Ok, I'll have to chime in here, as my main raiding character is a level 70 firemage.
Despite being almost entirely fire spec, I use about, say, 80% of my abilities, including a few frost spells. The only damage spell I almost never use is your favorite, Frostbolt, simply because it isn't worth the 3-second cast time without putting talent points into the frost tree.
If all you like to do is target and keep mashing one button, fine. If you want to have more fun and squeeze every inch of firepower out of your character, you might want to look at those other buttons. Many are only useful in specific situations, but excel greatly in those cases. Dealing raw damage in a raid is easy, but when things get nasty in a 5-man group, and you need to know what to do, who to do it to, and when... Well, that's when it gets fun.
No, but real surgery is an actual science (Well, a medical process, which is based on actual science), which can be proven to be successful or unsuccessful. No one can prove the existence of a deity (Or the non-existence, but that's beside the point).
raju1kabir - That's a damn good point, and I never thought of it that way. Personally, I despise the whole Scientology thing, and have done so since they put up all those stupid "Free stress test" tables in Times Square and Grand Central. Then again, maybe those cultists could actually shed a new light on the so-called "real" religions, just by example...
(Disclaimer: Yes, I'm an Atheist. I refuse to believe in any deity I didn't invent myself. Why should other peoples' fantasies be better than mine?)
Nah, it's in that gray area where it's too old to run natively, but new enough that the low-level vid and sound code runs too slowly in DOSBox. I can get it to run fast + silent or slow with sound.
I spent days trying to get it to work right in that... *sigh*.
(I'm not arguing with you... Just clearing up the plot of the first movie)
Actually, it wasn't a real strike in response to fake data. The computer tried that, and the people noticed it wasn't real. Then the AI decided it was going to launch a pre-emptive strike, and took over the entire system, because it was going to "win" the cold war.
Cool plot, actually. They used the tic-tac-toe game to teach the AI the concept of an unwinnable situation.
Minor nitpick... In the original one, the whole gimmick was that they'd created a true A.I. computer to control the missile systems, so when the kid started playing "Global Thermo-Nuclear War", the computer decided to play for real, and it really WAS going to launch a nuclear attack.
Eh, not all companies have the same rules... I looked over my employment agreement (aka "contract", even though it says it isn't a contract), and the company owns anything I make while employed, provided that:
1) It's made using company resources/equipment (Obviously) 2) It's related to the business
Accent on #2... I work for the financial industry, so if I wrote some stock trading software at home, in my spare time, it'd belong to the company under this agreement. Of course, if I wrote a bunch of computer games (Which is what I actually do), they're all mine.
I know... Cliche, right? Well, in programming, it's usually true.
Everyone learns differently, but by particular method is to pick an interesting project that's just a few steps past what you already know, and figure out how to do it.
Don't start from Hello World and try to write a complete operating system. Add a piece at a time, and make sure you learn something new each time. When you find something unfamiliar, figure out the component parts.
For instance, with a console emulator: 1) You need a way to decode the ROM files (This would take a lot of research, as it's proprietary stuff that's been cracked) 2) You need a graphics engine 3) You need a sound engine 4) You need an input engine of some sort (Keyboard, gamepad, etc)
And so on... Each of these components has its own problems to overcome, but each one is also a lot simpler than the emulator as a whole.
Of course, an emulator might be too big a step, so what about just a graphics engine? One thing I wrote when I got bored was a partial physics engine with a graphical layer. I also messed around with maze generation, 3D rendering, genetic algorithms, etc.
Find something interesting, and teach yourself how to do it. Even if you don't succeed, you'll learn things along the way. If you hit a roadblock, spend some time trying to figure it out yourself, but if you can't handle it, search the web for a solution and LEARN from it.
I know I babble a bit in my posts, but the key is to just pick a project and do it. You can't become a guru overnight, but just keep learning.
Come on... Any New Yorker should know this... There are cities, and then there's THE City. You really can't compare traffic in Manhattan to anything else. Well, maybe certain parts of L.A. or San Francisco, but I've never lived there, so I dunno.
