Depends what you are doing and what the support would be for. When its something mission critical and you don't know the code inside and out for the application, you want to have a guru you can call. Support is like insurance. You pay for it so its there when you need it. Just make sure you keep a copy of the SLA you're paying for in case they blow it.
Oh the irony! You mean effective not affective. Thanks for proving his point about people using technology not being smart or wise by necessity.
More to the point: There is nothing wrong with being ignorant of computers and systems that you do not use. It isn't very wise to make judgment calls on what you do not know, but if they have no need for computers and the most experience they have with them is either the ATM or the POS at the store, then why bother filling your head with stuff you just don't need?
I'm having a similar experience in WAR currently. There is a set piece you can only get from doing Keep Sieges. Since I started trying to get it in my tier (tier3) they've even made it so 3 'loot bags' that you can select it from are guaranteed to drop and I've yet to win it. Currently at 51 Keep Sieges.
These are sieges that for the most part I've organized and lead, which is fairly exhausting when they are PUGs. Something about getting 24 complete strangers pointed in the same direction and willing to listen to you just takes time. Oh and then the siege themselves take time, particularly if there are enemy players defending. Technically its closer to 60-65 keep sieges if you count the ones we had to abandon.
I've pretty much just given up on it. I could really use the extra set bonus, and the armor is better than any chest piece I can currently get really. Plus its a Tome of Knowledge unlock when you get every piece of a set. So I guess I just can't "beat everything" in WAR unless I go back as a Chicken (and be instantly killed) and ninja the loot bag from someone with a lucky roll.
The question isn't whether or not SpaceX progressed more rapidly than NASA did over 40 years ago (with a real federal budget). The question is whether or not SpaceX is ahead of NASA right now. NASA hasn't truly developed a new propulsion device to get the Shuttle into orbit, nor have they designed a replacement for the Shuttle. A craft, may I remind you, that has been having technical difficulties of late and caused more deaths than the original lunar capsule.
SpaceX really is our only hope to continue manned space flight in the foreseeable future ('our' meaning the US). They are definitely ahead of NASA who hasn't even gone past the theory stage as far as we know, and even that seems optimistic.
Oh and remember, the Ares I is a expendable lifter like the Falcon 9. You can't compare it to the Draco as its not intended for manned use. NASA just flat out can't compete currently with this kind of thruster development, and they are going to have to rely on it unless Russia (who seems to have some animosity for America still and the Cold War is still fresh in both nation's eyes) gets buddy-buddy with us since the Shuttle is being retired!
The DOE was one of the few things Carter did right. Several issues have been solved that wouldn't of without this kind of organization. Besides, do you really want the military building their own nuclear weapons and reactors? As it is now they have to ask the DOE if they can have one, or any. They're all owned by the DOE and the DOE can just say no if they feel like it.
I just spent my last mod point otherwise I'd help get that "Troll" mod off you. Whoever added that doesn't understand what a troll is apparently.
Instant DNA tests are just a tool like anything else. They can be used for good or for bad. Perhaps the Nazis 2.0 will use them in a quest of 'racial purity' and imprison or kill a lot of innocent people. Or perhaps they'll be used to perpetuate genocide in Africa and the ME when it is available to them.
At the same time who knows what kinds of medical advances will be able to take advantage of the information. Whole new possibilities are opening up and I find it exciting. Can't take the good without the bad nor vice versa. Hell, maybe one day after world war 3 (personally I think the politics of the world need a massive re-arrange for any of the following to be possible) we'll be able to use that while exploring new worlds on nuclear powered seeder vessels. Being able to figure out the dna/chemical make up of biologicals has been a staple of sci-fi, and the thing about sci-fi is every day more of it becomes reality.
That is an issue with Hulu. Believe me. I've been using Hulu directly on my laptop (it has XP x64 for various reasons) and during certain times of day and for either REALLY popular (ala the latest episode of Fringe every Tuesday) or really not so popular (John Doe/Invisible Man) shows its even worse. For some reason there is this whole field of what I think of as mediocre TV shows that seems to never have this issue for me.
Anyways that's my daily experience with Hulu. So I now just don't use it during certain times of the day. Very frustrating though.
