"Star Wars I, II, and III suggest that Star Wars IV was just a stroke of luck for Lucas. He is a poor storyteller..."
Personally, that argument is getting very tired.
I don't believe for one second that there is that much of a difference in dialogue, acting skills, or storytelling between 4-6 and 1-3. Consider:
Each set has their strong actors (Alec Guinesss/Harrison Ford; Ewan McGreggor/Liam Neison) and each has their share of weaker actors (Mark Hammill (yes really)/Billy Dee Williams; Hayden Christensen/Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett/clone troopers)).
Wasn't Luke just as whiny in ANH as Anakin was in AOTC?
By ROTJ, the actors are just as wooden (or so goes the popular term for describing the acting skills of 1-3) as many think the actors in 1-3 are.
Is the 2nd Death Star in ROTJ really inventive?
I'm not saying I think poorly of the movies - I in fact like all of them. My point is, people should really hold to the same standards that they are judging the prequels by. I've learned to look past some of the minor portions of poor compositions through the entire saga, and enjoy all of the films for what they are and what they present. And, apparently, I'm in a minority in doing so. 4-6 are in no way free from flaws, and people really should stop falling to that mindset.
Not to mention, I firmly belive much of the animosity towards the prequels is a result of our upbringing. How many of us have grown up with 4-6? How many times have we watched each movie from that trilogy? So, when something new comes through, it simply doesn't compare because we didn't grow up with it for 30 years.
"Of course, I would waste my $10 on Star War VII."
And therein lies the bottom line. People still love Star Wars, even though many hop on the bandwagon of prequel-bashing. The films aren't ruined, as so many like to say. Even after many fans of the originals completely despised TPM and AOTC, ROTS went on to be the most successful film on an opening day.
I felt the same way when I read "Acer" and "top-of-the-line" in the same sentence, but not used in contrast.
Each Acer I've ever had experience with (mostly tablets, but some laptops) has reaffirmed that I will definitely not be purchasing one. They're awful. Of course "top-of-the-line" is probably just referring to Acer's top shelf product, which in my opinion doesn't have much going for it. While I personally haven't used the Ferrari line, I can't imagine they'd be much better - adding an exotic car mfg's logo to a laptop doesn't give it an edge.
Had I received such a 'present' from MS, I would have tried selling it off for a down payment on a nice ASUS laptop.
IMO, people don't need to be getting "even more excited." I have four Wiimotes myself, used fairly equally, and not one of them shows sign of wear. All the people I've played with use them balanced - not swinging too hard, but enough to register movement and feel like part of the game.
I received the email that Nintendo sent out yesterday regarding safety information. The points that were made were:
Always use the wrist strap, even when sharing a controller
Don't ever let go of the Wiimote, purosefully (yes, purposefully) or accidentally (dry your hands if necessary
Allow plenty of room to motion in
What got me was the fact that people are apparently purposefully letting go of the Wiimotes. Nintendo cited the example of WiiSports bowling stating that only the B button, not the entire remote needs to be released.
Also, none of the games that I know of require a player to use their full arm strength to play a game. Again, using bowling as an example - it's not a matter of how fast you swing your arm, it's more dependant on timing. In other words, you don't need to be able to tear a phone book in half to chuck the ball any faster.
If people don't take these fairly simple principals into consideration, they really don't have anyone but themselves to blame, I think. Nintendo has taken every means necessary by publishing numerous pages of safety info in manuals and their website, and even displaying reminders before starting games.
But, props to them for taking the initiative. At least they seem to be easing these people by looking into the issue. Good customer service reputation.
True, Golf is the most sensitive game, but as was eluded to, real golf is in itself based on accuracy.
Interesting to me was my friend's dad who played the Wii golf, both of who actually go play real golf. He couldn't play Wii golf worth beans. This was mainly because it interfered with his normal real golf swing - his natural swing doesn't allow much room for a follow-through, while Wii golf depends quite a bit on follow-through (proper technique?).
