IANAS (I Am Not A Satanist) however based on my readings of the writings of Anton LeVay the GP is largely correct. This differes from Atheism in a few ways. Largely in that Satanists view their own divinity in a mystical or metaphysical way whereas athiests don't. Satanism does also have a few canoical satanic ceremonies (largely developed to gain infamy and piss off as many people as possible).
Also, to counterpoint someone who made a point a few posts up, Satanism does not require a belief in God, I beleive the correct term for one who beleives in the christian concepts of God and Satan but who chooses to worship satan is called Lucifarianism- though I've heard claims that run counter to this.
I have to agree completely with your sentiments. I often buy a copy of a movie when I know that other people have copies which I could burn. As stupid as it may seem, generally if I like a movie it's worth the $20 to have the real case and movie in my entertainment center. I've also been burned on buying movies that I haven't seen before. A while back Blockbuster was offering 3 DVDs for $15 here, and I picked up a few movies that I hadn't seen but that seemed like they might be worth it. For the most part I tended to get movies that were absolutely worthless (I'm looking at you "The Forgotten").
Along those lines, nearly every TV series that I own on DVD are series that I didn't watch during the initial run but later downloaded. The only show that I have on DVD that I've never actually downloaded is M*A*S*H which I got on DVD mainly because it was one of the few shows I watched regularly when I had cable.
Somewhat offtopic, but I think that even if iTunes or some other service offered shows that I really wanted to see for download I would probably only buy a few episodes to decide if I wanted the DVD set. I just really like having a full box set of any given series out on display.
The DVD for the remake of Dawn of the Dead has a really cheesy but humerous "mockumentary" on the the making of the movie where they talk about how the used "real" zombies for the movie. They have an interview with one of the "real" zombies who is talking about how difficult it is for the undead to find work. "There's only so many times you can play a corpse or a burn victim of E.R."...lame but funny.
crowbars can be very useful objects during a zombie outbreak, however you must remember that simple blunt force trama is hardly every effective to dispatch a zombie. Remember that while the flesh may be rotting the skull still need to not simply be fractured but penetrated to the point where it can deal considerable damage to the brain. While the strait edge of a crowbar may be useful to jab into the skull of a zombie it can be more difficult to aim such an attack than the swipe of a blade. The curved end can be very dangerous as if you hook the zombie and do not manage to destroy it you may just be pulling it in for an attack.
The reach of a crowbar also makes it dangerous to use as a melee weapon against zombies. If you miss to the left or right of a zombies head the amount of arm extension required could put you in prime biting range. Remember that a zombie is not going to fight like a person, and will simply bite at any given opportunity.
A good blade may require occasional sharpening, but a solidly built Katana or even a Machettee can offer strength and distance required to fight off a few zombies. A carbonized steel blade will probably have a longer lifetime then any given person during a zombie outbreak anyway. Also don't forget that a well crafted sword made from folded steel will wear away in such a way as to keep the blade sharp. While a grinder isn't practical to sharpen your weapon a whet stone and oil should be part of any standard survival pack anyway.
Also keep in mind that in a zombie outbreak you will be hard pressed to find many situations where a crowbar will be necessay to break into a buiding anyway. As the most dangerous place to be in a zombie rising is in a metropolitan area you will probably find that if you are well prepared you will largely run into the occasional rural home wich can be easily broken into if you absolutely must find supplies.
For the few of the who actually RTFA I would suggest taking extreme care. The article makes many false statements about the undead hoards and may lead some into the false idea that they were prepared for a zombie outbreak. For the record, a Zombie is a corpse which has been infected with the virus Solanum. The bites are infact 100% contagous. The rough time from a bite to full transformation is 15 hours, although this varies based on how close to a major vein or artery the bite occured. The bite leads to apparent death, followed by rising no more than 2 minutes after initial death.
A zombie can only be stopped by destroying the brain. This is usuallly accomplished through the use of a bullet. Fire can effectively destroy the brain- however be aware that setting a zombie on fire is not a sure thing, often times the fire will go out before destroying the brain, and in the mean time the flaming zombies will catch fire to the surrounding areas..22 caliber bullets are often rarely effective for fighting zombies as they lack the power to penetrate a skull from a distance. Air rifles are useless. Shotguns are often ineffective as they spread the blast over a large area. If you find yourself in the midsts of a zombie outbreak also be sure to avoid fully automatic weapons. It only takes 1 bullet to the brain to stop a zombie, and a fully automatic weapon can encourage the wasting of bullets. The sound will also have a tendancy to draw the undead from the surrounding areas. Often times a blade such as a sholin spade or a sword can be highly effective. A blade never needs to be reloaded.