I am most definitely not a pacifist. I tend to be pro-military but anti-warlord if that makes any sense to you. If not I'll elaborate.
It is good you bring up warrants, that was kind of the whole point. The person I replied to made no such distinction. Say the cops were issued a warrant to arrest you for possession. The cops that are sent there are there to do one thing: their duty. They may not fully agree personally that you're being arrested for possessing marijuana. But as it is, in this country right now, that's illegal. They have a legal warrant or writ and they are going to go get you. They don't know if you are dangerous or just a kid "heading down the wrong path" or whatever. So the person I replied to says they're going to get blown up. All because they were doing their job.
This isn't the same as slavery, or equal rights. This is about disproportionate punishment and your right to do what you want to your body. Are you saying its okay to kill police that try to stop you from killing yourself? Suicide is a crime as well. It's your body. You can do what you want to it, right? That's what everyone else in this thread have been saying.
All I'm saying is jumping straight into violence isn't the smartest choices you can make. Similar to allowing 9 guilty men to go free to avoid putting 1 innocent in jail (another founding principal of the US), you might want to allow 9 guilty men to live to avoid putting 1 innocent to death.
Actually yes. I've noticed issues with some of the other Google domains such as gmodules.com as well. Will be interesting to find out what the cause is. I thought it was Firefox for a bit there but it turns out one of the domains on TechDirt has a script that was crashing Firefox (hurray for NoScript; didn't have it on my work PC before today).
On topic though: I seriously hope they don't plan on hosting virtual x86 boxes, just provide the code. They seem to be obsessing over the whole cloud computing thing but I can't a) think of any practical use to do so or b) see any thing good coming from that.
Does anyone know what the point is to this anyways? Its non-portable really and x86 hardware is fairly cheap. Its also not hard to hook it up to a network so you can access from anywhere. So really, what is the point?
If you want to start WoW now, you're going to be hurting most likely. From my experience the older zones are pretty damn empty now. If you played up to a few months after TBC came out I know exactly why you are disappointed. Unless you know where to go or someone tells you, the "natural progression" of quests lead you to a large grind in many areas about ever couple dozen of levels.
Recently, I've heard they made changes to XP gains so its not as painful to level. Too little too late. The game took too long to level with too few rewards. If you couldn't "get in" to a larger guild that was capable of doing raids you missed out on a lot of the point to the game as well. On the several North American servers I've played that wasn't easy. You couldn't just go ask to join, they'd turn you down. Meanwhile everyone else is screwed and unless you want to dedicate your life to running a WoW Guild you can't start your own to do it.
Then for me the part I really looked forward to was the PvP. Aside from it being painful to level up solo to the point I quit 3 or 4 times, once you are able to PvP there are glaring balance issues and bugs. My favorite was the several months of AV where the Horde towers would not fire arrows. They didn't close out the battle ground, they didn't give a quick patch. They made us wait MONTHS while they had a fix until they could put it with the content patch.
Or the level design issues. AV is another good example:
The Alliance town is far harder to assault. Horde have to run across a bridge spanning a chasm int he open and assault two towers on either side of the opposite end. Then they have to fight every Alliance mob to get to the Lord there with the Alliance spawn point right there, but on the opposite side of some other mobs that aren't worth fighting.
The Horde side? Oh you can run by all but one tower (remember, Horde have to kill both Alliance towers) and ignore all the Horde NPCs. The Horde spawn is in a cave and they have to cross a bridge to reach where the Alliance will be gathering to take on the Lord.
Yea. AV, this massive Battleground for PVP, turns into a blitzkrieg raid that the Alliance can only lose if they screw up and are disorganized.
So if you like a PVE experience, play WoW. Just hope you have a bunch of friends or get lucky enough to get in a guild (skill doesn't matter from the 8 NA servers I've been on. Never mind if you helped them out questing before hand either). There is a reason why WOW sold so much: Its made by Blizzard. There's a reason why it still makes money: Its just good enough. There's a reason I don't play it: I want fair PvP that is quick and fun.
"Or we could teach kids about Linux which doesn't normally require defragmenting or virus scanners. "
I'm all for our future generations learning about Linux and stuff. But you just stay the hell away from the curriculum.
