Quite Frankly, I'm ecstatic about this news! I just hope it comes to fruition, because it will greatly simplify my future computer purchases. There have been so few Adventure games (my favorite genre) and other games that appeal to me released lately that I've become a Mac user, reveling in a virus-free computing experience and relying on game consoles for my gaming needs. However, once I knew about the new Same and Max titles, I knew I would have to play them, and now that will be much simpler.
People aren't thinking about what's in these things: You've got a wireless controller, for which the going rate with the competition is $50, motion sensing acceleromters and a 1MP CCD sensor (to aid in motion tracking and possibly unannounced features). If that doesn't add up to $60 in value (less than a brand new game for the 360!) then I don't know what to say to people. Do I wish it were less than that? Sure! But I can definately believe that I'm getting my money's worth.
SD cards for extra memory is also a big deal. For the $40 dollars I could go out and buy a 64MB memory card for my 360, I can get a 2GB SD card from Newegg for my Wii. I like to see that as a very nice trade-off. I may pay a little more for controllers for a Wii, but I'll pay a heck of a lot less for memory cards.
Apple car only run certain fuels? What's that supposed to mean? Apple is generally quite open about allowing people to run whatever they want on the Hardware they sell (their computers anyway, not their Consumer Electronics) Back in the power days, you could run MacOS or any of a number of variants of POWER Unix (Linux, BSD, etc) now you have the option of running OS X, BSD, Linux, or even Windows. The hardware isn't exactly closed in terms of what it can run.
Here's an experiment I'd like you to try: test watching a 480i source, a 480p source, and a 1080i source, all on your display, at your normal seating distance.
Here's the results you'll get, 480i->480p is a BIG jump, and very noticible. That's what progressive DVD players output, and its pretty darned nice (which is why most people find a good DVD transfer quite acceptable for their movie needs). 480p->1080i? not so much. Especially at that distance, the angular resolution of the average person's vision just doesn't make HD an issue until you get to 40"+ screen sizes. I'll grant you that you see a difference difference between 480i and 1080i on your screen, but I'll bet you'd get most of that difference just by going from 480i->480p.
Why? Because Pen and Paper offers a hell of a lot more flexibility. You have more control over who you play with. Also while you can still end up playing with jackasses (as in WoW or other MMO's) however, sitting around a table, its much easier to actually punch somebody in the face for being an ass, or you can actually kill them, take their stuff, and have their guts for garters in game, which most MMO's don't allow. MUDs are much better at providing this sort of live satisfaction (and others) compared to other MMO's, however, there is still quite an appeal to a legimate social experience of a game with friends in the real world (and let's be honest, MUDs have always been even more a niche than D&D).
Additionally systems have improved over the years, in D20 D&D is a LOT more n00b friendly than in the old days. And there's quite of bit of interesting stuff going on in this and related genres. To each his own, but I don't see why you should be amazed that there still exist people who enjoy playing the non-electronic versions of games.
Because if you're getting a 21-25" TV, YOU DON"T NEED HD. Let me say it again, YOU DON"T NEED HD. Are you clear on this? Now let me explain why:
How are you going to use this TV? Are you going to be sitting with your eyes closer than 1.5 meters from the screen? Then odds are, you won't really be able to tell the difference between EDTV (which is progressive DVD resolution, 480p) and high-def at 720p or 1080i/p unless you have very good vision, in which case you have a whole other set of problems (if your vision is that good a cheap 21-26" TV is going to look like ass to you no matter what it is)
If you are going to sit that close, you don't want a TV, you want a computer monitor. There are a number of 1080p capable computer monitors available on the market. Dell makes a 24" available for about $700 that is 1920x1200 native. It doesn't have TV tuner (they're easy to buy separately, don't bitch) but it does have: VGA, DVI, Component, S-Video and Composite Video Input.
