The HalfLife engine was a heavily modified QuakeII engine - and as I understand it many of the modifications Valve made were done in such a fashion to make them very tied to the Windows API.
s/QuakeII/Quake/. Somebody always gets this wrong when Half-Life is mentioned. Half-Life was based on the Quake 1 engine. Yes, it heavily modified the engine (skeletal animation, better lighting and hardware acceleration, particles, etc), but in the end it's still based on the Quake 1 engine. Most people confuse this, since Half-Life was released shortly after Quake 2 (IIRC, Q2 was Christmas 97, while Half-Life was Spring 98 -- off the top of my head, so probably wrong). Of course, just thinking about it for a second would prove that HL wasn't based on Q2 -- If HL was released so soon after Q2, how could Valve have had time to modify the Q2 engine, as well as provide all of the necessary IP in formats Q2 would accept (models, maps, textures, etc)? History repeats itself -- SiN and Soldier of Fortune were based off of the Q2 engine (so were Daikatana and Anachronox, but those are bad examples simply because Q3-based games launched before they did), and they came after Q2 by a year or more, and without the major engine modifications Half-Life had. Alice, FAKK2, and RTCW were Q3-based games, and they came a year or more after Q3. Valve must be some kind of special, then, if they can highly modify the Q2 engine and launch within months of the official release of the Q2 engine (not supported by the length of time it's taken them to develop HL2 and the later-than-DNF TeamFortress 2).
She's TWO, for crying out loud. What possible use could she have for all of that? A CD player/DVD player is more than enough I would think. Call it evolution if you want (and note that I'm not being a Luddite here, and I'm not making any value judgements like saying that you're letting the TV do your job as a parent), but I just don't see where any of that has value at 2 years old. As I said, she needs to deal with things like potty training and playing with other two year olds. She doesn't need to have her own computer. Let her grow up some first. When she's 5 or 6, maybe this project would have some value.
I'm actually going to use PVR on a box I'm working on for my 2 year old daughter.
Poor kid. At 2 years old, I think she has more than enough to do without having to learn how to use a computer. That will come soon enough. I'd focus more on potty training, socializing with other kids, and learning basic fundamentals (colors, shapes, words, etc). And as far as entertainment goes, I'll bet she'd be happier with a $50 DVD player and a copy of The Little Mermaid than she would with some custom homebrew Linux-based PVR thing.
Tivo claims to work with Dish Network but so far I've received no response to an inquiry regarding whether or not they recompress the video. I'm assuming they do... and if so, any setup which duplicates Tivo will also suffer degradation.
I don't know about the DirecTivo boxes, but you can use a stand-alone Tivo with a satellite or digital cable connection. The output of your STB from DirecTV or your cable provider goes into your Tivo, and the Tivo connects to the STB via a serial link (on certain satellite boxes, and supposedly also on a few digital cable boxes with recent software updates) or a provided IR blaster. Tivo then changes the channel on the STB as necessary. In short, Tivo sees the decompressed video, not the original MPEG2 feed. However, who cares? Unless you're watching High Def broadcasts (and Tivo doesn't support those yet anyway), the quality is already shit. Tivo's recompression isn't going to hurt that much.
And once you've sent your rebate, guess what? You can't even prove that you ever actually bought it, let alone that you sent off for a rebate. It doesnt matter if there's some honest rebates out there- the system is set up like fraud, no way to check, no way to prove, and no system in place making sure that they are real.
That's not exactly true. You can prove you bought the item by purchasing with a credit card and saving the original receipt (you should never send your original receipt for a rebate, and any rebate that requires it is fraud). As well, send the rebate via certified mail, so you can track when it was delivered and who signed for it. With those two things in place, you can prove that you purchased the product, sent the rebate, and it was received at the proper place. If the rebate center does not respond within the amount of time the rebate specified (6-8 weeks, usually), then call them. If you can't get straight answers, and don't receive the check within a reasonable amount of time thereafter (I'd say 1-2 weeks), you could try small claims court. Don't bother if the rebate is only $10, but a lot of computer items have multi-hundred rebates these days. You should be able to make a case in small claims and win a ruling against the manufacturer. You still may never see the money, but at least you'll have legal proof that they owe you money. Then you could go even further and send a collection agency against them, if it's cost-effective (ie, you're expecting a $200 rebate, and court + collection only costs you $100, it's worth it for the remaining $100).
Will anybody go to that extent? Probably not, and that's why rebates are so popular with sellers. But just because the cards are stacked against you doesn't mean you can't win. That said, I personally try to avoid rebates whenever possible, and still never count on them when factoring affordability of some product. But I'm just lazy.
Heh...sorry. I live in Japan...don't see too many of either of those company's cars over here. Oh well...
I bet you do and just don't know it. For instance, Toyota sells Chevrolet's Cavalier/Pontiac's Sunfire under the Toyota name in Japan . As well, GM and Ford own or cooperate with many other brands (Ford owns or works with other brands like Volvo, Jaguar, Mazda, and even Aston Martin, while GM has brands that include Saad, Opel, and Hummer). You may not see Mustangs or Corvettes, but chances are you see a number of Ford or GM cars every day. The same holds true for many other car makers like Chrysler/Mercedes-Benz/Daimler/Dodge/Mitsubishi, Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche/Lamborghini (Porsche is indpendent, but shares parts and designs with VW and Audi, the rest are part of the Volkswagen Automotive Group, and so on (that's ignoring the low-end/high-end relationships like Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus, Nissan/Infiniti, etc).
but on a seriooous note, i m getting well sick of people underestimating the cube, it dosent garner nearly the respect it should.
