Steve Schacher

quote:Nah what I was originally trying to imply was that predicting one persons future actions base on the race is wrong Aahhh... I see... The thing about profiling is that it isn't about one person, it's about statistics. It's about trends. It's about larger populations. In order to have an average, you have to have some people above the mean and some people below the mean. To single out one person who is several standards of deviation away from the mean as an example that the population is wrong, is to ignore statistics. There will always be extremes to any population. That, in itself, does not invalidate the population.

You have to be careful of the "all-or-nothing" argument. If one perpetrator doesn't fit the profile, that does not mean that profiling doesn't work. It's like the argument about bullet-proof vests: if they don't stop all bullets, do you say "then what good is it, I'm not going to wear one?"

Nick, I just tried downloading the AW browser. What do I do after I get in? Do I have to subscribe to participate? I tried teleporting to the coordinates that you gave, but I don't know if I'm doing it right. Give me some step-by-step instructions. You can do it via private message if you want. ========================================= OK -- I think I got it now. I had to go to Mars before I could teleport to your location. Cool. Devoid of life, but cool. [ 12-23-2001: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

quote:Why would anyone want to save the game during a HJ? I do it a lot. It usually happens because my wife comes out of the bedroom at 1:30am saying, "What are you still doing up? You have to go to work tomorrow!" So, I save the game (in hyperspace) and shut off the computer.

I just spent a week at DisneyWorld. They have these AT&T Internet phones with touch-sensitive screens at designated spots across the whole complex. The phones take paper money and credit cards. You can browse the internet on them. Oh, but they're AT&T, so that means that the SC will boycott them. But, there is the Business Center at the Contemporary Hotel. My wife insisted that we go there so she could check her email and take care of some business. I think they charged something like $10 for 20 minutes on the computer.

quote:Epsilon 5's posting rights and public profile have been RESTORED. Epsilon 5 needs to post a public apology to Derek and the rest of the community about his inappropriate support of warez products on a board dedicated to game development, in the the warez thread. I expect Epsilon 5 to post the same apology in our General Topics forum, as well. He should know by now that we are all competent debaters. Epsilon 5: Be prepared to defend your words well.

If Derek closes down this community, then the terrorists will have won.

Derek, Do what you feel you have to do. You're instincts have gotten you this far. During the beta, we talked about this day. We talked about how the forums would change once BCM shipped and all the new people would flood the site. I even suggested turning the beta forum into a private "members only" club for the long-standing community. You mentioned that you had similar thoughts. Well, the day has come. Only it's not simply the forums that are catching up to you. It is life that is catching up to you. Go out there and reconnect with it. Enjoy your family. Take a vacation. Go back overseas and pay your respects to your grandmother (it's never too late for that). Honestly, from your long post (the one with all the yellow), you sound like you're suffering from a classic case of burnout. Do something else for a while. We'll still be here, somewhere. Good luck, so long, and thanks for all the fish. Steve Schacher

I'm happy with my MS Sidewinder Freestyle Pro. It's a gamepad type controller with a built-in motion sensor to let it act like a joystick. It has an 8-way rocker and the typical gamepad A-B-C, D-E-F, and START buttons. It also has two trigger buttons and a throttle wheel. Plus, it has a shift key for the START, A-F and trigger buttons. That gives me a total of 18 programmable buttons, plus the 8-way rocker. I love the fact that it takes up so little room on my desk, and I don't get wrist fatigue from wrestling with a stationary joystick. I just wave it in the air and my ship flies.

Thanks, Papi. Those drivers worked for me.

I need a little abuse today, so I thought I'd post here. I loaded the game from the CD and it worked great. Then I loaded the patches and it didn't work -- it bounced me right back to the desktop. I read the bright red warnings about upgrading to DirectX 8.1, but I didn't do it at first. Then I got smart and did upgrade to DirectX 8.1. This got me further in that it didn't bounce me, but it locked me up instead. Now comes the fun part. I read the posts in the video threads regarding box text mentioning Voodoo3 support, not support but just tested, etc. My question is: now that the very first patch requires an upgrade to DirectX 8.1, and that you also mention that 8.1 drivers must be used as well, does this completely, finally, and once and for all, eliminate Voodoo3 from use beyond the CD version? Is my problem (aside from personal observations) that I'm using DirectX 8.1 with final Voodoo3 drivers? Yep, time for a v-card with drivers that Dx8.1 Good thing that XMAS is just around the corner. TTFN Has anyone with a Voodoo3 card been able to run with the patches, or is it just me? I'm not ruling out that something on my machine is messing me up -- I'm searching for information at this time. [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ] [ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: Gallion ]

quote:Steve, are you Melanie650? I can be, if you want me to... No, wait... That would be the sycophantic behavior that outsiders and detractors claim goes on over here.

quote:I don't know what you're thanking one person for. So, I'm not even sure what you're talking about. If you're addressing this to me, I'm talking about the list of beta testers on the last page of the manualette included with the game. It was nice to see our names there. quote:And why have you not registered the game and fixed your sig? I was out of town for two weeks and just got back. My mail was held at the Post Office until yesterday. I only opened up the envelope from BMT last night. I haven't installed it yet. Don't worry -- it's never leaving my hard drive.

