I saw this and thought I was being picked up for my bad grammer again!
Seriously, thats the funniest thing I've read all day. Just thought you should know.
Your food availability hypothesis falls apart in face of the fact that mosquitoes do not require blood for sustenance. The blood is only drawn by female mosquitoes for the eggs. Male and non-gestating female mosquitoes have the same diet as most butterflies. IOW, the food supply is not a factor.
It does if you make the assumption that blood is the only way a large city like athens increases the food available to mosquitoes.
But more importantly - I disagree - male Mosquitoes die within a few days - and typically only feed after mating - so are not particulary important when it comes to sexual selection. But the diet of blood that the female uses to lay eggs keeps her alive for weeks and so this increased food supply will do as I outlined.
A crucial point I forgot to mention in the above is that this allows them to better compete with the rest of their species - the larger, faster, "better" mossies will be able to bread more often than the "ordinary" mossies - and the increased amount of food supports them in that aim.
The better vision allows you to see more chicks to impregnate.
Just because you can't immediately see why evolution would lead to something - doesn't mean that it won't happen - it just means your not looking at the situation right.
If this is happening due to many humans being in even smaller spaces, why the hell does the insect need color vision, and the ability to smell humans from even FARTHER away? I don't see how that need could have evolved to be beneficial... the speed thing I can see... I'm truly confused as to why such a feature would evolve with seemingly no benefit.
Well one big factor with evolution is having the energy to run your body. Humans spends a vast percentage of the energy we generate on keeping are brain's ticking over - which we can only maintain because the brain allows to us generate enough food to make that reasonable. Where most animals have as stupid a brain as they can get away with - as it's cheaper to run.
These insects already had color vision, the ability to smell humans from a distance, and bodies - but the greater population of humans created a situation where they can afford to grow bigger, afford to run more powerful noses and afford better vision- as there is enough food to support the greater level of energy these "improved" bodies require to be sustained.
Likewise - if food becomes scarce for these animals evolution will lead to them becoming more fuel efficient again.
This is analogous to the situation facing Americans and their SUVs.
Sustained - the rate of ones progrees doesn't imply the rate of progress of another
However, the rate at which text flows, coupled to the unskippable sections indicate that GeminiDomino is clearly exaggerating the speed at which he progressed through the game! The game easily takes 10 hrs to complete. And is memorable enough for grown men to pretend they are lawyers on slashdot 0 clearly implying it is worth every penny!
Your honour, I have been playing Phoenix Wright exclusively - and have yet to finish the game. I've had to recharge the battery on his DS twice so far.
I think it's fair to argue crass generalisations with simplistic anecdotes and opinion. So lets begin:
Nintendo is still for the kiddies. They have gimmicky controllers with a Fisher-Price look and feel.
The Lite and Wii do not look like a fisherprice toys. This only shows you bias.
More importantly, most grown-ups don't want to play Mario anything
My flatshare consists of mid-twenties adults, and my girlfriend, all of who aren't geeks (I hide my true self from them). And they almost only play games with Mario in. Mario Kart, Super Mario Bros, Wario Ware etc. And even games with silly little kiddy Monkeys like Monkey Ball. An Aside: Monkey Target is the most popular game I have even seen with actual Adults - I have seen it devour entire weekends of non-gamers.
I'm talking about MOST adults.
No. You. Are. Not.
Nintendo focuses on twitch games that generally skip story altogether, or have some bizarre Japanese theme that most adults can't figure out.
Fire Emblem, Zelda, Advance Wars, Geist, Metroid, Paper Mario (though that is a bit bizzare) all disagree. You also seem to forget that other people deveolpe for Nintendo consoles: Resident Evil 4, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Centre, Second Sight, Prince of Persia, Killer 7 and so on.
Also there seems to be a big theme of hating Japanese games through your post - but you do realise that Sony and most of it's "AAA" games are in fact Japanese?
The X-Box has moved in to the mainstream generic person arena
That doesn't even make sense. The XBox is a great machine - but you can't pretend it's in anyway mainstream - like I would be fool to pretend the gamecube was. But still I would expect mainstream to at least mean it also appealed to women, and men.
