Darkling

quote:Originally posted by Darien Wolfe: I think for me, I'm a maybe...and I love the manual/box in my paws, no really, I have paws. *hide* Seriously though, I recently got my Breed Ltd Edition and the Sourcebook was so cool, pity the game sucked due to editing... h8 CDV! I think the best thing would be to include a PDF of the manual and maybe offer a "Real" manual for an additional fee.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: quote:Originally posted by Teknocack Prime: Wow. At the risk of sounding just like a fanboy, heh, don't worry, you're in good company. We're all fanboys btw, there is a pretty good discussion about this going on here on AVault. It also discusses copy protection etc etc. What cracks me up is the guy that says that his older games would run on his new machines if it weren't for Copy Protection. What an idiot, first, games like Privateer and Ultima Underworld that depended on DPMI (Dos Protected Mode Interface), won't run on Win2000 & XP Machines and second, most of those older games didn't have copy protection.

quote:Originally posted by Grayson: Not to mention my access to broadband is as dependable as my access to a gun. Depending on where you live, that could be anywhere from VERY Dependable to Not so much

quote:Originally posted by nomad: The chinese have committed an enormous mistake. Since years, they have attempted to cure/prevent bird flu with completely inappropriate antivirals designed to treat human influenza. As result, the cheapeast drug, Amantadine, is now useless because the strain H5N1 has become resistant.I remember reading about this several months ago, what a bunch of idiots, oh well the damage is done and you're right if there is a Pandemic, Asia & Africa will be left to die becuase the other Anti-Virals are just way too expensive for them to afford. They seriously need to get this machine to get rid of all the carcasses, this thing will turn them all into oil and fertilizer while killing any bacteria & Viruses left in the carcasses.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Partitioning ... to ... many CPUs ... For ... game threads ... gonna happen ... by 2010. Wohoo, ALRIGHT!!! Gonna get started on building my 32 Quad Core Processor system, it will be like if I have 128 Processors! Should have it all done by 2010.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: You see? This is why I don't post about dev issues as much as I used to. Creating too much work for ya huh.... OK Here's the Bat, I'll stand right here.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Weird. Just bloody weird Pretty soon, History books and encyclopedias will contain no pictures and only brief overviews of actual events with no real detail, for fear of being sued under the Digital Millenium Copywrite Act.

quote:Originally posted by almostpilot: www.taikodom.com.br A space game MMO. The Beta teste are open for everyone (until now). But only in portuguese. Great game !!! try screenshots. Is the client only in Portugese as well?

quote:Originally posted by Hellbinder: I know opinions vary but can you guys give me a hand? Games i have played. Planetside Anarchy Online SWG Endless Ages Mimesis Of the mmo's to come out the last year or two. Which one is the best overal? Content, Ease of play, Graphics, a good blend of soloing, party play and PvP thats not a griefers fest. I would appriciate the top 3 choices from everyone before i go out and shell forth the cash. PM me with your email and I'll email you a free 15 day trial of EVE Online. They just came out with a TON of new content via the ColdWar edition (Things are getting pretty tense between the 4 main Empires), that just came out a couple of weeks ago and that's on top of a BIG Expansion that they came out with called Exodus back around Sept. Pretty much PVP only happens in .4 Systems and Below (except near gates) and pretty much everywhere in 0.0 space. However, Protected Empire Space (0.5 and above) is HUGE, it consists of Hundreds upon Hundreds of solar systems containing Thousands of Stations, and there is Zero Sharding, it's all on ONE server (Last Sunday there were almost 13000 players in a single Shard/Server/Universe!). 0.0 Space is much larger, consisting of THOUSANDS of solar systems(also on the SAME server), but very dangerous unless you're in a group. I'm part of a group called VentureCorp, that is part of a larger alliance called I.R.O.N. (Imperial Republic of the North). VentureCorp alone has several hundred members and with the power of the group we've set out to own a small portion of 0.0 Space and install our own Outpost (that just became available with the Cold War Edition), to supplement our POS (Player Owned Stations)that was made available with Exodus. It will take Billions of ISK to get it done (ISK is the Monetary Unit in EVE), but with us all working together I'm sure we can make it happen.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Those sounds are pretty expensive though, try turning on the fps counter and you'll see. But for a later patch, I have been working on a new kernel revision which will partition the display and AI updates (like in mp). This way, the display runs as fast as possible, while the AI runs at a constant 10 fps. This is how I have it in mp (UC and UCAWA) but never found the time to partition the single player game similarly (which is why there are two separate EXEs for the game. ... While your at it, would it be possible to make the Single player like the MP in that when you click on a menu item, or go to check on your Marines, the Space world is still running, instead of being frozen in time. I think this would help to make the game more challenging. quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: ... About 90% of the processing slowdown in the game, is due to AI. This is because the entire game runs on one massive AI kernel and with such as large universe, a lot of AI updates will cause slowdowns - especially since both the display and AI updates are run at the same time in order to keep everything in synch. ... Is there any way to partition this to take advantage of some of the new Dual & Quad Core chips that are coming out now, or do they have to stay on the same thread to keep in sync?

