Cyberlore Studios did the "original" Mercenaries and MechPacks for FASA / Microsoft. Since Cyberlore is no longer around maybe there was difficulty in tracking down who owned the licenses...
Can someone fix the bug where you put _no_ heatsinks on a mech, and your mech self-suicides from a heat over-flow bug.:-)
> 2560x2048 resolution doesn't exactly help me see my web pages or documents any better
Maybe you don't spend much time reading on the computer screen.
Ctrl-Mouse Wheel and AA fonts (in FF) for easier reading.
> so why do I need it?
You are not looking far enough ahead. The existing DPI & Resolution SUCKS for text and will continue until we get 300 / 600 dpi. Imagine being able to use your WHOLE WALL as a monitor at 300 dpi.
If a game includes music that the music BY ITSELF is considered art, the game is no longer art?? If a game includes [digital] paintings BY THEMSELVES that are considered art, the game is no longer art?? If a game includes video(s) that BY ITSELF is considered art, the game is no longer art?? If a game invokes an emotionally response in someone, the game is not art?? Game Development (programming, modeling, drawing, skinning, audio production) _itself_ is a mix of science and art form.
Games are META-ART. Ebert is an idiot who can't grasp this concept.
Lord of the Flies is absolute shit. Almost anything is better (or more interesting) then that crap.
Totally agree with you! I used to systematically read the library and love findings gems hidden throughout it. Classics are classics because you are naturally drawn into them - they speak the language of the soul - not because of some snobbish English Teacher or Prof thinks they are great. Classics such as To Kill A Mockingbird shouldn't be forced fed to anyone - that's the sure fire recipe to kill any sense of discovering and enjoying them for pleasures sake. Paralysis by Analysis FTW English Teachers - way to kill another classic. I had the most enjoyment re-readings classics as 1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc. in my 20s.
Just because you're ignorant of the difference between $50, $500, $5,000 and $50,000 speakers doesn't mean people who actually care about sound quality are in the weird ass-club. (Ok the $50,000 club is a little too insane for my tastes... "more money then brains. lol")
There is nothing wrong with low-budget gear, hell we all have a budget. Its just funny to see idiots think they got some hot shitz when they listen to their muzik on crap gear. FFS man, have some self-respect, take some pride in yourself, and enjoy life and treat your ears for once. That's the real reason audiophiles make fun of non-audiophiles.
> When introduced, the 64 was more capable than most of its competitors and lower-priced as well.
1. And all those expansion slots on the C64 are where again? Where was your 80x25 text again?
2. It may be hard for you to take off the rose-colored history glasses. Let's take a look at the facts: The Apple I and Apple ][ open slot architecture and daughterboards spawned serial cards, parallel cards, modems, CPU daughter boards (could YOUR C64 host a Z80?), sound cards, voice (Echo I) cards, mouse, floppy disk controllers, RAM cards (16K / 128K / 1 MB), hard drives, RAM capture (Replay & Wildcard) cards, just to start with. I don't remember any other computer that early that influenced the PC computer more.
3. To be fair, sure, the C64 created the demo scene, and yeah the Sid chip p0wned, but most people at the time didn't care! Why pay for things you will never use or need?? The C64 was seen as a toy, because that's what it was. Businesses used VisiCalc, AppleWorks, Wordstar, dBase, spell checkers, and financial software (e.g. PeachTree) because they wanted to get stuff done, not goof around.
Me thinks you need to re-think "more capable than most of its competitors"...
There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds' scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle. Here's the whole story.
Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds' coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local McDonalds.
After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.
McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.
Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.
McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.
McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were
And you just pointed out that you are part of the problem by keeping an "Us vs Them" dichotomy going.
The root problem is that people can't be trusted. Trying to sweep that under the rug by bogus claims of "national security" only address the symptom, and makes absolutely no effort to change the system where people _can_ be trusted.
