Some people up here speak Quebecois, which is a dialect of French. Many of us do not however, I barely speak a word of it. No intelligent Canadian would want to move to the US though, so you don't need to worry much. You couldn't pay me to live down there to be honest.
Well you know, from my perspective up here being more "Liberal" is a *GOOD THING* not a bad thing. Liberal seems to be a swearword down there in the US, whereas up here its the name of one of our political parties, and has no negative connotations whatsoever, unless you are a very conservative Conservative. Again from my perspective up here (no doubt distorted by the media and cultural differences), the US seems extremely Right-Wing on average (even your Liberals would be seen as Conservatives up here in many cases), extremely violent (how many people do you know who own a gun? I know my uncle has a rifle for use on the farm, and I had one when I was a kid. I have a friend who owns one for safety and one who owned one for use as protection against bears out in the woods, but other than that I know hundreds of other Canadians who to the best of my knowledge do not own one. Every American I meet seems to take it for granted that a house would have one), extremely nationalistic (to the point of viewing non-americans as some kind of subhuman species, deserving of scorn), and extremely ignorant of anything outside of the continental US. I am not sure how much better we Canadians are on some of those scores but I would like to think we are less extreme in every measure.
However this law *has* to fail, I can't ever see it going into effect, although as a long term/.er I haven't RTFA yet:P
If you create an agency whose express purpose is monitor for suspect conversations, its only natural that they are going to try to ensure they monitor as much traffic as possible. In the case of the NSA, I am sure they can just tell a phone provider like AT&T we are going to filter your traffic, don't tell anyone or you go to jail. They have absolute undefined power as long as they are not monitored.
Because the laws are written by the Corporations (through the politicians they own) for the Corporations. I suspect that much of the time so-called Western Democracies (and as a Canadian I include Canada in this) are nothing more than Corporatocracies (to coin a word since I can't think of a better one) with the *facade* of elections and political parties. From what I can see, its a rare day the Government doesn't bend over backwards to help large corporations and ignore the citizens.
being an asshole to other players. Something about playing PvP seems to bring out the desire to be an anonymous fuckwad towards other people. Probably because there are no consequences, and partially because it grants the illusion of power to the PvPer, even if it is only the power to annoy.
Its a shame too, because I have enjoyed PvP in the past in games where at least some people had a sense of sportsmanship (early DAOC for instance), but that sort of player seems to have disappeared, buried in the mass of total asshats that the hobby throws up like so much putrid trash.
I no longer PvP in any game because I just don't want to be bothered spending my time associating with people whom if I met them in real life and they talked and acted the way they do to me in game, I most likely would kick them in the nuts repeatedly.
It is possible to PvP and not grief, it is possible to PvP and if you win, not Tbag or asshat your enemy, it is possible to lose without whining. If you join a PvP server you know you are facing the worst of online humanity, you can expect conduct that wouldn't be tolerated in grade school by people who don't seem to have passed grade school. At best they are a loathesome pile of shit, obscuring the few decent players I have met and in a lot of cases they aren't even very good.
I think the answer is to stop PvPing. Fuck those guys, if they can't play nice, don't play. Its a waste of time. I enjoy other aspects of games quite happily and always have. I just gave up on PvPing because the quality of people I had to associate with wasn't worth the bother. Plus the gameplay gets kind of stagnant eventually as well.
Queue the PvPers responding to diss me and call me a carebear etc.
Crowley believed in the Magickal practices he pursued, but the philosophy behind it and the esoteric reasoning involved is far beyond cryptic. Of course it makes no sense to anyone who doesn't really understand it all, but Crowley took a perverse pleasure in deliberate misleading people in his writings - because anyone he would respect would clearly see the deliberate errors, and the rest he considered fools. He despised fools.
Although his practices were an admixture of a variety of different religious traditions and beliefs, they are essentially Kabalistic in nature. He was a very deep cove overall. Batty as hell mind you, but very very intelligent. Strangely enough he was also a champion mountain-climber:P
D&D has lost the R part of RPG with the latest iteration. I have to say, having tried it on multiple occasions, its awful. Thre are so many better games, and better systems (my favourite mechanics have got to be Pendragon I think).
The primary purpose of the US Government and the US Military is to protect the economic interests of major US companies, each according to their campaign contributions. History is littered with examples of the US Government sending in the troops to ensure some local National Government didn't attempt to take over US commercial interests, or the CIA to overthrow a Government (legally elected or otherwise) that might disagree with US Corporate interests. I will likely get modified Troll and Flamebait but its not far off the truth IMHO.
After quickly checking Wikipedia: * First off its apparently 251,388,301 English speakers in the US not 300 million. * Secondly, the rest of the English language speakers that Wikipedia lists, total over 321 million, and that of course doesn't include those people who have it as a second language outside of those countries that are listed, although it is including those who have English as a Second and Third language. * I don't think its safe to assume that the majority of Engish speakers live in the US and thus use the malformed US spelling for words such as "colour". Its just a spelling reform pushed on US English speakers thats been adopted by some portion of the world's speakers. It is not superior or in any way more logical really.
