I got my rebate from Microsoft for Age of Emipres II. I try not to be too rabidly anti-Microsoft, and take a balanced view of things, and so forth, but I can't deny that it felt oh-so-good to deposit that check, knowing that my purchase of the game actually cost them money.
I also submitted a rebate to Amazon a little while back... haven't been home to check the mail (I'm at a university on the other side of the country), so I don't know if I got the check from them or not.
DARK HELMET: How soon?
CORPORAL: Sir.
DARK HELMET: What?
CORPORAL: We've identified their location.
DARK HELMET: Where?
CORPORAL: It's the Moon of Vega.
COL SANDURZ: Good work. Set a course, and prepare for our arrival.
DARK HELMET: When?
CORPORAL Nineteen-hundred hours, sir.
COL SANDURZ: By high-noon tomorrow, they will be our prisoners.
DARK HELMET: WHO?
The point is not that they can't afford $15 for 1 CD. The point is that they can't afford $15 PER CD. To sample the range of music that the students want to explore would cost thousands of dollars.
Admittedly, his argument that exploring the modern music is something these students want to do as an academic pursuit is somewhat silly. Even so, his proposed solution of having the University run a computerized music library is an excellent one, IMHO.
Computer graphics did evolve, they just evolved through a Lamarckian, rather than a Darwinian, process. Evolution does not mean Darwinism, they're two different words, and the former is more general than the latter.
There was a sports card/collectible shop that weathered the baseball strike with Magic cards:) This ended up being about 80% of their business. They eventually tried to add as small computer cluster for network gaming, and went bust anyway, but certainly CCGs kept them in business a lot longer than they would have lasted otherwise.
Part of the price hike was due to the move from lead to pewter miniatures, which happened around 10 years ago, IIRC. This is a very, very good thing, as lead is absolutely not something you want to be handling on a regular basis. When I got started they were making the trasition, and you could see lead packs in the stores for 2/3rds the cost with twice the number of figures. Of course, that could have just been an excuse, like the increased cost of music when the record companies went from tapes to CDs.
Also, I think your standards are a little high for what constitutes something totally new. In the 8-ish years since I stopped playing (yeah, I didn't play very long), I see they've introduced several new Warhammer fantasy armies: the Lizardmen, the Tomb Kings, the Vampire Counts, and the Dogs of War. They seem to have phased out the Undead (unless the Vampire Counts are simply the undead renamed). They've introduced several new games. I only played Warhammer fantasy, but I don't recall seeing their space game (Spaceship Gothic, or something like that), or Mordheim when I was playing. The Lord of the Rings stuff is all new.
They also had a number of unsuccessful projects, including a game involving ocean-going ships, several forays into computer games, and I'm sure a number of other projects I never heard about. No, they haven't been revolutionizing gaming or anything, but I think that for a niche hobby market, they've made a competent effort to add to their line of products.
Well, it's not pronounced "de-fi-nite-ly," with two long "i's," at least not where I'm from (San Francisco). Usually, it's pronounced as "de-fin-at-ly," or "de-fin-et-ly," with a short "i" in the second syllable and a short "a" or "e" in the third syllable.
So yes, if I had thought about the etymology, I probably would have spelled it correctly. But I didn't, so I ended up spelling it in a way that was somewhere in between the correct spelling and the phonetic spelling.
I guess I'm safe then, ours appear to be made by another company. The dorm readers say "Software House," and the ones on the laundry machine were some company I'd never heard of. The cables are all encased in metal pipes or built into the wall, so there's at least some physical security.
Spikes is excellent. Thanks for the tip on Million Year Picnic, I pass by it every day, but the name was never descriptive enough for me to know it was something I might be interested in.
I would say sign up for a few english classes while you are at Brown.
The word "English" is a proper noun, and should be capitalized. That sentence is also incorrectly structured. What gets me is how many people on Slashdot nitpick spelling for no reason.
How did you find out that the system used was Blackboard? My university (Brown) has a card authentication system, and if it is Blackboard, I'd definately send an email to the administration to complain about the use of such an insecure system. However, I don't see any indication anywhere who set up our card system, and I don't want to seem like an idiot if we're not using Blackboard.
