"I simply do not see how one can be excited for motion control ideas in the Wii and not in the PS3, even if there are differences in what motion can be detected."
That's exactly why one can be excited about the Wii and not the PS3's motion sensing. The whole concept is different.
The Wii offers a 'wand' that allows usage like every-day object. Golf clubs, tennis rackets, swords, guns, etc. You get more of a feeling that you are in the game.
The PS3 version allows... Uhh... Oh wait, they haven't really said what it allows. So we have a standard controller that can tell when you move or tilt it. Hmm... Boxing? Nope. Golf? Nope. Football? Nope. Swords, guns, weapons? Nope.
I can only think of 2 things that might interest me with Sony's. Flight simulation. And first person shooters. I think it could actually excel at FPS's. You run up to the corner and you want to learn around and take a look. With a standard controller, you press into the wall and holding a button... Not exactly realistic. With the PS3, you just run up to the corner, and then lean the controller over at an angle towards the direction you want to peer. Like magic. Of course, the Wii could do exactly the same thing with the left hand nun-chuk, while the right hand gets the run ready for when you jump out and start shooting.
Hmm... Yeah, can't imagine why we'd like one controller over another.
Oh, I fully agree that 'freedom of speech' is not 'freedom from consequences of speech'. Totally different animal.
There's another aspect of free speech that most people don't think about. I can use someone else's speech to judge them before I get involved with them. I use this on multiplayer video games all the time, and to a lesser extent, in real life. (As you said, they hide when they know there's consequences.) If I see someone named 'Goober2' I'll be cautious. '1337w@rri0r' is a definite avoid. 'Adamasius Horatius' is probably someone pretty safe to game with. I generally won't have to worry about translating their text back into English, and I pretty much know they aren't 'Leeroy Jenkins' in disguise.
Most people can't understand this, and don't use it. But I find online gaming a LOT less stressful by filtering people according to how they type/talk. I probably miss a few good people here and there, but I avoid the majority of the jerks, too.
It's the same with these blogs. These people are people I -know- I can avoid without any worries whatsoever. They are unlikely to do anything of great import and are simply mouths that can't controls themselves.
I do the same in real life, when someone goes all racist. I just ignore what they're saying, because they are either fools or horribly mis-informed, and you can't even trust them to be wrong, so you can't just believe the opposite of what they say.
Does it get my dander up when someone hits home with a discriminatory comment? Yes. But knowing to not just ignore it, but actually use the information gained... That's the key to regaining peace of mind.
Seriously, did you think about what you said? I'm going to assume you didn't say what you meant. I'm going to assume you meant 'Any blogs that are abusive, racist, or discriminatory should be removed from the internet'.
Everything offends someone. I'm offended by blogs that post goatse. (I'm sure I'm not the only one here.) Is that a reason to take their right to free speech away? How about people that think cars are 'sexy'. That offends me. How about...
No, there is no 'line' that you can draw and be sure that one side is 'speech that should be banned' and the other side is perfectly fine.
I think it's also quite a bit easier to 'take your skills to the next level' when you have outside pressure to do so. Doing projects in your free time is great, but there's no great push to overcome challenges like what you get while doing 'work' for a company.
I'm one of those people that program for fun in their free time. For years, I resisted becoming a professional programmer because I didn't want to taint my hobby. I finally realized that I needed to do SOMETHING for a job, and got a 2 yr degree for the paper. 4.0 GPA because I already knew it all, having learned it myself over the previous 10-15 years. (Yeah, I started programming young.) In the last year at this company, my skills have progressed more quickly than the last 10. Having your boss say 'The entire system is down. We need a fix.' has motivation like nothing else. I've learned languages and concepts both. I'm a much better programmer than I was a year ago.
So in the end, the answer is: No book will help you like a good job will. Programming projects in your spare time is better than a book, but not by much. (The 2 together can be useful, though.)
Time for the RIAA to release one of their reports, I guess, 'proving' that downloads are actuallys till on the increase and pirates kill small kittens for fun while they wait for their downloads, and that P2P is the ONLY reason people don't buy as many CDs as the RIAA wants them to.
The PS3 will still sell out, despite Sony's recent evil. Those 'few' customers will buy anything they can get their hands of for the first few months. And the XBox 360 hasn't hit 'any impressive milestone'... ? It has out-sold the PS2 in it's first 7 months, compared to the PS2's first 7 months. If that's not a sign that it's plenty successful, I don't know what is.
