BTW, Warcraft isn't very tiered either. Ghould/Archers/Grunts/Footman can be usefull the entire game. Only late late game when the Heavy melee units come into play do they become sorta obsolete but thats only the grunts and footman. The ghouls are the backbone of the Undead and Archers provide more punch for the dollar than any other NE unit. Even grunts aren't bad late game, fully upgraded and footman are still useful as anti-range melee.
As for TA. The diversity of Units was a "selling" point but few of the untis are very interesting. They all have roles which is good but like many poeple have said, with that many untis play balance hasn't been achived. If it wasn't for the fatc that both sides are nearly identical, the game would be very veyr imbalanaced.
A fully upgraded Zealot moves fast enough to quilify. And For Wc, your problbly playing the wrong games. Try some 3v3. You'll have more fun and you can experiment. 1v1 you have to have 1 optimised strat or you will lose. Theres nothign saying you can't improvise other strategies, except your opponent has a optimised strat so if you don't you die. Same with TA. Two pro's will both have optimised strats. It's the finite nature of video games, that there is always a best way. The systems work out that way. However, the best ways at the highest levels have incredible imagination. I once saw a league SC game where one side never had more than 5 units (excluding workers) at a time, he won the game, the game was 45 min in length. Canned build orders are indeed for newbs. It's predictabel and counterable. But optimised building isn't nessacarily canned orders.
It's difficult to speak with any authority. Either you or me. Because I'm a mediocre Ta player but a high level SC player. and your a high level (or so I woudl assume) TA player and a newbie SC (it's obvious).
From you points it's obvious you haven't played those games beyond a newbie level. SC/WC3 do have quick units. The air units, Vultures, soem of the heroes. And mobile warfare is the name of the game. Hi and run is possible too. A transport and a few "surprise units" and you can annihalate their supply and cripple their efforts.
I haven't played TA at any sorta of high level. Just dicking around with friends. and mass units do work. you just have the find the correct balance of Cost/speed versus range damage. With range being as important as damage. thats why Tank rushes own in C& C because long range and high damage own, even if it's expensive. Having not played Ta since the late 90's (98) I dont' remember what would be a good rush. Back it up with soem artilery and send the whole sloging army. and do it quick.
As for the expansions, I got them and any unit I could get. The new units were different but still not as well implemented as the whole system that Sc/WC3 have.
If you like, I'll dust off Ta and have a few agems. and you dust off War 3 and have me a few games. I'll shwo you depth.
lol, I played TA with my friends often. But thats was before Starcraft. Our strategies ussually involved Commander poping using obstacles to survive it. It became like starcraft rushing, it could lead to victory or screw you beyond belief if you over commit. We would make some power plants then rush to the other spawn spots. Try to disintegrate the other commander and then pop behind a hill or other obstacle. it's was about 50/50 that you would remove them and survive. The other tactic was a basic unit rush of about 100-200 kbots. Depending on how the other player was with their commander, it may or may not suceed. I've played plenty of TA.
I am a decent Ta player. But I'm a good Starcraft/Warcraft player. The tactics are there too. My micro isn't the best, so with equal units in a fight, I would get my ass handed to me by most of my friends. But I'm a tactician. I expand often, Macromanage to crank out larger armies and ensure that any attempt they make to expand is met with resitance. I target their supplylines (their workers) and go for a win through suppurior resources. I use a rush to put them into a defensive mode, use drops to ensure they suitable firghtened of me, then inch into their base using key units liek Defilers/Seige Tanks/Reavers.
The reason why they limit you to 9/12 units selections in Starcraft/Warcraft is because Mass tactics are har to defend except with more mass tactics. See C&C. They know this so they make it harder to mass. It also means their units are more interesting. They know whats makes gamers come back for more. It's not the explosions factor. It's the perception of skill. In TA, can a build order and scout and there's little difference between a good player and a great player. In Starcraft A great player can take out a good player though better micromanagement. this is the difference, and this is why Starcraft is still played, and is Almost Korea's national sport, While TA's studio went out of business and TA is a fondly remembered relic.
For strategy, yoru definition is wrong- Strategy:(dictionary.com) a-The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war. b-The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.
Tactics-(idctionary.com) a- The military science that deals with securing objectives set by strategy, especially the technique of deploying and directing troops, ships, and aircraft in effective maneuvers against an enemy: Tactics is a required course at all military academies. b- Maneuvers used against an enemy: Guerrilla tactics were employed during most of the war.
In which case, All RTS are mostly tactical. Because the strategy is pre-assigned : kill the other side.
