The Megazeux GCS community calls this kind of thing the 'Day of Zeux', and it's quite fun. Creating a game in a 24-hour timespan isn't new, but it's still pretty interesting.
J. Allard, eh? So does this mean that this handheld will also fit his vision of an 'open chips and cards' console? I can see it now, the Microsoft X-Brick... Weighs twice as much as the original X-box controller, is half as ergonomic, and also doubles as a portable space heater. Why can't they hire someone who actually has an ounce of common sense when it comes to design when they do these things?
... but no shit, Sherlock. That's like saying that we just discovered that severe weather is more likely to occur in zones of low atmospheric pressure. I thought this was supposed to be news for nerds, not news for people that flunked out of middle-school Earth science class.
Independing programmers and Open Source advocates discover that organization leads to increased productivity.
Shouldn't this have been a gigantic no-brainer from the start? That organizing a software project - or ANY project as others seem to have suddenly discovered - might make it work out better in the end?
You know, something tells me that if I ever get prostate cancer, I'm just going to have to say no to this one. Something tells me that shoving hot peppers up my ass just isn't worth it.
"Disaster strikes at Los Alamos when cybernetically enhanced insects designed for tactical germ warfare escape captivity; hundreds reported dead and critically injured."
Before I go on, I'd just like to say that DARPA has some really sick, sadistic fucks in its ranks. I don't care just how many of their inventions have made the trek from tactical to practical. Nothing DARPA has ever made was made without the idea of killing someone in mind, and these cyberslave insects are no exception.
It says in the article that wasps were one of DARPA's prime candidates for cyberization. Something about that seems odd to me, since moths would make much better bombsniffers - best sense of smell in the animal kingdom - and something like a large fly would probably make a faster and less conspicuous transmitter. Wasps and their cousins, however, know another trick - they sting, and they're pretty damn good at it. It's also possible that if wasps or hornets consume the flesh of a dead poisonous snake or chew up wood treated with certain compounds to build their nests, they can absorb some of these substances into their bodies with no ill effects to themselves. When they sting someone or something, though, all the toxins they absorbed get passed along with their own venom, with potentially grave consequences. This is one reason that if you find a dead rattlesnake on your property, you want to dispose of it safely - if the bees get a hold of it, suddenly getting stung is a very big deal even if you aren't allergic.
I'd venture to say that DARPA wanted an aggressive, resilient insect like a wasp or a hornet not because they're good fliers or because they're social, but because they sting and can sting many times without dying. They're ideal for tactical chemical and germ warfare, and a swarm of these bugs implanted with microchips and a small payload of a toxic agent or some kind of deadly germ could wipe out an entire town within minutes, or tear ass through entire platoons of soldiers in the blink of an eye. They might have come up with the idea of using these things for surveillance, security, and communications after the fact, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that these things were designed to kill. It is DARPA, after all.
What you see as a bombsniffing bug or a discrete microtransmitter today will be an army of micro-assassins tomorrow. I'm just glad that instinct took over in the case of the wasps, for now anyway...
This is to be expected. After all, when the feds are so busy watching us, how can we expect them to take care of themselves? Same goes for their network security. If they're so goddamn busy cracking into our E-mails and our home and corporate networks, they can't possibly be expected to secure their own, can they?
All of this, after they discover China's been operating a massive hacking campaign over here in the United States. You have to wonder if they're not just trying to screw up.
Okay. So the U.S. internet usage is stalling out because it's too expensive and insecure. How might we go about fixing some of this crap, anyway? Some insights and suggestions...
1. Dialup shouldn't be a third of the cost of cable, and cable shouldn't be a third of the cost of my electric bill. Dropping the cost of high speed internet would speed up its rate of adoption here in the U.S. - after all, aren't we 16th in global per-capita broadband usage? The increased rate of adoption would lead to more customers overall, which equals more money for the ISPs total. (If they'd cut the cost of cable in half here, I can assure their customer base would more than double, more than making up for the cost.) Of course, this won't happen as soon as tiered internet connections become a reality, since things like cable connections will price-hike again into the enterprise pricing range...
