I've never been to outer space, and I probably never will. If a FICTIONAL story can't have ships the follow physics and AREN'T extremely ugly, then I would rather have the pretty ones. Call me crazy.
Call me when somebody gets some reliable statistics on this stuff. Everyone is out to get Apple, but so far they are untouchable. I'm certain they will fix these problems in the near future.
Sigh... all these people should be waiting for Merom Macbooks anyway.
You're right to a point. Actually come to think of it I did enjoy some of the space battles in Babylon 5. The main things I hated were the Earth ships (and the station itself). It doesn't get much fuglier than the Earth fighters, the Earth capital ships, and the station itself. Though some of the alien ships really weren't all that better, just not as boxy.
I still think that if you can't get the new technology to look good you should fall back on the taditional stuff. It's cool to be a pioneer and all but the end result was me thinking B5's graphics sucked compared to TNGs. Actually come to think of it I still don't see sci-fi shows with "better" special effects than Star Trek. Perhaps their off screen tricks were just too good and they have me imagining all kinds of cool special effects that they never actually showed on screen. Everytime I see a ship on a sci-fi show I immediately compare it to two things: a star destroyer from Empire Strikes Back and a typical Star Trek ship. If it doesn't look as realistic as one of them I'm upset. Some shows with good special effects (Stargate) just suffer from ugly ships. The big Ghoauld ships (aka pyramids) are ok but everything else is usualy meh and doesn't do much besides blow up or go into hyperspace after a couple of shots (budget issues I guess). Even Serenity (the Firefly movie) lacked good ships. The descent onto Mr. Universe's pad was pretty cool, I'm not gonna lie. But you didn't really get to see much big ship-to-ship action, or it flew by Serenity really fast. Stupid cargo ships with no weapons! Serenity could have done with a little bit of Millenium Falcon action.
Lucas really pushed me over the edge with the computer generated storm troopers. Biggest mistake of all time. Cutting edge, revolutionary, etc etc but COMPLETELY FAKE LOOKING. Being a technophiliac is no excuse for refusing to use humans for close-up shots.
Well the way I figure it you can never have too many Daleks. So, constantly expressing concern about their ultimate doom and the possible lack of them appearing in the series can only be a good thing, right?
I thought I had seen Seasons 1 and 2, but now I think I'm realizing I was very confused and have only seen season 1. Bah, more daleks! I'm dying to see that K-9 episode too.
To be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on this new series because I haven't been watching it religiously. I'm much bigger on the Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and the Brigadier days (god, every show needs some random British Brigadier General). Not to mention their many cool friends / sidekicks like K-9, Mary Jane, and Joe. Even that warrior woman girl was, well, a warrior woman:).
I've played video games most of my life and I can't recall one complex story. I don't think that's because I have a bad memory or that games don't have them, I think it's because complex storylines are doomed to be forgotten (in games). When you're watching a television series or inside a standalone movie the twists and turns of the plot are everything, but in a game where you're the one making the decisions, not so much.
This doesn't always have to be so. In certain gendres the storyline is more important. In the future we'll hopefully have icreasingly interactive games where the player has such a dynamics effect on the story that it really matters to him or her. But for now I think that, for most gendres, the best thing to do is to create a good, solid, but simple storyline for players to follow as they play your game.
I'll have to check it out, but I suspect it isn't what I'm trying to descibe. I don't want pron tapes or phone sex, I just want babes in bikini advertising. You know, like 2 playgirls showcasing a cisco router (obviously an exxagerated example).
This reminds me of the cooking channel for some reason. No matter how much proof I have that the people on the screen are real chefs sometimes I get the impression that they're just some network guy's neice or nephew acting out a script.
Sigh, I have seen those episodes. But if what you say is true that sucks... bigtime. I don't want to run into more random single Daleks or crazy demented Daleks, I just want plain old Daleks.
Dude I've seen the episodes: "You would make a good Dalek.":) but you know, stuff happens in Season 2 you know. Like I said I know / have heard they can't really get rid of the Daleks but it's still dissapointing.
After thinking about it for a while though I've decided the Time Lords really weren't much of a loss. Only the Master was really interesting and I'm not too sure they could find a good actor to play him even if they did conjure an excuse to ressurect him (not that I'm thrilled with the new Doctors).
