You forgot the Engineer. I have fond memories of the intricate defenses and traps we would concoct to stave of the eventual base incursion...
I'm really looking forward to TF2 myself - and it will probably be the game (along with Portal) that will get me to buy HL2 Ep.2. It looks nice - the Wikipedia article has some more info.
Actually, I believe Command and Conquer and Age of Empires also had multiplayer before Starcraft. It's just that SCs integration with Battle.net that improved upon it all. I did misspeak - I did not mean to say it was the first RTS with multiplayer, just to say that it broke new ground with multiplayer matching.
The other big thing was it's assymmetric balancing. In WC (I and II), each side is almost the same - there are slight variations in unit specs and of course they looked different, but really, everyone has the same foot units, the same support units, etc. SC did a good job of balancing 3 races with 3 very different unit sets.
Ah, missed that bit under the Quake entry. I had played the Quake TF before, but to be honest, my twitch skills were not all that exceptional - I had to use tactics and strategy to compete effectively against some of the players reaction times. TF just didn't strike me like TFC, and that's probably part of the reason. To each his own - I just went and wrote about what I know.
I agree... in fact, it was playing the mods on a computer in a net cafe that convinced me to by HL in the first place. I know a lot of people were recommending HL as a great single player game, but I wasn't that interested in that at the time, but the multiplayer additions from the community drew me in.
StarCraft - Not much needs to be said here. It took a lot of what already existed in RTS gaming and gave it multiplayer. Also of note is the fact that it managed to decently balance non-identical sides. As for overall impact, just look at what it's added to the multiplayer lexicon. Paired with Battle.net gave it a distinct leg up for finding other players over C&C or AoE or the like.
Team Fortress Classic - There are many many great HL mods out there, a number of which you could pick out for this list, including the infamous favorite Counter-Strike and one of my favorites, Natural Selection (balanced disparate teams, and probably the first to combine FPS and RTS wel). But I really like TFC, so I'm gonna talk about it instead. It had the kit system like Tribes, but without the learning curve. I could join a game of TFC for a quick half-hour of enjoyment - in some other games, a half hour is about what it takes to get to your enemy. It balanced simplicity and strategy well.
Dungeons and Dragons - OK, not necessarily a computer game, but still. It's influence on computer games has been incredible. A major inspiration behind nethack, almost all of the MUDS in the world, and who knows how many other dungeon crawling games.
But that's just my opinions. Not like I'm pulling down that high "games journalist"kind of scratch here...
Which, in reply, I wish to direct you here, here, or even here. Or if unmanned robotic efforts are more your cup of tea, here (one of which just happens to be the subject for today here).
What, was somene not expecting a smart-ass reply to that?
Depends on the specific drain. I had a basement that had a problem with high overall humidity, and required a dehumidifier running to make it livable. However, there were never any water leakage near one of the floor drains, so it tended to dry out at least once a month, if not more, and released a truly awful stink. So, it became a regular ritual to pour water down that drain from time to time. Ultimately, we just made a decent seal on it - not to keep the sewer gas out, but to keep the u-bend from being effected by the dehumidifier.
I would imagine that a server room with a hefty AC unit running 24/7, especially in winter, might run into a similar situation. Compound the problem if the u-bend is a particularly shallow one.
Yea, I know there's a lot more to creating a self-sustaining, thriving population than just making new animals. Chances are, there are crucial elements of their social behavior that are not genetically inherited. However, it may not be that it requires it's own species to teach it what it needs to survive. Yes, we humans have met with success and failure filling in that role, such as with the Giant Panda, but we're not the only candidates - it may be that other, similar species may be able to be enlisted to help out. Though also endangered, this isn't the only species of river dolphin, as just one example.
Of course, repopulation was just one possible use I put forward for this DNA. In addition to zoo specimens, we should also consider research - there may yet be much for us to learn from this species, and it would be a shame if this avenue were cut off before we had the ability to learn it. Still, we should consider the possibility of yet unforeseen options. Perhaps one day we can teraform a planet, but we just can't make a viable salt water ocean, just freshwater seas. Well, that's maybe a bit far fetched, but who knows?
