Okay, arguably, it isn't really *good*, but it does have 20 sequels, most of which were very popular, so obviously changing actors between sequels isn't too bad (from a producer's point of view, anyway)
More items IS a good development. The problem is that these items are so rare, it destroys the game. Instead of simply having to level up to gain power - and lets face, going around killing thousands of monster certainly is enjoyable - you have to selectively kill the "big drop" monsters in the game repeatedly to be able to survive the harder difficulty levels. By repeatedly, I don't mean a dozen times, or even a hundred. I mean THOUSANDS of times.
By adding even more emphsasis to the necessity of having the best items, you make it pretty much impossible to do anything in the game without making that three thousand Meph run.
I don't know. Maybe people actually enjoy killing the same enemy over and over again, every damn 30 seconds. I personally think it encourages people to use bots to get them the items so they can actually play. Ain't enhanced gameplay to me. (and no, I don't use bots. I usually just stop playing for a few months once I can't get any further without spending days chasing after the game's most elusive items)
Amazing gameplay changes?! From now on, players above lvl 70 will require more gameplay time, killing even harder units, to gain more worthless levels (since really, levels get increasingly useless, since the items you can use are much more powerful than the additional levels' effects). Add to that that they've added more items, most of which are Elite uniques, and more Runewords, probably all wildly powerful, and Diablo II just becomes even more item based.
And let's face it, starting a new game every 30 seconds to make another Meph run is just SOO much fun! Go! Kill Meph! Kill him again! and again! ad nauseam!
Oooh, boy. Maybe I should have actually read that page before linking to it... this was a final project for a class, so they did most of the work in their spare time, and it appears that somewhere along the way they switched from a purely Floppy Robot to a Lego robot controlled by the parallel port, which really isn't quite the same thing.
It's still an interesting project, I believe, but it's not a floppy robot. Apologies for the misinformation
This is sooo old news. Heck, I made a similar project in 2001, based on Ohmslaw's. It really sucked though, so I'll plug in a classmate's project instead of mine: Phil's Floppy Robot, ladies and gentlemen.
I recall it to be much better than the one featured in the article, but maybe that's just my rose tinted glasses
Well, hobbyists, for one. OS/2 has what looks to me like a very small but hardcore following. Obviously, it being non-free makes it much less interesting for the general geek population to try out, but supposing you got hooked back when OS/2 was a contender, eComStation must be a godsend. I know Chris Wright seemed euphoric back when it first came out.
If there were more than 4 Kenshin OVA - damn right I would! But as it stands, 2 hours of anime repeated 24/7 isn't all that great.
Besides, I leeched that off Hotline over a year ago. And it was good subtitled Anime, not the dubbed shit you're bound to get on cable. Not that I'd get the channel anyway, what with me not being in the US, but who the fuck wants piss-poor dubs 24/7?
The Quanta Plus page claims HTML validity and even sport a "Valid HTML" button, but the site doesn't actually validate.
Their front page is generally pretty weak. I have no real idea what their software does. Is it a text editor? A web IDE? A WYSIWYG page-churner? All of the above? All I see is a verbose attempt at associating their project with PHP, Apache and Linux, and at saying their software is the best - but doesn't really say what it's best at or what it's better than. Even worse, looking at the links, I have no idea where I should go next to know more about the product. The Documentation perhaps? That's the first place I'd go after downloading the product. But before that I'd need a reason to download their software, wouldn't I?
All I know is that they've failed to interest me in their product. That's pretty abysmal - a project about web development that fails it's own web development!
There's a dark side of the moon - and I'm not talking about the Pink floyd album here. The moon always shows us the same face, and from this you can infer that it makes one rotation around its axis in the same time it makes a rotation around Earth. A coincidence? Nope.
I'll admit I don't know much about this stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was such a relation between the Earth and the Sun. It spring to my mind that maybe the lack of exactitude in the number is caused by our planet's skewed rotation axis. But I'm pulling that right out of my ass. Let's hope that someone more knowledgeable will enlighten us.
Re:Nowadays...
on
Nuke-Lobbing
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· Score: 4, Funny
Nuclear devices are legal already. You just have to be careful not to detonate them in Chico, or you'll face a 500$ fine;)
There ought to be *something* that can satisfy them in this bestiary. If it's not enough, well, there's plenty more deities and mythical personaes on the site...
