Although you seem to have missed my point, those events are about as relevant to disproving my point as is the Irish Potato Famine.
Ironically, the Kent State shootings did serve as a type of rallying cry for the causes of civil reform. In that way, it was very like the Boston Massacre. And oddly enough, had the cause of the South been more Just, they might have had more support. It isn't about who has a bigger gun.
My point, is that you don't have (Nor should you want) a violent overthrow of the government to justify the Right to bear arms.
If they won't follow policy, you fire them! What's the problem? In this day and age, IT folks are easy to replace.
Think you can't? I beg to differ - I don't care who you are.
I think you need to meet somewhere in the middle. Employees expect some flexibility with their equipment, and yes there should be limitations on what you can or can not use on that equipment, but a blanket statement like "Don't follow the policy-fired" isn't what is really being asked here.
How do you find a good position for where the policy and employee desires meet? I certainly wouldn't work for a company that refused to even consider installing certain programs or the use of certain 'gadgets'.
An example of this is that how certain 'closed' or camera restricted areas are modifying their policies and training so that people can carry their cell phones with them since they nearly all have built in cameras. IE: in areas where you are already allowed to carry a cell phone, you take a special training course and then are allowed to use a cell phone that has a built in camera. There are still restrictions, but it recognizes that it is hard to find a phone w/o a camera.
The result was that you ended up with VPs and such who couldn't pick the cell phone they wanted because the stores didn't carry them without cameras. And if you don't care that a VP wants to pick a certain phone, and the only rationale you can come up with is "It's policy" Then perhaps it is you that should be worried that IT folks are easy to replace.
After my initial bafflement at the very notion MI6 was choosing Facebook to run recruitment ads, I see in the 2nd FA they also run recruit ads via radio and newspaper. I suppose I shouldn't be shocked, considering that even if they are more open than they have been historically along these lines, doesn't mean that the process of hiring is less stringent, or that they take undue risks during the hiring procedures. We know MI6 is there, so why not cast a wider net and get more potential hires?
Afterall, the best spies don't look like James Bond. They look just like that guy. You know, what's his name. Eh, I'll probably remember later.
These agencies do NOT want to accidentally leak information. This guy did NOT want to find this information on his camera. There is no need to 'punish' these organizations for the leaks. Trust me, they don't like it as much as you do, and they will investigate and correct why that happened. Publishing the data is perhaps the worst thing that anyone could possibly choose to do. It compromises the intelligence gathering, and puts people at risk. It is unfortunate that they had to confiscate his computer, but at least they did work to replace it, and hopefully the data on it can be scrubbed and sent back to him.
Just imagine this situation:
Photos are published on Wikileaks. Suspect A: Hey, that guy on wiki leaks looks like you. Suspect B: Holy crap, that is me. But, the only person with me at the time was Bob... Three weeks later, Bob's head is found along the side of some rural highway, and suspect A, and B have vanished.
Publishing that information would be a VERY bad idea.
Like I said, the situation sucks, but so does having a tree limb fall on your car. Sure, you have insurance, but you would rather not have to use it.
Simple. The fact that people can make a perfect digital copy of the game before returning it, then continue to play it.
If you could throw your toaster into your Scan-o-Replicator-3000 and make a perfect copy of it, I can guarantee you that retailers would be a bit less enthusiastic about accepting returns.
BTW, I'm not defending the practice or advocating it. Just giving you the reasoning behind it.
If I just replicated something that doesn't work, what does it matter? If I wanted to pirate a game, it is far easier to simply download a cracked version in less time than it takes me to drive to the store, and wouldn't require the $50 that I just shelled out for the game.
The concept that people are buying games, copying them, then returning them simply isn't the primary method of piracy.
Option A: Drive to a store, Spend $50, drive home. Copy the game. Drive back to the store, explain that it didn't work and/or didn't do what it should. Hope that this isn't the third or fourth time you have tried this and the store doesn't recognize your repeated returns. Drive home.
Option B: Download the cracked version.
The reasoning for not allowing returns of software is flawed. What is even worse, is that stores are claiming that it is a violation of the law to accept a return. If it is, I would be very interested to see the law (I actually am curious) or is this just the standard "Can't do it. patriot act" type of copout?
My HT experience is by far more entertaining than going to IMAX/AMC or the like. I'll happily wait for the DVD to release and watch it at home
You are definately in the minority with that statement. The vast majority of people do not exclusively prefer the home experience to that of theaters.