I have both a Cube and a Box, so I'm not biased one way or the other (PS2 is teh suck, though). Both systems have their downsides. The Cube's graphics aren't that hot in comparison to XBox (Metroid Prime is current state-of-the-art for photorealistic graphics on the Cube, and it's on par or maybe slightly better than Halo, a first-gen XBox game), the controller generally sucks (it's not bad when the gameplay is good like Zelda, but it's pretty terrible in Metroid Prime), and the A/V options are pretty limited (while most games support 480p, very few do anamorphic widescreen, and the lack of dolby digital audio is disappointing).
On the other hand, the XBox has issues as well. Some people don't like the controller (I personally liked the larger Duke controller, but I really love the S controller), there aren't a lot of original games (XBox mainly getting original games from MGS and a few others like Sega, and mostly ports otherwise), and many games don't take advantage of the XBox's A/V power (okay, most games do DD, but a surprising number don't even do 480p, and as with the Cube very few games do widescreen or higher resolutions).
when programmed well i think it can out perform the box, but it all boils down to the gameplay in teh end anyway, so who cares.
This comes down to skill. When programmed well, the Cube can rival some XBox games. However, when the XBox is programmed well, nothing can touch it but the highest of high-end PCs. Does that makes the games better? Not necessarily, but when given the choice of platforms for a game, where the game was designed to take advantage of the various strengths of each platform (say, Soul Calibur 2), I'll pick the XBox port 99 times out of 100. Why? Because if the game is any good at all, all three platforms will have good gameplay. After that, I have to take into account graphics, audio, and other options (like Live! support, or the built-in harddrive so I don't have to do the memory card shuffle).
the cube has better texture support, and doom 3 relys heavily on texturing for its graphics. also the ppc architechture of the cube would make it more efficient for running the game, better than that x86 generocrap in the xbox.
??? Care to support any of your claims? Fanboy rant sounds just like it. Anyway, if you paid attention to theCarmack, you'd know that Doom III relies heavily on per-pixel and per-vertex shaders for a lot of it's higher-end graphics effects. Since it will supposedly support all the way down to the GeForce 2, I assume it can get by without shader units, but that also means that the Cube is at a disadvantage compared to the Box.
i dont plan on buying it for console, but i will purchase both the OSX and PC versions, cause you DO need a mouse and keyboard.
That's what people said about Halo, but I found it to be extremely playable with the XBox controller (to the point where I'd almost be convinced that it had the perfect FPS controller setup). IMHO, the only thing that doesn't really work well on a console controller is weapon selection. I don't want to have to scroll through a list and memorize the order of the list. I just want to hit a button. Halo circumvented this by only letting you carry two weapons at a time (which also added some strategy to the game).
Since at the present time I just do open lapping sessions with no racing, I'm much more interested in mods that make the handling more neutral, keep the brakes from fading, or make the car more reliable under track conditions, rather than eaking out a little more horsepower or shaving off a few pounds.
I'm at the same level you are, open lapping without any official timing (ie, not Solo I). I'm not at the point where I need to modify my car yet, since I'm still learning. I plan to get into autocross in a year or so, money providing, so I might be more concerned about weight at that point, but neutralizing the handling of the car will be a more important first step. As far as horsepower goes, I don't even drive to the full capabilities of my car yet, so that money is better spent on driver education for now.
It's interesting that the performance-oriented wing of the Japanese import crowd seems much more focused on drag racing, while their counterparts in the Bimmer/Porsche groups go for road racing as the yardstick by which to judge a sports car. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
Very true. I'd compare it to the past -- American muscle cars were about drag racing, and they were much more accessible, so people dragged them. German autos were about road racing even back then, but then as now, they weren't as accessible and so it wasn't the popular sport. Japanese imports have taken the place of the American muscle car as the accessible racer, and so that's what people race today. (It's annoying when people use the term "import" to mean only Japanese cars, and so lump those of us with precision pieces of German engineering in the same boat when they refer to "import racing". Not trying to be high-and-mighty, just pointing out that "import racing" usually means drag, which few German cars do well.) It's a shame, though, as many of the cars people trick out for dragging would be better suited to carving up a road track instead.
Now I just need to find time to get back to the track again...
I think the best explanation for what the big-ass wings do can be found here, in the first e-mail on 7/23/2002. To quote:
THE WING SERVES A PURPOSE,IT HOLDS THE TRUNK LID DOWN AT HIGH SPEEDS,AND BLOCKS THE VIEW OF UGLY PEOPLE LIKE YOU FROM BEIND SEEN IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR
I'm sure the guy meant "rear of the car" rather than trunk lid (of course, he apparently doesn't understand the difference between FWD and RWD), but his poor grasp of English actually makes his point valid. Big wings do help hold your trunk lid down (well, if your trunk latch were somehow to break, like floorboards apparently break at high speed)!
But if you look into the costs, to build a 993 out of a 911SC its gonna cost close to what you would spend to buy a 993.
