I've had Firefox installed on my wife's computer since before the 1.0 release. I deleted all the shortcuts to IE, and after that just assumed she was using it. Until looking over her shoulder one day, asking her about a movie, I see that she gets to the internet by opening up the start menu, and clicking on windows update . . . shudder. Some people do like Internet Explorer, and will go through extra means to get to it. My wife doesn't know how to recreate desktop shortcuts, but did remember that windows update runs on IE. Hence, she was able to fill up her windows machine with spyware despite my precautions. I haven't figured out what the appeal for IE is yet, maybe she enjoys clicking on the giant stacks of IE windows in the taskbar, and painfully locating the site she was just on.
When Ghost was in early development the focus was on the single player experience. Now, with the information and playable versions released at Blizcon, it seems that the game is shaping up to have a considerable multiplayer portion. In light of this new focus, it makes sense to drop costly support for the Gamecube version.
If you look at the PS2 version of the game, I'm sure this already requires extensive extra work to the multiplayer portion as well. Its going to be a big difference between putting a game up on Xbox live, and creating a complete multiplayer service like you have to do with PS2 online games.
I wonder if the Ps2 version will contain features like matchmaking, buddy lists, and playlists. With Blizzards previous excellent multiplayer track record on battlenet, it seems unlikely they would expect anything less from developers taken under there wing. Could such extensive online support be the killer-app for the PS2 Ethernet adapter?
Small children have a built in desire to mimic their parents, and are often merely offended by toys that obviously don't have the same features that a real computer or device has. These "learning" machines also suffer from the flaw of manipulation. A child will learn much more when they are given the opportunity to choose for themselves; rather then being led by the nose down whatever path pop-child-psychology is headed these days.
That being said I'm the father of a four year old also, and his "toys" are the exact same things I play with. He has his own computer with a regular windows desktop just like mine, and access to the same types of applications I use. If I want him to try out something "educational" on his computer, I let him see me using the program, and it isn't long before he wants to try it as well. When I'm building a new computer, he gets out his motherboards and cables, and builds one also.
He also likes to play Xbox and Gamecube games. These games (if carefully chosen) are going to do a lot more for you than any educational software simply because of quality. There's an obvious difference in quality between educational software that has a short development cycle, and a full fledged game that has a mature industry behind it. A game that inspires interest will also inspire learning. Games with built-in world creation tools
(like MoonBase Commander) are a good choice Also, any game or piece of software can be educational, especially if you take the time to select it yourself for its value.
The point is that kids are smart. They don't like to be manipulated any more then we do. My four year old is learning to read so he can understand the menu's in Homeworld 2 better. He'll learn the things that last by having his own motivations to learn them.
You have a lot of good points here, but there is still one thing that you're missing. The women's equivalent of a "business suit" is still an eroticized item. Yes, it is not sexual to the same degree as a thong + bondage gear, but its roots are the same. The dress is an item of clothing designed so that women could be submissive and sexually accessible. Every example of a women being "dressed up," even in formal business attire, still includes a dress or skirt of some kind. Pants are a matter of status - status that even the most professional of women are rarely entitled to in our society.
The proof of this is in the reversal. Why is it social unacceptable for a male business person to go to work in a skirt for instance? Because this would lower his status to a level lower than the default status provided by his gender. A sad truth often overlooked in modern society.
Very offtopic . . . but this sentence instantly reminded me of Accelerando a genious Ebook I recently finished, on the future of technolgy told from the perspective of Mandred, an OSS advocate/Bondage submissive. Very Hilarious.
