Apple needs to reinvent the Shuffle. People like having an LCD so they can choose songs. Bring back the Shuffle with all its features plus a three-line LCD and you'll have a bigger hit than the 1 GB Nano.
Call it the iPod Micro or (as someone else suggested) the iPod Pico. There's just something to be said for an MP3 player with the ease of use of a USB drive. No cables, just drop it in the front/top USB port and load it and go.
(I'd still like it better if it took a standard battery...my Samsung uses AA and it's nice to be able to swap batteries off a charger in a matter of seconds and to just take a handful of spares when going on a long trip)
In science fiction alone we watch everything from one-on-one gunfights to entire civilizations being annihilated. Firefly especially had some quite violent scenes--the "War Stories" episode comes to mind. Everyone on the show (except River and maybe Inara) was shot, stabbed, or otherwise injured during the 15 episodes it ran.
Then there's the CSI-type shows that not only show people die, but quite a bit of them after they're dead.
And let's not forget the hospital shows...just two days ago, Grey's Anatomy had a paramedic with her hand stuck in a man's GAPING CHEST WOUND. Which he got from a homemade bazooka, by the way.
Not all games are suitable for all gamers. It's important any time you bring up parental supervision and using violent games as a teaching tool to note that the same game may not be suitable for one person until age 18 but is fine for another person at 14.
The local Gamestop has made a habit of selling anything to anyone. Best Buy and Wal-Mart are both good about enforcing the ratings, at least.
Of course, the real problem is that parents and grandparents and other family members are buying games for kids without knowing what they are buying, then complaining about violent games. It's like handing your kid alcohol and complaining about underaged drinking.
The thing is, no one wants to say that. If you call anyone's parenting skills into question, prepare to be crucified. "Don't tell me how to raise my kids" and so on.
In all reality, a ban on the sale of violent video games to minors shouldn't impact many people. Kids still get booze, adults still get drugs, it'll just be there to make the inept parents feel a little better about their parenting skills (which apparently including pressuring Congress into doing what they want).
They don't sell R-rated movies to a 14 year old. They don't sell "explicit lyrics" records to 14 year old. But they'll sell an M-17 game to the same kid. If retailers would adhere to the voluntary ratings of games the same way they adhere to the voluntary ratings of movies, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
One could easily argue that they aren't denying a service. GLBT users can still login, play, join a guild, enjoy the game, whatever. As I understand it, all they are (were?) being prevented from doing is broadcasting that a particular guild is GLBT-friendly and from engaging in same-sex marriage in the game world.
For the former, one could even argue that a GLBT guild is discriminatory against straight users. Assuming a "straights only" guild is against the rules, I have no complaint here.
For the latter, it's a medeival game world. Translating real-world modern social issues to be compatible with a game world like that just doesn't work...Blizzard created that world, they could simply state that the society does not permit homosexual marriage and let that be the end of it.
I'll be turning 28 this year, and I feel like I've still got plenty of maturing to do. When I think about what I was like at 18 or 20 or 22, I feel like I'm remembering a completely different person.
Anyone in their late 20s or early 30s can tell you maturity doesn't magically appear when you graduate high school or stop being a teenager or even graduate college. And that's not in a "kids these days are so immature" way, it's "Wow, I can't believe I was so immature at that age".
For those who have a hard time grasping this concept, here's an analogy:
Imagine someone took Firefox, repackaged it as "Firefox Plus" with lots of adware/spyware, and Googlebombed their site so that it was the first result for "Firefox".
That's what's happening right now with BitTorrent. People are writing/repackaging BT clients with adware installers and doing their best to push them to the top of search engines. That way they get novice users who don't know any better to install their crap product. Then the novice user says "BitTorrent sucks, all it did was install adware on my PC and run like crap." It's directly harming BitTorrent's trademark, and they *should* be going after these creeps.
