[RANT] a fairly large college campus. The worst printers to support are lexmark printers. Why? Their low end printers are pieces of junk, and stop working for no apparent reason.
They have the most non-standard drivers and API's around, so far as I can tell. You always have to be running their stupid program to print anything, and it always gives inane vocal notices like 'printing complete' (as if that wasn't flipping obvious if you're in the same room as the printer.)
Cannon isn't much better.
By contrast, my HP deskjet 812, while I do get raped for ink, has always worked flawlessly. I rarely have to fix HP's, always have to fix lexmark, and occasionally cannon.
Yes, I know where tech support is on the IT totem pole. I'm a mechanical engineer, so it's not my main interest anyway. anyway, thanks for reading my rant. please feel free to reply with your similar bitching.
Interestingly, several US newspapers at the time ran articles claiming there were, in fact, CIA assets among UNSCOM
This is so irrelevant it's not funny. Let's define 'spy', what a CIA 'asset' is: (from dictionary.com) 1. An agent employed by a state to obtain secret information, especially of a military nature, concerning its potential or actual enemies. 2. One employed by a company to obtain confidential information about its competitors.
How is this any different than what the inspectors are supposed to be different? Answer: It isn't. We send inspectors in there to determine, and therefor limit, the weapons capabilities of Iraq. The CIA did this in Soviet Russia for years. The Inspectors are doing this out in the open, but trying to find out the same things the CIA is interested in. It would make no difference if the entire team was made of CIA operatives- in fact, they'd probably be better at it than a bunch of chemists.
I don't give a fuck what you think. You don't give a fuck what I think.
And I care even less what an AC thinks, but I'll respond anyway.
But you're basically saying that there's no point to posting on slashdot... yet you posted this reply.Perhaps you should listen to yourself?
I know there's no point in posting on slashdot past my own enjoyment of arguing and occasionally being enlightened, or enlightening someone.
If we "give it a damn rest" then we might as well not post on Slashdot. Sure, our lives would be pretty much the same with or without Slashdot, but it's fun, so I post. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Oh, one more thing- I try never to bring up the labels 'liberal' or 'conservative' because they're so inciteful and amount to name-calling. I prefer to let stances and ideas stand on their own. So, if you identified lack of courage with liberals, that's your call. An adept one at that.
and those people we would call weak-willed moral relativists.
If it's important enough to start a war (or, more precisely, continue a war, since Iraq is violating the cease fire agreement of the gulf war), then an ancient artifact is certainly acceptable collateral damage.
You may disagree wether or not we should invade Iraq, but the decision is not made lightly. The importance of an (already studied) artifact is irrelevant in comparison.
Moreover, It takes courage to advocate and perform an unpleasent but neccessary action. It takes none at all to come out in favor of puppies and kittens, children playing in the sun, and M-16 barrels being used to hold flowers. Guess what? Bush, Rumsfield, Powell, and Blair value those things to. But these things will not happen in Iraq, or the middle east, by simply wishing them into existence.
Unless, of course, you believe that Saddam only poses a threat to his own people, so why should we care?
If you can afford a lawyer, that is. Beyond that, it would seem to me that backing up your games to cd's or dvd's to preserve them, and then playing these copies, is a legitimate need for modchipping. (I know I'm preaching to the choir here)
THere's a market for items such as this Game doctor , but these only restored scratched copies. They do no good if the originals get stolen, are run over by your roommate on inline skates, etc. I think that protecting your investment with a $0.50 blank and a $50 mod chip (or however much it costs) is the only intelligent thing to do. Notwithstanding that you actually own the bloody hardware and can do what you like with it, this is an easy, direct argument that shows modchips aren't only used for piracy.
Of course, I'm not sure how much this line of reasoning jives with the DMCA, which should just plain be repealed.
not all the time. small maps are quick, no matter what the detail level. Medium maps are fine until the city starts to get large, then it starts slowing down alot (only in so far as moving time forward. Development & sims and cars on the street usually go fine.)
Geforce 4 Ti 4600 @ AGP 4x 800 MHz PIII 256 MB RDRAM Intel VC 820 Motherboard Windows XP Games & 3d Mark ran off of 80GB WD 8MB cache Special edition hard drive, alone on a seperate IDE card on the PCI bus.
