Not to nit pick, but there's actually two states in the game, critically wounded and dead. If you're dead-dead you can't be revived. If you're critically wounded, you're incapacitated for a short amount of time (during which time you may be revived by a medic) before you die. The system seems to take into account how much damage you take to determine whether you're wounded or dead... e.g. small arms fire and splash damage seems to leave you critically wounded, whereas big stuff like getting hit by artillery/c4 or run over by a vehicle kills you instantly.
Really? I have a 9800XT, gig of RAM and a P4 3.06, and I can play OK at high settings, with res. set to 1024x768, 6xAA, just turn down dynamic lighting, shadows to medium and it runs like buttah 99% of the time... but yeah the load times are pretty long (but well worth the wait!)
As for the "only" 12 maps, remember that map size scales to the number of people playing. Heck, the demo only ships with one "map", but for all practical purposes it shipped with three... the same map in a 16-person game is pretty different (and plays differently) from the 32-person map and the 64.
Sure you can, refinance with a different company... you could even end up with a better deal. Although at this point it's a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, but if you want to "send a message" to Citi then that's what you want to do.
I suggest that if a great number of your users are using email as a file storage system that you as a diligent IT guy should spend some time figuring out ways to make it work for them.
Genius thinking like this is how we wound up with e-mail applications that'll happily and silently run any macro or executable you send to it, operating systems where everything is run with administrator privileges by default, the list goes on.
IT departments exist for the sake of users
Yes and no. IT departments exist to provide solutions to users problems. In the case quoted above, a perfectly viable, standard solution exists and is in place (the file server). If you want to blame the IT department for anything, it's for 1. not educating users sufficiently about the file server to make it useable, and 2. not enforcing the 'no large files' policy and/or having it documented as part of a larger IT/email policy.
How is this a violation of your civil liberties? The Bill of Rights only protects your life, freedom and property. Driving is a privilege, and as such constitutional protections don't apply.
I can't buy a local number in a country that Skype doesn't support, right?
From what I have read, that's correct. As for which is cheapest... general rule of thumb is intra-city I'm guessing that Skype will expand this service as much as is possible (or at least profitable) so their coverage *should* improve with time.
In addition to this, you can also buy numbers in foreign countries for a fairly reasonable price. If you have friends/family in another country, you can buy a local number in that country, then they can call that number, which is forwarded over the IP network to ring to your PC... so basically for a small monthly fee, your overseas folks can make a local call which can ring to your PC anywhere it can be connected to a network, or go to skype voicemail which again is accessible via PC. Pretty nifty idea IMO.
Just want to add my support for this post. Until you've answered the first three questions, the solution can vary from a single box with an appropriately-sized pipe to a full N-tier load-balanced architecture. I was going to add something as well, but now I've forgotten it.:-P
Re:Introducing a joke you will get sick of quickly
on
The Xbox 360 Unveiled
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· Score: 3, Insightful
I disagree... GTA:SA is the perfect example of a game that's too ambitious for it's hardware; it would have been much better suited to a next-gen console. The graphics were grainy (although the textures were OK), jaggies all over the place, and you get some serious performance issues in key parts of the game. Don't get me wrong, the game itself is pretty good and a blast, but the lackluster hardware performance (especially texture load time! Driving over not-yet-rendered bridges is weird) seriously hampered my enjoyment of the game.
While I disagree with your point about the Xbox design I have to say that site is pretty sweet... I about wet myself when I saw the Tetris shelves! Kudos.
My personal apologies that we don't all speak the Queen's english, and that obviously makes it too difficult for you to apply your deductive reasoning skills to understand the idea we were trying to convey.
Ironically, you've hit the nail exactly on the head.
Grammatical rules exist to remove ambiguities and allow users to clearly express their thoughts. By not following rules, you're requiring the reader to try and discern the writer's intent for themselves. If the reader has to try and puzzle out what the hell you're trying to say, then odds are you've already failed (regardless of how good your point might be) and you've wasted your time.
IE has spyware problems because it leaves problems, both bugs and poor design choices, unpatched for months.
I'd say well over half of the problems with windows software are caused by user incompetence. According to Valve's latest hardware/software poll, only 50% of users with XP had installed SP2. Considering that on average the average gamer is more informed hardware and patch wise than the average computer user, that's amazingly low. Recent news articles seem to indicate that corporate rollouts of SP2 are proceeding at an even slower pace. Shit, we still see traces of viruses that are 4 or 5 years old floating around in the wild.