Seems a little pointless to me. If you can afford to turn an old 911SC into a 993, then you could afford to just buy a 993 outright. But then, I guess the same thing applies across the board. The sport compact guys that spend money turning a Civic into a BMW usually end up spending more than if they'd just bought a BMW 3-series to begin with.
There are some on there where people have replaced a blown or otherwise broken 911SC engine with a tuned or just regular 993 engine which isn't too bad. They make good cars to convert into full on track cars.
I'm all for engine transplants. That's a useful mod. Unfortunately, a lot of the conversions I've seen are cosmetic-only. The suspension, drivetrain, and engine are still original, but the body has been updated to look like it's something it's not. As far as building a track car goes, I've seen some fast Civic track cars. As you might guess, they didn't have "phat rims", a crazy body kit, or even a spoiler (Civics really don't need much of a spoiler at all, and certainly not huge spoilers as seen in "Fast and the Furious"). There's a huge difference between making a car fast and making it look fast.
Man, I really should've proof-read more closely. "my rears right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear" should read "my wheels right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear".
Actually, slightly lowering your car by cutting off a half-coil is recommended by some respected motorsports books because it not only reduces the center of gravity but slightly increases the effective spring-rate as well. I also know people who've bent their front struts to gain some negative camber, but that seems a little sketchy to me...
I guess it really depends on the goal, but if I were trying to lower my car for better handling, I'd do it by replacing the springs rather than cutting the springs I already have. Sure, it costs more money, but then I have springs that were designed for lowering the car rather than springs that have been cut. Same with bending struts for cambe. If I can't get enough camber out of the suspension components I have, I'll replace them with more adjustable components. Once you start bending and cutting stuff, I'm loathe to assume that those components are still structurally sound, and that's the last thing I want to worry about out on the track.
I agree, though, that most of these modded cars are slower than stock, although if I see one with big floppy drag tires on the front wheels I have to allow for the possibility of it being fast.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about cars with drag tires on them, because I don't drag race (my car is not a drag racer, even if I wanted it to be). As well, the car may be fast, but if the guy is challenging me on the street I just shake my head and ignore him (like some jackhole in a MB C35 AMG tried to do today on the interstate -- he was driving like a maniac, and tried to race me and an S2000; we both ignored him, so he sped off like a moron, endangering the lives of everybody on the road).
My other favorite is the cars whose main modification seems to be sticking the wheels out an extra six inches or so--the thought of all that shearing force on the bearings makes me cringe...
When I see that, I usually assume the goal was to fit wider wheels on the car than stock. Useful in a RWD car to help reduce understeer/increase oversteer, since most cars have understeer dialed in from the factory. Pretty useless on a FWD car except for the larger patch of rubber, but then it's usually the rear tires these guys do, anyway, which gives absolutely no benefit. Personally, I might be tempted to put 10" or 10.5" wheels on my car (my rears right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear), but most likely I'll stick with the wheels I have and put 225/17s on the front when it comes time to change the rubber (soon). I certainly wouldn't go any larger than that, especially since I'm in a rainy area, and wider tires lead to more pronounced hyrdoplanning.
Usually they take out the back seat and put a custom shell with some sort of giant lcd or monitor and subwoofers next to it with a vcr, dvd player, or ps2 facing out towards the trunk.
Because obviously all of that A/V equipment is lighter than the bench that was in their before...
It's just the kind of thing that makes you realize that Ferraris and Porsches are boxy and swollen, and that you don't have to give up the dreams about cars you had as a boy.
I don't know about that. It looks quite a bit along the lines of the Carrera GT or the Enzo (though the Enzo has sharper lines). I don't know how much the Koenigsegg runs, but if it's anywhere in the vicinity of those two supercars ($500K and $650K, respectively for the Carrera GT and Enzo), it's out of most people's price range. It's certainly out of mine. Still, a sweet car, if not as boring as other Swedish cars.
Interesting that one of the hottest hobbies, took this long to make a slashdot discussion. Modding cars is become such a big thing amongst people with all types of cars. From Neon's to bimmers, people do pretty cool thing to enhance the appearance and performance of their cars. Not all look, perform or sound too hot, but some can be better than any factory car you can get.
There's no accounting for taste, but most of the mods are total crap. Double-bookshelf wings on FWD cars, ugly bodykits that add an insane amount of weight and screw up the car's aeordynamics, neon lights that do nothing but annoy other drivers, outrageously large wheels ("rims", as the "tunerz" call them) that ride like shit, lowered suspensions without an accompanying alignment (or worse, suspensions lowered simply by cutting the springs already there, rather than replacing with proper springs), decals that are silly (yes, your Civic is a Honda, we know that; so why must you have "Powered by Honda" on your front windscreen, obscuring half of your forward vision?), re-badging (the Civic Type-R is only available as a right-hand drive car, because it's only available in Japan; adding a Type-R badge and the red Honda "H" does not make your Civic a Type-R), Z3 fender gills on non-Z3s, etc.
Unfortunately, this isn't even limited to the sport compact crowd, either. Look on ebay to see a whole slew of ruined older 911s that would be great except that the owners decided to "upgrade" them. Be very careful, because that 993 you're looking at may not be a 993 at all, but a 79 911SC with a 993 body.
