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Comment Re:Kickstarter! (Score 1) 215

by Zembar (#48248971) Attached to: "Police Detector" Monitors Emergency Radio Transmissions

The problem then becomes, as a driver, which are which? How do I know? How can I find out?

I don't think it matters, to be honest. If it's for safety reasons, you slow down because potentially killing random people is bad. If it's for revenue reasons you slow down so they don't get your money for bullshit reasons. Simple.

Also, if the police where you live do that kind of stupid things, what you do is create awareness of the problem, try to get people to care, and vote the bastards out of office. That's what democracy is for after all.

Comment Re:That was the start (Score 1) 266

by Zembar (#47878529) Attached to: John Romero On Reinventing the Shooter

But despite being technically more true 3D than Doom, the effect was less impressive, overall.

Doom, by restricting the view angle, was able skip or precalculate a ton of stuff, enabling it to deliver full screen action with a decent framerate. UW was confined to like 1/4 of the screen. Add to that the tricks Doom pulled with lighting and skyboxes and it was just a lot more impressive.

Perhaps a bigger element of it being a 'revolution' was that Doom ep1 was shareware, so everyone had it. And it was multiplayer. So it was installed in high school computer labs, and in offices etc.

We're in full agreement here. I did play a lot of UW, but nothing compared to the days upon days spent in Doom playing local deathmatches, or the single player maps or TCs, etc etc.

Doom is one of the best games ever made, I just took issue with the "before 3D was even remotely possible" bit :)

Comment Re:That was the start (Score 2) 266

by Zembar (#47860921) Attached to: John Romero On Reinventing the Shooter

First off, UO=Ultima Online. But that's not important.

You could definitely walk seamlessly, using the keyboard, in Ultima Underworld, it's not at all grid-based like Dungeon Master. You could also run and swim, you could have platforms you could see above and below at the same time(something not even duke 3d could do when it came out years later). It had 3d objects, not just sprites for everything(but still for most things). It had inclines and leaning walls, also something Doom lacked.

I'll give you that the lighting was better, the sky effects helped a *lot* with the claustrophobia, and the shooting was better since it was a shooter, not an RPG.

various first person in a plainly 2D maze (Wolf3D, Ultima Underworld, Might and Magic 3...)

Ultima Underworld was not a 2D maze. Look at the first screenshot in the wikipedia article for instance.

Comment Re:math? maths? (Score 5, Informative) 688

by Zembar (#47063681) Attached to: Professors: US "In Denial" Over Poor Maths Standards

Mathematics

Etymology of Mathematics on Wikipedia

The apparent plural form in English, like the French plural form les mathématiques (and the less commonly used singular derivative la mathématique), goes back to the Latin neuter plural mathematica (Cicero), based on the Greek plural (ta mathmatiká), used by Aristotle (384–322 BC), and meaning roughly "all things mathematical"; although it is plausible that English borrowed only the adjective mathematic(al) and formed the noun mathematics anew, after the pattern of physics and metaphysics, which were inherited from the Greek. In English, the noun mathematics takes singular verb forms. It is often shortened to maths or, in English-speaking North America, math

HTH, HAND

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