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FORUM ARCHIVE file dated January2006

Posted by: Peter	Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 8:55pm
NS - The first Underworld cost approximately 22 Million to make. Underworld 2 cost 48 Million.

Posted by: Peter	Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 8:48pm
NS, seek professional help....immediately.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 5:28pm
Donnie Darko is pretty sexy...

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 5:26pm

I can't remember a time when I haven't seen any of the best picture nominees...in fact, I haven't even heard of most of them... I still say the War of the Worlds effects were better than most people realize. It's one thing to make a virtual set on a soundstage (Kong), after LotR most of that stuff can be handled with off-the-shelf software even if you aren't recording camera movement metadata (which I'm sure they did). It's another thing to work with untethered, exterior shaky-cam documentary crap, with uncontrollable lighting and weather and shit on the lens...rotoscoping running extras, with no bluescreen, blowing hair, and camera-vibration-induced blurring...there's just no magic bullet tech or money solution for that. That's skill and work. And the budget for WotW, even after the Tom Cruise factor, was around 60 % of the budget for Kong and Narnia. So that's definitely an achievement. But you know me, in my opinion Contact still has some of the best vfx because no one outside the industry ever notices all the hard work that went into it. I missed most of it myself until I listened to the commentary. Everyone knows Kong is a big effects picture, and the $200+m budget reflects that. While the subject is up, Peter, what did you say the budget was for Underworld 2? I still don't see it on Mojo. Also, the guy who plays Victor has a great role in the Hitchhiker's Guide.

Posted by: Peter

Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 4:37pm

I can see the script for that movie now...Hey, maybe NS will find the prequels more watchable! A long time ago, on a ranch far, far away.... Anakin: Obi-Wan's holding me back. He's jealous. We were in the sand...and it was rough...and coarse..and it got into everything. -------------------------------------------- Anakin: Why don't you join me in the lavatory, Master? Obi-Wan: Blast, this is why I hate flying. --------------------------------------------- Scene at night at the Mustafar ranch..Anakin is dying. Obi-Wan: I loved you Anakin, you were my brother! Anakin: I hate you! ( Anakin dies in Obi-Wan's arms....) Obi-Wan: (Looks up and screams into the sky) KHAAAAAANNNN!!!!!!!!!! End Credits.....I smell Best Picture Oscar....

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 2:23pm
if anikin was gay, he might have gotten more nominations this year.

Posted by: Peter

Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 12:55pm

Well...it's that time of the year again. The nominations for the Oscars were released this morning (and believe it or not...Episode 3 actually scored 1 nomination!!!! - Not for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, or Best Sound Editing...Best Makeup for crispy Anakin!) Remember when I posted the 7 top candidates for Best Visual Effects (Batman Begins, Chronicles of Narnia, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, King Kong, Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, and War of the Worlds)? Which three films got nominated? Chronicles of Narnia, King Kong, and War of the Worlds. I can agree with the first two...but War of the Worlds? Oh well...at least Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle beat out Madagascar, Chicken Little, and Robots to be included in the Best Animated Movie category. Who can explain the Oscars at times....

Posted by: Big_Whisky	Posted on: Tuesday January 31 2006 1:45am
Crow, I am impressed! We haven't done some good stealing in a long time, and I like that. ;) Gold Star for Crow! Crow Crow Crow! Whisky sours on me. B_W

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Monday January 30 2006 11:48pm

I have FEAR on DVD, and it has a no-disc hack. Version 1.0.1 is the latest patch for Tribes Vengeance. You know... if you guys don't mind... I could head up Thursday night and arrive sometime around midnight. Let me know if that's all right and I'll let you know if I'll do it. Civ IV did not arrive today, which was actually a good thing. I had a paper to write and I have been playing the single player of Tribes Vengeance almost non-stop for two days, so the last thing I needed was for Civ IV to show up and ensure that I didn't get my paper done.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Monday January 30 2006 5:16pm
Ok the events section has been updated, though you may need to manually refresh if you come here often. I put in a google maps link that Intrigue gave me for the location of the current event.

Posted by: intrigue

Posted on: Monday January 30 2006 3:36pm

so far here are the specs for the supper dupper lan event setup can start thursday eve as normal. gaming begins friday after work, and continues through the weekend until sunday eve. Games might include the following so if you are going to come please have these preinstalled if you can, otherwise you might miss out on the sweet gaming action, if you dont start setting up thursday night. this lan event will be dhcp hosted, but for the sweet action you can still use a static ip on my network valid ip range 192.168.0.11-99;200-225 subnet mask: 255.255.255.0 gateway: 192.168.0.2 game list UT2k4 v3369(latest)- CD not required once patched; mods will need to be installed upon arival quake 4 (demo) - no CD required tribes Vengence v1.01(latest) - ? Total Annihilation (latest) - must be installed/patched on location Moonbase Commander(no cd required) Starcraft Broodwar v1.13f(CD required) if you need to borrow a disc let me know, I will make sure you have one. warcraft 3 Frozen Throne - v1.20c(CD required) civilization 4 v1.52- (no CD patch avalible) fear (demo) - no CD required for demo Steam games - steampowered.com Armegetron - armagetron.sourceforge.net/ You should have a 1.5gz machine or better and a 5 series geforce card or better with 64mb of video ram and 512mb of system memory. if you would like to attend msg me and i will give you directions

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 30 2006 10:59am
does schmunk want to lan it up from distant places, I can vpn him in to our local network, his lag might be a bit worse than being local, but for one person, i should be able to do it.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 30 2006 10:57am
moonbase all the way!!!!!!!!

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Sunday January 29 2006 1:38pm
I have Civ 4 in hand. Also, I found a mutator I want to try to spice up the UT CTF action..."Heavy Health". Specifically, the less health you have, the faster you go. I think that could make things interesting.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Sunday January 29 2006 11:10am
Moonbase Commander anyone?

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Saturday January 28 2006 8:52pm
So today I picked up Tribes Vengeance, UT2K4, and FEAR. Civ IV has not yet arrived.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Saturday January 28 2006 3:00pm
on euphemisms... during the installation of windows media player 10, you are prompted to enable about 136 spyware options, one of which was called the "Customer Experience Improvement Program". Right.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Saturday January 28 2006 11:59am
really? hmmm...I must investigate...

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 10:19pm
I played the HW2 demo a while ago, but I felt that it was missing something that the original Homeworld had... and I unfortunately cannot remember what that "something" was. Let's play MOOIII! I want to experience the joy of watching my treasury fill up to the point where it collapses into itself, creating a quantum singularity that bankrupts my entire empire.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 3:58pm
Hey, I've got a random suggestion. Homeworld 2. Now that would be something fresh. Demo here: www.filecloud.com/files/file.php?file_id=323

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 3:45pm

"Eh. I'm up for something new." That's kind of our concern, you see. Quake4 isn't much new, really. I mean, there's shiny new textures on the walls, but so what? UT mods are great because they mix up the gameplay. There's "Running and shooting things", Wolfenstein-style, then there's Why am I running and shooting? What's the objective? Quake4 has none. I agree that it may be time to give my beloved Assault a rest, but that ain't exactly the scope of UT. I can't remember the last time we've played CTF or Onslaught, it's been over a year, and there's been a lot of content dropped in the interim. We've been playing UT for 2 years because it ain't broke. No reason to fix it. Still, I'll put the Quake 4 demo on a few SpooLAN discs, because you're right. It's easy, it's free, and it works. It is also only one level in two different sizes, so I think we need to keep looking. That won't keep us busy for long. ;) Hell, it's gotta be better than that Pariah game.