No, likely they've realized that Sony's devkit is harder to work with than they expected, and it's taking them longer to produce a quality game. So they did the smart thing and announce a new date LONG before the original date. Fewer customers will be annoyed, and the team has time to make the game right.
And they can act like GRAW2 is to please the masses all they want. It's simply another money maker for them. Same engine, new levels = quick profit. I haven't played GRAW yet, but I'm not really into those types of games, so I wouldn't be a suitable reviewer for it anyhow. GRAW2 will likely be more of the same, though.
I -have- been to Canada (most of my family was born there, near Ontario) and I still think we have a better system, overall. It's subjective, after all.
And I don't have a life 'wrought with fear and deceit'. The goverment tries, I admit, but fear is not a daily thing, or even monthly, for me. As for deception... Well, the public has had their eyes opened pretty well the last few years. They'll have to think up some new tricks now.
BTW... I've been to Canada, and I felt everyone I met was extremely nice. But I moved to the desert in California, and thought the same thing for the first month. It gradually became apparently that all the same attitudes were there, they just presented differently, and people seemed nicer because of it. Could that not be the same with Ottowa? Everyone seems nicer because they hide the truth differently than you are used to. Personally, I'd vote for Quebec as 'rudest', but hey, I've never actually BEEN there, just met some of the people and heard plenty of stories.
No, there are criminal ways to overthrow the government. But there are supposedly peaceful ways that are within the bounds of the constitution.
But you are correct that they would have you branded a lunatic rather quickly, and it probably all still be for naught.
The truth is, most Americans don't WANT a revolution. They are not truly discontent. Most people grumble about something, true, but that's humans for you. There is always something to grumble about, if you look for it. The government remains barely flexible enough to prevent discontent over its worst transgressions, but continues doing all the little things that irk people.
Oddly, our 4-yr presidential terms are partially to blame. Everyone can always say 'well, it's only 3 more years, and we can vote someone else in next time' and the crisis short-lived, at least in their heads. And if the problem is bad enough, we can just impeach and re-elect. The President is a nice figurehead for all that's wrong with government.
I'm a borderline-discontent. I wouldn't lift a finger to help a revolution, but I certainly wouldn't help put it down, either. My life is too good to bother screwing it up.
At one point I actually considered moving to Canada. My parents and most of my family were born there. I could easily find a job and a place to stay. I hear you can be there 6 months, come back to the US for a day, and then go back, repeatedly, and not have to actually deal with citizenship issues. But other than the lack of an idiot President, I'd just be trading problems. Lower value for my money, more taxes, etc, etc... No thanks. I'm content right here.
And that's the real problem getting a revolution started. Too many content people. (Wait, wasn't that goal of the revolution in the first place!? Whoa! Yeah, that's sarcasm.)
So, They're only saving half the cost of the production?? With no big-name actors and 'community participation', I would have expected them to save a lot more. Maybe the real secret is that the funds are being used to pay their salaries, and it's not truly a work of the community as they suggest.
But even if that's not true, and they're really spending so much money to rent the sets and equipment needed, what do we gain here? We've got a plot-by-committee, which is pretty much guaranteed to be even more cliche than anything the big media companies produce, a lot of no-name actors that probably are no-name because they don't act well enough to get paid for it, and STILL half the price of a 'real' movie.
I hope they at least have the sense to carve the script in stone before they start filming. If they don't, they can kiss that budget goodbye. And probably most of their help.
Oh, and the other Creative Commons video, Elephant's Dream... I hope this is a hell of a lot better than that. I think it's neat that they worked together on it and licensed it like that and all... But it stunk. The conversations were not fluid at all. The plot almost didn't exist. And the whole thing made no sense.
I noticed someone else said 'Someone else to do it', which is certainly true, but there's a bigger reason:
"An Answer."
Despite the problems, most Americans still think we have the best government on Earth. Assuming this is true for a moment, they are not stopping to think that there could be a better one. We are stuck in the 'have to pick from the available choices' mindset and can't seem to escape. That's why there was a huge 'think outside the box' fad for a few years. Because nobody does it, and I think most are incapable of it.
