Yeah, in elementary school they taught us that the box was called the CPU. All of the movies and worksheets sent to us by one of the PC giants of the time had it labeled thusly...
We'll start from the bottom- You forget that most of the brilliant minds of the Renaissance still maintained Christianity, they just broke away from much of the legalism that the Catholic Church employed. Unfortunately, post-Scientific Revolution people are much too engrained in the thought process that faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive. Assuming that the Big Bang is true (although there are some recent theories that are reforming our idea of that event to various degress), one must realize the natural law of Causality- every natural thing must have a cause. What caused the first thing, which by defintition did not have anything natural to cause it, but must have a cause. The only explanation I've found that seems plausible is that there is indeed something supernatural which set the events of the Big Bang into motion. Seems logical enough to me- although of course both events, as well as most of the events of evolution, have little direct observation, and far too much indirect observation to be completely scientifically sound at this point.
And as far as your comment regarding "official representatives of the local volcano god" are concerned, I'll say that no one needs a priest or minister or anyone else to gain salvation- you don't even need a Bible. They just need to know some facts- anyone reading my original post has pretty much all the information he needs. And believe me, I have no psychological perversion. I just have a healthy realization of the fact that I'm not perfect (which of course no one is), and the simple logic to dictate that if one needs perfection to achieve paradise, and I am not perfect, then I need some way to become perfect to achieve said perfection. I also know that I could go out and do whatever I want sexually or otherwise, and still gain foundation. To assume that one does not need to make any changes to achiever perfection is nothing short of megalomaniacy.
And although I could cite a few atheist historic documents from Greece written the same year Jesus died, observing things such as the eclipse that occured as Jesus died (which, by the way, was not scheduled on the normal eclipse calendar), I doubt you would give them credence either. And while you may believe that the term "open-minded believers" is as moronic as "War is Peace," I'd like to invite you to consider the fact that in actively not believing in Christianity or any other religion, you are still choosing a belief. And the fact that you taunt the reliability of one thing you cannot say you personally witnessed, yet believe firmly in another event you cannot say you personally witnessed, you are being close-minded. So wouldn't you then be a "close-minded believer"? Just a thought. Every nonbelief is a belief.
The part of the Christian "caveat" as you call it that human nature tends to glaze over, however, is that you have to actually truly be repentant for your actions. While God is willing to forgive each and every sin of a person, killing your neighbor and then saying "oops, my bad:-D" doesn't really fly with God.
The other thing that most people don't realize is that you're not a Christian just because you "prayed the prayer" or walked down the aisle one Sunday morning. The core of Christianity is a little hard to express to a cynic, but it actually is like that cliche "forming a relationship with Christ." Everybody sins, and every single sin (even that little white lie) spells eternal death for you. Christ comes along and offers to pay off your debt (eternity in Hell). So you accept, and (in the case of a true Christian) become enormously grateful to him. And even though he'll forgive you each time you mess up and break one of the Commandments (which are still there to be obeyed), you do your best to follow the rules because you don't want him to foot any larger of a bill.
In a few words, it's like this: a Christian knows that even though he *could* sin and repent, he chooses of his own free will not to sin whenever possible, out of respect for Christ. Unfortunately, the fact that there *are* moral laws listed in the Bible allows the legalistic, sadistic side of man (all man) to come out, and that's where you end up with holy wars and all of that. One thing that I've found very uncommon in older generations, but increasingly existant in my teenaged peers is the realization that the only thing we can do to bring someone to God is to not rain fire and brimstone onto them, but to tell them that God comes to people as they are, and works with them. If we had to be perfect even to be given the chance of forgiveness, Heaven would be completely devoid of human souls.
Especially today, people make a big noise about homosexuals not being able to become Christians because they're living in sin. But they forget that all sin is equal, and that they lied to their boss yesterday. They're just as bad off as the homosexual. The Christian philosophy is designed to be 100% inclusive of each of the 6 billion plus screw-ups walking this planet, but people always feel the need to have their little clubs that they can feel powerful in, so they make the religion out to be some exclusive thing for non-sinners, who don't exist in the first place. While this may sound like a good argument for unorganized religion, it's been my experience that it helps tremendously to be able to commune with fellow (open-minded) believers and share what we've learned.
