Menchise

I was more relieved than inspired, knowing that the game still exists. Adding this to the news that Ubi Soft is picking up Conquest: Frontier Wars makes me feel less bad about the fate of Digital Anvil. However, the only thing that will inspire me is a Freelancer demo, or maybe a trailer with lots of in-game footage. I just hope that Chris Roberts is still in the foreground of development. This is his first game design since Strike Commander (I don't think he designed the WC sequels). By the way, what does YMMV mean?

The wise one has spoken. I'll try to be less judging. quote: We need to get our own domestic supply of oil, ANWR, the gulf of mexico, anywhere that we can find it, 40% imports are much better then the 66% imports we have now. We are at the very precarious position of being blackmailed by the OPEC countries, just as they did to us in the 70's. Even if the figure was 20 percent America could still be 'blackmailed'. Almost every industry depends on a supply of oil to fuel the distribution of their products (namely transportation). Any drop in the supply will cause a recession of proportionate impact. A loss of 20 percent would be a disaster. A loss of 40 percent would be a HUGE disaster. Drilling more wells is a waste of time and money. The government needs to adopt an energy policy that encourages the proliferation of renewable energy sources in significant numbers. By the way, that 40 percent figure was based on my assumption that the USA imported 50 percent. Since you said the USA actually imports 66 percent, the new figure is much higher. quote: We need nuclear power plants, France has over 75% of their power supplied by Nuclear power, why not us? Our plants are better, safer, why not have nuclear power, Because the supply of Uranium is much smaller than the supply of oil (America would have to import more than 66 percent), and France doesn't have two fault lines running through it, not to mention the hurricane and tornado seasons.

I downloaded the trailer on Saturday. It kicks ass!

Charles, coal does not pollute anything unless it is burned, not including the damage caused by dumping five tons of anything on a backyard lawn. The gardener is going to have a very long weekend. With all the damage that's already being done, Bush and Cheney could write their own list: Fifty Things You Can Do To Destroy The Earth. Greenpeace gave the Bush administration what it deserved: Lumps of coal for being naughty this year. quote: It just goes to show you that most 'envirnomental groups' are really just freaks with no clue whatsoever... I seriously doubt that the list was written by a typical environmental group. I think EIB just picked the most extremist minority of environmentalists and labeled them as representatives of the entire movement. It works the same way as the Tonight Show's Jaywalking segments, where they only show the people who got the answers wrong.

I just found out a few minutes ago in another forum. He was a REAL small furry creature from Alpha Centauri. So long, DNA, and thanks for all the funny. [ 05-19-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

Here is another one: 53) Start behaving like a REAL environmental group.

You're still adorable, Akuma.

On the BCM box art is a label that says "Electronics Boutique Exclusive". I visited an EB store in Brisbane and asked them for an estimated shipping date. They told me that they are not going to receive any shipments, and that I should try a different store when the game is released. What's going on?

OK. I'm completely satisfied except for one issue. If Windows 2000 is a combination of the capabilities of NT and WIN95/98, then what was the point of making Windows ME (apart from wanting more money )? Isn't that just an upgrade of Windows 98? [ 05-14-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

quote: ....and by the same token, Menchise, putting in support for a buggy, antiquated OS, is not my idea of development heaven. Get it now? Got it. quote: BCM is not supported under WIN95 for the same reason its not supported under MSDOS and NT. Hey! Don't knock NT. It may not be able to run most games but it's a good system and one of the most stable around. In fact, Windows 2000 (which BCM supports) is just a fancy name for NT 5.

quote: The real question is "Why the hell would you want to run Win 95 in the first place?!" For the same reason some people still use MSDOS. They don't need a more advanced system to run the programs they like to use. I had Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 on one computer and between the two systems, every program worked adequately. I didn't use Windows 98 till I received a USB Zip drive.

Exactly. So what is it about BCM that makes it impossible to run in Windows 95?

Something else I forgot to mention was that WIN98 provides better support for dual booting with Windows NT. The computer I have at home used to have Windows 95 and Windows NT4 on the same system. Whenever I had to reinstall WIN95, I had to reinstall NT as well. With Windows 98, I didn't have to do that. It seemlessly integrated itself into NT's OS loader menu. I'm just curious about why BCM doesn't work in Windows 95, but works in Windows 98.

I noticed in the minimum system requirements for Battlecruiser Millenium that Windows 95 is not supported, but Windows 98 is. I thought that both systems were very similar. What does WIN98 have that WIN95 doesn't (apart from USB support)?

