Yesterday, after posting, I spent about an hour, maybe more, reading various stuff about DF. I think I enjoy reading about it more than playing it. I tried that tonight, and with the help of a guide I got as far as selecting a starting point and equipping/training 2 out of 7 starter dwarves before it just seemed too much like work.
A device with a 4.8" 16:10 screen really isn't in the same class as a device with a 9.6" 4:3 screen. The other stuff doesn't even matter, the good (Linux!!) and the bad (resistive vs capacitive).
Many LCD backlights are still really bright on the lowest settings. I can imagine that a pure white would still be brighter than the reflected light from a paper page when you're using a low powered reading light. I usually set the font to be light gray on black when reading very long text/books on an LCD. Reading from LCDs also often involves staring at the screen in dark ambient light conditions which invites eye strain. I suppose when you're in bed reading a book on the iPad it'd be a good idea to turn on the bedside lamp because of this.
Oddly enough, those are pretty much the worst people to talk to for this kind of information. They flat out lied to you; there is no way that they didn't know this. The only time when it makes sense to go to them is when you already know exactly what you want and at what kind of discount, and are willing to spend half an hour debating with them to actually get said discount.
You don't need a bank account for any of these (at least if you buy the starter set in a store), you can increase your credit by buying charge codes in stores or by wiring them money from wherever.
Well, you got some bad advice there. You can get prepaid cards for all networks, both from the main operators and their subsidiaries as well as from other companies who just resell the network access, usually at a discount. Apart from the convenience of having a contract, there aren't many compelling reasons to avoid prepaid these days; plans are available for both data and voice, and prepaid starts out cheaper in the first place and is quicker to adjust the prices down over time. For instance, those 10 EUR that buy you 200 MB a month with a O2 contract buy me 1 GB. Not sure what gave you the idea that prepaid plans don't offer data; I'm staying with my prepaid plan because their (non-package) data charges are literally a tenth of the network operator's.
The O2 network is not a bad choice as a data carrier, mostly because they might be cheaper than T-Mobile, and their HDSPA ("3.5G") coverage is pretty good. Haven't been a customer for many years, though, and I doubt wireless data access will ever be as reliable as wired. I doubt the accounting program is to blame for your dropouts, though, that's just silly.
I installed it a couple of times, but I never managed to get into it. Learning curve like a steep cliff. I know there are YouTube tutorial videos. That makes it worse. Never got into nethack, either.
Hmm. I had the Warlords map (there was only one in the original) printed out as a kid to be able to plan out assaults when I wasn't allowed to use the computer. I don't remember it having the kind of unit veterancy the GP describes, though of course I could have forgotten.
Ridiculous. Sure, Civ4 could work fine with a Civ1 style graphics scheme. Though why stop there, just do it in ASCII, nethack/dwarf fortress style! That said, it would be nice to be able to switch over to a simple graphics mode to run it on a netbook that lacks a decent GPU. Anyway, from a gameplay perspective the game benefits from 3D, if you really want to call it that -- Civ4 is pretty 2D about it's 3D overhead view. Being able to zoom in to an individual unit isn't particularly useful (so why would you do that?!), but smoothly zooming out to see your whole empire is great. It certainly doesn't take anything away from the game, and I don't see why the 3D view would be to blame for any dumbing down, either.
Similar things are true for SupCom, though I haven't played it anywhere near as much as Civ1/2/3/4; SupCom was widely acclaimed particularly because of the way it handles zooming in and out, which incidently is just about all you're going to do in terms of "twiddling" with the camera, it's not like you're going to pose units for pretty screenshots in the middle of a normal battle.
Wasn't open borders worth it for the income boost from trade connections alone? Can't help you with that ATI card, though I also got Civ4 working beautifully with an Nvidia card.
Are you joking? I you aren't, he's talking about AIs getting better gaming conditions (things are less expensive, etc) on the difficulty levels above Noble. The player gets similar bonuses on levels below Noble. Backstabbing in diplomacy is available at all difficulty levels.
Well you've got to remember it's an old patent by now -- of course it's obvious at this point! But back then, we were all like "woah" and "how did they DO that?!!!" They deserve a lot of credit.
Are you kidding? From the very post which you quote, TWO sentences later I said: Not that any of this will apply to AC2. Because it was already well known that AC2 won't be doing anything except a simple legit yes/no check with the server. I could not possibly have been more explicit about the fact that I was talking about a speculative DRM.
What you describe is what used to happen with early, relatively primitive DRM schemes... also you do not have to take my word for it, just use BitTorrent!
Well, that's... simply not true. Most cracks -- including those for current games -- reduce the binary size. Maybe they're all using primitive DRM schemes!