"[Sylveri] So we suffer because of their lack of maturity"
Yes. That's almost always the case. Because other people are too sensitive and might get their feelings hurt by seeing/hearing things they object to, it's in Blizzard's best interest to put a muzzle on things that are potentially offensive or would cause other problems ("LOL FAGS").
It's an interesting variation on being politically correct, but that's really all it is.
I played him in a couple of online tourneys way back, when he started climbing the ladders. He thoroughly trashed all of us. The only small comfort I have is that I logged more kills on him than anyone else...which isn't saying much, since most people never got a shot at him. I only remember it because it's hard to forget a trouncing like that.
I remember reading an interview with him where he said he logged 6-8 hours a day on Quake to keep his edge. Guys like Thresh who invest full days practicing the game are the reason I never even attempted to go pro. I have a day job and bills to pay:)
I'd be interested to see it implemented. From what I read on the wiki, projects like this might help novice Linux users (like me) bridge the gap between Windows and Linux by not forcing them to dual boot or have a second PC.
Unfortunately, I don't have much advice in the way of hosting without knowing your bandwidth requirements. I could pimp a friend's site hosting company, but I don't know whether that's frowned upon here or how well it'd handle the large files; I use my hosting there mostly as a portal for family and friends to stay connected and (via subdomains) as a testbed for various projects I'm developing.
It's been done. Netzero did it for a while, I used it when I couldn't get DSL. It wasn't too bad, just banner ads at the bottom of the screen and the occassional popup. There were even DSL providers doing this prior to the dot-com bust, when internet ad revenues dropped like a rock.
Look for Google to start shopping for a Telco if this becomes a reality. Seriously, it'd be a brilliant business move: when all the other companies start placing excessive limits on broadband and subscribers get a 50-page TOS to explain everything they can and can't do, Google would be the most likely company to jump into the market and directly compete with that by offering a simple, "old-fashioned" unlimited connection.
I'm having a hard time how seeing how they can justify billing people for used bandwidth when security is such a big issue right now. There are probably millions of zombie PCs...imagine the outrage as millions of Americans get their first $1,000 internet bill when all they remember doing was writing the grandkids a few e-mails and looking at some pictures.
I predict this business model will fall flat on its face.
That's a scripted scene, not a cutscene. Cutscenes are pre-rendered video files. Everything in doom was rendered in real time.
I make no distinction. Both remove the character's ability to control what they are seeing, and in the case of Doom 3, those scenes actively change the immediate game environment and do not allow you to react to those changes. Whether it's a prerendered video or a live-rendered animation, it's still a cutscene to me.
From the wiki on cutscenes:
"A cut scene or cutscene (sometimes also referred to as a cinematic) is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no control. Cut scenes are used to advance the plot, portray character, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue and clues."
The only good DVD ads are the kind of DVD ads that don't load automatically but are available in the menu.
I want a DVD that jumps straight to the menu, and when I play the movie doesn't bug me with FBI warnings or any of that crap. I've seen that text a million times, I don't read it. No one does. Link it in the menu where someone might actually look at it if they feel the need and get on with the movie.
(Bear in mind that I play games almost exclusively on PC, and only play a handful of any given year's releases...I'm hardly authoritative)
Command & Conquer: Generals: Because you can't skip them, and you have to endure some 2+ minutes of bad voice acting and lame action at the beginning of every mission. One quickly learns to save after every scene to avoid repeating them.
Doom 3: Because some genius at id decided that every time you see a creature for the first time, the player should be forced to stand still and not fire at it until it is within five feet of him.
There's another game that was so bad I shelved it a few years ago specifically because the cutscenes were just too frustrating, but I can't even remember what that one was now.
2. The Shuffle has a built-in rechargable battery that charges directly from your computer's USB port. As far as most users are concerned, it really never needs to be charged as it all happens while the music is being swapped.