Err.. Opera 6 is around 4 MB, total. Opera 7 probably isn't a whole lot bigger. Opera 7 runs pretty well on my old PC, 200MHz with 32 MB RAM, although it does have some problems with very large pages, or when opening too many pages at the same time. But overall, Opera is both very small and very fast, and it's rendering engine is pretty much on par with Gecko. Not to mention all the killer features, such as mouse gestures and keyboard navigation.
Of course, "hardcore" Google users won't be swayed as easily. People who know why they like Google will likely keep to Google unless the MS service is actually better.
But the simple fact that it's integrated with Windows will make it easy to use for many , less computer litterate people. I think that's still acceptable - it's not nice, and it's using their dominant market position in a way that will get Slashdot quaking - but still, it's a service and people who would use it will probably find it useful. It's already like this to an extent - I think there's already an option to "Search the web" that leads to MSN in most versions of Windows. That's...okay. Debatable, I don't like it, but I don't think it's worth a debate.
But do you think it'd be beneath MS to really, really push their search engine? Integrate it with all their software suites? Apparently IE already redirects you to MSN when you mistype an URL already. I'm sure it'd be easy to integrate into MSN messenger as well. Then why not find a way to make it work with Word (okay, I really have no idea how they'd do this). And the apotheosis: "How to create Internet-Ready application using.NET" using an "MSN Websearch API", VB coming with templates of applications that use their SE in some way, etc. They can make MSN so omnipresent you can barely avoid it no matter how much you want to.
How many programs use the Internet Explorer API to provide web services/display fucking annoying ads/whatever? Don't you think they can make MSN Search into the same thing? I find it's no stretch of the imagination...
But they don't need a better search engine to beat Google. They just need to neatly integrate their SE into Windows XP2 or whatever, really push it on sites such as Hotmail and MSN and other high-visibility sites, things like that. They are Microsoft, they don't need to have the better product to beat the competition.
In fact, I think their history shows that it is in fact the other way around - MS managed to get the upper hand many times with an inferior product.
Of course, it's Google. It's got both quality and enormous brand recognition - not an easy target, not even for Microsoft
What can I say to that? This isn't discussion, it's trying to win an argument by saying I'm a looney.
Bush, Cheney and everyone else are looking after their own personnal interests - like probably 99.99999999999% of human population. That's not absurd, that's not conspiracy theorist, that's human nature. Those guy are just a bit more ruthless about it than the rest of us. Okay, a lot more ruthless. But my point is that they are NOT doing this for the Iraqi people, and people who believe in this nonsense have got to be lunatics.
I'm not saying that oil/money is the only reason for the war. I'm pointing out that yes, oil is a reason (and a big one), and no, the fact that the war costs more than the value of all Iraqi oil isn't proof that money isn't a motivation. Some people will benefit greatly from this war, even though the whole nation may not; and the prime movers of the war overlap largely it's main beneficiaries.
Okay now, you can accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist again. I'd like to remind you though, that as the accuser, the burden of proof is yours.
And before you go look at my history, see that post about Michael Moore, and associate me with him, I'll offer a preemptive defense; I think what Moore says is *interesting*, but I don't think it's the truth. He can be entertaining, but for the most part, I think he's too much of a showman and not objective enough. He's going to prove his point and he won't let anything get in his way - he's pretty much like Bush in this way, ruthless. I'm cynical enough to find ruthless people amusing, but that doesn't mean I trust them, far from it.
His family made its money in the oil business, AFAIK. He comes from Midland, TX, a place that lives because of this business. And I could easily find information about him setting up "limited partnerships" to drill for oil.
He may not have been very active in the business in recent years, but the fact remains - I'm sure the Bush empire has lots of money invested in the oil business, and I'm also sure they'll have substantial gains from Iraqi oil - both monetary and through favor trades.
Ah, yes, there's the funny thing. "We're not in it for the oil, see, because this war is costing so much, the profit that will be made from Iraqi oil is very small compared to not going to war and just buying the oil". But you have to consider that the government is paying for the war. The government gets his money through taxes, big corps, small corps, inviduals, they all pay the taxes. Government money is taxpayers money. It's not like Bush is spending for the war from his pocket. It's not his money.