Re:This does not mean we're simple
on
Genome Surprise
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· Score: 3, Informative
Assuming 3 billion base pairs, that'd be 1.5 billion bytes, or just under 1.4 gigabytes. Since there are a small number of 3 base pair groupings that make up all of the amino acids (if I remember my high school biology, which I may not, feel free to correct me), this is probably heavily compressible. We should be able to wedge it onto a CD-ROM. Even uncompressed, your genome will fit on a DVD.
You're right, it's a hell of a lot more than 15 K, but it's still pretty transportable.
I have no knowledge of the incident, but I believe the parent poster was trying to say that the backdrop provided better contrast. To get a good TV image you need to mess a lot with lighting, backdrops, makeup, and so forth. It could be that light reflecting off the statues was washing out the image.
All Microsoft is negotiating for are the exclusive console rights. Dooom 3 will still be on PC, it's just that the Xbox may be the only console it's released for. In fact, the article specifically mentions that 2 expansion packs are planned for the PC version.
This makes a lot of sense, as the Xbox is the most like a PC of the 3 consoles. It won't take as much work for id to port, and if Microsoft is willing to pay them a bunch of money on top of that, all the better.
I don't know that he's changed. It seems to me he's always been pretty honest. All his reviews since '85 are up for perusal on the Sun Times site. Indeed, if you're ever bored, go through and read his half star reviews, they're hilarious (the 0 star reviews are less funny, generally because he's reviewing comedy movies, or he has something against a specific movie).
I don't always agree with his reviews, but I nearly always understand his criticisms or praises. He does seem rather softhearted on movies about slavery, though (his review of Amistad was very overgenerous, and one of his main criticisms of Gods and Generals was that it didn't focus enough on how the Confederacy was evil for having slaves). It's a shame Siskel died, the two counterbalanced each other brilliantly. This new guy, Roper, is a moron.
Actually, one thing which I think is kind of cool is that when my mother attended the University of Illinois, Ebert was doing the film reviews for the student paper. That's a goddamn long time to be reviewing movies!
Probably they focus on the Xbox and ignore the Gamecube because of their target audience. They've decided to pitch themselves to teenaged gamers. Teen gamers are the one segment of the market that hates Nintendo's "cartoonish" games. Children, of course, love the games, and adults are old enough to not care what the game looks like. Image-concious teens, however, reject Nintendo games as being "for kids." Hence, the Gamecube does not fit the image that the channel is trying to create for itself.
After having a horrible experience trying to get a darn kernel driver working with an Nvidia card... I'm now exclusively ATI.
If you're running Linux exclusively, this may be a good solution. I bought an ATI Radeon 7500 because it has open source 3d drivers for linux. Unfortunately, Windows support blows. I could not upgrade the Win2k drivers from those that came with the card. Any attempt to upgrade would simply result in a frozen screen on reboot. Tech support gave me a long list of things to do, which I dutifully spent a weekend going through, doing each item on the list, no matter how absurd. At the end, it still didn't work, and I told ATI so. Their response was essentially "tough shit." So, now I'm exclusively NVIDIA.
If the trailer is all actual, real time footage from the movie (ie, none of it was slowed down for the trailer), it looks like they filmed about 10 minutes of footage, and are stretching it out to 2 hours.
Seriously, I understand that playing with the speed of the camera can make things more dramatic, but that was just ridiculous! It doesn't work if you keep using the same trick over and over again.
I wasn't arguing with the link. I'm perfectly willing to believe that good students usually have parents who are involved with their education. My quarrel is with the conclusion that therefore, parents who get involved with their education improve students performance. Just because the two coincide does not necessarily mean that one causes the other (or even makes the other more likely to occur).
My wife (a High School math teacher) will tell you that her best students usually have parents who are involved with their children's schoolwork.
Correlatation does not imply causation. Maybe the parents of the bad students tried to be involved with their children's work, but the children weren't interested and after many fights, the parents were shut out of their lives completely. This is what happened with my two younger brothers. Generally, when parents help good students, the students will get good grades, encouraging the parents to help more. When parents help bad students, they'll probably still get shitty grades, and the parents will become frustrated.