For Games: Simcity 4- large maps and pleasing resolutions bring my comp to it's knees. Running SC4 at 1024 & higher resolution is absolutely beautiful, running it at 800 x 600- it looks like ass. RtoCW runs fine at 1024, haven't tried it higher yet. Delta Force: Black Hawk down runs fine at 1024, with full effects. Haven't tried it higher yet. The water effects are stunning. UT2003 ran fine when i had a GF2 in here, haven't tried it since.
that has a chance in hell, I'm placing my bets on Cyc
It's basically a computer program that a bunch of researchers have spent 60 million dollars trying to teach it common sense. And they've had some impressive advancements. Previous slashdot story here
Ug. never buy a $50 bike. It'll fall apart incredibly fast. Go to a reputable bike shop and spend $300-$400 on a real bike.
They'll last much longer. I rode a walmart bike to pieces in one day- returned it and got my money back. I went to a bike shop and dropped 3x as much on a Schwinn (before they sold out to Pacific Bicycle- the new schwinns are crap.), and I've beaten the hell out of it for 100's of miles with only one major problem, that the bike shop fixed for free.
A guy who works in my building has one that he rides around occasionally (his wife works for Segway), and he let me try it out. It's pretty fun to ride around, actually, very simple to use. I got the hang of it in about 5 minutes with coaching, and was doing loops around the third floor atrium of the building (Morse Hall at the University of New Hampshire) shortly thereafter.
If I had $5,000 to spend on a toy, I'd do it in a second. That being said, I'd like to repeat the sentiments of previous posters: In the final equation, it has few advantages over a bike, and several disadvantages, and If I needed a way to get around without a car, I'd buy a bike first. Bikes go faster, even a mild lardass like myself can outride the segway's ~15 mile charge, and you can attach all kinds of trailers and racks to a bike if you want to haul stuff. Plus, there's the health benefits to providing the motive energy to moving your butt around.
Bikes are much larger, but much lighter. It's a bit easier to keep your clothes clean & pressed while riding a segway, so it could be a bicycle substitute for the suit type- as long as they don't mind looking like dorks.
This thing could be fairly useful for door to door postal service and similar applications.
Most people here probably know that the Segway is based on the technology developed for the Ibot 3000 , a balancing, standing wheelchair- truly an innovation for the disabled, and I'm sure it will sell very well.
The Segway, then, might be a good thing for the elderly, those still healthy enough to stand at any rate, to help them get around. But if they're fit enough to ride on this, maybe they should be riding a bike too...
Anyway, my conclusion: Fun, but a waste of money for anything outside of a few specific demographics and jobs. Get a bike. You'll live longer.
I don't actually get a lot of junkmail on my hotmail account. In fact, I haven't checked my hotmail account for two weeks, and I only have two pieces of mail in there: 1. Some crap from a mailing list I signed up for. 2. Spam.... from 'hotmail member services' sadly, I can't block them (I tried), but really, are "7 hot tax tips" really all that important for me to know, at least in terms of maintaining my account?
Shouldn't this kind of stuff come in as MSN-approved spam?
I can't really complain, though, cause it's free, and they only spam me once in a while.
I've had this account for a couple years now, and I use it as a junk email account whenever a website demands an email address. Still, no deluge of spam.
Some one wrote this the last time the BSA came up on Slashdot- sorry, I saved the quote but not the poster. The conventional wisdom thus far from other posters seems to be 'ignore it,' but if it goes further, consider this:
I know someone that was audited by the BSA and decided to fight it. Basically they countered by stating they wanted full disclosure of who reported them so as to determine the validity of the claim prior to wasting internal resources and dollars. They also argued that the reporting tools are a violation of privacy. Yes, they expected them to place some software on their network which scans their entire network not to mention each machine's registry. Third, they also argued that even if they were in violation of license, the license is between them and the vendor (after all, the license does not allow for the BSA as having legal proxy interests) and unless the vendor in questions decides that they'd like to personally persue the issue, the BSA does not have legal authority or the legal grounds to persue the action. Furthermore, they argued that even if something odd was discovered and they lost, only the government has the right to impose fines on legal matters as such and they would be within their legal rights to simply purchase any outstanding licenses or settle directly with the vendor in question and completely dismiss the BSA altogether thereby eliminating the need to pay any fines or added fees.
Last I heard, even though two ex-employees had turned them in, the BSA simply walked from the issue as, from what I gathered, they really don't have a legal leg to stand on.
