Haha, here in the UK the parental control on the Sky+ PVR system is hopelessly flawed. When I used to set it to record MASH at about 4am in the morning or something it would usually record the end of some real-life antics of strippers show, yet, because the program information is based on the time and not some signal sent when the program starts, the last 5 minutes of the dodgy show plus the ads plus MASH plus more ads were counted as "MASH", so presumably if you set the parental filter to stop your kids watching anything dodgy they would still have been able to catch the naughty naughty "cuss words" and full-on full-frontal female nudity at the start of the recording...
The whole way that programme scheduling works on Sky+ pisses me off anyway- I've frequently had the start or end of a program missed because the thing starts recording at the time the program guide says the program is on, yet Sky don't start the program at the correct time...
When I saw the headline I thought they were bringing back the classic C64 game.
You know the one, sideways scrolling shoot-em-up but you can go left or right at your whim, (a la defender), also you can flip sideways to fit through tight spots.
It really needed fast reactions (which I no longer have), but was a lot of fun at the time.
I suppose if they did do it now it would be in full 3D and probably suck. Then again, the original would probably suck if I played it again now.
Better leave it alone and save those nice memories.
No, he wasn't making fun of the game, he was using joke game titles to belittle the work done by the army: suggesting it was just getting blisters, standing around or invading foreign countries for approval ratings.
The fact that you got modded up as insightful proved that moderation doesn't work.
You just made me think- if you played multiplayer Quake you could superimpose digital blood sprays so they looked like they were coming from the real players, and maybe even have damage decals.
I mean I do love them, they are kawaiiiiii and all, but they have this annoying habit of capturing and consuming snacks.
I have found that the geckos cannot actually open biscuit packets, but as soon as a packet of, for example, custard creams is opened, the geckos will "liberate" the packet and take it to their nest for consumption.
It would be bad enough with lesser creatures, but geckos scale. I don't just mean in the computer sense, which is still true (1000 Geckos can much more effectively steal your snacks than 1), but they scale the damn wall, taking your biscuits or other snacks out of reach.
It has got so bad that I have to eat Rich Tea biscuits, which, being very boring are passed over by the gecko community. However I fear the day will soon come when the geckos break down as I did and accept these lesser biscuits and no snack is safe from their thieving mitts.
Particular snacks to avoid, as they are the geckos' favourites:
1) Custard creams, bourbon creams etc. (Geckos are part of the annoying set of creatures that open up the two halves of the biscuit and lick the cream from the middle before discarding the soggy biscuit parts that are now no use to anyone except the most desperate seeker of snacks...)
2) Pretzels, ready salted crisps, anything that constitutes a salty snack.
3) M&Ms, Smarties, Revels, Minstrals, anything round and glazed.
Snacks that have so far not interested geckos:
1) Plain biscuits (Rich Tea etc.)
2) Potatoe salad, coleslaw etc. Geckos are extremely confused by potatoe salad, tending to get their snouts into it, then finding their whole face is covered with sticky white stuff. They will then tend to scream "Vision impared- I cannot see!" a lot before spinning off down a corridor and exploding.
3) Apples, bananas, other fruit. Geckos eschew "healthy" snacks, so maybe a gecko infestation will cause you to adopt a healthier diet- who knows ?
Since they were flogging a dead horse, the image is even funnier: the microsoft truck pulling a diseased corpse of a horse along, with RealNames execs walking behind, saying "Oooh, this is good".
$5 is way too much for one episode with ads. If they did this, one person would buy it, then share it on p2p.
I found something interesting on the tv licence website the other month. (Sorry, lost link- google for it if you like). Apparently if you have a TV licence then you can record programmes and then give the tape to a friend who does not have to have a TV licence.
It remains to be seen whether this can be used as an excuse for ripping BBC stuff and then sharing it p2p; reminds me of those plates outside people's houses saying: "There are no strangers, only friends we have yet to meet".
Dude, it's just the thought of it: that 5000 years ago some other conscious human being held that clay tablet the same way I'm holding it now.
It is perhaps irrational that human beings feel a sense of awe when faced with large time scales, and also that the awe is increased by physical contact.
