Of course, it is not like Acrobat 5 actually works in OS X. Adobe is willing to sell something labelled as an OS X product, but the Adobe website says that Acrobat only converts graphics files in OS X (see the Adobe site for details), not the things that people actually want or need to use Acrobat for...
Does it strike anyone else as ironic that Adobe, which began as a Macintosh-dominant company (the versions of PhotoShop always came out for the Mac first), is now becoming Windows-dominant?
I've never posted on a subject more than once before, and now I have posted three times on this one...
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has been warning that it is approaching peak capacity. They're looking at the possibility of having to parole people early to create room for newly-sentenced convicts.
I really hope that those who have been convicted of rape, assault, drug-dealing, etc. are not being released to make room for file traders!
As I said before, this proposal is not proportional - if stealing a CD in a store is a misdemeanor, while downloading the songs that comprise the CD is a federal felony, something is wrong. Of course, when compared with proposals to hack systems or run DDoS attacks, imprisonment seems to fit right in...
the elected representative of a newly formed congressional district in Texas (formed when Texas passed New York in population) that runs from the north-western reaches Houston metropolitan area through Brazos County (which includes College Station (Texas A&M University) and Bryan (Blinn College) and then west to Williamson County (Round Rock (Dell Computer) and Georgetown (SouthWestern University).
As was mentioned, this district is highly conservative, and Carter was the winner of a very nasty six candidate primary. The opponent was liberal enough that Carter was a shoe-in. Many of us here voted for Carter because the other choice was even worse. As a bit of full disclosure, I will state that I did vote for Carter in the general election and the primary run-off, but did not vote for him in the primary.
Carter has a reputation as a tough judge, but he is not unusual in that respect - in a state where judges are elected, a judge who wants to be re-elected is a tough judge (otherwise, the "soft on crime" label gets hung on them - this is something that rarely gets mentioned in the discussions of the Texas death penalty figures).
If the A&M students would vote, I suspect that Carter could be replaced in 2004, but I hold little hope of that - they could also impact the mayor and city council elections here in College Station - a city council that seems to be inclined to pass laws that adversely affect their lives - and they can't be bothered to do that, so I can't see them taking the time to vote in a congressional race. Of course, if a few A&M students did get arrested for file swapping, it might galvanize them.
Some posters have also mentioned the infamous resnet the LAN in the dorms here at A&M. It is a major file-swapping center (also a major source of viral infections - some have likened it to a brothel...). However, A&M is starting to be pretty aggressive in cracking down on systems when a complaint is filed. I do computer support for a large department here, and have had to shut off a couple of general access systems that had been the source of complaints (one from the MPAA and one from an Audio Book author's agent). I suspect that similar things are happening in the dorms.
I hope that this gives some more background on things. I can't say that I'm happy about Carter's remarks - they show a lack of proportionality that is common among lawmakers these days. I won't go off on that rant, but I'll finish with this: John Carter will probably be re-elected from this district unless a good viable option is presented. This means that the opposing candidate is either a republican (not likely - incumbants rarely face a challenge from their own party around here) or a conservative (pro-life) democrat (also not likely - the democratic party appears to use abortion as a litmus test (certainly the local party here is hand in hand with Planned Parenthood)). He has almost a year and a half to pull this particular foot out of his mouth, and he will most likely survive it. After all, how is he going to be challenged on this issue? As others have said, the law is clear. It may not be idealogically correct to some of you - there are certainly some areas where it is incorrect to me (as an example, if I can not buy the music because a label no longer makes it available or refuses to release the rights back to the artist, I am not sure why this is wrong...) - but, until it is changed, the law is the law. A former judge is inclined to enforce the law. If what he proposes is extreme, well... that's fairly consistant with other proposals surrounding this issue.
Remember it's texas. I'm glad he didn't recommend the death penalty (although that only applies to minorities and immigrants, not young white males).
