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Comment Only way I'd wear a smart watch (Score 2) 381

Is if it came with a red LED display and looked cheaply made. The people who wear watches anymore seem to be,"Hey look at how much money I have." so looking like you're going in the opposite direction would be art as fashion... if it didn't cost a lot of money. So maybe I'm thinking it is time to go invest in a 1$ LED watch off ebay to be a smart ass. Oh even better would be to leave it blinking 12:00 all day.

Comment Re:Outside of Valve I don't think many developers. (Score 1) 86

It is called throwing spaghetti to the wall to try and see what sticks. If you find people like a certain mechanic, you make a game around it. Another excuse is there are a bigger casual audience than ever, so the simplification of video games keeps getting more and more real. These start up companies barely have enough resources to put together anything. Just look at the Flash games on web portals. A lot of Flash games on web portals aren't as good as games you played in the NES. And there really isn't much money in free to play with advertisments unless your game goes viral, get a million plays, then you're looking at a couple grand anyway.

Comment Re:Game industry alumni (Score 1) 86

It is really hard to do it all on your own without a studio. The analogy is trying to out compete Coca-Cola with your own brand of similar soda. Just because your formula is good doesn't mean you get success. There are other factors. First you need to get the overhead to even produce the soda. Then you need to marketing so people know your cola exists.

There's not a whole lot of money in it for amateurs compared to how much work goes into them. There's also a degree of luck involved. I think the people who made Angry Birds had made 40 some other games before getting success. Of course they just stole the idea from Crush the Castle with cutesy graphics. Candy Crush did about the same thing. They stole someone else's games directly, then sued the guy who made the game before them.

The only reason I'd suggest anyone get into video game making is that you love video games so much. I decided to be a video game programmer/designer back in 1987 when I played most of the NES/C64/Atari/Arcade games. I was bored because I played all the games that existed and wanted to make better games. I just felt the future was a MMORPG, multiplayer online and lots of action oriented RPG. Of course they didn't call them MMORPGS back then, they were just online RPGs games with a lot of players. People talked about these things because of what Quantum Link was doing.

I've been making games since 1992, and have very limited success mostly because I tended to get too ambitious when I first started. Here is a game I published just 2 weeks ago. Throne and Crown No one beat this game yet even though its only about 10 hours long. My next games I'm making with the idea that I'm making them out of a love for a game I'll enjoy over trying to script a game other people might. So I'm going to probably take the good engine from TAC and then make it similar to Angband except action oriented. Also I have some cell phone games I'm toying with making, but they're a long way off.

Comment Re:It's Microsoft's fault (Score -1) 113

Microsoft should have looked at the emergency of the web in 1998 and went,"Okay, we need to actually try to be secure." They could have made it so you had to boot to a special mode to install drivers or have a program boot on start up. In addition programs should not be able to share data out of their own directory unless they went to a special shared data section of the harddrive, or in memory. This isn't all that would need to be done, but it would go a long way to making the OS virus resistant. The coolest thing would be the ability to download .exe from the Internet and run without worrying of a virus hosing your computer. The way Windows is today, it still isn't Internet ready.

Comment I think there's a lot of open road here. (Score 1) 33

They say if you could design a biobot that identifies cells as one type or the other, you could design custom antibodies, or even something that targets cancer.

The road is a long road though. First you need some sort of standard cell that won't be owned by the body's immune response, and apparently these guys use stuff from your own body? Then you need to figure a way to put some computing in it. Then you need to program its receptors to detect what it interacts with. You need to make enough of them to be useful in the body. And if there is a bug in your code, you could really hose someone over. The code for the system might not even involve electronics but custom mini biological computing proteins.

At least this is what I understand the state of affairs is. The goal is a good goal, but it seems there's a long long road before you can get to anything useful for general medical purposes.

Submission + - Microsoft takes down NOIP claiming cybercrime

GoodNewsJimDotCom writes: Hello,

I just released a game yesterday that used NOIP and today people can't use the cloud saves because Microsoft took down NOIP.

Cybercrime on Microsoft windows wouldn't be a problem if Microsoft just designed their Operating System to be virus resistant.

From what I can tell, Microsoft acted without a court order.

Comment Some things I've noticed (Score 3, Insightful) 305

Depending on what policy a politician wants to push he can cite either traditional economics or Keynesian economics as part of his speel to push a bill. Economists are conflicting in their advice. Sure you can make a real good case for aiming for a surplus because that is good for the nation in the long run. But a lot of politicians are in it for their own personal gain in the short run. They'll borrow from the debt, have a spending party that feels good for a short run, but put the nation in a worse state for the long run. It is unsustainable and only benefits the elite who get crony deals.

Also scientists are supposed to be pretty unbiased, but the marketing people who use their unbiased data will take it out of context. A marketing person can tell you to put radioactive waste on your face because science has said it gives you a radiant glow. You think I joke, but I saw Lucky Charms touted as a health food on tv some years ago because a science study said oats are good for the heart and Lucky Charms has oat pieces. On top of that, it's not hard think there are times where scientists also get pressure from the corporation funding their science to give them the results they want. Just like economists might get pressure too.

Submission + - Slashdot reader just finished a video game: Throne and Crown (kongregate.com)

GoodNewsJimDotCom writes: You can play a free video game: Throne and Crown HERE
I spent 4 years on the engine, and 1 year on this game. Explore around a bunch. A weakness of the game is that people aren't finding the early zones easily. I overestimated how much people would be jazzed up about general exploration. The game just got published today. I hope you enjoy it. ,Jim

Comment Some people would like to outlaw the Internet (Score 5, Insightful) 210

There are people who make money with outdated systems that technology decimates. These horse and buggy people would love to see the Internet removed completely. This is why you see places like NBC not streaming the Olympics to everyone on the Internet, but only to cable subscribers. Sure NBC could make a boat load by putting localized advertisements in. People would have made out too if NBC put the Olympics on the Internet because they could watch the events they want when they want instead of waking up at 2 am. NBC is in bed with Comcast though and just wants more cable subscriptions instead of providing a quality service. And Comcast is afraid that if people stream quality programming, that more people will cord cut. So there's little incentive for Comcast to provide better Upload/Download speed. The RIAA from what I hear is making tons of money suing everyone they can, even local places in the sticks are getting sued for using non licensed music in karaoke. Some people would benefit if the Internet ceased to exist completely. This is the same as people who would have benefited if the automobile never got invented.

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