From what I've heard of jury duty and from people I know who have had jury duty, they strongly emphasis only whether or not the law was broken and will screen for anyone thinking. Guess if they can't get a plea bargin, they go for the next easiest thing.
$3.12 billion over 76 days ($3.12 b as of July 5th) comes out to $41,052,631 a day. And remember, the Deepwater Horizon was being leased for $500,000 a day.
The cost for every day of cleanup could have 82 days leasing a drilling rig. Total time (ignoring maintenance, payroll, etc.) for that $3.12 billion? 17 years.
Ayup. Either that horse is making its way past Jupiter or jumped into an alternate equine dimension and became the ruler of that hooved place, but it is gone.
That said, there's other wells. I try to imagine that operators and owners of said wells have a renewed interest in at least not having a $20 billion disaster bill and maybe a shred of conscience and understand of what their actions can reap. I keep waiting for some news on the fucking dipshits at MMS who were literally fucking those who they were suppose to keep an eye on. No, attending their coke, meth, and sex parties is not the way to do it. I think these people should get jail time.
Given the sheer volume of matter that needs to be cleaned, I don't think there will be any effective solution. I mean, effective and doesn't completely sterilize the water or sand the oil is in. I doubt either the water or sand would be habitable afterwards. Sand gets hauled away to hazardous-waste and rapid degradation of oil in water will suck all the oxygen out. Likewise, I don't have high hopes for the survival of marshes that soaked up tidefuls of oil.
So... yeah, pretty grim outlook but it's the same deal for anything covered in oil. Ideally, the American public will learn that, no, businesses will not regulate themselves and that you actually need to put people who aren't ideologically opposed to regulation into positions to *gasp* regulate. That might be a bit much to ask though.
Anyway, we fucked up on the regulating of oil companies part and the environment will be pretty fucked over for decades (ie, if it ever recovers). We could at least not fuck up the cleanup effort and make sure those workers don't suffer health effects from cleaning up BP's mess. Whoops, too late.... Oh, and fucking up the cleaning effort by trying to bury it with sand.
So they'll sink $4-5 billion building hardware, software, branding, and (presumably) a market/network? Yeah, maybe.
Or it could be a Zune phone, replete of velvety brownness and the ability squirt.
Actually, it would be fun to see them flop about in a costly and humiliating manner. Sure the Xbox has turned a profit for some select quarters but I reckon they're still down a few billion overall. Does anyone know how the Zune is fairing?
I, for one, welcome Windows Live 7 Professional Phone Xtreme Crispy Chunky Ranch-Bacon. If it worked for Vista and Hotmail, well, they could work similar magic with a homegrown phone.
(We can still make fun of Vista and Hotmail, right? And what the fuck is with those Hotmail ads? They make less sense than the Seinfeld ones.)
A gaming company should keep this in mind if they're going to put in multiplayer at all. If you do it, make sure it's fun and addictive.
Couple other things.
Make sure people new to the game either have their own area or can't get slaughtered over and over.
Also, don't fuck it up.
I was a big fan of a game called Gunbound. It was something of a Worms-esque game. Minimal movement, 2D, terrain that could be destroyed, ballistic weaponry.... You could buy gear for you avatar which changed various stats with real money or ingame money you got from winning.
I hadn't played it a while so I checked out one day when I was bored. New players have to play with avatar on (which means gear matters). It's segregated by rank but it still means someone who spent $5 will destroy you. Looking at the gear lists, it looked like damn near everything new was to be bought with cash only. Oh, and if someone typed lol, ns (for nice shot), nt (nice try), and other common jargon, it would say it out loud. Even when they spammed it.
You still need to put your heat somewhere. As a person, you won't radiate a whole lot of heat but anything with an engine will be pumping out hot exhaust.
Anyway, from the sound it it, they're just saying that they're working their way up the spectrum to visible light. Whether or not it works for every wavelength below infrared is another question. If it can't deal with radar, well... I guess we could have layered defense and offense lines using different cloaks.
Granted, this means if they make a simple game that never gets old (think Tetris), it's hard to build off that premise and any future games would have to compete with that, too.