I conduct religious services in jails in Texas. I can assure that young white males are also given the death penalty. I think you could have said that rich defendants do not get the death penalty - this seems to be closer to being accurate, sadly enough (though it, too, is not completely true)...
At least, this was the perception that I reached. Before the M$ bail-out, you could find WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux in a variety of markets. Heck, you could even find it for sale in the software section of the bookstore here at Texas A&M. After the bail-out, *poof!* it's gone - you can not find it anywhere.
In a similar fashion, the WordPerfect for Macintosh development was stopped (it may have stopped before this, but it certainly died as far as native OS X development was concerned) when the bail-out happened. This has given Microsoft an even larger share of the office software market for Macintoshes than they have for Windows systems. How ironic is that?
For those who think that the Corel products are junk, as I saw in several of the posts - I suggest you try them, before you post...
CorelDraw was compared to PhotoShop, which is like comparing Excel to Word (I thought I would put this in Microsoft products to make it easier to understand) - they are both useful programs, but if you use one for some a project that the other was specifically intended for, you will be frustrated.
Likewise, WordPerfect is a much more versatile word processor than Word. In my job of doing computer support, I have amazed Word users by fixing massive formatting problems in their documents in seconds by importing the document into WordPerfect, turning the "view formatting codes" on and seeing why the formatting is not working the way that the user thinks it should look. This feature alone makes WordPerfect my choice - the fact that all of its other features work better is just gravy.
That if a bill that, out of fairness, extended copyright back far enough to allow the original authors (the ones that we know of, that is) to sue Disney, Disney would probably be able to produce some sort of messed-up accounting that showed that they had never made a profit on these titles. That's how our entertainment industry works these days...
Yet, they have spent a tremendous amount of time and money making sure that they still control the copyright to these titles.
One wonders why it is that Disney winds up in these ironic cases... they fought video tape recorders all the way to the Supreme Court, and, yet, it was the ability to sell their catalog on video that saved the company from bankruptcy (which was where they were in the early 1980s) and the money generated from those video tape sales has allowed the company to get its tentacles into the entertainment industry to the degree they have today (just take a look at how much of the entertainment industry Disney controls - it is pretty staggering!). Now they have managed to get a court ruling that will allow them to perpetually extend copyright on their derivative works while preventing other derivative works based on their derivative works.
I'm disappointed, but not surprised by the ruling - the golden rule (not the one we all learned when we were kids) strikes again.
As previously reported on/., this has been tested here in Texas for several months. Despite Kroger's PR, it does not seem to have been well-received in this town, which is about 40% college students. The little terminals don't seem to be getting a lot of use here. They're at every register in the 3 Krogers here, but I have yet to see anyone actually use their finger.
When they first started doing this, Kroger requested fingerprints for checks and credit card purchases. It wasn't manditory, as I was able to refuse and still purchase. Apparently, I was not alone in this - I saw a very pointed letter that was posted on a register that threatened a boycott. Soon, they backed down and stopped even asking.
I have to agree that this attempt is another in a series of steps in trying to get us to a national identity/credit card. I can only hope we think about it seriously. As others have pointed out, it's very hard to get a new set of fingerprints issued. I have to think that the odds of someone being able to hack a database and screw up my records are better than me getting new fingerprints.
Hmm. There are the obvious ones (Raiders of the Lost Ark (just to see the huge boulder!), The Empire Strikes Back, all three of the Lord of the Rings films, etc.) and then I think about these:
The Right Stuff
Dune
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Terminator and Terminator 2
Alien and Aliens
At least a couple of the Star Trek films - Wrath of Khan for sure
Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V
Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!
I'm sure more will come to mind after I post this...
Yep, I guess I do live the same area, though I am actually in the city, by a few feet...
The Northgate garage boondoggle, the meters, the proposed convention center, the fight with Bryan over paying for services rendered, and on and on. For me, I was not as upset about the smoking ban, though I thought it could have been implemented in such a way to allow the businesses that are essentially bars (Dud's and such) to allow smoking. I am not likely to ever be there, and it does not bother me that people there choose to pollute their lungs. (And, even though I am a rabid anti-smoker, I *do* understand that impacts the businesses of the bars) I have avoided Northgate for most of my stay here (over 20 years now), and the parking stupidity has only re-inforced matters.