2. It sure would be nice if there was less hardware involved. I know it's a necessity, this whole business with routers and switches and modems and such, but rolling some of this stuff up into one single box would make a lot of people I know a lot less reluctant to get on the broadband bandwagon. It's a bit more complex than most users want to deal with, and it's pretty expensive to boot. Most people here shy away from the net - especially high speed internet connections - because of the hidden hardware costs piled on top of the huge monthly cost, and having one single box that does everything for a comparatively low price would be swell.
3. If end users want better security, they're just going to have to learn about their goddamn computers. That's all there is to it. User ignorance is the number one cause of security breaches, and idiot-proofing software and hardware just obfuscates it further for the legitimate, learned end user. However, it'd also be nice to, for the occasions upon which we all slip up, have a good professional antivirus package that works and doesn't cost some 40-60 dollars with bullshit subscription fees thrown in. Just because.
Might I also add that computers and the internet are really losing their luster. I won't argue that the internet doesn't have near boundless potential, and I won't argue that computers don't have the same, but they're no longer the amazing, totally new, super-futuristic gizmos of tomorrow. Not even gaming computers are really advancing by leaps and bounds anymore, and overall they just seem like a family of old, overcomplicated, overhyped machines to the average person out there today. So in short, not only are most users underqualified in the common sense department to use the internet safely, and underbudgeted to afford to do so, but the internet just isn't worth it to a lot of people out there even if they can and know how to log on.
It's not like it'd be a big difference if Dell did buy out Alienware. It used to be back a few years ago that Alienware computers were the envy of the gaming world. You got a fully loaded, high quality computer with a very attractive case and very nice peripherals, and an even more attractive warranty and support package. You could rest completely assured that it'd play anything, and play it better than any other gaming computer on the market, and if it broke, you'd get it fixed right away. Of course, times change. Dell computers used to be a hot item, too.
Now that Alienware has sunk to Dell's inferior standards, it's only logical that they allow themselves to be bought out. Dell and Alienware are practically the same thing, only one of them sells office hardware and servers, too. Think about it - overpriced, overhyped piece of shit computers sold in attractive cases? Piss-poor technical support that can't speak a word of English? The only thing these two companies still have going for them is a barely-par warranty package, and even then they're both flaky about that. They're both washed-up computer manufacturers peddling electronic turds wrapped in pretty packages.
What a drag, but hey. If you're going to build a computer right, you do it yourself.
And Jack Thompson says that GTA is the video game version of the devil incarnate. Jesus Christ, somebody call a fucking priest. That game needs an exorcism.
Firefox comes pretty close to passing the test, but not quite. Its performance falls somewhere between Opera 7.5 and 8.0, but sadly I haven't the means to post my own screenshot. However, curious users can go ahead and take the test themselves right here: http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html
Also, It would appear that Opera 9 has just one thing wrong - the nose. It's not supposed to be blue, it's supposed to be black, as per the sample rendering here: http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/reference.html
This is a pretty amazing claim. The writer of the article clearly fucked up in a few places, but still, the bottom line is that the scientists conducting this experiment are claiming that more energy was released than what was put in. If they're correct, and if they can reproduce these results and figure out what exactly is going on here, we could really be on to something.
I've heard hydrino theory and fusion be brought up a couple times. Maybe it's one or the other, or even both? Or some other form of crazydoom at work? I'm certainly curious about it, myself.
... pairs of males can't procreate. No, the Star Trek universe does not afford a real work-around for this problem, and procreation and replication via androids just isn't feasible.
... Since I'm pretty sure there are plenty of things the government would rather pay for than satellite programs to monitor our increasingly volatile climate. Like programs to monitor people. No, let's just forget those nasty hurricanes that came and totally stomped our asses last year, and the weather patterns and climatic changes that spawned them. We have a resource war to pay for, and clearly the entire goddamn planet takes second place. Of course, since NASA seems to believe in witchcraft like 'global warming' and other such heresy, they probably don't deserve the money anyway. (Insert obvious sarcasm here.) Let's just watch the satellites drop while we piss into the wind, getting blown away while our tax dollars are squandered on other clearly more important 'projects'.
Being a veteran of the Cisco Networking Academy - I survived the courses with only a handful of brain hemmorhages - I hope that an open alternative to Cisco's software will accomplish the following, as these are the problems I observed in Cisco's products...