You have to consider most of the normal environment aspects (wind, hills, etc) as in real golf. The swing also takes some getting used to. For instance, I've found that alot of people who I've had play the Wii golf who actually do golf tend to take their swing pretty quickly. Unfortunately, some time is required for the Wiimote to register you're holding the club behind you - this is all before you actually swing, so it isn't (or, shouldn't be) interruptive to your shot. Keep an eye on the speed of your swing and follow through. Take as many practice shots as you need, that's why the feature is there.
Also make sure you hold the controllers correctly - just like a real club - that's the premise of the game. So don't hold the controller pointed away from you or even to the side, point it down to the floor. Two hands aren't necessary, but if it makes you feel better, go for it.
I've personally found golf to be one of the funner games (just went to "pro" status), though a game with multiple players takes longer than a tennis or boxing match. I suppose it all depends on if golf appeals to people in real life to begin with.
"All I see are articles talking about how fun Wii is, the new way of interacting with games. But is this new game play interaction something that can keep the wii going in the longterm?"
That's something that I've noted (2nd to last paragraph) as well. Right now, everyone is impressed with the new and different way to do things (the intital wow factor) and are still in the honeymoon stage with the console. Nintendo's still riding the chance wave.
Can the console hold everyone's attention? The majority of that (if not all of it) will depend largely on game developers. We know that tons of dev companies are jumping at the chance to make games for the Wii, however if the games suck, people aren't going to buy them and it will reflect poorly on the console. Quite a few initial titles seem to focus around the mini-game theme (shake the Wiimote and Nunchuck up and down in one game, twist the Wiimote back and forth in another). Hopefully either devs won't run the same idea into the ground so that people get bored with it quickly, or they'll think of new and entertaining ways to implement these features so that people don't think a game is just a mirror of another.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Wii (man, that will never stop sounding weird) and have enjoyed playing it. I'm still waiting for some good titles to come out, though."Also, with PS/3 being a fully functional computer with a keyboard/mouse/blueray, its more than just a console. And Xbox live with internet access to media is more than a console. The Wii is a console and priced like it."
Careful...The Wii has different features through the channel meuns - Mii, Photo, Shopping, Forecast (soon to come), Weather (soon to come), Internet browsing (soon to come), and messaging including email. And, supposedly, the next gen of Wiis should feature a DVD channel. To me, the Wii seems more like an entertainment console.
That boxing game is crazy-fun. Think Mike Tyson for NES, but obviously with way better graphics and much more interaction. You use both the Wiimote and Nunchuck (which is how I found it it was also a motion sensor, used to simulate your other hand) to throw literally throw your punches. After three matches, I was starting to work up a sweat. Of course this was after I'd only got four hours of sleep and had been up since 4am waiting in line. Not one who uses my upper body strength on a frequent basis, my arms are a bit stiff today.
"If I knew medicine like I do computers, I would like to be able to control the [human] immune system, to fight against the onset of disease on a world level" - Bill Gates, Stanford University TechNet Event
"One day I will be. I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever! I'll even be able to stop people from dying!" - Anakin Skywalker, Attack of the Clones.
Am I the only one who thought that these two quotes are pretty scarily similar?
Yeah, that was somewhat of a problem. Package a broken updater in the release - should have been caught before posting it publicly as a final release. A big "Doh!" for the SuSE team.
I'm all for SuSE over the other distros, don't get me wrong. I'm running it on my laptop and enjoy the new wireless utilities (with 10.1 it's now about 10 times easier). However, a release this broken really made me sad. Even though I was able to fix it by looking through online documentation from other frustrated users, I couldn't recommend that my friends/family give this release a try. So, I've been telling them that 10.2 should be a good release. Although, we'll see how the ReiserFS > Ext3 switch goes with the next release.
Running an ad in a popular newspaper stating your personal displeasure carries the reminiscent undertones of a child throwing a tantrum. I'm sorry, but I read that article and thought to myself, "What a bunch of whiny brats."
