The last CD I ripped took about six minutes. That's ripping from CD and encoding to MP3 on the fly. I think it's been a while since you've ripped/encoded;)
Trust me, I'm sure we can find many, MANY other points of similarity when it comes to games not running. Halo takes one look at my system and laughs. Deus Ex 2 above 640x480? Slideshow. Far Cry? Not a hope. Rainbow Six 3? Nuh-uh. I was just surprised that something about to be released in 2004 runs on my computer and looks pretty decent without any tweaking.
Really fun demo! Brought back the good ol' days when I was a lowly marine on Phobos. Some highlights:
-The main weapon, a wooden spear-gun, has a nice projectile arc to it. Haven't seen that in any FPS.
-As other posters have mentioned, it's just plain FUN. No objectives, no stealth, just take your time and nail some corpses to the ground.
-The system specs said that it required a 1.5 GHz machine, so I was a bit leery, but with my 2000+ Athlon, a GF 4200 128MB and 512MB DDR it ran perfectly smooth on 1024x768 maxxed. What a pleasant surprise!
Really, really fun gameplay. I'm definitely a SP gamer, so this is a nice change from the last few days -- Onslaught in UT2004:)
I got my wife a nice hardcover edition of The Hobbit. She has the Lord of the Rings trilogy in a now-defunct edition from about 10 years ago (from the UK, no less; I'm in Canada) and I've spent the last three years looking for the Hobbit from that edition, to no avail. I figured this would be the next best thing.
Luckily I readied her for the past few weeks by saying, "Now I got you a gift, but it's not all Valentine-ey or whatnot, but you'll like it."
Maybe it's a bad sign when she said, "You got me a GIFT! Really?"
I'm not sure this statement is correct. I can definitely type faster with one hand than the amount of time it takes to train a voice recognition engine, speak, and correct the 15-20% of the document that is incorrect due to flaws in voice recognition.
In other words, the statement "Improvement of our existing speech-to-text technologies may be required" is not only completely correct, but it nullifies your entire statement -- it's like saying that it's quicker to get to NY via matter transporter, but improvement of matter transportation systems may be required;)
There was a comment/story on a device on/. in the last year... one handed, shaped like a bicycle grip, depending on which combination of fingers you pressed it outputted a different alphanumeric character... can anybody remember the name, or anything more about it? I was trying to find it a few weeks ago...
In a roundabout way, I'm criticising the way that Microsoft is doing business. You don't need a hugely powerful console (or even one that can play DVDs) in order to be successful; you need it to be *fun*. This includes not only fun games, but well-made and interesting games.
In order for Microsoft to "position" the XBox for the future, they need to re-think their "fastest and best graphics" line of thinking, perhaps taking a look at why the Gamecube is so successful.
And FYI, my karma's been "excellent" for about a year now; I don't post because of karma, I post in order to express my views and comment on the views of others.
OT, I know, but I *Did* go the Gamecube route, and boy am I happy that I did! I paid $160 CAD for a used system, including a platinum gamecube, an extra controller, memory card and Viewtiful Joe. I've also got F-Zero GX, Soul Calibur II, Windwaker and Mario Kart; between these games, I don't have to rent *anything*.
The nice thing about the Big N is that most of their first party games are completely awesome, and even some second-tier games (F-Zero was jointly done with Sega, SCII) are still amazing. I've tried a few XBox games, and while they may look pretty, there's no way that console is worth an extra $200.
Sure, book reviews are nice, but usually I know what I want to buy even before I check out reviews on Amazon.com. I do this by reading reviews in print (usually), talking to friends/colleagues, and by generally purchasing books written in genres that I enjoy.
Authors reviewing their books anonymously pretending to be a reader are just hurting themselves in the long run, esp. now, after their "anonymous" reviews have come to light. HOWEVER, I would definitely welcome posts from authors that post as theirselves and try to rebuttle defamatory comments/reviews. The whole purpose of the Amazon system is ACCURACY, not making sure every book scores 5/5.
Here's my own personal Canadian Privacy Act
on
Canadian Privacy Act
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I've registered my name in the phone book as my first initial of first two names and then my last name. I.e. H. J. Simpson. Since nobody actually calls me H. J., but prefers to use my real name (Homer), every time I get a call for my "telephone name," I know it's a telemarketer. Same thing goes for addressed mail. Haven't opened a piece of junk mail in years.
Interesting how the base unit is $2799 *CAD*, and yet the reviewer emphasises the (obviously tricked-out notebook's $3350 USD) huge price tag.
I remember reading a review for an IBM T41P the other day -- the reviewer's test machine retailed at something like $5500 CAD. Very few people can afford these monstrosities; most of us go for the $2500 "bare bones but still a Mercedes" IBM notebook instead.
2004-02-13 15:32:16 CRIA Seeks All 29 File Swappers in Canada (articles,music) (rejected)
It had a sense of irony and humour, y'know? Anyway, I really can't wait until they start handing out subpoenas. If I get busted (highly unlikely), I am *so* taking this to the courts! First of all, it's civil and not criminal so I won't go to jail, and second, we've got some fairly intelligent judges up here who would definitely be able to make a fair ruling on this case.