This is not to say that Bryan is any better... I tended to stay away from the polls when I lived there, based on the same reasoning as yours. After moving to CS, seeing the stupidity of the past couple of years, I couldn't think about not voting. In reality, as the stupid decisions of one city affect the citizens of the other and both affect the people in the county, everyone should be able to vote on the proposals like garages, gating communities, smoking bans, convention centers, hotels, golf resorts, etc. A strong argument could also be made for the unification of the two cities, but I am not holding my breath on this, either...
Back to subject at hand, the Kroger indentity system... I am with you on it. Kroger has fallen down to a place which I go only on emergency runs (again, the closest store will sometimes get my business) and for things that *only* they carry - a couple of items at best. Their policies are the sole cause of this choice, and I know others that have decided to do the same.
The guy who wrote the letter that is posted on the Kroger registers put it very well - "I have provided as much ID as you are legally entitled to, and if you require more, I will take my business to someone who wants my patronage." (or words to that effect)
I, too, live in Bryan/College Station. I do shop at one of the local Kroger's as it happens to be the closest grocery to my house. I agree that the "loyalty" card is a nuisance, it also is a deception. When they were first set up at Kroger's, customers were promised that using the "loyalty" card would be a quick way of checking out - that using it would serve in place of a Driver's License for writing a check
After a while, the "loyalty" card did not suffice - they wanted to see the Driver's License, too.
Then they instituted the latest policy. They wanted you to swipe the Driver's License through a card reader. I told them that this was not necessary, an invasion of my privacy, and I did not want my Driver's License swiped. I also predicted that it would not go over well. It was then that I was informed that Credit and Debit Card customers would be required to use their fingerprints. I told them that this was not a wise idea, either - for reasons that the linked article expounds well enough, not to mention the whole privacy issue. They let me go without the Driver's License swipe. I have not used a Credit or Debit Card at Kroger since I heard about their policy, though I may soon, just to see what they do - see below for reasons why.
The next time I visited (again, it may the closest grocery, but it is not the only one - I normally go elsewhere), I noticed that the cashier did not even ask me about swiping my Driver's License, she just bypassed the process. I made a remark about the idea being a failure, and she told me that "lots of people are very happy with the idea," despite her actions telling me the exact opposite.
On my last visit there (a week ago), I noticed a note on the register behind me. It was a memo from a regional manager telling cashiers to not scan Driver's Licenses, and in contained a rather pointed note from someone who threatened to take his business elsewhere (I had done the same, only I did not do it in print, and my business is nowhere near what he alleged his was) if people asked to scan his Driver's License. Because of this, and the fact that I have yet to see them ask someone for a fingerprint, I suspect that they have decided the whole program is not right for Bryan/College Station (at least at this time).
While I share some of Vliam's feelings about the population of our town(s) - witnessed by the recent local elections where about 8% of the College Station electorate decided to re-elect the same group of idiots to Mayor and City Council that have made the stupid decisions that everyone in town has been complaining about - I think he sells it short. In matters of privacy, I think there is a strong resistance to further erosion of rights. At least, that's how I see it...
I have been to the AMD site, the Microsoft site,
and all of the others mentioned, but I have yet to see any mention of any version of Windows being affected other than Windows 2000. Windows XP is not affected - I found that out here and on the AMD site (Microsoft's site, oddly enough, does not mention this). Does anyone know if the bug affects Windows 98?
Here is the proper link to the article he cited. I'd be happier with it if it had been posted by someone other than anonymous, but it is interesting...
Personally, if I buy an anti-virus package, I expect it to detect viruses - whether they come from l337 h4x0r5 or the NSA. If there is a virus out there that the software does not handle, it should be fixed immediately. I wish I could be so smug as to say, "not my problem," but I have to support 300 windows users who still haven't figured out that opening attachments is a bad idea...