On micromanagement- Thats not large scale unti management, it's the optimization of single unit movements. Thats directing your commander on your army to better use their abilities. In starcraft/Warcraft 3 thats what the game was made for. With good micro, a group of dragoons/archers can take downa supurior number of other troops. With TA, it's more difficult because the untis are less responsive, both latency wise (older network code, try ta gamespy game-the only place you'll find a pubbie Ta game) and reaction wise (more unweildy units).
As for depth, larger games, means less strategy, more mass attacks. A 4v4 in any game means it's down to the rush. First rush wins. Because a single player cannot fend off the attack. He needs his team to help. On big TA maps this is pretty hard to do, moving their takes a lot of time. Smaller games 4 player FFa/ 1v1/ 2v2 involve more strategy.
As for TA beign more serious and real. In real warfare a things like a sniper/Air supuriority/stealth and flanking are much mroe important than in either of those games. TA doesn't have any concept resembling the pure oppresive power of a sniper. While Stracraft has invisible units. The Lurker/Dark Templar/Wraith a
From your comment on strategy I take it you never played more than 2 or 3 games. Mostly with new players. Advanced players use more advanced and varied tactics. That statement would be mostly true for C&C, and their tanks.
Honestly download some of the pro-league games to see what depth Starcraft has. And TA has a bad single player AI and also bad pathing and bad unit AI. Starcraft has suprisingly good AI in all those catagories.
Just a note: All RTS are tactical games. There are few strategic elements to them.
TA had build orders too. It just wasn't popular enough for them to become common. any game like this, when faced with high levels of competition eventually optimize their strategies. TA does have less variety fo units. The only varibales for th euntis are range, damage, speed, and hitpoints. If it had the 20,000 players daily that Starcraft or Warcraft has it too would start having commonly used strategies. Pre-canned build orders still won't help much if you can;t get the timing down or have the manual dexserity to manage you units. TA made it very hard to micro manage because of the latency and the slow response from units.
Even at it's height, TA didn't have many "skilled" player because it didn't have that many players. Notice: cave dog went out of business. The sales were poor. It's well though of becaus eit has that "blow shit up" Quality a lot of us nerds enjoy.
thats not generally enough. Have you tried some of the PS1 emulators. they try the same idea as that, shoe horning Ps functions into comparable open Gl/ Direct X functions and you'll notice almost everygame has soem sort of glitch graphically. Because if the function call doens't do exactly what the original did, you will have errors. FOr a free emulator thats fine. But for a consumer product that is not fine.
TA is grossly over rated. It was a game full of neat toys to build. but the AI sucked very badly. It had much less depth then Startcraft/Warcraft2/Warcraft 3/Age of Empires (all of them). IT was a game about massing and super defense. You mad eyour fortress and then waited to accumulate a large force then attack. Even at high skill levels that was the idea. A early game rush was suicide because of the commanders. The interface was alright but not the be all and end all. It was also lacking in production quality. The units were bland uninspired and mostly identical between the two sides. The developement of each side was identical. It was a game specifically for the low skill "mass rush" crowd. The same crowd that loves C&C. Command and conquer had the same problems. the ammount of tank rushed in that game was stupid. There are few other effective strategies.
The actaul top speed of the SR-71 is not recorded for public record. The US government/Military only want to establish that they are the fastest. They don't want to give away how muhc faster they are. Same with the russians.
Sorry to break it to you. But a Edmonton (Albert Canada) flight to Hong Kong (Pretty close to across the world) is a 13h trip. 13 24. Thus is already possible to fly to the other side of the wolr din under 24h.
Just a reminder: Carbs are bad. Oatmeal is a pretty balanced and nurtitous food but if it's proccessed you minus well be eating corn startch. Try fruit, like a banana some berries and yrou oatmeal and makes sur eit's pretty course oatmeal.
Personally I try to go for a fruit heavy diet with lots of lean meat like chicken and avoid most carbs.
News flash: A strong Russian military and resource starved germany is why Hitler and Stalin didn't wind up ruling the world, and don't forget it. Russia always strogn and The british caused the second condition. america helped with the second condition but mostly supplied resources and came in after to claim victory. The americans were important but not the #1 or #2 reason that the war was won.
Now a Strong American army is why we don't all have a mad itch to play pokemon and watch tentacle porn..... omg... Did we lose the pacific theatre?
with that amount of ice crystals, I'm surprised it didn't short? I know it's distilled water but you figure minerals from the metallic elements on the silicon would contaiminate it and cause shorts?
A bit off topic but. For non metaphorical phire, using a controlled counter burn to use up fuel ahead of a fire can be effective in stopping the fire. So thats fighting fire with fire.