As capture technology becomes faster and more realistic, it may become possible to create a computer model by scanning a real human/animal/environment with some combination of laser-scanners and high-megapixel digital cameras. This model could then be animated with tradition motion capture or physics simulation, effectively eliminating a lot of the artistic requirements you're talking about here. For instance, instead of having a team of artist painstaking create a building interior, simply load up your scanning equipment, drive on over, and scan the interior in a few hours. Then simply convert, add physics simulations, and plug into the latest game engine. This would push game design even closer to movie production, and there are a lot more geeky digital/camera/capture people then there are Francisco Cortinas
I would refer to it more as the hilarious valley then the uncanny one. Among my circle of friends we derive great amusement from watching the ridiculous antics of so-called realistic games. From the wonderful AI of Golden Eye on the Nintendo64 to the ballroom dancing scenes in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (in certain grab-the-character from behind moments, Sam and his prey look exactly like skilled dancers, excepting one partner is backwards) we've always enjoyed a good laugh at "realistic" characters.
Nausea is not necessarily caused by realism. For instance, I remember being horrendously sick while playing the original Descent game. However, I really liked the game, and forged onward despite the sickness. As I became more accustomed to the graphics the nausea disappeared. Also, try changing a rabid FPS gamer's inversion settings, and watch hilarity ensue. The sickness can be caused by other changing controls as well.
Another cause for nausea in 3d games is the changing of a commonly used physical constant within the game world. For instance the nausea problem in Half-Life 2 that you mentioned was probably caused by Valve changing the default FOV to 75 degrees. Most other 3d games use a field of view closer to 90 degrees.
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. The performance boost games receive from a Raid-0 set up is meager at best. The most you can hope for is slightly shorter loading screens or shorter boot-up times. Certainly not worth doubling your consumed energy, and adding a significant amount to your storage cost.
A solution to the reinstallation issue that I use is to simply keep a ghost image of my drive with all the games installed already. Yes, this takes up a huge chunk of my Raid 5, but its more then worth it, as that image represents many hours of installation time. Using this set-up I haven't reinstalled Windows since XP first came out. And I've drastically reduced the time I would have spent reinstalling Unreal Tournament:)
If Google really starts censoring Blog content from its main search page, they are going to have to ask some hard questions first. Such as, what qualifies as a Blog? Is it the software behind the website? Or perhaps the content on the website. Or maybe it has more to do with the author of the content. For instance, does an informal journal kept by a well known journalist fall into the category of Blog? If her site is run by wordpress, will that effect her placement on Google?
A more realistic approach for Google is to continue exactly as they do now. Thanks to page rank, more interesting (or better spammed) content will rise to the top of search results. Useful content can come from Joe/Jane Blogger as easily as CNN.com
I think I speak for a lot of gamers when I say, "yes I am thinking about jaggies when being chased by those mutant monkeys." The tweaking of video setting to for optimum viewing pleasure has been a traditional ritual since the first 3d accelerators hit the market. Its almost as fun as playing the game itself. Even my wife notices the difference between 4x FSAA and 0x FSAA when playing NWN or Guild Wars, and she is relatively new to PC gaming.
That being said, I'll totally agree that all the SLI set-ups are completely overkill for today's games. You can squeeze a decent amount of anti-aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, or even V-Sync out of a relatively modest card like the ATI 9800, or the Nvidia 6600.
Raid 0 doubles your chance of failure. However, on a high end gaming rig, the data really isn't that important. Performance increases, however microscopic, are. You will be filling this drive up with installed games, not hosting a mission critical database on it. Even on my modest gaming PC, there is no personal data anywhere to be found. You'll find all that on RAID 5:)
I'll admit that i didn't own a playstation 1 till it was well past its prime and I played Tomb Raider long after finishing other classic shooters like Turrok and Goldeneye. However, let me be the first to say that I couldn't stand Tomb Raider 1. I never picked up on any of the sequels after that. The game carries a stigma with it now, due largely to the enormous assets on its cover shots. This stigma is well earned . . . life is too short to play bad games. Using sex appeal to sell games is fine, but when thats all you have left, something is wrong.
