...you can fit more weight and energy into a physically smaller and stronger round.
True. However, what really makes depleted uranium munitions exceptional for inflicting damage against hardened targets is that they "flare" on contact, so you essentially have an incendiary armor-piercing round, such as the PGU-14B 30mm round fired by the 19-foot-long GAU-8A Avenger autocannon nested within the fuselage the U.S. Army's A-10 Thunderbolt II (commonly called by the nickname "Warthog"). I've seen archival test footage of the GAU-8 Avenger ripping apart a test target (typically one of the old retired M-60 tanks), and it's pretty impressive that "an oversized machinegun" can rip apart a fully armored tank*.
*Note: Said tank had only conventional steel armor, not the ablative variety, but still...
According to Wikipedia, they aren't common carriers.
Using Wikipedia as your sole authoratative source? I was about to ask if you're new here, but then I noticed your CID... really, someone with your longevity at/. ought to know better.:)
However, you're still correct. The telcos are not "common carriers".
...if it does happen that often - e.g., you live in California or some third-world country with an unreliable power grid...
Central Pennsylvania may not qualify as a "third-world country", but I guess in some respects it's close.:)
In the small town where I live, we only have maybe 2 or 3 "sustained" blackouts a year. By that I mean more than a few seconds, typically minutes our hours. But far more common (about twice a month) is the power "blink", where some idiot drunk driver hits a pole a few miles away, and the power blinks for less than a second, just long enough for an alternate route to kick in... and for my desktop PC to shut down quite instantaneously.
I've always wanted a laptop, mostly for the convenience of portability, but when you're in a low-income bracket, you learn to make due. UPS? Not worth it, for me personally -- the time-honored practice of "save early, save often" has saved my butt many times when [digitally] painting or writing code. So far I've never had a hardware failure due to power outage, but given the anecdotal stories of others, I suspect that maybe I'm just really, really lucky...
Back on topic, does anyone know if the Sting 917 takes standard, off-the-shelf video cards? The site mentions that the "video card" can be changed, but doesn't seem to elaborate further...
...if he keeps this up, ScuttleMonkey will soon have to build a site like this one. Though given his track record so far, it'll probably just link back to Beatles-Beatles' site.
I'm just wondering who's kneeling under whose desk...?
A good example is "Alt" tags. These are crucial for displaying your page in a text only browser such as links, e-links, lynx, etc...
Unless, of course, someone is an artist who just wants his work to be seen and enjoyed by others (or a photographer, or a fledgling game designer, etc.). Suddenly, text-only browsers don't seem so relevent -- a flowery description inside an Alt tag just ain't the same.
Mind you, I'm not saying text-only browsers have no use (of course they do!), just that they have very limited use, and I certainly wouldn't recommend them as the only browser a person ever uses (ie. great for mobile devices, lousy for regular use). Without a decent graphics-capable browser, there's really a lot to miss on the Internet, unless you're only doing research.
Having said that, I really can't see how it's all that critical to get noticed for browsers that have only the tiniest portion of the market.
Note: Not looking for a flame war, just my two cents, YMMV, rebuttals welcome. Thanks.
If they wouldn't pirate Photoshop, they would use GIMP, and complain about missing features, some of them would start scratching the itch and bringing GIMP on par with Photoshop...
You're assuming that most users of Photoshop have the coding skills necessary to make useful contributions to FOSS apps like GIMP, which is simply not the case. Remember, in this particular example you're talking about artists, not programmers. Most graphic artists I know wouldn't know how to write code if their life depended on it, but that's ok -- writing code is not what they do. They're artists, not programmers.
Now, to zoom out a bit more and look at the broader picture, the vast majority of PC users dont' know the first thing about programming. Whether you're talking about "regular folks" like my sister, who just wants to be able to email, surf the web, and download music (that's a different rant, let's not get off-topic), or professionals who do graphic design, web-site design, etc., keep in mind that most of them are not programmers. They want tools (software) that let's them do their job, and that's pretty much it. Many of them are not the "roll your own" type, nor are they willing to -- let alone capable of -- making modifications to FOSS software that they may be using.