By your own admission, you have invested 'a fair chunk' into your home theater. You have dedicated what appears to be an entire room, and a large amount of cash into replicating a theater experience. That isn't possible for some of us that do have an interest in it, and is certainly out of reach of most moviegoers.
How much have you spent on your home theater? $10,000 on equipment. I know a good projector and screen will likely run you a few grand. The sound system to replicate that of a theater would run a few grand. Sound dampening for the walls, good 'theater-like' seats aren't what you find on craigslist all that often either. At $10/ticket, it would take me and 4 of my friends nearly nearly 2000 trips to the local theater to reach the $10k mark. I can also choose to go to any theater I like, and if you ever decide to move, either you leave behind a gutted movie room, or you have to reinvest in new equipment and retrofit your new home.
Now, don't think I'm talking down on home theaters. I have one myself. Yet they remain a definate fringe, and can not completely replace the true theater experience unless you are beyond wealthy.
For example, there is a theater near my home that is a converted opera house from the 1920s. They preserved the style, installed a professional theater sound and projection system, sell assigned seating, and generally provide a true unique experience. There is another theater that I know of which will serve you dinner while classic films are shown. Convincing my wife to cook me dinner and serve it to me mid-showing would be more than awkward. A third theater will show films, and hold discussions on the art direction and bring in experts or those who worked on the film to discuss their experiences.
They provide an experience that can never be matched by my home theater.
And for the rest of the films, those summer blockbusters that are shown in multiplexes? Well, the remaining 90% of the population that isn't interested in constructing a home theater will continue to fill the seats for a long, long time.
spore DRM is not that bad: you get to play without cd in the drive, and requires only the starting activation on-line, so it's not different from steam in that aspect.
there is the tree strike rule, that really bothers me, because it erode the possibility of reselling the game - ea promised to allow for deactivations, but it's for now just a promise. We'll see...
They offer the promise of deactivation so you can resell the game later. That has got to be the biggest whopper I've heard in a long time. We see stories time and again that what really happens is this:
1. Company sells a product with activation style DRM. 2. Company promises to support their DRM. 3. Company no longer sells much of the product, so they discontinue support for the DRM.
That's it. There is no financial incentive for this company to ever remove the DRM or allow for deactivation. They don't make money on the resale unless it is some monthly fee or a reactivation fee. All that ever seems to happen is that the company decides they don't want to sell the DRM product anymore, and then turn off the servers that supported that product. They have your money, and you have nothing.
I just cancelled my Tivo service. (Or non-renewal as the case may be). My original subscription had expired, and they sent in the notice to re-activate my Tivo. I took a look at the options, and decided that since I now had an HDTV, my series2 Tivo might only get 4-6 months of use.
The month to month billing seemed like the valid option, except I noticed that Tivo was requiring a 1 year commitment with an early termination fee. There is no way that I'm signing up to a contract with a company that requires no monetary expenditure on their part, yet holds me to a potential fine for deciding to end the service. Isn't that why the month to month is more expensive? Sadly, Tivo advertises that but is really just selling 1 year blocks.
I'm sorry Tivo, I've got enough spare parts to go the MythTV route. The Early Termination Fee is a dealbreaker for me.
Just because something isn't innovative and borrows heavily from other games does not disqualify it from being a very good game.
Sure, if you are trying to rate 'innovation' then yes, Starcraft was not very innovative. If you are trying to rank 'originality' then it wasn't very original either.
But something can be original, innovative, or both and still be a flop. Very often, innovative things will fail, and the next go round someone borrows from that innovation, refines it, and puts it into a good format. That is what Starcraft did. They took what worked, what was fun, and put it into a relatively quality package.
The next step in RTS innovation comes from games similar to Savage and Natural Selection, where the commander 'controls' units that are actual players. That makes for a very interesting game experience, but is still a long way to go before you end up with a successful product.
I'm just saying it takes a lot of innovative failures (using the term failure lightly) to make a success.
From what I understand, it isn't that the escape velocity of a black hole is greater than c, it is that there is no path out of a black hole. All directions in a blackhole are inward. Spacetime is folded inward and there is no 'out'.
I'll give you my experience.
This game could be very good. I feel that their take on PvP is far superior to WoW, and if it weren't just the novelty of something new talking, Id compare it to a release day WoW except with the PvP and PvE maturity flipped. I could be very good, but there are some very concerning issues with the game in its present state.
