If he has a job that requires a telephone headset, though, why is he listening to music? Wouldn't the music interfere with phone conversations? Of course, maybe he just doesn't care.
Amen. Why is it automatically assumed that "programming" is the next thing she should learn? Teach her something else, like basic networking. Couch it in terms like "This is how the Internet works, and this is what the Internet is made of." I started doing IRC and the people there taught me bits and pieces of networking. Hell, I was killing dialup connections from a remote shell before I knew what ls was.
On a more serious note, perhaps he could teach her simple html so she could make crappy web sites. Give her a beginners html book and show her how to upload files, make directories and set permissions. That alone will teach a bunch of worthy concepts. If she has the interest, she can learn how to do stuff just based on the html foundation.
Speak in German with occasional shouting. Few languages are harsher or scarier-sounding than German, especially when spoken loudly. Try meandering from muttering to outright shouting and back.
If in a neghborhood where foreign languages might attract unwanted attention, try this: Pick an object and assign that object a quality it does not have. Assign bonus points if the object is not something people usually walk around muttering about (colored disks, Han Solo). Subtract points if the object is something people could reasonably be walking around muttering about (keys, car, wallet, yo' mama). Start walking and begin muttering that you can't find [object]. Occasionally look around and, in the sanest voice possible, ask if anyone knows where your [object] is. Ask for directions or a guide. Achieve eye contact, then stare angrily at them because they're hiding your [object].
I'd like to have one of those singing, dancing +3 longswords and teach it death metal. Call me a wuss, but a large, flying animated sword taking swings at me while screaming unintelligible death metal lyrics would scare me off.
On the other hand, I could also go for 25 strength and 25 constitution. I could take the backstab/gunshot/whatever, rip the mugger in half and regenerate.
Quick summary: Story takes place in 2055 where time travel is possible and occurs on a daily, regulated basis. Time Safari Inc. offers hunting safaris to any point in the past. You pick an animal, they give you big guns, send you back in time and you shoot your animal dead. Hunters are kept on anti-gravity paths in order to prevent them from changing history through the so-called butterfly effect (stomping on a blade of grass may wipe out Texas in the future, etc.)
The actual story is simple. A hunter goes back on a T-Rex safari, panics and runs off the path. He kills a butterfly in the process. The safari returns and finds the future changed for the worse. The end.
I suppose you could adapt the current RTS interface. It'd pretty much be like the article says. You'd click to build units. These units may or may not have defects, psychological issues, anti-war beliefs, etc. etc. Corruption might or might not result in your shiny new BigEffingTank8000 being sold to street gangs somewhere in Asia, or that vital shipment of anti-aircraft batteries being delayed until Senator Bob gets his vital SUV legislation passed. You select the units and tell them to go to area X and kill anything along the way. Along the way, the aformentioned problems might kill some, none, or all of your units, or maybe your units desert and go searching for Saddam's hidden gold cache. Once they reach area X, they sit there until you tell them to do something, unless those ugly problems rear their heads and new orders conflict with the heroin smuggling operation on the side. When you give the units an objective, they'll try and follow your orders until things go to hell, at which point they bail and return home. Once again, inherent unit problems might result in friendly-fire casualties or an aspirin factory explosion instead of a chemical weapons factory explosion.
This actually sounds like a fun game, if really frustrating.
A quick googling reveals this. Long-term domain name registration could conceivably be marketed to companies like Kongo Gumi, although I'm sure that in the real world this service will be abused.
IMO, forcing sites to register under a.sex TLD would create more problems that it would solve. The problem with this approach stems from the reason why communities have differing obscenity standards: porn in one location is acceptable material in another. What about the oft-mentioned boobies shown in African documentaries? Is that porn or an educational look at life in another country? What about swimwear sites featuring models in bikinis? Down the slippery FUD slope we go.
But ok, let's say that we commit to.sex anything that has depictions of naked people, breasts, genitalia and/or anuses (anusii? anii?). Off the top of my head, that puts breast cancer, plastic surgery, safe sex and African documentary sites in.sex. Should a breast cancer site be blocked, as you know.sex will be, by content filters?
