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Well, I don't how applicable this is in the rest of the world, but according to the US Copyright Office, "your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." That is, you automatically have copyright protection on anything you create. You can also register your copyright, but I'll leave it to you to take a look at their page and see what additional protection that gives you.

Maybe a game inspired by Lost would be better than a game based on it. I think one problem that tends to plague franchise-based games is that the action in the game tends to be periphery to whatever the main storyline is. As a result, whatever you end up doing in the game tends to be rather inconsequential.

Vince Twelve's comments are especially amusing in light of this thread about today's TV being more intelligent!

And people obviously find it funny, too.

Everyone will have their own reaction. I was just giving you my honest impression.

Even if you don't change the joke, I think the problem is that the punchline is given away in the 5th frame. That's why I recommend cutting it, or maybe you could change what the boy says so you don't give away the joke (maybe to something like "Do you like movies?").

I do like the unexpected twist, but the delivery suffers.

Unless it's meant to be a joke, the sign should be "serial killer" (not "cereal killer").

[at]

What if you cut out the 5th frame? After she asks "what do you want to do?", go directly to them running in a field of flowers. It'd also allow you to extend the frame across the whole page and make it a bit more "dramatic." I guess you run the risk of mis-interpretation ... I don't know.

Honestly, I just don't find it very funny. After you explained it, I understood what you were going for, but the humor seems a little forced to me. Maybe if you approached it from the other end?

The two are running toward each other in a field (maybe a full-length frame). As they reach each other, they start panting and gasping. After reaching each other they're panting and gasping and all sweaty, trying to catch their breath. Than the girl says something like "Can't we just meet at the movie theater next time?"

I tried trimming down his eyebrows a bit and giving him more of a furrowed brow. Don't know if I succeeded at all or made any sort of improvement:



It also seems like you use a lot of shades of color. I don't know how many total colors you're using, but I think you could probably cut down to two, maybe three, different shades for each color and simplify your sprite a bit.

Consider Johnson's example where he gives evidence of the average test scores increasing over generations.

Not having read the book, I don't know what Johnson's methodology is, but rising test scores hardly proves anything. I suspect grade inflation would be the biggest explanation for rising test scores, unless he somehow managed to account for this. Take the American SAT, which for those who don't know, are standardized tests commonly used as a part of the college admissions process. They've always curved their grading to offset declining scores, and completely re-standardized the grading scale in 1995 to give higher results.

And of course, using test results to make claims about intelligence begs the question of whether or not tests can even accurately measure intelligence (see here and here). Even defining intelligence is tricky business. What exactly do we mean when we claim that people are more intelligent?

Certainly the explosion of IT has made available an unprecedented wealth of information available to just about everyone, and of course there's always the joke about getting the youngest kid in the family to get the home entertainment center and computer working, and then there's the example of today's teen listening to music, watching tv, surfing the web, and carrying on IM conversations all at the same time. But just because we've become more accustomed to a greater decibel level of background information doesn't mean we've gotten any better at processing it. I've heard (although I don't have any numbers to support) that continuously jumping from one task to another degrades intelligence - and performance - since the mind isn't given the opportunity to ever focus on one thing. I've also read articles about using computer technology to filter out extraneous information to aircraft pilots and army soldiers so they can improve their focus and performance. Hardly evidence that we're able to better process an ever-growing complexity of information.

I don't think there's anything remarkable about claiming that the average bloke adapts to whatever "tech level" they grow up in. Sure we can program our cell phones, navigate complex mass-transit systems, and easily look up movie showtimes on the internet. But does that mean we're any smarter? Look at all the comic skits about people being able to sing various commercial jingles but not knowing the words to the national anthem, or not being able to point out their state (or country) on a map (or a popular variation in America where people can't point out Iraq). Or drop somebody in a radically unfamiliar environment - put a city slicker on the farm, or since we're making comparisons with the past, put today's teen in the 50's or early 20th century - and I don't know that you'd see any greater capacity to adapt or outperform someone native to that environment.

I definitely think the resources that are available for people to educate themselves - whether we're talking TV and film, the internet, or video games -  are greater than they ever have been. But it still requires an active effort to take advantage of them. I think that somebody that just passively exists in their environment - watching prime-time television, playing the video game of the month, catching the latest Hollywood "blockbuster" - doesn't necessarily benefit from any increased complexity or intelligence in the content they take in. One would only expect that, as a human race, our "base" level of knowledge and understanding of the world has grown. But taking into account that baseline, I'd be hard pressed to argue that our mainstream media is any less derivative or mind-numbing than it has been in previous generations - and perhaps even moreso.

I wonder how things are going to go with a national Democrat legislative majority.  I'm guessing it won't be that different.

I suspect you're right. Even though the Democrats made huge gains off of dissatification with Iraq, I think people are fooling themselves if they think there's going to be a huge policy change or some quick and easy solution. The problem with Iraq isn't how to get out, the problem is that we're even there to begin with. I suspect that with a new Secretary of Defense we'll see a concerted effort at putting new political spin on the issue.

... but good ol' fashioned USA values tend to put the female squarely in the kitchen where she can mass-produce apple pies when she's in-between flag sewings.

I can't help but think TheYak is right. I find it particularly damning that despite being the oldest(?) democracy around we've yet to have either a woman or a minority as our president. Meanwhile numerous other countries, including those with little tradition of democracy, seem to have accomplished this feat rather effortlessly. Despite being the "land of the free," our cultural values keep us very much behind the curve in some ways.

Anyone surprised that Lieberman won as an indepedent after losing the Democratic primary?