Now I don't have any real evidence for this, but I was at the Apple store the other day checking out laptops for college, and the employee recommended that when I make my purchase this summer, instead of getting an MBP, I should get a MacBook, and wait for a dock they're coming out with that has a secondary processor in it, along with a 30" cinema display. Like I said, this could just be hearsay, but But I dunno why he'd lie about that, because downselling to a cheaper laptop isn't a good idea unless they can sell more equipment. And I'm not buying a $2,000 cinema if i don't have a dock for a keyboard and mouse.
i find it odd that there are several *videos* of people playing the Wii, whose straps *just happen* to break on camera. I dunno about the rest of the world, but where I live, we don't tend to record ourselves playing video games so we can come back in 6 months and laugh at ourselves... And although the video probably isn't doctored, it wouldn't be hard to snip part of the strap so it would break during a conveniently recorded game session.
Yeah, it zeems like TP is a rarity as far as depth goes anymore. It would have been very easy for them to make the game simpler than OOT, but I'm in the same spot you are. It seems to me that unlike most developers, Miyamoto started with his core ideas and built up, instead of starting with a good plot and shaving things from it as the project ages. And you know TP's gonna last quite a bit longer with one more dungeon than OOT, and the fact that they're making you collect five heart pieces per heart instead of four.
Now back to the game (alright, I fibbed, I'm just about to get the MS, but it will be irrelevant here in a few minutes).
yup, illuminous is a real word, and it means bright, or revealing. And I never hear aqua used (except for the occasional reference to the color). I hear 'water' a lot, and 'aquatic' which is obviously derived from aqua, but that's it. I can't think of anybody ever telling me, "man, i sure could go for a nice bottle of aqua!" Granted, 'illuminous' isn't too common either, but I've probably heard it used about as man times as 'aqua'. And when you read the word 'illuminous' didn't you immediately make the connection to light? Maybe I'm just weird, but I did...
and to rebutt your statement that aqua is more recognisable and therefore produces better imagery than illuminous, I'm not arguing against that point- I'm simply giving my take on Apple's possible logic in the new name. They're trying (if the new name is real) to portray the image of the new GUI being able to better the data and functions you need. I can't think of a word similar in meaning to 'illuminous' that would fit the bill better while maintaining a sort of chic. 'bright' just doesn't cut it as a cool name, and neither does 'revealing'
I dunno, I'd say Illuminous (or at least its relative illuminate) is in use probably as much as the word 'aqua'. Besides, if you think about it, it makes sense- 'aqua' is a relatively uncommon synonym for 'water', and 'illuminous' is a relatively uncommon synonym for 'bright'. Both 'bright' and 'water' are short, simple words we use on an everyday basis, but 'aqua' and 'illuminous' are more interesting, and produce better imagry.
And honestly, how much does the average person use the word 'aperture' on a regular basis?
I agree completely with this. Nobody I know with a 360, including myself, uses it for media, and few even actively connect to Live at this point (although I'm sure that will change as soon as Halo 3 comes out). And several of these people camped with me to get Wiis, dispite already owning a graphically-superior console. Why? Because we all want to play Zelda, we all want to use the Wiimote to play said zelda, and we all think Wii Sports is a great idea, and that the little "graphically inferior" Miis look funny. It's fun to be able to throw in a game with now learning curve and have our parents and girlfriends play with us. Plus, there are several franchise games coming out soon that I know I'll enjoy (Smash Brothers, anyone?), along with games like Rayman and Monkey Ball, which I can play with my non-gaming family. I understand Nintendo *might* release a DVD playing Wii around this time next year anway, in which case I may pick one up simply because i'll be heading to college and can leave my current Wii with my family. But if not, it'll only cost me 50 bucks max for an actual DVD player, so it's not big loss.
And to correct the grandparent post quoted in the parent, the wii actually costs $250, which may or may not be splitting hairs, depending on who you talk to. Even though the price is only $50 cheaper than the base 360, its perceived to be a much better deal by some for whatever reason...