I imagine that the majority of cheaters out there fall into the second category, which I like to call "Ruiners." Most of the cheaters I've seen derive their enjoyment from breaking the game rules through invulnerability, impossible weapons, etc., and from seeing the complaints from legit users. The enjoyment here is similar to that received from shining laser pointers at the screen in movie theaters.
I've played CTF-style games against an invulnerable flagger, and it's incredibly frustrating to watch a cheater enter your base, grab the flag and walk back to their side while ignoring concentrated fire from the defenders. Flaming quickly fills the chat space, and the cheater just sits back and taunts.
This method assumes that no one comes up with a working keygen. With a keygen, swapping banned keys for clean ones would be easy enough. Of course, I'm sure something's in place to prevent this sort of thing.
The sniper rifle in Syndicate absolutely sucked. It couldn't kill anything, so you were better off just using your standard weapon loadout for the job. If memory serves, the Syndicate Wars sniper rifle was worthy. In fact, I think it was the fastest way to kill just about anything until you got gauss or the high-tech laser weapons.
A revamp of Syndicate or Syndicate Wars selling for $20-$30 would be nice. Nostalgia alone would be reason enough for me to buy it, although new graphics and some new missions couldn't hurt.
My favorite tactic in Syndicate was to use the Persuadertron to minionize everyone I saw until I could persuade agents, then redline adrenaline and rush the enemy. You could get loads of new agents that way, but if there weren't many people around it could take forever. Another fun thing to do was persuade mass amounts of civilans, then arm them with leftover weapons and go around shooting things. Nothing like giving 50+ people miniguns/gauss and shooting everything you came across;)
Linux, of course. A printout of any distro's kernel source will provide you with an open source solution for all your excretory needs. In light of current events, however, might I suggest something by SCO?
What about the lawyers on the other side of the situations you describe? What about the lawyers who are fighting the SCO suits? "Good", like many things in the world, depends on the viewer's perspective.
I hate to speak out on the other side of the debate, but you won't get put in jail for beating someone to death. Oh sure, your wanted level increases by one star if you're seen beating her, but it's incredibly easy to evade the cops with a one, two or even three star rating. If you get caught, it's because you got unlucky or you wanted to be caught.
IMO, the rewards for random violence in-game are almost nil. The cash you get doesn't even approach pocket change, and if you've been hunting down those packages you probably have all the weapons you need. The only real reward for random violence is the "thrill" of killing a random person. I don't know about anyone else, but I derive little pleasure from GTA3 random violence aside from the occasional "wow, I can't believe they implemented that" hooker beating or "how high can I get my wanted level" killing spree. A person that constantly goes around killing people in-game for real-life enjoyment has some issues that probably extend beyond gaming.
Parent was a worst-case scenario post, and I admit it sounds pretty paranoid in hindsight. I still think that there could be some sort of case made for forced support. Perhaps some sort of estoppel? There would have to be some pretty severe circumstances for an estoppel argument to work, I imagine. I dunno, you're probably right and I'm just being paranoid.
I think the average (non-tech) user doesn't even think about security at all when unpacking a new machine. Mom and Dad probably spend their time doing something else besides reading about "computer stuff." I know my parents only find about the big threats after the fact, when the paper has an article about it. Even then, they have to somehow notice it among the stock prices and world event stories.
What happens when a borrower asks for help installing/configuring Linux? An average librarian probably won't be able to help, especially if it involves anything esoteric. The obvious answer would be a "No support is offered" rule, but what happens when someone sues or brings an official complaint? You know this will happen, especially in our litigation-centric world. All it takes is one successful appellate case and suddenly every library will have to offer support for Linux if they want to keep distributing it. If it came down to spending MORE money developing library Linux support versus spending NO money by yanking Linux distributions, I think the average state government would drop distribution in a second.
I hate being a law student. I keep thinking in terms of liability. I wholeheartedly support the idea of making Linux available at the library, but I just don't think it would last very long.
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Damn man, how often do you wind up in situations where you have to sign a video release waiver? Are you that shirtless guy from Cops?
Your significant other isn't a beowulf cluster?
If he has a job that requires a telephone headset, though, why is he listening to music? Wouldn't the music interfere with phone conversations? Of course, maybe he just doesn't care.