It's interesting that Infogrames is going after this mod when there are already several mods that use the original files as building blocks.
Here are a few examples:
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread full of modifications to the original resource tile graphics to make them more easily identifiable.
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread discussing a mod that adds some information to the production queue that makes it easier to understand the implications of your production choices.
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread discussing a modification to the original wonder graphics that gives some useful information about what the wonders do for you.
I Could cite some more examples, but this gives an good picture of the selective enforcement of this part of the EULA.
I bought the Limted Edition the day it came out and my impressions are mixed at best.
I spent over four hours trying to get the game running on my primary system, which has been able to handle any game I have thrown at it (it's an Athlon 1.3 GHz, GeForce 256, 512 MB of SDRAM). The game locks my system hard within 5 minutes of launch. So far, I have been unable to get any sort of response from Infogrames (the 48 hours they promised on the support web-site appears to be a promise made with fingers crossed) and the verious forums I have read show that I'm not alone.
I have been able to get it running on my laptop (PII/333, 192 MB SDRAM, integrated graphics), albeit a bit slowly. Also, my work system (PIII/866, 512 MB SDRAM, TNT2/64) runs it without complaint. Having run it, I can make a few comments...
1) The graphics are better than previous versions of Civ/SMAC. This is a minor concern for me. SMACs graphics were muddy, but the game was great (I'd rather have the game play well than look beautiful and be totally unplayable).
2) Some of the features I really liked in SMAC (the unit workshop being foremost among them) are not there.
3) No Multiplayer. Hopefully, when they get around to doing this (if they do it) it will be cross-platform (unlike SMAC).
4) The borders (in SMAC, but not as important) and culture aspects are nice and add a lot to the game.
5) The tech-tree is disppointingly small after looking at the trees in SMAC and Call to Power.
6) I may have missed it in the manual (I have not yet had a chance to read it cover to cover - got to play the game 8^)), but some useful information appears to be absent - what triggers the ability to build the various Small Wonders, for example. I'm sure that the in-game help might have this (honestly, I have not yet looked for it), but it would be nice to have it in print somewhere. The poster for Civ II was nicer.
7) The Limited Edition is not really worth the extra money. I bought it because the Tech Tree chart was only mentioned with the LE. For what I got, I could have saved the $10 extra. The tin is nice, though.
8) The differentiation of civilizations (a feature that first appeared in SMAC) is great. The unique units are good as well. I have not played the game enough to see if the countries that get their specialized units early on (Greeks, Romans, Aztecs) have an advantage (or disadvantage, for that matter) compared to those get their specialized units later on (England, America, Germany). I suspect it balances out somewhat except when you start right next to each other (which has happened to me each time so far!)
9) The revisions to trade are a major improvement. The old system never made sense to me and SMACs way of handling was too abstract to be meaningful.
10) Likewise, the resources are a major improvement - it never made sense to me that you could see resources in Civ II long before you would have had a reason to actually even understand what the resource could be used for.
11) The colony feature looks good, but I have not actually seen it work (though I have tried several times). I'm not sure if there is something I'm missing (ie a tech advance needed - the manual doesn't list one) or doing wrong.
All in all, it has promise. I miss some things from SMAC (and will continue to play it - the ability to custom-design units is just too cool and other features keep me tweaking my plans), but some of the new features look interesting enough to keep me playing. I just hope that a patch gets released soon to address the display issues (and that we don't get the finger pointing game that sometimes happens). Right now, Firaxis/Infogrames appears to be pointing at Microsoft (DirectX) and nVidia. nVidia and Microsoft don't appear to have taken notice of the problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, it is not like Acrobat 5 actually works in OS X. Adobe is willing to sell something labelled as an OS X product, but the Adobe website says that Acrobat only converts graphics files in OS X (see the Adobe site for details), not the things that people actually want or need to use Acrobat for...
