When do we reach that point when the public is too wired?
I think it happened roughly around the time when these little plastic boxes started appearing in people's homes that allowed someone on the other end of the country who you didn't know to interrupt you at any time and ask if you wanted to switch long-distance carriers...
Seriously! It never ceases to amuse me when I hear Americans throwing the word around as if it was something to be proud of. If you really want to see what the word otaku means in Japan, just watch the Japanese TV drama Densha Otoko (Train Man). It gives you a pretty accurate picture of what a real anime otaku is, sadly.
My friend who plays Final Fantasy XI has the same problem - she plays a Mithra, but people often have trouble believing that she's a girl. After all, only anime geeks who like catgirls play Mithras, right? No *real* girl would be a Mithra...
On the other hand, I haven't really seen all that much girl bashing in FFXI. People there generally seem a lot more mature than in any other MMORPG I've played.
I don't know what speeds exactly rockets travel at, but at Mach 2 (earth relativistic since there's not air in space, but about 1200-1400MPH give or take depending on altitude)
Even a relative slow moving spacecraft travels far, far faster than the speed of sound. The average interstellar spacecraft generally cruises at somewhere around the neighborhood of 50,000 mph - roughly Mach 66. Some have been known to hit much higher speeds, but usually that's a result of a nearby planet's gravitational pull.
"How can we get people to voluntarily give us detailed information on their personal computers for our marketing department to use?"
"Hey, just call it a 'benchmarking utility' and tell them that their computer is the most godly gaming rig to ever grace the Earth, and they'll never suspect a thing!"
It's not the game itself that's important, it's the focus on a member of the development community providing his critique of the game, as well as opening the door for a commentary on the industry in general. In athletics, teams and coaches analyze their losses so they can identify their weaknesses and improve. In the gaming industry, this kind of honest self-evaluation is something that's sorely lacking.
That's a very timely warning...I've personally been witness to the death of two Western Digital hard drives (in external enclosures) due to improper removal. The few seconds it takes to use the Remove Hardware option is always less costly in the long run...even if your data is backed up, recovering it and replacing the drive is often a major inconvenience.
On the other hand, the inevitable cost-cutting trend (at least in the U.S.) is to cut services by putting more of the responsibility on the customer. Things that once were unthinkably unprofessional are now the norm. Consider the case of self-service gas stations (unless you live in Oregon) - by and large gas station attendants are a thing of the past. You swipe your card, you stand by your car and pump your our gasoline, no paid employees directly involved. Same thing with the self-checkout lines that are starting to appear at grocery stores and Wal-Marts. Companies have a relatively large incentive to make as many things DIY as they can get away with, and over time the public begins to accept the increased responsibility. Perhaps P2P bandwidth sharing will become the same way over time...
Well, that's something of a subjective measurement. Personally, I haven't found more than a half dozen or so games in the last 3 years that I really enjoyed as much as older games. Or maybe it's just that I've become more jaded and cynical. Yeah, that's probably it
One major difference, though, is that "back in the day" (at least with PC games), anybody with some decent programming and graphic design skills (read: sprite drawing) who had an interesting idea could make a fun game. These days, it's much harder to put ideas into action. Budgets are bigger and standards are higher; a full development team complete with artists and animators is required to really produce something that people will actually stop to look at.
And as the original article states, you at least have to give Nintendo props for being willing to take risk and try something radical. The game market has been sorely lacking in innovation for a long time, so even though I'm not particularly impressed by Nintendo's newest offering, I still applaud them for being unique.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. However, don't hate on Nintendo because they're doing something new and different. It's that kind of thinking that has kept the gaming industry in the vicious cycle of endless clones and knock-offs that don't offer anything new but a rehashed graphics engine. If this venture becomes successful, it will in turn inspire other companies and publishers to go out on a limb with ground-breaking ideas. As it is, everyone is too afraid to take a big risk on an unproven concept, so we just keep getting fed the same old crap over and over.
