As a long time Thief fan and advocate I did have some issues with the interface. But I guess everyone has an opinion of what's good.
And I must say that Shalebridge Cradle was one of those missions that made me realize that I might need to wear some Depends undergarments when I play games that are so immersive. It wasn't as beautiful as The Bonehorde or The Haunted Cathedral but it was still one hell of a good time.
What do you mean "had"? This problem hasn't gone away. In fact, no one is addressing it at all. At least no one who can make a difference given the current political landscape.
The notion of Gandhi "going down fighting" is hilariously ignorant of history.
If you don't think civil disobedience isn't a fight than you've obviously never been involved. Gandhi most certainly faced actions by the hands of the British that could have killed him and he had no way of knowing that he wouldn't be killed. He risked it all just as much as anyone else involved with a fight. You only have the virtue of seeing it in hind sight.
But if you want to be mocking about it, that's fine. But to me that's as good as spitting on the hundreds who were murdered in a civil disobedience movement against a "civilized" enemy.
Actually, movies are probably worse. They teach that the main character can kill dozens without getting a scratch. Airsoft and paintball teaches you that you suck with a gun. Which is more glamorous in the eyes of a downtrodden teen?
I'll say that I haven't read all that much about it but to me it seems that the failure came from someone with too heavy of a hand that wasn't willing to go to market with a number 2 selling product.
I think this is a mistake on the parts of lots of people; taking too much prep time, wanting their products to be too perfect to be believed. Sooner or later you have to pull the trigger or all the effort leading up to the release of a product becomes null and void. Every game out there has flaws. As much as PC Gamer doesn't want us to believe this, there is no 95% games in existence. And if you're developing and constantly looking at what the other guy is doing it's easy to get caught up in finding things in your own product that don't live up the expectations laid out by other products. You just can't go through life like that... at least not in a productive manner.
So you're arguing that the generic term of your sentence excludes a specific instance of that generic term , but the specific term of your sentence cannot be extrapolated to cover a similar structure? Really?
Uh, I DID mention 767s by name. You just assumed...
Yeah, I've given up arguing substance, because I realized that you have none. It's still kinda fun to see how much you twist and turn in response to semantic arguments.
Whatever. I've proven you completely wrong and you're just too dumb or too proud to admit it. Like I said, be a man and either come to terms with it or just walk away.
Then I would suggest you be more precise in your terminology. When you say that "I never knew anyone ever used a plane to try to bring down the twin towers before", I assumed you knew a B-25 was a plane. If you want to argue that a B-25 is different from a 767, sure. But that's not what you said.
Nor did I mention the Empire State Building. You call for me to be precise but you're not at the same time. Want to level the playing field here or accept that it was a way of mincing words? Suit yourself but you've still proven nothing.
You are pulling out a lot of arguments, only to say later "well, that's not what I meant". Don't bring out similarities only to claim later that there aren't similarities. People can't read your mind, you know.
Hey, you're the one throwing down the gauntlet of being precise to which you haven't been either. I see this as a true no fault situation aside from you putting something in quotes that I never said.
Yeah, I know, I'm just feeding a troll at this point. Sometimes, it's kinda fun though.
How am I a troll in this case? When it goes back to the origins of this posting I have proven the points that I want to without having to go to the borish levels of trolling. The fact that I'm a bit snide from time to time only comes across as trollish because you're dictating that I use a higher level of ethics than you do in this. But unlike many other Slashdotters, I don't feel the need to live up to the expectations of another poster when they can't follow through themselves. So, if in your mind I'm a troll than I'd simply say that I'm countering the your actions. How does it feel to be smug even when you're proven wrong?
I was very aware of the B-25 hit well before 9/11. Stop embarrassing yourself by trying to act like you have some super knowledge over me. You really don't and no one else is bothering with this thread at this point. It's just you and me kiddo.
Now do me a big big big favor. Go read the stats on these two planes. Just as I said in my post, no one ever tried it with a 767. If you really think that a B-25 duel prop compares to a 767-600 jet than you're out of your frigging mind. The 767 is larger, faster, heavier and stronger in every single way. Most of the stats that are out there will show you that a 767 dwarfs the B-25. Again, this is something any 6th grader can understand the differences in.
The only "delicious" thing here is how you continue to embarrass yourself with your refusal to admit the obvious differences.
Kamikazes weren't using 767s either. As a member of slashdot I would like to think that you can easily see the difference without it being mentioned to you. After all, most 6th graders understand the difference.
Not to mention that previous plane strikes did not bring down the building either.
