Kartoffel

What about the story, or whatever else there is, besides flashy graphics? BTW, UT2k4 is 6 CDs - so Farcry's not quite the biggest game out there.

I'm around...

I used the "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", because it would have looked (to me) rather odd to just have part of that. I had really been only refering to the liberty, and to a lesser extent, the happiness part. Bush is doing away with it by pushing the anti-homosexual marriage stuff. quote: And they haven't. The government has taken a stand to prevent activist judges from attempting to rewrite a cornerstone of our society to mean what they want it to mean. Instead, they push their meaning of it. quote: Pointless discrimination? Of who? Why not allow people who like to have sex with animals to marry their dogs? "Legalize it or else you are discriminating against their 'normal' behavior!" I called it pointless discriminatiopn, because, to me, it seems that way. Pointless, because they're really not likely to change. Discrimination, because they are people, just like you or me, just with differing beliefs. About letting people have sex with animals, to each their own. Though from an extremely cynical point of view, it would at least help with the overpopulation problem. quote: Maybe there is a place where this moral relativism needs to end and common decency and sense needs to take over. Child pornography wouldn't be such a touchy issue if we all tried to 'understand' the views of NAMBLA. Michael Jackson didn't molest those children - he made love to them. I did not say that you should accept the other side without question - just that you not throw it aside without looking at it. Some things, may be inherently wrong, but that doesnt mean that those you disagree with completely wrong, either. Also, what is NAMBLA? Not familiar with that acronym. quote: Well, why not take this a bit furthur? Why not allow people to marry more than one partner? While we're at it, let's let people get married to their brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, mothers & fathers? I mean as long as they're consenting adults right. If they are consenting adults, know the consequences of it, then by all means, let them. Perhaps a study on inbreeding would be worthwhile, for a warning, but if their religion allows it, or whatever, and they want to, and have thought it out well, the government has no buisness stepping between them. quote: There are many animals that clearly love their owners, why not let the owners marry their animals too? There is parental, or familial love (which would be the 'love' your animal feels, I think it would be more of a friendship), and then there is romantic love. quote: You know what, why even bother getting Married, I mean what's the point, it used to be this old fasioned idea of Raising a famlily, and making a pact with God, but with today's extended families that really doesn't exist any more and God doesn't matter anymore right? If a common law marriage is enough, by all means, let that be it. You can still raise a family, do whatever. It's just without the pomp and formality of a 'true' marriage. God may very well matter. I just dont believe in a god (though I dont disbelieve in a god - I'm agnostic) quote: Why not we just all do this, we see someone we want to sleep with and we move in together and do it like Jackrabbits. When we get tired, we simply move on. I mean we don't need these silly old fasion values like Morals any more right? Or even better, let's do like the Africans do and get Married or not, and have several mistresses and squeezes on the side. I mean so what if half the population over there is dying of AIDS, we have condoms to protect us right? If both are consenting, then I would have no problem with it, when they want to move apart, then let them. If those in the harem you imply are doing it without duress, then... if they want to... I never claimed morals were unnecescary. Without ethics & whatnot, it would be complete anarchy. Or a dictatorship. Or something. In any cast, I wouldent want that, and I'm sure you wouldent. There is a thing called common sense, for you and your partner(s) to be tested. It's not like you'd want to have sex with someone that you know has AIDS, right? Times are changing, and things need to change with it.

Bleh... Whatever happened to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"...? Bush is working on doing away with it, that's what. The government has NO buisness poking into people's relationships, though they (the gays) should not be advertising their relationship, themselves. It will certainly NOT be the end of the US if gay marraiges are legalized. It's just a step closer to doing away with pointless discrimination and stupidity. This would not be such a touchy issue if people werent so narrow minded, completely refusing other viewpoints.

Found this digging through the Home of the Underdogs forums, which I lurk. Thought some of you might enjoy it. Bush Campaign Slogans The Bush/Cheney folks want YOUR opinions about possible campaign slogans. The choices have been narrowed down to: Bush/Cheney '04: Compassionate Colonialism Vote Bush in '04: "I Has Incumbentory Advantitude." Bush/Cheney '04: "You're either with us or against us!" Bush/Cheney '04: Deja-voodoo all over again! Bush/Cheney '04: Four More Wars! Bush/Cheney '04: Leave no billionaire behind. BU__SH__! Bush/Cheney '04: Lies and videotape but no sex! Bush/Cheney '04: Making the world a better place, one country at a time. Bush/Cheney '04: Or else. Bush/Cheney '04: Over a billion Whoppers served. Bush/Cheney '04: Putting the "con" in conservatism. Bush/Cheney '04: Thanks for not paying attention. Bush/Cheney '04: This time, elect us! Bush/Cheney '04: We're Gooder! George W. Bush: A brainwave away from the presidency. George W. Bush: Honest as his day is long. George W. Bush: It takes a village- idiot. George W. Bush: Leadership without a doubt. George W. Bush: The buck stops Over There. Reselect Bush/Cheney in '04. Vote Bush in '04: It's a no-brainer! Vote for Bush & You Get Dick! Who would Jesus Bomb? Bush/Cheney 2004: Not just the best choice, the only choice. Bush/Cheney 2004: Too ugly for extramarital affairs

I was joking about the acid and thermite. But anyways, try opening it up again, and scratching the circuit boards up with a knife. I mean, scratch them like there's no tomorrow. Or, if you want to try soaking it in water, the water will need to be really dirty and gritty, if you want it guarenteed that the drive wont work. Also, if you do soak the drive, open it up first so the grit can get inside. Then once it's been soaking for a while, close it up, then wipe off the exterior. Or you could try breaking circuit boards in it... cutting cables, regardless, it should be easy enough to get it to not work. Or, you could try the really REALLY lame way. Don't plug in the molex (The smaller 4-wire plug that fits onto the back of the drive. The plug is about 1 inch wide.) connector. Unfortunately, this wont work if he knows anything about how a computer works inside, if he sees you not plugging it in. (The molex connector is what provides power to the drive)

