While true that they probably have someone on staff that knows what's going on, putting an indicator in the center of the lens is not the solution. You read by scanning, not by holding your eye in one place and simply being able to read everything around it. Glasses are much more practical for HUDs or other types of readouts, because you can scan along them.
The only way I could see contacts being usefull is if they also could detect eye position, and then their image (fed by a computer) could move the image on the display accordingly, just as if you were scanning it in front of you. I guess that wouldn't be too difficult, actually, as long as the resolution was high enough.
This is WRITING not story concept. Those are two entirely different things. Just because something has a cool story doesn't neccessarilly mean it was well written. On the contrary, I find that many games escape good writing by titilating their audiences with "neato" story concepts. Mass Effect's writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that spectacular either, it was mostly pretty utilitarian, with the dialog being mostly about the subjects immediately at hand, with just enough personality for the characters to not sound wooden... which was fine, but could have been done with a little more panash. For instance, "The West Wing"s dialog is very utilitarian, yet they throw in even more individuality by the characters that the writing itself really draws you in.
Bioshock, however, had some absolutely wonderful writing, and drew on a lot of different dramatic influences: Film Noire monologues, Irish-American slang, 1950s kitch. Bioshock gets my vote for best writing of the year, hands down. Portal had some quirky things, but 95% of it came from one character. I'll admit that there were a few wonderful passages, and the overall style of the game was perfect, but I can understand why it might not win any writers awards.
Since when are computers highly specialized machines that are only designed to do a subset of computing tasks?
As a Mac user who uses his computer for 100% sound and video design, I'd say, "yes, the mac is a specialized computer used for doing design work." I don't play games on my Mac, I have a Wii and 360 for that. The Mac is not a gaming machine, and I'd actually like it to stay that way. By a console or cheap PC if you want games. I don't want my work environment crudded up by services for meant for gamers.
I know this is unpopular, but in the various media fields, the Mac is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm with Steve Jobs in being reluctant to turn the Mac into a gaming machine, because I want it to remain a media/design workhorse the way it is now. I'm forced to run Vista and XP at work, and I've seen how much non-design based concentration really gets in the way. MOST Mac users are producers/designers/artists of some sort.
Nope, the first actual release date was December 2nd. Fans ASSUMED (and wrongly so) that it would be a Q1 2007 because E3 of previous year was showing off Brawl as an "future game for the Wii". I told everyone back in '06 that Brawl was going to take a while, and likely it would be a Q4 2007, which was its actual release date. Nintendo never made any claims otherwise. Since then, they have delayed it 3 months, but that's it. Any further delays you saw were your own expectations, or those of others.
First of all, I would try and assemble a team of advisors that stem from the top fields in all areas relating to various issues at hand. Not simply rock stars within the political arena, but respected individuals within their own area of expertise. For instance, for education, call on some of the top individuals from the childhood development field (including early-childhood development field, which is often left out) and give them very direct access into the decision making process. That's one thing I think Bill Clinton did very well, and you hear a lot of praise of him from within many areas of expertise for including them.
Secondly, on the international fronts, do everything to strengthen connections with our allies and make it clear that we're, once again, a team player willing to work in a multi-latteral direction. Europe, East Asia, and South America are making great leaps and strides in ecconomics, technology, education, and civil rights, and we would be silly to continue our current "holier than thow" attitude, even if we're at odds with some of the current trends (such as aspects of Chinese goverance).
Lastly, I want to create a clear set of long-term benchmarks to try and work toward, for what our nation should look like 10 years down the line, 25 years, 50 years, etc. And have this open to public display. This would include various technological advancements, civil rights achievenements, and international relations prosectives. I want to give the country a clear vision of what our future could look like, and work toward that, even if not all the goals are probable.
And ONE very specific goal: campaign finance reform, probably the most important achievement for the long term success of our political body.
I hear ya, but the problem is, standardation of physical plugs hasn't happened yet, so why should we expect a standardation of wireless chargers to be any different? I think it's highly likely that we'll simply end up with 10 different wireless chargers, all taking up its own wallwart too. Then you'll have to remember which pad to put your cellphone on... and you're basically back to where you started. I know I'm being cynical, and its very possible that new standardizations could yeild new compliance between companies (like with USB for instance), but it's kind of a toss up. Anyway, anything's gotta be better than the mess now, right?
