Except that 65% of Americans can't even locate Great Britain on a world map, let alone Iraq or Afghanistan.
America and the people in it frequently parade themselves as the model for the world's western "free" countries, so comparisons are there to be made about the US and other countries regarding their social structures and their media.
If you put yourselves up there, expect to have comparisons drawn.
Is there any surprise? The media (with the exception of Fox News) has always had a pretty large liberal bias.
Now there's a wildly speculative generalisation that os based more on your opinion of what you consider "liberal" bias.
Certainly here in the UK, in my personal opinion, the media as a whole is fairly centrist, with obvious points at the extreme ends of the bell curve (The Daily [hate] Mail on the right, the Guardian on the left, for example), with everything else in between.
Perhaps the US media is more narrow, but in my experience of it, it's not dissimilar to the UK where you can have two 24 news channels as diametrically opposed as BBC News 24 and Sky News.
I know there's a huge amount of crowing from the right wing in the US about "gross liberal bias" and "persecution of right wing, rich, white, middle class minorities" but it's really just propagandising. If you actually look at it more closely, it's probably more "fair and balanced" than you give it credit for.
I think a large part of it may come from the fact that all the right wing hawks moan about news stories about Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction and hypocrisy about it as "persecution" but stories about Bill Clinton getting a blowjob and how it should cause him to be impeached as "standing up for morals and family values".
Not that I'm accusing you of thinking such, just that the right wing conservative agenda in the US for many years now has been successfully pushing the "oh, woe is us! we're so oppressed and the media is against us!" and yet really don;t mind leveraging that very same media to (for example) spread bile about Clinton, or Obama's "terrorist" and "Muslim faith", or John Kerry and the whole "swift boat veterans for (un)truth".
The Karl Roves of this world are very adept at using the media for effective propaganda, and then being very quick to cry foul and throw their toys out of the pram when that same media dare criticise them and their ilk.
Heh, don't hold your breath on the Sony one - even the Mac version of the software for pulling XDCAM HD clips down off a PD Deck is a bit ropey. It got a lot better with the latest release, but it took them long enough - and that was when they were working hard to increase XDCAM uptake in the industry as a cost effective migration path for HD (alongside HDCAM). you'd think they'd want to make it as attractive as possible for FCS users on the Mac to use the new format.
While the app did work, it was very kludgy, and didn't support some of the much-vaunted metadata features of the format, and you couldn't even name the clips on the disc prior to moving them to your drive! You can now, with the new version, but it took them a while to come out with it.
Both versions, up to Shake 3.0 were $4,999, and originally Shake was a Linux app (hence the very different interface of the OS X version compared to even the esoteric Final Cut Studio apps).
With the release of Shake 4 though, Apple cut the cost of the OS X version to $499, and provided unlimited render licences for that version, while keeping the cost and licence restrictions on the Linux version to "encourage" people to use the OS X version.
They know they can't kill the Linux version off entirely, due to the number of hih end effects houses who are quite happy to have a mixed Linux/Mac environment and don;t want to change out their Shake boxes for Mac Pros, but they want anyone who wants to start up in the field to go all-Mac.
It all may be academic though, since there are whispers of a from-the-ground-up app to replace Shake at some point from inside Apple, to either go alongside Motion, or to replace that too.
Aye, it was originally a Linux app in fact, before Apple got hold of it - since the release of Shake 4 though, Apple have been "discouraging" the use of Shake on Linux though, with a huge price cut on the OS X version, and unlimited render licences.
Mac people, give it up already and either have a single purpose media editing Linux system for a hell of a lot less or just get a damn PC and stop making people occasionally write software for you.
So can you please tell me where I can buy Linux versions of Final Cut Studio, Shake 4, Creative Suite CS, Flix Pro, Sound Studio, Toast, and Sony's XDCAM HD transfer apps please?
Also, which distro will work seamlessly with this Linux version of FCS combined with a Decklink card and breakout box?
To get back to "online apps" pretty much all of them work on my Mac. Only the ones who go out of their way to exclude Macs don't work, and those are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on.
Also, does that 99% of software include viruses, keyloggers and other malware? They are technically software and they only run on Windows, so if it does, then I could see the 99% figure being accurate.
In all seriousness, Mr Rove is one of the most despicable people who will never even have to worry about facing charges for his actions.
I don't believe in any sort of afterlife, so it's not even like he'll get his comeuppance when he dies either. I can only hope that one day maybe a gypsy will curse him and give him a soul and a conscience and that only then will he be able to feel remorse for what he has done.