I wouldn't agree that it will take a PS4 to kill off the PS line- there's a lot of press out in all media that's already declaring the Wii as the winner over the PS3 (whether that shows to be correct or not), citing the early sales numbers, and the ease with which non-gamers are taking to the Wii. Plus, the $600 price tag is daunting for non-l33tgamers, even if the technology is worth much more than that- there's still a perceived price ceiling with consoles that the 360 seemed to actually push against, and Sony has jumped completely over. The average person (read: parent shopping for christmas) looks at a game console, sees a $600 price tag, and does a double take. They then look next door, see a $400 or a $250 price tag, and find either one preferable, even though $400 comes close to the perceived ceiling (which I'm estimating to be an average of $500 for consoles). You combine this with all the attention the Wii has been getting in n00b circles as an easy-to-use, family friendly console, and the semi-negative press about the PS3 being mainly for "true gamers" with HDTV's, and I would expect Sony's market share to fall considerably. Plus, the explosive sales of DSs among non-gaming adults and the relative failure of the PSP opens another door in Nintendo's favor.
I would also expect that the 360 will gain market share from the PS3 as games such as GTA become available on both platforms, and before developers (well, those who stay with Sony anyway) begin to optimize the PS3 graphics-wise. By the time this happens, there may not be much of the system left anyway. And worse-case scenario for Sony, if they lose enough in system sales, and don't recoup the amount, the entire company may fail or at least downsize drastically, considering the problems they've had in other areas, such as laptop batteries and digital cameras
I agree- I was able to get my mom to *try* Wii Sports. I could never get her to even pick up a '64 controller, much less anything from this generation. I even bought her the Namco Museum pack, which she used to play religiously at arcades when she was a teen. Nothing worked. But I got her to pick up the controller and try bowling.
There was a learning curve there, but it was mainly just the coordination of buttons and all of that stuff that we gamers already have covered. It took her about two seconds to get the actual motion sensing down. In fact, she completely trounced me the second game...
My understanding is that it came from some derivation or another of D&D. It means "Wow! Loot!" I don't know if it came from a specific event or if it was just a joke someone came up during a dungeon crawl that worked it's way through the geek world.
Actually, I would imagine that the majority of the clocks in the shuttle are based on mission time, and then relate that back to standard time, based on the standard date/time of the mission's launch. I think the problem may arise when the clock reaches its maximum of 23.59 on 12.31 and doesn't have the logic to roll the date back to the smaller date of 01.01. And adding said code throught the entire shuttle system could cause certain programs to execute out of sync with other programs, causing major problems. If the mission is simply delayed until 01.01, then the computer never has to worry about relating its ever-increasing mission time to a suddenly decreasing date. IMHO, it will probably not be a huge deal to delay a launch until after new year's, especially because staffing is going to be a larger issue during the holiday season, and with any luck we'll be replacing the shuttle with NASA's new designs within a few years anyway, at which point I'm sure they'll work in a year-change protocol and make sure to sync it with other systems from the initial design. Remember that the shuttle uses virtually the same exact hardware and software it did in the 1970's, in the infantile days of computing, decades before the Y2K scare existed. The processors on the shuttle are hecka slow, and a loss of a single cycle in snychrinization is a lot more than losing a cycle at today's high speed, multicore processors. Plus, NASA already has been walking on glass with Congress lately, hasn't been getting enough budget to update systems or (preferably) design a whole new rocket yet. They can't afford another serious mistake to occur and have their astronauts die and their funding pulled all because they wanted to run a mission on New Year's Eve.
actually, NASA's budget isn't really that large in the long run- hence using the same spacecraft over and over since the 1970's. And they can't afford to change up their programming to account for something like year changes (which they can simply dodge by not running missions at New Year's), and have some unforseen bug arise in the program and destroy another shuttle. Not only would it cost the lives of more of our nation's "best and brightest," but it would likely be the last straw in an already rickety relationship between Capitol Hill and NASA, spelling the organization's end. It's a shame, but politicians seem not to realize the potential space offers for everything from communication to defense and the like.