I don't even understand why there's a question. Magnetic coupling is a joke, sure it's efficient, but really, is it ALL that different from a form-fitting cradle with physical contacts? You still have to put the device within inches of the charger... are people REALLY that lazy that they won't go the extra inch? I have an electric toothbrush that just sits in a cradle every night, I don't even SEE any physical contacts, and it's a good holder, so why bother? Or how about Apple's magnetic plugs, that's another great solution that is ALMOST as usable as magnetic coupling.
RF, on the other hand, is a revolution. It has the potential of charging and powering from long distances. Imagine, 150 years from now, aircraft which are electronically powered BY THE CONTROL TOWER. Sure, it's a pie-in-the-sky right now, but a theoretical possibility. An even more viable application would simply be cell-phones that just continually get a charge from cell towers, and don't have batteries, or have very small ones. Magnetic coupling can't dream of doing that.
When I was in my teens, at some point, I got the idea that something could be powered by radio transmission, but I was promptly told that that wasn't physically possible. So you can imagine that, at least for me, this is one of the most exciting scientific pieces of news I've heard in months.
Hey, the final boss wasn't all that revolutionary, but then, what part of the game's gameplay was? What was great about the game? It's style, it's streamlined polish, maybe its moral dillema (though there are hundreds of other examples just as good), but its gameplay? No. The gameplay was GREAT, but it was pretty standard FPS/Adventure game fare.
I'm here in Alaska, I don't claim to belong to any region of the "normal" US, and even I can see that the West Coast gets more coverage. All entertainment news focuses in on LA, all computer news focuses in on Seattle and San Fransisco. California gets a few fires, half the state's face is on the news. An area the size of California, in Alaska, is burried in smoke and flames, and we're lucky if we get a footnote.
Hey, I hate Alaska, and fuck California, and fuck the East coast too... hell, fuck all of the US, as far as I'm concerned. But the fact remains, if you think that the West Coast is being neglected, and the East Coast is getting all the publicity, then reach down and pull the "dipshit" stick out of your ass. NY gets far less airtime, and the only things that Washington ever gets reported on take place in one of three buildings.
I was refering to the Yes song, the one that was written as the theme song, but for some reason, got booted to the credits. Awesome, awesome tune, shame it wasn't in the opening.
Seriously, end of Portal (which I finished last night, actually) is deffinitely up there, in my book. And the credits song is in the running for best video game song of all time, up there with Homeworld.
MARIO GALAXY had a couple of dousies too:
- Intro with the Airships and Mario 3 theme, I shit myself. - *spoiler* Point in the storybook where the "girl" suddenly comes to terms with the death of her mother. The cute music stops, the somber strings swell, and it's one of the most poignient moments I've ever seen in a game.
Also, am I the only one who found the end of Bioshock increadibly beautiful and well-done. Sure it was probably the shortest ending since Donkey Kong, but it was more powerful than most 30 minute endings.
Leopard might have not been one of the greatest OS updates, out of the box, but it quite possibly was the most quick to improve. Within a month, the first point update fixed most of the major issues, and other companies have been faster to update their software than I've ever experienced before. Tiger was a nightmare, taking up to 6 months, in some cases, to get major software devs online.
Every new OS or software package will have its bugs, but Leopard has surprised me by how fast those have been corrected. I can't say the same with Vista, which I use at work, and is rotten to the dual core.
Yes, but this is the Wii's second holiday season, Tickle-Me-Elmo was simply a passing fad, after over a year, I think we call call the Wii whatever the iPod is... a total and utter success.
I've played Metroid Prime: Corruption, I've played Bioshock, I've played Gears of War, and all around the same period of time. As for control, there's no question in my mind that Wiimote + Chuck is better than double-analog. But will the FPS community be able to put aside their prejudices against Nintendo and roll with the flow? It's going to be an uphill battle, I think.
Nintendo has always positioned itself in the market as the "anti-PC", with a lot of attention to infrastructure (in marketing, distrobution, security, and game design requirements), commonly targetting casual gamers, and being the last to jump on online bandwagon. They also take the philosophy that "a game is what the creators want it to be" and have never openned up their software to modding or alterations (and I personally agree with their choice on this).