If you can't understand it then you should watch that scene in Star Trek: First Contact where Picard is feeling the rocket...
"You might be able to find the finger prints of the authors, but they will be faint after 5000 years, you will have no chance of finding them if other people have touched the tablet over the years. (I don't know if we can find fingerprints after that long, but I think you see the danger even if what they are looking for is more subtile)"
FYI I have a Sumerian Clay tablet which has a very prominent and clear thumbprint on it. If I ever rip off some diamond or something I'm going to leave copies of this thumbprint all over the place to confuse people...
"Many of these tablets are damaged, or broken into several parts which you would have to hunt down and combine to see the whole story."
Kinda like p2p filesharing... Hope the last piece of Gilgamesh doesn't take as long to get hold of as most things do. (We've already been waiting a long time to complete it).
"Also, cuneiform writers tended not to care much about rules of typography"
Kinda like/. users.
"...so they considered it no big deal if long sentences wrapped around the edges of a tablet."
Haha! You see! Those ancestors of Klerk's had no chance with their tablet-widening posts back then!
"But software is advancing at a tremendous pace, so it becomes obsolete every 18 months."
Um- software is not obsolete if it continues to do the job it was designed to do, in fact it is trusted more if it has been reliable for so long.
I would feel safer trusting my life to an 8 year old DOS program than to a 6 month old Linux or Windows one.
The only way I can see an old bespoke package being worse than it used to be is if it had to handle a lot more requests than it used to, since it will probably scale poorly.
Yeah, I guess a good idea for a hit game would be:
Resident Eeeeeeeeeeewok!
I am replying to all the posts above too, since I wrote the original Empire/USA comparison.
"* Destruction of Death Star: WTC..... why did you chicken out here?"
I didn't chicken out- it seems that people took my post to be critical of the USA, hence all the flamebait mods, (though of course one idiot had to mod it redundant, and bizarrely I got email notification of a +1 insightful that doesn't show up).
Actually I was not being critical of the USA; my post was meant to be read in the light of the article, which proposed that we view the Imperials as the good guys.
"Clearly the World Trade Center was a military installation, armed to the teeth with laser turrets and weapons of mass destruction and thus was a legitimate target for the loveable ragtag group of muslim rebels."
OK, so there was this criticism above, that WTC was not a military installation, as well as the point that Ewoks didn't torture Stormtroopers, and that when Aldaraan was destroyed it was not at war with the Empire.
OK, so I admit that my parallels meet a good way before infinity (!), but you also have to consider that while we don't see Ewoks torture Stormtroopers (a point designed to evoke pity for the USA), we don't see Stormtroopers rape Ewok women and torch populated villages to the ground. (Now, on this point, you can see me being critical of the USA, I was not before...) My point is just that no comparison can be 100% or the 2 things being compared would actually only be one. Maybe I should have said "similarities" instead of parallels, (though mathematically, similarity implies more correspondance than parallel...)
" Nazi Germany not being that bad because "at least the trains ran on time."
That wasn't Nazi Germany- it was the reguime of Lenin or Stalin or Trotsky- I forget.
"You know, there are a lot of posts similar to this expressing what some might consider to be "unpopular" opinions that are intended to encourage reflection, or just looking at things from a different point of view. The thing that pisses me off the most is that invariably some ignorant fuck-chimp comes by and mods it as flamebait"
Arigatou Gozaimasu!
"there is no parellel between the US and the empire. The original trilogy came out in the late 70's and early 80's. How the fuck could he have made a parellel with the events of september 11th. You are a dumbass sir."
You didn't read my post, did you? You FAIL this test, I say you FAIL this test!
I said in my original post:
"Flame/downmod away; I am just trying to start a thread here. If people reply, even if they tell me why I am wrong, it will be interesting..."
I am happy to have achieved this, yet saddened as always by the unskillful moderation. I don't mind the karma hit but I object to my post being at zero because fewer people will see it...
It's funny how many parallels one could draw between the US and The Empire, although obviously George Lucas intended them to be the Nazis: "Stormtroopers", all-human (as the article points out) etc.