So, the whole American people is paying for this war. Who will benefit? To an extent, the whole american people, from a revitalised economy. Whether that'll balance the cost of the war we shall see. But a few corporations will get a FUCKLOAD of money from this. They'll have invested a part of their taxes - which they would have paid anyway - and some money in politics and will get loads and loads of money. Their balance is on the plus side. A lot. Mucho money they're getting,and the best part is that THEY reap in the benefits, but the whole population financed the whole thing.
And really, Bush is only there for a few years. Taxpayer's money isn't his money. But - is Bush by any chance into the Oil business? Yes? And tell me, is there a chance that with all that oil money that will be moving around after Iraq has been conquered, is there a chance some of that money *might* find its way into his pockets? There IS?!? Well, shit, there I was thinking he was doing it all cuz he's such a nice guy, y'know.
Of course, it's not just Bush. There are lots of people who will benefit from this war - and probably not just on the Republican side. What do you think, that the White House is full of people who have the American people's best interest at heart? Shit man, you're dreaming. It takes a lot of money to get into the White House. And the people who have enough money to play politician usually didn't come into all this money by giving it away - they invested, they invest all the time, and politics is just another investment.
Actual age restriction is damn stupid. Age recommendation is good - most parents don't keep up with the latest gaming news, and an age recommendation on the box helps a parent decide if their child is old enough to play a given game. But actually asking for ID for some game - wtf, kids play their games at home, their parents will see it if the game they are playing is something they object to. And if they don't, they're not doing a very good job.
When I was a kid, my parents bought my games. Or I earned some money and bought the games myself, but my parents came along with me. When I got old enough to go buy games unsupervised was when they deemed me mature enough to make sensible choices, or not to be too badly influenced by those games I bought (of course, my younger brothers where not necessarily mature enough for them, as is evidenced by my youngest brother thinking he was Raiden and jumping into people at shool once - kids ARE influenced by what they see)
A government trying to control this is a government trying to do a parent's job. But then, I'm not entirely sure they're unjustified, as less and less parents seem to be supervising their children...
Slashdot Mirror
James Bond, duuuuuh
Okay, arguably, it isn't really *good*, but it does have 20 sequels, most of which were very popular, so obviously changing actors between sequels isn't too bad (from a producer's point of view, anyway)
Selenites eh? In French, a Selenite is an inhabitant of the moon (from Selene, greek goddess of the moon)
More items IS a good development. The problem is that these items are so rare, it destroys the game. Instead of simply having to level up to gain power - and lets face, going around killing thousands of monster certainly is enjoyable - you have to selectively kill the "big drop" monsters in the game repeatedly to be able to survive the harder difficulty levels. By repeatedly, I don't mean a dozen times, or even a hundred. I mean THOUSANDS of times.
By adding even more emphsasis to the necessity of having the best items, you make it pretty much impossible to do anything in the game without making that three thousand Meph run.
I don't know. Maybe people actually enjoy killing the same enemy over and over again, every damn 30 seconds. I personally think it encourages people to use bots to get them the items so they can actually play. Ain't enhanced gameplay to me. (and no, I don't use bots. I usually just stop playing for a few months once I can't get any further without spending days chasing after the game's most elusive items)
Amazing gameplay changes?! From now on, players above lvl 70 will require more gameplay time, killing even harder units, to gain more worthless levels (since really, levels get increasingly useless, since the items you can use are much more powerful than the additional levels' effects). Add to that that they've added more items, most of which are Elite uniques, and more Runewords, probably all wildly powerful, and Diablo II just becomes even more item based.
And let's face it, starting a new game every 30 seconds to make another Meph run is just SOO much fun! Go! Kill Meph! Kill him again! and again! ad nauseam!
Two words: Anarchy Online.
Oooh, boy. Maybe I should have actually read that page before linking to it... this was a final project for a class, so they did most of the work in their spare time, and it appears that somewhere along the way they switched from a purely Floppy Robot to a Lego robot controlled by the parallel port, which really isn't quite the same thing.
It's still an interesting project, I believe, but it's not a floppy robot. Apologies for the misinformation
This is sooo old news. Heck, I made a similar project in 2001, based on Ohmslaw's. It really sucked though, so I'll plug in a classmate's project instead of mine: Phil's Floppy Robot, ladies and gentlemen.
I recall it to be much better than the one featured in the article, but maybe that's just my rose tinted glasses
Oh, yeah, the movie that fucks up Pi after 9 decimals.