Posted by: Peter	Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 3:12pm
Intrigue, that news has been floating around the Wheedonite circles for a week or so now. Here's what Joss has to say: www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=34383 or www.wheedonesque.com

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 2:52pm
on behalf of nick www.fireflyseason2.com/index.asp

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 2:51pm
how many monitors do i need to supply, i have the two eizos that are avalible and i might be able to loan out a samsung or two, we also have a nice crt laying around in the basement. I am up for quake 4, a free download is nothing hard. dave, what is up with your power supply!!!!!!? i have been trying to call you at no avail.

Posted by: B_W

Posted on: Friday January 27 2006 11:55am

"If Quake IV doesn't offer anything that UT doesn't offer, then let's skip it." Yeah, it's an FPS, you run around and shoot things. ;) Eh. I'm up for something new. We've been playing the same game as our staple for two years now, and that's far too long in my opinion. I mean, AS-convoy is great, but driving that tank down the obstical course, or the SUV, or flying those crappy spaceships, is getting kinda dull. Quake demo is free, let's try it. If it sucks, it sucks. I would be up for some new UT mod action, but those can be unstable...but not a reason not to try them. I mean, we tried Xtreme last time, and I even enjoyed it, even though it sucked harder than anything that has come before it. Does battlefield 2 have a demo? That might be fun too. Or perhaps we can all get in a circle and make those sounds that they made in Perfect Dark 2 for the 360. That might be just as much fun. Has anyone informed NES, Kump, EYG, Barbiaux, JT, etc for this event. Because I don't think some of them know. And it would be pretty thin without some or most of them. Intrigue, can I borrow one of your monitors? I'm trying to go lite this round. Ummm...yeah. B_W

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 8:23pm

I would imagine they would be compatible. If they aren't, that would be one of the DUMBEST IDEAS EVER. But good luck trying to just pick one up over the weekend. Amazon.com doesn't even stock the DVD edition, so I imagine you'd have problems trying to find one in a brick-and-mortar. I had to order mine from Overstock.com. But yeah, Intrigue's version is a little, shall we say, over priced. ::cough::$100::cough::

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 7:33pm

"If Quake IV doesn't offer anything that UT doesn't offer, then let's skip it. I don't think we should go through the trouble of trying to get everyone to install it and customize it etc. just for the sake of adding another title to the list, when that effort could have been better spent adding another game to the list." I agree, especially considering there's some prime UT content we haven't touched yet, such as Red Orchestra (Make Something Unreal winner) and Jailbreak.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 7:30pm
Cool, are the fancy DVD editions and the regular joe editions compatible for network play? Cause I'd like to pick it up this weekend, but I don't need all the extra stuff that Intrigue got if it costs more. Gee, I've only been playing MOO for what, 13 years now? Think maybe it's time for a new strategy game? ;)

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 2:52pm

If Quake IV doesn't offer anything that UT doesn't offer, then let's skip it. I don't think we should go through the trouble of trying to get everyone to install it and customize it etc. just for the sake of adding another title to the list, when that effort could have been better spent adding another game to the list. And Civ IV is coming by USPS Media Mail. It's the DVD version, which should make passing it around at the LAN easier.

Posted by: Peter	Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 2:26pm
Intrigue, Are you going to go to XBOX Festivus this weekend at Jamie's brother's place? If not, could I hook up with you sometime on Saturday to pick up the XBoxes like last time? Also, NS, if you would be willing to lend your projector again. If not, no problem.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 2:14pm
so I grabbed the Quake 4 Demo, and unlike FEAR, the engine scales quite nicely and I was able to get it running well enough on my old shit. Not sure what the gameplay adds that we aren't getting better in UT though...

Posted by: Big_Whisky	Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 2:00pm
"I am not advocating the unpurchase of Civ4" and with this statement Intrigue steps into politics. ;) Wow, taking double negatives to a whole new level, while creating a word in the process. sweet. I still won't vote for him though. Well, perhaps for dogcatcher...or president. ;) B_W

Posted by: intrigue

Posted on: Thursday January 26 2006 10:21am

I am not advocating the unpurchase of Civ4, its a great game, an epic game, but as a note the game can be played with the latest patch, and nocd patch; both can be found in that one place that they put the hacks that one time. (gamecopyworld) the game has a number of new feature, one of which is predictive turn based play, so everyone kinda plays in real time, but its still turn based. although this sound complex, and it is, it is pulled off wonderfully and is a joy to play. I highly recomend civ4, it should play on any machine with 64mb of video ram. other games on my list, armegetron, fear, ut2k4, Civ4(oh yeah), moonbase, Warcraft3, starcraft, TA, maybe cod2? maybe some hot card/ rpg book games? I am still waiting for games to get really fresh agian, any sugestions? other than WoW, i have been spending my game time on the 360 with DOA crack 4, the online multiplayer is hot.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 9:13pm
It sounds like you should get a Steam Silver account, or whatever they're calling it now, where you get the Half-Life 2 and Day of Defeat: Source, which are good. You also get Counter Strike, which is...well, Counter Strike. Also, I recommend Tribes Vengeance, which should be like $10 by now.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 6:42pm

I cast a vote for Civ IV at the LAN, provided that we can get a no-disc hack or something so everyone can play it (or if everyone already has a copy). If you haven't played Civilization IV, it is strongly recomended that you go download the demo and get some practice time. If there are some non-demo and non-hackable games that most of you have and, thus, that I should pick up, let me know and I'll try to grab a copy ('cause I can do stuff like that now!). Oh, B_W, how's Guild Wars? And the basement sounds just great.

Posted by: HULK	Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 5:25pm
If HULK eat YODA, it considered canibalism? RRarrghhhhhhhhh.....HULK crush puny Banner!

Posted by: B_W

Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 4:24pm

OK. LAN. Where? When? Why? How? I like the WLAN with commander Kump. That's just cuz we kick a$$. I like the CS and the DOD. If we can gather enough strength to play DOD on our own, that's ideal. I have Q4, and it runs slow on my dualcore. However, it might be possibly to try it. I say we give the demo a run. I thoroughly enjoyed the F.E.A.R. demo, and I think heir graupner and commander kump agreed on that prognosis. Someone should inform the non-every-day spoolaners that this event is 'on'. I will do my best to inform those that might not be 'down'. Like vic, captain G, and the such. Ok? Ok. Ok. B_W

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 1:31pm

Intrigue said over lunch that LAN at his place Feb 4 is on... What are we going to play? The "new games" last time (Worms 4, Delta Force Xtreme, Lords of Everquest, Battlefront II...) were all pretty weak, if I recall. We never really tried Sacred multiplayer, I'd still like to give that a whirl. The Source games are good, though I'm not so much a fan of the "WLAN" method of polluting the party with lag and random cock-asses from teh Interwebs, I'd prefer a dedicated server solution. If I want lag and random cock-asses I can stay home and play WoWz, and score some phat lootz in the process. But that's just my preference. Is there a Quake 4 demo? Can mere mortal machines run it? Who exactly doesn't have Tribes Vengeance? There can't be many of them left. Any hot new RTS titles out there? There was another UT2004 content-drop recently, also, we still haven't tried Jailbreak. Just wondering what the lay of the LAN is, so to speak. I'm so far out of the gaming loop...