Also bear in mind that the examples I list below consist mainly of events that happened well after the films were made, so I am not really saying that GL even subconsciously made the Empire be a reflection of the USA.
US/Empire Parallels:
* Imperial treatment of captured rebels, e.g. Leia: Camp X-Ray.
* Battle on Endor: This is so Vietnam, the Imperials get creamed by the indiginous population because they know the land better, even if they have cruder weaponry.
* Destruction of Aldaraan: Nagasaki, Hiroshima. Large Explosion to cause terror against innocent civilians.
* Battle on Hoth: Seek out the rebels/terrorists in those caves/those ice-tunnels and wipe them out- all of them.
* Destruction of Death Star: WTC. Don't flame me for this, I am not trivializing this horrific tragedy or siding with the terrorists, but both the Death Star and the WTC were symbols of the supremacy of the US/the Empire.
graspee
Flame/downmod away; I am just trying to start a thread here. If people reply, even if they tell me why I am wrong, it will be interesting...
A lot of artists throught the centuries have been influenced by public opinion because they were trying to sell paintings to eat- similarly, a few games designers create games they think are cool with almost no regard to whether they will sell well.
"Hi- I need to get a new console cos all the games for the psone suck!!!!!! Should I get an xbox or a ps2, or even a gamecube? My friend says xbox sucks, but he works in Wendy's. Another friend says the gamecube will die. Is he right ? Which should I buy? Help me pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!"
Slashdot Mirror
Haha, here in the UK the parental control on the Sky+ PVR system is hopelessly flawed. When I used to set it to record MASH at about 4am in the morning or something it would usually record the end of some real-life antics of strippers show, yet, because the program information is based on the time and not some signal sent when the program starts, the last 5 minutes of the dodgy show plus the ads plus MASH plus more ads were counted as "MASH", so presumably if you set the parental filter to stop your kids watching anything dodgy they would still have been able to catch the naughty naughty "cuss words" and full-on full-frontal female nudity at the start of the recording...
The whole way that programme scheduling works on Sky+ pisses me off anyway- I've frequently had the start or end of a program missed because the thing starts recording at the time the program guide says the program is on, yet Sky don't start the program at the correct time...
graspee
When I saw the headline I thought they were bringing back the classic C64 game.
You know the one, sideways scrolling shoot-em-up but you can go left or right at your whim, (a la defender), also you can flip sideways to fit through tight spots.
It really needed fast reactions (which I no longer have), but was a lot of fun at the time.
I suppose if they did do it now it would be in full 3D and probably suck. Then again, the original would probably suck if I played it again now.
Better leave it alone and save those nice memories.
graspee
No, he wasn't making fun of the game, he was using joke game titles to belittle the work done by the army: suggesting it was just getting blisters, standing around or invading foreign countries for approval ratings.
The fact that you got modded up as insightful proved that moderation doesn't work.
graspee
You just made me think- if you played multiplayer Quake you could superimpose digital blood sprays so they looked like they were coming from the real players, and maybe even have damage decals.
How cool would that be ?
graspee
I do not trust geckos.
I mean I do love them, they are kawaiiiiii and all, but they have this annoying habit of capturing and consuming snacks.
I have found that the geckos cannot actually open biscuit packets, but as soon as a packet of, for example, custard creams is opened, the geckos will "liberate" the packet and take it to their nest for consumption.
It would be bad enough with lesser creatures, but geckos scale. I don't just mean in the computer sense, which is still true (1000 Geckos can much more effectively steal your snacks than 1), but they scale the damn wall, taking your biscuits or other snacks out of reach.
It has got so bad that I have to eat Rich Tea biscuits, which, being very boring are passed over by the gecko community. However I fear the day will soon come when the geckos break down as I did and accept these lesser biscuits and no snack is safe from their thieving mitts.
Particular snacks to avoid, as they are the geckos' favourites:
1) Custard creams, bourbon creams etc. (Geckos are part of the annoying set of creatures that open up the two halves of the biscuit and lick the cream from the middle before discarding the soggy biscuit parts that are now no use to anyone except the most desperate seeker of snacks...)
