Darkling

And don't forget that Coke was made with REAL Cocaine!

quote:Originally posted by aramike: Close friend works for Aldis as manager. No cashier there is making $12-$15 an hour. He says average wage is roughly $9. I'm sure it depends on the area. About 15 years ago, When I was a manager at Home Depot, I was sent to NY from Florida to help open up a store, At the time, Minimum wage was around 4 or 5 bucks an hour and in Florida we were hiring cashiers & Lot Guys at between 6 to 7 an hour depending on Experience, and about 2 bucks an hour more for sales. However, in NY, the baseline was about $3.00 an hour higher, because of the higher cost of living. Even within the state of Florida though, there were different guidelines, as an example, the Keys was higher than the rest of South Florida, but North & Central Florida was a bit less and so on.

Sorry for the late posts, but I havn't kept up on this thread quote:Originally posted by Wolferz: Sorry Cruis, I quit playing it. Too many holes in the combat system that allow pirates and other scum to blow you to pieces without repercussions. Even in what is supposed to be secure space. One tactic comes to mind right off the bat... If you fire on an innocent player, the cops and the local navy come after you, blowing up your ship. Now, they gather a few buddies and go searching asteroid belts for miners. One guy takes the first shot at you, making him a criminal and a target for the authorities. The rest of his group now has free reign to fire on you without worrying about the cops shooting them. The first shooter is in a noob ship, so he loses what amounts to nothing. He pods back to the nearest station, gets a brand new noob ship and they go looking for the next victim in a mining ship that has no weaponry. Stay away from this game Cruis. It's Crap with a capital C. Unless you enjoy spending hour upon hour watching a mining laser reducing asteroids to pebbles. Which is what you will be doing while you wait for your skill training timers to run their course. It will take any new player in Eve two years to train up to a skill level sufficient enough to compete in the point and click space battles. I can sum it up in one word..... BORING! This is actually one of the things that makes EVE exiting, is the fact that people can actually THINK and get around things. There's a fear of ACTUAL loss, not like most other MMOG's out there, where a loss or a kill really isn't a loss, because you're back at either 100% or at worst 90% of your former self. quote:Originally posted by Kalshion: I personally don't like Pvp in this game because it's solely based on who has more skill points in gunnery and what not, shields, armor, and stuff like that In full, someone in a destroyer or cruiser doesn't really stand a chance in any engagements A while back I headed up 10 SUPER CHEAP frigates and destroyers, while in a Black Bird Cruiser fitted with like 4 Sensor Dampeners. We had two guys scouting positions a jump or two ahead of us, when they would find something, we would get in position on the other side of the gate, they would tackle them with Warp Scramblers I would jump in and hit them with Sensor Dampeners to keep them from getting a lock on any of us, and the rest of the frigates would jump in and fire away. We ended up blowing up 15 Battleships over a 4 hour period, and half of the guys in that fleet were playing for less than 3 months. So YES, with Strategy, Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates CAN compete in this game. We ended up losing 10 Frigates and Destroyers (Usually one of the Tackling Frigs would get destroyed), but they were so cheap that our guys would clone in Torrinos and be back in the fight in moments.

I havn't played in a couple of months, but I still have my account paid for and training.

Oops, my bad, Encounters is for PS2 and Legacy is for XBox 360 and PC, but it looks like Legacy is going to be the one that appeals to us, it's an RTS, whereas Encounters is an arcade style shooter.

quote:Originally posted by Cruis.In: its for the playstatio 2. Says here it's for Xbox 360 & PC

quote:Originally posted by Marvin: .... Another major crash would be a one in a million shot... Actually market corrections of 12% or so are fairly common about every 5 years, and outright crashes of 20-50% have occured about every 30 to 50 years. Before the 50% drop of 1929, there was a massive drop around 1890, I remember reading about it, but I don't remember the details. The point is, that crashes and major corrections happen all the time, but it's not like the market is sitting still when this happens. Corrections usually erase only about 1 to 2 years of gains, while major crashes usually erase only around 3 to 5 years of gains. Why? Because crashes usually come on the heels of MAJOR run ups in price. This is the reason why they say that the stock market is a very safe investment, when you're looking to invest for at least 3 to 5 years, because generally if you where to purchase a portfolio today, and in 5 years there was a crash and you sold at that point, you most likely would not lose any part of your INITIAL investment, and if you held your investments for 40 years, you would definietly see some HUGE gains. (Assuming you're investing in Large Cap Mutual funds that do the managing for you). What people fail to realize is that if you're not leveraged during a crash, you usually have nothing to worry about. You don't rush to sell your home if you find out it's dropped 20% in value, so why would you do the same with your stocks? Did Coca-Cola all of a sudden go out of business? Did the Home Depot you invested in start shutting their doors? No, so don't rush to the exits just because everyone else is panicking, the world ISN'T coming to an end, and if it is, you selling your stocks and converting it to paper money won't change that. People lose money in the stock market because they get emotionally involved, or they don't have a strategy. If you don't have a strategy, invest in a well respected Mutual fund, if you do have a well thought out strategy, STICK TO IT, and don't be swayed by market emotions. I remember back in 1987 when the stock market crashed, I bought 200 shares of Home Depot Stock at 13 bucks a share, after it fell from a high of $36.00. Why, because I had been following it for a while, just started working there, saw that it was a great company in the making and decided to take a bit of a risk. One year later, there was a 2 for 1 split, and the stock was selling for $24.00 a share, almost quadrupling my investment in the company (keep in mind because of the split, I now had 400 shares instead of 200). A crash could be a great buying opportunity, so it's not all bad.