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 1:27pm
P.P.P.S. Intrigue, watch your language, (last post) this is a venue to talk about games after all (and robot dogs) so any harsh language would definitly not be allowed. B_W

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 1:25pm
P.S. Don't go to the auto show either. There might be women next to the cars! Oh no! (and I betcha more dads bring their kids to the autoshow than to e3, where it's a much more focused audience) P.P.S. I knew Intrigue would be on this like white on rice!!! B_W

Posted by: B_W

Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 1:23pm

Intrigue way beat me too it, but I am pissed too: www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/24/e3_bans_boothbabes/ I mean come on. What are kids running around E3? And if they are, what are they seeing there that they weren't seeing on the Miss America Pagent, or network televison. (or the NFL, or on billboards or in print magazines...etc etc.) And all that other stuff gets thrown at you in your life, where at e3 your there for a reason. Whatever. This is hogwash and I'm gonna let um know what I think. B_W

Posted by: intrigue

Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 1:11pm

my original xbox's are still avalible for the xbox party this weekend. the extra crispy one might be in use, i have to beat doa4, maybe i can bring it by though, i dont know yet, i have biokey stuff to do this weekend. the lan party will start on febuary 3rd. at my place. we can either have it in the basement, or the at the upstairs. upstairs might take some time to figure out the power grid. However, with the downstairs, i have already done the work and we have more than 40 amps to work with. Set up can begin in the basement at any time between now and the lan party, if we do it upstairs then we will need to hold off till at least later thursday evening. Only downside to having the party in the basement is that the only bathroom is upstairs. I would like to decide this soon, so that I can give my neighbors notice, they seem to leave for the weekend alot and they might choose to leave, if they know there is going to be a raging party, they have given me such notice for new years, I just so happend to be in madison ;-). If luck would have it, my brother might be able to game with us one day of the party, we will see.

Posted by: HULK

Posted on: Wednesday January 25 2006 12:17pm

HULK LIKE SMASH. HULK SMASH XBOX PARTY!!! HULK smash puny CJOS in BattlefrontII before CJOS become Yoda. Now little CJOS smash HULK. HULK no happy. Hulk try to smash even more puny CJOS...WHERE GO? Hulk tired now...Hulk sleep and dream of smashing puny CJOS. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Posted by: CJOS	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 11:25pm
If any of you guys are interested, my brother is having another X-Box place at his night this Saturday around 4 pm. E-mail me if you want more info. They'll probably be playing Halo 2, Battlefront 2, and maybe some other stuff. Special thanks again to nearscape & intrigue for their contributions which allowed the Chief and Hulk to smash up some guys at the last outing. Chief Justice of Smack

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 11:05pm
looks like last year was the year to go to E3 NO MORE BOOTH BABES www.tgdaily.com/2006/01/24/e3_bans_boothbabes/

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 10:22pm

The weekend of the 4th works for me rather well. I just have a "Medieval Studies Lecture" on Monday at 3:30 which I am "expected" to attend. Don't know if I'm going to be doing that. Hey! I signed up for a Tuesday Wednesday Thursday schedual and that is what I'm sticking to! Of course, I have a paper due on the 9th... Hopefully I'll get that assignment this Thursday so I can do something about that (if not, I'm DEFINATELY not going to that damn lecture).

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 1:52pm
OK, now that we know when, we need why/how/where etc. B_W

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 12:56pm
yeah, the 4th sounds good to me!!!

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 10:55am
I thought the LAN was on for Feb 4? Kruger will have to confirm that. What I do know is that I'm throwing a gathering on Feb 17 at the Juneau Village Club Room. No computers required.

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 9:08am
Yeah, that was kinda hot. So, adam, U in the market for one of those Jack Bauer Intel Macs? They say the intel chips are finally set free now. That's nice. It's too bad they've had to put the intel $hit into Macs to have fun, becuase the AMD action's been 'kicking it oliver style' for years and years. ;) Yeah. B_W

Posted by: adam	Posted on: Tuesday January 24 2006 12:56am
Ok.. Y'all will like this... video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5885351342753379583&q=8088 It's a music video done on an ORIGINAL IBM PC. -A

Posted by: BTW_WHISKY	Posted on: Monday January 23 2006 4:54pm
By the way, When is this LAN? Because I want a LAN, and I want it now. B_W

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Monday January 23 2006 4:53pm
Wild. Engineers sponsoring a geek con. Who would have thunk it? Not me. Not ever. And that Micha? He's dreamy. B_W

Posted by: Anonymous	Posted on: Monday January 23 2006 4:19pm
html deleted, eh? yeah, i 'spose that's best. here's the link: www.flamesrising.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=883&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Posted by: darkNES	Posted on: Monday January 23 2006 4:18pm
It may not be GenCon, but it is indeed a gaming convention in downtown Thrillwaukee, featuring a certain Micah and Kassi and presumably the rest of the Obsidian/Cruciform crew. -html deleted- JYEAH. -html deleted-

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 23 2006 2:21pm
in a odd sort i found this article about japan news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4598329.stm

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 23 2006 8:06am
gemini, is now oddly crashing when anti aliasing is turned on beyond 4x in doom3 i am wondering if it is a power supply issue, or a bug in the code, more testing is required.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Sunday January 22 2006 7:38pm

The problem with N. Korea is not that China will intervene to protect it. N. Korea is only useful to China if China can control it in a way that the US and local states rely on Chinese diplomacy in the region. If N. Korea spins so far out of China's control that the US has to resort to force, China has no further interest in supporting the regime. Now, Tiawan is a different matter, and that may be what you are thinking of. The problem with N. Korea is that it has enough artillery in place to devaste Seoul, South Korea's capital, before we could do anything about it. N. Korea also has ballistic missiles that can reach Japan and potentially has nuclear weapons. It's not as bad as triggering WWIII, but N. Korea is in a possition to take down a lot of its neighbors with it.

Posted by: Dream BBQ Child	Posted on: Sunday January 22 2006 5:24pm
I'm glad I'm not a politican.

Posted by: Dream BBQ Child	Posted on: Sunday January 22 2006 5:23pm
For the record too, I do beleive N. Korea needs to be dealt with. But for the life of me I don't know how. I know we have concerns that if we make a movie China may make a move. That could be bad.

Posted by: Dream BBQ Child	Posted on: Sunday January 22 2006 5:21pm
harmful.org Yeah, that's about right.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Sunday January 22 2006 4:23pm
at 2.74 3d05 marks per dollar and $0.3638 dollars per 3d mark "gemini" has obtained a 3dmark05 of 13742, once sli was actually enabled.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Sunday January 22 2006 1:06pm
oh, dreams, sweet dreams. I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where politicians actually possessed gonads, and could actually say what needs to be said... www.harmful.org/homedespot/Arants.htm#bush

Posted by: Prime	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 6:35pm
www.theonion.com/content/node/44458 Funny article for us game geeks

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 5:23pm
The Quadro FX 1400 is a $400-$500 card, not a $2000 one.

Posted by: intrigue

Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 4:15pm

crow, on the quadro cards issue, its not worth 3x the price of a rocking gaming card, the two cards are almost identical in speed for 3ds and combustion. The difference in price is not the hardware, but all of the testing they do for you with drivers/software version numbers. my guess is that no matter what you do, its not worth paying 1000$ worth of validation testing for old hardware. a 350$ game card will be just as fast as a 2000$ quadro. the quadros are quiter though.