I think this is more along the lines of eastern Queens/Brooklyn traffic. You know, those suburbs that like to think they're part of the city.
Hell, if DARPA wants a robot that can replace New York cabbies, it better offer a hell of a lot more than three million.
Now, which one of these more closely matches the keyword "spreadsheet"?
That explains why google comes up first in the normal search results. That they come up first in the sponsored ads is more of an issue (With which I don't see a problem), but this doesn't prove that they're seeding the actual results.
You're completely right. I work in a corporate IT department, and there are two kinds of programmers here.
1) People like me, who just need enough money to pay the bills and buy the toys, but actually ENJOY programming (Though not necessarily writing these particular programs).
2) People who just want to make lots of money, rise up the ladder, and become the next CIO/CTO.
I've worked here three years and found only two people, other than myself, who fall into category #1. Of course, I intend to send my resume to Google in the next couple months, so maybe I'm the anomaly.
You bring up some valid points, but it's not ALL that bad. I've been playing WoW since release (Minus a 6-month hiatus when I got bored), and I've been in a lot of good groups and bad groups.
What you'll find is that every class in WoW is made to solo, specifically because there are a lot of people who just don't want to quest in groups. On the other hand, two complementary classes can perform MUCH better than any single one. A group of five, working together properly, is really a beautiful thing.
Unfortunately, there are, as you said, a LOT of players who just can't play well with others. This includes:
1) Newbies: Just coach them along, and they'll get the hang of it eventually. Insulting them won't help them play better, so try to be helpful instead of hostile.
2) Raider Alts: Most players who have a somewhat maxed-out character will create more characters to experience more of the game. SOME of these will be VERY over-confident and reckless, saying things like "It's not like this is MC or anything" (MC = Molten Core = One of the first endgame raids), forgetting that their character isn't exactly superman yet. Avoid these people.
3) Anyone who doesn't speak your language. No communication = No teamwork. Avoid these, too.
If you get a bad group, it can be either really annoying or EXTREMELY funny (Best part about having a guild, is having people to chat with to laugh about the idiots in your current party). Trust me, I've had some FUNNY ones... Most recent was a druid (Hybrid class) that refused to deal any damage because it wasn't her "style".
If you get a good group, it can really make up for all the bad times, because five people working in synch... well, good times.
Hopefully the changes in the next patch will cut down on the time it takes to FORM one of these groups, because on that point, I agree 100% with the parent. It takes way too long.
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm a lifeless computer geek, but after taking a six month break from WoW, I realized I wasn't doing anything interesting anyway, and I was just as bored. I know I'll get flamed for being an addict, anyway, but that's just slashdot.
You missed a few things, mostly specific to Manhattan
CONS (First, because I'm a pessimist)
1) Crowded, crowded, crowded. 2) VERY high cost of living. 3) No nature (There are parks, but landscaping != nature) 4) No stars. I'm talking about the ones in the sky, not the ones on the screen. Too much light, so you can't see many. Maybe I just miss my telescope...
PROS
1) Everything is here. Everything. Most things are within a few blocks of you. 2) Anything breaking rule #1 can be delivered. 3) There are GOOD pizza places everywhere (None of that Dominos/Pizza Hut garbage) 4) 24-hour subways (I know the parent said it, but it's worth repeating) 5) And the kicker....
Very true. When my guild asks me to raid when I'm not in the mood for it, I turn them down. If they ever threaten to kick me out if I don't raid, all eight of my alliance-side chars will be out of the guild before they get the chance.
Actually, it can be quite the opposite. There may be no way to "win" the entire game, but for a raiding guild, there are many things to accomplish.
The first time you can bring together 40 people and take out Ragnaros, the end boss of the Molten Core, it's one hell of a feeling of accomplishment. I was there when my guild killed him for the first time (And only time so far), and you should have heard the cheers of people screaming over Teamspeak (Voice communication software). They probably felt like winners.
