"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,"
Why would that change anything? Seems that someone at Ohio Air Force lab hasn't heard of Alexander the Great or The Sacred Band of Thebes. Now IF a gay bomb could be developed, I think the resulting gay army would probably be more effective against those homophobes in Pentagon than anything else.
"The homosexuals are coming. Ruuuun!" "Oh God, I think he looked at my weenie!" *breaks down and cries*
To me, 'People-ready business' represents a new low in catch-phrase marketing.
It's actually worse: did you know the full slogan is Dynamic IT for the People-Ready Business ? I agree with Computerworld, you can't use that phrase and not sound like an idiot - well, unless you are mocking it I guess.
What was great about System Shock 2 was the off-balancing level design and the set-piece hallucination. There were some real classic moments there, like the apparition in the Bon Chance lounge (should've been "Bonne Chance", but that's Tri-Optimum for you...) and the tunnels in the Garden.
I LOVED the storytelling aspect of System Shock 2, that intead of lazily cutting to a cinematic whenever something needed explaining as in other games, you had to figure stuff out for yourself from clues in the environment, log entries and so on.
However, the ghost sequences, while very scare, broke some of the immersion for me. It was a bit too obvious that they just came up with an excuse - "Partially erased security holograms" to include some sort of cut scene again. It seems there is a similar explanation that doesn't hold up very well in Bioshock - memories that come over with the genes of previous users from the booster stuff, as if memories were recorded in genes. But perhaps they use the same cop out as in Aliens 4. You see, it is special alien contaminated dna, so it records memories.
Anyway. Minor complaint about one of my favourite games ever (SSH2).
So ultimately, the storyline behind Bioshock is just like that of most FPS games; substanceless.
How the hell do you know, you haven't played it. You are just throwing a tantrum over the fact that someone might have said something bad about saint Rand.
Do people still overclock? It is such a focus on this in online hardware reviews, but none of the people I know still do it, even the gamers. Power consumption, heat and noise is much more important to them. Low sample number to draw any significant conclusions from, I know, but still... Perhaps the market has moved on a bit?
Also, whenever they do speed comparisons, I wish they would add in models from one and two years ago. I really don't care if a chip is 0,05% faster than its similarly priced competition, I want to know if it is a good time to upgrade my old computer.
The much quoted analysis of those graphs, which showed that the stratosphere was on average cooling, is most likely incorrect. And even if it were true that the stratosphere was cooling - so what. We don't live in second layer of Earth's atmosphere, and we don't grow our food there.
Pfft, I should learn to read the articles I quote more carefully. They were talking about measurements of the troposphere all along, the inmost layer. I presume you just made a typo when you mentioned the stratosphere. The other part of that arguments stands though - people misinterpreted the NASA data, satellite evidence now shows that the troposphere IS most likely getting warmer.
And I reckon in my life time the worst case rise of a degree or so is no biggie.
Oh, the realistic worst case scenario as given by the IPCC is a lot worse than that. Both in the number of degrees increased, and the negative effects on economy and environment. I think we both argue that we should err on the side of caution, but my personal belief is that the evidence shows that doing nothing nothing is in fact going to be much more costly than doing something.
>Hmm here's what Nasa say [...] The answer is not clear, because much of what we know about global climate change in inferred from historical evidence of uncertain quality.
All right, so we can never be 100% sure, I agree with you on that. But we don't need to be 100% sure that something is going to happen before we take action, it is all about calculating the risks and the costs.
On the other hand, stratosphere seems to be cooling quite clearly, as NASA's satellite graphs show.
The much quoted analysis of those graphs, which showed that the stratosphere was on average cooling, is most likely incorrect. And even if it were true that the stratosphere was cooling - so what. We don't live in second layer of Earth's atmosphere, and we don't grow our food there.
Now at this point, I'd expect a load of one liners about the difference between climate and weather. But that's bunk. It's a big chaotic system - we can't predict it next week and we can't predict it next century, anymore than we can predict the stock market over short or long terms.
