If the Green movement hadn't opposed nuclear power so mindlessly in the past, the US would have spent the last 30 years building more nuclear plants and fewer coal and gas plants. The extent of our current dependence on middle eastern oil and dirty coal would be much less today if we could have constructed a single nuclear plant in the last three decades.
I don't doubt that the climate is changing. It has never been constant. But the OP basically blames Katrina on global warming, implying that Katrina was caused entirely by the phenomenon. This is not the case, however. Deadly hurricanes have happened as long as there have been dense population centers in the gulf area. The deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history was a hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900.
Environmentalists like to point to any disaster or abnormality and blame it on global warming (and, by extension rich people and big corporations). They exhibit a large selection bias by only bitching about things that support their theory that communism and eschewing technology will save humanity from their chicken-little disaster scenarios. During the winter, they pointed to milder spells of weather as definitive evidence that global warming was real and that we're all doomed. I noticed that during the spring the conveniently ignored the unseasonable ice storms that happened long after they usually do.
The truth is that the climate will vary, and the world has a large number of feedback systems that do not appear in climatological simulations.
New Orleans was definitely the first victim of global warming. Hurricaines never happened in the Gulf before all those selfish white people started driving SUVs.
is a "launch window"? I enjoyed Mario 64 DS quite a bit, mostly because I regard Mario 64 as the best 3D platformer ever made. The graphics seemed on par with the N64 version, so I don't see what they're griping about.
Does it? * All critic officially labeled "anti-american"
No, they're not. If anything they may be called so by the administration, but that would be nothing more than name-calling. There is no official label.
* Journalists imprisoned for not using right to speak names of sources
Journalists were imprisoned for obstruction of justice. I don't agree with this, but it's not like Judith Miller's testimony helped the Bush administration, so I don't know what you're bitching about.
* Our military and CIA capturing critical journalists, if not killing
I'd like to see one shred of evidence to support this. I can make things up, too. Here's one: The EU has formally sanctioned the rape of children.
That doesn even sound like "satisfying free speech".
Each country has it's own laws for what constitutes free speech. I fail to see how any of these "examples" could affect someone that wasn't in the US. The hands-off approach that the US uses basically allows each country to enforce its laws on its citizens. Germans have to comply with German law when doing things on the internet, Americans have to comply with American law.
Now, tell me a single abuse in Sweden? Danmark, Netherlands? Finland, Belgium, Estonia?
I'm not worried about the Swedes, I'm worried about China, Germany, France, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. getting their paws on the internet.
As some US states have laws concerning pornography and people are federally fined for even just flashing boobs in public. I think denying female beauty is much more serious restriction, don't you?
And I didn't even say a word about those DMCA laws!
As someone in another country, you don't have to comply with US laws, nor do you have to worry about American police crossing the Atlantic to arrest you. I fail to see the problem.
Fortunately nobody cares about your opinion.
Actually, as a US citizen, the people in charge of the internet do care about my opinion because I can vote in US elections. It is you, as a whiney, shrill piece of Eurotrash, that has no say in the matter.
As someone who lives in what most of the rest of the world assumes is a backwater state in the US, let me respond to some of this: If you're not Christian (or at least Jewish), you're persona non grata,
I've never seen evidence of this in public life. I'm sure there are instances of this in the US, but it's more of a case of individuals being assholes than Americans being assholes. The government does a pretty good job of not descriminating by religion.
if you don't want to salute a piece of graphic design denoting some red and white stripes and blue square with some stars on it you are deemed "evil".
I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen, and again, if it does, it is some asshole doing it. It does not violate a law. I could take a large crap on the US flag and there is no law on the books that could be used to prosecute me. The only time a citizen is even even supposed to pay the flag any heed is before sporting events. It's considered proper for men to take off their hats and for everyone to put their hands over their hearts. It's considered rude for people who are not former or current members of the armed services or boy scouts to salute. However, if you attend a sprorting even here, you will notice that no one under the age of 60 gives a fuck, and they usually won't even say anything to the people around them who are busy not paying attention.
The rest of the World cares about humanity first, the nation state second. The US cares about the nation state and doesn't give a damn about humanity, or at least that's the perception. "Cowboy culture"? More like "Knuckle-dragging, flag-waving, Creationist, Christian Zealot culture". No thanks, we'll pass on you having any more influence over the Internet. Please hand it over to the grown-ups now before you vote in another moron who thinks we should all be crying for the little baby Jesus...
