I'm surprised the average gamer is as old as this study indicates, but otherwise I tend to believe the results. I know several people who fit the profile described.
In some ways I find myself falling into the pattern and I find that it tends to be a vicious cycle. I don't game excessively, at most I'll play a couple of hours in the evening both on weekdays and weekends. I don't have the time to play all day on weekends, although I used to do so from time to time. Inevitably I find myself feeling miserable that I'm wasting all this time not being constructive.
I definitely have a tendency to get into games more strongly when I'm unhappy with work. And I find that I tend to have some more compulsive tendencies. I feel the need to explore every last detail, to unlock what I can and at least play through to the end. But I tend to want to fit that all within a short time frame, which means I play excessively for a while then eventually grow tired of the experience. So unlike some people I could never play an MMO for too long because I eventually get frustrated with the never-ending experience and I give up. I may still feel that pull to the game, but other feelings manage to overpower that compulsion.
As for the vicious cycle, it comes down to the way games occupy my time. I tend to play in the evening. So it inevitably means that I go to sleep later than I should. So obviously, the following day I feel like crap. This lack of energy prevents me from doing exercise, investing time in anything constructive, and generally being more productive at work. I get upset with myself. Unfortunately, the following evening I find myself with the energy to stay up, my body having gotten accustomed to this, and the cycle starts over. So my point is that I'm creating the reason to be depressed and then feeding into it on a daily basis.
The best way I've found to address this is to force myself to be occupied by other activities and to fill my time with friends as much as possible. I think part of the problem is that there's all this pent up energy due to sitting at the office all day and it's far too easy to expend it by doing something like playing games.
It should be mandatory that every major network give equal time to every candidate. Maybe a half an hour for each candidate ever few weeks leading up to the election. No stupid debates, simply spell out what they represent, what they want to do, etc. It would be nice to see biographies on each candidate; not personality pieces about how great each guy is, but actually talking about their background, education, what they've done, etc. Obviously, this stuff should all be available on the web, but I think the opinion needs to be filtered out of all of this, because what people need to see is fact.
I'd also like to see campaign contributions banned. There should be a pool of money provided by the government specifically for campaigning. That money is then equally distributed amongst all the candidates. Fundraising events can still be held but the money should go into the pot and not directly to that candidate.
Of none of this will ever happen. Politicians will never do anything to limit their power.
That statistic of over 50% is so high that I find it hard to believe. Half of all units fail? What is even more shocking is that so many people remain loyal to the Xbox. I'm guessing it's that people feel they don't have a choice given they've already invested in the system owning several games, controllers and whatnot.
Actually, I was one of the 10.3% of PS3 owners with a failed unit. Having not touched the console for a few days I turn it on, the fan starts up, the LED flashes yellow, the console beeps a few times, and shuts down with a blinking red LED. It wouldn't run long enough for me to even eject the disc stuck inside. And the system sits in a fairly well ventilated location. When describing what happened to the representative I was told that the unit would be replaced. And that's what happened. The day they received the old unit the shipped out a new one.
The PS3 was only about 7 months old. So although Sony handled things reasonably well and fairly quick with the replacement this doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in me that it wont happen again.
Coming from a history of PC gaming I had to laugh when first prompted to update some game and I was chagrined when I encountered my first crash. I do recall friends blowing into NES cartridges so that they'd boot up properly so I suppose it's nothing new.
"What's New" screen (ads for Sony products, links to Sony store)
The What's New screen has always been there.
Sony store now appears in several menus instead of just one.
I'm not sure what you mean by this as I haven't read anything about it, but the Store is already exceedingly easy to access.
New animated themes that you can buy.
Themes have always been for sale as well although there are a decent number which are free. In my opinion, however, at least 95% of them are amateurish garbage. I'm not sure how the companies producing these themes were allowed to offer such crap.
I personally would never waste money on something like a theme. And there's a tool available that allows anyone to create their own theme, for free. I assume the tool will still be available for the slim PS3. And you can change the background image to anything you want any time you feel like it.
New avatars, some of which are for sale.
I assume you're referring to Home. This is nothing new. Sony even charges for clothing.
Frankly, I think it's ridiculous especially given there's not much of anything to do in Home. I also think anyone spending money on that stuff is a fool. But hey, that's their own decision.
PS2 Compatibility
Do that many people really want PS2 compatibility? It would be nice, but is it all that crucial?
I'd argue most consumers are clamoring for the latest games. And for anyone who owns a decent library of PS2 games I have to assume they already own a PS2 otherwise what's the point of all the games.
Better video support, especially MKV files. (Yes, you can convert MKV files to be playable. No, I don't think that's good enough.)
Ability to play media files over a Windows/Samba share, rather than having to use media server software.
I don't see why either of these requests are important. It seems like an issue a miniscule segment of the user-base would be concerned about so why should Sony bother investing time and money into this?
Ability to backup the PS3 over a LAN automatically.
Backing up to a USB drive is so trivial that I don't see much of a need for this. And there are games out there that, frustratingly, don't allow backups anyway.
Less klunky web browsing.
It's not great, but it does the job reasonably well. There are things that probably should be addressed but honestly, how many people really care about this? It doesn't matter what they do, the experience is unlikely to ever compare to browsing on the PC for many reasons; the PS3 uses a non-standard browser and websites are designed with PCs in mind.
1080i support for more games.
Again, this is a minor issue. What HDTV today isn't 720p or 1080p? The biggest issue I have here is that most games are don't run at 1080p, but addressing that is far from trivial.