On Simcity 4....
on
Sim-Dud?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Yeah, when I first got it, I screwed up about 5 cities in a row, and it sucked hardcore. Then I figured out how to play, and it's pretty sweet once you get going.
As for the things you brought up: Reconcile edges- do all your terraforming, reconcile the edges and just accept any undesirable areas. Then name the city and start it. If you still have a problem, reconcile the empty neighboring landmasses to your existing city, or just ignore it altogether. Honestly, I've covered about 1/4 of the region, and it hasn't really been a problem. Also, i've noticed that cities with neighbors do better, especially the commericial sector, than stand alone cities.
Power from a neighbor- could be better, I agree. You need empty space next to the edge of the map with the plant, and you need to run the otherwise unneeded powerlines to the edge of the map, then approve a connection. Go to the map where you want to buy the power, and find the power lines. Zone next to them, do not zone on top of them. Go to neighbor deals in the budget panel and make the deal. Yes, it could be better.
Local funding- keep it simple to start- only build a power plant. (and maybe a fire station after 500-1000 people) Spread over the map. You should be able to get to 3000 people or so by just giving them electricity, and nothing else. Build low density residential, med density business, and med density industry, or farms. Farms get you some neat gifts, and make the map pretty, but don't give you any revenue, so keep that in mind. You'll be raking in the cash if you follow that plan, and then growth will start to slow. At this point, add water to the entire map, and businesses and industry will pick up a little again. Now that you've got the map laid out, start adding academic institutions and health facilities. Position them for maximum coverage, as either of them are only good for residential areas. Then adjust the funding for a 50% buffer over whatever their users are. Keep an eye on the funding; every few years go back and adjust it on all the structures to make sure the capacity isn't overflowed and the workers strike. Don't reduce the fire fighting budget, because even a small change reduces their radius and competency significantly. Police are okay to take to 80% funding. They won't like it, but they won't strike either. But if you try and give them all the services right from the start, you'll drive the city into the ground. Add services slowly. After things get rolling, go over the map and raise everything to high-density, then keep an eye on all funding levels as the city grows.
Changing cities is slower then hell. agreed.
If you get the hang of it, it really is fun to play, and i've had three hours pass on me while I was perfecting a city- and I didn't notice.
my 2 cents anyway.
(Also, introducing individual sims into the city is cute- for about 15 minutes. Then their status updates just clutter all the other news in the ticker box, and you'll want to kick them out.)
It would be a difficult target...
on
Columbia Coverage
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
All talk I've seen of any space elevator is insistent on putting it in the middle of the pacific ocean- a location you'd don't exactly sneak up on. It would also be a safe assumption that we would protect the space elevator base with a force substantial enough to destroy any conceivable terrorist attack, having learned our lessons on 9-11. Moreover, since the base would be in the middle of the ocean, and not in a city, there would be little opposition to stationing a couple cruise missiles (for ships) and SAM sites there. I think it's also safe to presume that all cargo and passengers would be thoroughly checked before beginning the journey to the base, to avoid any problems from that angle.
Having the base in the middle of the ocean, 3000 miles from land, and protected by the US military does more than buy us time. It's damn good insurance against the likes of Al-Qaida, who, at best, have access to Cold-War era Soviet weapons. An organization that must highjack passenger planes and fill rental trucks with explosives to carry out it's goals cannot evade or overwhelm arrays of active sonar bouys, a Los Angeles Class submarine, AWACS radar planes, SAM sites, Tomohawk cruise missiles, Commanches, JSF, or whatever else we station there if we build it.
New York City is a busy city, with 16 million people. It has it's own airport, and several other airports within an hour's flight time. It makes a great target.
A space elevator installation, in the middle of the ocean, protected by the United States DoD, would be well protected against the likes of Al-Qaida. They couldn't sneak in if they tried.
Even if they acquire surface-skimming cruise missiles, they're of little good. You can't hide from JSTARS and AWACS on the ocean, and once they get close, the phalanx guns (which we have mounted on destroyers and aircraft carriers) are quite capable of destroying a missile in flight.
1&2 Thanks for the clarification. 3: We only lost because of bullshit political policies like 'gradual' escalation & other annoying interferences, from what I understand. Had the military been unleashed for the steam plow kind of job we let it do in the Gulf War, it would have been over in our favor in a matter of a few years, not lost over a couple decades.
Wether or not we should have been there in the first place is an entirely valid question... for another discussion.