Programmers create software; everyone else uses software. The proportionate discrepancy between coders and users will always be larger in favor of users, and there's nothing inherantly wrong with that. You can't realistically expect every end-user to have the skills to make code-level modifications to their software, and as long as most users lack these skills, piracy will continue unabated, Photoshop will continue to be the default graphic-artistry app, and GIMP will never get its day in the sun.
Yeah, great idea. "Hey, that guy's smarter than most of us, which means he's a potential threat to society, therefore we should keep very close tabs on him even though he's done nothing wrong, we're just pretty sure he will eventually, because... well, he can."
Hey, better yet, why not just preemtively lock up anyone with a sufficiently above-average IQ? After all, they're capable of far more than the average "sheeple", certainly more so than the average police officer or federal investigator (percieved as his "natural enemies" just because he's capable of outsmarting them, nevermind whether he would actually try), and worst of all these intelligent folks tend to question established norms that should never be questioned (eg. laws, rules of behavior, patterns of thinking, etc.).
A friend of mine once made the observation that having a working brain in a society that values everything except intelligence is almost like having a real superpower. Yes, it means that smart people can do things that the majority of people can't. However, as parent so sadly illustrated, it also makes them a target, for the very same reason. The average person fears what they don't understand, and they don't understand people that possess greater mental faculties than themselves.
And before anyone flames me too harshly, bear in mind that I'm not suggesting any kind of "superiority" of intelligent people -- human nature and failing knows no IQ score. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of fearing someone, of suspecting them to be of greater criminal inclination, than those of average (or lower) intellect. To associate one's predisposition to commit crime or harm others as being directly proportionate to intellectual capacity a "because they're smart enough to get away with it" is beyond asinine.
Re:Education decaying into retold legends of glory
on
Why We Fight
·
· Score: 1
For the love of all that is sane and rational, someone please throw parent a mod point.
So many people involved in these discussions about games and violence seem to forget the whole underlying point of our modern societies: That we, as individuals, are responsible for our own actions. Nobody else is. That's why we have laws against theft, murder, etc. If I willfully kill someone, I am responsible for that person's death, therefore it is I who face the penalty for that action.
It is never too early to teach kids to take responsibility for their actions. I don't mean using harsh punishments at an early age, I'm talking about actually teaching them. Sit down with them and explain why it's wrong to commit harmful acts against others, about showing the same respect that they'd want in return, and not being a hypocrit (ie. I can do it to you but you can't do it to me). If you do this right, and reinforce responsible behavior as they grow, they'll understand with crystal clarity that when they play a violent game, it's fantasy, not reality, and it's not OK to do to real people what they're doing in the game.
That's how I was raised, and to this day I'll take any reasonable measure to avoid a pointless and unnecessary brawl (bars are often a great place to find these). Don't get me wrong, I'll certainly defend myself or someone else, and I won't run away, but I'll usually try to defuse the situation diplomatically before it gets that far.
And I have absolutely no trouble at all reconciling this with my love of wargames and violent RPGs, where the in-game rewards come from killing the enemy. How? Because I know it's just a game. It's fantasy. Hell, I'd say it's even cathartic -- better to kill a bunch of polygons and pixels than to beat the shit out of a rude customer at the store where I work.
If video games -- or comics, or movies, or cartoons, or whatever -- push someone over the edge where they start killing others, then that person had a deep-rooted psychological problem long before they ever picked up a gamepad or clicked a mouse to kill a virtual enemy. All they needed was a catalyst. Blame the person who did the mindless killing in real life, not the catalyst that his/her fractured mind couldn't digest properly.
God created whiskey to keep the Irish from taking over the world.
Aye, 'cause then we'd turn the whole bleedin' planet into one giant drunken bar fight. And then we'd sing the praises of our unconscious opponents afterward.
Guess now we know where Roddenberry got the idea for Klingons.
Windows users want little risk, and find little reward in knowing how their tools work.
