We did too, and we all turned out okay!

Isn't that about the time the Klingons dismantled their military and wrote the inspiration for a bunch of popular plays?

Compare Mario 1, 2, and 3 to Sonic 1, 2, and 3 and you'll see why just labeling them 'side-scrollers' is insufficient to have this discussion.

It's even murkier than that. Look at Super Mario Brothers, then 2, then 3, then Super Mario World, then Super Mario 64, then Super Mario Sunshine, then Super Mario Galaxy. You don't play *any* of those games the same way. I don't mean that they have expanded levels or extra features, I mean the skills you learn from 2 don't directly apply to 3. Compare this to Grand Theft Auto 3, Vice City, and San Andreas. Sure, there are additions and improvements along the way, but you could be driving around Liberty City then suddenly materialize in Vice City and there wouldn't even be a hiccup in the gameplay.

I realize some of you are tired of hearing the name "Mario". I get it, no prob. But if you're going to rake anybody over the coals over video game sequelitis, is it really going to be Nintendo? There's a difference between having a game that has "Mario" in the title and creating a sequel. Super Mario Galaxy II is a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario Galaxy is in the same franchise as Super Mario Sunshine. See how Galaxy isn't called Super Mario Bros. 7?

Being a fan of Nintendo's idea of what a sequel should entail is pretentious? Well I guess I had better take my glasses off and go back to playing FPS shooters.

Just for clarification: Are you saying that if we did get a signal, Starfleet would suddenly be formed with a sword for a logo and all officers would be required to wear goatees and eyepatches?

When I was a kid, every year my dad would take us on a two week trip where we'd drive across a corner of America. In one trip we hit the Rocky Mountains, Las Vegas, and lotsa neat places in Utah whose names I cannot remember right this second. If my dad called me up and said "We wanna do this trip again!" not only would I be interested in doing what the star of this Ask Slashdot is doing, but I'd easily be shooting 300+ photos a day... only I wouldn't be wasting any of the photos. Unlike him, though, I wouldn't be opposed to DropBox.

I like to shoot time lapses. I bought a $50 timer for my camera and well I just plain love setting it up and letting it go. Utah, for example, has some awesome rock formations and I would *love* to get the stars rotating behind them. I also would be sorely tempted to get a GigaPan head so I can shoot some reallllly high-res panoramas. Believe me, I could chew up the gigs.

If I were about to go on this trip the first thing I'd do is set it up so I can easily dump the memory card to my laptop right to a dropbox folder. I'm not too worried about security of these files, but if I were, I'd write a quick lil script that'd winRar each of these files with a password. (or maybe 7-zip.... suggestions appreciated. Actually SpiderOak would be considered, too, but I haven't used it enough yet to feel comfortable it'll do the syncing properly.) I would not bother with TrueCrypt because I'd want these files in as small of chunks as possible for quick syncing. I would then have my laptop set to connect to any wifi allowed. I believe during just about any part of the trip I could get my laptop near a wifi hotspot. Heck, most hotels probably have it. I'd just leave the laptop running all night and DropBox would automatically handle getting as many files synced as is possible with the resources available.

I don't think this would steal much time away from the trip, either. Some of you may have seen the poll Slashdot had a few days ago about how much storage of our is solid-state. I'll be up-front and say I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this thread because I had an asshole attempt to ridicule me over the way I qualified the word 'storage'. I said that I had plenty of memory cards and USB sticks etc, but I leave them blank, mainly so they're available to use again. (also I don't want data getting into unauthorized hands.) In my hands these devices don't store data for longer than a day. Well, now I have an opportunity to elaborate on that a bit. Regardless of if I were trying to do cloud backups along the way or not, I'd take that memory card and MOVE the files to the laptop anyway. The card would then be returned empty and ready to be maxed out with a new set of time-lapse photos. Since I'd be doing that anyway, and since DropBox really doesn't require anything more than just putting the files into the folder, the only additional overhead this would add to the trip is getting the laptop on the wifi. The only reason I might not do this typically is my smartphone is sufficient to ease my information-hunger-pains. I don't think I'd eat up too much of my vacation time trying to get these files into the cloud.

Frankly I'm disappointed that he wouldn't just use Dropbox. Without it he could find himself needlessly troubleshooting the setup as he's out on the road. *But* if he really insists on doing it that way, I do have one suggestion: Get some FTP space and use Allway Sync. He'd dump the photos to his laptop, run AllwaySync, and it'll log in via FTP, compare the files from the source folder to the target folder, and upload the new ones. My only concern about that is if he's shooting lots of photos like I suggested I would, the bit where it catalogs the files on each side might start taking longer and longer to do. Shitty wifi at a hotel may make that impractical on some nights. I think Allway has to grab each filename on the ftp site and I think that takes longer than what DropBox does when my laptop shakes hands with it. Of course, I could be talking out of my hinder here.

I envy this guy for going on this trip.

What a bunch of elitist bullshit. You know damn good and well that you missed lots of opportunities to shoot because of film rationing.

He could be shooting time-lapses.

He'd probably think the market of people who want to pay for a whole new TV isn't all that big.