From what I've learned about weddings (from working as a holiday inn Chef) they seem be a the eternal hotbed of scams. Everything from when they sell you a small rock for thousands of dollars on down to the throwing of bouquet is a scam of some sort and everybody wants a piece of the pie. Ernest young lovers ready to through as much of their parents money away as possible are hard to resist. But keeping the copyright to the wedding photos? That is truly ridiculous. At our wedding (which didn't cost a dime btw) we had three photographers, all amature. I did a compilation of photos for everybody afterwards and burned them to cheap CD's.
My question is this; who is printing their digital photos at Walmart anyhow? With ink jet printers being the cheapest they've ever been (and with the average consumer knowing little about fading inks and the like)wouldn't a printer purchase quickly pay for itself?
The #1 problem with getting Linux onto Joe/Jane Six-pack's machine is that there are few options that come with Linux preinstalled, and almost nothing that comes with support. The average computer user couldn't install any operating system be that a super-easy version of Linux like Umbuntu or a super easy install of Microsoft windows (heh). For Linux to make progress on the desktop, it has to come preinstalled on the desktop period. I applaud any effort to get Linux out there especially one that offers some support.
There is plenty of stuff worth buying; you're just not going to find 90% of it on a label. Head down to your local coffee shop on an open mike night, find somebody you like and ask them if they have an album for sale. These are the only CD's I've bought in years. The money goes to support somebody who is truly passionate about their work. You also have the added bonus of listening to original music instead of focus-group screened pop garbage.
Taking a DMCA case to court after pointing out the back door makes about as much sense as prosecuting Wal-Mart shoppers for trespassing. If they were going to take you to court they wouldn't be handing out the back-doors in the first place. This is an example of a company trying something new out in the copy-right arena, a scheme that might even have some room in it for "Fair Use"
The reason search engines haven't improved much in the past five years may be that they will, by nature, always lack a human component. Yes Google's page rank is influenced by the links of other sights but because it is an algorithm it is vulnerable to exploitation. RSS feeds have a distinct human "breaking news" feel to them. An opportunity to search many different versions of the "breaking news" each moderated by real human beings could defiantly be a next step for the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
I've had Firefox installed on my wife's computer since before the 1.0 release. I deleted all the shortcuts to IE, and after that just assumed she was using it. Until looking over her shoulder one day, asking her about a movie, I see that she gets to the internet by opening up the start menu, and clicking on windows update . . . shudder. Some people do like Internet Explorer, and will go through extra means to get to it. My wife doesn't know how to recreate desktop shortcuts, but did remember that windows update runs on IE. Hence, she was able to fill up her windows machine with spyware despite my precautions. I haven't figured out what the appeal for IE is yet, maybe she enjoys clicking on the giant stacks of IE windows in the taskbar, and painfully locating the site she was just on.
When Ghost was in early development the focus was on the single player experience. Now, with the information and playable versions released at Blizcon, it seems that the game is shaping up to have a considerable multiplayer portion. In light of this new focus, it makes sense to drop costly support for the Gamecube version.
If you look at the PS2 version of the game, I'm sure this already requires extensive extra work to the multiplayer portion as well. Its going to be a big difference between putting a game up on Xbox live, and creating a complete multiplayer service like you have to do with PS2 online games.
I wonder if the Ps2 version will contain features like matchmaking, buddy lists, and playlists. With Blizzards previous excellent multiplayer track record on battlenet, it seems unlikely they would expect anything less from developers taken under there wing. Could such extensive online support be the killer-app for the PS2 Ethernet adapter?
Small children have a built in desire to mimic their parents, and are often merely offended by toys that obviously don't have the same features that a real computer or device has. These "learning" machines also suffer from the flaw of manipulation. A child will learn much more when they are given the opportunity to choose for themselves; rather then being led by the nose down whatever path pop-child-psychology is headed these days.
That being said I'm the father of a four year old also, and his "toys" are the exact same things I play with. He has his own computer with a regular windows desktop just like mine, and access to the same types of applications I use. If I want him to try out something "educational" on his computer, I let him see me using the program, and it isn't long before he wants to try it as well. When I'm building a new computer, he gets out his motherboards and cables, and builds one also.
