"But Tho Fan comes from Canada and was invented only last year. Created in four months, for just over $2,000, it is a real language spoken by unreal people in the Xbox game "Jade Empire," released this week. Perhaps it is a sign that, these days, languages are not so much discovered as invented.
Ok I'm calling Shenanigans on this. Btw, I am Chinese, and I speak Mandarin as well as several Chinese dialects fluently. Also I am an Anthropologist and have limited experience in the field of linguistics.
To a native Chinese speaker, Tho Fan sounds like complete gibberish. And I'd wager it sounds the same to native English speakers.
IMHO, many of the phrases and words are looped, and most of the time it doesn't even appear that the complete dialogue being presented is being voiced verbatim in Tho Fan.
Aside from sounding very repetitive, the language is overall unconvincing and feels very artificial.
If they paid $2000 for this "language" they were horribly gypped.
From a technical standpoint the "Klingon Language" is far more impressive.
Just my $0.02
From what I've seen so far, I'd rate this average
on
Review: Jade Empire
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I estimate I'm slightly past halfway into the game at present time. Everything I've seen so far I'd consider about par, its not a great game, but it doesn't totally suck.
It also appears that most of the time, regardless of the multiple dialogue options offered, the NPCs will reply with identical messages.
*warning possible spoilers follow*
The combat system seems a bit shallow, case in point, I've gotten up to the Imperial City and up to the second tier of battles in the Gold Division of the Arena, Without using the block move a single time (on Master [normal] Difficulty)
I am using Legendary Strike as my primary Hand to Hand combat style, and it is close to fully mastered, its not only a bit boring to play, its boring to look at too.
I think maybe 2 attack buttons, a punch and a kick, as opposed to the single attack button, as well as some form of button combo system in addition to the silly (IMO) "Harmonic Combo" system would have added a great deal of depth to the game.
There is a difference between necessary and unnecessary risks.
I would classify a shuttle launch with a known faulty part (no matter how minor) to be an unnecessary risk.
When you're spending the kind of money that NASA is on their equipment, there is really no excuse to accept anything with more than cosmetic flaws.
Like I pointed out in an earlier post, whomever this manufacturer is, they sure got themselves a cushy gig, if NASA will accept a cracked fuel tank from them, no matter how minor the crack.
From TFA: "The arrival of the external fuel tank from a manufacturing plant in Louisiana moved the space program closer to its goal of a late spring liftoff for Discovery"
I couldn't find out who this mentioned manufacturer was, but damn, that sounds like a sweet deal, being able to send whatever to NASA and just have them ok it to fly. Wonder how much the tank cost.
After they acquired "Deathstar Technology" from the Empire..err I mean IBM, I've stayed way the hell away from Hitachi.
Just what we needed! A drive that can also crash in the 3rd dimension..
I can't believe they didn't even rebrand/rename the notorious deskstar series after acquiring it from IBM.
After having multiple horrendous experiences with the series while it was produced by IBM, the very mention of the name Deskstar sends chills down my spine *shudders violently*
Re:Spam with trigger words in the pictures
on
Spam Kings
·
· Score: 1
yeah, read and send all your mail in plain text format..
Unfortunatly only South Koreans get their 0 dead pixel policy.
The rest of the world unfortunate or oblivious enough to buy one of their craptacular pieces of engineering has the "7 or more dead pixels before we even consider an exchange program"
I was going to say something about Korean old people, but I forget what..
"Sue individual GPL infringers. Yay! Sue individual P2P downloaders. Boo!"
Except for some "minor" differences.
1) Infringe GPL 2) Market said code in commercial product 3) Profit! *Optional steps include lying poorly about stealing code.
Vs.
1) Download music and movies 2) Watch said movies and music 3) Suffer irrepairable brain damage from said
shitty ass mass media garbage. *Optional steps include subjecting friends and family to the crap you've downloaded.
Honestly I've not had many problems with Maxtor or Western Digital harddrives.
IBM/Hitachi has had by far the highest failure rate of any brand of harddrives I've employed in my builds, and Quantum used to be a regular nightmare as well.
