Aren't those just different applications of "touch" ? Essentially I know I'm moving or upside down because I feel the effects of Gravity, and the feeling of those things is purely because of the physical pressure applied to nerves. Or at least my limitted understanding of Biology would lead me to believe that, I never took full Bio in high school.
Wheras Sight is based on light entering your eyes, sound is your interpretation of mini air compressions around you, taste and smell have to do with different recepticals catching different molecules or something like that.
The other senses you guys are pointing out don't really seem to be anything other then pressure sensation on the inside of your body in the exact same manner we do on the outside of our body.
Its a steep learning curve, I'll give you that. Console Chat is usually done through voice, every X-box360 comes with a plug in Headset so you can chat live with your friends. It IS possible to type into your console, as it brings up a keyboard on screen and you move the cursor to a hilighted letter and press, which makes text speech unbearably slow and ultimately inpractical. (The only time I ever us it is to ask people what they are doing while they are playing other games and I want them to join me).
As for gameplay controls, while not as elaborate as most, they are usually enough to get you through the game. Essentially you've got your 2 joysticks which handle movement and looking, pretty standard. Then you've got a D-pad (which is the equivalent of 8 buttons), 4 buttons on the right, 2 buttons on the top (known as the bumpers) and 2 triggers, generally used for firing and secondary attacks. I haven't played Dragon Age yet, but I can tell you that for Mass Effect and Oblivion (both Single player RPGS) the console controller worked just fine. For special abilities, usually what happens is you press one of the bumpers and it brings up a wheel of your abilities and you aim one of your joysticks at the ability and press A or the bumber again.
So while it seems like a complicated system at first after a dozen times doing this you'll be a pro. Essentially you'll know the direction of your ability you want and its just a simple, bumper-direction-button combo you get used to pressing, takes less than a fraction of a second. And for Mass Effect and Oblivion, you can pause and set up your spells and such mid combat so its not so bad if you're just starting out.
All in all, Consoles do handle these games just fine, in their own way. I played Oblivion on both the Console and the PC and I can't really tell you which I prefer more, because the console movement controls seem a bit more.... I can't quite find a way to describe it, but I guess smoother is the best way. With analog joystick for movement you can really determine your speed and strafing etc etc alot easier than with a keyboard, which is basically 100% or 0% or possibly 50% if you press the walk key.
However, if you haven't used a Console before, I don't think I'd recommend shelling out the hundreds of dollars just to try it, because its not for everyone. If you've got a friend who has one, try using that a couple times and see how you like it.
Well - if you haven't played Mass Effect - you don't understand how BioWare tailors their Single Player Experience. And if you have played Mass Effect - and you didn't like it, you are the first person I've encountered who didn't enjoy it.
The thing with these SP RPG's that Bioware makes is that they are more or less trying to put you inside of an interactive movie, almost moreso than they are trying to make a game. Don't get me wrong, they have always been solid in their gameplay elements, but whenever anyone talks about Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age, the things they generally tend to mention are its incredible story and how well they get immersed in the game, usually through dialogue.
The Trend that Bioware and myself are noticing is that when you make something Multiplayer - Pretty much the whole story element gets shot out the window. Its no longer about you being a hero to save the princess, its more about you and your friends having a fun social experience trying to kill the biggest badest thing you guys can find. Which is fine for some games, like World of Warcraft. But How many MMO RPG players read the quest text? How many players on Halo 3 consider themselves the heroic Masterchief when every other player in the game is just as equal?
As for Co-op, there are always limitations to Co-op, and in my opinion they always detract so heavily from the game that I wouldn't even Bother. Fable 2 is an excellent example of how Co op ruins the experience. You can have 2 people in the same world, for sure, but they can't venture further than 20 feet from each other, and whoever is in the lead ends up running into an invisible wall and can't move forward. Meanwhile slowmo over in the back can't get around this fence because his buddy is so far ahead it restricts his lateral movement. And even if they managed to sort out those sort of issues, it still always feels like 1 person is the Hero and everyone else is just side kicks.