But hey, let's compare it to real life. What's the entertainment-opposite of computer games? Contact sports. Say you and your friends play football on weekends. Say you get really good at it, and play against other amateur teams. If you're good enough, maybe you join a league. Maybe you win a local championship. Sure, there are other, higher leagues out there, but you still WON. Maybe you'll enter the championship again next year, or maybe you'll join a higher-level league (City, state, national, etc). Sure, there's always one league at the top, but at any given time, there's always one dungeon in WoW that's the "hardest."
Now, the disclaimer. No, I'm not equating Warcraft to Football (*shudder*), but the parallel is there. I AM a warcraft addict, and have been playing since beta. I play quite a bit, but I NEVER let Warcraft supercede anything in real life. The day I say "Sorry guys, can't hang out this Saturday. I have a raid that afternoon in warcraft." is the day I cancel my account, delete the game, and throw away the CDs.
(On a side note, I decided at one point that I was playing too much, and stopped for about six months. I went back after I took a look at my life and realized that I wasn't doing anything interesting anyway, and WoW is more fun.)
Re:It follows logically that drinkers would get mo
on
Socializing For The Win?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Yes, the problem is with me. My problem is that I socialize with people only if I enjoy their company, not just because they have the power to increase my salary. It's a problem I'm proud to have.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, I'll have to chime in here, as my main raiding character is a level 70 firemage.
Despite being almost entirely fire spec, I use about, say, 80% of my abilities, including a few frost spells. The only damage spell I almost never use is your favorite, Frostbolt, simply because it isn't worth the 3-second cast time without putting talent points into the frost tree.
If all you like to do is target and keep mashing one button, fine. If you want to have more fun and squeeze every inch of firepower out of your character, you might want to look at those other buttons. Many are only useful in specific situations, but excel greatly in those cases. Dealing raw damage in a raid is easy, but when things get nasty in a 5-man group, and you need to know what to do, who to do it to, and when... Well, that's when it gets fun.
No, but real surgery is an actual science (Well, a medical process, which is based on actual science), which can be proven to be successful or unsuccessful. No one can prove the existence of a deity (Or the non-existence, but that's beside the point).
raju1kabir - That's a damn good point, and I never thought of it that way. Personally, I despise the whole Scientology thing, and have done so since they put up all those stupid "Free stress test" tables in Times Square and Grand Central. Then again, maybe those cultists could actually shed a new light on the so-called "real" religions, just by example...
(Disclaimer: Yes, I'm an Atheist. I refuse to believe in any deity I didn't invent myself. Why should other peoples' fantasies be better than mine?)
He doesn't know... He just saw the movie Sniper.
Nah, it's in that gray area where it's too old to run natively, but new enough that the low-level vid and sound code runs too slowly in DOSBox. I can get it to run fast + silent or slow with sound.
I spent days trying to get it to work right in that... *sigh*.
How about a version of Tyrian that'll work on a modern machine? Such a simple game, but so well-made...
There was a version, Tyrian 2000, that'd work on a Win9x box, but not on 2k/XP/EvilVista.
Am I the only one that remembers this little classic? Am I the only one who yearns to play with Zica Lasers and Banana Bombs!?!?
They made another Leisure Suit Larry, but they did it without Al Lowe. Because of that, I refuse to play it.
(I'm not arguing with you... Just clearing up the plot of the first movie)
Actually, it wasn't a real strike in response to fake data. The computer tried that, and the people noticed it wasn't real. Then the AI decided it was going to launch a pre-emptive strike, and took over the entire system, because it was going to "win" the cold war.
Cool plot, actually. They used the tic-tac-toe game to teach the AI the concept of an unwinnable situation.
Minor nitpick... In the original one, the whole gimmick was that they'd created a true A.I. computer to control the missile systems, so when the kid started playing "Global Thermo-Nuclear War", the computer decided to play for real, and it really WAS going to launch a nuclear attack.
Remember, the only way to win is not to play.
I forget who said this, but the quote stuck in my head...
"We must respect the other fellow's religion in the same way that we respect his opinion that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."
I'm not going to get into an insult match here, however tempting.