Back in October, there was a TechTV article that was about clearing all data from hard drives, but a couple of the physical destruction methods would work for you. First, there's hydrochloric acid. Give that a few hours to soak the drive in, & you've got a destroyed drive. Then, comes the fun stuff. Thermite. Thermite burns at ~3000 degrees centigrade, which should be plenty enough to destroy your drive. Or, if you're not feeling adventerous, there's always the good old hammer you could whack this with. In any case, you really should get a new drive, as this one sounds like it should not be trusted. *Disclaimer : I am not responsible for your safety if you decide to use my suggestions for destroying your drive. About UPnP, that has nothing to do with PnP, which is what is used to detect your hardware. In fact, it's something of a security risk. You'd best shut it down.

Okay, $300. All I was pointing out is that M$ is NOT making a profit on the xbox. And that it would appear that this company is not going to make a profit on their console, either. And with no apparent cash flow, it would seem like this would die out very soon after it's launch, if it is indeed not vaporware.

At best, all this would be good for is publicity, since I'm virtually certain they would not make any profit on the consoles. (The xbox costs ~$400 to make, and that's a celeron 733 with a GeForce 3. I'm guessing this is going to be $500+) Anyways, it sounds more like vaporware to me. And even if it isnt, from what you've described, it's low-end by today's standards, and it's only going to get worse. Better to just stay with a standard PC, that you can upgrade and tweak as needed. Caveat emptor.

To me, it looks like the reason the AI has so little trouble acheiving orbit, while everyone here has, is because the AI isnt affected by the altitude cap, while player controlled craft are. IMO, if you do fiddle around with the cap in the next patch, I think raising the cap, rather then lowering the egress altitude would be better, since it would give more room for dogfights on planets.

No. They havent. They got cut from (before?) BCM, and have been gone since.

Just got UC, and I like it. It has a few (minor) things I dont like in it though, like the aforementioned 0-9 speed controls, and the green overture on portraits. Makes it a lot harder to identify who's talking, since there's less contrast. Then there's the nonconfigurable control scheme. Maybe it's fine for you people who use a WASD control scheme primarily, but for those of us crazy enough to use something else, it would be nice to be able to change it. I think the speed reduction on (nearly?) every ship is for the most part good, it is annoying when you're trying to get somewhere 50+ km from where you are... I miss my BCM firestorm traveling at 1.5km/s, though... One oddity - the 3000ad intro clip looks like its in 256 color... maybe it's just me? (I run my desktop in 32 bit color) Overall, though, a solid improvement over an already good BCM. Edit : Noticed the RC3 patch fixes the speed settings. [ 02-16-2004, 09:39 PM: Message edited by: Kartoffel ]

I'm around.

I'd classify myself as a liberal, independant leaning democrat (I havent registered to vote, though I will soon) I base most of my alignment on tax policy. Tax & spend may not be the best, but it's better then borrow & spend like crazy, like Bush is doing now. The national debt is high enough already. What we really need (read: what I want) is someone who can cut through all the porkbarreling, who is open source friendly, anti-Microsoft, anti excessive IP rights BS (I.E., against all this RIAA, MPAA BS), and is against all this 'tax cuts for the rich' BS.

I think he's refering to this and this... though I might be wrong...

Something of a relief to me; I can put off switching to 2000 for a few more years now.

Anyone up for some gaming tonight, or this weekend? I can't host (due to idiotic ISP that blocks most server ports) but if someone else can... I have (in no paticular order) : Bridge Commander NWN +XP1 +XP2 Mechwarrior 3 Jedi Academy BF 1942 +RTR WarCraft 3 +Frozen Throne Likely some others, but I'd have to go digging.

Happy new year... Now back to being apathetic.

Ehh... I got Deus Ex 2, and while my system can barely handle it, my gripe with it is how much they broke (IMO, of course) from the original Deus Ex. [rant] The skill point system is gone... inventory management is REALLY stupid now - it's slot based, rather then semi-realistic like DX1. IE, everything is the same size, and you only have 12 or so inventory slots. (I want this flamethrower! I'll just toss away a candy bar! Now I can pick up this flamethrower!). The aug (now they call them biomods) system is also completely different... you only have 5 slots, each of which has 3 choices. You can't have two from the same category, so no increased strength and bot domination at the same time. At least you can replace a disliked aug with a different one. Damage is also far simpler then DX1, there's no more seperate body parts in this - everyone only has one life meter, like in UT, as opposed to 6 in DX1. Damage itself is also less in this - it takes two or three headshots to kill someone in this with the pistol, as opposed to 5 or 6 body shots. Perhaps the one thing I do like, is that there are more air ducts to sneak around in, then in DX1. I plan on playing through at least once, but so far, I am quite disappointed. After 2 hours of play, I'd give it a 4/10, or a 5/10, because it feels so narrow, like it was designed with as little you need to keep track of as possible. It just doesnt feel right. The HUD is ugly, too. Also got Warcraft 3. Junk. Starcraft was better. What is with the 90 supply cap? This also seems like it was designed to have as little to keep track of as possible. Got Mechwarrior 3 out of a bargain bin. The one really good piece of software I got this year. [/rant]

Ah, well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. It just speeds up my general disintrest in switching to 2k.

I'm around... trying to get back into lurking.

Which, by the way, how do you like your coffee? Bad? Awful? Or just undrinkable?

The lackey is still around... I'd want a promotion, but then there'd be nobody left for you two to order around.

I'm still around...

I'm here.