Lol I just had a vision of the Master appearing to Doctor Who in a dream during his last regeneration and making a secret deal / plan to bring them both back to life when he dies.
I sincerely hope this is a joke. If anyone can explain to me how 20 years in a federal prison is going to rehabilitate webmasters who use incorrect meta tags I'll give him or her a dollar. Whatever happened to pretending that the punishments fit the crimes? I guess there aren't a lot of porno site admin sympathizers, but seriously, how is this going ot be enforced? Are we going to create the Meta Tag Enforcement Agency (MTEA)? Are they going to lure pron webmasters to the United States with free vacation packages so they can arrest them? Draconian, uneforceable, there just aren't enough adjectives to describe the wrongness of this law.
Sigh... silly politicians, the internet is FOR pron.
Dear god I hope this means I can get a bunch of commercials with babes in bikinis in place of the ones about feminine hygiene someday soon. As much as I fear / despise companies collecting data on me I don't forsee advertising ceasing to exist anytime soon. If I'm going to be subjected to it I hope I get at least get some eye candy instead of, well, feminine hygiene products.
There should be some sort of button labeled "I'm a 20-something male living alone, switch to inappropriate-for-family commercials now." on every remote.
Babylon 5 is hardly "back." Direct to DVD 20 minute character episodes hardly qualify as any sort of ressurection. As for the greatest sci-fi TV series of all time, for me it's a no-brainer: Doctor Who. And I'm not talking about the newer episodes, I'm taking about the series as a whole. Babylon 5 was great but it didn't instill the sort of eternal love that series like Doctor Who (and even Star Trek: the Next Generation to some degree) have. To this very day if I walked outside and saw a Dalek or Patrick Stewart I would shit my pants, a creature or actor from Babylon 5, not so much.
That having been said those are my personal picks, I'm sure that for many Babylon 5 fans it's quite the other way around. I enjoyed the series, it just wasn't spectacular for me. I've never seemed to truly favor station-based series, I prefer travelers like the Enterprise, the Tardis, the Stargate, etc. I also was not impressed by the special effects in Babylon 5, they were actually kind of crappy. Much crappeir than those in Star Trek: the Next Generation if you ask me. The plot and the actors in Babylon 5 were both very important to me and they screwed them both up pretty bad as the series progressed. In show like Star Trek and Doctor Who the plot really doesn't matter too much, as long as they're still flying around having crazy adventures it's all good.
Actually I'm kind of pissed at the new Doctor Who. Not having any Daleks or any Time Lords (besides the Doctor of course) pretty much kills my two favorite races. I'm informed they can't really not have any more Dalek episodes though, after all, the man does travel through time and the Daleks are his greatest enemy. He's bound to run into Daleks in the past.
I'm also pissed at Stargate, mostly at the retirement of you-know-who. What ever that dude from Farscape's name is needs to die. He's like one of those kids I always wanted to punch in the face while playing football. He's not a good replacement for the offbeat Colonel at all. The new general is also a poor replacement for General Hamond. He seems more like one of those nameless military types you'd see in one scene of a movie - he looks and sounds the part but he has no personality. I don't mind the crazy lady because she's, well, crazy but her Farscape boyfriend has got to go (or start acting less annoying).
If I were a telephone provider looking for a market niche I would start advertising my decision not to participate in the government's illegal spying program _right now_. Of course, I would be very surprised if any of the monopoly-prone government sucks ups actually do it. You have to admit that there are a lot of people that would flock to such a provider and not a lot of people who would specifically avoid them. If the government really wanted to get devious they could encourage such a move then illegally seize the information and force the company to pretend it never happened. That's what I would do if I was in the business of burning the last shred of freedom out of the land of the free - it would be a great terrorist trap and a great way to spy on ultra-liberal opponents as well.
I really don't have all of the details so I can't actually say for sure whether this lawsuit would have uncovered information that could have decreased the United States' ability to combat terrorists, however, the truth is I DON'T CARE. There are a lot of things that COULD be done to increase security in the States, but many of them would be worse than the very things they would seek to eliminate. From what I know I would argue that this is probably one of them, though again, I don't know the true details. In a free country you simply can't have allegedly illegal government programs that aren't subject to claims of illegality. There's an argument to be made for suspending such things in times of true emergency, distant conflicts with various terrorist organizations likely to last indefinitely not being one.