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 1:35pm
Crow, Now, I think you're hitting the other end of the spectum. ;) What do you need that beast for? Are you going to be doing extensive 3d studio max or something? I rarely see a need for such a card...unless you're like Justin B. or something. Then you need three. And that's just for your coffee maker. B_W

Posted by: sysop	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 12:40pm
Beta 1.6 replaced with final 1.6. Fixed extra increment bug and populated the archive directory with all post counts (html will update during next month's archiving).

Posted by: sysop	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 12:36pm
backing up and switching scripts

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 11:04am
This card is simply until I get the Cashish for a Quadro FX1400.

Posted by: B_W

Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 10:36am

Yeah, I will have to forward that on to Dave. He's a good man. Crow, Yeah, I went down that crap V-card biznatch, and I never want to go down that road again. ;) All the workstations here at IV have crap cards, (accept for the 2 I have built) and people don't realize the necessity of something with some 'ballz'. AE for example uses OpenGL heavily in it's prerendering and is kinda 'U gotta have it' these days. Also some basic functionality requires some accelerated 2d or 3d prowess. I've found that if I spend in the $150-165 range I get something that does a great job, and is fairly economical. I have never gotten on the $300-600 bandwagon for a video card, but also the $50-100 doesn't necessarialy cut it either. It sucks when you lay down $1500 for a fine machine, and cut it off at the knees with a shitty v-card. Or like IV did, buy a $3500 dual Xeon workstation and have it have $hit openGL and be USELESS. Not cool. B_W

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 1:26am
this one is for dave video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6238953685626218421

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Friday January 20 2006 12:18am
I decided that I, too, would run 3DMark, and I got a score of a whopping 1039 3DMarks. No, unlike Intrigue, I did not miss a zero. That's apparently what happens when you buy the cheapest PCI-express video card you can find.

Posted by: intrigue

Posted on: Thursday January 19 2006 8:40pm

sure, we can do it in feb, biokey just condemded my weekend, my plan was to go camping this weekend and then next weekend hold the lan party, however because we now need to have another meeting discussing why thiings are not done, trying to explain it to people who dont know software, and dont want to learn about it, instead of just "getting it done." with any luck i will be enjoying the woods the weekend of the 27th instead then. It is also likely that if i am going to go camping, that my brother will want to have is computer before the 27th, i dont think i will be able to get him to actually game with his computer with other gamers instead i think he would rather spend his gaming time while his GF is at work and he can beat up on all of the 13year olds home sick from school. i am also having a problem with his computer "gemini", as it is performing 15 % slower than expected, it is my expectation that this is because the 64bit sli drivers are not as advanced as the 32 bit ones. I am still looking into this. "gemini" is still scoring 9700 ish on 3dmark05 but i was expecting a score closer to 1200 as i am using almost identical parts to that of a tomshardware test machine that scored close to 11300 in 3dmark05, the only difference being that of windowsXP64 vs tom's machine runing winXP sp1a. I will keep you guys posted. GEMINI however is still damn fast, i have not yet been able to get it to drop below 40fps on anything even FEAR, any sugestions on demos to try? I also figured out the reason for vSync, if you have alot of flashing light like "gun fire" then if vsync is off, you see major tearing of the image, turning it on lowers your frame rate, but eliminates the tear effect. This is only relavent for a high rate of flashing, things that glow bright quickly say over the course of a 1/4 second and 10- 20 frames do not need the vSync as the visible change between frames is not significant enough to warrant the reduced framerates, while the graphics card waits for the next screen refresh from the video buffer which happens at least every 1/60th of a second.

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Thursday January 19 2006 12:01pm
Just in time! (for me to take care of the problem) news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060119/sc_nm/environment_japan_jellyfish_dc

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Wednesday January 18 2006 8:41pm
Can I veto the 27th idea? I have a paper due the 31st, and I'm not going to be told what the assignment is until the 24th. So I kinda need that weekend.

Posted by: Intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 18 2006 5:26pm
I have been accepted as a board member of eInnovate, and I will be involved in the programming and fundraising committees. (www.einnovate.org/) I guess, would let you guys know since I really don't talk about work much, as Big Whisky has pointed out.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 18 2006 5:21pm
Lets do the lan party the weekend of the 27th, if we would like to have one in febuary, it is going to get hairy for me. With any luck my brother will be able to attend if it is that weekend.

Posted by: justin	Posted on: Wednesday January 18 2006 12:21pm
I vote Feb 4th, but it doesn't really matter to me if Kruger is hosting it. Later on in Feb, probably the 18th, I plan on thowing an aging commemoration gathering of my own at Juneau, which will most likely not involve a LAN, but may involve Tank Wars.

Posted by: adam	Posted on: Wednesday January 18 2006 1:20am
peter... that's interesting.. -A

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Tuesday January 17 2006 9:48pm
If you guys want a LAN party, please try to settle on a date quickly so I can manage my workload to be able to attend.

Posted by: Peter

Posted on: Tuesday January 17 2006 4:02pm

This is for Adam: The church of DiFranco BUFFALO, New York (AP) -- Ani DiFranco gave hundreds of people a first glimpse at her latest project: a Gothic revival church being transformed into a performance and art space. The indie musician and owner of Righteous Babe Records has spearheaded a $10 million restoration of the old church along with her manager. (Taken from CNN.com) More than 500 people got a first look inside "The Church" on Friday. "A few years ago, when this space was much more raw, I did a little playing here, and I thought this is going to be a beautiful place to perform," DiFranco told the invitation-only crowd. The nearly completed performance space is expected to open in late spring.

Posted by: Peter	Posted on: Tuesday January 17 2006 1:55pm
Check out this funny 6 minute animation recapping StarWars: Episode 3 - Revenge of the Sith. www.guyfishcatmovie.com/SWTRAILER.html Click on the picture of the Episode 3 poster to begin downloading.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Monday January 16 2006 3:28pm
WoW and Apple humor together at last? www.tator.net/files/hosting/tator/deity_craftingworlds_switch.wmv

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 16 2006 7:41am
gemini was the last computer i named, and that was my brothers dual core sli system, i thought naming it after the twins would be good.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 16 2006 7:41am
nope

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Sunday January 15 2006 5:39pm
Is anyone using "Helios"?

Posted by: Intrigue

Posted on: Sunday January 15 2006 1:28pm

how about "Resurgence" "sine qua non" meaning "An essential condition or element; an indispensable thing" "halcyon"\HAL-see-uhn\ noun 1. A kingfisher. 2. A mythical bird, identified with the kingfisher, that was fabled to nest at sea about the time of the winter solstice and to calm the waves during incubation. adjective 1. Calm; quiet; peaceful; undisturbed; happy; as, "deep, halcyon repose." 2. Marked by peace and prosperity; as, "halcyon years." or check out other word of the days from dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/

Posted by: sysop

Posted on: Sunday January 15 2006 12:16pm

hey, I see the directory thingy was successfully created. Use the link at the bottom of this page (though i'll probably switch it with the "created by" in the next version). This appears to have been a successful test, although I see the links back here within the old pages often don't work. I recommend the "back" button until i get that straightened out. I also need to write a mini-script that counts all the old posts. Finally, I have acquired texts on your CSS so some of that might start to work it's way in here.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Sunday January 15 2006 12:00pm
That name might be awkward as the computer ages... ;)

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Saturday January 14 2006 11:27pm
Quicksilver okay?

