Amen! And it's not just videogames, either. Every older generation thinks things used to be better in movies, TV, politics, society, etc. when THEY were younger. Myself, I've been playing videogames since the Pong days, and I think that there has never been a better time to be a gamer. The sheer number of so many great games out there is amazing. And the creativity of the indie developers flourishing on services like Xbox Live Arcade just continues to amaze me. Yes, some genres and franchises have grown stale, but there is always some new game just around the corner that refreshes things by coming up with some new twist, some new dynamic, some new idea.
The problem is that a) No one can see into the future to see what those ACTUAL damages will be, and b) Many of the people suing will be greatly exaggerating their damages, if not committing outright fraud. Again, I don't envy BP the mess they will be dealing with on this--especially since every ambulance-chasing trial lawyer and his brother are going to be pouncing on this, and I doubt that judges are going to be very sympathetic to the evil oil company.
Every fisherman in the Gulf is going to be claiming that BP killed their record season, every cannery is going to complain that the oil spill took a crazy amount of money out of their pockets. etc. I've already heard some fishermen being interviewed saying that BP owed them several YEARS worth of fishing profits (since they were presumptively assuming that they wouldn't be able to fish for years). I'm generally not very sympathetic to big oil companies, but those poor bastards are going to be swamped with lawsuits for the next decade. But, on the upside, I bet they'll damn sure be properly maintaining those blowout preventers from now on.
I'll support this if the intention is to maintain a free internet, with free speech, etc. However, if this is just some thin pretense to enforce some kind of WIPO-esque copyright/"IP protection" scheme at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA and their international equivalents--then forget it. Sadly, I suspect the latter may be the real motivation here, though couched as the former.
It's not just e-waste. The same thing happens with decommissioned ships and other dangerous waste. In the U.S., the show "60 Minutes" has done a number of pieces on this, most notably Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste and The Ship-Breakers of Bangladesh. Basically, when it comes to dangerous materials (with the exception of nuclear waste) poor countries inevitably become the dumping grounds for the first world. I would bet that, if you were to really track that e-waste in Australia, I mean REALLY track it (not just taking someone's word for it), you would find it eventually in a cargo container with the shippers being surprisingly reticent on the details of its actual destination.
It has the capability to do basic collision detection with if...then control structures. I do remember that much. I was actually surprised at how much it could do, considering so much of it was drag-and-drop. Some of the kids did some pretty amazing stuff with it, in only a few weeks.
Alice is a pretty simple way to introduce newbies to game/3D-environment development. I used to use it in an introductory programming class and the kids loved it. Gives you a real sense for how game development and programming work without being heavy-handed about it (or requiring students to jump right into hand-coding, without so much as flowers and dinner first). Here is the text I used for the course.
I have never seen something elicit such a polarization of people. It was dismissed as overhyped and broken or else taken to heart to be loved and cherished, buoyed on by a fanaticism I was proud to have played a part in bringing to the world.
That's exactly what Hermann Göring said during the Nuremberg trials.
They should make a Halo game that's more like the real military--where Master Chief has to spend most of his life doing boring tasks, standing in line, training, sleeping in the field, and filling out bullshit paperwork.
I am sure you would find that an unusually high number of non-Terrorist Asians and Middle-easterners are engineers too (compared to the west). These people are often from wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (and a few other parts of Asia and the Middle east)--and university students in those areas are known mostly for their interests in hard science, business, and engineering. You don't see a lot of history or literature majors in those areas (when's the last time you saw a Saudi come to the U.S. to study journalism or art?).
Affect/effect is one of my biggest gripes about the English language. It's another one of those bizarre distinctions that's very difficult to understand and serves no practical purpose in the language. We should have done away with affect a long time ago. It's not as frustrating as the lack of a third person, singular, gender-neutral pronoun for a person in English (I'm all for just adapting "them" for singular usage rather than the annoyingly awkward him/her construct, BTW). But it's pretty annoying (and pointless).
As a good geek, I've tried switching to Linux many times over the years. Every time has ended in frustration. Even putting aside all the games and software compatibility problems (and those are pretty frickin' significant), I also have to deal with a confusing variety of distros, poor documentation, and an arrogant support base (asking how to do something in Linux that you could do in Windows on a Linux support forum will evoke a "Obviously you don't belong here" blast of snobbery that would make the average high school head cheerleader blush). Ubuntu has helped with some of that, but it still suffers from pretty piss-poor documentation. And downloading and installing software, even using the built-in installer, is a confusing nightmare. With Windows, you download the Windows version, double-click it, and you're done. With Linux, it's often a mess of tar files, "Is this compatible with my distro?" And I *still* don't know the fucking difference between gnome and KDE, or why that should even be an issue.
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Amen! And it's not just videogames, either. Every older generation thinks things used to be better in movies, TV, politics, society, etc. when THEY were younger. Myself, I've been playing videogames since the Pong days, and I think that there has never been a better time to be a gamer. The sheer number of so many great games out there is amazing. And the creativity of the indie developers flourishing on services like Xbox Live Arcade just continues to amaze me. Yes, some genres and franchises have grown stale, but there is always some new game just around the corner that refreshes things by coming up with some new twist, some new dynamic, some new idea.
