Unless you've gone through the hassle of buying (or attempted to buy) a house this wouldn't be very clear.
Right now it is almost impossible to purchase a house using internet based tools. Every housing market is controlled by the local realtors and they are VERY territorial. This means extra calls to look at houses if you aren't using a local realtor, extra time spent researching because tools are intentionally crippled for non-local agents, houses that aren't "keyed" properly for non-local agents (meaning even if you've done your research, then had someone call on the house, you still might not be able to get in and see it).
This makes it harder to find (and buy) a house if you aren't working with a local agent. Knowledge is power, and with current tools & rules the local agents wield a lot of power over non-local (internet) based ones.
Time will tell if this ruling bears fruit, but it is definitely good news for any nerd looking to buy a house in the future.
For the first release of TinyWarz all the art was contracted for. While it took a long time sorting through resumes and candidates, the end result was some top-notch art and great working-relationships with the artists.
Several were called back to work on the next release (now in-progress).
To top this off, the two sides (Aliens and Marines) play completely differently; the Marines require a commander (who plays from an overhead view) to build structures and acquire weapons, each Alien chooses their own role: builder or fighter. The depth of this game is simply stunning, the maps are amazing (and this is on a 5 year old game engine) and there are lots of servers to play on.
Lastly, if you own Half-Life (and who doesn't these days) you can get it for free.
Actually the person featured in the article has a few things to say: Let me tell you something. The article about me written by Seth Schiesel, AKA Amis (his ingame name) is such a roving pack of lies slandering the person I really am in real life that I'm flat out disgusted by the whole thing.
right now I'm too stunned and upset at the amount of lies, miscontext, misquotes and outright slander posted on the article to even log in.
I'll be filing a lawsuit against the New York Times for slander, as many of the things put in that article about my real life (and even ingame) are so horribly untrue or twisted and the truth stretched to paint me in a much much different light than the person I really am.
He paints me as a shy, akward, socially inept reclusive nerd which is such a contrast to the person I really am. I make racy jokes, but he paints me as a virtual rapist. I'm broke in RL, but he paints me as a suicidal, emotionally unstable man that lives in the slums (I live in a good neighborhood) and can't afford to buy food. This article is absolutely ruinous to myself, my business, my future. It's the lowest form of slander imaginable.
Even the pictures used were horrible. The first is dark and brooding and in the second picture I was about to bust out laughing, which also looks a hell of alot like crying and is just a flat out BAD pic.
Please keep any jokes off this thread as I feel serious about this. I can see some pretty horrid real life repercussions as a result of this article.
So much of what I said to him in the four days that he was here was taken FAR out of context and quotes that I had supposedly said were either entirely made up or the wording was changed to change the focus of what I was saying.
Sound familiar? Well about a month ago, another NY Times reporter by the name of Jayson Blair did the exact same thing. I just never had any idea something like this would happen to me. He told me that he was doing a general article about the community of AO through my eyes. Instead, a pack of lies gets slammed on the world's largest newspaper about me. The entire focus of the article was misrepresented.
The writer, Seth Schiesel is a reporter for the NY Times and his ingame character is named "Amis", a high level Omni MP. The article was so vicious and untrue at some points that it seems to have been written with malice in mind.
I'm so humiliated at some of the things said in that article. it shocks and amazes me how someone can so callously and deliberately say such untruths. I'm painted as a socially inept reject that never leaves his home, which is the opposite of who I really am.
It's one thing to flame someone ingame, but this goes way beyond that and extends into my personal life.....worst of all, 80% of what he says is an outright lie. The other 20% is an exaggeration or was taken out of context.
While it may not seem bad to many of you, if you knew me in real life, you'd know why I was so upset right now.
thanks alot Amis (his ingame name). Never figured to be stabbed in back like this.
Actualy, the "real-virtual economy" has already been done.
http://www.project-entropia.com Project Entropia will have a real economy system that allows you as a user to exchange real life money into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and then back into a real currency again.
The game was release last month (or so), but the company (MindArk) is pretty much a joke... they were raided in 2002 with the help of M$ for having pirated software:
sure, ads in "useful" software we can't stand... but maybe ads in games isn't such a bad thing. don't take my word for it... arcadian del sol commented on this a month or so ago (specifically concerning the Sims Online):
ummm, no... take any basic enonomics course and you'll learn that monopolies operate in such a way that any raise in price is detrimental to their profits.
this is simply a taxing of a small fraction of their users who are using much more than their share of the bandwidth.
again, from an economic stand-point this makes sense - if everyone is paying the same amount, some users will be inclided to take as much as possible... taxing them just keeps their network from being overloaded.