My defense: as soon as I heard that the CRIA was going to be following in the footsteps of their older American brother, I decided to never buy another CD and never download another MP3. This also includes refusing to buy music-related merchandise as well as concert tickets. I'm in my early 20's, so I've got many, many years of not purchasing music ahead of me.
Besides, if it's legal to download, then why shouldn't it be legal to upload? I mean, come on! The ONLY WAY you *can* download is if somebody sends you the file! Either prosecute both or neither!
One thing that people haven't mention is the fact that I've yet to see a good game in the last three years that has been 1) released on schedule, and 2) is not buggy. Now, imagine playing an episodic game and finishing the first free portion, only to wait for "only" a month for the next episode. A month turns into two, or three, or however long it takes to complete, by which point everybody is completely pissed off and refuses to pay for any more content.
At least when I go to pick up a game at EB, the game is finished and in my hands. It might not be a terrific game, but at least I've got it.
You forget to mention the fact that Star Chamber is, for all intents and purposes, an MMOG. No single player element and you hafta pay to play (ya ya I know, free to start, but you really *do* if you actually want to win).
Which pisses me off to no end, because it looks like a fantastic game - if it cost $50, included everything, and had a great SP campaign (hell, even decent bots!) I would have bought it in a second.
Interesting point! I think that, if nobody else, professors would benefit from the knowledge that students are dropping their course for whatever reason or not.
As a student I want to agree with you, but as I'm wanting to become a prof someday, I'm not sure how far I'll go to do so. *some* profs don't feel accountable to anybody. *some* don't like criticism. Yeah, maybe you're right, but you're also wrong. Generalisations aren't going to help your argument.
HOWEVER, as to the "material they develop on the university's dime is their own property," I'm definitely going to have to disagree with you here. What do you consider to be "on the university's dime"? What do you consider "material"? If they make up course notes for a course that they're teaching, I think that they own them, and that students don't have an absolute right to possess them. I also think that if a prof writes a book, they should get the profits from it.
You may not realise this, but most profs are still active in their field, and tend to publish a few papers every year; are you really saying that the University should own these papers, and not the profs, simply because they're employed?/. had a discussion about this a couple days ago about IP and programmers; why is it different for professors (or any of the "intelligencia")?
... two articles today that are related to _Jennifer Government_ (book) makes for a serpendipidous day! For example: Nike corporation wants to sell shoes, so they hire one of their own employees to kill a certain number of kids wearing these shoes, therefore giving them "street credit." The guy doesn't want to do it, so he outsources it to the Police corporation, who then in turn outsource it to the NRA. The NRA completes the job.
"You say professor, so I assume you're not talking about high school or anything... why would you ever hand in a physical floppy, cd, or whatever?"
One of my profs required us to hand in a floppy disk with the assignment on it along with the paper copy. Never gave us a reason, though I suspect it had something to do with the Turnitin service. As to why they didn't want electronic submissions, who knows? Profs are wacky people.
You should also explain to your wife that, if you buy your computer in parts and assemble it yourself, each of the parts has a warranty on it, so if one dies, some stores just let you take it back to them and exchange it for a new one.
Also, I can guarantee you that building your own computer is cheaper than buying from HP -- except, of course, if you need a copy of WinXP.
"To help stop sniffers, the knock sequence can be based on a one-time pad, so it changes every time. In addition to that, there could be random ports that are ignored, adding noise to the sniffed data."
If you're going to go so far as to require a one-use pad, then you can forget about the whole "port knocking" concept -- there's no stronger password than a 1-use password.
"So how about this: what if a major company decided to use a p2p network as it's MAJOR outlet for file distribution. Say, a shareware program or game demo. This would be proof that p2p file-sharing programs are not exclusively used as "stolen-goods" transfers, it is a mainstream sharing network for permissable transfers. That would blow these cases wide open, as the judges are just looking for a reason to refer to Betamax here."
This has already happened -- Atari used Kazaa (normal) to distribute Temple of Elemental Evil; you could "unlock" the demo version to get the full version by buying it online. Hope this helps!
Slashdot Mirror
The last CD I ripped took about six minutes. That's ripping from CD and encoding to MP3 on the fly. I think it's been a while since you've ripped/encoded ;)
Trust me, I'm sure we can find many, MANY other points of similarity when it comes to games not running. Halo takes one look at my system and laughs. Deus Ex 2 above 640x480? Slideshow. Far Cry? Not a hope. Rainbow Six 3? Nuh-uh. I was just surprised that something about to be released in 2004 runs on my computer and looks pretty decent without any tweaking.
-The main weapon, a wooden spear-gun, has a nice projectile arc to it. Haven't seen that in any FPS.
-As other posters have mentioned, it's just plain FUN. No objectives, no stealth, just take your time and nail some corpses to the ground.
-The system specs said that it required a 1.5 GHz machine, so I was a bit leery, but with my 2000+ Athlon, a GF 4200 128MB and 512MB DDR it ran perfectly smooth on 1024x768 maxxed. What a pleasant surprise!
