Erm, I did use preview, but didn't catch this. I meant to say I haven't grumbled and rented a PS2 game due to lack of PS3 titles yet. Overall, what I'm saying is that the "there are no games" argument certainly doesn't apply to guys who only play a couple hours a day (with the occasional weekend marathon).
Eh, ever since I bought a PS3, I've had more games than I can play. I do, however, have a day job and my fiance demands that we watch DVDs pretty often too. So, the PS3 may not be the right choice for a guy who's spending all day at his console. But the rate of games I'm interested in being released is slightly higher than the amount of time it takes me to finish them, so I'm happy that I have a PS3. I've actually found myself using its media card slots pretty often to show stuff to friends, too.
Now, that doesn't mean I haven't been through Resistance three times with a friend in co-op because... well, backlash and fuel-air grenades really are that fun.
On the other hand, I use Gamefly because I refuse to spend the over-inflated current-gen prices for my games. Working through Darkness right now, and am grumbling my way through unlocking G1 Optimus in Transformers. That particular game was a dog, and it has nothing to do with it being on the PS3. I'm on the 3-out plan, and so far grumbled and rented a PS2 game due to lack of PS3 titles yet.
1. The existence of underslung shotguns on the Helghast weapons. Kinda like the underslung 870 used in the 'master key' system for the M-16/M-4/AR-15. 2. Unlike in many games, you could disable auto-reload for your secondary weapon so that you don't offline your primary weapon just because you touched off a shotgun blast for suppressive fire. 3. Sprinting was kinda neat. 4. I actually liked the sniper rifle's aiming system. It felt more 'real' - like you had to shift and reposition the rifle more for large shifts, than for small.
I would be half inclined to wager that most of the folks who bashed Killzone 1 haven't got any experience with real guns.
Actually, I personally believe that the $600 price point is because they're annoyed at the "console scalpers". Why let some guy who pre-orders 5 systems and sells them on eBay make $600 apiece, instead of Sony?
So, they price them high enough that the people who would pay a scalper that amount, will just buy it directly from them, and the scalpers have a higher price to entry. Couple that with common-sense thoughts, such as them dropping the price drastically in a few months, and the scalper market is minimized.
At least, I think that's part of what's going on here. I don't think it'll ultimately shake out to be $600 for too long.
Side note, I'm personally leaning in the direction of buying a PS3 - but the games will probably be insanely high for quite some time, so I'll just be renting games via Gamefly. On the previous generation, I waited quite a while before buying a PS2, so that a fair number of games were at a reasonable price in the used market. This time around, I'll probably be able to get games right away without paying an arm and a leg to own them.
Amen on that point. I've been saying for ages that all cellphone manufacturers should be forced to honor a 'privacy' spec. Namely, if a signal on a specific frequency is being broadcast, your phone (optionally) chirps once and then is FORCED to vibrate-only mode for the duration of the signal's reception. Your phone also CANNOT place outgoing calls; incoming only. NO rings, no anything, and calls are forcibly terminated after 30 seconds.
This represents a fair compromise between folks on call (by the way, for anyone who hasn't figured it out, on-call IS NOT always just for a week at a shot - I was on-call continuously for several years at MP3.com) and the rights of other moviegoers. All this moronic BS about totally blocking cellphones is just that, BS. What needs to happen is the forcible education of the inconsiderate morons who do more than whisper, "I'm in a movie, I'll call you back", then get up and WALK OUT.
For the record, I do not ever use audible rings on my cellphone - it's never off of vibrate, in or out of movie theaters.
If I were to call a brick a Hanukkah brick, does that make it a religiously significant brick?
The point is that Christmas used to be the celebration of Jesus's birth. However, for Christians, the tree has no significance to the religious side of the holiday and is entirely about the materialistic, secular side of the holiday.
I feel no need to bother with the clueless nature of the rest of your post.
I'd go further and state that it was a pre-Christian tradition, massaged into a Christian tradition, and now massaged into a secular tradition.
However, the secular types get pissy at the second-inherited Christian derivation, and some would really like to remove Christmas trees all over the place. They actually share this in common with the more fundamental Christians, amusingly enough.
Most Christians I know don't view the tree as holding any religious significance for Christians - only cultural "ooo, that's pretty" significance. Some strongly fundamental families I knew back in Tennessee refused to have Christmas trees at all, due to their being (A) a symbol of modern materialism (Christmas-season hoopla) and (B) originally a pagan tradition.
I don't have any problem with Christmas trees myself - they're pretty, even if they do drop a bunch of needles - but if I wish to hold any religious observance, it's going to be with a nativity set or something, not a Christmas tree.
I put those channels in the same realm as film festival movies which get a big release at Blockbuster Video, and are watched by the 25% or so of renters who pride themselves on "indie" tastes and exclusivity, and how there's no one else like them. Other than the several million OTHER people who pride themselves on the exact same thing.