Which is why the United States is *not* a democracy. The nation was founded on democratic *principals* but is a Representative Republic. Due to our unique origins and the history leading up to us freeing ourselves from the British we wanted to protect the rights of the MINORITY (while at the same time denying them the power to trample the rights of the MAJORITY), and we actually do that fairly well all things considered. If the Constitution hadn't been eroded and the founding principals ignored for the better part of the last 150 years things would be better.
Some things that would help: restoring the number of Representatives in the lower House to 1/30,000 (hell, just do 1/50,000) instead of the entirely arbitrary number of 473 that causes some odd mathematical anomalies that allow a few states to override the rights of all the others.
Possibly another thing that *could* help is restoring the Vice President to be the runner up reward. I can't help but wonder what Obama/McCain as POTUS/VPOTUS would do. Or what would of happened if it had been Bush/Gore in office? Things could very well been dramatically different. Sometimes better, sometimes worse so maybe not that big of a difference. But we definitely won't know now thanks to that being changed.
Funnily, I don't remember that being a constitutional amendment so I'm wondering how that was even legally done. I thought all changes to the Constitution had to be Amendments...
Anyways, there are a few other Amendments (and even more laws) that in hindsight seem to have caused more harm to our liberties than I for one care for. Thankfully, not many.
So let me get this straight. You are advocating the murder of largely innocent people (believe it or not) because some wingnut who decided pot was illegal ordered you arrested? You have fucked up morals. Go read about Dr. King. You start with civil disobedience. The country is not so far gone yet that it doesn't work.
When it becomes clear (as in more than to just conspiracy theorists) that people are being murdered or 'disapeared' because of drug use (and no, the guy with a bad acid trip or using the black tar heroin that started shooting at police DOES NOT COUNT) then you can come to me speaking of starting a second civil war.
People like you are way to similar to the real terrorists. You have your idea, want it to be reality, and will kill anyone you perceive will hold you back. Meanwhile you cause harm to befall those with a similar idea to you even if it IS a reasonable idea.
In short, you are harming the cause and are part of the problem.
The reversal of the magnetic poles is likely to not cause many problems according to 50% of the studies out there so we have no idea what to expect from that. A gamma ray burst is exceedingly unlikely, and unstoppable so either dump funding into space exploration or don't worry about it.
My bet is that the current political tensions will be maintained somewhat for a few decades. Sometime in the next 3 generations a massive (and overdue) earthquake is expected to hit the Cascadia Subduction Zone and make a huge tsunami that wipes out the west coast of Oregon, Washington, northern California, and even hits British Columbia. Seattle and Vancouver would be flooded, in addition to the earth quake damage.
Oh. And if its strong enough (already guaranteed to be over 9.0 so we're talking 9.5 or higher on the Richter scale which is easily possible) it may affect the Yellowstone Caldera. And if that gets set off pretty much everyone in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming is dead (100km out from the blast zone == death by erruption, everything 600km out == dead from ashfall). Oh and people in NW Nevada, NE Colorado, and Eastern Oregon and Washington and lets not forget about the people along the US border on the Canadian side by Montana as well. All of them are within the 600km danger zone that means almost certain death.
So, these two things that are *going* to happen if history is any example, and within the next 200-300 years unless scientists are 100% wrong, and will pretty much wipe out 5 states and pretty much bring the US to its knees. And we havent even gotten to the volcanic winter bit. Average temperature after 3 months will start dropping down to 15 degrees CELSIUS world wide and we may not see the sun for a year or two.
So yea, build a nuclear fall out shelter that you can hold out in for a decade. You may need it so you and a few families can hold out for a few years. Plus with a global famine I imagine its possible WW3 will start over food. Some countries like Russia don't make enough food internally to feed everyone, and some exporter countries like the US or Khazikstan may not be exporting due to the famine issues (and the devastation of the economy, again, in the US).
Yea... I had to figure out how WW3 would start for a book. Needed to re-organize the political sphere quite a bit (think the difference between 15th century Europe and modern day Europe on the map) and this seems to be a quite plausible chain reaction. Coin toss on whether nukes will be involved.
Because when you run out of "lives" they'll just send you out there in person. Or the facility you are 'playing' from will be nuked from orbit. Just to be sure.