GATOR... you can use Lavasoft's Ad-Aware to detect and delete it. Check your Add/Remove Programs for Gator, then see if you can find it in your Programs Folder. If you run the Gator program it will tell you what other program installed it in the first-place.
warforge has been the team working on a warcraft 3 server (which caused all the problems with blizzard). they started with bnetd's code, but now the projects are basically separate.
shame blizzard didn't do some research before turning the lawyers lose. even if they get an injunction against bnetd, they'll be shutting down the wrong group.
the cue cat has to be one of the top five symbols of the dot-com era (or, atleast up there with razor scooters). you have to wonder who thought this gizmo up though... who reads magazines in-front of the computer?
now - if there was a wireless version that worked in the bathroom, they'd be millionaires right now
the article states the the RIAA will use a program which will attempt to open multiple, slow speed, downloads to a computer holding a copyrighted file...
how long until someone adds a "download speedlimit" to their program? ie. a user has to be downloading at atleast some-K a second or they get the boot.
for an group with millions at their disposal, this is a pretty weak solution.
what, would you say, is the flaw to backdoor'd crypto and how would you explain this defect to someone who lacks a wide knowledge of computers, especially in light of recent events?
... so that individual computers, file systems, and networks become unimportant to most computations in the same way that processor registers, disk sectors, and physical pages are today.
so they want to turn their entire user-base into an application? (bear with me)... MS must get sick and tired of "borg" references, but this appears a tad too close to the mark.
it seems the only way you could have this level of hands-off "use-ability" would be to have complete control of all aspects of the hardware and enviroments your software is running under... (simple if everyone was using a microsoft computer and held a microsoft job).
this seems like a huge step in the wrong direction. if we move to a level of abstraction devoid of details, how can we possibly innovate and improve?
i think anyone who's been following current events (save for the last two weeks) could see we were on the crest of something huge... military-type authors, ie. tom clancy (although netforce was pretty much a joke) have been throwing terrorist theories around for years (red storm rising - opens with a group of terrorists attacking a major russian oil refinery). if you want to read something that will make your hair stand on end, try rainbow six, which begins with the hijacking of an airliner.
the main problem with our military and the concept of it, is that it's geared for fighting nations, not individuals. "the us army is a broadsword, not a scapel." invading the nation that hosts the individuals who are responsible may bring them to justice. we should keep in mind that the eyes of the world are on america right now. i don't think there's citizen on this planet (who has access to television) who isn't considering what we're going to do next.
evidence to the fact that we're still not thinking about this correctly comes from quotes like "rid world of evil-doers"... as if those who acted out of their hate for american would stand-up long enough for the boot of the us military to come crashing down on their collective heads. is this a war? yes, without a doubt. but it's a war we've never see (on our own soil) or fought. i have every hope that our leaders will realize just what a huge leap we took on the eleventh, and how far we have to go to catch up.
Slashdot Mirror
Unity 3D lets you write in C# (or Javascript) then port to PC, Mac, WebGL, iPhone, Android -and, if rumors are to be believed, soon Windows phone.
Free to try, not too pricey for the full version either. They have some demos to get you started, there are also a few books to help you dive deeper.
http://unity3d.com/
The Slate write-up was much better:
http://www.slate.com/id/2267262/
Unless you've gone through the hassle of buying (or attempted to buy) a house this wouldn't be very clear.
Right now it is almost impossible to purchase a house using internet based tools. Every housing market is controlled by the local realtors and they are VERY territorial. This means extra calls to look at houses if you aren't using a local realtor, extra time spent researching because tools are intentionally crippled for non-local agents, houses that aren't "keyed" properly for non-local agents (meaning even if you've done your research, then had someone call on the house, you still might not be able to get in and see it).
This makes it harder to find (and buy) a house if you aren't working with a local agent. Knowledge is power, and with current tools & rules the local agents wield a lot of power over non-local (internet) based ones.
Time will tell if this ruling bears fruit, but it is definitely good news for any nerd looking to buy a house in the future.