Also, people like me, who want more out of a video game than a twitch reflex also want a good story with movie level production value. I'm not interested in the typical Japanimation demon/dragon/kid hero story that is as embarrassingly bad as it is incomprehensible. I want good gameplay out of a game, of course, but I also want mind-blowing graphics and sound (The PS3 is supposed to be, unquestionably, the most powerful system). My game system gets plugged into a high-end amp and speaker system, and a high-end TV. I want all of that, packaged with a story that was written and created by somebody who speaks English (not Engrish), and some good Hollywood actors. I could care less about $600 or even $800 for a game box. And, I couldn't care less if the games are $70 each. It's worth it because 1. I've seen more games than most people have and 2. money really isn't an issue to me at this point. I just want the best.
I think that speaks for itself - get over yourself. Your awesome - we understand.
Expensive CPU, expensive blu-ray... They just put lots of very "edge" hardware, meaning the assembly lines have to be paid back.... Cell is "first of a kind" and the first batch must be helluva expensive...
I totally understand you - and of course you are correct. I don't want to start a stupid argument about stats, on fanboyism - but for all that extra cost there seems to be no significant gains. At best it will be the difference between the Xbox and PS2 but the other way around - and as this gen shows, that isn't a deal breaker.
...Is why it's this expensive in the first place. If they had released a PS3 with exactly the same or slightly less power than the XBox 360 but at the same price - they would have cleaned up. There wider variety of games, and actual presence in Japan would have let them get a huge market share again.
Instead they say the same Lies they said when defeating the dreamcast, and release a slightly more powerful but not in any significant way PS3 to fight the XBox at pushing twice the price (in the UK) a year later.
But this time we know that Sony is dicking us around. It won't go well for them.
P.S. I haven't ignored the Wii - I just don't believe it relates to these two machines anymore. Thankfully - which will hopefully means more people will give nintendo a chance this time round.
For my boys I built microATX cubes....for about 1/4th the price....Sure, you may be 10 or 20 fps slower than your buddies, with a little less detail in the shadows, but who cares (especially when most LCD monitors top out at 60Hz refresh rate anyhow;-).
One of the first things I noticed with Futurama was the quality of the animation, sound and the whole kit and kaboodle. Clearly it's an expensive show - to what extent was that due to the money being flung at it? Will there be an inssue maintaining this quality?
P.S. - I don't care if there is - crayon drawings will do if it gets to come back.
P.P.S. - Slashdot hosting an mp3? Can slashdot slashdot itself?
Another advantage of sniping si that your not tied to that item. Lets say you see something in a 7 day auction and place your maximum bid on it (say £20). You then have to wait 7 days to see if you win. What if on day three you see someone else selling the object at a "Buy-it-now" price less than your maximum.
I would be quite happy paying that - but can't because I have to wait to see if I won the last auction. If I was waiting to 'snipe' then I could just walk away.
Whilst I agree with you - they don't. They see world of people rushing from the latest thing to the next latest thing - with niche fans really getting into old stuff. Hence they want to charge those people who want old things (and so must really want them) through the nose. As a Pixies fan they know I would pay through the nose to complete my collection. And they screw me because of it.
They typically don't do this. In your typical HMV or Virgin all the new singles and albums are much cheaper, as people who've heard it will pick it up on a whim. Then in a few months when it's left the common conscience the price rises.
If someone is looking for a Fleetwood Mac song - they know that by now that isn't an impulse buy - so they can get away with a higher price.
The Record Companies want this so they can price old material much higher in price - not lower. As they know if you want it you will pay. That and there is more music in their vaults than you could ever listen too - and they need to keep you interested in their new acts.
Well let's see what we can do it with. I don't care how little it is - or how much Apple think their computers are a media hub - If I can't burn a full DVD quality disk for use in my DVD player stuck under my TV I won't be paying $10 (inevitably £10 in the UK). Especially considering how long it will take to download (and thus hog my use of the web).
I wouldn't be suprised if Sony etc are trying to cripple it as if they give you an iPod version, and a DVD version in one download then we may see this be the "next gen" video player over Blu-Ray or HD-DVD- in the same way that "inferior" mp3's are the next gen over CDA or whatever that high-def stuff was called.
Intendo -- using the Itunes system for buying and playing old games on the new console. It would totally "revolutionize" the online distibution and billing systems for consoles in a heartbeat. If the retro emulation's one of the main focii of the Wii, it'd be the obvious solution.