That's not strictly true. While the hardware configurations are far fewer than on a traditional PC, Apple still uses a wide variety of components and manufacturers for their various machines. They have both ATI and Nvidia GPUs for example, and optical drives from several different manufacturers, and sound cards, firewire boards, USB hubs etc from different people that are used in different machines.
Yes, it's a lot easier than Windows having to accommodate any of 5 billion different sound cards, but it's not an assured "the sound card will be this exact model for certain" with a Mac either.
The iMac really is a beautiful piece of hardware, leaving OS aside. I have an "old" white one (dual core intel, just with the older white case before the all-aluminium ones came out) and I love the damn thing.
I can carry it around easily when I need to go somewhere (it packs up neatly even for transatlantic flights) and if I want to move it between home and a friend's house it takes about 2 minutes to unplug it and the KB/mouse and pack it back into the box it came in, which has a big carry handle on the top so I can carry it like a suitcase.
The screen is beautiful (despite lots of wank on/. recently about how 'apple imac screens are shit!', I find it looks very nice, and the all-in-one design works well for me.
It won;t suit you if you want to be able to replace every last single transistor with one you bought from a white box store, but you can change the memory on your own, and with a service manual (ie, if you're competent enough to build your own whitebox PC, then you can take apart an iMac) and change the HD, optical drive etc. In my opinion, the 3 year apple care is well worth the cost - so if any of the "non-standard" bits go wrong, which on an iMac is the logic board, it'll be repaired.
So, I can't upgrade the graphics card or the CPU, but then, I don't really need to - it's not supposed to be a bleeding edge games machine that would require that. It works for me as a Final Cut Studio work station and my home machine, with some WoW, EvE, Quake 4, UT2K4 thrown in - all of which play very well.
I can dual boot it if I want, and while I don't have Windows on mine personally, I do support a friend's office machines - he recently replaced all the Dell boxes he had with iMacs after seeing mine, and they run Windows exclusively for his business needs.
As for two Unix based OSes, well that's up to you. While there is an excellent set of open source tools and software available on OS X from the community at large (like Darwin Ports, and pretty much any app you can run in Linux you can build and run in OS X), there are just some times where you want to be doing what other people are doing - I know, for example, that some open source apps just work better on an actual Linux install, rather than on OS X - while it's a Unix OS, it does have its quirks. I could fully understand why a Linux user would want to be able to dual boot.
So, to get back to point, not even considering the OS that is running on it, Apple hardware is worth it for me. In my experience, it is built well, looks good, is well featured (firewire, gigabit ethernet etc) and has some genuine advantages in form and design over a traditional PC that make up for the disadvantages like lack of GPU changeability etc.
It may not be for you though - if you want a fully expandable tower Mac, then you're looking at a Mac Pro, which really are expensive. In the consumer end though, if you want a working machine with a lot going for it, then the iMac, Macbook and Macbook Pro are three of the best Windows, OS X and Linux machines you can buy right now.
Why isn't there a "-1 crazy right wing ravings" mod?
Oh well, this will have to do.
Also, for a crazy right winger, you sure are worried that with a reduction in defence spending the US will be "defenceless to any power that wants to walk in" - that is just total, freakishly propagandist bullshit and you know it, and I think any serving member of the US military or any military, and even civilians with a brain would be offended at that suggestion.
Seriously, come back when you're ready to discuss, not to rave like a nutcase.
And that gross oversimplification of real world economics is McCain's entire policy for the US economy if he gets into office.
As much as you might like to pare down an entire county's tax system to 10 guys splitting a tab in proportion to their wealth, it's just not that simple in the real world.
I would make some crack about "the insulated life of academia" and how it's "all so simple from here" but if you really are a Ph.D then you have one more degree than I do, so who am I to criticise.
If only life was a simple as splitting up the tab.
If you really didn't mean to attach 911 to Iraq then you did a *terrible* job communicating that fact.
Hell, your very first sentence is just about the most sensationalist thing you could have said there, and is a direct inference that we need to stay in Iraq/can't pull out of Iraq because "the war was brought to us".
Indeed, some from of terrorist action was brought to the US. It has sweet FA to do with anything even remotely Iraqi.
The tested one on a British car show on here a year or so ago. It's not an enclosed sub - you need to wear diving gear to use it underwater, but it does work as a submarine and can move from land, into water then submerge itself when you're in a suitable place.
And nowhere in the post you quoted was the inference that you applied to it, you're one of the "frothing flesh rending mob" if you believe what you state about the post in question.