My question is, is anyone preserving DNA samples from the existing specimens? Maybe another 20 years it will be feasible to produce clones of the species. I'm not saying try and repopulate the species into the wild, though that could be an option, but rather perhaps just for preservation in a zoo or similar habitat. Whether or not this actually happens in the future, we'd need to start thinking about gathering and preserving the DNA samples now. If we hurry, it may not even be too late to come up with 20 to 25 unique sets to match the number the article suggests is the minimum number of dolphins needed to even hope for a resurgence of the species.
What I'd ideally like is a terminal that you could either use as a touch screen to cast your votes, or feed an optical scan ballot into.
Why use it with an optical scan ballot? There's always part of me that nags at me, wondering if "they" are going to correctly interpret my vote when they scan it in. This way, when the terminal scans it, it can show me what it gleaned from my markings, and if it comes up wrong, I can either issue corrections there (which are specially marked as such on the ballot), or it can reject the ballot back to me, and I fill out a new one. If I accept it, it gets spat into the obligatory secure box - preferably through a transparent tube, so I can see it. Even better, put the paper ballot through one more step, say into a clear box where I can clearly see and verify to myself that it is indeed my ballot, but cannot tamper with it further, before it gets put into the secure box. Of course, at this stage if I notice a mistake it would require the intervention of an election official, but then again, there shouldn't be any intervention needed at this point.
Alternatively, I could use this terminal to cast my vote electronically, after which the terminal would print out a paper ballot with my vote on it. Again, this paper ballot is delivered via the above-mentioned system, allowing me to verify that what is printed is indeed my vote.
Either way, the vote would be counted electronically at the terminal first and foremost. The paper ballots would include encoded information about the time, place and terminal used to cast the vote, primarily to ensure there are no discrepancies, or at least to catch them. Hell, it may seem like overkill to some, but it would be worth it.
However, that ad for Guitar Hero 2 with the two teens playing it in their basement, and the walls fall away to reveal the stereotypical screaming crowd of fans while they pull of every manor of rock god move, that's a damn fine ad. Gets the idea across about what playing the game is like quickly and in an entertaining fashion.
I've also been seeing the World of Warcraft spot that is basically a clip from Office Space, with Peter playing WoW instead of Tetris. Damn funny.
So, we know that videogame ads rocked as recent as 8 minutes ago.
1) How does one or two lone examples allow us to make sweeping generalizations?
2) People don't post on Slashdot because they're smart.
... when the quote in the summary is 3/4s of the article. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some more meat there to actually expand upon the summary? Maybe give us an idea how many shops closed? Perhaps even get the letters in the acronym "DMCA" in the right order? I usually support the idea that bloggers should be extended the same protections as print journalists, but then I see posts like this...
I know in the States there are regions with laws that allow for someone who, in committing a criminal act, causes an accidental death to be charged with murder, and not just manslaughter. Now, I am not a legal expert of any kind, and I don't recall which jurisdictions and which criminal acts, but I think most felonies fall under these laws. Now, wouldn't pulling off this little hack involve circumventing electronic encryption? Would that mean violating the DMCA, and would that be a felony?
So this is the longest running scifi series, non-continuous, and the record for longest continuous series is Stargate-SG1. Thing is, Stargate is at episode 203 rigt now, in it's 10th season. As I understand it, Doctor Who, before the 16 year hiatus, ran for 26 seasons, and around 700 episodes (probably less, ruling out some specials, etc).
So, I've looked around a bit, and I don't see any sign of a break in that 26 year run. What part of it all makes that portion non-continuous?
Anyways, you may want to include a profile of a Viper or a Battlestar, or perhaps a portrait style shot of a metallic Cylon soldier (those would be the more classic looking ones).