Sony's responsibility is to satisfy as large a segment of consumers as possible. It would make no business sense whatsoever for them to try to address every last issue people raise. What you want isn't necessarily what most people want or even care about.
Well, if Sony wanted to entice people to actually participate in Home they'd make that sort of thing free.
And secondly, it's the principle of the thing. Companies only take advantage because people allow them to do so. If consumers formed a united front and took at stand against this sort of nonsense a lot more DLC would be free. It's one think when they're offering a substantial add-on to a game and another thing altogether when it's some costume piece.
I also don't understand how anyone could tolerate paying for clothing emblazoned with gigantic logos. These people have paid to be walking billboard. It's ridiculous in real life and in games, but then I suppose people are more concerned about image than principles.
I find it amusing that the final paragraph states that PCs is being taken at least as serious as consoles for gaming. Remember when this generation of consoles was first introduced? The talk then was that PC gaming was doomed.
It's been the same sort of nonsense the last few generations. People get excited about these new consoles and because they offer a technological leap over the previous generation they start expecting some sort of revolution. Once the consoles have been around a while people start noticing PCs again.
Consoles naturally have to offer a clear technological leaps given their relatively long life expectancies. PCs, however, never stop progressing so that within months they surpass anything consoles are capable of. And actually, at least with this generation it was more consoles caught up to the capability of PCs than that they actually surpassed them.
I expect that eventually the market will move towards a more unified platform. Given how complex games are getting developers will be pushing hard for something like this. And hardware makers are being put into a difficult spot where they basically have need to be confident their console will be successful because if it isn't developers will abandon them. Look at the challenges facing would-be competitors the handheld market. And it's almost pointless to even compete on hardware at least for consoles. I say competition will come from the games themselves and motion-control peripherals. Perhaps not for the next generation of consoles, but eventually.
Ultimately this is the problem automakers face with American consumers. They've been spoiled by power and expect every car they drive, even one intended to be economical, to give them the satisfying shove of strong acceleration. This is why we get stuck with large displacement engines on what are supposed to be economy cars.
Actually a diesel engine should give the perception of greater performance given that they generally produce considerably more torque that a gasoline engine of the same displacement. Of course, other factors, such as less horsepower tends to ultimately hamper performance. But then, if someone is buying a car for fuel economy it should be a given that performance is compromised.
What I both love and hate about Wikipedia is how any article about sex or sex acts, even when only a paragraph long will have several gratuitous photos. Some even feature the best illustrations I've seen anywhere else on Wikipedia. But go search on some fascinating topic, where you'd expect a ton of images and you'll find a several page long article with no photos and perhaps a chart if you're lucky.
Drug use in Japan isn't low simply because of high quality of life. First of all, their heavy drinkers and secondly, many of them find other obsessions to satiate their desires. As for China, one big barrier is how harshly they deal with drug dealers and traffickers. Basically, you're risking the death penalty. And it's not just China, I know Taiwan has the death penalty for drug trafficking.
And this has nothing to do with the opium wars, most people couldn't care less about that and probably don't even know it ever happened. It's simply that as a culture they're a lot less tolerant of drug use. And people simply don't feel the need to do drugs, even recreationally. That said, drug use certainly exists, and it's on the rise.
I'm in support of legalizing drugs with certain conditions, of course. However, I have to say that I believe that Americans have gotten far too comfortable with drug use be it illicit or legal, prescription drugs. Frankly, I think there are a lot of weak-willed people out there who'd rather just not have to deal with their problems. But hey, if you want to do drugs, more power to you. Just don't expect me to cover your medical costs.
One important thing about American money is that it's heavily circulated, even internationally, so it's probably inevitable that it's going to get tainted more than a lot of foreign currencies. Although, I'd like to know the contamination rate of money from countries like Columbia.
I agree with you to some extent about the need for unions. However, far too often unions are the reason companies are driven to outsource. It's one thing to protect employees and another altogether to start expecting excessively high salaries and all kinds of benefits with no compromises. And some of the tactics union leaders take are very questionable. Many of these organizations are not all that different than big corporate entities. The difference being that while a corporation can provide people with jobs and union doesn't have much of anything to offer is work is outsourced.
There never seems to be enough money for something as fundamentally important and immensely valuable to the human race as space exploration. But apparently there's always a bottomless pit of wealth for bailouts, to help grow government bureaucracy and expand what in many ways are entitlement programs.
Take a look at pages 116 to 120 where they cover Roles and Responsibilities. From what I see it's all fairly standard stuff that by no stretch of the imagination would any corporation ever pay more than several hundred thousand for. I'd love to know what they're charging for web design alone and I'm really curious to see what this thing is going to look like when it's done. If it's anything like many government sites it's going to look fairly standard and half of it won't even function properly.
And then we're supposed to believe that somehow the government will run healthcare more efficiently than companies do? Like has happened here, whoever the government ends up working with is going to screw them just as badly by overcharging for everything. Government bureaucrats won't know any better and wont care, it's not their money they're spending with anyway.
If only my company could charge even a quarter of what these guys have charged for this work. We'd be set.
What galls me is how many people out there absolutely adore Obama and have basically ceased questioning anything the president does. People who so completely relished in mocking Bush are no offended by any suggestion of disrespect towards Obama.
I think people really overdid it with Bush, not content to simply criticize his policies they mocked him in every way conceivable. However, the great thing about it is that people were openly questioning him. There was a lot of good debate. Certainly it wasn't foolproof by any stretch of the imagination but it helped keep the administration in check to some extent.