I haven't changed the music on my player in months. It takes AA batteries, and I swap them off the charger after about 60 hours of play time. I can recharge my player in about 20 seconds and I haven't bought new batteries for it since I got it a year ago.
btw, Rayovac's 15-minute rechargables are awesome batteries.
3. iTunes is an excellent music management program, far superior to the Zen's software.
My Samsung MP3 player has a great music management program: I select the files in Windows Explorer that I want, right click, and "Send To" the player that is listed as a removable drive.
My only complaint is that the player doesn't seem to read the files in any particular order. Of course, I haven't taken the time to read the documentation to see why that is and if its behavior can be changed...but it does seperate folders, so that all my ripped albums stay grouped.
I'm looking at it from a purely marketing standpoint. They haven't used Micro, it's a commonly-used term, and that way people won't have to ask "what's Pico mean?"
For $100, you can buy a full-featured MP3 player that is the same size or smaller. The Shuffle is overpriced and underfeatured; Apple needs to recreate it as the iPod Micro with 512 MB, a screen, and the UI and controls that make the iPod actually interesting.
Goa'Uld: this was explained when SG-1 was trying to recruit Jaffa in some episode or another. Their weapons, their armor, everything about them and the way they fight was designed for terror, not for level combat. Human weapons are far more effect than the staves they use simply because they are more accurate. The Goa'uld had been doing things the same way for millenia, they had no reason to think a backwater world that just figured out how to use the gate system could ever overthrow them in a matter of a few years.
And don't forget that the Replicators' return to the galaxy crippled their fleets quite effectively.
The Jaffa are quite intelligent, but mired in tradition. The Tok'Ra were an effective, if overly cautious, resistence among the Goa'uld. The Nox are a highly advanced and pacifistic race. The Asgard are victims of their own technology--so consumed with it that they had crippled their own genetic makeup and forgotten more basic technology like projectile weapons.
Slashdot Mirror
Apple needs to reinvent the Shuffle. People like having an LCD so they can choose songs. Bring back the Shuffle with all its features plus a three-line LCD and you'll have a bigger hit than the 1 GB Nano.
Call it the iPod Micro or (as someone else suggested) the iPod Pico. There's just something to be said for an MP3 player with the ease of use of a USB drive. No cables, just drop it in the front/top USB port and load it and go.
(I'd still like it better if it took a standard battery...my Samsung uses AA and it's nice to be able to swap batteries off a charger in a matter of seconds and to just take a handful of spares when going on a long trip)
Are you kidding?
In science fiction alone we watch everything from one-on-one gunfights to entire civilizations being annihilated. Firefly especially had some quite violent scenes--the "War Stories" episode comes to mind. Everyone on the show (except River and maybe Inara) was shot, stabbed, or otherwise injured during the 15 episodes it ran.
Then there's the CSI-type shows that not only show people die, but quite a bit of them after they're dead.
And let's not forget the hospital shows...just two days ago, Grey's Anatomy had a paramedic with her hand stuck in a man's GAPING CHEST WOUND. Which he got from a homemade bazooka, by the way.
Not all games are suitable for all gamers. It's important any time you bring up parental supervision and using violent games as a teaching tool to note that the same game may not be suitable for one person until age 18 but is fine for another person at 14.
Of course, the real problem is that parents and grandparents and other family members are buying games for kids without knowing what they are buying, then complaining about violent games. It's like handing your kid alcohol and complaining about underaged drinking.
The thing is, no one wants to say that. If you call anyone's parenting skills into question, prepare to be crucified. "Don't tell me how to raise my kids" and so on.
In all reality, a ban on the sale of violent video games to minors shouldn't impact many people. Kids still get booze, adults still get drugs, it'll just be there to make the inept parents feel a little better about their parenting skills (which apparently including pressuring Congress into doing what they want).
From TFA:
"The issue isn't one of regulation; it's one of enforcement of the existing ratings at the retail level."