I hope you understand that the Wii will come with a "Virtual Console" - that will allow you download and play "hundreds" of NES, SNES, N64, Megadrive/Gensis and Hudson games. They have also stated that small or independent deveolpers will be able to create new content to be distributed via the virtual console. The games are stored on the 512meg of flash memory - though they have also stated that it has 2 SD ports, and 2 usb ports, that will accept USB flash drives, and even hard drives.
So you have your wish - and they don't need something named after music to do it.
I totally agree with you - but at least this set a precedent that this kind of behaviour is unacceptable. Imagine if the root kit had not *fucked* up you computer so royally. If it had only infringed your rights then they may have got away with it, what with stupid license agreements within the case.
At least this will put record companies off this kind of behaviour.
You've hit the nail on the head. A lot of the playstation generation (despite what they may claim) were not around for the sega/nintendo years.
Nintendo were full of themselves, sublimely arrogant and they snubbed everyone around them, released very expensive games, and were convinced they could do as they like. Sega was the same, pushing out cookie cutter games and walking around like nothing could hurt them.
Sounds familiar?
Within one generation their empires collapsed. Sega went bust (effectively) and Nintendo fell to 3rd place in the home console market.
There is no reason this cant happen to Sony, and as you say it based purely on popular opinion. Sony became cool and shot to number one, and now - they seem anything but.
The real question is, not whether they will fall, but if they will survive it. I doubt they will go bust (but financially they are no where near the shape the public thinks they are) but I do expect them to lose a large amount of market share.
This is the best thing that could happen to them, whilst sega dropping out of the hardware market has crippled them, Nintendo's 3rd place is the best thing that could happen to us the cosumers. The amount of innovation and free thinking thats come out of them, now they know they have to try, is outstanding.
I assume this is with the macbook's built in webcam?
I have issues with this, in that if the webcam is hardwired to the machine, and can be accessed remotely without the users knowledge - what stops a hacker spying on you for less legitimate reasons?
Like the schokwave debacle? I would have preferred Apple to have included a physical shutter to close the webcam when not in use rather than chance the unsightly aspects of my private life being shown to the masses. It's a little too orwellian for me.
I have a couple of points to make about how they are marketing it as a cheap way to get a blu-ray player. This worked brilliantly for the PS2 in the UK. In the same way we all told our parents we needed a PC for "homework" when growing up. This won't work for a number of reasons.
1) DVD -> Blu-Ray != VHS -> DVD. VHS were terrible. Crappy quality and wore out fast. DVD players let us use our current equipment to get much better picture quality. It was a one purchase upgrade. And it's only become universal in the last few years (now that a dvd player is £30). With Blue-ray moveis I need a new TV or it's meaningless. And a new TV will never reach £30. most people won't upgrade till our current TV breaks.
2) PAL != NTSC. When I've been in america I have to say - the picture quality is terrible. I can see the desire for HD television there. But in the UK we have very good quality broadcasts. There is less desire for the upgrade.
3) Freeview. This - in my opinion - is the clincher. Our normal terrestial broadcast (channels 1-5) is the primary method of recieving TV. This will be shut off between 2008 and 2010 to replaced with the currently available "freeview" this provides 30-40 free channels for the price of a set top box. There is much annoyance about this - even when set top boxes are only about £30. "Freeview" doesn't have the bandwidth to provide HD content. So knowing that cable channels in the UK have always been niche, there is no way that people will be willing to upgrade from freeview till at least 2010.
To me, this suggest that these consoles are a generation early with HD in the UK. And this should have profound effects. In my opinion of course.
Slashdot Mirror
I saw this and thought I was being picked up for my bad grammer again! Seriously, thats the funniest thing I've read all day. Just thought you should know.
Surely that's the point, by giving them a home maybe he can keep all that crap off wikipedia.
I'm sure this is at least in part his reasoning - after all the "Politicians editing there candidates wikipedia pages" scandals.
It does if you make the assumption that blood is the only way a large city like athens increases the food available to mosquitoes.
But more importantly - I disagree - male Mosquitoes die within a few days - and typically only feed after mating - so are not particulary important when it comes to sexual selection. But the diet of blood that the female uses to lay eggs keeps her alive for weeks and so this increased food supply will do as I outlined.
The better vision allows you to see more chicks to impregnate.
