OK. The process you're describing moves the "documents and settings" folder off the C: drive. That's fine if you're a geek, much less so for regulation load-bearing idiots. Load-bearing idiots from time to time get instructions that involve looking for something like C:\Documents and Settings\username\whatever\stupidfile\theyneed.
And when they don't see Documents and Settings where it's "supposed" to be, they get upset and call me about it.
What I like having is the appearance of documents and settings where it's supposed to be, and the actuality of having documents and settings someplace safe. This is what using linkd accomplishes. Is that really so hard to grasp?
That's great, if you're willing to put up with a "D:\documents and settings" path. Using linkd, Documents and settings essentially lives in both places (actually on the second partition, but transparently on C:, just like/home on your favorite real OS of choice).
There does exist a tool called "linkd" in the Windows 2003 Server resource kit, which allows you to set mount points via the command line.
So you install a system. Use two partitions. Pull the drive. Install 2nd drive on working windows machin. Copy the "Documents and Settings" to the second partition of the newly installed drive. Then use linkd to create a "Documents and Settings" mount point from one partition to the other.
As a semi-serious builder/hobbyist, when I build a system, I use preconfigured sysprep images where I have already done this (the mount point linkage IS copied by programs like ghost that support NTFS5). I can restore a single partition or the whole disk. Either way. I distribute a restore DVD to my customers that can fix their spyware- and virus-hosed Windows installs without killing all the pictures they took with their digital camera etc.
It took me a bit of fiddling to make sure I have the process right, but for the number of times it's saved me two hours' work, I almost want to cry.
It's just a hobby. Some people buy boats or old cars, I figure out ways to organize, distribute and access media throughout my house. Not very many people would tolerate the sheer amount of computers (or for that matter wiring) involved in my arrangement. On a neighborhood, hotel or apartment complex level I suppose it could be useful, were the commercial applications not so tied up with IP rights.
It should be pointed out that SR's database is self-reported and its analysis is subject to whatever goofy math Eugene and Davin are doing that day. Because it's self-reported, it's reasonable to assume that anyone who bothers will have some kind of bias in their accounting.
A much more valid determination of reliability for hard disks would be get RMA numbers from several large retailers or distributors that carry all five brands of drives (Newegg, say).
All that said, Maxtor made great drives from about 1998 to about 2001, at least. The merger with Quantum IMO led to a marked decline in the quality of Maxtor ATA drives that was fairly evident with the release of the first "Quaxtor" drives, the 740X, DM8 and DM9, all of which appear to be Quantum designs.
Anecdotally, I have had far better experiences with Samsung hard disks than other brands. Samsung drives are hard to find at the consumer level, but in my opinion the recent fluid bearing models (SP1614N et al) are well worth tracking down, as they are a wonderful combination of quiet, cool and fast. I have around 7TB of disks in my home (yes, I need that much space). I only buy Samsung and Hitachi drives for myself. I know I'm just some random guy on the internet, but there's more going on in commodity storage than SR's reliability database.
Or you can play through all the tons and tons and tons of high-level missions that you didn't get to before you hit 50. I seem to have a never-ending stream of arch-villains waiting to be defeated. Plus the Clues from the high level missions are COOL.
Personally I'm glad for a game with no bullshit camping, no bullshit crafting, no bitching about who gets the loot, and no stupid Blizzard "lets kill bnetd" management.
Try a Via EPIA-based system. $165 for a fanless 1GHz C3 + board (plus video, NIC and sound), $35 for 256MB RAM, $60 for an 80GB hard disk, $50 for an appropriately tiny case, $35 for a decent CD Burner.
Add $70 to upgrade to 512MB RAM and a 16x DVD Burner, and it's still $80 cheaper than the base config of the mini, and only VERY slightly larger, plus the C3 can handle 6 channel sound. Spend the $50 on a low-profile bt878 PCI tuner, and have an absolutely marvelous little theater appliance.
Do you understand the difference between parody and hatred?
Do you understand that everything under landoverbaptist is a very subtle dig at some attitudes in desperate need of exactly the treatment given there?
The very fact that some humorless evangelical can't tell the difference between Landoverbaptist and the real, scary kind of evangelical rhetoric suggests to me that perhaps some of that scary rhetoric needs to change.