More than likely there is an extensive spying program with relatively poor and easily avoidable detection methods and that's the reason it is being so well protected. Only the atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is helping them "fight" terror, the program itself probaby doesn't do much besides producing false positives. If the details were made public it would almost certainly be cancelled even if it was legal.
LucasArts makes some really great games... and a lot of really bad ones. I'm hoping the crappy ones pay for the good ones or something like that. I'm really happy to see they're staying multi-platform, the last thing we need is another major developer sticking to one or two consoles. You can't really blame Nintendo but any company that doesn't make a console is fair game in my book. Wii-only games, PS3 only games, XBOX 360 only games, and PS3/XBOX 360 only games are going to hurt everyone. While it's true that the different consoles have different abilities and some games are going to be exclusive simply because they take advantage of that I'm sick of seeing deals between Sony / Microsoft / Nintendo and developers - they usually just lead to less sales for the game developer.
Though I can't say this is any sort of news because anyone who has ever played a Star Wars game has to know that the Wii controller screams LIGHTSABER!!!
It's just like any other security technology, nothing special. I never understood why people hold biometric data in such high regard as a security measure. Though it's true the average person probably can't spoof your data it's rarely the average person that wants to. I'm sure if the technology becomes more popular there were be the usual war between hackers and spoofers and the security industry. To its credit I find it more likely that my roomate could guess a password than spoof my fingerprint, though that could easily change in the future.
Nintendo and Microsoft aren't really taking any risk, Sony is. Microsoft has lost so much money on their console business that throwing the XBOX 360 out there as quickly as possible made sense - it gave them all of the customers who didn't want to wait for Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo is releasing by far the cheapest machine that, except for the controller, is full of very solid technology. Very little risk there since the controller is a great gimmick and they can always change and they will always have their own games to rely on.
Sony, on other hand, doesn't even want to admit its box is "a mere console" and it is completely full of expensive new technology that gives it a huge price tag. Worse, it's hard to develop for and its price tag has to be making developers nervous. This probably means more expensive games for a more expensive console.
Sony and Microsoft seem to want to turn the console industry into something else while Nintendo is very happy making boatloads of money doing what it knows best. I don't know about you guys, but I am not in the market for a media center or another PC. Personally, I think the concept of a media center is some sort of corporate attempt to make me pay for a bunch of crap I don't need and won't use. And I definitely do not need another PC, especially one made by Microsoft. If I wanted to play PC games I'd play them on the several thousand dollar computer I already have, not a few hundred dollar console.
Here's my question: if the PS3 flops where will Sony's followers turn? Microsoft? Nintendo? Or will they abandon consoles entirely? I'd like to say they will turn to Nintendo, but I'm not so sure. I'm certain the Wii will do well, but I seriously doubt it can steal Sony's market share back. My fear is that certain developers will turn to developing solely on the XBOX and Nintendo / games / console will become the next Apple / OS X / Mac situation.
Of course, the PS3 is not here so this is all theoretical. Only time will tell if Sony's big investment will pay off, but if it fails I sincerely hope Microsoft does not get put in a position to dominate the console industry the same way it has dominated the OS industry or non-PC games are doomed.
What are they going to blame for the crime wave next, fashionable clothing? Nice shoes? Just buy an ugly looking pair of headphones and put your iPod in your pocket on random, problem solved.
See, this is how capitalism is supposed to work. AMD starts to gain market share, Intel is forced to bust out better technology. I can promise you this - if not for AMD nipping at Intel's heels this technology would be less powerful, more expensive, and much longer delayed. For all of those AMD fanboys: don't switch. If AMD goes out of business Intel will have no reason to innovate (or lower prices).
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I've never been to outer space, and I probably never will. If a FICTIONAL story can't have ships the follow physics and AREN'T extremely ugly, then I would rather have the pretty ones. Call me crazy.
Call me when somebody gets some reliable statistics on this stuff. Everyone is out to get Apple, but so far they are untouchable. I'm certain they will fix these problems in the near future.