I liked the movie, but it ain't exactly a reliable source of mathematical information ;)
Well, hobbyists, for one. OS/2 has what looks to me like a very small but hardcore following. Obviously, it being non-free makes it much less interesting for the general geek population to try out, but supposing you got hooked back when OS/2 was a contender, eComStation must be a godsend. I know Chris Wright seemed euphoric back when it first came out.
If there were more than 4 Kenshin OVA - damn right I would! But as it stands, 2 hours of anime repeated 24/7 isn't all that great.
Besides, I leeched that off Hotline over a year ago. And it was good subtitled Anime, not the dubbed shit you're bound to get on cable. Not that I'd get the channel anyway, what with me not being in the US, but who the fuck wants piss-poor dubs 24/7?
The Quanta Plus page claims HTML validity and even sport a "Valid HTML" button, but the site doesn't actually validate.
Their front page is generally pretty weak. I have no real idea what their software does. Is it a text editor? A web IDE? A WYSIWYG page-churner? All of the above? All I see is a verbose attempt at associating their project with PHP, Apache and Linux, and at saying their software is the best - but doesn't really say what it's best at or what it's better than. Even worse, looking at the links, I have no idea where I should go next to know more about the product. The Documentation perhaps? That's the first place I'd go after downloading the product. But before that I'd need a reason to download their software, wouldn't I?
All I know is that they've failed to interest me in their product. That's pretty abysmal - a project about web development that fails it's own web development!
There's a dark side of the moon - and I'm not talking about the Pink floyd album here. The moon always shows us the same face, and from this you can infer that it makes one rotation around its axis in the same time it makes a rotation around Earth. A coincidence? Nope.
I'll admit I don't know much about this stuff, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was such a relation between the Earth and the Sun. It spring to my mind that maybe the lack of exactitude in the number is caused by our planet's skewed rotation axis. But I'm pulling that right out of my ass. Let's hope that someone more knowledgeable will enlighten us.
Nuclear devices are legal already. You just have to be careful not to detonate them in Chico, or you'll face a 500$ fine ;)
There ought to be *something* that can satisfy them in this bestiary. If it's not enough, well, there's plenty more deities and mythical personaes on the site...
Right-clicking on the Opera 6 folder and selecting "Properties" gave me a size of 4MB. Uncompressed. You're right that Opera 7 is around 7-8MB though.
Everyone knows COBOL++ is SET COBOL UP BY ONE.
Err.. Opera 6 is around 4 MB, total. Opera 7 probably isn't a whole lot bigger. Opera 7 runs pretty well on my old PC, 200MHz with 32 MB RAM, although it does have some problems with very large pages, or when opening too many pages at the same time. But overall, Opera is both very small and very fast, and it's rendering engine is pretty much on par with Gecko. Not to mention all the killer features, such as mouse gestures and keyboard navigation.
I need a Search Engine. You're it, until you're dead or I find someone better.
Of course, "hardcore" Google users won't be swayed as easily. People who know why they like Google will likely keep to Google unless the MS service is actually better.
But the simple fact that it's integrated with Windows will make it easy to use for many , less computer litterate people. I think that's still acceptable - it's not nice, and it's using their dominant market position in a way that will get Slashdot quaking - but still, it's a service and people who would use it will probably find it useful. It's already like this to an extent - I think there's already an option to "Search the web" that leads to MSN in most versions of Windows. That's ...okay. Debatable, I don't like it, but I don't think it's worth a debate.
But do you think it'd be beneath MS to really, really push their search engine? Integrate it with all their software suites? Apparently IE already redirects you to MSN when you mistype an URL already. I'm sure it'd be easy to integrate into MSN messenger as well. Then why not find a way to make it work with Word (okay, I really have no idea how they'd do this). And the apotheosis: "How to create Internet-Ready application using .NET" using an "MSN Websearch API", VB coming with templates of applications that use their SE in some way, etc. They can make MSN so omnipresent you can barely avoid it no matter how much you want to.
How many programs use the Internet Explorer API to provide web services/display fucking annoying ads/whatever? Don't you think they can make MSN Search into the same thing? I find it's no stretch of the imagination...
But they don't need a better search engine to beat Google. They just need to neatly integrate their SE into Windows XP2 or whatever, really push it on sites such as Hotmail and MSN and other high-visibility sites, things like that. They are Microsoft, they don't need to have the better product to beat the competition.