Thats very subjective. Adventure games are ussually endless tedious fetch quests. Or a few random one off puzzles. Hardly innovative. We remember the good ones but there were so many bad ones. For each Siberia or Space Quest 1-3 we get four lame onse like space quest 5+ or any of the series beyong 4. It seems 4 is the magic number in which a adventure games starts to suck.
Adventure games were the FPS of the past, numerously cloned cash grabs.
RPG's have exsisted for as long as adventure games. RPG's are spawned fromt he table top RPG's. Adventure games decent from more a novel/story telling lineage.
If your talking about purly genre, then RPG's shoudl be the super set because table top RPG's predate Adventure games and are currently a larger catagory.
It's be more correct to say RPg's are a genre and Adventure is a genre.
I find many atheist have this cloying supuriority complex. If you choose not beleive in soemthign it doesn't make you any better. Statistically devote religious people tend to be happier, live slightly longer, and have a better sense of community than others. Which is a real benifit, God or no God. Also prayer and meditation can be useful tools in treatment of certain diseases. For instance cancer patients do better if they have a positive outlook and organized religion helps provide support and a generally more positive outlook. Even if you completly ignore all the promises of this or that there is real tangible benifits to faith.
Basically, we don't have the research of a scientifically greater nationg like pre-WW II Germany to rip the technology off of. The great surge forward in Aerospace research int he 50's and 60's were a direct consequence of the americans defeating the germans and stealing all the rocket technology and most of the scientists. Also we lack the pressure to do anything. IT's sort of like evolution without some sort of selection pressure, nothing changes much. Well for selective pressure we need a huge war with the real possibility that ourside could lose. Thats would spur lots of innovation.
Windows caters to a different audience than Macs. Macs have a lot of atvantages due to the niche nature of their market. They can dictate what hardware is available and control that end. They can drop support for legacy products more easily because less people use them. Part of the worm infested recent history of the Windows machiens have to do with density as much as security. It's simply harder to spread anything viral (worms, viruses or the plague) when the density of potential hosts are low. Apple has doen a great job in making a good interface and good machines, and their target market appriciates them. Microsoft has done a great job selling stuff, and supporting nearly every device out there. Both have merit and usefulness.
This would be suicide for Microsoft. They stopped supporting 98 so Admins will have one extra reason to upgrade to XP. if they released the source, they would then generate compitition for thier flag ship Os by allowing the open source community to update and upgrade their older versions. It would be rgeat for hobbists and would be an interetsing open source project. But it would have a negative effect on XP. Rigth now XP only has a slight lead on 98 in their install base (check google to see the numbers). The ceasation of support will prompt some admins to upgrade and convert some of the 98 market share into xp maret share and provide money for MS. Thats good for MS. Why should they think about anyone but whats good for them?
Realistically, only about 0.1% of *nix users ever even think about touching kernel source. For windows users it's be down to about 0.0001% that even know what the kernel is. So the source would be about as useful as a 4000 page manual written in Aramaic, translated from the original babalonian through french then swedish and finally chinese.
I have never understood why people have such passionate views of the two (three if you include *nix) platforms. They both have strengths and weaknesses and both have a comfortable niche in the technologies industry. It's unlikly that people will switch from Windows to OS X due mainly to the learning curve thats required. It's not that it's hard, it's that people are lazy. thus they will have a hard time relearnign quick keys and adjustign to the different behavior. If they had to they could, but they won't do it otherwise. The same applies to Apple people switching to PC. People just don't beleive the switch is worth the time. We can debate all we want abut the general merits of each but this won't change the fact that MAC's are high end niche machines and PC's are commodity machines.
As a personal anicdote I have seen more people switch from Mac to PC than vise versa, the numbers are 8 mac -> PC vs 0 PC -> mac. The switches were mainly for utility and economic reasons.
It seems to me that people make poor bateries, you need to expend resources keeping their minds entertained, keeping their bodies fed, keeping them warm. I think that it's plausible to have another explination.
The last one asked the machines "Hey, so why the fuck do you keep us around", and the machines went "Cuz umm.... you like power our world.. yeah thats it, your our batteries".
The impression I got was that the People provide a purpose for the machines. Neo told the Architect that the machines need people (he belives their batteries) and the Architect said "There are some forms of exsistence we're willing to live with".