I think the difficulty is this: Where do you GO? Because Seriously, I'd like to know. I suspect that Canada is at least somewhat better, as is most of Scandanavia, and to a lesser extent, the rest of western Europe and Australia, but none of these places are that much better. Furthermore, all of them are subject to concerted campaigns by the powers-that-be to make them more like the US, so where can I go? I know that I hate living here, because its a corporate controlled fascist state on a scale not seen since Mussolini's Italy, but what can I do to escape?
I really don't see the problem, you've got accelerometers, and you've got a fixed location sensor bar, which emits light that you can detect multiple light sources from, and you can measure with a fairly decent angular resolution. The machine knows how long the bar is, so by using two lights on opposite sides of the bar, the machine can easily calculate distance from the bar, and the position of the bar on the sensor tells you up/down, left/right aiming. Seems to me the wii ought to be able to calculate position and orientation of the remote in 3D space fairly easily and accurately. The main source of error is when it can't see the bar on the sensor, then it can rely on integrating accelorometer data, but you won't be pointing away for long, so the errors won't matter too much.
"If someone is so wrapped up in some damn game that they're willing to spend real money just to increase their standing, that sounds to me like a problem for a psychiatrist, not the courts."
While I agree with your general sentiment, I would argue that buying in-game currency isn't (necessarily) symptomatic of a psychological problem. It is much more generally caused by MMO's being particularly poor games Single Player games generally manage to make the tasks of earning money fun. In all the mmo's I've played, its hideously boring drudgery. Why someone can't make an MMO with a properly controlled economy is utterly beyond me. And how about fun combat? What's so bizarre about that idea? I want to have actual interactive combat in an MMO instead of autoattack, leave, come back in few minutes and see how I'm doing. It's not like people have never come up with fun in-game combat systems before, why do companies go brain dead on this issue the minute they start working on an MMO?
I still think that's incorrect. For a number a reasons, including that a large number of blockbuster titles debuted in 1993, among them "Myst" which sold far better than DOOM. Also, the events going on in the console realm quite likely overshadowed the initial release of DOOM (Mortal Kombat released on SNES and Genesis anybody?)
Opened the PC gaming industry? uh.....no. The PC gaming industry was quite alive and well before DOOM came out. There are innumerable PC titles that came out before DOOM.
as I posted elsewhere in this topic, using a working file system as a "backup" is a big no no. RAID-1 IS NOT a backup solution. You are still at risk of file loss from any number of vectors: accidental deletion, viruses, malware, file system hosed by windows, etc. Any software type failure occurs and you are hosed losing all (or most) of your data.
Raid-1 is not a backup solution, it is a protection against HD failure, these two are similar, but not the same thing. The difference lies in both drives being a "live" file system in RAID-1, which means you have no protection at all against file system failure, Viruses, accidental deletion, etc. Even on a RAID-1, backups are still very much desirable and necessary.
Genes are not equal to amount of DNA. Genes are what are translated into proteins. So actually, yes, number of genes is equal to complexity, at least if you regard increasing the number of types of proteins in a cell as increasing complexity (which it makes sense to do, a cell with many types of protein is capable of doing lots of stuff. Another way of saying it is that this organism has genes for doing at least (this varies, as proteins can modify other proteins, so the number may be even higher) 27,000 different chemical things. That IS a lot.
Hmmm, It's difficult to find hard data on-line about domestic abuse statistics. The best I can do is point out strong correlation between the religiosity of a region and its domestic homicide rate (I'm assuming that domestic homicide and abuse correlate strongly, which seems reasonable to me, and it has been shown in numerous studies that men who abuse their wives are very likely to also abuse their children. Check wikipedia on domestic abuse as a starting point). Check out:
It's a map showing domestic homicide rates for the last few available years based on FBI data. Note where almost all of the worst states are? Oh right, the Bible Belt. Of course that's not conclusive, but it correlates very well with my anecdotal experience.
There's flaming like a moron, and then there's calling people on their bullshit. As the other people who replied to you pointed out: yes, christians are likely to beat children, and their wives. What group of people is most likely to engage in dangerous sexual behavior? Oh yeah that's right, youth group christians who take "wait until I'm married" vows.