So before Americans will stand up and thrown down the government, someone needs to create a better one, and then convince the majority of people that is really IS better. This gets harder every day because of the way marketting works. Nobody believes anyone will stand up and tell the honest truth when campaigning for something. They believe they will only show the 'positive' aspects and completely ignore/hide the negatives ones.
Let's also not forget that revolution is bad for the pocketbook. It'll mean pain and suffering for the majority of the people, well beyond what they currently experience.
In the end, there is no single reason we don't rise up. Apathy, ignorance, laziness, greed... Just a few of the reasons we don't change things.
On the other hand, No government on Earth is perfect and I don't see many others going for the revolution thing, either.
Are you seriously asking if management has too many in-house applications to make more? I think that situation will pretty much take care of itself. If you never get anything new done, they'll KNOW. And they'll want to know why. And since you have a good reason, they'll know they either need more tech team, or they need to slim down their stuff.
No, sorry, I think this is just 'slownewsday' stuff.
Wait, you suddenly expect MS to be completely reasonable and not take dictatorial control over something they have 100% control over?
MS does not -have- to put anything on XBLA that they don't want to. They could have said 'Sorry, no, that's bullshit' when the deal started and none of this would have happened.
The truth is, MS knew this was a sleazy way to sell the game. They wanted to see what would happen if they tried to sell something like this, and they found a scapegoat company to try it on.
So yeah, as well as those options you gave above, add:
* Make them sign a contract and THEN tell them how much they'll charge. * Convince them to sell it for too much, and in a sleazy pay-for demo version, and watch what happens, in case it's a good way to do business in the future.
I don't see a boycott going anywhere on this. But it definitely is NOT going to help their sales.
I was on the fence for the PS3... I'm the type that buys all the consoles eventually. Now... I don't know that I want a Sony console, no matter WHAT games come out for it. I have a 360, and I'll have a Wii... But I don't think I'll go for a PS3.
I'm even seriously considering dumping my PSP now. I rarely play it anyway, and it's been forever since they released a game I'd consider buying.
It's going to mean I miss out on the Final Fantasy series from here out. And that saddens me greatly. And other games like Okami and Katamari Damacy, since Playstation has been the console that small companies develop for... But maybe they'll change. Maybe. I suspect there'll be enough games on the other 2 consoles and PC that I won't miss it too much.
Wow. It's hard for me to imagine disliking Sony more than Microsoft. Amazing.
"In other words, you'd prefer that everyone else use a method that makes you look better."
I think that's the idea on your side, as well. You're assuming that there is no additional cost incrued by being a larger country. I'm sure our per-capity government overhead is higher than many others as well. This is a business management concept, but it applies to military and government, too.
LOL Too true. I had a ton of game ideas when I was younger, but none complete enough to make anything of. It sure was fun dreaming them up, though. I still try now and then, but I know the taste of failure beforehand now, and it's not as much fun.
Maybe if they have a contest for a 'killer app', one of the choices should actually BE a 'killer app'.
The only ones that come close to useful is file sync and the music maker. And they're far from 'killer app' status. Nobody is going to convert from PC to Mac because it has some sync software or music, especially when other software already exists for that platform and others.
The others are all in the 'ooh eyecandy' category.
I assume you're trying to say the choices are either: A) Stick with the code as it existed prior to GPLv3 licensing, even if major world-destroying bugs are found, or B) fork their project at that point and do the bugfixes yourself, without the help of the entire community dedicated to that library and definitely not using the official patches created to fix the problem.
That kind of breaks the whole 'OSS Community' thing, doesn't it?
Yeah, I realize that day will come. My card is pretty frayed as it is, so there's probably new card coming soon. Hopefully it's not a RFID one.
I suspect it's the reader that's weak, as the summary/article talks about making a reader for $150 that can read it at a distance. Or mayber there's actually a touch-sensitive portion of the reader. You might try using something else to touch the reader with the card nearby some time.
Slashdot Mirror
"I simply do not see how one can be excited for motion control ideas in the Wii and not in the PS3, even if there are differences in what motion can be detected."
That's exactly why one can be excited about the Wii and not the PS3's motion sensing. The whole concept is different.
The Wii offers a 'wand' that allows usage like every-day object. Golf clubs, tennis rackets, swords, guns, etc. You get more of a feeling that you are in the game.