I never knew anyone ever used a plane to try to bring down the twin towers before. Care to cite?
Here's some homework for you: devise a plan to bring down a skyscraper. Then execute it. I'd really like to know how that goes for you.
You know what? Blow it out your ass. I answered each one of your points and you know that you've been proven wrong. Instead of being all sour grapes about it why don't you either just say that you were wrong or simply walk away? What's up with the people on slashdot having to argue everything to it's bitter end when they're clearly wrong?
- They bombed three highly defended buildings without using a single bomb.
Ok, let's start here. What is so amazing about this to you? The Japanese and Germans did this 50+ years before. This wasn't innovation. This was imitation. Any 6th grader in the US knows what a Kamikaze is and what they did.
1) Identified weaknesses in the security at airports.
You mean go to the FAA website and see what you can and can't take in your carry on luggage?
2) Identified weaknesses in the American response to highjackings.
The only "weakness" that made a difference in this case is that Americans didn't shoot down hijacked planes. Again, this is something any 6th grader could have told you.
Identified weaknesses in the immigration protocols of the US.
Why would that matter? FWIR, every member of these teams was in the country for at least a couple of years prior to the attacks. So Bin Laden sends 30 and hopes 20 get through. They had over a year to get here and people from many countries willing to do it. This really is a needle in a haystack kind of problem.
4) Lived for a set number of weeks in the US while (nearly) avoiding complete detection.
Detection from whom? Many of these people were unknowns and if you get through immigration who is going to be looking for you?
5) Evaded signal interception while carrying out worldwide communication.
Please. You mean with the hundreds of billions of spam, e-mail, cell text, phone calls and internet chat transactions that you're afraid that your coded message is going to be magically picked up out of the blue?
You're the one who's taking hindsight too far, not me. I also think that you're giving the al-Quada too little credit. You're one of those people who act like they're out there learning how to shoot and AK and fucking sheep. The fact is that, in all likeliness, that al-Quada probably has some really sophisticated people on their side who know how these systems work if they don't have direct access to them. If not al-Quada by name they at least have sympathizers. FWIW, I would feel pretty comfortable about this kind of plan being successful pre-9/11 once you get your operatives into the country and we've already covered that point, just send more than you need.
I just see someone whining that there wasn't enough magic.
Get over yourself. I wasn't whining on any level. I was pointing out that this really wasn't some great plan. Your points would be points today but they weren't serious issues on 9-11-2001.
The 'News Media' and the Bush Administration's FUD campaign, remember?
Actually, it seems that I hear it more from the Bush-did-it conspiracy camp. If anything, Bush saying that a bunch of fundies hiding in a backassword nation needed high end technology and planning to pull this off would have hurt his cause.
There are those who honestly think that Bin Laden and the boys couldn't concoct the plan to ram airplanes into buildings within a few hours of one another...
I don't know where this concept came from that this crime had to be high tech.
I know, I know, the initial response from some was that the alleged terrorists weren't smart enough to come up with this and some morons ate that up. Even this past winter I had someone tell me that the terrorist plot was too sophisticated for a non-government entity.
There is nothing surprising about this. Aside from piloting the planes this plan had all the sophistication of a junior high word problem in a mathematics course.
"If Habbib leaves Boston at 7:20 AM and Mohammad leaves Washington D.C. at 7:35 AM what time will they get to The World Trade Center?"
I use a HP TC1100 as a portable. 40 gig hard drive, 1 Ghz processor, gig of RAM, WinXP Tablet Edition. It's a tough little machine with a full 1024x768 tablet (stylus) screen.
You can normally find them with their docking station for about 400 on eBay. It's a great little machine.
Don't be so sure that this isn't going to happen at some point in the future! In all honesty the RIAA and the MPAA has something to it's disadvantage that the Writer's Guild hasn't had to face full on and that is the format of the work. Digital downloads like movies and music lend themselves all to well to the players of today but books? The transportability of books and format of a paperback doesn't really lend itself well to the players of our time. As many have pointed out most people aren't happy reading on a monitor for any real length of time, gizmos like the Kindle are still a bit of a high price tag for what they are (can you even load your own PDAs on these units?) and tablet PCs seem to be regressive from the form factor of a book since the HP TC1100.
But I bet you that if they can make an inexpensive but versatile handheld that can read like reading a book we will start to see the paper publications start to suffer from the same issues as what video and audio did and at even a faster pace. While I don't agree with everything the RIAA and the MPAA does I think their actions are a matter of desperation that are well marked by the number of rental and retail outlets that went belly up this last decade. When you start to see Borders suffering like Sam Goody and NRM did you'll see that the Writer's Guild has teeth too. For now they're simply fortunate that technology hasn't caught up to them at the same rate as it did with their brothers in the music and movie world.