Yes, but it's perfectly legal according to the Geneva convention to use.50 Calibre weapons on equipment. Equipment such as light vehicles, tents, helmets, backpacks, uniforms, other weapons, etc. Apparently, many of the previous items are occupied or worn when shot with a.50 calibre bullet, but that's not a war crime.
Also, the Geneva convention, AFAIK, only applies to wars between signatories. Also, in case you haven't noticed, only the losers of a war get tried for war crimes. The US doesn't lose Wars. (Anymore. yeah, yeah, Canadains burned DC almost two centuries ago....)
Don't confuse the fairly intelligent, fairly creative people who actually make the Disney films from the lawyer/MBA scum who seek to make copyrights perpetual. Two arms of the same beast, but different arms nonetheless. T
Because alot of companies that send out service trucks want them, to keep tabs on their drivers. They've also made there way into quite a few Chevy Silverado 1500's & Ford F-150's which the general public buy.
And there's a microphone in the cab to record the last 30 seconds of sound in the passenger compartment.
Police have analyzed these whenever available, especially in fatal accidents.
Usually, the last thing heard is pretty mundane, some trite cell phone call wich distracted the driver, some conversation, whatever, with "Oh God!" or "Holy Shit!!" at the very last second.
They did find a disturbing trend in the deep south, though, where the last thing heard was usually something like: "Ya'll Hold my beer and watch this"
go to the kazaa lite people, they have a great list to block- it's where i got mine. If you still want mine, just email me, and I'll send it.
Also, I've found on my XP box it's faster if you direct to 0.0.0.0 than 127.0.0.1, but kazaalite's lists all go to 127- so you might want to do a find and replace in a word editor.
MS update, like the other guy says. In addition, ConsumptionJunction.com renders like ass, but is at least usable- last version of Mozilla it wasn't. And often times shockwave and flash based sites don't work quite right, and it occasionally begs for plug-ins it already has. Sorry I can't think of more examples.
Slashdot Mirror
[RANT]
a fairly large college campus. The worst printers to support are lexmark printers.
Why?
Their low end printers are pieces of junk, and stop working for no apparent reason.
They have the most non-standard drivers and API's around, so far as I can tell. You always have to be running their stupid program to print anything, and it always gives inane vocal notices like 'printing complete' (as if that wasn't flipping obvious if you're in the same room as the printer.)
Cannon isn't much better.
By contrast, my HP deskjet 812, while I do get raped for ink, has always worked flawlessly. I rarely have to fix HP's, always have to fix lexmark, and occasionally cannon.
Yes, I know where tech support is on the IT totem pole. I'm a mechanical engineer, so it's not my main interest anyway. anyway, thanks for reading my rant. please feel free to reply with your similar bitching.
[/RANT]
Interestingly, several US newspapers at the time ran articles claiming there were, in fact, CIA assets among UNSCOM
This is so irrelevant it's not funny. Let's define 'spy', what a CIA 'asset' is: (from dictionary.com)
1. An agent employed by a state to obtain secret information, especially of a military nature, concerning its potential or actual enemies.
2. One employed by a company to obtain confidential information about its competitors.
How is this any different than what the inspectors are supposed to be different? Answer: It isn't.
We send inspectors in there to determine, and therefor limit, the weapons capabilities of Iraq. The CIA did this in Soviet Russia for years. The Inspectors are doing this out in the open, but trying to find out the same things the CIA is interested in.
It would make no difference if the entire team was made of CIA operatives- in fact, they'd probably be better at it than a bunch of chemists.
I don't give a fuck what you think. You don't give a fuck what I think.
And I care even less what an AC thinks, but I'll respond anyway.
But you're basically saying that there's no point to posting on slashdot... yet you posted this reply.Perhaps you should listen to yourself?
I know there's no point in posting on slashdot past my own enjoyment of arguing and occasionally being enlightened, or enlightening someone.
If we "give it a damn rest" then we might as well not post on Slashdot. Sure, our lives would be pretty much the same with or without Slashdot, but it's fun, so I post. If you don't like it, don't read it.
Oh, one more thing- I try never to bring up the labels 'liberal' or 'conservative' because they're so inciteful and amount to name-calling. I prefer to let stances and ideas stand on their own. So, if you identified lack of courage with liberals, that's your call. An adept one at that.
Some would say it's not.
and those people we would call weak-willed moral relativists.
