metadigital

Decemberish reports put Jade Empire at less than half a million units sold through. And certainly a good portion of that was at reduced cost. I can't even get creative enough with math to make that anything but a big loss. We're talking about something that sold Icewind Dale numbers and conservatively cost three times as much to make. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> All true, but some of that investment can be written off (loss leader, sunk costs, and other exciting jargon from the universe of 3D pie charts and expensive haircuts and suits) if Bioware / M$ extend the IP into a series, after all it is a known market for the product, and so therefore much easier to predict the return on investment, which is less risk. Yes and no. Yes, everyone should make up their own minds as to what is a good game. No, it isn't irrelevant in the capitalist system. You may be one of the people who really enjoyed Republic, for example, a brilliantly innovative game. But it didn't sell well, so no publisher is going to use that IP to make another game, which impairs your enjoyment. Danger Will Robinson! Hostiles approaching! I think it would be great, too, but there are some extremist Hindu sects that make al-Qa'ida's work look like the teddy bears' picnic ... are you forgetting the devotees of Kali? They used to jump into the hangman's noose, after capture for murders most horrific, to meet Kali sooner ... :ph34r: Don't know if any publisher is looking for that kind of publicity ... " (Okay, so there haven;t been any reported Kali followers for decades. Let's not temp them ... ) On second thoughts: let's do it! Can we use your postal address, my got dirty and I need to clean it? :D

Just let me know when you're half an hour away ... so I can hide the bodies.

... Or, you could come 'round to my place and watch it on my PC.

VALVe is doing something similar presently, with Half-Life 2. They have made no secret of their plans to sit back and make some content to stretch the engine's ranges. (And the HAVOK physics engine is an example of another component that has been interfaced into their FPS engine.) You might see the VALVe team add a tactical engine, or a flight sim (doubtful, but possible), after all Heroes of Might & Magic is an RPG using VALVe.

Congress Made Wikipedia Changes Posted by samzenpus on Thursday February 09, @01:08PM from the revisionist-history dept. Dr Occult writes "BBC news is reporting misuse of Wikipedia by politicians for 'polishing' their images. The article on President Bush has been altered so many times - not just from within Congress - that Wikipedia's volunteer monitors have had to block further 'editing'." From the article: "Wikipedia says the controversy raises questions about whether it is ethical for those with a vested interest in the subject to edit entries about it. It said the Congressional computer network has been blocked from editing for brief periods on a number of occasions in the last six months due to the inappropriate contributions." linkie )

Psssst. Because he has a very small pee-pee.

If I could be arsed I would go and get last issue of Custom PC to check exactly what I mean ... ... but I do remember that the gains above 1GB RAM are not commensurate with those from, say 512MB up, because of some phenomena (thought it was L2 cache, might be wrong, I'll check it sometime) ... so much so that 2GB might actually be slower than 1GB. (Might have something to do with traversing the page file? Dunno, it's approaching 8am and my brain is not willing to entertain my demands for information. Something to do with the architecture of the CPU, though.) The conclusion was that 1GB was the optimum quantity of RAM, just tweak the timings and voltage (and ditto for the CPU clock multiplier).

Nup. They're full. You can't get into Australia anymore, unless you've got big bucks or you work in a critical community vocation, like teaching or nursing or koala-combing. Of course, there are a number of other places that have less stringent immigration laws, like Burma and Malawi.

I think the reason this has been set as an assignment is because it is unanswerable (factually). This is the sort of nonsense that keeps the psychologists at the squishey end of the softest part of the pseudo-science babbling for hundreds of thousands of words per paper, back and forth. (And reading their drivel would cause more violence.) Normally people seem to find something bad happenning to someone else (Schadenfreude) funny probably because it isn't happenning to them. This is a universal rule extended to everyone on the planet, except when we see someone getting a speeding ticket.

"Sit through" and "not great" doesn't seem to me to be equal to That's like going to see Minority Report to look at Agatha.

Nope. He might write something that brings harm onto the families of the victims, like, I dunno, a human cookbook? He should not expect ANY "freedom", he has abused his rights and they are no longer a "right", they are a privilege to be metered out as determined by society (or the appointed official). I'm all for ejecting people who are a danger to society from it: not just sticking them "out of harms way" incarcerated in a gaol: stick 'em on an island

Education is a major tool in defeating the ignorance that helps HIV infection spread, yes.

"Pornographic" is a very loose term. Why is the game asking for bust, waste and hips measurements for a ten year old girl? (So that the matching underwear can be sourced online ... :ph34r:) And what about the dance club job? An okay job for a pre-pubescent teen? Sounds like the thin end of the wedge! It's a moral poison!! A digital brain-bomb! A morality worm! Burn the perverted abomination!

I'm still trying to understand how that would work with a set of multi-sided dice and some pencils and paper ...

It's a quote from the new comedy series "The IT Crowd". :D PS More than 1GB of RAM can slow down the CPU because the level 2 cache is not big enough to address all the RAM in one pass (I think this is what you were alluding too, Jimmy.)

"Have you tried turning it off and on again."

Certainly isn't worth TWO threads. I think Magical Volo was called on his fanBioism and is just unconsciously stuck justifying one of his egregious claims. " Given the woefully bare lineup of games announced and released for the Xbox 360, I wouldn't say that because they've announced JE2 therefore the first game was a shining success. ... Or is that tongues in your shoes, Mr Zip? "

... Because someone broke your arms and ate your fingers?

Actually, I wanna change it again. Not enough RP opportunities. (Posies of pansies don't have a wide palette of whistles.) Maybe if I were a tiny extra-terrestrial being, that strangley looks identical to a 1980's vehicle, and can change into another form with robotic limbs and weapons?

Can you tell us if it's more than nothing?

"

Okay, I'll have to change my character ... make it a lecherous old man, instead. And instead of a thermonuclear capability, let the dribbling old codger make a large, piercing whistle like what a little posies of pansies make as they fall to earth after being transmogrified from surface to air missiles.

They stole my IDEA!

Please tell me, using any magic you want, IN DETAIL how you would end poverty.