Does it strike anyone else as ironic that Adobe, which began as a Macintosh-dominant company (the versions of PhotoShop always came out for the Mac first), is now becoming Windows-dominant?
I've never posted on a subject more than once before, and now I have posted three times on this one...
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has been warning that it is approaching peak capacity. They're looking at the possibility of having to parole people early to create room for newly-sentenced convicts.
I really hope that those who have been convicted of rape, assault, drug-dealing, etc. are not being released to make room for file traders!
As I said before, this proposal is not proportional - if stealing a CD in a store is a misdemeanor, while downloading the songs that comprise the CD is a federal felony, something is wrong. Of course, when compared with proposals to hack systems or run DDoS attacks, imprisonment seems to fit right in...
the elected representative of a newly formed congressional district in Texas (formed when Texas passed New York in population) that runs from the north-western reaches Houston metropolitan area through Brazos County (which includes College Station (Texas A&M University) and Bryan (Blinn College) and then west to Williamson County (Round Rock (Dell Computer) and Georgetown (SouthWestern University).
As was mentioned, this district is highly conservative, and Carter was the winner of a very nasty six candidate primary. The opponent was liberal enough that Carter was a shoe-in. Many of us here voted for Carter because the other choice was even worse. As a bit of full disclosure, I will state that I did vote for Carter in the general election and the primary run-off, but did not vote for him in the primary.
Carter has a reputation as a tough judge, but he is not unusual in that respect - in a state where judges are elected, a judge who wants to be re-elected is a tough judge (otherwise, the "soft on crime" label gets hung on them - this is something that rarely gets mentioned in the discussions of the Texas death penalty figures).
If the A&M students would vote, I suspect that Carter could be replaced in 2004, but I hold little hope of that - they could also impact the mayor and city council elections here in College Station - a city council that seems to be inclined to pass laws that adversely affect their lives - and they can't be bothered to do that, so I can't see them taking the time to vote in a congressional race. Of course, if a few A&M students did get arrested for file swapping, it might galvanize them.
Some posters have also mentioned the infamous resnet the LAN in the dorms here at A&M. It is a major file-swapping center (also a major source of viral infections - some have likened it to a brothel...). However, A&M is starting to be pretty aggressive in cracking down on systems when a complaint is filed. I do computer support for a large department here, and have had to shut off a couple of general access systems that had been the source of complaints (one from the MPAA and one from an Audio Book author's agent). I suspect that similar things are happening in the dorms.
I hope that this gives some more background on things. I can't say that I'm happy about Carter's remarks - they show a lack of proportionality that is common among lawmakers these days. I won't go off on that rant, but I'll finish with this: John Carter will probably be re-elected from this district unless a good viable option is presented. This means that the opposing candidate is either a republican (not likely - incumbants rarely face a challenge from their own party around here) or a conservative (pro-life) democrat (also not likely - the democratic party appears to use abortion as a litmus test (certainly the local party here is hand in hand with Planned Parenthood)). He has almost a year and a half to pull this particular foot out of his mouth, and he will most likely survive it. After all, how is he going to be challenged on this issue? As others have said, the law is clear. It may not be idealogically correct to some of you - there are certainly some areas where it is incorrect to me (as an example, if I can not buy the music because a label no longer makes it available or refuses to release the rights back to the artist, I am not sure why this is wrong...) - but, until it is changed, the law is the law. A former judge is inclined to enforce the law. If what he proposes is extreme, well... that's fairly consistant with other proposals surrounding this issue.
Remember it's texas. I'm glad he didn't recommend the death penalty (although that only applies to minorities and immigrants, not young white males).
I conduct religious services in jails in Texas. I can assure that young white males are also given the death penalty. I think you could have said that rich defendants do not get the death penalty - this seems to be closer to being accurate, sadly enough (though it, too, is not completely true)...
to kill WordPerfect for Linux...
