nintendo can either do incredibly well, or incredibly bad with their new "innovation". People know the difference between a gimmick and a truly revolutionary enhancement. And, Nintendo is very capable of both. I just hope they don't put all their betting money on a gimmicky horse that looks strong in the stables.
You know, it is very interesting. I remember reading interviews with Iwata, stating that Nintendo intended to release their next console before the end of 2005, with the intent of beating the other console makers out of the gate. Now, we see Microsoft about to release their console just in time for the post-Turkey shopping craze, and Sony and Nintendo in the background spinning their gears like crazy?
Bottom line, I think that the Japanese video game contenders got the wind knocked out of them by focusing on a pre-sprint portable frenzy, and it gave Microsoft the time to catch the other companies with their pants down. Now all that remains to be revealed is the starting lineup of games each console will offer. Will E3's promises of some amzing Nintendo or Sony game delay sales of the X-Box? It will be an interesting year, I'll tell you that.
The sources on this report are actually kind of iffy. The first place I saw the report was on endgaget, and they say that the specs "were posted and then quickly pulled from the TeamXbox forums." The thing that makes them interesting is the proximity to the actual release date, and the reaction once it was posted. But bottom line, it could be entirely fake.
I would think in the situation that the e-mail was ignored, it would enrage the extortionist into firing a warning shot, one that would for SURE get the guy's attention. In fact, from the article, it looks like that is sort of what happened. He didn't respond, just first sought consultation and alerted his ISP. Then the extortionist sent a second threat, but not until he had crashed a few ISP servers to get some attention.
You know, this is a common misconception that I find amongst people who claim to "know a lot about computers". I ask them what kind of video card they bought, and they say "It's a 256 MB NVidia card". Me: "... Ookay.. give me some numbers or letters, something. FX? Ultra? 5600? What?" Him: "Uh, I don't know, I just bought it because it had the most RAM and only cost $150".
These pseudo-techie people seem to have the misconception that a video card's performance these days is entirely reliant on how much RAM the card has on it, rather than everything else that is on the card. They don't realize that the RAM could be slower on that card, or that the processor on the card isn't as good as one on the higher end cards, or that certain chips and instructions on a processor allow for more efficient anti-aliasing. I can't understand where this misconception came from either.
Eh, no. The reason PopCap is so successful (and inundates us all with a slew of puzzle games, both good and bad) is because there is a huge market for puzzle games that you can play for an hour, but usually only play for ten minutes tops at a time. It is called caasual gaming, and I would wager that it is more common (and more commonly played) than your typical blockbuster immersive mega-adventure or RPG.
Slashdot Mirror
If you look here, you'll see an unusually straight river alongside a white line. I think that this is the Great Wall of China, you can follow it pretty far. It looks right compared to a couple of maps I found on other sites, it just looks like the color software tried to make it a river as well, by drawing a blue line over it. Over other parts of China, you can see all sorts of thicker rivers with blue scribbles over them. Funny.
I got to looking for the Great Wall of China, and in Beijing I think I found Tianmen Square? Anyone who has been might be able to verify. Linky Also, the Great Wall is really hard to find because the colorers didn't do a good job in China, and most of the rivers are white. So anything long and winding is white. Good luck to whoever else is looking.
Roms? Why not fish out your originals? I can't stand playing on a keyboard honestly, and I can't justify the 26 bones it costs to buy this, so I just stick to my old NES. Somehow I managed to take care of it and my games, so I haven't had to blow into my old cartriges yet. But seriously, I'd gladly pay $5, $10 on eBay for the actual game. Much better experience, if you ask me.
Note that the images of Super Mario Brothers 2 are more familiar on page 6 of the first link.
Images of Super Mario Brothers 2 a la Super Mario Advance.
Also, Super Mario 3 a la Su per Mario Advance 4, and Super Mario World a la Super Mario Advance 2. Yoshi's Island (Super Mario Advance 3) has screenshots here.
Have you ever checked out half.com? Owned by E-bay, same system, and you may not have to deal with the California tax. You just pay E-bay with a credit card, and they pay the guy, and send you the item. It is incredibly similar to the Amazon "new and used" resell system.
This mouse makes a "click" sound every step that it goes down, to simulate that tactile feedback. It is really easy to use, and you get a feel for how far "one click" is pretty quickly. It is just about the same as using your average scroll mouse. Honestly though, the side-to-side scrolling on this mouse is much smoother than other side-scrolling mice that I've used. I like it a lot better.
No, just because someone is talking about their problems doesn't mean they are looking for a solution. Every woman I've ever had a relationship who had a problem already knew how they were going to treat the solution, they just wanted to talk through the problem to get sympathy. Everytime I offer a solution when they talk about those problems, I get bad responses.
