... is the expansion to make the game playable by people with less-than-bleeding-edge video cards.
We paid to upgrade two of our computers, in order to improve the experience with NWN2, and found it was only marginally less jerky. What we saw was impressive, but we don't think that having to buy 2 $200 video cards in order to play 2 $50 games was a Good Idea.
Back in the Elder Days, when my company was writing DOS-based programs, this system called Windows 3.0 came out, and some of our customers were using it. The owner decided to go ahead and start writing stuff for it, using this Visual Basic instead of the QuickBasic that had been working just fine. Of course, he wasn't stupid about it, by declaring our DOS code obsolete.
When Windows 3.1 and VB 3.0 came out, it was a lot more stable. We started the migration in earnest. We soon had a halfway-decent system developed on Windows 3.1. Of course, that's when Windows 95 arrived, and I wondered what would possess anyone to switch to that, because Windows 3.1 (Sorry, now 3.11 for Workgroups) seemed to do everything that we could think of.
After a couple of service packs had been made available, the owner had us start building for Windows 95. I griped, moaned, and complained - why bother? What did Windows 95 offer that was any better?
We repeated the process for Windows 98 and XP. I didn't want to migrate - it was going to be a pain in the backside, the benefits were not apparent compared to the effort, and we waited until a couple of service packs came out and the bugs got shaken out.
Now, had it not been for the early adopters who voted with their cash for the new systems, and then beefed unceasingly until the first bugs did get remedied, we wouldn't have been able to do this. Still and all, most businesses are not known for being early adopters if they have an existing investment in their code base to try to wring more money out of.
This is not a blast at Microsoft. This happens with all operating systems, even Linux. I have a dual-boot laptop that I will upgrade to Vista only when the proverbial gun is at my head, but that isn't because I loathe Microsoft (I don't); it's because I don't see how the changes in the OS will benefit me.
Of course, after Vista has had a year or two to get some of these early issues resolved, it may be less painful than it seems to be now. But this isn't meant as MS-bashing - just as an indictment of the "jump on the brand new system NOW" syndrome that marketers encourage.
IANAL, but from what I'm given to understand, it may not be a precedent.
When a previous employer of mine was battling a lawsuit with a former client, we thought we might be involved with some ground-breaking decisions. When we asked our lawyer if this might set a precedent, he explained that there are very few precedents that come from the circuit court level. Most of them come from appellate or supreme courts.
Thus, if I understood correctly, (and bear in mind that even if I did, I may not be remembering it so) the only way in which this case might become a precedent is if an appellate judge is asked to clarify and rule on it. If nobody appeals, then it is just a guideline for other judges to consider, but not necessarily be bound by.
Something to worry about... but maybe not so much.
on
Hitachi's Tiny RFID Chips
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The people who are concerned about "crowd-dusting" have some valid concerns. It might be one of those nifty little ways of keeping track of who showed up at the protest march, or something like that.
On the other hand, I don't know what the effective range is on these RFID chips. If it is more than 30 feet, then I'd definitely worry. If it's less than 3 feet, then by-hand scanning or pass-through-booth scanning are the only ways of effectively managing that.
If it's between those two ranges, then... I wouldn't panic. Yet.
We get web censorship by explaining that we are protecting our children from the evils of pornography, and in their defense, no measure can be too extreme, so we'll ban sites at the schools and the libraries, and leave the potential open for banning them in homes.
You balk at this idea? What are you, some kind of pervert who wants kids to have open and free access to porn?
We get personal tracking by explaining that we are protecting our children from the dangers of child molesters, and to prevent that, no measure can be too extreme, so we'll put GPS collars on convicted child molesters and other sex offenders, and leave the option available for putting them on everyone.
What? You don't like this? Why are you standing up for perverts, anyway?
We are good. Un-we, then, are un-good. Mini-love will see they become un-persons. This is plus good.
<irony=0%> (Oh, for crying out loud, did I forget the <irony=100%> tag again?)
