Amen to Rise of the Robots, that game had me so pumped off its graphics and sound when I rented it and turned out to be the most unplayable fighter ever.
Some more contenders:
Action 52 (NES): 52 ATROCIOUS games, many of which are buggy to the point of crashing, packed onto 1 $199 cartridge
AD&D Heroes of the Lance (NES): without a doubt the worst RPG ever
Pit Fighter (SNES): challenger for the crap fighter crown currently adorning the head of "Rise"
There are many, many more, all of which are funny. I am a giant connoiseur of bad movies and games, and trust me, this story is just the tip of the iceberg.
My brother worked for Comcast as a call centre peon.
He got a complaint call from a customer one day because the (presumably crack addicted) line tech they sent out had stolen an heirloom, specifically a golden statuette of Ganesh, from a Hindu woman's house. I don't know how he calmed her down, if he in fact succeeded at all.
We came to call their techs "Abobos", after the braindead bosses from the Double Dragon series who are prone to walking off cliffs with little provocation.
For what it's worth, that is actually what happened with me.
I bought a new desktop recently, and with that cleared up some of my lingering frustrations about Linux's ACPI support. I had played around with Ubuntu from time to time, mostly in VMs; actually, I have been poking away with Linux intermittently since high school.
After college, which had 2 or 3 courses on Unix/POSIX, I felt truly prepared to use Linux. Actually, I might not have been looking hard enough, but a comprehensive online crash-course in POSIX and just how Linux works in contrast to Windows would have been sufficient; a large chunk of the college courses were on VI, sendmail, BIND and other stuff not essential to desktop Linux.
Anyway, with my powerful new desktop kicking around, I felt like giving Vista a try, but then I read about Vista's draconian activation policies, HDCP, and other dodgey elements. Regardless of whether these would really cost me time, it's still unpleasant (to me at least) to think that a company has that level of control over what I do with my computer. So instead I switched to Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy, and got started with the growing pains. Although there were a few snags to work out, esp. with gaming through ZSNES and MAME, things have worked out well. I am now running Beryl window manager, which is absolutely beautiful and enhances productivity.
I realize there are a lot of "buts" with my story, and I am an IT professional, but my switch to Linux has been pretty smooth, and I am now fairly confident that there is nothing I could do with Vista that I can't with Linux. I feel a lot better about my computer freedoms, too.
Your mileage may vary, but I finished reading the complete set of 'Culture' books a few weeks ago, and I was not disappointed. I'd recommend you do the same if you have the means.
I intend to make my millions by strategically caching weapons, ammunition, Mag-Lites, and most importantly, duct tape, for the inevitable takeover of our Mars outpost by the forces of Hell.
While I'm at it, I'm going to corner the market on high-endurance spring coils, and then fire the whole lot of them into the sun. Let's see Hell try to stop us without their precious spring-loaded Imps!
Which of the two do you think would warp an otherwise rational person's viewpoint more? A lack of information, or possessing a set of information which represents both the 'good' and the 'bad' sides of an issue?
Any rational person should be able to evaluate the broader set of opinions put forth by both sides and apply their principle of reason to reach a personal judgment. Depriving a person of the information required to exercise that faculty strips them of one of their most important human abilities; it reduces them to making flawed judgments from flawed perspectives, regardless of whether that is for the 'social good'.
Besides, it's myopic to assume that the organization or individual responsible for the censorship is acting with the best interests of all parties in mind. Better to avail yourself of all information available and think for yourself than be reduced to parroting someone else's skewed worldview.
For a perfect example, see the Political Correctness crowd. They have taken fundamentally good principles (equality, mutual respect, etc.) and warped them through dogmatism and censorship into stifling commandments that often do more harm than good. Better to engage in dialectic, discussion, or personal reflection in order to understand WHY people are innately deserving of the same respect than to be told YOU MUST BELIEVE SO OR ELSE YOU ARE BAD, leaving it at that, and crushing out the reasons behind the statement.
Among the important rights and abilities in any society, now and forever, is the informed exercise of reason. Censorship deprives us of that right.