It is not surprising your cores were running at 100%. Games tend to "use" all available CPU power regardless if they need to actually use it, at least most modern ones. I only have anecdotal evidence of this. Essentially, when I got my new PC I wanted to try to make it crash (hardware was a major step up for me and I wanted to push it). I had Doom3, Command&Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, and Half-Life 2 all running on the highest settings and was able to alt-tab between them pretty smoothly. CPU usage was at 100%. Funny thing is, if I play any one of those games on its own my CPU usage goes up to 100% supposedly as well. At least for the core its using (Doom3 and HL2 will use multi-cores, Zero Hour does not appear to).
Also, Vista likes to try to keep 2GB in 'virtual' memory as you put it so that its readily available for your applications as needed. Like parent said, no penalty on the access times. Even with 8GB of RAM Vista will do that to 2GB of your memory, or close to. Vista seems to be using 1.72 right now.
BTW, I really like ID software's games. They seem to really use your system well. Doom3 is one of the few older games that handles using a quad core well. Ack. Doom3 is considered older now. Oh dear, oh dear...
If enough people give them the feedback, they'll add the features. Valve is smart and actually cares about their customers (my experience, and the experience of every gamer I know or met online). The main issues with Steam's DRM are that they A) can kill your account anytime they want and B) you "need" an Internet connection even if you buy the physical media.
In regards to A, then I hope you never play any MMO or online game. Period. You've been able to get your accounts banned for a while. I DO agree that it should be a per game basis with Steam. So if you get banned on Counter Strike you can still play Half Life Deathmatch online. But Valve doesn't have any incentive to ban people unless they cause an issue for others. They make money on you having your account and buying MORE games later.
As to B, they've been improving this and now its just the initial setup from my experience that needs a 'Net connection. Since I like my games being up to date this isn't an issue for me personally but some people like playing unpatched games I suppose. I DO wish Offline mode was the default though and you had to opt IN to it being online.
First, I'm not surprised what happened to AoC. They decided to push out the game early because of WAR and WOW and paid the consequences. A lot of the stuff in game was half assed, just so they could have the checkbox ticked on their list. Other parts were amazing but overall a disappointment.
Second, in reading the comments I see all these comparisons to other MMOs as to why AoC failed but one is conspicuously missing: Warhammer Online.
Maybe its an anomaly, but most of the people I come into contact with that played AoC also had bought WAR. While its true many people seem to be playing WAR less due to the plethora of new games that just came out (WOW's expansion, Left4Dead, Fallout3, and FarCry2...) but I'm already people come back, even from WOW.
Some people have made comments on how hard it is to compete with WOW due to the polish. All I'll say is I'm surprised with Mythic. They're working their butts off to deliver new content and fix problems. The latest patch fixed a number of issues, all of them I know have been complained about.
Oh be quiet you. Pretty much every pirated film is available as a DVD quality (or better) rip before or while it is in theaters. The issue is either with A) some of the people involved in rating the films or B) people involved in making the DVDs or C) anywhere else between production and distribution.
The people who sneak camera's in are just sad, and wasting their time.
The American idea of "Free Market" is kind of like "Free Software". Basically the goal is to have everyone play nice and have an equal chance to contribute and so on. Nothing about that precludes government regulations. SOME people insist you should have an "anarchic market" and then go around calling it "free".
Fact is, people need rules. They're a fundamental part of society once you go beyond a certain population size. Without them you get anarchy, which is only bad when there are bad people. If everyone just loved everyone else then we'd be peachy. But then you get stupid things like wars based on race, religion, ideals, or just flat out greed. That's reality. That's life.
Some think you can change it, but they're delusional. Unless you are willing to trample over someone's rights and reprogram them (which to me the idea is worse than rape, though not by much) you are going to have people that will just see that as weakness and, like a predator, act accordingly.
The real trick in my opinion is to have AS FEW laws/regulations as possible. The US started out pretty damn well like that but has been slowly corrupted over the years. I'm fairly certain the Founding Fathers would be among those that speculate a revolution or civil war in the US within the next 100 years. Considering the level of military might the US has, that is a pretty damn scary thought.
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You are doing it wrong. If you make current fuels (eg gasoline) cheaper you won't be weaning anyone off of anything.
