Yes, can someone with the knowledge explain to us why they couldn't send this into deep space? How much more costly is it to do such a thing, with such a small cargo?
Jobs claimed the market didn't want subscription-based music. Well, I'm claiming the market doesn't want ala carte television. Music is less involving and doesn't lose much luster with repeated play. Video, on the other hand, usually gets stale after one or two viewings, moreso with television. Offer video subscriptions to iTunes and I think they'll start to see success.
The games themselves are still there, waiting to be played on an emulator or legacy hardware. Even the communities are still there, albeit in the form of niche fan clubs. What has changed more than anything is ourselves. We have developed an appetite for high-budget creations that weren't previously possible, and that has made it difficult for many of us to look back. And that doesn't even consider the fact that we've grown up, and our lives 10-20 years ago are nothing but one big nostalgic blur.
Let's not allow nostalgia to blind us from what's being offered up as we speak. There are plenty of great small-scale games being developed and published right under our noses. Just the other week I picked up Puzzle Quest, a fun and deep game that could have easily been created by a small number of people, if not one person alone. Coincidentally I also picked up God of War that week, and the contrast could not have been greater. One had merely serviceable presentation, the other had Hollywood aspirations. And guess what? I've been playing far more Puzzle Quest.
There are plenty of other examples, even from big companies like Nintendo. The WarioWare games come to mind, and how many people could it have possibly taken to develop Wii Sports? PC development is doing just fine, too. Mod development has created a small-time development explosion. And some smaller games, like Serious Sam, are even sporting custom graphics engines.
I think we have a tendency to only look at where most of the money is going (large development houses) when considering the state of small-scale gaming. The money is not being distributed the same way it used to be, but the small-scale developers and small-scale games are both still here.
Hey that gives me a great idea: give all the passenger seats pedals and let them spin little generators as you go. Maybe even a wired up hamster cage in the trunk.
The movie expressed the world fine as it appeared in that set of books.
I beg to differ. The book was rich with references to things unknown and times long gone. The pace was such that you could appreciate each setting intimately, not just the characters in the present situation and their fighting skills.
This was an error of expression, because the scenery itself was probably as close to the book as one could hope for. Slowly reading LOTR was like taking a long wilderness trek up a lofty mountain. Watching LOTR on film was like stepping out of a mini van and taking the ski lift. Somewhat depressing, really.
I wouldn't expect too much from Gamespy's online matchmaking here.
Qualities of DS online play:
- Lengthy connection times
- No lobby system
- No ability to choose the number of players in your match (it tends to favor 1 on 1 matchups)
- No ability to choose which of your "friends" you play with
- Few if any customizable options for each match
- Did I mention lengthy connection times?
Whether it was Gamespy's fault, or whether it was Nintendo's, something severely stunted the implementation of DS online play.
Just go to "settings"->"forwarding and pop" and select "Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)". You can then download a copy of all the mail to your computer using a normal email client (You can choose to keep a copy on gmail). You can also get all mail automatically forwarded to an outside email address.
Exactly. Google not only grants POP access but also allows forwarding. Compare this to an account at Yahoo! where you cannot do either of these things unless you pay a $20 annual fee. This creates a significant barrier for people wanting to switch, even for a person such as myself who has been "happily" paying the fee for years. You see, once I switch mail providers I'll want to stop paying Yahoo's fee, which in turn will cancel the forwarding....
While I love the Wiimote and Nunchuk, I think they really suffer from the lack of at least a single-axis gyroscope. The accelerometer is great for measuring tilts in relation to the earth's surface, but they can't register angles on axes perpendicular to the earth's surface. This makes it more difficult to register a camera pan to the left or right, for instance, without involving the IR sensor.
The most obvious use (to me) for such a feature would be to have the Nunchuk pan the camera left and right as you point it left and right (in FPS games for instance), but it would also improve situations like batting and swordfighting where you want the instrument onscreen to match the angle of the Wiimote as closely as possible.
How do you mitigate transmission losses when you have smal scale generators far away from the consumer?
I know almost nothing about electricity, but I can tell you made a good point. Good point! Perhaps there is still some creative solution, though. The first thing that comes to mind is to keep them all relatively close to the coastline, and have whatever land-based equipment spread out at certain intervals as needed.
I don't even know how they solve problems like this even on land, so perhaps you'd be better at answering the question.