I would really argue that TV used to be of much higher quality. There were once a number of TV shows on during any given season that I was quite interested in watching, and I don't think its just that I've gotten older. Going back as far as I can remember Cheers and Nightcourt were both worth watching, Quantum Leap was quite good, and that's also Star Trek: TNG era. Saturday Night Lives of that era (although I wasn't watching them then) were also of much higher quality than the ones today. The Saturday morning cartoons were honestly just of better quality than much of the crap produced today, and I don't think that's completely subjective. Then there was a time during the Nineties when there might have been one show on I cared about. Now there isn't a damn thing. It's all reality shows, make-overs, and "Let's screw up your neighbor's house" Remember when Discovery had interesting programming? Connections with James Burke, and other stuff? Now it's all make-overs, pregnancies, and wedding stories.
I really think its not that I just got older, or that I'm nostalgic for the shows of my youth. Shows had better writing, and *gasp* likeable characters compared to "Who wants to marry a midget?" I'd also argue that the continually dropping ratings every year tend to support my claim.
Um, no, that is completely incorrect. Many, Many people oppose genetically modified foods because of suspicion of the companies that own the IP on them. We suspect that corporations will abuse their power and position to their benefit and the harm of society (oh yeah, that's NEVER happened before) We expect that companies like GE and Monsanto will start playing the food industry the same way Enron was playing the energy industry.
Now, I ask you, how is that fear irrational or unfounded in reality? I would also like to point out that the inequities of food distribution in the world today are the result of graft, corruption and cronyism, not because our present food crops are inadequate, therefore I see promises of "solving world hunger" as grossly inadequate to assuage my distrust of corporate motives.
So you want every state (or do you want it at a municiple level?) to do their own evaluations of clinical trial data to determine if drugs are safe? How do companies know what the standards that they have to meet are? Who decides? Or should we have no regulation at all? Just trust the companies, "Oh yeah, this stuff is safe, won't kill you at all!" The reasons why food and water are covered under the FDA as well are also sound, remember how Congress is supposed to have sole power to regulate interstate commerce? If there's no FDA, how do you do inspections of food production facilities on opposite sides of the country? Who decides what the safe level of Lead in potable water should be, etc?
I'm not arguing that the FDA is perfect, but it sure as hell has useful functions that provide a measurable benefit to society. And no, people don't "universally agree" on safe food and water. Communities may very well think it is fine to use human feces to fertilize crops. How do you know if there's no FDA? With the FDA in place, I know there are certain standards I can reasonably expect to be met (because there are people checking, which while certainly not absolute, at least gives you some reassurance).
Um, I'd guess the reason is that if you stick a computer (which is full of what now? oh yeah metal!) in deionized water, said water won't stay deionized for long. Pure water is a rather incredible solvent, and it will dissolve metal ions right off the tracings on the motherboard/other cards and connectors.
I really don't buy those numbers. Firstly, a 32" CRT/LCD Widescreen HDTV (and smaller) doesn't qualify, although I'm certain that such devices (and similar ones) make up the majority of HDTV sales figures. In order for HDTV to REALLY matter, people have to start changing the way that they watch video. HD isn't relevant unless you have a BIG screen 40" is really on the small side, 50-60" is pretty much what's needed.
People aren't changing their living room layouts, they aren't buying new furniture to accomodate the kinds of display sizes that are required. Except the fringe niche people, who's been doing so since the early 1980's. This group has been growing yes, but in reality it's pretty much the kind of people who had 16mm film projection systems in their homes in the '60's. This is the main reason I really don't think HD is going to matter. We're going to need MAJOR cultural shifts out of patterns that have been set since the late 19th century. Ask a random sample of women what they think their living room should look like, odds are the most common response will be something that wouldn't look that odd to a Victorian Housewife, and that's not the kind of layout that facilitates an immersive HD video experience.
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Quite Frankly, I'm ecstatic about this news! I just hope it comes to fruition, because it will greatly simplify my future computer purchases. There have been so few Adventure games (my favorite genre) and other games that appeal to me released lately that I've become a Mac user, reveling in a virus-free computing experience and relying on game consoles for my gaming needs. However, once I knew about the new Same and Max titles, I knew I would have to play them, and now that will be much simpler.