1. Cisco's IOS interface is about as clear as a brick wall. Granted, this is an incredible form of idiot-proofing - the interface makes sense, once you study everything there is to know about it. However, you absolutely positively can -not- log into a Cisco enterprise router and have even the foggiest idea as to what's going on unless you've studied them before. Furthermore, the IOS does as little for you as possible, which is a good thing from a security standpoint... However, it would be nice if there was a work-around - a nice, clean GUI or something, accessible only from a physical connection to the router, perhaps - so people that haven't spent nearly a decade busting their brains over the hardware can at least perform basic maintenance.
2. Dropping the cost of good routing and switching hardware would be wonderful. The routers and switches my school had cost in excess of $2,500 each, sometimes more, and they were older models at that. Furthermore - and this ties back into the previous statement - not having to hire people with four to eight years of schooling behind them just to manage a damn router would also drop the cost of managing an enterpise-grade network. (Granted, the people that are most likely to want to purchase this kind of hardware probably also have the money to do so, but at any rate, that's no small wad of cash.)
3. I personally think it'd be really nice to be able to actually go in and tweak the hardware and software with a much greater level of precision than what Cisco's IOS allows. This would also allow for you to expand your harware without actually having to buy or build another router. I can't help but wonder if there'd be any point or improvement in clustering a home-made router and switch... Or a server, or whatever. Long story short, being able to actually reach in and mess with the stuff without violating some kind of warranty would be nice.
I'm not about to say that Cisco is bad as a company. Cisco and their subsidiaries - Linksys immediately comes to mind - provide excellent service, and their products aren't half bad either. There are simply some issues that could be resolved by actually having access to the codebase of the software and being able to manipulate the hardware, in addition to new possibilities unlocked by the same. Cisco's track record aside, though, this is really a step in the right direction. The next thing I'd like to see are some people seeking to break into the business coming in with keyboards and soldering irons blazing, to see what can be done with this software - and some new hardware to go with it. Additionally, to make this program attractive to big business, it's going to have to make serious strides in terms of how much it can support, but if the project doesn't tank, that'd be great.
I think we all know what's going to happen next. Either the remaining Baby Bells will merge with the new Big Bell, or they'll establish mutually beneficial ties with one another behind closed doors to make it look like Bell isn't back when it really is.
In other news, the zombie of Harold Greene has been reported roaming about the countryside vandalizing telephone booths, muttering something about 'Humpty Dumpty' and a monolith somewhere...
What a joke, and to think I stumbled upon this gem a day late.
Before I continue, one of the underlying points Mr. Vogel was trying to make here is definitely true. Independent game developers and studios are by no means a fountain of innovation, and are in my opinion more likely to reproduce a popular model rather than innovate in order to get their foot in the door. That way, their chances of success are much higher, because they've taken something that was already good and at least reproduced - if not improved - it. The big studios don't have to worry too much about money lost to experiments, and are thus more likely to try new things - and damn the consequences of failing to find a niche in the market if they do. Furthermore, he made it very clear that innovation tends to occur gradually, in a sense of evolution, rather than rapid mutation. Most indie studios that are replicating something that's been done before do try to add their own twists to the model - this is what makes them stand out enough for people to pay attention.
However, Mr. Vogel is quite wrong about a few things, too. This is the kind of commentary I'd expect out of a cynical independent ripoff artist in action, really. You know, the kind of person who is too afraid and closed-minded to try anything new, partly because he doesn't want to lose his money or reputation - a sound judgement - and partly because he just doesn't seem to want to try. You can deny all you want that the Exile and Avernum series aren't blatant ripoffs of Ultima - personally, I loved Exile regardless, if only for the story - but they are. Avernum, a polished up Exile, is Ultima in new clothes. This man and his studio have been responsible for very little noteworthy innovation, and well, like they say, Pot, meet Kettle.
Huge innovative leaps on both a technical and gameplay level occur in the field of gaming from time to time, and it's really a 50-50 chance of those innovative leaps coming from a big studio or an independent developer. Just like any creative field, innovation can either occur incrementially, as he implied that it always does, or it can occur massively and with outstanding results. (Sim City, anyone?) Mr. Vogel, who clearly suffers from a serious case of cranial-anal inversion - not to mention chronic defeatism - is satisfied to simply replicate the old time and again, and tells us to get used to it. He tells us that only people with money can afford to make new ideas work. He's dead wrong, but you can't expect a man with no other skills outside of game publishing to care about anything besides money when it comes to games, considering that it's the whole of his livelihood. Just because big titles carry big budgets doesn't mean that new ideas can't take root in the independent side of the playing field. Money isn't really the huge factor here, it's the ideas themselves and who has them.