And, the women I spend my time with (particularly the one I am marrying) are not lazy or mentally underdeveloped. Typically, if a man has a lot of problems, he doesn't talk about it to anyone and just deals with the emotions involved. And typically, as the grandparent suggests, if a woman has a lot of problems, she talks about them to those close to her in order to feel better about her approach to the problem. Maturity or intelligence level have nothing to do with a woman's tendencies to follow her feelings and be sympathetic of others, be it a natural instinct or societal influence.
Besides, wouldn't the more intelligent approach be to have a fluid solution, so it can adapt to failure?
You don't get the major point here. It's an embarassment because it is a major, high-traffic website that requires more security than piddly local paper server number twenty seven that doesn't get a hundredth of the traffic, isn't nearly as popular, and isn't kept up to snuff on the patches.
Now, when a major linux distribution website like RedHat or Suse or Ubuntu or Debian's gets hacked, then you'll have a case for comparison.
If you pay attention to what Nintendo has been saying, and you look at their strategy, and you notice that they make big, bold moves, you'll notice that Nintendo tries to make moves to stay in the game. They've even said as much, in many interviews. All this talk of "Nintendo should do what Sega did" has been wishful fanboy flaming and speculation to begin with. It's hardly news, Nintendo knows what it is doing. They're a business, they aren't going to fold so easily, and they have the cash reserves to make moves that Sega couldn't afford.
Now, if Nintendo made two or three consoles that had lukewarm sales and they had to dive into their reserves, I would be deeply concerned. But, they still post profits, so as far as I'm concerned all comparisons to Sega are flamebait.
The "Bull" statistics weren't numbers of systems sold. It was profit margins for the video game divisions of the three big competing video game companies. Sure the graph includes hand-held gaming, but Nintendo has never shown themselves to be weak competitors.
And that, quite frankly, is what matters the most. As long as Nintendo competes they will make new products that other companies will adopt and copy, and we as consumers can win by buying what we like. If you don't like Nintendo's products as much as Sony's, fine. But don't wish for their demise, it helps ensure that video games are made so people have fun.
Gamer is a loaded term anyway. And people are entitled to their opinions, regardless of how misguided or influenced by popularity they may be.
That said, I have to agree that dismissing (or for that matter, lauding) a game entirely due to the graphical style misses the point. You're playing a game, not watching a movie. And Ocarina of Time wasn't that dark anyway, most people didn't like the Wind Waker because Link was a kid. The art style just lent itself to attack. I never heard anybody talk about vomiting when they played XIII. It's just a straw man they can pin on to the argument.
I think you missed the memo on this. ESPN deserted Sega as well, so the EA game will be ESPN NFL 2006, or ESPN Madden, or something like that. Anyway, EA and ESPN are officially in it together, for something absurd like fifteen years.
Actually, no. The keyboard weight pattern isn't specific to any key layout. It is specific to the home key layout. The center keys take more weight to press because your index and middle fingers are stronger, the outer two rows of letter keys take fewer because pinkies and ring fingers are weaker. The thumb keys take the most since they are the most accidentally struck keys.
And get your facts straight on QWERTY, it wasn't designed to slow down typing. Rather, QWERTY was designed so the most common words alternate between left and right sides of the keyboard per letter. That helped the jamming issue, but it also (surprise) had the added benefit of making typing slightly faster.
The rest of the paragraph they got this "information" from is this:
Freedom of design: A dynamic development architecture equally accommodates both big-budget, high-profile game "masterpieces" as well as indie games conceived by individual developers equipped with only a big idea. "Our next console proves small in size but big on ideas," says Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales & marketing. "We're throwing open the doors of gaming to wider audiences, from casual players to hard-core gamers who live for the thrill of defeating an endless army of wireless opponents."
Now, if you ask me, all this blathering from Nintendo's own is their way of saying "we made an accessible SDK that small teams can work with just as easily as large teams". That doesn't mean they won't charge to release the SDK, and that doesn't mean they won't make you sign certain rights over in order to develop for their console. It's a flimsy line, and it shows that Nintendo may finally be trying to woo third party support. That much is good. But I think the blog is reading wayyyy too much into this simple statement.
Recompiles on the fly? Huh? Look, there's currently two ways to get incompatible software to run efficiently.
1: Total recompile. Problem with that is, if it is closed source code, you have to re-release that, which is what the article implies.
2: Emulation. Meaning, you have an application that takes the instructions and "on the fly" converts them into useable instructions.