How exactly has this culture negatively impacted the internet so far? What exactly have non-Americans been forced to conform to our "Knuckle-dragging, flag-waving, Creationist, Christian Zealot culture". You do realize that the moment the idiots in charge pass a bill that reqires all Internet users to salute the American flag, forget about modern cosmology, and convert to Christianity every time they log in, the rest of the world can stop connecting to us?
You have your worries about us, but we have our worries about you. The only freedom that can be affected on the internet is that of speech, and the US definitely has a better record of that than most European countries. France had tiffs with auction websites over the sale of Nazi memoribilia, and I believe many laws concerning holocaust deniers exist in Germany. I think we can both agree that the goal of the internet should be for it to be as free as possible, and at the moment, no filters or blockages occur over the content of websites. I don't think that would remain the case if control changed hands.
Of course, but the good prime IDs are just going to get more and more scarce as the number of users go up. I've always wondered if it's better to have my semi-low ID or a prime high ID with a username that's better than the best I could come up with in 11th grade (el_munkie? What the hell was I thinking). I might devote a weekend of constant registering to get a prime ID.
Dude the 600 thousands are recent additions. This, of course, will prompt one of those two- or three- digit geezers to chime in, but I don't consider my ID to be all that low, either.
To make this post somewhat topical, I'm actually in a Quantum Mechanics class this semester and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either, but if this guy is claiming to be able to get an electron into a fractional orbit, it would fly in the face of QM as we now understand it. Basically, the theory states that bound electrons can only exist in discrete energy states. An electron in the lowest orbit in a hydrogen atom has exactly the same amount of energy as every other electron in the lowest orbit of every other hydrogen atom. It can't be decreased, and if it is increased it must be increased by an amount that is exactly equal to an integer multiple of n in (n^2*h-bar^2*pi^2)/(2*m*L^2) where n is the level, m is electron mass, and L is the width of the atom. It would of course be against the nature of science to say that it is impossible that this theory could be wrong, but there is strong experimental evidence to suggest that it is correct.
The DS is the first portable (besides various TI calculators) I've owned since my original Gameboy. I got it even though I assumed it would be mod-proof like the Gamecube, but have been secretly envious of PSP owners that have been playing homebrew (emulated, copywrited, abandonwarez) games. If this thing can be "compelled" to run arbitrary code, it will have been the wisest investment of my life. Props to Stephen Stair.
Any nutjob can finesse the definition of "war crime" to try any US politician who isn't enough of a socialist for them. Sorry, Bush hasn't committed any war crimes.
Nice strawmen. I never said that I was not a product of society, merely that I should not have to contribute to programs that I would be restricted from benefitting from or that would be non-existant by the time I was of age to see the benefits (US Social Security). Public schools, police, roads, and the like, I'm fine with, but what amount to as massive bribe to voters at my expense I'm not. But I guess because I don't think exactly like you I'm a "Sociopath". Hoser.
I actually had a heated debate last night with a friend regarding the effects of smokers on US health insurance. He argued that smokers were a burden on the system and anyone who smokes should be denied federal healthcare coverage.
If some form of universal healthcare plan was instituted, we would be opening ourselves up to government interference that would be very close to what one would experience in a totalitarian police state. Only a weak correlation between an activity and its negative impact on one's health would be required to effectively outlaw it. Smoking, promiscous behavior, artificial or even natural tanning, drinking, and eating foods that are more likely to make you obese would all be in danger of being made illegal. Further, the measures that would have to be taken to ensure that one didn't do these things would be Orwellian.
Now, I have no problem if I can opt out of this. If I can say, "Fine, you can deny me your "Free" Universal Healthcare if I can not pay a penny for it in taxes, and while you're at it, prohibit me from ever benefitting from Social Security and any other social safety net, and give me back all the money I paid into that, too", that would be acceptable. But that's not how the US government has ever worked.
There will be plenty of speculation on the new controller by the time that I post this, but it should be noted that an article at G4 says that the Revolution will have Gamecube controller ports. So if the major game designers find that the new controller doesn't suit them, they can design their games around the Gamecube's layout.
This means that, at launch, I will be able to use my old wavebirds, which I consider to be the pinnacle of controller design, to have a full compliment of controllers without having to lay down an extra $150-200. It's always irked me that it costs so much extra to get the controllers needed for the best experience in multiplayer games like Smash Brothers, and I'm glad to see that Nintendo is making their system backwards compatable in this way.