In other words, nothing to see here. Just near-mindless droning from another cynic with a rather skewed and defeated view of the gaming world. The reality of it is, even if no new and huge genres are going to emerge any time in the near future, significant and more than incremential innovation can, does, and will take place, and it won't just be from the big names. People working for big name studios have more money to throw around - but the big names are only concerned with meeting the status quo, to make ends meet. The independent developers are likely to follow the popular models to get themselves established, or much like Mr. Vogel, they just don't have many good ideas. Big leaps are and have almost always been rare, and it's hard to tell just where they'll come from. Much like Haley's Comet, though, just because you only see it once in a lifetime doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
In order to cater to an Indian market, we would actually have to produce goods to export. The last time I bought anything that was produced in a factory, it had a sticker on it telling me what other country it was from - usually China. (And most 'American made' products, as Wal-Mart was so kind to show us a few years back, are only assembled or packaged here, with the rest of the work being done overseas.) Due to the fact that most of the manufacturing jobs in America have been outsourced to one place or another, and that beginning a manufacturing-oriented business is very expensive, I don't think anybody is going to be taking advantage of that market any time soon, especially not farmers. What Bush is saying, essentially, is that we should welcome outsourcing and become competitive - by accepting fast-food salaries to work in unsafe factories owned by foreign companies. Meanwhile, we should export all the resources and materials - namely food, it would seem - we can spare, since we aren't doing anything with them.
Slashdot Mirror
The Megazeux GCS community calls this kind of thing the 'Day of Zeux', and it's quite fun. Creating a game in a 24-hour timespan isn't new, but it's still pretty interesting.
J. Allard, eh? So does this mean that this handheld will also fit his vision of an 'open chips and cards' console? I can see it now, the Microsoft X-Brick... Weighs twice as much as the original X-box controller, is half as ergonomic, and also doubles as a portable space heater. Why can't they hire someone who actually has an ounce of common sense when it comes to design when they do these things?
... but no shit, Sherlock. That's like saying that we just discovered that severe weather is more likely to occur in zones of low atmospheric pressure. I thought this was supposed to be news for nerds, not news for people that flunked out of middle-school Earth science class.
Independing programmers and Open Source advocates discover that organization leads to increased productivity. Shouldn't this have been a gigantic no-brainer from the start? That organizing a software project - or ANY project as others seem to have suddenly discovered - might make it work out better in the end?
You know, something tells me that if I ever get prostate cancer, I'm just going to have to say no to this one. Something tells me that shoving hot peppers up my ass just isn't worth it.
I can see the headline now.
"Disaster strikes at Los Alamos when cybernetically enhanced insects designed for tactical germ warfare escape captivity; hundreds reported dead and critically injured."
Before I go on, I'd just like to say that DARPA has some really sick, sadistic fucks in its ranks. I don't care just how many of their inventions have made the trek from tactical to practical. Nothing DARPA has ever made was made without the idea of killing someone in mind, and these cyberslave insects are no exception.
It says in the article that wasps were one of DARPA's prime candidates for cyberization. Something about that seems odd to me, since moths would make much better bombsniffers - best sense of smell in the animal kingdom - and something like a large fly would probably make a faster and less conspicuous transmitter. Wasps and their cousins, however, know another trick - they sting, and they're pretty damn good at it. It's also possible that if wasps or hornets consume the flesh of a dead poisonous snake or chew up wood treated with certain compounds to build their nests, they can absorb some of these substances into their bodies with no ill effects to themselves. When they sting someone or something, though, all the toxins they absorbed get passed along with their own venom, with potentially grave consequences. This is one reason that if you find a dead rattlesnake on your property, you want to dispose of it safely - if the bees get a hold of it, suddenly getting stung is a very big deal even if you aren't allergic.