Maybe somebody thinks these mods look good, and some of them do (a high-quality custom paint job, for example). Most, however, look like crap. They add nothing to the car, and just single you out as a poseur. Not to mention that most people doing these mods think they somehow make their cars fast, and then try to race anything and everything on the road. There's a place for racing, and it's not on the street.
The movie is rendered in-game, and Anachronox was based on the Quake 2 engine (as mentioned in the story) with some Ion Storm modifications (like a better particle system, thus the gratuitous energy fountain). I should say at this point that I haven't watched the movie, but I did play the game. Of course the graphics aren't state of the art. The engine is going on six years old now. The game was fun, though, and the story was pretty good (well, as far as I got into it), and so I would expect the movies to be the same -- good story, somewhat bland graphics by today's standards. However, you can't fault these movies for that, as much as you can't fault the old Dank & Scud comics for having crappy graphics (if you're too young to remember, the comics were taken from in-game shots of Quake 1). Enjoy the movie for what it is, and keep in mind the technical limitations they had to deal with.
100+ in a Hyundai? You are abusing a Hyundai if you start the engine and idle.
And yet, people do it. There's nothing wrong with economical cars, but drivers don't seem to differentiate between types of cars. For example, I borrowed a friend's SUV the other day (had to pick up some stuff that I couldn't fit in my car). I was going 60-65 on the interstate (speed limit of 60, traffic flow around 75), and wouldn't dare drive it faster. The SUV simply wasn't made for that, and it wouldn't be safe to do so. However, on the same roads, I could push my car to 120+ (well, if it weren't for police and traffic, anyway). I don't, but I could. While I usually drive around 70mph, I routinely get passed by SUVs, Civics that are falling apart, Hyundais, Kias, jacked up 4x4s on nubby off-road tires, and any number of cars and trucks that weren't designed to handle sustained high speeds (or even standard interstate speeds, in some cases). Scary, yes, but scarier is the fact that I'm usually the one that gets pulled over, while those speeding death traps just zip on by.
Thus having a new story is helpful. However I do agree that stories which are updates on older stories should have the link to the original story. That is advantageous as we may have missed the original story and wish to read the talkback there.
I don't get it. Slashback articles tend to link to the previous stories, because by definition a Slashback story is a couple of updates to older stories (we don't see too many Slashbacks, because it seems the editors prefer to just create new stories). You've got everything you need -- a new post under a proper heading about changes and updates to a previous story, a link to the previous story for context and discussion, and an area to disucss the new updates. Sure, the discussion may include other topics as well, but that's okay -- most updates wouldn't generate a full story's worth (150-400 comments) of comments, unless those comments were a whole bunch of "this is a dupe" and karma-whoring duplicated comments from the previous story. Why do you need a full-blown story if a Slashback entry would provide all you ask?
And they don't care if you abuse the cars. In fact, they even encouraged me to drive so fast that the M5 might fly off the race track.
Performance cars are hard to abuse. Just going fast isn't enough to abuse them (unlike trying to push a Hyundai to 100+mph), and if the track is well-designed you won't have to worry about any collisions when you leave the track. About the only thing you might have to worry about would be spinning without leaving the track, leaving the car in the way of traffic. Otherwise, keep the shiny side up and push it to the limits.
I've spun my car at the local race track several times (lapping in the rain is a very unique experience), with no damage but a bruised ego. However, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything, and plan to be back out there for more track experience. Rain or shine, there's a lot to learn.
As I read it, the "dupe" was an unofficial speculation. This sounds as though Sun has made an official statement that the speculation was correct.
Which sounds like the perfect definition for a Slashback story. We don't need another full-blown story on this just because Sun confirmed it. All we need is a paragraph in Slashback saying, "By the way, remember this story about Sun and the Opteron? Sun's confirmed it."
Um, I think you have this exactly backwards. The whole point of Java is to be able to run the same code on multiple platforms. Personally I run a number of tools and apps on both Linux and OSX, including a wifi config tool and jEdit.
I understand the point of Java. However, things work out differently in practice than they do in theory. In theory, Java's "Write once, run anywhere" idea sounds great. In practice, Java's ui support is horrendous (better with IBM's SWT), and at least in the past (ignoring Microsoft's vm) the jvms on different platforms have sucked at different levels.
Why on earth would you ever write a server app in Java? Once a server app in put into production you are *never* going to migrate to another platform probably 99% of the time. While development may be somewhat faster it is clearly not worth the performance penalty (which is significant in most cases), with the possible exception of small/low-load apps.
I don't know why you would write a server app in Java, but it's done. In fact, it's Java's main domain at the moment. I can guess why it was done, though. Taking my above examples of the crappiness of Java's UI support and issues moving across VMs, it comes as no surprise that Java would migrate to an area where it a) doesn't need to do any ui work, and b) can standardize on a single JVM on a single platform, so you don't have to worry about any odd behavior from the VM. Is this against the Java philosophy? Probably, if you think "Write once, run everywhere" is the beginning and end of what Java is all about. Too bad, though, because it's being done every day.
That's not a bad product either. If you don't like the Java look and feel, you can tell it to look like Windows. The Windows look doesn't fit in as well on my desktop though.