Having spent more than a little bit of time on that site, living in a place where such unctious Jesusland behavior is an accepted norm, and given the attitude of offense certain people take at the particular flavor of satire, all I can say is,
If you look at that site, and cannot instantly tell that it is meant to be humorous, you completely and utterly deserve the mockery and scorn of everyone else who can.
The authors of that site have a very valid message that is delivered very effectively. If you're offended as a xtian, why don't you take some time and convince those xtians you know who DO act like that to stop behaving in the ways that landoverbaptist lampoons?
Remember while you're being offended at someone who can make fun of your religion, that the evangelical xtian community didn't get upset when Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on gays and feminists, and George W. "Born Again" Bush has in the past publicly described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Crusades". These are not exactly folks with shining ideals of tolerance and goodwill. Kind of makes me think that "people are what they claim to be" is only true if you START from the point of view of Landoverbaptist, at least as far as evangelical-types go. If you feel that their humor is in poor taste, just remember that those on the other side feels much the same way about you.
Consumer reports' reviews are largely written by non-experts. This can lead to misinformed critisism and misleading conclusions.
I would guess that the overwhelming majority of slashdot readers would disgree with Consumer Reports on the subject of personal computers, and with good reason. The couple mechanic-types I know think their car reviews are a laugh-a-minute riot. Same thing with photographers and reviews of cameras. Basically any time I've talked to a subject matter expert about something I saw in a Consumer Reports evaluation, I've been intelligently persuaded that the review couldn't find his ass with both hands, a map and a GPS.
So I stopped reading consumer reports. Fact on its own is not as useful to me as fact with context and expertise.
CoH is exactly the MMO I want to play. There is no crafting. There is only the barest notion of "treasure" (bad guys sometimes drop enhancements to your powers). There is no notion of "camping" as I understand the EQ definition. It is very easy to just load up CoH and PLAY, without worrying about the secondary and tertiary activities that seem to overwhelm the actual game in UO or Everquest or SWG.
I've played with folks from Quebec and from Finland. Players on the coh.com boards occasionally mention their foreign locations. I don't believe the game is available yet in the UK, but some players there HAVE gotten it.
City of Heroes to date has had three free updates, each of which has added content (new city zones and bad guys). The most recent update added addition powers and character classes for the high-level folk. Minor updates are normally issued on Tuesdays, and consist of ~5MB downloads for game patches. Major content updates (called "Issues") seem to happen roughly quarterly, are free of charge, and represent a fairly substantial download. The client runs a patcher prior to the start of play, while the Issues are available for download several weeks prior to their going live.
The game costs $15 a month in the US. I have no idea what pricing will be in Euroland.
The player base is generally friendly and talkative in my experience. Almost no one roleplays on the server where I spend my time.
Near optimal CoH-playing experience requires 1GB of RAM (EQ players have needed a Gig of RAM for a couple years IIRC) and a Radeon 9600 or 9800. The $400+ cards from ATI and nVidia add nothing to the game at the moment, and anecdotally I understand that nvidia hardware seems to have more display bugs in CoH. The game will run on 256MB, but I wouldn't suggest trying that.
Gameplay-wise, the best advice I can give is that you take things slow, read the clues you get in missions, and work with a team. There are a limited number of indoor settings, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but over time the devs have done really great work to make the settings for important missions more and more unique (e.g. the burning building in the "Bonefire" mission almost everyone gets at level 6).
Someone looking to make friends in-game would do well to make an Empathy (Healer/Buffer) or Radiation (Healer/debuffer) defender, or a Tank of some kind. Those two types are almost ALWAYS in demand for grouping, and Tanks are pretty easy for beginners.
At one time I used 802.11a, happily living on a 5GHz mountain all by myself.
Then my neighbor brought home a frequency-hopping 5GHz wireless phone. And then paradise went away, and I found myself unable to connect to my "A" network any more.
Since the condo I live in has a very small yard with a lot of other suburban professionals nearby, I found, like the Topic Author, that I didn't have much of a choice in using "G", either.
Eventually I talked on of my father's employees (an engineer and a Ham enthusiast) into building a smallish 5GHz signal amplifier out of a few hundred dollars worth of his spare parts. The way he was talking I'm not even completely sure my neighbor's phone can even work any more, and I get reception on my (secure) "A" WLAN a full city block from my house.