Thank you for that oh-so-blatent generalization. Where to begin...
First, I'd like to preface this reply with two statements:
1.) Yes, I'm a long-time Windows user.
2.) No, I'm not a Microsoft apologist.
3.) Yes, I've dabbled with other operating systems (esp. Linux).
Having said that...
From my vantage point as an lifelong artist and as a fledgling game programmer, MS has been both a blessing and a curse, for me personally anyway. Here's the thing: At this point in time, all the most powerful apps that are available to me, which are needed in both my fields, are Windows applications (eg. 3D rendering, 2D painting, Visual Studio for my programming, etc.). (Note: Not looking for a flamewar on which apps are best, 'cause really that's a matter of personal preference and I say 'to each his own' in that respect.)
Here's another thing: The reason I'm a long-time Windows user is, quite simply, I'm accustomed to Windows. Yes, it has many flaws -- believe me, I'm painfully familiar with those (occasional BSOD, etc.). BUT it also has many advantages: A great many applications are available for Windows, far more so than for any other OS in the world. Sad, but true. Also, over the years I've become quite comfortable "hacking" Windows' various subsystems to suit my needs (registry, 3rd-party DLL replacements, etc.). I'd argue that such hacks are very much on the same level as the various Linux customizations, the only difference being a question of legality (a debate for another thread).
Yes, I'm aware that there are many FOSS alternatives out there, but so far none have met my own specific demands. Your mileage may, of course, vary. That's the great thing about our current age, everyone has a huge variety of choices available and they should be able to find a suite of OS+software to meet their specific demands. I certainly won't put someone down for using Linux, I think it's a wonderful idea, as long as you can find OSS apps that meet your particular demands. In that case, I say to each his own.
All I ask is the same non-judgmental courtesy in return. Just because someone uses Windows or Mac OS on a routine basis instead of Linux or any other F/OSS alternative, doesn't mean they can't comprehend the inherance advantages of an open-source OS, it simply means they have different priorities in what they need from the apps available to them. Not better, not worse, just different. Again, 'to each his own'.
Ok, I'll admit I usually tend more toward the military-conquest type of strategy gaming, but man, what you're doing sounds like it'll be a blast to play! Got a website yet? If not... why?? Even if you have nothing to show yet, you could at least place a "coming soon" message there, maybe with a condensed description like your post above, to generate interest ahead of release.
Anyway, I can't wait to play it. Sounds awesome.:)
There's a huge difference between "unenforceable" and "OK". Nobody in this subthread has said that it's OK.
Fine, I'll say it. It should be perfectly OK, ie. 100% legal and entirely without repurcussion whatsoever even upon discovery, for a private person to do whatever the hell they want to their own computer, so long as they're not actually hurting anyone, either physically or economically.
I say let the players elect/promote rank in the game. Make it democratic. Like clans or guilds.
Now THAT is an interesting idea. Treat a starship crew like a clan/guild, and let the captain naturally rise from the ranks, like the leader of a guild. As long as the trappings are kept Trek-like, that could be a very cool game mechanic.
As for the issue of many players not wanting to be anything other than captain, I think that it's up to the game designers to make sure that the other "classes" are very interesting and appealing in their own right. In fact, if you make them interesting enough ("one of your famed Star Fleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" --DS9), you'll likely have many players who want to be anything BUT captain, because the other stuff is just much more interesting. Remember, on the bridge of a Star Fleet vessel, all the captain does really is bark orders... it's up to everyone else around him to carry out those orders, and to do so with great skill. In ship-to-ship battle, the captain will of course have to possess good tactical prowess, but if you recall all the times that one of the crew pulled a rabit out of a hat (especially the tactical/weapons officer, and the chief engineer), gaining experience and prestige together as a whole and not separately, I highly doubt the captain will steal all the glory. It'll be a shared experience among the crew (players), and THAT is the heart of what could make a game like this truly exceptional.
Man, I really hope they don't drop the ball on this one, 'cause the potential for an extraordinary MMO experience here is amazing...