A few more tips should a zombie outbreak occur:
Always be prepared, stay in good physical condition and keep a supply of food, water, medical supplys and weapons on hand.
In a zombie outbreak other humans may be as or more dangerous than the undead.
Should people start evacuation you would be better off to wait until the roads have had a chance to clear if you are going to be using a vehicle, however using an automobile is often a poor way to travel when a zombie outbreak occurs as you will likely find streets block and lacker manuverability. Dirt bikes can be useful in helping you speed away off road but the sound can draw in zombies and they require gas. Your best option is a bicycle.
For more information read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks(Link is not a referer link).
I very rarely watch TV and I have to say that I agree. Every time the subject of television is broched and I mention that I don't watch TV people immediately seem to retaliate to a precieved attack on them for watching TV.
Of course I certainly have no political or elitist reasons for not watching TV- it's simply a combination of there being few things on TV that I really enjoy, and the fact that when there is a show on that I wouldn't mind watching I usually end up missing it most of the time anyway.
I also run into the same thing with certain foods. I don't eat pork simply because I personally don't like it (although I don't mind those fake imitation bacon bits in a potato every once in a while, but usually I prefer salsa in my potatos), but people seem to immediately presume that I am going to preach some religious reason for not eating pork to them. Interestingly enough people never seem to give the fact that I don't eat Turky a second though (and actually I will eat deli style turky, but I generally find roast turky to be terrible and would much prefer chicken).
Of course in my experience one of the biggest things people get up tight about is that I don't drink. I take medication that can cause liver problems if not checked regularly and I have a very low tolerance for alcohol anyway (I generally get tipsy after about a half of a glass of wine). It seems like anytime someone offers me a drink and I say "no thanks, I don't drink" they immediately have to explain that they are not an alcoholic and that they only drink occasionally, etc.
I guess a lot of this comes from the fact that there seem to be so many people today who have completely lost the concept of "life and let live" that when someone doesn't do something we do we immediately expect them to berate us on why we should not take part in whatever activity it is and therefore become defensive.
I've never really liked the GTA games personally. I've thought that they had alot of potential, but for myself- and I'm sure a lot of other people, the story and the missions never really held much appeal for me. It's not that I'm against the violence in the games, I enjoy violent games quite a bit- but I've never been able to empathise with the characters of the series at all.
What I would like to see is some of the "influence" that the GTA series has supposely had in gaming put into something other than making clones with crappier gameplay and crappier stories. Instead I would like to see developers take the massive non-linear 3D world concept and create more games like Shenmue, or given the emphasis on driving in the games, something like Fast and the Furious where the player starts down at the bottom, maybe jacking cars or working as a delivery boy, and rises on the street racing circut (OK, I would hate that game too, but it's just an idea). What about an RPG that takes place inside of a single living city? Something like Blood Omen where you play a vampire who stalks the streets of a huge vibrant faux-new york city feeding on the innocent and battling for territory against rival vampire gangs?
Of course, GTA wasn't the first game to take place in a large, non-linear city. Shenmue had a much deeper world and IIRC was out a few years before GTAIII. Crazy Taxi had a huge non-linear city, fast dangerous driving and missions as well.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that GTA may have been well executed in a lot of ways, but it wasn't necessarily THAT innovative, and that if it was as influential as the article states, then why are the only games I can find now that are vaguely based off the GTA formula horribly inferior ripoffs with the same criminal motif?
as a Vi use who runs KDE and a student of the art of Ninja I find this prejudice extremely disturbing...
I will now cut off your head and then whale on a guitar
Ninja vanish!
ahhh, I knew there was one I was forgetting. Any chance I can get off with just a suspended geek license?
I remember having Metroid on NES when I was younger, but I never really got into it, I think the game was too open-ended for a 6 year old to really do much with. It wasn't until after I played Super Metroid that I went back through and played the original. I think Metroid: Zero Mission is perhaps my favorite of the Metroid series- great remake of the original for anyone who hasn't played it.
I was expecting to see a list of reasons why the NES was great...like yet another top 10 list or something, so I'll post one, here are my top 10 NES games I think everyone should play if given a chance (in no particular order).
Dragon Warrior - the game that started the JRPG.
Blaster Master - the first game I remember playing that had something like an Isometric view
Super Mario Bro's 3 - perhaps the finest mario game ever.
Bionic Commando - Robotic Zombie Hitler and a huge bionic claw, what more could you ask for?