Not only do they sound like a sceaming child who wanted ice cream for dinner instead of green beans, but at the same time their 'article' is massive commercial-centric FUD translating into, "If we can't make our product work within the kernel, your PC will be DOOMED...DOOOOOOMED! Consider yourself warned!"
They aren't even asking for customer intervention - Ok...now that I've read this, what am I supposed to do? Write my local congressman? Notify Homeland Security? Protest outside of Redmond?
What is McAfee doing aside from complaining? Sounds like not much.
It's unfortunate that even if people do want to have a religious or spiritual belief, they can't reconcile it with fairly firmly established scientific truth.
I hold a religious belief that is Bible based, but I don't reject 'firmly established scientific truths'. I model my faith as the Bible describes at Hebrews 11:1 - "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not yet beheld." (Emphasis added) So, real faith isn't gullible. The Bible says that faith is supposed to be based on solid evidence and reasonable assurance that you've proven to yourself.
A while ago, Raymond Chen described why Windows will nuke and load a new boot sector.
He mentioned corrupt boot sectors (no boot sectors or boot sector virus), but primarily emphasized the user freindliness for those users who try to install/upgrade. He also mentioned that it wasn't possible for MS to code for every single "foreign" boot sector out there.
296,344,308,438,456,234 * 349,000,000 = Who the hell cares about that statistic??? Seriously, lets compare the bit count per 1U to the number of chicken eggs laid per year in the US.
I was wondering something similar. Magnetic storage worries me enough with hard drives (more paranoia than realistic fear, probably).
While MRAM's speed and power consumption outperform DRAM and Flash, I still don't know if I'd be fully comfortable with MRAM replacing devices specifically built for portability and ease of use. If these are to replace current uses for other types of memory such as Flash, would we have to worry about close proximity with anything magnetic? Would I not be able to carry my MRAM based phone, MP3 player, or USB drive in a single pocket, or nearby pockets?
The difference between FPSs and sports games is the content. For those who enjoy sports games, they probably more than likely enjoy playing the game as well, which in the end is more rewarding.
The point I was making was not in reference to online gaming in general, just to the fact that it sounded like his suggestion was limited to your personal friends.
"it's always been one-on-one, just you and another person, and real football is a team game. You should be able to make a team and play together with your friends. Like if you have 10 friends, you could all play different positions and be in 10 different houses and play together over the Internet."
If he's strictly talking about getting 10 of your personal friends together, why not just go to Target, pick up a cheap football, go to a park, and...play football? Compared to the price of getting 10 gaming systems, 10 copies of the game, 10 online subscriptions, and coordinating the same time to get all 10 of your friends together it's far too much effort.
Now, for online play in general (playing with people you don't know from the entire world), it seems like it may be feasable. The only problem I forsee is the same types of complaints with most other online games: more than half of one team disconnecting before they lose, n00bs bringing a team down, and 1337 players pwning everyone.
As the guy above kind of eluded to, Open Office 2.0 (just released 2.0.3 today) is pretty sufficient and that would be worth upgrading to.
Office 97 was a piece of junk, and 2000 didn't offer much more. 2002 was where they started getting things right, and 2003 had some nice features. I've personally been using the 2007 beta where there's some nifty stuff that I could see some business use for (though they're pushing Sharepoint like a crack dealer).
So, IMO, if you don't have documents that are very heavily formatted (which judging by the fact that you're still using 97, I don't think so), and money is an issue, move yourself out of MS 97 and go with OO.O 2.
You know you're not far off. I for one will be looking forward to the Wii (haven't decided if I'll buy it first day or not). Nintendo is taking gaming to a different level, whereas MS and Sony are still building on what already exists. It sounds really fun to me to be able to physically get involved in many types of video games (that aren't DDR). The impression I get from all of this is that Nintendo is at least trying to justify the cost of their console and games.
Is this just a frail attempt at a flamebait or something?