Personally I consider any form of documentary-looking propaganda the most dangerous medium possible [...] Which would you rather hand your children, Grand Theft Auto or Mein Kampf?
By damn I wish I had a mod point for you. Well said.
ultranova, any more info available on your turn-based fantasy game? I'm always curious about what other indy game devs are coming up with, these tend to be much more free-form than any of the bland Generic First-Person Shooter 6: Extreme Bumpmap Edition we seem to see everywhere.
I too and developing a game in my spare time, a classic-style arcade shooter, leveraging my personal experience as an artist helps with the graphics though. Nothing revolutionary, just a fun, simple kill-everything-and-try-not-to-die game like the type I enjoyed in the arcades 20 years ago. It is also designed from the outset to be very mod-friendly -- all data for levels, terrain, weapons, etc. is stored in plain text files, textures are simple bitmaps, sounds are easily-edited/replaced wave files, and so on.
Sure, the industry may die and be reborn every now and then, but there will always be gamers/game makers like us to carry on the tradition. At its heart, video gaming is and always will be a hobby, something to be built and enjoyed by those who love the passtime, like those who spend years rebuilding classic cars in their garages and take 'em for a spin when they're done just for the sheer joy of it. The fact that a bunch of business-types have managed to turn it into a "grey corporate parking lot" so they can make a buck doesn't diminish the hobby as a whole, it just means you gotta search harder to find good games.
And as for people like you and I and other indy game devs out there who create games for the sheer enjoyment of it, to paraphrase the Firefly theme, they can't take the sky from us.
That was one of the most rational, balanced, and well-reasoned posts I've seen in this thread, and it was modded Flamebait.
Y'know, posts like the parent up there are exactly the kind of debating we need more of here. There was no name-calling, no berating, no insults. Just a reasoned argument. If ya don't agree with it, that's fine, but it's not the job of modders to bury opinions they don't like -- that's actually very poor modding, and should be condemned.
I'd call out whoever did that but I'm sure they don't have the stones to show themselves. Hey mods -- all you reasonable ones anyway -- throw the parent a bone here, eh?
Ok, back on topic. I live in a rural central-Pennsylvania area, and here we seem to go from one extreme to the other: We're low on water one day, then uh-oh it's raining, crap now we have flooding! Drought! Flood! Drought! It gets a little ridiculous sometimes, really. But, I rarely here anyone complaining, in any kind of long-term fashion, that there's not enough water here. Overall it seems to balance out pretty well here, in spite of people on one side or the other panicking a bit too quickly. Granted I have little technical knowledge on the subject, but I've yet to see any local laws or ordinances passed that require the rationing of water.
Again, I can speak only from the experience of my local area, YMMV.
You can't even buy the things anymore, not since 1992. 1.6 gpf toilets are now standard everywhere in the US.
Sorry, but that's not quite true. In my apartment, my landlord just replaced the old 5.0 GPF toilet with a brand-new 2.5 GPF model about four months ago (cuz he pays the water, so it was of course in his interest to down-size).
Oh, and since my landlord is a renown cheapskate (nice guy, but cheap), this newer toilet was, of course, not by any stretch "expensive".
Where would all this plant matter actually be located?
My first guess would be plankton. There's many times the amount of plantlife in the oceans and other bodies of water than on all of the landmasses. While much of this plantlife is rooted to the ocean floor to varying degrees, a lot of it is in the form of smaller organisms dwelling en masse near the surface, and using photosynthesis to process carbon dioxide.
At least, that's my current understanding based on a few articles I've read. Anyone with more education than myself care to elaborate on this?
Slashdot Mirror
...you can fit more weight and energy into a physically smaller and stronger round.
True. However, what really makes depleted uranium munitions exceptional for inflicting damage against hardened targets is that they "flare" on contact, so you essentially have an incendiary armor-piercing round, such as the PGU-14B 30mm round fired by the 19-foot-long GAU-8A Avenger autocannon nested within the fuselage the U.S. Army's A-10 Thunderbolt II (commonly called by the nickname "Warthog"). I've seen archival test footage of the GAU-8 Avenger ripping apart a test target (typically one of the old retired M-60 tanks), and it's pretty impressive that "an oversized machinegun" can rip apart a fully armored tank*.
