You're right about a (relatively) big gravity well, just build your ship, get it started towards earth, an do a slingshot manuever to pick up some free speed.
I haven't owned a TV in a about 18 months. I've got a 22" monitor, an ATI tuner card, and a DVD drive. I set up a remote control reciever and Girder and everything's great. I watch my TV on it, DVDs, listen to music, it eliminates a lot of redundancy.
On the down side though, the screen size is a little small for viewind DVDs from on the couch across the room, and bigger displays are astronomically expensive. When my girlfriend moves in I'll probably buy a TV, but for a single geek this the most efficient setup I can think of.
I've long held it to be true that there's an inverse relationship between the quality of the movie and speed at which it shows up on video/DVD. Basically, once it's no longer making money in the theater it shows up on DVD so people who won't pay $8 to see it once will pay $5 to rent it or $15 to own it.
In the case of LOTR though, all three movies are done filming and are making it to theaters in quick succesion, so the DVD versions are timed so that they come out in time to renew interest for the next movie. I think the 4 different versions is a little overkill though. I'll just wait until the extended cut comes out. I always was fond of the part of the story where Gimli starts sweet-talking Galadriel....
Not at the CompUSA where I live (Columbia, MD). You walk over to the Mac section adn they've got a new iMac, some tiBooks, and dual-processor G4 (complete with cinema display and a secondary flatscreen) set up and fully usable for people to drool over. Hell, for a while they even had internet connections, and someone had set them up with a napster client and downloaded some tunes.
I figured this out around the same time the movie came out, and this is one of the reasons I haven't kept up in the recent seasons: There is no possible ending that could satisfy the audience.
The mystery and magic is a result of the unknown, that's why all the good horror movies don't show you the monster until the very end.
The whole conspiry stuff is far more interesting when it's unknown then when it's known. I predict right now that if they do give away the "whole deal" in the final episode, it will be a big dissapointment to many people, and I think Carter knows this. Their initial plan was to stop the series at the time the movie came out, which was a very commendible thing to do, stop the show in it's prime and occasionally release a movie, as opposed to letting the series show how it's run out of steam.
Now, with all that said... When do the final episodes start?
There's an article on GamaSutra (free registration required) about how to design a game to maximize it's addictiveness. It's not phrased that way of course, but I'd be willing to bet if you made a comparison between the article and EverQuest, you'd have a perfect correlation. I know I discovered that when I compared Diablo 2.
Theoretically you could make a video game as mentally addictive as any drug (and maybe Verant already has?), all you need to do is research the psychology.
Remember, Louis Woo was the only man to ever quit the wire...
If you really wanted a duplicate of this machine, you would need a motherboard based on nVidia's nForce chipset (I know it only supports AMD). Then you'd want to use DDR Ram (I'm sure the XBox isn't using SDR, maybe rambus?), and a GeForce3 (just to have the same gfx hardware). You wouldn't need a sound card, just use the sound on the nForce board, same with the network card.
I just spoke with the girl at EB (who definately knows her games), and she sid that they've gotten no word of this, and historically the big N has big fines for anyone who sells something early without permission. Maybe they just haven't gotten the word yet, or maybe it's just another wacky internet rumor.
The new Incubus CD burned just fine, and I've been playing it on my PC since day 1 (the only place I play my CDs). I don't see what they're talking about, are only some CDs within a certain set "copy-protected"?
Anyway, Incubus' "Morning View" is highly recommended, good stuff.
Woohoo!! Finally I'll have enough bandwith to put the RIAA and the MPAA out of buisiness while still being a ULPB (Ultra Low Ping Bastard) in Quake 3!!
At least, until I start getting hit with full-video popup ads...
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You forgot one of the most important ones:
You're right about a (relatively) big gravity well, just build your ship, get it started towards earth, an do a slingshot manuever to pick up some free speed.
Even worse, I listen to heavy metal while programming, and when I'm in the elusive "programming zone", I tend to headbang.