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: You can read it here Seriously, if these folks don't get their act in gear and go to Mars, I will. Damn slackers. I've been to Mars Several times.. had to beat back a few insurgents there but I keep a fleet there.... or was that a game... Hmm... Oh well.

quote:Originally posted by Soback: Thank you LIS for making my point. Like I said, Intel is doing bussiness, it has the right to say to pc manufacturer "it's all our product, or none of it", it has the right to withdraw it's bonuses, it has the right to give out insentive bonuses, it has that right precisely because it's a free market, it has the right to do whatever it can do. Customers are the the ULTIMATE decission makers,...You must be joking! First of all, AMD CAN'T go to a Major supplier like Dell and say OK, we'll supply you with ALL your chip needs, because they simply don't have the Billions of dollars that it takes to build all the chip foundries. Since Intel KNOWS this it goes to Dell and says OK I'll give you a Bonus at the end of the year if you don't carry AMD Chips. In other words it's using it's near monopoly on Chip supplies to try to sqeeze AMD out of the business, and this is ABOLUTELY Illegal! Why would the US make such practices Illegal? Take a look at Standard Oil at the turn of the century, or AT&T 40 years ago. By eliminating the Competition, they basically OWNED the market. They set the price and you the consumer HAD to pay WHATEVER they deemed they wanted you to pay, because there was NO ONE else to go to. This is the reason why the US today has Anti-Trust Laws. These Massive monopolies were called "Trusts" Back then. Heck I still remember back when AT&T was the ONLY Game in town, if I wanted to call my sister in Florida (at the time I lived in RI), My mother would only let me do it after 10PM because at that time it was "Only" .35 Cents a minuite, any other time it was double that. By your logic, I should still be using AT&T and gladly paying their outrageous rates since the Government forced the breakup and allowed other players into the field. Go see "Tucker, A man and his Dreams", it's a movie about how Tucker tried to break into the Car market dominated by the Big Three, and tell me that "It's just Business". BullSh*t, it's bully tactics by the big boys, plain and simple and that's why today we have laws against this type of abuse of power. But hey if you want to go back to paying Monopolistic prices call AT&T and tell them you want to pay the inflation adjusted price of what they charged in the 70's (about $1.00 a min.) and drive up to a Mobil Oil gas station and tell them you would like to pay their inflation adjusted price of 1910 (about $5.00 Gallon), since you believe they got a RAW DEAL when the government broke them up and required competition in their space.