Look, it depends how you define "perfomance." Yes, if you look only at flight time, you might be right. When you consider safety (as a percentage of flights flown, the Concorde's record is not good), cost, turn around time, capacity, fuel consumption, and other such factors, the Concorde is hideously obsolete.
Computing is a little different, because technology moves so fast. Something which is a supercomputer one year will be high end workstation 2 years later. However, the example of Deep Blue still springs to mind. Deep Blue was the most advanced chess playing computer when it defeated Kasparov, but after the match was complete, it was disassembled, because it was mainly just a publicity stunt (as, some would argue, was the Concorde). Again, Deep Blue excelled in one area (chess playing), but stunk in most others.
The issue is they're using an unintended loophole to circumvent the law. If you think we don't need labor laws, that's fine, oppose the laws on general principal. If you think we do need labor laws, then you should be opposed to Microsoft's (and others') behavior.
This is essentially similar to the situation with software companies using EULA's to do away with first sale doctrine. Even though they sell an intellectual property product, just like a book, video, or album, the software industry has managed to find a legal loophole which allows their products to be treated differently. Again, if you think first sale doctrine is unimportant, than one should lobby to have it repealed for ALL intellectual property. Otherwise, the loophole should be opposed.
Slashdot Mirror
I also submitted a rebate to Amazon a little while back... haven't been home to check the mail (I'm at a university on the other side of the country), so I don't know if I got the check from them or not.
DARK HELMET: How soon?
CORPORAL: Sir.
DARK HELMET: What?
CORPORAL: We've identified their location.
DARK HELMET: Where?
CORPORAL: It's the Moon of Vega.
COL SANDURZ: Good work. Set a course, and prepare for our arrival.
DARK HELMET: When?
CORPORAL Nineteen-hundred hours, sir.
COL SANDURZ: By high-noon tomorrow, they will be our prisoners.
DARK HELMET: WHO?
Admittedly, his argument that exploring the modern music is something these students want to do as an academic pursuit is somewhat silly. Even so, his proposed solution of having the University run a computerized music library is an excellent one, IMHO.
Computer graphics did evolve, they just evolved through a Lamarckian, rather than a Darwinian, process. Evolution does not mean Darwinism, they're two different words, and the former is more general than the latter.
There was a sports card/collectible shop that weathered the baseball strike with Magic cards :) This ended up being about 80% of their business. They eventually tried to add as small computer cluster for network gaming, and went bust anyway, but certainly CCGs kept them in business a lot longer than they would have lasted otherwise.
Also, I think your standards are a little high for what constitutes something totally new. In the 8-ish years since I stopped playing (yeah, I didn't play very long), I see they've introduced several new Warhammer fantasy armies: the Lizardmen, the Tomb Kings, the Vampire Counts, and the Dogs of War. They seem to have phased out the Undead (unless the Vampire Counts are simply the undead renamed). They've introduced several new games. I only played Warhammer fantasy, but I don't recall seeing their space game (Spaceship Gothic, or something like that), or Mordheim when I was playing. The Lord of the Rings stuff is all new.
They also had a number of unsuccessful projects, including a game involving ocean-going ships, several forays into computer games, and I'm sure a number of other projects I never heard about. No, they haven't been revolutionizing gaming or anything, but I think that for a niche hobby market, they've made a competent effort to add to their line of products.
So yes, if I had thought about the etymology, I probably would have spelled it correctly. But I didn't, so I ended up spelling it in a way that was somewhere in between the correct spelling and the phonetic spelling.
What a coincidence, I was just thinking about visiting my MIT friends this weekend. With the flea market on, I'm totally there.
I guess I'm safe then, ours appear to be made by another company. The dorm readers say "Software House," and the ones on the laundry machine were some company I'd never heard of. The cables are all encased in metal pipes or built into the wall, so there's at least some physical security.
Spikes is excellent. Thanks for the tip on Million Year Picnic, I pass by it every day, but the name was never descriptive enough for me to know it was something I might be interested in.
The word "English" is a proper noun, and should be capitalized. That sentence is also incorrectly structured. What gets me is how many people on Slashdot nitpick spelling for no reason.