From this I take it they can survive without people but their lives would have less meaning. They were created in the start to serve man, and maybe they feel inclined to do that even after they wonthe war. Everything we've seen so far has been examples of Machines regulating/controlling/operating the matrix and the ajoining construct "Zion", those that no longer have a purpose are deleted , That means the machines are geared 100% to maintaining the Matrix with a few stray programs that become exiles. They dont' seem to have a large society outside the matrix and they don't seem to have a problem with power. On the other hand, it may well be they have a complex society but since this has never been seen by the people of zion it's not relavant to the movie. Maybe the machines keep the people around because those in power or those that make up the majority are sentimental. Like Humans who enjoy pets, no real use but they were part of our developement so we spend energy supporting them, or like wild life preserves.
I
1. bid back up what I said
2. am not completly wrong.
Go read Apple's web site, in particular the spec sheet for the 17 inch powerbook. As stated there the 17 inch powerbook has "512MD of PC2700(333Mhz) DDR SDRAM" Do you even know what DDR stands for? So I think it is back to a tie if not in apples favour.
I made a conditional statement, I said if the apple had sd 133. This means that if it did not then my statement did not stand.
Since when are video cards related to CPUs? Also both those video cards have identical GPUs the boards are just different
that was a comment on performance, if he can't differentiate the performance of a high end video card with a economy model then he may not be able to correlate the difference between a 1 generation old CPU with a current CPU.
Most desktop users I know use all of those apps and maybe more, if not they buy and iBook and that is a whole other story. Windows XP is nothing to brag about, BSD and Darwin is. Open source is. Dell Jukebox Premium, Dell Picture Studio, Dell Movie Studio Essentials are all crap in comparison to apples offerings and OSS offerings and normally get removed early on to make space for stuff that is useful.
If you did a usage study you would find most computer users browse the web, answer email, chat on a IM system and do various work in a word proccessor and play games. All these functions can be done well in either lap top. Thus there is no advantage to either system. If you need proof look up soem usage studies I don't know of any off the top of my head.
On the contrary, XP can rightfulyl brag that it can supportly nearly every pariphereal out there well and has usability and stability thats not too much worse than it's compeditors. IT also boasts an immense library of software including all major games and at least 1 comparable version of most software that any of the other systems has. I use Unix/Linux and Win 95/98/nt/XP mainly for my work and due to my familiarity with the windows enviroment I abel mroe productiev there, just as I'm sur eyour more productive in the Unix/Linux enviroment. Windows isn't horrible any more. And Mac OSX doesn't have much of an edge any more. Apple has a profitable, stable, and unique market niche but it isn't likly to escape that any time soon, and Unix/Linux will never be as main stream as either due to the technical innepttitude of most consumers. The dell bundle is crap but you can get comparable stuff software for that 600$ difference, but most Dell customers won't because they don't need it. Most of the open source software I use also comes in a windows flavor. Examples of this are secure copy, all my emulators, R, PERL. And those that don't I can use putty to access from my windows box.
Familiarity and skill are the greatest factor in usability not OS.
You didn't mention what type of memory it is. If the Dell had DDR and the Apple had SD 133 I'm pretty sure they advantage goes to dell.
Software: Apple - Mac OS X, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, Image Capture, iCal, iChat, Mail, IE 5, Dell - Windows XP Pro, Dell Jukebox Premium, Dell Picture Studio, Dell Movie Studio Essentials, Outlook Express, IE 6 Winner: most definitely Apple
For most desktop users only the IE and iTunes/Jukebox would be used very much. IE 5 is nothing to brag about and neither is Safari so far. As for Ichat, The dell likly has or can download MSN/ICQ. And both of those would find a greater chance of having friends on that system than Ichat.
Graphics Card: Apple - 64 MB Nvidia GeForce 4 440 Go Dell - 64 MB Nvidia Geforce 4 4200 About the same performance = tie
I hope this is a typo, else your going to start claiming that your G3 will out perform A P4 3gzh. Price: Apple - $3299 Dell - $2640 Winner: Dell
In summary, while the PC is a little bit cheaper and the processor a little faster, in virtually every other area the Mac comes out ahead. With a Mac, you get what you pay for. Sure the processor may be a little bit slower, but it isn't a dramatic difference and the overall value of the product is just as good as a PC.
A bit cheaper? With 600$ you could buy another computer, or upgrade that version of the dell. For 600 hundred dollars you could make that dell come out ahead in non-virtually every other area. As for Value, Value is defined as
Value:An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.
now if it's just as good as you say, how is it also good value at 25% greater cost than the PC? If it was 25% better over all, then they would be equivilent values, but the only real edge the Mac has is in some of it's software and few bits of the hardware it offers.