*Note: Said tank had only conventional steel armor, not the ablative variety, but still...
The standard bow hunter's bow and arrow has enough force when shot properly to penetrate the walls of an armored car...
I call bullshit. Cite sources please.
Thanks.
Dear God, someone please give parent a "+1 Hell Yeah!". :)
According to Wikipedia, they aren't common carriers.
/. ought to know better. :)
Using Wikipedia as your sole authoratative source? I was about to ask if you're new here, but then I noticed your CID... really, someone with your longevity at
However, you're still correct. The telcos are not "common carriers".
...if it does happen that often - e.g., you live in California or some third-world country with an unreliable power grid...
:)
Central Pennsylvania may not qualify as a "third-world country", but I guess in some respects it's close.
In the small town where I live, we only have maybe 2 or 3 "sustained" blackouts a year. By that I mean more than a few seconds, typically minutes our hours. But far more common (about twice a month) is the power "blink", where some idiot drunk driver hits a pole a few miles away, and the power blinks for less than a second, just long enough for an alternate route to kick in... and for my desktop PC to shut down quite instantaneously.
I've always wanted a laptop, mostly for the convenience of portability, but when you're in a low-income bracket, you learn to make due. UPS? Not worth it, for me personally -- the time-honored practice of "save early, save often" has saved my butt many times when [digitally] painting or writing code. So far I've never had a hardware failure due to power outage, but given the anecdotal stories of others, I suspect that maybe I'm just really, really lucky...
Back on topic, does anyone know if the Sting 917 takes standard, off-the-shelf video cards? The site mentions that the "video card" can be changed, but doesn't seem to elaborate further...
...you can try to dehumanise the animals...
Er, kinda hard to dehumanize something that's already, well, not human, ain't it?
Interesting point. Hadn't thought of it like that...
...if he keeps this up, ScuttleMonkey will soon have to build a site like this one. Though given his track record so far, it'll probably just link back to Beatles-Beatles' site.
I'm just wondering who's kneeling under whose desk...?
Ack! Mental image! [shudder]
A good example is "Alt" tags. These are crucial for displaying your page in a text only browser such as links, e-links, lynx, etc...
Unless, of course, someone is an artist who just wants his work to be seen and enjoyed by others (or a photographer, or a fledgling game designer, etc.). Suddenly, text-only browsers don't seem so relevent -- a flowery description inside an Alt tag just ain't the same.
Mind you, I'm not saying text-only browsers have no use (of course they do!), just that they have very limited use, and I certainly wouldn't recommend them as the only browser a person ever uses (ie. great for mobile devices, lousy for regular use). Without a decent graphics-capable browser, there's really a lot to miss on the Internet, unless you're only doing research.
Having said that, I really can't see how it's all that critical to get noticed for browsers that have only the tiniest portion of the market.
Note: Not looking for a flame war, just my two cents, YMMV, rebuttals welcome. Thanks.
If they wouldn't pirate Photoshop, they would use GIMP, and complain about missing features, some of them would start scratching the itch and bringing GIMP on par with Photoshop...
You're assuming that most users of Photoshop have the coding skills necessary to make useful contributions to FOSS apps like GIMP, which is simply not the case. Remember, in this particular example you're talking about artists, not programmers. Most graphic artists I know wouldn't know how to write code if their life depended on it, but that's ok -- writing code is not what they do. They're artists, not programmers.
Now, to zoom out a bit more and look at the broader picture, the vast majority of PC users dont' know the first thing about programming. Whether you're talking about "regular folks" like my sister, who just wants to be able to email, surf the web, and download music (that's a different rant, let's not get off-topic), or professionals who do graphic design, web-site design, etc., keep in mind that most of them are not programmers. They want tools (software) that let's them do their job, and that's pretty much it. Many of them are not the "roll your own" type, nor are they willing to -- let alone capable of -- making modifications to FOSS software that they may be using.