And that's a developer app (a fancy editor), which falls under my exception clause. Show me a good Java-based mail client (by "good", I meant something on par with Outlook (not Outlook Express), or at least Evolution), or a good Java-based browser (again, along the lines of IE or Mozilla, though I don't like Mozilla proper's default UI themes), or a good media player written in Java (again, along the lines of winamp, xmms, or wmp). To my knowledge, there aren't any, which is the point. People replying to my comment bring up development tools (generally targetted at developing Java, so of course the tools are written in Java), special configuration tools for Java-based services, and internal tools. I understood the original parent to be talking about normal users, ie Joe Sixpack and your mom, running Windows (which also ties into your comment about looking like Windows -- I don't want to have to make the app look like Windows, I want it to look like Windows if I'm running it in Windows, and like OS X if it's in OS X, and like GNOME if I'm running it under GNOME, and like KDE if in KDE, etc). I think my point still stands. From a normal user standpoint, there's nothing useful written in Java (aside from Limewire, though I have my doubts about that being good anyway).
And an off-topic comment about your sig: the graphics in the creatively named "Racer" game you list don't really seem "amazing" to me. Maybe I'm biased by professional games (Gran Turismo series, Sega GT series, Project: Gotham, etc). The cars don't even have drivers! There are some better shots on the game's website, but the one you chose makes the game look even worse than it is.
"The Most Sophisticated File-sharing Application" is written in Java, and is a fairly good piece of desktop software...
The last time I used Limewire (maybe a year ago, more or less), it was pure crap. Short of a complete UI rewrite, I wouldn't call it "good" software except in relation to Java-based client applications. If Limewire is your litmus test for Java applications, then I stand by my claim that Java is already dead on the client (with a few minor exceptions that I already pointed out, of course).
Excacly how many Windows users (that aren't Java developers) have switched to Sun's version, rather than just turning off all Java support?
I'd guess the number is very near ZERO.
I'd guess you're correct. Why? Well, 99.995% of all java applets on web pages are horrible wastes of time (the best I've seen are DSLReports' Java tools, and even those are pretty flakey and barely useful). At the same time, Java for client-side applications is fairly aborted. Unless you're a Java developer, you're probably never going to use an application written in Java (and if you are a developer, usually the only Java-based app you use is your choice of IDE).
Java may be great on the server side, but it's a waste of time on the client side. Can you blame users for not bothering to get Sun's version of the JVM?
Slashdot Mirror
s/QuakeII/Quake/. Somebody always gets this wrong when Half-Life is mentioned. Half-Life was based on the Quake 1 engine. Yes, it heavily modified the engine (skeletal animation, better lighting and hardware acceleration, particles, etc), but in the end it's still based on the Quake 1 engine. Most people confuse this, since Half-Life was released shortly after Quake 2 (IIRC, Q2 was Christmas 97, while Half-Life was Spring 98 -- off the top of my head, so probably wrong). Of course, just thinking about it for a second would prove that HL wasn't based on Q2 -- If HL was released so soon after Q2, how could Valve have had time to modify the Q2 engine, as well as provide all of the necessary IP in formats Q2 would accept (models, maps, textures, etc)? History repeats itself -- SiN and Soldier of Fortune were based off of the Q2 engine (so were Daikatana and Anachronox, but those are bad examples simply because Q3-based games launched before they did), and they came after Q2 by a year or more, and without the major engine modifications Half-Life had. Alice, FAKK2, and RTCW were Q3-based games, and they came a year or more after Q3. Valve must be some kind of special, then, if they can highly modify the Q2 engine and launch within months of the official release of the Q2 engine (not supported by the length of time it's taken them to develop HL2 and the later-than-DNF TeamFortress 2).
She's TWO, for crying out loud. What possible use could she have for all of that? A CD player/DVD player is more than enough I would think. Call it evolution if you want (and note that I'm not being a Luddite here, and I'm not making any value judgements like saying that you're letting the TV do your job as a parent), but I just don't see where any of that has value at 2 years old. As I said, she needs to deal with things like potty training and playing with other two year olds. She doesn't need to have her own computer. Let her grow up some first. When she's 5 or 6, maybe this project would have some value.
Poor kid. At 2 years old, I think she has more than enough to do without having to learn how to use a computer. That will come soon enough. I'd focus more on potty training, socializing with other kids, and learning basic fundamentals (colors, shapes, words, etc). And as far as entertainment goes, I'll bet she'd be happier with a $50 DVD player and a copy of The Little Mermaid than she would with some custom homebrew Linux-based PVR thing.
Priorities, man!
I don't know about the DirecTivo boxes, but you can use a stand-alone Tivo with a satellite or digital cable connection. The output of your STB from DirecTV or your cable provider goes into your Tivo, and the Tivo connects to the STB via a serial link (on certain satellite boxes, and supposedly also on a few digital cable boxes with recent software updates) or a provided IR blaster. Tivo then changes the channel on the STB as necessary. In short, Tivo sees the decompressed video, not the original MPEG2 feed. However, who cares? Unless you're watching High Def broadcasts (and Tivo doesn't support those yet anyway), the quality is already shit. Tivo's recompression isn't going to hurt that much.