This is yet another stupid idea from someone who is trying to impress potential voters in an upcoming presidential campaign.
I'll bet that if you asked him after injecting him with Sodium Pentothal, the illustrious senator would admit that he doesn't expect that the bill will have a snowball's chance in hell of passing.
This reminds me of the customer service at the old INS. It was pretty bad and all because I guess they figured that dealing with non-citizens they didn't need to exercise anything like courtesy.
... on the one hand, it was a pretty crummy thing for Jandreau to say. "I am the manager of all of Customer Service. There is no one higher than me that you will speak with" is high-handed, arrogant, and sounds like some power-tripping Napoleon wanna-be. It was as tasteless as distilled water, and I coud understand a desire to pound on him.
On the other hand, it is a free service, and Lycos has just proven that you do, indeed, get what you pay for. It is a shame that the old E-mails are gone, and it is unfortunate that nobody thought of a way to archive them off of Lycos' servers so that it no longer cluttered their machines, but it does appear to have been part of their ToS, so my sympathy is limited there, too.
Aristophanes wrote a play titled "The Clouds," in which he lambasted the state of education in ancient Athens. In the process, he also lampooned Socrates, who was depicted as one of the corrupters of youth... even though public opinion at the time considered him no such thing.
Socrates attended the production of the play... and laughed as uproariously as anyone else at his on-stage caricature.
Mind you, he might not have had the same remedies available as today had he been thoroughly offended by the play, but the big thing was that the concept of "grin and bear it" was known then. Too bad it seems to be unfashionable these days.
IBM could have bought them any time they wanted. They haven't because they're going to kill them, burn them, stomp the ashes, salt the earth, burn the salted earth, burn the salty earthy ashes, stomp that out, pour gasoline around, burn the remaining mess, and then piss on it to put it out.
"And then, Vir, he would have gotten nasty..." (paraphrase from Dust to Dust, Babylon 5 (Season 3)
I haven't played it. I don't want to play it. I don't feel any desire to emulate Klebold and Harris, and I have no particular desire to find out what it's like to gun down children in the halls. (Mind you, there was a time or seven hundred in my youth that I might have, but not any more.)
Having said that, I agree that censorship is the absolute wrong thing to do. I can deal with unpalatable games far better than I can deal with someone saying, "This is taboo, you may not show it."
It's a case of the cure being worse than the malady.
My biggest grief in this whole illegal immigration thing is with the coyotes. They usually charge what amounts to an individual's life savings to get them across the border, and then as often as not drop them off in the deepest part of some very inhospitable real estate... and drive off with a huge chunk of change. $90,000 for 30 people at $3000 each, dropped off in a tractor-trailer in the deep desert... and with only the hope that the coyote remembered to unlock the back door.
And next month, the coyote brings in another truckload.
<sarcasm level="dripping">Nice work if you can get it.</sarcasm>
Many of the people in FN (and many other ultra-right-wing organizations) are afraid. They are afraid of changes that are happening. The mythical "Good Old Days" that they hope to restore are facing threats, not least of which that some keep pointing out that they're mythical.
That kind of fear leads to people looking for easy targets, rather than useful / legitimate targets. For the Nazis, it was all part of the Grand Jewish Conspiracy. For the Copperhead Militia, it's them damn illegal furriners sneaking over the border. For FN, it's those blankety-blank Muslims who they claim are planning on replacing the rule of law with the rule of Sharia (although none of them are quite sure how Sharia is imposed, and nobody really considers that the Bible that many of them cite as the basis for their traditional views doesn't really have any democratic principles).
"Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to great suffering." (Either that or to a career in politics.)
Slashdot Mirror
We'll give it a try - much obliged!
</IRONY>
... is the expansion to make the game playable by people with less-than-bleeding-edge video cards.
We paid to upgrade two of our computers, in order to improve the experience with NWN2, and found it was only marginally less jerky. What we saw was impressive, but we don't think that having to buy 2 $200 video cards in order to play 2 $50 games was a Good Idea.