At least, this was the perception that I reached. Before the M$ bail-out, you could find WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux in a variety of markets. Heck, you could even find it for sale in the software section of the bookstore here at Texas A&M. After the bail-out, *poof!* it's gone - you can not find it anywhere.
In a similar fashion, the WordPerfect for Macintosh development was stopped (it may have stopped before this, but it certainly died as far as native OS X development was concerned) when the bail-out happened. This has given Microsoft an even larger share of the office software market for Macintoshes than they have for Windows systems. How ironic is that?
For those who think that the Corel products are junk, as I saw in several of the posts - I suggest you try them, before you post...
CorelDraw was compared to PhotoShop, which is like comparing Excel to Word (I thought I would put this in Microsoft products to make it easier to understand) - they are both useful programs, but if you use one for some a project that the other was specifically intended for, you will be frustrated.
Likewise, WordPerfect is a much more versatile word processor than Word. In my job of doing computer support, I have amazed Word users by fixing massive formatting problems in their documents in seconds by importing the document into WordPerfect, turning the "view formatting codes" on and seeing why the formatting is not working the way that the user thinks it should look. This feature alone makes WordPerfect my choice - the fact that all of its other features work better is just gravy.
That if a bill that, out of fairness, extended copyright back far enough to allow the original authors (the ones that we know of, that is) to sue Disney, Disney would probably be able to produce some sort of messed-up accounting that showed that they had never made a profit on these titles. That's how our entertainment industry works these days...
Yet, they have spent a tremendous amount of time and money making sure that they still control the copyright to these titles.
One wonders why it is that Disney winds up in these ironic cases... they fought video tape recorders all the way to the Supreme Court, and, yet, it was the ability to sell their catalog on video that saved the company from bankruptcy (which was where they were in the early 1980s) and the money generated from those video tape sales has allowed the company to get its tentacles into the entertainment industry to the degree they have today (just take a look at how much of the entertainment industry Disney controls - it is pretty staggering!). Now they have managed to get a court ruling that will allow them to perpetually extend copyright on their derivative works while preventing other derivative works based on their derivative works.
I'm disappointed, but not surprised by the ruling - the golden rule (not the one we all learned when we were kids) strikes again.
As previously reported on /., this has been tested here in Texas for several months. Despite Kroger's PR, it does not seem to have been well-received in this town, which is about 40% college students. The little terminals don't seem to be getting a lot of use here. They're at every register in the 3 Krogers here, but I have yet to see anyone actually use their finger.
When they first started doing this, Kroger requested fingerprints for checks and credit card purchases. It wasn't manditory, as I was able to refuse and still purchase. Apparently, I was not alone in this - I saw a very pointed letter that was posted on a register that threatened a boycott. Soon, they backed down and stopped even asking.
I have to agree that this attempt is another in a series of steps in trying to get us to a national identity/credit card. I can only hope we think about it seriously. As others have pointed out, it's very hard to get a new set of fingerprints issued. I have to think that the odds of someone being able to hack a database and screw up my records are better than me getting new fingerprints.
Battlestar Galactica was a full-screen movie. I think it was the pilot episodes... That was along time ago, but I know I saw it in the theater.
Hmm. There are the obvious ones (Raiders of the Lost Ark (just to see the huge boulder!), The Empire Strikes Back, all three of the Lord of the Rings films, etc.) and then I think about these:
The Right Stuff
Dune
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Terminator and Terminator 2
Alien and Aliens
At least a couple of the Star Trek films - Wrath of Khan for sure
Kenneth Brannagh's Henry V
Patton and Tora! Tora! Tora!
I'm sure more will come to mind after I post this...
Yep, I guess I do live the same area, though I am actually in the city, by a few feet...
The Northgate garage boondoggle, the meters, the proposed convention center, the fight with Bryan over paying for services rendered, and on and on. For me, I was not as upset about the smoking ban, though I thought it could have been implemented in such a way to allow the businesses that are essentially bars (Dud's and such) to allow smoking. I am not likely to ever be there, and it does not bother me that people there choose to pollute their lungs. (And, even though I am a rabid anti-smoker, I *do* understand that impacts the businesses of the bars) I have avoided Northgate for most of my stay here (over 20 years now), and the parking stupidity has only re-inforced matters.
