Doom map layout was definitely 2D, I remember very well having to use all kinds of tricks to get the illusion of full 3D, and some things just weren't possible, like bridges you could both pass over and under.

Doom 2 I can't say, never did any maps for that one.

Indeed it could, just read up a bit about thermohaline circulation and you'll see why some people are worried not just about sea-level rise from melting polar ice.

Listening to music without paying is not "innocent", it's downright unamerican. Or at least a threat to our beloved capitalism. If nobody makes a buck from it, it's gotta go.

You're not one of them pinko commie socialist types that think you can get something for nothing are you? Remember, you don't always get what you pay for, but you always have to pay.

Always.

Disclaimer: Portions of the above post may contain traces of sarcasm, cynism, or just downright trolling. Handle with care.

Unless I completely misremember my Psychology classes, you get the best results by a combination of punishment (for wrong behaviour) and reward (for right behaviour). Doing just one or the other doesn't get you the result you want as quickly.

Wikipedia is only a few key-presses away, you know:

The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years.[15] This is due to a 41000 year cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22 and 24.5.[16] At present (2000 AD), we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years (17000 AD).
During the last glacial period, the Sahara was even bigger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[17] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.[18]

(emphasis mine)

It's the dead ones that are toys, not the living.

Dr. West was a re-animator, not a murderer.

If we're talking about the WildCat video, it looked like the front right leg joint broke when it fell, not that it tripped. If that's the case, it's just an engineering problem to reinforce that joint.

Foreign nationals get their fingerprints taken and retinas photographed at the customs desk (where they also check our passports and ask us the funny questions like "business or pleasure?", "anyone handled your luggage but you?", "what address are you staying?" etc).

The NSA has had my fingerprints and retina pattern for over a decade now.

Gah, don't remind me.

Mythic was so bad as a MMO developer they gave rise to the next level of fail after Epic fail: Mythic fail.

And still I played that damn game for 2.5 years...

This is very wrong, so much so it must be an intentional lie. Out of 93 'mech variants, only 12 are cash-only. 81 are available for in-game currency.

As a new player, you'll start out in a selection of trial 'mechs while you earn in-game currency to purchase your own 'mech (that you can then customize to your liking for more in-game currency). To facilitate this, you get a rather hefty in-game currency bonus for your first 25 games. At the end of those 25 matches, you'll have enough both to purchase and customize and Atlas, if that's what you want.

It's also not true. The Hero 'mechs (the cash-only 'mechs) aren't superior to the in-game currency ones, and there's generally not enough of them on a team to make a difference anyway. People generally play in regular, non-Hero 'mechs. What is happening though is that organized teams "stomp the shit" out of disorganized groups of non-team players. But hey, it's a team game.

While there's no love lost between me and PGI, they haven't actually ruined the game yet. They seem to do their damndest to get there, but they haven't quite managed yet. At its core, the game is a really great 'mech simulation; it's just all the other bits that suck.

Oh and the fact that it's getting less and less BattleTech with every patch. That sucks really bad as well.

Oh, let's talk beautiful planes :)

WWII-era: Me 262 takes the top spot with its shark-like fuselage and sleek lines, the P-38 as mentioned looks simultaneously both powerful and really, really graceful, the Westland Whirlwind is also gorgeously aggressive with its propellers sticking out in front, and of course the old stalwarts the Spitfire and the Mustang are magnificent designs. Then there's the striking utilitarianism of the Me-109 and the robust stubbiness of the early Fw-190, and the impressive gaping maw of the Typhoon. Also the P-48 Thunderbolt has a certain rotund charm, wouldn't you agree? :)

Moving on to the cold war era, the SR-71 is the undisputed queen of the air, beautiful as can be and as much a work of art as it is a plane, but the B-58 Hustler is the epitome of a jet bomber, with the B-47 a close second. For fighters, the MiG-29 and MiG-31, the F-14 and F-15 are planes I grew up loving, and the Swedes did all right with their beautiful delta-wings, the sleek J-35 and the more angularly powerful J-37 (which incidentally was the only aircraft that ever managed to get a radar lock on a SR-71 - and they did it on numerous occasions).

Current planes, well... I'm not a fan, really. Of the current crop of fighters, I guess the Swedes did it again with their J-39; I don't really like the F-22, F-35, Typhoon, or any of the Su-27 variants that seem to number in the dozens across Russia and China. It all seems to be drones, drones, drones anyway these days, and I sometimes long for a past where planes weren't designed by computers but by eye and hand.

From wikipedia:

There's non-official (e.g. Brian Shul's book Sled Driver) reports of speeds up to Mach 3.5 (4,200 kph or 2,600 mph), but those aren't official. Different official and unofficial analyses of the materials and production techniques of the SR-71 strongly suggest that it was incapable of reaching much more than Mach 3.5 (among other things the pressure wave from the nose would enter the engine intake and unstart the engine; also the metal divider on the windshield got so hot at those speeds it threatened the integrity of the windshield).

So yeah, official word would be great, but there is little doubt the SR-71 was capable of Mach 3.5 but not much more than that.

Indeed.

I don't fancy the U-2 or C-130 much, but the P-38 and SR-71 are two of the most aesthetically pleasing aircraft ever to have graced the skies. In fact, the SR-71 is probably the most beautiful plane ever to have flown. That it's also still the current speed record holder (air-breathing manned aircraft, record set in 1976) despite being retired since 1998 is just icing on the cake.

I'm quite grateful that I managed to squeeze in a trip to the Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles last time I was in DC so I could get to see one in real life.

Hear, hear.

Slacker for life since late 20th century.

Sure, I've meddled with other distros; Debian, Gentoo, Ubuntu and a host of others, but I keep coming back to Slack.

Ah, my favourite Star Trek / Computer nerd pastiche:

"I am Pentium of Borg. Division is futile, you will be approximated".

Caused me endless mirth in the early nineties - and still does, although these day it's nostalgic more than funny.