Now, all that said, there have always been great games coming out, but in recent years they seem to have been continually dwindling in numbers. Bottom line: innovation is always a good thing. It's what's driven our economy and fueled growth and technological development more than almost anything else.
I've seen documentary videos showing how octopus's limbs often detach if they get caught by a larger predator...a moray eel or somesuch. I'd imagine the giant squid would be much the same, though I can't imagine there's too many predators that want to tangle with a 40 foot long tentacle monster.
I suppose in that sense it's a similar survival mechanism that of lizards, where if you try to catch 'em by the tail it just detaches and they scamper away without it.
After all, Mario does everything, right? Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario RPG...he's a doctor, he's a painter, he referees boxing and tennis matches, he lays down the smack in Super Smash Bros, he even teaching typing!!
...so why not a superstar baseball player? Whatevz... *sigh*
Very well stated. Any time we try to create legislation to accomplish a specific end, we open up the door to a host of unintended consequences and abuses. The cure often ends up being worse than the disease.
Although it's pretty rare that I find an anime in which I enjoy the dub better than the original, the two you mentioned definitely do break the mold with some truely talented voice acting. Other English dubs I really enjoyed include Noir, Mahoromatic, Ranma 1/2, and Outlaw Star (yeah, a lot of older ones, I know).
Any other anime with great dubs that anyone out there can recommend?
Sometimes it just makes the story more enjoyable to have it in your native language. I'm partially fluent in Japanese, but I still find myself glued to the subtitles to make sure I don't miss anything. This focus on reading the words sometimes detracts from the enjoyment of just chillaxing and watching the show. Furthermore, sometimes it's nice to be able to multitask, like working out or eating dinner while watching a movie. If you have to focus on the subs, it can be more difficult since you have to always be watching.
With all that said, I'm still definitely a fan of watching in the original language...it's just not quite the same otherwise, even when the English voice acting is realyl good.
Far more important to the Japanese is maintaining the facade (sometimes) of politeness and respect, even if they think you're being an idiot. Furthermore, because you're a gaijin (or so I'm assuming), they won't hold you to the same level of behavior that they would a native Japanese.
This is one thing that many Japanese who grow up overseas have a lot trouble with when returning to Japan. If you're a foreigner, it's ok for you act different, you're supposed to be different because you're gaijin. However, if you *look* Japanese but you don't act Japanese, look out! You may quickly become a social outcast, because you look like part of the "in-crowd", but act differently.
Even foreign exchange students often feel this after picking up a few American/Australian/British habits before returning to their native country. Just all part of the great Japanese cultural dictomy...
The English grammatical structure was primarily taken from early Germanic languages (probably from early Scandinavian), whereas our core vocabulary is mainly derived from Latin (a good deal of it comes via French, thanks to the Normans). Although English has become quite a bit removed from its Germanic origins, our grammatical structure still greatly resembles German in many aspects.
The summary was also largely a quotation summarizing the viewpoint of the original article. In that respect, I don't think it was the summary that was biased, rather it's Mr. Mossberg, the author of the aforementioned quotations. If you're going to villify anyone for being biased, it should be him.
Slashdot Mirror
When do we reach that point when the public is too wired?
I think it happened roughly around the time when these little plastic boxes started appearing in people's homes that allowed someone on the other end of the country who you didn't know to interrupt you at any time and ask if you wanted to switch long-distance carriers...
Seriously! It never ceases to amuse me when I hear Americans throwing the word around as if it was something to be proud of. If you really want to see what the word otaku means in Japan, just watch the Japanese TV drama Densha Otoko (Train Man). It gives you a pretty accurate picture of what a real anime otaku is, sadly.