This is not to say that Bryan is any better... I tended to stay away from the polls when I lived there, based on the same reasoning as yours. After moving to CS, seeing the stupidity of the past couple of years, I couldn't think about not voting. In reality, as the stupid decisions of one city affect the citizens of the other and both affect the people in the county, everyone should be able to vote on the proposals like garages, gating communities, smoking bans, convention centers, hotels, golf resorts, etc. A strong argument could also be made for the unification of the two cities, but I am not holding my breath on this, either...
Back to subject at hand, the Kroger indentity system... I am with you on it. Kroger has fallen down to a place which I go only on emergency runs (again, the closest store will sometimes get my business) and for things that *only* they carry - a couple of items at best. Their policies are the sole cause of this choice, and I know others that have decided to do the same.
The guy who wrote the letter that is posted on the Kroger registers put it very well - "I have provided as much ID as you are legally entitled to, and if you require more, I will take my business to someone who wants my patronage." (or words to that effect)
I, too, live in Bryan/College Station. I do shop at one of the local Kroger's as it happens to be the closest grocery to my house. I agree that the "loyalty" card is a nuisance, it also is a deception. When they were first set up at Kroger's, customers were promised that using the "loyalty" card would be a quick way of checking out - that using it would serve in place of a Driver's License for writing a check
After a while, the "loyalty" card did not suffice - they wanted to see the Driver's License, too.
Then they instituted the latest policy. They wanted you to swipe the Driver's License through a card reader. I told them that this was not necessary, an invasion of my privacy, and I did not want my Driver's License swiped. I also predicted that it would not go over well. It was then that I was informed that Credit and Debit Card customers would be required to use their fingerprints. I told them that this was not a wise idea, either - for reasons that the linked article expounds well enough, not to mention the whole privacy issue. They let me go without the Driver's License swipe. I have not used a Credit or Debit Card at Kroger since I heard about their policy, though I may soon, just to see what they do - see below for reasons why.
The next time I visited (again, it may the closest grocery, but it is not the only one - I normally go elsewhere), I noticed that the cashier did not even ask me about swiping my Driver's License, she just bypassed the process. I made a remark about the idea being a failure, and she told me that "lots of people are very happy with the idea," despite her actions telling me the exact opposite.
On my last visit there (a week ago), I noticed a note on the register behind me. It was a memo from a regional manager telling cashiers to not scan Driver's Licenses, and in contained a rather pointed note from someone who threatened to take his business elsewhere (I had done the same, only I did not do it in print, and my business is nowhere near what he alleged his was) if people asked to scan his Driver's License. Because of this, and the fact that I have yet to see them ask someone for a fingerprint, I suspect that they have decided the whole program is not right for Bryan/College Station (at least at this time).
While I share some of Vliam's feelings about the population of our town(s) - witnessed by the recent local elections where about 8% of the College Station electorate decided to re-elect the same group of idiots to Mayor and City Council that have made the stupid decisions that everyone in town has been complaining about - I think he sells it short. In matters of privacy, I think there is a strong resistance to further erosion of rights. At least, that's how I see it...
The PC version of the GF4 won't be out for another few months.
Knowing Apple's record of being able to actually ship its new models, we'll see the GeForce 4 in PCs about the same time.
I have been to the AMD site, the Microsoft site,
and all of the others mentioned, but I have yet to see any mention of any version of Windows being affected other than Windows 2000. Windows XP is not affected - I found that out here and on the AMD site (Microsoft's site, oddly enough, does not mention this). Does anyone know if the bug affects Windows 98?
Here is the proper link to the article he cited. I'd be happier with it if it had been posted by someone other than anonymous, but it is interesting...