Yes, it's the equivalent to the same strategy that John Dvorak uses - get people to read through your article by hitting a nerve.
By simply including Slashdot, the magazine editors could guarantee that this article would be/.ed. They even admit this point themselves: "Remember the days when "getting Slashdotted" was every sysadmin's worst nightmare?...For those that survived the flood, it was the online equivalent of a papal benediction."
They also attack both sides of a few spectrums: Blu-ray vs HD-DVD, MS vs Linux (vs Sun?). In addition they hit services and products that quite a few people use: Netflix, Sony, Myspace, Slashdot.
People who read through this type of "news" will end up seeing a service or company they like mentioned in this article, then go to the source to read through. In turn, Business 2.0 ranks up the page hits.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, that argument is getting very tired.
I don't believe for one second that there is that much of a difference in dialogue, acting skills, or storytelling between 4-6 and 1-3. Consider:
- Each set has their strong actors (Alec Guinesss/Harrison Ford; Ewan McGreggor/Liam Neison) and each has their share of weaker actors (Mark Hammill (yes really)/Billy Dee Williams; Hayden Christensen/Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett/clone troopers)).
- Wasn't Luke just as whiny in ANH as Anakin was in AOTC?
- By ROTJ, the actors are just as wooden (or so goes the popular term for describing the acting skills of 1-3) as many think the actors in 1-3 are.
- Is the 2nd Death Star in ROTJ really inventive?
I'm not saying I think poorly of the movies - I in fact like all of them. My point is, people should really hold to the same standards that they are judging the prequels by. I've learned to look past some of the minor portions of poor compositions through the entire saga, and enjoy all of the films for what they are and what they present. And, apparently, I'm in a minority in doing so. 4-6 are in no way free from flaws, and people really should stop falling to that mindset.Not to mention, I firmly belive much of the animosity towards the prequels is a result of our upbringing. How many of us have grown up with 4-6? How many times have we watched each movie from that trilogy? So, when something new comes through, it simply doesn't compare because we didn't grow up with it for 30 years.
"Of course, I would waste my $10 on Star War VII."
And therein lies the bottom line. People still love Star Wars, even though many hop on the bandwagon of prequel-bashing. The films aren't ruined, as so many like to say. Even after many fans of the originals completely despised TPM and AOTC, ROTS went on to be the most successful film on an opening day.
Just my opinion.
It's, "Daylight Saving Time," not, "Daylight Savings Time." It's not like we're, "savings teh 1337 daylights." (daylight is singular)
At least the summary had it right.
Each Acer I've ever had experience with (mostly tablets, but some laptops) has reaffirmed that I will definitely not be purchasing one. They're awful. Of course "top-of-the-line" is probably just referring to Acer's top shelf product, which in my opinion doesn't have much going for it. While I personally haven't used the Ferrari line, I can't imagine they'd be much better - adding an exotic car mfg's logo to a laptop doesn't give it an edge.
Had I received such a 'present' from MS, I would have tried selling it off for a down payment on a nice ASUS laptop.
I received the email that Nintendo sent out yesterday regarding safety information. The points that were made were:
What got me was the fact that people are apparently purposefully letting go of the Wiimotes. Nintendo cited the example of WiiSports bowling stating that only the B button, not the entire remote needs to be released.
Also, none of the games that I know of require a player to use their full arm strength to play a game. Again, using bowling as an example - it's not a matter of how fast you swing your arm, it's more dependant on timing. In other words, you don't need to be able to tear a phone book in half to chuck the ball any faster.
If people don't take these fairly simple principals into consideration, they really don't have anyone but themselves to blame, I think. Nintendo has taken every means necessary by publishing numerous pages of safety info in manuals and their website, and even displaying reminders before starting games.
But, props to them for taking the initiative. At least they seem to be easing these people by looking into the issue. Good customer service reputation.