How is comparing the circumstances of the PS and PS2's release to that of the PS3's release "erroneaously using experiennce from a younger, less mature, less saturated market"? Look at the PS2 from an innovation standpoint. They didn't do anyting new with their system, besides allow you to watch DVDs on it. The fact of the matter is that they released an increase in prcessor and graphics power, and their timing allowed them to charge $300 for them. The Gamecube released more power a year later for less money, and people still bought the PS2 because it had been able to get the jump on the competition and build up a decent library. PS3 doesn't have this advantage. It's a year behind the 360, barely releasing before the Wii, and again is basically an increase in power (albeit a large one). And in reply to my sibling post, I find it unlikely that the price-cap consumers are willing to pay would jump from $300 to $600 within a generation. While there will of course be people willing to pay that much for a system, especially one as powerful as the 3, I've found that in my area at least (and we're not exactly low income), the price is actually turning people away from Sony fandom long enough to discover the Wii, which is relatively affordable, and has a control scheme interesting enough to draw people's attention. In fact, I know of several nongamers who are planning to buy the new Nintendo system for Christmas, while only one or two of my friends are still holding out for that PS3.
Large businesses normally get a special enterprise liscense that is designed to be quickly installed across many PCs, and therefore doesn't have the restrictions of the normal Windows OS. You don't have to put in an activation code in the first place, much less reactivate with any hardware changes- I've upgraded several things over time in my Work PC that runs this liscense, and it's never so much as mentioned it. I do agree that if Windows wants to keep the small businesses, they should have something similar to help testers out.
Well it just so happens that I (along with most of the people I know personally with 360s) don't have 720p or 5.1 surround. I'm just playing on a standard TV with stereo anyway. I might as well go watch the ad online for free (on a PC with better-than-hi res and 5.1 surround), rather than pay a monthly rate to have the right to pipe advertising to my 'box.
Hmm I was under the impression that the Wii's CPU (Broadway), although designed from IBM, was designed almost from scratch, and bears very little resemblance to the PowerPC architecture (which Xbox 360 uses).
I'd have to say my top five are:
1. Super Smash Brothers/ Melee
2. Any SMB game, except SMB2
3. World of Warcraft
4. Pokemon Blue (wanna fight about it?)
5. Tetris
The list isn't in any particular order, except for I enjoy SSBM the most when I'm stressed out and need to beat something to a pulp.
I know! Master Chief is really a girl under that suit, like all good futuristic helmet-wearing warriors are! Bungie obviously took a page out of Metroid's book for the final surprise at the end of Halo 3.
yeah, but it would be just plain dumb of Apple to release a full version of Boot Camp, and only support the soon-to-be outdated OS. As soon as Vista ships, Apple will be developing drivers to optimize it on their computers.
Way to flame the guy whose analysis agrees with your assumed stance that the plant will be profitable, even though he didn't take the time to write up a complete economic report on the plant's next 20 years. He even stated that there would be profit he couldn't account for in the sludge and steam market. Also, I wouldn't neccesarily assume that the plant will be making money concerning the trash disposal service, as the trash disposal is handled by private contractors who draw accounts with each house individually, as it is in my area (and, addressing a hypothetical case seprate from that in FL, coudln't the plant be developed by a private energy company as well?). In that case, they'd have to set up a deal of some sorts to get the trash from the contractor (though I'm not entirely sure whether they'd be buying the trash or selling the convenience to the collectors... my guess would be on the collector wanting to sell their trash). This is of course unless both the plant and trash collection are owned by the county. Before you flame me as well, I'd like to disclaim the fact that I am simply a high school student typing away at 3 in the morning.
Oh, and in your fervor to prove yourself more intelligent than your grandparent poster, you used the incorrect form of "too." Just thought you should know.
Well, either the steam is contained within the garbage being vaporized and is just a by-product like the sludge, or originates with water used to cool the by-product sludge and other areas of the process down to a efficient/manageable level. Either way, the steam is then being put to use in a factory, which keeps the factory from using energy to produce their own steam, and therefore would probably be more efficient than trying to transform the heat energy in the water to electricity (especially when tropicana would then have to turn around and create their own steam).
