"Or how we're going to feed the billions and billions of people on this planet?"
That question is based on out of date predictions of the population - in most countries the birth rate has declined significantly since the overcrowded earth scenarios became popular. The US is just about replacing its population, in Europe the native populations are decining (the worst case being Italy, where the birth rate has dropped well below replacement levels). Africa and the Middle East have expanding populations, but even there the rate has generally slowed. The last predictions I saw estimated that world population would peak around the middle of the century and then decline.
How this can be an illegal coup if the matter was decided by US supreme court ? You might not agree with the decision but this sort of ruling was exactly what was supposed to happen in a situation like this. You are simply bitter that your side lost....
Given that I'm British I hardly think "your side lost" applies.. But there are plenty of reasons to call the 2000 election illegal, and a coup - you just never hear about any of it on the mainstream media (in the US or UK). Check out the composition of the Supreme court during the election, and who was working for Bush at the time. You'll find some interesting ties that suggest far from impartial decision making was going on.
Or you could just stick your head in the sand and pretend eveything is fine like a good passive citizen.
"I've noticed that people also tend to be more succinct and able to express themselves in quick bursts of text--if there was any problem, you could always pick up the phone on the side."
In some situations this is true, but I guess it only really holds where everyone involved knows the subject domain equally well. for example, I've found the exact opposite: in work we use IRC for realtime tutorials on our DL programming courses and, while most of the students (mainly part time postgrads working at various companies) pick it up quite easily, the most regular problem we encounter is caused by students struggling to formulate succinct and unambiguous questions. Quite often a refinement process is needed to identify the issue the student is having problems with: most of them have no programming background and they are not used to the terminology or the need for accurate problem specifcation, so each aspect of their question needs checking to ensure that the question they thought they asked was the one they asked.
Actually, it will make the situation worse. think about it - right now you have a (fairly small) group of serious crackers who know that the best way to keep on doing what they do is to STFU and make sure nobody else finds out about them, and you have the much larger group of wannabes and s'kiddies who try to inflate their own ego by public boasts. Now, what happens when you put out a bounty? Well, the vocal one start to get caught or they learn to keep their gob shut. Some of them will stop and move to something else, but some will stay and increase the size of the silent cracker group... and before you know it you wind up in the same situation as modern medicine and antibiotics: your miracle cure has made the problem worse by encouraging the growth of resistant strains of cracker....
Except that the mouse controls are more realistic for the characters you are supposed to be playing. Look at it this way - in most of the games you've mentioned (indeed, in most games where you do any shooting) you're supposed to be a soldier or at least someone trained in firearms use (either by army, law, society or crime). Someone with some training, decent hand-eye coordination and a sniper rifle is going to be able to introduce your grey matter to a bullet from a significant distance. And that will kill you with the first hit. You're supposed to be someone trained to go into a firefight and be able to hit someone with some accuracy (okay, so if it's American army training, probably your allies, but at least they hit something....) You are not going to stand there spraying the walls while tweaking some damn stick for a couple of seconds.
Or put another way, you may have lousy aim in real life, but that doesn't mean everyone else does as well.
" I think that I'd wipe the harddrive and install a new OS (read: Linux) before I even thought about connecting it to the net."
The only problem with that is that this guy was trying to pull off sensitive information from the box. But yes, if he had more than a couple of functioning grey cells he certainly wouldn't have hooked it up to any kind of public network until he had pulled off any useful information, done a thorough drive wipe (not just a format) and installed a new OS.
Of course, the FBI probably likes the less technically inclined computer lifter....
If this was a start-up company releasing their first game then your points would be valid - you'd expect to tweak. But for $diety's sake, this is ----ing Ion Storm, a well established company employing some very famous figures in game development! For them to put out a demo that basically requires you to dig around in the ini files just to make it playable is unforgivably unprofessional - it doesn't feel like they have made any effort whatsoever to polish the demo. It actually makes me wonder whether they even tried installing the demo before releasing it!