The Ledgend of Zelda - A classic by any definition
Kirby - one of the prettiest games for the NES and a fine platformer- too bad they changed the formula so much for later games
Castlevania - the first survival horror game, the controls are a little clunky but it's still a classic platformer
Megaman - I've never actually beaten any of the Megaman games, but a classic if you like HARD games
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II The Arcade Game - This is one of those games that's probably not great, but I remember it fondly
Final Fantasy - The first in the series, a solid game but definitely different than today's FF games.
Religion is a very personal thing to a lot of people. While I agree with your sentiments to an extent- insomuch as it's important to question everything, to do experiments, to be skepticle, etc. I also think that science cannot currently answer, and may never be able to answer many important questions. In fact I would argue that as we progress fruther scientifically and are able to answer more "how"s, it becomes even more imortant to examine the "why"'s, philosophically speaking. Science may one day be able to tell us how the universe was created, but as it is it will never be able to tell us why*.
Of course, I in now way beleive that one should, for example, disregard all scientific evidence of, say, a heliocentric solar system because someone a thousand years ago interpreted a translation of a translation of a translation of a book written a thousand years before that which vaugely states that the earth may be the center of the universe. Instead it's important to understand the philosophy of religion and the technology of science within the contexts of eachother. (In other words, I disagree with someone who said evolution is false because the bible says god created man, and with someone who says the bible is false because of the scientific evidence of evolution, and would instead say, how can we understand the ideas and philosophy of the idea of creation as a metaphorical framework to give philosophical meaning to the evolution of humanity)**
* for certain definitions of "how" and "why"
**I am not a christian, and I am simply using this as a common example of a debate between science and religion. I also acknowledge that many scientists, christians and probably some third parties will disagree with me, I'm comfortable with that.
Did you even read the article?
You must be new here, allow me to be the first to say "Welcome to Slashdot"
The article talks about blogging. The article states that students were told to take down blogs and profiles online in order to prevent them from posting negative things about the school...my comment was implying that the real reason was that someone was going to have a "God is Good, God is Great" post and someone would come along and post something that would run counter to the doctrine of the school- which the school would want to prevent.
God Forbid the student's may run across people who might post ideas that run counter to the church.
In fact, some of them might not even be *gasp* Christian. The children might be promoted to *Horror* Question the Doctorine of the Church!
Please Someone Think Of The Children!
(Not anti-religion, just think that by highschool people should be making up their own minds about it. Shouldn't true belief and a relationship with whatever god(ess)(es) a person chooses to follow or not come from self reflection and soul serching instead of bullying, parental decree, and a lack of exposure to alternate viewpoints?)
I don't think that cheats ruin the game, in fact I think they can add a lot- the problem is a lot of people use cheats before having played through a game and that really does sap the enjoyment out.
Personally, a lot of games I think can be fun, after beaten, but putting in cheats. RPGs for example can be fun to play through with Uber-powerful characters a second time around (I wish more games would implement Chrono Trigger/Cross's New Game+ option). I've always thought earning cheats like Perfect Balance was good in the Tony Hawk games because it gives the player a chance to discover new areas and lines and then later try to get there without the cheats.
The GTA series is one that I only have enjoyed with cheats. Infinite health + no cops, etc make it fun to just be able to go around and explore the city and find stunts and stuff without having to worry about the actual game (of course I never really cared for the gameplay in the GTA games, I usually just borrow the game from a friend when a new one comes out so I can explore the city randomly for a day or so and then give it back).
It's amazing that google gives away 2 million dollars to benefit the open source community and you complain because it wasn't enough.
The Summer of Code wasn't a job. Google did not higher people to write code for them and play them only $9/hour.
Google instead offered students a chance to do some work with real OSS applications and to work with people who have experience developing with the OSS applications. They also gave each person who finished their project $4500 and $500 to the mentor (I think the mentor got the money regardless of if the coder finished his or her project or not) as a sort of bonus for perseverence.
The Summer of Code was sort of like a big round of bounties for code, except instead of deciding before hand what to put a bounty on they let the developers come up with ideas and then they picked the best ones.
Unfortunately none of the three applications I put in for the Summer of Code were accepted (and I will try to keep the bitterness toward the people who did complete their projects to a minimum;) and the money would have been nice- but more importantly the Summer of Code really got me to look at some of the neat programs that still need to be written, the interesting things that still need to be contributed. I've always wanted to do more to contribute to open source, but I found it exceedingly hard to figgure out where to jump in. The Summer of Code helped a lot of people like me, projects accepted or not, by showing how we can get started helping the community that has built so much great software that we use every day.
(And by the way, I am working on one of the programs that I had originally submitted in an application, and IDE/Front End and Debugger for QCL, the idea being a way for non-physisist programmers to ease into learning about development on quantum computers. I hope to have an early release done sometime soon).