Amen. Why is it automatically assumed that "programming" is the next thing she should learn? Teach her something else, like basic networking. Couch it in terms like "This is how the Internet works, and this is what the Internet is made of." I started doing IRC and the people there taught me bits and pieces of networking. Hell, I was killing dialup connections from a remote shell before I knew what ls was.
On a more serious note, perhaps he could teach her simple html so she could make crappy web sites. Give her a beginners html book and show her how to upload files, make directories and set permissions. That alone will teach a bunch of worthy concepts. If she has the interest, she can learn how to do stuff just based on the html foundation.
Speak in German with occasional shouting. Few languages are harsher or scarier-sounding than German, especially when spoken loudly. Try meandering from muttering to outright shouting and back.
If in a neghborhood where foreign languages might attract unwanted attention, try this: Pick an object and assign that object a quality it does not have. Assign bonus points if the object is not something people usually walk around muttering about (colored disks, Han Solo). Subtract points if the object is something people could reasonably be walking around muttering about (keys, car, wallet, yo' mama). Start walking and begin muttering that you can't find [object]. Occasionally look around and, in the sanest voice possible, ask if anyone knows where your [object] is. Ask for directions or a guide. Achieve eye contact, then stare angrily at them because they're hiding your [object].
I'd like to have one of those singing, dancing +3 longswords and teach it death metal. Call me a wuss, but a large, flying animated sword taking swings at me while screaming unintelligible death metal lyrics would scare me off.
On the other hand, I could also go for 25 strength and 25 constitution. I could take the backstab/gunshot/whatever, rip the mugger in half and regenerate.
Quick summary: Story takes place in 2055 where time travel is possible and occurs on a daily, regulated basis. Time Safari Inc. offers hunting safaris to any point in the past. You pick an animal, they give you big guns, send you back in time and you shoot your animal dead. Hunters are kept on anti-gravity paths in order to prevent them from changing history through the so-called butterfly effect (stomping on a blade of grass may wipe out Texas in the future, etc.)
The actual story is simple. A hunter goes back on a T-Rex safari, panics and runs off the path. He kills a butterfly in the process. The safari returns and finds the future changed for the worse. The end.
I suppose you could adapt the current RTS interface. It'd pretty much be like the article says. You'd click to build units. These units may or may not have defects, psychological issues, anti-war beliefs, etc. etc. Corruption might or might not result in your shiny new BigEffingTank8000 being sold to street gangs somewhere in Asia, or that vital shipment of anti-aircraft batteries being delayed until Senator Bob gets his vital SUV legislation passed. You select the units and tell them to go to area X and kill anything along the way. Along the way, the aformentioned problems might kill some, none, or all of your units, or maybe your units desert and go searching for Saddam's hidden gold cache. Once they reach area X, they sit there until you tell them to do something, unless those ugly problems rear their heads and new orders conflict with the heroin smuggling operation on the side. When you give the units an objective, they'll try and follow your orders until things go to hell, at which point they bail and return home. Once again, inherent unit problems might result in friendly-fire casualties or an aspirin factory explosion instead of a chemical weapons factory explosion.
This actually sounds like a fun game, if really frustrating.
You wear clothes at the computer?
A quick googling reveals this. Long-term domain name registration could conceivably be marketed to companies like Kongo Gumi, although I'm sure that in the real world this service will be abused.
IMO, forcing sites to register under a .sex TLD would create more problems that it would solve. The problem with this approach stems from the reason why communities have differing obscenity standards: porn in one location is acceptable material in another. What about the oft-mentioned boobies shown in African documentaries? Is that porn or an educational look at life in another country? What about swimwear sites featuring models in bikinis? Down the slippery FUD slope we go.
.sex anything that has depictions of naked people, breasts, genitalia and/or anuses (anusii? anii?). Off the top of my head, that puts breast cancer, plastic surgery, safe sex and African documentary sites in .sex. Should a breast cancer site be blocked, as you know .sex will be, by content filters?
But ok, let's say that we commit to
I imagine that the majority of cheaters out there fall into the second category, which I like to call "Ruiners." Most of the cheaters I've seen derive their enjoyment from breaking the game rules through invulnerability, impossible weapons, etc., and from seeing the complaints from legit users. The enjoyment here is similar to that received from shining laser pointers at the screen in movie theaters.