The only games which seem to properly implement Co-op are First Person shooters, like Left 4 Dead, or ODST, where everyone is essentially Equal and MUST work together. Mass Effect (and probably Dragon Age) While approaching the FPS kind of gameplay, are still more Roleplaying games then they are shooters. You got levels, stats, and gear. Once you take those out, your gameplay is fleshed down a point and shoot. Which not everyone wants. There are plenty of Fantasy co op games out there, where you can get with your party of 5 and do an instance, get your gold and get your gear. Bioware wants to tell a story. And they do a hell of a job doing it.
The Casino took the same CHANCE of the machine malfunctioning the same way this man took a Chance with his money. And after it all, the random sequence of events said the man should win, not the Casino.
This is true, but rarely do you get one that is of high enough standards for todays gaming environment (Which is why every release of the Unreal, Source, Doom, Quake, etc... is such a big deal)
The Original Half Life Series is run off a modified Quake Engine, I believe. and I wouldn't be surprised if the first Unreal Tournament did too. But when you look at how the Unreal engine has evolved and how Source has evolved they are very different.
If you aren't modifying the engine at all, what you're mostly doing is an elaborate Mod (See Total Conversions). If it looks like a duck, Renders like a duck, and handles lighting like a duck, it still feels like a duck when you play it, no matter how much you alter speeds/weapons/textures/Maps. Even when you take an FPS designed Engine and try to run an RTS on it, you will typically have to write in your own scripting.
The engine is without a doubt -THE- hardest part of development. I myself have only ever hacked together Frankenstein Engines using bits from everywhere, and never really added my own component (why write your own when someone else already has). With the engine out of the way, a feature Length Game can be done in as little as 6 months*, tested, released, and on the shelf in about a year.
*This is assuming you've got one guy with the ideas who fleshes out a story, 1 guy who does the artwork (both concept and in game), and 1 guy who does the Coding/maping/debugging.
How long do games usually take to make from scratch? Lets See, Half Life 2, about a decade, Unreal 3 from Unreal 2K4 was 3 years, Duke Nukem Forever, ha ha - but do you see my point?
Summary: The Engine is more than half of a games development. (IMHO)
The problem usually solved in other engines by putting a couple 0-depth 1 sided inverted boxes (There's totally a name for it other than "Shell" but I can't remember it) outside the realm of play and using that to cut off rendering, like a hullbox or whatever, then using one giant Brush inside of that and carving your map out of that. But it is annoying to make sure your brushes are snapping together properly and you can get some ugly leaks if you're not careful. For MOST people's map design, or essentially anything indoors - Subtractive is the way to go.
I only use Additive when I'm importing a landscape made in 3dsmax or Maya, Where essentially a 1 sided Terrain inside a skybox is all that needs to be rendered. Subtractive has had a few issues when trying to do this (in my experience).
Ditto. I actually really like their business model. It encourages community development alot, which means when I pay 60 bucks for a game, I get more than whats just in the case. And even better, if you've EVER been interested in starting your own game, Unreal is a good place to start (Though probably the first Unreal Engine if you have little to no experience). You can go down to your local bookstore (Chapters or Indigo) and grab a book on game development and They usually bundle a CD with either the Doom or Quake or Unreal Engines.
It's kind of got a "Hey, we like you. Here. Naw its cool" kind of mentality while at the same time being all like "Hey man, cool stuff, but at least half of that was our work. So here's a flat rate"
Perfectly square and fair with an air of awesomeness.
Exactly. If you are in the business of stealing a persons data you're probably a hacker. If you're a hacker you probably know some programming. If you know some programming you can throw together a Facebook game over the course of a weekend.
Then once 3 million people use your App - you can access their data....
Have they fixed that yet? They've been aware of THAT problem for months.
Hmmm, I wasn't aware of that, I haven't had much time to read into this (at work and all). I was actually pretty excited, I like the Unreal Engine for its shaders more than anything else. I like to get my hands on the real gooey stuff, to take what bits and pieces I like and leave the rest. I'd rather develop my own game with my own patchwork engine rather then make an Epic Mod for Unreal (Pun fully intended).
But each release of the Unreal Engine actually changes the Game development scene for alot of game development, not just modding community pertaining to Unreal games. Given Unreal 3 is staarrting to get old, this is probably too late to boost the game back into the light of gamers but Unreal has always had this precedence in the scene of developing.