Wantedlist discs take about 4 days to ship to and from my home. I haven't gotten a bad disc or a disc that would not play from that service in a couple years of membership - I'm on the "Clarence Thomas" 8 at a time plan - and I keep a full queue to avoid delays in shipping.
There are some movies I wish they'd carry - oddly, I wish they had a better selection of softer stuff and more legitimate lesbian porn (my ex- and her partner borrow discs from me...), but they seem to have tons of the sort of thing you indicate enjoying.
I'm not a fan of the gonzo stuff or the compilation disc, so I don't have any meaningful recommendations for you, moviewise.
Since most XPCs run between $250 and $400, $130 is a very substantial savings. I like the XPC form factor for some things (not as HTPCs - I want components that match my AV equipment, but as office machines), but I've found the cost off-putting compared to traditional case, PSU and motherboard arrangements.
Many of Vivid video's early DVD releases had multiangle content. Generally it was confined to a second angle (two camera setups in porn are kind of rare to start with), and because of what I assume are poor production techniques there were issues with color matching between cameras, making the switch between angles even more jarring than one might expect.
It's pretty easy to see why that technology was pretty much dropped.
I HAVE seen multiangle used for things like DVDs of Concerts or Operas, although I can't think of one specifically at the moment.
But, OK, stepping back from that, the technology I can't believe made it to porn DVD is 5.1 Dolby Digital. I have a couple dozen titles that yes, actually make use of the rear surround speakers.
The stereotypical macho guy is bothered by looking at another guy. Especially the five different prison escapees who show up in every straight mainstream porno. They are hairy and flabby and covered with tatoos.
Why? Because straight guys are comfortable with that. Don't ask me why straight guys are OK with that one camera angle where the camera is pointed straight up between the guy's legs while he's going at it with a bored, plastic blonde, so that all you see is fat, hairy man ass. Is there a straight guy somewhere who wants to see that?
I have observed that the guys in gay movies (or at least the box covers) or European films tend to be a lot better looking (fit, less hairy etc). Still look like prison escapees, but maybe not the maximum security wing.
Anyway, the straight guy watches a couple girls and can have the fantasy that "Gee, all they REALLY need is a man."
Which is the kind of thing that will make an actual lesbian laugh out loud.
And for the record, I don't think anyone watches all 11,000 titles, but someone with a real interest in any particular subject matter can probably see all of the couple dozen titles related to that fetish that are released in a given year. I do pretty well with mainstream feature releases from Vivid, Wicked, VCA, Adam & Eve et al.
Alright. Pick on Unreal or for that matter Tomb Raider.
But not FAKK.
FAKK2 is absolutely, 100% about exploitation for its own sake. Not "bad" exploitation, per se. Just same kind of fun charm as a Russ Meyer or Andy Sedaris movie - and that's a very different thing from a mainstream sort of entertainment.
Julie Strain (the voice actress and character model - Her boobs pretty much ARE bigger than her head BTW) is a willing participant in that sort of thing... to the point where she'll show up at science fiction conventions in fetishy chain-mail outfits. She even married one of the guys who created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I'm pretty sure she's actually into cheeseball excuses to have over-proportioned women do outrageious things, which is as good a description of FAKK2 as I can think of.
FAKK2 was all about Julie Strain showing off and loving it.
And if you take a look at her imdb credits or do a google image search with safesearch off, you'll see that I'm basically correct.
Certainly cheaper, with higher capacity storage and an RS232 port for advanced geekery. I'd love to have by-wire controls on mine rather than using the IR emitter I'm using now, but other than that these things are a lot easier to deal with.
Plus they're SACD players as well, which is cool.
I *have* a 2TB Snapstream server and some interfaces for moving video content around my house (either from my HTPC or from my receiver). It's nice for a lot of things. It's also a hassle to set up and deal with controls (I generally use a laptop + VNC, rather than trying to read text from the sofa), and it took me a couple years to get it to a point where I'm more-or-less satisfied with it... except for the fact that the damn thing crashes from time to time (I'm aware of mythTV but Snapstream's control for my satellite tuners worked out of the box, and changechannel for myth didn't). Even if I were just using it for DVDs, I haven't found a GREAT 10' interface for any PC DVD-playing application, either. If I'm storing.vobs and.ifos I have to basically make a playlist for each movie and if I'm storing MPEG4 files (which I do, for a lot of porn) I lose video quality and audio options compared to the source.