quote:Originally posted by Soback: I just finished reading it, and if you read and UNDERSTAND the complaint, then you will understand what a pile of BS it is. Point one: "Intel has forced major customers into exclusive or near-exclusive deals" Free market is you can buy AMD if you want, and you can buy Intel if you want .... The only time you have monopolies is when the government is enforcing them, because they are the only ones who can do that with their beuracrats and directives, free market has no monopolies because you are free to offer your product to the people and pit it against the best. You are VERY naive. First of all, let's look at MS Near Monopoly on O/S in the US. 10 Years ago, if you built computers, and you wanted to buy Windows at bulk pricing, MS didn't care how many computers you made, what they cared about was that you ONLY installed Windows on ALL the computers you made. How did they do this you ask? The demanded that you pay them a royalty for EVERY computer you made, even if you wanted to put OS2 Warp on half of them. It's this type of behavior that got MS in trouble with the Government, and the reason why they had to Pay IBM 775 Million Buckaroos! In the US, you can compete all you want, there's nothing wrong with that, but when you USE your dominant position as a SLEDGHAMMER to drive the competition out of business, THAT my friend is ILLEGAL. This is EXACTLY what Intel is doing with AMD. When Intel found out that ACER was going to carry AMD equipped PC's, the president of Intel flew over to Taiwan to meet with the president of Acer and basically threatened him with withholding bonus payments that Intel normally pays Acer, if they participated in AMD Opteron 64 launch. In this article, you can see the extent to which Intel will reach to keep companies from doing business with AMD, HP was offered 1 Million FREE chips, as an incentive because AMD knew that Intel would retaliate and even with that HP only took up AMD on just over 100K of the free chips, because they were afraid of Intel. Gateway says they were beaten into "Guacamole" by Intel for coming out with a new line of AMD chips, and the list goes on and on and on. Again, Intel used it's dominant position to SLEDGEHAMMER the competition, instead of letting it play out fairly in the marketplace. Review after Review after Review shows us that AMD chips are superior, and yet, why is it that you don't see HUGE support from the big guys? Because Intel has been PAYING them NOT To do business with AMD, and you will see that come out in the lawsuit.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: With the imminent release of UCAWA later this month, a third and final demo has been released.Aaaahhhhh, oh yeah that UC fix feels good... Oh yeah!

quote:Originally posted by Soback: Scare tactics or truth tactics. What you have to ask yourself is, "Was Intel publicizing the truth about it's competition by saying that their product is inferior? And EU scrambled because Intels competition has a few friends in high places that used their pull to investigate and harass Intel for the "society's welfare". And since Intel has $ to loot, and the EU needing that money, draw your own conclusions. http://shop.garmin.com/aviation/databases/...0&PN=GPSMAP+295 This has NOTHING to do with that. In case you havn't heard, Intel has been found by Japanese courts to have coerced top companies to carry ONLY Intel chips, much in the same way that Microsoft used to threaten it's suppliers if they carried OS2 Warp. The day of reconning has come, and the US will shortly be filing a case against Intel for it's monopolistic behaviors as well. Think about it, why would DELL not carry top of the line AMD Opteron 64 Processors? Put 2 & 2 together and figure it out, but just in case you can't, Here's the Complaint filed by AMD.

quote:Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr: Yesterday there were 19 people on SERVER2 for a few hours. That must be a record or sumthin' Of course it's the one day that I don't check.

quote:Originally posted by Prez: quote: I'm not very inside the whole patent stuff,but I imagine it to be quite unlovely The patent system in a word SUCKS. But you really REALLY need something to protect the small inventor. A lot of the problem with patents in the U.S. is 1) How easy it is to patent something simple and thereby prevent ALL similar but not identical concepts from being utilized. 2) How restrictive of technological advancement it its through its draconian employment. Competition is artificially stifled and we end up with a WAY less-than-ideal solutuion. And we are stuck with it. If this is true then why is it that most innovation is going on in the US. Even all the big Japanese Electronics Giants have R&D facilities in the US to take advantage of our systems here. If it's so bad, why isn't someone else doing better?

quote:Originally posted by LostInSpace: The European Parliament has rejected a controversial measure that would have legalized software patents in the European Union.I don't know if this is good or bad, I know that if I invented a unique process for implementing software, I would want to be compensated for my efforts, not have others simply copy what I did, say THANKS and move on. Is this really fair? I know that a lot of you believe in free software, but that means that someone developes software, which takes an incredible amount of time and then basically doesn't get compensated for their efforts. If someone wants to do this voluntarily, then great for them... Maybe they have a trust fund paying thier expenses, but if they end up using a peice of software, or process automation that I invented to then spread it around for free, I think that is just wrong. I guess eventually Software writers will be like all other writers, most starving with only the few and well connected making money.

