Now if you were talking about driving a manual transmission where the shifter is not on the steering column, then maybe you'd have a point.
Even if the shifter were on the steering column (pretty uncommon in cars made after oh, about 1965) how would you drive one-handed? "Sorry for skating across three lanes of traffic, officer. I was trying to put it in third."
Moreover, the video game business has been like this literally since day 1. There were dozens and dozens of Pong variants and knockoffs made in the mid-to-late 70s. The same goes for Space Invaders, Pac Man, Street Fighter, and lots of other games that are now considered classic. To say that the industry is worse now, or even different, is kind of ridiculous.
The point of saying this is to highlight the absurdity of the comment. There have clearly been thousands of incidents where someone got shot in the face. Is it really plausible to believe that all of them involved a hitman or a videogamer?
It's not just morale. I work at a company where telecommuting was taken away. I spent a bit of money setting up a good place to work in my apartment and putting together a separate machine so I could keep work stuff separate from my personal stuff. I ended up repurposing the space and the machine (it makes a nice MAME box), but it's money I most likely wouldn't have spent had I known I wouldn't be able to telecommute.
The amazing part is the way microprocessors and related technologies have been rocketing forward, while other technologies have been advancing at a much more sedate pace. Consider the automobile: modern cars are more efficient and somewhat safer than cars from 30 years ago, but they are virtually identical in form and function and they operate on the same basic principles. In fact, most of the advances in automotive technology have come from replacing various mechanical and electrical systems with microprocessors.
I think some old games have lasting value. Do you think your grandchildren will live in a world with checkers, chess, card games? A well-designed game can have endless capability for entertainment despite simple rules, low-tech graphics and no sequel recognition or movie tie-ins.
I definitely have to agree with this. Having MAME and being able to play through literally 30 years of arcade history, I can say that there were a lot of crap games, and a lot of games that have aged very badly, including quite a few that were super hot quarter-suckers in their day. But there are probably about a dozen or so, Pacman being one, that are timeless and stand up as well today as they did 20 years ago. I can easily see these games sticking around in one form or another for a long time to come.
2600 Pacman had to be the most disappointing game ever.
Sad to say, this was the first Pac Man I ever knew. I was too young to really go to arcades until a few years later, so watching my Dad play 2600 Pac Man was pretty much my first exposure to video games. It's a miracle I'm a gamer at all.
I used to have anxiety attacks playing ET, too. I always assumed it was *my* fault ET kept falling in those damned pits. It never occurred to me until I was older that it was just a crap game.
He's asking about hardware, not software. You need a bunch of gazintas to get sound from out in the world into the computer. ("The mic gazinta there, the guitar gazinta there, the keyboard gazinta there...")
A typical computer only has two audio inputs (one stereo pair, usually a 1/8" jack right next to the headphone jack). To record multiple instruments at the same time, in a way that lets you control them individually, you need more than two inputs. There are tons of "professional" USB, Firewire, and PCI audio interfaces on the market that offer this, and the submitter is basically asking which one he should get.
Once the audio is in the computer, there are any number of software packages (including Garageband) that will let you record, mix, and tweak to your heart's content.
Routing the audio through a mixer and few input cards sounds like a way too complex setup. Your own words were "This method has been very buggy".
This is actually pretty doable once you get past a few hurdles. First, your driver model needs to support this. As I recall, ASIO hosts cannot access more than one independent driver at a time. WDM or MME will work on the Windows side, I'm not so familiar with Mac and Linux setups.
Second, you need to sync the cards. If both cards are running on their own clocks, you are guaranteed to have sync problems (audible as pops and clicks, or pure noise in an extreme case) over time. The cheapest and easiest way to do this is to connect the S/PDIF output of one card to the S/PDIF input of the other. Set the first card to use its own clock and the second to use S/PDIF as its clock source.
Finally, you need to make sure the drivers for the two cards play nice with each other. This is the only one that's a bit of a crapshoot. Two cards of the same brand will always be more compatible. I think USB/Firewire devices are also more likely in general to work together than PCI cards, although this will vary from card to card, and even machine to machine.
A single, multiport interface is definitely easier, but if money is tight and you already have the smaller interfaces, it is possible.
You know, I'm really not comfortable with the whole "throw our garbage into the sun" thing. I realize that the consequences of it would most likely be akin to spitting onto a wildfire, but just in case, lets not fuck with the sun... OK?
He didn't need cryptography, he needed a shredder. Once you've read the message and obtained the information, wouldn't it have made sense to destroy the evidence?
Learning to take a joke is one thing, but becoming the laughingstock of literally the entire world... I do have a little sympathy for the kid. Although in this day and age, you have to assume that any image or recording you make will likely end up on the 'net.
Makes me glad I mostly grew up prior to the Internet. None of the stupid, embarassing things I did ever had more than a local impact.
I think most people would have been fine with ewoks if they'd at least been carrying stolen imperial guns or something. It still would have been silly, but suspending disbelief would have been simpler.