The best place to harness tidal power is in river estuaries which tend to support large eco-systems dependant on the tides.
Unfortunately I think most devices capabale of turning tidal energy into electricity tend to need to be built on a pretty large scale to worth while and this tends to totally destroy the eco systems in the immediate vicinity.
At least that is what I learned in Geograpgy lessons 15 years ago so things may have moved on since then !
Perhaps the answer is to widen the mass distribution of these machines instead of concentrating them all together. Instead of one large tidal collection center, imagine a strand of cable three hundred miles long sitting on the bottom of the ocean, with small energy collectors, only a foot or two in diameter, along the whole stretch. You could even layer these in parallel to multiply the effect. Or even create a large web-like structures that could span enormous portions of the ocean. Such an arrangement would ensure redundant power links back to the mainland, and would make each collection point independently serviceable without affecting the whole, like modern day Christmas lights.
One copy goes in the mail to the election board in case a recount is needed. One copy I keep so I have a record of my vote. Anybody see any problems with this system?
Well, the mailed in copy would be super easy to forge in advance. And the reason you can trust computers to count money but not trust them to count votes is because in the case of theft you have one party with very little basis for argument: the thief. But in political voting, both parties are equally represented and will fight equally hard to defend an outcome, fraudulent or not.
Also, theft has more evidence. A bank account that is suddenly stuffed with $200,000; a sudden log of excess spending on a credit card; all this stuff raises red flags and is relatively easy to sniff out. A voting machine with the wrong tally is far more believable and therefore dangerous.
Yeah, being able to contact the actual voters as a failsafe sure seems like a good idea. They don't do that current though, do they? Perhaps they have a good reason not to.
Because we all know that digital photos can't be manipulated.
Even if it were, it won't matter. Before the scan would even be consulted there must first be a recongnized problem with the paper ballot. So to pull off a fraudulent vote you'd have to A) damage the paper ballot, and B) manipulate the scan of the same ballot. Doing one or the other but not both will have no ill effect.
Ideally technology should be used to enhance the existing voting process, not replace it entirely. How about this: have the voter complete a standard voting card, then place it in a template and press a button. This action takes a digital photograph of the voting card. Later on, if any voting card is questioned the digital photograph can be used as a reference to help resolve the confusion.
Punch cards with their hanging chads, for all their faults, can at least be subjected to a system of checks and balances comprised of non-technical individuals. They should be made better though. Heck, I don't see why Scantron-type #2 pencil bubbles wouldn't be better than chads.
An alternative to this is to just keep all your documents on a flash drive. Small enough to carry around, relatively cheap, and you can even carry your programs around with you. Eventually you will have to start paying a monthly fee for those online apps you use, and then it will really add up.
A flash drive can be easily lost, and any apps you want to use must be stored on the device and compiled for multiple platforms. While I agree that flash drives are another cool tool, I don't think they make online apps obsolete at all. I will use my brain when price becomes an issue. If I feel like online apps are charging too much, I'll always have desktop apps to fall back on.
Another thing I didn't mention is that online apps continue to work even when you aren't accessing them. Example: when I check Yahoo! mail everything is ready to use instantly. But when I fire up Thunderbird I have to wait several minutes for it to download all the emails that have come in since the last time I used the app.
While I agree that it's not coming to an end, I do think I will be running plenty of apps online. As many as possible, in fact, unless I can think of a good reason not to. Why? Because I no longer have to worry about where something is stored. Whether I'm at my house, at work, at the library, or at my parents' house I can continue to work on the same stuff without having to worry about transferring documents from one device to another, or hauling around a laptop for that matter if I choose not to. All I need is a networked PC and a login.
There's also the fact that you don't have to install anything, anywhere (in an ideal situation at least). I'm sure it'll soon get good enough to where these online apps work just as well on mobile devices and then we'll have far less worries about storage space.
Sure the desktop isn't dead, but online apps are definitely on the way up.
Maybe in the next 10 years it'll enhance video games, but in the next 20-30 years this could create serious political problems. Politicians will be misrepresented and fake videos will spread throughout the globe. Perhaps astute people will find ways to determine what is truth and what is not, but a large portion of voters could be completely duped. Corruption will rule. The apocalypse will not be far behind.
A lot of it is about the sugar to me. I was skinny throughout high school even though I ate a ton of junk food, but my concentration skills seemed to grow worse every year. Sugar is a big contributor to this, so if the only thing achieved is a reduction in sugar intake, I'm for it.