For these reasons, PC gamers, of which a large percentage of FPS gamers stem from, have always avoided Nintendo, feeling a bit squeemish about the institutionalism of it all. Even if the Wiimote becomes thought-of as a great FPS control device, even rivaling that of the keyboard/mouse, it will likely simply put PC and FPS gamers on the defensive.
While the XBox, and (though less so) PS3 have been courting PC and FPS gamers with online support, modding, and freer architecture (and the pitfalls that come with those things), Nintendo has always put their design philosophy first, which tends to conflict with PC gaming.
No matter how good the Wii becomes at FPS-style gaming, it will probably never win over the PC crowd. All the Mac users and long time console gamers love them precisely because of their elegant design infrastructure, but PC gamers typically tend to want LESS infrastructure.
For now, the games are being developed for training, but sooner or later, one's going to come out that will hit the mainstream... and that's when the shit hits the fan. Before we know it, they'll be making games as a form of "recruitment entertainment", trying to spread the good word of Uncle Sam through games. They're already doing it now through music, "3 Doors Down" has a new song specifically comissioned by the National Guard, and the music video is basically one big recruitment commercial, it's playing in theatres now.
Something about this kind of army prostheletizing just doesn't sit well with me. Granted, it hasn't happened yet, but the writing's on the wall.
well, for one thing, the click-wheel wasn't introduced until LONG after the iPod was a hit. I'd say that the iPod became a huge household name with the 3rd generation, one of the longest lasting versions, which didn't yet have a click wheel (it had 4 "touch buttons" above a static wheel).
Secondly, the jog wheel *IS* a defining factor for the iPod, because it's central to the interface, and the interface is probably the #1 reason people started buying them.
Jog wheels have been a no-brainer for video editors for decades, similarly, accellorometers are used in all kinds of applications and input devices. But Apple had the bright idea of applying the jog wheel concept to a menu navigation system, and Nintendo decided to build a console input device out of accellerometers.
I think the analogy, while not perfect, isn't far off base.
actually, I'd say the "actively listening" portion of the population (by that I mean those who actually care enough to go out and buy or download a song/album when they hear one they like), is probably about the same as the game playing community, which is, what, around 20% of the population?
MOST PEOPLE don't buy music. With radio, TV, and muzak, it's impossible to avoid music the way one can avoid video games, or even TV, but simply because people are being forced to hear music doesn't mean that they're "music listeners".
Re:As Stephen himself points out in the last posti
on
The 2007 Gaming Club
·
· Score: 1
- For me, there were two "slam dunk" titles this year: BioShock, and Mario Galaxy - There were 3 "close to slam dunk" titles: Metroid Prime 3, Mass Effect, and Super Paper Mario
I have yet to play Assassin's Creed, however.
But all in all, My gaming experiences on the Wii and the 360 this year have been similarly spectacular.
I'm almost tempted do go in for this, get Vista 64 Ultimate and run it on my Mac Pro... maybe twice a year, just for shits and giggles. I wonder if they'd be able to monitor me correctly?
The unfortunate truth, and this goes for ever profession, is that the customer is almost NEVER right, in fact, you can count on them being wrong about 95% of the time.
The worst part is when the customer doesn't know what's best FOR THEM. Especially when it's your job to do what's best for them... then you have a contradiction. I work in advertising, and I run into this constantly. It's my job to help my clients sell their products/services, and they've hired me to do just that. But many times, clients think they know how to do it themselves, and then tell me what to do, when their ideas could, likely, harm their image and their sales.
What do I do? They've hired me to do my job and help them, but their very instructions will certainly harm them. My hands are tied, I just want to scream at them, "Let me do my job, and make you lots of money!"
I see a sudden spike in the sales of PhotoFlow(tm) in the near future. Especially among paranoid organized crime syndicates who happen to be next to lakes.
Lol, that reminded me of a George Carlin sketch, in which, while narrating Jesus, he describes one of his diciples who got jealous and tried to invent some water walking shoes, with hillarious results.
I actually sorta agree. Even though I like the Director's Cut better, because of it's huge implications of Deckerd, the voiceover is great, and helps tie it back into the Film Noire genre that it owes so much of it's style to. The final voiceover was a little corny, the writing isn't very good there, but the rest of it is pretty damned good, don't know why he took it out with the DC.