Don't assume that just because a business exists in a free market environment that it supports the free market ideology.
Just like with the Arlene Specter switch; the man has no more dedication to either side of the fence than he does to keeping his own job. While he is truely better described as a Democrat the fact is that if he wasn't on the verge of getting the boot from a primary election loss he wouldn't have done a single thing about his party affiliation.
The same goes for companies. They'll support whatever environment supports them. When their existence becomes threatened they go on the offense. It's not a question of what is right but a question of doing what's best in the name of self preservation.
Why wouldn't they stand in the way? How is downloading a book and different from downloading an album or a movie?
And I'm asking these questions in sincerity. It seems that, for the most part, Slashdotters have a different way of handling the issues the arise from the medias differently. It's almost as if writers get treated with kids gloves in comparison to their musician and film producer peers. If you'd replace "writers guild" with "RIAA" and/or "MPAA" you'd go from people talking over the issue with a somewhat level head to one where we'd hear howls for blood and unflattering references to their sexual preference. But the truth is that these issues are the same, all of them have the same problems and all of them have the same legal protections.
While the numbers sound nice and all I still think that Obama needs to worry more about getting back a country that can produce something that people outside of the US will buy that can create a large number of jobs. It's a tricky balancing act but we really need to bring ourselves back to the understanding that this economic crisis we are in is on many levels; we're not exporting enough and what we do export doesn't generate enough jobs to create the tax base we need to throw money at things we can't reasonably expect to produce future profits.
We've lived off the fat of the America of 1940-1960 for decades and we're starting to see our ribs through our skin. We need prosperity that is good for the country and good for Joe Sixpack at the same time and we simply don't have that today.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know anything about The Prisoner but my guess is his name means this.
Count me as number 7.
As a long time Thief fan and advocate I did have some issues with the interface. But I guess everyone has an opinion of what's good.
And I must say that Shalebridge Cradle was one of those missions that made me realize that I might need to wear some Depends undergarments when I play games that are so immersive. It wasn't as beautiful as The Bonehorde or The Haunted Cathedral but it was still one hell of a good time.
What do you mean "had"? This problem hasn't gone away. In fact, no one is addressing it at all. At least no one who can make a difference given the current political landscape.
The notion of Gandhi "going down fighting" is hilariously ignorant of history.
If you don't think civil disobedience isn't a fight than you've obviously never been involved. Gandhi most certainly faced actions by the hands of the British that could have killed him and he had no way of knowing that he wouldn't be killed. He risked it all just as much as anyone else involved with a fight. You only have the virtue of seeing it in hind sight.
But if you want to be mocking about it, that's fine. But to me that's as good as spitting on the hundreds who were murdered in a civil disobedience movement against a "civilized" enemy.
Going down fighting has never done anyone the slightest bit of good; you have to have a chance of winning to make the fight worth your life.
Tell that to Ghandi.
Violent movies are just as dangerous.
Actually, movies are probably worse. They teach that the main character can kill dozens without getting a scratch. Airsoft and paintball teaches you that you suck with a gun. Which is more glamorous in the eyes of a downtrodden teen?
Well, they would have had a better chance than not releasing at all.
I'll say that I haven't read all that much about it but to me it seems that the failure came from someone with too heavy of a hand that wasn't willing to go to market with a number 2 selling product.
I think this is a mistake on the parts of lots of people; taking too much prep time, wanting their products to be too perfect to be believed. Sooner or later you have to pull the trigger or all the effort leading up to the release of a product becomes null and void. Every game out there has flaws. As much as PC Gamer doesn't want us to believe this, there is no 95% games in existence. And if you're developing and constantly looking at what the other guy is doing it's easy to get caught up in finding things in your own product that don't live up the expectations laid out by other products. You just can't go through life like that... at least not in a productive manner.
Why wouldn't that plan work? AFAIK the laws of physics are still the same since 9/11.
Why not just get a WM phone with buttons?
I've shown much more than you have an as for a plan to bring down buildings that doesn't require an IQ of 200? 9/11 has already shown us that plan.
So you're arguing that the generic term of your sentence excludes a specific instance of that generic term , but the specific term of your sentence cannot be extrapolated to cover a similar structure? Really?
Uh, I DID mention 767s by name. You just assumed...