Just like having to register and get licenses for guns and vehicles stops murders and traffic accidents. NOT.
You can't legislate morality as much as the government pretends it thinks it can. Didn't prohibition teach this law student anything? Oh wait, I forgot, those that forget history are doomed to repeat it.
-- Government is created _by_ people, not the other way around.
Really shouldn't respond to anonymous trolls, but whatever...
> 3D won because it's more immersive.
Vector graphics, and Flat-shading wasn't immersive. 3D looked like shit when it first came out, and looked like crap for over a decade. Methinks you need to go play some old game and learn what low-poly modeling means. (Intentionally ignoring SGI because no one could afford texture mapping in hardware back then.) People were doing 3D graphics on 8-bit computers, such as BattleZone, Skyfox, F-15 Strike Eagle, in the early 80's.
3D in the consumer/games space took off in '96 when glQuake came out because everyone saw the potential for real-time rendering realism. The immersive factor was a side benefit of having complete control over the camera (and rendering the world from any view point.)
It wasn't until the poly count started taking off that focus to 3D happened. Grand Theft Auto 3 showed that gameplay was the driving factor rather than whether a game was 2D or 3D.
> for you to suggest that pure 2D is more difficult is simply ridiculous.
It _was_. If you can actually pull your mouse away from ZBrush for a moment you might want to review your history. Before you had to worry about normal maps, glow maps, reflection maps, and High Poly and Low Poly models, yes 2D was more difficult then 3D.
- neutral pose - run pose - neutral with weapon - neutral with shield - running with weapon - running with shield
for ALL THE FRAMES. I haven't even m mentioned the other million permutations of the avatar+enemies in states such as poisoned, etc,
OR
b) programmed a graphics engine that has had to light said 2d sprites.
3D "won" because of it scaled up content creation. i.e. The convenience of animating, texturing, lighting and shading blows away the sheer amount of worked needed in 2D content creation. It never was about the money, or quality. It was about betting on a technology that would eventually be "good enough." 2D still looks better because it is easier to make something look good from one angle with fixed lights./rant off...
> Are your clothes free or open source? Your car? Your house? Your shampoo, your radio, your computer's processor, your keyboard?
Not today, but at some point in the future they will be.
There is nothing wrong in pursuing an ideology. In days of yore it was called 'vision', i.e. looking at the big picture of where things could/should go.
Slashdot Mirror
Correct.
http://esciencenews.com/articles/2010/04/09/human.fossil.discovery.evidence.new.homo.species
and
Once We Were Not Alone, Ian Tattersall, Scientific American, January 2000, pp. 56-62
Does Paint.NET support the option to drag a ruler from the edge of the image onto the image to create a guide?
Cyberlore Studios did the "original" Mercenaries and MechPacks for FASA / Microsoft. Since Cyberlore is no longer around maybe there was difficulty in tracking down who owned the licenses...
Can someone fix the bug where you put _no_ heatsinks on a mech, and your mech self-suicides from a heat over-flow bug. :-)
Whoops - didn't realize you meant the DVD and not the Bluray version.
I used Vista 64 & MakeMKV, not sure what the OP used...
* MakeMKV 1.5.5 Beta (Free) - http://www.makemkv.com/download/
* avatar.svq - http://www.makemkv.com/svq/avatar.svq
Took ~ 2 hours to rip on an Intel 2.5 GHz.
> I know gamers and drafters really want giant screens at massive resolutions, but besides them who else really wants it?
Coders, Artists, anybody doing reading on a computer, or using programs that have multiple tools.
Plus you can use something like the Neo-Flex Dual LCD, and InRotate (90 degree rotate) to view a 8 1/2" x 11" in "page" layout mode so it is _more_ readable by matching the width & height better.
http://www.ergotron.com/Products/tabid/65/PRDID/241/Language/en-US/Default.aspx
> 2560x2048 resolution doesn't exactly help me see my web pages or documents any better
Maybe you don't spend much time reading on the computer screen.