Slashdot Mirror
While true that they probably have someone on staff that knows what's going on, putting an indicator in the center of the lens is not the solution. You read by scanning, not by holding your eye in one place and simply being able to read everything around it. Glasses are much more practical for HUDs or other types of readouts, because you can scan along them.
The only way I could see contacts being usefull is if they also could detect eye position, and then their image (fed by a computer) could move the image on the display accordingly, just as if you were scanning it in front of you. I guess that wouldn't be too difficult, actually, as long as the resolution was high enough.
This is WRITING not story concept. Those are two entirely different things. Just because something has a cool story doesn't neccessarilly mean it was well written. On the contrary, I find that many games escape good writing by titilating their audiences with "neato" story concepts. Mass Effect's writing wasn't bad, but it wasn't all that spectacular either, it was mostly pretty utilitarian, with the dialog being mostly about the subjects immediately at hand, with just enough personality for the characters to not sound wooden... which was fine, but could have been done with a little more panash. For instance, "The West Wing"s dialog is very utilitarian, yet they throw in even more individuality by the characters that the writing itself really draws you in.
Bioshock, however, had some absolutely wonderful writing, and drew on a lot of different dramatic influences: Film Noire monologues, Irish-American slang, 1950s kitch. Bioshock gets my vote for best writing of the year, hands down. Portal had some quirky things, but 95% of it came from one character. I'll admit that there were a few wonderful passages, and the overall style of the game was perfect, but I can understand why it might not win any writers awards.
As a Mac user who uses his computer for 100% sound and video design, I'd say, "yes, the mac is a specialized computer used for doing design work." I don't play games on my Mac, I have a Wii and 360 for that. The Mac is not a gaming machine, and I'd actually like it to stay that way. By a console or cheap PC if you want games. I don't want my work environment crudded up by services for meant for gamers.
I know this is unpopular, but in the various media fields, the Mac is the best thing since sliced bread. I'm with Steve Jobs in being reluctant to turn the Mac into a gaming machine, because I want it to remain a media/design workhorse the way it is now. I'm forced to run Vista and XP at work, and I've seen how much non-design based concentration really gets in the way. MOST Mac users are producers/designers/artists of some sort.
Nope, the first actual release date was December 2nd. Fans ASSUMED (and wrongly so) that it would be a Q1 2007 because E3 of previous year was showing off Brawl as an "future game for the Wii". I told everyone back in '06 that Brawl was going to take a while, and likely it would be a Q4 2007, which was its actual release date. Nintendo never made any claims otherwise. Since then, they have delayed it 3 months, but that's it. Any further delays you saw were your own expectations, or those of others.
First of all, I would try and assemble a team of advisors that stem from the top fields in all areas relating to various issues at hand. Not simply rock stars within the political arena, but respected individuals within their own area of expertise. For instance, for education, call on some of the top individuals from the childhood development field (including early-childhood development field, which is often left out) and give them very direct access into the decision making process. That's one thing I think Bill Clinton did very well, and you hear a lot of praise of him from within many areas of expertise for including them.
Secondly, on the international fronts, do everything to strengthen connections with our allies and make it clear that we're, once again, a team player willing to work in a multi-latteral direction. Europe, East Asia, and South America are making great leaps and strides in ecconomics, technology, education, and civil rights, and we would be silly to continue our current "holier than thow" attitude, even if we're at odds with some of the current trends (such as aspects of Chinese goverance).
Lastly, I want to create a clear set of long-term benchmarks to try and work toward, for what our nation should look like 10 years down the line, 25 years, 50 years, etc. And have this open to public display. This would include various technological advancements, civil rights achievenements, and international relations prosectives. I want to give the country a clear vision of what our future could look like, and work toward that, even if not all the goals are probable.
And ONE very specific goal: campaign finance reform, probably the most important achievement for the long term success of our political body.
I hear ya, but the problem is, standardation of physical plugs hasn't happened yet, so why should we expect a standardation of wireless chargers to be any different? I think it's highly likely that we'll simply end up with 10 different wireless chargers, all taking up its own wallwart too. Then you'll have to remember which pad to put your cellphone on... and you're basically back to where you started. I know I'm being cynical, and its very possible that new standardizations could yeild new compliance between companies (like with USB for instance), but it's kind of a toss up. Anyway, anything's gotta be better than the mess now, right?