How did you find out that the system used was Blackboard? My university (Brown) has a card authentication system, and if it is Blackboard, I'd definately send an email to the administration to complain about the use of such an insecure system. However, I don't see any indication anywhere who set up our card system, and I don't want to seem like an idiot if we're not using Blackboard.
You're right, it's a hell of a lot more than 15 K, but it's still pretty transportable.
I have no knowledge of the incident, but I believe the parent poster was trying to say that the backdrop provided better contrast. To get a good TV image you need to mess a lot with lighting, backdrops, makeup, and so forth. It could be that light reflecting off the statues was washing out the image.
This makes a lot of sense, as the Xbox is the most like a PC of the 3 consoles. It won't take as much work for id to port, and if Microsoft is willing to pay them a bunch of money on top of that, all the better.
I don't always agree with his reviews, but I nearly always understand his criticisms or praises. He does seem rather softhearted on movies about slavery, though (his review of Amistad was very overgenerous, and one of his main criticisms of Gods and Generals was that it didn't focus enough on how the Confederacy was evil for having slaves). It's a shame Siskel died, the two counterbalanced each other brilliantly. This new guy, Roper, is a moron.
Actually, one thing which I think is kind of cool is that when my mother attended the University of Illinois, Ebert was doing the film reviews for the student paper. That's a goddamn long time to be reviewing movies!
Probably they focus on the Xbox and ignore the Gamecube because of their target audience. They've decided to pitch themselves to teenaged gamers. Teen gamers are the one segment of the market that hates Nintendo's "cartoonish" games. Children, of course, love the games, and adults are old enough to not care what the game looks like. Image-concious teens, however, reject Nintendo games as being "for kids." Hence, the Gamecube does not fit the image that the channel is trying to create for itself.
So? Isn't the main point of slashdot the discussion? If you just came here for the articles, then yes, Google news is as good or better.
If you're running Linux exclusively, this may be a good solution. I bought an ATI Radeon 7500 because it has open source 3d drivers for linux. Unfortunately, Windows support blows. I could not upgrade the Win2k drivers from those that came with the card. Any attempt to upgrade would simply result in a frozen screen on reboot. Tech support gave me a long list of things to do, which I dutifully spent a weekend going through, doing each item on the list, no matter how absurd. At the end, it still didn't work, and I told ATI so. Their response was essentially "tough shit." So, now I'm exclusively NVIDIA.
Seriously, I understand that playing with the speed of the camera can make things more dramatic, but that was just ridiculous! It doesn't work if you keep using the same trick over and over again.
I wasn't arguing with the link. I'm perfectly willing to believe that good students usually have parents who are involved with their education. My quarrel is with the conclusion that therefore, parents who get involved with their education improve students performance. Just because the two coincide does not necessarily mean that one causes the other (or even makes the other more likely to occur).
Correlatation does not imply causation. Maybe the parents of the bad students tried to be involved with their children's work, but the children weren't interested and after many fights, the parents were shut out of their lives completely. This is what happened with my two younger brothers. Generally, when parents help good students, the students will get good grades, encouraging the parents to help more. When parents help bad students, they'll probably still get shitty grades, and the parents will become frustrated.
One can argue causation either way.
Computing is a little different, because technology moves so fast. Something which is a supercomputer one year will be high end workstation 2 years later. However, the example of Deep Blue still springs to mind. Deep Blue was the most advanced chess playing computer when it defeated Kasparov, but after the match was complete, it was disassembled, because it was mainly just a publicity stunt (as, some would argue, was the Concorde). Again, Deep Blue excelled in one area (chess playing), but stunk in most others.
This is essentially similar to the situation with software companies using EULA's to do away with first sale doctrine. Even though they sell an intellectual property product, just like a book, video, or album, the software industry has managed to find a legal loophole which allows their products to be treated differently. Again, if you think first sale doctrine is unimportant, than one should lobby to have it repealed for ALL intellectual property. Otherwise, the loophole should be opposed.
It's not just you. It was pretty bad yesterday too. Periodically Slashdot has been slow ever since the server move.