That said I do expect that the web will be the tool that ends up encouraging the rest of the world to spell using the US spellings, simply because the US dominates the web and because it has such a forceful cultural presence world wide.
Up here in Canada we seem to use a mix of both systems of Spelling, although I bet most Canadians think they are using British Spelling and view that as correct. In fact at least with my own spelling I spell some things the British Way and others the American way. I consider the British spellings and the Oxford English Dictionary to be the final arbiters of all issues concerning spelling for me personally. I am aware of the inconsistencies for the most part, but spelling the word "airplane" as "aeroplane" just looks as wrong to me as spelling "colour" as "color" would, or "theatre" as "theater".
I am glad to see the city where I was born is leading the rest of Canada in adopting support for open standards. Hopefully this is a foot in the door that prompts the rest of Canada to follow suit.
Vancouver, and British Columbia in general has always had a very strong Linux community. Victoria (the provincial Capital) has always had a fairly strong LUG going for as long as I can remember.
I use tables for layout pretty much every day in the projects I am working on. While CSS is capable of doing everything and provides better control, its more finicky, is not as well supported across browsers - and in this specific case I am working on a legacy system that uses tables extensively.
Sure there are undoubtedly good reasons for using CSS versus standard tables for layout, but quite frankly it is so much easier to use tables and the results are so much more consistent, provided you know what you are doing that for me at least, CSS has only been something I use occasionally, more for consistencies sake than anything else.
You may like absolute positioning and all that, I am quite comfortable in tables and can usually visualize even a complex layout entirely in my head when its tables. To each their own.
When IE finally dies an unlamented death, and that abortion of a browser doesn't have to be supported any longer then I will likely switch to all CSS all the time, but in the meantime I will bide my time.
I loved a huge sandbox world where I was able to become a crafter, create items and dominate the economy. It took a lot of thought and planning and a lot of effort in game to gain a top notch reputation as a crafter and adjust to the changing needs of the economy. I had a fantastic time learning how the system worked and how I could rise to the top in it. Along the way I established 2 guilds, taught a lot of people how to play the game, and built 2 player-created cities.
It was such a shame they kept screwing with the mechanics in an attempt to improve it and a long the way killed off the economy. The original designer and developers were brilliant and ambitious, the replacement developers were dull and really didn't get the game.
Yes, they botched the IP with the most potential of all, and I am amazed that they did such an abysmal job of it. At every stage they showed they really didn't get it and it ruined the game.
You may see it as a game with nothing to do - and I agree it had a horrible combat system and they completely failed to inject any sense of the Galactic Civil War into the game which was their key mistake - but there were things to do, its just that they were player created rather than scripted events with zero imagination like every other MMO out there that relies on simplistic quests as their only means towards providing player content. Quests are for the stupid people who lack the imagination to see themselves as part of the world. Same thing with classes I think.
The original game was class-free, relatively quest free (they existed but you could easily ignore them and I did), and relied on the players to generate the interesting stuff, and it worked at least for me. What sucked was the poorly conceived combat system, the whole mysterious jedi unlocking system which turned out to be really stupid when it came to light, and the lack of the GCW in its entirety. The game had the best character design system hands down of any game before or since.
There were tons of SWG players who were completely content to play the game without ever becoming a Jedi. I know I was one of them, and throughout most of my time in the game I was a crafter of one sort or another.
I admit many players were shallow and only wanted to play the uber-combat class *because it was uber* so they could win duels all the time etc, but don't paint all of the rest of us with the same brush.
SWG was an incredible game design originally - IMHO far better and more ambitious than anything I have seen today - and it got steadily shittier with each iteration because the players and the new developers they brought in *didn't get it* I think. They kept chasing after getting Jedi implemented properly and they kept botching it, and all the time the game became steadily less sandboxy.
I can't say I ever had any real desire to become a Jedi, although shortly before the NGE I did start the process of grinding the exps for it.
I have played a lot of MMOs: EQ, DAOC, WOW, LOTRO, Shadowbane, SWG, COx, Vanguard, PoTBS (and probably more) and the most memorable features for me are: * RvR in DAOC - never been beat by anything since, and WAR doesn't even come all that close. * SWG - Player based economy and a fantastic crafting system, PoTBS came close but still had a long way to go. * COx - Combat mechanics and enjoyable fights. City of Heroes has the best combat system ever I think. The game is niche but fantastic in its niche.
Where is this mythical well-educated populace? The average person seems to be deeply ignorant, uninterested in anything remotely political most of the time, and regularly falls for the outright lies made by many politicians when they are trying to get elected, but isn't motivated enough to call them on it after they win and fail to follow through.
The average person is incredibly stupid and uneducated. Quite frankly, any system that relies on ignorant, uneducated people electing politicians based on their understanding of issues is highly suspect. Sadly, its the best system we have:P
Well this guy defected right? I imagine its better from his point of view to increase his apparent knowledge by feeding Authorities in the US exactly what they want to hear, and puff up his own importance. Its entirely possible he had little to trade when defecting, but since the Soviets were the great unknown its probably easy for him to bullshit his way into establishing a massive plan that only he knows the details on. Intelligence is always a case of weighing the information from a source like this and comparing it to other facts to reach a conclusion.