I'm not surprised, since Sam Walton died, the company no longer has a REAL competitive edge. The company used to have a Triumvirate of an advantage with Price, Service and Hyper Loyal employees. With Sam gone, the bean counters took over and did a hatchet job to employee loyalty, which in turn affected service, and now the ONLY advantage they have is price. If all you have to compete with is price, you're not real competition, especially in an area where you're not well known. Here in the US, people still buy at the Ghost of Walmart, and the Ghost of Home Depot, remembering the fantastic service they once had. Eventually, a new competitor will show up with fantastic service again, and just like Sears and K-Mart, they will be filing for bankruptcy. Might take a decade or two, but it will happen, mark my words.

True, I remember watching videos of the Palestinians out in the streets chanting and singing after 911, I remember I was so mad, I thought to myself, do these people think we're out dancing in the streets when one of their family dies? We should have bombed their asses on the spot, tell 'em, YOU WANT SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE, HERE YA GO!!!! BOOOM!!!!!! hehe

It's about time Israel stopped listening to the rest of the world, especially Europe, where the hell was Europoe when the Nazi's were rounding up all the Jews? Europe is made up of a bunch of weak minded pacifists that believes that you can reason with and make deals with a bunch of thugs.

quote:Originally posted by Grizzle: I could deal with privatization, provided that they pay out my SS balance in full ... Well, what they did in Chile, is you had a choice to either stay in the existing SS system, or go with the Privatized system, basically 95% went private. If you chose to go private, they gave you a SS Bond, that paid market interest rates for the life of the Bond, the only difference between these bonds, and regular Bonds, is that they didn't pass to your estate, (and your Heirs) like regular Bonds, and stocks, at the time of your death. However, you can't bequeath your social security payments either, so it's not a big loss. A HUGE advantage with the Chilean system, is that they have computers setup where you could actually calculate how much you need to retire keeping 70% of your income, so you can plan your own retirement at whatever age you choose. You don't have any restrictions pre set by the government that says that you can or cannot retire at a certain age. You MUST put in 10%, but you can choose to put in higher amounts to retire early, it's all in the citizen's control, instead of the government.

And yet none of what you're talking about will do anything to alleviate the situation. We are on a collision course with too many people in retirement, the average age of death HAS risen from 65 to 80 and unless you want to start killing all the old people, the average lifespan will go even higher. I find it hilarious that a 3rd world country like Chile, has a better retirement system, completely in private hands, than what we have today. The average worker in that country now has more in savings than the average worker in the US, don't you find that disturbing? In addition, all your talk of Gloom and Doom with putting the money in Stocks & Bonds, keep in mind that a lot of the things that CAUSED the market to crash, like Futures and Margin trading, are now HEAVILY regulated. You must now have at least 50% of the capitol required for Margin Trading (in the 20's it was only 5 to 10% depending on the Broker and your standing with him) and for Futures Trading, you need to certify that you have a certain level of liquid assets and a full understanding of the downside, before being allowed to trade. Back then, any Joe could get into Futures trading, put down 5% and he's off to the races. Of course, if the stock dropped by 10% he would lose DOUBLE what he put into it, not just the 5% he originally invested. It was that over extention of credit that caused the bubble and it's subsequent collapse. The ONLY people who lost money, were those trading Futures, and on Margin. Anyone who decided to keep their investments, lost nothing on that day. The conditions that caused the great depression, no longer even exist. But you know what, even if you WOULD have invested your retirement in the Stock Market 40 years prior in the 1890's and cashed in your chips in the 1930's AFTER the collapse of the stock market, you would STILL have faired better with your money than if you had depended on Social Security, and even if you started working in 1928 and retired 40 years later and invested during that period in the Stock Market, you would STILL have faired better than if you were to depend on Social Security. Over long periods of time, the Stock Market beats out any other type of investment, this is a proven fact. Every single "Pay as you go" system in the world is facing bankruptcy, so why would you want to stay that course?