I've played CTF-style games against an invulnerable flagger, and it's incredibly frustrating to watch a cheater enter your base, grab the flag and walk back to their side while ignoring concentrated fire from the defenders. Flaming quickly fills the chat space, and the cheater just sits back and taunts.
This method assumes that no one comes up with a working keygen. With a keygen, swapping banned keys for clean ones would be easy enough. Of course, I'm sure something's in place to prevent this sort of thing.
"I...D...Q-no wait...K...F...A"
"Uh, the hell is that?"
*Sound of BFG charging*
It might have been mis-stocked. In Omaha they put it with the rest of the TV box sets like Buffy, Angel and Alias.
Stupid typos. Date was supposed to read 2-24-2004.
For those who were wondering:
As of 2-27-2004, 300 Canadian equals $225.90 (Exchange rate is 0.7530).
Yes, I understand parent was a joke.
The sniper rifle in Syndicate absolutely sucked. It couldn't kill anything, so you were better off just using your standard weapon loadout for the job. If memory serves, the Syndicate Wars sniper rifle was worthy. In fact, I think it was the fastest way to kill just about anything until you got gauss or the high-tech laser weapons.
A revamp of Syndicate or Syndicate Wars selling for $20-$30 would be nice. Nostalgia alone would be reason enough for me to buy it, although new graphics and some new missions couldn't hurt.
;)
My favorite tactic in Syndicate was to use the Persuadertron to minionize everyone I saw until I could persuade agents, then redline adrenaline and rush the enemy. You could get loads of new agents that way, but if there weren't many people around it could take forever. Another fun thing to do was persuade mass amounts of civilans, then arm them with leftover weapons and go around shooting things. Nothing like giving 50+ people miniguns/gauss and shooting everything you came across
Linux, of course. A printout of any distro's kernel source will provide you with an open source solution for all your excretory needs. In light of current events, however, might I suggest something by SCO?
What about the lawyers on the other side of the situations you describe? What about the lawyers who are fighting the SCO suits? "Good", like many things in the world, depends on the viewer's perspective.
Interesting response, however. It made me think.
I hate to speak out on the other side of the debate, but you won't get put in jail for beating someone to death. Oh sure, your wanted level increases by one star if you're seen beating her, but it's incredibly easy to evade the cops with a one, two or even three star rating. If you get caught, it's because you got unlucky or you wanted to be caught.
IMO, the rewards for random violence in-game are almost nil. The cash you get doesn't even approach pocket change, and if you've been hunting down those packages you probably have all the weapons you need. The only real reward for random violence is the "thrill" of killing a random person. I don't know about anyone else, but I derive little pleasure from GTA3 random violence aside from the occasional "wow, I can't believe they implemented that" hooker beating or "how high can I get my wanted level" killing spree. A person that constantly goes around killing people in-game for real-life enjoyment has some issues that probably extend beyond gaming.
Parent was a worst-case scenario post, and I admit it sounds pretty paranoid in hindsight. I still think that there could be some sort of case made for forced support. Perhaps some sort of estoppel? There would have to be some pretty severe circumstances for an estoppel argument to work, I imagine. I dunno, you're probably right and I'm just being paranoid.
I think the average (non-tech) user doesn't even think about security at all when unpacking a new machine. Mom and Dad probably spend their time doing something else besides reading about "computer stuff." I know my parents only find about the big threats after the fact, when the paper has an article about it. Even then, they have to somehow notice it among the stock prices and world event stories.
What happens when a borrower asks for help installing/configuring Linux? An average librarian probably won't be able to help, especially if it involves anything esoteric. The obvious answer would be a "No support is offered" rule, but what happens when someone sues or brings an official complaint? You know this will happen, especially in our litigation-centric world. All it takes is one successful appellate case and suddenly every library will have to offer support for Linux if they want to keep distributing it. If it came down to spending MORE money developing library Linux support versus spending NO money by yanking Linux distributions, I think the average state government would drop distribution in a second.
I hate being a law student. I keep thinking in terms of liability. I wholeheartedly support the idea of making Linux available at the library, but I just don't think it would last very long.