When I look at how much equipment I need to make my HTPC really awesome versus what my jukeboxes cost, the $700 ($300 for the step down to a non-ES model) is a much more appealing option.
Why should I "figure out" offline mode for a product I do not have installed? I've stated my complaints and my reasons for not installing. I believe others should do likewise.
"Online delivery" is not my complaint per se, as long as other options do in fact exist. My problem with steam is with its highly intrusive nature (what does it want to do on my network connection while I'm playing a non-networked game?) and with the fact that I *have* to use steam in order to use the physical media I would greatly prefer to purchase. Steam isn't just online delivery. It's online delivery plus permission to play, plus a dreadful UI plus some kind of online stats tracking and monitoring plus who the hell knows what else.
You "online delivery" people... what are you going to do when Valve has been ground underfoot by some other gaming company? Think it won't happen? I remember when Microprose and Sierra and Origin were gaming powerhouses, too. Do you think Valve will, out of the goodness of its heart, release an update that will let you install and play without steam?
I'm willing to pay for half life 2, but I am not willing to pay for halflife2 (if I go by ATI coupons, I already have 7 copies) with steam. That's my right.
IMO the reasonable thing to do would be to offer the single-player stuff (Half Life and its plot-having friends) sans steam. Make the Counterstrike/Day of Defeat/whatever fanboys deal with the grief that goes along with Steam's online contact management and permission-to-play and cheat monitoring and whatever the hell else it might do.
And yes, I have broadband now. But that doesn't mean I think fucking every single person on a modem is a good idea (unless they're all hot chicks, and it's the kind of fucking where I get to score...)
This is *not* the "era of broadband" in the US. Maybe in Korea or Finland but here in the US Broadband users are still a minority.
Er, you understand that there are a great many places in the US where even a 19.2 connection is not possible, right? And that gamers - the kind who want to maybe play SINGLE PLAYER GAMES WITH NO MULTIPLAYER COMPONENT sometimes live in those places? I lived in several of those places until just last year (e.g. My first apartment's lines were multiplexed to hell, and I was getting 9.6k and 14.4k connections on USR courier modems).
I'm having real difficulty with the fact that Steam wants me to have an active internet connection while I play a game that in and of itself has no reason to use my network adaptor. OK, I've heard there's an offline mode. Fine. Great. But why am I running this "steam" thing if I bought a box - outdated bits and all - to get a Game that I'd like to play all by myself. I could maybe see it if HL2 was an online game that required monitoring of client files for cheat detection or whatnot. But not a single player title with no reason to use my network connection.
I can slip the disc for "Master of Magic" or "Civilization" in, install it and play it any time I want. That is the right I demand in purchasing a game. As it stands the poor motherfuckers who paid for a CD/DVD have a huge number of worthless bits on a disc that requires interaction with an outside source, just so they have permission to INSTALL the damn thing. That's not progress, tomkarlo.
My ATI coupons IMO entitle me to play Halflife 2. Not "Halflife 2, but only when Pappy Steam is around to give me permission." Shit, the ATI coupons don't say anything about Steam at all IIRC.
There are still people in the world using modems. Those people - particularly the ones who can't manage 33.6k - are pretty much fucked with a knife if they bought Halflife 2 with some expectation of being able to play the game from the crap that's in the box.
That's a VERY legitimate complaint about Steam. Last year - I couldn't get broadband before October 2003 - I tried to play Counterstrike over ~44k and I was absolutely outraged that the only thing out of that box that was useful was the serial number. If I installed the game that was in the box I didn't have a way to connect up-to-date to CS servers. In order to download the updates I either had to let steam run for days to download the required updates, or download a lump installer from a registration-only game site. Steam literally locked me out of a game that I owned.
Objection to steam is NOT just about pirates wanting to pirate. I own multiple copies of HL2 (ATI coupons) and I won't install it unless I can install the *SINGLE PLAYER GAME* without all the steam bullshit.
Slashdot Mirror
Sigh.
OK. The process you're describing moves the "documents and settings" folder off the C: drive. That's fine if you're a geek, much less so for regulation load-bearing idiots. Load-bearing idiots from time to time get instructions that involve looking for something like C:\Documents and Settings\username\whatever\stupidfile\theyneed.