If it's important enough to start a war (or, more precisely, continue a war, since Iraq is violating the cease fire agreement of the gulf war), then an ancient artifact is certainly acceptable collateral damage.
You may disagree wether or not we should invade Iraq, but the decision is not made lightly. The importance of an (already studied) artifact is irrelevant in comparison.
Moreover, It takes courage to advocate and perform an unpleasent but neccessary action. It takes none at all to come out in favor of puppies and kittens, children playing in the sun, and M-16 barrels being used to hold flowers.
Guess what? Bush, Rumsfield, Powell, and Blair value those things to. But these things will not happen in Iraq, or the middle east, by simply wishing them into existence.
Unless, of course, you believe that Saddam only poses a threat to his own people, so why should we care?
If you can afford a lawyer, that is. Beyond that, it would seem to me that backing up your games to cd's or dvd's to preserve them, and then playing these copies, is a legitimate need for modchipping. (I know I'm preaching to the choir here)
THere's a market for items such as this Game doctor , but these only restored scratched copies. They do no good if the originals get stolen, are run over by your roommate on inline skates, etc. I think that protecting your investment with a $0.50 blank and a $50 mod chip (or however much it costs) is the only intelligent thing to do. Notwithstanding that you actually own the bloody hardware and can do what you like with it, this is an easy, direct argument that shows modchips aren't only used for piracy.
Of course, I'm not sure how much this line of reasoning jives with the DMCA, which should just plain be repealed.
not all the time. small maps are quick, no matter what the detail level. Medium maps are fine until the city starts to get large, then it starts slowing down alot (only in so far as moving time forward. Development & sims and cars on the street usually go fine.)
I haven't dared try a large map yet.
3d Mark 2003 Score: 1252
Geforce 4 Ti 4600 @ AGP 4x
800 MHz PIII
256 MB RDRAM
Intel VC 820 Motherboard
Windows XP
Games & 3d Mark ran off of 80GB WD 8MB cache Special edition hard drive, alone on a seperate IDE card on the PCI bus.
For Games:
Simcity 4- large maps and pleasing resolutions bring my comp to it's knees. Running SC4 at 1024 & higher resolution is absolutely beautiful, running it at 800 x 600- it looks like ass.
RtoCW runs fine at 1024, haven't tried it higher yet.
Delta Force: Black Hawk down runs fine at 1024, with full effects. Haven't tried it higher yet. The water effects are stunning.
UT2003 ran fine when i had a GF2 in here, haven't tried it since.
my 2 cents
that has a chance in hell, I'm placing my bets on Cyc
It's basically a computer program that a bunch of researchers have spent 60 million dollars trying to teach it common sense. And they've had some impressive advancements. Previous slashdot story here
Netcraft comfirms it.
(you can shoot me now)
Ug. never buy a $50 bike. It'll fall apart incredibly fast. Go to a reputable bike shop and spend $300-$400 on a real bike.
They'll last much longer. I rode a walmart bike to pieces in one day- returned it and got my money back. I went to a bike shop and dropped 3x as much on a Schwinn (before they sold out to Pacific Bicycle- the new schwinns are crap.), and I've beaten the hell out of it for 100's of miles with only one major problem, that the bike shop fixed for free.
BUY A REAL BIKE.
A guy who works in my building has one that he rides around occasionally (his wife works for Segway), and he let me try it out.
It's pretty fun to ride around, actually, very simple to use. I got the hang of it in about 5 minutes with coaching, and was doing loops around the third floor atrium of the building (Morse Hall at the University of New Hampshire) shortly thereafter.
If I had $5,000 to spend on a toy, I'd do it in a second.
That being said, I'd like to repeat the sentiments of previous posters: In the final equation, it has few advantages over a bike, and several disadvantages, and If I needed a way to get around without a car, I'd buy a bike first. Bikes go faster, even a mild lardass like myself can outride the segway's ~15 mile charge, and you can attach all kinds of trailers and racks to a bike if you want to haul stuff. Plus, there's the health benefits to providing the motive energy to moving your butt around.
Bikes are much larger, but much lighter. It's a bit easier to keep your clothes clean & pressed while riding a segway, so it could be a bicycle substitute for the suit type- as long as they don't mind looking like dorks.
This thing could be fairly useful for door to door postal service and similar applications.
Most people here probably know that the Segway is based on the technology developed for the Ibot 3000 , a balancing, standing wheelchair- truly an innovation for the disabled, and I'm sure it will sell very well.