Seagate though to a much lesser extent, has had a fair number of drives fail on me in the past.
I have not dared test the reliability of Samsung harddisks yet.
Standards are still constantly being "improved" aka changing, and its stupid each vendor has their proprietary technology now.
802.11b, 802.11g, Airboost, Wireless G, Super Wireless G, Wireless GS Speedbooster, Wireless 125Mbps. Now its just getting stupid, and you pretty much have to buy routers and repeaters, Wireless Access points and all that crap from the same manufacturer and pray that theres interoperability.
Wireless seems all fine and dandy at first glance, oooh look no wires, oooh look it doesn't cost that much more than Cat5e systems. How cool!
Then you realize in reality its: "Oh crap, I need an access point with that stupid wireless router, oh I still can't get it to reach the bedroom have to toss in a repeater or two. Oh wtf, even with high gain antennae I'm only at 60% signal strength..godammit why does this thing keep dropping its connection."
So after spending about two to five times what you initially intended, you decide: "Ah fuck this!" *Sticks a Cat5e into wireless router*
Wouldn't it be vastly cheaper and easier to just omit the projector?
Have a laptop/PC with TV output, output to a 27 - 37" plain old CRT or TV, and just sit the sucker on the ground facing up, then toss on a piece of tempered glass as its tabletop surface and go.
Or if you enjoy building stuff, build an MDF "table" around said TV.
There is a slight difference in the 2 cases you're comparing. Even entirely glossing over the fact of your blantant trolling with a statement such as: "After all most bit-torrents are illegal and we all know that Dos attacks on people who break the law is fine."
In the case of spamming, millions of email accounts are sent enormous volumes of unsolicited trash, daily by both "legitimate" as well as outright fraudulent purveyors of crap.
They are spamming with the intent to profit. In the case of bittorrent not only is their content only provided when you intentionally seek it out, but there is no profit, or scamming involved.
You must be one of "those" who thinks that companies actually lose a sale when their "copyrights" are infringed.
I'm not sure if it warrants the starting of a class action suit, but I have to concur that the Xbox (as well as PS2) have problems with reliability.
Whilst I haven't had any problems with my PS2 (I was a late adopter, purchased my PS2 ~9 months after US launch) I did have one friend who experienced the problem of his PS2 ceasing to play DVDs and certain titles because the laser went out of alignment.
The first Xbox I bought (from SoftwareEtc) was DOA, brought it home, and it failed right out of the box, wouldn't boot up. I brought it back and exchanged it at, the second xbox lasted for 10 days, after which it also stopped booting.
The third one I'm presently using has been functioning without problems for almost 2 years, with moderate usage.
Another friend of mine had to recently replace the optical drive on his Xbox, after a year of light usage (10 - 20 hours a month) the drive stopped reading certain games.
I tried out the Gmail notifier for two weeks, then uninstalled it.
Aside from it having some minor issues (popup requesting confirmation of email login and address every reboot not always being able to connect and check you messages, among other things)
Slashdot Mirror
Thousand cuts, Leaping Tiger and Crimson Tears are all quite a bit faster than Legendary Strike.
Also Fortunes Favorite and all the support styles work just as effectively without requiring the use of the block.
I highly doubt this is the case because my gaming skills are beyond l33t.
Its a more a matter of the combat system being unbalanced/shallow.
I seriously doubt that you would need to block at all with any hand to hand style aside from White Demon.
I challenge you all to just not bother using the block move at all and see how you fare. I bet you'll just plow through the game just fine.
The combat whilst more engaging than in KOTOR is most definately not more "fun"
Mind determines focus and Spirit determines Chi in Jade Empires, I believe our dear reviewer got mixed up there.
;)
Or maybe he's playing an entirely different game
"But Tho Fan comes from Canada and was invented only last year. Created in four months, for just over $2,000, it is a real language spoken by unreal people in the Xbox game "Jade Empire," released this week. Perhaps it is a sign that, these days, languages are not so much discovered as invented.
Ok I'm calling Shenanigans on this.