I'd venture to say that DARPA wanted an aggressive, resilient insect like a wasp or a hornet not because they're good fliers or because they're social, but because they sting and can sting many times without dying. They're ideal for tactical chemical and germ warfare, and a swarm of these bugs implanted with microchips and a small payload of a toxic agent or some kind of deadly germ could wipe out an entire town within minutes, or tear ass through entire platoons of soldiers in the blink of an eye. They might have come up with the idea of using these things for surveillance, security, and communications after the fact, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that these things were designed to kill. It is DARPA, after all.
What you see as a bombsniffing bug or a discrete microtransmitter today will be an army of micro-assassins tomorrow. I'm just glad that instinct took over in the case of the wasps, for now anyway...
A double-helix floating around the nucleus of our galaxy? Eerie coincidence.
This is to be expected. After all, when the feds are so busy watching us, how can we expect them to take care of themselves? Same goes for their network security. If they're so goddamn busy cracking into our E-mails and our home and corporate networks, they can't possibly be expected to secure their own, can they?
All of this, after they discover China's been operating a massive hacking campaign over here in the United States. You have to wonder if they're not just trying to screw up.
Okay. So the U.S. internet usage is stalling out because it's too expensive and insecure. How might we go about fixing some of this crap, anyway? Some insights and suggestions...
1. Dialup shouldn't be a third of the cost of cable, and cable shouldn't be a third of the cost of my electric bill. Dropping the cost of high speed internet would speed up its rate of adoption here in the U.S. - after all, aren't we 16th in global per-capita broadband usage? The increased rate of adoption would lead to more customers overall, which equals more money for the ISPs total. (If they'd cut the cost of cable in half here, I can assure their customer base would more than double, more than making up for the cost.) Of course, this won't happen as soon as tiered internet connections become a reality, since things like cable connections will price-hike again into the enterprise pricing range...
2. It sure would be nice if there was less hardware involved. I know it's a necessity, this whole business with routers and switches and modems and such, but rolling some of this stuff up into one single box would make a lot of people I know a lot less reluctant to get on the broadband bandwagon. It's a bit more complex than most users want to deal with, and it's pretty expensive to boot. Most people here shy away from the net - especially high speed internet connections - because of the hidden hardware costs piled on top of the huge monthly cost, and having one single box that does everything for a comparatively low price would be swell.
3. If end users want better security, they're just going to have to learn about their goddamn computers. That's all there is to it. User ignorance is the number one cause of security breaches, and idiot-proofing software and hardware just obfuscates it further for the legitimate, learned end user. However, it'd also be nice to, for the occasions upon which we all slip up, have a good professional antivirus package that works and doesn't cost some 40-60 dollars with bullshit subscription fees thrown in. Just because.
Might I also add that computers and the internet are really losing their luster. I won't argue that the internet doesn't have near boundless potential, and I won't argue that computers don't have the same, but they're no longer the amazing, totally new, super-futuristic gizmos of tomorrow. Not even gaming computers are really advancing by leaps and bounds anymore, and overall they just seem like a family of old, overcomplicated, overhyped machines to the average person out there today. So in short, not only are most users underqualified in the common sense department to use the internet safely, and underbudgeted to afford to do so, but the internet just isn't worth it to a lot of people out there even if they can and know how to log on.
It's not like it'd be a big difference if Dell did buy out Alienware. It used to be back a few years ago that Alienware computers were the envy of the gaming world. You got a fully loaded, high quality computer with a very attractive case and very nice peripherals, and an even more attractive warranty and support package. You could rest completely assured that it'd play anything, and play it better than any other gaming computer on the market, and if it broke, you'd get it fixed right away. Of course, times change. Dell computers used to be a hot item, too.
Now that Alienware has sunk to Dell's inferior standards, it's only logical that they allow themselves to be bought out. Dell and Alienware are practically the same thing, only one of them sells office hardware and servers, too. Think about it - overpriced, overhyped piece of shit computers sold in attractive cases? Piss-poor technical support that can't speak a word of English? The only thing these two companies still have going for them is a barely-par warranty package, and even then they're both flaky about that. They're both washed-up computer manufacturers peddling electronic turds wrapped in pretty packages.
What a drag, but hey. If you're going to build a computer right, you do it yourself.
And Jack Thompson says that GTA is the video game version of the devil incarnate. Jesus Christ, somebody call a fucking priest. That game needs an exorcism.