The stock market is also a chaotic (complex) system, but this does not mean that we can apply rules from it to climate. If enough people think that stocks will go up and start buying - they go up. No matter how many people think or hope it is going to be sunny tomorrow in a spot - this does not make it sunny. Also, we can predict climate to some degree - if your hemisphere is angled against the sun, you have warmer climate (summer) for a couple of months. Variations in earth orbits according to Milankovitch cycles causes ice ages to come and go, due to complex interactions with greenhouse gases.
So we CAN in fact predict some changes in climate.
Happily for us, according to a Canadian climate scientist, based on the sunspot cycles, we're due for global cooling to start in 2020, so I wouldn't sweat it.
Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.
Do I detect the smell of burning martyr? Let me guess, another one who takes scientific scrutiny of his claims as attempts at censorship.
It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds.
India and China are still developing and couldn't give two shits about all of our initiatives if any cost them money.
Of course they will, if continuing emissions will in the long run be more expensive, and lead to a decrease in living standards.
For instance - much of Asia gets it fresh water from snow melting in the mountain ranges during the summer. Last couple of years, less snow has fallen, and much of it melts during the winter. Then when spring and summer comes, and it is time to plant crops - droughts.
I'm still waiting on a testable model (no, not a replica of the globe, trolls) before I jump on this "global warming is both horrible and human-mediated"
Do you reject all science that doesn't have a complete testable model behind it? In science we can never be 100% sure about anything, but there are other ways to tackle a problem. For instance, we can discover that some gases absorb solar radiation better than others (180 yrs ago), postulate that if this warms stuff on a small scale, perhaps it might also affect thing globally, (110 yrs ago) then we can discover that climate is really really complicated, and we can continue to examine interactions and say with increasing confidence over many decades that humans do in fact effect thing globally (too much to link to, sorry).
that so many people seem to have blindly latched onto, drawing absurd conclusions after equating correlation with causation and screaming as shrilly as the most terrifying of harpies
Yeah, you are clearly the rational and un-biased one here.;)
Those who already have a PC, are reasonably knowledgeable about it and are quite happy with how it's all running. What's in it for them?
For me, games, which is the only reason I keep a Windows XP partition. Currently only a few upcoming games, and only action games at that, require Vista. However, if this becomes the norm in a two-three years, I either have to give up gaming or install Vista.
And no, "dude, get a console!" is not an option, for several reasons, the strongest being that games I like to play are almost only available on PC.
So I may eventually get Vista, though I don't like it. It doesn't cost much, but I don't like to support Microsoft because I dislike their business practices.
Half Of Nation Outraged At New, Not-Yet-Released Michael Moore Film [...]
"This film is absolutely tasteless and misguided, and I can't believe theaters are even showing it," said GOP presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), who, along with the rest of the nation, has not yet seen the film.
How about you buy the great games made by the same people? You have the fantastic Psychonauts, a hilarious game with fantastic artwork, available cheaply everywhere in the world from Steam. You also have the new Sam and Max series for more adventure heavy games. Haven't played any of those episodes yet, but reportedly also fantastic.
Don't sit there and complain about lack of originality in today's games market. There are PC games out there just as good as the golden classics you remember, please buy them and give the makers an incentive to continue!
I so was saddened by them closing down. Now where will I get "The Bread of Frankenstein"?
Yes, I was also very sad that they closed. If you are a fan of strong writing, check out Neverwinter Nights 2, some of the people at Troika started working at Obsidian I believe. It was a very buggy game, but now with 6 major patches out it is starting to be stable and polished enough to be truly enjoyable. There are some really good mods in the works too, these people are making a trilogy of adventures in the Planescape universe for instance, this guy is making another intriguing game that was once known as Baldur's Gate 3 (though it was made with the same engine and the same universe it has nothing to do with the Child of Bhaal storyline, the BG3 name was for marketing. Still sounds like a great game). There is also an expansion in the works.