Do I watch TV on my computer?...
I haven't owned a TV in a about 18 months. I've got a 22" monitor, an ATI tuner card, and a DVD drive. I set up a remote control reciever and Girder and everything's great. I watch my TV on it, DVDs, listen to music, it eliminates a lot of redundancy.
On the down side though, the screen size is a little small for viewind DVDs from on the couch across the room, and bigger displays are astronomically expensive. When my girlfriend moves in I'll probably buy a TV, but for a single geek this the most efficient setup I can think of.
what is Bill G smoking?
Rolls of hundred dollar bills, that's what.
I've long held it to be true that there's an inverse relationship between the quality of the movie and speed at which it shows up on video/DVD. Basically, once it's no longer making money in the theater it shows up on DVD so people who won't pay $8 to see it once will pay $5 to rent it or $15 to own it.
In the case of LOTR though, all three movies are done filming and are making it to theaters in quick succesion, so the DVD versions are timed so that they come out in time to renew interest for the next movie. I think the 4 different versions is a little overkill though. I'll just wait until the extended cut comes out. I always was fond of the part of the story where Gimli starts sweet-talking Galadriel....
Not at the CompUSA where I live (Columbia, MD). You walk over to the Mac section adn they've got a new iMac, some tiBooks, and dual-processor G4 (complete with cinema display and a secondary flatscreen) set up and fully usable for people to drool over. Hell, for a while they even had internet connections, and someone had set them up with a napster client and downloaded some tunes.
I figured this out around the same time the movie came out, and this is one of the reasons I haven't kept up in the recent seasons: There is no possible ending that could satisfy the audience.
The mystery and magic is a result of the unknown, that's why all the good horror movies don't show you the monster until the very end.
The whole conspiry stuff is far more interesting when it's unknown then when it's known. I predict right now that if they do give away the "whole deal" in the final episode, it will be a big dissapointment to many people, and I think Carter knows this. Their initial plan was to stop the series at the time the movie came out, which was a very commendible thing to do, stop the show in it's prime and occasionally release a movie, as opposed to letting the series show how it's run out of steam.
Now, with all that said... When do the final episodes start?
There's an article on GamaSutra (free registration required) about how to design a game to maximize it's addictiveness. It's not phrased that way of course, but I'd be willing to bet if you made a comparison between the article and EverQuest, you'd have a perfect correlation. I know I discovered that when I compared Diablo 2.
Theoretically you could make a video game as mentally addictive as any drug (and maybe Verant already has?), all you need to do is research the psychology.
Remember, Louis Woo was the only man to ever quit the wire...
I know this isn't really important to anyone but me, but it's spelled Zhaan. Zahn is my last name.
see also:
Zahn, Timothy (author of Star Wars books)
Zahn, Steve (actor)
Zahn, Paula ("sexy" CNN anchorwoman)
If you really wanted a duplicate of this machine, you would need a motherboard based on nVidia's nForce chipset (I know it only supports AMD). Then you'd want to use DDR Ram (I'm sure the XBox isn't using SDR, maybe rambus?), and a GeForce3 (just to have the same gfx hardware). You wouldn't need a sound card, just use the sound on the nForce board, same with the network card.
I just spoke with the girl at EB (who definately knows her games), and she sid that they've gotten no word of this, and historically the big N has big fines for anyone who sells something early without permission. Maybe they just haven't gotten the word yet, or maybe it's just another wacky internet rumor.
The new Incubus CD burned just fine, and I've been playing it on my PC since day 1 (the only place I play my CDs). I don't see what they're talking about, are only some CDs within a certain set "copy-protected"?
Anyway, Incubus' "Morning View" is highly recommended, good stuff.
Woohoo!! Finally I'll have enough bandwith to put the RIAA and the MPAA out of buisiness while still being a ULPB (Ultra Low Ping Bastard) in Quake 3!!
At least, until I start getting hit with full-video popup ads...