For example, I myself usually develop with the source Engine. I find it easy to use, and probably more importantly, I find Hammer easier to create maps with instead of the Unreal Editor. In one particular scenario I wanted to have a marsh with really cool fog and properly dripping water and fireflies and all this jazz. Now Source while a great PHYSICS engine isn't as fine tuned towards the details as other engines tend to be. I've found that Valve will only update the Shaders to really meet their own needs, and other little things like that - but I mean you can't complain when they are giving it out for free, right? Anyways, Unreal has been pretty good with those kinds of effects - just look at ANY screenshot of their maps, or any video of the gameplay. I was able to look into Unreal and use their structure as a basis for my own particle effects, after all, I don't want it to look EXACTLY like an UT2K3 Map. Worked like a charm. Now, before you jut in, yes, I know Steam has their own FX for this kind of stuff. But its actually pretty taxing on the system, they still haven't quite seemed to nail fog down as it lags quite a bit (See CS:S When multiple smoke nades go off)
So, the next time you think "Unreal, who cares?" - remember that while they seem to be declining a bit in their sales of games, their rendering technology is still amongst the best free stuff out there. And every bit they give to their community is another bit to every community.
If thats the case, then why would the game Lag if everyone inside an 8 player game is on broadband?
Once you've tried playing online on dial up, then once you've tried playing online with broadband, and you're telling me you don't experience a difference, I call bull.
I totally agree. If I'm gaming and my connection slows to a crawl because my neighbor decides to bittorrent 50GB of data I would be pretty pissed.
What if you're gaming and your round lasts longer than 15 minutes and your average up/down goes over 70% of your limit? Would you want your ISP to throttle you for at least 15 minutes - until you essentially stop playing since if you keep playing you won't be throttling yourself down. Games are pretty network intensive, can be just as much as torrenting, especially the larger rounds of FPS's (Halo 3, Big Social match, 32 people... gets taxing)
The 1% that expect 24/7 full throughput should understand they never bought that guarantee of service.
No, but to Expect 71% for more than 15 minutes at a time does not seem unreasonable. Mostly of which that it's easier for someone to break that expectation when being online in NON-Peak hours, which is when they shouldn't NEED to be throttled. I bet you they are going to throttle you far below 70%. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they throttled you down to 55%, and you'll only get it back to full once you throttle yourself below 50%.
Simply put - they shouldn't advertise a speed that they are NOT going to give to you when you use it.
Simple Car Analogy: Your car Automatically applies the breaks when you do the legal speed limit, and won't stop until you drop below half the speed limit.
A citizen or something of or from the United States (see also Names for U.S. citizens) A citizen of one of the nations of the Americas A person who considers himself/herself to be ethnically American (see American ethnicity) The indigenous peoples of the Americas
To which Americas are defined as: The Americas, or America, are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions.
Don't come in here and try to act all high and mighty "correcting" someone on a term that they use, especially when they are right and you are wrong. And its not called the United States of Mexico, its the United Mexican States. You wouldn't want me running around saying you're from the UAS. Stop spreading misinformation.
Canadians and Peruvians are just as American as people from the United States of America, You insensative Clod.
This makes logical sense to me, but (apparently) it isn't done.
It is done. Everytime Windows Firewall says "This application is trying to access the internet" and you hit unblock. Everytime Windows Vista says "You need administrative Rights to run this, do you want to continue?".
It's either A) A whitelist the users can set, which frustrates users to a point that they don't care and allow everything they come across. B) A blacklist run by some antivirus or another, which is constantly trying to keep up (and failing). C) A whitelist that is set by some third party (Like Apple - which is why Macs are so Virus free*) which can annoy users when they can't run their application.
*They aren't, I know, but their software limitations are what keep them at their virtually safe status.
Jupiter does a pretty good job as our defense system. There have been a few asteroids on possible collision courses with Earth, and they all got sucked up by our bigger brother.
Asteroids are not our biggest concern. Just because one wiped out the dinosaurs doesn't mean that one will wipe us out too. We've evolved a long way to survive in harsh conditions.