Glitches/bugs/etc. This game contains some very noticable glitches with animation, mobs acting weird, jerky fighting and other such things that are not game breaking at all, but they are noticable.
It isn't that a new game contains bugs, it is that a new game contains bugs in the starting areas and with the basic aspects of the game. When WoW started, there were bugs to be sure, but the starting areas were polished. You didn't have mobs warping, despawning, running in weird directions. It just shows that there was a lack of concern for the 'immersion' into the game world. I felt like the game said "Here, look, you're a High Elf, you hate dark elves, see how mean they are, look they burnt your trees. Now get the hell out of this PvE nonsense and go PvP"
And that they did well. You can start in PvP at level 1 and have fun at it, and aside from the bugs, I haven't seen anything in it that I dislike yet. You earn renown and experience simply by pvping.
The mechanics of this game were definately geared towards PvP. You are rewarded for hiding behind rocks to protect yourself from casters, unlike WoW. You are rewarded for using the terrain to your advantage. The PvP in this game rocks. And with some engine polish, I'd spend a good deal of time there.
So there is definately a lacking component to PvE, but if they learn anything from these comments and really push hard to refine the engine and the game to iron out some of the bugs, they could have an amazing PvP game with some really solid backstory.
Scientific Atlanta also added to the hate for HDCP.
I have a standard resolution Tivo hooked up to my 1080p television. I also have a scientific atlanta cable box. Now, I knew I wouldn't be able to get HD signals through my Tivo, but that was fine, I just wanted to record the regular broadcast channels. I only do a few things in 1080, so when I needed that, I could manually switch sources. So I ran S-Video from the cable box to the tivo, and from the tivo to the Television. Then I ran an HDMI cable from the Scientific Atlanta cable box to my television. The idea being, I would normally watch through the tivo, and when something was broadcast in 1080i, I'd pull it up via the HDMI cable.
I return later to find that my cable box has thankfully provided me with the following full screen message to my Tivo:
"You are connected via a lower resolution output, please remove this connection and utilize the HDCP compliant device" (or some variation to the above message) The Scientific Atlanta box was automatically disabling the lower-resolution S-video link to my Tivo because I had an HDMI cable attached.
The video and the audio WAS being passed to my tivo, but it added this message to the screen that wouldn't go away unless you pressed OK on the cable box. So it could do both, but because it took the whole, 'no output other than HDMI', thing to an extreme, it blocked out everything if I used HDMI. The assinine part about it was this: I simply could use the component cable connection on the cable box to hook to my television. Then it would work fine. this was a fine example of terrible design by Scientific Atlanta which resulted in me having to run yet another cable because the audio was no longer integrated.
The trick is this, the only thing Joe Consumer would see is that because this thing used a HDMI-whatchawhoseit, it broke his Tivo.
The ability to gift the games was a good feature, and if they implemented a method by which you could gift individual games (rather than your entire steam account) I would be 100% for Steam.
One thing that I greatly dislike regarding games is the publisher's insistance that you are purchasing a non-transferrable license. With physical media, there was little that they could do short of trying to limit installs by including phone-home code (which means I'd never purchase that game). So you could loan the disk to your friend so they could play the game for a bit. I know that I wouldn't have purchased the original HL had my friend not lent me his copy.
With downloaded games though, there seems to be this rule that they must be non-transferrable, and it is infuriating. Steam got away with it because they do provide a benefit to me (I've long since lost my original HL CDs), but if you could individually gift or loan games on their service, I'd be 100% behind them.
Hell, I changed the capitalization of a word in the article regarding the Bill of Rights, (People to people), and it was marked as vandalism. Turned me off to editing on Wikipedia right off the bat.
I probably wouldn't have minded it that much if I hadn't used a photograph of the actual document and the transcript from the National Archives as the reference. When something can get marked as vandalism, and you are tidying up an entry and using the freaking original in the Archives as a source... just pissed me off.
I've never seen an accent come across in an online forum. I guess it is possible, but I shouldn't have been surprised that when it did happen, it was Scottish.
I'm very non-religious, having had most of the religion driven out of me by my experience at the Air Force Academy. However, I became fairly pro-life on all counts.
You don't need religion to be pro-life and anti-abortion (Two separate topics in my opinion).
I simply cannot find a more definitive point at which 'life' begins than at conception. It has nothing to do with my religion, but it is the most logical point at which you can say "Before that point, it was definitely not a human" and after that point "If we do not interfere, it will become a human". I've tried to rationalize abortion by looking at different stages of pregnancy, but I cannot find, or it hasn't yet been identified, that there is a singular event that bridges alive and not alive. Conception, is the most definitive point.