And when they don't see Documents and Settings where it's "supposed" to be, they get upset and call me about it.
What I like having is the appearance of documents and settings where it's supposed to be, and the actuality of having documents and settings someplace safe. This is what using linkd accomplishes. Is that really so hard to grasp?
That's great, if you're willing to put up with a "D:\documents and settings" path. Using linkd, Documents and settings essentially lives in both places (actually on the second partition, but transparently on C:, just like /home on your favorite real OS of choice).
There does exist a tool called "linkd" in the Windows 2003 Server resource kit, which allows you to set mount points via the command line.
So you install a system. Use two partitions. Pull the drive. Install 2nd drive on working windows machin. Copy the "Documents and Settings" to the second partition of the newly installed drive. Then use linkd to create a "Documents and Settings" mount point from one partition to the other.
As a semi-serious builder/hobbyist, when I build a system, I use preconfigured sysprep images where I have already done this (the mount point linkage IS copied by programs like ghost that support NTFS5). I can restore a single partition or the whole disk. Either way. I distribute a restore DVD to my customers that can fix their spyware- and virus-hosed Windows installs without killing all the pictures they took with their digital camera etc.
It took me a bit of fiddling to make sure I have the process right, but for the number of times it's saved me two hours' work, I almost want to cry.
*MY* 486 had a 4MB ET4000 in it, so I could view porn in 1280x1024x32bpp on a glorious Mag DX17F 17" display.
Yes, I spent $1000 on a big monitor and fancy ISA graphics card in 1994 just so I could look at smut from USENET better. And I'd do it again.
It's just a hobby. Some people buy boats or old cars, I figure out ways to organize, distribute and access media throughout my house. Not very many people would tolerate the sheer amount of computers (or for that matter wiring) involved in my arrangement. On a neighborhood, hotel or apartment complex level I suppose it could be useful, were the commercial applications not so tied up with IP rights.
As it stands it's just a neat little project.
It should be pointed out that SR's database is self-reported and its analysis is subject to whatever goofy math Eugene and Davin are doing that day. Because it's self-reported, it's reasonable to assume that anyone who bothers will have some kind of bias in their accounting.
A much more valid determination of reliability for hard disks would be get RMA numbers from several large retailers or distributors that carry all five brands of drives (Newegg, say).
All that said, Maxtor made great drives from about 1998 to about 2001, at least. The merger with Quantum IMO led to a marked decline in the quality of Maxtor ATA drives that was fairly evident with the release of the first "Quaxtor" drives, the 740X, DM8 and DM9, all of which appear to be Quantum designs.
Anecdotally, I have had far better experiences with Samsung hard disks than other brands. Samsung drives are hard to find at the consumer level, but in my opinion the recent fluid bearing models (SP1614N et al) are well worth tracking down, as they are a wonderful combination of quiet, cool and fast.
I have around 7TB of disks in my home (yes, I need that much space). I only buy Samsung and Hitachi drives for myself. I know I'm just some random guy on the internet, but there's more going on in commodity storage than SR's reliability database.
Or you can play through all the tons and tons and tons of high-level missions that you didn't get to before you hit 50. I seem to have a never-ending stream of arch-villains waiting to be defeated. Plus the Clues from the high level missions are COOL.
Personally I'm glad for a game with no bullshit camping, no bullshit crafting, no bitching about who gets the loot, and no stupid Blizzard "lets kill bnetd" management.
Try a Via EPIA-based system. $165 for a fanless 1GHz C3 + board (plus video, NIC and sound), $35 for 256MB RAM, $60 for an 80GB hard disk, $50 for an appropriately tiny case, $35 for a decent CD Burner.
Add $70 to upgrade to 512MB RAM and a 16x DVD Burner, and it's still $80 cheaper than the base config of the mini, and only VERY slightly larger, plus the C3 can handle 6 channel sound. Spend the $50 on a low-profile bt878 PCI tuner, and have an absolutely marvelous little theater appliance.
Do you understand the difference between parody and hatred?
Do you understand that everything under landoverbaptist is a very subtle dig at some attitudes in desperate need of exactly the treatment given there?
The very fact that some humorless evangelical can't tell the difference between Landoverbaptist and the real, scary kind of evangelical rhetoric suggests to me that perhaps some of that scary rhetoric needs to change.