Having helped a lot of friends out with Photoshop, it seems to me that the biggest problem that people face when trying to do things is translating what they want to do into "photoshop" speak. Really I think this is perhaps the most common type of usability problems in software today.
The vast majority of the time when someone asks me for help with Photoshop the conversation usually goes along the lines of: "Hey, how can I remove a blemish in photoshop" "Use the Clone-Brush tool" or "Hey, how can I fix the color on this old photo I scaned" "Adjust the color balance", or "How can I darken this bit of the image to make a shadow" "burn tool" etc.
It's not that these people are stupid, it's just that photoshop uses a lot of jargon that people aren't really familiar with.
The second biggest problem I think is that people who haven't done a lot of digital editing don't tend to think in terms of things like layers, fill, opacity, etc. Instead people have the tendancy to see the image like a sheet of paper.
Aside from these two big problems, the most common thing I see people have trouble with is selecting things out of an image- mainly because people spend an hour meticulously trying to select what they want to cut out instead of using the magic wand to select the background- invert selection and be done with it. Doing so is simply non-obvious to people.
This proves it...the bird flu was a virus developed by the communist anti-profit evil open source devils in order to thward patents! I say we execute all of the murdring commies for this devestating blow to the world economy!
I have a good friend who is a geek and at times a bit of a bastard who is always comming up with things like this (not just for halloween) mostly because they live in a really creepy house anyway- but here are some ideas mostly from him.
Get a Y shaped fiberoptic cable and place it out of the way in a dark corner with two of the ends pointing away from the corner. Set up a red LED at the other end of a timer...instant glowing red eyes from the darkened corner.
You can set up a ghostly appirition by taking a box with a 1-way mirror facing into the box, fill it with some smoke from a fog machine, and have a projector shining in from the back. The image bounces off the mirror and hits the back of the box and the smoke gives an interesting halo effect to the whole image.
Edit a video file to include random static and ghostly images and burn to DVD or stream from your computer- pretend like it's just a regular movie (The original Night of the Living Dead is available as public domain from Archive.org if you don't want to worry about copyright infringement and was a good scary movie). This can work even better if you record a movie off the TV with commercials and all so that it may be less obvious what you are doing.
Set the Air Conditioner on a timer so certain rooms can develop "cold spots".
A lot of digital video camers will pick up Infra Red light from things like TV remotes- this is a good way to create fake "orbs" in photos or videos to spook out your guests.
A good, edible fake blood can be made with corn syrup, corn starch (to thicken it and make it less transparent) and red food coloring.
A few more general notes, remember that things are often a lot more freaksom if there is less of a setup, include some really hokey and poorly done tricks to put your guests at ease, this can make the good stuff more effective. Also remember that panick spreads- so make sure to act freaked out and assure your guests that you had nothing to do with your tricks- this can make the entire thing much more effective. Also try to make sure that things are less predictable, if a spooky noise sounds off every time someone walks down a hallway it can ruin the illusion.
Try to get a couple of other people "in" on the setup before hand- that way you have a pool of people who can set things up so that your guests don't learn to expect something every time you excuse yourself to the kitchen or bathroom.
Above all, keep in mind that the scariest things are generally unseen or heavily veiled, props that are too goesh (grammar nazis, I tried to find the correct spelling of this word to no avail, anyone care to help?) often turn out to be humerous instead of scary.
I think this will be good for free (speech or beer) applications. Especially applications with smaller development communities often have times because people don't have the hardware to test on a lot of differet OSes. I've worked on a few OSS apps where I've been the only one to work on porting applications to anything other than one of the couple of Linux distros that the main developers use, just because out of all the developers I was the only one with a valid windows license and a copy of VMWare- due mainly to the fact that I get cheap software from school. It would be nice to simply have another developer download this player and then I can create an image of "X version Y" and send them the image and then have them do porting work.
I have no idea why this was moded flamebait...
Parent should be modded Informative. The giant squid uses ammonia, which is ligher than water, in place of a gas bladder. Link goes to the wikipedia article on the Giant Squid.
I seem to be catching a lot of flack from people who seem to basically be saying "you go to DeVry and say you know some actual programming/CS, prove it!".
I really don't want to get into a pissing contest with some CS student, I'm sure you are all very clever, and seeing as how you are a CS major and I'm not, I'm sure you can probably come up with some questions I can't answer. For my part, I have been studying a lot of things from MITs Open Courseware. I've also worked on a handful of open source projects in a few different languages.
Along with high level languages, I have done a fair amount of assembly as well as a lot of C. I wrote a couple of SNES games, I've also done quite a bit with programming in OpenGL (I'm working with some friends on an open source MMORPG).