The PS3 version allows... Uhh... Oh wait, they haven't really said what it allows. So we have a standard controller that can tell when you move or tilt it. Hmm... Boxing? Nope. Golf? Nope. Football? Nope. Swords, guns, weapons? Nope.
I can only think of 2 things that might interest me with Sony's. Flight simulation. And first person shooters. I think it could actually excel at FPS's. You run up to the corner and you want to learn around and take a look. With a standard controller, you press into the wall and holding a button... Not exactly realistic. With the PS3, you just run up to the corner, and then lean the controller over at an angle towards the direction you want to peer. Like magic. Of course, the Wii could do exactly the same thing with the left hand nun-chuk, while the right hand gets the run ready for when you jump out and start shooting.
Hmm... Yeah, can't imagine why we'd like one controller over another.
God, I hope that was meant to be funny, because... I fear for the world, otherwise.
It's not a hockey-mask, either. Just roll with the joke a bit ;) Maybe the '257' is some exploit we just haven't found yet.
Oh, I fully agree that 'freedom of speech' is not 'freedom from consequences of speech'. Totally different animal.
There's another aspect of free speech that most people don't think about. I can use someone else's speech to judge them before I get involved with them. I use this on multiplayer video games all the time, and to a lesser extent, in real life. (As you said, they hide when they know there's consequences.) If I see someone named 'Goober2' I'll be cautious. '1337w@rri0r' is a definite avoid. 'Adamasius Horatius' is probably someone pretty safe to game with. I generally won't have to worry about translating their text back into English, and I pretty much know they aren't 'Leeroy Jenkins' in disguise.
Most people can't understand this, and don't use it. But I find online gaming a LOT less stressful by filtering people according to how they type/talk. I probably miss a few good people here and there, but I avoid the majority of the jerks, too.
It's the same with these blogs. These people are people I -know- I can avoid without any worries whatsoever. They are unlikely to do anything of great import and are simply mouths that can't controls themselves.
I do the same in real life, when someone goes all racist. I just ignore what they're saying, because they are either fools or horribly mis-informed, and you can't even trust them to be wrong, so you can't just believe the opposite of what they say.
Does it get my dander up when someone hits home with a discriminatory comment? Yes. But knowing to not just ignore it, but actually use the information gained... That's the key to regaining peace of mind.
Including this one! DOWN WITH SLASHDOT!
Seriously, did you think about what you said? I'm going to assume you didn't say what you meant. I'm going to assume you meant 'Any blogs that are abusive, racist, or discriminatory should be removed from the internet'.
Everything offends someone. I'm offended by blogs that post goatse. (I'm sure I'm not the only one here.) Is that a reason to take their right to free speech away? How about people that think cars are 'sexy'. That offends me. How about...
No, there is no 'line' that you can draw and be sure that one side is 'speech that should be banned' and the other side is perfectly fine.
Censorship sucks!
I think it's also quite a bit easier to 'take your skills to the next level' when you have outside pressure to do so. Doing projects in your free time is great, but there's no great push to overcome challenges like what you get while doing 'work' for a company.
I'm one of those people that program for fun in their free time. For years, I resisted becoming a professional programmer because I didn't want to taint my hobby. I finally realized that I needed to do SOMETHING for a job, and got a 2 yr degree for the paper. 4.0 GPA because I already knew it all, having learned it myself over the previous 10-15 years. (Yeah, I started programming young.) In the last year at this company, my skills have progressed more quickly than the last 10. Having your boss say 'The entire system is down. We need a fix.' has motivation like nothing else. I've learned languages and concepts both. I'm a much better programmer than I was a year ago.
So in the end, the answer is: No book will help you like a good job will. Programming projects in your spare time is better than a book, but not by much. (The 2 together can be useful, though.)
Time for the RIAA to release one of their reports, I guess, 'proving' that downloads are actuallys till on the increase and pirates kill small kittens for fun while they wait for their downloads, and that P2P is the ONLY reason people don't buy as many CDs as the RIAA wants them to.
You seriously believe that's why?
The PS3 will still sell out, despite Sony's recent evil. Those 'few' customers will buy anything they can get their hands of for the first few months. And the XBox 360 hasn't hit 'any impressive milestone'... ? It has out-sold the PS2 in it's first 7 months, compared to the PS2's first 7 months. If that's not a sign that it's plenty successful, I don't know what is.