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BTW, Warcraft isn't very tiered either. Ghould/Archers/Grunts/Footman can be usefull the entire game. Only late late game when the Heavy melee units come into play do they become sorta obsolete but thats only the grunts and footman. The ghouls are the backbone of the Undead and Archers provide more punch for the dollar than any other NE unit. Even grunts aren't bad late game, fully upgraded and footman are still useful as anti-range melee.
As for TA. The diversity of Units was a "selling" point but few of the untis are very interesting. They all have roles which is good but like many poeple have said, with that many untis play balance hasn't been achived. If it wasn't for the fatc that both sides are nearly identical, the game would be very veyr imbalanaced.
A fully upgraded Zealot moves fast enough to quilify. And For Wc, your problbly playing the wrong games. Try some 3v3. You'll have more fun and you can experiment. 1v1 you have to have 1 optimised strat or you will lose. Theres nothign saying you can't improvise other strategies, except your opponent has a optimised strat so if you don't you die. Same with TA. Two pro's will both have optimised strats. It's the finite nature of video games, that there is always a best way. The systems work out that way. However, the best ways at the highest levels have incredible imagination. I once saw a league SC game where one side never had more than 5 units (excluding workers) at a time, he won the game, the game was 45 min in length. Canned build orders are indeed for newbs. It's predictabel and counterable. But optimised building isn't nessacarily canned orders.
It's difficult to speak with any authority. Either you or me. Because I'm a mediocre Ta player but a high level SC player. and your a high level (or so I woudl assume) TA player and a newbie SC (it's obvious).
From you points it's obvious you haven't played those games beyond a newbie level. SC/WC3 do have quick units. The air units, Vultures, soem of the heroes. And mobile warfare is the name of the game. Hi and run is possible too. A transport and a few "surprise units" and you can annihalate their supply and cripple their efforts.
I haven't played TA at any sorta of high level. Just dicking around with friends. and mass units do work. you just have the find the correct balance of Cost/speed versus range damage. With range being as important as damage. thats why Tank rushes own in C& C because long range and high damage own, even if it's expensive. Having not played Ta since the late 90's (98) I dont' remember what would be a good rush. Back it up with soem artilery and send the whole sloging army. and do it quick.
As for the expansions, I got them and any unit I could get. The new units were different but still not as well implemented as the whole system that Sc/WC3 have.
If you like, I'll dust off Ta and have a few agems. and you dust off War 3 and have me a few games. I'll shwo you depth.
lol, I played TA with my friends often. But thats was before Starcraft. Our strategies ussually involved Commander poping using obstacles to survive it. It became like starcraft rushing, it could lead to victory or screw you beyond belief if you over commit. We would make some power plants then rush to the other spawn spots. Try to disintegrate the other commander and then pop behind a hill or other obstacle. it's was about 50/50 that you would remove them and survive. The other tactic was a basic unit rush of about 100-200 kbots. Depending on how the other player was with their commander, it may or may not suceed. I've played plenty of TA.
I am a decent Ta player. But I'm a good Starcraft/Warcraft player. The tactics are there too. My micro isn't the best, so with equal units in a fight, I would get my ass handed to me by most of my friends. But I'm a tactician. I expand often, Macromanage to crank out larger armies and ensure that any attempt they make to expand is met with resitance. I target their supplylines (their workers) and go for a win through suppurior resources. I use a rush to put them into a defensive mode, use drops to ensure they suitable firghtened of me, then inch into their base using key units liek Defilers/Seige Tanks/Reavers.
The reason why they limit you to 9/12 units selections in Starcraft/Warcraft is because Mass tactics are har to defend except with more mass tactics. See C&C. They know this so they make it harder to mass. It also means their units are more interesting. They know whats makes gamers come back for more. It's not the explosions factor. It's the perception of skill. In TA, can a build order and scout and there's little difference between a good player and a great player. In Starcraft A great player can take out a good player though better micromanagement. this is the difference, and this is why Starcraft is still played, and is Almost Korea's national sport, While TA's studio went out of business and TA is a fondly remembered relic.
For strategy, yoru definition is wrong-
Strategy:(dictionary.com)
a-The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.
b-The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.
Tactics-(idctionary.com)
a- The military science that deals with securing objectives set by strategy, especially the technique of deploying and directing troops, ships, and aircraft in effective maneuvers against an enemy: Tactics is a required course at all military academies.
b- Maneuvers used against an enemy: Guerrilla tactics were employed during most of the war.
In which case, All RTS are mostly tactical. Because the strategy is pre-assigned : kill the other side.