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: Do you believe that the United States will default on entitlement payments? I don't believe in retirement, I think it dulls the senses and makes you weak. However, life is all about expectations, and people have come to expect that SS will be there for them when they retire, so we don't have too much of a choice, but to provide the benefit. When Social Security was first designed, it was actually an illusion created to raise taxes on income by 10%, half paid by employers and half paid by employees (It's now up to 14% on SS and an additional 3% for Medicare). People were told that it was a "Trust Fund" setup for them so when they retired, they wouldn't have to worry about going hungry. It was a scam, the money went directly to the general treasury, where part of it was used to pay the most impoverished retirees, and the rest went to Trumans Building projects and other things like that. They knew when they first put the program into place, that they wouldn't have to pay too many people, because the retirement age of 65, was also the average age of death for most Americans. However, something happened that totally screwed up their little scam, the average life expectancy started going up and now sits at close to 80, 15 years of more collections in Social Security and Medicaid, then when the programs were first concieved. This has created a REAL problem, that is only masked by the fact that the US has had unprecedented growth in prosperity. However, I believe that at some point, we will HAVE to raise the retirement age, or cut back benefits. The system has always been a "Pay as you go" system, even when Republicans have TRIED to setup a REAL trust fund and have people setup investments to go into that trust fund, the Democrats have screamed so loudly about it, that nothing was ever done, and so it has STAYED a pay as you go system. To me, this is insanity, because in essense, they were trying to give people something they NEVER had, a REAL trust fund, but instead people would rather keep their ILLUSIONARY trust fund that NEVER existed!!! In the end, it will become self evident that you cannot have 1 person working for every 1 person living off the government, so the increase in the retirement age will become inevitable. Besides, retirement is something relatively new, 100 years ago NO ONE ever talked about retirement, except those who actually planned for it, and saved for it. The whole idea of thinking that after a certain age, you're going to live off others, to me, is just wrong.

quote:Originally posted by LostInSpace: ...It all boils down to the individual and how that person is wired in the head. I liken these car bombers to the serial killers we have in our western culture... You're joking right? Think of all the Muslim LEADERS around the world. How many of them DON'T have blood stained hands? You think it's a small little group in Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Palastine, Seria, Jordan and Indonesia that's going around KILLING HUNDREDS daily? It's entire governments. What does that say about the people under these governments? What would it say about us, here in the US, if we ALLOWED ourselves to be ruled by Manson, Bundy or Toole? Would anyone think of the average US citizen to be "just a victim" or complicit? People CAN NEVER be ruled without consent, no matter what is said, because if enough of them stood up and said, "Enough", then the government in charge would fold. And if these Muslim Governments are doing nothing but spreading hatred and death, and their citizens don't do anything about it, either they're a bunch of cowards, or they sympethise and approve with what their governments do.

And they would ruin themselves in the process. That's like Bill Gates saying he wanted to divest himself of Microsoft, it would cause the company stock to collapse and he would no longer be a Billionaire. Everyone SAYS that these loans could be called at any time, but when has something like this ever happened? Unlike the IMF, the United States is considered a VERY safe haven for cash and other investments. What other stock market in the world delivers such consistent returns? What other country in the world has the financial stability that we do? People don't "Call" loans and investments to sit on the cash, they call them to put the money else ware. Previousely I had posted that our economy, since the Bush tax cuts, has grown by roughly the same size as the ENTIRE Chinese economy. A lot of people in these boards have posted how China was going to overtake us in terms of economic might. Well how's that going to happen if our economy grows by such a large margin, that we've gone from 5X the size of their economy to 6X the size of their economy? Finally, what does this mean to all the foreign investors who have their assets here? Do you really think with that type of performance, they're going to want to take their investments out? You underestimate people's greed.

Combination of Ewido and AVG and McAfee Firewall finally knocked out the Look-to-me components that kept hijacking the system, basically there were 2 modules, if I would run Ewido, it would knock out one of them, but the other module would re-install that one. If I ran AVG, the second module would be knocked out, but the first would reinstall the second one. Running both, with the firewall in Lockdown mode, to keep either module from downloading it's sister program, kept them locked down long enough to remove both. Finally able to put Panda back on, I just like it better because it has the Firewall, AV & Anti-spyware all in one program. Whew!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah I noticed that it only has 1 pixel processor, where even the cheapest 6200 card has 3, maybe that's what I'll do, get the X2-3800 with a cheap 6200 card for now, I can always upgrade it later. I'm just thinking that getting a high end video card, instead of a high end processor, won't give me the performance I need in a UC game. As it is, by the time I get Fleet Command, the game is running so slow, it's almost unplayable. I mostly end up having to just do the Instant Action scenarios, where I'm not "Activating" too many areas of interest.

This is what I'm talking about here... What other game developer responds directly to player input like this. This is why I'll always support and buy your games SC!!!