In fact, I think their history shows that it is in fact the other way around - MS managed to get the upper hand many times with an inferior product.
Of course, it's Google. It's got both quality and enormous brand recognition - not an easy target, not even for Microsoft
Is that a Karel The Robot joke?
What can I say to that? This isn't discussion, it's trying to win an argument by saying I'm a looney.
Bush, Cheney and everyone else are looking after their own personnal interests - like probably 99.99999999999% of human population. That's not absurd, that's not conspiracy theorist, that's human nature. Those guy are just a bit more ruthless about it than the rest of us. Okay, a lot more ruthless. But my point is that they are NOT doing this for the Iraqi people, and people who believe in this nonsense have got to be lunatics.
I'm not saying that oil/money is the only reason for the war. I'm pointing out that yes, oil is a reason (and a big one), and no, the fact that the war costs more than the value of all Iraqi oil isn't proof that money isn't a motivation. Some people will benefit greatly from this war, even though the whole nation may not; and the prime movers of the war overlap largely it's main beneficiaries.
Okay now, you can accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist again. I'd like to remind you though, that as the accuser, the burden of proof is yours.
And before you go look at my history, see that post about Michael Moore, and associate me with him, I'll offer a preemptive defense; I think what Moore says is *interesting*, but I don't think it's the truth. He can be entertaining, but for the most part, I think he's too much of a showman and not objective enough. He's going to prove his point and he won't let anything get in his way - he's pretty much like Bush in this way, ruthless. I'm cynical enough to find ruthless people amusing, but that doesn't mean I trust them, far from it.
His family made its money in the oil business, AFAIK. He comes from Midland, TX, a place that lives because of this business. And I could easily find information about him setting up "limited partnerships" to drill for oil.
He may not have been very active in the business in recent years, but the fact remains - I'm sure the Bush empire has lots of money invested in the oil business, and I'm also sure they'll have substantial gains from Iraqi oil - both monetary and through favor trades.
Ah, yes, there's the funny thing. "We're not in it for the oil, see, because this war is costing so much, the profit that will be made from Iraqi oil is very small compared to not going to war and just buying the oil". But you have to consider that the government is paying for the war. The government gets his money through taxes, big corps, small corps, inviduals, they all pay the taxes. Government money is taxpayers money. It's not like Bush is spending for the war from his pocket. It's not his money.
So, the whole American people is paying for this war. Who will benefit? To an extent, the whole american people, from a revitalised economy. Whether that'll balance the cost of the war we shall see. But a few corporations will get a FUCKLOAD of money from this. They'll have invested a part of their taxes - which they would have paid anyway - and some money in politics and will get loads and loads of money. Their balance is on the plus side. A lot. Mucho money they're getting,and the best part is that THEY reap in the benefits, but the whole population financed the whole thing.
And really, Bush is only there for a few years. Taxpayer's money isn't his money. But - is Bush by any chance into the Oil business? Yes? And tell me, is there a chance that with all that oil money that will be moving around after Iraq has been conquered, is there a chance some of that money *might* find its way into his pockets? There IS?!? Well, shit, there I was thinking he was doing it all cuz he's such a nice guy, y'know.
Of course, it's not just Bush. There are lots of people who will benefit from this war - and probably not just on the Republican side. What do you think, that the White House is full of people who have the American people's best interest at heart? Shit man, you're dreaming. It takes a lot of money to get into the White House. And the people who have enough money to play politician usually didn't come into all this money by giving it away - they invested, they invest all the time, and politics is just another investment.
Actual age restriction is damn stupid. Age recommendation is good - most parents don't keep up with the latest gaming news, and an age recommendation on the box helps a parent decide if their child is old enough to play a given game. But actually asking for ID for some game - wtf, kids play their games at home, their parents will see it if the game they are playing is something they object to. And if they don't, they're not doing a very good job.
When I was a kid, my parents bought my games. Or I earned some money and bought the games myself, but my parents came along with me. When I got old enough to go buy games unsupervised was when they deemed me mature enough to make sensible choices, or not to be too badly influenced by those games I bought (of course, my younger brothers where not necessarily mature enough for them, as is evidenced by my youngest brother thinking he was Raiden and jumping into people at shool once - kids ARE influenced by what they see)
A government trying to control this is a government trying to do a parent's job. But then, I'm not entirely sure they're unjustified, as less and less parents seem to be supervising their children...