The Segway, then, might be a good thing for the elderly, those still healthy enough to stand at any rate, to help them get around. But if they're fit enough to ride on this, maybe they should be riding a bike too...
Anyway, my conclusion: Fun, but a waste of money for anything outside of a few specific demographics and jobs.
Get a bike. You'll live longer.
I don't actually get a lot of junkmail on my hotmail account. In fact, I haven't checked my hotmail account for two weeks, and I only have two pieces of mail in there:
1. Some crap from a mailing list I signed up for.
2. Spam.... from 'hotmail member services' sadly, I can't block them (I tried), but really, are "7 hot tax tips" really all that important for me to know, at least in terms of maintaining my account?
Shouldn't this kind of stuff come in as MSN-approved spam?
I can't really complain, though, cause it's free, and they only spam me once in a while.
I've had this account for a couple years now, and I use it as a junk email account whenever a website demands an email address. Still, no deluge of spam.
Some one wrote this the last time the BSA came up on Slashdot- sorry, I saved the quote but not the poster. The conventional wisdom thus far from other posters seems to be 'ignore it,' but if it goes further, consider this:
I know someone that was audited by the BSA and decided to fight it. Basically they countered by stating they wanted full disclosure of who reported them so as to determine the validity of the claim prior to wasting internal resources and dollars. They also argued that the reporting tools are a violation of privacy. Yes, they expected them to place some software on their network which scans their entire network not to mention each machine's registry. Third, they also argued that even if they were in violation of license, the license is between them and the vendor (after all, the license does not allow for the BSA as having legal proxy interests) and unless the vendor in questions decides that they'd like to personally persue the issue, the BSA does not have legal authority or the legal grounds to persue the action. Furthermore, they argued that even if something odd was discovered and they lost, only the government has the right to impose fines on legal matters as such and they would be within their legal rights to simply purchase any outstanding licenses or settle directly with the vendor in question and completely dismiss the BSA altogether thereby eliminating the need to pay any fines or added fees.
Last I heard, even though two ex-employees had turned them in, the BSA simply walked from the issue as, from what I gathered, they really don't have a legal leg to stand on.
Yeah, when I first got it, I screwed up about 5 cities in a row, and it sucked hardcore. Then I figured out how to play, and it's pretty sweet once you get going.
As for the things you brought up:
Reconcile edges- do all your terraforming, reconcile the edges and just accept any undesirable areas. Then name the city and start it. If you still have a problem, reconcile the empty neighboring landmasses to your existing city, or just ignore it altogether. Honestly, I've covered about 1/4 of the region, and it hasn't really been a problem. Also, i've noticed that cities with neighbors do better, especially the commericial sector, than stand alone cities.
Power from a neighbor- could be better, I agree. You need empty space next to the edge of the map with the plant, and you need to run the otherwise unneeded powerlines to the edge of the map, then approve a connection. Go to the map where you want to buy the power, and find the power lines. Zone next to them, do not zone on top of them. Go to neighbor deals in the budget panel and make the deal. Yes, it could be better.
Local funding- keep it simple to start- only build a power plant. (and maybe a fire station after 500-1000 people) Spread over the map. You should be able to get to 3000 people or so by just giving them electricity, and nothing else. Build low density residential, med density business, and med density industry, or farms. Farms get you some neat gifts, and make the map pretty, but don't give you any revenue, so keep that in mind.
You'll be raking in the cash if you follow that plan, and then growth will start to slow. At this point, add water to the entire map, and businesses and industry will pick up a little again. Now that you've got the map laid out, start adding academic institutions and health facilities. Position them for maximum coverage, as either of them are only good for residential areas. Then adjust the funding for a 50% buffer over whatever their users are. Keep an eye on the funding; every few years go back and adjust it on all the structures to make sure the capacity isn't overflowed and the workers strike.
Don't reduce the fire fighting budget, because even a small change reduces their radius and competency significantly. Police are okay to take to 80% funding. They won't like it, but they won't strike either.
But if you try and give them all the services right from the start, you'll drive the city into the ground. Add services slowly.
After things get rolling, go over the map and raise everything to high-density, then keep an eye on all funding levels as the city grows.
Changing cities is slower then hell. agreed.
If you get the hang of it, it really is fun to play, and i've had three hours pass on me while I was perfecting a city- and I didn't notice.
my 2 cents anyway.