Surely there have to be other sci-fi series in production. Hmmm... does the Spaceballs cartoon count?
They're acting like it's a big deal because it's a cool game in a simplistic interface that a lot of people are just finding out about for the first time. Hell, I just saw it for the first time a few days ago myself.
It's sort of like personal hygiene - even though the concept has been around for a very long time, every time I go to a con it seems like there are plenty of people there who had never heard of it...
Not to disappoint you, but despite what certain federal, state and local governments believe, the US is not the Internet, or vice versa. The whole "Peanut Butter Jelly Banana" thing is more of an Internet phenomenon than an American one. From personal experience, there are plenty of people from places outside the US that know exactly what we're talking about!
You are free to say "Company X sucks", or "I think Product Y is cheap crap". However, to say "Product Y breaks so easily, this woman can do it without any effort" is making a supposedly factual statement. You are free to express an opinion all you want, but when you get into statements of measurable fact, you better hope the numbers back you up.
Or, to put it another way - I can go online and say "Joe's a butthead" just fine. But, if I'm gonna go saying "Joe just beat up a homeless cripple and stole his blanket", I'm opening myself up to a lawsuit if, indeed, Joe did not perform these acts, and I knew as much.
Oh, and as video is a fixed format, it would be a libel case. Slander is for transientory defamation, such as unrecorded speech - i.e., I go shouting it on the street corner, or start telling all my friends this "fact". You got it right, but I've already seen a lot of others get it wrong so far...
Your are right, in that "only 10% use something else" is not a good excuse for developing for just one browser. That is because that reason is unimportant to the issue.
Thing is, this site is designed for FireFox, and Konqueror, and Opera, and Mozilla, and Netscape, and a lot of other little browsers that have like 5 users each.
You see, while in the first case, the page is developed for just one browser to the exclusion of all the others, in this case the page is being developed toward a standard which all browsers are encouraged to follow.
I think that most of the people who just found it irritating had problems with one of two things - either they couldn't master the controls (as the article states, it either requires a good joystick or for the player to be one of the few that could master the keyboard controls - I almost had the keyboard controls down:), or just hated the disorientation - the same path can look completely different rotated 90 degrees, leading you to keep backtracking over the same gorund. Yeah, it's not for everyone!
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You forgot the Engineer. I have fond memories of the intricate defenses and traps we would concoct to stave of the eventual base incursion...
I'm really looking forward to TF2 myself - and it will probably be the game (along with Portal) that will get me to buy HL2 Ep.2. It looks nice - the Wikipedia article has some more info.
Actually, I believe Command and Conquer and Age of Empires also had multiplayer before Starcraft. It's just that SCs integration with Battle.net that improved upon it all. I did misspeak - I did not mean to say it was the first RTS with multiplayer, just to say that it broke new ground with multiplayer matching.
The other big thing was it's assymmetric balancing. In WC (I and II), each side is almost the same - there are slight variations in unit specs and of course they looked different, but really, everyone has the same foot units, the same support units, etc. SC did a good job of balancing 3 races with 3 very different unit sets.
Ah, missed that bit under the Quake entry. I had played the Quake TF before, but to be honest, my twitch skills were not all that exceptional - I had to use tactics and strategy to compete effectively against some of the players reaction times. TF just didn't strike me like TFC, and that's probably part of the reason. To each his own - I just went and wrote about what I know.
I agree... in fact, it was playing the mods on a computer in a net cafe that convinced me to by HL in the first place. I know a lot of people were recommending HL as a great single player game, but I wasn't that interested in that at the time, but the multiplayer additions from the community drew me in.
I have a few that I don't see on the list...
But that's just my opinions. Not like I'm pulling down that high "games journalist"kind of scratch here...
Sorry bud, GP got it right. MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America, while RIAA = Recording Industry Association of America.
Which, in reply, I wish to direct you here, here, or even here. Or if unmanned robotic efforts are more your cup of tea, here (one of which just happens to be the subject for today here).