Of course we are all products of massive Soviet disinformation and demoralization, so our conclusions are naturally questionable. I guess I am only saying I think this guy is full of it, because I am a product of the education system in the 70's and 80's, otherwise I would be able to reach a logical conclusion:P
Precisely. Although I have enjoyed some RP in some games immensely, its usually the exception, and many players who want to RP fail dismally at it (IMHO, YMMV). I like to RP from time to time and can enjoy playing my character, in character with another player who understands how to do so effectively. Many however are obviously new to things and try too hard which can be grating at times. However, as a means to filter out the fuckwads, choosing an RP server is a great tool. Playing on Percival (and the other RP servers) in Dark Age of Camelot was quite enjoyable for me, for a few reasons: First, the naming restrictions prevented me from being distracted by people with names like "Monosodium Glutamate" (someone I met on an non-RP server who told me he picked his name off the ingredients for the bag of chips he was eating when he signed up). I enjoyed seeing names which suited the culture and interacting with people who mostly talked in character. For those who didn't want to do so, there were plenty of non-RP servers. Secondly, RP servers tend to attract a slightly more mature audience within my experience. As a result we had a few less asshats generally speaking. Nothing will outright prevent asshattery, but anything that helps is welcome.As well the quality of gameplay was enhanced when it came to Strategic PvP (by that I mean the strategic level of planning that guided armies on raids of other realms etc. It got quite involved in DAOC, with hidden websites, raids planned 2 weeks in advance with specific orders to task force leaders and people planning and scheduling the departure times for various forces etc). I am sure that took place elsewhere of course, but Percival was widely regarded as having some of the best RvR in the game. RP has to be the reward for good RP. Offering in game rewards means you are encouraging people who don't *want* to RP to do so for the perceived benefits, thats only going to breed frustration.
Usually the biggest discouragement from RP is the nature of the game design itself. The best game for RP that I have played so far was the original Star Wars MMO. Why? Because it was a sandbox world where everything was completely wide open. I am currently playing LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) and while at first glance it would seem perfect for RP, the mechanics of the game which are heavily focused on doing fixed quests, means that RP is at best confusing and generally discouraged by the system (ie, in a game where the LOTR story is unfolding and based on your progress through the game only characters who are roughly the same level and have completed the same quests are literally in the same time period. How can I roleplay about seeing evidence that the Fellowship of the Ring has passed through Moria and Lothlorien, when from your point of view you just met them in Rivendell 30s ago?).
Unlike most good Trek, this one seemed to lack a vision or theme. Its just an action film, although as an action film its fun.
It did however have some major holes in the plot I think. Things that are just illogical to my thinking:
* Why was THE ENTIRE FEDERATION FLEET off in some too far distant sector, leaving Earth (and the rest of the Federation come to think of it) completely unprotected? If it was that urgent a situation, why did they leave 1 state of the art and 6 seemingly reliable ships behind? Why did those ships have no crews? Does no one in the entirety of Starfleet understand what a reserve is? Were there absolutely no Starfleet people left on earth outside of the Academy? * If the situation was that urgent that we had to strip the entire federation and all of starfleet to go to the Laurentian Sector (or whatever it is), why didn't they take the Academy personnel as well? Why didn't we see that story instead of the one we did, it sounds like it must be quite a fight? * After three years training, apparently Ensigns are capable of taking over all operations of an unfamiliar starship including command roles they are untrained in, even though their training was being interrupted. Why bother with a rank structure, obviously the things are easy to learn to use. * Why did they have to make Chekov into another Wesley Crusher type? Wasn't the first time, one time too many? * If they are busy changing canon so severely, why did they leave Chekov with the rediculous Russian accent that they had in the first series. Russian has a/v/ sound and they don't replace it with a/w/ sound. They might do that in Polish, but not Russian. * The ship is hypermodern. Why did Chekov have to run down to Engineering to fiddle with the transporter? For that matter why didn't he take the elevator which in canon is perfectly capable of getting him there. * Why was it that in every case that Spock might have chosen to be Logical, the solution to the situation was to be emotional. Never once did it seem like being Vulcan was a good thing or a preferable thing. * Why did Uhura act the way she did towards Spock, seemingly out of the blue? We never see it established that they are in a relationship, but she leaves her post to go comfort him like her job is unimportant. * For that matter, whats wrong with the Captain's chair? People were fleeing it and turning over command to whomever on a regular basis. It seemed like people couldn't get off the bridge fast enough. * If they jumped from the shuttle into the atmosphere, what propelled them there? They were outside the atmosphere when they left the shuttle by appearances. When they did hit atmosphere, why didn't they burn up? At the angle they were coming in at (right angles to the surface) they would have bounced in any case of course. Why when the finally reach the drillhead are they travelling a mere kilometer a second? What slowed them down? Oh, when you use one of those parachutes it has an automatic retrieval button that pulls it back into the backpack (without a need for repacking one assumes, must make the Jumpmasters nervous). We see this with Kirk's parachute. However Sulu has to cut his away because he lands on his back and cannot roll over I presume. Why doesn't it have an automatic release? Where is the backup chute? * Sulu says he is interested in "Fencing", but they gave him some sort of folding oriental martial arts sabre instead. Do they not know the difference? * The whole mention of the fact that we can't teleport between moving objects seems rather silly when absolutely everything is moving all the time even if it seems to be stationary. They could have come up with something better I think. As well in the early series, McCoy didn't like the Teleporter because it was new-fangled and he didn't trust it. In the new movie it seems to work just fine and the matter was never brought up, this missed out on being able to show how McCoy prefers old fashioned things (and thus establishing him as a So
I have to admit having used MS Windows in various guises, Linux in various flavours and Mac OS/X currently, OS/X is *everything* I want in an OS. I don't ever expect to leave Mac systems while this OS is as good as it is. I adapted to it more or less intuitively and enjoy the experience immensely mostly because it doesn't get in my way the way Windows (BSOD or something just failing unexpectedly and requiring hours to debug or a complete reinstall etc) or Linux (works wonderfully until something changes, then it takes hours to figure out what and fix it, or doesn't recognize some hardware at all and nothing I can do will change that).