Let me see, this happens America Aka JesusLand, The country that voted "twice" for a guy with an IQ of 80
Our alternative was a dude with a similar level of intelligence.
... who sent their sons (not HIS sons though)
He has no sons.
to a bloody war in the middle of the fucking desert to the wrong country (according Michael Moore at least) and allowed terrorism to their doorsteps in the process, instead of voting for a guy who didnt opossed to gay marriage.
Standard slashdot rhetoric: It's Bush's fault that Rockstar is in trouble, even though it's Hillary Clinton who is apparantly leading the crusade. Bitch about Iraq and gay marriage, two topics completely unrelated to this, to remind the other hive-mind Democrats that Bush is "teh suck" and watch the positive mod points roll in.
I know it's fashionable for the "He's not my president" crowd to say this these days, but give me one actual example of this.
And to head off the probable reply, I have never voted GOP, I just think the constant use of such hyperbole makes people I would otherwise agree with on many issues sound like a bunch of hysterical morons.
As a new resident of Texas, I can assure you that _all_ Texas is Imperial.
Think Darth Bush..
As a resident of Texas who didn't vote for Bush or Kerry last fall (I did vote though), I'd have to say that that is one of the lamest Bush-bashings I've read so far. Regardless of what you think of his politics, put up a valid arguement.
And oh yeah, you ignorant asshole, Bush was from Connecticut. So, quit trying to smear Texas because this carpetbagging yankee moved here.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.
They will of course say it was Bush. When confronted with the fact that it was Clinton, you will notice that a large part of their memory seems to have vanished.
When you say I can't risk this portion of my earnings? By risk, do you mean "risk" as in have 1/13th of every paycheck for the rest of my life put into a system that has been raided at every chance in the last 70 years, a system that will not exist when it comes time for me to retire? It sounds about as risky flushing my money directly down the toilet. My money is paying for the current beneficiaries of the program because their money got spent by the irresponsible people in charge a long time ago, somehow that's not very comforting. What are the odds that when it comes time for me to collect there will even be a Social Security program? Also, they are already talking about moving up the age at which one gets benefits, how many more times will they do that in the next 50 years? Will you have to be 85 to collect SS in 2055? I don't plan on or expect to live that long.
I'd say that a not-insignificant portion of my income is going away, and I will never see it again. Why can't I just invest this money on my own and promise the government to commit ritual suicide if I become too expensive to support myself in old age?
You can only be sure of that by having the source of the program. I see that you have many pieces of non-free software there in the same list as free. What makes you so sure that a non-free program which you use doesn't have a secret mode in which it obeys its coder, not you.
Well, since the question is about Windows software, your point is meaningless because one can't even do that to the OS. Sometimes you just have to rely on reputation.
Not trolling either here, but I know of at least one person who got some use out of a multimedia phone. This girl I went out with once had an pointlessly expensive phone that was video-capable. She had video of herself blowing some dude on her phone. This was more of a turn-off to me than anything else (I didn't go out with her again), but documenting sexual escapades would certainly qualify as a use for multimedia apps.
That crap pisses me off, too. The vast majority of Texans are nothing like what people expect. In fact, Texas seems depressingly like neighboring states sometimes. Our rural people are just like rural people throughout the south and midwest, and our city-dwellers and suburbanites would be indistinguishable from people from similar environments in other states. I'm going ot California in a week, and if I get asked one more time where my horse is, I have a long list of You-elected-Arnold-Schwartzenegger-Governor quips to fire back with.
Does it annoy you that Bush is labeled a Texan, when he is a well-documented Connecticut-born yankee carpetbagger?
With the way gmail accounts are being spread, from friend to friend, could it be that Google has its eye on social networking? I got a gmail account from a dude that got it from a guy that knew the sister of someone who works at Google. By the time people like me get their gmail invitations and invite another slew of friends to join, Google could have a very good idea of who is who's friend.
No, this is Nintendo, not Sony. Sony will pull crap like showing MPEG cinematics rendered by massive clusters of machines and claiming that it is in-game footage. Sony will overstate the specs of their devices by about an order of magnitude, and the games will look like absolute crap. The PS2s graphics are easily third to the GC and XBOX, but I have seen many late-coming DC games that blow away what is offered on the PS2, graphically. Rez, Headhunter, and several others come to mind.