CounterStrike: Source
1st - USA2nd - Kazakhstan
3rd - Canada
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
1st - China2nd - USA
3rd - Netherlands
Starcraft: Brood War
1st - Korea2nd - Russia
3rd - Australia
FIFA Soccer 2005
1st - Germany2nd - Russia
3rd - Spain
Need For Speed: Underground 2
1st - Brazil2nd - Brazil
3rd - Russia
Halo 2
1st - USA2nd - Canada
3rd - France
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
1st - Korea2nd - Brazil
3rd - Germany
Dead or Alive Ultimate
1st - Japan2nd - Singapore
3rd - Korea
FreeStyle
1st - Korea2nd - Korea
3rd - Chinese Taipei
My friend who plays Final Fantasy XI has the same problem - she plays a Mithra, but people often have trouble believing that she's a girl. After all, only anime geeks who like catgirls play Mithras, right? No *real* girl would be a Mithra...
On the other hand, I haven't really seen all that much girl bashing in FFXI. People there generally seem a lot more mature than in any other MMORPG I've played.
So how exactly do horde people in WoW dress-up for Halloween? As dwarves?
I don't know what speeds exactly rockets travel at, but at Mach 2 (earth relativistic since there's not air in space, but about 1200-1400MPH give or take depending on altitude)
Even a relative slow moving spacecraft travels far, far faster than the speed of sound. The average interstellar spacecraft generally cruises at somewhere around the neighborhood of 50,000 mph - roughly Mach 66. Some have been known to hit much higher speeds, but usually that's a result of a nearby planet's gravitational pull.
According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the fastest recorded spacecraft were the NASA-German Helios probes, which hit 158,000 mph during their slingshot pass around the sun.
I agree, it seems all too convenient.
"How can we get people to voluntarily give us detailed information on their personal computers for our marketing department to use?"
"Hey, just call it a 'benchmarking utility' and tell them that their computer is the most godly gaming rig to ever grace the Earth, and they'll never suspect a thing!"
This utility doesn't work with Firefox! Yaaarrgh!
Now why on earth would Microsoft want to make us use IE?
In those pictures, Bill Gates looks entirely too much like most of my other university professors.
Maybe he got into the wrong line of work? I mean, teaching is such a lucrative industry, after all.
It's not the game itself that's important, it's the focus on a member of the development community providing his critique of the game, as well as opening the door for a commentary on the industry in general. In athletics, teams and coaches analyze their losses so they can identify their weaknesses and improve. In the gaming industry, this kind of honest self-evaluation is something that's sorely lacking.
Entomologists have named a louse and a butterfly after Larson.
That's a very timely warning...I've personally been witness to the death of two Western Digital hard drives (in external enclosures) due to improper removal. The few seconds it takes to use the Remove Hardware option is always less costly in the long run...even if your data is backed up, recovering it and replacing the drive is often a major inconvenience.
On the other hand, the inevitable cost-cutting trend (at least in the U.S.) is to cut services by putting more of the responsibility on the customer. Things that once were unthinkably unprofessional are now the norm. Consider the case of self-service gas stations (unless you live in Oregon) - by and large gas station attendants are a thing of the past. You swipe your card, you stand by your car and pump your our gasoline, no paid employees directly involved. Same thing with the self-checkout lines that are starting to appear at grocery stores and Wal-Marts. Companies have a relatively large incentive to make as many things DIY as they can get away with, and over time the public begins to accept the increased responsibility. Perhaps P2P bandwidth sharing will become the same way over time...
Well, that's something of a subjective measurement. Personally, I haven't found more than a half dozen or so games in the last 3 years that I really enjoyed as much as older games. Or maybe it's just that I've become more jaded and cynical. Yeah, that's probably it
One major difference, though, is that "back in the day" (at least with PC games), anybody with some decent programming and graphic design skills (read: sprite drawing) who had an interesting idea could make a fun game. These days, it's much harder to put ideas into action. Budgets are bigger and standards are higher; a full development team complete with artists and animators is required to really produce something that people will actually stop to look at.