No one, not even the leftiest lefty on the left of a leftie is arguing that crimes against children are not abhorrent (maybe my grammar is though - double negatives aside).
The issue here is "do the ends justify the means?" While you may agree that anything should be permitted to catch and convict child molesters and kiddie porn collectors, you have to watch the slippery slope.
If a law enforcement agency can scan your drive and compare MD5 sums without a warrant, you have removed due process from the equation - one of the things that you are entitled to in the US justice system, regardless of your suspected crime, because like it or not, you are innocent until proven guilty.
This whole bollocks of "if you have nothing to hide, you won't mind" is bullshit. If they come to scan your drive with no proof to justify a warrant then they might as well just say that everyone's drives need to be scanned when the law asks, and if they find anything that flags you, you then have the burden of proof on yourself to assert your innocence.
It just doesn't (or shouldn't) work that way.
Do I want child molesters arrested and put away? Absolutely. Do I want them to be arrested through an illegal search of their property? Absolutely not.
It's a hot button issue, much the same as terrorism - we're in danger of severely crippling our society if we stoop to "prove you're not a terrorist/child molester/communist or we'll lock you up!"
I say to the stranger "I saw it was unlocked from the road here, since I can see over your fence. My advice to you is to maybe hide the shed behind a much higher fence that members of the general public cannot see through."
I am going to err on the side of believing the kid had good intentions (he did report the flaw, for example).
From what little we can gain from the article, it's a lot of embarrassed and not-technically-minded adults who are yelling "hacker! hacker!" because they don;t understand what the kid has done, or just want to cover their ignorance.
I was talking about in Europe, Aus and any other region of the world where NTSC isn't the primary TV system.
Every single European TV I have seen that has RCA ports on it since the mid 90s or earlier has been able to function with at least PAL and NTSC signals. More modern ones can handle anything you can throw at them.
I have a wide selection of Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs and an unlocked DVD player and I've never come across a TV that I can't play those US DVDs on (and the DVD player doesn't change the disc to PAL, it outputs in NTSC when a region 1 disc is played).
Maybe US TVs are all NTSC only, but here in Europe, they are all multi format.
Every TV since the rise of consoles, pretty much, has been capable of running NTSC signals, or even PAL signals using a 60Hz refresh rate.
You'd be hard pressed to find a TV that had ports on it for attaching a console that couldn't flip between different systems at will based on the input signal.
The distribution rights tend to be the thing that really slows down the release of games, videos and music in a region - it's almost never a technical problem any more.
The hardest part of playing Bioshock was having to go through all those DNA tests to ensure that I was the one who purchased and opened the retail box before it would let me play. Then there was that whole thing about pouring gasoline over the second CD drive in my machine.
My favourite part of Threewave was the runes you could pick up that acted as either health regen, damage mod, run speed and I think the last one was.... umm.. I forget, but they were awesome.
The powerups that appeared in Team Arena later on must have come from those original threewave runes. I liked them much more than the TA versions, since in TW you could throw away a rune and pick up another one to change roles. In Team Arena you had to die to lose your current powerup.
Counter-Strike is a case in point; a mod that turned the alien infested Half-Life into a detailed tactical shooter. It became so damned popular it overshadowed the original game engine it was built on, like the student outshining the teacher. Counter-Strike - like other big names in the modding world - only served to fan the flames.
It is indeed, and then after that build up, it isn't mentioned in the list of "best mods". You may infer that it is included given this paragraph, but it technically isn't in the list they posted. Instead, they feature a mod that hasn't even been finished yet and "looks great, even if it [might] play like crap".
That's exactly what I thought. I got part way into the article when they started talking about the Stargate mod for Cyrsis that is nowhere near a playable form and i started losing interest.
I'm as big a fan of the SG universe as the next guy, but I really thought the article was going to be about the great mods that are out there right now - the article doesn't even touch on counterstrike, team fortress or the counterstrike-a-like Urban Terror - all classic mods with gameplay to spare! I'd have thought that a top list of "best mods" would feature more gameplay-oriented chat rather than "we've seen screenshots of the weapons and it's based on crisis so even if it's crap it'll look great!". Did someone from marketing write that?
Slashdot Mirror
Except that 65% of Americans can't even locate Great Britain on a world map, let alone Iraq or Afghanistan.
America and the people in it frequently parade themselves as the model for the world's western "free" countries, so comparisons are there to be made about the US and other countries regarding their social structures and their media.
If you put yourselves up there, expect to have comparisons drawn.