Hi Richard, thanks for the article. Really enjoyed it, brought back many memories.
I really liked Clive Barker's Undying, and the fact that he replaced the OMG LOL B4da55 Doom clone main character of "Duke Magnus Wolfram" with someone who was a lot more realistic and vulnerable - important in a horror game.
The server seems Slashdotted, so I haven't read the article, but for me the prize goes to Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophesy in the US) a.k.a Our Dog Ate the Last Third of the Script, Honest.
CONTAINS SPOILERS: Lukas Kane, the main character, dies early in the game, but like Neo comes back to life with SuperMatrixPowers. Later in the game as the earth is about to end, there is a tender love scene between him and policewoman Carla Valenti (this scene was removed in the US version of course...). First I thought - nice, a fairly adult treatment of love and sex (unlike Samantha's earlier strip scene in front of Tyler), sort of a "two people at the end of the world seeking comfort in each other" thing. But then I remembered - Lukas is dead! People in the game have commented that he doesn't breathe anymore, his skin is cold and he doesn't have a pulse! Sooo wrong... The Wikipedia article has a nice explanation for the botched ending though.
If you have missed is, this game is made by many of the people behind horror classics System Shock/System Shock 2. It is my most anticipated game this year. I've actually stopped reading about it though, articles contain too many spoilers these days. However, if you liked the 40s-50s vibe of Fallout artwork, check out the great art deco posters in the game.
According to whom? Would the sources be inside or outside Russia? If they are from inside, I would have serious doubts about that sources reputation
I agree, you are of course right to be sceptic. With Russia having one of the worst rankings in the world for press freedom, I do not have access to any sources I know for sure to be impartial, so it is difficult to know what I read has any slant or not. But from what I have heard in the news in Sweden, and from some quick Googling, it still seems his ratings remain high. I believe this is for two reasons. First is that he controls media, and negative reports are not allowed to be aired. Second is that with the sense of insecurity and humiliation, Russians actually think they need a "strong man" to impose Order and restore national Pride. So the stuff I mentioned above only makes him more popular.
I feel sorry for them. I put far more trust in China's political and economic system than Russia's. That's saying a lot!
Let's drop the pretense that Russia is in any way a modern democracy please. Elections are a joke, independent journalists are permanently silenced, and if you didn't order it you are certainly didn't doing much to investigate it. You are bullying surrounding nations as soon as they take any steps towards democracy or independence from you or displease you in any way. Fascists and neo-Nazis run rampant in the streets, with the police literarily looking on with arms crossed doing nothing.
And even with all this, Putin has soaring approval ratings, proving once again that nationlist pride is one of the most dangerous memes ever.
Another classic of the genre is Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. It was written in 1986 so it only deals with TV, but tragically every trend he objected against in the book has been amplified in the age of the web. His main argument is that "politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment."
Why isn't there a mass stampede to Erlang or Haskell, languages that address this problem in a serious way? My conclusion is that most programmers are just too dumb to do major mind-bending once they've burned their first couple languages into their ROMs.
Mhm. I'm sure it has nothing to do with functional programmers being so humble and welcoming to the rest of us. I feel so motivated to getting anywhere near people like you waving their e-peen around.
Slashdot Mirror
"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,"
Why would that change anything? Seems that someone at Ohio Air Force lab hasn't heard of Alexander the Great or The Sacred Band of Thebes. Now IF a gay bomb could be developed, I think the resulting gay army would probably be more effective against those homophobes in Pentagon than anything else.
"The homosexuals are coming. Ruuuun!"
"Oh God, I think he looked at my weenie!" *breaks down and cries*
the idea of making one that is more action heavy is quite mouth watering.
...sorry, couldn't resist. ;)
Oh, so you are part of the coveted drooling console player target demographic then.
To me, 'People-ready business' represents a new low in catch-phrase marketing.