Of course, I'm also very much opposed to the death penalty.
I also, thankfully, have not had my beliefs tested at any extreme level (Child with downs syndrome, or due to rape, or had a loved one murdered and the suspect caught). I am very thankful for that. So while I do not know if I'm strong enough to hold to my convictions, I hope that I never have to face them, but if I do, that I remain true to my beliefs.
So please don't assume that it is just the religious that are against abortion. You can have completely secular objections against it.
I mean, Heath Ledger as the Joker, WTF are they thinking?
Unlike Star Wars, the originals are still there in their Highest Definition Format. If you don't like the new stuff, then stop reading. If you like the new stuff, great!
What about the cop that said I was speeding and ran a redlight?
So I went before the judge and showed that based upon the spot in which the cop claimed he was sitting, he couldn't see the traffic light from that position.
So I wasn't speeding, and I didn't run a redlight, but I was fined. The cop didn't even show up and I still had to defend myself in court. Thankfully I had clear proof that it was impossible for the cop to do what he said he did, witness me travel through a redlight.
So, no, you don't have to not speed to not get fines, you have to be lucky as hell that you have physical proof the cop was lying, and even then, I'm not so sure.
Now I'm... going to tell you what to like and what not to like.... I'm... going to tell you what to find fun.... i... rub... you... and...i... entertain you.
If it did that, mission f-ing accomplished. It doesn't matter _how_ it did it. Maybe it was different, maybe it was easier, maybe it...differed from your preconceived notions. It doesn't matter. What matters is if you were entertained or not. That's it....The goal is to entertain you. Anything else is just means and props. If i... used different means, but reached the goal, who the heck cares? Why _do_ you care?
And yes, maybe it wasn't perfect, and maybe there would have been opportunities to be even better. Same as any other...release... . That just makes it, at best, less than perfect, not "horrid". There is no perfection. If you don't regret the money or the time you blew... me.... Maybe it didn't hit the exact centre of the target, but it didn't fail either.
Geeze, Ì swear that some people buy so much into the group-think of what they should and what they shouldn't like, that they don't even try... head.
Your post reminded me of just how much you can change the premise of someone's post through the use of selective editing. (I actually didn't intend for it to go that direction, but I had to work with what was given.
Back on topic, the guy wasn't talking about a horrid game that he enjoyed, he was saying that as an RPG it was horrid, but as an adventure game, it was pretty enjoyable. Certainly nothing deserving the rant you gave him.
Actually, that does make sense.
Eg, "sudo ip addr add 192.168.38.1/24 dev eth0" would add the address 192.168.38.1 with the subnet mask 255.255.255.0.
192.168.38.x/24 specifies the subnet, x=0 is the subnet identifier, x=255 is the broadcast address, everything in-between is a host.
But it does illustrate how the question itself can really trick up a potential employee w/o learning too much about them. Although this is just an example, I really dislike interview tests. Personally, I just don't do well with them. I failed my first programming exam in college because of simple "What is wrong with this code" or "What is the output of this code snippet, you have 30 seconds" questions. I just don't work that way.
So you take a look at those questions, and assume that I couldn't write a program to save my life. But if you actually look at my projects, both long and short term, I received 100s (or better for meeting bonus goals). Why? Because I took the time to understand the problem that needed to be solved before rushing off and coding something that looked like it would work. I read the problem, made sure I understood it, then developed a plan to meet all of the requirements of the task.
The tests though, still can't do them. Granted, I'm not in programming anymore, nor do I directly supervise anyone who does, but my ability to quickly look at code and see what was 'wrong' was not a good way to judge my ability to develop software.
I suppose knowing what questions to ask is far more important when attempting to evaluate recruits than tossing out simple 'gotchas'.
Slashdot Mirror
Although you seem to have missed my point, those events are about as relevant to disproving my point as is the Irish Potato Famine.
Ironically, the Kent State shootings did serve as a type of rallying cry for the causes of civil reform. In that way, it was very like the Boston Massacre. And oddly enough, had the cause of the South been more Just, they might have had more support. It isn't about who has a bigger gun.
My point, is that you don't have (Nor should you want) a violent overthrow of the government to justify the Right to bear arms.
If they won't follow policy, you fire them! What's the problem? In this day and age, IT folks are easy to replace.