My days of screwing around installing hardware and some version of windows or linux are over. I now want my OS to install, work right the first time and then get the fuck out of the way while I use *other* programs to achieve something. I don't need anything much from my OS other than reliability, I will get the tools I need. However OS/X has tools to handle most of the things I would want to do and so I don't have to bother. Most Linux installations I have checked out in the past had a Win-95 style Start button and menu, most of which was broken links. Now I know Ubuntu fixed that and I really like Ubuntu but its still not on a par with OS/X.
Its not that I am transformed into some kind of Apple fanboi, its that I have now tried out their hardware and OS and recognize quality when I see it. When I want to play games I use bootcamp and a copy of Windows XP - but I no longer do anything serious on the Windows side. It honestly feels like a "toy" operating system.
To speak to the actual subject, I think Linux developers need to look more to OS/X for something to emulate instead of Windows. If a user is likely to consider switching to Linux because they are sick of problems with Windows, they will only do so if they can continue to use the software that in many cases they feel they *must* use to continue to operate their business or in their professional career. Many times there is an OS/X version of the same software, can the Linux folks not try to emulate that instead of just settling for emulating Windows?
The apparent attractiveness of substandard quality generally sexist drawings just doesn't do it for me, and I can't honestly see what people like about this style of comics. Its not that they are comics, because overall I like a good graphic novel etc, but the actual style of the drawings which is just plain unappealing. I don't know anyone in real life with eyeballs the size of a tennis ball, who always flashes her panties at me and has a completely pointed chin, nor why anyone would want to see that again and again. Every Manga character seems to look like every other one essentially.
I am sure almost no one is using Windows in any variety because they love Windows itself, they use Windows because they don't have any other fucking choice (as far as they are concerned). The typical user probably doesn't even know what OS they are using, and would be unable to name another one. Windows came on their computer, and they use it because they assume all computers use windows. Witness the stunned expression on people's faces when they see Mac OS/X for the first time.
The typical windows user wants their OS to let them run the programs they want. If they are a professional that means MS Office, if they are a gamer that means their games, the OS is merely a necessary evil that gets in the way, and nothing more than that. I doubt most users give it much of a thought
That said, why would anyone want to buy a NEW OS for $150-$300 when what they have is still working? Why would any business want to spend $10,000 - $100,000 on new seat licenses when what they have is still working?
Previous versions of Windows were shitty enough everyone could see the point in upgrading to something that remotely approached stability, but XP more or less achieved that goal. Now the only way most people get Vista is because it came with their computer. Even then a lot of people want XP instead and will pay for that option because they have learned that Vista has a shitty rep. Thats pretty amazing when you think about it because the average user is amazingly ignorant about their computer. My mother in law constantly refers to her desktop case as "The Hard Drive" - because that's the one term that sunk in. She is anything but a stupid woman, and I think its just that overall the details on her computer matter to her about as much as whether or not her TV remote can mute the sound. Its just one more appliance she uses to cruise the net and look for stuff about knitting
This is a very smart move on MS part I think, the only thing smarter would be for them to just give Windows 7 away period, at least a fully capable home version. Don't bother selling it at all. Everyone who wants to can run it, everyone thus continues to support all those companies who produce windows software and thus stay hooked to the same crack. MS Office can continue to generate the income that MS wants. Whats the incentive for the typical user to switch to Linux if they can get the full home version of Windows 7 for free as well?
Its not like MS needs the additional income, they could probably give away all of their software for a decade before they started running low on cash
Slashdot Mirror
This. I don't honestly understand how anyone can vote for Harper. I wouldn't buy a used car from the man.
Some people up here speak Quebecois, which is a dialect of French. Many of us do not however, I barely speak a word of it. No intelligent Canadian would want to move to the US though, so you don't need to worry much. You couldn't pay me to live down there to be honest.