It's actually worse: did you know the full slogan is Dynamic IT for the People-Ready Business ? I agree with Computerworld, you can't use that phrase and not sound like an idiot - well, unless you are mocking it I guess.
First "Share the Social" and now this.
What was great about System Shock 2 was the off-balancing level design and the set-piece hallucination. There were some real classic moments there, like the apparition in the Bon Chance lounge (should've been "Bonne Chance", but that's Tri-Optimum for you...) and the tunnels in the Garden.
I LOVED the storytelling aspect of System Shock 2, that intead of lazily cutting to a cinematic whenever something needed explaining as in other games, you had to figure stuff out for yourself from clues in the environment, log entries and so on.
However, the ghost sequences, while very scare, broke some of the immersion for me. It was a bit too obvious that they just came up with an excuse - "Partially erased security holograms" to include some sort of cut scene again. It seems there is a similar explanation that doesn't hold up very well in Bioshock - memories that come over with the genes of previous users from the booster stuff, as if memories were recorded in genes. But perhaps they use the same cop out as in Aliens 4. You see, it is special alien contaminated dna, so it records memories.
Anyway. Minor complaint about one of my favourite games ever (SSH2).
So ultimately, the storyline behind Bioshock is just like that of most FPS games; substanceless.
How the hell do you know, you haven't played it. You are just throwing a tantrum over the fact that someone might have said something bad about saint Rand.
Do people still overclock? It is such a focus on this in online hardware reviews, but none of the people I know still do it, even the gamers. Power consumption, heat and noise is much more important to them. Low sample number to draw any significant conclusions from, I know, but still... Perhaps the market has moved on a bit?
Also, whenever they do speed comparisons, I wish they would add in models from one and two years ago. I really don't care if a chip is 0,05% faster than its similarly priced competition, I want to know if it is a good time to upgrade my old computer.
The much quoted analysis of those graphs, which showed that the stratosphere was on average cooling, is most likely incorrect. And even if it were true that the stratosphere was cooling - so what. We don't live in second layer of Earth's atmosphere, and we don't grow our food there.
Pfft, I should learn to read the articles I quote more carefully. They were talking about measurements of the troposphere all along, the inmost layer. I presume you just made a typo when you mentioned the stratosphere. The other part of that arguments stands though - people misinterpreted the NASA data, satellite evidence now shows that the troposphere IS most likely getting warmer.
And I reckon in my life time the worst case rise of a degree or so is no biggie.
Oh, the realistic worst case scenario as given by the IPCC is a lot worse than that. Both in the number of degrees increased, and the negative effects on economy and environment. I think we both argue that we should err on the side of caution, but my personal belief is that the evidence shows that doing nothing nothing is in fact going to be much more costly than doing something.
>Hmm here's what Nasa say
[...]
The answer is not clear, because much of what we know about global climate change in inferred from historical evidence of uncertain quality.
All right, so we can never be 100% sure, I agree with you on that. But we don't need to be 100% sure that something is going to happen before we take action, it is all about calculating the risks and the costs.
On the other hand, stratosphere seems to be cooling quite clearly, as NASA's satellite graphs show.
The much quoted analysis of those graphs, which showed that the stratosphere was on average cooling, is most likely incorrect. And even if it were true that the stratosphere was cooling - so what. We don't live in second layer of Earth's atmosphere, and we don't grow our food there.
Now at this point, I'd expect a load of one liners about the difference between climate and weather. But that's bunk. It's a big chaotic system - we can't predict it next week and we can't predict it next century, anymore than we can predict the stock market over short or long terms.
The stock market is also a chaotic (complex) system, but this does not mean that we can apply rules from it to climate. If enough people think that stocks will go up and start buying - they go up. No matter how many people think or hope it is going to be sunny tomorrow in a spot - this does not make it sunny. Also, we can predict climate to some degree - if your hemisphere is angled against the sun, you have warmer climate (summer) for a couple of months. Variations in earth orbits according to Milankovitch cycles causes ice ages to come and go, due to complex interactions with greenhouse gases.