Having spent more than a little bit of time on that site, living in a place where such unctious Jesusland behavior is an accepted norm, and given the attitude of offense certain people take at the particular flavor of satire, all I can say is,
If you look at that site, and cannot instantly tell that it is meant to be humorous, you completely and utterly deserve the mockery and scorn of everyone else who can.
The authors of that site have a very valid message that is delivered very effectively. If you're offended as a xtian, why don't you take some time and convince those xtians you know who DO act like that to stop behaving in the ways that landoverbaptist lampoons?
Remember while you're being offended at someone who can make fun of your religion, that the evangelical xtian community didn't get upset when Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on gays and feminists, and George W. "Born Again" Bush has in the past publicly described the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as "Crusades". These are not exactly folks with shining ideals of tolerance and goodwill. Kind of makes me think that "people are what they claim to be" is only true if you START from the point of view of Landoverbaptist, at least as far as evangelical-types go. If you feel that their humor is in poor taste, just remember that those on the other side feels much the same way about you.
Consumer reports' reviews are largely written by non-experts. This can lead to misinformed critisism and misleading conclusions.
I would guess that the overwhelming majority of slashdot readers would disgree with Consumer Reports on the subject of personal computers, and with good reason. The couple mechanic-types I know think their car reviews are a laugh-a-minute riot. Same thing with photographers and reviews of cameras.
Basically any time I've talked to a subject matter expert about something I saw in a Consumer Reports evaluation, I've been intelligently persuaded that the review couldn't find his ass with both hands, a map and a GPS.
So I stopped reading consumer reports. Fact on its own is not as useful to me as fact with context and expertise.
CoH is exactly the MMO I want to play.
There is no crafting. There is only the barest notion of "treasure" (bad guys sometimes drop enhancements to your powers). There is no notion of "camping" as I understand the EQ definition.
It is very easy to just load up CoH and PLAY, without worrying about the secondary and tertiary activities that seem to overwhelm the actual game in UO or Everquest or SWG.
I've played with folks from Quebec and from Finland. Players on the coh.com boards occasionally mention their foreign locations. I don't believe the game is available yet in the UK, but some players there HAVE gotten it.
City of Heroes to date has had three free updates, each of which has added content (new city zones and bad guys). The most recent update added addition powers and character classes for the high-level folk. Minor updates are normally issued on Tuesdays, and consist of ~5MB downloads for game patches. Major content updates (called "Issues") seem to happen roughly quarterly, are free of charge, and represent a fairly substantial download. The client runs a patcher prior to the start of play, while the Issues are available for download several weeks prior to their going live.
The game costs $15 a month in the US. I have no idea what pricing will be in Euroland.
The player base is generally friendly and talkative in my experience. Almost no one roleplays on the server where I spend my time.
Near optimal CoH-playing experience requires 1GB of RAM (EQ players have needed a Gig of RAM for a couple years IIRC) and a Radeon 9600 or 9800. The $400+ cards from ATI and nVidia add nothing to the game at the moment, and anecdotally I understand that nvidia hardware seems to have more display bugs in CoH. The game will run on 256MB, but I wouldn't suggest trying that.
Gameplay-wise, the best advice I can give is that you take things slow, read the clues you get in missions, and work with a team. There are a limited number of indoor settings, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but over time the devs have done really great work to make the settings for important missions more and more unique (e.g. the burning building in the "Bonefire" mission almost everyone gets at level 6).
Someone looking to make friends in-game would do well to make an Empathy (Healer/Buffer) or Radiation (Healer/debuffer) defender, or a Tank of some kind. Those two types are almost ALWAYS in demand for grouping, and Tanks are pretty easy for beginners.
At one time I used 802.11a, happily living on a 5GHz mountain all by myself.
Then my neighbor brought home a frequency-hopping 5GHz wireless phone.
And then paradise went away, and I found myself unable to connect to my "A" network any more.
Since the condo I live in has a very small yard with a lot of other suburban professionals nearby, I found, like the Topic Author, that I didn't have much of a choice in using "G", either.
Eventually I talked on of my father's employees (an engineer and a Ham enthusiast) into building a smallish 5GHz signal amplifier out of a few hundred dollars worth of his spare parts. The way he was talking I'm not even completely sure my neighbor's phone can even work any more, and I get reception on my (secure) "A" WLAN a full city block from my house.