Now with Obama as president, we have this huge segment of the population, a huge number of those comprised of people who hated Bush, blindly following the president. Not only are they not critical of the president but they tend to attack anyone who does criticize him. And the blind support seems to extend to congress. I find that extremely troubling. I believe it's the responsibility of citizens to question their leaders, regardless of party of political beliefs.
I'm sure they see a cash cow here by going with established material. Older gamers will buy on name alone, and the game will be sufficiently flashy and dumbed down to appeal to younger gamers. I even find myself conflicted, seeing the appeal on some of these remakes while at the same time wanting to make a stand against never-ending, often subpar remakes.
Perhaps it's time the game industry moved out of California because it seems they're being infected by the same lack of imagination that has afflicted Hollywood for so long. I definitely am not pleased with the way these two industries seem to be converging. At least with movies, there's a greater chance of someone doing something creative. But with games, they're already often bad enough, we don't need a never-ending stream of amateurish, Michael Bay-style epics.
I find that the international media gives a misleading view of what goes on in China. In such cases, for example, they make it seem like China is actively trying to fight corruption and other major issues. In my experience, the reality is nothing like that. The average person, and particularly poor people are constantly getting screwed, both by companies and the government and no one lifts a finger to do anything about it. Action is only taken when something happens to someone wealthy, as was the case here. Most people in China would probably be lucky to earn $1000 a month, let alone pay that much for an internet addiction camp. The only other time the government takes action seems to be when people raise enough furor about an issue.
And the Chinese government likes making a big event of trials and often ends them with harsh punishments. They're almost show trials, except that the charges aren't necessarily trumped up. I wont be surprised if some of those arrested in this case end up being executed.
Sometimes I wonder about the details researchers pull out of their asses. The statement that really gets me is the notion that children don't deliberately deceive until later in life. Is that so? I have an 18-month old daughter and she's already done what I'd consider deceptive things for months now. The most obvious example that comes to mind she does is when she extends her arm, with an item in hand, to give it to us. As we reach for it she pulls away and smiles. What was she doing if not deceiving us as a joke?
I've grown up with dogs and cats and currently have 4 cats. An adult dog or cat doesn't correspond to x human years. In terms of what my daughter is capable of she already runs circles around our cats. However, I'm hard-pressed to say she's ahead of them in any meaningful way. My cats convey maturity, it's clear their adults and their thought processes function accordingly. They're certainly more mature in how they react to situations. Maybe they don't have the ability to imagine anything beyond their existence, or maybe they just don't care and are content with the way things are.
Without question dogs understand far more than cats do. And even when cats do understand something they aren't necessarily inclined to respond. And I have a cat who as far as cats go is probably a genius. Among other things he figured out that when the button was pressed on the alarm clock it would beep and started doing that to wake me up. I've seen him run at a box and push it at another cat on the opposite side. He's also tried to do things, in some cases trying to replicate what we do, that he isn't physically capable of. I've basically seen these cats do things that I've seen people claim they shouldn't be able to do.
I'd say in terms of being able to use what cats or dogs have at their disposal they will be more advanced than a child well beyond that child's first few years. However, in terms of sheer capability it's no content, a human child is far beyond any animal. In terms of emotional development, however, cats and dogs are nearly as sophisticated as humans. I suppose there might be more complex emotions unique to humans, but all the important ones are there.
I have to wonder how many people out there actually abuse the system. Anyone who gets bored of their device likely isn't looking for a replacement of the same device. They're looking for something totally new and chances are it wouldn't come up within the warranty period. I don't quite see this being the issue with electronics so much, except for perhaps someone keeping a computer or game console running in an unventilated cabinet or going for a swim with a phone in their shorts.
There are far bigger opportunities for abuse in cars than electronics. Routinely people beat on their cars, breaking something and then expect the automaker to honor the warranty. Take the transmission failures on Nissan GT-Rs. Some owners did multiple hard launches with their car, taking advantage of launch control, and it resulted in the transmission breaking. So they got upset when Nissan began refusing to honor their warranties. The argument inevitably is, if they didn't want people driving the car that way they shouldn't have offered that particular feature. So what happens? They do what Audi did with their dual-clutch transmissions in the US, which is remove launch control and force an upshift at redline. Then people piss and moan about that.
With automotive black boxes it's very easy to paint a clear picture of what was going on before the moment of failure. There are several data points that can clearly show how the owner was driving the car. And in this case that data can also be potentially used in favor of the driver.
My concern with Apple's idea is that it will be used to track how people are using their device. This technology allows Apple to ensure that their devices are used only in a manner they deem fit. Jailbreak your iPhone and Apple will know. They could just decide to not honor the warranty, but I have a suspicion they'll be a lot more draconian than that. I expect Apple will remove questionable apps or just completely disable the device.
Speaking of companies with integrity, however, a few months ago my father got some decent speakers from Polk Audio. While setting up his equipment for the hundredth time, puts in this audio CD. He ends up on a track playing sound at maybe 16kHz. For whatever reason a synapse fails to fire and continues raising the volume thinking no audio is coming out of the speakers. Suddenly he hears a pop come from one of the tweeters, followed by a second pop from the other speaker. He calls the company, explains what happened expecting he'd have to pay for new tweeters. They send him two new ones free of charge. That was unexpectedly nice.
The most effective way to address this problem and foster competition is to break up the existing structure and excessive regulation that makes it next to impossible for new competitors to enter the market. If this means wresting control of the last mile from providers, so be it.