It's not that the content is bad, it's that the people watching it believe that they're in some small exclusive clique, which in actuality nowhere near small.
For example, it was really trendy to style one's self as a Tarentino film buff back in the mid-90s. Ah yes, how obscure, how brilliant! How... wait, it received national theatrical release? Oh. Bummer, guess they're not so special after all.
Amen re: the cost of living. Every time a company that contacts me attempting to recruit me, tells me "we're located in the bay area", my first impulse is to hang up on them. I tend to be polite, but I'm not very interested.
Seriously - people who know what they're doing in linux frequently don't want to put up with the insane cost of Bay living or the traffic. It's something that Bay people just *don't* *get*. I'd personally have to be paid 6 figures in order to put up with the bay area. I'm aware that it prices me out of their market, which is exactly what I want.:)
Ah. Actually, 'the bulletproof ones' is a bit of a misnomer then. Level IIA *is* a bulletproof vest - they weren't wearing some weird knife-only vest. However, IIA is the minimum recommended spec for body armor. And I'm not saying that this was the case here, but here in the US, sometimes officers will choose to wear lower-rated armor because it's lighter and less obtrusive.
I think you might find the links below to be of interest:
Bear in mind that the III and IV ratings down below are for rifle plates, not soft body armor. Soft body armor will pretty much not stop rifle rounds, period. I can't find anything on the BBC about the actual round involved, either - if she was shot by a rifle, and not a handgun, no soft armor would've protected her.
Just STEALING plates, will get noticed right away. But SWAPPING, that's where the fun is. How often do you check your license plate to make sure it's still the same one you meant for it to be? I know I don't check mine that often, and if someone had swapped mine with one of the same color that wasn't a vanity plate (says something special, like JGDREDD, for example) then I probably would be driving around with swapped plates until someone pulled me over.
Actually, one thing of note is that while police are permitted to make a thorough search of your vehicle, including the removal of body panels and such, they are not required to restore it to its original condition. This amounts to free rein to vandalize your vehicle's interior in the name of "searching". At least, that's what I saw on TV. I'd welcome clarification on it, since that seems over the top to me...
What kind of body armor are you talking about here?
My level 3A soft body armor, equivalent to what most American police wear every day, will happily stop anything up to and including a 44 magnum. However, it will not stop knives.
Do the brits use something like chainmail (which is sometimes seen in prison guard armor) to secure against knives?
Heh, I'm 29 and most of the folks I know already expect to work until we die. There won't be a retirement plan beyond what we perhaps manage to cobble together on our own.
About the only sustainable solution I can think of in this 'ageless' scenario, would be for retirement to become an extended vacation - one which you rejoin the work force after taking.
That'll majorly change the dynamics of home ownership and such, too.
Eh, the point here is not *our* comfort, but that of the corporate goons. They're not comfortable around us - we look funny. They perceive our presence as a liability to their herd.
At the (now defunct) mp3.com, the dress code literally just said "wear shoes". However, I don't think anyone pushed the boundaries quite far enough to make them rewrite it further.
We did, however, notice that the guys who went on to work for the new Napster were mostly the people who dressed up every day.
Let's not forget the ages-old dialogue held in Tennessee, at least, frequently:
"What kind of coke do you want?" "Pepsi."
I used to grit my teeth every time I heard them say that, mostly because I despise coca-cola, and I never knew which one they were going to try to give me.
Ever been to the Googleplex in Mt. View, CA? I have. Yes, it did feel like I was walking on hallowed ground... and no, they don't seem to be disappearing just yet.:)
Uh, I didn't say *I* have a beef with ID's theological nature, I was asking if there's a third option for the folks who do. I've noticed that a good number of folks seem to be primarily anti-theological rather than pro-evolution.
I personally believe in a creationist standpoint, but I certainly don't object to folks researching or believing either methodology. I just get annoyed at seeing Darwin-thumpers (the rabidly anti-religious evolutionists who seem more interested in anti-religion than the science itself) act as if they're somehow less obnoxious than the Bible-thumpers they themselves are annoyed at. That's when I started wondering if there was a third option for folks who don't believe in either one. I don't see that the ID/creationist camps necessarily form a binary, one or the other continuum which encompasses all possible modes of creation. There oughtta be room for a few other theories which wouldn't fit within either one, right?
Can't think of any off the top of my head, though.
Slashdot Mirror
The original quote was "annoying as intercourse to read". It is very annoying to read it, when one would much rather be doing it.
Erm, I did use preview, but didn't catch this. I meant to say I haven't grumbled and rented a PS2 game due to lack of PS3 titles yet. Overall, what I'm saying is that the "there are no games" argument certainly doesn't apply to guys who only play a couple hours a day (with the occasional weekend marathon).