U.K. Special Forces has been using something like this for a few years now:
...
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/01/72543
Their $3,000 WASP is a little cheaper than a $10,000,000 BAT
_f
here here -
For the first release of TinyWarz all the art was contracted for. While it took a long time sorting through resumes and candidates, the end result was some top-notch art and great working-relationships with the artists.
Several were called back to work on the next release (now in-progress).
_f
Some of my favorite games as-of-late of been from indie (unknown) developers:
...
http://www.starsonata.com/ - Massively Multiplayer with Spaceships
http://www.tinywarz.com/ - Massively Multiplayer Turn-based Strategy
Just to name a few
First Person Shooter meets Real Time Strategy.
To top this off, the two sides (Aliens and Marines) play completely differently; the Marines require a commander (who plays from an overhead view) to build structures and acquire weapons, each Alien chooses their own role: builder or fighter. The depth of this game is simply stunning, the maps are amazing (and this is on a 5 year old game engine) and there are lots of servers to play on.
Lastly, if you own Half-Life (and who doesn't these days) you can get it for free.
http://www.natural-selection.org
_f
Actually the person featured in the article has a few things to say:
= 11d03b3f2a2d89b880b547768512bc25&threadid=1434 07
Let me tell you something. The article about me written by Seth Schiesel, AKA Amis (his ingame name) is such a roving pack of lies slandering the person I really am in real life that I'm flat out disgusted by the whole thing.
right now I'm too stunned and upset at the amount of lies, miscontext, misquotes and outright slander posted on the article to even log in.
I'll be filing a lawsuit against the New York Times for slander, as many of the things put in that article about my real life (and even ingame) are so horribly untrue or twisted and the truth stretched to paint me in a much much different light than the person I really am.
He paints me as a shy, akward, socially inept reclusive nerd which is such a contrast to the person I really am. I make racy jokes, but he paints me as a virtual rapist. I'm broke in RL, but he paints me as a suicidal, emotionally unstable man that lives in the slums (I live in a good neighborhood) and can't afford to buy food. This article is absolutely ruinous to myself, my business, my future. It's the lowest form of slander imaginable.
Even the pictures used were horrible. The first is dark and brooding and in the second picture I was about to bust out laughing, which also looks a hell of alot like crying and is just a flat out BAD pic.
Please keep any jokes off this thread as I feel serious about this. I can see some pretty horrid real life repercussions as a result of this article.
So much of what I said to him in the four days that he was here was taken FAR out of context and quotes that I had supposedly said were either entirely made up or the wording was changed to change the focus of what I was saying.
Sound familiar? Well about a month ago, another NY Times reporter by the name of Jayson Blair did the exact same thing. I just never had any idea something like this would happen to me. He told me that he was doing a general article about the community of AO through my eyes. Instead, a pack of lies gets slammed on the world's largest newspaper about me. The entire focus of the article was misrepresented.
The writer, Seth Schiesel is a reporter for the NY Times and his ingame character is named "Amis", a high level Omni MP. The article was so vicious and untrue at some points that it seems to have been written with malice in mind.
I'm so humiliated at some of the things said in that article. it shocks and amazes me how someone can so callously and deliberately say such untruths. I'm painted as a socially inept reject that never leaves his home, which is the opposite of who I really am.
It's one thing to flame someone ingame, but this goes way beyond that and extends into my personal life.....worst of all, 80% of what he says is an outright lie. The other 20% is an exaggeration or was taken out of context.
While it may not seem bad to many of you, if you knew me in real life, you'd know why I was so upset right now.
thanks alot Amis (his ingame name). Never figured to be stabbed in back like this.
Read for yourself here: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s
(about seven posts down)
_f
after what happened to HALO all i can say is "Whew!"
_f
Nice try ... but Guinness is supposed to be served warm!
_f
Actualy, the "real-virtual economy" has already been done.
... they were raided in 2002 with the help of M$ for having pirated software:
0 .html
http://www.project-entropia.com
Project Entropia will have a real economy system that allows you as a user to exchange real life money into PED (Project Entropia Dollars) and then back into a real currency again.
The game was release last month (or so), but the company (MindArk) is pretty much a joke
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,53534,0
The whole real-virtual economy thing sounds more like a bad gimmick than a viable feature...