Depends what you are doing and what the support would be for. When its something mission critical and you don't know the code inside and out for the application, you want to have a guru you can call. Support is like insurance. You pay for it so its there when you need it. Just make sure you keep a copy of the SLA you're paying for in case they blow it.
Oh the irony! You mean effective not affective. Thanks for proving his point about people using technology not being smart or wise by necessity.
More to the point: There is nothing wrong with being ignorant of computers and systems that you do not use. It isn't very wise to make judgment calls on what you do not know, but if they have no need for computers and the most experience they have with them is either the ATM or the POS at the store, then why bother filling your head with stuff you just don't need?
I'm having a similar experience in WAR currently. There is a set piece you can only get from doing Keep Sieges. Since I started trying to get it in my tier (tier3) they've even made it so 3 'loot bags' that you can select it from are guaranteed to drop and I've yet to win it. Currently at 51 Keep Sieges.
These are sieges that for the most part I've organized and lead, which is fairly exhausting when they are PUGs. Something about getting 24 complete strangers pointed in the same direction and willing to listen to you just takes time. Oh and then the siege themselves take time, particularly if there are enemy players defending. Technically its closer to 60-65 keep sieges if you count the ones we had to abandon.
I've pretty much just given up on it. I could really use the extra set bonus, and the armor is better than any chest piece I can currently get really. Plus its a Tome of Knowledge unlock when you get every piece of a set. So I guess I just can't "beat everything" in WAR unless I go back as a Chicken (and be instantly killed) and ninja the loot bag from someone with a lucky roll.
The question isn't whether or not SpaceX progressed more rapidly than NASA did over 40 years ago (with a real federal budget). The question is whether or not SpaceX is ahead of NASA right now. NASA hasn't truly developed a new propulsion device to get the Shuttle into orbit, nor have they designed a replacement for the Shuttle. A craft, may I remind you, that has been having technical difficulties of late and caused more deaths than the original lunar capsule.
SpaceX really is our only hope to continue manned space flight in the foreseeable future ('our' meaning the US). They are definitely ahead of NASA who hasn't even gone past the theory stage as far as we know, and even that seems optimistic.
Oh and remember, the Ares I is a expendable lifter like the Falcon 9. You can't compare it to the Draco as its not intended for manned use. NASA just flat out can't compete currently with this kind of thruster development, and they are going to have to rely on it unless Russia (who seems to have some animosity for America still and the Cold War is still fresh in both nation's eyes) gets buddy-buddy with us since the Shuttle is being retired!
The DOE was one of the few things Carter did right. Several issues have been solved that wouldn't of without this kind of organization. Besides, do you really want the military building their own nuclear weapons and reactors? As it is now they have to ask the DOE if they can have one, or any. They're all owned by the DOE and the DOE can just say no if they feel like it.
I just spent my last mod point otherwise I'd help get that "Troll" mod off you. Whoever added that doesn't understand what a troll is apparently.
Instant DNA tests are just a tool like anything else. They can be used for good or for bad. Perhaps the Nazis 2.0 will use them in a quest of 'racial purity' and imprison or kill a lot of innocent people. Or perhaps they'll be used to perpetuate genocide in Africa and the ME when it is available to them.
At the same time who knows what kinds of medical advances will be able to take advantage of the information. Whole new possibilities are opening up and I find it exciting. Can't take the good without the bad nor vice versa. Hell, maybe one day after world war 3 (personally I think the politics of the world need a massive re-arrange for any of the following to be possible) we'll be able to use that while exploring new worlds on nuclear powered seeder vessels. Being able to figure out the dna/chemical make up of biologicals has been a staple of sci-fi, and the thing about sci-fi is every day more of it becomes reality.
That is an issue with Hulu. Believe me. I've been using Hulu directly on my laptop (it has XP x64 for various reasons) and during certain times of day and for either REALLY popular (ala the latest episode of Fringe every Tuesday) or really not so popular (John Doe/Invisible Man) shows its even worse. For some reason there is this whole field of what I think of as mediocre TV shows that seems to never have this issue for me.
Anyways that's my daily experience with Hulu. So I now just don't use it during certain times of the day. Very frustrating though.
So its like Superman 3 but with PayPal?
I am most definitely not a pacifist. I tend to be pro-military but anti-warlord if that makes any sense to you. If not I'll elaborate.