Quite frankly, if they can't put any effort into releasing a decent demo, I wonder just how much they actually want you to buy the game. I know I won't be paying a penny for it until I've actually seen it running on someone else's machine - I won't even trust reviews on this one.
And there was me thinking that it was Enlightnment's pager (which has done the same thing for several years now - move the mouse over a small version of a window in the pager and it'll zoom out a larger picture, click on it and get taken to the window... and you can move windows around in the pager, even between desktops)
Pretty much everywhere I've seen where people have been discussing this - from offcial ion store and eidos forums, through fan places like TTLG, and beyond - present the general consensus that Ion Storm have made a complete and utter mess of IW while the Thief fans are going insane about what this demo probably means for Thief 3.
I'm beginning to think Spector has done a Daikatana..
Hmm.. Actually, I've found that philosophy and politics are the least of the problems. The most serious problem I've run into is related to the fact that any significant game involves work on more than just the game itself - you need the tools to make the data for the game. While you can use some existing libraries for some things, they may not (read "almost never") provide all the features you need, so a lot of the actual work initially doesn't go into the game at all: it goes into the editors behind it. And even if you can get coders interested in the game, getting anyone to help out with the editors tends to be somewhere between difficult and impossible. This is especially true of 3D work where models have to include a lot of data in addition to the geometry - even if you sidestep the issue of how to actually make the models in the first place, you still need tools to add all that extra information.
Slashdot Mirror
"Or how we're going to feed the billions and billions of people on this planet?"
That question is based on out of date predictions of the population - in most countries the birth rate has declined significantly since the overcrowded earth scenarios became popular. The US is just about replacing its population, in Europe the native populations are decining (the worst case being Italy, where the birth rate has dropped well below replacement levels). Africa and the Middle East have expanding populations, but even there the rate has generally slowed. The last predictions I saw estimated that world population would peak around the middle of the century and then decline.
How this can be an illegal coup if the matter was decided by US supreme court ? ....
You might not agree with the decision but this sort of ruling was exactly what was supposed to happen in a situation like this.
You are simply bitter that your side lost
Given that I'm British I hardly think "your side lost" applies.. But there are plenty of reasons to call the 2000 election illegal, and a coup - you just never hear about any of it on the mainstream media (in the US or UK). Check out the composition of the Supreme court during the election, and who was working for Bush at the time. You'll find some interesting ties that suggest far from impartial decision making was going on.
Or you could just stick your head in the sand and pretend eveything is fine like a good passive citizen.
"everyone should work together to make one single product better."
Yes, just like all animals on the planet work together to make life better.
It's called evolution. Cope.
"what if the US get caught by a coup d'etat?"
You mean they haven't? Quite a few people I know, including several Americans, view Bush's presidency as nothing more than an illegal coup.
Simple - so they don't have to rely on an American system, and its cheaper than putting their own up.
What about if you compile all the gnu tools for your solaris box first? ;)
"I've noticed that people also tend to be more succinct and able to express themselves in quick bursts of text--if there was any problem, you could always pick up the phone on the side."
In some situations this is true, but I guess it only really holds where everyone involved knows the subject domain equally well. for example, I've found the exact opposite: in work we use IRC for realtime tutorials on our DL programming courses and, while most of the students (mainly part time postgrads working at various companies) pick it up quite easily, the most regular problem we encounter is caused by students struggling to formulate succinct and unambiguous questions. Quite often a refinement process is needed to identify the issue the student is having problems with: most of them have no programming background and they are not used to the terminology or the need for accurate problem specifcation, so each aspect of their question needs checking to ensure that the question they thought they asked was the one they asked.
Actually, it will make the situation worse. think about it - right now you have a (fairly small) group of serious crackers who know that the best way to keep on doing what they do is to STFU and make sure nobody else finds out about them, and you have the much larger group of wannabes and s'kiddies who try to inflate their own ego by public boasts. Now, what happens when you put out a bounty? Well, the vocal one start to get caught or they learn to keep their gob shut. Some of them will stop and move to something else, but some will stay and increase the size of the silent cracker group... and before you know it you wind up in the same situation as modern medicine and antibiotics: your miracle cure has made the problem worse by encouraging the growth of resistant strains of cracker....