Personally, if I buy an anti-virus package, I expect it to detect viruses - whether they come from l337 h4x0r5 or the NSA. If there is a virus out there that the software does not handle, it should be fixed immediately. I wish I could be so smug as to say, "not my problem," but I have to support 300 windows users who still haven't figured out that opening attachments is a bad idea...
It's interesting that Infogrames is going after this mod when there are already several mods that use the original files as building blocks.
Here are a few examples:
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread full of modifications to the original resource tile graphics to make them more easily identifiable.
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread discussing a mod that adds some information to the production queue that makes it easier to understand the implications of your production choices.
Here (Apolyton's Civ III forums) is a thread discussing a modification to the original wonder graphics that gives some useful information about what the wonders do for you.
I Could cite some more examples, but this gives an good picture of the selective enforcement of this part of the EULA.
I bought the Limted Edition the day it came out and my impressions are mixed at best.
I spent over four hours trying to get the game running on my primary system, which has been able to handle any game I have thrown at it (it's an Athlon 1.3 GHz, GeForce 256, 512 MB of SDRAM). The game locks my system hard within 5 minutes of launch. So far, I have been unable to get any sort of response from Infogrames (the 48 hours they promised on the support web-site appears to be a promise made with fingers crossed) and the verious forums I have read show that I'm not alone.
I have been able to get it running on my laptop (PII/333, 192 MB SDRAM, integrated graphics), albeit a bit slowly. Also, my work system (PIII/866, 512 MB SDRAM, TNT2/64) runs it without complaint. Having run it, I can make a few comments...
1) The graphics are better than previous versions of Civ/SMAC. This is a minor concern for me. SMACs graphics were muddy, but the game was great (I'd rather have the game play well than look beautiful and be totally unplayable).
2) Some of the features I really liked in SMAC (the unit workshop being foremost among them) are not there.
3) No Multiplayer. Hopefully, when they get around to doing this (if they do it) it will be cross-platform (unlike SMAC).
4) The borders (in SMAC, but not as important) and culture aspects are nice and add a lot to the game.
5) The tech-tree is disppointingly small after looking at the trees in SMAC and Call to Power.
6) I may have missed it in the manual (I have not yet had a chance to read it cover to cover - got to play the game 8^)), but some useful information appears to be absent - what triggers the ability to build the various Small Wonders, for example. I'm sure that the in-game help might have this (honestly, I have not yet looked for it), but it would be nice to have it in print somewhere. The poster for Civ II was nicer.
7) The Limited Edition is not really worth the extra money. I bought it because the Tech Tree chart was only mentioned with the LE. For what I got, I could have saved the $10 extra. The tin is nice, though.
8) The differentiation of civilizations (a feature that first appeared in SMAC) is great. The unique units are good as well. I have not played the game enough to see if the countries that get their specialized units early on (Greeks, Romans, Aztecs) have an advantage (or disadvantage, for that matter) compared to those get their specialized units later on (England, America, Germany). I suspect it balances out somewhat except when you start right next to each other (which has happened to me each time so far!)
9) The revisions to trade are a major improvement. The old system never made sense to me and SMACs way of handling was too abstract to be meaningful.
10) Likewise, the resources are a major improvement - it never made sense to me that you could see resources in Civ II long before you would have had a reason to actually even understand what the resource could be used for.
11) The colony feature looks good, but I have not actually seen it work (though I have tried several times). I'm not sure if there is something I'm missing (ie a tech advance needed - the manual doesn't list one) or doing wrong.
All in all, it has promise. I miss some things from SMAC (and will continue to play it - the ability to custom-design units is just too cool and other features keep me tweaking my plans), but some of the new features look interesting enough to keep me playing. I just hope that a patch gets released soon to address the display issues (and that we don't get the finger pointing game that sometimes happens). Right now, Firaxis/Infogrames appears to be pointing at Microsoft (DirectX) and nVidia. nVidia and Microsoft don't appear to have taken notice of the problems.
I would like to see some, if not all of the following titles: Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear Civilization II Half Life I'm sure I'm forgetting some titles.