Its original scriptures make mention of 'devas' and other celestial beings, but none of them are considered worthy of worship or devotion; Mahayana, which substantially 'deifies' the Buddha above and beyond the scope of the original human being, still venerates a number of Buddhas and deities.
This will sound quite negative of me, but in a sense, you're right. Spreading humanity's seed across the solar system/galaxy is only a priority if you have decided that human existence is instrinsically valuable enough to justify such an upheaval. Objectively viewed, there's nothing particular to recommend humanity as opposed to any other hypothetical sentient life, barring some species-specific traits or subjective societal constructs.
In simpler terms, it's not poorly thought of to be cognizant of your own mortality. Therefore, isn't it also worthwhile to be willing to accept the mortality of your own species? Do people feel the need to identify so strongly with their species that they'd be unwilling to allow its passing?
Not that I'm philosophically opposed to space travel.:-)
Irritating-as-hell Guildmaster aside, I found the single most jarring thing about Fable's narrative to be the 4th-wall smashing "Quest Card" dialogue. For instance, you meet with your sister for the express purpose of discussing your family's dark secret and the location of your mother. It goes something like this:
"Hello brother. Thanks for coming. Now, go back to the Guild and read the Quest Card I left with all the information I *should* be relating directly on it."
Or, upon entering a new story arc, you have Guildmaster: "You've received a new Quest Card!"
Actually, you haven't. You're on a new quest, but there was in fact no card to speak of.
Fable was a decent game, but that stuff was an egregious failure in storytelling.
Re:even worse are misleading options
on
Office 12 Exposed
·
· Score: 1
My friend has Longhorn Beta 1 installed on his machine. There is a \users folder, make no mistake.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation's submarine fleet Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them.
The Navy does not acknowledge that the $3.2 billion submarine, the third and last of the Seawolf class of attack subs, has this capability.
"There are limits to what I can say on the sub's capabilities, but let's just say the Jimmy Carter is uniquely capable to perform missions vitally important to the war on terror," said Rep. Rob Simmons, a Republican and former CIA officer whose district includes Groton, Connecticut, where the sub was built.
But intelligence community watchdogs have little doubt: The previous submarine that performed the mission, the USS Parche, was retired last fall. That would happen only if a new one was on the way.
Like the Parche, the Jimmy Carter was extensively modified from its basic design, given a $923 million hull extension that allows it to house technicians and gear to perform the cable-tapping and other secret missions, experts say. The boat's hull, at 453 feet, is 100 feet longer than the other two subs in the Seawolf class.
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do? Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers? 9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard? What??
http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/itsallaboutthepen ti ums.html
"Yellow journalism" refers to the use of yellow ink in the printing of an old sensationalist newspaper, The New York World.
It was brought to the pinnacle of sleaziness by William Randolph Hearst, who used his empire to destroy the hemp industry, foster anti-immigrant sentiment, and commit numerous other evils.
Funny I found many hits on google from geologists who do not dispute this. Like this one Also they have found fossils several thousand feet up in the mountains, like you said.
I think the fact that the site you linked to is called "CreationScience.com" speaks for itself.
OK here is a spin on this. If you believe in evolutionism rather than creationalism, how does the first creature to crawl out of the pond scum get pregnant and spawn more?
First, evolution doesn't concern itself with the origin of life, only the change and speciation thereof. Second, have you ever heard of asexual reproduction?
The workings of oral contraceptives can't be reduced to a single broad category. Different pharmaceuticals have different effects. (And I'm not referring to RU-486 or its ilk. I'm talking about the garden-variety "pill".)
By and large, oral contraceptives are just that, contraceptive rather than abortifacient. The non-abortifacient varieties, however, have been known to cause side effects in the endometrium, which can lead to a technical abortion as the fertilized zygote cannot implant. It's an ongoing controversy in some circles; I myself would be more comfortable with a vasectomy or tubal ligation so as to eliminate the possible ethical dilemma.
'Fraudsters and scammers trying to rip off [a] company'?
That's heee-larious. You see, up until late October, I worked for a major phone tech support outsourcer. My contract was for a big home PC maker.