_f
i couldn't find a link to the collection on animeondvd ... but it pop'd right up on amazon:
c e/Y02Y3603391Y1284075/qid=1048477782/sr=1-1/002-94 42486-5961600
http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glan
(the link doesn't have one of those dumb refer cookies so click at will)
_f
once again demonstrating that high charisma is useless in video games ...
_f
sure, ads in "useful" software we can't stand ... but maybe ads in games isn't such a bad thing. don't take my word for it ... arcadian del sol commented on this a month or so ago (specifically concerning the Sims Online):
http://www.arcadiandelsol.com/article.php?sid=129
_f
to prove a point, if the adti.net is running IIS someone should crack it ... =)
_f
unfortunately, wineX doesn't see the same performance boost (windows2000 beats it):
d ows_gaming-05.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/02q2/020531/win
funny how the frame rate is capped at 50 for all resolutions though. it seems more like something is artificially keeping it there.
_f
ummm, no ... take any basic enonomics course and you'll learn that monopolies operate in such a way that any raise in price is detrimental to their profits.
... taxing them just keeps their network from being overloaded.
this is simply a taxing of a small fraction of their users who are using much more than their share of the bandwidth.
again, from an economic stand-point this makes sense - if everyone is paying the same amount, some users will be inclided to take as much as possible
_f
GATOR ... you can use Lavasoft's Ad-Aware to detect and delete it. Check your Add/Remove Programs for Gator, then see if you can find it in your Programs Folder. If you run the Gator program it will tell you what other program installed it in the first-place.
_f
the actual timeline is under the conspiracy link, it has all the episodes and ties the movie in as well:
http://www.themareks.com/xf/conspiracy.shtml
_f
warforge has been the team working on a warcraft 3 server (which caused all the problems with blizzard). they started with bnetd's code, but now the projects are basically separate.
shame blizzard didn't do some research before turning the lawyers lose. even if they get an injunction against bnetd, they'll be shutting down the wrong group.
_f
the cue cat has to be one of the top five symbols of the dot-com era (or, atleast up there with razor scooters). you have to wonder who thought this gizmo up though ... who reads magazines in-front of the computer?
now - if there was a wireless version that worked in the bathroom, they'd be millionaires right now
_f
the article states the the RIAA will use a program which will attempt to open multiple, slow speed, downloads to a computer holding a copyrighted file ...
how long until someone adds a "download speedlimit" to their program? ie. a user has to be downloading at atleast some-K a second or they get the boot.
for an group with millions at their disposal, this is a pretty weak solution.
_f
what, would you say, is the flaw to backdoor'd crypto and how would you explain this defect to someone who lacks a wide knowledge of computers, especially in light of recent events?
thanks, _f
... so that individual computers, file systems, and networks become unimportant to most computations in the same way that processor registers, disk sectors, and physical pages are today.
... MS must get sick and tired of "borg" references, but this appears a tad too close to the mark.
... (simple if everyone was using a microsoft computer and held a microsoft job).
so they want to turn their entire user-base into an application? (bear with me)
it seems the only way you could have this level of hands-off "use-ability" would be to have complete control of all aspects of the hardware and enviroments your software is running under
this seems like a huge step in the wrong direction. if we move to a level of abstraction devoid of details, how can we possibly innovate and improve?
_f
i think anyone who's been following current events (save for the last two weeks) could see we were on the crest of something huge ... military-type authors, ie. tom clancy (although netforce was pretty much a joke) have been throwing terrorist theories around for years (red storm rising - opens with a group of terrorists attacking a major russian oil refinery). if you want to read something that will make your hair stand on end, try rainbow six, which begins with the hijacking of an airliner.
... as if those who acted out of their hate for american would stand-up long enough for the boot of the us military to come crashing down on their collective heads. is this a war? yes, without a doubt. but it's a war we've never see (on our own soil) or fought. i have every hope that our leaders will realize just what a huge leap we took on the eleventh, and how far we have to go to catch up.
the main problem with our military and the concept of it, is that it's geared for fighting nations, not individuals. "the us army is a broadsword, not a scapel." invading the nation that hosts the individuals who are responsible may bring them to justice. we should keep in mind that the eyes of the world are on america right now. i don't think there's citizen on this planet (who has access to television) who isn't considering what we're going to do next.
evidence to the fact that we're still not thinking about this correctly comes from quotes like "rid world of evil-doers"
_f