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Yeah, in elementary school they taught us that the box was called the CPU. All of the movies and worksheets sent to us by one of the PC giants of the time had it labeled thusly...
We'll start from the bottom- You forget that most of the brilliant minds of the Renaissance still maintained Christianity, they just broke away from much of the legalism that the Catholic Church employed. Unfortunately, post-Scientific Revolution people are much too engrained in the thought process that faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive. Assuming that the Big Bang is true (although there are some recent theories that are reforming our idea of that event to various degress), one must realize the natural law of Causality- every natural thing must have a cause. What caused the first thing, which by defintition did not have anything natural to cause it, but must have a cause. The only explanation I've found that seems plausible is that there is indeed something supernatural which set the events of the Big Bang into motion. Seems logical enough to me- although of course both events, as well as most of the events of evolution, have little direct observation, and far too much indirect observation to be completely scientifically sound at this point. And as far as your comment regarding "official representatives of the local volcano god" are concerned, I'll say that no one needs a priest or minister or anyone else to gain salvation- you don't even need a Bible. They just need to know some facts- anyone reading my original post has pretty much all the information he needs. And believe me, I have no psychological perversion. I just have a healthy realization of the fact that I'm not perfect (which of course no one is), and the simple logic to dictate that if one needs perfection to achieve paradise, and I am not perfect, then I need some way to become perfect to achieve said perfection. I also know that I could go out and do whatever I want sexually or otherwise, and still gain foundation. To assume that one does not need to make any changes to achiever perfection is nothing short of megalomaniacy. And although I could cite a few atheist historic documents from Greece written the same year Jesus died, observing things such as the eclipse that occured as Jesus died (which, by the way, was not scheduled on the normal eclipse calendar), I doubt you would give them credence either. And while you may believe that the term "open-minded believers" is as moronic as "War is Peace," I'd like to invite you to consider the fact that in actively not believing in Christianity or any other religion, you are still choosing a belief. And the fact that you taunt the reliability of one thing you cannot say you personally witnessed, yet believe firmly in another event you cannot say you personally witnessed, you are being close-minded. So wouldn't you then be a "close-minded believer"? Just a thought. Every nonbelief is a belief.
That would be Star Trek Elite Force I and II I believe.
apoligies for the lack of paragraphs, I forgot to "preview" and the site erased my returns.
The part of the Christian "caveat" as you call it that human nature tends to glaze over, however, is that you have to actually truly be repentant for your actions. While God is willing to forgive each and every sin of a person, killing your neighbor and then saying "oops, my bad :-D" doesn't really fly with God.
The other thing that most people don't realize is that you're not a Christian just because you "prayed the prayer" or walked down the aisle one Sunday morning. The core of Christianity is a little hard to express to a cynic, but it actually is like that cliche "forming a relationship with Christ." Everybody sins, and every single sin (even that little white lie) spells eternal death for you. Christ comes along and offers to pay off your debt (eternity in Hell). So you accept, and (in the case of a true Christian) become enormously grateful to him. And even though he'll forgive you each time you mess up and break one of the Commandments (which are still there to be obeyed), you do your best to follow the rules because you don't want him to foot any larger of a bill.
In a few words, it's like this: a Christian knows that even though he *could* sin and repent, he chooses of his own free will not to sin whenever possible, out of respect for Christ. Unfortunately, the fact that there *are* moral laws listed in the Bible allows the legalistic, sadistic side of man (all man) to come out, and that's where you end up with holy wars and all of that. One thing that I've found very uncommon in older generations, but increasingly existant in my teenaged peers is the realization that the only thing we can do to bring someone to God is to not rain fire and brimstone onto them, but to tell them that God comes to people as they are, and works with them. If we had to be perfect even to be given the chance of forgiveness, Heaven would be completely devoid of human souls.
Especially today, people make a big noise about homosexuals not being able to become Christians because they're living in sin. But they forget that all sin is equal, and that they lied to their boss yesterday. They're just as bad off as the homosexual. The Christian philosophy is designed to be 100% inclusive of each of the 6 billion plus screw-ups walking this planet, but people always feel the need to have their little clubs that they can feel powerful in, so they make the religion out to be some exclusive thing for non-sinners, who don't exist in the first place. While this may sound like a good argument for unorganized religion, it's been my experience that it helps tremendously to be able to commune with fellow (open-minded) believers and share what we've learned.
