After years upon years of not buying a PS2 I finally gave in and bought one. Why? Because I wanted to play Katamari Damacy (and its happy colourful sequel). Just for that one game, yes. Because everything else is crap that's repeated over and over again. I don't care for photorealism at all, and frankly most 3D environment games make me dizzy--I just want something fun.
Unfortunately my idea of "fun" isn't pretend-sports or FPS or racing car games or Shoot-random-things or any of those tired genre, so I don't, in fact, cannot buy games.
Ironically the few games I would really, really like to play on the PS2 are all either import from japan only, or else so "obscure" noone carries or has even heard of it. (i had one clerk tell me game X was only on Game Cube and gave me the dirtiest look thinking i'm retarded. No, it's there for the PS2, just that noone is selling them...)
"At the end of the day, we cannot let technological change stand in the way of, for example, law enforcement agencies dealing with organized crime. They use technology to conceal what they do, to move their laundered money, to traffic in humans, to traffic in drugs, to traffic in guns, and we have to be able to intercept their communications to break up those kinds of networks."
that's bull crap. Just because you'll have access to a lot more information doesn't automatically translate to all of that information instantly becoming useful. They used Hells Angels as an example. Have they actually thought about asking the neighbours where they have gathering if they've noticed anything "strange" lately? That will save telecom companies a lot of money and certain the 24/5/365.25 survalence costs.
So you want the technology to be there for you when you use it. How often are you going to be using that? It just doesn't justify the cost and the privacy concerns. And phone/internet tapping is almost always NOT the first thing that tip authorities off anyway -- when something BECOMES suspicious, there are already devices out there that will let cops tap THOSE specific lines.
Why build a nuke bomb to take care of a few cockroaches?
on an only slightly related note: Parent just reminded me that plain bulleted text with simple messages get across much better than pictures of flashy crap and colours and sounds etc etc etc.
So it looks slightly cleaner. What's with those ugly picture ads still? So you can drag and drop email into folders. Big frakkin' deal: Gmail automatically sorts my mail into folders for me without me having to drag them. It has an info bar that's supposed to protect me from phishing, spam and virus attachments? Well woop-dee-frakkin'-doo, I still think I'd have to block all mail from everyone I didn't manually add to my list if their filter isn't much, much much better. Etc etc etc.
This really reminds me of your stereotypical "ex-boyfriend". He had been a rather horrid human being, but I stuck with him for a while, out of past affection. The relationship keeps getting worse and worse. Until finally I met someone better who gets all the basics of a relationship right before showing me anything "fancy".
The new guy didn't bug me with crap, responds to what I need faster, present interesting information/messages to me in a clearer way, and even come up with a few surprises I didn't know was capable for a boyfriend. So months and even years later, the ex comes back and tells me he's changed. That he does this and that now. That he "is the rebirth of " boyfriend-dom.
But that's what makes them good!! I sometimes watch them just for the heck of it. They are at least more entertaining than a lot of Hong Kong movies I happen upon. Pukatronics to those. In HK we have movies with NO story line and just your flavour of the week pop stars thrown in. Meanwhile the Bollywood movies I've sort of seen have pretty people, beautiful clothes and happy music and dance. O_o
but either way China and India already have their big huge market. If China is going to come up with some region-free DVDs I'm all for that!
unless of course all that's going to be on there is Hong Kong movies....*grumbles*
Ummm last I check...Taiwai is a part of China, as much as they'd hate to remember that.
Besides, if all our non-chinese electronics are really all that high quality, why do BestBuy and Walmart and those guys make a killing selling "extended warranty"?
I don't have anything "against" stuff made in China per se, but they really have to work hard to shed the bad rep that they have. Occasionally I see news articles from Hong Kong about chinese-brand electronics spontaneously combusting causing small home fires. Not exactly confidence inspiring...
maybe the headline was intentionally ambiguous to get more people to come look? Then again it's a Google article, so people should be flocking in anyway...
Google has no interest in becoming the next Microsoft
Oh really? I pray to Jesus that they don't, but they've never promised us that, have they? I mean, yeah, don't be evil and all.