Hm? That this particular game doesn't employ any sort of difficult DRM had already been established by the time TFA had been posted. The author speculates about storing save games on the server as a DRM feature; but later acknowledged that it doesn't (or at least not exclusively), so the discussion doesn't really apply to AC2.
WRT to your other reply, I gotta say I have often seen cracked exes that are a fraction of their original size because so much code has been removed, and I don't think I've seen one that increased by an order of magnitude, but I'll take your word for it. And I'm well aware of the length crackers go to do remove DRM. None of this changes the fact that storing code/content on the server would bring a new dimension to the whole game, to which the existing cracking methods, elaborate as they are, simply do not apply.
You care about the average Joe because he seemingly gets to decide which codec is hardware accelerated and which codec is used by major web sites. Even if you (or I) find his choice unacceptable.
I think the reasoning "we like warmth - we like light - we like light software!" is much worse. You like visually bright software?! That doesn't make any sense! Oh you mean light-weight! Well, THAT'S REALLY A DIFFERENT WORD dammit.
Compiz can do the semi-maximize, too, it's probably the feature I use the most. It's incredibly useful with large widescreen displays.
It's the Grid plugin that offers the functionality. Unfortunately, it's keyboard only, which is a shame. On the upside, it goes beyond what Windows does: hitting the left key makes the window take up the left half of the screen (as in W7), hitting it again (and again) will set it to the left two thirds (one third). Other keys can do similar things in the corners. It's pretty brilliant, and one of the reasons I'd have a hard time letting go of Compiz.
Okay, I think I get what you're saying. Fonts designed for the screen look good with an accurate renderer because they're designed for the screen. Other fonts might have other characteristics, but they're still accurate. Hm. I guess the latter part isn't essential to me, basically all the text rendered on my screen is rendered in fonts designed for computer displays. I take it you're of the opinion that Linux doesn't render those fonts correctly, either?
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Yesterday, after posting, I spent about an hour, maybe more, reading various stuff about DF. I think I enjoy reading about it more than playing it. I tried that tonight, and with the help of a guide I got as far as selecting a starting point and equipping/training 2 out of 7 starter dwarves before it just seemed too much like work.
Two times the weight.
Three times the money.
A quarter battery runtime.
A device with a 4.8" 16:10 screen really isn't in the same class as a device with a 9.6" 4:3 screen. The other stuff doesn't even matter, the good (Linux!!) and the bad (resistive vs capacitive).
Many LCD backlights are still really bright on the lowest settings. I can imagine that a pure white would still be brighter than the reflected light from a paper page when you're using a low powered reading light. I usually set the font to be light gray on black when reading very long text/books on an LCD. Reading from LCDs also often involves staring at the screen in dark ambient light conditions which invites eye strain. I suppose when you're in bed reading a book on the iPad it'd be a good idea to turn on the bedside lamp because of this.
Oddly enough, those are pretty much the worst people to talk to for this kind of information. They flat out lied to you; there is no way that they didn't know this. The only time when it makes sense to go to them is when you already know exactly what you want and at what kind of discount, and are willing to spend half an hour debating with them to actually get said discount.
Anway, here's one link: http://www.blau.de/tarife.html (translated: http://bit.ly/bFzVgN) Here's another: http://www.fonic.de/html/tarif_details.html (unfortunately none of them seem to have decent international web sites http://bit.ly/9Zg8mz)
You don't need a bank account for any of these (at least if you buy the starter set in a store), you can increase your credit by buying charge codes in stores or by wiring them money from wherever.
Well, you got some bad advice there. You can get prepaid cards for all networks, both from the main operators and their subsidiaries as well as from other companies who just resell the network access, usually at a discount. Apart from the convenience of having a contract, there aren't many compelling reasons to avoid prepaid these days; plans are available for both data and voice, and prepaid starts out cheaper in the first place and is quicker to adjust the prices down over time. For instance, those 10 EUR that buy you 200 MB a month with a O2 contract buy me 1 GB. Not sure what gave you the idea that prepaid plans don't offer data; I'm staying with my prepaid plan because their (non-package) data charges are literally a tenth of the network operator's.
The O2 network is not a bad choice as a data carrier, mostly because they might be cheaper than T-Mobile, and their HDSPA ("3.5G") coverage is pretty good. Haven't been a customer for many years, though, and I doubt wireless data access will ever be as reliable as wired. I doubt the accounting program is to blame for your dropouts, though, that's just silly.
Here in Germany we actually have consumer rights.
For six weeks after you get your account statement, anyway. If you notice it after that time has passed, it's too late.