Yeah, I've given up arguing substance, because I realized that you have none. It's still kinda fun to see how much you twist and turn in response to semantic arguments.
Whatever. I've proven you completely wrong and you're just too dumb or too proud to admit it. Like I said, be a man and either come to terms with it or just walk away.
Then I would suggest you be more precise in your terminology. When you say that "I never knew anyone ever used a plane to try to bring down the twin towers before", I assumed you knew a B-25 was a plane. If you want to argue that a B-25 is different from a 767, sure. But that's not what you said.
Nor did I mention the Empire State Building. You call for me to be precise but you're not at the same time. Want to level the playing field here or accept that it was a way of mincing words? Suit yourself but you've still proven nothing.
You are pulling out a lot of arguments, only to say later "well, that's not what I meant". Don't bring out similarities only to claim later that there aren't similarities. People can't read your mind, you know.
Hey, you're the one throwing down the gauntlet of being precise to which you haven't been either. I see this as a true no fault situation aside from you putting something in quotes that I never said.
Yeah, I know, I'm just feeding a troll at this point. Sometimes, it's kinda fun though.
How am I a troll in this case? When it goes back to the origins of this posting I have proven the points that I want to without having to go to the borish levels of trolling. The fact that I'm a bit snide from time to time only comes across as trollish because you're dictating that I use a higher level of ethics than you do in this. But unlike many other Slashdotters, I don't feel the need to live up to the expectations of another poster when they can't follow through themselves. So, if in your mind I'm a troll than I'd simply say that I'm countering the your actions. How does it feel to be smug even when you're proven wrong?
I was very aware of the B-25 hit well before 9/11. Stop embarrassing yourself by trying to act like you have some super knowledge over me. You really don't and no one else is bothering with this thread at this point. It's just you and me kiddo.
Now do me a big big big favor. Go read the stats on these two planes. Just as I said in my post, no one ever tried it with a 767. If you really think that a B-25 duel prop compares to a 767-600 jet than you're out of your frigging mind. The 767 is larger, faster, heavier and stronger in every single way. Most of the stats that are out there will show you that a 767 dwarfs the B-25. Again, this is something any 6th grader can understand the differences in.
The only "delicious" thing here is how you continue to embarrass yourself with your refusal to admit the obvious differences.
Kamikaze's were not very effective.
Kamikazes weren't using 767s either. As a member of slashdot I would like to think that you can easily see the difference without it being mentioned to you. After all, most 6th graders understand the difference.
Not to mention that previous plane strikes did not bring down the building either.
I never knew anyone ever used a plane to try to bring down the twin towers before. Care to cite?
Here's some homework for you: devise a plan to bring down a skyscraper. Then execute it. I'd really like to know how that goes for you.
You know what? Blow it out your ass. I answered each one of your points and you know that you've been proven wrong. Instead of being all sour grapes about it why don't you either just say that you were wrong or simply walk away? What's up with the people on slashdot having to argue everything to it's bitter end when they're clearly wrong?
- They bombed three highly defended buildings without using a single bomb.
Ok, let's start here. What is so amazing about this to you? The Japanese and Germans did this 50+ years before. This wasn't innovation. This was imitation. Any 6th grader in the US knows what a Kamikaze is and what they did.
1) Identified weaknesses in the security at airports.
You mean go to the FAA website and see what you can and can't take in your carry on luggage?
2) Identified weaknesses in the American response to highjackings.
The only "weakness" that made a difference in this case is that Americans didn't shoot down hijacked planes. Again, this is something any 6th grader could have told you.
Identified weaknesses in the immigration protocols of the US.
Why would that matter? FWIR, every member of these teams was in the country for at least a couple of years prior to the attacks. So Bin Laden sends 30 and hopes 20 get through. They had over a year to get here and people from many countries willing to do it. This really is a needle in a haystack kind of problem.
4) Lived for a set number of weeks in the US while (nearly) avoiding complete detection.
Detection from whom? Many of these people were unknowns and if you get through immigration who is going to be looking for you?
5) Evaded signal interception while carrying out worldwide communication.
Please. You mean with the hundreds of billions of spam, e-mail, cell text, phone calls and internet chat transactions that you're afraid that your coded message is going to be magically picked up out of the blue?
You're the one who's taking hindsight too far, not me. I also think that you're giving the al-Quada too little credit. You're one of those people who act like they're out there learning how to shoot and AK and fucking sheep. The fact is that, in all likeliness, that al-Quada probably has some really sophisticated people on their side who know how these systems work if they don't have direct access to them. If not al-Quada by name they at least have sympathizers. FWIW, I would feel pretty comfortable about this kind of plan being successful pre-9/11 once you get your operatives into the country and we've already covered that point, just send more than you need.