Wantedlist discs take about 4 days to ship to and from my home. I haven't gotten a bad disc or a disc that would not play from that service in a couple years of membership - I'm on the "Clarence Thomas" 8 at a time plan - and I keep a full queue to avoid delays in shipping.
There are some movies I wish they'd carry - oddly, I wish they had a better selection of softer stuff and more legitimate lesbian porn (my ex- and her partner borrow discs from me...), but they seem to have tons of the sort of thing you indicate enjoying.
I'm not a fan of the gonzo stuff or the compilation disc, so I don't have any meaningful recommendations for you, moviewise.
Nope, I use WantedList and get the service of netflix with the selection of the bestest mom and pop video place in the world.
Since most XPCs run between $250 and $400, $130 is a very substantial savings. I like the XPC form factor for some things (not as HTPCs - I want components that match my AV equipment, but as office machines), but I've found the cost off-putting compared to traditional case, PSU and motherboard arrangements.
Many of Vivid video's early DVD releases had multiangle content. Generally it was confined to a second angle (two camera setups in porn are kind of rare to start with), and because of what I assume are poor production techniques there were issues with color matching between cameras, making the switch between angles even more jarring than one might expect.
It's pretty easy to see why that technology was pretty much dropped.
I HAVE seen multiangle used for things like DVDs of Concerts or Operas, although I can't think of one specifically at the moment.
But, OK, stepping back from that, the technology I can't believe made it to porn DVD is 5.1 Dolby Digital. I have a couple dozen titles that yes, actually make use of the rear surround speakers.
The stereotypical macho guy is bothered by looking at another guy.
Especially the five different prison escapees who show up in every straight mainstream porno. They are hairy and flabby and covered with tatoos.
Why? Because straight guys are comfortable with that.
Don't ask me why straight guys are OK with that one camera angle where the camera is pointed straight up between the guy's legs while he's going at it with a bored, plastic blonde, so that all you see is fat, hairy man ass. Is there a straight guy somewhere who wants to see that?
I have observed that the guys in gay movies (or at least the box covers) or European films tend to be a lot better looking (fit, less hairy etc). Still look like prison escapees, but maybe not the maximum security wing.
Anyway, the straight guy watches a couple girls and can have the fantasy that "Gee, all they REALLY need is a man."
Which is the kind of thing that will make an actual lesbian laugh out loud.
And for the record, I don't think anyone watches all 11,000 titles, but someone with a real interest in any particular subject matter can probably see all of the couple dozen titles related to that fetish that are released in a given year. I do pretty well with mainstream feature releases from Vivid, Wicked, VCA, Adam & Eve et al.
A long, long time ago - early 90s-ish - IBM did make an x86 version of AIX.
I dimly recall seeing a couple PS/2s running it in a datacenter once.
Alright. Pick on Unreal or for that matter Tomb Raider.
But not FAKK.
FAKK2 is absolutely, 100% about exploitation for its own sake. Not "bad" exploitation, per se. Just same kind of fun charm as a Russ Meyer or Andy Sedaris movie - and that's a very different thing from a mainstream sort of entertainment.
Julie Strain (the voice actress and character model - Her boobs pretty much ARE bigger than her head BTW) is a willing participant in that sort of thing... to the point where she'll show up at science fiction conventions in fetishy chain-mail outfits. She even married one of the guys who created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I'm pretty sure she's actually into cheeseball excuses to have over-proportioned women do outrageious things, which is as good a description of FAKK2 as I can think of.
FAKK2 was all about Julie Strain showing off and loving it.
And if you take a look at her imdb credits or do a google image search with safesearch off, you'll see that I'm basically correct.
You might consider one of these instead.
.vobs and .ifos I have to basically make a playlist for each movie and if I'm storing MPEG4 files (which I do, for a lot of porn) I lose video quality and audio options compared to the source.
Certainly cheaper, with higher capacity storage and an RS232 port for advanced geekery. I'd love to have by-wire controls on mine rather than using the IR emitter I'm using now, but other than that these things are a lot easier to deal with.
Plus they're SACD players as well, which is cool.