Besides, kids with obesity problems need all the help they can get. Healthy school meals alone won't solve the problem but they are a big part of the equation.
I agree. Fry's has the best approach. Not only do you check out faster, but you see far more of the impulse buy shelving on your way out. The irony is that the post office uses this same method, but only out of absolute necessity given the *two* clerks they have working.
AMD has done very little, marketing-wise, to strengthen its brand, which makes it very vulnerable to being marginalized when it starts being outperformed by the competition. Intel has their name everywhere and they have the little dun! dun! dun! dun! noise; they've also been a tough competitor even when AMD had the better performing chips. What does AMD have? A dull logo.
Bingo! You nailed it. Funny how we know all this instinctually without even thinking about it. I mean, aren't most new eBay users quick to recognize the benefits of sniping? It's only when we start getting rational that we swear by the (wrong) solution of bidding early and bidding our maximum bid. Then it takes an even more rational analysis to discover that we were right all along.
These games will certainly need an "expert mode" that enables customized controls. To replace a mouse/keyboard the device will need this customizability. (Ever seen a hardcore Quake player's config file? Yeah.)
I say "expert mode" because you want the game to default to a setting that is far more intuitive, and not necessarily efficient. You don't want your typical player forced into a steep learning curve. The solution described for Metroid sounds about as steep as you'd want to go. It also sounds adequate for most players, even if it doesn't match the keyboard/mouse.
Imagine describing to someone how to use the "clutch" button for repositioning the cursor!
For the record, I will be every bit as disappointed as you if they don't include extreme customizability in these games.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, can someone with the knowledge explain to us why they couldn't send this into deep space? How much more costly is it to do such a thing, with such a small cargo?
Jobs claimed the market didn't want subscription-based music. Well, I'm claiming the market doesn't want ala carte television. Music is less involving and doesn't lose much luster with repeated play. Video, on the other hand, usually gets stale after one or two viewings, moreso with television. Offer video subscriptions to iTunes and I think they'll start to see success.
The games themselves are still there, waiting to be played on an emulator or legacy hardware. Even the communities are still there, albeit in the form of niche fan clubs. What has changed more than anything is ourselves. We have developed an appetite for high-budget creations that weren't previously possible, and that has made it difficult for many of us to look back. And that doesn't even consider the fact that we've grown up, and our lives 10-20 years ago are nothing but one big nostalgic blur.
Let's not allow nostalgia to blind us from what's being offered up as we speak. There are plenty of great small-scale games being developed and published right under our noses. Just the other week I picked up Puzzle Quest, a fun and deep game that could have easily been created by a small number of people, if not one person alone. Coincidentally I also picked up God of War that week, and the contrast could not have been greater. One had merely serviceable presentation, the other had Hollywood aspirations. And guess what? I've been playing far more Puzzle Quest.
There are plenty of other examples, even from big companies like Nintendo. The WarioWare games come to mind, and how many people could it have possibly taken to develop Wii Sports? PC development is doing just fine, too. Mod development has created a small-time development explosion. And some smaller games, like Serious Sam, are even sporting custom graphics engines.
I think we have a tendency to only look at where most of the money is going (large development houses) when considering the state of small-scale gaming. The money is not being distributed the same way it used to be, but the small-scale developers and small-scale games are both still here.
Hey that gives me a great idea: give all the passenger seats pedals and let them spin little generators as you go. Maybe even a wired up hamster cage in the trunk.
This was an error of expression, because the scenery itself was probably as close to the book as one could hope for. Slowly reading LOTR was like taking a long wilderness trek up a lofty mountain. Watching LOTR on film was like stepping out of a mini van and taking the ski lift. Somewhat depressing, really.
For me it's more like:
Netflix $15/Mo * 12 Mo = $180/Yr
Cable $13/Mo * 12 = $156/Yr (Basic cable, baby. 50+ channels even.)
Total = $336/Year
We watch about 2 DVDs worth of content every week. Through iTunes that would cost us about $1000/year, assuming all of it is even available.
I wouldn't expect too much from Gamespy's online matchmaking here. Qualities of DS online play: - Lengthy connection times - No lobby system - No ability to choose the number of players in your match (it tends to favor 1 on 1 matchups) - No ability to choose which of your "friends" you play with - Few if any customizable options for each match - Did I mention lengthy connection times? Whether it was Gamespy's fault, or whether it was Nintendo's, something severely stunted the implementation of DS online play.