quote:Originally posted by Terran Marine: Good news. I redownloaded the Battlefield 2 Demo from Fileplanet and managed to be able to install it. I can run it on the Medium Settings with a bit of lag but not too much. I will still be upgrading to 512 RAM to be on the safe side. its a pretty good game so far. my only problem is that alot of servers have Team Killers on them. My Game ID is Dond67. Realisticly, you need like a Gig of memory to run it, with a lot of players at 512 Meg it's still laggy. The good news is that you can get the 512 Meg chips for only $38.00 from Outpost. What's nice about using them is that usually you can order before midnight and have it by the next morning and overnight shipping is very cheap, usually around 10 bucks.

quote:Originally posted by Soback: So what are you saying Nomad. Take someone and pay them more than their production/service is worth? One can argue that the people at McDonalds are making poverty wages. They can't live on them, they can't rent a place on them let alone hope to ever own something of their own, it probably would BARELY if even cover the food bill for a month. Go ahead, raise their wages to $25 an hour. How much would that burger cost you at the drive through then? Now how much do you think another person would demand for his wages, a professional, someone who spend 8 years in college and $75,000 for his education. Someone like a doctor for example? That doctor would say, "if the guy at McDee is making $25 right off the street, then my labor is worth $2500 right off the street". You need to THINK nomad, instead of just throw things out there whithout reason. Reason is what humans do, and when you pay someone more than their labor is worth it defies reason, ruins peoples lives, ruins the economy and lowers humans to animal level. Like I have said before, go read Atlas Shrugged and see on what course people with your ideas are stearing this world to, and for those of you who live in US, you will find out why those people hate us so much. Actually this is a completely different situation and way off topic here. The point that I'm making is that countries like China, India & Africa need to have SUPER low entry level wages in their economy to spur companies to go in there and setup shop. These types of investments in infrastructure is what makes the economy of these countries grow at disproportionately high rates. Once the Capitol improvements are in place, they are in place period. Even when a situation arises, such as what is now going on in China, where labor begins to become tighter and workers demand better conditions and/or better pay, the Capitol Improvements are already in place and not likely to be shut down becuase of incremental price increases. At this point you not only see the lives of the people in these developing countries getting much better than before, but they begin to become regular consumers of many of the finished goods that were once only marked for export. A new cycle in their economy begins that allows for increases in standards of living, governments that become responsive to the citizens needs and real growth in disposable income, thereby increasing purchasing power. For case studies of what I'm talking about, take a look at Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea 30 years ago compared to today, and Japan 40 years ago vs today.

quote:Originally posted by jamotto: Shaw, a privately held subsidiary of billionaire investor Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has 30,000 employees and recorded annual sales of $4.66 billion in 2003, the most recent revenue data available.Buffet seems to have his hand in all the new Alternative Energy Projects. Buffet is one of the biggest Backers of Changing World Technologies that has a Thermal conversion process that turns Turkey Guts into Oil. What's funny though is that there was an Article about 2 years ago, on how they didn't think this process would work and it was just a way for Congress to give the Butterball plant a tax break. I guess they've been proven wrong!

Pot Flavored Loli-Pops.. OK. What's next, Crack Flavored Pop Rocks? Speed Flavored Sweet & Sour Candy?

quote:Originally posted by Cruis.In: what did you mean by what you said Derek? in terms of me picking using python to learn programming. Well most implementations of Python rely on a C Stack, so in essence you're running Python on top of C. However, from what limited understanding I have, Stackless python Doesn't require the C Stack to execute calls, but I'm not sure if Stackless Python requires C anyway.

quote:Originally posted by Cruis.In: er darkling, my point is why work in a sweat shop or this shop at all! Well in China if you're making $150.00 a month, you're actually doing quite well.