Think you can't? I beg to differ - I don't care who you are.
I think you need to meet somewhere in the middle. Employees expect some flexibility with their equipment, and yes there should be limitations on what you can or can not use on that equipment, but a blanket statement like "Don't follow the policy-fired" isn't what is really being asked here.
How do you find a good position for where the policy and employee desires meet? I certainly wouldn't work for a company that refused to even consider installing certain programs or the use of certain 'gadgets'.
An example of this is that how certain 'closed' or camera restricted areas are modifying their policies and training so that people can carry their cell phones with them since they nearly all have built in cameras. IE: in areas where you are already allowed to carry a cell phone, you take a special training course and then are allowed to use a cell phone that has a built in camera. There are still restrictions, but it recognizes that it is hard to find a phone w/o a camera.
The result was that you ended up with VPs and such who couldn't pick the cell phone they wanted because the stores didn't carry them without cameras. And if you don't care that a VP wants to pick a certain phone, and the only rationale you can come up with is "It's policy" Then perhaps it is you that should be worried that IT folks are easy to replace.
After my initial bafflement at the very notion MI6 was choosing Facebook to run recruitment ads, I see in the 2nd FA they also run recruit ads via radio and newspaper. I suppose I shouldn't be shocked, considering that even if they are more open than they have been historically along these lines, doesn't mean that the process of hiring is less stringent, or that they take undue risks during the hiring procedures. We know MI6 is there, so why not cast a wider net and get more potential hires?
Afterall, the best spies don't look like James Bond. They look just like that guy. You know, what's his name. Eh, I'll probably remember later.
It really sucks for all involved.
These agencies do NOT want to accidentally leak information. This guy did NOT want to find this information on his camera. There is no need to 'punish' these organizations for the leaks. Trust me, they don't like it as much as you do, and they will investigate and correct why that happened. Publishing the data is perhaps the worst thing that anyone could possibly choose to do. It compromises the intelligence gathering, and puts people at risk. It is unfortunate that they had to confiscate his computer, but at least they did work to replace it, and hopefully the data on it can be scrubbed and sent back to him.
Just imagine this situation:
Photos are published on Wikileaks.
Suspect A: Hey, that guy on wiki leaks looks like you.
Suspect B: Holy crap, that is me. But, the only person with me at the time was Bob...
Three weeks later, Bob's head is found along the side of some rural highway, and suspect A, and B have vanished.
Publishing that information would be a VERY bad idea.
Like I said, the situation sucks, but so does having a tree limb fall on your car. Sure, you have insurance, but you would rather not have to use it.
Simple. The fact that people can make a perfect digital copy of the game before returning it, then continue to play it.
If you could throw your toaster into your Scan-o-Replicator-3000 and make a perfect copy of it, I can guarantee you that retailers would be a bit less enthusiastic about accepting returns.
BTW, I'm not defending the practice or advocating it. Just giving you the reasoning behind it.
If I just replicated something that doesn't work, what does it matter? If I wanted to pirate a game, it is far easier to simply download a cracked version in less time than it takes me to drive to the store, and wouldn't require the $50 that I just shelled out for the game.
The concept that people are buying games, copying them, then returning them simply isn't the primary method of piracy.
Option A: Drive to a store, Spend $50, drive home. Copy the game. Drive back to the store, explain that it didn't work and/or didn't do what it should. Hope that this isn't the third or fourth time you have tried this and the store doesn't recognize your repeated returns. Drive home.
Option B: Download the cracked version.
The reasoning for not allowing returns of software is flawed. What is even worse, is that stores are claiming that it is a violation of the law to accept a return. If it is, I would be very interested to see the law (I actually am curious) or is this just the standard "Can't do it. patriot act" type of copout?
Theaters +1 overrated. Mod them down.
My HT experience is by far more entertaining than going to IMAX/AMC or the like. I'll happily wait for the DVD to release and watch it at home
You are definately in the minority with that statement. The vast majority of people do not exclusively prefer the home experience to that of theaters.
By your own admission, you have invested 'a fair chunk' into your home theater. You have dedicated what appears to be an entire room, and a large amount of cash into replicating a theater experience. That isn't possible for some of us that do have an interest in it, and is certainly out of reach of most moviegoers.