It is good you bring up warrants, that was kind of the whole point. The person I replied to made no such distinction. Say the cops were issued a warrant to arrest you for possession. The cops that are sent there are there to do one thing: their duty. They may not fully agree personally that you're being arrested for possessing marijuana. But as it is, in this country right now, that's illegal. They have a legal warrant or writ and they are going to go get you. They don't know if you are dangerous or just a kid "heading down the wrong path" or whatever. So the person I replied to says they're going to get blown up. All because they were doing their job.
This isn't the same as slavery, or equal rights. This is about disproportionate punishment and your right to do what you want to your body. Are you saying its okay to kill police that try to stop you from killing yourself? Suicide is a crime as well. It's your body. You can do what you want to it, right? That's what everyone else in this thread have been saying.
All I'm saying is jumping straight into violence isn't the smartest choices you can make. Similar to allowing 9 guilty men to go free to avoid putting 1 innocent in jail (another founding principal of the US), you might want to allow 9 guilty men to live to avoid putting 1 innocent to death.
Actually yes. I've noticed issues with some of the other Google domains such as gmodules.com as well. Will be interesting to find out what the cause is. I thought it was Firefox for a bit there but it turns out one of the domains on TechDirt has a script that was crashing Firefox (hurray for NoScript; didn't have it on my work PC before today).
On topic though: I seriously hope they don't plan on hosting virtual x86 boxes, just provide the code. They seem to be obsessing over the whole cloud computing thing but I can't a) think of any practical use to do so or b) see any thing good coming from that.
Does anyone know what the point is to this anyways? Its non-portable really and x86 hardware is fairly cheap. Its also not hard to hook it up to a network so you can access from anywhere. So really, what is the point?
Mod both parents Informative, and myself as well.
If you want to start WoW now, you're going to be hurting most likely. From my experience the older zones are pretty damn empty now. If you played up to a few months after TBC came out I know exactly why you are disappointed. Unless you know where to go or someone tells you, the "natural progression" of quests lead you to a large grind in many areas about ever couple dozen of levels.
Recently, I've heard they made changes to XP gains so its not as painful to level. Too little too late. The game took too long to level with too few rewards. If you couldn't "get in" to a larger guild that was capable of doing raids you missed out on a lot of the point to the game as well. On the several North American servers I've played that wasn't easy. You couldn't just go ask to join, they'd turn you down. Meanwhile everyone else is screwed and unless you want to dedicate your life to running a WoW Guild you can't start your own to do it.
Then for me the part I really looked forward to was the PvP. Aside from it being painful to level up solo to the point I quit 3 or 4 times, once you are able to PvP there are glaring balance issues and bugs. My favorite was the several months of AV where the Horde towers would not fire arrows. They didn't close out the battle ground, they didn't give a quick patch. They made us wait MONTHS while they had a fix until they could put it with the content patch.
Or the level design issues. AV is another good example:
The Alliance town is far harder to assault. Horde have to run across a bridge spanning a chasm int he open and assault two towers on either side of the opposite end. Then they have to fight every Alliance mob to get to the Lord there with the Alliance spawn point right there, but on the opposite side of some other mobs that aren't worth fighting.
The Horde side? Oh you can run by all but one tower (remember, Horde have to kill both Alliance towers) and ignore all the Horde NPCs. The Horde spawn is in a cave and they have to cross a bridge to reach where the Alliance will be gathering to take on the Lord.
Yea. AV, this massive Battleground for PVP, turns into a blitzkrieg raid that the Alliance can only lose if they screw up and are disorganized.
So if you like a PVE experience, play WoW. Just hope you have a bunch of friends or get lucky enough to get in a guild (skill doesn't matter from the 8 NA servers I've been on. Never mind if you helped them out questing before hand either). There is a reason why WOW sold so much: Its made by Blizzard. There's a reason why it still makes money: Its just good enough. There's a reason I don't play it: I want fair PvP that is quick and fun.
"Or we could teach kids about Linux which doesn't normally require defragmenting or virus scanners. " I'm all for our future generations learning about Linux and stuff. But you just stay the hell away from the curriculum.