Well you know, from my perspective up here being more "Liberal" is a *GOOD THING* not a bad thing. Liberal seems to be a swearword down there in the US, whereas up here its the name of one of our political parties, and has no negative connotations whatsoever, unless you are a very conservative Conservative. Again from my perspective up here (no doubt distorted by the media and cultural differences), the US seems extremely Right-Wing on average (even your Liberals would be seen as Conservatives up here in many cases), extremely violent (how many people do you know who own a gun? I know my uncle has a rifle for use on the farm, and I had one when I was a kid. I have a friend who owns one for safety and one who owned one for use as protection against bears out in the woods, but other than that I know hundreds of other Canadians who to the best of my knowledge do not own one. Every American I meet seems to take it for granted that a house would have one), extremely nationalistic (to the point of viewing non-americans as some kind of subhuman species, deserving of scorn), and extremely ignorant of anything outside of the continental US.
I am not sure how much better we Canadians are on some of those scores but I would like to think we are less extreme in every measure.
However this law *has* to fail, I can't ever see it going into effect, although as a long term /.er I haven't RTFA yet :P
If you create an agency whose express purpose is monitor for suspect conversations, its only natural that they are going to try to ensure they monitor as much traffic as possible. In the case of the NSA, I am sure they can just tell a phone provider like AT&T we are going to filter your traffic, don't tell anyone or you go to jail. They have absolute undefined power as long as they are not monitored.
Qui Custodes Ipsos Custodes?
Because the laws are written by the Corporations (through the politicians they own) for the Corporations. I suspect that much of the time so-called Western Democracies (and as a Canadian I include Canada in this) are nothing more than Corporatocracies (to coin a word since I can't think of a better one) with the *facade* of elections and political parties. From what I can see, its a rare day the Government doesn't bend over backwards to help large corporations and ignore the citizens.
produces 0 results :P
being an asshole to other players. Something about playing PvP seems to bring out the desire to be an anonymous fuckwad towards other people. Probably because there are no consequences, and partially because it grants the illusion of power to the PvPer, even if it is only the power to annoy.
Its a shame too, because I have enjoyed PvP in the past in games where at least some people had a sense of sportsmanship (early DAOC for instance), but that sort of player seems to have disappeared, buried in the mass of total asshats that the hobby throws up like so much putrid trash.
I no longer PvP in any game because I just don't want to be bothered spending my time associating with people whom if I met them in real life and they talked and acted the way they do to me in game, I most likely would kick them in the nuts repeatedly.
It is possible to PvP and not grief, it is possible to PvP and if you win, not Tbag or asshat your enemy, it is possible to lose without whining. If you join a PvP server you know you are facing the worst of online humanity, you can expect conduct that wouldn't be tolerated in grade school by people who don't seem to have passed grade school. At best they are a loathesome pile of shit, obscuring the few decent players I have met and in a lot of cases they aren't even very good.
I think the answer is to stop PvPing. Fuck those guys, if they can't play nice, don't play. Its a waste of time. I enjoy other aspects of games quite happily and always have. I just gave up on PvPing because the quality of people I had to associate with wasn't worth the bother. Plus the gameplay gets kind of stagnant eventually as well.
Queue the PvPers responding to diss me and call me a carebear etc.
and thought we had a new unit of measure :P
Me: Ready to go honey?
Her: Yes, just a second...
(20 min pause until we actually leave)
Crowley believed in the Magickal practices he pursued, but the philosophy behind it and the esoteric reasoning involved is far beyond cryptic. Of course it makes no sense to anyone who doesn't really understand it all, but Crowley took a perverse pleasure in deliberate misleading people in his writings - because anyone he would respect would clearly see the deliberate errors, and the rest he considered fools. He despised fools.
Although his practices were an admixture of a variety of different religious traditions and beliefs, they are essentially Kabalistic in nature. He was a very deep cove overall. Batty as hell mind you, but very very intelligent. Strangely enough he was also a champion mountain-climber :P
D&D has lost the R part of RPG with the latest iteration. I have to say, having tried it on multiple occasions, its awful. Thre are so many better games, and better systems (my favourite mechanics have got to be Pendragon I think).
The US has a long history of those agencies working at cross purposes to protect or expand their "turf", why should it stop now?
The primary purpose of the US Government and the US Military is to protect the economic interests of major US companies, each according to their campaign contributions. History is littered with examples of the US Government sending in the troops to ensure some local National Government didn't attempt to take over US commercial interests, or the CIA to overthrow a Government (legally elected or otherwise) that might disagree with US Corporate interests. I will likely get modified Troll and Flamebait but its not far off the truth IMHO.
After quickly checking Wikipedia:
* First off its apparently 251,388,301 English speakers in the US not 300 million.
* Secondly, the rest of the English language speakers that Wikipedia lists, total over 321 million, and that of course doesn't include those people who have it as a second language outside of those countries that are listed, although it is including those who have English as a Second and Third language.