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Saturday January 14 2006 11:21pm
Damn... So... how does one change a computer's name?

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Saturday January 14 2006 11:16pm
i am glad you are sucessful, but i have a computer named mercury, well, i was planing on reformating it anyways

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Saturday January 14 2006 1:02pm
Greetings from Mercury.

Posted by: Intrigue	Posted on: Saturday January 14 2006 9:17am
Crow, maybe you would like to trade, your DVD drive for a CDROM drive that I ordered by mistake? I might have plates for you, I have built 2 computers with the wave master and I should have some spare parts somewhere.

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Friday January 13 2006 11:31pm
Looking at the typos in my last post, it is a wonder I've made it this far. ZP?

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Friday January 13 2006 11:28pm

No Justin. This isn't like a little boxy drive. Instead, it had an elegant curve on the bezel. The apex of the curve stuck out an inch, and the screw holes definately did not align when you put the bezel far enough in. All is goodnow, I have a new DVD-ROM installed that has a more traditional design. I also have the powersupply, motherboard, memory, video card, hard drive, and floppy drive installed, and am currently working on installing ZP.

Posted by: Dream BBQ Child	Posted on: Friday January 13 2006 10:02pm
Have we gotten beyond thunderdome yet?

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Friday January 13 2006 5:08pm
an inch? is there another set of screw holes on the drive you can use? Vantus has got one of those doors (and "screwless rails") and I remember needing 2 attempts to mount it properly. So for LAN action, I would think the first order of business should be "where", because that might affect the "when".

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Friday January 13 2006 5:01pm
Next Problem: DVD-ROM drive has a bezel that sticks out about an inch, which means that the case door cannot close. So, I'm going to be running out to get a replacement drive tonight.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Friday January 13 2006 4:27pm

Intrigue (and anyone else for who this applies): You have a CoolerMaster WaveMaster case. Do you have any spare plate covers that I may purloin for my box? It seems that Compaq, in addition to branding the case and putting stickers all over the place, also liberated two 5.25," one 3.5" and three expansion slot covers. If I do the math, after installation I will be left with one 5.25," one 3.5," and one expansion slot without a cover. So I am looking to aquire replacements.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Thursday January 12 2006 10:34am
no, you only need a dual link DVI cable, most nvidia cards are dual link by default.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Thursday January 12 2006 10:23am
Question for BBQ spawned by Gabe's post at PA. Can the MacBookPro or whatever thingy actually power a 30" cinema display? I thought you needed 2 video cards for that.

Posted by: sysop

Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 7:47pm

other than that crap, things should function normally for a few days, and in the middle of the month (I guess that's saturday?), when the script should archive again and go through and find all the old posts and link to them in a new directory thingy. Then we can all go back and laugh at how much and how little things have changed in the last 2.5 of your earth years. Or, the webserver may just explode. It works when I feed it theoretical data.... Also, you may notice that hyperlinking isn't any smarter in this release, I'll look at that some more in the next one.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 7:34pm
Ok, bug fixes should be in place for testing. Can you now turn colored text back into white? Can you now post ascii art with pipe characters without posts terminating unexpectedly? | === | | | \ % / \ / - How about some feed back if you try to -html deleted-stuff-html deleted-

Posted by: sysop	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 6:58pm
new script test

Posted by: sysop	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 6:55pm
Backing up this content and switching scripts now...

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 4:09pm
Well, it's settled then: Intrigue will upload his 64 gig pr0n database and give up the sweet access. THE SWEET ACCCESS! I demand it.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 3:46pm
this is crazy, i was in the process of transfering javagenerations from interland to dreamhost, dreamhost has multiplied my space and bandwidth agian, now i get 64gb of web space and 1.6TB of bandwidth for 16$ a month. www.dreamhost.com/shared/comparison.html

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 2:42pm
Let's have a LAN party...or a BLOG party...or BOTH! (a LAN where we BLOG about our INTERPRETATION of the LANEVENT) That would actually be hot, because it would be so many perspecitves on the same event, it would be the exact opposite of the afore-hated tertiary text! B_W

Posted by: Peter

Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 11:47am

Believe it or not, I have heard of Heim and his theories before. I however can't make full sense of them because I fail to see exactly how he justifies adding the 2 subspace dimensions to his theory (and while we are on the topic....why is it just 2 subspace dimensions, not 3 or 4?). There is also one small problem with the idea of the hyperspeed engine being used for manned space travel as presented here: The strength of the magnetic field produced by the ring over the coil necessitated for proper hyperspeed travel according to Heim's assistant would be powerful enough to stop the flow of blood to the head (remember the iron heme group in every red blood cell - also a reason why Magneto was an even better bad guy in comics than he was in the X-men movies) and would essentially kill the pilot unless the DVT did it first.

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 11:01am
"If there are people who love our hardware but are forced to put up with a Windows world, then that's OK." ROFLCOPTERS! So ends another episode of "Bizarro World with Apple Computers." Peter, ever heard of that Krazy German Hyperdrive stuff? Good blog links... Also, I concur that LAN parties are good.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 8:34am
digg.com/gaming/Play_World_of_WarCraft_for_free pirate gaming servers for WoW

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 11 2006 8:10am
apple doesnt get it, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10794396/from/RS.3/ they will allow mac users to install windows on the new intel macs, but they still wont let us windows guys install mac os on our pcs.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 11:35pm

Actually NS, your statement about blogs being run by only one person was joined by "with no oversight." But perhaps my use of the word "independant" was ill-considered. Try "sovereign" instead. And no, blogs can have more than one person posting to them. If you were to take the layout of this board, allow only a few authorized users to post, and then if their posts are directed to the general public (unlike this post, which is directed to you), it would be a blog. Blogs are characterized by having their main section be a one-way dialog between the blog writter and the reader. A comment section may then be appended to each individual post to allow two way communication, but those comments are not visible on the main page as the articles are. I really need to work on a better definition of blog... It's like obscenity: I know it when I see it. :) Considering blogs have brought down Trent Lott, Dan Rather, and Easton Jordan, I don't think it is arrogance for them to think the blogosphere should be listened to. And giving them some credit for the 2004 election results would not be too far of a reach, as political blog readers vote in much higher proportions than the general public. As for corrections, I am currently trying to remember an incident where conservative bloggers thought there was a big scandle brewing that turned out to be nothing, and then had to back away from it. Unfortunately I completely forget every aspect of the story, so it is hard to search for. Instead, I'll offer you a couple minor appetizers until the day I wake up in the middle of the night and shout "Eureaka!" powerlineblog.com/archives/011648.php#011648 powerlineblog.com/archives/011009.php#011009 volokh.com/archives/archive_2004_05_23-2004_05_29.shtml#1085756000 wizbangblog.com/archives/007441.php

Posted by: Peter	Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 10:27pm
Crow, I never stated that I "believe [your] complaints are simply a complaint about bias". If you read the second sentence of my previous post you would see that I was merely commenting on certain points brought up by both you and Justin. I wasn't entering the discussion as an opponent, just expounding upon things that both you and Justin had already said. Don't confuse the two.

