Correct me if I'm wrong, but you pee out any excess vitamin C that your body can't store. Vitamin C flies through your system, but other vitamins such as A can get saved, and too much of that is a bad thing.
But then, too much of anything, including vitamin C, is a bad thing. Especially if you like keeping your kidneys and other bloodstream filtering organs.
Microsoft has been after Canadian universities for years. In my first year at my university, Microsoft held a info session about jobs and stuff like that and introduced a programming contest. The contest was to write a program for Windows CE. No problem, right? Except the emulator (which was free) only ran on Win2000 or NT. To get around that, they gave away free copies of Win 2000, with a free development environment. I still have mine.
This year, a slightly different spin. Microsoft was introducing Visual Studio.NET and gave away free copies of VS.NET Beta 2. Do some stuff (write programs in VS, talk about them, etc) and get more free stuff (Office XP, Win XP, mice, etc). Need Win2000 to develop Web services? No problem. Ask and ye shall recieve. I still use VS.NET Beta 2, learned VB.NET on my own, learned C#, and will try VC++.NET sometime. I keep my programs for a future application to Microsoft, (despite my dual booting Red Hat 7.3).
Microsoft piloted DevHood.com, a website aimed at students using VS.NET and related technologies with tutorials, how to's, all kinds of neat little things. Students can post their creations, or tutorials. Some of them were damn good. Points were awarded for more free stuff. I used it frequently.
The point? Microsoft wants kids to use their stuff and like it. They want kids to find out how easy it is. C# is easy. But then I've also taken 3 Java courses, so picking up C# was easy.
Don't knock Waterloo too badly. There was a time when I would sell my soul to go there. (I'm not there now). But Microsoft isn't doing anything different. They're just more direct. Most employers that I've been told about want Microsoft knowledge. Waterloo is doing what most universities say they are doing to their grads.
Personally, I think the guys at Parallax/Interplay are geniuses, although if I remember correctly, Descent 1 came out after Doom 2. But then I'm biased since I own Descent 1, 2, 3 and the Mercenary add on, as well as Descent Freespace, the Silent Threat addon, and Freespace 2. Anyway, here's my promo for Descent:
The key to Descent was the fact that you could simultaneously move in three directions with control. You couldn't do that in any of the Doom clones. There was an original way of thinking: a space shooter with constraints on where you could fly. Most shooters and doom have a map which is essentially 2D. Descent forced you to fly in corridors which could bend at any angle. The map was based on a cube instead of a square, and the cube could be modified to look like a 3D trapezoid. Descent had a 3D map which requires being able to view it in 3D at multiple angles to be able to figure out where you had to go. You had an original storyline that went from Descent 1 through 3. Descent 3 went on to allow movement between two environments (inside and out) and was much more of a thinking game than was Quake or Doom or the earlier Descent incarnations. Forsaken tried to copy the original Descent versions, but fizzled quickly.
Creating a level is easy (anybody remember Devil?) and the newer versions shipped with mission builders. The levels you got from Interplay's Levels of the World contest were hard, but awesome (and in the case of Freespace, those levels were integrated into Silent Threat).
Its a crying shame...Descent 4 has been shut down. But the Descent series IMHO, was groundbreaking. I'm glad to find someone who agrees with me.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but you pee out any excess vitamin C that your body can't store. Vitamin C flies through your system, but other vitamins such as A can get saved, and too much of that is a bad thing.
But then, too much of anything, including vitamin C, is a bad thing. Especially if you like keeping your kidneys and other bloodstream filtering organs.
Microsoft has been after Canadian universities for years. In my first year at my university, Microsoft held a info session about jobs and stuff like that and introduced a programming contest. The contest was to write a program for Windows CE. No problem, right? Except the emulator (which was free) only ran on Win2000 or NT. To get around that, they gave away free copies of Win 2000, with a free development environment. I still have mine.
.NET and gave away free copies of VS .NET Beta 2. Do some stuff (write programs in VS, talk about them, etc) and get more free stuff (Office XP, Win XP, mice, etc). Need Win2000 to develop Web services? No problem. Ask and ye shall recieve. I still use VS .NET Beta 2, learned VB .NET on my own, learned C#, and will try VC++ .NET sometime. I keep my programs for a future application to Microsoft, (despite my dual booting Red Hat 7.3).
.NET and related technologies with tutorials, how to's, all kinds of neat little things. Students can post their creations, or tutorials. Some of them were damn good. Points were awarded for more free stuff. I used it frequently.
This year, a slightly different spin. Microsoft was introducing Visual Studio
Microsoft piloted DevHood.com, a website aimed at students using VS
The point? Microsoft wants kids to use their stuff and like it. They want kids to find out how easy it is. C# is easy. But then I've also taken 3 Java courses, so picking up C# was easy.
Don't knock Waterloo too badly. There was a time when I would sell my soul to go there. (I'm not there now). But Microsoft isn't doing anything different. They're just more direct. Most employers that I've been told about want Microsoft knowledge. Waterloo is doing what most universities say they are doing to their grads.
Making their grads marketable.
Personally, I think the guys at Parallax/Interplay are geniuses, although if I remember correctly, Descent 1 came out after Doom 2. But then I'm biased since I own Descent 1, 2, 3 and the Mercenary add on, as well as Descent Freespace, the Silent Threat addon, and Freespace 2. Anyway, here's my promo for Descent:
The key to Descent was the fact that you could simultaneously move in three directions with control. You couldn't do that in any of the Doom clones. There was an original way of thinking: a space shooter with constraints on where you could fly. Most shooters and doom have a map which is essentially 2D. Descent forced you to fly in corridors which could bend at any angle. The map was based on a cube instead of a square, and the cube could be modified to look like a 3D trapezoid. Descent had a 3D map which requires being able to view it in 3D at multiple angles to be able to figure out where you had to go. You had an original storyline that went from Descent 1 through 3. Descent 3 went on to allow movement between two environments (inside and out) and was much more of a thinking game than was Quake or Doom or the earlier Descent incarnations. Forsaken tried to copy the original Descent versions, but fizzled quickly.
Creating a level is easy (anybody remember Devil?) and the newer versions shipped with mission builders. The levels you got from Interplay's Levels of the World contest were hard, but awesome (and in the case of Freespace, those levels were integrated into Silent Threat).
Its a crying shame...Descent 4 has been shut down. But the Descent series IMHO, was groundbreaking. I'm glad to find someone who agrees with me.