The problem is that a) No one can see into the future to see what those ACTUAL damages will be, and b) Many of the people suing will be greatly exaggerating their damages, if not committing outright fraud. Again, I don't envy BP the mess they will be dealing with on this--especially since every ambulance-chasing trial lawyer and his brother are going to be pouncing on this, and I doubt that judges are going to be very sympathetic to the evil oil company.
Every fisherman in the Gulf is going to be claiming that BP killed their record season, every cannery is going to complain that the oil spill took a crazy amount of money out of their pockets. etc. I've already heard some fishermen being interviewed saying that BP owed them several YEARS worth of fishing profits (since they were presumptively assuming that they wouldn't be able to fish for years). I'm generally not very sympathetic to big oil companies, but those poor bastards are going to be swamped with lawsuits for the next decade. But, on the upside, I bet they'll damn sure be properly maintaining those blowout preventers from now on.
Actually, it's a very strong opinion. And, even if I accepted your premise, who would get to decide where to draw the line?
Based on my experience, automobiles seem to work wonders on these things. Clearly, we just need to bring in more automobiles to New York.
I'll support this if the intention is to maintain a free internet, with free speech, etc. However, if this is just some thin pretense to enforce some kind of WIPO-esque copyright/"IP protection" scheme at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA and their international equivalents--then forget it. Sadly, I suspect the latter may be the real motivation here, though couched as the former.
Finally, Scientology will be vindicated!
Yeah, you could--as long as you don't then import it to the U.S. or other WIPO Copyright Treaty country.
True, but you still can't make it drink.
It's not just e-waste. The same thing happens with decommissioned ships and other dangerous waste. In the U.S., the show "60 Minutes" has done a number of pieces on this, most notably Following The Trail Of Toxic E-Waste and The Ship-Breakers of Bangladesh. Basically, when it comes to dangerous materials (with the exception of nuclear waste) poor countries inevitably become the dumping grounds for the first world. I would bet that, if you were to really track that e-waste in Australia, I mean REALLY track it (not just taking someone's word for it), you would find it eventually in a cargo container with the shippers being surprisingly reticent on the details of its actual destination.
It has the capability to do basic collision detection with if...then control structures. I do remember that much. I was actually surprised at how much it could do, considering so much of it was drag-and-drop. Some of the kids did some pretty amazing stuff with it, in only a few weeks.
Stupid art hippies and their dreams! Zeek40 and me, we don't cotton to their kind round here!
Alice is a pretty simple way to introduce newbies to game/3D-environment development. I used to use it in an introductory programming class and the kids loved it. Gives you a real sense for how game development and programming work without being heavy-handed about it (or requiring students to jump right into hand-coding, without so much as flowers and dinner first). Here is the text I used for the course.
That's exactly what Hermann Göring said during the Nuremberg trials.
I could be crazy, but I think I sense a little sarcasm here.
They should make a Halo game that's more like the real military--where Master Chief has to spend most of his life doing boring tasks, standing in line, training, sleeping in the field, and filling out bullshit paperwork.
They're not even in the same *league* as the jedi masters of milking franchises. And yes, Nintendo, I'm looking at you.
I guess they'll just have to console themselves by sleeping with many beautiful women on giant piles of cash.
I am sure you would find that an unusually high number of non-Terrorist Asians and Middle-easterners are engineers too (compared to the west). These people are often from wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen (and a few other parts of Asia and the Middle east)--and university students in those areas are known mostly for their interests in hard science, business, and engineering. You don't see a lot of history or literature majors in those areas (when's the last time you saw a Saudi come to the U.S. to study journalism or art?).
It's going to be day-and-date with the release of Uncharted 2 on the 360.
Glenn Beck says it's good science.
Okay, you can just stop right there. I think you've made my point.
And you've just made another one of my points.
Affect/effect is one of my biggest gripes about the English language. It's another one of those bizarre distinctions that's very difficult to understand and serves no practical purpose in the language. We should have done away with affect a long time ago. It's not as frustrating as the lack of a third person, singular, gender-neutral pronoun for a person in English (I'm all for just adapting "them" for singular usage rather than the annoyingly awkward him/her construct, BTW). But it's pretty annoying (and pointless).
Thank you for providing the perfect retort to anyone who challenges my assertion that Linux has an arrogant, snobbish support base.
As a good geek, I've tried switching to Linux many times over the years. Every time has ended in frustration. Even putting aside all the games and software compatibility problems (and those are pretty frickin' significant), I also have to deal with a confusing variety of distros, poor documentation, and an arrogant support base (asking how to do something in Linux that you could do in Windows on a Linux support forum will evoke a "Obviously you don't belong here" blast of snobbery that would make the average high school head cheerleader blush). Ubuntu has helped with some of that, but it still suffers from pretty piss-poor documentation. And downloading and installing software, even using the built-in installer, is a confusing nightmare. With Windows, you download the Windows version, double-click it, and you're done. With Linux, it's often a mess of tar files, "Is this compatible with my distro?" And I *still* don't know the fucking difference between gnome and KDE, or why that should even be an issue.