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 10:03pm

no, things will archive normally until after i swap scripts tomorrow. then...well, they might, but you never know with my code... ;) "NearScape: you betray your ignorance of blogs, assuming that each one is an independent entity..." Actually I said that most blogs are written by one person, which I based partly on your own testament that this page is not a blog because it has a group of contributors. Others, while they still claim to have a single author, are owned and operated by the same conglomerates that run the networks, so their independence was never in question. Remember, you brought up blogs and the New York Times subscription decline. If not to join in the choir of people preaching yet another media revolution, then why? "Those entities that are able to address its critics in a fullfilling manner will survive. Those dinosaurs that, due to their arrogance, cannot, will perish." Last month I had to explain to an office full of people what a blog was, since they've never even heard of one. If the average joe isn't paying any attention, the true arrogance lies with bloggers who think that the corporations should be paying attention to their private little revolution. Unless bloggers can create a captive audience the way the networks and dailies do, their inroads will be limited. Given the active nature of the internet vs. the passive nature of television, I don't see that happening soon. All these systems you describe are blogs competing with each other. They don't compete with the mainstream media. I'm not saying that blogs aren't good, I'm just saying they're not influential outside a small networks of mostly academics. In fact, I would love for you to link to a blog that posts an article that simply details that they were wrong, because that would give me hope. It's not going to pay my bills though. Even if the scene is this openly self-critical, and can miraculously maintain this feature as they grow and more money gets involved, there's still the problem of waiting for the baby boomers to die out before any major changes occur. And I honestly look forward to that, it'll be exciting!

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 6:39pm

Well, this response will probably not be archived due to the machinations of my opponent, who is blessed with the power of the domain, but anyway. NearScape: you betray your ignorance of blogs, assuming that each one is an independent entity, while Peter believes that my complaints are simply a complaint about bias. First to Peter: if my complaint was simply that bias exists, I would not be blasting the wrong-headed notion of journalistic ethics. My complaint is that the mainstream media is a monolithic entity. Tossing journalistic ethics to the wind and returning to the days of an openly partisan press would be a vast improvement over the current situation. This is what blogs are doing, which brings me to NearScape. I don't know where you are getting this idea that I said the mainstream media was going to disappear. Please either provide the quote from any post where I said that, or desist from your straw man arguement. Besides that, the "blogosphere" is not composed of an atomized group of websites, as your statement "most blogs are a single person's bias and agenda, with little or no oversight" indicates you believe. In fact, prominent blogs have vastly more oversight than you give them credit for and are much more responsive to reader feedback. Blogs do something that mainstream news sources don't: they provide full access to their sources. Sure, CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, Washington Post, they will all talk about a judicial ruling. They'll even describe it for you. But do they actually hand the full text of the ruling to you to decide for yourself if their description is accurate? No. You are just supposed to trust them. This wouldn't be bad if they weren't so inept at paraphrasing. "No operational ties yet discovered" becomes "No ties, period." Blogs will give you the documents they cite. They will give you the news stories they are citicising. Then they will give you their email address. Don't believe that they represented the article fairly? Tell them and there's a good chance it will be corrected in a matter of hours in the same place as the article. Most blogs have comments. You can post your complaint there and everyone interested in the story is going to see it. If not, you can go to another blog and bitch about what an idiot that guy is and they will be happy to post your correction. If that correction is well founded, it will spread across other blogs that so-and-so is being dishonest. Even blogs with the same political affliation as the one you are criticising will come out against the error. Okay, not all, but enough where people who follow blogs will be aware of it. If the blog has been following a story that turns out to be a whole lot of nothing, they are either going to post an entry that was just as prominent as all the other entries on the story were that says it was a load of nothing, or they will once again get grief over the issue by readers and other bloggers. The same cannot be said of the mainstream media. If you can pull a correction out of them it is going to be buried in the back of the paper, even if the correction completely debunks a story that ran on the front page. Of course, they might just decide that they can find some tenuous justification for their report, and stick by it. No one will ever know that you had a problem with the story, so why should they worry? A report ommits a vital fact? Good luck getting that corrected. Blogs have numerous avenues for people to point out ommissions in a public fassion, not broadcasters and not newspapers. And no, newsrooms are not "a diluted composite of an entire news room's biases and agendas." Instead, they are the perfect victims of group-think. It is so easy for them to become insulated echo chambers. Who can forget Pauline Kael's remark about Nixon's election: "How could he have won? I don't know anyone who voted for him!" Granted, it's a movie critic at The New Yorker, but it is the same social scene. For the longest time the mainstream news media has never had to debate its beliefs, as it could cower any public figure who dared to challenge it (Mark Twain's adage of "Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel" was wise and widely followed advice). Now, it has to. Those entities that are able to address its critics in a fullfilling manner will survive. Those dinosaurs that, due to their arrogance, cannot, will perish.

Posted by: sysop

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 5:44pm

sorry to interrupt the banter, but I just had a successful closed beta test (isn't that silly?) of my 1.6 script, and I want to move it over here for a more thorough beat-down ASAP. Anticipate the forum going down tomorrow evening, and then coming back up later for open beta testing. Current comments will be locked and new comments added during the test period may or may not be archived properly. Brace yourself, the directory is nigh!

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 3:34pm

"Crow and NS, what you have uncovered in your discussion a fundamental truth - in order to determine the full facts of a situation more than one account must be followed." When you consider that the NBC news is a diluted composite of an entire news room's biases and agendas, and most blogs are a single person's bias and agenda, with little or no oversight, then the blog's future as an accurate vendor of information is called even further into question. And the New York Times is a brand, not a medium. Brands come and go. So what? These "media revolutions" are predicted pretty much every 20 years, and each time the dominant media owners have adapted their respective outlets and capitalized. AM radio survived FM radio, both survived television, and they all survived (and will continue to survive) the Internet. Not too bad for an industry that is supposed to be incapable of adapting to the marketplace, eh, Jim? Heck, people actually said (in the distant past, say 1998) that the Internet would destroy postal services, and now they make more money shipping the crap folks buy on eBay. At the end of the day, my parents, my employers, and everyone else that runs the world are not going to stop reading the paper every day because some blogger says "Listen to me! I'm a better conduit of information!" Even if that were true, no one cares, because that's not their routine. When a blog really matters, you'll know, because Sumner Redstone will buy it.