I installed it a couple of times, but I never managed to get into it. Learning curve like a steep cliff. I know there are YouTube tutorial videos. That makes it worse. Never got into nethack, either.
City units? There are no more city units. The closest thing would (apparently) be units garrisoned in a fort near a city tile.
Hmm. I had the Warlords map (there was only one in the original) printed out as a kid to be able to plan out assaults when I wasn't allowed to use the computer. I don't remember it having the kind of unit veterancy the GP describes, though of course I could have forgotten.
Ridiculous. Sure, Civ4 could work fine with a Civ1 style graphics scheme. Though why stop there, just do it in ASCII, nethack/dwarf fortress style! That said, it would be nice to be able to switch over to a simple graphics mode to run it on a netbook that lacks a decent GPU. Anyway, from a gameplay perspective the game benefits from 3D, if you really want to call it that -- Civ4 is pretty 2D about it's 3D overhead view. Being able to zoom in to an individual unit isn't particularly useful (so why would you do that?!), but smoothly zooming out to see your whole empire is great. It certainly doesn't take anything away from the game, and I don't see why the 3D view would be to blame for any dumbing down, either.
Similar things are true for SupCom, though I haven't played it anywhere near as much as Civ1/2/3/4; SupCom was widely acclaimed particularly because of the way it handles zooming in and out, which incidently is just about all you're going to do in terms of "twiddling" with the camera, it's not like you're going to pose units for pretty screenshots in the middle of a normal battle.
Wasn't open borders worth it for the income boost from trade connections alone? Can't help you with that ATI card, though I also got Civ4 working beautifully with an Nvidia card.
Are you joking? I you aren't, he's talking about AIs getting better gaming conditions (things are less expensive, etc) on the difficulty levels above Noble. The player gets similar bonuses on levels below Noble. Backstabbing in diplomacy is available at all difficulty levels.
No, no, he meant to write "Atlas!!"
Weirdo.
Well you've got to remember it's an old patent by now -- of course it's obvious at this point! But back then, we were all like "woah" and "how did they DO that?!!!" They deserve a lot of credit.
4) He told one of his colleagues "Hey, guess what, I sent a mail to Steve Jobs" and that colleague decided to prank him by forging a reply.
Fair enough. :)
Are you kidding? From the very post which you quote, TWO sentences later I said: Not that any of this will apply to AC2. Because it was already well known that AC2 won't be doing anything except a simple legit yes/no check with the server. I could not possibly have been more explicit about the fact that I was talking about a speculative DRM.
Well, that's... simply not true. Most cracks -- including those for current games -- reduce the binary size. Maybe they're all using primitive DRM schemes!
Hm? That this particular game doesn't employ any sort of difficult DRM had already been established by the time TFA had been posted. The author speculates about storing save games on the server as a DRM feature; but later acknowledged that it doesn't (or at least not exclusively), so the discussion doesn't really apply to AC2.
WRT to your other reply, I gotta say I have often seen cracked exes that are a fraction of their original size because so much code has been removed, and I don't think I've seen one that increased by an order of magnitude, but I'll take your word for it. And I'm well aware of the length crackers go to do remove DRM. None of this changes the fact that storing code/content on the server would bring a new dimension to the whole game, to which the existing cracking methods, elaborate as they are, simply do not apply.
You care about the average Joe because he seemingly gets to decide which codec is hardware accelerated and which codec is used by major web sites. Even if you (or I) find his choice unacceptable.
For that matter I think Ubuntu always shipped a couple of non-brown non-ugly schemes right out of the box.
I think the reasoning "we like warmth - we like light - we like light software!" is much worse. You like visually bright software?! That doesn't make any sense! Oh you mean light-weight! Well, THAT'S REALLY A DIFFERENT WORD dammit.
Compiz can do the semi-maximize, too, it's probably the feature I use the most. It's incredibly useful with large widescreen displays.
It's the Grid plugin that offers the functionality. Unfortunately, it's keyboard only, which is a shame. On the upside, it goes beyond what Windows does: hitting the left key makes the window take up the left half of the screen (as in W7), hitting it again (and again) will set it to the left two thirds (one third). Other keys can do similar things in the corners. It's pretty brilliant, and one of the reasons I'd have a hard time letting go of Compiz.
Makes sense. Don't worry about making fun of my usage, I do it all the time to both native and second language speakers. ;)
Okay, I think I get what you're saying. Fonts designed for the screen look good with an accurate renderer because they're designed for the screen. Other fonts might have other characteristics, but they're still accurate. Hm. I guess the latter part isn't essential to me, basically all the text rendered on my screen is rendered in fonts designed for computer displays. I take it you're of the opinion that Linux doesn't render those fonts correctly, either?