I *have* a 2TB Snapstream server and some interfaces for moving video content around my house (either from my HTPC or from my receiver). It's nice for a lot of things. It's also a hassle to set up and deal with controls (I generally use a laptop + VNC, rather than trying to read text from the sofa), and it took me a couple years to get it to a point where I'm more-or-less satisfied with it... except for the fact that the damn thing crashes from time to time (I'm aware of mythTV but Snapstream's control for my satellite tuners worked out of the box, and changechannel for myth didn't). Even if I were just using it for DVDs, I haven't found a GREAT 10' interface for any PC DVD-playing application, either. If I'm storing
When I look at how much equipment I need to make my HTPC really awesome versus what my jukeboxes cost, the $700 ($300 for the step down to a non-ES model) is a much more appealing option.
Why should I "figure out" offline mode for a product I do not have installed?
I've stated my complaints and my reasons for not installing. I believe others should do likewise.
"Online delivery" is not my complaint per se, as long as other options do in fact exist. My problem with steam is with its highly intrusive nature (what does it want to do on my network connection while I'm playing a non-networked game?) and with the fact that I *have* to use steam in order to use the physical media I would greatly prefer to purchase. Steam isn't just online delivery. It's online delivery plus permission to play, plus a dreadful UI plus some kind of online stats tracking and monitoring plus who the hell knows what else.
You "online delivery" people... what are you going to do when Valve has been ground underfoot by some other gaming company? Think it won't happen? I remember when Microprose and Sierra and Origin were gaming powerhouses, too. Do you think Valve will, out of the goodness of its heart, release an update that will let you install and play without steam?
I'm willing to pay for half life 2, but I am not willing to pay for halflife2 (if I go by ATI coupons, I already have 7 copies) with steam. That's my right.
IMO the reasonable thing to do would be to offer the single-player stuff (Half Life and its plot-having friends) sans steam. Make the Counterstrike/Day of Defeat/whatever fanboys deal with the grief that goes along with Steam's online contact management and permission-to-play and cheat monitoring and whatever the hell else it might do.
The ATI coupons don't. :P
And yes, I have broadband now. But that doesn't mean I think fucking every single person on a modem is a good idea (unless they're all hot chicks, and it's the kind of fucking where I get to score...)
This is *not* the "era of broadband" in the US. Maybe in Korea or Finland but here in the US Broadband users are still a minority.
Er, you understand that there are a great many places in the US where even a 19.2 connection is not possible, right? And that gamers - the kind who want to maybe play SINGLE PLAYER GAMES WITH NO MULTIPLAYER COMPONENT sometimes live in those places? I lived in several of those places until just last year (e.g. My first apartment's lines were multiplexed to hell, and I was getting 9.6k and 14.4k connections on USR courier modems).
I'm having real difficulty with the fact that Steam wants me to have an active internet connection while I play a game that in and of itself has no reason to use my network adaptor. OK, I've heard there's an offline mode. Fine. Great. But why am I running this "steam" thing if I bought a box - outdated bits and all - to get a Game that I'd like to play all by myself. I could maybe see it if HL2 was an online game that required monitoring of client files for cheat detection or whatnot. But not a single player title with no reason to use my network connection.
I can slip the disc for "Master of Magic" or "Civilization" in, install it and play it any time I want. That is the right I demand in purchasing a game. As it stands the poor motherfuckers who paid for a CD/DVD have a huge number of worthless bits on a disc that requires interaction with an outside source, just so they have permission to INSTALL the damn thing. That's not progress, tomkarlo.
My ATI coupons IMO entitle me to play Halflife 2. Not "Halflife 2, but only when Pappy Steam is around to give me permission." Shit, the ATI coupons don't say anything about Steam at all IIRC.
There are still people in the world using modems.
Those people - particularly the ones who can't manage 33.6k - are pretty much fucked with a knife if they bought Halflife 2 with some expectation of being able to play the game from the crap that's in the box.
That's a VERY legitimate complaint about Steam. Last year - I couldn't get broadband before October 2003 - I tried to play Counterstrike over ~44k and I was absolutely outraged that the only thing out of that box that was useful was the serial number. If I installed the game that was in the box I didn't have a way to connect up-to-date to CS servers. In order to download the updates I either had to let steam run for days to download the required updates, or download a lump installer from a registration-only game site. Steam literally locked me out of a game that I owned.
Objection to steam is NOT just about pirates wanting to pirate. I own multiple copies of HL2 (ATI coupons) and I won't install it unless I can install the *SINGLE PLAYER GAME* without all the steam bullshit.