2) Pretzels, ready salted crisps, anything that constitutes a salty snack.
3) M&Ms, Smarties, Revels, Minstrals, anything round and glazed.
Snacks that have so far not interested geckos:
1) Plain biscuits (Rich Tea etc.)
2) Potatoe salad, coleslaw etc. Geckos are extremely confused by potatoe salad, tending to get their snouts into it, then finding their whole face is covered with sticky white stuff. They will then tend to scream "Vision impared- I cannot see!" a lot before spinning off down a corridor and exploding.
3) Apples, bananas, other fruit. Geckos eschew "healthy" snacks, so maybe a gecko infestation will cause you to adopt a healthier diet- who knows ?
graspee
"News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
Did any other BBC Micro-using geeks read this as "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters" in double-height ?
graspee
Begun, this clone joke has...
graspee
" they don't really have anything to lose if they do get broken into."
MS SQL Server can call arbitrary functions in arbitrary dlls if you have permission.
graspee
Funny you should say that; Opera crashed for me while loading the page...
graspee
Since they were flogging a dead horse, the image is even funnier: the microsoft truck pulling a diseased corpse of a horse along, with RealNames execs walking behind, saying "Oooh, this is good".
graspee
$5 is way too much for one episode with ads. If they did this, one person would buy it, then share it on p2p.
I found something interesting on the tv licence website the other month. (Sorry, lost link- google for it if you like). Apparently if you have a TV licence then you can record programmes and then give the tape to a friend who does not have to have a TV licence.
It remains to be seen whether this can be used as an excuse for ripping BBC stuff and then sharing it p2p; reminds me of those plates outside people's houses saying: "There are no strangers, only friends we have yet to meet".
graspee
This "Cat rang bell. I ate food" stuff is from a routine by the British comedian Eddie Izzard.
graspee
Dude, it's just the thought of it: that 5000 years ago some other conscious human being held that clay tablet the same way I'm holding it now.
It is perhaps irrational that human beings feel a sense of awe when faced with large time scales, and also that the awe is increased by physical contact.
If you can't understand it then you should watch that scene in Star Trek: First Contact where Picard is feeling the rocket...
graspee
"You might be able to find the finger prints of the authors, but they will be faint after 5000 years, you will have no chance of finding them if other people have touched the tablet over the years. (I don't know if we can find fingerprints after that long, but I think you see the danger even if what they are looking for is more subtile)"
FYI I have a Sumerian Clay tablet which has a very prominent and clear thumbprint on it. If I ever rip off some diamond or something I'm going to leave copies of this thumbprint all over the place to confuse people...
graspee
"Many of these tablets are damaged, or broken into several parts which you would have to hunt down and combine to see the whole story."
/. users.
Kinda like p2p filesharing... Hope the last piece of Gilgamesh doesn't take as long to get hold of as most things do. (We've already been waiting a long time to complete it).
"Also, cuneiform writers tended not to care much about rules of typography"
Kinda like
"...so they considered it no big deal if long sentences wrapped around the edges of a tablet."
Haha! You see! Those ancestors of Klerk's had no chance with their tablet-widening posts back then!
graspee
Someone's been reading the Age of Empires technology progression chart again...
graspee
From the article:
"But software is advancing at a tremendous pace, so it becomes obsolete every 18 months."
Um- software is not obsolete if it continues to do the job it was designed to do, in fact it is trusted more if it has been reliable for so long.
I would feel safer trusting my life to an 8 year old DOS program than to a 6 month old Linux or Windows one.
The only way I can see an old bespoke package being worse than it used to be is if it had to handle a lot more requests than it used to, since it will probably scale poorly.
graspee
Yeah, I guess a good idea for a hit game would be:
.... why did you chicken out here?"
Resident Eeeeeeeeeeewok!
I am replying to all the posts above too, since I wrote the original Empire/USA comparison.
"* Destruction of Death Star: WTC.
I didn't chicken out- it seems that people took my post to be critical of the USA, hence all the flamebait mods, (though of course one idiot had to mod it redundant, and bizarrely I got email notification of a +1 insightful that doesn't show up).