Ah, in that case I stand corrected. (After reading this, I revisited the test - The nose does turn blue.) Opera does indeed win the internet.
Firefox comes pretty close to passing the test, but not quite. Its performance falls somewhere between Opera 7.5 and 8.0, but sadly I haven't the means to post my own screenshot. However, curious users can go ahead and take the test themselves right here: http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html
Also, It would appear that Opera 9 has just one thing wrong - the nose. It's not supposed to be blue, it's supposed to be black, as per the sample rendering here: http://webstandards.org/act/acid2/reference.html
I would've expected dancing rainbow-colored bears, honestly.
This is a pretty amazing claim. The writer of the article clearly fucked up in a few places, but still, the bottom line is that the scientists conducting this experiment are claiming that more energy was released than what was put in. If they're correct, and if they can reproduce these results and figure out what exactly is going on here, we could really be on to something. I've heard hydrino theory and fusion be brought up a couple times. Maybe it's one or the other, or even both? Or some other form of crazydoom at work? I'm certainly curious about it, myself.
Isn't that how the plot of Doom 3 started out?
"I could've sworn I was going to have my bone tissues replaced, but somehow my femur feels a lot like a kidney today..."
... pairs of males can't procreate. No, the Star Trek universe does not afford a real work-around for this problem, and procreation and replication via androids just isn't feasible.
... Since I'm pretty sure there are plenty of things the government would rather pay for than satellite programs to monitor our increasingly volatile climate. Like programs to monitor people. No, let's just forget those nasty hurricanes that came and totally stomped our asses last year, and the weather patterns and climatic changes that spawned them. We have a resource war to pay for, and clearly the entire goddamn planet takes second place. Of course, since NASA seems to believe in witchcraft like 'global warming' and other such heresy, they probably don't deserve the money anyway. (Insert obvious sarcasm here.) Let's just watch the satellites drop while we piss into the wind, getting blown away while our tax dollars are squandered on other clearly more important 'projects'.
Being a veteran of the Cisco Networking Academy - I survived the courses with only a handful of brain hemmorhages - I hope that an open alternative to Cisco's software will accomplish the following, as these are the problems I observed in Cisco's products...
1. Cisco's IOS interface is about as clear as a brick wall. Granted, this is an incredible form of idiot-proofing - the interface makes sense, once you study everything there is to know about it. However, you absolutely positively can -not- log into a Cisco enterprise router and have even the foggiest idea as to what's going on unless you've studied them before. Furthermore, the IOS does as little for you as possible, which is a good thing from a security standpoint... However, it would be nice if there was a work-around - a nice, clean GUI or something, accessible only from a physical connection to the router, perhaps - so people that haven't spent nearly a decade busting their brains over the hardware can at least perform basic maintenance.
2. Dropping the cost of good routing and switching hardware would be wonderful. The routers and switches my school had cost in excess of $2,500 each, sometimes more, and they were older models at that. Furthermore - and this ties back into the previous statement - not having to hire people with four to eight years of schooling behind them just to manage a damn router would also drop the cost of managing an enterpise-grade network. (Granted, the people that are most likely to want to purchase this kind of hardware probably also have the money to do so, but at any rate, that's no small wad of cash.)
3. I personally think it'd be really nice to be able to actually go in and tweak the hardware and software with a much greater level of precision than what Cisco's IOS allows. This would also allow for you to expand your harware without actually having to buy or build another router. I can't help but wonder if there'd be any point or improvement in clustering a home-made router and switch... Or a server, or whatever. Long story short, being able to actually reach in and mess with the stuff without violating some kind of warranty would be nice.
I'm not about to say that Cisco is bad as a company. Cisco and their subsidiaries - Linksys immediately comes to mind - provide excellent service, and their products aren't half bad either. There are simply some issues that could be resolved by actually having access to the codebase of the software and being able to manipulate the hardware, in addition to new possibilities unlocked by the same. Cisco's track record aside, though, this is really a step in the right direction. The next thing I'd like to see are some people seeking to break into the business coming in with keyboards and soldering irons blazing, to see what can be done with this software - and some new hardware to go with it. Additionally, to make this program attractive to big business, it's going to have to make serious strides in terms of how much it can support, but if the project doesn't tank, that'd be great.