SD cards for extra memory is also a big deal. For the $40 dollars I could go out and buy a 64MB memory card for my 360, I can get a 2GB SD card from Newegg for my Wii. I like to see that as a very nice trade-off. I may pay a little more for controllers for a Wii, but I'll pay a heck of a lot less for memory cards.
Here's a hint: AI's in Video games don't look at the video data.
Apple car only run certain fuels? What's that supposed to mean? Apple is generally quite open about allowing people to run whatever they want on the Hardware they sell (their computers anyway, not their Consumer Electronics) Back in the power days, you could run MacOS or any of a number of variants of POWER Unix (Linux, BSD, etc) now you have the option of running OS X, BSD, Linux, or even Windows. The hardware isn't exactly closed in terms of what it can run.
Here's the results you'll get, 480i->480p is a BIG jump, and very noticible. That's what progressive DVD players output, and its pretty darned nice (which is why most people find a good DVD transfer quite acceptable for their movie needs). 480p->1080i? not so much. Especially at that distance, the angular resolution of the average person's vision just doesn't make HD an issue until you get to 40"+ screen sizes. I'll grant you that you see a difference difference between 480i and 1080i on your screen, but I'll bet you'd get most of that difference just by going from 480i->480p.
Additionally systems have improved over the years, in D20 D&D is a LOT more n00b friendly than in the old days. And there's quite of bit of interesting stuff going on in this and related genres. To each his own, but I don't see why you should be amazed that there still exist people who enjoy playing the non-electronic versions of games.
Because "Me like sex."
How are you going to use this TV? Are you going to be sitting with your eyes closer than 1.5 meters from the screen? Then odds are, you won't really be able to tell the difference between EDTV (which is progressive DVD resolution, 480p) and high-def at 720p or 1080i/p unless you have very good vision, in which case you have a whole other set of problems (if your vision is that good a cheap 21-26" TV is going to look like ass to you no matter what it is)
If you are going to sit that close, you don't want a TV, you want a computer monitor. There are a number of 1080p capable computer monitors available on the market. Dell makes a 24" available for about $700 that is 1920x1200 native. It doesn't have TV tuner (they're easy to buy separately, don't bitch) but it does have: VGA, DVI, Component, S-Video and Composite Video Input.
These are your real options.
You've obviously never played Mario Kart, or Super Smash Brothers both of which are excellent social experiences, as are most Nintendo party games.
I think the difficulty is this: Where do you GO? Because Seriously, I'd like to know. I suspect that Canada is at least somewhat better, as is most of Scandanavia, and to a lesser extent, the rest of western Europe and Australia, but none of these places are that much better. Furthermore, all of them are subject to concerted campaigns by the powers-that-be to make them more like the US, so where can I go? I know that I hate living here, because its a corporate controlled fascist state on a scale not seen since Mussolini's Italy, but what can I do to escape?
I really don't see the problem, you've got accelerometers, and you've got a fixed location sensor bar, which emits light that you can detect multiple light sources from, and you can measure with a fairly decent angular resolution. The machine knows how long the bar is, so by using two lights on opposite sides of the bar, the machine can easily calculate distance from the bar, and the position of the bar on the sensor tells you up/down, left/right aiming. Seems to me the wii ought to be able to calculate position and orientation of the remote in 3D space fairly easily and accurately. The main source of error is when it can't see the bar on the sensor, then it can rely on integrating accelorometer data, but you won't be pointing away for long, so the errors won't matter too much.
While I agree with your general sentiment, I would argue that buying in-game currency isn't (necessarily) symptomatic of a psychological problem. It is much more generally caused by MMO's being particularly poor games Single Player games generally manage to make the tasks of earning money fun. In all the mmo's I've played, its hideously boring drudgery. Why someone can't make an MMO with a properly controlled economy is utterly beyond me. And how about fun combat? What's so bizarre about that idea? I want to have actual interactive combat in an MMO instead of autoattack, leave, come back in few minutes and see how I'm doing. It's not like people have never come up with fun in-game combat systems before, why do companies go brain dead on this issue the minute they start working on an MMO?