So we CAN in fact predict some changes in climate.
Even worse - some airlines keep running empty planes back and forth so they can keep their sought after "landing slots" at airports.
Happily for us, according to a Canadian climate scientist, based on the sunspot cycles, we're due for global cooling to start in 2020, so I wouldn't sweat it.
Sadly, this has also been refuted many times.
I had no idea why we were mutual foes, but now I see its your fondness for amusingly pedantic hypotheticals and fallacies.
All right. Care to point any of them out?
Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of twilight model experts and the crowd of diluted citizens that believe the numbers predicted by their models. Of course they say I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak.
Do I detect the smell of burning martyr? Let me guess, another one who takes scientific scrutiny of his claims as attempts at censorship.
It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds.
Lie, some countries have kept records of climate ever since the invention of the meteorological instruments in the 17th century, today we have over 7000 stations that measure land temperatures, we also use satellites to measure sea levels, water and troposphere temperatures.
India and China are still developing and couldn't give two shits about all of our initiatives if any cost them money.
;)
Of course they will, if continuing emissions will in the long run be more expensive, and lead to a decrease in living standards.
For instance - much of Asia gets it fresh water from snow melting in the mountain ranges during the summer. Last couple of years, less snow has fallen, and much of it melts during the winter. Then when spring and summer comes, and it is time to plant crops - droughts.
I'm still waiting on a testable model (no, not a replica of the globe, trolls) before I jump on this "global warming is both horrible and human-mediated"
Do you reject all science that doesn't have a complete testable model behind it? In science we can never be 100% sure about anything, but there are other ways to tackle a problem. For instance, we can discover that some gases absorb solar radiation better than others (180 yrs ago), postulate that if this warms stuff on a small scale, perhaps it might also affect thing globally, (110 yrs ago) then we can discover that climate is really really complicated, and we can continue to examine interactions and say with increasing confidence over many decades that humans do in fact effect thing globally (too much to link to, sorry).
that so many people seem to have blindly latched onto, drawing absurd conclusions after equating correlation with causation and screaming as shrilly as the most terrifying of harpies
Yeah, you are clearly the rational and un-biased one here.
Those who already have a PC, are reasonably knowledgeable about it and are quite happy with how it's all running. What's in it for them?
For me, games, which is the only reason I keep a Windows XP partition. Currently only a few upcoming games, and only action games at that, require Vista. However, if this becomes the norm in a two-three years, I either have to give up gaming or install Vista.
And no, "dude, get a console!" is not an option, for several reasons, the strongest being that games I like to play are almost only available on PC.
So I may eventually get Vista, though I don't like it. It doesn't cost much, but I don't like to support Microsoft because I dislike their business practices.
The Singularity will hit us before any of the problems he describes would become tractable.
That's a fresh idea. Someone should tell that Stross guy that people have even written some really good books about it.
...set of lies and twisted "truths" from this nutjob, who wouldnt know the actual truth if it came up and bit him.
I kind of liked The Onion's take on it:
Half Of Nation Outraged At New, Not-Yet-Released Michael Moore Film
[...]
"This film is absolutely tasteless and misguided, and I can't believe theaters are even showing it," said GOP presidential candidate Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), who, along with the rest of the nation, has not yet seen the film.
How about you buy the great games made by the same people? You have the fantastic Psychonauts, a hilarious game with fantastic artwork, available cheaply everywhere in the world from Steam. You also have the new Sam and Max series for more adventure heavy games. Haven't played any of those episodes yet, but reportedly also fantastic.
Don't sit there and complain about lack of originality in today's games market. There are PC games out there just as good as the golden classics you remember, please buy them and give the makers an incentive to continue!
I so was saddened by them closing down. Now where will I get "The Bread of Frankenstein"?