They don't sell R-rated movies to a 14 year old. They don't sell "explicit lyrics" records to 14 year old. But they'll sell an M-17 game to the same kid. If retailers would adhere to the voluntary ratings of games the same way they adhere to the voluntary ratings of movies, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
One could easily argue that they aren't denying a service. GLBT users can still login, play, join a guild, enjoy the game, whatever. As I understand it, all they are (were?) being prevented from doing is broadcasting that a particular guild is GLBT-friendly and from engaging in same-sex marriage in the game world.
For the former, one could even argue that a GLBT guild is discriminatory against straight users. Assuming a "straights only" guild is against the rules, I have no complaint here.
For the latter, it's a medeival game world. Translating real-world modern social issues to be compatible with a game world like that just doesn't work...Blizzard created that world, they could simply state that the society does not permit homosexual marriage and let that be the end of it.
I'll be turning 28 this year, and I feel like I've still got plenty of maturing to do. When I think about what I was like at 18 or 20 or 22, I feel like I'm remembering a completely different person. Anyone in their late 20s or early 30s can tell you maturity doesn't magically appear when you graduate high school or stop being a teenager or even graduate college. And that's not in a "kids these days are so immature" way, it's "Wow, I can't believe I was so immature at that age".
For those who have a hard time grasping this concept, here's an analogy:
Imagine someone took Firefox, repackaged it as "Firefox Plus" with lots of adware/spyware, and Googlebombed their site so that it was the first result for "Firefox".
That's what's happening right now with BitTorrent. People are writing/repackaging BT clients with adware installers and doing their best to push them to the top of search engines. That way they get novice users who don't know any better to install their crap product. Then the novice user says "BitTorrent sucks, all it did was install adware on my PC and run like crap." It's directly harming BitTorrent's trademark, and they *should* be going after these creeps.
You can't imagine 15 TB?
"[Sylveri] So we suffer because of their lack of maturity"
Yes. That's almost always the case. Because other people are too sensitive and might get their feelings hurt by seeing/hearing things they object to, it's in Blizzard's best interest to put a muzzle on things that are potentially offensive or would cause other problems ("LOL FAGS").
It's an interesting variation on being politically correct, but that's really all it is.
I give it a week before votefortheworst arranges a massive display of...something...in the game world.
No weapons? RAM THEM!
I played him in a couple of online tourneys way back, when he started climbing the ladders. He thoroughly trashed all of us. The only small comfort I have is that I logged more kills on him than anyone else...which isn't saying much, since most people never got a shot at him. I only remember it because it's hard to forget a trouncing like that.
:)
I remember reading an interview with him where he said he logged 6-8 hours a day on Quake to keep his edge. Guys like Thresh who invest full days practicing the game are the reason I never even attempted to go pro. I have a day job and bills to pay
From the 60 minutes article:
"Fatal1ty is the first superstar of video games."
Bah. Thresh, for one, predates Fatal1ty.
Anyone remember the Crack Whores clan? They were quite popular (not necessarily for talent, though...)
Just a guess:
Windows...andLinux. As in both in one OS.
I'd be interested to see it implemented. From what I read on the wiki, projects like this might help novice Linux users (like me) bridge the gap between Windows and Linux by not forcing them to dual boot or have a second PC.
Unfortunately, I don't have much advice in the way of hosting without knowing your bandwidth requirements. I could pimp a friend's site hosting company, but I don't know whether that's frowned upon here or how well it'd handle the large files; I use my hosting there mostly as a portal for family and friends to stay connected and (via subdomains) as a testbed for various projects I'm developing.
It's been done. Netzero did it for a while, I used it when I couldn't get DSL. It wasn't too bad, just banner ads at the bottom of the screen and the occassional popup. There were even DSL providers doing this prior to the dot-com bust, when internet ad revenues dropped like a rock.
Look for Google to start shopping for a Telco if this becomes a reality. Seriously, it'd be a brilliant business move: when all the other companies start placing excessive limits on broadband and subscribers get a 50-page TOS to explain everything they can and can't do, Google would be the most likely company to jump into the market and directly compete with that by offering a simple, "old-fashioned" unlimited connection.