* I don't think its safe to assume that the majority of Engish speakers live in the US and thus use the malformed US spelling for words such as "colour". Its just a spelling reform pushed on US English speakers thats been adopted by some portion of the world's speakers. It is not superior or in any way more logical really.
That said I do expect that the web will be the tool that ends up encouraging the rest of the world to spell using the US spellings, simply because the US dominates the web and because it has such a forceful cultural presence world wide.
Up here in Canada we seem to use a mix of both systems of Spelling, although I bet most Canadians think they are using British Spelling and view that as correct. In fact at least with my own spelling I spell some things the British Way and others the American way. I consider the British spellings and the Oxford English Dictionary to be the final arbiters of all issues concerning spelling for me personally. I am aware of the inconsistencies for the most part, but spelling the word "airplane" as "aeroplane" just looks as wrong to me as spelling "colour" as "color" would, or "theatre" as "theater".
I am glad to see the city where I was born is leading the rest of Canada in adopting support for open standards. Hopefully this is a foot in the door that prompts the rest of Canada to follow suit.
Vancouver, and British Columbia in general has always had a very strong Linux community. Victoria (the provincial Capital) has always had a fairly strong LUG going for as long as I can remember.
I use tables for layout pretty much every day in the projects I am working on. While CSS is capable of doing everything and provides better control, its more finicky, is not as well supported across browsers - and in this specific case I am working on a legacy system that uses tables extensively.
Sure there are undoubtedly good reasons for using CSS versus standard tables for layout, but quite frankly it is so much easier to use tables and the results are so much more consistent, provided you know what you are doing that for me at least, CSS has only been something I use occasionally, more for consistencies sake than anything else.
You may like absolute positioning and all that, I am quite comfortable in tables and can usually visualize even a complex layout entirely in my head when its tables. To each their own.
When IE finally dies an unlamented death, and that abortion of a browser doesn't have to be supported any longer then I will likely switch to all CSS all the time, but in the meantime I will bide my time.
I loved a huge sandbox world where I was able to become a crafter, create items and dominate the economy. It took a lot of thought and planning and a lot of effort in game to gain a top notch reputation as a crafter and adjust to the changing needs of the economy. I had a fantastic time learning how the system worked and how I could rise to the top in it. Along the way I established 2 guilds, taught a lot of people how to play the game, and built 2 player-created cities.
It was such a shame they kept screwing with the mechanics in an attempt to improve it and a long the way killed off the economy. The original designer and developers were brilliant and ambitious, the replacement developers were dull and really didn't get the game.
Yes, they botched the IP with the most potential of all, and I am amazed that they did such an abysmal job of it. At every stage they showed they really didn't get it and it ruined the game.
You may see it as a game with nothing to do - and I agree it had a horrible combat system and they completely failed to inject any sense of the Galactic Civil War into the game which was their key mistake - but there were things to do, its just that they were player created rather than scripted events with zero imagination like every other MMO out there that relies on simplistic quests as their only means towards providing player content. Quests are for the stupid people who lack the imagination to see themselves as part of the world. Same thing with classes I think.
The original game was class-free, relatively quest free (they existed but you could easily ignore them and I did), and relied on the players to generate the interesting stuff, and it worked at least for me. What sucked was the poorly conceived combat system, the whole mysterious jedi unlocking system which turned out to be really stupid when it came to light, and the lack of the GCW in its entirety. The game had the best character design system hands down of any game before or since.
There were tons of SWG players who were completely content to play the game without ever becoming a Jedi. I know I was one of them, and throughout most of my time in the game I was a crafter of one sort or another.
I admit many players were shallow and only wanted to play the uber-combat class *because it was uber* so they could win duels all the time etc, but don't paint all of the rest of us with the same brush.
SWG was an incredible game design originally - IMHO far better and more ambitious than anything I have seen today - and it got steadily shittier with each iteration because the players and the new developers they brought in *didn't get it* I think. They kept chasing after getting Jedi implemented properly and they kept botching it, and all the time the game became steadily less sandboxy.
I can't say I ever had any real desire to become a Jedi, although shortly before the NGE I did start the process of grinding the exps for it.
I have played a lot of MMOs: EQ, DAOC, WOW, LOTRO, Shadowbane, SWG, COx, Vanguard, PoTBS (and probably more) and the most memorable features for me are:
* RvR in DAOC - never been beat by anything since, and WAR doesn't even come all that close.
* SWG - Player based economy and a fantastic crafting system, PoTBS came close but still had a long way to go.
* COx - Combat mechanics and enjoyable fights. City of Heroes has the best combat system ever I think. The game is niche but fantastic in its niche.
Where is this mythical well-educated populace? The average person seems to be deeply ignorant, uninterested in anything remotely political most of the time, and regularly falls for the outright lies made by many politicians when they are trying to get elected, but isn't motivated enough to call them on it after they win and fail to follow through.