I think we all know what's going to happen next. Either the remaining Baby Bells will merge with the new Big Bell, or they'll establish mutually beneficial ties with one another behind closed doors to make it look like Bell isn't back when it really is.
In other news, the zombie of Harold Greene has been reported roaming about the countryside vandalizing telephone booths, muttering something about 'Humpty Dumpty' and a monolith somewhere...
What a joke, and to think I stumbled upon this gem a day late.
Before I continue, one of the underlying points Mr. Vogel was trying to make here is definitely true. Independent game developers and studios are by no means a fountain of innovation, and are in my opinion more likely to reproduce a popular model rather than innovate in order to get their foot in the door. That way, their chances of success are much higher, because they've taken something that was already good and at least reproduced - if not improved - it. The big studios don't have to worry too much about money lost to experiments, and are thus more likely to try new things - and damn the consequences of failing to find a niche in the market if they do. Furthermore, he made it very clear that innovation tends to occur gradually, in a sense of evolution, rather than rapid mutation. Most indie studios that are replicating something that's been done before do try to add their own twists to the model - this is what makes them stand out enough for people to pay attention.
However, Mr. Vogel is quite wrong about a few things, too. This is the kind of commentary I'd expect out of a cynical independent ripoff artist in action, really. You know, the kind of person who is too afraid and closed-minded to try anything new, partly because he doesn't want to lose his money or reputation - a sound judgement - and partly because he just doesn't seem to want to try. You can deny all you want that the Exile and Avernum series aren't blatant ripoffs of Ultima - personally, I loved Exile regardless, if only for the story - but they are. Avernum, a polished up Exile, is Ultima in new clothes. This man and his studio have been responsible for very little noteworthy innovation, and well, like they say, Pot, meet Kettle.
Huge innovative leaps on both a technical and gameplay level occur in the field of gaming from time to time, and it's really a 50-50 chance of those innovative leaps coming from a big studio or an independent developer. Just like any creative field, innovation can either occur incrementially, as he implied that it always does, or it can occur massively and with outstanding results. (Sim City, anyone?) Mr. Vogel, who clearly suffers from a serious case of cranial-anal inversion - not to mention chronic defeatism - is satisfied to simply replicate the old time and again, and tells us to get used to it. He tells us that only people with money can afford to make new ideas work. He's dead wrong, but you can't expect a man with no other skills outside of game publishing to care about anything besides money when it comes to games, considering that it's the whole of his livelihood. Just because big titles carry big budgets doesn't mean that new ideas can't take root in the independent side of the playing field. Money isn't really the huge factor here, it's the ideas themselves and who has them.
In other words, nothing to see here. Just near-mindless droning from another cynic with a rather skewed and defeated view of the gaming world. The reality of it is, even if no new and huge genres are going to emerge any time in the near future, significant and more than incremential innovation can, does, and will take place, and it won't just be from the big names. People working for big name studios have more money to throw around - but the big names are only concerned with meeting the status quo, to make ends meet. The independent developers are likely to follow the popular models to get themselves established, or much like Mr. Vogel, they just don't have many good ideas. Big leaps are and have almost always been rare, and it's hard to tell just where they'll come from. Much like Haley's Comet, though, just because you only see it once in a lifetime doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.
In order to cater to an Indian market, we would actually have to produce goods to export. The last time I bought anything that was produced in a factory, it had a sticker on it telling me what other country it was from - usually China. (And most 'American made' products, as Wal-Mart was so kind to show us a few years back, are only assembled or packaged here, with the rest of the work being done overseas.) Due to the fact that most of the manufacturing jobs in America have been outsourced to one place or another, and that beginning a manufacturing-oriented business is very expensive, I don't think anybody is going to be taking advantage of that market any time soon, especially not farmers. What Bush is saying, essentially, is that we should welcome outsourcing and become competitive - by accepting fast-food salaries to work in unsafe factories owned by foreign companies. Meanwhile, we should export all the resources and materials - namely food, it would seem - we can spare, since we aren't doing anything with them.
The man just gets dumber, doesn't he?
I wasn't aware that those could be lobotomized, to be honest with you...
Step 1: Lobotomize sharks. ...
Step 2:
Step 3: PROFIT!