In all honesty, I can't even imagine a practical asteroid evasion plan short of evacuating Earth. Armageddon and other Hollywood flicks have lead us to believe that we have the power to blow apart masses thousands of kilometers wide, which I really don't think we do.
We find an asteroid heading towards us thats the size of the moon - there won't be much we can do to stop it.
Today, cloud computing, virtualization, and tablet PCs are vying for the hype crown. At this point it's impossible to tell which claims will bear fruit, and which will fall to the earth and rot.
I agree with your post (not the article) - these technologies have all had success in the experimental fields in which they've been applied. but ESPECIALLY virtualization, which is way past experimenting and is starting to become so big in the workplace that I've started using it at home. No need to setup a dual boot with virtualization, and the risk of losing data is virtually removed (pun intended) because anytime the virtual machine gets infected you just overwrite it with yesterdays backup. No need to set up dual boots through the BIOS (for those who are scared to venture there).
I have yet to find an application of Virtualization that has failed to do what it promised.
The difference between a blog and a news site is that I expect (to some degree) a news site to be credible, I want reporters to do their fact checking, relevant research, etc etc when they pick up a story. Whereas a Blogger might have been there to experience it first hand they generally aren't bound by the same rules that require a journalist to be accurate and reliable.
If I'm checking out CNN.com I expect the articles to be a little bit better than a bloggers because the journalist is typically getting paid to write them.
Now personally, I'm not going to shell out 5 dollars a week just to check out a news site, but they have to make money somehow - so it was only time before this happened. Journalists who write to be read will leave. Journalists who write to get paid will stay.
For some reason, they decided that the best name for this brand new gaming delivery platform would be... well, would be the same name as one of their most famous hardware failures of yesteryear.
I did not know any of this, and I don't know how I can facepalm any harder.
Slashdot Mirror
Aren't those just different applications of "touch" ? Essentially I know I'm moving or upside down because I feel the effects of Gravity, and the feeling of those things is purely because of the physical pressure applied to nerves. Or at least my limitted understanding of Biology would lead me to believe that, I never took full Bio in high school.
Wheras Sight is based on light entering your eyes, sound is your interpretation of mini air compressions around you, taste and smell have to do with different recepticals catching different molecules or something like that.
The other senses you guys are pointing out don't really seem to be anything other then pressure sensation on the inside of your body in the exact same manner we do on the outside of our body.
Every boy, when they were five, did 1 of 2 things.
Shoot pretend guns, or
swing pretend swords.
Sometimes a little of both, but one is always dominant. I think I know which was yours.
Its a steep learning curve, I'll give you that. Console Chat is usually done through voice, every X-box360 comes with a plug in Headset so you can chat live with your friends. It IS possible to type into your console, as it brings up a keyboard on screen and you move the cursor to a hilighted letter and press, which makes text speech unbearably slow and ultimately inpractical. (The only time I ever us it is to ask people what they are doing while they are playing other games and I want them to join me).
As for gameplay controls, while not as elaborate as most, they are usually enough to get you through the game. Essentially you've got your 2 joysticks which handle movement and looking, pretty standard. Then you've got a D-pad (which is the equivalent of 8 buttons), 4 buttons on the right, 2 buttons on the top (known as the bumpers) and 2 triggers, generally used for firing and secondary attacks. I haven't played Dragon Age yet, but I can tell you that for Mass Effect and Oblivion (both Single player RPGS) the console controller worked just fine. For special abilities, usually what happens is you press one of the bumpers and it brings up a wheel of your abilities and you aim one of your joysticks at the ability and press A or the bumber again.
So while it seems like a complicated system at first after a dozen times doing this you'll be a pro. Essentially you'll know the direction of your ability you want and its just a simple, bumper-direction-button combo you get used to pressing, takes less than a fraction of a second. And for Mass Effect and Oblivion, you can pause and set up your spells and such mid combat so its not so bad if you're just starting out.
All in all, Consoles do handle these games just fine, in their own way. I played Oblivion on both the Console and the PC and I can't really tell you which I prefer more, because the console movement controls seem a bit more.... I can't quite find a way to describe it, but I guess smoother is the best way. With analog joystick for movement you can really determine your speed and strafing etc etc alot easier than with a keyboard, which is basically 100% or 0% or possibly 50% if you press the walk key.