Now I don't have any real evidence for this, but I was at the Apple store the other day checking out laptops for college, and the employee recommended that when I make my purchase this summer, instead of getting an MBP, I should get a MacBook, and wait for a dock they're coming out with that has a secondary processor in it, along with a 30" cinema display. Like I said, this could just be hearsay, but But I dunno why he'd lie about that, because downselling to a cheaper laptop isn't a good idea unless they can sell more equipment. And I'm not buying a $2,000 cinema if i don't have a dock for a keyboard and mouse.
i find it odd that there are several *videos* of people playing the Wii, whose straps *just happen* to break on camera. I dunno about the rest of the world, but where I live, we don't tend to record ourselves playing video games so we can come back in 6 months and laugh at ourselves... And although the video probably isn't doctored, it wouldn't be hard to snip part of the strap so it would break during a conveniently recorded game session.
Yeah, it zeems like TP is a rarity as far as depth goes anymore. It would have been very easy for them to make the game simpler than OOT, but I'm in the same spot you are. It seems to me that unlike most developers, Miyamoto started with his core ideas and built up, instead of starting with a good plot and shaving things from it as the project ages. And you know TP's gonna last quite a bit longer with one more dungeon than OOT, and the fact that they're making you collect five heart pieces per heart instead of four. Now back to the game (alright, I fibbed, I'm just about to get the MS, but it will be irrelevant here in a few minutes).
yup, illuminous is a real word, and it means bright, or revealing. And I never hear aqua used (except for the occasional reference to the color). I hear 'water' a lot, and 'aquatic' which is obviously derived from aqua, but that's it. I can't think of anybody ever telling me, "man, i sure could go for a nice bottle of aqua!" Granted, 'illuminous' isn't too common either, but I've probably heard it used about as man times as 'aqua'. And when you read the word 'illuminous' didn't you immediately make the connection to light? Maybe I'm just weird, but I did... and to rebutt your statement that aqua is more recognisable and therefore produces better imagery than illuminous, I'm not arguing against that point- I'm simply giving my take on Apple's possible logic in the new name. They're trying (if the new name is real) to portray the image of the new GUI being able to better the data and functions you need. I can't think of a word similar in meaning to 'illuminous' that would fit the bill better while maintaining a sort of chic. 'bright' just doesn't cut it as a cool name, and neither does 'revealing'
I dunno, I'd say Illuminous (or at least its relative illuminate) is in use probably as much as the word 'aqua'. Besides, if you think about it, it makes sense- 'aqua' is a relatively uncommon synonym for 'water', and 'illuminous' is a relatively uncommon synonym for 'bright'. Both 'bright' and 'water' are short, simple words we use on an everyday basis, but 'aqua' and 'illuminous' are more interesting, and produce better imagry. And honestly, how much does the average person use the word 'aperture' on a regular basis?
I agree completely with this. Nobody I know with a 360, including myself, uses it for media, and few even actively connect to Live at this point (although I'm sure that will change as soon as Halo 3 comes out). And several of these people camped with me to get Wiis, dispite already owning a graphically-superior console. Why? Because we all want to play Zelda, we all want to use the Wiimote to play said zelda, and we all think Wii Sports is a great idea, and that the little "graphically inferior" Miis look funny. It's fun to be able to throw in a game with now learning curve and have our parents and girlfriends play with us. Plus, there are several franchise games coming out soon that I know I'll enjoy (Smash Brothers, anyone?), along with games like Rayman and Monkey Ball, which I can play with my non-gaming family. I understand Nintendo *might* release a DVD playing Wii around this time next year anway, in which case I may pick one up simply because i'll be heading to college and can leave my current Wii with my family. But if not, it'll only cost me 50 bucks max for an actual DVD player, so it's not big loss. And to correct the grandparent post quoted in the parent, the wii actually costs $250, which may or may not be splitting hairs, depending on who you talk to. Even though the price is only $50 cheaper than the base 360, its perceived to be a much better deal by some for whatever reason...