Tom Delay is quoted as saying "The Democrats didn't win; the Republicans lost." In a way, I can't help but think he's right. With all the scandals, discontent over Iraq, and Bush's rock bottom approval ratings, I don't think there was any way the Republicans were going to have a good night. But now the Democrats will have to come up with more of a platform than "We're not Bush."

I'd work on some of the perspective issues that ildu pointed out. Looking at KhrisMUC's edit, I also think the tree looks better behind the building.

The doorways seem a little too short and wide - especially compared with all the windows (which look like they're about the same size as the doors). I'd make the doorways narrower and the windows smaller.

Is there any particular reason why the picnic table goes into the street? It seems like the back leg goes "into" the curb. Also, tables I've seen that accomodate beach umbrellas have a hole in the middle, and the pole of the umbrella goes through all the way to the ground.

Nice pictures! I've always thought about messing around a little with photography myself, but never seemed to find the time to get into it. Just out of curiousity, what kind of camera did you use?

A few comments:

4. I was really distracted by his left elbow, I think because it both juts into the foreground and is where all the light falls. Maybe a little bit better composition and use of light?

5. Interesting colors. I probably wouldn't have recognized her as being in a water fountain if you hadn't said so - to me it looked like she was about to grab onto something that was hanging. Then I realized that was the arc of water and it began from the ground behind her. Maybe if you had captured the full arc of water instead of cropping it off at the top?

6. Great picture. But after reading your description, I find it interesting that the focus of this picture isn't on the sky but rather on the road. Was this a conscious decision? My instinct would have been to take the picture in landscape and bring the horizon down to the lower third of the picture to capture as much of the sky as possible.

15. After reading Mikko's post, it really occurred to me how much that white shirt just glows!

Look at this.

I felt the same way when my Hawkeyes lost out to the Buckeyes...

But you were ok with losing to Indiana? :

I used to like Baseball ... Lot' s of timeouts for ... drinking a coke

Drinking coke? Uh, Nacho, you don't really get the whole point of watching baseball, do you?

Why would anyone outside america make an effort to follow a sport like American Football is beyond me (post made to spark a little controversy finally! This thread has potential!)

Yeah, because soccer's so great? "Look, someone finally got the ball near the goal! Everyone's excited!!! Ohhh ... kicked away." -or- "Lucky chip shot ... GOAL!!!"

Actually I like soccer - sorry, I mean, football - a lot and actually played on a youth team when I was a kid. But you're right Helm, we need to get the discussion away from whether or not it's ok to watch pr0n!

While watching the World Cup final, the announcers said that something like 1 billion people were watching the game. That's like 1 out of every 5 people on the planet! It's hard to fathom. And we Americans get so pumped up about our Super Bowl!

Of course, please, let's not compare his video with a video by Marilyn Manson (for example), as there is little reason (and I'm mentioning this becasue in an older thread people tended to compare his music with NIN stuff )

In terms of the quality of the video, I think it's a lot better than an early Ozzy Ozbourne video that springs to mind. I can't remember the song (although you hear it on the radio now and then), but basically the band just stands there and plays, and all these wierd 80's disco lights are flashing all over the place. Really just a terrible video (and I don't really like the song much either).

A lot of those 80's videos were pretty low-tech. ManiacMatt's video lacks polish, but I think it could match up with a good number of those vids.

But there's always next year...

Ah, the official slogan of the Cubs! *sigh*

The plan has always been to loss lead on the console and reap profit on the games, but I'm not sure if that actually came to pass for either the PS1, PS2 or XBox.

I think with Microsoft's cozy reserves (how many billions again?), the Xbox was never intended to make a profit, just establish themselves in the market. I think the 360 (and beyond) is where they hope for the payoff.

I'm not a Sony hater or anything, I just am intrigued by disfunctional organisations.

Actually, it seemed like they were pretty much on top of the world until the whole DRM rootkit debacle, and things have just spiralled out of control since then. I've personally decided to take pass on Sony in the future as a result of that whole incident (which, coincidentally, happened just after I purchased my Sony digital camera).

Who said Nintendo was down for the count? They've been consistently very profitable.

Well, like I said, I haven't really been following the whole console market (strictly a PC guy myself), but it seemed like Sony pretty much had the market sewn up until Xbox entered the picture and kind of shook things up a bit. It seems amazing to me that now they're going to be last to the market (and not just by a little bit) with their next-gen system, just killing their market share. That and some of the controversy behind the system, it will be interesting to see how successful it is.

Bah, I'm getting a PS3.

Just hope that Blu-ray wins the standards battle!

I thought people might be interested in these latest numbers from Gamasutra:

Nintendo profits up 72% off soaring sales of the DS. The most popular game? New Super Mario Bros.

Meanwhile, Sony profits down 94% due to the laptop battery recall and start-up costs for PS3. Additionally, PSP sales seem to be on the decline.

And Microsoft? Overall profits up, but the XBox360 division, which has had record sales, took a small loss - but less than previous years. Not too surprising though, as companies generally make a loss on the consoles and reap profits from software sales.

Not that I really follow the console wars, but it sure seems like Nintendo, which looked like it was down for the count, is making a resurgence. And Sony? Boy, how their star has fallen ....

Um, I don't really have anything to say about the background right now. But I do think his little tail (I guess it's called a gaster) looks better the way Mad drew it. Either way though, a nice looking sprite!

Wow, ProgZ, just an amazing edit! :o You really just made my first effort look like total garbage! That's good though. I'll study what you've done to try and improve.

I have to confess, it's inspiring to see edits like this to see how good this could look, but at the same time kind of discouraging to see how far I still have to come. But this will really help a lot. Thanks!