Plots are nice but ultimately limits replay (a plus for publishers). There's nothing wrong with that but I have a hard time thinking of a game series that built up from game to game both the story and the appeal while maintaining a satisfying end to each chapter. I'd rather they go back to having a smear of a plotline and do whatever hell is fun.
In the meantime, I'll stick with this bonanza of flash games at http://ragdollcannon.net/. I don't mean to come off as a spammer but you know what? They're short. They're challenging. They're free. They don't take up 15GB a game and they don't demand I stay online.
And I say this as someone who used to play the hell out of Command & Conquer games (before they went 3d), brainy shooters (System Shock 1&2, Thief, Deus Ex), WoW, and the usual assortment of Nintendo games (Metroid, Eternal Darkness, Marios of most types, Zelda, etc.)
I am not an geologist or a drilling rig operator or a CEO of a multibillion dollar company (IANAGOADROOACOAMDC) but I would at least ask that they have their equipment in working order. Given the state of BP's stock, I'm sure the stockholders would appreciate that, too (at least in hindsight anyway).
Computers should be working. BOP should be fully functional. They should have disaster plans from the getgo instead of trying to think of stuff on the fly or using failed tactics from the 30 year old Ixtoc spill just to look busy.
To use a car analogy, I'm not asking you to walk. I'm asking you to have working brakes, lights, windshield and windshield wipers, seatbelts, to not drive recklessly, and to have the physical capacity to drive.
I mean, the whole rig's cost is in the hundreds of millions (Wiki says $560 mil but google link said $350 mil). The whole disaster is in the tens of billions, ain't it?
You'd think they would do anything and spare no cost to keep the fucking thing in working order and floating.
I'm pretty sure that 1) the majority of/.ers certainly don't view copying songs as piracy or stealing and 2) that developing a RC plane that recharges on power lines can be considered clever and innovative but is still stealing power.
You know, just the same way that movie bank robbers can be clever but they're still just thieves.
Ok, I looked up ME's achievements and I do have to concur they seem worthwhile to chase. However, they are not the "gold star sticker"-esque achievements I despise.
Increase experience gains, unlocking character levels, harder difficulties, weapons, buffing squad mates... you know, actual rewards (mostly).
I have no problem assigning some metric to progress in a game. Metroid tallies everything up with a %. Mario has stars. Other games will show placeholders for levels, vehicles, characters, weapons, and items. Racing games have track times and sometimes separate times set by the devs. Shooters may come with a bevy of statistics (shots fired, taken, missed, hit, headshots, etc.). Stamp and coin collections aren't applicable examples because no one follows them around to tell everyone else about how awesome the collection is.
Using achievements as breadcrumbs is just such a bad idea. Not wrong but just really poorly implemented. They might as well be quests.
As for trying other aspects of the game, no one is going to connect the dots with achievements unless they sit and think about it. I only pieced together some of WoW's heroic dungeon achieves with raid tactics this morning. Zombiefest? Kiting without being hit (hi, Gluth). Share the Love? Offtanking. Chaos Theory? Mopping up adds during encounters.
Seeing as those are mandatory in raids, Blizz should create fights that are similar in the lower dungeons so players get acquainted with these tactics.
Proper acknowledgement of skill should be in the gameplay, not a flashy announcement.
Take racing games. You could have an achievement for doing cookies or you could design a level that requires turning around in short order. Say, the track goes to a bridge under construction and it's just a to-and-back race.
As for killing enemies in one explosion, I'll have to plead ignorance regarding the difficulty since I don't know anything about the game. Killing three with a single explosion just seems arbitrary. Is that more or less skillful than taking out three with a gun in under five seconds? Are there plenty of explosives around for many attempts or do you have only enough for a couple tries?
This, btw, is what comes to mind when I think about this explosion achievement.
Some games also give you in-game rewards for completing certain difficult tasks, such as killing 5 enemies with one explosion on Uncharted.
What, they couldn't have five mercs milling around the entrance to a building that houses the armory and/or the fun tank?