Sigh... all these people should be waiting for Merom Macbooks anyway.
You're right to a point. Actually come to think of it I did enjoy some of the space battles in Babylon 5. The main things I hated were the Earth ships (and the station itself). It doesn't get much fuglier than the Earth fighters, the Earth capital ships, and the station itself. Though some of the alien ships really weren't all that better, just not as boxy.
I still think that if you can't get the new technology to look good you should fall back on the taditional stuff. It's cool to be a pioneer and all but the end result was me thinking B5's graphics sucked compared to TNGs. Actually come to think of it I still don't see sci-fi shows with "better" special effects than Star Trek. Perhaps their off screen tricks were just too good and they have me imagining all kinds of cool special effects that they never actually showed on screen. Everytime I see a ship on a sci-fi show I immediately compare it to two things: a star destroyer from Empire Strikes Back and a typical Star Trek ship. If it doesn't look as realistic as one of them I'm upset. Some shows with good special effects (Stargate) just suffer from ugly ships. The big Ghoauld ships (aka pyramids) are ok but everything else is usualy meh and doesn't do much besides blow up or go into hyperspace after a couple of shots (budget issues I guess). Even Serenity (the Firefly movie) lacked good ships. The descent onto Mr. Universe's pad was pretty cool, I'm not gonna lie. But you didn't really get to see much big ship-to-ship action, or it flew by Serenity really fast. Stupid cargo ships with no weapons! Serenity could have done with a little bit of Millenium Falcon action.
Lucas really pushed me over the edge with the computer generated storm troopers. Biggest mistake of all time. Cutting edge, revolutionary, etc etc but COMPLETELY FAKE LOOKING. Being a technophiliac is no excuse for refusing to use humans for close-up shots.
Well the way I figure it you can never have too many Daleks. So, constantly expressing concern about their ultimate doom and the possible lack of them appearing in the series can only be a good thing, right?
:).
I thought I had seen Seasons 1 and 2, but now I think I'm realizing I was very confused and have only seen season 1. Bah, more daleks! I'm dying to see that K-9 episode too.
To be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on this new series because I haven't been watching it religiously. I'm much bigger on the Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, and the Brigadier days (god, every show needs some random British Brigadier General). Not to mention their many cool friends / sidekicks like K-9, Mary Jane, and Joe. Even that warrior woman girl was, well, a warrior woman
I've played video games most of my life and I can't recall one complex story. I don't think that's because I have a bad memory or that games don't have them, I think it's because complex storylines are doomed to be forgotten (in games). When you're watching a television series or inside a standalone movie the twists and turns of the plot are everything, but in a game where you're the one making the decisions, not so much.
This doesn't always have to be so. In certain gendres the storyline is more important. In the future we'll hopefully have icreasingly interactive games where the player has such a dynamics effect on the story that it really matters to him or her. But for now I think that, for most gendres, the best thing to do is to create a good, solid, but simple storyline for players to follow as they play your game.
I'll have to check it out, but I suspect it isn't what I'm trying to descibe. I don't want pron tapes or phone sex, I just want babes in bikini advertising. You know, like 2 playgirls showcasing a cisco router (obviously an exxagerated example).
This reminds me of the cooking channel for some reason. No matter how much proof I have that the people on the screen are real chefs sometimes I get the impression that they're just some network guy's neice or nephew acting out a script.
Sigh, I have seen those episodes. But if what you say is true that sucks... bigtime. I don't want to run into more random single Daleks or crazy demented Daleks, I just want plain old Daleks.
Dude I've seen the episodes: "You would make a good Dalek." :) but you know, stuff happens in Season 2 you know. Like I said I know / have heard they can't really get rid of the Daleks but it's still dissapointing.
After thinking about it for a while though I've decided the Time Lords really weren't much of a loss. Only the Master was really interesting and I'm not too sure they could find a good actor to play him even if they did conjure an excuse to ressurect him (not that I'm thrilled with the new Doctors).
Lol I just had a vision of the Master appearing to Doctor Who in a dream during his last regeneration and making a secret deal / plan to bring them both back to life when he dies.