Funny, I seem to recall hearing that in an early draft, the Ewoks were supposed to be a space-faring, semi-technologically advanced race. I think it might have even been that they were supposed to be Wookies. Then when the toy sales blew up after the first movie, Lucas re-wrote them into an excuse to sell plush dolls.
From what you are saying, one might think placing too is easy. But you are right: proper 5.1 system take quite much space. I would say the same amount as good stereo. And I yet to rent a flat which would allow me to put proper stereo inside. In U.S., in private houses it's quite possible. Over here in Europe, flats are terribly small and not quitable for any kind of proper stereo.
Even in the US, I've only ever seen one real 5.1 setup with proper speaker placement. In the "ideal" setups you see in advertisements, the couch is always in the middle of the room, with the rear speakers in the back where they belong. In the living rooms of most small to medium-large houses/apartments, the typical setup has the TV against one wall and the couch against the opposite wall, leaving no room for proper rear speaker placement.
Wow... 60GB for $1850 in 1985, that is one heck of a deal.;) Your typo really says a lot about how far technology has come, though. 60MB just looks wrong today, it's hard to believe that was once considered tons of room.
My first PC was the next iteration of that Packard Bell, I think. I got it circa 1988, and it was switchable between 12 and 16mHz. It only had a 20 or 40MB hard drive as I recall, though.
I have to agree. I don't even have anti-spyware or anti-virus software running full time. Every now and again I'll run a scan, just for my peace of mind, and I've pretty much always come up clean. And it's not like I don't surf around some pretty shady sites from time to time.
Avoid IE/OE like the plague, stay current with the latest updates, stay behind a firewall and NAT, and use a little common sense. It's really not that hard.
I would kill to do that everyday. We had a nice telecommute policy where I work, until the CEO decided to nix it one day. The only reason we were given was that "there wasn't enough buzz in the office." Now the buzz is "get us the hell out of here."
What your employer pays for your insurance isn't really relevant. Companies (particularly large ones) get huge breaks on the cost of insurance, because they bring lots of people who will be buying policies. Try to buy the same coverage on your own, and you will pay a *much* higher price if you can get it at all.
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Now if you were talking about driving a manual transmission where the shifter is not on the steering column, then maybe you'd have a point.
Even if the shifter were on the steering column (pretty uncommon in cars made after oh, about 1965) how would you drive one-handed? "Sorry for skating across three lanes of traffic, officer. I was trying to put it in third."
Moreover, the video game business has been like this literally since day 1. There were dozens and dozens of Pong variants and knockoffs made in the mid-to-late 70s. The same goes for Space Invaders, Pac Man, Street Fighter, and lots of other games that are now considered classic. To say that the industry is worse now, or even different, is kind of ridiculous.
The point of saying this is to highlight the absurdity of the comment. There have clearly been thousands of incidents where someone got shot in the face. Is it really plausible to believe that all of them involved a hitman or a videogamer?
It's not just morale. I work at a company where telecommuting was taken away. I spent a bit of money setting up a good place to work in my apartment and putting together a separate machine so I could keep work stuff separate from my personal stuff. I ended up repurposing the space and the machine (it makes a nice MAME box), but it's money I most likely wouldn't have spent had I known I wouldn't be able to telecommute.
The amazing part is the way microprocessors and related technologies have been rocketing forward, while other technologies have been advancing at a much more sedate pace. Consider the automobile: modern cars are more efficient and somewhat safer than cars from 30 years ago, but they are virtually identical in form and function and they operate on the same basic principles. In fact, most of the advances in automotive technology have come from replacing various mechanical and electrical systems with microprocessors.
I think some old games have lasting value. Do you think your grandchildren will live in a world with checkers, chess, card games? A well-designed game can have endless capability for entertainment despite simple rules, low-tech graphics and no sequel recognition or movie tie-ins.
I definitely have to agree with this. Having MAME and being able to play through literally 30 years of arcade history, I can say that there were a lot of crap games, and a lot of games that have aged very badly, including quite a few that were super hot quarter-suckers in their day. But there are probably about a dozen or so, Pacman being one, that are timeless and stand up as well today as they did 20 years ago. I can easily see these games sticking around in one form or another for a long time to come.
2600 Pacman had to be the most disappointing game ever.
Sad to say, this was the first Pac Man I ever knew. I was too young to really go to arcades until a few years later, so watching my Dad play 2600 Pac Man was pretty much my first exposure to video games. It's a miracle I'm a gamer at all.
I used to have anxiety attacks playing ET, too. I always assumed it was *my* fault ET kept falling in those damned pits. It never occurred to me until I was older that it was just a crap game.
He's asking about hardware, not software. You need a bunch of gazintas to get sound from out in the world into the computer. ("The mic gazinta there, the guitar gazinta there, the keyboard gazinta there...")
A typical computer only has two audio inputs (one stereo pair, usually a 1/8" jack right next to the headphone jack). To record multiple instruments at the same time, in a way that lets you control them individually, you need more than two inputs. There are tons of "professional" USB, Firewire, and PCI audio interfaces on the market that offer this, and the submitter is basically asking which one he should get.