However, if you haven't used a Console before, I don't think I'd recommend shelling out the hundreds of dollars just to try it, because its not for everyone. If you've got a friend who has one, try using that a couple times and see how you like it.
Well - if you haven't played Mass Effect - you don't understand how BioWare tailors their Single Player Experience.
And if you have played Mass Effect - and you didn't like it, you are the first person I've encountered who didn't enjoy it.
The thing with these SP RPG's that Bioware makes is that they are more or less trying to put you inside of an interactive movie, almost moreso than they are trying to make a game. Don't get me wrong, they have always been solid in their gameplay elements, but whenever anyone talks about Mass Effect, and now Dragon Age, the things they generally tend to mention are its incredible story and how well they get immersed in the game, usually through dialogue.
The Trend that Bioware and myself are noticing is that when you make something Multiplayer - Pretty much the whole story element gets shot out the window. Its no longer about you being a hero to save the princess, its more about you and your friends having a fun social experience trying to kill the biggest badest thing you guys can find. Which is fine for some games, like World of Warcraft. But How many MMO RPG players read the quest text? How many players on Halo 3 consider themselves the heroic Masterchief when every other player in the game is just as equal?
As for Co-op, there are always limitations to Co-op, and in my opinion they always detract so heavily from the game that I wouldn't even Bother. Fable 2 is an excellent example of how Co op ruins the experience. You can have 2 people in the same world, for sure, but they can't venture further than 20 feet from each other, and whoever is in the lead ends up running into an invisible wall and can't move forward. Meanwhile slowmo over in the back can't get around this fence because his buddy is so far ahead it restricts his lateral movement. And even if they managed to sort out those sort of issues, it still always feels like 1 person is the Hero and everyone else is just side kicks.
The only games which seem to properly implement Co-op are First Person shooters, like Left 4 Dead, or ODST, where everyone is essentially Equal and MUST work together. Mass Effect (and probably Dragon Age) While approaching the FPS kind of gameplay, are still more Roleplaying games then they are shooters. You got levels, stats, and gear. Once you take those out, your gameplay is fleshed down a point and shoot. Which not everyone wants. There are plenty of Fantasy co op games out there, where you can get with your party of 5 and do an instance, get your gold and get your gear. Bioware wants to tell a story. And they do a hell of a job doing it.
"It's better for millions of people to change instead of a couple thousand! I know because I'm COO! Say it twice! COOCOO!"
The Casino took the same CHANCE of the machine malfunctioning the same way this man took a Chance with his money. And after it all, the random sequence of events said the man should win, not the Casino.
This is true, but rarely do you get one that is of high enough standards for todays gaming environment (Which is why every release of the Unreal, Source, Doom, Quake, etc... is such a big deal)
The Original Half Life Series is run off a modified Quake Engine, I believe. and I wouldn't be surprised if the first Unreal Tournament did too. But when you look at how the Unreal engine has evolved and how Source has evolved they are very different.
If you aren't modifying the engine at all, what you're mostly doing is an elaborate Mod (See Total Conversions). If it looks like a duck, Renders like a duck, and handles lighting like a duck, it still feels like a duck when you play it, no matter how much you alter speeds/weapons/textures/Maps. Even when you take an FPS designed Engine and try to run an RTS on it, you will typically have to write in your own scripting.
The engine is without a doubt -THE- hardest part of development. I myself have only ever hacked together Frankenstein Engines using bits from everywhere, and never really added my own component (why write your own when someone else already has). With the engine out of the way, a feature Length Game can be done in as little as 6 months*, tested, released, and on the shelf in about a year.
*This is assuming you've got one guy with the ideas who fleshes out a story, 1 guy who does the artwork (both concept and in game), and 1 guy who does the Coding/maping/debugging.
How long do games usually take to make from scratch? Lets See, Half Life 2, about a decade, Unreal 3 from Unreal 2K4 was 3 years, Duke Nukem Forever, ha ha - but do you see my point?
Summary: The Engine is more than half of a games development. (IMHO)
I smell foul play...
Quick, someone get Bruce Willis!