Nintendo, owing at first to the cartridge format, is in the habit of not using pre-rendered movies at all in their games, and I prefer the overall effect. Whenever your game grinds to a halt so your machine can clear it's RAM, load the MPEG decoder, play the movie, and then load the game again, it leaves a serious break in play, and in addition, makes the rest of the game look like crap compared to the pre-rendered footage. Even in these GC times, most Nintendo titles are still using in-game renderings for dialogue sequences, and very few first- or second- party games I have played use pre-rendered CG at all.
Yeah, I am in Physics with the Radiation option, so on the off chance that I pass Optics this semester, I will be at Pickle over the summer handling radioisotopes for some safety course. I used to be in their EE program, and I thought we had some pretty big sun machines in that department (available to students over ssh), and they got new ones right before I switched majors (sunfire.ece.utexas.edu). I would ssh in and see what kind of hardware it is, but apparantly my login has finally been removed as a result of the major switch
Slashdot Mirror
If the Green movement hadn't opposed nuclear power so mindlessly in the past, the US would have spent the last 30 years building more nuclear plants and fewer coal and gas plants. The extent of our current dependence on middle eastern oil and dirty coal would be much less today if we could have constructed a single nuclear plant in the last three decades.
Environmentalists like to point to any disaster or abnormality and blame it on global warming (and, by extension rich people and big corporations). They exhibit a large selection bias by only bitching about things that support their theory that communism and eschewing technology will save humanity from their chicken-little disaster scenarios. During the winter, they pointed to milder spells of weather as definitive evidence that global warming was real and that we're all doomed. I noticed that during the spring the conveniently ignored the unseasonable ice storms that happened long after they usually do.
The truth is that the climate will vary, and the world has a large number of feedback systems that do not appear in climatological simulations.
New Orleans was definitely the first victim of global warming. Hurricaines never happened in the Gulf before all those selfish white people started driving SUVs.
is a "launch window"? I enjoyed Mario 64 DS quite a bit, mostly because I regard Mario 64 as the best 3D platformer ever made. The graphics seemed on par with the N64 version, so I don't see what they're griping about.
* All critic officially labeled "anti-american"
No, they're not. If anything they may be called so by the administration, but that would be nothing more than name-calling. There is no official label.
* Journalists imprisoned for not using right to speak names of sources
Journalists were imprisoned for obstruction of justice. I don't agree with this, but it's not like Judith Miller's testimony helped the Bush administration, so I don't know what you're bitching about.
* Our military and CIA capturing critical journalists, if not killing
I'd like to see one shred of evidence to support this. I can make things up, too. Here's one: The EU has formally sanctioned the rape of children.
That doesn even sound like "satisfying free speech".
Each country has it's own laws for what constitutes free speech. I fail to see how any of these "examples" could affect someone that wasn't in the US. The hands-off approach that the US uses basically allows each country to enforce its laws on its citizens. Germans have to comply with German law when doing things on the internet, Americans have to comply with American law.
Now, tell me a single abuse in Sweden? Danmark, Netherlands? Finland, Belgium, Estonia?
I'm not worried about the Swedes, I'm worried about China, Germany, France, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. getting their paws on the internet.
As some US states have laws concerning pornography and people are federally fined for even just flashing boobs in public. I think denying female beauty is much more serious restriction, don't you?
And I didn't even say a word about those DMCA laws!
As someone in another country, you don't have to comply with US laws, nor do you have to worry about American police crossing the Atlantic to arrest you. I fail to see the problem.
Fortunately nobody cares about your opinion.
Actually, as a US citizen, the people in charge of the internet do care about my opinion because I can vote in US elections. It is you, as a whiney, shrill piece of Eurotrash, that has no say in the matter.
If you're not Christian (or at least Jewish), you're persona non grata,
I've never seen evidence of this in public life. I'm sure there are instances of this in the US, but it's more of a case of individuals being assholes than Americans being assholes. The government does a pretty good job of not descriminating by religion.
if you don't want to salute a piece of graphic design denoting some red and white stripes and blue square with some stars on it you are deemed "evil".
I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen, and again, if it does, it is some asshole doing it. It does not violate a law. I could take a large crap on the US flag and there is no law on the books that could be used to prosecute me.