Anyway, I'm not going to go on and list every thing I know or every program I've ever worked on, but if you think that one cannot know how to properly develop software without getting a CS degree then maybe I'm just smarter than you.
Actually, I'm at the Kansas City campus. Of course now, instead of prepping all the students to get jobs at Sprint, they have kind of become a dumping ground where people who were fired/layed off from sprint get jobs as professors.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAS (I Am Not A Satanist) however based on my readings of the writings of Anton LeVay the GP is largely correct. This differes from Atheism in a few ways. Largely in that Satanists view their own divinity in a mystical or metaphysical way whereas athiests don't. Satanism does also have a few canoical satanic ceremonies (largely developed to gain infamy and piss off as many people as possible).
Also, to counterpoint someone who made a point a few posts up, Satanism does not require a belief in God, I beleive the correct term for one who beleives in the christian concepts of God and Satan but who chooses to worship satan is called Lucifarianism- though I've heard claims that run counter to this.
I have to agree completely with your sentiments. I often buy a copy of a movie when I know that other people have copies which I could burn. As stupid as it may seem, generally if I like a movie it's worth the $20 to have the real case and movie in my entertainment center. I've also been burned on buying movies that I haven't seen before. A while back Blockbuster was offering 3 DVDs for $15 here, and I picked up a few movies that I hadn't seen but that seemed like they might be worth it. For the most part I tended to get movies that were absolutely worthless (I'm looking at you "The Forgotten").
Along those lines, nearly every TV series that I own on DVD are series that I didn't watch during the initial run but later downloaded. The only show that I have on DVD that I've never actually downloaded is M*A*S*H which I got on DVD mainly because it was one of the few shows I watched regularly when I had cable.
Somewhat offtopic, but I think that even if iTunes or some other service offered shows that I really wanted to see for download I would probably only buy a few episodes to decide if I wanted the DVD set. I just really like having a full box set of any given series out on display.
The DVD for the remake of Dawn of the Dead has a really cheesy but humerous "mockumentary" on the the making of the movie where they talk about how the used "real" zombies for the movie. They have an interview with one of the "real" zombies who is talking about how difficult it is for the undead to find work. "There's only so many times you can play a corpse or a burn victim of E.R."...lame but funny.
crowbars can be very useful objects during a zombie outbreak, however you must remember that simple blunt force trama is hardly every effective to dispatch a zombie. Remember that while the flesh may be rotting the skull still need to not simply be fractured but penetrated to the point where it can deal considerable damage to the brain. While the strait edge of a crowbar may be useful to jab into the skull of a zombie it can be more difficult to aim such an attack than the swipe of a blade. The curved end can be very dangerous as if you hook the zombie and do not manage to destroy it you may just be pulling it in for an attack.
The reach of a crowbar also makes it dangerous to use as a melee weapon against zombies. If you miss to the left or right of a zombies head the amount of arm extension required could put you in prime biting range. Remember that a zombie is not going to fight like a person, and will simply bite at any given opportunity.
A good blade may require occasional sharpening, but a solidly built Katana or even a Machettee can offer strength and distance required to fight off a few zombies. A carbonized steel blade will probably have a longer lifetime then any given person during a zombie outbreak anyway. Also don't forget that a well crafted sword made from folded steel will wear away in such a way as to keep the blade sharp. While a grinder isn't practical to sharpen your weapon a whet stone and oil should be part of any standard survival pack anyway.
Also keep in mind that in a zombie outbreak you will be hard pressed to find many situations where a crowbar will be necessay to break into a buiding anyway. As the most dangerous place to be in a zombie rising is in a metropolitan area you will probably find that if you are well prepared you will largely run into the occasional rural home wich can be easily broken into if you absolutely must find supplies.
actually I think These Guys may be more useful. Remember they are the world's premier non-stationary cadaver supression task force!.
For the few of the who actually RTFA I would suggest taking extreme care. The article makes many false statements about the undead hoards and may lead some into the false idea that they were prepared for a zombie outbreak. For the record, a Zombie is a corpse which has been infected with the virus Solanum. The bites are infact 100% contagous. The rough time from a bite to full transformation is 15 hours, although this varies based on how close to a major vein or artery the bite occured. The bite leads to apparent death, followed by rising no more than 2 minutes after initial death. .22 caliber bullets are often rarely effective for fighting zombies as they lack the power to penetrate a skull from a distance. Air rifles are useless. Shotguns are often ineffective as they spread the blast over a large area. If you find yourself in the midsts of a zombie outbreak also be sure to avoid fully automatic weapons. It only takes 1 bullet to the brain to stop a zombie, and a fully automatic weapon can encourage the wasting of bullets. The sound will also have a tendancy to draw the undead from the surrounding areas. Often times a blade such as a sholin spade or a sword can be highly effective. A blade never needs to be reloaded.