The problem usually solved in other engines by putting a couple 0-depth 1 sided inverted boxes (There's totally a name for it other than "Shell" but I can't remember it) outside the realm of play and using that to cut off rendering, like a hullbox or whatever, then using one giant Brush inside of that and carving your map out of that. But it is annoying to make sure your brushes are snapping together properly and you can get some ugly leaks if you're not careful. For MOST people's map design, or essentially anything indoors - Subtractive is the way to go.
I only use Additive when I'm importing a landscape made in 3dsmax or Maya, Where essentially a 1 sided Terrain inside a skybox is all that needs to be rendered. Subtractive has had a few issues when trying to do this (in my experience).
Ditto. I actually really like their business model. It encourages community development alot, which means when I pay 60 bucks for a game, I get more than whats just in the case. And even better, if you've EVER been interested in starting your own game, Unreal is a good place to start (Though probably the first Unreal Engine if you have little to no experience). You can go down to your local bookstore (Chapters or Indigo) and grab a book on game development and They usually bundle a CD with either the Doom or Quake or Unreal Engines.
It's kind of got a "Hey, we like you. Here. Naw its cool" kind of mentality while at the same time being all like "Hey man, cool stuff, but at least half of that was our work. So here's a flat rate"
Perfectly square and fair with an air of awesomeness.
Exactly. If you are in the business of stealing a persons data you're probably a hacker. If you're a hacker you probably know some programming. If you know some programming you can throw together a Facebook game over the course of a weekend.
Then once 3 million people use your App - you can access their data. ...
Have they fixed that yet? They've been aware of THAT problem for months.
Hmmm, I wasn't aware of that, I haven't had much time to read into this (at work and all). I was actually pretty excited, I like the Unreal Engine for its shaders more than anything else. I like to get my hands on the real gooey stuff, to take what bits and pieces I like and leave the rest. I'd rather develop my own game with my own patchwork engine rather then make an Epic Mod for Unreal (Pun fully intended).
But each release of the Unreal Engine actually changes the Game development scene for alot of game development, not just modding community pertaining to Unreal games. Given Unreal 3 is staarrting to get old, this is probably too late to boost the game back into the light of gamers but Unreal has always had this precedence in the scene of developing.
For example, I myself usually develop with the source Engine. I find it easy to use, and probably more importantly, I find Hammer easier to create maps with instead of the Unreal Editor. In one particular scenario I wanted to have a marsh with really cool fog and properly dripping water and fireflies and all this jazz. Now Source while a great PHYSICS engine isn't as fine tuned towards the details as other engines tend to be. I've found that Valve will only update the Shaders to really meet their own needs, and other little things like that - but I mean you can't complain when they are giving it out for free, right? Anyways, Unreal has been pretty good with those kinds of effects - just look at ANY screenshot of their maps, or any video of the gameplay. I was able to look into Unreal and use their structure as a basis for my own particle effects, after all, I don't want it to look EXACTLY like an UT2K3 Map. Worked like a charm. Now, before you jut in, yes, I know Steam has their own FX for this kind of stuff. But its actually pretty taxing on the system, they still haven't quite seemed to nail fog down as it lags quite a bit (See CS:S When multiple smoke nades go off)
So, the next time you think "Unreal, who cares?" - remember that while they seem to be declining a bit in their sales of games, their rendering technology is still amongst the best free stuff out there. And every bit they give to their community is another bit to every community.
If thats the case, then why would the game Lag if everyone inside an 8 player game is on broadband?
Once you've tried playing online on dial up, then once you've tried playing online with broadband, and you're telling me you don't experience a difference, I call bull.
I totally agree. If I'm gaming and my connection slows to a crawl because my neighbor decides to bittorrent 50GB of data I would be pretty pissed.
What if you're gaming and your round lasts longer than 15 minutes and your average up/down goes over 70% of your limit? Would you want your ISP to throttle you for at least 15 minutes - until you essentially stop playing since if you keep playing you won't be throttling yourself down. Games are pretty network intensive, can be just as much as torrenting, especially the larger rounds of FPS's (Halo 3, Big Social match, 32 people... gets taxing)
The 1% that expect 24/7 full throughput should understand they never bought that guarantee of service.