I wouldn't agree that it will take a PS4 to kill off the PS line- there's a lot of press out in all media that's already declaring the Wii as the winner over the PS3 (whether that shows to be correct or not), citing the early sales numbers, and the ease with which non-gamers are taking to the Wii. Plus, the $600 price tag is daunting for non-l33tgamers, even if the technology is worth much more than that- there's still a perceived price ceiling with consoles that the 360 seemed to actually push against, and Sony has jumped completely over. The average person (read: parent shopping for christmas) looks at a game console, sees a $600 price tag, and does a double take. They then look next door, see a $400 or a $250 price tag, and find either one preferable, even though $400 comes close to the perceived ceiling (which I'm estimating to be an average of $500 for consoles). You combine this with all the attention the Wii has been getting in n00b circles as an easy-to-use, family friendly console, and the semi-negative press about the PS3 being mainly for "true gamers" with HDTV's, and I would expect Sony's market share to fall considerably. Plus, the explosive sales of DSs among non-gaming adults and the relative failure of the PSP opens another door in Nintendo's favor. I would also expect that the 360 will gain market share from the PS3 as games such as GTA become available on both platforms, and before developers (well, those who stay with Sony anyway) begin to optimize the PS3 graphics-wise. By the time this happens, there may not be much of the system left anyway. And worse-case scenario for Sony, if they lose enough in system sales, and don't recoup the amount, the entire company may fail or at least downsize drastically, considering the problems they've had in other areas, such as laptop batteries and digital cameras
I agree- I was able to get my mom to *try* Wii Sports. I could never get her to even pick up a '64 controller, much less anything from this generation. I even bought her the Namco Museum pack, which she used to play religiously at arcades when she was a teen. Nothing worked. But I got her to pick up the controller and try bowling. There was a learning curve there, but it was mainly just the coordination of buttons and all of that stuff that we gamers already have covered. It took her about two seconds to get the actual motion sensing down. In fact, she completely trounced me the second game...
My understanding is that it came from some derivation or another of D&D. It means "Wow! Loot!" I don't know if it came from a specific event or if it was just a joke someone came up during a dungeon crawl that worked it's way through the geek world.
Actually, I would imagine that the majority of the clocks in the shuttle are based on mission time, and then relate that back to standard time, based on the standard date/time of the mission's launch. I think the problem may arise when the clock reaches its maximum of 23.59 on 12.31 and doesn't have the logic to roll the date back to the smaller date of 01.01. And adding said code throught the entire shuttle system could cause certain programs to execute out of sync with other programs, causing major problems. If the mission is simply delayed until 01.01, then the computer never has to worry about relating its ever-increasing mission time to a suddenly decreasing date. IMHO, it will probably not be a huge deal to delay a launch until after new year's, especially because staffing is going to be a larger issue during the holiday season, and with any luck we'll be replacing the shuttle with NASA's new designs within a few years anyway, at which point I'm sure they'll work in a year-change protocol and make sure to sync it with other systems from the initial design. Remember that the shuttle uses virtually the same exact hardware and software it did in the 1970's, in the infantile days of computing, decades before the Y2K scare existed. The processors on the shuttle are hecka slow, and a loss of a single cycle in snychrinization is a lot more than losing a cycle at today's high speed, multicore processors. Plus, NASA already has been walking on glass with Congress lately, hasn't been getting enough budget to update systems or (preferably) design a whole new rocket yet. They can't afford another serious mistake to occur and have their astronauts die and their funding pulled all because they wanted to run a mission on New Year's Eve.
actually, NASA's budget isn't really that large in the long run- hence using the same spacecraft over and over since the 1970's. And they can't afford to change up their programming to account for something like year changes (which they can simply dodge by not running missions at New Year's), and have some unforseen bug arise in the program and destroy another shuttle. Not only would it cost the lives of more of our nation's "best and brightest," but it would likely be the last straw in an already rickety relationship between Capitol Hill and NASA, spelling the organization's end. It's a shame, but politicians seem not to realize the potential space offers for everything from communication to defense and the like.