Once the audio is in the computer, there are any number of software packages (including Garageband) that will let you record, mix, and tweak to your heart's content.
Routing the audio through a mixer and few input cards sounds like a way too complex setup. Your own words were "This method has been very buggy".
This is actually pretty doable once you get past a few hurdles. First, your driver model needs to support this. As I recall, ASIO hosts cannot access more than one independent driver at a time. WDM or MME will work on the Windows side, I'm not so familiar with Mac and Linux setups.
Second, you need to sync the cards. If both cards are running on their own clocks, you are guaranteed to have sync problems (audible as pops and clicks, or pure noise in an extreme case) over time. The cheapest and easiest way to do this is to connect the S/PDIF output of one card to the S/PDIF input of the other. Set the first card to use its own clock and the second to use S/PDIF as its clock source.
Finally, you need to make sure the drivers for the two cards play nice with each other. This is the only one that's a bit of a crapshoot. Two cards of the same brand will always be more compatible. I think USB/Firewire devices are also more likely in general to work together than PCI cards, although this will vary from card to card, and even machine to machine.
A single, multiport interface is definitely easier, but if money is tight and you already have the smaller interfaces, it is possible.
You know, I'm really not comfortable with the whole "throw our garbage into the sun" thing. I realize that the consequences of it would most likely be akin to spitting onto a wildfire, but just in case, lets not fuck with the sun... OK?
Well, typically one would expect bizarre physical mutation from radiation exposure, not bizarre cultural mutation.
He didn't need cryptography, he needed a shredder. Once you've read the message and obtained the information, wouldn't it have made sense to destroy the evidence?
Learning to take a joke is one thing, but becoming the laughingstock of literally the entire world... I do have a little sympathy for the kid. Although in this day and age, you have to assume that any image or recording you make will likely end up on the 'net.
Makes me glad I mostly grew up prior to the Internet. None of the stupid, embarassing things I did ever had more than a local impact.
I think most people would have been fine with ewoks if they'd at least been carrying stolen imperial guns or something. It still would have been silly, but suspending disbelief would have been simpler.
Funny, I seem to recall hearing that in an early draft, the Ewoks were supposed to be a space-faring, semi-technologically advanced race. I think it might have even been that they were supposed to be Wookies. Then when the toy sales blew up after the first movie, Lucas re-wrote them into an excuse to sell plush dolls.
No, that would be the law banning the sale of used comic books.
...I'd like to see what kind of muscles developed on organisms that lived on a planet with 13 times the mass of the earth.
I'm not sure I would. Something tells me we'll have to be really, *really* nice to them.
From what you are saying, one might think placing too is easy. But you are right: proper 5.1 system take quite much space. I would say the same amount as good stereo. And I yet to rent a flat which would allow me to put proper stereo inside. In U.S., in private houses it's quite possible. Over here in Europe, flats are terribly small and not quitable for any kind of proper stereo.
Even in the US, I've only ever seen one real 5.1 setup with proper speaker placement. In the "ideal" setups you see in advertisements, the couch is always in the middle of the room, with the rear speakers in the back where they belong. In the living rooms of most small to medium-large houses/apartments, the typical setup has the TV against one wall and the couch against the opposite wall, leaving no room for proper rear speaker placement.
Wow... 60GB for $1850 in 1985, that is one heck of a deal. ;) Your typo really says a lot about how far technology has come, though. 60MB just looks wrong today, it's hard to believe that was once considered tons of room.
My first PC was the next iteration of that Packard Bell, I think. I got it circa 1988, and it was switchable between 12 and 16mHz. It only had a 20 or 40MB hard drive as I recall, though.
I have to agree. I don't even have anti-spyware or anti-virus software running full time. Every now and again I'll run a scan, just for my peace of mind, and I've pretty much always come up clean. And it's not like I don't surf around some pretty shady sites from time to time.
Avoid IE/OE like the plague, stay current with the latest updates, stay behind a firewall and NAT, and use a little common sense. It's really not that hard.
I would kill to do that everyday. We had a nice telecommute policy where I work, until the CEO decided to nix it one day. The only reason we were given was that "there wasn't enough buzz in the office." Now the buzz is "get us the hell out of here."
What your employer pays for your insurance isn't really relevant. Companies (particularly large ones) get huge breaks on the cost of insurance, because they bring lots of people who will be buying policies. Try to buy the same coverage on your own, and you will pay a *much* higher price if you can get it at all.
But with a few engine tweaks, I could definitely see Garry's Mod for Half Life 2 being adapted to teach lessons about physics.
He's just a dude we all do stupid things we should't have to hear about them forever.
True, but none of the stupid things I've done have ever been published in a (inter?)nationally distributed magazine.
Of course, one of the character classes will be "John Romero's Bitch"
I'm embarassed to say that I actually owned that exact red dragon t-shirt in high school, and wore it on a regular basis.