On micromanagement- Thats not large scale unti management, it's the optimization of single unit movements. Thats directing your commander on your army to better use their abilities. In starcraft/Warcraft 3 thats what the game was made for. With good micro, a group of dragoons/archers can take downa supurior number of other troops. With TA, it's more difficult because the untis are less responsive, both latency wise (older network code, try ta gamespy game-the only place you'll find a pubbie Ta game) and reaction wise (more unweildy units).
As for depth, larger games, means less strategy, more mass attacks. A 4v4 in any game means it's down to the rush. First rush wins. Because a single player cannot fend off the attack. He needs his team to help. On big TA maps this is pretty hard to do, moving their takes a lot of time. Smaller games 4 player FFa/ 1v1/ 2v2 involve more strategy.
As for TA beign more serious and real. In real warfare a things like a sniper/Air supuriority/stealth and flanking are much mroe important than in either of those games. TA doesn't have any concept resembling the pure oppresive power of a sniper. While Stracraft has invisible units. The Lurker/Dark Templar/Wraith a
From your comment on strategy I take it you never played more than 2 or 3 games. Mostly with new players. Advanced players use more advanced and varied tactics. That statement would be mostly true for C&C, and their tanks.
Honestly download some of the pro-league games to see what depth Starcraft has. And TA has a bad single player AI and also bad pathing and bad unit AI. Starcraft has suprisingly good AI in all those catagories.
Just a note: All RTS are tactical games. There are few strategic elements to them.
TA had build orders too. It just wasn't popular enough for them to become common. any game like this, when faced with high levels of competition eventually optimize their strategies. TA does have less variety fo units. The only varibales for th euntis are range, damage, speed, and hitpoints. If it had the 20,000 players daily that Starcraft or Warcraft has it too would start having commonly used strategies. Pre-canned build orders still won't help much if you can;t get the timing down or have the manual dexserity to manage you units. TA made it very hard to micro manage because of the latency and the slow response from units.
Even at it's height, TA didn't have many "skilled" player because it didn't have that many players. Notice: cave dog went out of business. The sales were poor. It's well though of becaus eit has that "blow shit up" Quality a lot of us nerds enjoy.
thats not generally enough. Have you tried some of the PS1 emulators. they try the same idea as that, shoe horning Ps functions into comparable open Gl/ Direct X functions and you'll notice almost everygame has soem sort of glitch graphically. Because if the function call doens't do exactly what the original did, you will have errors. FOr a free emulator thats fine. But for a consumer product that is not fine.
TA is grossly over rated. It was a game full of neat toys to build. but the AI sucked very badly. It had much less depth then Startcraft/Warcraft2/Warcraft 3/Age of Empires (all of them). IT was a game about massing and super defense. You mad eyour fortress and then waited to accumulate a large force then attack. Even at high skill levels that was the idea. A early game rush was suicide because of the commanders. The interface was alright but not the be all and end all. It was also lacking in production quality. The units were bland uninspired and mostly identical between the two sides. The developement of each side was identical. It was a game specifically for the low skill "mass rush" crowd. The same crowd that loves C&C. Command and conquer had the same problems. the ammount of tank rushed in that game was stupid. There are few other effective strategies.
The actaul top speed of the SR-71 is not recorded for public record. The US government/Military only want to establish that they are the fastest. They don't want to give away how muhc faster they are. Same with the russians.
Sorry to break it to you. But a Edmonton (Albert Canada) flight to Hong Kong (Pretty close to across the world) is a 13h trip. 13 24. Thus is already possible to fly to the other side of the wolr din under 24h.
Just a reminder: Carbs are bad. Oatmeal is a pretty balanced and nurtitous food but if it's proccessed you minus well be eating corn startch. Try fruit, like a banana some berries and yrou oatmeal and makes sur eit's pretty course oatmeal.
Personally I try to go for a fruit heavy diet with lots of lean meat like chicken and avoid most carbs.
News flash:
A strong Russian military and resource starved germany is why Hitler and Stalin didn't wind up ruling the world, and don't forget it.
Russia always strogn and The british caused the second condition. america helped with the second condition but mostly supplied resources and came in after to claim victory. The americans were important but not the #1 or #2 reason that the war was won.
Now a Strong American army is why we don't all have a mad itch to play pokemon and watch tentacle porn..... omg... Did we lose the pacific theatre?
with that amount of ice crystals, I'm surprised it didn't short? I know it's distilled water but you figure minerals from the metallic elements on the silicon would contaiminate it and cause shorts?
A bit off topic but. For non metaphorical phire, using a controlled counter burn to use up fuel ahead of a fire can be effective in stopping the fire. So thats fighting fire with fire.