He also likes to play Xbox and Gamecube games. These games (if carefully chosen) are going to do a lot more for you than any educational software simply because of quality. There's an obvious difference in quality between educational software that has a short development cycle, and a full fledged game that has a mature industry behind it. A game that inspires interest will also inspire learning. Games with built-in world creation tools (like MoonBase Commander) are a good choice Also, any game or piece of software can be educational, especially if you take the time to select it yourself for its value.
The point is that kids are smart. They don't like to be manipulated any more then we do. My four year old is learning to read so he can understand the menu's in Homeworld 2 better. He'll learn the things that last by having his own motivations to learn them.
You have a lot of good points here, but there is still one thing that you're missing. The women's equivalent of a "business suit" is still an eroticized item. Yes, it is not sexual to the same degree as a thong + bondage gear, but its roots are the same. The dress is an item of clothing designed so that women could be submissive and sexually accessible. Every example of a women being "dressed up," even in formal business attire, still includes a dress or skirt of some kind. Pants are a matter of status - status that even the most professional of women are rarely entitled to in our society.
The proof of this is in the reversal. Why is it social unacceptable for a male business person to go to work in a skirt for instance? Because this would lower his status to a level lower than the default status provided by his gender. A sad truth often overlooked in modern society.
Very offtopic . . . but this sentence instantly reminded me of Accelerando a genious Ebook I recently finished, on the future of technolgy told from the perspective of Mandred, an OSS advocate/Bondage submissive. Very Hilarious.
As capture technology becomes faster and more realistic, it may become possible to create a computer model by scanning a real human/animal/environment with some combination of laser-scanners and high-megapixel digital cameras. This model could then be animated with tradition motion capture or physics simulation, effectively eliminating a lot of the artistic requirements you're talking about here. For instance, instead of having a team of artist painstaking create a building interior, simply load up your scanning equipment, drive on over, and scan the interior in a few hours. Then simply convert, add physics simulations, and plug into the latest game engine. This would push game design even closer to movie production, and there are a lot more geeky digital/camera/capture people then there are Francisco Cortinas
I would refer to it more as the hilarious valley then the uncanny one. Among my circle of friends we derive great amusement from watching the ridiculous antics of so-called realistic games. From the wonderful AI of Golden Eye on the Nintendo64 to the ballroom dancing scenes in Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (in certain grab-the-character from behind moments, Sam and his prey look exactly like skilled dancers, excepting one partner is backwards) we've always enjoyed a good laugh at "realistic" characters.
Nausea is not necessarily caused by realism. For instance, I remember being horrendously sick while playing the original Descent game. However, I really liked the game, and forged onward despite the sickness. As I became more accustomed to the graphics the nausea disappeared. Also, try changing a rabid FPS gamer's inversion settings, and watch hilarity ensue. The sickness can be caused by other changing controls as well.
Another cause for nausea in 3d games is the changing of a commonly used physical constant within the game world. For instance the nausea problem in Half-Life 2 that you mentioned was probably caused by Valve changing the default FOV to 75 degrees. Most other 3d games use a field of view closer to 90 degrees.
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. The performance boost games receive from a Raid-0 set up is meager at best. The most you can hope for is slightly shorter loading screens or shorter boot-up times. Certainly not worth doubling your consumed energy, and adding a significant amount to your storage cost.
:)
A solution to the reinstallation issue that I use is to simply keep a ghost image of my drive with all the games installed already. Yes, this takes up a huge chunk of my Raid 5, but its more then worth it, as that image represents many hours of installation time. Using this set-up I haven't reinstalled Windows since XP first came out. And I've drastically reduced the time I would have spent reinstalling Unreal Tournament
If Google really starts censoring Blog content from its main search page, they are going to have to ask some hard questions first. Such as, what qualifies as a Blog? Is it the software behind the website? Or perhaps the content on the website. Or maybe it has more to do with the author of the content. For instance, does an informal journal kept by a well known journalist fall into the category of Blog? If her site is run by wordpress, will that effect her placement on Google?