Programmers create software; everyone else uses software. The proportionate discrepancy between coders and users will always be larger in favor of users, and there's nothing inherantly wrong with that. You can't realistically expect every end-user to have the skills to make code-level modifications to their software, and as long as most users lack these skills, piracy will continue unabated, Photoshop will continue to be the default graphic-artistry app, and GIMP will never get its day in the sun.
Sad, but true.
Touché. :)
Yeah, great idea. "Hey, that guy's smarter than most of us, which means he's a potential threat to society, therefore we should keep very close tabs on him even though he's done nothing wrong , we're just pretty sure he will eventually, because... well, he can."
Hey, better yet, why not just preemtively lock up anyone with a sufficiently above-average IQ? After all, they're capable of far more than the average "sheeple", certainly more so than the average police officer or federal investigator (percieved as his "natural enemies" just because he's capable of outsmarting them, nevermind whether he would actually try), and worst of all these intelligent folks tend to question established norms that should never be questioned (eg. laws, rules of behavior, patterns of thinking, etc.).
A friend of mine once made the observation that having a working brain in a society that values everything except intelligence is almost like having a real superpower. Yes, it means that smart people can do things that the majority of people can't. However, as parent so sadly illustrated, it also makes them a target, for the very same reason. The average person fears what they don't understand, and they don't understand people that possess greater mental faculties than themselves.
And before anyone flames me too harshly, bear in mind that I'm not suggesting any kind of "superiority" of intelligent people -- human nature and failing knows no IQ score. I'm just pointing out the absurdity of fearing someone, of suspecting them to be of greater criminal inclination, than those of average (or lower) intellect. To associate one's predisposition to commit crime or harm others as being directly proportionate to intellectual capacity a "because they're smart enough to get away with it" is beyond asinine.
For the love of all that is sane and rational, someone please throw parent a mod point.
So many people involved in these discussions about games and violence seem to forget the whole underlying point of our modern societies: That we, as individuals, are responsible for our own actions. Nobody else is. That's why we have laws against theft, murder, etc. If I willfully kill someone, I am responsible for that person's death, therefore it is I who face the penalty for that action.
It is never too early to teach kids to take responsibility for their actions. I don't mean using harsh punishments at an early age, I'm talking about actually teaching them. Sit down with them and explain why it's wrong to commit harmful acts against others, about showing the same respect that they'd want in return, and not being a hypocrit (ie. I can do it to you but you can't do it to me). If you do this right, and reinforce responsible behavior as they grow, they'll understand with crystal clarity that when they play a violent game, it's fantasy, not reality, and it's not OK to do to real people what they're doing in the game.
That's how I was raised, and to this day I'll take any reasonable measure to avoid a pointless and unnecessary brawl (bars are often a great place to find these). Don't get me wrong, I'll certainly defend myself or someone else, and I won't run away, but I'll usually try to defuse the situation diplomatically before it gets that far.
And I have absolutely no trouble at all reconciling this with my love of wargames and violent RPGs, where the in-game rewards come from killing the enemy. How? Because I know it's just a game. It's fantasy. Hell, I'd say it's even cathartic -- better to kill a bunch of polygons and pixels than to beat the shit out of a rude customer at the store where I work.
If video games -- or comics, or movies, or cartoons, or whatever -- push someone over the edge where they start killing others, then that person had a deep-rooted psychological problem long before they ever picked up a gamepad or clicked a mouse to kill a virtual enemy. All they needed was a catalyst. Blame the person who did the mindless killing in real life, not the catalyst that his/her fractured mind couldn't digest properly.
God created whiskey to keep the Irish from taking over the world.
Aye, 'cause then we'd turn the whole bleedin' planet into one giant drunken bar fight. And then we'd sing the praises of our unconscious opponents afterward.
Guess now we know where Roddenberry got the idea for Klingons.
Where's me blood wi- er, Bushmills...
Okay, scary thought: how do we _know_ men can't interbreed with other great apes? It's not like it's been tried much or something?