Anyway, the poor guy who phoned me had bought the "Open Box Special" from Best Buy, wherein the (incomplete) tower was still in the battered box, but everything else, including 17" TFT monitor, was missing. Best Buy gave this "deal" to him for a few hundred bucks, and then said "Phone Company X, their warranty covers hardware replacement! They'll give you $700 or so worth of stuff!"
That's because device drivers run in kernel mode, with direct access to memory addresses and system hardware.
It's a tradeoff of stability/security for speed, but it's a tradeoff I can certainly live with. (And I say this running ATi's notoriously shitty drivers.)
Well, I think Yin and Yang is essentially Taoist, but you're right about us Buddhists finding a happy medium.
The example from Buddhist canon that springs to mind is the Lute Simile, where our choice of lifestyle is likened to the strings of an instrument. Too much tension, and they snap. Too slack, and their noise is unpleasant. But just the right balance, and you have beautiful music.
Likewise, it's important to be energetic and dedicated in our pursuits, but not to the point where we work ourselves to death. Especially not when all we're working for is pricey toys and baubles. Me, I'm working to make a happy, uncomplicated life for myself and my girlfriend. That's it. No kids, no bling. Actually, I was thinking of becoming a monk, but I'm a sucker for a quick-witted redhead.
Yep, I remember "Yo Noid!" What a lot of people don't realize about that game is that it was essentially a sprite hack of the Japanese game "Kamen no Ninja, Hanamaru". (Masked Ninja Hanamaru)
Hanamaru had a pet bird that he attacked with, and flew back to him afterwards. (Noid's yo-yo) After each level, there was a battle with different types of scrolls, (pizza eating contest) and the first level rose and fell exactly the same as the first in "Noid!"
Give the Hanamaru ROM a go if you want to see an interesting bit of game-advertising history.
Slashdot Mirror
Amen to Rise of the Robots, that game had me so pumped off its graphics and sound when I rented it and turned out to be the most unplayable fighter ever.
Some more contenders:
Action 52 (NES): 52 ATROCIOUS games, many of which are buggy to the point of crashing, packed onto 1 $199 cartridge
AD&D Heroes of the Lance (NES): without a doubt the worst RPG ever
Pit Fighter (SNES): challenger for the crap fighter crown currently adorning the head of "Rise"
There are many, many more, all of which are funny. I am a giant connoiseur of bad movies and games, and trust me, this story is just the tip of the iceberg.
My brother worked for Comcast as a call centre peon.
He got a complaint call from a customer one day because the (presumably crack addicted) line tech they sent out had stolen an heirloom, specifically a golden statuette of Ganesh, from a Hindu woman's house. I don't know how he calmed her down, if he in fact succeeded at all.
We came to call their techs "Abobos", after the braindead bosses from the Double Dragon series who are prone to walking off cliffs with little provocation.
Don't forget that it's a slow acting virus... slides on up to the ICE all stealthy-like, then unfolds. :-)
Here
For what it's worth, that is actually what happened with me.
I bought a new desktop recently, and with that cleared up some of my lingering frustrations about Linux's ACPI support. I had played around with Ubuntu from time to time, mostly in VMs; actually, I have been poking away with Linux intermittently since high school.
After college, which had 2 or 3 courses on Unix/POSIX, I felt truly prepared to use Linux. Actually, I might not have been looking hard enough, but a comprehensive online crash-course in POSIX and just how Linux works in contrast to Windows would have been sufficient; a large chunk of the college courses were on VI, sendmail, BIND and other stuff not essential to desktop Linux.
Anyway, with my powerful new desktop kicking around, I felt like giving Vista a try, but then I read about Vista's draconian activation policies, HDCP, and other dodgey elements. Regardless of whether these would really cost me time, it's still unpleasant (to me at least) to think that a company has that level of control over what I do with my computer. So instead I switched to Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy, and got started with the growing pains. Although there were a few snags to work out, esp. with gaming through ZSNES and MAME, things have worked out well. I am now running Beryl window manager, which is absolutely beautiful and enhances productivity.
I realize there are a lot of "buts" with my story, and I am an IT professional, but my switch to Linux has been pretty smooth, and I am now fairly confident that there is nothing I could do with Vista that I can't with Linux. I feel a lot better about my computer freedoms, too.