Just because you can't immediately see why evolution would lead to something - doesn't mean that it won't happen - it just means your not looking at the situation right.
Well one big factor with evolution is having the energy to run your body. Humans spends a vast percentage of the energy we generate on keeping are brain's ticking over - which we can only maintain because the brain allows to us generate enough food to make that reasonable. Where most animals have as stupid a brain as they can get away with - as it's cheaper to run.
These insects already had color vision, the ability to smell humans from a distance, and bodies - but the greater population of humans created a situation where they can afford to grow bigger, afford to run more powerful noses and afford better vision- as there is enough food to support the greater level of energy these "improved" bodies require to be sustained.
Likewise - if food becomes scarce for these animals evolution will lead to them becoming more fuel efficient again.
This is analogous to the situation facing Americans and their SUVs.
However, the rate at which text flows, coupled to the unskippable sections indicate that GeminiDomino is clearly exaggerating the speed at which he progressed through the game! The game easily takes 10 hrs to complete. And is memorable enough for grown men to pretend they are lawyers on slashdot 0 clearly implying it is worth every penny!
I call the parrot as a witness!
THIS EVIDENCE ON BATTERY LIFE DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS THE WITNESS TESTIMONY!!!.
(flashing lights - music kicks in)
Hence geminidomino could not have finished the game in two hours!!
Nintendo is still for the kiddies. They have gimmicky controllers with a Fisher-Price look and feel.
The Lite and Wii do not look like a fisherprice toys. This only shows you bias.
More importantly, most grown-ups don't want to play Mario anything
My flatshare consists of mid-twenties adults, and my girlfriend, all of who aren't geeks (I hide my true self from them). And they almost only play games with Mario in. Mario Kart, Super Mario Bros, Wario Ware etc. And even games with silly little kiddy Monkeys like Monkey Ball. An Aside: Monkey Target is the most popular game I have even seen with actual Adults - I have seen it devour entire weekends of non-gamers.
I'm talking about MOST adults.
No. You. Are. Not.
Nintendo focuses on twitch games that generally skip story altogether, or have some bizarre Japanese theme that most adults can't figure out.
Fire Emblem, Zelda, Advance Wars, Geist, Metroid, Paper Mario (though that is a bit bizzare) all disagree. You also seem to forget that other people deveolpe for Nintendo consoles: Resident Evil 4, Phoenix Wright, Trauma Centre, Second Sight, Prince of Persia, Killer 7 and so on.
Also there seems to be a big theme of hating Japanese games through your post - but you do realise that Sony and most of it's "AAA" games are in fact Japanese?
The X-Box has moved in to the mainstream generic person arena
That doesn't even make sense. The XBox is a great machine - but you can't pretend it's in anyway mainstream - like I would be fool to pretend the gamecube was. But still I would expect mainstream to at least mean it also appealed to women, and men.
Also, people like me, who want more out of a video game than a twitch reflex also want a good story with movie level production value. I'm not interested in the typical Japanimation demon/dragon/kid hero story that is as embarrassingly bad as it is incomprehensible. I want good gameplay out of a game, of course, but I also want mind-blowing graphics and sound (The PS3 is supposed to be, unquestionably, the most powerful system). My game system gets plugged into a high-end amp and speaker system, and a high-end TV. I want all of that, packaged with a story that was written and created by somebody who speaks English (not Engrish), and some good Hollywood actors. I could care less about $600 or even $800 for a game box. And, I couldn't care less if the games are $70 each. It's worth it because 1. I've seen more games than most people have and 2. money really isn't an issue to me at this point. I just want the best.
I think that speaks for itself - get over yourself. Your awesome - we understand.
Expensive CPU, expensive blu-ray... They just put lots of very "edge" hardware, meaning the assembly lines have to be paid back.... Cell is "first of a kind" and the first batch must be helluva expensive...
I totally understand you - and of course you are correct. I don't want to start a stupid argument about stats, on fanboyism - but for all that extra cost there seems to be no significant gains. At best it will be the difference between the Xbox and PS2 but the other way around - and as this gen shows, that isn't a deal breaker.
Instead they say the same Lies they said when defeating the dreamcast, and release a slightly more powerful but not in any significant way PS3 to fight the XBox at pushing twice the price (in the UK) a year later.
But this time we know that Sony is dicking us around. It won't go well for them.