Now, what the heck is "recompiling on the fly"? If I understand correctly, you mean it re-interprets the source code as you go along. But the old games are in binary, so all you have is the instructions. Oh, wait that's emulation. Besides, if you tried compiling then running an executable before it is done compiling, you're going to run out of program to run before it is done compiling.
Anyway, all this talk of emulating the Xbox is a bit of hooey. You need a LOT more machine than you want to emulate in order to properly do it, without stutter. A lot more than the difference between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox.
Then you should know that flops are not good indicators of raw performance. If I remember correctly, the way that one calculates flops is by running an application that makes a preset number of floating point operations of varying types, timing it, and then dividing appropriately to get an average of sorts.
However, you can skew the results very easily by taking a sample of small flop count processes, or by skewing the types of floating point operations to ones that don't take as long, making the average "lean".
From dictionary.reference.com: werewolf also werwolf Pronunciation Key (wârwlf, wîr-, wûr-) n. A person transformed into a wolf or capable of assuming the form of a wolf.
Well, you got one out of three. Not bad. I'm neither dumb nor a boy, but I am a fan. Oh, but not of the X-Box. I don't even own one of those. Shockingly, I run Linux (when I am not playing Half Life 2), and I own every Nintendo console.
Try reading my post before flying off the handle. How does a split of resources leading to a slowdown of production hurt your head? I mean really, is it so impossible to believe that one team split between developing for two consoles might be a bit slower out of the gate than another team who is just focusing on one competing console? Want me to draw a picture?
First of all, I'm wondering what X-Box 360 specs you were looking at. Secondly, we don't really have concrete, announced specs on any of the three consoles, so your argument has no real base. Third, do you honestly think that the most powerful console of this generation isn't going to have a loyal following at least as large as the current one? Do you not think that the thirst the PC gamer has for console games catered to their taste is going to last for a second console?
I may not like the X-Box myself, but I recognize that PC gamers like their X-Box games here in America, and that the X-Box caters to a very large niche. I don't think Microsoft is going to be dumb enough to sacrifice any sort of power, or risk the image they have worked so hard to garner. You're living in a dream world, and as sad as I am to say it, I'm truly afraid that Nintendo can either do incredibly well, or incredibly bad with their new "innovation". People know the difference between a gimmick and a truly revolutionary enhancement. And, Nintendo is very capable of both. I just hope they don't put all their betting money on a gimmicky horse that looks strong in the stables.
You know, it is very interesting. I remember reading interviews with Iwata, stating that Nintendo intended to release their next console before the end of 2005, with the intent of beating the other console makers out of the gate. Now, we see Microsoft about to release their console just in time for the post-Turkey shopping craze, and Sony and Nintendo in the background spinning their gears like crazy?
Bottom line, I think that the Japanese video game contenders got the wind knocked out of them by focusing on a pre-sprint portable frenzy, and it gave Microsoft the time to catch the other companies with their pants down. Now all that remains to be revealed is the starting lineup of games each console will offer. Will E3's promises of some amzing Nintendo or Sony game delay sales of the X-Box? It will be an interesting year, I'll tell you that.
The sources on this report are actually kind of iffy. The first place I saw the report was on endgaget, and they say that the specs "were posted and then quickly pulled from the TeamXbox forums." The thing that makes them interesting is the proximity to the actual release date, and the reaction once it was posted. But bottom line, it could be entirely fake.
I would think in the situation that the e-mail was ignored, it would enrage the extortionist into firing a warning shot, one that would for SURE get the guy's attention. In fact, from the article, it looks like that is sort of what happened. He didn't respond, just first sought consultation and alerted his ISP. Then the extortionist sent a second threat, but not until he had crashed a few ISP servers to get some attention.
You know, this is a common misconception that I find amongst people who claim to "know a lot about computers". I ask them what kind of video card they bought, and they say "It's a 256 MB NVidia card". Me: "... Ookay.. give me some numbers or letters, something. FX? Ultra? 5600? What?" Him: "Uh, I don't know, I just bought it because it had the most RAM and only cost $150".
These pseudo-techie people seem to have the misconception that a video card's performance these days is entirely reliant on how much RAM the card has on it, rather than everything else that is on the card. They don't realize that the RAM could be slower on that card, or that the processor on the card isn't as good as one on the higher end cards, or that certain chips and instructions on a processor allow for more efficient anti-aliasing. I can't understand where this misconception came from either.
Eh, no. The reason PopCap is so successful (and inundates us all with a slew of puzzle games, both good and bad) is because there is a huge market for puzzle games that you can play for an hour, but usually only play for ten minutes tops at a time. It is called caasual gaming, and I would wager that it is more common (and more commonly played) than your typical blockbuster immersive mega-adventure or RPG.