For the record (And since it's relevant to this thread), I'm an atheist.
Eh, not all companies have the same rules... I looked over my employment agreement (aka "contract", even though it says it isn't a contract), and the company owns anything I make while employed, provided that:
1) It's made using company resources/equipment (Obviously)
2) It's related to the business
Accent on #2... I work for the financial industry, so if I wrote some stock trading software at home, in my spare time, it'd belong to the company under this agreement. Of course, if I wrote a bunch of computer games (Which is what I actually do), they're all mine.
I know... Cliche, right? Well, in programming, it's usually true.
Everyone learns differently, but by particular method is to pick an interesting project that's just a few steps past what you already know, and figure out how to do it.
Don't start from Hello World and try to write a complete operating system. Add a piece at a time, and make sure you learn something new each time. When you find something unfamiliar, figure out the component parts.
For instance, with a console emulator:
1) You need a way to decode the ROM files (This would take a lot of research, as it's proprietary stuff that's been cracked)
2) You need a graphics engine
3) You need a sound engine
4) You need an input engine of some sort (Keyboard, gamepad, etc)
And so on... Each of these components has its own problems to overcome, but each one is also a lot simpler than the emulator as a whole.
Of course, an emulator might be too big a step, so what about just a graphics engine? One thing I wrote when I got bored was a partial physics engine with a graphical layer. I also messed around with maze generation, 3D rendering, genetic algorithms, etc.
Find something interesting, and teach yourself how to do it. Even if you don't succeed, you'll learn things along the way. If you hit a roadblock, spend some time trying to figure it out yourself, but if you can't handle it, search the web for a solution and LEARN from it.
I know I babble a bit in my posts, but the key is to just pick a project and do it. You can't become a guru overnight, but just keep learning.
Come on... Any New Yorker should know this... There are cities, and then there's THE City. You really can't compare traffic in Manhattan to anything else. Well, maybe certain parts of L.A. or San Francisco, but I've never lived there, so I dunno.
I think this is more along the lines of eastern Queens/Brooklyn traffic. You know, those suburbs that like to think they're part of the city.
Hell, if DARPA wants a robot that can replace New York cabbies, it better offer a hell of a lot more than three million.
No, but they get bonus points if they can navigate the LA aqueducts and get Eleanor, the Shelby GT, to the docks before 8am!
(Seriously, there must have been dozens of action movies filmed in that location)
Well spoken. Well spoken, indeed.
Or, in slashdot terms...
I am intrigued by your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
(Sorry, I've just never gotten a chance to use that meme until now)
To clarify parent's point... "0.6x higher" is just a fancy way of saying "60% more"
"Microsoft Excel"
"Google Spreadsheets"
Now, which one of these more closely matches the keyword "spreadsheet"?
That explains why google comes up first in the normal search results. That they come up first in the sponsored ads is more of an issue (With which I don't see a problem), but this doesn't prove that they're seeding the actual results.
You're completely right. I work in a corporate IT department, and there are two kinds of programmers here.
1) People like me, who just need enough money to pay the bills and buy the toys, but actually ENJOY programming (Though not necessarily writing these particular programs).
2) People who just want to make lots of money, rise up the ladder, and become the next CIO/CTO.
I've worked here three years and found only two people, other than myself, who fall into category #1. Of course, I intend to send my resume to Google in the next couple months, so maybe I'm the anomaly.
You bring up some valid points, but it's not ALL that bad. I've been playing WoW since release (Minus a 6-month hiatus when I got bored), and I've been in a lot of good groups and bad groups.
What you'll find is that every class in WoW is made to solo, specifically because there are a lot of people who just don't want to quest in groups. On the other hand, two complementary classes can perform MUCH better than any single one. A group of five, working together properly, is really a beautiful thing.
Unfortunately, there are, as you said, a LOT of players who just can't play well with others. This includes:
1) Newbies: Just coach them along, and they'll get the hang of it eventually. Insulting them won't help them play better, so try to be helpful instead of hostile.
