Having used this to make a map or two, I can say that it is extremely easy to use the basics, yet there is also plenty of depth to it for writing your own campaigns.
It is also pretty close to the NWN top down RPG type of game, rather than a first-person shooter.
Although willfully violating the GPL/copyright law seems like an insane thing to do, it actually isn't.
Lets assume that SCO is convinced there actually is proprietary code in the Linux kernel. Therefore, by inviting suits to be brought against them, they are bringing the targets for countersuits out into the light.
They proably hope that there will be a class action, and can countersue the whole class for using their proprietary code.
It's an interesting, if machiavellian legal strategy.
Checking my latest Guitar Center catalog puts the lie to that.
Especially for the portable person.
But even a full-fledged pre-built ProTools setup can be had for under $15K. Another 5 Grand for Mics, cables and hardware and you have a (small) studio's worth of recording equipment for $20K.
I don't think you are being realistic about what is neccesary for sound quality, and what is a frill.
Author of the Hammer's Slammers series and much more, Drake is a Viet Nam vet, and his books are heavily influenced by his experiences there. Excellent writer, but not for the faint of heart.
I specifically Recommend "Cross the Stars" and "Ranks of Bronze" as well as his novella, "The Warrior"
I also recommend Joeseph Haldeman ("Buying Time", "Forever War") and Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Series)
I have a little horror story of my own about these guys. About 7 months ago, my internet stopped working. I called up DirecTV and ask them why...they say because my credit card had been declined. I say oh right, I forgot to tell you I switched cards...here, have my new card number.
Here is where it got ludicrous
"I'm sorry sir, I can't reactivate your account. You'll have to go through the 4-week provisioning process again."
"What! Why? I already have the equipment."
"Because your account has been cancelled."
"Why?"
"Because its been three months since your card worked."
"So why didn't you notify me, or turn off the service before cancelling my account entirely?"
"I don't know sir."
"So you won't turn my account back on?"
"No."
"Then why should I pay you?"
"Uh..."
I went round and round with them for an hour, with exactly no results. I'm now using Earthlink DSL...and I kind of like PPPoE, even if I don't get a static IP anymore.
Ray: "You know, it just occured to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment." Egon: "I blame myself." Peter: "So do I." Ray: "Well, no sense in worrying about it now." Peter: "Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back."
Funny, the same argument was made about the ADA's effect on small businesses having to install ramps and accessible restrooms. Yet not a whole lot of small businesses went out of business because of this.
Funny, isn't it.
Southwest can afford it, and so can the other businesses being targeted here. These suits are not frivolous. They are trying to expand the civil rights of a minority that has been ignored too long.
The ADA does not state that we have to wipe out the differences between disabled people and able-bodied ones.
It states that "Reasonable Accomodation" must be made by businesses and governments for the disabled, both in employment and use of public facilities.
Making one's website readable by the Kurtzweil reader for the blind (the most popular text reader program for the blind) is not a difficult thing...it just takes a little thought.
After 3 Years of working in the dungeons of Tech Support, I've finally started getting free.
I'm a consultant now, offering advice to the same companies I used to support. Telling 'em all the things I never had time to on the phones. And I'll probably be doing this and other IT-related stuff for a while yet.
But I've started building some new skills, skills that have a purpose. In my case, its woodworking.
Have you seen the utter crap they sell at Art Van lately? I can make furniture at the same prices that is SO MUCH more durable and attractive.
And when I finish a project, I can look at it and say "I built this." and know that means something. I've created a solid piece of furniture, that will be making some family (maybe my own) happy three generations from now.
Not some ephemeral little app that noone will ever use anyway, or telling some moron what he should have been able to do himself, if he could only learn to think.
The chapter on Foucault and Databases is the one that has struck me as the most telling on the subject of personal liberties.
The key concept is that of the Super-Panopticon. The Panopticon is a design for a prison. The prison is designed as an octagonal tower. The cells are all along the inside surface of the tower, guard posts in the center. Each cell is equipped with one-way glass allowing the guards to see in, but not allowing the prisoners to see out. Prisoner behavior is therefore controlled by the knowledge that they may be observed at any time without knowing whether they are being observed.
Poster points out that the information collected about each person in the high-tech age is all put into databases. Where they shop, what they buy, what books they read, what movies they see, what sites they surf on the web, etc, etc. The fact that all this information is available to the State if the State chooses to access it.
Thus, like the panopticon-prison, control is exerted by the State as each citizen knows that the information can be accessed but does not know if it is being accessed.
This is how totalitarianism creeps in thru today's technology. The Super-Panopticon is a passive control system for the masses, made possible by the availability of stored personal information.
In 1984 Orwell writes that one never knew if there was anyone watching at the other end of the telescreen, but it was always advisable to act as if there were.
Today the telescreen is invisible, but no less there for all of that. The original totalitarian states may be gone, but today's quasi-representative governments have gained the means to impose their own kind of control.