No, likely they've realized that Sony's devkit is harder to work with than they expected, and it's taking them longer to produce a quality game. So they did the smart thing and announce a new date LONG before the original date. Fewer customers will be annoyed, and the team has time to make the game right.
And they can act like GRAW2 is to please the masses all they want. It's simply another money maker for them. Same engine, new levels = quick profit. I haven't played GRAW yet, but I'm not really into those types of games, so I wouldn't be a suitable reviewer for it anyhow. GRAW2 will likely be more of the same, though.
So you think they should compare Mike's voice with Barbara's face?
Shrek's face is not Mike Meyers' face. Since they are comparing faces, this is not an invalid comparison, as you think.
I -have- been to Canada (most of my family was born there, near Ontario) and I still think we have a better system, overall. It's subjective, after all.
And I don't have a life 'wrought with fear and deceit'. The goverment tries, I admit, but fear is not a daily thing, or even monthly, for me. As for deception... Well, the public has had their eyes opened pretty well the last few years. They'll have to think up some new tricks now.
BTW... I've been to Canada, and I felt everyone I met was extremely nice. But I moved to the desert in California, and thought the same thing for the first month. It gradually became apparently that all the same attitudes were there, they just presented differently, and people seemed nicer because of it. Could that not be the same with Ottowa? Everyone seems nicer because they hide the truth differently than you are used to. Personally, I'd vote for Quebec as 'rudest', but hey, I've never actually BEEN there, just met some of the people and heard plenty of stories.
No, there are criminal ways to overthrow the government. But there are supposedly peaceful ways that are within the bounds of the constitution.
But you are correct that they would have you branded a lunatic rather quickly, and it probably all still be for naught.
The truth is, most Americans don't WANT a revolution. They are not truly discontent. Most people grumble about something, true, but that's humans for you. There is always something to grumble about, if you look for it. The government remains barely flexible enough to prevent discontent over its worst transgressions, but continues doing all the little things that irk people.
Oddly, our 4-yr presidential terms are partially to blame. Everyone can always say 'well, it's only 3 more years, and we can vote someone else in next time' and the crisis short-lived, at least in their heads. And if the problem is bad enough, we can just impeach and re-elect. The President is a nice figurehead for all that's wrong with government.
I'm a borderline-discontent. I wouldn't lift a finger to help a revolution, but I certainly wouldn't help put it down, either. My life is too good to bother screwing it up.
At one point I actually considered moving to Canada. My parents and most of my family were born there. I could easily find a job and a place to stay. I hear you can be there 6 months, come back to the US for a day, and then go back, repeatedly, and not have to actually deal with citizenship issues. But other than the lack of an idiot President, I'd just be trading problems. Lower value for my money, more taxes, etc, etc... No thanks. I'm content right here.
And that's the real problem getting a revolution started. Too many content people. (Wait, wasn't that goal of the revolution in the first place!? Whoa! Yeah, that's sarcasm.)
So, They're only saving half the cost of the production?? With no big-name actors and 'community participation', I would have expected them to save a lot more. Maybe the real secret is that the funds are being used to pay their salaries, and it's not truly a work of the community as they suggest.
But even if that's not true, and they're really spending so much money to rent the sets and equipment needed, what do we gain here? We've got a plot-by-committee, which is pretty much guaranteed to be even more cliche than anything the big media companies produce, a lot of no-name actors that probably are no-name because they don't act well enough to get paid for it, and STILL half the price of a 'real' movie.
I hope they at least have the sense to carve the script in stone before they start filming. If they don't, they can kiss that budget goodbye. And probably most of their help.
Oh, and the other Creative Commons video, Elephant's Dream... I hope this is a hell of a lot better than that. I think it's neat that they worked together on it and licensed it like that and all... But it stunk. The conversations were not fluid at all. The plot almost didn't exist. And the whole thing made no sense.
I noticed someone else said 'Someone else to do it', which is certainly true, but there's a bigger reason:
"An Answer."
Despite the problems, most Americans still think we have the best government on Earth. Assuming this is true for a moment, they are not stopping to think that there could be a better one. We are stuck in the 'have to pick from the available choices' mindset and can't seem to escape. That's why there was a huge 'think outside the box' fad for a few years. Because nobody does it, and I think most are incapable of it.