Btw, I am Chinese, and I speak Mandarin as well as several Chinese dialects fluently. Also I am an Anthropologist and have limited experience in the field of linguistics.
To a native Chinese speaker, Tho Fan sounds like complete gibberish. And I'd wager it sounds the same to native English speakers.
IMHO, many of the phrases and words are looped, and most of the time it doesn't even appear that the complete dialogue being presented is being voiced verbatim in Tho Fan.
Aside from sounding very repetitive, the language is overall unconvincing and feels very artificial.
If they paid $2000 for this "language" they were horribly gypped.
From a technical standpoint the "Klingon Language" is far more impressive.
Just my $0.02
I estimate I'm slightly past halfway into the game at present time. Everything I've seen so far I'd consider about par, its not a great game, but it doesn't totally suck.
It also appears that most of the time, regardless of the multiple dialogue options offered, the NPCs will reply with identical messages.
*warning possible spoilers follow*
The combat system seems a bit shallow, case in point, I've gotten up to the Imperial City and up to the second tier of battles in the Gold Division of the Arena, Without using the block move a single time (on Master [normal] Difficulty)
I am using Legendary Strike as my primary Hand to Hand combat style, and it is close to fully mastered, its not only a bit boring to play, its boring to look at too.
I think maybe 2 attack buttons, a punch and a kick, as opposed to the single attack button, as well as some form of button combo system in addition to the silly (IMO) "Harmonic Combo" system would have added a great deal of depth to the game.
Netcraft declares InPhase is dead..
By the time their 300GB drives hit the market, the current magnetic media drives are liable to hit the 500GB or higher mark.
There is a difference between necessary and unnecessary risks.
I would classify a shuttle launch with a known faulty part (no matter how minor) to be an unnecessary risk.
When you're spending the kind of money that NASA is on their equipment, there is really no excuse to accept anything with more than cosmetic flaws.
Like I pointed out in an earlier post, whomever this manufacturer is, they sure got themselves a cushy gig, if NASA will accept a cracked fuel tank from them, no matter how minor the crack.
From TFA: "The arrival of the external fuel tank from a manufacturing plant in Louisiana moved the space program closer to its goal of a late spring liftoff for Discovery"
I couldn't find out who this mentioned manufacturer was, but damn, that sounds like a sweet deal, being able to send whatever to NASA and just have them ok it to fly. Wonder how much the tank cost.
I've never had a good experience with a VIA chipset motherboard.
Sure they're cheap, but thats about all I can say about them.
This reeks of Astroturf..
VIA - Nehemiah
After they acquired "Deathstar Technology" from the Empire..err I mean IBM, I've stayed way the hell away from Hitachi.
Just what we needed! A drive that can also crash in the 3rd dimension..
I can't believe they didn't even rebrand/rename the notorious deskstar series after acquiring it from IBM.
After having multiple horrendous experiences with the series while it was produced by IBM, the very mention of the name Deskstar sends chills down my spine *shudders violently*
yeah, read and send all your mail in plain text format..
Unfortunatly only South Koreans get their 0 dead pixel policy.
The rest of the world unfortunate or oblivious enough to buy one of their craptacular pieces of engineering has the "7 or more dead pixels before we even consider an exchange program"
I was going to say something about Korean old people, but I forget what..
"Sue individual GPL infringers. Yay! Sue individual P2P downloaders. Boo!"
Except for some "minor" differences.
1) Infringe GPL
2) Market said code in commercial product
3) Profit!
*Optional steps include lying poorly about stealing code.
Vs.
1) Download music and movies
2) Watch said movies and music
3) Suffer irrepairable brain damage from said
shitty ass mass media garbage.
*Optional steps include subjecting friends and family to the crap you've downloaded.
See the difference?
Thought so.
Honestly I've not had many problems with Maxtor or Western Digital harddrives.
IBM/Hitachi has had by far the highest failure rate of any brand of harddrives I've employed in my builds, and Quantum used to be a regular nightmare as well.
Seagate though to a much lesser extent, has had a fair number of drives fail on me in the past.
I have not dared test the reliability of Samsung harddisks yet.