Fake unbeatable boss, thy name is Exdeath.
Ugh.
Your mileage may vary, but I finished reading the complete set of 'Culture' books a few weeks ago, and I was not disappointed. I'd recommend you do the same if you have the means.
Spacecraft? Spacecraft?! SPACECRAFT!!!
I intend to make my millions by strategically caching weapons, ammunition, Mag-Lites, and most importantly, duct tape, for the inevitable takeover of our Mars outpost by the forces of Hell.
While I'm at it, I'm going to corner the market on high-endurance spring coils, and then fire the whole lot of them into the sun. Let's see Hell try to stop us without their precious spring-loaded Imps!
Could you describe exactly how homosexuality is injurious to the participants, without resorting to metaphysics or theology?
Which of the two do you think would warp an otherwise rational person's viewpoint more? A lack of information, or possessing a set of information which represents both the 'good' and the 'bad' sides of an issue?
Any rational person should be able to evaluate the broader set of opinions put forth by both sides and apply their principle of reason to reach a personal judgment. Depriving a person of the information required to exercise that faculty strips them of one of their most important human abilities; it reduces them to making flawed judgments from flawed perspectives, regardless of whether that is for the 'social good'.
Besides, it's myopic to assume that the organization or individual responsible for the censorship is acting with the best interests of all parties in mind. Better to avail yourself of all information available and think for yourself than be reduced to parroting someone else's skewed worldview.
For a perfect example, see the Political Correctness crowd. They have taken fundamentally good principles (equality, mutual respect, etc.) and warped them through dogmatism and censorship into stifling commandments that often do more harm than good. Better to engage in dialectic, discussion, or personal reflection in order to understand WHY people are innately deserving of the same respect than to be told YOU MUST BELIEVE SO OR ELSE YOU ARE BAD, leaving it at that, and crushing out the reasons behind the statement.
Among the important rights and abilities in any society, now and forever, is the informed exercise of reason. Censorship deprives us of that right.
That's 6/1/2, mister. :-D
PS: Vendetta upon you!
Buddhism isn't monotheistic.
Its original scriptures make mention of 'devas' and other celestial beings, but none of them are considered worthy of worship or devotion; Mahayana, which substantially 'deifies' the Buddha above and beyond the scope of the original human being, still venerates a number of Buddhas and deities.
This will sound quite negative of me, but in a sense, you're right. Spreading humanity's seed across the solar system/galaxy is only a priority if you have decided that human existence is instrinsically valuable enough to justify such an upheaval. Objectively viewed, there's nothing particular to recommend humanity as opposed to any other hypothetical sentient life, barring some species-specific traits or subjective societal constructs.
:-)
In simpler terms, it's not poorly thought of to be cognizant of your own mortality. Therefore, isn't it also worthwhile to be willing to accept the mortality of your own species? Do people feel the need to identify so strongly with their species that they'd be unwilling to allow its passing?
Not that I'm philosophically opposed to space travel.
Irritating-as-hell Guildmaster aside, I found the single most jarring thing about Fable's narrative to be the 4th-wall smashing "Quest Card" dialogue. For instance, you meet with your sister for the express purpose of discussing your family's dark secret and the location of your mother. It goes something like this:
"Hello brother. Thanks for coming. Now, go back to the Guild and read the Quest Card I left with all the information I *should* be relating directly on it."
Or, upon entering a new story arc, you have Guildmaster: "You've received a new Quest Card!"
Actually, you haven't. You're on a new quest, but there was in fact no card to speak of.
Fable was a decent game, but that stuff was an egregious failure in storytelling.
My friend has Longhorn Beta 1 installed on his machine. There is a \users folder, make no mistake.
Source: CNN
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The USS Jimmy Carter, set to join the nation's submarine fleet Saturday, will have some special capabilities, intelligence experts say: It will be able to tap undersea cables and eavesdrop on the communications passing through them.
The Navy does not acknowledge that the $3.2 billion submarine, the third and last of the Seawolf class of attack subs, has this capability.