I decided to move out of the Socialist box for a little while (so please don't talk to me about it here ) and talk about this drug issue, but if the 'Summit of the Americas' thread is any indication, I'm probably going to be here for a long time. I didn't read all of the messages that have been posted in this thread so far, so forgive me if I'm repeating things. Anyway, here is my opinion. If you take out the Republicans and Conservatives alike, in addition to the hard boiled politicians who scream about family values (I know I'm generalizing but bear with me), all of the people in the Western World who fear about what will happen to the children, and all the other visibly vocal right wing people who still refuse to believe that the drug war was lost in the 50s, there will still be one group left that is against the legalization of narcotics. That group is called The Drug Dealers. Strange, but true. Drug dealers are against the legalization of their own wares. Why? Because their illegal operations are a thousand times more profitable! There are several reasons why they make more money, and most of these would be nullified by legalization. 1. Sellers of illegal substances pay no taxes. 2. There is little competition in the industry, so the prices stay up. 3. The covert methods of distribution limit the size of undetectable shipments, so the supply is always well short of demand, raising the price even further. 4. Addicts are willing to pay any price, and will do anything to get the money. Combine these factors and you have a multi-millionaire in the narcotics industry. If the industry was legalized, this is what would happen. 1. Sellers would have to pay taxes. 2. Legitimate competitors come up out of nowhere, forcing the price down. 3. Distribution is open, allowing massive shipments to move freely throughout the economy, causing supply to overtake demand, and force the price down even further. 4. Property crime starts crashing down, because more addicts can afford the product legitimately. 5. The drug dealers lose 900 percent of their profits. I made that number up but you get the idea. An added bonus is that due to the taxation of narcotics production, the government will have all the money it needs to fund rehabilitation programs. In conclusion, legalization would be a good thing because the only people who lose are the drug dealers. [ 05-09-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

Bush has the funniest looking smirk I've ever seen when he laughs. It's like a combination of Robert De Niro and Goofy.

NOW we're going somewhere. I guess it's essay time from now on. Here goes: In this post I'm going to talk about one of the SEVERE flaws of Capitalism. I'll discuss Socialist alternatives some other time (one must understand the problem before seeking a solution ). Before I start, take note that I am only looking for counter-arguments to my arguments against Capitalism at this time. If anyone of your counter-arguments are not relevant to this, I will not respond to them. This thread needs more focus. The Causes of Oppression of the Working Class 1. Surplus Value Hypothesis: The Capitalist production cycle is inherently oppressive to the working class. The owner of the means of production possesses the capital that will be invested in production. The capital is used to purchase commodities. The commodities are assembled into a certain arrangement by labour to make a value-added product. The value-added product is sold. The money from those sales goes back into the hands of the owner. The owner pays the worker a wage that is proportionate to labour power. The owner takes the surplus value as profit. What makes this oppressive are the last two sentences. The worker is paid a wage that is proportionate to labour power instead of labour value, which is wrong because the value of a product is proportionate to the amount of labour that is put into it, thus it is the worker who makes the item profitable in the first place. When the worker is paid according to labour power, it means that he or she is only being paid enough to keep that person working for the company. While the worker receives the wages for labour power, the owner of the means of production keeps the fruits of that person's labour, the surplus value, as profit. This production cycle oppresses the worker by depriving him or her of hard-earned rewards. I'll write some more stuff at another time, when I don't need so much sleep (it's 1:30AM in Brisbane at the moment). Goodnight.

quote: This is NOT a religious war, good grief Tekrebel!! I was only saying that no matter how many times we have punched holes in the fabric of his beliefs, he hangs onto them like what he says is still true. It is LIKE a religion to him, not A religion, good grief. Jaguar, if I followed that kind of reasoning, I could call you and Aramike fanatics about Capitalism. On a number of occasions where I have tried to explain something to Aramike, he reads it out of context and explains the flaws of a system that is different from what I was meaning to describe. So I try to provide a more detailed explanation in my next post to clear up the misunderstanding, but he still ends up misinterpreting some aspects of what I'm saying. This is partly due to the way I have expressed my arguments (I have been trying to compact information that requires an entire essay down to a few sentences), but is also due to Aramike's prejudicial assumptions about what Socialism is. Whenever I say the word 'government', he instantly thinks about the word 'oppression', because he still holds to the assumption that because a Socialist is talking about government, that government must eventually be oppressive. I don't blame him for that because I used to do the same thing all the time when I first started discussing the issue seriously (from the Capitalist position originally) with a Socialist who had actually read books by Marx and Engels from the left and Hayek and Friedman from the right (I haven't). Socialists have different interpretations of concepts. When I first read Marx, I couldn't understand a word of it because I wasn't used to the abstract expression of his arguments. When one of my University lecturers explained the Socialist interpretations of concepts to me last year (and continues to fill in a few gaps occasionally), it all started making sense. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near as proficient at explaining things as my former lecturer is. This debate is always going to go nowhere in an online discussion forum because each argument in an issue such as this requires at least one full essay with background research to explain everything clearly (Marx needed three volumes to clearly explain how Capitalism works and what's wrong with it). Essays require days or even weeks to write properly, and forum threads can disappear within a week without replies. I think we should let go of this issue now before it creates the longest thread in history. What do you say? [ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

It's true. You'll miss half the plot if you blink too often. I liked it too. It's an intricate puzzle of a story that is great fun to follow. I especially enjoyed the chase scene. BTW, the name of the movie is Memento, not Momento. I made the same mistake too. [ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]

The first games I remember playing are Centipede and Andrew Spencer's International Soccer, both C64 cartridges. My first IBM Compatible PC game was Test Drive on the Commodore PC-10 II. [ 05-06-2001: Message edited by: Menchise ]