That's not exactly true. You can prove you bought the item by purchasing with a credit card and saving the original receipt (you should never send your original receipt for a rebate, and any rebate that requires it is fraud). As well, send the rebate via certified mail, so you can track when it was delivered and who signed for it. With those two things in place, you can prove that you purchased the product, sent the rebate, and it was received at the proper place. If the rebate center does not respond within the amount of time the rebate specified (6-8 weeks, usually), then call them. If you can't get straight answers, and don't receive the check within a reasonable amount of time thereafter (I'd say 1-2 weeks), you could try small claims court. Don't bother if the rebate is only $10, but a lot of computer items have multi-hundred rebates these days. You should be able to make a case in small claims and win a ruling against the manufacturer. You still may never see the money, but at least you'll have legal proof that they owe you money. Then you could go even further and send a collection agency against them, if it's cost-effective (ie, you're expecting a $200 rebate, and court + collection only costs you $100, it's worth it for the remaining $100).
Will anybody go to that extent? Probably not, and that's why rebates are so popular with sellers. But just because the cards are stacked against you doesn't mean you can't win. That said, I personally try to avoid rebates whenever possible, and still never count on them when factoring affordability of some product. But I'm just lazy.
I bet you do and just don't know it. For instance, Toyota sells Chevrolet's Cavalier/Pontiac's Sunfire under the Toyota name in Japan . As well, GM and Ford own or cooperate with many other brands (Ford owns or works with other brands like Volvo, Jaguar, Mazda, and even Aston Martin, while GM has brands that include Saad, Opel, and Hummer). You may not see Mustangs or Corvettes, but chances are you see a number of Ford or GM cars every day. The same holds true for many other car makers like Chrysler/Mercedes-Benz/Daimler/Dodge/Mitsubishi, Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche/Lamborghini (Porsche is indpendent, but shares parts and designs with VW and Audi, the rest are part of the Volkswagen Automotive Group, and so on (that's ignoring the low-end/high-end relationships like Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus, Nissan/Infiniti, etc).
I have both a Cube and a Box, so I'm not biased one way or the other (PS2 is teh suck, though). Both systems have their downsides. The Cube's graphics aren't that hot in comparison to XBox (Metroid Prime is current state-of-the-art for photorealistic graphics on the Cube, and it's on par or maybe slightly better than Halo, a first-gen XBox game), the controller generally sucks (it's not bad when the gameplay is good like Zelda, but it's pretty terrible in Metroid Prime), and the A/V options are pretty limited (while most games support 480p, very few do anamorphic widescreen, and the lack of dolby digital audio is disappointing).
On the other hand, the XBox has issues as well. Some people don't like the controller (I personally liked the larger Duke controller, but I really love the S controller), there aren't a lot of original games (XBox mainly getting original games from MGS and a few others like Sega, and mostly ports otherwise), and many games don't take advantage of the XBox's A/V power (okay, most games do DD, but a surprising number don't even do 480p, and as with the Cube very few games do widescreen or higher resolutions).
This comes down to skill. When programmed well, the Cube can rival some XBox games. However, when the XBox is programmed well, nothing can touch it but the highest of high-end PCs. Does that makes the games better? Not necessarily, but when given the choice of platforms for a game, where the game was designed to take advantage of the various strengths of each platform (say, Soul Calibur 2), I'll pick the XBox port 99 times out of 100. Why? Because if the game is any good at all, all three platforms will have good gameplay. After that, I have to take into account graphics, audio, and other options (like Live! support, or the built-in harddrive so I don't have to do the memory card shuffle).
??? Care to support any of your claims? Fanboy rant sounds just like it. Anyway, if you paid attention to theCarmack, you'd know that Doom III relies heavily on per-pixel and per-vertex shaders for a lot of it's higher-end graphics effects. Since it will supposedly support all the way down to the GeForce 2, I assume it can get by without shader units, but that also means that the Cube is at a disadvantage compared to the Box.
That's what people said about Halo, but I found it to be extremely playable with the XBox controller (to the point where I'd almost be convinced that it had the perfect FPS controller setup). IMHO, the only thing that doesn't really work well on a console controller is weapon selection. I don't want to have to scroll through a list and memorize the order of the list. I just want to hit a button. Halo circumvented this by only letting you carry two weapons at a time (which also added some strategy to the game).
I'm at the same level you are, open lapping without any official timing (ie, not Solo I). I'm not at the point where I need to modify my car yet, since I'm still learning. I plan to get into autocross in a year or so, money providing, so I might be more concerned about weight at that point, but neutralizing the handling of the car will be a more important first step. As far as horsepower goes, I don't even drive to the full capabilities of my car yet, so that money is better spent on driver education for now.
Very true. I'd compare it to the past -- American muscle cars were about drag racing, and they were much more accessible, so people dragged them. German autos were about road racing even back then, but then as now, they weren't as accessible and so it wasn't the popular sport. Japanese imports have taken the place of the American muscle car as the accessible racer, and so that's what people race today. (It's annoying when people use the term "import" to mean only Japanese cars, and so lump those of us with precision pieces of German engineering in the same boat when they refer to "import racing". Not trying to be high-and-mighty, just pointing out that "import racing" usually means drag, which few German cars do well.) It's a shame, though, as many of the cars people trick out for dragging would be better suited to carving up a road track instead.
Now I just need to find time to get back to the track again ...