Is there any surprise? The media (with the exception of Fox News) has always had a pretty large liberal bias.
Now there's a wildly speculative generalisation that os based more on your opinion of what you consider "liberal" bias.
Certainly here in the UK, in my personal opinion, the media as a whole is fairly centrist, with obvious points at the extreme ends of the bell curve (The Daily [hate] Mail on the right, the Guardian on the left, for example), with everything else in between.
Perhaps the US media is more narrow, but in my experience of it, it's not dissimilar to the UK where you can have two 24 news channels as diametrically opposed as BBC News 24 and Sky News.
I know there's a huge amount of crowing from the right wing in the US about "gross liberal bias" and "persecution of right wing, rich, white, middle class minorities" but it's really just propagandising. If you actually look at it more closely, it's probably more "fair and balanced" than you give it credit for.
I think a large part of it may come from the fact that all the right wing hawks moan about news stories about Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction and hypocrisy about it as "persecution" but stories about Bill Clinton getting a blowjob and how it should cause him to be impeached as "standing up for morals and family values".
Not that I'm accusing you of thinking such, just that the right wing conservative agenda in the US for many years now has been successfully pushing the "oh, woe is us! we're so oppressed and the media is against us!" and yet really don;t mind leveraging that very same media to (for example) spread bile about Clinton, or Obama's "terrorist" and "Muslim faith", or John Kerry and the whole "swift boat veterans for (un)truth".
The Karl Roves of this world are very adept at using the media for effective propaganda, and then being very quick to cry foul and throw their toys out of the pram when that same media dare criticise them and their ilk.
Heh, don't hold your breath on the Sony one - even the Mac version of the software for pulling XDCAM HD clips down off a PD Deck is a bit ropey. It got a lot better with the latest release, but it took them long enough - and that was when they were working hard to increase XDCAM uptake in the industry as a cost effective migration path for HD (alongside HDCAM). you'd think they'd want to make it as attractive as possible for FCS users on the Mac to use the new format.
While the app did work, it was very kludgy, and didn't support some of the much-vaunted metadata features of the format, and you couldn't even name the clips on the disc prior to moving them to your drive! You can now, with the new version, but it took them a while to come out with it.
Both versions, up to Shake 3.0 were $4,999, and originally Shake was a Linux app (hence the very different interface of the OS X version compared to even the esoteric Final Cut Studio apps).
With the release of Shake 4 though, Apple cut the cost of the OS X version to $499, and provided unlimited render licences for that version, while keeping the cost and licence restrictions on the Linux version to "encourage" people to use the OS X version.
They know they can't kill the Linux version off entirely, due to the number of hih end effects houses who are quite happy to have a mixed Linux/Mac environment and don;t want to change out their Shake boxes for Mac Pros, but they want anyone who wants to start up in the field to go all-Mac.
It all may be academic though, since there are whispers of a from-the-ground-up app to replace Shake at some point from inside Apple, to either go alongside Motion, or to replace that too.
Aye, it was originally a Linux app in fact, before Apple got hold of it - since the release of Shake 4 though, Apple have been "discouraging" the use of Shake on Linux though, with a huge price cut on the OS X version, and unlimited render licences.
Mac people, give it up already and either have a single purpose media editing Linux system for a hell of a lot less or just get a damn PC and stop making people occasionally write software for you.
So can you please tell me where I can buy Linux versions of Final Cut Studio, Shake 4, Creative Suite CS, Flix Pro, Sound Studio, Toast, and Sony's XDCAM HD transfer apps please?
Also, which distro will work seamlessly with this Linux version of FCS combined with a Decklink card and breakout box?
To get back to "online apps" pretty much all of them work on my Mac. Only the ones who go out of their way to exclude Macs don't work, and those are getting fewer and fewer as time goes on.
Also, does that 99% of software include viruses, keyloggers and other malware? They are technically software and they only run on Windows, so if it does, then I could see the 99% figure being accurate.
"This is America! Rich people don't go to jail!"
Slightly correct. For a big enough price, they get Bill Clinton to pardon them.
Or, y'know, they could get Gerald Ford to pardon them..
"This is America! Rich people don't go to jail!"
In all seriousness, Mr Rove is one of the most despicable people who will never even have to worry about facing charges for his actions.
I don't believe in any sort of afterlife, so it's not even like he'll get his comeuppance when he dies either. I can only hope that one day maybe a gypsy will curse him and give him a soul and a conscience and that only then will he be able to feel remorse for what he has done.
Oh well.