The average person is incredibly stupid and uneducated. Quite frankly, any system that relies on ignorant, uneducated people electing politicians based on their understanding of issues is highly suspect. Sadly, its the best system we have :P
Well this guy defected right? I imagine its better from his point of view to increase his apparent knowledge by feeding Authorities in the US exactly what they want to hear, and puff up his own importance. Its entirely possible he had little to trade when defecting, but since the Soviets were the great unknown its probably easy for him to bullshit his way into establishing a massive plan that only he knows the details on.
Intelligence is always a case of weighing the information from a source like this and comparing it to other facts to reach a conclusion.
Of course we are all products of massive Soviet disinformation and demoralization, so our conclusions are naturally questionable. I guess I am only saying I think this guy is full of it, because I am a product of the education system in the 70's and 80's, otherwise I would be able to reach a logical conclusion :P
Precisely. Although I have enjoyed some RP in some games immensely, its usually the exception, and many players who want to RP fail dismally at it (IMHO, YMMV). I like to RP from time to time and can enjoy playing my character, in character with another player who understands how to do so effectively. Many however are obviously new to things and try too hard which can be grating at times.
However, as a means to filter out the fuckwads, choosing an RP server is a great tool. Playing on Percival (and the other RP servers) in Dark Age of Camelot was quite enjoyable for me, for a few reasons:
First, the naming restrictions prevented me from being distracted by people with names like "Monosodium Glutamate" (someone I met on an non-RP server who told me he picked his name off the ingredients for the bag of chips he was eating when he signed up). I enjoyed seeing names which suited the culture and interacting with people who mostly talked in character. For those who didn't want to do so, there were plenty of non-RP servers.
Secondly, RP servers tend to attract a slightly more mature audience within my experience. As a result we had a few less asshats generally speaking. Nothing will outright prevent asshattery, but anything that helps is welcome.As well the quality of gameplay was enhanced when it came to Strategic PvP (by that I mean the strategic level of planning that guided armies on raids of other realms etc. It got quite involved in DAOC, with hidden websites, raids planned 2 weeks in advance with specific orders to task force leaders and people planning and scheduling the departure times for various forces etc). I am sure that took place elsewhere of course, but Percival was widely regarded as having some of the best RvR in the game.
RP has to be the reward for good RP. Offering in game rewards means you are encouraging people who don't *want* to RP to do so for the perceived benefits, thats only going to breed frustration.
Usually the biggest discouragement from RP is the nature of the game design itself. The best game for RP that I have played so far was the original Star Wars MMO. Why? Because it was a sandbox world where everything was completely wide open. I am currently playing LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) and while at first glance it would seem perfect for RP, the mechanics of the game which are heavily focused on doing fixed quests, means that RP is at best confusing and generally discouraged by the system (ie, in a game where the LOTR story is unfolding and based on your progress through the game only characters who are roughly the same level and have completed the same quests are literally in the same time period. How can I roleplay about seeing evidence that the Fellowship of the Ring has passed through Moria and Lothlorien, when from your point of view you just met them in Rivendell 30s ago?).
Unlike most good Trek, this one seemed to lack a vision or theme. Its just an action film, although as an action film its fun.
It did however have some major holes in the plot I think. Things that are just illogical to my thinking:
* Why was THE ENTIRE FEDERATION FLEET off in some too far distant sector, leaving Earth (and the rest of the Federation come to think of it) completely unprotected? If it was that urgent a situation, why did they leave 1 state of the art and 6 seemingly reliable ships behind? Why did those ships have no crews? Does no one in the entirety of Starfleet understand what a reserve is? Were there absolutely no Starfleet people left on earth outside of the Academy? /v/ sound and they don't replace it with a /w/ sound. They might do that in Polish, but not Russian.
* If the situation was that urgent that we had to strip the entire federation and all of starfleet to go to the Laurentian Sector (or whatever it is), why didn't they take the Academy personnel as well? Why didn't we see that story instead of the one we did, it sounds like it must be quite a fight?
* After three years training, apparently Ensigns are capable of taking over all operations of an unfamiliar starship including command roles they are untrained in, even though their training was being interrupted. Why bother with a rank structure, obviously the things are easy to learn to use.
* Why did they have to make Chekov into another Wesley Crusher type? Wasn't the first time, one time too many?
* If they are busy changing canon so severely, why did they leave Chekov with the rediculous Russian accent that they had in the first series. Russian has a
* The ship is hypermodern. Why did Chekov have to run down to Engineering to fiddle with the transporter? For that matter why didn't he take the elevator which in canon is perfectly capable of getting him there.
* Why was it that in every case that Spock might have chosen to be Logical, the solution to the situation was to be emotional. Never once did it seem like being Vulcan was a good thing or a preferable thing.
* Why did Uhura act the way she did towards Spock, seemingly out of the blue? We never see it established that they are in a relationship, but she leaves her post to go comfort him like her job is unimportant.
* For that matter, whats wrong with the Captain's chair? People were fleeing it and turning over command to whomever on a regular basis. It seemed like people couldn't get off the bridge fast enough.