It just seems so... dumb to do an anchievement and DING! you get a rocket launcher in the mail or whatever? It just boggles my mind that the devs couldn't place the thing (tried looking up the achieve, couldn't find it) in the level any where to be found.
You killed five guys! Here's your merit badge and a present....
At least in World of Warcraft, no, you can't disable them.
I know you said ignore but I'm going to ignore that.
Not only will they pop up on your screen but there will be an area emote, ingame graphic effect, and an announcement to your guild. You can turn off the announcements to you but all of the above will happen no matter what.
My main issue is that they send players out to do stuff that artificially increases the difficulty of encounters (examples 1, 2, 3). Why not have achievements to have the tank always below 50% health or have no one heal or everyone plays with their eyes closed?
Lesser issues is using achievements to congratulate players for stuff they do through normal gameplay. WoW has achievements for hitting level 10, 20, 30, etc., for getting riding skill, looting gold, and leveling professions.
Anyone else tired of every god damn company picking up on this lil' pat on the back "hey good job buddy" crap?
I don't need that when I complete a level. Finishing the level IS the reward (and maybe a save point if there's no save anywhere system).
What's wrong with the arcade-ish points system? Oh, you need to reward the most mundane and completely contrary actions in the game? http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=1206
All achievements say to me is that the developers weren't able to properly reward players and, without the achievements, doesn't have an enticing enough carrot on a stick to motivate them.
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From what I've heard of jury duty and from people I know who have had jury duty, they strongly emphasis only whether or not the law was broken and will screen for anyone thinking. Guess if they can't get a plea bargin, they go for the next easiest thing.
So... what are you, AT&T, or the FBI going to do to prevent or track/trace or even find out about such exploits being used?
Rhetorically "you", of course. Literally, though, how would anyone find out?
Or in this case...
$3.12 billion over 76 days ($3.12 b as of July 5th) comes out to $41,052,631 a day. And remember, the Deepwater Horizon was being leased for $500,000 a day.
The cost for every day of cleanup could have 82 days leasing a drilling rig. Total time (ignoring maintenance, payroll, etc.) for that $3.12 billion? 17 years.
Ayup. Either that horse is making its way past Jupiter or jumped into an alternate equine dimension and became the ruler of that hooved place, but it is gone.
That said, there's other wells. I try to imagine that operators and owners of said wells have a renewed interest in at least not having a $20 billion disaster bill and maybe a shred of conscience and understand of what their actions can reap. I keep waiting for some news on the fucking dipshits at MMS who were literally fucking those who they were suppose to keep an eye on. No, attending their coke, meth, and sex parties is not the way to do it. I think these people should get jail time.
Given the sheer volume of matter that needs to be cleaned, I don't think there will be any effective solution. I mean, effective and doesn't completely sterilize the water or sand the oil is in. I doubt either the water or sand would be habitable afterwards. Sand gets hauled away to hazardous-waste and rapid degradation of oil in water will suck all the oxygen out. Likewise, I don't have high hopes for the survival of marshes that soaked up tidefuls of oil.
So... yeah, pretty grim outlook but it's the same deal for anything covered in oil. Ideally, the American public will learn that, no, businesses will not regulate themselves and that you actually need to put people who aren't ideologically opposed to regulation into positions to *gasp* regulate. That might be a bit much to ask though.
Anyway, we fucked up on the regulating of oil companies part and the environment will be pretty fucked over for decades (ie, if it ever recovers). We could at least not fuck up the cleanup effort and make sure those workers don't suffer health effects from cleaning up BP's mess. Whoops, too late.... Oh, and fucking up the cleaning effort by trying to bury it with sand.
Oil on the surface is just a sheen. Oil below is mixed with water and dispersants. Oil on the beaches is mixed into marshes and sand.
That's a lot of stuff to churn and in doing so, greatly affects everything living in it.
Perhaps we could keep in mind that "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
Will it be brown and have the ability to squirt long distance?
So they'll sink $4-5 billion building hardware, software, branding, and (presumably) a market/network? Yeah, maybe.
