taks

no real difference there for me, either. the biggest problem of then vs. now is the fact that now i'm focusing on areas that i already have a serious interest in, i.e. i'm not taking any classes that i don't want to take, or attempting to learn subjects that are of no interest to me. same for undergraduate college in which i had to take a bunch of stuff i didn't care about or didn't need. ultimately one of my problems with public schools. teachers end up being forced to teach students to pass the standardized test, not to learn the subject matter. as a result, the "bar" for the standardized test has to be set low enough that the aggregate performs well, which leaves the higher-end students lacking in skills they otherwise wouldn't have a problem learning. taks

just as easy now as it was then. actually, the level of complexity in much of the work i'm doing now is orders of magnitude more difficult in some respects, particularly the amount of work i have to put in. taks

someone in here once posted that developer comments are journalism, and that both sides of the story should be told by the developer. i.e., bioware (which was the example at the time) should post "equal time" links to all the problems with their games on their website. hehe... i recall saying something along the lines of "moron" in reply. really my reply should be to remember a couple things: advertising is not equal to news. it is the responsibility of the buyer to research a product before purchasing it. simply knowing where the source of the information originates, namely the developer/producer/publisher/related entity, should allow reasonable folks to draw reasonable conclusions as to the bias inherent in subjective matters such as advertising. taks

oh, and i should add, shutting down the ceremony would not have anything to do with getting the diploma, i.e., they'd still get it. taks

i'm not contradicting myself at all. singling out some kids because the cheers happened during their "walk" is really unfair as they don't have direct control over the whole audience. if the audience was warned "if this continues, we will halt the ceremony," the audience would likely have obeyed. had they not obeyed, and then the school officials shut it down, at least then the treatment was across the board, and issues of racism, sexism, etc., would not exist. i.e., shut up or you all get punished. oh, and meta, i'm assuming you actually read the article, because you'd know that they did boot some of the more obnoxious folks. apparently that didn't help. taks

read the story. the "more to the story" is contained within the article as well as several comments since. it wasn't just "someone in the audience" cheering. the solution they chose was poor. i think a better solution would have been to stop after the first outbreak, and inform everyone that the ceremony would be cancelled _for everyone_ if the children (read: adults) in the audience continued their disruptions. taks

yes, i would have made some linux comment had you not beat me to the punchline, gromnir. oh, you forgot some ritual dance with an effigy burning in between step 1 and step 2. taks

well, for one, it wasn't just cheering, nor just clapping. it was hooting and creating enough of a ruckus that they had to stop because nobody could hear the subsequent announcements. it was fairly bad at my high school graduation (1986), not really that bad at my college graduation (1990, but i didn't walk the second time, however). the farther down the line we got, the worse it got as well (my names starts with a T, so it was pretty loud by the time i walked). they did send out warnings based on complaints from previous years, btw, so the consequences were known a-priori. the problem is a catch-22 of sorts. it is unfair to punish the students for others' behavior, most definitely. it is also unfair that the students following such a disruption could not have their names heard by their respective families. ultimately, blame lies with the childish outbursts from the so-called "adults" in the audience who were unable or unwilling to abide by the rules, but how do you punish them? taks

makes me think of the futurama episode when fry and bender get sent to the robot asylum. one of the robots, a president lincoln, had 200 personalities. all of them, unfortunately, were president lincoln. "i was born in 200 log cabins!" taks

bi-polar? i've been thinking multi-polar. taks

big-time improvement with the 6600. taks

i don't even know where my high school diploma is. the college ones are on my desk. kind of... taks

pete hines, commenting over at voodoo said that it was using the actual engine, though they did not do it real time. his comment alluded to the possibility that it _could_ do that real-time, i.e. in game. taks

there's a difference between downloading and installing drivers. you need to actually rerun the executable to reinstall the drivers. taks

it's up at voodooextreme (www.ve3d.com) as well, and loaded rather quickly for me. i suppose they captured the appropriate feel, but i never got into 1 or 2 so it's hard for me to judge. taks

oh this just ain't right. taks

LCDs are not as bright and they have a special screen designed to diffuse light differently than a CRT would (actually, the original LCD screens focused light straight forward, which is why they had poor side views). anti-glare technology has been around for a looooong time (heck, you could even buy anti-glare screens to go over your monitor 20 years ago), yet it took the monitor einsteins till recently to figure it out. i mean, c'mon, it's not like there wasn't _demand_ for it. sheesh. yes, btw, glare is reflected light. the other effects are perhaps worse with mirrored surface monitors, of course. taks

ouch, snark away there ole pal! i'm sure it was all in good jest... hehe. anyway, whomever dreamed up the idea of putting a curved mirror in the middle of a room with a variety of lights coming from all directions should be shot. the advent of flat screens helped a bit, but not until some wiseacre figured out that LCD/plasma/related screens all had to have a matte finish in order to work properly did the rest of the rubes decide to follow suit with their CRTs. my tv is a pain, and i'm considering junking it (mentioned in cant's tv thread) in favor of a rear-projection simply for the glare-proof screen alone. taks

i personally felt that oblivion, while rendered beautifully, went too far for "realism" in its attempt at capturing a fantasy game world. to me, the somewhat more "cartoonish" view delivered by NWN and NWN2 just "seemed" better. maybe it was the pastel-ish colors of oblivion (and somewhat, morrowind), dunno. from what i've seen of half-life2, however, it has done an amazing job of capturing the look and feel of that environment and game world. taks

tvs have actually gone back up in price lately. at least, the tv i pointed out a few months ago is now sitting at almost $1900, and it actually hit a low of around $1600 a while back. not sure why. anyway, plasma at 7000 feet is not a good idea. sure, they've gotten many of them to work at altitude, but they're much hotter, which means a much shorter lifespan. so my other option is standard LCD, which is still expensive for the larger sizes, or rear projection. the RP model i'm scoping still wins on picture quality, 6 months maybe before i buy it. need a couch first. taks

i'd want to be a mage, though i'd probably end up a wild mage. i mean, i spend most of my life studying something or another, either at work or at home (i'm running sims right now). i am, however, rather reckless and don't always pay attention to what i'm doing, hence the wild mage (does that even exist in 3.5E?). taks

wow. cool. taks

btw, my dell system at the office, with 4 GB, reports about 3.3 GB. the only difference i can think of is the fact that it is doing two dual-channel kits, each with 2x1GB, but my home system has 2x2GB, dual-channel. taks

so you make a trial biased for 99.9% of the population based on the 0.1% that are famous or live life as grifters? people toss around the concepts of bias and fair so often they fail to realize that there is no such thing as "completely unbiased" or "fair for everybody." societal laws and practices are meant to cover the majority of circumstances, not all. the tighter you close the system, the easier it is to find loopholes which result in completely undesirable results. sometimes your logic defies, sand. taks

them's the breaks. taks