Which is why the United States is *not* a democracy. The nation was founded on democratic *principals* but is a Representative Republic. Due to our unique origins and the history leading up to us freeing ourselves from the British we wanted to protect the rights of the MINORITY (while at the same time denying them the power to trample the rights of the MAJORITY), and we actually do that fairly well all things considered. If the Constitution hadn't been eroded and the founding principals ignored for the better part of the last 150 years things would be better.
Some things that would help: restoring the number of Representatives in the lower House to 1/30,000 (hell, just do 1/50,000) instead of the entirely arbitrary number of 473 that causes some odd mathematical anomalies that allow a few states to override the rights of all the others.
Possibly another thing that *could* help is restoring the Vice President to be the runner up reward. I can't help but wonder what Obama/McCain as POTUS/VPOTUS would do. Or what would of happened if it had been Bush/Gore in office? Things could very well been dramatically different. Sometimes better, sometimes worse so maybe not that big of a difference. But we definitely won't know now thanks to that being changed.
Funnily, I don't remember that being a constitutional amendment so I'm wondering how that was even legally done. I thought all changes to the Constitution had to be Amendments...
Anyways, there are a few other Amendments (and even more laws) that in hindsight seem to have caused more harm to our liberties than I for one care for. Thankfully, not many.
So let me get this straight. You are advocating the murder of largely innocent people (believe it or not) because some wingnut who decided pot was illegal ordered you arrested? You have fucked up morals. Go read about Dr. King. You start with civil disobedience. The country is not so far gone yet that it doesn't work.
When it becomes clear (as in more than to just conspiracy theorists) that people are being murdered or 'disapeared' because of drug use (and no, the guy with a bad acid trip or using the black tar heroin that started shooting at police DOES NOT COUNT) then you can come to me speaking of starting a second civil war.
People like you are way to similar to the real terrorists. You have your idea, want it to be reality, and will kill anyone you perceive will hold you back. Meanwhile you cause harm to befall those with a similar idea to you even if it IS a reasonable idea.
In short, you are harming the cause and are part of the problem.
The reversal of the magnetic poles is likely to not cause many problems according to 50% of the studies out there so we have no idea what to expect from that. A gamma ray burst is exceedingly unlikely, and unstoppable so either dump funding into space exploration or don't worry about it.
My bet is that the current political tensions will be maintained somewhat for a few decades. Sometime in the next 3 generations a massive (and overdue) earthquake is expected to hit the Cascadia Subduction Zone and make a huge tsunami that wipes out the west coast of Oregon, Washington, northern California, and even hits British Columbia. Seattle and Vancouver would be flooded, in addition to the earth quake damage.
Oh. And if its strong enough (already guaranteed to be over 9.0 so we're talking 9.5 or higher on the Richter scale which is easily possible) it may affect the Yellowstone Caldera. And if that gets set off pretty much everyone in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming is dead (100km out from the blast zone == death by erruption, everything 600km out == dead from ashfall). Oh and people in NW Nevada, NE Colorado, and Eastern Oregon and Washington and lets not forget about the people along the US border on the Canadian side by Montana as well. All of them are within the 600km danger zone that means almost certain death.
So, these two things that are *going* to happen if history is any example, and within the next 200-300 years unless scientists are 100% wrong, and will pretty much wipe out 5 states and pretty much bring the US to its knees. And we havent even gotten to the volcanic winter bit. Average temperature after 3 months will start dropping down to 15 degrees CELSIUS world wide and we may not see the sun for a year or two.
So yea, build a nuclear fall out shelter that you can hold out in for a decade. You may need it so you and a few families can hold out for a few years. Plus with a global famine I imagine its possible WW3 will start over food. Some countries like Russia don't make enough food internally to feed everyone, and some exporter countries like the US or Khazikstan may not be exporting due to the famine issues (and the devastation of the economy, again, in the US).
Yea... I had to figure out how WW3 would start for a book. Needed to re-organize the political sphere quite a bit (think the difference between 15th century Europe and modern day Europe on the map) and this seems to be a quite plausible chain reaction. Coin toss on whether nukes will be involved.
Because when you run out of "lives" they'll just send you out there in person. Or the facility you are 'playing' from will be nuked from orbit. Just to be sure.