Derek, I just want to say a special "Thank-You" for your praise of the beta testers in the final page of the game manual. My name is now immortalized in the annals of BattleCruiser.

If black americans cannot succeed because America is racist, then how do you explain the Asian-Americans, the Latin-Americans, and others, who have come to this country and surpassed them on the economical ladder?

I'm sorry that I missed all the fun. I was on vacation and had no access to a computer for a week, and now I'm caught in the AT&T/@home fiasco. I only have a minute or so at work... quote:affirmative action Affirmative action was originally intended as a corrective measure to aid groups (African/Americans at the time) that were historically hurt. This meant race was considered in hiring, university acceptance, etc, in order to get the hurt race to be competitive with others. It was not meant to be a carte blanche gimme to any and all minorities. The issue regarding the ending of affirmative action is that after 30 years of it, has the correction taken place by now? quote:racial profiling I still maintain that there is a difference between crimes and acts of war. When we speak of the terrorists, we can't think of them as criminals, but as soldiers. Like I said before, soldiers caught out of uniform behind enemy lines are called spies. They used to be summarily executed. During WWII, the underground would routinely blow up bridges, train tracks, supply depots, etc. Were they criminals or warriors? Were they terrorists? Not to the Allies, but perhaps to the Axis. How were they treated when caught? How should we treat members of the Taliban underground who are blowing up our buildings?

quote:There is NO proof that one race commits more crime than another. None. Not as a race, but maybe as a demographic as in a percentage of a population in a particular city that has a population breakdown that is specific to that city. However, regarding the terrorists, maybe it would help if you don't consider state-sponsored terrorist acts as crimes, but as acts of war. In that case, you wouldn't be doing racial profiling in order to reduce crime, you would be doing racial profiling as a means of rooting out enemy spies. Personally, I consider the terrorists in this country as enemy soldiers out of uniform behind enemey lines. If they are caught, send them to military tribunals as captured soldiers -- not as criminals in civilian courts. Doesn't the Geneva convention give us the right to summarily execute them if we so choose since they are out of uniform?

There are two issues here: profiling, and profiling by race. I was talking about this to a friend last week. He had taken BART home from a concert in San Francisco where he and a friend had many drinks during the show. They were looking for a fast-food joint that was still open at 2:00am, while at the same time hoping to not be pulled over by police. I told him that he "fit the profile." "What profile?" he said. "A car on the road at 2:00am." I said. Who would be on the road at 2:00am when most people are home asleep? Bartenders, waitresses, maybe donut bakers, people working the graveyard shift, and drunks looking food. Simply being on the road at 2:00am would be suspicious. Perhaps he would be pulled over, but if he was one of the legitimate people on the road, then the local cop would now know him and he'd never be pulled over at 2:00am again. That's what beat cops do. Now add race as a profiling element. There's the "driving while black" aspect, which is bad. Then there's the driving on the road at 2:00am and being black. More to the point, though, is that not all Muslims are terrorists, but all 9/11 terrorists were Muslim. So, what do you do? Do you say that Muslims are more likely to be suspects than non-Muslims? This is not to say that non-Muslims might also be terrorists -- maybe a Cuban might try to hijack a plane again. But, given the recent circumstances, it is more likely than not that a suspect would be of Muslim ethnicity. However, we do have Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and siezures. To me, this does not mean that you never search. To me, this means that the search must be reasonable. I believe that we should declare our borders and our ports (especially airports) as "high-security zones." People in these zones should expect higher scrutiny than if they were at the local supermarket. Racial profiling while attempting to board a jet would not be considered "unreasonable" at this time, while racial profiling at the market would be. The key is whether it is reasonable or not.

A square mile is a measure of area; a linear mile is a measure of distance. Also, this is just becoming news now? This has been going on for at least a decade. Brazil has been cutting down their rainforests in order to make cattle grazing land for McDonalds, et. al. I'm surprised that the mainstream press is only just now getting to this. There must be some agenda being served by reporting this now.