This wont necessarily guarantee quality, but at least it should ensure that you have a number of competitors to choose from when you want to switch. When I was overseas the quality of the cable service I originally had was utter crap, barely better than dialup. I then switched to DSL, which was a good deal better, but still not as good as I have now. But at least, I had options which forced these companies to lower prices or improve service. I don't remember what I was paying now, but I think it was in the range of $15 a month or so, which is a far cry from the $50 I pay now.
What always happens with these damn regulations? The government steps in to regulate something obvious to appease the masses and then turn around and make concessions to companies in some other way which ends up screwing people up in the long run. And the irony here is that a lot of this is done for the sake of the "small guy" but the end result is that it really ensures that those already established have the resources to survive and thrive. It pretty much helps guarantee monopolistic control for some companies.
At least I happen to be living in an area where there is some level of competition, which basically means one provider for cable and one provider for DSL. So like most other service providers it's like they compete in a vacuum and basically only acknowledge each other by ensuring their prices match. Which reminds me, one thing I'd like to see abolished is this bullshit with contracts.
All the games people are mentioning which haven't been described in the article are reminding me of a couple of others.
There's Flight Simulator, for one. I had the very first version back on the PCjr. Sierra Online even published a 3D helicopter simulator at some point.
I'd say racing games are an important subset of 3D gaming which have been completely overlooked. There are a good number of driving games which have been completely overlooked. Stunts, Stunt Driver, Test Drive 3, the Need for Speed series. I'm sure there are others, but I'd say these were the more popular. There was that game Viper Racing game which featured vehicle damage, one of the first I recall doing so. If I remember correctly the developers originally had the intention offering a wide variety of cars, but because of limitations on time or budget the game ended up featuring only the Dodge Viper. Some people have actually kept the game alive, improving graphics and adding new cars. I notice the article has a photo of what seems to be WipEout but doesn't mention it at all.
Then there were a number of games which seem to have been inspired by early notions of virtual reality. There was this one game which involved making this triangular shaped object jump from platform to platform, climbing up these towering structures. If I remember correctly it might have even predated Wolfenstein and the rest, but I can't recall much else about the game.
I mean, if we're going to talk about the history of 3D PC gaming I would expect the list to be more extensive. This article reads like something a 22 year old wrote, working from what he's read about online and quick Wikipedia consultations. So much for thorough research and editing.
Except that archeological evidence has shown that humanity has thrived when the climate was warmer. That means better crop yields, perhaps more livestock. There isn't much that can be grown if we're facing long, harsh winters and short, cool summers.
The distinction is that in the past humanity was more mobile. Now we've far more people in many more places with many of them concentrated in immobile massive cities. Many of those are sitting right on the coast, so there's a risk of many more Katrina-like events. Honestly, I don't think this is anything we'll be able to resolve, at least not without advances in technology. Trying to affect climate change wont do it because the climate is going to change whether we like it or not. And if we try to meddle directly in the weather we'll almost certainly cause more harm than good.
I think what's actually happened is that technology has allowed humans to distill physical traits down to their purest essence. Heavy makeup, lighting and skilled photography are the initial steps and Photoshop or other retouching methods complete the process. In some cases cartoons and 3D art are even influencing what is desirable, I think this is particularly obvious in Japan. So we've got people exposed to all this and ultimately influenced by it. It's gotten to a point where some people are attracted to relatively unrealistic attributes.
I suppose it could be called evolution, but I think it's merely popular entertainment shaping society.
I recall reading, a few years ago, about a craft intended to lift payloads into orbit which operated by firing lasers at its underside which would ignite a fuel. I guess it's basically this.
I'm all for research into all kinds of technologies but to me this almost sounds like a glorified Radio Shack kit; shine a flashlight at a robot to get it to roll around. If it's got photovoltaic cells why even bother with the lasers? Just make the thing solar powered. I suppose this method ensures more power for the robot. To me the aforementioned makes more sense.
Re:How many soldiers die if 187 F-22s aren't enoug
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F-22 Raptor Cancelled
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Even if everyone in the US unanimously decided that we were no longer going to meddle in international affairs other nations will inevitably drag us back into them due to the simple fact that we're an economic superpower. It's unavoidable.
And the US government already spends plenty on social programs. The problem, like with this F-22 program, is that the money isn't being spent wisely. The US in general already spends more on education per student than most countries, and many areas, including the city where I live spends close to double what any other country spends. And yet education is by and large crap compared to other countries. The reason isn't because we're not spending enough money, it's because we're not managing anything properly and have this idiotic notion that more money will fix anything.
And back to my original point, there are a lot of nations out there that could potentially become a threat in the future. I realize some people hold the believe that love will fix anything, but there are many more who disagree and may try to take advantage. China might currently be behind the US, but they sure are working hard to catch up, working on their own advanced fighter. Russia may not currently be a threat to the US, but they are working hard on their own competitors to the F22 and will certainly be selling the aircraft to China.
That said, it made sense to cut back the F-22 program although it really is a drop in the bucket compared to how much the government is spending.
Gasoline? Internal combustion engines? They are terribly wasteful of both fuel, and energy. Even a very efficient gas burning engine pumps fuel out the tail pipe, which is the reason catalytic converters are required on vehicles in the US.
I realize it's a fad to crap on internal combustion engines. The fact is that they're by far the best thing we've got for the applications they're used in. If they weren't we wouldn't be driving gasoline or diesel powered cars right now. They provide the best mix of range, efficiency and utility. Gasoline is one of the most energy dense fuels out there.
This is not to say there isn't room for improvement. Aren't the most gasoline engines only 30% efficient? I'd say there's a ton of room for improvement. Perhaps electric motors will replace gasoline engines, but batteries have a long way to go before that becomes a reality. And then there are the issues with power generation. Electricity in my area is so expensive, I have a hard time believing I'll be saving money by switching to an electric vehicle.