...damn.
Oblig. South Park: Dude, that's pretty fvcked up right there.
I mean... damn, dude.
Just...
Windows users want little risk, and find little reward in knowing how their tools work.
Thank you for that oh-so-blatent generalization. Where to begin...
First, I'd like to preface this reply with two statements:
1.) Yes, I'm a long-time Windows user.
2.) No, I'm not a Microsoft apologist.
3.) Yes, I've dabbled with other operating systems (esp. Linux).
Having said that...
From my vantage point as an lifelong artist and as a fledgling game programmer, MS has been both a blessing and a curse, for me personally anyway. Here's the thing: At this point in time, all the most powerful apps that are available to me, which are needed in both my fields, are Windows applications (eg. 3D rendering, 2D painting, Visual Studio for my programming, etc.).
(Note: Not looking for a flamewar on which apps are best, 'cause really that's a matter of personal preference and I say 'to each his own' in that respect.)
Here's another thing: The reason I'm a long-time Windows user is, quite simply, I'm accustomed to Windows. Yes, it has many flaws -- believe me, I'm painfully familiar with those (occasional BSOD, etc.). BUT it also has many advantages: A great many applications are available for Windows, far more so than for any other OS in the world. Sad, but true. Also, over the years I've become quite comfortable "hacking" Windows' various subsystems to suit my needs (registry, 3rd-party DLL replacements, etc.). I'd argue that such hacks are very much on the same level as the various Linux customizations, the only difference being a question of legality (a debate for another thread).
Yes, I'm aware that there are many FOSS alternatives out there, but so far none have met my own specific demands. Your mileage may, of course, vary. That's the great thing about our current age, everyone has a huge variety of choices available and they should be able to find a suite of OS+software to meet their specific demands. I certainly won't put someone down for using Linux, I think it's a wonderful idea, as long as you can find OSS apps that meet your particular demands. In that case, I say to each his own.
All I ask is the same non-judgmental courtesy in return. Just because someone uses Windows or Mac OS on a routine basis instead of Linux or any other F/OSS alternative, doesn't mean they can't comprehend the inherance advantages of an open-source OS, it simply means they have different priorities in what they need from the apps available to them. Not better, not worse, just different. Again, 'to each his own'.
Regards,
WeREwOLf
Ok, I'll admit I usually tend more toward the military-conquest type of strategy gaming, but man, what you're doing sounds like it'll be a blast to play! Got a website yet? If not... why?? Even if you have nothing to show yet, you could at least place a "coming soon" message there, maybe with a condensed description like your post above, to generate interest ahead of release.
:)
Anyway, I can't wait to play it. Sounds awesome.
There's a huge difference between "unenforceable" and "OK". Nobody in this subthread has said that it's OK.
Fine, I'll say it. It should be perfectly OK, ie. 100% legal and entirely without repurcussion whatsoever even upon discovery, for a private person to do whatever the hell they want to their own computer, so long as they're not actually hurting anyone, either physically or economically.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is a *.dir file, and what app do I need to view it? I assume by your post that it's a video of some kind?
:)
So far, I can't get Media Player, Quicktime, or VLC Player to figure it out...
Li'l help please!
I say let the players elect/promote rank in the game. Make it democratic. Like clans or guilds.
Now THAT is an interesting idea. Treat a starship crew like a clan/guild, and let the captain naturally rise from the ranks, like the leader of a guild. As long as the trappings are kept Trek-like, that could be a very cool game mechanic.
As for the issue of many players not wanting to be anything other than captain, I think that it's up to the game designers to make sure that the other "classes" are very interesting and appealing in their own right. In fact, if you make them interesting enough ("one of your famed Star Fleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators" --DS9), you'll likely have many players who want to be anything BUT captain, because the other stuff is just much more interesting. Remember, on the bridge of a Star Fleet vessel, all the captain does really is bark orders... it's up to everyone else around him to carry out those orders, and to do so with great skill. In ship-to-ship battle, the captain will of course have to possess good tactical prowess, but if you recall all the times that one of the crew pulled a rabit out of a hat (especially the tactical/weapons officer, and the chief engineer), gaining experience and prestige together as a whole and not separately, I highly doubt the captain will steal all the glory. It'll be a shared experience among the crew (players), and THAT is the heart of what could make a game like this truly exceptional.