And as the original article states, you at least have to give Nintendo props for being willing to take risk and try something radical. The game market has been sorely lacking in innovation for a long time, so even though I'm not particularly impressed by Nintendo's newest offering, I still applaud them for being unique.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. However, don't hate on Nintendo because they're doing something new and different. It's that kind of thinking that has kept the gaming industry in the vicious cycle of endless clones and knock-offs that don't offer anything new but a rehashed graphics engine. If this venture becomes successful, it will in turn inspire other companies and publishers to go out on a limb with ground-breaking ideas. As it is, everyone is too afraid to take a big risk on an unproven concept, so we just keep getting fed the same old crap over and over.
Now, all that said, there have always been great games coming out, but in recent years they seem to have been continually dwindling in numbers. Bottom line: innovation is always a good thing. It's what's driven our economy and fueled growth and technological development more than almost anything else.
Half empty, half full...that's not the problem here...
The glass is just too freaking small!
I've seen documentary videos showing how octopus's limbs often detach if they get caught by a larger predator...a moray eel or somesuch. I'd imagine the giant squid would be much the same, though I can't imagine there's too many predators that want to tangle with a 40 foot long tentacle monster.
I suppose in that sense it's a similar survival mechanism that of lizards, where if you try to catch 'em by the tail it just detaches and they scamper away without it.
They're way ahead of you, man...
Mario Baseball
After all, Mario does everything, right? Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Kart, Mario Party, Mario RPG...he's a doctor, he's a painter, he referees boxing and tennis matches, he lays down the smack in Super Smash Bros, he even teaching typing!!
...so why not a superstar baseball player? Whatevz... *sigh*
Very well stated. Any time we try to create legislation to accomplish a specific end, we open up the door to a host of unintended consequences and abuses. The cure often ends up being worse than the disease.
Although it's pretty rare that I find an anime in which I enjoy the dub better than the original, the two you mentioned definitely do break the mold with some truely talented voice acting. Other English dubs I really enjoyed include Noir, Mahoromatic, Ranma 1/2, and Outlaw Star (yeah, a lot of older ones, I know).
Any other anime with great dubs that anyone out there can recommend?
Sometimes it just makes the story more enjoyable to have it in your native language. I'm partially fluent in Japanese, but I still find myself glued to the subtitles to make sure I don't miss anything. This focus on reading the words sometimes detracts from the enjoyment of just chillaxing and watching the show. Furthermore, sometimes it's nice to be able to multitask, like working out or eating dinner while watching a movie. If you have to focus on the subs, it can be more difficult since you have to always be watching.
With all that said, I'm still definitely a fan of watching in the original language...it's just not quite the same otherwise, even when the English voice acting is realyl good.
Far more important to the Japanese is maintaining the facade (sometimes) of politeness and respect, even if they think you're being an idiot. Furthermore, because you're a gaijin (or so I'm assuming), they won't hold you to the same level of behavior that they would a native Japanese.
This is one thing that many Japanese who grow up overseas have a lot trouble with when returning to Japan. If you're a foreigner, it's ok for you act different, you're supposed to be different because you're gaijin. However, if you *look* Japanese but you don't act Japanese, look out! You may quickly become a social outcast, because you look like part of the "in-crowd", but act differently.
Even foreign exchange students often feel this after picking up a few American/Australian/British habits before returning to their native country. Just all part of the great Japanese cultural dictomy......Voyager 1 is now in the interstellar DMZ. Let's hope no one starts shooting at it.
The English grammatical structure was primarily taken from early Germanic languages (probably from early Scandinavian), whereas our core vocabulary is mainly derived from Latin (a good deal of it comes via French, thanks to the Normans). Although English has become quite a bit removed from its Germanic origins, our grammatical structure still greatly resembles German in many aspects.
The summary was also largely a quotation summarizing the viewpoint of the original article. In that respect, I don't think it was the summary that was biased, rather it's Mr. Mossberg, the author of the aforementioned quotations. If you're going to villify anyone for being biased, it should be him.