But what exactly does "becoming the next Microsoft" mean? Becoming big, bigger, biggest of all? Having an something with a very, very large user base? Having a bajillion dollars?
I'm not trying to use the old scare tactic and I really, really hope that's not the case, but Google never said it doesn't want to be __blank__ other than (a rather vague) "evil"
I do agree with you however, that if they want to do OS they'll need the man-power, but that doesn't necessarily equate to them being not interested in being the next MS
FTA: all the content will be made available so it can be indexed by all the other major search engines, including Google's
Yahoo is just going to scan, scan and scan. We all already prefer google's indexing and searching and cleaner interfaces, so the only thing Yahoo! will accomplish by this is help google print along, sheilding all (other) copyright law suits. Once the stuff is online, we all know that Google-bots will be all over it "like a fly on a pile of very seductive manure (Zapp)"
Excellent.
I just hope publishers realise that in this case neither google or yahoo is trying to be their best friend.
I, for one, am tired of these not-really-new news that confirm what we have already been told thousands of times, regardless of if they were vapour news or FUD or speculations before.
Sir, if you didn't like the first one the second one will only appear more incoherent and silly and waste of time, not to mention repetitive. They haven't added any "new" twists to the second one, just more crazy type things that apparently didn't grip you the first time around. =)
It's okay, not everyone has to like the same things.
8D if there's one game out there that's "play-with-your-nonGamer-female-significant-other" approved, this would be it.
In addition to every small object having its own name, description, and incredible "cuteness", she'll also enjoy rolling around the katamari on her own exploring the different places and objects and people she can roll up sadistically.
it's not "difficult" in a technically gamers' button-combo-smash fest type of way, it's quite intuitive. Roll ball left, roll ball right.
nah,,,,,not really I guess it's pretty disturbing whichever way you look at the extra story plot line. And anyway it's only in there because it pleases the fans in a sick way, like the rest of the game.
About the under water level, it's way more fun than mere vertical challenge...Your katamari can be fished out of the water, losing valuable rolling time. And also you move slower than on land. Also, you literally speed cruise around a small island on the racing level, picking up your opponents who cheekily try to out-speed you.
But I've got to say that one of the funnest (yes...) part of the game is how unabashedly violent and sick the idea of the game is. You roll up people, they scream, they flail around trying to dislodge themselves from the massive ball, they fail at that. You roll the ball, by how weighting in tonnes, and the people get crushed by even bigger objects you pick up. Finally, when you're done, your Dad BLASTS the whole thing into space where they become a "star", presumably cathing on fire in a nuclear fission type reaction.(how else does it glow from light years away?)
Well I don't think SMS became popular because "talking" is "so yesterday", really. Sometimes you'd rather pay more to not have to talk to other people in voice, that's all. But yeah, if only I knew how to stick songs I can find off the good old BBS into my cell phone as a ringtone, I wouldn't pay them the 99-cents either. But I don't, so I pay up.
It isn't that we don't like the old as much as just that the new is easier.
We of course understand how the steam engines work, and how a coal fired boiler work, because we can always read about their specs and docs if we're unsure about it. But back then not everyone can read y'know. And when you're average work day is long and you have to do a lot of things and know about things in your own field, not many people can afford to learn about coal fire boilers.
although I'd be frankly pretty scared if someone back then didn't know how a horse drawn buggy works though. Ha...
yeah, why aren't we recovering the phosphorus from dead people (Huxley style!) yet?
With all this new fangled Evolution and stuff, we all ought to have as many children as possible as soon as we're physically capable of it, and eat our husbands and old people. But Nooo, that's canniblism, or a "social problem". Look how well the insects are doing, on the other hand.
excuse my ignorance on the subject, but the article seems to mentin "orbiting" the moon an awful lot, and only kind of go over lunar landing once or twice.
My limited understanding of space exploration is that while there's a lot of things to do in space like study how organisms get affected in a vacuum and under intense radioation, and how plants do in space and whatnot, it doesn't differ a lot from being "sort of" in space and in actual orbit around the moon. You're still kind of floating around, no?