A zombie can only be stopped by destroying the brain. This is usuallly accomplished through the use of a bullet. Fire can effectively destroy the brain- however be aware that setting a zombie on fire is not a sure thing, often times the fire will go out before destroying the brain, and in the mean time the flaming zombies will catch fire to the surrounding areas.
A few more tips should a zombie outbreak occur:
Always be prepared, stay in good physical condition and keep a supply of food, water, medical supplys and weapons on hand.
In a zombie outbreak other humans may be as or more dangerous than the undead.
Should people start evacuation you would be better off to wait until the roads have had a chance to clear if you are going to be using a vehicle, however using an automobile is often a poor way to travel when a zombie outbreak occurs as you will likely find streets block and lacker manuverability. Dirt bikes can be useful in helping you speed away off road but the sound can draw in zombies and they require gas. Your best option is a bicycle.
For more information read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks(Link is not a referer link).
I very rarely watch TV and I have to say that I agree. Every time the subject of television is broched and I mention that I don't watch TV people immediately seem to retaliate to a precieved attack on them for watching TV.
Of course I certainly have no political or elitist reasons for not watching TV- it's simply a combination of there being few things on TV that I really enjoy, and the fact that when there is a show on that I wouldn't mind watching I usually end up missing it most of the time anyway.
I also run into the same thing with certain foods. I don't eat pork simply because I personally don't like it (although I don't mind those fake imitation bacon bits in a potato every once in a while, but usually I prefer salsa in my potatos), but people seem to immediately presume that I am going to preach some religious reason for not eating pork to them. Interestingly enough people never seem to give the fact that I don't eat Turky a second though (and actually I will eat deli style turky, but I generally find roast turky to be terrible and would much prefer chicken).
Of course in my experience one of the biggest things people get up tight about is that I don't drink. I take medication that can cause liver problems if not checked regularly and I have a very low tolerance for alcohol anyway (I generally get tipsy after about a half of a glass of wine). It seems like anytime someone offers me a drink and I say "no thanks, I don't drink" they immediately have to explain that they are not an alcoholic and that they only drink occasionally, etc.
I guess a lot of this comes from the fact that there seem to be so many people today who have completely lost the concept of "life and let live" that when someone doesn't do something we do we immediately expect them to berate us on why we should not take part in whatever activity it is and therefore become defensive.
I've never really liked the GTA games personally. I've thought that they had alot of potential, but for myself- and I'm sure a lot of other people, the story and the missions never really held much appeal for me. It's not that I'm against the violence in the games, I enjoy violent games quite a bit- but I've never been able to empathise with the characters of the series at all.
What I would like to see is some of the "influence" that the GTA series has supposely had in gaming put into something other than making clones with crappier gameplay and crappier stories. Instead I would like to see developers take the massive non-linear 3D world concept and create more games like Shenmue, or given the emphasis on driving in the games, something like Fast and the Furious where the player starts down at the bottom, maybe jacking cars or working as a delivery boy, and rises on the street racing circut (OK, I would hate that game too, but it's just an idea). What about an RPG that takes place inside of a single living city? Something like Blood Omen where you play a vampire who stalks the streets of a huge vibrant faux-new york city feeding on the innocent and battling for territory against rival vampire gangs?
Of course, GTA wasn't the first game to take place in a large, non-linear city. Shenmue had a much deeper world and IIRC was out a few years before GTAIII. Crazy Taxi had a huge non-linear city, fast dangerous driving and missions as well.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that GTA may have been well executed in a lot of ways, but it wasn't necessarily THAT innovative, and that if it was as influential as the article states, then why are the only games I can find now that are vaguely based off the GTA formula horribly inferior ripoffs with the same criminal motif?
as a Vi use who runs KDE and a student of the art of Ninja I find this prejudice extremely disturbing...
I will now cut off your head and then whale on a guitar
Ninja vanish!
ahhh, I knew there was one I was forgetting. Any chance I can get off with just a suspended geek license?
I remember having Metroid on NES when I was younger, but I never really got into it, I think the game was too open-ended for a 6 year old to really do much with. It wasn't until after I played Super Metroid that I went back through and played the original. I think Metroid: Zero Mission is perhaps my favorite of the Metroid series- great remake of the original for anyone who hasn't played it.