While I love the Wiimote and Nunchuk, I think they really suffer from the lack of at least a single-axis gyroscope. The accelerometer is great for measuring tilts in relation to the earth's surface, but they can't register angles on axes perpendicular to the earth's surface. This makes it more difficult to register a camera pan to the left or right, for instance, without involving the IR sensor.
The most obvious use (to me) for such a feature would be to have the Nunchuk pan the camera left and right as you point it left and right (in FPS games for instance), but it would also improve situations like batting and swordfighting where you want the instrument onscreen to match the angle of the Wiimote as closely as possible.
Ideally technology should be used to enhance the existing voting process, not replace it entirely. How about this: have the voter complete a standard voting card, then place it in a template and press a button. This action takes a digital photograph of the voting card. Later on, if any voting card is questioned the digital photograph can be used as a reference to help resolve the confusion. Punch cards with their hanging chads, for all their faults, can at least be subjected to a system of checks and balances comprised of non-technical individuals. They should be made better though. Heck, I don't see why Scantron-type #2 pencil bubbles wouldn't be better than chads.
Another thing I didn't mention is that online apps continue to work even when you aren't accessing them. Example: when I check Yahoo! mail everything is ready to use instantly. But when I fire up Thunderbird I have to wait several minutes for it to download all the emails that have come in since the last time I used the app.
While I agree that it's not coming to an end, I do think I will be running plenty of apps online. As many as possible, in fact, unless I can think of a good reason not to. Why? Because I no longer have to worry about where something is stored. Whether I'm at my house, at work, at the library, or at my parents' house I can continue to work on the same stuff without having to worry about transferring documents from one device to another, or hauling around a laptop for that matter if I choose not to. All I need is a networked PC and a login. There's also the fact that you don't have to install anything, anywhere (in an ideal situation at least). I'm sure it'll soon get good enough to where these online apps work just as well on mobile devices and then we'll have far less worries about storage space. Sure the desktop isn't dead, but online apps are definitely on the way up.
Maybe in the next 10 years it'll enhance video games, but in the next 20-30 years this could create serious political problems. Politicians will be misrepresented and fake videos will spread throughout the globe. Perhaps astute people will find ways to determine what is truth and what is not, but a large portion of voters could be completely duped. Corruption will rule. The apocalypse will not be far behind.
A lot of it is about the sugar to me. I was skinny throughout high school even though I ate a ton of junk food, but my concentration skills seemed to grow worse every year. Sugar is a big contributor to this, so if the only thing achieved is a reduction in sugar intake, I'm for it. Besides, kids with obesity problems need all the help they can get. Healthy school meals alone won't solve the problem but they are a big part of the equation.
Well sure, but Fry's has an especially good implementation of it. Of course that's largely due to the overabundance of clerks at the windows.
I agree. Fry's has the best approach. Not only do you check out faster, but you see far more of the impulse buy shelving on your way out. The irony is that the post office uses this same method, but only out of absolute necessity given the *two* clerks they have working.
AMD has done very little, marketing-wise, to strengthen its brand, which makes it very vulnerable to being marginalized when it starts being outperformed by the competition. Intel has their name everywhere and they have the little dun! dun! dun! dun! noise; they've also been a tough competitor even when AMD had the better performing chips. What does AMD have? A dull logo.
Bingo! You nailed it. Funny how we know all this instinctually without even thinking about it. I mean, aren't most new eBay users quick to recognize the benefits of sniping? It's only when we start getting rational that we swear by the (wrong) solution of bidding early and bidding our maximum bid. Then it takes an even more rational analysis to discover that we were right all along.
Allow the auction owner to specify the amount of "over time" allowed.
These games will certainly need an "expert mode" that enables customized controls. To replace a mouse/keyboard the device will need this customizability. (Ever seen a hardcore Quake player's config file? Yeah.) I say "expert mode" because you want the game to default to a setting that is far more intuitive, and not necessarily efficient. You don't want your typical player forced into a steep learning curve. The solution described for Metroid sounds about as steep as you'd want to go. It also sounds adequate for most players, even if it doesn't match the keyboard/mouse. Imagine describing to someone how to use the "clutch" button for repositioning the cursor! For the record, I will be every bit as disappointed as you if they don't include extreme customizability in these games.