Thats very subjective. Adventure games are ussually endless tedious fetch quests. Or a few random one off puzzles. Hardly innovative. We remember the good ones but there were so many bad ones. For each Siberia or Space Quest 1-3 we get four lame onse like space quest 5+ or any of the series beyong 4. It seems 4 is the magic number in which a adventure games starts to suck.
Adventure games were the FPS of the past, numerously cloned cash grabs.
I don't miss them.
RPG's have exsisted for as long as adventure games. RPG's are spawned fromt he table top RPG's. Adventure games decent from more a novel/story telling lineage.
If your talking about purly genre, then RPG's shoudl be the super set because table top RPG's predate Adventure games and are currently a larger catagory.
It's be more correct to say RPg's are a genre and Adventure is a genre.
I find many atheist have this cloying supuriority complex. If you choose not beleive in soemthign it doesn't make you any better. Statistically devote religious people tend to be happier, live slightly longer, and have a better sense of community than others. Which is a real benifit, God or no God. Also prayer and meditation can be useful tools in treatment of certain diseases. For instance cancer patients do better if they have a positive outlook and organized religion helps provide support and a generally more positive outlook. Even if you completly ignore all the promises of this or that there is real tangible benifits to faith.
Basically, we don't have the research of a scientifically greater nationg like pre-WW II Germany to rip the technology off of. The great surge forward in Aerospace research int he 50's and 60's were a direct consequence of the americans defeating the germans and stealing all the rocket technology and most of the scientists. Also we lack the pressure to do anything.
IT's sort of like evolution without some sort of selection pressure, nothing changes much. Well for selective pressure we need a huge war with the real possibility that ourside could lose. Thats would spur lots of innovation.
Windows caters to a different audience than Macs. Macs have a lot of atvantages due to the niche nature of their market. They can dictate what hardware is available and control that end. They can drop support for legacy products more easily because less people use them. Part of the worm infested recent history of the Windows machiens have to do with density as much as security. It's simply harder to spread anything viral (worms, viruses or the plague) when the density of potential hosts are low. Apple has doen a great job in making a good interface and good machines, and their target market appriciates them. Microsoft has done a great job selling stuff, and supporting nearly every device out there. Both have merit and usefulness.
This would be suicide for Microsoft. They stopped supporting 98 so Admins will have one extra reason to upgrade to XP. if they released the source, they would then generate compitition for thier flag ship Os by allowing the open source community to update and upgrade their older versions. It would be rgeat for hobbists and would be an interetsing open source project. But it would have a negative effect on XP. Rigth now XP only has a slight lead on 98 in their install base (check google to see the numbers). The ceasation of support will prompt some admins to upgrade and convert some of the 98 market share into xp maret share and provide money for MS. Thats good for MS. Why should they think about anyone but whats good for them?
Realistically, only about 0.1% of *nix users ever even think about touching kernel source. For windows users it's be down to about 0.0001% that even know what the kernel is. So the source would be about as useful as a 4000 page manual written in Aramaic, translated from the original babalonian through french then swedish and finally chinese.
I have never understood why people have such passionate views of the two (three if you include *nix) platforms. They both have strengths and weaknesses and both have a comfortable niche in the technologies industry. It's unlikly that people will switch from Windows to OS X due mainly to the learning curve thats required. It's not that it's hard, it's that people are lazy. thus they will have a hard time relearnign quick keys and adjustign to the different behavior. If they had to they could, but they won't do it otherwise. The same applies to Apple people switching to PC. People just don't beleive the switch is worth the time. We can debate all we want abut the general merits of each but this won't change the fact that MAC's are high end niche machines and PC's are commodity machines.
As a personal anicdote I have seen more people switch from Mac to PC than vise versa,
the numbers are 8 mac -> PC vs 0 PC -> mac. The switches were mainly for utility and economic reasons.
It seems to me that people make poor bateries, you need to expend resources keeping their minds entertained, keeping their bodies fed, keeping them warm. I think that it's plausible to have another explination.
.. you like power our world .. yeah thats it, your our batteries".
The last one asked the machines "Hey, so why the fuck do you keep us around", and the machines went "Cuz umm..
The impression I got was that the People provide a purpose for the machines. Neo told the Architect that the machines need people (he belives their batteries) and the Architect said "There are some forms of exsistence we're willing to live with".