I sincerely hope this is a joke. If anyone can explain to me how 20 years in a federal prison is going to rehabilitate webmasters who use incorrect meta tags I'll give him or her a dollar. Whatever happened to pretending that the punishments fit the crimes? I guess there aren't a lot of porno site admin sympathizers, but seriously, how is this going ot be enforced? Are we going to create the Meta Tag Enforcement Agency (MTEA)? Are they going to lure pron webmasters to the United States with free vacation packages so they can arrest them? Draconian, uneforceable, there just aren't enough adjectives to describe the wrongness of this law.
Sigh... silly politicians, the internet is FOR pron.
Dear god I hope this means I can get a bunch of commercials with babes in bikinis in place of the ones about feminine hygiene someday soon. As much as I fear / despise companies collecting data on me I don't forsee advertising ceasing to exist anytime soon. If I'm going to be subjected to it I hope I get at least get some eye candy instead of, well, feminine hygiene products.
There should be some sort of button labeled "I'm a 20-something male living alone, switch to inappropriate-for-family commercials now." on every remote.
Babylon 5 is hardly "back." Direct to DVD 20 minute character episodes hardly qualify as any sort of ressurection. As for the greatest sci-fi TV series of all time, for me it's a no-brainer: Doctor Who. And I'm not talking about the newer episodes, I'm taking about the series as a whole. Babylon 5 was great but it didn't instill the sort of eternal love that series like Doctor Who (and even Star Trek: the Next Generation to some degree) have. To this very day if I walked outside and saw a Dalek or Patrick Stewart I would shit my pants, a creature or actor from Babylon 5, not so much.
That having been said those are my personal picks, I'm sure that for many Babylon 5 fans it's quite the other way around. I enjoyed the series, it just wasn't spectacular for me. I've never seemed to truly favor station-based series, I prefer travelers like the Enterprise, the Tardis, the Stargate, etc. I also was not impressed by the special effects in Babylon 5, they were actually kind of crappy. Much crappeir than those in Star Trek: the Next Generation if you ask me. The plot and the actors in Babylon 5 were both very important to me and they screwed them both up pretty bad as the series progressed. In show like Star Trek and Doctor Who the plot really doesn't matter too much, as long as they're still flying around having crazy adventures it's all good.
Actually I'm kind of pissed at the new Doctor Who. Not having any Daleks or any Time Lords (besides the Doctor of course) pretty much kills my two favorite races. I'm informed they can't really not have any more Dalek episodes though, after all, the man does travel through time and the Daleks are his greatest enemy. He's bound to run into Daleks in the past.
I'm also pissed at Stargate, mostly at the retirement of you-know-who. What ever that dude from Farscape's name is needs to die. He's like one of those kids I always wanted to punch in the face while playing football. He's not a good replacement for the offbeat Colonel at all. The new general is also a poor replacement for General Hamond. He seems more like one of those nameless military types you'd see in one scene of a movie - he looks and sounds the part but he has no personality. I don't mind the crazy lady because she's, well, crazy but her Farscape boyfriend has got to go (or start acting less annoying).
I never thought I'd say this, but: I kind of wish I lived in France. [ewww]
The obvious alternative is accepting that the line between security and freedom was crossed.
If I were a telephone provider looking for a market niche I would start advertising my decision not to participate in the government's illegal spying program _right now_. Of course, I would be very surprised if any of the monopoly-prone government sucks ups actually do it. You have to admit that there are a lot of people that would flock to such a provider and not a lot of people who would specifically avoid them. If the government really wanted to get devious they could encourage such a move then illegally seize the information and force the company to pretend it never happened. That's what I would do if I was in the business of burning the last shred of freedom out of the land of the free - it would be a great terrorist trap and a great way to spy on ultra-liberal opponents as well.
I really don't have all of the details so I can't actually say for sure whether this lawsuit would have uncovered information that could have decreased the United States' ability to combat terrorists, however, the truth is I DON'T CARE. There are a lot of things that COULD be done to increase security in the States, but many of them would be worse than the very things they would seek to eliminate. From what I know I would argue that this is probably one of them, though again, I don't know the true details. In a free country you simply can't have allegedly illegal government programs that aren't subject to claims of illegality. There's an argument to be made for suspending such things in times of true emergency, distant conflicts with various terrorist organizations likely to last indefinitely not being one.
