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Comment Re:More likely, (Score 1) 344

Nobody cares about my story either AND no one will read it three days later, but here it is. We moved to a new school when I was in third grade, and they gave me a placement test to determine my English ability. It was Dick and Jane stuff, which I had never seen before (I read Watership Down when I was in Kindergarten. I had started reading at age 2). Needless to say, I scored perfectly, which the school could hardly believe. So they put me in the Advanced course, with the _other_ two gifted students in the school.

On the first day of Advanced, we went to the computer room where they had six PET computers. Our treat for being Advanced students was to get to type in a program in BASIC and run it. Since my family had had a Vic 20 for a couple years, and since the BASIC language is pretty much the same for both, I read the code and told the other two what would happen when we ran it.

Kicked. Out. And in record time, no doubt.

I was never allowed around the PET computers again.

*sigh*

In high school, they gave the IT duties to the volleyball coach (for real). I don't know how he ended up with the task, but he kept grabbing me out of sixth period (which was his free period, but I had Geology) so I could help him with computer problems. I flunked Geology. Good times. :-(

Comment Re:The Flash Version Mappack (Score 2, Insightful) 189

Prelude is nowhere near as fun/polished as TFV. There are bits of dialog that make me wonder if the creators were paying attention AT ALL when they played Portal themselves (so many things in Prelude don't make sense). I'm trying very hard not to come out and say that Prelude was intelligence-insultingly dumb, but there it is.

However, it was quite challenging, and if THAT is what you're looking for, Prelude has it in abundance.

But of the two, I highly HIGHLY recommend TFV, and I will outright DISrecommend Prelude. Prelude was way hyped when it came out and was a terrible disappointment. And, not that it has a bearing on quality, but TFV has a comparatively tiny download (as it mostly reuses the resources in Portal and HL2). 40 megs, vs the 20-times-larger 800+ meg Prelude.

(I may perhaps be a little bitter regarding Prelude, as I was really looking forward to its release. And I will say that it is maybe a bit better than a lot of the stand-alone fan maps. But Portal and TFV were so, SO much better.)

TL;DR
Prelude = a challenge; TFV = a fun game

Comment Re:Story? (Score 1) 278

THAT's the part that bothers you?

How about: Humans fly half way across the galaxy, and encounter aliens roughly the same shape that also have a cultural hangup about exposed boobs.

(It's not just that they are essentially humans in furry suits, they are AMERICANS in furry suits. Boobs=bad, violence=OK)

Comment PAX != E3 (Score 4, Interesting) 101

The question is, after the attempts to scale it back to a much more exclusive event has E3 managed to escape obscurity and defeat at the hands of up-and-comers like PAX?

E3 is about games.
PAX is about gamers.

They're fundamentally different, and not really in competition with each other. I'm not sure where the submitter even got this question; E3 battling obscurity isn't mentioned in the article, nor is PAX, nor other expos at all.

Television

How Comic Fans & Shops Are Stereotyped 387

brumgrunt writes "Why do TV shows, such as 30 Rock, The Simpsons, Heroes, and Everybody Loves Raymond, persist in so ferevently stereotyping comic book fans and stores? Den of Geek has pulled together eight examples, with video evidence to back them up ..." Minus one point for doubling up on Malcolm in the Middle. Plus 10 points for referencing Spaced, which I hope you all have seen.

Comment Re:Not anytime soon (Score 1) 393

Text to speech isn't anywhere near 100% yet.

Did you mean speech to text? I dunno, here's an actual Google Voice transcription I got recently:

well google voice driver back man on the day he how you're doing at all so lee the four on friday i'm at in the review and anyway gimme a call back i'll talk to you later bye

Seems pretty clear to me. /s

Reviews: Star Trek 544

On these pages, admitting that you are a Trekkie is not a mark of shame; it's more like admitting that you are a carbon-based life form, which is true of almost all of us. I watch every movie. I've seen every episode of every series. And as my wife will tell you, I scream "F*** you Rick Berman!' during the credits every time I see it. So when JJ Abrams got a crack at a reboot, I was hopeful. The short review is that I liked it. Keep reading; I'll keep the spoilers down to a minimum. (Continued below.)

Comment Re:This wouldn't be a problem if... (Score 1) 282

Multiple small warheads can be more efficient than one large one. And ironically, small warheads are "cleaner", making less fallout.

I thought the opposite was true: the more powerful the blast, the greater percentage of radioactive particles sent into the upper atmosphere where they decay out of harm's way. Am I the only one that read the high energy weapons FAQ that came with Fallout 1?

Comment Re:responsiveness (Score 1) 300

[...] the developers will find a way to increase memory usage to compensate, perhaps by having to remember the entire memory state of each paused tab or some such.

As opposed to the current system where running tabs DON'T remember the entire memory state?

I'm not sure what variable types you're thinking of, but this seems to simply be the difference between executing the next instruction or waiting at the current position. Neither affects memory.

A possible way to implement something akin to this, if tabs did run in separate processes, would be to idle the processes that aren't the active tab. They'd still run, if necessary, but it would be at a lower priority than any normal process (including the active tab).

Comment Re:Save Vista! (Score 1) 821

I read your post with the Brawndo/PowerThirst voice in my head.

It's like shaving your chest with a lawnmower! That sounds dangerous, but it's not more dangerous than running VISTA because running VISTA is like riding a pony, which probably sounds not dangerous except that the pony is 300 feet tall and covered in chainsaws! And to get on the pony, you have to take an elevator filled with 16 live cougars, which is an actual sport in Latin America, which is extremely fun, but not as fun as VISTA because VISTA is like driving an ice cream truck full of angry bees through a petting zoo, which is a great way of becoming popular if you want to become popular with LAW ENFORCEMENT...

PC Games (Games)

Submission + - 3D Realms Shut Down

pcgabe writes: On 1up there is a disappointing story about 3D Realms. Both Shacknews and The Escapist are reporting that 3D Realms has shut down. Apogee Software and Deep Silver have issued a statement confirming that the situation at 3D Realms has not affected the development of the upcoming handheld Duke Nukem Trilogy. There has been no word on the fate of the infamously delayed Duke Nukem Forever.

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