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America's Army on Linux
jojor writes "It seems that icculus.org has gotten America's Army to run under Linux, as this screenshot will attest. America's Army is UT based and free (as in beer). More games for Linux, yippeh!" Awesome. I consider America's Army to be one of the best things my government has funded within recent history.
Serious Sam (first and second) encounter has also been ported. Medal of honor as well. There's also supposed to be another surprise today, BF1942?
Hail to the king, baby!
It is based off of the Unreal 2 engine, it is not based off of the game Unreal Tournament.
Not to flame you or anything but you do realize that the game only cost about $7 million to produce (at least according to Wired). You couldn't really do anything worthwhile in education or healthcare with only $7 million. As far as recruitment for the army goes $7 million is only probably about the amount the army spends on those "army of one" recruitment ads on TV in a week so no big waste of funds there. Now if you're trying to say that spending money to recruit people into the army is a waste of money, well that's a completly different conversation entirely.
"Free" in the English language has two meanings. The first, "free as in beer" means getting something without having to pay. "free as in speech" refers to freedom. Its often used to refer to software licenses. For example, software may be "free as in beer", meaning you can get it without charge, but Open Source software is "free as in speech" meaning you have certain freedoms as to what you can do with the software (copy, redistribute, make modified versions etc.). Software can be "free as in beer" but not "free as in speech" (eg. shareware)
The PX turned into a big scam for people that were no longer in the service or friend and family.
:)
I grew up on the Reservation and a friend's mother was a nurse. Well she was technically a Lt. Commander in the Naval Reserve who made around 58K a year and was not uniformed.
So when it was time to go shopping, her sons and thier friends would drive down to the PX at Ellsworth AFB and shop on the tax payer's dime.
As for Infantry not getting to see combat unless they are special forces...that's not accurate.
Most of the forces in-country in Somalia were 10th Mountain Division. In Desert Storm there were tens of thousands of Mech Infantry troops on the ground. In Afghanistan right now there are 82nd troopers. And in the coming fight with Iraq there are going to be around 30,000 non-SF combat soldiers on the ground from the Army and USMC.
And thanks for your service weatherman
How much money do you really think an 18 y/o fresh out high school needs?
Base rate for an E-1 w/ under four months service (as of January 2003) is 1,064.70 per mo. That means that as soon as you join, you get get paid over $1,000 a month gross income with no expenses (besides taxes). All that money is yours to sepnd how ever you want. No rent to pay, no food to buy, no utilities to pay.
And very few people ever get enlisted as E-1 anymore. E-2 starts at $1,290.00, E-3 is 1,356.90, and E-4 is 1,502.70.
That's all base rates. Then you can add in cost of living allowances, basic allowance for housing, etc., it adds up to a lot of money. And if you fill out the right paperwork, you won't pay any state income taxes.
Life sucks, but death doesn't put out at all. -- Thomas J. Kopp
For less than 10,000 dollars U.S. you can build an entire school with your name on it. And you can add solar panels, thus powering communications where there weren't any before,for just a little extra.
While it sounds inevitable that this would happen (use video games to recruit) and it's been done before (the movie was called Starfighters or some such, an interstellar race was fought by teenagers recruited through coinoperated game machines), anyway you're wrong and that much (or even a lot less) can do a world of good.
You could also do a world of good in the U.S. by funding open-source education.
If you want to buy a school in Cambodia, or assist, contact me or the address (Bernie Krisher should be listed there) on the web page.
Disclaimer: I support this project.
But as for who has killed the most Americans and American allies because of religion, I think those wacky arabs are at the top, with, as another poster pointed out, Irish desert nomads coming in a distant second.