I know that the 6150 won't be much if any improvement over my current card, but it does have the Shader 3 technology that UCSE requires, and I'm figuring that the X23800 plus chip will more than make up for the Video Card Shortfall (I hope). Actually a couple of my friends bought the 3800 and overclocked it to 2.6 Volts, effectively making around a 4800. What I'm hoping is that even if the Video card isn't any better (other than the newer tech) since the processor is 4X better than what I have, I'll be good to go.

quote:Originally posted by $iLk: What really seems miniscule is the fact that while the Bush administration is reporting a deficit of 350 billion dollars, the actual books show that the real deficit is around 3.5 trillion dollars for this year alone. See USA Today from yesterday. Actually the report says that they're assuming a 750 Billion Defiicit for last year. and the TOTAL DEBT, which is a different thing altogether, is 3.5 Trillion. This is no big secret, the fact that they don't count the SS Trust fund, is no big secret, every administration since Truman has done this, because the system has ALWAYS been a "Pay as you go" system. The "Trust Fund" is a fallacy that has been sold to the American public ever since the program was started. At any rate, it's like I said before, What's really important is that the PAYMENTS to that debt stays at a managable level. I recently refinance my house to a negative Amortization loan. My payments went from $4000.00 a month to less than $2000.00 a month. On top of it all, I took out $30,000.00 in equity to pay off all my credit cards, which I was paying close to $1000.00 a month for. Do I care that I'm adding $5000.00 a year to the debt on my house? Not really, over the past 2 years my house has apprecitated over $100000.00 a year and I'm planning on moving from this area in about 4 years. The term on my Negative AM mortgage is 5 years. In other words, even though I'm piling up debt, my payments between my credit cards and my house is $3000.00 less than before, so I'm happy and I don't care. By the time that I sell my house, it's going to be worth so much more than I paid for it, I'll still be OK. This is kind of like how the feds are right now. Interest rates are so much lower these days than they've been in the past that they can afford to have more debt, with less payments. In addition, because the economy has been growing so much lately, the size of the debt becomes almost irrelevant. It's like I said before, it's not like the government HAS to repay debt, they just HAVE to make the payments on it. As long as the payments are manageable, that's all that really matters.

SC, does UCSE require more processing power, or more Video processing power?

quote:Originally posted by Jaguar: I don't like Worldnet daily much, but on this one they are almost right on the money... Here is one of my more trusted sources to back you up on this $iLk. Cato Institute, on spending, Bush is no Reagan Well keep in mind that the report by the Cato Instintute is about 3 years old. 9 months after W took over, we had the WTC disaster that threatened to push us into a full blown depression. Only massive spending by the Feds staved that off. Also, keep in mind that while outlays have grown by over 33% since Bush has been in office, Reciepts have grown by over 14% in just a single year (Between 2004 & 2005). In addition, the GDP of our economy has grown by over 20% just in the last 3 years, since the Bush tax cuts. I mean seriously, do any of you even know of anyone that's unemployed? All the reports talk Gloom and Doom, but come on! Here in Florida, it's at 3% and the rest of the country is at an average of 4.8%. Another thing to keep in mind is that since the Government never dies, theoreticaly it never needs to pay off it's debts. The key is to keep the interest payments on these debts at a managable level. During the Clinton Administration, the average we were paying for servicing the interest was 3% of GDP, where today it's down to 1.5%, basically half of what we were paying before. While it's true that the actual amounts of debt have changed little and actually grown substantially, when compared to the much larger pie that we have today, coupled with lower interest rates of today, it seems miniscule by comparison.

I think you're confusing Starforce CD Copy Protection, which causes ALL Sorts of problems, with Starforce Software Protection, which is used by most companies that sell via Direct2Drive. Keep in mind, they are 2 COMPLETELY different technologies, and I've never even heard of anyone having any problems with the Software Protection technology.

OK guys, I need to upgrade one of my machines to play UCSE. I have a self imposed budget of about $300.00, and I'm wanting an opinion here. The Machine that I'm upgrading currently has an ATI 9200 card with 128 Megs of VRAM and an AMD 2200 Processor and 768 Megs of DDR400 RAM. It doesn't have the Shader 3.0 Technology required to run UCSE. I'm thinking for $300.00, I can either get an NVidia 7800 AGP Card, or I can get an AMD64 3800X2 Processor/MOBO with a GForce PCIe 6150IGP and a Gig of DDR2-800 RAM. What's the lesser of 2 Evils, Old Crap Hardware with new Screamer of a video card, or New Screamer Dual Core CPU with Crap Built in IGP? The 7800 has 16 Pixel Pipelines running at 350Mhz and the 6150 IGP has only 2 Pixel Pipelines but running at 475Mhz. Both have HD output, Shader 3.0 and all the latest technology.

Oh well, I guess I can rip up this renewal letter they just sent me.