PanzStrata - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Can it wait? (Score 2, Insightful) 142

by PanzStrata on Thursday May 27, 2010 @12:38PM (#32363824) Attached to: <em>Mass Effect</em> To Invade the Big Screen

Watchmen was such a faithful adaptation of the comic that it was unwatchable as a film

One thing that Watchmen taught me about adaptations is you can never please everyone. You will either get castrated for getting too far off path from the original or you will get burned alive because you had no originality.

I never go into a movie comparing it to the original, you will never win because the entire time you will be critiquing and not enjoying. I have know doubt that a good number of people will be very vocal about how much they thought the Mass Effect movie sucked (when it comes out), but no one will be talking about it as a movie that quite possibly could have been a decent movie. they will too focused on the fact that Shepherd hooked up with Ashley rather than Liara, or that Joker wasn't played by Seth Green, or that Cerberus wasn't mentioned.

If we have any chance of enjoying this movie, we have to go in with the understanding that we didn't write this story line. It might even help to imagine that you are watching your friend play Mass Effect, take yourself out of the equation and it might just be a good movie.

For Automated Testing, Better Alternatives To DOS Batch Files? 426

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @06:35PM from the run-them-under-wine dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I am working on a project that would allow our customers to test out sending different PCL commands to LAN printers. My initial thought was that a DOS batch file will allow users to select some simple options, send the tests to printers, and even generate a small web page which, when launched from the batch file, will provide email feedback on the tool. This all worked. To spice it up I added some ANSI color commands to the menus, though the implementation of that may prove tricky without resorting to .COM files or forcing the load of the ansi.sys via the command.com shortcut. And this implementation goes against my initial idea that I want the entire thing to be contained in a standalone batch file. My questions are: Is there a better option for this? Are DOS Batch files too 1990s to be taken seriously in 2010? The application needs to (1) be simple (2) be easy to update (3) be able to send PCL commands to LAN-attached printers and (4) allow email feedback. I don't know what other programming language would allow this and be as simple. I tend to think that I have found the best tool for the job but if you have another idea let me know. Call me crazy but I love DOS."

Video Gamers Have Power Over Their Dreams 308

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 26, 2010 @05:50PM from the nocturnal-excursions dept.

Ponca City, We love you writes "Live Science reports that researchers say playing video games before bedtime may give gamers an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams, which could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma. 'If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice,' says Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada, who says that hardcore gamers represent the leading edge of immersion in virtual worlds that increasingly has come to define a large part of contemporary entertainment and communication. 'Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams.' One intriguing theory holds that dreams are a sort of threat simulation where nightmares help organisms hone their skills in a protective environment, and ideally prepare organisms for a real-life situation. To test that theory, Gackenbach conducted a study using independent assessments that coded threat levels in after-dream reports and found that gamers experienced less or even reversed threat simulation (in which the dreamer became the threatening presence), with fewer aggression dreams overall. In other words, a scary nightmare scenario turned into something 'fun' for a gamer."

Comment Licensing (Score 1) 1

by PanzStrata on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @03:50PM (#32340390) Attached to: Game Nation: gamer theme park to be built

I see licensing being an issue. Most theme parks stick under one specific company's IP (i.e. Paramount's Great America, Universal Studios, Disneyland/world) and those parks are actually owned by the company/studio its promoting. Unless they stick with one single publisher like EA or Activision, I don't see them being able to stay afloat. Trying to licensing game IPs from multiple publishers would likely be a nightmare and extremely expensive.

Comment Re:Just give us a name (Score 2, Interesting) 1204

by PanzStrata on Tuesday April 27, 2010 @12:35AM (#31994816) Attached to: Police Seize Computers From Gizmodo Editor

The guy who found the phone supposedly called the Apple tech support line, whose operators didn't know anything about this supposed phone, and could reasonably assume he was a prank caller or a crazy. You can't reasonably conclude that Apple refused to claim the phone, because the people inside Apple that knew about it were not contacted.

In support of this particular statement, I have a friend who works for the Apple Support Line (and while I can't say this is how all the Apple support lines work, it is likely they do), the persons you speak with are not Apple employees, they work for a contracting company that specializes and runs many different call centers for many different companies. The persons that work the support lines know as much about a top secret iPhone prototype as the rest of us.

In addition to this, besides the police the individual had several other options available besides selling it to Gizmodo. The following took just a couple minutes to find on Google:

http://www.apple.com/legal/contacts.html - this website contains several ways of contacting apple that likely would have led to the safe, confidential and legal return to apple.

Google lists the number for Apple's Corporate Headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop Cupertino, CA 95014-2083 (408) 996-1010

Apple Public Relations: (408) 974-2042

those are just a few contacts that some quick searches on Google brought back. Not a lot of effort would probably have gotten the phone back to apple without anyone being the wiser.

Comment Re:Irony (Score 1) 307

by PanzStrata on Monday April 26, 2010 @11:56PM (#31994462) Attached to: US Students Suffering From Internet Addiction

you want irony? I'm supposed to be doing other things but instead was randomly surfing the internet when I found this article. Instead of realizing that I should set priorities, I immediately posted this link on my facebook page... (at least i had the restraint to not post on twitter about it). I actually wonder how many of us here this actually found this while aimlessly surfing?

New Super Mario Bros. Wii Tops 10 Million Sales 164

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 26, 2010 @02:43AM from the it'sa-me-mario dept.

According to a report from Japanese publication Nikkei Net, Nintendo's New Super Mario Bros. Wii has now sold 10 million copies worldwide. The game needed only 45 days to pass the already impressive sales numbers of Super Mario Galaxy. Quoting Gamasutra: "NSMB Wii has sold 3 million units in Japan, where it launched on December 3; 3 million copies in Europe, where it launched November 20, and 4.5 million units in North America, where it launched November 15. Super Mario Galaxy has sold 4.1 million units in North America since 2007. The game's design hearkens back to the two-dimensional, side-scrolling style of earlier Mario titles ... The numbers would seem to suggest that these traits successfully generated more mass appeal for NSMB Wii than for the three-dimensional and far less familiar Super Mario Galaxy, which sent the plumber navigating more innovative spherical space environments."

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