akator

I went a different route for the home automation. There are multiple brands of remote RF outlets available. I chose the Etekcity programmable 5-packs on Amazon. They're pretty cheap, usually under $30 US. Next I tried the Hook, a 2015 Kickstarter now available on Amazon. I ordered one from the crowd funding before they were available at retail. The Hook provides the RF outlets with a web interface (computers, phones, tablets), IFTTT, and Alexa. However, mine didn't last long. It had far less range than advertised, was cheaply constructed, overall buggy, and died after 5 months. Since then I've been using the Broadlink RM Pro (about $30-35 depending on source, mine came from eBay). It is much more reliable with better range. I've been happy with it. There's a way to bridge Alexa with the Broadlink, but I don't care enough to bother. Using Alexa to turn things on and off was cute for a few weeks, but after that it ended up as a "party trick" to amuse guests. Alexa didn't quite work out for us as I had hoped. These days it's mostly used as a voice activated alarm clock and timer, which is still pretty cool, but far less than expected. The music playback features are far too limiting for me and it rarely has the answers to the questions I ask. But as things are, I'm OK not using Alexa for home automation. The scheduled events for lights and devices take care of most of our needs and pressing a button on my phone to turn something on or off is still great.

I really appreciate Retromags, and I hate to complain -- but the homepage has gotten out-of-hand. Today, the homepage is 1166 pixels wide. The browser window needs to be even wider to be display Retromags without horizontal scrolling. Is there any way that be scaled back to be something more reasonable, say 1000 pixels wide? The site would display much more nicely on netbooks that way

Please keep me in mind when you are sizing down. If in good condition, I would be interested in acquiring your unwanted duplicates

Condolences to you and your family, Triverse.

I miss the magazines, but more importantly the sense of anticipation. Of course, I say that while actively participating in and consuming the same forms of internet media that have killed off so many printed publications

No. DS --> DS Lite + same price + significantly smaller + easier to hold + case redesign was more attractive, appealed to wider audience, looked "more expensive" DS Lite --> DSi + bigger brighter screens + SD card slot - higher price - lame low quality cameras - higher price - loss of GBA compatibility

I've got an Intel Mac, so those stupid pop-ups make me laugh as well. I use Parallels when running other OSes: Host | Mac OS X running Parallels | VM | Windows XP | VM | Windows Vista | VM | Windows Beta 7 | VM | Ubuntu

That sucks, but I'm glad to hear it wasn't a real fire and your family is safe That used to happen all the time the one year I lived in a dorm at college. It got so bad that people started sleeping in their clothes because at least 2-3 times a week the fire alarm would go off sometime between midnight and 5AM. It was very uncool. Fortunately, I've never had that happen anywhere or any time since then...

Definitely good news. Little Big Planet will make great portable game. Rock Band as well, but it's a little late jumping on that wagon to capitalize on the craze. I guess better late than never, right? LOL, you mean that isn't what it's going to look like? Next you'll be telling me the Easter Bunny isn't real It seems like every other preview I've seen in the last 10 years is a pre-rendered game intro or cut scene. Hot model chicks never magically appear when I drink popular brands of beer, either. The lies.... THE LIES! Who will save us from the lies?!!

Nice images, but I'm glad the original game graphics are clean, simple, and unrendered in 3D. I'm more than a little burned out on photo-realistic rendering in games and animations.

Agreed again The PSP has amazing games available for it, especially considering it's a handheld. Throughout the PSP's life, its games have been compared to the PS2. Rarely has anyone stepped back and said, "This amazing PS2 port is on a *gasp* handheld?!!!" For some strange reason, Sony hasn't pointed that out. There are tons of PSP games that are original as well. Somehow all of the PSP greatness has been lost in the shuffle. Sony hasn't promoted PSP games that should have been, and successful titles were cut short by limited production. How many late PSP adopters had a chance to buy Ridge Racer or Infected new in the store? Not many, because Sony killed early titles and they could only be purchased used. When companies complain about "used games" stealing revenue, they are themselves often to blame by not making the popular titles available throughout the game's potential lifespan. Not quite a rant

Not me. I intentionally make my repros grayscale and faded, yet still legible. I want my repros to look like repros. That way once I'm done collecting the CIB games I don't have yet, I can go back and collect CIB versions of the incomplete ones Obsessive / Compulsive. Yes, I know it.

That makes sense. But isn't that also counter-productive to business in general? Is that a common practice with game developers/publishers these days? If so, I expect that many more companies will be having trouble... Agreed completely. [rant] To add, Sony could really get a clue with the PS3 as well. All that bluster and no storm. Sure, they're gradually coming out with stuff now, but it's a day late and a dollar short. Ignoring the PS3 launch problems in the US, and how Sony completely screwed that up, a simple look at history provides some reasons for the PS3's problems. The PS2 had a lackluster launch library, but 1 year into the console's release there was a lot of SCE content. The third party developers/publishers followed and took over. 1 year after the PS3's release, there weren't enough SCE or 3rd party titles to justify buying the system for most people. 2 years into the console, and Sony was were they were at with the PS2 within the first 6 months. The PSP is an amazing blunder. It's interesting that PSP sales increased after the iPhone was released, and that the sleekness and coolness of the iPhone boosted the PSP. Makes me wonder just how much could have been possible, considering the PSP was available over 2 years before the iPhone... To Sony's credit, the PSP recently crossed 50M in hardware sales. Prior to the PSP, the Sega Game Gear was the only handheld not made my Nintendo to reach 10M. I suppose that is worth something... [/rant]

Yeah, that's a good question. From what I've read about past developers filing Chapter 11, it's almost always because they "advance" merchandise to the retailers. When the retailers can't meet the debt (like Circuit City), the developers and publishers are out of luck. When Circuit City declared bankruptcy, I remember reading some enormous figure of how much they owed game companies. I recall a TV interview (don't remember from where) in which a developer said Circuit City owed them over $6M, and Circuit City's bankruptcy would hurt the developer very badly. So why is Midway in debt to any of the retailers? I would think it would be the other way around. What did Toys R Us do that Midway would owe them over $500K?

Service Games was founded in 1952. In 1964, David Rosen merged his company with Service Games to form Sega. Sega's first video arcade game was released in 1972. They had massive arcade hits throughout the 80s. Sonic the Hedgehog was released in June 1991.