taks

i'm playing BG as well, and i have reinstalled IWD. someone's suggestion to switch to 16-bit in the configure screen to solve the blocky fog of war problem worked like a charm. anyway, some interesting notes on things i forgot about the game... first, i have what is by all accounts a fairly high-end computer. core2duo e6600, 8800gts vid card, 3.0 gb SATA drive, 4 GB of mammaries and an audigy 2 sound card. is it just me, or was BG _always_ this laggy? it just seems sluggish. next, i forgot how annoying the pathfinding is. crap it is, even with the number of nodes cranked (which i've turned down again). characters regularly get stuck on each other in battles, failing to simply walk around. it's almost silly. that characters cannot push others out of the way is also a pain, and i remember that was one of the top gripes fixed in BG2. overall, as simplistic as the AI is, i prefer it to many of the problems i had with NWN2. at least everyone doesn't come running to the currently selected player every round, meanwhile getting bashed in the head by some miscreant. why o why is there not a free attack when something runs away. if they're faster than whomever you have in pursuit, you have to wait till he turns back to red and rejoins the fight. sometimes, if you aren't paying attention, your moron in pursuit will open up areas that you aren't ready to clear, bringing the hordes with him upon his return, or dying in the process. the game is actually rather challenging to play at low levels. a 1st level mage is useless without the ring of wizardry. minsc cannot hit the broad side of a barn. danged rangers. i'm doing him with a bastard sword and shield this time, rather than the stock two-handed sword. why does khalid only have a 15 STR as a fighter? at least with jaheira it makes sense because she's a druid and needed to spread her stats out. she's really my best fighter at the end of the day. i now remember why khalid was killed for BG2. once the majority of your dudes are above 3rd level, the game gets much, much easier. i had forgotten how easy it became as the game progressed. taks

thus proving that any ideology is, at its heart, corrupt. throwing bricks? yeah, them's some better folks than the ones marching. taks

oops... that should be "... your measurement accuracy...". taks

no. for small counts, accuracy is easy. errors are discussed in parts per billion, or even worse. count that same spoon a billion, or maybe a trillion, times. then you have to devise a method to do that in some reasonable amount of time (i.e., your lifetime). the counting mechanism then suffers from various randomly distributed errors, and some of the time, you'll recount the same spoon, or not count it at all. if you're doing a measurement, your counting accuracy is +/- 1/2 the smallest division at best. once that division gets to the molecular/atomic level, it becomes a counting problem (take it to the quark level and it becomes worse). since the number of molecules or atoms is huge, some method must be devised to count the individual pieces. errors then creep in unavoidably. taks

i'll buy that. still improbable, however, as the surface of any liquid is rather dynamic. a facetious jest in any case. i was being that technical simply because somebody needed to be. taks

ghost is your friend. of course, i have yet to use it... maybe some day. taks

no, it is NOT a difficulty of measuring. it is simply a statistical nuance that makes precise measurement impossible, not just difficult. it is a statistical issue alone. there is _always_ statistical error in _any_ measurement, be it counting or otherwise. taks

it's not about heisenberg. statistically speaking, there will _always_ be measurement error, even if the measurement is capable of reaching an atomic count (which would then be counting error). oddly, if you could count atoms, your accuracy would be at a minimum +/- 1/2 of an atom (though probably higher). wrap around that for a bit. taks

it may not be a complete drive failure. it could simply be that your boot sector is hosed, and the "clicking" is due to the bios repeatedly attempting to read the sector encountering errors as it does (in which case the drive mechanism could be jumping around). you might want to see if you can hook the drive up to another, working, computer and read the data through that system. taks

something in your registry is probably amiss. the problem with the way MS handles the registry is that the "uninstall" option is not always complete. there's always some stray key left around that causes havoc. very difficult problem to diagnose, and even more difficult to resolve other than rebuilding your system from scratch, and then reinstalling all of your requisite software. it sounds like you may want to do this anyway. taks

somebody needs to point out that an exactly half full, half empty, or any specific measure, glass is not possible to achieve. taks

same here. i had a flurry of activity this morning, and i got a test report out at noon. since then, i'm simply running an analysis program that takes a gawd-awful long time to run, waiting for the "results." i'm thinking CTRL-C will end the agony shortly since i'm past the interesting part of the data anyway. then it's off to the pool hall for some drinking (joining ya in spirit walsh) and billiards. taks

i recall once while i lived in florida that a drug ship overturned somewhere off the coast. apparently several (dozens) bags of marijuana floated ashore just south of melbourne. apparently, early beach combers (they go out looking for good sea shells) spotted the loot and immediately reported it. nobody got to keep any... that they know of. taks

this is why i don't understand congressional meddling here. presidential appointments serve at the president's pleasure. he needs no reason to remove any (i'm not sure he can actually "fire" the AG, but he can ask for his resignation). given that the fired attorneys all worked for the attorney general, that extension holds. i'd imagine if this went to the supreme court, congress would be told to butt out. that a similar situation occurred under clinton seems to be lost to history as well. it would require an unlimited constitutional convention, and 3/4 of the states would have to ratify it. not possible by any stretch of the imagination. taks