So before Americans will stand up and thrown down the government, someone needs to create a better one, and then convince the majority of people that is really IS better. This gets harder every day because of the way marketting works. Nobody believes anyone will stand up and tell the honest truth when campaigning for something. They believe they will only show the 'positive' aspects and completely ignore/hide the negatives ones.
Let's also not forget that revolution is bad for the pocketbook. It'll mean pain and suffering for the majority of the people, well beyond what they currently experience.
In the end, there is no single reason we don't rise up. Apathy, ignorance, laziness, greed... Just a few of the reasons we don't change things.
On the other hand, No government on Earth is perfect and I don't see many others going for the revolution thing, either.
Are you seriously asking if management has too many in-house applications to make more? I think that situation will pretty much take care of itself. If you never get anything new done, they'll KNOW. And they'll want to know why. And since you have a good reason, they'll know they either need more tech team, or they need to slim down their stuff.
No, sorry, I think this is just 'slownewsday' stuff.
Odd, works fine here on FF2.
Oh yeah, I'm SO looking forward to a round of 'which FF does it work on.'
-sigh-
Wait, you suddenly expect MS to be completely reasonable and not take dictatorial control over something they have 100% control over?
MS does not -have- to put anything on XBLA that they don't want to. They could have said 'Sorry, no, that's bullshit' when the deal started and none of this would have happened.
The truth is, MS knew this was a sleazy way to sell the game. They wanted to see what would happen if they tried to sell something like this, and they found a scapegoat company to try it on.
So yeah, as well as those options you gave above, add:
* Make them sign a contract and THEN tell them how much they'll charge.
* Convince them to sell it for too much, and in a sleazy pay-for demo version, and watch what happens, in case it's a good way to do business in the future.
I don't see a boycott going anywhere on this. But it definitely is NOT going to help their sales.
I was on the fence for the PS3... I'm the type that buys all the consoles eventually. Now... I don't know that I want a Sony console, no matter WHAT games come out for it. I have a 360, and I'll have a Wii... But I don't think I'll go for a PS3.
I'm even seriously considering dumping my PSP now. I rarely play it anyway, and it's been forever since they released a game I'd consider buying.
It's going to mean I miss out on the Final Fantasy series from here out. And that saddens me greatly. And other games like Okami and Katamari Damacy, since Playstation has been the console that small companies develop for... But maybe they'll change. Maybe. I suspect there'll be enough games on the other 2 consoles and PC that I won't miss it too much.
Wow. It's hard for me to imagine disliking Sony more than Microsoft. Amazing.
"In other words, you'd prefer that everyone else use a method that makes you look better."
I think that's the idea on your side, as well. You're assuming that there is no additional cost incrued by being a larger country. I'm sure our per-capity government overhead is higher than many others as well. This is a business management concept, but it applies to military and government, too.
No, per-capita is also not a fair assessment.
If we're dead last, then if we just plain stop, it won't matter at all.
No, per-capita is not THE way to look at it. It's one way, but it is by no means 'The One True Way.'
History is littered with things that were 'too complicated' at the time for people to understand, but people know them almost instinctively now.
However, I have to agree that I don't think this will be one of them.
LOL Too true. I had a ton of game ideas when I was younger, but none complete enough to make anything of. It sure was fun dreaming them up, though. I still try now and then, but I know the taste of failure beforehand now, and it's not as much fun.
Maybe if they have a contest for a 'killer app', one of the choices should actually BE a 'killer app'.
The only ones that come close to useful is file sync and the music maker. And they're far from 'killer app' status. Nobody is going to convert from PC to Mac because it has some sync software or music, especially when other software already exists for that platform and others.
The others are all in the 'ooh eyecandy' category.
Nope, said what I meant. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=sextu plet
I assume you're trying to say the choices are either: A) Stick with the code as it existed prior to GPLv3 licensing, even if major world-destroying bugs are found, or B) fork their project at that point and do the bugfixes yourself, without the help of the entire community dedicated to that library and definitely not using the official patches created to fix the problem.
That kind of breaks the whole 'OSS Community' thing, doesn't it?
Yeah, I realize that day will come. My card is pretty frayed as it is, so there's probably new card coming soon. Hopefully it's not a RFID one.
I suspect it's the reader that's weak, as the summary/article talks about making a reader for $150 that can read it at a distance. Or mayber there's actually a touch-sensitive portion of the reader. You might try using something else to touch the reader with the card nearby some time.