metadigital

piccies

That's the catch-cry of the beleaguered organisational peon (the artist in this instance), and (as a information technologist) I have heard it again and again, especially when cottage-industries must make the leap to commercial production. I'm not suggesting that technology is the beginning and end of game design, I'm suggesting that, given enough paper, an artist will doodle inefficiently; a "map" to help artists direct and focus their efforts will only be useful, if taken in the correct vein. Of course if artistic-types become militant, then all that creative effort that might have been efficiently directed into a great game will be wasted on internecine warfare. I think it really all depends on good management, which is outside technology and art, and in very short supply.

SPECIAL:

I think they're trying to create the "Apple iBook" niche (i.e. not an ugly generic laptop case) for the PC market.

Yeah, sounds like a trojan has created an (Outlook) email account for nefarious purposes, and is being detected by AVG when it activates. Try scanning the registry with a cleaner, or with another AV application.

I think I tried spam once. And spat it out. And I've eaten snails.

That's about all the spam that this topic can take.

Do I need to close this or just prune it?

That's like accelerating matter and antimatter up to the speed of light, and then colliding them at each other ...

*casts summon alanschu*

Again, this is basically my point. The hiring of a name actor has nothing to do with the quality of the game. It doesn't make it wonderful, nor does it make it suck. All it does is add name recognition that can be used by marketing. Which has already been done, btw. The hiring of Liam Neeson has been a news item on most gaming news sites. It's a way to raise awareness of the game without actually having to buy ads (not that I'm sure it's cheaper than ads, just another means to results). Of course, what they should have done is announce that Ron Perlman has been hired to play the narrator. That would at least have made a lot of the fans happy for a while. But I suppose Ron Perlman isn't well know enough for it to hit the news sites, Hellboy not withstanding. Then we are in violent agreement!

Yeah, and von Clausewitz was a pen-pushing bureaucrat who added nothing to the science of war!

Wouldn't the name of the game be required for it to be considered announced? You mean that it's not possible to be half-dead? Either dead or alive ..?

Yes, you are odd. Cherish your oddness.

So much for the veracity of the tourist brochure ...

She didn't make it; she was the victim of the male star. I suspect that those that knew her socially were just trying to share their own observations with the rest of society, namely she is a cheap trollop, despite having more cash than she can spend in two lifetimes.

Is that real piggie brains? I've only had sheep's brains. Which are lovely, if scrambled with a splash of milk and served on toast with a shake of salt. (Make sure to remove the tough meningitic lining first, though; I once ordered brains in a restaurant and couldn't eat it as this can be as tough as a carapace, and is particularly tasteless.) Of course it's high in fat: the brain is almost completely fat (which might explain why people with food disorders are so dim). It does contain some protein, though; brain surgery patients are served brains because it is very difficult for the body to create new proteins out of existing ones ... much better to have some of what you need to fashion into workable repairs for where they are needed.

Imagining Imaginary Numbers (Especially the Square Root of Minus Fifteen) (Barry Mazur) I don't know about you, but I always harboured a nagging irritation with the arbitrariness of imaginary numbers and the geometry of the complex plane. I think Mr Mazur's concluding chapter contains a succinct summary, so I have collected it here, below. PS I know that there is no reason to associate the imaginary dimension with the y-axis (it could just as easily be the z-axis, or indeed any plane at right angles to the real plane ... )

My point exactly. I thought Patrick Stewart made a good impression in Oblivion. And if the story was already established by the design, exactly what was the problem with casting him in that role? Or to put it another way, would Oblivion have been a better game if the role of the king had been played by voice talent of similar quality as the rest of the game had? The problem wasn't Mr Stewart's acting, it was the appalling script he had to chew through. And the cretinous bunch of (four?) talentless over-actors they had do all the other thousand-odd NPC voices.

I think Arts majors should be sponsored to learn about science before they are allowed near a SF plot.

Is that what they call what she was doing in that video ..!

There needed to be two "Other" options in the main questions, because the existing answers don't cover my response. But, I expect that everyone would just tick "Other" giving no clarity on what might be the closest answer, so I didn't make a big deal about it.

Anglicans are a lot less formal than their Catholic counterparts ... I just applied for three short courses: How the Universe Works; Planets: An Introduction; and Introducing Astronomy.