Back in the Elder Days, when my company was writing DOS-based programs, this system called Windows 3.0 came out, and some of our customers were using it. The owner decided to go ahead and start writing stuff for it, using this Visual Basic instead of the QuickBasic that had been working just fine. Of course, he wasn't stupid about it, by declaring our DOS code obsolete.
When Windows 3.1 and VB 3.0 came out, it was a lot more stable. We started the migration in earnest. We soon had a halfway-decent system developed on Windows 3.1. Of course, that's when Windows 95 arrived, and I wondered what would possess anyone to switch to that, because Windows 3.1 (Sorry, now 3.11 for Workgroups) seemed to do everything that we could think of.
After a couple of service packs had been made available, the owner had us start building for Windows 95. I griped, moaned, and complained - why bother? What did Windows 95 offer that was any better?
We repeated the process for Windows 98 and XP. I didn't want to migrate - it was going to be a pain in the backside, the benefits were not apparent compared to the effort, and we waited until a couple of service packs came out and the bugs got shaken out.
Now, had it not been for the early adopters who voted with their cash for the new systems, and then beefed unceasingly until the first bugs did get remedied, we wouldn't have been able to do this. Still and all, most businesses are not known for being early adopters if they have an existing investment in their code base to try to wring more money out of.
This is not a blast at Microsoft. This happens with all operating systems, even Linux. I have a dual-boot laptop that I will upgrade to Vista only when the proverbial gun is at my head, but that isn't because I loathe Microsoft (I don't); it's because I don't see how the changes in the OS will benefit me.
Of course, after Vista has had a year or two to get some of these early issues resolved, it may be less painful than it seems to be now. But this isn't meant as MS-bashing - just as an indictment of the "jump on the brand new system NOW" syndrome that marketers encourage.
So, instead of depicting themselves as "lean and mean," they show that they're "skinny and psychotic."
PHB: "And don't get me started about your overuse of the colon."
Dilbert: "They remind me of you, sir."
That would be a case where the expression "know thyself" doesn't do him any good at all.
Because this... is... SLASHDOT!
Welcome to the new phenomenon of the Twenty-First Century: Accountability Light!
Only half the consequences of old-fashioned accountability!
Look at the advantages: Less embarassment! More job security! Freedom to make critical mistakes without having to pay for them!
(Only available for cabinet-level Federal employees)
From what I've seen, "zero-tolerance" policies usually ends up as "zero-intelligence" policies.
IANAL, but from what I'm given to understand, it may not be a precedent.
When a previous employer of mine was battling a lawsuit with a former client, we thought we might be involved with some ground-breaking decisions. When we asked our lawyer if this might set a precedent, he explained that there are very few precedents that come from the circuit court level. Most of them come from appellate or supreme courts.
Thus, if I understood correctly, (and bear in mind that even if I did, I may not be remembering it so) the only way in which this case might become a precedent is if an appellate judge is asked to clarify and rule on it. If nobody appeals, then it is just a guideline for other judges to consider, but not necessarily be bound by.
The people who are concerned about "crowd-dusting" have some valid concerns. It might be one of those nifty little ways of keeping track of who showed up at the protest march, or something like that.
On the other hand, I don't know what the effective range is on these RFID chips. If it is more than 30 feet, then I'd definitely worry. If it's less than 3 feet, then by-hand scanning or pass-through-booth scanning are the only ways of effectively managing that.
If it's between those two ranges, then... I wouldn't panic. Yet.
Bullseye.
We get web censorship by explaining that we are protecting our children from the evils of pornography, and in their defense, no measure can be too extreme, so we'll ban sites at the schools and the libraries, and leave the potential open for banning them in homes.
You balk at this idea? What are you, some kind of pervert who wants kids to have open and free access to porn?
We get personal tracking by explaining that we are protecting our children from the dangers of child molesters, and to prevent that, no measure can be too extreme, so we'll put GPS collars on convicted child molesters and other sex offenders, and leave the option available for putting them on everyone.