True, Golf is the most sensitive game, but as was eluded to, real golf is in itself based on accuracy. Interesting to me was my friend's dad who played the Wii golf, both of who actually go play real golf. He couldn't play Wii golf worth beans. This was mainly because it interfered with his normal real golf swing - his natural swing doesn't allow much room for a follow-through, while Wii golf depends quite a bit on follow-through (proper technique?). You have to consider most of the normal environment aspects (wind, hills, etc) as in real golf. The swing also takes some getting used to. For instance, I've found that alot of people who I've had play the Wii golf who actually do golf tend to take their swing pretty quickly. Unfortunately, some time is required for the Wiimote to register you're holding the club behind you - this is all before you actually swing, so it isn't (or, shouldn't be) interruptive to your shot. Keep an eye on the speed of your swing and follow through. Take as many practice shots as you need, that's why the feature is there. Also make sure you hold the controllers correctly - just like a real club - that's the premise of the game. So don't hold the controller pointed away from you or even to the side, point it down to the floor. Two hands aren't necessary, but if it makes you feel better, go for it. I've personally found golf to be one of the funner games (just went to "pro" status), though a game with multiple players takes longer than a tennis or boxing match. I suppose it all depends on if golf appeals to people in real life to begin with.
That's something that I've noted (2nd to last paragraph) as well. Right now, everyone is impressed with the new and different way to do things (the intital wow factor) and are still in the honeymoon stage with the console. Nintendo's still riding the chance wave.
Can the console hold everyone's attention? The majority of that (if not all of it) will depend largely on game developers. We know that tons of dev companies are jumping at the chance to make games for the Wii, however if the games suck, people aren't going to buy them and it will reflect poorly on the console. Quite a few initial titles seem to focus around the mini-game theme (shake the Wiimote and Nunchuck up and down in one game, twist the Wiimote back and forth in another). Hopefully either devs won't run the same idea into the ground so that people get bored with it quickly, or they'll think of new and entertaining ways to implement these features so that people don't think a game is just a mirror of another.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Wii (man, that will never stop sounding weird) and have enjoyed playing it. I'm still waiting for some good titles to come out, though."Also, with PS/3 being a fully functional computer with a keyboard/mouse/blueray, its more than just a console. And Xbox live with internet access to media is more than a console. The Wii is a console and priced like it."
Careful...The Wii has different features through the channel meuns - Mii, Photo, Shopping, Forecast (soon to come), Weather (soon to come), Internet browsing (soon to come), and messaging including email. And, supposedly, the next gen of Wiis should feature a DVD channel. To me, the Wii seems more like an entertainment console.
That boxing game is crazy-fun. Think Mike Tyson for NES, but obviously with way better graphics and much more interaction. You use both the Wiimote and Nunchuck (which is how I found it it was also a motion sensor, used to simulate your other hand) to throw literally throw your punches. After three matches, I was starting to work up a sweat. Of course this was after I'd only got four hours of sleep and had been up since 4am waiting in line. Not one who uses my upper body strength on a frequent basis, my arms are a bit stiff today.
"One day I will be. I'll be the most powerful Jedi ever! I'll even be able to stop people from dying!" - Anakin Skywalker, Attack of the Clones.
Am I the only one who thought that these two quotes are pretty scarily similar?
Otherwise Yahoo would have to pay a 12.5% tax on sending this message via light.
I'm all for SuSE over the other distros, don't get me wrong. I'm running it on my laptop and enjoy the new wireless utilities (with 10.1 it's now about 10 times easier). However, a release this broken really made me sad. Even though I was able to fix it by looking through online documentation from other frustrated users, I couldn't recommend that my friends/family give this release a try. So, I've been telling them that 10.2 should be a good release. Although, we'll see how the ReiserFS > Ext3 switch goes with the next release.
Not only do they sound like a sceaming child who wanted ice cream for dinner instead of green beans, but at the same time their 'article' is massive commercial-centric FUD translating into, "If we can't make our product work within the kernel, your PC will be DOOMED...DOOOOOOMED! Consider yourself warned!"