2) Raider Alts: Most players who have a somewhat maxed-out character will create more characters to experience more of the game. SOME of these will be VERY over-confident and reckless, saying things like "It's not like this is MC or anything" (MC = Molten Core = One of the first endgame raids), forgetting that their character isn't exactly superman yet. Avoid these people.
3) Anyone who doesn't speak your language. No communication = No teamwork. Avoid these, too.
If you get a bad group, it can be either really annoying or EXTREMELY funny (Best part about having a guild, is having people to chat with to laugh about the idiots in your current party). Trust me, I've had some FUNNY ones... Most recent was a druid (Hybrid class) that refused to deal any damage because it wasn't her "style".
If you get a good group, it can really make up for all the bad times, because five people working in synch... well, good times.
Hopefully the changes in the next patch will cut down on the time it takes to FORM one of these groups, because on that point, I agree 100% with the parent. It takes way too long.
Disclaimer: Yes, I'm a lifeless computer geek, but after taking a six month break from WoW, I realized I wasn't doing anything interesting anyway, and I was just as bored. I know I'll get flamed for being an addict, anyway, but that's just slashdot.
I bet I know why there's no lobbying group against black-hats...
Every time they put up an online petition, their site gets cracked and replaced with goatse.
What, you're not modded funny yet? Bunch of savages on this site...
What's the worst that can happen?
Let's see what this button does...
I'll go. Wait in the car.
Honey, please put down the gun!
(Or, to rip a line from a song...)
Goodbye, cruel world. Leaving you today.
You missed a few things, mostly specific to Manhattan
CONS (First, because I'm a pessimist)
1) Crowded, crowded, crowded.
2) VERY high cost of living.
3) No nature (There are parks, but landscaping != nature)
4) No stars. I'm talking about the ones in the sky, not the ones on the screen. Too much light, so you can't see many. Maybe I just miss my telescope...
PROS
1) Everything is here. Everything. Most things are within a few blocks of you.
2) Anything breaking rule #1 can be delivered.
3) There are GOOD pizza places everywhere (None of that Dominos/Pizza Hut garbage)
4) 24-hour subways (I know the parent said it, but it's worth repeating)
5) And the kicker....
Over 80% of us voted AGAINST Dubya in 2004.
Very true. When my guild asks me to raid when I'm not in the mood for it, I turn them down. If they ever threaten to kick me out if I don't raid, all eight of my alliance-side chars will be out of the guild before they get the chance.
Actually, it can be quite the opposite. There may be no way to "win" the entire game, but for a raiding guild, there are many things to accomplish.
The first time you can bring together 40 people and take out Ragnaros, the end boss of the Molten Core, it's one hell of a feeling of accomplishment. I was there when my guild killed him for the first time (And only time so far), and you should have heard the cheers of people screaming over Teamspeak (Voice communication software). They probably felt like winners.
But hey, let's compare it to real life. What's the entertainment-opposite of computer games? Contact sports. Say you and your friends play football on weekends. Say you get really good at it, and play against other amateur teams. If you're good enough, maybe you join a league. Maybe you win a local championship. Sure, there are other, higher leagues out there, but you still WON. Maybe you'll enter the championship again next year, or maybe you'll join a higher-level league (City, state, national, etc). Sure, there's always one league at the top, but at any given time, there's always one dungeon in WoW that's the "hardest."
Now, the disclaimer. No, I'm not equating Warcraft to Football (*shudder*), but the parallel is there. I AM a warcraft addict, and have been playing since beta. I play quite a bit, but I NEVER let Warcraft supercede anything in real life. The day I say "Sorry guys, can't hang out this Saturday. I have a raid that afternoon in warcraft." is the day I cancel my account, delete the game, and throw away the CDs.
(On a side note, I decided at one point that I was playing too much, and stopped for about six months. I went back after I took a look at my life and realized that I wasn't doing anything interesting anyway, and WoW is more fun.)
Yes, the problem is with me. My problem is that I socialize with people only if I enjoy their company, not just because they have the power to increase my salary. It's a problem I'm proud to have.