Religion is a very personal thing to a lot of people. While I agree with your sentiments to an extent- insomuch as it's important to question everything, to do experiments, to be skepticle, etc. I also think that science cannot currently answer, and may never be able to answer many important questions. In fact I would argue that as we progress fruther scientifically and are able to answer more "how"s, it becomes even more imortant to examine the "why"'s, philosophically speaking. Science may one day be able to tell us how the universe was created, but as it is it will never be able to tell us why*.
Of course, I in now way beleive that one should, for example, disregard all scientific evidence of, say, a heliocentric solar system because someone a thousand years ago interpreted a translation of a translation of a translation of a book written a thousand years before that which vaugely states that the earth may be the center of the universe. Instead it's important to understand the philosophy of religion and the technology of science within the contexts of eachother. (In other words, I disagree with someone who said evolution is false because the bible says god created man, and with someone who says the bible is false because of the scientific evidence of evolution, and would instead say, how can we understand the ideas and philosophy of the idea of creation as a metaphorical framework to give philosophical meaning to the evolution of humanity)**
* for certain definitions of "how" and "why"
**I am not a christian, and I am simply using this as a common example of a debate between science and religion. I also acknowledge that many scientists, christians and probably some third parties will disagree with me, I'm comfortable with that.
Did you even read the article?
You must be new here, allow me to be the first to say "Welcome to Slashdot"
The article talks about blogging. The article states that students were told to take down blogs and profiles online in order to prevent them from posting negative things about the school...my comment was implying that the real reason was that someone was going to have a "God is Good, God is Great" post and someone would come along and post something that would run counter to the doctrine of the school- which the school would want to prevent.
God Forbid the student's may run across people who might post ideas that run counter to the church.
In fact, some of them might not even be *gasp* Christian. The children might be promoted to *Horror* Question the Doctorine of the Church!
Please Someone Think Of The Children!
(Not anti-religion, just think that by highschool people should be making up their own minds about it. Shouldn't true belief and a relationship with whatever god(ess)(es) a person chooses to follow or not come from self reflection and soul serching instead of bullying, parental decree, and a lack of exposure to alternate viewpoints?)
I don't think that cheats ruin the game, in fact I think they can add a lot- the problem is a lot of people use cheats before having played through a game and that really does sap the enjoyment out.
Personally, a lot of games I think can be fun, after beaten, but putting in cheats. RPGs for example can be fun to play through with Uber-powerful characters a second time around (I wish more games would implement Chrono Trigger/Cross's New Game+ option). I've always thought earning cheats like Perfect Balance was good in the Tony Hawk games because it gives the player a chance to discover new areas and lines and then later try to get there without the cheats.
The GTA series is one that I only have enjoyed with cheats. Infinite health + no cops, etc make it fun to just be able to go around and explore the city and find stunts and stuff without having to worry about the actual game (of course I never really cared for the gameplay in the GTA games, I usually just borrow the game from a friend when a new one comes out so I can explore the city randomly for a day or so and then give it back).
It's amazing that google gives away 2 million dollars to benefit the open source community and you complain because it wasn't enough. ;) and the money would have been nice- but more importantly the Summer of Code really got me to look at some of the neat programs that still need to be written, the interesting things that still need to be contributed. I've always wanted to do more to contribute to open source, but I found it exceedingly hard to figgure out where to jump in. The Summer of Code helped a lot of people like me, projects accepted or not, by showing how we can get started helping the community that has built so much great software that we use every day.
The Summer of Code wasn't a job. Google did not higher people to write code for them and play them only $9/hour.
Google instead offered students a chance to do some work with real OSS applications and to work with people who have experience developing with the OSS applications. They also gave each person who finished their project $4500 and $500 to the mentor (I think the mentor got the money regardless of if the coder finished his or her project or not) as a sort of bonus for perseverence.
The Summer of Code was sort of like a big round of bounties for code, except instead of deciding before hand what to put a bounty on they let the developers come up with ideas and then they picked the best ones.
Unfortunately none of the three applications I put in for the Summer of Code were accepted (and I will try to keep the bitterness toward the people who did complete their projects to a minimum
(And by the way, I am working on one of the programs that I had originally submitted in an application, and IDE/Front End and Debugger for QCL, the idea being a way for non-physisist programmers to ease into learning about development on quantum computers. I hope to have an early release done sometime soon).
Having helped a lot of friends out with Photoshop, it seems to me that the biggest problem that people face when trying to do things is translating what they want to do into "photoshop" speak. Really I think this is perhaps the most common type of usability problems in software today.
The vast majority of the time when someone asks me for help with Photoshop the conversation usually goes along the lines of: "Hey, how can I remove a blemish in photoshop" "Use the Clone-Brush tool" or "Hey, how can I fix the color on this old photo I scaned" "Adjust the color balance", or "How can I darken this bit of the image to make a shadow" "burn tool" etc.