That's not strictly true. While the hardware configurations are far fewer than on a traditional PC, Apple still uses a wide variety of components and manufacturers for their various machines. They have both ATI and Nvidia GPUs for example, and optical drives from several different manufacturers, and sound cards, firewire boards, USB hubs etc from different people that are used in different machines.
Yes, it's a lot easier than Windows having to accommodate any of 5 billion different sound cards, but it's not an assured "the sound card will be this exact model for certain" with a Mac either.
The iMac really is a beautiful piece of hardware, leaving OS aside. I have an "old" white one (dual core intel, just with the older white case before the all-aluminium ones came out) and I love the damn thing.
I can carry it around easily when I need to go somewhere (it packs up neatly even for transatlantic flights) and if I want to move it between home and a friend's house it takes about 2 minutes to unplug it and the KB/mouse and pack it back into the box it came in, which has a big carry handle on the top so I can carry it like a suitcase.
The screen is beautiful (despite lots of wank on /. recently about how 'apple imac screens are shit!', I find it looks very nice, and the all-in-one design works well for me.
It won;t suit you if you want to be able to replace every last single transistor with one you bought from a white box store, but you can change the memory on your own, and with a service manual (ie, if you're competent enough to build your own whitebox PC, then you can take apart an iMac) and change the HD, optical drive etc. In my opinion, the 3 year apple care is well worth the cost - so if any of the "non-standard" bits go wrong, which on an iMac is the logic board, it'll be repaired.
So, I can't upgrade the graphics card or the CPU, but then, I don't really need to - it's not supposed to be a bleeding edge games machine that would require that. It works for me as a Final Cut Studio work station and my home machine, with some WoW, EvE, Quake 4, UT2K4 thrown in - all of which play very well.
I can dual boot it if I want, and while I don't have Windows on mine personally, I do support a friend's office machines - he recently replaced all the Dell boxes he had with iMacs after seeing mine, and they run Windows exclusively for his business needs.
As for two Unix based OSes, well that's up to you. While there is an excellent set of open source tools and software available on OS X from the community at large (like Darwin Ports, and pretty much any app you can run in Linux you can build and run in OS X), there are just some times where you want to be doing what other people are doing - I know, for example, that some open source apps just work better on an actual Linux install, rather than on OS X - while it's a Unix OS, it does have its quirks. I could fully understand why a Linux user would want to be able to dual boot.
So, to get back to point, not even considering the OS that is running on it, Apple hardware is worth it for me. In my experience, it is built well, looks good, is well featured (firewire, gigabit ethernet etc) and has some genuine advantages in form and design over a traditional PC that make up for the disadvantages like lack of GPU changeability etc.
It may not be for you though - if you want a fully expandable tower Mac, then you're looking at a Mac Pro, which really are expensive. In the consumer end though, if you want a working machine with a lot going for it, then the iMac, Macbook and Macbook Pro are three of the best Windows, OS X and Linux machines you can buy right now.
You're a teacher?
Jesus, no wonder America's education system is fucked.
-1 Crazy
Why isn't there a "-1 crazy right wing ravings" mod?
Oh well, this will have to do.
Also, for a crazy right winger, you sure are worried that with a reduction in defence spending the US will be "defenceless to any power that wants to walk in" - that is just total, freakishly propagandist bullshit and you know it, and I think any serving member of the US military or any military, and even civilians with a brain would be offended at that suggestion.
Seriously, come back when you're ready to discuss, not to rave like a nutcase.
And that gross oversimplification of real world economics is McCain's entire policy for the US economy if he gets into office.
As much as you might like to pare down an entire county's tax system to 10 guys splitting a tab in proportion to their wealth, it's just not that simple in the real world.
I would make some crack about "the insulated life of academia" and how it's "all so simple from here" but if you really are a Ph.D then you have one more degree than I do, so who am I to criticise.
If only life was a simple as splitting up the tab.
Your entire post, except for the last line.
If you really didn't mean to attach 911 to Iraq then you did a *terrible* job communicating that fact.
Hell, your very first sentence is just about the most sensationalist thing you could have said there, and is a direct inference that we need to stay in Iraq/can't pull out of Iraq because "the war was brought to us".
Indeed, some from of terrorist action was brought to the US. It has sweet FA to do with anything even remotely Iraqi.
The tested one on a British car show on here a year or so ago. It's not an enclosed sub - you need to wear diving gear to use it underwater, but it does work as a submarine and can move from land, into water then submerge itself when you're in a suitable place.
Because this is about the legal system. the offence (regardless of how heinous it is) is irrelevant.
