Hell, you'd have to pay me to watch something other than the TLCs and Discovery Channels etc. and a few shows on TechTV (big thinkers, the screen savers, The Tech Of...) and movies, and i've yet to have a job. The rest of it just blows massive monkey nuts.
Great, great points. Especially the lowest common denom one - big boobs, tight clothes, and lots of explosions sell.
However, i don't see anything wrong with using someone else's engine. You don't have to reinvent the wheel (but you are allowed to tweak it to your liking), which means the company can spend more of its dev time making good content and not have to worry about completely designing and debugging and spending money on their own engine. That also leaves the engine work to the people who really know what the hell they're doing when it comes to 3D (it seems that FPSs are the only games, atm, that have liscensed engines).
Engine liscensing allows developers who might lack the more advanced technical skill to still make a great game.
I've been begging my CISCO teacher (yes, teacher, i'm in highschool) to "ignore" the AUP (acceptable use policy) and let me install FreeBSD on my class workstation. It's an old Compaq POS that manages to crash at least once a day while i'm using it, and hardcore BSoDs are a two time a week thing, it seems. Not to mention that this machine is so slow it can barely run the Win98 install on it. Hell, these things have trouble running our CISCO router configuration software. I think it would be perfect for a FreeBSD install.
Ooh, a new "you know you're a geek/nerd/dork when..." idea:
You know you're a geek/nerd/dork when you have mod points more frequently than dates.
Too bad it's true for me.
A game with a huge following like Warcraft can suffer greatly from gameplay balance issues. When you have 30,000+ people playing at any given time, the most powerful strategies will be found and exploited like you wouldn't believe. And with many, many additions to the game in this expansion pack, Blizzard will need alot of manpower to iron out all of the problems (of course, classic WC3 is still horribly balanced, but the word is they'll be fixing that with the expansion).
The beta tests are not only for working out bugs, but also making sure the different races and units are as balanced as can be.
If the new sites had better and/or more content than Slashdot or Fark, they would become quite popular quite quickly. The problem is most cheap imitation sites are just that - cheap immitations. THey don't give you any reason to go to them, but plenty to stay away.
I have to say, have you tried browsing a Windows network from an XP machine? It barely works. At every LAN i go to there's ALWAYS a problem accessing shares that use the built-in file sharing. People's boxes never show up in network neighborhood (yet you can connect to them using their ip address just fine), people who haven't been on the network for hours are still shown as being available. Maybe XP just doesn't like sharing files with non-xp or non-NT operating systems, but i will never use it unless i have to - setting up a direct connect hub works much better.
Of course, this may just be my experience. YMMV.
It's around 60FPS. Go find someone with a decent machine for running Quake 3. Type "/sv_maxfps 30" in the console, and play a little. Then try "sv_maxfps 60". I gurantee you'll notice a difference.
Fanboys don't know what quality is? You're blurring the line between the "Audiophile of gaming" and your average joe who has a PS2.
The average Joe loves bass and nothing more when it comes to music. The average joe loves his PS2 and maybe PC when it comes to gaming. Whether or not it's a dell, compaq, whatever - it plays games so he's happy.
Audiophiles spend hours tweaking their systems and getting the right components. Hardcore gamers spend quite a bit of time picking out the best stuff for them (although it's alot easier; you just go with whoever has the highest benchmarks).
Hardcore audio guys/girls know and appreciate an awesome system. Hardcore gamers know that, in general, specs = speed. But we go by benchmarks more than anything else. And yes we appreciate the difference. For the same reason that an audiophile would rather die than listen to Joe Teenager's "system," hardcore gamers would rather have their eyes torn out than play UT2k3 or Quake at 20-30fps.
Something i've noticed in highschool (i'm a senior this year) is that teachers are pressured to produce students with higher grades. But instead of producing better students, they make things easier for the kids. I've had a few teachers (VERY few) who have really demanded thigns of their students. What happens? People drop the class because they're afraid it'll ruin their GPA. Parents threaten teachers if the student doesn't recieve the grade he/she wanted, and the administrators typically bend to the will of the parent/student. My class of 400 kids has 14 students viable for validictorian - all with 4.0s.
It's already been done. Well, kinda. It ran at about 3-6 FPS, and the very complex layered scenes couldn't be done on the fly, but they were pretty close to real-time rending - and with "geforce 3 equivolent" tech - back in August.
If you like Gamespy's server scanning features, check out The All Seeing Eye (no, i don't work for them or anything). It's the best server browser i've seen - although it only supports first person shooters.
I could totally get into actually racing other people on an exercise bike. It's something i've always wanted to do, but the local racing scene is way too competetive for someone like me who doesn't have alot of time on his hands. Imagine networked races at the gym - that would be freakin awesome.
Of course, it wouldn't be the best exercise for you (who cares about following your heartrate when you have someone to out-pedal?) but i could see competition being a great way to get people to go to the gym on a regular basis.
So, i've already filed a patent on this, and claim the idea as my intellectual property.
The card has your name and account number on it, maybe something else. It's printed from your account info, which is stored in the computer.
See where i'm going with this?
A video store gave me a little keychain barcode which I'm using here.