From this I take it they can survive without people but their lives would have less meaning. They were created in the start to serve man, and maybe they feel inclined to do that even after they wonthe war. Everything we've seen so far has been examples of Machines regulating/controlling/operating the matrix and the ajoining construct "Zion", those that no longer have a purpose are deleted , That means the machines are geared 100% to maintaining the Matrix with a few stray programs that become exiles. They dont' seem to have a large society outside the matrix and they don't seem to have a problem with power. On the other hand, it may well be they have a complex society but since this has never been seen by the people of zion it's not relavant to the movie. Maybe the machines keep the people around because those in power or those that make up the majority are sentimental. Like Humans who enjoy pets, no real use but they were part of our developement so we spend energy supporting them, or like wild life preserves.
I
1. bid back up what I said
2. am not completly wrong.
Go read Apple's web site, in particular the spec sheet for the 17 inch powerbook. As stated there the 17 inch powerbook has "512MD of PC2700(333Mhz) DDR SDRAM" Do you even know what DDR stands for? So I think it is back to a tie if not in apples favour.
I made a conditional statement, I said if the apple had sd 133. This means that if it did not then my statement did not stand.
Since when are video cards related to CPUs? Also both those video cards have identical GPUs the boards are just different
that was a comment on performance, if he can't differentiate the performance of a high end video card with a economy model then he may not be able to correlate the difference between a 1 generation old CPU with a current CPU.
Most desktop users I know use all of those apps and maybe more, if not they buy and iBook and that is a whole other story. Windows XP is nothing to brag about, BSD and Darwin is. Open source is. Dell Jukebox Premium, Dell Picture Studio, Dell Movie Studio Essentials are all crap in comparison to apples offerings and OSS offerings and normally get removed early on to make space for stuff that is useful.
If you did a usage study you would find most computer users browse the web, answer email, chat on a IM system and do various work in a word proccessor and play games. All these functions can be done well in either lap top. Thus there is no advantage to either system. If you need proof look up soem usage studies I don't know of any off the top of my head.
On the contrary, XP can rightfulyl brag that it can supportly nearly every pariphereal out there well and has usability and stability thats not too much worse than it's compeditors. IT also boasts an immense library of software including all major games and at least 1 comparable version of most software that any of the other systems has. I use Unix/Linux and Win 95/98/nt/XP mainly for my work and due to my familiarity with the windows enviroment I abel mroe productiev there, just as I'm sur eyour more productive in the Unix/Linux enviroment. Windows isn't horrible any more. And Mac OSX doesn't have much of an edge any more. Apple has a profitable, stable, and unique market niche but it isn't likly to escape that any time soon, and Unix/Linux will never be as main stream as either due to the technical innepttitude of most consumers. The dell bundle is crap but you can get comparable stuff software for that 600$ difference, but most Dell customers won't because they don't need it. Most of the open source software I use also comes in a windows flavor. Examples of this are secure copy, all my emulators, R, PERL. And those that don't I can use putty to access from my windows box.
Familiarity and skill are the greatest factor in usability not OS.
RAM: Apple and Dell both 512 MB, tie
You didn't mention what type of memory it is. If the Dell had DDR and the Apple had SD 133 I'm pretty sure they advantage goes to dell.
Software:
Apple - Mac OS X, iTunes, iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto, Image Capture, iCal, iChat, Mail, IE 5,
Dell - Windows XP Pro, Dell Jukebox Premium, Dell Picture Studio, Dell Movie Studio Essentials, Outlook Express, IE 6
Winner: most definitely Apple
For most desktop users only the IE and iTunes/Jukebox would be used very much. IE 5 is nothing to brag about and neither is Safari so far. As for Ichat, The dell likly has or can download MSN/ICQ. And both of those would find a greater chance of having friends on that system than Ichat.
Graphics Card:
Apple - 64 MB Nvidia GeForce 4 440 Go
Dell - 64 MB Nvidia Geforce 4 4200
About the same performance = tie
I hope this is a typo, else your going to start claiming that your G3 will out perform A P4 3gzh.
Price:
Apple - $3299
Dell - $2640
Winner: Dell
In summary, while the PC is a little bit cheaper and the processor a little faster, in virtually every other area the Mac comes out ahead. With a Mac, you get what you pay for. Sure the processor may be a little bit slower, but it isn't a dramatic difference and the overall value of the product is just as good as a PC.
A bit cheaper? With 600$ you could buy another computer, or upgrade that version of the dell. For 600 hundred dollars you could make that dell come out ahead in non-virtually every other area. As for Value, Value is defined as
Value:An amount, as of goods, services, or money, considered to be a fair and suitable equivalent for something else; a fair price or return.
now if it's just as good as you say, how is it also good value at 25% greater cost than the PC? If it was 25% better over all, then they would be equivilent values, but the only real edge the Mac has is in some of it's software and few bits of the hardware it offers.