I think the best explanation for what the big-ass wings do can be found here, in the first e-mail on 7/23/2002. To quote:
I'm sure the guy meant "rear of the car" rather than trunk lid (of course, he apparently doesn't understand the difference between FWD and RWD), but his poor grasp of English actually makes his point valid. Big wings do help hold your trunk lid down (well, if your trunk latch were somehow to break, like floorboards apparently break at high speed)!
Seems a little pointless to me. If you can afford to turn an old 911SC into a 993, then you could afford to just buy a 993 outright. But then, I guess the same thing applies across the board. The sport compact guys that spend money turning a Civic into a BMW usually end up spending more than if they'd just bought a BMW 3-series to begin with.
I'm all for engine transplants. That's a useful mod. Unfortunately, a lot of the conversions I've seen are cosmetic-only. The suspension, drivetrain, and engine are still original, but the body has been updated to look like it's something it's not. As far as building a track car goes, I've seen some fast Civic track cars. As you might guess, they didn't have "phat rims", a crazy body kit, or even a spoiler (Civics really don't need much of a spoiler at all, and certainly not huge spoilers as seen in "Fast and the Furious"). There's a huge difference between making a car fast and making it look fast.
Man, I really should've proof-read more closely. "my rears right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear" should read "my wheels right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear".
I guess it really depends on the goal, but if I were trying to lower my car for better handling, I'd do it by replacing the springs rather than cutting the springs I already have. Sure, it costs more money, but then I have springs that were designed for lowering the car rather than springs that have been cut. Same with bending struts for cambe. If I can't get enough camber out of the suspension components I have, I'll replace them with more adjustable components. Once you start bending and cutting stuff, I'm loathe to assume that those components are still structurally sound, and that's the last thing I want to worry about out on the track.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about cars with drag tires on them, because I don't drag race (my car is not a drag racer, even if I wanted it to be). As well, the car may be fast, but if the guy is challenging me on the street I just shake my head and ignore him (like some jackhole in a MB C35 AMG tried to do today on the interstate -- he was driving like a maniac, and tried to race me and an S2000; we both ignored him, so he sped off like a moron, endangering the lives of everybody on the road).
When I see that, I usually assume the goal was to fit wider wheels on the car than stock. Useful in a RWD car to help reduce understeer/increase oversteer, since most cars have understeer dialed in from the factory. Pretty useless on a FWD car except for the larger patch of rubber, but then it's usually the rear tires these guys do, anyway, which gives absolutely no benefit. Personally, I might be tempted to put 10" or 10.5" wheels on my car (my rears right now are 8.5" fronts and 9.5" rears, with 205/17s on the front and 255/17s on the rear), but most likely I'll stick with the wheels I have and put 225/17s on the front when it comes time to change the rubber (soon). I certainly wouldn't go any larger than that, especially since I'm in a rainy area, and wider tires lead to more pronounced hyrdoplanning.
Because obviously all of that A/V equipment is lighter than the bench that was in their before ...
I don't know about that. It looks quite a bit along the lines of the Carrera GT or the Enzo (though the Enzo has sharper lines). I don't know how much the Koenigsegg runs, but if it's anywhere in the vicinity of those two supercars ($500K and $650K, respectively for the Carrera GT and Enzo), it's out of most people's price range. It's certainly out of mine. Still, a sweet car, if not as boring as other Swedish cars.
There's no accounting for taste, but most of the mods are total crap. Double-bookshelf wings on FWD cars, ugly bodykits that add an insane amount of weight and screw up the car's aeordynamics, neon lights that do nothing but annoy other drivers, outrageously large wheels ("rims", as the "tunerz" call them) that ride like shit, lowered suspensions without an accompanying alignment (or worse, suspensions lowered simply by cutting the springs already there, rather than replacing with proper springs), decals that are silly (yes, your Civic is a Honda, we know that; so why must you have "Powered by Honda" on your front windscreen, obscuring half of your forward vision?), re-badging (the Civic Type-R is only available as a right-hand drive car, because it's only available in Japan; adding a Type-R badge and the red Honda "H" does not make your Civic a Type-R), Z3 fender gills on non-Z3s, etc.
Unfortunately, this isn't even limited to the sport compact crowd, either. Look on ebay to see a whole slew of ruined older 911s that would be great except that the owners decided to "upgrade" them. Be very careful, because that 993 you're looking at may not be a 993 at all, but a 79 911SC with a 993 body.
Maybe somebody thinks these mods look good, and some of them do (a high-quality custom paint job, for example). Most, however, look like crap. They add nothing to the car, and just single you out as a poseur. Not to mention that most people doing these mods think they somehow make their cars fast, and then try to race anything and everything on the road. There's a place for racing, and it's not on the street.
The movie is rendered in-game, and Anachronox was based on the Quake 2 engine (as mentioned in the story) with some Ion Storm modifications (like a better particle system, thus the gratuitous energy fountain). I should say at this point that I haven't watched the movie, but I did play the game. Of course the graphics aren't state of the art. The engine is going on six years old now. The game was fun, though, and the story was pretty good (well, as far as I got into it), and so I would expect the movies to be the same -- good story, somewhat bland graphics by today's standards. However, you can't fault these movies for that, as much as you can't fault the old Dank & Scud comics for having crappy graphics (if you're too young to remember, the comics were taken from in-game shots of Quake 1). Enjoy the movie for what it is, and keep in mind the technical limitations they had to deal with.