I just see someone whining that there wasn't enough magic.
Get over yourself. I wasn't whining on any level. I was pointing out that this really wasn't some great plan. Your points would be points today but they weren't serious issues on 9-11-2001.
The 'News Media' and the Bush Administration's FUD campaign, remember?
Actually, it seems that I hear it more from the Bush-did-it conspiracy camp. If anything, Bush saying that a bunch of fundies hiding in a backassword nation needed high end technology and planning to pull this off would have hurt his cause.
There are those who honestly think that Bin Laden and the boys couldn't concoct the plan to ram airplanes into buildings within a few hours of one another...
I don't know where this concept came from that this crime had to be high tech.
I know, I know, the initial response from some was that the alleged terrorists weren't smart enough to come up with this and some morons ate that up. Even this past winter I had someone tell me that the terrorist plot was too sophisticated for a non-government entity.
There is nothing surprising about this. Aside from piloting the planes this plan had all the sophistication of a junior high word problem in a mathematics course.
"If Habbib leaves Boston at 7:20 AM and Mohammad leaves Washington D.C. at 7:35 AM what time will they get to The World Trade Center?"
I use a HP TC1100 as a portable. 40 gig hard drive, 1 Ghz processor, gig of RAM, WinXP Tablet Edition. It's a tough little machine with a full 1024x768 tablet (stylus) screen.
You can normally find them with their docking station for about 400 on eBay. It's a great little machine.
Don't be so sure that this isn't going to happen at some point in the future! In all honesty the RIAA and the MPAA has something to it's disadvantage that the Writer's Guild hasn't had to face full on and that is the format of the work. Digital downloads like movies and music lend themselves all to well to the players of today but books? The transportability of books and format of a paperback doesn't really lend itself well to the players of our time. As many have pointed out most people aren't happy reading on a monitor for any real length of time, gizmos like the Kindle are still a bit of a high price tag for what they are (can you even load your own PDAs on these units?) and tablet PCs seem to be regressive from the form factor of a book since the HP TC1100.
But I bet you that if they can make an inexpensive but versatile handheld that can read like reading a book we will start to see the paper publications start to suffer from the same issues as what video and audio did and at even a faster pace. While I don't agree with everything the RIAA and the MPAA does I think their actions are a matter of desperation that are well marked by the number of rental and retail outlets that went belly up this last decade. When you start to see Borders suffering like Sam Goody and NRM did you'll see that the Writer's Guild has teeth too. For now they're simply fortunate that technology hasn't caught up to them at the same rate as it did with their brothers in the music and movie world.
Don't assume that just because a business exists in a free market environment that it supports the free market ideology.
Just like with the Arlene Specter switch; the man has no more dedication to either side of the fence than he does to keeping his own job. While he is truely better described as a Democrat the fact is that if he wasn't on the verge of getting the boot from a primary election loss he wouldn't have done a single thing about his party affiliation.
The same goes for companies. They'll support whatever environment supports them. When their existence becomes threatened they go on the offense. It's not a question of what is right but a question of doing what's best in the name of self preservation.
Why wouldn't they stand in the way? How is downloading a book and different from downloading an album or a movie?
And I'm asking these questions in sincerity. It seems that, for the most part, Slashdotters have a different way of handling the issues the arise from the medias differently. It's almost as if writers get treated with kids gloves in comparison to their musician and film producer peers. If you'd replace "writers guild" with "RIAA" and/or "MPAA" you'd go from people talking over the issue with a somewhat level head to one where we'd hear howls for blood and unflattering references to their sexual preference. But the truth is that these issues are the same, all of them have the same problems and all of them have the same legal protections.
While the numbers sound nice and all I still think that Obama needs to worry more about getting back a country that can produce something that people outside of the US will buy that can create a large number of jobs. It's a tricky balancing act but we really need to bring ourselves back to the understanding that this economic crisis we are in is on many levels; we're not exporting enough and what we do export doesn't generate enough jobs to create the tax base we need to throw money at things we can't reasonably expect to produce future profits.
We've lived off the fat of the America of 1940-1960 for decades and we're starting to see our ribs through our skin. We need prosperity that is good for the country and good for Joe Sixpack at the same time and we simply don't have that today.
What do you think subcontracting is?
Ken Jennings rocks!
Seriously? I thought they should have given him the cash for the answer. Sounds about right to me.