Anyway, my point is, why not improve the internal combustion engine as far as possible? This not only means a new ignition source, but completely redesigning the whole combustion process, which some are already working on. I want to see people working on improving this technology right up to the day it's replaced with something else.
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I'm surprised the average gamer is as old as this study indicates, but otherwise I tend to believe the results. I know several people who fit the profile described.
In some ways I find myself falling into the pattern and I find that it tends to be a vicious cycle. I don't game excessively, at most I'll play a couple of hours in the evening both on weekdays and weekends. I don't have the time to play all day on weekends, although I used to do so from time to time. Inevitably I find myself feeling miserable that I'm wasting all this time not being constructive.
I definitely have a tendency to get into games more strongly when I'm unhappy with work. And I find that I tend to have some more compulsive tendencies. I feel the need to explore every last detail, to unlock what I can and at least play through to the end. But I tend to want to fit that all within a short time frame, which means I play excessively for a while then eventually grow tired of the experience. So unlike some people I could never play an MMO for too long because I eventually get frustrated with the never-ending experience and I give up. I may still feel that pull to the game, but other feelings manage to overpower that compulsion.
As for the vicious cycle, it comes down to the way games occupy my time. I tend to play in the evening. So it inevitably means that I go to sleep later than I should. So obviously, the following day I feel like crap. This lack of energy prevents me from doing exercise, investing time in anything constructive, and generally being more productive at work. I get upset with myself. Unfortunately, the following evening I find myself with the energy to stay up, my body having gotten accustomed to this, and the cycle starts over. So my point is that I'm creating the reason to be depressed and then feeding into it on a daily basis.
The best way I've found to address this is to force myself to be occupied by other activities and to fill my time with friends as much as possible. I think part of the problem is that there's all this pent up energy due to sitting at the office all day and it's far too easy to expend it by doing something like playing games.
It should be mandatory that every major network give equal time to every candidate. Maybe a half an hour for each candidate ever few weeks leading up to the election. No stupid debates, simply spell out what they represent, what they want to do, etc. It would be nice to see biographies on each candidate; not personality pieces about how great each guy is, but actually talking about their background, education, what they've done, etc. Obviously, this stuff should all be available on the web, but I think the opinion needs to be filtered out of all of this, because what people need to see is fact.
I'd also like to see campaign contributions banned. There should be a pool of money provided by the government specifically for campaigning. That money is then equally distributed amongst all the candidates. Fundraising events can still be held but the money should go into the pot and not directly to that candidate.
Of none of this will ever happen. Politicians will never do anything to limit their power.
That statistic of over 50% is so high that I find it hard to believe. Half of all units fail? What is even more shocking is that so many people remain loyal to the Xbox. I'm guessing it's that people feel they don't have a choice given they've already invested in the system owning several games, controllers and whatnot.
Actually, I was one of the 10.3% of PS3 owners with a failed unit. Having not touched the console for a few days I turn it on, the fan starts up, the LED flashes yellow, the console beeps a few times, and shuts down with a blinking red LED. It wouldn't run long enough for me to even eject the disc stuck inside. And the system sits in a fairly well ventilated location. When describing what happened to the representative I was told that the unit would be replaced. And that's what happened. The day they received the old unit the shipped out a new one.
The PS3 was only about 7 months old. So although Sony handled things reasonably well and fairly quick with the replacement this doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in me that it wont happen again.
Coming from a history of PC gaming I had to laugh when first prompted to update some game and I was chagrined when I encountered my first crash. I do recall friends blowing into NES cartridges so that they'd boot up properly so I suppose it's nothing new.
The What's New screen has always been there.
I'm not sure what you mean by this as I haven't read anything about it, but the Store is already exceedingly easy to access.
Themes have always been for sale as well although there are a decent number which are free. In my opinion, however, at least 95% of them are amateurish garbage. I'm not sure how the companies producing these themes were allowed to offer such crap.
I personally would never waste money on something like a theme. And there's a tool available that allows anyone to create their own theme, for free. I assume the tool will still be available for the slim PS3. And you can change the background image to anything you want any time you feel like it.
I assume you're referring to Home. This is nothing new. Sony even charges for clothing.
Frankly, I think it's ridiculous especially given there's not much of anything to do in Home. I also think anyone spending money on that stuff is a fool. But hey, that's their own decision.
Do that many people really want PS2 compatibility? It would be nice, but is it all that crucial?
I'd argue most consumers are clamoring for the latest games. And for anyone who owns a decent library of PS2 games I have to assume they already own a PS2 otherwise what's the point of all the games.
I don't see why either of these requests are important. It seems like an issue a miniscule segment of the user-base would be concerned about so why should Sony bother investing time and money into this?
Backing up to a USB drive is so trivial that I don't see much of a need for this. And there are games out there that, frustratingly, don't allow backups anyway.
It's not great, but it does the job reasonably well. There are things that probably should be addressed but honestly, how many people really care about this? It doesn't matter what they do, the experience is unlikely to ever compare to browsing on the PC for many reasons; the PS3 uses a non-standard browser and websites are designed with PCs in mind.
Again, this is a minor issue. What HDTV today isn't 720p or 1080p? The biggest issue I have here is that most games are don't run at 1080p, but addressing that is far from trivial.
Sony's responsibility is to satisfy as large a segment of consumers as possible. It would make no business sense whatsoever for them to try to address every last issue people raise. What you want isn't necessarily what most people want or even care about.
