Recent Comments:
Barnes & Noble Nook e-reader leaks a bit early: $259, pre-orders are live (video) {Engadget}
Oct 20th 2009 3:16PM The Merriam-Webster is not a selling point over the NOAD. There are other points the Kindle has to play catch-up with, but the NOAD is definitely the winner in that regard.
Netflix rumored to be bringing Watch Instantly to iPhones, skepticism advised {Engadget}
Aug 4th 2009 8:47AM Seeing these comment, I'm curious as to how many of you actually have used the Netflix queue. Or an iPhone. Or both.
The Netflix software on every platform I've tried (three or four thus far) always marks my spot in the video. Right now, I can move from my TiVo in the basement to my Samsung BD player in the bedroom and pick up right where I left off. If the iPhone software had feature parity (and I can't see why it wouldn't), I could get up from the Starbucks up the road to go to the other Starbucks down the road and pick up where I left off with an episode of "Galactica 1980" (specifically the one about baseball - who doesn't love that one?) there's no reason I shouldn't be able to in a theoretical iPhone/Netflix world.
As for the conjecture that, if it'll never happen in the AppleTV then why would it happen on the iPhone, I have to disagree with that assessment. Pandora happens on the iPhone, as does Joost and Last.fm, etc... those things will never be on AppleTV, no, but the iPhone and the AppleTV are two entirely different things. Stop comparing apples to oranges (or orange apples, or whatever).
Adorable Marvel superheroes coming to LittleBigPlanet {Joystiq}
Jul 26th 2009 10:27PM Yet a million user levels have been created.
I always thought that part of the idea was for the users to create their own content for the levels - why do you need MM to do it for you?
Are you sitting down? 'Asteroids' movie has a plot {Joystiq}
Jul 25th 2009 5:43PM Maybe it will be two brothers piloting a ship through space and are so bored, playing Asteroids is the only way they can pass the time. Then they hack the shipboard computer so they can play it co-op.
Who am I kidding? This is going to suck.
Latest PETA game wants breast cancer animal testing to go tits up {Joystiq}
Jul 17th 2009 1:18PM John: Just wanted to make the point (not that I agree with either of you) that profits are only called "profits" after a company's expenditures are covered and the remaining amount of money left over is in excess of what the company has spent. That would include research and development, marketing, labor and benefit costs for the employees, etc. No one is saying those people or companies should work for free.
Arketype clearly wrote he was against "large profits" and, in that regard, he's right. Drug companies are able to patent drugs and, essentially, leverage the monopoly they have on the market for that drug up to the point the patent expires. And it's not on the backs of the poor the drug companies make their windfall profits (after all, many of them aren't getting preventative care in the first place - how are they going to get the prescriptions for those meds?) but on the backs of those of us who pay more and more each year for our insurance.
Do a little research, John, and stop trying to defend a corrupt practice from a greedy industry when you clearly are unsure as to how the industry works.
The Scribblenauts ESRB listing is hilarious {Joystiq}
Jul 10th 2009 12:01AM All I know is, when the Co-Op guys were checking it out at E3 and entered "Cthulhu"... Cthulhu came up in the game.
Screw steak babies... Cthulhu inclusion is an instant Epic Win for me. I'll take two (one for my DSi and one for my wife's DS Lite).
Professor griefs City of Heroes, writes report on response {Joystiq}
Jul 8th 2009 11:05AM The article itself comes from The Times-Picayune - not exactly a bastion of "liberal" thought. Their editorial direction tends to lead to the right wing.
Don't try to drag politics into something that's just bad journalism - you'll just start a flame war for no good reason.
Professor griefs City of Heroes, writes report on response {Joystiq}
Jul 8th 2009 10:59AM ARRRGGHH!
I hit "reply", dammit. I know I did.
An edit button! Please...
Professor griefs City of Heroes, writes report on response {Joystiq}
Jul 8th 2009 10:57AM "Never heard of making a Hypothesis and then testing for results before?"
Of course I have, but clearly Myers hasn't. Where's his control? Where is another player (or another character of his) in all of this to test the opposite reactions?
The guy wanted to whine about gamers, and that's what he set himself up for. Don't try and defend a poorly implemented experiment - he blew it, he knows it, and is now trying to make "social groups" take the blame. And, because of the anonymity that being a second-rate academic brings with it, the vast majority of the gaming community won't know what he did.
And thus, once again, someone (Myers) is going to try to pass himself off as an expert in a niche they clearly know nothing about.
I know what you're getting at, silverwolf, but the fact of the matter is that, if you RTFA, Myers is basically trying to make a name for himself using poorly implemented studies that will only serve to show gamers in a bad light.
Professor griefs City of Heroes, writes report on response {Joystiq}
Jul 8th 2009 7:20AM From the article:
"The professor was disturbed that game rules encouraging competition and varied tactics hardly mattered to gaming community members who wanted to preserve a deeply-rooted culture.
He said his experience demonstrated that modern-day social groups making use of modern-day technology can revert to 'medieval and crude' methods in trying to manipulate and control others.
'If you aren't a member of the tribe, you get whacked with a stick,' he said. 'I look at social groups with dismay.'"
I agree, he was playing the game by the rules... but isn't there a point where the rules become fluid? Where the players dictate the experience, especially of an MMORPG, and make it what they want it to be?
Myers walked into a functioning community of players and began to pick fights. By his own admission, after being asked to stop it, he continued to do it. At which point they started to band together to stop him... and he continued to do it. And, finally, they escalated it to the point where he was being threatened with things in real life.
This is not to excuse the fact that someone told him they would kill him, or that someone claimed he was a pedophile. However, knowing how people react on Internet forums, using the relative anonymity afforded to them to feel safe in doing outlandish actions or making stupid claims when their frustration levels reach a fever pitch, why is this reaction surprising? Any one of the readers here, without setting virtual foot in City of Heroes or City of Villains, could have easily predicted this outcome. I suspect Myers predicted this outcome, too.
So he views "social groups" with dismay... though I would argue this isn't truly a social group and the vast majority of folks are completely anonymous to one another. He claims that, not being a member of the tribe got him "whacked with a tick," yet he was the one going counter to the tribe - even after they tried to explain it to him.
Therefore, this is a poorly thought-out experiment getting way too much press that was doing nothing than baiting the group to produce predicted reactions that are only made from the safely anonymous confines of an MMORPG. Myers has proven himself to be nothing more than Jack Thompson with tenure. I have no respect for academics like this.