It's not that these people are stupid, it's just that photoshop uses a lot of jargon that people aren't really familiar with.
The second biggest problem I think is that people who haven't done a lot of digital editing don't tend to think in terms of things like layers, fill, opacity, etc. Instead people have the tendancy to see the image like a sheet of paper.
Aside from these two big problems, the most common thing I see people have trouble with is selecting things out of an image- mainly because people spend an hour meticulously trying to select what they want to cut out instead of using the magic wand to select the background- invert selection and be done with it. Doing so is simply non-obvious to people.
yeah, that's the word I was going for. Thanks :)
This proves it...the bird flu was a virus developed by the communist anti-profit evil open source devils in order to thward patents! I say we execute all of the murdring commies for this devestating blow to the world economy!
I have a good friend who is a geek and at times a bit of a bastard who is always comming up with things like this (not just for halloween) mostly because they live in a really creepy house anyway- but here are some ideas mostly from him.
Get a Y shaped fiberoptic cable and place it out of the way in a dark corner with two of the ends pointing away from the corner. Set up a red LED at the other end of a timer...instant glowing red eyes from the darkened corner.
You can set up a ghostly appirition by taking a box with a 1-way mirror facing into the box, fill it with some smoke from a fog machine, and have a projector shining in from the back. The image bounces off the mirror and hits the back of the box and the smoke gives an interesting halo effect to the whole image.
Edit a video file to include random static and ghostly images and burn to DVD or stream from your computer- pretend like it's just a regular movie (The original Night of the Living Dead is available as public domain from Archive.org if you don't want to worry about copyright infringement and was a good scary movie). This can work even better if you record a movie off the TV with commercials and all so that it may be less obvious what you are doing.
Set the Air Conditioner on a timer so certain rooms can develop "cold spots".
A lot of digital video camers will pick up Infra Red light from things like TV remotes- this is a good way to create fake "orbs" in photos or videos to spook out your guests.
A good, edible fake blood can be made with corn syrup, corn starch (to thicken it and make it less transparent) and red food coloring.
A few more general notes, remember that things are often a lot more freaksom if there is less of a setup, include some really hokey and poorly done tricks to put your guests at ease, this can make the good stuff more effective. Also remember that panick spreads- so make sure to act freaked out and assure your guests that you had nothing to do with your tricks- this can make the entire thing much more effective. Also try to make sure that things are less predictable, if a spooky noise sounds off every time someone walks down a hallway it can ruin the illusion.
Try to get a couple of other people "in" on the setup before hand- that way you have a pool of people who can set things up so that your guests don't learn to expect something every time you excuse yourself to the kitchen or bathroom.
Above all, keep in mind that the scariest things are generally unseen or heavily veiled, props that are too goesh (grammar nazis, I tried to find the correct spelling of this word to no avail, anyone care to help?) often turn out to be humerous instead of scary.
I think this will be good for free (speech or beer) applications. Especially applications with smaller development communities often have times because people don't have the hardware to test on a lot of differet OSes. I've worked on a few OSS apps where I've been the only one to work on porting applications to anything other than one of the couple of Linux distros that the main developers use, just because out of all the developers I was the only one with a valid windows license and a copy of VMWare- due mainly to the fact that I get cheap software from school. It would be nice to simply have another developer download this player and then I can create an image of "X version Y" and send them the image and then have them do porting work.
I have no idea why this was moded flamebait...
Parent should be modded Informative. The giant squid uses ammonia, which is ligher than water, in place of a gas bladder. Link goes to the wikipedia article on the Giant Squid.
The DS only uses one screen to play GBA games.
I seem to be catching a lot of flack from people who seem to basically be saying "you go to DeVry and say you know some actual programming/CS, prove it!".
I really don't want to get into a pissing contest with some CS student, I'm sure you are all very clever, and seeing as how you are a CS major and I'm not, I'm sure you can probably come up with some questions I can't answer. For my part, I have been studying a lot of things from MITs Open Courseware. I've also worked on a handful of open source projects in a few different languages.
Along with high level languages, I have done a fair amount of assembly as well as a lot of C. I wrote a couple of SNES games, I've also done quite a bit with programming in OpenGL (I'm working with some friends on an open source MMORPG).
Anyway, I'm not going to go on and list every thing I know or every program I've ever worked on, but if you think that one cannot know how to properly develop software without getting a CS degree then maybe I'm just smarter than you.
Actually, I'm at the Kansas City campus. Of course now, instead of prepping all the students to get jobs at Sprint, they have kind of become a dumping ground where people who were fired/layed off from sprint get jobs as professors.