A more realistic approach for Google is to continue exactly as they do now. Thanks to page rank, more interesting (or better spammed) content will rise to the top of search results. Useful content can come from Joe/Jane Blogger as easily as CNN.com
I think I speak for a lot of gamers when I say, "yes I am thinking about jaggies when being chased by those mutant monkeys." The tweaking of video setting to for optimum viewing pleasure has been a traditional ritual since the first 3d accelerators hit the market. Its almost as fun as playing the game itself. Even my wife notices the difference between 4x FSAA and 0x FSAA when playing NWN or Guild Wars, and she is relatively new to PC gaming.
That being said, I'll totally agree that all the SLI set-ups are completely overkill for today's games. You can squeeze a decent amount of anti-aliasing, Anisotropic Filtering, or even V-Sync out of a relatively modest card like the ATI 9800, or the Nvidia 6600.
Raid 0 doubles your chance of failure. However, on a high end gaming rig, the data really isn't that important. Performance increases, however microscopic, are. You will be filling this drive up with installed games, not hosting a mission critical database on it. Even on my modest gaming PC, there is no personal data anywhere to be found. You'll find all that on RAID 5 :)
Here is a Terra-forming/gaming related web-comic that me and my wife just started work on. http://akaisabaku.com/
:)
We are still working on the whole funny thing
I'll admit that i didn't own a playstation 1 till it was well past its prime and I played Tomb Raider long after finishing other classic shooters like Turrok and Goldeneye. However, let me be the first to say that I couldn't stand Tomb Raider 1. I never picked up on any of the sequels after that. The game carries a stigma with it now, due largely to the enormous assets on its cover shots. This stigma is well earned . . . life is too short to play bad games. Using sex appeal to sell games is fine, but when thats all you have left, something is wrong.
From what I've learned about weddings (from working as a holiday inn Chef) they seem be a the eternal hotbed of scams. Everything from when they sell you a small rock for thousands of dollars on down to the throwing of bouquet is a scam of some sort and everybody wants a piece of the pie. Ernest young lovers ready to through as much of their parents money away as possible are hard to resist. But keeping the copyright to the wedding photos? That is truly ridiculous. At our wedding (which didn't cost a dime btw) we had three photographers, all amature. I did a compilation of photos for everybody afterwards and burned them to cheap CD's.
My question is this; who is printing their digital photos at Walmart anyhow? With ink jet printers being the cheapest they've ever been (and with the average consumer knowing little about fading inks and the like)wouldn't a printer purchase quickly pay for itself?
The #1 problem with getting Linux onto Joe/Jane Six-pack's machine is that there are few options that come with Linux preinstalled, and almost nothing that comes with support. The average computer user couldn't install any operating system be that a super-easy version of Linux like Umbuntu or a super easy install of Microsoft windows (heh). For Linux to make progress on the desktop, it has to come preinstalled on the desktop period. I applaud any effort to get Linux out there especially one that offers some support.
There is plenty of stuff worth buying; you're just not going to find 90% of it on a label. Head down to your local coffee shop on an open mike night, find somebody you like and ask them if they have an album for sale. These are the only CD's I've bought in years. The money goes to support somebody who is truly passionate about their work. You also have the added bonus of listening to original music instead of focus-group screened pop garbage.
Taking a DMCA case to court after pointing out the back door makes about as much sense as prosecuting Wal-Mart shoppers for trespassing. If they were going to take you to court they wouldn't be handing out the back-doors in the first place. This is an example of a company trying something new out in the copy-right arena, a scheme that might even have some room in it for "Fair Use"
The reason search engines haven't improved much in the past five years may be that they will, by nature, always lack a human component. Yes Google's page rank is influenced by the links of other sights but because it is an algorithm it is vulnerable to exploitation. RSS feeds have a distinct human "breaking news" feel to them. An opportunity to search many different versions of the "breaking news" each moderated by real human beings could defiantly be a next step for the internet.