They aren't even asking for customer intervention - Ok...now that I've read this, what am I supposed to do? Write my local congressman? Notify Homeland Security? Protest outside of Redmond?
What is McAfee doing aside from complaining? Sounds like not much.
I hold a religious belief that is Bible based, but I don't reject 'firmly established scientific truths'. I model my faith as the Bible describes at Hebrews 11:1 - "Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not yet beheld." (Emphasis added) So, real faith isn't gullible. The Bible says that faith is supposed to be based on solid evidence and reasonable assurance that you've proven to yourself.
With hard drives getting this much capacity, which term would most accurately describe them - a truck or a series of pipes?
He mentioned corrupt boot sectors (no boot sectors or boot sector virus), but primarily emphasized the user freindliness for those users who try to install/upgrade. He also mentioned that it wasn't possible for MS to code for every single "foreign" boot sector out there.
Those darn sand people...always travelling in single file.
Welcome to Slashdot...News for nerds
Since Mr. Gates lives in Washington, he is unfortunately not able to respond to your wager online.
While MRAM's speed and power consumption outperform DRAM and Flash, I still don't know if I'd be fully comfortable with MRAM replacing devices specifically built for portability and ease of use. If these are to replace current uses for other types of memory such as Flash, would we have to worry about close proximity with anything magnetic? Would I not be able to carry my MRAM based phone, MP3 player, or USB drive in a single pocket, or nearby pockets?
The point I was making was not in reference to online gaming in general, just to the fact that it sounded like his suggestion was limited to your personal friends.
If he's strictly talking about getting 10 of your personal friends together, why not just go to Target, pick up a cheap football, go to a park, and...play football? Compared to the price of getting 10 gaming systems, 10 copies of the game, 10 online subscriptions, and coordinating the same time to get all 10 of your friends together it's far too much effort.
Now, for online play in general (playing with people you don't know from the entire world), it seems like it may be feasable. The only problem I forsee is the same types of complaints with most other online games: more than half of one team disconnecting before they lose, n00bs bringing a team down, and 1337 players pwning everyone.
Don't you think we might be being a little harsh on a website that can give us the barcodes of fine quality products such as The Canadian Oxford School Atlas-7th Ed., Gatorade Fruit Punch 20oz, Royal Club Shandy, and Målinriktad projektstyrning?
#47 - Jumpman. Was there really a better name for it?
Office 97 was a piece of junk, and 2000 didn't offer much more. 2002 was where they started getting things right, and 2003 had some nice features. I've personally been using the 2007 beta where there's some nifty stuff that I could see some business use for (though they're pushing Sharepoint like a crack dealer).
So, IMO, if you don't have documents that are very heavily formatted (which judging by the fact that you're still using 97, I don't think so), and money is an issue, move yourself out of MS 97 and go with OO.O 2.
You know you're not far off. I for one will be looking forward to the Wii (haven't decided if I'll buy it first day or not). Nintendo is taking gaming to a different level, whereas MS and Sony are still building on what already exists. It sounds really fun to me to be able to physically get involved in many types of video games (that aren't DDR). The impression I get from all of this is that Nintendo is at least trying to justify the cost of their console and games.
Yes, it's the equivalent to the same strategy that John Dvorak uses - get people to read through your article by hitting a nerve.
By simply including Slashdot, the magazine editors could guarantee that this article would be /.ed. They even admit this point themselves: "Remember the days when "getting Slashdotted" was every sysadmin's worst nightmare?...For those that survived the flood, it was the online equivalent of a papal benediction."
They also attack both sides of a few spectrums: Blu-ray vs HD-DVD, MS vs Linux (vs Sun?). In addition they hit services and products that quite a few people use: Netflix, Sony, Myspace, Slashdot.
People who read through this type of "news" will end up seeing a service or company they like mentioned in this article, then go to the source to read through. In turn, Business 2.0 ranks up the page hits.