Posted by: Peter

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 2:09pm

I figured it was time I chimed in on this discussion. I just wanted to clarify and expound upon some points that both NS and Crow have brought up in their discussion: 1) Regardless of the integrity of the source, the journalist, and/or the publication company there will always be a filter and bias. This is inevitable. Just as history is written by the victors, the news is written by someone who will inherently possess a bias of sorts. The only way to avoid this is to be directly involved in the happenings (which would give you a direct 1st person perspective but would eliminate the filter, but would not eliminate your own natural bias). No matter what there will always be a newperson bias. There always has been and always will be - ever wonder why there was no mention of presidential scandals before the modern era of presidents? What journalists are taught is to minimize this bias which they do to some extent. Therefore, what you shouldn't argue is the supposed "media bias" but rather the mask of control. 2) The journalism community does not reject bloggers, only wants to make the public aware that bloggers are not held by any code of ethics (please...no bashing the journalism code of ethics because believe it or not it is pretty strong and well-followed). Therefore, journalists are trying to make the public aware that they should be critical of all writing (including their own). Crow, while I was discouraged to hear that you found an example of a professor of journalism teaching that bloggers are to be ignored, this is more the exception than the rule. Many journalists respect the fact that blogging has opened up a new avenue of communication. NS is right that many (note: many, not all) bloggers get their source from a news organization of some sort so that the bloggers are already adding another filter and bias on top of the filters and bias that the news source added. Please note however, not everyone adds the same filter and bias because not everyone plays along the same agenda. Crow and NS, what you have uncovered in your discussion a fundamental truth - in order to determine the full facts of a situation more than one account must be followed. This is just a simple fact of life whether you are dealing with people. When a cop is trying to get the story of what happened during an incident, he or she doesn't just ask one person and base the case upon that. He or she tries to ask as many people as possible. Memories from a person are susceptible to bias whether the person intentially adds them or not. Even the camera is not free from bias as the coverage from the Vietnam war showed us (or in a much more lame example - The movie "The Running Man" with Arnold). Bias will always exist and you must accept that fact. Thus, the main point is...why does the public prefer to only follow one news source and not determine the truth of the situation for themselves? Simply, 1) they just don't care to put forth that much effort and 2) often don't possess the critical thinking skills necessary because they are never properly trained as critical thinkers. People will take the single biased source because they get an idea of what's going on in the world from a single 30 min news broadcast, 15 minute CNN headliner, or 10 page news section in a newspaper. For most people that is enough and all they really care about. There is no bias free news and there will never be an antiseptic method of providing it. We will forever be in the era of manufactured consent. Deal with it.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 11:31am

Actually, bloggers are doing their own unique reporting. First, RaTHergate demonstrated that bloggers have access to a large pool of professional experts that they are able to tap to gain authoritative backing for their claims. This is what is known as conducting interviews, which is the basis of the majority of journalism. If you want reporting on law, whether it is legislation or a judge's ruling, there are plenty of lawyers out there running blogs that will give you an excellent breakdown of the priciples involved, such as Powerline and The Volokh Conspiracy. Want news from Iraq or Afghanistan? First, you have native bloggers in those countries that will give you a feel for the attitudes on the street. Second, you have soldiers who are willing to contribute to blogs, and frequently do in order to correct misinformation that is put on the air. Third, you actually do have bloggers that have raised funds to travel to Iraq and actually went through the imbed program, doing the exact same things that reporters did during Opperation Iraqi Freedom. What are the "real" reporters doing in Iraq? They stay in the Green Zone and hire local stringers to do their reporting, which is not much different than what the blogs are doing, except money is changing hands and bloggers aren't likely to hire alQaeda opperatives to get the latest head-sawing videos. Politics? If the mainstream news media were to disappear tomorrow, you would still have access to every speech government officials ever gave as politicians happily provide the same transcripts on their websites and perhaps even video feeds. If you want an interview they would be more than willing to give it to a blogger, as many of them already correspond with well established blogs such as the Daily Kos. What advantage do mainstream reporters have? Well, they can get more annonymous sources. Yippee. Blogs are making inroads in every sector of national and international news gathering and reporting, and they are still just in their infancy. Sure, when it comes to local news they aren't anywhere near able to challenge the local outfits, and they probably never will be. That's because few people actually look to the internet to find out what happened locally, so there currently is not much of a market for it. Now Justin, here's your problem: you are going by experience with LOCAL broadcasters. Local broadcasters are much, much different than national institutions, and you are right that they are very sensitive to market pressures. For instance, out here in North Carolina, the local broadcasters do not carry the national news broadcasts, such as Nightline. No one watches them out here. See? People are taking it into their hands. Subscriptions to the New York Times and the LA Times are dropping like a stone and their companies are hemoraging jobs to stay in buisness, yet those papers have done little to change their product. You are also looking at this from the buisness end. The problem is that the buisness managers are not the ones filing reports. Look at this from the standpoint of the reporters and the editors. Each news division has their own set of journalistic ethics that the reporters are supposed to follow. It is in that area where conformity is enforced, not in the number crunching. And I believe Michael Crichton was actually refering to the GOVERNMENT conducting double blind tests for where it is using scientific data to come up with policy. Since Mr. Crichton never mentioned taxes as being his beef, I don't see where your criticism comes in here.

Posted by: adam	Posted on: Tuesday January 10 2006 11:28am
Ok... I don't necessarily know all what they're talking about, so hopefully Peter will chime in, but it sounds like the hyperdrive *might be possible... Anyone want to go to the moon? www.newscientistspace.com/article/mg18925331.200-take-a-leap-into-hyperspace.html -A

Posted by: nearscape

Posted on: Monday January 9 2006 9:59pm

wow, I got so lost in the holiday khaos I didn't even notice CrowScape's media rant. "Journalism is not like any other product, and its primary producers do not act like any other company. The industry perceives quality to be best measured by how well a news outlet conforms, not by its faithfulness to the truth. Thus, the mainstream media is remarkably inept at responding to the market, as it believes better means more of the same." The industry percieves quality...on what do you base this? Some angry blogger's rant? I sat in on meetings with different news directors from 2 of Milwaukee's network stations for over 2 years, and I even took a few broadcasting courses. Nothing along these lines was ever preached to me. Do you have some high industry contacts you're not telling me about? Because the only "quality" measurement that the industry that I know cares about are ratings. And the only reason that matters is because it affects advertising revenue. The mainstream media is in the business of selling airtime and pagespace, that's the concern that trumps all other. That's the product. "Quality" matters little because it is too subjective. "Accuracy" costs money (and time) and isn't necessary to generate advertising revenue. How is this not business as usual? You claim the media doesn't respond to the marketplace? The primary function of the ratings system itself is to gauge consumer demand. Based on this data, programming decisions are made. And while they've discovered that very little about the public's media cravings can be predicted, when it comes to the news, the public responds time and again to only 2 things: Primacy, and Fear. The reason fact checking has become so poor is because it's more important to be first than to be right. *First* is very different from "more of the same". Journalists are aggressive because they're in a race for distinction, not conformity. And the reason bleeding stories lead is because the public is far less likely to tune out a story that scares them. If any media consumers really wanted news, straight up, then C-SPAN would have much better ratings. You really think that CNN and Fox News are striving to be the same? The whole reason that Liberal vs. Conservative Media debate exists is because these businesses are trying to corner what they perceive to be a unique and profitable marketshare. And that means telling people what they want to hear. People only pay attention the facts which support their opinions anyway. Hence the increasingly popular trend of buying multiple news outlets, in the same market, and putting drastically different spin on those outlets. That's far more profitable than simply reporting facts, because if the facts aren't "good facts" that day, people won't listen. This way you're guaranteed audience share, regardless of what actually happens in the world. Don't like it? Then here's the great thing about our country: the solution is in your hands. Michael Crichton thinks all mainstream news is speculation? Then why does he keep consuming it, buying what they're selling? Obviously, he's never learned any real information from the media. Talk about intellectual dishonesty. And bloggers are the best at that. The most popular blogs, the ones that actually pay for themselves (in: shock! Advertising!), would have little to talk about if they weren't watching the 6 o'clock news (or reading it on a website that is paid for by a media conglomerate). The reality is that most bloggers simply don't have the resources to uncover disseminate new information. So every time I read a blog about how "the mainstream media is going away" I get a good laugh. The first radio casters said the same thing about the newspaper many decades ago. If that sounds too easy, then you could always go to the government. Michael Crichton dreams of a media that uses double-blind studies to verify facts. Well, then I expect to see him lobbying for higher taxes. Because the only entity with the resources to enforce such a regime is the government. Oh, and we can forget about learning the results of the Iraqi elections for another 12 months while the politicians squabble. And even then, the chances of fairness and accuracy are slim to none (just look at the BBC), because someone has to pay for the advertisements that got those politicians elected. Hmm, I wonder if Rupert Murdoch would be interested? See, it all comes back to advertising revenue. Yep, our capitalist system is working just fine. Especially that evil, evil Media.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Monday January 9 2006 9:55pm