He wants to know why suddenly everything down there is now... FROZEN!
Captain obvious to the rescue!
"I still don't know what sarcasm is, but whatever it is, it must be stopped!"
I don't even understand why there's a question. Magnetic coupling is a joke, sure it's efficient, but really, is it ALL that different from a form-fitting cradle with physical contacts? You still have to put the device within inches of the charger... are people REALLY that lazy that they won't go the extra inch? I have an electric toothbrush that just sits in a cradle every night, I don't even SEE any physical contacts, and it's a good holder, so why bother? Or how about Apple's magnetic plugs, that's another great solution that is ALMOST as usable as magnetic coupling.
RF, on the other hand, is a revolution. It has the potential of charging and powering from long distances. Imagine, 150 years from now, aircraft which are electronically powered BY THE CONTROL TOWER. Sure, it's a pie-in-the-sky right now, but a theoretical possibility. An even more viable application would simply be cell-phones that just continually get a charge from cell towers, and don't have batteries, or have very small ones. Magnetic coupling can't dream of doing that.
When I was in my teens, at some point, I got the idea that something could be powered by radio transmission, but I was promptly told that that wasn't physically possible. So you can imagine that, at least for me, this is one of the most exciting scientific pieces of news I've heard in months.
Hey, the final boss wasn't all that revolutionary, but then, what part of the game's gameplay was? What was great about the game? It's style, it's streamlined polish, maybe its moral dillema (though there are hundreds of other examples just as good), but its gameplay? No. The gameplay was GREAT, but it was pretty standard FPS/Adventure game fare.
I'm here in Alaska, I don't claim to belong to any region of the "normal" US, and even I can see that the West Coast gets more coverage. All entertainment news focuses in on LA, all computer news focuses in on Seattle and San Fransisco. California gets a few fires, half the state's face is on the news. An area the size of California, in Alaska, is burried in smoke and flames, and we're lucky if we get a footnote.
Hey, I hate Alaska, and fuck California, and fuck the East coast too... hell, fuck all of the US, as far as I'm concerned. But the fact remains, if you think that the West Coast is being neglected, and the East Coast is getting all the publicity, then reach down and pull the "dipshit" stick out of your ass. NY gets far less airtime, and the only things that Washington ever gets reported on take place in one of three buildings.
I was refering to the Yes song, the one that was written as the theme song, but for some reason, got booted to the credits. Awesome, awesome tune, shame it wasn't in the opening.
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS"
Seriously, end of Portal (which I finished last night, actually) is deffinitely up there, in my book. And the credits song is in the running for best video game song of all time, up there with Homeworld.
MARIO GALAXY had a couple of dousies too:
- Intro with the Airships and Mario 3 theme, I shit myself.
- *spoiler* Point in the storybook where the "girl" suddenly comes to terms with the death of her mother. The cute music stops, the somber strings swell, and it's one of the most poignient moments I've ever seen in a game.
Also, am I the only one who found the end of Bioshock increadibly beautiful and well-done. Sure it was probably the shortest ending since Donkey Kong, but it was more powerful than most 30 minute endings.
Leopard might have not been one of the greatest OS updates, out of the box, but it quite possibly was the most quick to improve. Within a month, the first point update fixed most of the major issues, and other companies have been faster to update their software than I've ever experienced before. Tiger was a nightmare, taking up to 6 months, in some cases, to get major software devs online.
Every new OS or software package will have its bugs, but Leopard has surprised me by how fast those have been corrected. I can't say the same with Vista, which I use at work, and is rotten to the dual core.
Yes, but this is the Wii's second holiday season, Tickle-Me-Elmo was simply a passing fad, after over a year, I think we call call the Wii whatever the iPod is... a total and utter success.
I've played Metroid Prime: Corruption, I've played Bioshock, I've played Gears of War, and all around the same period of time. As for control, there's no question in my mind that Wiimote + Chuck is better than double-analog. But will the FPS community be able to put aside their prejudices against Nintendo and roll with the flow? It's going to be an uphill battle, I think.
Nintendo has always positioned itself in the market as the "anti-PC", with a lot of attention to infrastructure (in marketing, distrobution, security, and game design requirements), commonly targetting casual gamers, and being the last to jump on online bandwagon. They also take the philosophy that "a game is what the creators want it to be" and have never openned up their software to modding or alterations (and I personally agree with their choice on this).