Well, if Sony wanted to entice people to actually participate in Home they'd make that sort of thing free.
And secondly, it's the principle of the thing. Companies only take advantage because people allow them to do so. If consumers formed a united front and took at stand against this sort of nonsense a lot more DLC would be free. It's one think when they're offering a substantial add-on to a game and another thing altogether when it's some costume piece.
I also don't understand how anyone could tolerate paying for clothing emblazoned with gigantic logos. These people have paid to be walking billboard. It's ridiculous in real life and in games, but then I suppose people are more concerned about image than principles.
I find it amusing that the final paragraph states that PCs is being taken at least as serious as consoles for gaming. Remember when this generation of consoles was first introduced? The talk then was that PC gaming was doomed.
It's been the same sort of nonsense the last few generations. People get excited about these new consoles and because they offer a technological leap over the previous generation they start expecting some sort of revolution. Once the consoles have been around a while people start noticing PCs again.
Consoles naturally have to offer a clear technological leaps given their relatively long life expectancies. PCs, however, never stop progressing so that within months they surpass anything consoles are capable of. And actually, at least with this generation it was more consoles caught up to the capability of PCs than that they actually surpassed them.
I expect that eventually the market will move towards a more unified platform. Given how complex games are getting developers will be pushing hard for something like this. And hardware makers are being put into a difficult spot where they basically have need to be confident their console will be successful because if it isn't developers will abandon them. Look at the challenges facing would-be competitors the handheld market. And it's almost pointless to even compete on hardware at least for consoles. I say competition will come from the games themselves and motion-control peripherals. Perhaps not for the next generation of consoles, but eventually.
Ultimately this is the problem automakers face with American consumers. They've been spoiled by power and expect every car they drive, even one intended to be economical, to give them the satisfying shove of strong acceleration. This is why we get stuck with large displacement engines on what are supposed to be economy cars.
Actually a diesel engine should give the perception of greater performance given that they generally produce considerably more torque that a gasoline engine of the same displacement. Of course, other factors, such as less horsepower tends to ultimately hamper performance. But then, if someone is buying a car for fuel economy it should be a given that performance is compromised.
What I both love and hate about Wikipedia is how any article about sex or sex acts, even when only a paragraph long will have several gratuitous photos. Some even feature the best illustrations I've seen anywhere else on Wikipedia. But go search on some fascinating topic, where you'd expect a ton of images and you'll find a several page long article with no photos and perhaps a chart if you're lucky.
Drug use in Japan isn't low simply because of high quality of life. First of all, their heavy drinkers and secondly, many of them find other obsessions to satiate their desires. As for China, one big barrier is how harshly they deal with drug dealers and traffickers. Basically, you're risking the death penalty. And it's not just China, I know Taiwan has the death penalty for drug trafficking.
And this has nothing to do with the opium wars, most people couldn't care less about that and probably don't even know it ever happened. It's simply that as a culture they're a lot less tolerant of drug use. And people simply don't feel the need to do drugs, even recreationally. That said, drug use certainly exists, and it's on the rise.
I'm in support of legalizing drugs with certain conditions, of course. However, I have to say that I believe that Americans have gotten far too comfortable with drug use be it illicit or legal, prescription drugs. Frankly, I think there are a lot of weak-willed people out there who'd rather just not have to deal with their problems. But hey, if you want to do drugs, more power to you. Just don't expect me to cover your medical costs.
One important thing about American money is that it's heavily circulated, even internationally, so it's probably inevitable that it's going to get tainted more than a lot of foreign currencies. Although, I'd like to know the contamination rate of money from countries like Columbia.
I agree with you to some extent about the need for unions. However, far too often unions are the reason companies are driven to outsource. It's one thing to protect employees and another altogether to start expecting excessively high salaries and all kinds of benefits with no compromises. And some of the tactics union leaders take are very questionable. Many of these organizations are not all that different than big corporate entities. The difference being that while a corporation can provide people with jobs and union doesn't have much of anything to offer is work is outsourced.
The aforementioned Alien Nation is one. It's not a movie, but it is science fiction and does cover similar themes.
There never seems to be enough money for something as fundamentally important and immensely valuable to the human race as space exploration. But apparently there's always a bottomless pit of wealth for bailouts, to help grow government bureaucracy and expand what in many ways are entitlement programs.
Take a look at pages 116 to 120 where they cover Roles and Responsibilities. From what I see it's all fairly standard stuff that by no stretch of the imagination would any corporation ever pay more than several hundred thousand for. I'd love to know what they're charging for web design alone and I'm really curious to see what this thing is going to look like when it's done. If it's anything like many government sites it's going to look fairly standard and half of it won't even function properly.
And then we're supposed to believe that somehow the government will run healthcare more efficiently than companies do? Like has happened here, whoever the government ends up working with is going to screw them just as badly by overcharging for everything. Government bureaucrats won't know any better and wont care, it's not their money they're spending with anyway.
If only my company could charge even a quarter of what these guys have charged for this work. We'd be set.
What galls me is how many people out there absolutely adore Obama and have basically ceased questioning anything the president does. People who so completely relished in mocking Bush are no offended by any suggestion of disrespect towards Obama.
I think people really overdid it with Bush, not content to simply criticize his policies they mocked him in every way conceivable. However, the great thing about it is that people were openly questioning him. There was a lot of good debate. Certainly it wasn't foolproof by any stretch of the imagination but it helped keep the administration in check to some extent.
