Posts by kyza 220 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jun 2011
You are aware that 'Torygraph' has long been used by Private Eye as it's nickname, don't you?
Goes alongside The Thunderer (The Times); The Gruaniad (The Guardian, which is (in)famous for spelling errors); The Indescribbably....(smug, boring, stupid) for the Independent.
You'll be complaining they call the Queen 'Brenda' next.
Another one for Xevious here.
As well as 1942, at least one of the massive Sega hydraulic cabinet games (for my tastes Afterburner), at least one sideways scrolling solider-y game (Green Beret/Contra or again, for my taste, Super-Contra with the 3 screen big end of level bosses).
Still, I reckon that Star Wars & Gauntlet probably gobbled up more of my pocket money than any other machines and my first ever interaction with a home computer of any sort was Space Invaders on a Commodore PET!
'For example I can never work out why the photon torpedoes are so dumb, often missing the target the size of a starship'
Well they don't travel at c, so if your scanners can pick one up, it's not going to be too hard to avoid being hit by one unless the ships are right next to each other - which they always are, since ST combat as with most telly & movie SF is always done at human speed and at naval-style close quarters. Look at the BSG reboot - everything is up close & personal since even the use of unguided relativistic weapons over large distances renders them pretty easy to dodge.
For an idea of the issues involved in near-relativistic combat, there's a superb sequence in Alastair Reyolds 'Redemption Ark' where two ships travelling near-c engage in pursuit combat (i.e. one flinging out stuff from the back for the other to crash into).
If you want some properly mental space weaponry, read 'Debatable Space' Philip Palmer.
...no breakdown in the types of product downloaded (i.e. full games, expansion DLC or other forms like Themes, avatars and so on).
Also fails to mention that last year generally has been seen as 'one year too many' for the current generation of consoles (despite the fact that Xbox & PS3 have seen some amazing content released).
Not enough meat to start a debate really.
-but there's certainly a distinct class of people paid handsomely to do nothing. -
You have offered one anecdotal example and have generalised it to thousands of people. If you're on JSA you too can apply for housing benefit & council tax relief, which probably would also add up to what your wife's p/time job pays.
From the article:
-Brits like to splurge more on the internet than any other major country, according to regulator Ofcom.-
I think the bit at the end would be most useful.
Since I know it's rude to give a sarcastic response like this, here's the actual OfCom press release:
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2012/12/13/uk-a-nation-of-hi-tech-tv-lovers-3/
Here's the source report:
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/market-data/communications-market-reports/
-Broadband minister Ed Vaizey paid a visit to Ainderby Steeple today to show off the first such cabinet that some have labelled as "ghastly" and a blight on the landscape.-
I'll take one at the end of my road in Zone 2 of the Evil Town for 80Mbit/s instead of the ancient copper we've got, blight or otherwise.
-Who would have thought that a game where you essentially wander around picking flowers could be so much fun?)-
Anyone who has played as a gust of wind in the PS3 game Flower
Which leads me to add...why isn't Journey on this list? Not everyone's cup of tea to be sure (especially 15 year old males if the forum comments I've read are anything to go by), but not only does it look astonishing (only bettered by Outlands 2 for having a distinctive aesthetic IMO), but for such a simple game mechanic it has a level of emotional involvement far beyond it's linear gameplay, not to mention providing some of the loveliest moments I've experienced in 32 years of gaming which bought actual joy to me while playing it.
It's 5 minutes before the final read-out. If Fenchurch had known, she'd have been able to explain it in 'So Long...', but she can't, because the whole novel is about Arthur getting laid. Finally.
Not that it mattered, since the Golgafrinchans on the 'B' Ark had already wiped out Deep Thoughts carefully created humans.
Thanks for the 13th Floor reminder! I'd completely forgotten about Scream!
Still, if we're including that, the building computer in Philip Kerr's Gridiron - where the son of the control systems programmer playing Doom on it sends it batshit and it treats all the occupants as Doom players - should be on the list.
The Star Trek ship's computer & Mother would be, under the Revelation Space classification, beta-level intelligences, giving the appearance and responses of a fully sentient consciousness.
IIRC there are two occasions in TNG where the ship's computer becomes fully conscious - can't remember the first one, and the second is toward the end of S7 where a whole new lifeform is born aboard the Enterprise. Generally AI in the Trek universe has been confined to androids (Data) & holograms (various holodeck episodes, the Dr from Voyager) - and indeed V'Ger in ST: The Motion Picture.
Re: The Matrix - what about The Source? The original, human-built AI that appears in the Machine City at the end of Revolutions? Not part of the Matrix, and certainly responsible for a lot of D&D (altho in the Animatrix: The Second Renaissance we see that humanity was pretty much the cause of it's own downfall on that front, treating sentient beings like shit), so I call foul on not including The Source.
...We know this for a fact, because he has offered to hand himself over to them many many times, provided they provide written signed guarantees that he wont be handed straight over the the Americans.... and they refused. '
He's asked for a guarantee that no government on earth can legally give. If he was going to be kidnapped by the US they can't guarantee it because rendition is big grey area in international law, and there's no way that a Law&Order minister is ever going to pre-empt the result of any possible fully legal extradition hearing. He knew he was asking for an impossible guarantee, it's all part of the St Assange the Martyr image.
By seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy he has actually broken UK law now - he's jumped bail - so irrespective of anything he does now, he's got an actual charge which is pretty irrefutable to deal with in a UK court.
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