Er, actually, the very same Freedom of Information Act that grants you the right to look at the records
that the government keeps about YOU also grants ChoicePoint the right to obtain those self same records.
See here.
Do we really want to approve of government actions that basically circumvent due process? I'm normally not very chicken-little about these types of things, but the libertarian in me quails at the thought of a government that's granted the power to persecute whomever it wants (and unless
what the spyware companies are doing is actually illegal, whether under existing laws or new laws, that's exactly what you're advocating!) by bringing them up on completely unrelated charges.
You're basically advocating turning this country into a place where the citizenry can live in fear of the government knowing that if they upset the status quo they could be hauled off for whatever reason the government decides. I don't think that's the America that the framers of the Constitution had in mind.
Please... this wasn't some hostile takeover where the employees were railroaded into Redmond so some stockholders could make a quick buck by selling out Bungie; they entered the deal voluntarily with full understanding of what signing on with Microsoft/Xbox would mean for their plans for Macintosh. After Myth was so successful on PC, they wanted to reach the far bigger PC gamer market, and were also working on breaking into the console market at the time (Oni), both of which Microsoft could offer them.
iPod proves windows is losing? They're not even competing in the same marketspace! My toaster doesn't run Windows either (yet), so obviously Redmond is losing the war? Puh-lease! And besides, even Apple had to cave and release iTunes for Windows... because limiting iPod use to OSX users was killing their market share.
And don't tout OSX as a gaming OS please. With the exceptions of a few staunch cross-platform gaming houses (granted, some of them are big exceptions) gaming on OSX pretty much blows. Anyone who wants to play today's games today, and not in six months or a year, is using Windows. Hell, even Bungie made the leap, and they were one of the Macintosh die-hard shops.
I'm not a microsoft apologist by any means, their security is indeed pretty poor. If it improves as much as stability has since '95 though, watch out.
"Political Correctness" isn't exactly a good thing, but it's hardly the bogeyman you think it is.
You're right, it's much worse. It's the worst kind of antiquated logic that gives liberalism a bad name (or worse name, depending on where you stand).
It's like saying that if we paste kool-aid labels on Drano, it'll make the Drano OK to drink.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to nit pick, but there's actually two states in the game, critically wounded and dead. If you're dead-dead you can't be revived. If you're critically wounded, you're incapacitated for a short amount of time (during which time you may be revived by a medic) before you die. The system seems to take into account how much damage you take to determine whether you're wounded or dead... e.g. small arms fire and splash damage seems to leave you critically wounded, whereas big stuff like getting hit by artillery/c4 or run over by a vehicle kills you instantly.
Really? I have a 9800XT, gig of RAM and a P4 3.06, and I can play OK at high settings, with res. set to 1024x768, 6xAA, just turn down dynamic lighting, shadows to medium and it runs like buttah 99% of the time... but yeah the load times are pretty long (but well worth the wait!)
As for the "only" 12 maps, remember that map size scales to the number of people playing. Heck, the demo only ships with one "map", but for all practical purposes it shipped with three... the same map in a 16-person game is pretty different (and plays differently) from the 32-person map and the 64.
Er... so working at a university is like reading a poorly drawn cartoon that makes the goatse trolls around here look brilliant and witty?
Sure you can, refinance with a different company... you could even end up with a better deal. Although at this point it's a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, but if you want to "send a message" to Citi then that's what you want to do.
Genius thinking like this is how we wound up with e-mail applications that'll happily and silently run any macro or executable you send to it, operating systems where everything is run with administrator privileges by default, the list goes on.
IT departments exist for the sake of users
Yes and no. IT departments exist to provide solutions to users problems. In the case quoted above, a perfectly viable, standard solution exists and is in place (the file server). If you want to blame the IT department for anything, it's for 1. not educating users sufficiently about the file server to make it useable, and 2. not enforcing the 'no large files' policy and/or having it documented as part of a larger IT/email policy.
97%? Have you *read* slashdot? :-P
How is this a violation of your civil liberties? The Bill of Rights only protects your life, freedom and property. Driving is a privilege, and as such constitutional protections don't apply.
From what I have read, that's correct. As for which is cheapest... general rule of thumb is intra-city I'm guessing that Skype will expand this service as much as is possible (or at least profitable) so their coverage *should* improve with time.