quote:Originally posted by nomad: Funny how some people condone modern slavery by argumenting that an awful salary is better than an absolutely miserable one. It's with this mentality that we end indirectly supporting forced child labor in India, Bangladesh & Pakistan for example.You know what's funny about that. I remember reading a story about Kathy Lee Giford and how they were using Child Labor to make some of her Clothes in Brasil. Now one thing that you need to know about Brasil is that they don't have things like Child Protective Services as we do here in the US, and pretty much if you're an Orphan or abandoned, you end up on the street with NO WAY of earning a living other than rummaging through garbage or stealing. The Owner of the particular shop that was making Kathy's clothing felt sorry for these street kids (which most people in the country despise and feel should be LOCKED UP) so he gave quite a few of them jobs in the shop. He basically paid them wages that was higher than the average for Brasil and they were able to afford housing, food clothing, basically take care of themselves. Of course after the US got a whiff of these "Sweat Shops" they demanded that they get rid of this horrible "Child Labor", and so the owner had no choice but to fire all of the kids. Eventually he was forced out of business becuase he lost the contract. The US applaudes a Victory and the Children end up back in the street, stealing, rummaging through trash and so on to make a living. The point that I'm making is that before you go in High and Mighty wanting to shut down these jobs, you had better have a way of dealing with the underlying problem of why these people were working these jobs to begin with. Lets face reality. People all over the world are STARVING to death, kids in India, Thailand and other places are being forced into Prostitution by thier families becuase there are NO jobs, even of the "Sweat Shop and Slave Labor" that you complain about. What I've noticed specifically about you Nomad is that you have a very protectionist view of the world in that you don't want Imports coming in from these countries, becuase you feel that your fellow countrymen will lose their jobs. Well at least if they lose their jobs, they live in a country where they won't be allowed to starve to death. The same can't be said about the places where you DON'T want to jobs to go. One of the reasons that wages are so low in many of these developing countries is because there are so few jobs for the masses of people, but as countries like Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan has shown us, once you create truly MASSIVE numbers of jobs, eventually the wage base goes up, simply because the unemployed labor pool shinks down to nothing. Eventually the same will happen in many of the developing countries today, just as it has happened before, but not if people like you succeed. quote:Originally posted by nomad: Generically, wild unregulated development of the kind we are whitnessing now only serves to enrich a few, and slightly raise the credit disponibility of the masses. I've lately visited a country with a population of more than 170 million were shops offered items priced at the equivalent of 4 $ to be paid in 6 monthly slices on consumer's credit cards, because there was no other way for people to buy stuff.Oh you mean like the Old USSR Regulated and Controled all forms of development in the country for over 50 years. That was a complete disaster. quote:Originally posted by nomad: I am quite tired to hear all these fancy theories about how third world countries are benefitting from globalization, specially from people who probably never managed more than their own savings or a few shares of a little company and don't even know what a Black Centurion is... By definition free market doesen't integrate mechanisms who could prevent labor predatory practices. What makes me mad is hearing people who aren't probably rich (I mean immediate financial disponibility of 1'000'000 USD/Euros and above without having to resort on guarantees) advocate for a system they don't control neither are play an active role in it. First of all it's not a "Theory" Do you really think that Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan didn't benefit from Globalization? How old are you, do you think this is all new? Stuff like this has been happening for decades. Years ago, everyone was complaining how we were taking advantage of Taiwanese or South Koreans, how all these poor people were working in Sweat Shops while only the Mega Rich were getting any benefit. Today, the masses in those countries live in relative prosperity. Compare South Korea, which benefited from Globalization, with North Korea that didn't allow "The Capitalists" in their borders. Today the South Koreans live pretty dammed well, whereas the North Koreans are starving to death. How can you look at that and say that Globalization doesn't help the average Joe? quote:Originally posted by nomad: Anyhow, to get back to the topic, it's even more simple than that. Take EVE for example. The skill based game mechanics allows smartasses to just "raise" accounts till maturity during 6-12 months by training skills in the systematic order no real player would ever follow. Then they sell these specialized accounts (mostly either miner/industrial or PvP/PvE) on Ebay for x times their investment who only corresponds to the subscription fees of the "raising" period. After the first initial days, the time spent in managing skills is minimal, and may even be operated through specialized skills managers freely available on the net. What's your point? Who cares, if someone wants to buy it what's the big deal?