You were rated funny, but given the behaviour of the industry to date, I'd actually say you're more insightful than funny...
Except that the mouse controls are more realistic for the characters you are supposed to be playing. Look at it this way - in most of the games you've mentioned (indeed, in most games where you do any shooting) you're supposed to be a soldier or at least someone trained in firearms use (either by army, law, society or crime). Someone with some training, decent hand-eye coordination and a sniper rifle is going to be able to introduce your grey matter to a bullet from a significant distance. And that will kill you with the first hit. You're supposed to be someone trained to go into a firefight and be able to hit someone with some accuracy (okay, so if it's American army training, probably your allies, but at least they hit something....) You are not going to stand there spraying the walls while tweaking some damn stick for a couple of seconds.
Or put another way, you may have lousy aim in real life, but that doesn't mean everyone else does as well.
Curse my lack of mod points! You deserve a +5 Insightful for that...
It's also very dangerous, and may be against your institutions fire or helath and safety rules.
It's not in colour though!
" I think that I'd wipe the harddrive and install a new OS (read: Linux) before I even thought about connecting it to the net."
The only problem with that is that this guy was trying to pull off sensitive information from the box. But yes, if he had more than a couple of functioning grey cells he certainly wouldn't have hooked it up to any kind of public network until he had pulled off any useful information, done a thorough drive wipe (not just a format) and installed a new OS.
Of course, the FBI probably likes the less technically inclined computer lifter....
Obviously it has to be aliens doing knock-and-run.
If this was a start-up company releasing their first game then your points would be valid - you'd expect to tweak. But for $diety's sake, this is ----ing Ion Storm, a well established company employing some very famous figures in game development! For them to put out a demo that basically requires you to dig around in the ini files just to make it playable is unforgivably unprofessional - it doesn't feel like they have made any effort whatsoever to polish the demo. It actually makes me wonder whether they even tried installing the demo before releasing it!
Quite frankly, if they can't put any effort into releasing a decent demo, I wonder just how much they actually want you to buy the game. I know I won't be paying a penny for it until I've actually seen it running on someone else's machine - I won't even trust reviews on this one.
And there was me thinking that it was Enlightnment's pager (which has done the same thing for several years now - move the mouse over a small version of a window in the pager and it'll zoom out a larger picture, click on it and get taken to the window... and you can move windows around in the pager, even between desktops)
Doesn't seem to - it starts, but crashes immediately (opens an exception window). This is wineX 3.2 compiled from source, ymmv...
Pretty much everywhere I've seen where people have been discussing this - from offcial ion store and eidos forums, through fan places like TTLG, and beyond - present the general consensus that Ion Storm have made a complete and utter mess of IW while the Thief fans are going insane about what this demo probably means for Thief 3.
I'm beginning to think Spector has done a Daikatana..
Which nvidia drivers are you using?
True. Anthrax and ice picks aren't anywhere near painful and prolonged enough for use on spammers.
Like that stops anyone
"guess what I'd like to see is a combination E-Bomb/MOAB. "
Already on the drawing-board: mini-nukes - you get the destructive power of several MOABs and an EMP into the bargain.
Dave's web of lies
Hmm.. Actually, I've found that philosophy and politics are the least of the problems. The most serious problem I've run into is related to the fact that any significant game involves work on more than just the game itself - you need the tools to make the data for the game. While you can use some existing libraries for some things, they may not (read "almost never") provide all the features you need, so a lot of the actual work initially doesn't go into the game at all: it goes into the editors behind it. And even if you can get coders interested in the game, getting anyone to help out with the editors tends to be somewhere between difficult and impossible. This is especially true of 3D work where models have to include a lot of data in addition to the geometry - even if you sidestep the issue of how to actually make the models in the first place, you still need tools to add all that extra information.