What? You don't like this? Why are you standing up for perverts, anyway?
We are good. Un-we, then, are un-good. Mini-love will see they become un-persons. This is plus good.
<irony=0%> (Oh, for crying out loud, did I forget the <irony=100%> tag again?)
This is yet another stupid idea from someone who is trying to impress potential voters in an upcoming presidential campaign.
I'll bet that if you asked him after injecting him with Sodium Pentothal, the illustrious senator would admit that he doesn't expect that the bill will have a snowball's chance in hell of passing.
... on the one hand, it was a pretty crummy thing for Jandreau to say. "I am the manager of all of Customer Service. There is no one higher than me that you will speak with" is high-handed, arrogant, and sounds like some power-tripping Napoleon wanna-be. It was as tasteless as distilled water, and I coud understand a desire to pound on him.
On the other hand, it is a free service, and Lycos has just proven that you do, indeed, get what you pay for. It is a shame that the old E-mails are gone, and it is unfortunate that nobody thought of a way to archive them off of Lycos' servers so that it no longer cluttered their machines, but it does appear to have been part of their ToS, so my sympathy is limited there, too.
Aristophanes wrote a play titled "The Clouds," in which he lambasted the state of education in ancient Athens. In the process, he also lampooned Socrates, who was depicted as one of the corrupters of youth... even though public opinion at the time considered him no such thing.
Socrates attended the production of the play... and laughed as uproariously as anyone else at his on-stage caricature.
Mind you, he might not have had the same remedies available as today had he been thoroughly offended by the play, but the big thing was that the concept of "grin and bear it" was known then. Too bad it seems to be unfashionable these days.
Happy to be of service!
Besides, I'm a dedicated masochist, and I hate to enjoy myself all alone.
Try this reference:
A dime's a nickel and a nickel's none
I throw myself into the Sunday sun
from "Jenny Says" by the group Cowboy Mouth
No, you seem to be saying that.
What I am basically saying is "Popular" != "tasteful", but "unpopular" != "suitable for censoring". Past that, I make no comment.
I haven't played it. I don't want to play it. I don't feel any desire to emulate Klebold and Harris, and I have no particular desire to find out what it's like to gun down children in the halls. (Mind you, there was a time or seven hundred in my youth that I might have, but not any more.)
Having said that, I agree that censorship is the absolute wrong thing to do. I can deal with unpalatable games far better than I can deal with someone saying, "This is taboo, you may not show it."
It's a case of the cure being worse than the malady.
For what it's worth - I like it!
My biggest grief in this whole illegal immigration thing is with the coyotes. They usually charge what amounts to an individual's life savings to get them across the border, and then as often as not drop them off in the deepest part of some very inhospitable real estate... and drive off with a huge chunk of change. $90,000 for 30 people at $3000 each, dropped off in a tractor-trailer in the deep desert... and with only the hope that the coyote remembered to unlock the back door.
And next month, the coyote brings in another truckload.
<sarcasm level="dripping">Nice work if you can get it.</sarcasm>
There's another aspect that I would add: fear.
Many of the people in FN (and many other ultra-right-wing organizations) are afraid. They are afraid of changes that are happening. The mythical "Good Old Days" that they hope to restore are facing threats, not least of which that some keep pointing out that they're mythical.
That kind of fear leads to people looking for easy targets, rather than useful / legitimate targets. For the Nazis, it was all part of the Grand Jewish Conspiracy. For the Copperhead Militia, it's them damn illegal furriners sneaking over the border. For FN, it's those blankety-blank Muslims who they claim are planning on replacing the rule of law with the rule of Sharia (although none of them are quite sure how Sharia is imposed, and nobody really considers that the Bible that many of them cite as the basis for their traditional views doesn't really have any democratic principles).
"Fear leads to hate. Hate leads to great suffering." (Either that or to a career in politics.)
I know we sort of canonize the executive class in this country, but this is ridiculous...
No, we prefer to "cannon"-ize some of them...
<grin>Touché!