I want child porn surfers and child molesters arrested and put away as much as the next guy, but you can't throw out the legal system to do it.
And nowhere in the post you quoted was the inference that you applied to it, you're one of the "frothing flesh rending mob" if you believe what you state about the post in question.
No one, not even the leftiest lefty on the left of a leftie is arguing that crimes against children are not abhorrent (maybe my grammar is though - double negatives aside).
The issue here is "do the ends justify the means?" While you may agree that anything should be permitted to catch and convict child molesters and kiddie porn collectors, you have to watch the slippery slope.
If a law enforcement agency can scan your drive and compare MD5 sums without a warrant, you have removed due process from the equation - one of the things that you are entitled to in the US justice system, regardless of your suspected crime, because like it or not, you are innocent until proven guilty.
This whole bollocks of "if you have nothing to hide, you won't mind" is bullshit. If they come to scan your drive with no proof to justify a warrant then they might as well just say that everyone's drives need to be scanned when the law asks, and if they find anything that flags you, you then have the burden of proof on yourself to assert your innocence.
It just doesn't (or shouldn't) work that way.
Do I want child molesters arrested and put away? Absolutely. Do I want them to be arrested through an illegal search of their property? Absolutely not.
It's a hot button issue, much the same as terrorism - we're in danger of severely crippling our society if we stoop to "prove you're not a terrorist/child molester/communist or we'll lock you up!"
I say to the stranger "I saw it was unlocked from the road here, since I can see over your fence. My advice to you is to maybe hide the shed behind a much higher fence that members of the general public cannot see through."
I am going to err on the side of believing the kid had good intentions (he did report the flaw, for example).
From what little we can gain from the article, it's a lot of embarrassed and not-technically-minded adults who are yelling "hacker! hacker!" because they don;t understand what the kid has done, or just want to cover their ignorance.
That would disqualify George Bush too, or does snorting coke and not showing up count as serving?
I was talking about in Europe, Aus and any other region of the world where NTSC isn't the primary TV system.
Every single European TV I have seen that has RCA ports on it since the mid 90s or earlier has been able to function with at least PAL and NTSC signals. More modern ones can handle anything you can throw at them.
I have a wide selection of Region 1 and Region 2 DVDs and an unlocked DVD player and I've never come across a TV that I can't play those US DVDs on (and the DVD player doesn't change the disc to PAL, it outputs in NTSC when a region 1 disc is played).
Maybe US TVs are all NTSC only, but here in Europe, they are all multi format.
Every TV since the rise of consoles, pretty much, has been capable of running NTSC signals, or even PAL signals using a 60Hz refresh rate.
You'd be hard pressed to find a TV that had ports on it for attaching a console that couldn't flip between different systems at will based on the input signal.
The distribution rights tend to be the thing that really slows down the release of games, videos and music in a region - it's almost never a technical problem any more.
The hardest part of playing Bioshock was having to go through all those DNA tests to ensure that I was the one who purchased and opened the retail box before it would let me play. Then there was that whole thing about pouring gasoline over the second CD drive in my machine.
My favourite part of Threewave was the runes you could pick up that acted as either health regen, damage mod, run speed and I think the last one was.... umm.. I forget, but they were awesome.
The powerups that appeared in Team Arena later on must have come from those original threewave runes. I liked them much more than the TA versions, since in TW you could throw away a rune and pick up another one to change roles. In Team Arena you had to die to lose your current powerup.
Counter-Strike is a case in point; a mod that turned the alien infested Half-Life into a detailed tactical shooter. It became so damned popular it overshadowed the original game engine it was built on, like the student outshining the teacher. Counter-Strike - like other big names in the modding world - only served to fan the flames.
It is indeed, and then after that build up, it isn't mentioned in the list of "best mods". You may infer that it is included given this paragraph, but it technically isn't in the list they posted. Instead, they feature a mod that hasn't even been finished yet and "looks great, even if it [might] play like crap".
That's exactly what I thought. I got part way into the article when they started talking about the Stargate mod for Cyrsis that is nowhere near a playable form and i started losing interest.
I'm as big a fan of the SG universe as the next guy, but I really thought the article was going to be about the great mods that are out there right now - the article doesn't even touch on counterstrike, team fortress or the counterstrike-a-like Urban Terror - all classic mods with gameplay to spare! I'd have thought that a top list of "best mods" would feature more gameplay-oriented chat rather than "we've seen screenshots of the weapons and it's based on crisis so even if it's crap it'll look great!". Did someone from marketing write that?