While an Actual landing will enable us to pick up rocks and map the terrain and see if we can build stuff there or whatever.
....so what's the big deal about being in Moon's orbit and why not aim for landing instead?
how common is the use of these 20-few robots in the university?
-is it only the first years that are using them, or upper classmen as well?
-What percentage of their med school prep classes will involve real live human beings?
---->I know from the article that they are using robots, but not how they are using them
I also find it hard to believe that they have more doctors than needy patients who need medical care or hospitals. That they'd have to "resort" to robots because there are too many doctors. Why can't they just practice small things on human beings?
I know this sounds horrible, but they can always practice on the really poor people, when they're somewhat good enough. If I were dying of a horrible injury or whatever, and I have absolutely no health care program or money for hospitals, I wouldn't mind taking a chance on free medicare by students.
But even if the growth rate in China eventually level off, which by logic and standard and history it will, the amount of stuff they've accumulated in that period of growth might sum up to be way more than what anyone else has got by then. It's not the percentage in growth measured over time that matters, it's how much it's grown by then compared to how much everyone else has got.
if you start off with next to nothing, growing a thousand times won't do you much good. But if you started off with the crapload of raw materials (including really cheap human lives) that China has got and isn't using yet, growing just a couple more times becomes a much bigger deal.
and will almost certainly level off at a lower level than the US, because of an imbalance of raw material distribution
Hmm, care to elaborate on that a little? I might just agree with you if you could go into a little more details. Why are you so sure that after the level-off point China will be less of an economic power than the US? And also, in your closing statement you mentioned that the US is going to be stronger, safer and happier....well, that's not for sure yet now is it?
Slashdot Mirror
After years upon years of not buying a PS2 I finally gave in and bought one. Why? Because I wanted to play Katamari Damacy (and its happy colourful sequel). Just for that one game, yes. Because everything else is crap that's repeated over and over again. I don't care for photorealism at all, and frankly most 3D environment games make me dizzy--I just want something fun.
Unfortunately my idea of "fun" isn't pretend-sports or FPS or racing car games or Shoot-random-things or any of those tired genre, so I don't, in fact, cannot buy games.
Ironically the few games I would really, really like to play on the PS2 are all either import from japan only, or else so "obscure" noone carries or has even heard of it. (i had one clerk tell me game X was only on Game Cube and gave me the dirtiest look thinking i'm retarded. No, it's there for the PS2, just that noone is selling them...)
My solution? I'm modding my PS2.
"At the end of the day, we cannot let technological change stand in the way of, for example, law enforcement agencies dealing with organized crime. They use technology to conceal what they do, to move their laundered money, to traffic in humans, to traffic in drugs, to traffic in guns, and we have to be able to intercept their communications to break up those kinds of networks."
that's bull crap. Just because you'll have access to a lot more information doesn't automatically translate to all of that information instantly becoming useful. They used Hells Angels as an example. Have they actually thought about asking the neighbours where they have gathering if they've noticed anything "strange" lately? That will save telecom companies a lot of money and certain the 24/5/365.25 survalence costs.
So you want the technology to be there for you when you use it. How often are you going to be using that? It just doesn't justify the cost and the privacy concerns. And phone/internet tapping is almost always NOT the first thing that tip authorities off anyway -- when something BECOMES suspicious, there are already devices out there that will let cops tap THOSE specific lines.
Why build a nuke bomb to take care of a few cockroaches?
on an only slightly related note: Parent just reminded me that plain bulleted text with simple messages get across much better than pictures of flashy crap and colours and sounds etc etc etc.
When Anti-"adbusting" and Anti-"anti-big-Corp" becomes fashionabl again, I'll subsribe to Adbusters and buy those ugly shoes. Maybe.
I used to like them, until they got "cool" and more mainstream then they admit. total sellouts.
So it looks slightly cleaner. What's with those ugly picture ads still? So you can drag and drop email into folders. Big frakkin' deal: Gmail automatically sorts my mail into folders for me without me having to drag them. It has an info bar that's supposed to protect me from phishing, spam and virus attachments? Well woop-dee-frakkin'-doo, I still think I'd have to block all mail from everyone I didn't manually add to my list if their filter isn't much, much much better. Etc etc etc.