How is comparing the circumstances of the PS and PS2's release to that of the PS3's release "erroneaously using experiennce from a younger, less mature, less saturated market"? Look at the PS2 from an innovation standpoint. They didn't do anyting new with their system, besides allow you to watch DVDs on it. The fact of the matter is that they released an increase in prcessor and graphics power, and their timing allowed them to charge $300 for them. The Gamecube released more power a year later for less money, and people still bought the PS2 because it had been able to get the jump on the competition and build up a decent library. PS3 doesn't have this advantage. It's a year behind the 360, barely releasing before the Wii, and again is basically an increase in power (albeit a large one). And in reply to my sibling post, I find it unlikely that the price-cap consumers are willing to pay would jump from $300 to $600 within a generation. While there will of course be people willing to pay that much for a system, especially one as powerful as the 3, I've found that in my area at least (and we're not exactly low income), the price is actually turning people away from Sony fandom long enough to discover the Wii, which is relatively affordable, and has a control scheme interesting enough to draw people's attention. In fact, I know of several nongamers who are planning to buy the new Nintendo system for Christmas, while only one or two of my friends are still holding out for that PS3.
Large businesses normally get a special enterprise liscense that is designed to be quickly installed across many PCs, and therefore doesn't have the restrictions of the normal Windows OS. You don't have to put in an activation code in the first place, much less reactivate with any hardware changes- I've upgraded several things over time in my Work PC that runs this liscense, and it's never so much as mentioned it. I do agree that if Windows wants to keep the small businesses, they should have something similar to help testers out.
Well it just so happens that I (along with most of the people I know personally with 360s) don't have 720p or 5.1 surround. I'm just playing on a standard TV with stereo anyway. I might as well go watch the ad online for free (on a PC with better-than-hi res and 5.1 surround), rather than pay a monthly rate to have the right to pipe advertising to my 'box.
Hmm I was under the impression that the Wii's CPU (Broadway), although designed from IBM, was designed almost from scratch, and bears very little resemblance to the PowerPC architecture (which Xbox 360 uses).
I'd have to say my top five are: 1. Super Smash Brothers/ Melee 2. Any SMB game, except SMB2 3. World of Warcraft 4. Pokemon Blue (wanna fight about it?) 5. Tetris The list isn't in any particular order, except for I enjoy SSBM the most when I'm stressed out and need to beat something to a pulp.
I know! Master Chief is really a girl under that suit, like all good futuristic helmet-wearing warriors are! Bungie obviously took a page out of Metroid's book for the final surprise at the end of Halo 3.
yeah, but it would be just plain dumb of Apple to release a full version of Boot Camp, and only support the soon-to-be outdated OS. As soon as Vista ships, Apple will be developing drivers to optimize it on their computers.
Way to flame the guy whose analysis agrees with your assumed stance that the plant will be profitable, even though he didn't take the time to write up a complete economic report on the plant's next 20 years. He even stated that there would be profit he couldn't account for in the sludge and steam market. Also, I wouldn't neccesarily assume that the plant will be making money concerning the trash disposal service, as the trash disposal is handled by private contractors who draw accounts with each house individually, as it is in my area (and, addressing a hypothetical case seprate from that in FL, coudln't the plant be developed by a private energy company as well?). In that case, they'd have to set up a deal of some sorts to get the trash from the contractor (though I'm not entirely sure whether they'd be buying the trash or selling the convenience to the collectors... my guess would be on the collector wanting to sell their trash). This is of course unless both the plant and trash collection are owned by the county. Before you flame me as well, I'd like to disclaim the fact that I am simply a high school student typing away at 3 in the morning. Oh, and in your fervor to prove yourself more intelligent than your grandparent poster, you used the incorrect form of "too." Just thought you should know.
Well, either the steam is contained within the garbage being vaporized and is just a by-product like the sludge, or originates with water used to cool the by-product sludge and other areas of the process down to a efficient/manageable level. Either way, the steam is then being put to use in a factory, which keeps the factory from using energy to produce their own steam, and therefore would probably be more efficient than trying to transform the heat energy in the water to electricity (especially when tropicana would then have to turn around and create their own steam).