* If they jumped from the shuttle into the atmosphere, what propelled them there? They were outside the atmosphere when they left the shuttle by appearances. When they did hit atmosphere, why didn't they burn up? At the angle they were coming in at (right angles to the surface) they would have bounced in any case of course. Why when the finally reach the drillhead are they travelling a mere kilometer a second? What slowed them down? Oh, when you use one of those parachutes it has an automatic retrieval button that pulls it back into the backpack (without a need for repacking one assumes, must make the Jumpmasters nervous). We see this with Kirk's parachute. However Sulu has to cut his away because he lands on his back and cannot roll over I presume. Why doesn't it have an automatic release? Where is the backup chute?
* Sulu says he is interested in "Fencing", but they gave him some sort of folding oriental martial arts sabre instead. Do they not know the difference?
* The whole mention of the fact that we can't teleport between moving objects seems rather silly when absolutely everything is moving all the time even if it seems to be stationary. They could have come up with something better I think. As well in the early series, McCoy didn't like the Teleporter because it was new-fangled and he didn't trust it. In the new movie it seems to work just fine and the matter was never brought up, this missed out on being able to show how McCoy prefers old fashioned things (and thus establishing him as a So
I meet your ninjas and your pirates and raise you Lumberjack Commandos:
I have to admit having used MS Windows in various guises, Linux in various flavours and Mac OS/X currently, OS/X is *everything* I want in an OS. I don't ever expect to leave Mac systems while this OS is as good as it is. I adapted to it more or less intuitively and enjoy the experience immensely mostly because it doesn't get in my way the way Windows (BSOD or something just failing unexpectedly and requiring hours to debug or a complete reinstall etc) or Linux (works wonderfully until something changes, then it takes hours to figure out what and fix it, or doesn't recognize some hardware at all and nothing I can do will change that).
My days of screwing around installing hardware and some version of windows or linux are over. I now want my OS to install, work right the first time and then get the fuck out of the way while I use *other* programs to achieve something. I don't need anything much from my OS other than reliability, I will get the tools I need. However OS/X has tools to handle most of the things I would want to do and so I don't have to bother. Most Linux installations I have checked out in the past had a Win-95 style Start button and menu, most of which was broken links. Now I know Ubuntu fixed that and I really like Ubuntu but its still not on a par with OS/X.
Its not that I am transformed into some kind of Apple fanboi, its that I have now tried out their hardware and OS and recognize quality when I see it. When I want to play games I use bootcamp and a copy of Windows XP - but I no longer do anything serious on the Windows side. It honestly feels like a "toy" operating system.
To speak to the actual subject, I think Linux developers need to look more to OS/X for something to emulate instead of Windows. If a user is likely to consider switching to Linux because they are sick of problems with Windows, they will only do so if they can continue to use the software that in many cases they feel they *must* use to continue to operate their business or in their professional career. Many times there is an OS/X version of the same software, can the Linux folks not try to emulate that instead of just settling for emulating Windows?
The apparent attractiveness of substandard quality generally sexist drawings just doesn't do it for me, and I can't honestly see what people like about this style of comics. Its not that they are comics, because overall I like a good graphic novel etc, but the actual style of the drawings which is just plain unappealing. I don't know anyone in real life with eyeballs the size of a tennis ball, who always flashes her panties at me and has a completely pointed chin, nor why anyone would want to see that again and again. Every Manga character seems to look like every other one essentially.
I am sure almost no one is using Windows in any variety because they love Windows itself, they use Windows because they don't have any other fucking choice (as far as they are concerned). The typical user probably doesn't even know what OS they are using, and would be unable to name another one. Windows came on their computer, and they use it because they assume all computers use windows. Witness the stunned expression on people's faces when they see Mac OS/X for the first time.
The typical windows user wants their OS to let them run the programs they want. If they are a professional that means MS Office, if they are a gamer that means their games, the OS is merely a necessary evil that gets in the way, and nothing more than that. I doubt most users give it much of a thought
That said, why would anyone want to buy a NEW OS for $150-$300 when what they have is still working? Why would any business want to spend $10,000 - $100,000 on new seat licenses when what they have is still working?
Previous versions of Windows were shitty enough everyone could see the point in upgrading to something that remotely approached stability, but XP more or less achieved that goal. Now the only way most people get Vista is because it came with their computer. Even then a lot of people want XP instead and will pay for that option because they have learned that Vista has a shitty rep. Thats pretty amazing when you think about it because the average user is amazingly ignorant about their computer. My mother in law constantly refers to her desktop case as "The Hard Drive" - because that's the one term that sunk in. She is anything but a stupid woman, and I think its just that overall the details on her computer matter to her about as much as whether or not her TV remote can mute the sound. Its just one more appliance she uses to cruise the net and look for stuff about knitting
This is a very smart move on MS part I think, the only thing smarter would be for them to just give Windows 7 away period, at least a fully capable home version. Don't bother selling it at all. Everyone who wants to can run it, everyone thus continues to support all those companies who produce windows software and thus stay hooked to the same crack. MS Office can continue to generate the income that MS wants. Whats the incentive for the typical user to switch to Linux if they can get the full home version of Windows 7 for free as well?
Its not like MS needs the additional income, they could probably give away all of their software for a decade before they started running low on cash