No, but to Expect 71% for more than 15 minutes at a time does not seem unreasonable. Mostly of which that it's easier for someone to break that expectation when being online in NON-Peak hours, which is when they shouldn't NEED to be throttled. I bet you they are going to throttle you far below 70%. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they throttled you down to 55%, and you'll only get it back to full once you throttle yourself below 50%.
Simply put - they shouldn't advertise a speed that they are NOT going to give to you when you use it.
Simple Car Analogy:
Your car Automatically applies the breaks when you do the legal speed limit, and won't stop until you drop below half the speed limit.
Wikipedia reads:
American(s) may refer to:
A citizen or something of or from the United States (see also Names for U.S. citizens)
A citizen of one of the nations of the Americas
A person who considers himself/herself to be ethnically American (see American ethnicity)
The indigenous peoples of the Americas
To which Americas are defined as:
The Americas, or America, are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, comprising the continents of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions.
Don't come in here and try to act all high and mighty "correcting" someone on a term that they use, especially when they are right and you are wrong. And its not called the United States of Mexico, its the United Mexican States. You wouldn't want me running around saying you're from the UAS. Stop spreading misinformation.
Canadians and Peruvians are just as American as people from the United States of America, You insensative Clod.
This makes logical sense to me, but (apparently) it isn't done.
It is done. Everytime Windows Firewall says "This application is trying to access the internet" and you hit unblock. Everytime Windows Vista says "You need administrative Rights to run this, do you want to continue?".
It's either
A) A whitelist the users can set, which frustrates users to a point that they don't care and allow everything they come across.
B) A blacklist run by some antivirus or another, which is constantly trying to keep up (and failing).
C) A whitelist that is set by some third party (Like Apple - which is why Macs are so Virus free*) which can annoy users when they can't run their application.
*They aren't, I know, but their software limitations are what keep them at their virtually safe status.
No, I don't mean Terminator.
Did anybody actually watch Stealth? I wish I could unwatch it.
Jupiter does a pretty good job as our defense system. There have been a few asteroids on possible collision courses with Earth, and they all got sucked up by our bigger brother.
Asteroids are not our biggest concern. Just because one wiped out the dinosaurs doesn't mean that one will wipe us out too. We've evolved a long way to survive in harsh conditions.
In all honesty, I can't even imagine a practical asteroid evasion plan short of evacuating Earth. Armageddon and other Hollywood flicks have lead us to believe that we have the power to blow apart masses thousands of kilometers wide, which I really don't think we do.
We find an asteroid heading towards us thats the size of the moon - there won't be much we can do to stop it.
Today, cloud computing, virtualization, and tablet PCs are vying for the hype crown. At this point it's impossible to tell which claims will bear fruit, and which will fall to the earth and rot.
I agree with your post (not the article) - these technologies have all had success in the experimental fields in which they've been applied. but ESPECIALLY virtualization, which is way past experimenting and is starting to become so big in the workplace that I've started using it at home. No need to setup a dual boot with virtualization, and the risk of losing data is virtually removed (pun intended) because anytime the virtual machine gets infected you just overwrite it with yesterdays backup. No need to set up dual boots through the BIOS (for those who are scared to venture there).
I have yet to find an application of Virtualization that has failed to do what it promised.
The difference between a blog and a news site is that I expect (to some degree) a news site to be credible, I want reporters to do their fact checking, relevant research, etc etc when they pick up a story. Whereas a Blogger might have been there to experience it first hand they generally aren't bound by the same rules that require a journalist to be accurate and reliable.
If I'm checking out CNN.com I expect the articles to be a little bit better than a bloggers because the journalist is typically getting paid to write them.
Now personally, I'm not going to shell out 5 dollars a week just to check out a news site, but they have to make money somehow - so it was only time before this happened. Journalists who write to be read will leave. Journalists who write to get paid will stay.
" XBMC Media Center"
Isn't that Redundant? I thought that XBMC = X-Box Media Center. Did they rename it to X-Box Media Center Media Center?
For some reason, they decided that the best name for this brand new gaming delivery platform would be... well, would be the same name as one of their most famous hardware failures of yesteryear.
I did not know any of this, and I don't know how I can facepalm any harder.