Yes, I was also very sad that they closed. If you are a fan of strong writing, check out Neverwinter Nights 2, some of the people at Troika started working at Obsidian I believe. It was a very buggy game, but now with 6 major patches out it is starting to be stable and polished enough to be truly enjoyable. There are some really good mods in the works too, these people are making a trilogy of adventures in the Planescape universe for instance, this guy is making another intriguing game that was once known as Baldur's Gate 3 (though it was made with the same engine and the same universe it has nothing to do with the Child of Bhaal storyline, the BG3 name was for marketing. Still sounds like a great game). There is also an expansion in the works.
And of course Bioshock sounds awesome.
Hi Richard, thanks for the article. Really enjoyed it, brought back many memories.
:)
I really liked Clive Barker's Undying, and the fact that he replaced the OMG LOL B4da55 Doom clone main character of "Duke Magnus Wolfram" with someone who was a lot more realistic and vulnerable - important in a horror game.
Have to replay Vampire as a Malkavian I see.
The server seems Slashdotted, so I haven't read the article, but for me the prize goes to Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophesy in the US) a.k.a Our Dog Ate the Last Third of the Script, Honest.
CONTAINS SPOILERS:
Lukas Kane, the main character, dies early in the game, but like Neo comes back to life with SuperMatrixPowers. Later in the game as the earth is about to end, there is a tender love scene between him and policewoman Carla Valenti (this scene was removed in the US version of course...). First I thought - nice, a fairly adult treatment of love and sex (unlike Samantha's earlier strip scene in front of Tyler), sort of a "two people at the end of the world seeking comfort in each other" thing. But then I remembered - Lukas is dead! People in the game have commented that he doesn't breathe anymore, his skin is cold and he doesn't have a pulse! Sooo wrong... The Wikipedia article has a nice explanation for the botched ending though.
If you have missed is, this game is made by many of the people behind horror classics System Shock/System Shock 2. It is my most anticipated game this year. I've actually stopped reading about it though, articles contain too many spoilers these days. However, if you liked the 40s-50s vibe of Fallout artwork, check out the great art deco posters in the game.
According to whom? Would the sources be inside or outside Russia? If they are from inside, I would have serious doubts about that sources reputation
I agree, you are of course right to be sceptic. With Russia having one of the worst rankings in the world for press freedom, I do not have access to any sources I know for sure to be impartial, so it is difficult to know what I read has any slant or not. But from what I have heard in the news in Sweden, and from some quick Googling, it still seems his ratings remain high. I believe this is for two reasons. First is that he controls media, and negative reports are not allowed to be aired. Second is that with the sense of insecurity and humiliation, Russians actually think they need a "strong man" to impose Order and restore national Pride. So the stuff I mentioned above only makes him more popular.
I feel sorry for them. I put far more trust in China's political and economic system than Russia's. That's saying a lot!
I hear you...
Let's drop the pretense that Russia is in any way a modern democracy please. Elections are a joke, independent journalists are permanently silenced, and if you didn't order it you are certainly didn't doing much to investigate it. You are bullying surrounding nations as soon as they take any steps towards democracy or independence from you or displease you in any way. Fascists and neo-Nazis run rampant in the streets, with the police literarily looking on with arms crossed doing nothing.
And even with all this, Putin has soaring approval ratings, proving once again that nationlist pride is one of the most dangerous memes ever.
Another classic of the genre is Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. It was written in 1986 so it only deals with TV, but tragically every trend he objected against in the book has been amplified in the age of the web. His main argument is that "politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment."
Why isn't there a mass stampede to Erlang or Haskell, languages that address this problem in a serious way? My conclusion is that most programmers are just too dumb to do major mind-bending once they've burned their first couple languages into their ROMs.
Mhm. I'm sure it has nothing to do with functional programmers being so humble and welcoming to the rest of us. I feel so motivated to getting anywhere near people like you waving their e-peen around.