His views on slavery may be understood better by knowing that he worked as an indentured servant during his youth; this experience no doubt colored his attitudes toward involuntary servitude of any kind.
Franklin was certainly not born rich: He worked himself up from very little, and is one of the models of the "American Dream."
Jeez, yet another person ready to give all the credit for AV's acheivements to McCready. How about to some of the OTHER amazing Engineers that work at AeroVironment?
Actually, they do EXTREMELY well at high altitudes, since the solar panels become more efficient the higher they go, giving more power available to the props. Also wind patterns up there are much more predictable than lower down.
No, the biggest problem with the thing is payload; it just can't carry very much. The Helios is a very lightweight device, made from the kind of materials Aerovironment used to make the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross (the human-powered airplanes).
The question is, will a couple hundred pounds be enough payload to do anything truly significant?
Here is looking forward to lovely LEPs (Light Emitting Ploymers) replacing all the damned CRTs and LCDs.
And for all you naysayers...I have a hard time picturing all the possible uses for this stuff, should it be possible to make it bendable. My prediction is that LEPs are going to change the appearance of the whole world.
Possibility 1: LEP wallpaper; imagine you want to change the color of your room...suddenly your whole house is as customizable as your computer's desktop...housethemes.org anyone? how about carthemes.org?
Possibility 2: The chameleon suit from predator, that instantly becomes any outfit you want it to be.
Possibility 3: the one-page daily newspaper, with every page in full color, fully customizable.
Not to mention all the advertising possibilites. ugh, distracting full motion billboards everywhere you go.
Epson has ALREADY developed a printer that will print RGB LEPs onto a sheet of glass...and Nokia should be releasing phones with the new LEP (full-color) screens shortly.
This is the link for the company that has created the process.
Slashdot Mirror
More people with color PDAs with removable memory slots
Cheaper flash media (getting there)
Elimination of copy protection (Project Gutenberg and Baen.com are my primary ebook sources)
"There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone."
--Sara Teasdale
Why does half of Slashdot's users still use Internet Exploiter?
How do you know? I use Opera, but it represents itself to servers as IE
I was hoping for a robot that would enter data into my Palm Pilot for me.
Having used this to make a map or two, I can say that it is extremely easy to use the basics, yet there is also plenty of depth to it for writing your own campaigns.
It is also pretty close to the NWN top down RPG type of game, rather than a first-person shooter.
Although willfully violating the GPL/copyright law seems like an insane thing to do, it actually isn't.
Lets assume that SCO is convinced there actually is proprietary code in the Linux kernel. Therefore, by inviting suits to be brought against them, they are bringing the targets for countersuits out into the light.
They proably hope that there will be a class action, and can countersue the whole class for using their proprietary code.
It's an interesting, if machiavellian legal strategy.
Checking my latest Guitar Center catalog puts the lie to that.
Especially for the portable person.
But even a full-fledged pre-built ProTools setup can be had for under $15K. Another 5 Grand for Mics, cables and hardware and you have a (small) studio's worth of recording equipment for $20K.
I don't think you are being realistic about what is neccesary for sound quality, and what is a frill.
Author of the Hammer's Slammers series and much more, Drake is a Viet Nam vet, and his books are heavily influenced by his experiences there. Excellent writer, but not for the faint of heart.
I specifically Recommend "Cross the Stars" and "Ranks of Bronze" as well as his novella, "The Warrior"
I also recommend Joeseph Haldeman ("Buying Time", "Forever War") and Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan Series)
Service.
I have a little horror story of my own about these guys. About 7 months ago, my internet stopped working. I called up DirecTV and ask them why...they say because my credit card had been declined. I say oh right, I forgot to tell you I switched cards...here, have my new card number.
Here is where it got ludicrous
"I'm sorry sir, I can't reactivate your account. You'll have to go through the 4-week provisioning process again."
"What! Why? I already have the equipment."
"Because your account has been cancelled."
"Why?"
"Because its been three months since your card worked."
"So why didn't you notify me, or turn off the service before cancelling my account entirely?"
"I don't know sir."
"So you won't turn my account back on?"
"No."
"Then why should I pay you?"
"Uh..."
I went round and round with them for an hour, with exactly no results. I'm now using Earthlink DSL...and I kind of like PPPoE, even if I don't get a static IP anymore.
Ray: "You know, it just occured to me that we really haven't had a successful test of this equipment."
Egon: "I blame myself."
Peter: "So do I."
Ray: "Well, no sense in worrying about it now."
Peter: "Why worry? Each one of us is carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back."
Funny, the same argument was made about the ADA's effect on small businesses having to install ramps and accessible restrooms. Yet not a whole lot of small businesses went out of business because of this.
Funny, isn't it.
Southwest can afford it, and so can the other businesses being targeted here. These suits are not frivolous. They are trying to expand the civil rights of a minority that has been ignored too long.