What, was somene not expecting a smart-ass reply to that?
Using this picture as a base, I have crafted three digital card keys...
Perhaps movies based on musicals based on movies about musicals.
Depends on the specific drain. I had a basement that had a problem with high overall humidity, and required a dehumidifier running to make it livable. However, there were never any water leakage near one of the floor drains, so it tended to dry out at least once a month, if not more, and released a truly awful stink. So, it became a regular ritual to pour water down that drain from time to time. Ultimately, we just made a decent seal on it - not to keep the sewer gas out, but to keep the u-bend from being effected by the dehumidifier.
I would imagine that a server room with a hefty AC unit running 24/7, especially in winter, might run into a similar situation. Compound the problem if the u-bend is a particularly shallow one.
Yea, I know there's a lot more to creating a self-sustaining, thriving population than just making new animals. Chances are, there are crucial elements of their social behavior that are not genetically inherited. However, it may not be that it requires it's own species to teach it what it needs to survive. Yes, we humans have met with success and failure filling in that role, such as with the Giant Panda, but we're not the only candidates - it may be that other, similar species may be able to be enlisted to help out. Though also endangered, this isn't the only species of river dolphin, as just one example.
Of course, repopulation was just one possible use I put forward for this DNA. In addition to zoo specimens, we should also consider research - there may yet be much for us to learn from this species, and it would be a shame if this avenue were cut off before we had the ability to learn it. Still, we should consider the possibility of yet unforeseen options. Perhaps one day we can teraform a planet, but we just can't make a viable salt water ocean, just freshwater seas. Well, that's maybe a bit far fetched, but who knows?
My question is, is anyone preserving DNA samples from the existing specimens? Maybe another 20 years it will be feasible to produce clones of the species. I'm not saying try and repopulate the species into the wild, though that could be an option, but rather perhaps just for preservation in a zoo or similar habitat. Whether or not this actually happens in the future, we'd need to start thinking about gathering and preserving the DNA samples now. If we hurry, it may not even be too late to come up with 20 to 25 unique sets to match the number the article suggests is the minimum number of dolphins needed to even hope for a resurgence of the species.
What I'd ideally like is a terminal that you could either use as a touch screen to cast your votes, or feed an optical scan ballot into.
Why use it with an optical scan ballot? There's always part of me that nags at me, wondering if "they" are going to correctly interpret my vote when they scan it in. This way, when the terminal scans it, it can show me what it gleaned from my markings, and if it comes up wrong, I can either issue corrections there (which are specially marked as such on the ballot), or it can reject the ballot back to me, and I fill out a new one. If I accept it, it gets spat into the obligatory secure box - preferably through a transparent tube, so I can see it. Even better, put the paper ballot through one more step, say into a clear box where I can clearly see and verify to myself that it is indeed my ballot, but cannot tamper with it further, before it gets put into the secure box. Of course, at this stage if I notice a mistake it would require the intervention of an election official, but then again, there shouldn't be any intervention needed at this point.
Alternatively, I could use this terminal to cast my vote electronically, after which the terminal would print out a paper ballot with my vote on it. Again, this paper ballot is delivered via the above-mentioned system, allowing me to verify that what is printed is indeed my vote.
Either way, the vote would be counted electronically at the terminal first and foremost. The paper ballots would include encoded information about the time, place and terminal used to cast the vote, primarily to ensure there are no discrepancies, or at least to catch them. Hell, it may seem like overkill to some, but it would be worth it.
Oh, and while we're at it, let's just try and pretend I actually said "manner" instead of "manor" there.
However, that ad for Guitar Hero 2 with the two teens playing it in their basement, and the walls fall away to reveal the stereotypical screaming crowd of fans while they pull of every manor of rock god move, that's a damn fine ad. Gets the idea across about what playing the game is like quickly and in an entertaining fashion.
I've also been seeing the World of Warcraft spot that is basically a clip from Office Space, with Peter playing WoW instead of Tetris. Damn funny.