Remember during the 2000 campaign when Public TV (PBS) stations across the country (most notably WGBH in Boston and KQED in San Francisco) were caught sharing their pledge drive donor lists with the Democrat Party? Also, here's a recent related story, with all the appropriate apologies and promises to look into it), 'Talk' says Townsend donation a mistake. Here's an excerpt: quote: Talk magazine gave $1,000 this year to Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend for her anticipated gubernatorial bid in 2002, but the contribution was mistakenly attributed to fellow Hearst Corporation holding WBAL. Townsend campaign Treasurer Jeffrey Liss said yesterday the incorrectly attributed donation, which was included in a campaign-finance report filed last week, was a mistake made by campaign accountants.

I had to get up at 3:00am (PST) to catch a plane to Ft. Lauderdale, but I was still up at 1:00am to catch some of it. It was very impressive. The Leonids are known for their smoke trails.

I just found an interesting reference in a usenet forum that indicates that the missing song might be by Barenakedladies. Here's an excerpt from Google: quote:We recorded four new songs and chose two ["Thanks That Was Fun" and "It's Only Me (The Wizard Of Magicland)]. We have two others sitting around. Last I heard, one was going to be used in that "Shallow Hal" movie, called "I Can, I Will, I Do." The other one, we really like, and we will probably save that for the next record. [ 11-17-2001: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

I see in the movie credits that original music is credited to a group called Ivy. I don't know who they are, though.

quote:There is nothing wrong with making a suite of applications that interact, but you don't need to go to the system level to do that. What's your point? My point throughout my whole post is that Windows is just another program in Microsoft's suite, so what's wrong with having the inside track in building software that takes advantage of it? Others can still write software that runs in Windows, right? Microsoft's monopoly didn't really become an issue until the PC became a commodity product. That wasn't the case when Windows 3.1 was out, but the PC revolution swept the world since then and Microsoft was best positioned to benefit from it. quote:In a monopoly situation, it's justifiable to call it antitrust if the software is designed to prevent competition, especially when that design actually degrades the quality of the product. In the automotive industry, Toyota cars use "genuine Toyota parts." These parts are sized to fit into the nooks and crannies that Toyota designed into their engine compartments. Did Toyota use a "monopoly position" to force oil filter manufacturers or toolmakers out of the market? Does Toyota have the right to make products that fit together better than 3rd-party products? If so, then doesn't Microsoft have that same right? quote:Do consumers actually perceive Microsoft software to be better, or do they just buy it because the monopoly situation limits their choice? I do believe that consumers perceive Microsoft software to be better, and they do have choices. Besides the Office suite, they have the Works suite to choose from (also Microsoft software). Then their is the Intuit suite vs the Borland suite of financial software, all sorts of home design software, virus software, fax software, game software, etc. If "better" operating systems such as OS/2 Warp, or Linux are having trouble getting a foothold it is because Microsoft already cornered the market, making them a monopoly along the way, not the other way around -- that they used their monopoly to corner the market. Again (for the last time since I'm just repeating myself now), I don't believe that Microsoft's monopoly is stifling competition or harming consumers. I believe that consumers made a choice and they chose Microsoft. quote:If the antitrust suit was just an act of spite by the Clinton Administration, then why hasn't the case been thrown out of court now that Bush is in power and Ashcroft is the Attorney-General instead of Reno? It's because the Justice Department has a case! It way more political than that. Along the same lines, why hasn't the Justice Dept. reopened any of the Clinton/Reno investigations? It's because Bush wants a "new tone" in Washington, and he's leavling all the Clinton crap alone to wither away. Also, the judge in the case was removed for bias, so any case that the government had is questionable now. ================================== To take this discussion in another direction, I question the premise that Microsoft is a monopoly in the first place. Certainly when it comes to application software, there are other applications out there that are not from Microsoft. Even in the operating system realm, you have NT, OS/2 Warp, Mac OS, Linux, Unix, etc. Now, if your choice of OS is limited by your choice of hardware, isn't that a bit like saying that if I buy an Audi then I'm limited to diesel fuel? Aren't we really saying that people become locked into a scope of software based on their choice of platform? Is that really the fault of a software manufacturer or is it just another informed consumer choice? [ 11-17-2001: Message edited by: Steve Schacher ]

quote:it's still not very accurate, because the creators of that test are imposing their own definitions of political ideologies Does anyone have the right to impose their own beliefs on their own creations? I wouldn't say that it isn't accurate simply because I disagree with the creator. What will it take? Must all creators impose your beliefs before anything is considered accurate? FYI: I took the first test and I came up Centrist, but the dot was leaning closer to the Conservative square than anywhere else.