How much have you spent on your home theater? $10,000 on equipment. I know a good projector and screen will likely run you a few grand. The sound system to replicate that of a theater would run a few grand. Sound dampening for the walls, good 'theater-like' seats aren't what you find on craigslist all that often either. At $10/ticket, it would take me and 4 of my friends nearly nearly 2000 trips to the local theater to reach the $10k mark. I can also choose to go to any theater I like, and if you ever decide to move, either you leave behind a gutted movie room, or you have to reinvest in new equipment and retrofit your new home.
Now, don't think I'm talking down on home theaters. I have one myself. Yet they remain a definate fringe, and can not completely replace the true theater experience unless you are beyond wealthy.
For example, there is a theater near my home that is a converted opera house from the 1920s. They preserved the style, installed a professional theater sound and projection system, sell assigned seating, and generally provide a true unique experience. There is another theater that I know of which will serve you dinner while classic films are shown. Convincing my wife to cook me dinner and serve it to me mid-showing would be more than awkward. A third theater will show films, and hold discussions on the art direction and bring in experts or those who worked on the film to discuss their experiences.
They provide an experience that can never be matched by my home theater.
And for the rest of the films, those summer blockbusters that are shown in multiplexes? Well, the remaining 90% of the population that isn't interested in constructing a home theater will continue to fill the seats for a long, long time.
spore DRM is not that bad: you get to play without cd in the drive, and requires only the starting activation on-line, so it's not different from steam in that aspect.
there is the tree strike rule, that really bothers me, because it erode the possibility of reselling the game - ea promised to allow for deactivations, but it's for now just a promise. We'll see...
They offer the promise of deactivation so you can resell the game later. That has got to be the biggest whopper I've heard in a long time. We see stories time and again that what really happens is this:
1. Company sells a product with activation style DRM.
2. Company promises to support their DRM.
3. Company no longer sells much of the product, so they discontinue support for the DRM.
That's it. There is no financial incentive for this company to ever remove the DRM or allow for deactivation. They don't make money on the resale unless it is some monthly fee or a reactivation fee. All that ever seems to happen is that the company decides they don't want to sell the DRM product anymore, and then turn off the servers that supported that product. They have your money, and you have nothing.
I just cancelled my Tivo service. (Or non-renewal as the case may be). My original subscription had expired, and they sent in the notice to re-activate my Tivo. I took a look at the options, and decided that since I now had an HDTV, my series2 Tivo might only get 4-6 months of use.
The month to month billing seemed like the valid option, except I noticed that Tivo was requiring a 1 year commitment with an early termination fee. There is no way that I'm signing up to a contract with a company that requires no monetary expenditure on their part, yet holds me to a potential fine for deciding to end the service. Isn't that why the month to month is more expensive? Sadly, Tivo advertises that but is really just selling 1 year blocks.
I'm sorry Tivo, I've got enough spare parts to go the MythTV route. The Early Termination Fee is a dealbreaker for me.
It didn't work out very well for the people in this incident either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre
Yet the impact of that event rippled throughout history.
Just because something isn't innovative and borrows heavily from other games does not disqualify it from being a very good game.
Sure, if you are trying to rate 'innovation' then yes, Starcraft was not very innovative. If you are trying to rank 'originality' then it wasn't very original either.
But something can be original, innovative, or both and still be a flop. Very often, innovative things will fail, and the next go round someone borrows from that innovation, refines it, and puts it into a good format. That is what Starcraft did. They took what worked, what was fun, and put it into a relatively quality package.
The next step in RTS innovation comes from games similar to Savage and Natural Selection, where the commander 'controls' units that are actual players. That makes for a very interesting game experience, but is still a long way to go before you end up with a successful product.
I'm just saying it takes a lot of innovative failures (using the term failure lightly) to make a success.
so that the escape velocity is faster than c
From what I understand, it isn't that the escape velocity of a black hole is greater than c, it is that there is no path out of a black hole. All directions in a blackhole are inward. Spacetime is folded inward and there is no 'out'.