Or it could be a Zune phone, replete of velvety brownness and the ability squirt.
Actually, it would be fun to see them flop about in a costly and humiliating manner. Sure the Xbox has turned a profit for some select quarters but I reckon they're still down a few billion overall. Does anyone know how the Zune is fairing?
I, for one, welcome Windows Live 7 Professional Phone Xtreme Crispy Chunky Ranch-Bacon. If it worked for Vista and Hotmail, well, they could work similar magic with a homegrown phone.
(We can still make fun of Vista and Hotmail, right? And what the fuck is with those Hotmail ads? They make less sense than the Seinfeld ones.)
Couple other things.
Make sure people new to the game either have their own area or can't get slaughtered over and over.
Also, don't fuck it up.
I was a big fan of a game called Gunbound. It was something of a Worms-esque game. Minimal movement, 2D, terrain that could be destroyed, ballistic weaponry.... You could buy gear for you avatar which changed various stats with real money or ingame money you got from winning.
I hadn't played it a while so I checked out one day when I was bored. New players have to play with avatar on (which means gear matters). It's segregated by rank but it still means someone who spent $5 will destroy you. Looking at the gear lists, it looked like damn near everything new was to be bought with cash only. Oh, and if someone typed lol, ns (for nice shot), nt (nice try), and other common jargon, it would say it out loud. Even when they spammed it.
And it used to be so fun. Sigh.
You still need to put your heat somewhere. As a person, you won't radiate a whole lot of heat but anything with an engine will be pumping out hot exhaust.
Anyway, from the sound it it, they're just saying that they're working their way up the spectrum to visible light. Whether or not it works for every wavelength below infrared is another question. If it can't deal with radar, well... I guess we could have layered defense and offense lines using different cloaks.
They need to learn to scale back.
Granted, this means if they make a simple game that never gets old (think Tetris), it's hard to build off that premise and any future games would have to compete with that, too.
Plots are nice but ultimately limits replay (a plus for publishers). There's nothing wrong with that but I have a hard time thinking of a game series that built up from game to game both the story and the appeal while maintaining a satisfying end to each chapter. I'd rather they go back to having a smear of a plotline and do whatever hell is fun.
In the meantime, I'll stick with this bonanza of flash games at http://ragdollcannon.net/. I don't mean to come off as a spammer but you know what? They're short. They're challenging. They're free. They don't take up 15GB a game and they don't demand I stay online.
And I say this as someone who used to play the hell out of Command & Conquer games (before they went 3d), brainy shooters (System Shock 1&2, Thief, Deus Ex), WoW, and the usual assortment of Nintendo games (Metroid, Eternal Darkness, Marios of most types, Zelda, etc.)
Good point. I mean, how many people were killed or maimed in Monty Python and the Holy Grail?
(But who said I was trying to be funny?)
Indeed. I had to switch to a truck because I got tired of having to back over 'em as they crawled for help.
Halliburton did the cementing job. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575214593564769072.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/10/halliburton-deepwater-hor_n_570733.html
To be fair, the cheap cement job was what BP ordered. I think it was two plugs instead of three and they skipped the final (and expensive) inspection.
That said, Halliburton still needs to answer for all the shit it's pulled in Iraq.
Probably not.
I reckon it's more of abject horror at the thought that they didn't have a replacement, if not on hand, readily available to drop into place.
I am not an geologist or a drilling rig operator or a CEO of a multibillion dollar company (IANAGOADROOACOAMDC) but I would at least ask that they have their equipment in working order. Given the state of BP's stock, I'm sure the stockholders would appreciate that, too (at least in hindsight anyway).
Computers should be working. BOP should be fully functional. They should have disaster plans from the getgo instead of trying to think of stuff on the fly or using failed tactics from the 30 year old Ixtoc spill just to look busy.
To use a car analogy, I'm not asking you to walk. I'm asking you to have working brakes, lights, windshield and windshield wipers, seatbelts, to not drive recklessly, and to have the physical capacity to drive.
I mean, the whole rig's cost is in the hundreds of millions (Wiki says $560 mil but google link said $350 mil). The whole disaster is in the tens of billions, ain't it?