uh, the veep isn't really "in charge" of the legislation. he only has a vote if a bill is tied. even with his vote, the dems still have a majority right now, as a result, cheney has zero power. checks and balances were not designed to counter party differences, though people often assume that is the case. bush also doesn't have any control over alito nor roberts, or the supreme court in general, since they are appointed for life once approved (that's precisely why it is a life appointment). keep in mind, reagan appointed kennedy and he's been anything but conservative. i agree, however, a smaller government is naturally more efficient. adding a $1.7T bureaucracy to the mix will only make the current situation worse. taks

yeah, our bureaucracy is large enough as it is, dabbling in many things that should be prohibited. if a state wants to provide health care, and someone doesn't want to be a part of that, that someone can always move. that was the intent of having separate states, btw. if all the states agree, then that person is SOL. btw, this is one of the ways that the federal government "cheats" on its constitutional powers. the drinking age is a prime example. the fed threatened (blackmailed, essentially) to withhold highway funds for the states unless they agreed to raise the age to 21. this is really a breach of the intent of the constitution. taks

hehe, i chuckled. certainly it is a subjective statement either way. personally, while i like the idea from a "helping others" standpoint (i'm not nearly as rigid as my hard-line postings indicate), i simply think anything socialist doesn't work. medicare/medicaid is one of the largest sources of fraud on perpetrated on the government coffers, too. that's not necessarily because it is socialist, rather, i think it is because of the hybridized perversion of a system we have. the only way doctors/drug companies can make money is to cheat it, and massive loopholes allow back-door raping as well. the bigger the government service, the more opportunity for such things. taks

it is pretty arrogant to say that providing health care universally is "evolved" over any other method. taks

uh, what makes you think our model is even remotely capitalist? this has been discussed at length, sand. there's waaaaay too much government interference to refer to it that way. certainly it is closer to "free market" than the rest of the world's, but by no means capitalist. taks

there's a clear separation here, though the federal government often behaves as if there isn't. this was intentional. 50 separate studies on democracy. keep in mind, the issue with the US is NOT about whether or not we have health care, it's about whether or not we have health insurance. almost everyone has major care either through insurance, or medicare/medicaid (which is on the order of $250B/year). the latter is for the "poor" and the former is either through your own purchase, or company provided benefits. i'm not sure about the rules anymore, but i don't believe hospitals can refuse life-threatening care, either. by itself, standard major medical is not that expensive, but tacking on coverage for drugs, office visits, etc., can add up to several hundred a month. if you're high risk, as my wife is, there are either indemnity plans, which basically cover big-time issues, or some states have high risk plans. colorado is one of those states. my wife's insurance is $275/month (she's diabetic, btw). the biggest problem arises when someone needs something major that is not immediately life threatening, and any/all of the above resources refuse to provide the necessary care. taks

hehe... july baby as well, eh? it seems i remember seeing something you posted a while back that indicated we were about the same age... i want a motorcycle for my birthday, too, but we can't afford one till my wife pays off her car. we intend to get a pair of rides for tooling around in the mountains. it may be two summers before we indulge since a new home is planned next year (well, hoped for). i need a yard, and a bigger garage for the inevitable motorcycle storage. taks

first, there's a difference between "function of society" and "function of the government." for that matter, police and fire are not functions of the federal government, nor are schools (there are federal mandates regarding these issues, and sometimes even federal funding, but by and large they are provided at the state/local level). second, medical treatment is a function that absolutely can be handled on an individual basis, whereas things like police, fire and, to some extent, schooling, cannot. government was not intended to baby-sit its citizens, nor was it intended to be an insurance company (which is essentially what state-sponsored medical becomes). certainly it makes sense for some things to be handled by the government. roads, general infrastructure, etc. in fact, if it were not for government involvement, we would not have the extensive power grid, communications systems, etc., in place today. taks

mine's down below my desk, and i normally turn off the lights in my man cave when i'm pooting, so any aesthetics would be a waste of money. my wife and son both have theirs in a cabinet of sorts (the son's is actually in a closed cabinet, ventilated on the back-side), so it would be a waste for them as well. i'm not too sure about a wood cabinet. might have strange static issues... dunno, since wood is not something i've ever researched for any kind of case, PC or otherwise. certainly grounding yourself to the case prior to working on it wouldn't be possible. personally, i want a more functional case. i have yet to meet one that i really like. getting the door off is always a pain, and working inside them is not a lot of fun, either. i've spent a lot of time poking around in VME/VXS chassis as well, and that's not much of a picnic either, so i guess i shouldn't be too upset. taks NOTE: VME stands for VERSAmodule Eurocard bus, and VXS is VMEbus Switched Serial, both of which dominate the embedded processing market for government type signal processing systems.

i'll be 39 in a few weeks... you're older than that? geezer. taks

it's brand new. FPGAs have the PPC405, though i've seen mention that this one, and the PPC440 (older brother i guess), are synthesizable for use in FPGAs. unfortunately, i cannot use it in the stuff i'm doing (which will reside in a large FPGA). i need too many multipliers. task