I'll give you my experience. This game could be very good. I feel that their take on PvP is far superior to WoW, and if it weren't just the novelty of something new talking, Id compare it to a release day WoW except with the PvP and PvE maturity flipped. I could be very good, but there are some very concerning issues with the game in its present state. Glitches/bugs/etc. This game contains some very noticable glitches with animation, mobs acting weird, jerky fighting and other such things that are not game breaking at all, but they are noticable. It isn't that a new game contains bugs, it is that a new game contains bugs in the starting areas and with the basic aspects of the game. When WoW started, there were bugs to be sure, but the starting areas were polished. You didn't have mobs warping, despawning, running in weird directions. It just shows that there was a lack of concern for the 'immersion' into the game world. I felt like the game said "Here, look, you're a High Elf, you hate dark elves, see how mean they are, look they burnt your trees. Now get the hell out of this PvE nonsense and go PvP" And that they did well. You can start in PvP at level 1 and have fun at it, and aside from the bugs, I haven't seen anything in it that I dislike yet. You earn renown and experience simply by pvping. The mechanics of this game were definately geared towards PvP. You are rewarded for hiding behind rocks to protect yourself from casters, unlike WoW. You are rewarded for using the terrain to your advantage. The PvP in this game rocks. And with some engine polish, I'd spend a good deal of time there. So there is definately a lacking component to PvE, but if they learn anything from these comments and really push hard to refine the engine and the game to iron out some of the bugs, they could have an amazing PvP game with some really solid backstory.
Scientific Atlanta also added to the hate for HDCP.
I have a standard resolution Tivo hooked up to my 1080p television. I also have a scientific atlanta cable box. Now, I knew I wouldn't be able to get HD signals through my Tivo, but that was fine, I just wanted to record the regular broadcast channels. I only do a few things in 1080, so when I needed that, I could manually switch sources. So I ran S-Video from the cable box to the tivo, and from the tivo to the Television. Then I ran an HDMI cable from the Scientific Atlanta cable box to my television. The idea being, I would normally watch through the tivo, and when something was broadcast in 1080i, I'd pull it up via the HDMI cable.
I return later to find that my cable box has thankfully provided me with the following full screen message to my Tivo:
"You are connected via a lower resolution output, please remove this connection and utilize the HDCP compliant device"
(or some variation to the above message) The Scientific Atlanta box was automatically disabling the lower-resolution S-video link to my Tivo because I had an HDMI cable attached.
The video and the audio WAS being passed to my tivo, but it added this message to the screen that wouldn't go away unless you pressed OK on the cable box. So it could do both, but because it took the whole, 'no output other than HDMI', thing to an extreme, it blocked out everything if I used HDMI. The assinine part about it was this: I simply could use the component cable connection on the cable box to hook to my television. Then it would work fine. this was a fine example of terrible design by Scientific Atlanta which resulted in me having to run yet another cable because the audio was no longer integrated.
The trick is this, the only thing Joe Consumer would see is that because this thing used a HDMI-whatchawhoseit, it broke his Tivo.
I hope for more boondoggles like this.
The ability to gift the games was a good feature, and if they implemented a method by which you could gift individual games (rather than your entire steam account) I would be 100% for Steam.
One thing that I greatly dislike regarding games is the publisher's insistance that you are purchasing a non-transferrable license. With physical media, there was little that they could do short of trying to limit installs by including phone-home code (which means I'd never purchase that game). So you could loan the disk to your friend so they could play the game for a bit. I know that I wouldn't have purchased the original HL had my friend not lent me his copy.
With downloaded games though, there seems to be this rule that they must be non-transferrable, and it is infuriating. Steam got away with it because they do provide a benefit to me (I've long since lost my original HL CDs), but if you could individually gift or loan games on their service, I'd be 100% behind them.
Hell, I changed the capitalization of a word in the article regarding the Bill of Rights, (People to people), and it was marked as vandalism. Turned me off to editing on Wikipedia right off the bat.
I probably wouldn't have minded it that much if I hadn't used a photograph of the actual document and the transcript from the National Archives as the reference. When something can get marked as vandalism, and you are tidying up an entry and using the freaking original in the Archives as a source... just pissed me off.
BOO!
He's coming right for us!!!!!
*BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM*
(Remember, republicans are the gun 'nuts')
My argument against that:
Country A and Country B enter into this agreement.
Country B makes it illegal to teach a black person to read.
Now, you are prosecuted in Country A, because of Country B's law.
I would NEVER agree to be bound by a law of a country in which I have no representation.
I've never seen an accent come across in an online forum. I guess it is possible, but I shouldn't have been surprised that when it did happen, it was Scottish.
I'm very non-religious, having had most of the religion driven out of me by my experience at the Air Force Academy. However, I became fairly pro-life on all counts.
You don't need religion to be pro-life and anti-abortion (Two separate topics in my opinion).