I still think that's incorrect. For a number a reasons, including that a large number of blockbuster titles debuted in 1993, among them "Myst" which sold far better than DOOM. Also, the events going on in the console realm quite likely overshadowed the initial release of DOOM (Mortal Kombat released on SNES and Genesis anybody?)
Opened the PC gaming industry? uh.....no. The PC gaming industry was quite alive and well before DOOM came out. There are innumerable PC titles that came out before DOOM.
as I posted elsewhere in this topic, using a working file system as a "backup" is a big no no. RAID-1 IS NOT a backup solution. You are still at risk of file loss from any number of vectors: accidental deletion, viruses, malware, file system hosed by windows, etc. Any software type failure occurs and you are hosed losing all (or most) of your data.
Raid-1 is not a backup solution, it is a protection against HD failure, these two are similar, but not the same thing. The difference lies in both drives being a "live" file system in RAID-1, which means you have no protection at all against file system failure, Viruses, accidental deletion, etc. Even on a RAID-1, backups are still very much desirable and necessary.
Genes are not equal to amount of DNA. Genes are what are translated into proteins. So actually, yes, number of genes is equal to complexity, at least if you regard increasing the number of types of proteins in a cell as increasing complexity (which it makes sense to do, a cell with many types of protein is capable of doing lots of stuff. Another way of saying it is that this organism has genes for doing at least (this varies, as proteins can modify other proteins, so the number may be even higher) 27,000 different chemical things. That IS a lot.
http://www.silentwitness.net/states/us_map.htm
It's a map showing domestic homicide rates for the last few available years based on FBI data. Note where almost all of the worst states are? Oh right, the Bible Belt. Of course that's not conclusive, but it correlates very well with my anecdotal experience.
There's flaming like a moron, and then there's calling people on their bullshit. As the other people who replied to you pointed out: yes, christians are likely to beat children, and their wives. What group of people is most likely to engage in dangerous sexual behavior? Oh yeah that's right, youth group christians who take "wait until I'm married" vows.
I really think its not that I just got older, or that I'm nostalgic for the shows of my youth. Shows had better writing, and *gasp* likeable characters compared to "Who wants to marry a midget?" I'd also argue that the continually dropping ratings every year tend to support my claim.
Um, you find that suprising? Christians are generally the most self important fuckers on the planet. Much more likely to steal than anybody else.
Now, I ask you, how is that fear irrational or unfounded in reality? I would also like to point out that the inequities of food distribution in the world today are the result of graft, corruption and cronyism, not because our present food crops are inadequate, therefore I see promises of "solving world hunger" as grossly inadequate to assuage my distrust of corporate motives.
I'm not arguing that the FDA is perfect, but it sure as hell has useful functions that provide a measurable benefit to society. And no, people don't "universally agree" on safe food and water. Communities may very well think it is fine to use human feces to fertilize crops. How do you know if there's no FDA? With the FDA in place, I know there are certain standards I can reasonably expect to be met (because there are people checking, which while certainly not absolute, at least gives you some reassurance).
Um, I'd guess the reason is that if you stick a computer (which is full of what now? oh yeah metal!) in deionized water, said water won't stay deionized for long. Pure water is a rather incredible solvent, and it will dissolve metal ions right off the tracings on the motherboard/other cards and connectors.
People aren't changing their living room layouts, they aren't buying new furniture to accomodate the kinds of display sizes that are required. Except the fringe niche people, who's been doing so since the early 1980's. This group has been growing yes, but in reality it's pretty much the kind of people who had 16mm film projection systems in their homes in the '60's. This is the main reason I really don't think HD is going to matter. We're going to need MAJOR cultural shifts out of patterns that have been set since the late 19th century. Ask a random sample of women what they think their living room should look like, odds are the most common response will be something that wouldn't look that odd to a Victorian Housewife, and that's not the kind of layout that facilitates an immersive HD video experience.