Really, really fun gameplay. I'm definitely a SP gamer, so this is a nice change from the last few days -- Onslaught in UT2004 :)
Luckily I readied her for the past few weeks by saying, "Now I got you a gift, but it's not all Valentine-ey or whatnot, but you'll like it."
Maybe it's a bad sign when she said, "You got me a GIFT! Really?"
In other words, the statement "Improvement of our existing speech-to-text technologies may be required" is not only completely correct, but it nullifies your entire statement -- it's like saying that it's quicker to get to NY via matter transporter, but improvement of matter transportation systems may be required ;)
There was a comment/story on a device on /. in the last year... one handed, shaped like a bicycle grip, depending on which combination of fingers you pressed it outputted a different alphanumeric character... can anybody remember the name, or anything more about it? I was trying to find it a few weeks ago...
In order for Microsoft to "position" the XBox for the future, they need to re-think their "fastest and best graphics" line of thinking, perhaps taking a look at why the Gamecube is so successful.
And FYI, my karma's been "excellent" for about a year now; I don't post because of karma, I post in order to express my views and comment on the views of others.
The nice thing about the Big N is that most of their first party games are completely awesome, and even some second-tier games (F-Zero was jointly done with Sega, SCII) are still amazing. I've tried a few XBox games, and while they may look pretty, there's no way that console is worth an extra $200.
>Hello?
>>Oh hi! You won this number offa e-bay, right? Just thought I'd...
>*click*
Authors reviewing their books anonymously pretending to be a reader are just hurting themselves in the long run, esp. now, after their "anonymous" reviews have come to light. HOWEVER, I would definitely welcome posts from authors that post as theirselves and try to rebuttle defamatory comments/reviews. The whole purpose of the Amazon system is ACCURACY, not making sure every book scores 5/5.
How much did you pay for it?
I've registered my name in the phone book as my first initial of first two names and then my last name. I.e. H. J. Simpson. Since nobody actually calls me H. J., but prefers to use my real name (Homer), every time I get a call for my "telephone name," I know it's a telemarketer. Same thing goes for addressed mail. Haven't opened a piece of junk mail in years.
I remember reading a review for an IBM T41P the other day -- the reviewer's test machine retailed at something like $5500 CAD. Very few people can afford these monstrosities; most of us go for the $2500 "bare bones but still a Mercedes" IBM notebook instead.
2004-02-13 15:32:16 CRIA Seeks All 29 File Swappers in Canada (articles,music) (rejected)
It had a sense of irony and humour, y'know? Anyway, I really can't wait until they start handing out subpoenas. If I get busted (highly unlikely), I am *so* taking this to the courts! First of all, it's civil and not criminal so I won't go to jail, and second, we've got some fairly intelligent judges up here who would definitely be able to make a fair ruling on this case.
My defense: as soon as I heard that the CRIA was going to be following in the footsteps of their older American brother, I decided to never buy another CD and never download another MP3. This also includes refusing to buy music-related merchandise as well as concert tickets. I'm in my early 20's, so I've got many, many years of not purchasing music ahead of me.
Besides, if it's legal to download, then why shouldn't it be legal to upload? I mean, come on! The ONLY WAY you *can* download is if somebody sends you the file! Either prosecute both or neither!
At least when I go to pick up a game at EB, the game is finished and in my hands. It might not be a terrific game, but at least I've got it.
Which pisses me off to no end, because it looks like a fantastic game - if it cost $50, included everything, and had a great SP campaign (hell, even decent bots!) I would have bought it in a second.
Ratemyprofessors.com is a college/university site; ratemyteachers is for high school.
Interesting point! I think that, if nobody else, professors would benefit from the knowledge that students are dropping their course for whatever reason or not.
HOWEVER, as to the "material they develop on the university's dime is their own property," I'm definitely going to have to disagree with you here. What do you consider to be "on the university's dime"? What do you consider "material"? If they make up course notes for a course that they're teaching, I think that they own them, and that students don't have an absolute right to possess them. I also think that if a prof writes a book, they should get the profits from it.
You may not realise this, but most profs are still active in their field, and tend to publish a few papers every year; are you really saying that the University should own these papers, and not the profs, simply because they're employed? /. had a discussion about this a couple days ago about IP and programmers; why is it different for professors (or any of the "intelligencia")?
Point of correlation: outsourcing hurts kids!
One of my profs required us to hand in a floppy disk with the assignment on it along with the paper copy. Never gave us a reason, though I suspect it had something to do with the Turnitin service. As to why they didn't want electronic submissions, who knows? Profs are wacky people.
Also, I can guarantee you that building your own computer is cheaper than buying from HP -- except, of course, if you need a copy of WinXP.
If you're going to go so far as to require a one-use pad, then you can forget about the whole "port knocking" concept -- there's no stronger password than a 1-use password.
but Tierra Entertainment have re-released versions of KQ1 and KQ2 with a graphical interface and VGA graphics. Enjoy!
This has already happened -- Atari used Kazaa (normal) to distribute Temple of Elemental Evil; you could "unlock" the demo version to get the full version by buying it online. Hope this helps!