Ctrl-Mouse Wheel and AA fonts (in FF) for easier reading.
> so why do I need it?
You are not looking far enough ahead. The existing DPI & Resolution SUCKS for text and will continue until we get 300 / 600 dpi. Imagine being able to use your WHOLE WALL as a monitor at 300 dpi.
If a game includes music that the music BY ITSELF is considered art, the game is no longer art??
If a game includes [digital] paintings BY THEMSELVES that are considered art, the game is no longer art??
If a game includes video(s) that BY ITSELF is considered art, the game is no longer art??
If a game invokes an emotionally response in someone, the game is not art??
Game Development (programming, modeling, drawing, skinning, audio production) _itself_ is a mix of science and art form.
Games are META-ART. Ebert is an idiot who can't grasp this concept.
Nice post.
> An actual viable plan to get to Mars would be a new exploration, but no one has ever been willing to put up the cash for that.
Agreed. Manned flight to Mars (even if only 1 way) would do wonders. "The First Person to Walk on Mars". Now THAT'S a milestone in human development.
> Except it's not illegal to merely kill a person
Correct. If the government does it, it's called War.
Lord of the Flies is absolute shit. Almost anything is better (or more interesting) then that crap.
Totally agree with you! I used to systematically read the library and love findings gems hidden throughout it. Classics are classics because you are naturally drawn into them - they speak the language of the soul - not because of some snobbish English Teacher or Prof thinks they are great. Classics such as To Kill A Mockingbird shouldn't be forced fed to anyone - that's the sure fire recipe to kill any sense of discovering and enjoying them for pleasures sake. Paralysis by Analysis FTW English Teachers - way to kill another classic. I had the most enjoyment re-readings classics as 1984, Atlas Shrugged, etc. in my 20s.
Just because you're ignorant of the difference between $50, $500, $5,000 and $50,000 speakers doesn't mean people who actually care about sound quality are in the weird ass-club. (Ok the $50,000 club is a little too insane for my tastes... "more money then brains. lol")
There is nothing wrong with low-budget gear, hell we all have a budget. Its just funny to see idiots think they got some hot shitz when they listen to their muzik on crap gear. FFS man, have some self-respect, take some pride in yourself, and enjoy life and treat your ears for once. That's the real reason audiophiles make fun of non-audiophiles.
Preaching to the (AVSforum) choir bro!
Most folks just don't value quality anymore. Bunch of posers with their shit Bose gear. And they wonder why audiophiles don't respect their gear.
You wouldn't of happened to posted plans and pics of you and your mate building the speakers along the way by any chance?
Cheers
> When introduced, the 64 was more capable than most of its competitors and lower-priced as well.
1. And all those expansion slots on the C64 are where again? Where was your 80x25 text again?
2. It may be hard for you to take off the rose-colored history glasses. Let's take a look at the facts: The Apple I and Apple ][ open slot architecture and daughterboards spawned serial cards, parallel cards, modems, CPU daughter boards (could YOUR C64 host a Z80?), sound cards, voice (Echo I) cards, mouse, floppy disk controllers, RAM cards (16K / 128K / 1 MB), hard drives, RAM capture (Replay & Wildcard) cards, just to start with. I don't remember any other computer that early that influenced the PC computer more.
3. To be fair, sure, the C64 created the demo scene, and yeah the Sid chip p0wned, but most people at the time didn't care! Why pay for things you will never use or need?? The C64 was seen as a toy, because that's what it was. Businesses used VisiCalc, AppleWorks, Wordstar, dBase, spell checkers, and financial software (e.g. PeachTree) because they wanted to get stuff done, not goof around.
Me thinks you need to re-think "more capable than most of its competitors" ...
> Don't think McD can be blamed for serving coffee of the RECOMMENDED temperature. It needs to be that hot, or it does not taste good.
O RLY? Then explain this...
"Post-verdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonalds had dropped to 158 degrees fahrenheit."