And yet, people do it. There's nothing wrong with economical cars, but drivers don't seem to differentiate between types of cars. For example, I borrowed a friend's SUV the other day (had to pick up some stuff that I couldn't fit in my car). I was going 60-65 on the interstate (speed limit of 60, traffic flow around 75), and wouldn't dare drive it faster. The SUV simply wasn't made for that, and it wouldn't be safe to do so. However, on the same roads, I could push my car to 120+ (well, if it weren't for police and traffic, anyway). I don't, but I could. While I usually drive around 70mph, I routinely get passed by SUVs, Civics that are falling apart, Hyundais, Kias, jacked up 4x4s on nubby off-road tires, and any number of cars and trucks that weren't designed to handle sustained high speeds (or even standard interstate speeds, in some cases). Scary, yes, but scarier is the fact that I'm usually the one that gets pulled over, while those speeding death traps just zip on by.
I don't get it. Slashback articles tend to link to the previous stories, because by definition a Slashback story is a couple of updates to older stories (we don't see too many Slashbacks, because it seems the editors prefer to just create new stories). You've got everything you need -- a new post under a proper heading about changes and updates to a previous story, a link to the previous story for context and discussion, and an area to disucss the new updates. Sure, the discussion may include other topics as well, but that's okay -- most updates wouldn't generate a full story's worth (150-400 comments) of comments, unless those comments were a whole bunch of "this is a dupe" and karma-whoring duplicated comments from the previous story. Why do you need a full-blown story if a Slashback entry would provide all you ask?
Performance cars are hard to abuse. Just going fast isn't enough to abuse them (unlike trying to push a Hyundai to 100+mph), and if the track is well-designed you won't have to worry about any collisions when you leave the track. About the only thing you might have to worry about would be spinning without leaving the track, leaving the car in the way of traffic. Otherwise, keep the shiny side up and push it to the limits.
I've spun my car at the local race track several times (lapping in the rain is a very unique experience), with no damage but a bruised ego. However, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything, and plan to be back out there for more track experience. Rain or shine, there's a lot to learn.
Which sounds like the perfect definition for a Slashback story. We don't need another full-blown story on this just because Sun confirmed it. All we need is a paragraph in Slashback saying, "By the way, remember this story about Sun and the Opteron? Sun's confirmed it."
I understand the point of Java. However, things work out differently in practice than they do in theory. In theory, Java's "Write once, run anywhere" idea sounds great. In practice, Java's ui support is horrendous (better with IBM's SWT), and at least in the past (ignoring Microsoft's vm) the jvms on different platforms have sucked at different levels.
I don't know why you would write a server app in Java, but it's done. In fact, it's Java's main domain at the moment. I can guess why it was done, though. Taking my above examples of the crappiness of Java's UI support and issues moving across VMs, it comes as no surprise that Java would migrate to an area where it a) doesn't need to do any ui work, and b) can standardize on a single JVM on a single platform, so you don't have to worry about any odd behavior from the VM. Is this against the Java philosophy? Probably, if you think "Write once, run everywhere" is the beginning and end of what Java is all about. Too bad, though, because it's being done every day.
And that's a developer app (a fancy editor), which falls under my exception clause. Show me a good Java-based mail client (by "good", I meant something on par with Outlook (not Outlook Express), or at least Evolution), or a good Java-based browser (again, along the lines of IE or Mozilla, though I don't like Mozilla proper's default UI themes), or a good media player written in Java (again, along the lines of winamp, xmms, or wmp). To my knowledge, there aren't any, which is the point. People replying to my comment bring up development tools (generally targetted at developing Java, so of course the tools are written in Java), special configuration tools for Java-based services, and internal tools. I understood the original parent to be talking about normal users, ie Joe Sixpack and your mom, running Windows (which also ties into your comment about looking like Windows -- I don't want to have to make the app look like Windows, I want it to look like Windows if I'm running it in Windows, and like OS X if it's in OS X, and like GNOME if I'm running it under GNOME, and like KDE if in KDE, etc). I think my point still stands. From a normal user standpoint, there's nothing useful written in Java (aside from Limewire, though I have my doubts about that being good anyway).
And an off-topic comment about your sig: the graphics in the creatively named "Racer" game you list don't really seem "amazing" to me. Maybe I'm biased by professional games (Gran Turismo series, Sega GT series, Project: Gotham, etc). The cars don't even have drivers! There are some better shots on the game's website, but the one you chose makes the game look even worse than it is.
The last time I used Limewire (maybe a year ago, more or less), it was pure crap. Short of a complete UI rewrite, I wouldn't call it "good" software except in relation to Java-based client applications. If Limewire is your litmus test for Java applications, then I stand by my claim that Java is already dead on the client (with a few minor exceptions that I already pointed out, of course).
I'd guess you're correct. Why? Well, 99.995% of all java applets on web pages are horrible wastes of time (the best I've seen are DSLReports' Java tools, and even those are pretty flakey and barely useful). At the same time, Java for client-side applications is fairly aborted. Unless you're a Java developer, you're probably never going to use an application written in Java (and if you are a developer, usually the only Java-based app you use is your choice of IDE).
Java may be great on the server side, but it's a waste of time on the client side. Can you blame users for not bothering to get Sun's version of the JVM?