This really reminds me of your stereotypical "ex-boyfriend". He had been a rather horrid human being, but I stuck with him for a while, out of past affection. The relationship keeps getting worse and worse. Until finally I met someone better who gets all the basics of a relationship right before showing me anything "fancy".
The new guy didn't bug me with crap, responds to what I need faster, present interesting information/messages to me in a clearer way, and even come up with a few surprises I didn't know was capable for a boyfriend. So months and even years later, the ex comes back and tells me he's changed. That he does this and that now. That he "is the rebirth of " boyfriend-dom.
Right.
No, really, I'm not bitter...
there's only about three storlines ever been made
But that's what makes them good!! I sometimes watch them just for the heck of it. They are at least more entertaining than a lot of Hong Kong movies I happen upon. Pukatronics to those. In HK we have movies with NO story line and just your flavour of the week pop stars thrown in. Meanwhile the Bollywood movies I've sort of seen have pretty people, beautiful clothes and happy music and dance. O_o
but either way China and India already have their big huge market. If China is going to come up with some region-free DVDs I'm all for that!
unless of course all that's going to be on there is Hong Kong movies....*grumbles*
LOL
I wonder how many other slashdotters understand that, though.
he said "i know mandarin", eh?
Ummm last I check...Taiwai is a part of China, as much as they'd hate to remember that.
Besides, if all our non-chinese electronics are really all that high quality, why do BestBuy and Walmart and those guys make a killing selling "extended warranty"?
I don't have anything "against" stuff made in China per se, but they really have to work hard to shed the bad rep that they have. Occasionally I see news articles from Hong Kong about chinese-brand electronics spontaneously combusting causing small home fires. Not exactly confidence inspiring...
Yup, ditto.
maybe the headline was intentionally ambiguous to get more people to come look? Then again it's a Google article, so people should be flocking in anyway...
surely there's a better way to get this out there =P
anyway is someone recording this? I can't exactly sit here having it glued to my face while at work
Google has no interest in becoming the next Microsoft
Oh really?
I pray to Jesus that they don't, but they've never promised us that, have they? I mean, yeah, don't be evil and all.
But what exactly does "becoming the next Microsoft" mean? Becoming big, bigger, biggest of all? Having an something with a very, very large user base? Having a bajillion dollars?
I'm not trying to use the old scare tactic and I really, really hope that's not the case, but Google never said it doesn't want to be __blank__ other than (a rather vague) "evil"
I do agree with you however, that if they want to do OS they'll need the man-power, but that doesn't necessarily equate to them being not interested in being the next MS
hey, China and India will like that ... maybe not the chia pets.
putting stuff online is good, making it troublesome for others is not
that being said, we just had one that's only vaguely related to google earlier today though: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/03/105 7258&tid=185&tid=217&tid=218
Actually this won't "Upstage" google in any way.
FTA:
all the content will be made available so it can be indexed by all the other major search engines, including Google's
Yahoo is just going to scan, scan and scan. We all already prefer google's indexing and searching and cleaner interfaces, so the only thing Yahoo! will accomplish by this is help google print along, sheilding all (other) copyright law suits. Once the stuff is online, we all know that Google-bots will be all over it "like a fly on a pile of very seductive manure (Zapp)"
Excellent.
I just hope publishers realise that in this case neither google or yahoo is trying to be their best friend.
China is the next world power
Google is the next Microsoft
Patents and DRM chokes innovation
Movies suck
...
*sigh*
uh, i was trying to say "fusion" in a japanese accent. Y'know, to go with the originally Japanese game concept and all...?
*cough*
Sir, if you didn't like the first one the second one will only appear more incoherent and silly and waste of time, not to mention repetitive. They haven't added any "new" twists to the second one, just more crazy type things that apparently didn't grip you the first time around. =)
It's okay, not everyone has to like the same things.
8D if there's one game out there that's "play-with-your-nonGamer-female-significant-other" approved, this would be it.