(Also, introducing individual sims into the city is cute- for about 15 minutes. Then their status updates just clutter all the other news in the ticker box, and you'll want to kick them out.)
All talk I've seen of any space elevator is insistent on putting it in the middle of the pacific ocean- a location you'd don't exactly sneak up on. It would also be a safe assumption that we would protect the space elevator base with a force substantial enough to destroy any conceivable terrorist attack, having learned our lessons on 9-11.
Moreover, since the base would be in the middle of the ocean, and not in a city, there would be little opposition to stationing a couple cruise missiles (for ships) and SAM sites there.
I think it's also safe to presume that all cargo and passengers would be thoroughly checked before beginning the journey to the base, to avoid any problems from that angle.
Having the base in the middle of the ocean, 3000 miles from land, and protected by the US military does more than buy us time. It's damn good insurance against the likes of Al-Qaida, who, at best, have access to Cold-War era Soviet weapons. An organization that must highjack passenger planes and fill rental trucks with explosives to carry out it's goals cannot evade or overwhelm arrays of active sonar bouys, a Los Angeles Class submarine, AWACS radar planes, SAM sites, Tomohawk cruise missiles, Commanches, JSF, or whatever else we station there if we build it.
New York City is a busy city, with 16 million people. It has it's own airport, and several other airports within an hour's flight time. It makes a great target.
A space elevator installation, in the middle of the ocean, protected by the United States DoD, would be well protected against the likes of Al-Qaida. They couldn't sneak in if they tried.
Even if they acquire surface-skimming cruise missiles, they're of little good. You can't hide from JSTARS and AWACS on the ocean, and once they get close, the phalanx guns (which we have mounted on destroyers and aircraft carriers) are quite capable of destroying a missile in flight.
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
1&2 Thanks for the clarification.
3: We only lost because of bullshit political policies like 'gradual' escalation & other annoying interferences, from what I understand. Had the military been unleashed for the steam plow kind of job we let it do in the Gulf War, it would have been over in our favor in a matter of a few years, not lost over a couple decades.
Wether or not we should have been there in the first place is an entirely valid question... for another discussion.
Yes, but it's perfectly legal according to the Geneva convention to use .50 Calibre weapons on equipment. Equipment such as light vehicles, tents, helmets, backpacks, uniforms, other weapons, etc. Apparently, many of the previous items are occupied or worn when shot with a .50 calibre bullet, but that's not a war crime.
Also, the Geneva convention, AFAIK, only applies to wars between signatories. Also, in case you haven't noticed, only the losers of a war get tried for war crimes. The US doesn't lose Wars. (Anymore. yeah, yeah, Canadains burned DC almost two centuries ago....)
Wayland-Yutani?
Nah, nowhere near that big....
Don't confuse the fairly intelligent, fairly creative people who actually make the Disney films from the lawyer/MBA scum who seek to make copyrights perpetual. Two arms of the same beast, but different arms nonetheless. T
Because alot of companies that send out service trucks want them, to keep tabs on their drivers. They've also made there way into quite a few Chevy Silverado 1500's & Ford F-150's which the general public buy.
And there's a microphone in the cab to record the last 30 seconds of sound in the passenger compartment.
Police have analyzed these whenever available, especially in fatal accidents.
Usually, the last thing heard is pretty mundane, some trite cell phone call wich distracted the driver, some conversation, whatever, with "Oh God!" or "Holy Shit!!" at the very last second.
They did find a disturbing trend in the deep south, though, where the last thing heard was usually something like:
"Ya'll Hold my beer and watch this"
well, the first books using this type of paper are anthologies of erotic fiction....
go to the kazaa lite people, they have a great list to block- it's where i got mine. If you still want mine, just email me, and I'll send it.
Also, I've found on my XP box it's faster if you direct to 0.0.0.0 than 127.0.0.1, but kazaalite's lists all go to 127- so you might want to do a find and replace in a word editor.
-Mike
MS update, like the other guy says.
In addition, ConsumptionJunction.com renders like ass, but is at least usable- last version of Mozilla it wasn't.
And often times shockwave and flash based sites don't work quite right, and it occasionally begs for plug-ins it already has. Sorry I can't think of more examples.
my hosts file is already several KB long. Another entry is added everytime an advertiser annoys me. Like Robofind. Soon to be Orbitz, I'm sure.
Yes, I use mozilla a lot, but I still need IE for some sites.
Thank you.