So i just have to work at his video store (or have a friend who works there), make myself a copy of his barcode, and i get free reign of his house? Sweet.
Perfectly true. The same goes for the public schools in Michigan (I'm a HS student here, and my mother has been a HS teacher here for over 20 years; just an FYI).
Our state has the same policy, and my GOD does it take alot to get thrown out. Part of it is parents who have such a stranglehold on the school system's balls, but the other part is money. Everything in the schools is about money these days. The higher the average GPA, the more money available to the school. My class has 14 kids vying for the validictorian spot - we have just over 300 kids in the class, total. The few teachers we have that are passionate never have full classes - everyone wants out because they're afraid that it will be too hard and ruin their GPA. Those teachers end up getting stuck teaching the required classes and eventually quit - or are asked to resign because they failed someone and their parents threw a shit fit.
Also, Michigan public schools get alot of their funding based on MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) standardized test scores. The teachers have begun to teach us only so we can do well on that test (and to a lesser extent the ACT and SAT). We're given formulaic ways to answer questions that are meant to be thought provoking. Of course, the worst part is that if we dont' use those formulas for answering we get graded down harshly.
I scored perfectly in every section except the writing where i got a 3 (1 being the best, 4 being the worst) - simply because i didn't take a definate side of an issue presented to me - and i was told "Respond to this question however you feel, your position on the issue has no bearing on your score." I was graded down not because i couldn't support my view, but because i didn't write in the exact form that they wanted.
I would love to attend an event like this. The learning possibilities would be nearly endless for someone like me. Something like this is unbelievably fascinating to me, and would prefer to watch it than the latest Quake or Unreal match (and i was pretty into the hardcore Q3 scene a few months ago).
Re:Is a signal strength war already escalating?
on
802.11 RF Amp
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· Score: 1
There was a fix for this posted a while back. Basically, it boils down to the WiFi antenna being out of place a little bit. Here's the thread at Ars about it.
I know a guy who Apple used to contract. He was privy to all of their new stuff - he had a dual proc G4 sitting under his desk at work for over a month before they were announced. But no matter how i tried, i could NEVER get info out of him.
No kidding. I don't want another "the super machine came back in time to kill you and i'm here to protect you" story. I was hoping to see the the rise of the machines part of the story fleshed out - like the title indicates. But this looks just like the other two, only with better CGI.
Slashdot Mirror
Hell, you'd have to pay me to watch something other than the TLCs and Discovery Channels etc. and a few shows on TechTV (big thinkers, the screen savers, The Tech Of...) and movies, and i've yet to have a job. The rest of it just blows massive monkey nuts.
Great, great points. Especially the lowest common denom one - big boobs, tight clothes, and lots of explosions sell. However, i don't see anything wrong with using someone else's engine. You don't have to reinvent the wheel (but you are allowed to tweak it to your liking), which means the company can spend more of its dev time making good content and not have to worry about completely designing and debugging and spending money on their own engine. That also leaves the engine work to the people who really know what the hell they're doing when it comes to 3D (it seems that FPSs are the only games, atm, that have liscensed engines). Engine liscensing allows developers who might lack the more advanced technical skill to still make a great game.
BOFH = Bastard Operator From Hell.
Wouldn't a magnet totally screw these things over? Just your merchandise over those magnetic pads that disable the security tags on merchandise.
I've been begging my CISCO teacher (yes, teacher, i'm in highschool) to "ignore" the AUP (acceptable use policy) and let me install FreeBSD on my class workstation. It's an old Compaq POS that manages to crash at least once a day while i'm using it, and hardcore BSoDs are a two time a week thing, it seems. Not to mention that this machine is so slow it can barely run the Win98 install on it. Hell, these things have trouble running our CISCO router configuration software. I think it would be perfect for a FreeBSD install.
Ooh, a new "you know you're a geek/nerd/dork when..." idea: You know you're a geek/nerd/dork when you have mod points more frequently than dates. Too bad it's true for me.
A game with a huge following like Warcraft can suffer greatly from gameplay balance issues. When you have 30,000+ people playing at any given time, the most powerful strategies will be found and exploited like you wouldn't believe. And with many, many additions to the game in this expansion pack, Blizzard will need alot of manpower to iron out all of the problems (of course, classic WC3 is still horribly balanced, but the word is they'll be fixing that with the expansion).
The beta tests are not only for working out bugs, but also making sure the different races and units are as balanced as can be.
If the new sites had better and/or more content than Slashdot or Fark, they would become quite popular quite quickly. The problem is most cheap imitation sites are just that - cheap immitations. THey don't give you any reason to go to them, but plenty to stay away.
I have to say, have you tried browsing a Windows network from an XP machine? It barely works. At every LAN i go to there's ALWAYS a problem accessing shares that use the built-in file sharing. People's boxes never show up in network neighborhood (yet you can connect to them using their ip address just fine), people who haven't been on the network for hours are still shown as being available. Maybe XP just doesn't like sharing files with non-xp or non-NT operating systems, but i will never use it unless i have to - setting up a direct connect hub works much better. Of course, this may just be my experience. YMMV.