You'd think they would do anything and spare no cost to keep the fucking thing in working order and floating.
Makes the $500,000 a day lease look like pennies.
Sounds like they should put that in the EULA or ToS or whatever bunch of legalese is thrown at Steam users. Making it official and all that.
Say wah?
I'm pretty sure that 1) the majority of /.ers certainly don't view copying songs as piracy or stealing and 2) that developing a RC plane that recharges on power lines can be considered clever and innovative but is still stealing power.
You know, just the same way that movie bank robbers can be clever but they're still just thieves.
Ok, I looked up ME's achievements and I do have to concur they seem worthwhile to chase. However, they are not the "gold star sticker"-esque achievements I despise.
Increase experience gains, unlocking character levels, harder difficulties, weapons, buffing squad mates... you know, actual rewards (mostly).
I have no problem assigning some metric to progress in a game. Metroid tallies everything up with a %. Mario has stars. Other games will show placeholders for levels, vehicles, characters, weapons, and items. Racing games have track times and sometimes separate times set by the devs. Shooters may come with a bevy of statistics (shots fired, taken, missed, hit, headshots, etc.). Stamp and coin collections aren't applicable examples because no one follows them around to tell everyone else about how awesome the collection is.
Using achievements as breadcrumbs is just such a bad idea. Not wrong but just really poorly implemented. They might as well be quests.
As for trying other aspects of the game, no one is going to connect the dots with achievements unless they sit and think about it. I only pieced together some of WoW's heroic dungeon achieves with raid tactics this morning. Zombiefest? Kiting without being hit (hi, Gluth). Share the Love? Offtanking. Chaos Theory? Mopping up adds during encounters.
Seeing as those are mandatory in raids, Blizz should create fights that are similar in the lower dungeons so players get acquainted with these tactics.
Proper acknowledgement of skill should be in the gameplay, not a flashy announcement.
Take racing games. You could have an achievement for doing cookies or you could design a level that requires turning around in short order. Say, the track goes to a bridge under construction and it's just a to-and-back race.
As for killing enemies in one explosion, I'll have to plead ignorance regarding the difficulty since I don't know anything about the game. Killing three with a single explosion just seems arbitrary. Is that more or less skillful than taking out three with a gun in under five seconds? Are there plenty of explosives around for many attempts or do you have only enough for a couple tries?
This, btw, is what comes to mind when I think about this explosion achievement.
What, they couldn't have five mercs milling around the entrance to a building that houses the armory and/or the fun tank?
It just seems so... dumb to do an anchievement and DING! you get a rocket launcher in the mail or whatever? It just boggles my mind that the devs couldn't place the thing (tried looking up the achieve, couldn't find it) in the level any where to be found.
You killed five guys! Here's your merit badge and a present....
At least in World of Warcraft, no, you can't disable them.
I know you said ignore but I'm going to ignore that.
Not only will they pop up on your screen but there will be an area emote, ingame graphic effect, and an announcement to your guild. You can turn off the announcements to you but all of the above will happen no matter what.
My main issue is that they send players out to do stuff that artificially increases the difficulty of encounters (examples 1, 2, 3). Why not have achievements to have the tank always below 50% health or have no one heal or everyone plays with their eyes closed?
Lesser issues is using achievements to congratulate players for stuff they do through normal gameplay. WoW has achievements for hitting level 10, 20, 30, etc., for getting riding skill, looting gold, and leveling professions.
As for a non-WoW example, I present Alan Wake's Boob Tube achievement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79_OANOGFyY
Anyone else tired of every god damn company picking up on this lil' pat on the back "hey good job buddy" crap?
I don't need that when I complete a level. Finishing the level IS the reward (and maybe a save point if there's no save anywhere system).
What's wrong with the arcade-ish points system? Oh, you need to reward the most mundane and completely contrary actions in the game? http://www.wowhead.com/achievement=1206
All achievements say to me is that the developers weren't able to properly reward players and, without the achievements, doesn't have an enticing enough carrot on a stick to motivate them.