Emacs causes RSI?

2008-11-24

Just a random thought but I seriously wonder, does Emacs cause repetative strain injury?

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Free Video Game Demos Destroy the Industry?

2006-08-08

Both XBox 360 and now finally PSP (and soon the PS3 and maybe even the Wii) allow for downloadable demos. I love them. It's great. I get to try many games I would never have tried for free! As a player, what could be better?

But....I wonder, is this helping the industry or hurting it? (or just changing it?). I'm finding for the most part once I've played the demo I don't need the game and I believe though I can't prove that some of these games I might have bought if I didn't have the demo.

Some examples:

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Demo Inspiration

2006-05-28

With E3 over and my game pretty much finished I've had sometime to check out the latest demos from the demoscene. I found one in particular that really pointed out my disappointment in the new Nintendo Wii. First off let me say I love Nintendo for taking the chance and trying to shake things up with their new controller and I'm sure there will be some rocking games but unfortunately now that I've seen and played next gen games (360/PS3) it's really hard to look at many last gen games. At least the kind that are going for realisim just don't cut it once I've gotten used to better. Katamari Damacy or Mario with their cartoony styles will always be fine on last gen hardware. But, even though Metroid Prime, both the original and sequel are among my favorite games, when I saw Metroid Prime 3 : Corruption it just looked so dated.

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Chinese is the 3rd most common Language in the USA

2006-05-26

Did you know the most commonly used langauges in the USA? Of course English is #1 and Spanish is #2. What about 3, 4 and 5?

#3 Chinese (2 million people) #4 French (1.6 million people) #5 German (1.4 million people)

Shall we keep going. Can you guess the next 5?

#6 Tagalog (1.2 million people) #7 Vietnamiese (1 million people) #8 Italian (1 million people) #9 Korean (0.9 million people) #10 Russian (0.7 million people)

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Design Challange : Make the world a better place

2006-05-11

Lately I've been wondering if it's possible to design a game that helps make the world a better place in some way. It's been bugging me that games are such a waste of time. For the most part they are pure entertainment. I can watch some movies and get personal inspiration or thought provoking ideas. I can read a book and learn stuff. I can do some physical activity and make my body more fit but when it comes to games, most of them really don't add much to the world or improve the player in any real world way.

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A Call for Full Localization in U.S. Releases

2006-04-29

Typically for most U.S. game development the team makes the English version of the game only with little to no thought about localization. After they've shipped the English version they go back and localize the game for other regions. This is a mistake in my opinion.

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Game Concept Art and Soundtracks, Why Not?

2006-04-15

I was watching the latest 1up show (ep. 22) where Jane Pinckard is interviewing Jon Gibson about the exhibit "1 am 8bit" and they start talking about all the amazing concept art that is made for games but that no one outside the team or company ever gets to see.

In Japan, some of this stuff actually makes it out. For example books on Onimusha. An even better example is game music soundtracks. In Japan it seems like nearly every game has its soundtrack released on CD. You can walk into the big Tsutaya store in Shibuya and there's a wall with probably 2000 CDs of game music.

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Language Selection Screens - Respect

2006-03-08

Last weekend I had an interesting experience with accidentally calling someone based on an ancestry they did not want to be called. It was not pleasant.

Today that got me thinking though. Many many games use country flags for language selection screens. After last weekend's experience I wonder if that is being disrespectful.

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XBox Live Privacy Issues

2005-12-07

ArsTechinca posted this interesting comment about XBox Live privacy issues.

I don't have a 360 yet but it is an interesting question. XBox Live records which games you've played as well as how well you've done in them and a list of "medals" you've earned in each game.

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Private Offices and Large Monitors

2005-10-16

This morning Joel pointed to an article in the New York Times called Meet the Life Hackers. It talks about various research into office distractions. Some highlights that stuck out for me.

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