It's around 60FPS. Go find someone with a decent machine for running Quake 3. Type "/sv_maxfps 30" in the console, and play a little. Then try "sv_maxfps 60". I gurantee you'll notice a difference.
Fanboys don't know what quality is? You're blurring the line between the "Audiophile of gaming" and your average joe who has a PS2. The average Joe loves bass and nothing more when it comes to music. The average joe loves his PS2 and maybe PC when it comes to gaming. Whether or not it's a dell, compaq, whatever - it plays games so he's happy. Audiophiles spend hours tweaking their systems and getting the right components. Hardcore gamers spend quite a bit of time picking out the best stuff for them (although it's alot easier; you just go with whoever has the highest benchmarks). Hardcore audio guys/girls know and appreciate an awesome system. Hardcore gamers know that, in general, specs = speed. But we go by benchmarks more than anything else. And yes we appreciate the difference. For the same reason that an audiophile would rather die than listen to Joe Teenager's "system," hardcore gamers would rather have their eyes torn out than play UT2k3 or Quake at 20-30fps.
Anyone mind explaining, or posting some links to pages explaining, what stack smashing is, and why an executable stack stops it?
We're not all l33t haxx0rs here...
I don't remember that one, but i do remember the Chex Wars or whatever, which was basically a shareware copy of Doom with different textures.
And does anyone remember the old 7-UP Genesis game? Was a decent platformer, actually.
Something i've noticed in highschool (i'm a senior this year) is that teachers are pressured to produce students with higher grades. But instead of producing better students, they make things easier for the kids. I've had a few teachers (VERY few) who have really demanded thigns of their students. What happens? People drop the class because they're afraid it'll ruin their GPA. Parents threaten teachers if the student doesn't recieve the grade he/she wanted, and the administrators typically bend to the will of the parent/student. My class of 400 kids has 14 students viable for validictorian - all with 4.0s.
It's already been done. Well, kinda. It ran at about 3-6 FPS, and the very complex layered scenes couldn't be done on the fly, but they were pretty close to real-time rending - and with "geforce 3 equivolent" tech - back in August.
If you like Gamespy's server scanning features, check out The All Seeing Eye (no, i don't work for them or anything). It's the best server browser i've seen - although it only supports first person shooters.
I could totally get into actually racing other people on an exercise bike. It's something i've always wanted to do, but the local racing scene is way too competetive for someone like me who doesn't have alot of time on his hands. Imagine networked races at the gym - that would be freakin awesome. Of course, it wouldn't be the best exercise for you (who cares about following your heartrate when you have someone to out-pedal?) but i could see competition being a great way to get people to go to the gym on a regular basis. So, i've already filed a patent on this, and claim the idea as my intellectual property.
The card has your name and account number on it, maybe something else. It's printed from your account info, which is stored in the computer. See where i'm going with this?
A video store gave me a little keychain barcode which I'm using here.
So i just have to work at his video store (or have a friend who works there), make myself a copy of his barcode, and i get free reign of his house? Sweet.
Perfectly true. The same goes for the public schools in Michigan (I'm a HS student here, and my mother has been a HS teacher here for over 20 years; just an FYI). Our state has the same policy, and my GOD does it take alot to get thrown out. Part of it is parents who have such a stranglehold on the school system's balls, but the other part is money. Everything in the schools is about money these days. The higher the average GPA, the more money available to the school. My class has 14 kids vying for the validictorian spot - we have just over 300 kids in the class, total. The few teachers we have that are passionate never have full classes - everyone wants out because they're afraid that it will be too hard and ruin their GPA. Those teachers end up getting stuck teaching the required classes and eventually quit - or are asked to resign because they failed someone and their parents threw a shit fit. Also, Michigan public schools get alot of their funding based on MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program) standardized test scores. The teachers have begun to teach us only so we can do well on that test (and to a lesser extent the ACT and SAT). We're given formulaic ways to answer questions that are meant to be thought provoking. Of course, the worst part is that if we dont' use those formulas for answering we get graded down harshly. I scored perfectly in every section except the writing where i got a 3 (1 being the best, 4 being the worst) - simply because i didn't take a definate side of an issue presented to me - and i was told "Respond to this question however you feel, your position on the issue has no bearing on your score." I was graded down not because i couldn't support my view, but because i didn't write in the exact form that they wanted.
I would love to attend an event like this. The learning possibilities would be nearly endless for someone like me. Something like this is unbelievably fascinating to me, and would prefer to watch it than the latest Quake or Unreal match (and i was pretty into the hardcore Q3 scene a few months ago).
There was a fix for this posted a while back. Basically, it boils down to the WiFi antenna being out of place a little bit. Here's the thread at Ars about it.
I know a guy who Apple used to contract. He was privy to all of their new stuff - he had a dual proc G4 sitting under his desk at work for over a month before they were announced. But no matter how i tried, i could NEVER get info out of him.
No kidding. I don't want another "the super machine came back in time to kill you and i'm here to protect you" story. I was hoping to see the the rise of the machines part of the story fleshed out - like the title indicates. But this looks just like the other two, only with better CGI.
It was also released for the Macintosh. Same text format, but just as fun. I have a copy if anyone wants it...