"There are limits to what I can say on the sub's capabilities, but let's just say the Jimmy Carter is uniquely capable to perform missions vitally important to the war on terror," said Rep. Rob Simmons, a Republican and former CIA officer whose district includes Groton, Connecticut, where the sub was built.
But intelligence community watchdogs have little doubt: The previous submarine that performed the mission, the USS Parche, was retired last fall. That would happen only if a new one was on the way.
Like the Parche, the Jimmy Carter was extensively modified from its basic design, given a $923 million hull extension that allows it to house technicians and gear to perform the cable-tapping and other secret missions, experts say. The boat's hull, at 453 feet, is 100 feet longer than the other two subs in the Seawolf class.
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
n ti ums.html
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What??
http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/itsallaboutthepe
"Yellow journalism" refers to the use of yellow ink in the printing of an old sensationalist newspaper, The New York World.
It was brought to the pinnacle of sleaziness by William Randolph Hearst, who used his empire to destroy the hemp industry, foster anti-immigrant sentiment, and commit numerous other evils.
I realize it sounds racist, but it ain't.
Funny I found many hits on google from geologists who do not dispute this. Like this one Also they have found fossils several thousand feet up in the mountains, like you said.
I think the fact that the site you linked to is called "CreationScience.com" speaks for itself.
OK here is a spin on this. If you believe in evolutionism rather than creationalism, how does the first creature to crawl out of the pond scum get pregnant and spawn more?
First, evolution doesn't concern itself with the origin of life, only the change and speciation thereof. Second, have you ever heard of asexual reproduction?
The workings of oral contraceptives can't be reduced to a single broad category. Different pharmaceuticals have different effects. (And I'm not referring to RU-486 or its ilk. I'm talking about the garden-variety "pill".)
By and large, oral contraceptives are just that, contraceptive rather than abortifacient. The non-abortifacient varieties, however, have been known to cause side effects in the endometrium, which can lead to a technical abortion as the fertilized zygote cannot implant. It's an ongoing controversy in some circles; I myself would be more comfortable with a vasectomy or tubal ligation so as to eliminate the possible ethical dilemma.
'Fraudsters and scammers trying to rip off [a] company'?
That's heee-larious. You see, up until late October, I worked for a major phone tech support outsourcer. My contract was for a big home PC maker.
Anyway, the poor guy who phoned me had bought the "Open Box Special" from Best Buy, wherein the (incomplete) tower was still in the battered box, but everything else, including 17" TFT monitor, was missing. Best Buy gave this "deal" to him for a few hundred bucks, and then said "Phone Company X, their warranty covers hardware replacement! They'll give you $700 or so worth of stuff!"
Long story short, Best Buy fucking sucks.
That's because device drivers run in kernel mode, with direct access to memory addresses and system hardware.
It's a tradeoff of stability/security for speed, but it's a tradeoff I can certainly live with. (And I say this running ATi's notoriously shitty drivers.)
Well, I think Yin and Yang is essentially Taoist, but you're right about us Buddhists finding a happy medium.
The example from Buddhist canon that springs to mind is the Lute Simile, where our choice of lifestyle is likened to the strings of an instrument. Too much tension, and they snap. Too slack, and their noise is unpleasant. But just the right balance, and you have beautiful music.
Likewise, it's important to be energetic and dedicated in our pursuits, but not to the point where we work ourselves to death. Especially not when all we're working for is pricey toys and baubles. Me, I'm working to make a happy, uncomplicated life for myself and my girlfriend. That's it. No kids, no bling. Actually, I was thinking of becoming a monk, but I'm a sucker for a quick-witted redhead.
Yep, I remember "Yo Noid!" What a lot of people don't realize about that game is that it was essentially a sprite hack of the Japanese game "Kamen no Ninja, Hanamaru". (Masked Ninja Hanamaru)
Hanamaru had a pet bird that he attacked with, and flew back to him afterwards. (Noid's yo-yo) After each level, there was a battle with different types of scrolls, (pizza eating contest) and the first level rose and fell exactly the same as the first in "Noid!"
Give the Hanamaru ROM a go if you want to see an interesting bit of game-advertising history.