The only time a citizen is even even supposed to pay the flag any heed is before sporting events. It's considered proper for men to take off their hats and for everyone to put their hands over their hearts. It's considered rude for people who are not former or current members of the armed services or boy scouts to salute. However, if you attend a sprorting even here, you will notice that no one under the age of 60 gives a fuck, and they usually won't even say anything to the people around them who are busy not paying attention.
The rest of the World cares about humanity first, the nation state second. The US cares about the nation state and doesn't give a damn about humanity, or at least that's the perception. "Cowboy culture"? More like "Knuckle-dragging, flag-waving, Creationist, Christian Zealot culture". No thanks, we'll pass on you having any more influence over the Internet. Please hand it over to the grown-ups now before you vote in another moron who thinks we should all be crying for the little baby Jesus...
How exactly has this culture negatively impacted the internet so far? What exactly have non-Americans been forced to conform to our "Knuckle-dragging, flag-waving, Creationist, Christian Zealot culture". You do realize that the moment the idiots in charge pass a bill that reqires all Internet users to salute the American flag, forget about modern cosmology, and convert to Christianity every time they log in, the rest of the world can stop connecting to us?
You have your worries about us, but we have our worries about you. The only freedom that can be affected on the internet is that of speech, and the US definitely has a better record of that than most European countries. France had tiffs with auction websites over the sale of Nazi memoribilia, and I believe many laws concerning holocaust deniers exist in Germany. I think we can both agree that the goal of the internet should be for it to be as free as possible, and at the moment, no filters or blockages occur over the content of websites. I don't think that would remain the case if control changed hands.
Of course, but the good prime IDs are just going to get more and more scarce as the number of users go up. I've always wondered if it's better to have my semi-low ID or a prime high ID with a username that's better than the best I could come up with in 11th grade (el_munkie? What the hell was I thinking). I might devote a weekend of constant registering to get a prime ID.
To make this post somewhat topical, I'm actually in a Quantum Mechanics class this semester and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me either, but if this guy is claiming to be able to get an electron into a fractional orbit, it would fly in the face of QM as we now understand it. Basically, the theory states that bound electrons can only exist in discrete energy states. An electron in the lowest orbit in a hydrogen atom has exactly the same amount of energy as every other electron in the lowest orbit of every other hydrogen atom. It can't be decreased, and if it is increased it must be increased by an amount that is exactly equal to an integer multiple of n in (n^2*h-bar^2*pi^2)/(2*m*L^2) where n is the level, m is electron mass, and L is the width of the atom. It would of course be against the nature of science to say that it is impossible that this theory could be wrong, but there is strong experimental evidence to suggest that it is correct.
The DS is the first portable (besides various TI calculators) I've owned since my original Gameboy. I got it even though I assumed it would be mod-proof like the Gamecube, but have been secretly envious of PSP owners that have been playing homebrew (emulated, copywrited, abandonwarez) games. If this thing can be "compelled" to run arbitrary code, it will have been the wisest investment of my life. Props to Stephen Stair.
Any nutjob can finesse the definition of "war crime" to try any US politician who isn't enough of a socialist for them. Sorry, Bush hasn't committed any war crimes.
Nice strawmen. I never said that I was not a product of society, merely that I should not have to contribute to programs that I would be restricted from benefitting from or that would be non-existant by the time I was of age to see the benefits (US Social Security). Public schools, police, roads, and the like, I'm fine with, but what amount to as massive bribe to voters at my expense I'm not. But I guess because I don't think exactly like you I'm a "Sociopath". Hoser.
If some form of universal healthcare plan was instituted, we would be opening ourselves up to government interference that would be very close to what one would experience in a totalitarian police state. Only a weak correlation between an activity and its negative impact on one's health would be required to effectively outlaw it. Smoking, promiscous behavior, artificial or even natural tanning, drinking, and eating foods that are more likely to make you obese would all be in danger of being made illegal. Further, the measures that would have to be taken to ensure that one didn't do these things would be Orwellian.
Now, I have no problem if I can opt out of this. If I can say, "Fine, you can deny me your "Free" Universal Healthcare if I can not pay a penny for it in taxes, and while you're at it, prohibit me from ever benefitting from Social Security and any other social safety net, and give me back all the money I paid into that, too", that would be acceptable. But that's not how the US government has ever worked.