I'm having a hard time how seeing how they can justify billing people for used bandwidth when security is such a big issue right now. There are probably millions of zombie PCs...imagine the outrage as millions of Americans get their first $1,000 internet bill when all they remember doing was writing the grandkids a few e-mails and looking at some pictures.
I predict this business model will fall flat on its face.
I make no distinction. Both remove the character's ability to control what they are seeing, and in the case of Doom 3, those scenes actively change the immediate game environment and do not allow you to react to those changes. Whether it's a prerendered video or a live-rendered animation, it's still a cutscene to me.
From the wiki on cutscenes:
"A cut scene or cutscene (sometimes also referred to as a cinematic) is a sequence in a video game over which the player has no control. Cut scenes are used to advance the plot, portray character, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue and clues."
The only good DVD ads are the kind of DVD ads that don't load automatically but are available in the menu.
I want a DVD that jumps straight to the menu, and when I play the movie doesn't bug me with FBI warnings or any of that crap. I've seen that text a million times, I don't read it. No one does. Link it in the menu where someone might actually look at it if they feel the need and get on with the movie.
(Bear in mind that I play games almost exclusively on PC, and only play a handful of any given year's releases...I'm hardly authoritative)
Command & Conquer: Generals: Because you can't skip them, and you have to endure some 2+ minutes of bad voice acting and lame action at the beginning of every mission. One quickly learns to save after every scene to avoid repeating them.
Doom 3: Because some genius at id decided that every time you see a creature for the first time, the player should be forced to stand still and not fire at it until it is within five feet of him.
There's another game that was so bad I shelved it a few years ago specifically because the cutscenes were just too frustrating, but I can't even remember what that one was now.
I've never had a problem with any of them, and I've got probably 20-25 throughout the house.
That many batteries in a house? Must be a toddler nearby.
I haven't changed the music on my player in months. It takes AA batteries, and I swap them off the charger after about 60 hours of play time. I can recharge my player in about 20 seconds and I haven't bought new batteries for it since I got it a year ago.
btw, Rayovac's 15-minute rechargables are awesome batteries.
3. iTunes is an excellent music management program, far superior to the Zen's software.
My Samsung MP3 player has a great music management program: I select the files in Windows Explorer that I want, right click, and "Send To" the player that is listed as a removable drive.
My only complaint is that the player doesn't seem to read the files in any particular order. Of course, I haven't taken the time to read the documentation to see why that is and if its behavior can be changed...but it does seperate folders, so that all my ripped albums stay grouped.
I know, but only geeks like you would complain :p
I'm looking at it from a purely marketing standpoint. They haven't used Micro, it's a commonly-used term, and that way people won't have to ask "what's Pico mean?"
For $100, you can buy a full-featured MP3 player that is the same size or smaller. The Shuffle is overpriced and underfeatured; Apple needs to recreate it as the iPod Micro with 512 MB, a screen, and the UI and controls that make the iPod actually interesting.
Goa'Uld: this was explained when SG-1 was trying to recruit Jaffa in some episode or another. Their weapons, their armor, everything about them and the way they fight was designed for terror, not for level combat. Human weapons are far more effect than the staves they use simply because they are more accurate. The Goa'uld had been doing things the same way for millenia, they had no reason to think a backwater world that just figured out how to use the gate system could ever overthrow them in a matter of a few years.
And don't forget that the Replicators' return to the galaxy crippled their fleets quite effectively.
The Jaffa are quite intelligent, but mired in tradition. The Tok'Ra were an effective, if overly cautious, resistence among the Goa'uld. The Nox are a highly advanced and pacifistic race. The Asgard are victims of their own technology--so consumed with it that they had crippled their own genetic makeup and forgotten more basic technology like projectile weapons.