Uhh.. performance, plain and simple. Seek times on HDD's are significantly lower than seek times on current media
In addition to this, you can also buy numbers in foreign countries for a fairly reasonable price. If you have friends/family in another country, you can buy a local number in that country, then they can call that number, which is forwarded over the IP network to ring to your PC... so basically for a small monthly fee, your overseas folks can make a local call which can ring to your PC anywhere it can be connected to a network, or go to skype voicemail which again is accessible via PC. Pretty nifty idea IMO.
Just want to add my support for this post. Until you've answered the first three questions, the solution can vary from a single box with an appropriately-sized pipe to a full N-tier load-balanced architecture. I was going to add something as well, but now I've forgotten it. :-P
I disagree... GTA:SA is the perfect example of a game that's too ambitious for it's hardware; it would have been much better suited to a next-gen console. The graphics were grainy (although the textures were OK), jaggies all over the place, and you get some serious performance issues in key parts of the game. Don't get me wrong, the game itself is pretty good and a blast, but the lackluster hardware performance (especially texture load time! Driving over not-yet-rendered bridges is weird) seriously hampered my enjoyment of the game.
While I disagree with your point about the Xbox design I have to say that site is pretty sweet... I about wet myself when I saw the Tetris shelves! Kudos.
Ironically, you've hit the nail exactly on the head. Grammatical rules exist to remove ambiguities and allow users to clearly express their thoughts. By not following rules, you're requiring the reader to try and discern the writer's intent for themselves. If the reader has to try and puzzle out what the hell you're trying to say, then odds are you've already failed (regardless of how good your point might be) and you've wasted your time.
IE has spyware problems because it leaves problems, both bugs and poor design choices, unpatched for months.
I'd say well over half of the problems with windows software are caused by user incompetence. According to Valve's latest hardware/software poll, only 50% of users with XP had installed SP2. Considering that on average the average gamer is more informed hardware and patch wise than the average computer user, that's amazingly low. Recent news articles seem to indicate that corporate rollouts of SP2 are proceeding at an even slower pace. Shit, we still see traces of viruses that are 4 or 5 years old floating around in the wild.
No, this is how GW plans to fix social security... a free flying car beta for everyone over 60 :-)
Is that english football fields or american football fields?
...unless you work at hooters.
I thought this was already in place, with the V-Chip?
Er, actually, the very same Freedom of Information Act that grants you the right to look at the records that the government keeps about YOU also grants ChoicePoint the right to obtain those self same records. See here.
Do we really want to approve of government actions that basically circumvent due process? I'm normally not very chicken-little about these types of things, but the libertarian in me quails at the thought of a government that's granted the power to persecute whomever it wants (and unless what the spyware companies are doing is actually illegal, whether under existing laws or new laws, that's exactly what you're advocating!) by bringing them up on completely unrelated charges.
You're basically advocating turning this country into a place where the citizenry can live in fear of the government knowing that if they upset the status quo they could be hauled off for whatever reason the government decides. I don't think that's the America that the framers of the Constitution had in mind.
Please... this wasn't some hostile takeover where the employees were railroaded into Redmond so some stockholders could make a quick buck by selling out Bungie; they entered the deal voluntarily with full understanding of what signing on with Microsoft/Xbox would mean for their plans for Macintosh. After Myth was so successful on PC, they wanted to reach the far bigger PC gamer market, and were also working on breaking into the console market at the time (Oni), both of which Microsoft could offer them.
iPod proves windows is losing? They're not even competing in the same marketspace! My toaster doesn't run Windows either (yet), so obviously Redmond is losing the war? Puh-lease! And besides, even Apple had to cave and release iTunes for Windows... because limiting iPod use to OSX users was killing their market share.
And don't tout OSX as a gaming OS please. With the exceptions of a few staunch cross-platform gaming houses (granted, some of them are big exceptions) gaming on OSX pretty much blows. Anyone who wants to play today's games today, and not in six months or a year, is using Windows. Hell, even Bungie made the leap, and they were one of the Macintosh die-hard shops.
I'm not a microsoft apologist by any means, their security is indeed pretty poor. If it improves as much as stability has since '95 though, watch out.
licenses :-)
You're right, it's much worse. It's the worst kind of antiquated logic that gives liberalism a bad name (or worse name, depending on where you stand). It's like saying that if we paste kool-aid labels on Drano, it'll make the Drano OK to drink.