So, we know that videogame ads rocked as recent as 8 minutes ago.
1) How does one or two lone examples allow us to make sweeping generalizations?
2) People don't post on Slashdot because they're smart.
... when the quote in the summary is 3/4s of the article. Wouldn't it be nice if there was some more meat there to actually expand upon the summary? Maybe give us an idea how many shops closed? Perhaps even get the letters in the acronym "DMCA" in the right order? I usually support the idea that bloggers should be extended the same protections as print journalists, but then I see posts like this...
I know in the States there are regions with laws that allow for someone who, in committing a criminal act, causes an accidental death to be charged with murder, and not just manslaughter. Now, I am not a legal expert of any kind, and I don't recall which jurisdictions and which criminal acts, but I think most felonies fall under these laws. Now, wouldn't pulling off this little hack involve circumventing electronic encryption? Would that mean violating the DMCA, and would that be a felony?
So this is the longest running scifi series, non-continuous, and the record for longest continuous series is Stargate-SG1. Thing is, Stargate is at episode 203 rigt now, in it's 10th season. As I understand it, Doctor Who, before the 16 year hiatus, ran for 26 seasons, and around 700 episodes (probably less, ruling out some specials, etc).
So, I've looked around a bit, and I don't see any sign of a break in that 26 year run. What part of it all makes that portion non-continuous?
I must humbly interject at this point to gently point out that you surely must be out of your frackin' mind.
Ahem.
Anyways, you may want to include a profile of a Viper or a Battlestar, or perhaps a portrait style shot of a metallic Cylon soldier (those would be the more classic looking ones).
Surely there have to be other sci-fi series in production. Hmmm... does the Spaceballs cartoon count?
They're acting like it's a big deal because it's a cool game in a simplistic interface that a lot of people are just finding out about for the first time. Hell, I just saw it for the first time a few days ago myself.
It's sort of like personal hygiene - even though the concept has been around for a very long time, every time I go to a con it seems like there are plenty of people there who had never heard of it...
Not to disappoint you, but despite what certain federal, state and local governments believe, the US is not the Internet, or vice versa. The whole "Peanut Butter Jelly Banana" thing is more of an Internet phenomenon than an American one. From personal experience, there are plenty of people from places outside the US that know exactly what we're talking about!
You are free to say "Company X sucks", or "I think Product Y is cheap crap". However, to say "Product Y breaks so easily, this woman can do it without any effort" is making a supposedly factual statement. You are free to express an opinion all you want, but when you get into statements of measurable fact, you better hope the numbers back you up.
Or, to put it another way - I can go online and say "Joe's a butthead" just fine. But, if I'm gonna go saying "Joe just beat up a homeless cripple and stole his blanket", I'm opening myself up to a lawsuit if, indeed, Joe did not perform these acts, and I knew as much.
Oh, and as video is a fixed format, it would be a libel case. Slander is for transientory defamation, such as unrecorded speech - i.e., I go shouting it on the street corner, or start telling all my friends this "fact". You got it right, but I've already seen a lot of others get it wrong so far...
Your are right, in that "only 10% use something else" is not a good excuse for developing for just one browser. That is because that reason is unimportant to the issue.
Thing is, this site is designed for FireFox, and Konqueror, and Opera, and Mozilla, and Netscape, and a lot of other little browsers that have like 5 users each.
You see, while in the first case, the page is developed for just one browser to the exclusion of all the others, in this case the page is being developed toward a standard which all browsers are encouraged to follow.
Remember Dmitry Sklyarov?
Perhaps this is all a fiendish plot to cut down on US tourism...
I think that most of the people who just found it irritating had problems with one of two things - either they couldn't master the controls (as the article states, it either requires a good joystick or for the player to be one of the few that could master the keyboard controls - I almost had the keyboard controls down :), or just hated the disorientation - the same path can look completely different rotated 90 degrees, leading you to keep backtracking over the same gorund. Yeah, it's not for everyone!