P.S. I haven't ignored the Wii - I just don't believe it relates to these two machines anymore. Thankfully - which will hopefully means more people will give nintendo a chance this time round.
Your Children care.
P.S. - I don't care if there is - crayon drawings will do if it gets to come back.
P.P.S. - Slashdot hosting an mp3? Can slashdot slashdot itself?
I would be quite happy paying that - but can't because I have to wait to see if I won the last auction. If I was waiting to 'snipe' then I could just walk away.
Whilst I agree with you - they don't. They see world of people rushing from the latest thing to the next latest thing - with niche fans really getting into old stuff. Hence they want to charge those people who want old things (and so must really want them) through the nose. As a Pixies fan they know I would pay through the nose to complete my collection. And they screw me because of it.
If someone is looking for a Fleetwood Mac song - they know that by now that isn't an impulse buy - so they can get away with a higher price.
The Record Companies want this so they can price old material much higher in price - not lower. As they know if you want it you will pay. That and there is more music in their vaults than you could ever listen too - and they need to keep you interested in their new acts.
I wouldn't be suprised if Sony etc are trying to cripple it as if they give you an iPod version, and a DVD version in one download then we may see this be the "next gen" video player over Blu-Ray or HD-DVD- in the same way that "inferior" mp3's are the next gen over CDA or whatever that high-def stuff was called.
I know no-one who has bought porn - but everyone has watched it.
Why hasn't porn gone bust like the movie and music industries say will happen to them?
If a legitimate market can keep porn afloat an inherently embarrassing purchase - then everything else doesn't need to worry
So you have your wish - and they don't need something named after music to do it.
Probably doesn't warrant another comment - but I think you should admit when people won an argument or convinced you to change your mind.
Well said.
At least this will put record companies off this kind of behaviour.
As much as I think he was joking with his original post. I would mod-this up if I could. Beautifully put.
Nintendo were full of themselves, sublimely arrogant and they snubbed everyone around them, released very expensive games, and were convinced they could do as they like. Sega was the same, pushing out cookie cutter games and walking around like nothing could hurt them.
Sounds familiar?
Within one generation their empires collapsed. Sega went bust (effectively) and Nintendo fell to 3rd place in the home console market.
There is no reason this cant happen to Sony, and as you say it based purely on popular opinion. Sony became cool and shot to number one, and now - they seem anything but.
The real question is, not whether they will fall, but if they will survive it. I doubt they will go bust (but financially they are no where near the shape the public thinks they are) but I do expect them to lose a large amount of market share.
This is the best thing that could happen to them, whilst sega dropping out of the hardware market has crippled them, Nintendo's 3rd place is the best thing that could happen to us the cosumers. The amount of innovation and free thinking thats come out of them, now they know they have to try, is outstanding.
I think Sony could do with its own wake up call.
I have issues with this, in that if the webcam is hardwired to the machine, and can be accessed remotely without the users knowledge - what stops a hacker spying on you for less legitimate reasons?
Like the schokwave debacle? I would have preferred Apple to have included a physical shutter to close the webcam when not in use rather than chance the unsightly aspects of my private life being shown to the masses. It's a little too orwellian for me.
1) DVD -> Blu-Ray != VHS -> DVD. VHS were terrible. Crappy quality and wore out fast. DVD players let us use our current equipment to get much better picture quality. It was a one purchase upgrade. And it's only become universal in the last few years (now that a dvd player is £30). With Blue-ray moveis I need a new TV or it's meaningless. And a new TV will never reach £30. most people won't upgrade till our current TV breaks.
2) PAL != NTSC. When I've been in america I have to say - the picture quality is terrible. I can see the desire for HD television there. But in the UK we have very good quality broadcasts. There is less desire for the upgrade.
3) Freeview. This - in my opinion - is the clincher. Our normal terrestial broadcast (channels 1-5) is the primary method of recieving TV. This will be shut off between 2008 and 2010 to replaced with the currently available "freeview" this provides 30-40 free channels for the price of a set top box. There is much annoyance about this - even when set top boxes are only about £30. "Freeview" doesn't have the bandwidth to provide HD content. So knowing that cable channels in the UK have always been niche, there is no way that people will be willing to upgrade from freeview till at least 2010.
To me, this suggest that these consoles are a generation early with HD in the UK. And this should have profound effects. In my opinion of course.