You are by all means free to plan another LAN party, and I shall endeavor to attend. Be it known, however, that I shall by no means provide a guarantee of my attendence, for academic requirments may require me to engage in activies of a studious nature at the appointed time of the festivities. In similar news, ACen is actually the week BEFORE finals for me, running from May 5-7. This is not necessarily bad news, as my first final will not (or should not) be until late the following Tuesday. If I work to burn through any papers that are due during finals week before then, I can probably relax Friday, Saturday and Sunday and enjoy the convention with those willing to attend. I'll update you guys on the workload I expect when I get my syllabi during the first week of classes.

Posted by: Intrigue	Posted on: Monday January 9 2006 7:36pm
Crow, you could name it neo or maybe not. On that note, both crow and my brother will have new machines in a few days/weeks. I hear by force wenth declare that we need to have another lan party, towards the end of january. Who is with me?

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Sunday January 8 2006 11:19pm

Saw Narnia. Saw Harry Potter. Not sure which one is better, but both movies are good way to spend a couple hours and a few bucks. Brain is... optional. Well, ok, if you haven't read The Chronicles of Narnia, go see Potter instead... which of course is going out of theaters at this moment. Don't you love my timely reviews? If you have read Narnia, say in the first grade, you don't have to worry about your childhood memories being butchered. I think I agree with one reviewer who stated that Narnia had "the best talking animals ever." Well, everything has been ordered for the new computer. At least, I hope so. The worst I'm expecting is having to run down to the local Micro Center in the event I don't have all the little screws and such that are required to attach everything together. It's either that or I buy some chewing gum... Nah, I'll stick with the screws. All I need to do now, besides put it together and load everything, is come up with a name... And with this new computer I am getting the urge to start making music videos again. I'm not going to try to retackle my crazy Mega Man/SMJ video for a while though, despite the fact that the vast majority of the source footage, and all the irreplaceable stuff, escaped the various purges I performed on my limited harddrive. On a fast computer I wouldn't have much problem reassembling everything in short order, now that I think about it. And poor, poor Whisky. So close to the truth, and yet so pathetically far. He has no idea that he is just a pawn, so simple to guide. Lead a boozer to liquor and he will be compelled to partake of the liquid demon. Oops! I didn't mean to actually type that... or did I? You are in way over your heads.

Posted by: near$cape	Posted on: Saturday January 7 2006 10:02pm
CA$HI$H! BTW, that book BBQ got me on Japan is teh win. There are instructions on how to find the no-pants coffee shops! ;)

Posted by: Dream BBQ Child

Posted on: Saturday January 7 2006 3:45pm

There's odds that new Intel Apples are coming out on Monday. Before ya'll geek out over them remember one thing... It's still a Mac. It either just works, or just sucks hours of your life talking to Apple-We-Have-Your-Money-Already-So-We-Don't-Care (B.T.W. give us another $350 if you want to keep talking at us. We won't engauage you in conversation or attempt to really solve your problem cause of the, you know, not caring thing. Though we will tell you that we care, but that's just to appease you so you go away.) WildBBQ may have died on me but to date I've had more success in getting all Packlid on PC's than Mac's. I bet too if something blows on the new Mac's you'll still have to go through AppleDon'tCare in order to get the part replaced cause, if you try to replace it yourself, the bugger will cease to boot. I'm with ya'll now. OS X on hardware I can manage. And at least Microsoft doesn't let a cloud of coolness wrap around it like Apple and Google do. I suspect all are actually pretty nasty, nasty. But at least, at least Microsoft doesn't hide it and I gotta say I respect that about em'. I do like my new Apple keyboard though. Doesn't fell as cheap as the one that came with my PowerMac G4. I think it might also be good spanking paddle.

Posted by: Whisky_Assasin

Posted on: Saturday January 7 2006 12:35am

Crow, There was a tramatic exit wound from the back of his head though. They said they saw cerebellum, which is in the back of your head, not the front. It's a massive conspiracy, and I think crow is at the center of it! His ties to the east coast are not deniable. His ties to the distinct lack of space water are clear. He knows that my name of assassin is linked to my use of the hashish. CROW KNOWS TOO MUCH! IT'S CLEAR!

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 4 2006 11:41pm
some research for japan dawned this www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/hotels.html www.quirkyjapan.or.tv/ be warned dont browse at work

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Wednesday January 4 2006 7:18pm
First intrigue, thanks for the recomendation. Seeing that others have said they are using it with the motherboard makes all my fears go away. Second, no, I have no doubt that the headshot came from behind. Exit wounds are more traumatic than entry wounds. Buy Whisky a watermelon and have him demonstrate it for you if you don't believe me.

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 4 2006 7:55am
my favorite psu in your power/price range www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103924 120mm fan for quite opperation, cable managment, ATX12V v2.0 compliance reduces power consumption by up to 25%, saving you money on your electricity bill Includes special power connector for PCI Express graphic cards www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=24480

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Wednesday January 4 2006 7:42am
check this out, not for the week of heart www.jfkmurdersolved.com/zapruder.htm

Posted by: CrowScape	Posted on: Tuesday January 3 2006 10:49pm
BTW: copy and past that link. For some reason clicking on it takes you to paypal.

Posted by: CrowScape

Posted on: Tuesday January 3 2006 10:48pm

OK, that MSI motherboard is scaring me a bit. Rather, the store I'm buying it from has scared me. In big, red lettering it tells me that an ATX 2.0 power supply is required for that motherboard. It does not say that for any other socket 939 board that I have checked. I've picked out a power supply that is ATX12V 2.2, does that qualify? All the power supplies I have checked out say ATX12V 2.something or 1.3 for those dealing with older P4s and K8s, none are just plain ATX, so I am thinking that this merchant is just confusing me for no good reason by not being consistent in labeling/terminology. Is this a correct conclusion, or do I need to search high and low for this unique standard? Or do you who have built with the MSI Neo4 Platinum board have power supply recomendations? Here's a link to the power supply I am considering: https://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=269999

Posted by: Two_Min_Later_W	Posted on: Monday January 2 2006 12:33am
Crow, 420 should do ya, as long as you are not planning on running eight hard drives or anything. I am currently running 8, and that's pushing my 500 a taste. That plus all the 'fun'. You know. Anyway, that should do ya fine. B_W

Posted by: B_W	Posted on: Monday January 2 2006 12:29am
Where are my pants? NYE successful! Pantsless_Whisky

Posted by: nearscape	Posted on: Sunday January 1 2006 7:31pm
does my script still "work" in the new year? You never know! ;) Happy New Year!

Posted by: intrigue	Posted on: Sunday January 1 2006 3:48pm
wow, who else has finally risen, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

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