This means that, at launch, I will be able to use my old wavebirds, which I consider to be the pinnacle of controller design, to have a full compliment of controllers without having to lay down an extra $150-200. It's always irked me that it costs so much extra to get the controllers needed for the best experience in multiplayer games like Smash Brothers, and I'm glad to see that Nintendo is making their system backwards compatable in this way.
Our alternative was a dude with a similar level of intelligence.
He has no sons.
to a bloody war in the middle of the fucking desert to the wrong country (according Michael Moore at least) and allowed terrorism to their doorsteps in the process, instead of voting for a guy who didnt opossed to gay marriage.
Standard slashdot rhetoric: It's Bush's fault that Rockstar is in trouble, even though it's Hillary Clinton who is apparantly leading the crusade. Bitch about Iraq and gay marriage, two topics completely unrelated to this, to remind the other hive-mind Democrats that Bush is "teh suck" and watch the positive mod points roll in.
I know it's fashionable for the "He's not my president" crowd to say this these days, but give me one actual example of this.
And to head off the probable reply, I have never voted GOP, I just think the constant use of such hyperbole makes people I would otherwise agree with on many issues sound like a bunch of hysterical morons.
Think Darth Bush..
As a resident of Texas who didn't vote for Bush or Kerry last fall (I did vote though), I'd have to say that that is one of the lamest Bush-bashings I've read so far. Regardless of what you think of his politics, put up a valid arguement.
And oh yeah, you ignorant asshole, Bush was from Connecticut. So, quit trying to smear Texas because this carpetbagging yankee moved here.
Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
Their purpose is to protect the national interest of the United States, and indeed the interests of people throughout the Middle East and around the world.
Saddam Hussein must not be allowed to threaten his neighbors or the world with nuclear arms, poison gas or biological weapons.
They will of course say it was Bush. When confronted with the fact that it was Clinton, you will notice that a large part of their memory seems to have vanished.
I'd say that a not-insignificant portion of my income is going away, and I will never see it again. Why can't I just invest this money on my own and promise the government to commit ritual suicide if I become too expensive to support myself in old age?
Well, since the question is about Windows software, your point is meaningless because one can't even do that to the OS. Sometimes you just have to rely on reputation.
Not trolling either here, but I know of at least one person who got some use out of a multimedia phone. This girl I went out with once had an pointlessly expensive phone that was video-capable. She had video of herself blowing some dude on her phone. This was more of a turn-off to me than anything else (I didn't go out with her again), but documenting sexual escapades would certainly qualify as a use for multimedia apps.
That crap pisses me off, too. The vast majority of Texans are nothing like what people expect. In fact, Texas seems depressingly like neighboring states sometimes. Our rural people are just like rural people throughout the south and midwest, and our city-dwellers and suburbanites would be indistinguishable from people from similar environments in other states. I'm going ot California in a week, and if I get asked one more time where my horse is, I have a long list of You-elected-Arnold-Schwartzenegger-Governor quips to fire back with.
Does it annoy you that Bush is labeled a Texan, when he is a well-documented Connecticut-born yankee carpetbagger?
With the way gmail accounts are being spread, from friend to friend, could it be that Google has its eye on social networking? I got a gmail account from a dude that got it from a guy that knew the sister of someone who works at Google. By the time people like me get their gmail invitations and invite another slew of friends to join, Google could have a very good idea of who is who's friend.
Nintendo, owing at first to the cartridge format, is in the habit of not using pre-rendered movies at all in their games, and I prefer the overall effect. Whenever your game grinds to a halt so your machine can clear it's RAM, load the MPEG decoder, play the movie, and then load the game again, it leaves a serious break in play, and in addition, makes the rest of the game look like crap compared to the pre-rendered footage. Even in these GC times, most Nintendo titles are still using in-game renderings for dialogue sequences, and very few first- or second- party games I have played use pre-rendered CG at all.
If you mean mistress as in a mean, leather clad chick with a bullwhip and an buttplug meant for you, then yes.
Yeah, I am in Physics with the Radiation option, so on the off chance that I pass Optics this semester, I will be at Pickle over the summer handling radioisotopes for some safety course. I used to be in their EE program, and I thought we had some pretty big sun machines in that department (available to students over ssh), and they got new ones right before I switched majors (sunfire.ece.utexas.edu). I would ssh in and see what kind of hardware it is, but apparantly my login has finally been removed as a result of the major switch