The ADA does not state that we have to wipe out the differences between disabled people and able-bodied ones.
It states that "Reasonable Accomodation" must be made by businesses and governments for the disabled, both in employment and use of public facilities.
Making one's website readable by the Kurtzweil reader for the blind (the most popular text reader program for the blind) is not a difficult thing...it just takes a little thought.
After 3 Years of working in the dungeons of Tech Support, I've finally started getting free.
I'm a consultant now, offering advice to the same companies I used to support. Telling 'em all the things I never had time to on the phones. And I'll probably be doing this and other IT-related stuff for a while yet.
But I've started building some new skills, skills that have a purpose. In my case, its woodworking.
Have you seen the utter crap they sell at Art Van lately? I can make furniture at the same prices that is SO MUCH more durable and attractive.
And when I finish a project, I can look at it and say "I built this." and know that means something. I've created a solid piece of furniture, that will be making some family (maybe my own) happy three generations from now.
Not some ephemeral little app that noone will ever use anyway, or telling some moron what he should have been able to do himself, if he could only learn to think.
It makes me happy, like I havent been in years.
Everyone who is really interested in how technology affects personal freedom should really read the following book.
The Mode of Information By Mark Poster
The chapter on Foucault and Databases is the one that has struck me as the most telling on the subject of personal liberties.
The key concept is that of the Super-Panopticon. The Panopticon is a design for a prison. The prison is designed as an octagonal tower. The cells are all along the inside surface of the tower, guard posts in the center. Each cell is equipped with one-way glass allowing the guards to see in, but not allowing the prisoners to see out. Prisoner behavior is therefore controlled by the knowledge that they may be observed at any time without knowing whether they are being observed.
Poster points out that the information collected about each person in the high-tech age is all put into databases. Where they shop, what they buy, what books they read, what movies they see, what sites they surf on the web, etc, etc. The fact that all this information is available to the State if the State chooses to access it.
Thus, like the panopticon-prison, control is exerted by the State as each citizen knows that the information can be accessed but does not know if it is being accessed.
This is how totalitarianism creeps in thru today's technology. The Super-Panopticon is a passive control system for the masses, made possible by the availability of stored personal information.
In 1984 Orwell writes that one never knew if there was anyone watching at the other end of the telescreen, but it was always advisable to act as if there were.
Today the telescreen is invisible, but no less there for all of that. The original totalitarian states may be gone, but today's quasi-representative governments have gained the means to impose their own kind of control.
You want to make Janice feel bad?
--R Daneel
His views on slavery may be understood better by knowing that he worked as an indentured servant during his youth; this experience no doubt colored his attitudes toward involuntary servitude of any kind.
Franklin was certainly not born rich: He worked himself up from very little, and is one of the models of the "American Dream."
Well, you can always buy a few things first, just to get a rep as someone reliable to deal with...
And folks hardly ever refuse to deal with a money order in their hand =)
Has anyone noticed that this is the seller's first-ever auction?
That's always a bit of a warning sign for me...
Point taken; nonetheless, I doubt I will live to see the truly nasty side effects of overpopulation.
Still, you never know.
overpopulation is a way, way, way overblown problem
Ignore Malthus at your own risk.
Me, I'm not particularly in favor of plagues, famine, and war, but what the hell. I'll be dead in 100 years anyway.
Please disregard my previous post =)
First: read this and this.
Now: Don't you feel a little silly?
PS: Yes, I'm Pro-choice. I'm also anti-extremist.
Jeez, yet another person ready to give all the credit for AV's acheivements to McCready. How about to some of the OTHER amazing Engineers that work at AeroVironment?
Actually, they do EXTREMELY well at high altitudes, since the solar panels become more efficient the higher they go, giving more power available to the props. Also wind patterns up there are much more predictable than lower down.
No, the biggest problem with the thing is payload; it just can't carry very much. The Helios is a very lightweight device, made from the kind of materials Aerovironment used to make the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross (the human-powered airplanes).
The question is, will a couple hundred pounds be enough payload to do anything truly significant?
Here is looking forward to lovely LEPs (Light Emitting Ploymers) replacing all the damned CRTs and LCDs.
And for all you naysayers...I have a hard time picturing all the possible uses for this stuff, should it be possible to make it bendable. My prediction is that LEPs are going to change the appearance of the whole world.
Possibility 1: LEP wallpaper; imagine you want to change the color of your room...suddenly your whole house is as customizable as your computer's desktop...housethemes.org anyone? how about carthemes.org?
Possibility 2: The chameleon suit from predator, that instantly becomes any outfit you want it to be.
Possibility 3: the one-page daily newspaper, with every page in full color, fully customizable.
Not to mention all the advertising possibilites. ugh, distracting full motion billboards everywhere you go.
Epson has ALREADY developed a printer that will print RGB LEPs onto a sheet of glass...and Nokia should be releasing phones with the new LEP (full-color) screens shortly.
This is the link for the company that has created the process.