Now with Obama as president, we have this huge segment of the population, a huge number of those comprised of people who hated Bush, blindly following the president. Not only are they not critical of the president but they tend to attack anyone who does criticize him. And the blind support seems to extend to congress. I find that extremely troubling. I believe it's the responsibility of citizens to question their leaders, regardless of party of political beliefs.
I'm sure they see a cash cow here by going with established material. Older gamers will buy on name alone, and the game will be sufficiently flashy and dumbed down to appeal to younger gamers. I even find myself conflicted, seeing the appeal on some of these remakes while at the same time wanting to make a stand against never-ending, often subpar remakes.
Perhaps it's time the game industry moved out of California because it seems they're being infected by the same lack of imagination that has afflicted Hollywood for so long. I definitely am not pleased with the way these two industries seem to be converging. At least with movies, there's a greater chance of someone doing something creative. But with games, they're already often bad enough, we don't need a never-ending stream of amateurish, Michael Bay-style epics.
I find that the international media gives a misleading view of what goes on in China. In such cases, for example, they make it seem like China is actively trying to fight corruption and other major issues. In my experience, the reality is nothing like that. The average person, and particularly poor people are constantly getting screwed, both by companies and the government and no one lifts a finger to do anything about it. Action is only taken when something happens to someone wealthy, as was the case here. Most people in China would probably be lucky to earn $1000 a month, let alone pay that much for an internet addiction camp. The only other time the government takes action seems to be when people raise enough furor about an issue.
And the Chinese government likes making a big event of trials and often ends them with harsh punishments. They're almost show trials, except that the charges aren't necessarily trumped up. I wont be surprised if some of those arrested in this case end up being executed.
Sometimes I wonder about the details researchers pull out of their asses. The statement that really gets me is the notion that children don't deliberately deceive until later in life. Is that so? I have an 18-month old daughter and she's already done what I'd consider deceptive things for months now. The most obvious example that comes to mind she does is when she extends her arm, with an item in hand, to give it to us. As we reach for it she pulls away and smiles. What was she doing if not deceiving us as a joke?
I've grown up with dogs and cats and currently have 4 cats. An adult dog or cat doesn't correspond to x human years. In terms of what my daughter is capable of she already runs circles around our cats. However, I'm hard-pressed to say she's ahead of them in any meaningful way. My cats convey maturity, it's clear their adults and their thought processes function accordingly. They're certainly more mature in how they react to situations. Maybe they don't have the ability to imagine anything beyond their existence, or maybe they just don't care and are content with the way things are.
Without question dogs understand far more than cats do. And even when cats do understand something they aren't necessarily inclined to respond. And I have a cat who as far as cats go is probably a genius. Among other things he figured out that when the button was pressed on the alarm clock it would beep and started doing that to wake me up. I've seen him run at a box and push it at another cat on the opposite side. He's also tried to do things, in some cases trying to replicate what we do, that he isn't physically capable of. I've basically seen these cats do things that I've seen people claim they shouldn't be able to do.
I'd say in terms of being able to use what cats or dogs have at their disposal they will be more advanced than a child well beyond that child's first few years. However, in terms of sheer capability it's no content, a human child is far beyond any animal. In terms of emotional development, however, cats and dogs are nearly as sophisticated as humans. I suppose there might be more complex emotions unique to humans, but all the important ones are there.
I have to wonder how many people out there actually abuse the system. Anyone who gets bored of their device likely isn't looking for a replacement of the same device. They're looking for something totally new and chances are it wouldn't come up within the warranty period. I don't quite see this being the issue with electronics so much, except for perhaps someone keeping a computer or game console running in an unventilated cabinet or going for a swim with a phone in their shorts.
There are far bigger opportunities for abuse in cars than electronics. Routinely people beat on their cars, breaking something and then expect the automaker to honor the warranty. Take the transmission failures on Nissan GT-Rs. Some owners did multiple hard launches with their car, taking advantage of launch control, and it resulted in the transmission breaking. So they got upset when Nissan began refusing to honor their warranties. The argument inevitably is, if they didn't want people driving the car that way they shouldn't have offered that particular feature. So what happens? They do what Audi did with their dual-clutch transmissions in the US, which is remove launch control and force an upshift at redline. Then people piss and moan about that.
With automotive black boxes it's very easy to paint a clear picture of what was going on before the moment of failure. There are several data points that can clearly show how the owner was driving the car. And in this case that data can also be potentially used in favor of the driver.
My concern with Apple's idea is that it will be used to track how people are using their device. This technology allows Apple to ensure that their devices are used only in a manner they deem fit. Jailbreak your iPhone and Apple will know. They could just decide to not honor the warranty, but I have a suspicion they'll be a lot more draconian than that. I expect Apple will remove questionable apps or just completely disable the device.
Speaking of companies with integrity, however, a few months ago my father got some decent speakers from Polk Audio. While setting up his equipment for the hundredth time, puts in this audio CD. He ends up on a track playing sound at maybe 16kHz. For whatever reason a synapse fails to fire and continues raising the volume thinking no audio is coming out of the speakers. Suddenly he hears a pop come from one of the tweeters, followed by a second pop from the other speaker. He calls the company, explains what happened expecting he'd have to pay for new tweeters. They send him two new ones free of charge. That was unexpectedly nice.
The most effective way to address this problem and foster competition is to break up the existing structure and excessive regulation that makes it next to impossible for new competitors to enter the market. If this means wresting control of the last mile from providers, so be it.
This wont necessarily guarantee quality, but at least it should ensure that you have a number of competitors to choose from when you want to switch. When I was overseas the quality of the cable service I originally had was utter crap, barely better than dialup. I then switched to DSL, which was a good deal better, but still not as good as I have now. But at least, I had options which forced these companies to lower prices or improve service. I don't remember what I was paying now, but I think it was in the range of $15 a month or so, which is a far cry from the $50 I pay now.