And this is why
Best Hacking Tools and Tutorials
Aside from the security issues.
Standards are still constantly being "improved" aka changing, and its stupid each vendor has their proprietary technology now.
802.11b, 802.11g, Airboost, Wireless G, Super Wireless G, Wireless GS Speedbooster, Wireless 125Mbps. Now its just getting stupid, and you pretty much have to buy routers and repeaters, Wireless Access points and all that crap from the same manufacturer and pray that theres interoperability.
Wireless seems all fine and dandy at first glance, oooh look no wires, oooh look it doesn't cost that much more than Cat5e systems. How cool!
Then you realize in reality its: "Oh crap, I need an access point with that stupid wireless router, oh I still can't get it to reach the bedroom have to toss in a repeater or two.
Oh wtf, even with high gain antennae I'm only at 60% signal strength..godammit why does this thing keep dropping its connection."
So after spending about two to five times what you initially intended, you decide: "Ah fuck this!" *Sticks a Cat5e into wireless router*
Wouldn't it be vastly cheaper and easier to just omit the projector?
Have a laptop/PC with TV output, output to a 27 - 37" plain old CRT or TV, and just sit the sucker on the ground facing up, then toss on a piece of tempered glass as its tabletop surface and go.
Or if you enjoy building stuff, build an MDF "table" around said TV.
One such game from the yesteryears that employed Newtonian physics was I believe Mantis: XF-5700 Experimental Fighter.
It was a pretty fun game back in the day.
And would this "superheated gas pocket" perchance reside in Nibbler's lower intestinal tract? ;D
There is a slight difference in the 2 cases you're comparing. Even entirely glossing over the fact of your blantant trolling with a statement such as: "After all most bit-torrents are illegal and we all know that Dos attacks on people who break the law is fine."
In the case of spamming, millions of email accounts are sent enormous volumes of unsolicited trash, daily by both "legitimate" as well as outright fraudulent purveyors of crap.
They are spamming with the intent to profit. In the case of bittorrent not only is their content only provided when you intentionally seek it out, but there is no profit, or scamming involved.
You must be one of "those" who thinks that companies actually lose a sale when their "copyrights" are infringed.
I'm not sure if it warrants the starting of a class action suit, but I have to concur that the Xbox (as well as PS2) have problems with reliability.
Whilst I haven't had any problems with my PS2 (I was a late adopter, purchased my PS2 ~9 months after US launch)
I did have one friend who experienced the problem of his PS2 ceasing to play DVDs and certain titles because the laser went out of alignment.
The first Xbox I bought (from SoftwareEtc) was DOA, brought it home, and it failed right out of the box, wouldn't boot up. I brought it back and exchanged it at, the second xbox lasted for 10 days, after which it also stopped booting.
The third one I'm presently using has been functioning without problems for almost 2 years, with moderate usage.
Another friend of mine had to recently replace the optical drive on his Xbox, after a year of light usage (10 - 20 hours a month) the drive stopped reading certain games.
None of these systems were modded.
This puts the tired old analogy "If the Windows OS was a car..etc etc" in a whole new light.
Now..I wonder if Bill would drive a car powered by Windows CE..
I'd pay good money to see an automobile BSOD while careening around a hairpin corner at 100MPH+
Barren Realms Elite!!
gaah for forgetting that I'm launching a Gooie Kablooie in your general direction!
My best guess is 6 1/2 hours of the footage will be featuring the downloading of pr0n at 300bps.
:P
and the remaining 30 mins will be people sitting around waiting for the Callback verifiers to ring back so they can set up a new account
I tried out the Gmail notifier for two weeks, then uninstalled it.
Aside from it having some minor issues (popup requesting confirmation of email login and address every reboot not always being able to connect and check you messages, among other things)
It has a 7+ MB memory footprint for its process.
"Kami" means "god"
"Camui" is a traditional Japanese male child name.
I have an Xbox and I won't be getting Halo 2.
I'm going to wait for a PC release, if it never comes out then oh well, I'll just have to stick to HL2 and CS:Source.
Or just play