For these reasons, PC gamers, of which a large percentage of FPS gamers stem from, have always avoided Nintendo, feeling a bit squeemish about the institutionalism of it all. Even if the Wiimote becomes thought-of as a great FPS control device, even rivaling that of the keyboard/mouse, it will likely simply put PC and FPS gamers on the defensive.
While the XBox, and (though less so) PS3 have been courting PC and FPS gamers with online support, modding, and freer architecture (and the pitfalls that come with those things), Nintendo has always put their design philosophy first, which tends to conflict with PC gaming.
No matter how good the Wii becomes at FPS-style gaming, it will probably never win over the PC crowd. All the Mac users and long time console gamers love them precisely because of their elegant design infrastructure, but PC gamers typically tend to want LESS infrastructure.
For now, the games are being developed for training, but sooner or later, one's going to come out that will hit the mainstream... and that's when the shit hits the fan. Before we know it, they'll be making games as a form of "recruitment entertainment", trying to spread the good word of Uncle Sam through games. They're already doing it now through music, "3 Doors Down" has a new song specifically comissioned by the National Guard, and the music video is basically one big recruitment commercial, it's playing in theatres now.
Something about this kind of army prostheletizing just doesn't sit well with me. Granted, it hasn't happened yet, but the writing's on the wall.
well, for one thing, the click-wheel wasn't introduced until LONG after the iPod was a hit. I'd say that the iPod became a huge household name with the 3rd generation, one of the longest lasting versions, which didn't yet have a click wheel (it had 4 "touch buttons" above a static wheel).
Secondly, the jog wheel *IS* a defining factor for the iPod, because it's central to the interface, and the interface is probably the #1 reason people started buying them.
Jog wheels have been a no-brainer for video editors for decades, similarly, accellorometers are used in all kinds of applications and input devices. But Apple had the bright idea of applying the jog wheel concept to a menu navigation system, and Nintendo decided to build a console input device out of accellerometers.
I think the analogy, while not perfect, isn't far off base.
actually, I'd say the "actively listening" portion of the population (by that I mean those who actually care enough to go out and buy or download a song/album when they hear one they like), is probably about the same as the game playing community, which is, what, around 20% of the population?
MOST PEOPLE don't buy music. With radio, TV, and muzak, it's impossible to avoid music the way one can avoid video games, or even TV, but simply because people are being forced to hear music doesn't mean that they're "music listeners".
- For me, there were two "slam dunk" titles this year: BioShock, and Mario Galaxy
- There were 3 "close to slam dunk" titles: Metroid Prime 3, Mass Effect, and Super Paper Mario
I have yet to play Assassin's Creed, however.
But all in all, My gaming experiences on the Wii and the 360 this year have been similarly spectacular.
I'm almost tempted do go in for this, get Vista 64 Ultimate and run it on my Mac Pro... maybe twice a year, just for shits and giggles. I wonder if they'd be able to monitor me correctly?
The unfortunate truth, and this goes for ever profession, is that the customer is almost NEVER right, in fact, you can count on them being wrong about 95% of the time.
The worst part is when the customer doesn't know what's best FOR THEM. Especially when it's your job to do what's best for them... then you have a contradiction. I work in advertising, and I run into this constantly. It's my job to help my clients sell their products/services, and they've hired me to do just that. But many times, clients think they know how to do it themselves, and then tell me what to do, when their ideas could, likely, harm their image and their sales.
What do I do? They've hired me to do my job and help them, but their very instructions will certainly harm them. My hands are tied, I just want to scream at them, "Let me do my job, and make you lots of money!"
I see a sudden spike in the sales of PhotoFlow(tm) in the near future. Especially among paranoid organized crime syndicates who happen to be next to lakes.
Lol, that reminded me of a George Carlin sketch, in which, while narrating Jesus, he describes one of his diciples who got jealous and tried to invent some water walking shoes, with hillarious results.
I actually sorta agree. Even though I like the Director's Cut better, because of it's huge implications of Deckerd, the voiceover is great, and helps tie it back into the Film Noire genre that it owes so much of it's style to. The final voiceover was a little corny, the writing isn't very good there, but the rest of it is pretty damned good, don't know why he took it out with the DC.