You're an idiot who can't even research basic facts about the case. Let me fucking google that for you since you're too dam lazy ...
http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm
There is a lot of hype about the McDonalds' scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases of outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonalds coffee was not only hot, it was scalding -- capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle. Here's the whole story.
Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonalds' coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local McDonalds.
After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.
The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused.
During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonalds' knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.
McDonalds also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.
Further, McDonalds' quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonalds coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonalds had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.
Plaintiffs' expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.
McDonalds asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the companys own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.
McDonalds also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were
one possibility: Carbon nanotubes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_nanotube
... your data, and data usage patterns. There is a reason they call it "data-mining" ...
And you just pointed out that you are part of the problem by keeping an "Us vs Them" dichotomy going.
The root problem is that people can't be trusted. Trying to sweep that under the rug by bogus claims of "national security" only address the symptom, and makes absolutely no effort to change the system where people _can_ be trusted.
Yeah no kidding!
Just like having to register and get licenses for guns and vehicles stops murders and traffic accidents. NOT.
You can't legislate morality as much as the government pretends it thinks it can. Didn't prohibition teach this law student anything? Oh wait, I forgot, those that forget history are doomed to repeat it.
--
Government is created _by_ people, not the other way around.
Really shouldn't respond to anonymous trolls, but whatever...
> 3D won because it's more immersive.
Vector graphics, and Flat-shading wasn't immersive. 3D looked like shit when it first came out, and looked like crap for over a decade. Methinks you need to go play some old game and learn what low-poly modeling means. (Intentionally ignoring SGI because no one could afford texture mapping in hardware back then.) People were doing 3D graphics on 8-bit computers, such as BattleZone, Skyfox, F-15 Strike Eagle, in the early 80's.
3D in the consumer/games space took off in '96 when glQuake came out because everyone saw the potential for real-time rendering realism. The immersive factor was a side benefit of having complete control over the camera (and rendering the world from any view point.)
It wasn't until the poly count started taking off that focus to 3D happened. Grand Theft Auto 3 showed that gameplay was the driving factor rather than whether a game was 2D or 3D.
> for you to suggest that pure 2D is more difficult is simply ridiculous.
It _was_. If you can actually pull your mouse away from ZBrush for a moment you might want to review your history. Before you had to worry about normal maps, glow maps, reflection maps, and High Poly and Low Poly models, yes 2D was more difficult then 3D.
Spoken like someone who has never had to
a) animate + draw 2D sprites doing:
- neutral pose
- run pose
- neutral with weapon
- neutral with shield
- running with weapon
- running with shield
for ALL THE FRAMES. I haven't even m mentioned the other million permutations of the avatar+enemies in states such as poisoned, etc,
OR
b) programmed a graphics engine that has had to light said 2d sprites.
3D "won" because of it scaled up content creation. i.e. The convenience of animating, texturing, lighting and shading blows away the sheer amount of worked needed in 2D content creation. It never was about the money, or quality. It was about betting on a technology that would eventually be "good enough." 2D still looks better because it is easier to make something look good from one angle with fixed lights. /rant off...
> "People killing other people is not natural."
Silly me, I forgot it was all those babies and children doing all the killing along, instead of stupid selfish adults.
> Are your clothes free or open source? Your car? Your house? Your shampoo, your radio, your computer's processor, your keyboard?
Not today, but at some point in the future they will be.
There is nothing wrong in pursuing an ideology. In days of yore it was called 'vision', i.e. looking at the big picture of where things could/should go.
Queue HP vs TI flame war in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ..
P.S.
I'm a HP48SX w/ 2x 128K RAM card 2 man myself. Ah, the good 'ol days of hacking Voyager, and dis-assembling ROM entry points...
> The hacked / cracked / ripped what ever versions of media are far more user friendly than the legit ones.
You mean like this? :-)
http://i.imgur.com/GxzeV.jpg