It is not surprising your cores were running at 100%. Games tend to "use" all available CPU power regardless if they need to actually use it, at least most modern ones. I only have anecdotal evidence of this. Essentially, when I got my new PC I wanted to try to make it crash (hardware was a major step up for me and I wanted to push it). I had Doom3, Command&Conquer Generals: Zero Hour, and Half-Life 2 all running on the highest settings and was able to alt-tab between them pretty smoothly. CPU usage was at 100%. Funny thing is, if I play any one of those games on its own my CPU usage goes up to 100% supposedly as well. At least for the core its using (Doom3 and HL2 will use multi-cores, Zero Hour does not appear to).
Mod parent up, and keep him that way.
Also, Vista likes to try to keep 2GB in 'virtual' memory as you put it so that its readily available for your applications as needed. Like parent said, no penalty on the access times. Even with 8GB of RAM Vista will do that to 2GB of your memory, or close to. Vista seems to be using 1.72 right now.
BTW, I really like ID software's games. They seem to really use your system well. Doom3 is one of the few older games that handles using a quad core well. Ack. Doom3 is considered older now. Oh dear, oh dear...
If enough people give them the feedback, they'll add the features. Valve is smart and actually cares about their customers (my experience, and the experience of every gamer I know or met online). The main issues with Steam's DRM are that they A) can kill your account anytime they want and B) you "need" an Internet connection even if you buy the physical media.
In regards to A, then I hope you never play any MMO or online game. Period. You've been able to get your accounts banned for a while. I DO agree that it should be a per game basis with Steam. So if you get banned on Counter Strike you can still play Half Life Deathmatch online. But Valve doesn't have any incentive to ban people unless they cause an issue for others. They make money on you having your account and buying MORE games later.
As to B, they've been improving this and now its just the initial setup from my experience that needs a 'Net connection. Since I like my games being up to date this isn't an issue for me personally but some people like playing unpatched games I suppose. I DO wish Offline mode was the default though and you had to opt IN to it being online.
You must live under a rock. BFF ment "best friend forever" since at least the 80's.
Brothels.
First, I'm not surprised what happened to AoC. They decided to push out the game early because of WAR and WOW and paid the consequences. A lot of the stuff in game was half assed, just so they could have the checkbox ticked on their list. Other parts were amazing but overall a disappointment.
Second, in reading the comments I see all these comparisons to other MMOs as to why AoC failed but one is conspicuously missing: Warhammer Online.
Maybe its an anomaly, but most of the people I come into contact with that played AoC also had bought WAR. While its true many people seem to be playing WAR less due to the plethora of new games that just came out (WOW's expansion, Left4Dead, Fallout3, and FarCry2...) but I'm already people come back, even from WOW.
Some people have made comments on how hard it is to compete with WOW due to the polish. All I'll say is I'm surprised with Mythic. They're working their butts off to deliver new content and fix problems. The latest patch fixed a number of issues, all of them I know have been complained about.
Oh be quiet you. Pretty much every pirated film is available as a DVD quality (or better) rip before or while it is in theaters. The issue is either with A) some of the people involved in rating the films or B) people involved in making the DVDs or C) anywhere else between production and distribution.
The people who sneak camera's in are just sad, and wasting their time.
The American idea of "Free Market" is kind of like "Free Software". Basically the goal is to have everyone play nice and have an equal chance to contribute and so on. Nothing about that precludes government regulations. SOME people insist you should have an "anarchic market" and then go around calling it "free".
Fact is, people need rules. They're a fundamental part of society once you go beyond a certain population size. Without them you get anarchy, which is only bad when there are bad people. If everyone just loved everyone else then we'd be peachy. But then you get stupid things like wars based on race, religion, ideals, or just flat out greed. That's reality. That's life.
Some think you can change it, but they're delusional. Unless you are willing to trample over someone's rights and reprogram them (which to me the idea is worse than rape, though not by much) you are going to have people that will just see that as weakness and, like a predator, act accordingly.
The real trick in my opinion is to have AS FEW laws/regulations as possible. The US started out pretty damn well like that but has been slowly corrupted over the years. I'm fairly certain the Founding Fathers would be among those that speculate a revolution or civil war in the US within the next 100 years. Considering the level of military might the US has, that is a pretty damn scary thought.