Eh, ever since I bought a PS3, I've had more games than I can play. I do, however, have a day job and my fiance demands that we watch DVDs pretty often too. So, the PS3 may not be the right choice for a guy who's spending all day at his console. But the rate of games I'm interested in being released is slightly higher than the amount of time it takes me to finish them, so I'm happy that I have a PS3. I've actually found myself using its media card slots pretty often to show stuff to friends, too.
... well, backlash and fuel-air grenades really are that fun.
Now, that doesn't mean I haven't been through Resistance three times with a friend in co-op because
On the other hand, I use Gamefly because I refuse to spend the over-inflated current-gen prices for my games. Working through Darkness right now, and am grumbling my way through unlocking G1 Optimus in Transformers. That particular game was a dog, and it has nothing to do with it being on the PS3. I'm on the 3-out plan, and so far grumbled and rented a PS2 game due to lack of PS3 titles yet.
Eh, Killzone really had some things going for it.
1. The existence of underslung shotguns on the Helghast weapons. Kinda like the underslung 870 used in the 'master key' system for the M-16/M-4/AR-15.
2. Unlike in many games, you could disable auto-reload for your secondary weapon so that you don't offline your primary weapon just because you touched off a shotgun blast for suppressive fire.
3. Sprinting was kinda neat.
4. I actually liked the sniper rifle's aiming system. It felt more 'real' - like you had to shift and reposition the rifle more for large shifts, than for small.
I would be half inclined to wager that most of the folks who bashed Killzone 1 haven't got any experience with real guns.
Actually, I personally believe that the $600 price point is because they're annoyed at the "console scalpers". Why let some guy who pre-orders 5 systems and sells them on eBay make $600 apiece, instead of Sony? So, they price them high enough that the people who would pay a scalper that amount, will just buy it directly from them, and the scalpers have a higher price to entry. Couple that with common-sense thoughts, such as them dropping the price drastically in a few months, and the scalper market is minimized. At least, I think that's part of what's going on here. I don't think it'll ultimately shake out to be $600 for too long. Side note, I'm personally leaning in the direction of buying a PS3 - but the games will probably be insanely high for quite some time, so I'll just be renting games via Gamefly. On the previous generation, I waited quite a while before buying a PS2, so that a fair number of games were at a reasonable price in the used market. This time around, I'll probably be able to get games right away without paying an arm and a leg to own them.
Amen on that point. I've been saying for ages that all cellphone manufacturers should be forced to honor a 'privacy' spec. Namely, if a signal on a specific frequency is being broadcast, your phone (optionally) chirps once and then is FORCED to vibrate-only mode for the duration of the signal's reception. Your phone also CANNOT place outgoing calls; incoming only. NO rings, no anything, and calls are forcibly terminated after 30 seconds.
This represents a fair compromise between folks on call (by the way, for anyone who hasn't figured it out, on-call IS NOT always just for a week at a shot - I was on-call continuously for several years at MP3.com) and the rights of other moviegoers. All this moronic BS about totally blocking cellphones is just that, BS. What needs to happen is the forcible education of the inconsiderate morons who do more than whisper, "I'm in a movie, I'll call you back", then get up and WALK OUT.
For the record, I do not ever use audible rings on my cellphone - it's never off of vibrate, in or out of movie theaters.
Yeah, well, Dvorak's named after that UNPOPULAR keyboard. I'm more mainstream, my name's Bob Qwerty!
[* disclaimer: not my real name]
If I were to call a brick a Hanukkah brick, does that make it a religiously significant brick?
The point is that Christmas used to be the celebration of Jesus's birth. However, for Christians, the tree has no significance to the religious side of the holiday and is entirely about the materialistic, secular side of the holiday.
I feel no need to bother with the clueless nature of the rest of your post.
I'd go further and state that it was a pre-Christian tradition, massaged into a Christian tradition, and now massaged into a secular tradition.
However, the secular types get pissy at the second-inherited Christian derivation, and some would really like to remove Christmas trees all over the place. They actually share this in common with the more fundamental Christians, amusingly enough.
Most Christians I know don't view the tree as holding any religious significance for Christians - only cultural "ooo, that's pretty" significance. Some strongly fundamental families I knew back in Tennessee refused to have Christmas trees at all, due to their being (A) a symbol of modern materialism (Christmas-season hoopla) and (B) originally a pagan tradition.
I don't have any problem with Christmas trees myself - they're pretty, even if they do drop a bunch of needles - but if I wish to hold any religious observance, it's going to be with a nativity set or something, not a Christmas tree.
Hmm, so how much do we have to pay to NOT get the 40 channels of the home shopping network?
I put those channels in the same realm as film festival movies which get a big release at Blockbuster Video, and are watched by the 25% or so of renters who pride themselves on "indie" tastes and exclusivity, and how there's no one else like them. Other than the several million OTHER people who pride themselves on the exact same thing.