I simply cannot find a more definitive point at which 'life' begins than at conception. It has nothing to do with my religion, but it is the most logical point at which you can say "Before that point, it was definitely not a human" and after that point "If we do not interfere, it will become a human". I've tried to rationalize abortion by looking at different stages of pregnancy, but I cannot find, or it hasn't yet been identified, that there is a singular event that bridges alive and not alive. Conception, is the most definitive point.
Of course, I'm also very much opposed to the death penalty.
I also, thankfully, have not had my beliefs tested at any extreme level (Child with downs syndrome, or due to rape, or had a loved one murdered and the suspect caught). I am very thankful for that. So while I do not know if I'm strong enough to hold to my convictions, I hope that I never have to face them, but if I do, that I remain true to my beliefs.
So please don't assume that it is just the religious that are against abortion. You can have completely secular objections against it.
I mean, Heath Ledger as the Joker, WTF are they thinking?
Unlike Star Wars, the originals are still there in their Highest Definition Format. If you don't like the new stuff, then stop reading. If you like the new stuff, great!
There is nothing to lose here
What about the cop that said I was speeding and ran a redlight?
So I went before the judge and showed that based upon the spot in which the cop claimed he was sitting, he couldn't see the traffic light from that position.
So I wasn't speeding, and I didn't run a redlight, but I was fined. The cop didn't even show up and I still had to defend myself in court. Thankfully I had clear proof that it was impossible for the cop to do what he said he did, witness me travel through a redlight.
So, no, you don't have to not speed to not get fines, you have to be lucky as hell that you have physical proof the cop was lying, and even then, I'm not so sure.
Of course. Like most UIDs it is meaningless.
On its own.
I want to know what is in the database and associated with that meaningless number.
if hollywood is gonna start doing 3d films they better us unlucky people into account or i can see a lawsuit coming...
Wait a moment, I thought you had trouble with 3d vision, yet you can see a lawsuit coming. How could you possibly know that it was coming if... !!!
-Legally Blonde 3
Now I'm ... going to tell you what to like and what not to like. ... I'm ... going to tell you what to find fun. ... i ... rub... you ... and ...i... entertain you.
If it did that, mission f-ing accomplished. It doesn't matter _how_ it did it. Maybe it was different, maybe it was easier, maybe it ...differed from your preconceived notions. It doesn't matter. What matters is if you were entertained or not. That's it. ...The goal is to entertain you. Anything else is just means and props. If i... used different means, but reached the goal, who the heck cares? Why _do_ you care?
And yes, maybe it wasn't perfect, and maybe there would have been opportunities to be even better. Same as any other ...release... . That just makes it, at best, less than perfect, not "horrid". There is no perfection. If you don't regret the money or the time you blew ... me .... Maybe it didn't hit the exact centre of the target, but it didn't fail either.
Geeze, Ì swear that some people buy so much into the group-think of what they should and what they shouldn't like, that they don't even try ... head.
Your post reminded me of just how much you can change the premise of someone's post through the use of selective editing. (I actually didn't intend for it to go that direction, but I had to work with what was given.
Back on topic, the guy wasn't talking about a horrid game that he enjoyed, he was saying that as an RPG it was horrid, but as an adventure game, it was pretty enjoyable. Certainly nothing deserving the rant you gave him.
Actually, that does make sense. Eg, "sudo ip addr add 192.168.38.1/24 dev eth0" would add the address 192.168.38.1 with the subnet mask 255.255.255.0. 192.168.38.x/24 specifies the subnet, x=0 is the subnet identifier, x=255 is the broadcast address, everything in-between is a host.
But it does illustrate how the question itself can really trick up a potential employee w/o learning too much about them. Although this is just an example, I really dislike interview tests. Personally, I just don't do well with them. I failed my first programming exam in college because of simple "What is wrong with this code" or "What is the output of this code snippet, you have 30 seconds" questions. I just don't work that way.
So you take a look at those questions, and assume that I couldn't write a program to save my life. But if you actually look at my projects, both long and short term, I received 100s (or better for meeting bonus goals). Why? Because I took the time to understand the problem that needed to be solved before rushing off and coding something that looked like it would work. I read the problem, made sure I understood it, then developed a plan to meet all of the requirements of the task.
The tests though, still can't do them. Granted, I'm not in programming anymore, nor do I directly supervise anyone who does, but my ability to quickly look at code and see what was 'wrong' was not a good way to judge my ability to develop software.
I suppose knowing what questions to ask is far more important when attempting to evaluate recruits than tossing out simple 'gotchas'.