Man, I really hope they don't drop the ball on this one, 'cause the potential for an extraordinary MMO experience here is amazing...
Personally I consider any form of documentary-looking propaganda the most dangerous medium possible [...] Which would you rather hand your children, Grand Theft Auto or Mein Kampf?
By damn I wish I had a mod point for you. Well said.
ultranova, any more info available on your turn-based fantasy game? I'm always curious about what other indy game devs are coming up with, these tend to be much more free-form than any of the bland Generic First-Person Shooter 6: Extreme Bumpmap Edition we seem to see everywhere.
I too and developing a game in my spare time, a classic-style arcade shooter, leveraging my personal experience as an artist helps with the graphics though. Nothing revolutionary, just a fun, simple kill-everything-and-try-not-to-die game like the type I enjoyed in the arcades 20 years ago. It is also designed from the outset to be very mod-friendly -- all data for levels, terrain, weapons, etc. is stored in plain text files, textures are simple bitmaps, sounds are easily-edited/replaced wave files, and so on.
Sure, the industry may die and be reborn every now and then, but there will always be gamers/game makers like us to carry on the tradition. At its heart, video gaming is and always will be a hobby, something to be built and enjoyed by those who love the passtime, like those who spend years rebuilding classic cars in their garages and take 'em for a spin when they're done just for the sheer joy of it. The fact that a bunch of business-types have managed to turn it into a "grey corporate parking lot" so they can make a buck doesn't diminish the hobby as a whole, it just means you gotta search harder to find good games.
And as for people like you and I and other indy game devs out there who create games for the sheer enjoyment of it, to paraphrase the Firefly theme, they can't take the sky from us.
That was one of the most rational, balanced, and well-reasoned posts I've seen in this thread, and it was modded Flamebait.
Y'know, posts like the parent up there are exactly the kind of debating we need more of here. There was no name-calling, no berating, no insults. Just a reasoned argument. If ya don't agree with it, that's fine, but it's not the job of modders to bury opinions they don't like -- that's actually very poor modding, and should be condemned.
I'd call out whoever did that but I'm sure they don't have the stones to show themselves. Hey mods -- all you reasonable ones anyway -- throw the parent a bone here, eh?
Ok, back on topic. I live in a rural central-Pennsylvania area, and here we seem to go from one extreme to the other: We're low on water one day, then uh-oh it's raining, crap now we have flooding! Drought! Flood! Drought! It gets a little ridiculous sometimes, really. But, I rarely here anyone complaining, in any kind of long-term fashion, that there's not enough water here. Overall it seems to balance out pretty well here, in spite of people on one side or the other panicking a bit too quickly. Granted I have little technical knowledge on the subject, but I've yet to see any local laws or ordinances passed that require the rationing of water.
Again, I can speak only from the experience of my local area, YMMV.
You can't even buy the things anymore, not since 1992. 1.6 gpf toilets are now standard everywhere in the US.
Sorry, but that's not quite true. In my apartment, my landlord just replaced the old 5.0 GPF toilet with a brand-new 2.5 GPF model about four months ago (cuz he pays the water, so it was of course in his interest to down-size).
Oh, and since my landlord is a renown cheapskate (nice guy, but cheap), this newer toilet was, of course, not by any stretch "expensive".
Where would all this plant matter actually be located?
My first guess would be plankton. There's many times the amount of plantlife in the oceans and other bodies of water than on all of the landmasses. While much of this plantlife is rooted to the ocean floor to varying degrees, a lot of it is in the form of smaller organisms dwelling en masse near the surface, and using photosynthesis to process carbon dioxide.
At least, that's my current understanding based on a few articles I've read. Anyone with more education than myself care to elaborate on this?