It's not that the content is bad, it's that the people watching it believe that they're in some small exclusive clique, which in actuality nowhere near small.
For example, it was really trendy to style one's self as a Tarentino film buff back in the mid-90s. Ah yes, how obscure, how brilliant! How... wait, it received national theatrical release? Oh. Bummer, guess they're not so special after all.
Amen re: the cost of living. Every time a company that contacts me attempting to recruit me, tells me "we're located in the bay area", my first impulse is to hang up on them. I tend to be polite, but I'm not very interested.
:)
Seriously - people who know what they're doing in linux frequently don't want to put up with the insane cost of Bay living or the traffic. It's something that Bay people just *don't* *get*. I'd personally have to be paid 6 figures in order to put up with the bay area. I'm aware that it prices me out of their market, which is exactly what I want.
Ah. Actually, 'the bulletproof ones' is a bit of a misnomer then. Level IIA *is* a bulletproof vest - they weren't wearing some weird knife-only vest. However, IIA is the minimum recommended spec for body armor. And I'm not saying that this was the case here, but here in the US, sometimes officers will choose to wear lower-rated armor because it's lighter and less obtrusive.
T .shtml_ Levels.shtml
I think you might find the links below to be of interest:
http://www.bulletproofme.com/NIJ_Test_Rounds_CHAR
http://www.bulletproofme.com/Ballistic_Protection
Bear in mind that the III and IV ratings down below are for rifle plates, not soft body armor. Soft body armor will pretty much not stop rifle rounds, period. I can't find anything on the BBC about the actual round involved, either - if she was shot by a rifle, and not a handgun, no soft armor would've protected her.
Just STEALING plates, will get noticed right away. But SWAPPING, that's where the fun is. How often do you check your license plate to make sure it's still the same one you meant for it to be? I know I don't check mine that often, and if someone had swapped mine with one of the same color that wasn't a vanity plate (says something special, like JGDREDD, for example) then I probably would be driving around with swapped plates until someone pulled me over.
Erm, we aren't a very small portion of the US population. :p
Actually, one thing of note is that while police are permitted to make a thorough search of your vehicle, including the removal of body panels and such, they are not required to restore it to its original condition. This amounts to free rein to vandalize your vehicle's interior in the name of "searching". At least, that's what I saw on TV. I'd welcome clarification on it, since that seems over the top to me...
What kind of body armor are you talking about here?
My level 3A soft body armor, equivalent to what most American police wear every day, will happily stop anything up to and including a 44 magnum. However, it will not stop knives.
Do the brits use something like chainmail (which is sometimes seen in prison guard armor) to secure against knives?
Heh, I'm 29 and most of the folks I know already expect to work until we die. There won't be a retirement plan beyond what we perhaps manage to cobble together on our own.
About the only sustainable solution I can think of in this 'ageless' scenario, would be for retirement to become an extended vacation - one which you rejoin the work force after taking.
That'll majorly change the dynamics of home ownership and such, too.
Eh, the point here is not *our* comfort, but that of the corporate goons. They're not comfortable around us - we look funny. They perceive our presence as a liability to their herd.
At the (now defunct) mp3.com, the dress code literally just said "wear shoes". However, I don't think anyone pushed the boundaries quite far enough to make them rewrite it further.
We did, however, notice that the guys who went on to work for the new Napster were mostly the people who dressed up every day.
Let's not forget the ages-old dialogue held in Tennessee, at least, frequently:
"What kind of coke do you want?"
"Pepsi."
I used to grit my teeth every time I heard them say that, mostly because I despise coca-cola, and I never knew which one they were going to try to give me.
Just tell them: "I'll wear your uniform, but only if it comes with a gun or a tank."
:)
In very short order, they'll decide that uniforms are best left to the military and police.
Ever been to the Googleplex in Mt. View, CA? I have. Yes, it did feel like I was walking on hallowed ground... and no, they don't seem to be disappearing just yet. :)
Erm, up above, I meant to say 'the ID/evolutionist camps'.
Uh, I didn't say *I* have a beef with ID's theological nature, I was asking if there's a third option for the folks who do. I've noticed that a good number of folks seem to be primarily anti-theological rather than pro-evolution.
I personally believe in a creationist standpoint, but I certainly don't object to folks researching or believing either methodology. I just get annoyed at seeing Darwin-thumpers (the rabidly anti-religious evolutionists who seem more interested in anti-religion than the science itself) act as if they're somehow less obnoxious than the Bible-thumpers they themselves are annoyed at. That's when I started wondering if there was a third option for folks who don't believe in either one. I don't see that the ID/creationist camps necessarily form a binary, one or the other continuum which encompasses all possible modes of creation. There oughtta be room for a few other theories which wouldn't fit within either one, right?
Can't think of any off the top of my head, though.