Actually I was not being critical of the USA; my post was meant to be read in the light of the article, which proposed that we view the Imperials as the good guys.
"Clearly the World Trade Center was a military installation, armed to the teeth with laser turrets and weapons of mass destruction and thus was a legitimate target for the loveable ragtag group of muslim rebels."
OK, so there was this criticism above, that WTC was not a military installation, as well as the point that Ewoks didn't torture Stormtroopers, and that when Aldaraan was destroyed it was not at war with the Empire.
OK, so I admit that my parallels meet a good way before infinity (!), but you also have to consider that while we don't see Ewoks torture Stormtroopers (a point designed to evoke pity for the USA), we don't see Stormtroopers rape Ewok women and torch populated villages to the ground. (Now, on this point, you can see me being critical of the USA, I was not before...) My point is just that no comparison can be 100% or the 2 things being compared would actually only be one. Maybe I should have said "similarities" instead of parallels, (though mathematically, similarity implies more correspondance than parallel...)
" Nazi Germany not being that bad because "at least the trains ran on time."
That wasn't Nazi Germany- it was the reguime of Lenin or Stalin or Trotsky- I forget.
"You know, there are a lot of posts similar to this expressing what some might consider to be "unpopular" opinions that are intended to encourage reflection, or just looking at things from a different point of view. The thing that pisses me off the most is that invariably some ignorant fuck-chimp comes by and mods it as flamebait"
Arigatou Gozaimasu!
"there is no parellel between the US and the empire. The original trilogy came out in the late 70's and early 80's. How the fuck could he have made a parellel with the events of september 11th. You are a dumbass sir."
You didn't read my post, did you? You FAIL this test, I say you FAIL this test!
I said in my original post:
"Flame/downmod away; I am just trying to start a thread here. If people reply, even if they tell me why I am wrong, it will be interesting..."
I am happy to have achieved this, yet saddened as always by the unskillful moderation. I don't mind the karma hit but I object to my post being at zero because fewer people will see it...
graspee
I suppose there will be many flames pointing out that the word "crackers" should have been used instead- damn Jargon File noobs.
graspee
It's funny how many parallels one could draw between the US and The Empire, although obviously George Lucas intended them to be the Nazis: "Stormtroopers", all-human (as the article points out) etc.
Also bear in mind that the examples I list below consist mainly of events that happened well after the films were made, so I am not really saying that GL even subconsciously made the Empire be a reflection of the USA.
US/Empire Parallels:
* Imperial treatment of captured rebels, e.g. Leia: Camp X-Ray.
* Battle on Endor: This is so Vietnam, the Imperials get creamed by the indiginous population because they know the land better, even if they have cruder weaponry.
* Destruction of Aldaraan: Nagasaki, Hiroshima. Large Explosion to cause terror against innocent civilians.
* Battle on Hoth: Seek out the rebels/terrorists in those caves/those ice-tunnels and wipe them out- all of them.
* Destruction of Death Star: WTC. Don't flame me for this, I am not trivializing this horrific tragedy or siding with the terrorists, but both the Death Star and the WTC were symbols of the supremacy of the US/the Empire.
graspee
Flame/downmod away; I am just trying to start a thread here. If people reply, even if they tell me why I am wrong, it will be interesting...
A lot of artists throught the centuries have been influenced by public opinion because they were trying to sell paintings to eat- similarly, a few games designers create games they think are cool with almost no regard to whether they will sell well.
graspee
White clothes reflect more and absorb less heat than black clothes. True Story.
graspee
"Actually, I was thinking of the French adaptation; the "twa turets", and I got all confused..."
You must have turets syndrome...
graspee
Next week on Ask Slashdot:
"Hi- I need to get a new console cos all the games for the psone suck!!!!!! Should I get an xbox or a ps2, or even a gamecube? My friend says xbox sucks, but he works in Wendy's. Another friend says the gamecube will die. Is he right ? Which should I buy? Help me pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!"
graspee
I submitted this story three weeks ago but it was rejected.
graspee