More than likely there is an extensive spying program with relatively poor and easily avoidable detection methods and that's the reason it is being so well protected. Only the atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is helping them "fight" terror, the program itself probaby doesn't do much besides producing false positives. If the details were made public it would almost certainly be cancelled even if it was legal.
LucasArts makes some really great games... and a lot of really bad ones. I'm hoping the crappy ones pay for the good ones or something like that. I'm really happy to see they're staying multi-platform, the last thing we need is another major developer sticking to one or two consoles. You can't really blame Nintendo but any company that doesn't make a console is fair game in my book. Wii-only games, PS3 only games, XBOX 360 only games, and PS3/XBOX 360 only games are going to hurt everyone. While it's true that the different consoles have different abilities and some games are going to be exclusive simply because they take advantage of that I'm sick of seeing deals between Sony / Microsoft / Nintendo and developers - they usually just lead to less sales for the game developer.
Though I can't say this is any sort of news because anyone who has ever played a Star Wars game has to know that the Wii controller screams LIGHTSABER!!!
It's just like any other security technology, nothing special. I never understood why people hold biometric data in such high regard as a security measure. Though it's true the average person probably can't spoof your data it's rarely the average person that wants to. I'm sure if the technology becomes more popular there were be the usual war between hackers and spoofers and the security industry. To its credit I find it more likely that my roomate could guess a password than spoof my fingerprint, though that could easily change in the future.
Nintendo and Microsoft aren't really taking any risk, Sony is. Microsoft has lost so much money on their console business that throwing the XBOX 360 out there as quickly as possible made sense - it gave them all of the customers who didn't want to wait for Nintendo and Sony. Nintendo is releasing by far the cheapest machine that, except for the controller, is full of very solid technology. Very little risk there since the controller is a great gimmick and they can always change and they will always have their own games to rely on.
Sony, on other hand, doesn't even want to admit its box is "a mere console" and it is completely full of expensive new technology that gives it a huge price tag. Worse, it's hard to develop for and its price tag has to be making developers nervous. This probably means more expensive games for a more expensive console.
Sony and Microsoft seem to want to turn the console industry into something else while Nintendo is very happy making boatloads of money doing what it knows best. I don't know about you guys, but I am not in the market for a media center or another PC. Personally, I think the concept of a media center is some sort of corporate attempt to make me pay for a bunch of crap I don't need and won't use. And I definitely do not need another PC, especially one made by Microsoft. If I wanted to play PC games I'd play them on the several thousand dollar computer I already have, not a few hundred dollar console.
Here's my question: if the PS3 flops where will Sony's followers turn? Microsoft? Nintendo? Or will they abandon consoles entirely? I'd like to say they will turn to Nintendo, but I'm not so sure. I'm certain the Wii will do well, but I seriously doubt it can steal Sony's market share back. My fear is that certain developers will turn to developing solely on the XBOX and Nintendo / games / console will become the next Apple / OS X / Mac situation.
Of course, the PS3 is not here so this is all theoretical. Only time will tell if Sony's big investment will pay off, but if it fails I sincerely hope Microsoft does not get put in a position to dominate the console industry the same way it has dominated the OS industry or non-PC games are doomed.
What are they going to blame for the crime wave next, fashionable clothing? Nice shoes? Just buy an ugly looking pair of headphones and put your iPod in your pocket on random, problem solved.
Does it really matter what developers think? Microsoft is going to force everyone to use DirectX anymore, whether they want to or not :(.
Blaming open source for malicious software is like suing your doctor for saving your life - you can do it, but it doesn't make any sense.
They wouldn't let me in *cries* :(.
See, this is how capitalism is supposed to work. AMD starts to gain market share, Intel is forced to bust out better technology. I can promise you this - if not for AMD nipping at Intel's heels this technology would be less powerful, more expensive, and much longer delayed. For all of those AMD fanboys: don't switch. If AMD goes out of business Intel will have no reason to innovate (or lower prices).
Check me if I'm wrong but aren't iBooks going out of style fast? MacBooks / MacBook Pros for the win?