What always happens with these damn regulations? The government steps in to regulate something obvious to appease the masses and then turn around and make concessions to companies in some other way which ends up screwing people up in the long run. And the irony here is that a lot of this is done for the sake of the "small guy" but the end result is that it really ensures that those already established have the resources to survive and thrive. It pretty much helps guarantee monopolistic control for some companies.
At least I happen to be living in an area where there is some level of competition, which basically means one provider for cable and one provider for DSL. So like most other service providers it's like they compete in a vacuum and basically only acknowledge each other by ensuring their prices match. Which reminds me, one thing I'd like to see abolished is this bullshit with contracts.
All the games people are mentioning which haven't been described in the article are reminding me of a couple of others.
There's Flight Simulator, for one. I had the very first version back on the PCjr. Sierra Online even published a 3D helicopter simulator at some point.
I'd say racing games are an important subset of 3D gaming which have been completely overlooked. There are a good number of driving games which have been completely overlooked. Stunts, Stunt Driver, Test Drive 3, the Need for Speed series. I'm sure there are others, but I'd say these were the more popular. There was that game Viper Racing game which featured vehicle damage, one of the first I recall doing so. If I remember correctly the developers originally had the intention offering a wide variety of cars, but because of limitations on time or budget the game ended up featuring only the Dodge Viper. Some people have actually kept the game alive, improving graphics and adding new cars. I notice the article has a photo of what seems to be WipEout but doesn't mention it at all.
Then there were a number of games which seem to have been inspired by early notions of virtual reality. There was this one game which involved making this triangular shaped object jump from platform to platform, climbing up these towering structures. If I remember correctly it might have even predated Wolfenstein and the rest, but I can't recall much else about the game.
I mean, if we're going to talk about the history of 3D PC gaming I would expect the list to be more extensive. This article reads like something a 22 year old wrote, working from what he's read about online and quick Wikipedia consultations. So much for thorough research and editing.
Except that archeological evidence has shown that humanity has thrived when the climate was warmer. That means better crop yields, perhaps more livestock. There isn't much that can be grown if we're facing long, harsh winters and short, cool summers.
The distinction is that in the past humanity was more mobile. Now we've far more people in many more places with many of them concentrated in immobile massive cities. Many of those are sitting right on the coast, so there's a risk of many more Katrina-like events. Honestly, I don't think this is anything we'll be able to resolve, at least not without advances in technology. Trying to affect climate change wont do it because the climate is going to change whether we like it or not. And if we try to meddle directly in the weather we'll almost certainly cause more harm than good.
I think what's actually happened is that technology has allowed humans to distill physical traits down to their purest essence. Heavy makeup, lighting and skilled photography are the initial steps and Photoshop or other retouching methods complete the process. In some cases cartoons and 3D art are even influencing what is desirable, I think this is particularly obvious in Japan. So we've got people exposed to all this and ultimately influenced by it. It's gotten to a point where some people are attracted to relatively unrealistic attributes.
I suppose it could be called evolution, but I think it's merely popular entertainment shaping society.
I recall reading, a few years ago, about a craft intended to lift payloads into orbit which operated by firing lasers at its underside which would ignite a fuel. I guess it's basically this.
I'm all for research into all kinds of technologies but to me this almost sounds like a glorified Radio Shack kit; shine a flashlight at a robot to get it to roll around. If it's got photovoltaic cells why even bother with the lasers? Just make the thing solar powered. I suppose this method ensures more power for the robot. To me the aforementioned makes more sense.
Even if everyone in the US unanimously decided that we were no longer going to meddle in international affairs other nations will inevitably drag us back into them due to the simple fact that we're an economic superpower. It's unavoidable.
And the US government already spends plenty on social programs. The problem, like with this F-22 program, is that the money isn't being spent wisely. The US in general already spends more on education per student than most countries, and many areas, including the city where I live spends close to double what any other country spends. And yet education is by and large crap compared to other countries. The reason isn't because we're not spending enough money, it's because we're not managing anything properly and have this idiotic notion that more money will fix anything.
And back to my original point, there are a lot of nations out there that could potentially become a threat in the future. I realize some people hold the believe that love will fix anything, but there are many more who disagree and may try to take advantage. China might currently be behind the US, but they sure are working hard to catch up, working on their own advanced fighter. Russia may not currently be a threat to the US, but they are working hard on their own competitors to the F22 and will certainly be selling the aircraft to China.
That said, it made sense to cut back the F-22 program although it really is a drop in the bucket compared to how much the government is spending.
I realize it's a fad to crap on internal combustion engines. The fact is that they're by far the best thing we've got for the applications they're used in. If they weren't we wouldn't be driving gasoline or diesel powered cars right now. They provide the best mix of range, efficiency and utility. Gasoline is one of the most energy dense fuels out there.
This is not to say there isn't room for improvement. Aren't the most gasoline engines only 30% efficient? I'd say there's a ton of room for improvement. Perhaps electric motors will replace gasoline engines, but batteries have a long way to go before that becomes a reality. And then there are the issues with power generation. Electricity in my area is so expensive, I have a hard time believing I'll be saving money by switching to an electric vehicle.
Anyway, my point is, why not improve the internal combustion engine as far as possible? This not only means a new ignition source, but completely redesigning the whole combustion process, which some are already working on. I want to see people working on improving this technology right up to the day it's replaced with something else.