In addition to every small object having its own name, description, and incredible "cuteness", she'll also enjoy rolling around the katamari on her own exploring the different places and objects and people she can roll up sadistically.
it's not "difficult" in a technically gamers' button-combo-smash fest type of way, it's quite intuitive. Roll ball left, roll ball right.
Play with her
That was the KING's sick past?!
You sir, have ruined my day!
nah,,,,,not really I guess it's pretty disturbing whichever way you look at the extra story plot line. And anyway it's only in there because it pleases the fans in a sick way, like the rest of the game.
About the under water level, it's way more fun than mere vertical challenge...Your katamari can be fished out of the water, losing valuable rolling time. And also you move slower than on land. Also, you literally speed cruise around a small island on the racing level, picking up your opponents who cheekily try to out-speed you.
But I've got to say that one of the funnest (yes...) part of the game is how unabashedly violent and sick the idea of the game is. You roll up people, they scream, they flail around trying to dislodge themselves from the massive ball, they fail at that. You roll the ball, by how weighting in tonnes, and the people get crushed by even bigger objects you pick up. Finally, when you're done, your Dad BLASTS the whole thing into space where they become a "star", presumably cathing on fire in a nuclear fission type reaction.(how else does it glow from light years away?)
Best. Game. Ever.
Will Spore have Katamari elements in it?
Well I don't think SMS became popular because "talking" is "so yesterday", really. Sometimes you'd rather pay more to not have to talk to other people in voice, that's all. But yeah, if only I knew how to stick songs I can find off the good old BBS into my cell phone as a ringtone, I wouldn't pay them the 99-cents either. But I don't, so I pay up.
It isn't that we don't like the old as much as just that the new is easier.
wasn't that the whole point of technology?
average person, temojen, average person.
We of course understand how the steam engines work, and how a coal fired boiler work, because we can always read about their specs and docs if we're unsure about it. But back then not everyone can read y'know. And when you're average work day is long and you have to do a lot of things and know about things in your own field, not many people can afford to learn about coal fire boilers.
although I'd be frankly pretty scared if someone back then didn't know how a horse drawn buggy works though. Ha...
yeah, why aren't we recovering the phosphorus from dead people (Huxley style!) yet?
With all this new fangled Evolution and stuff, we all ought to have as many children as possible as soon as we're physically capable of it, and eat our husbands and old people. But Nooo, that's canniblism, or a "social problem". Look how well the insects are doing, on the other hand.
excuse my ignorance on the subject, but the article seems to mentin "orbiting" the moon an awful lot, and only kind of go over lunar landing once or twice.
My limited understanding of space exploration is that while there's a lot of things to do in space like study how organisms get affected in a vacuum and under intense radioation, and how plants do in space and whatnot, it doesn't differ a lot from being "sort of" in space and in actual orbit around the moon. You're still kind of floating around, no?
While an Actual landing will enable us to pick up rocks and map the terrain and see if we can build stuff there or whatever.
....so what's the big deal about being in Moon's orbit and why not aim for landing instead?
how common is the use of these 20-few robots in the university?
-is it only the first years that are using them, or upper classmen as well?
-What percentage of their med school prep classes will involve real live human beings? ---->I know from the article that they are using robots, but not how they are using them
I also find it hard to believe that they have more doctors than needy patients who need medical care or hospitals. That they'd have to "resort" to robots because there are too many doctors. Why can't they just practice small things on human beings?
I know this sounds horrible, but they can always practice on the really poor people, when they're somewhat good enough. If I were dying of a horrible injury or whatever, and I have absolutely no health care program or money for hospitals, I wouldn't mind taking a chance on free medicare by students.
if you start off with next to nothing, growing a thousand times won't do you much good. But if you started off with the crapload of raw materials (including really cheap human lives) that China has got and isn't using yet, growing just a couple more times becomes a much bigger deal.
and will almost certainly level off at a lower level than the US, because of an imbalance of raw material distribution
Hmm, care to elaborate on that a little? I might just agree with you if you could go into a little more details. Why are you so sure that after the level-off point China will be less of an economic power than the US? And also, in your closing statement you mentioned that the US is going to be stronger, safer and happier....well, that's not for sure yet now is it?