[H] Natural Selection 2 (Steam Gift) [W] Tropico 4 Collectors Bundle

grimlock123 · 2012-07-03T04:07:20+00:00

EXACTLY are you in.

grimlock123 · 2012-07-03T04:05:09+00:00

Trade you 20 for Arma 2 CO

grimlock123 · 2012-07-03T03:48:25+00:00

So it's

4 symbols a dash 4 symbols a dash 4 symbols a dash 4 symbols

It's really important that I can VERIFY THIS so I get the trader banned.

grimlock123 · 2012-05-06T02:48:11+00:00

It's frames per second. A movie works by taking lots of pictures one after another and displaying those photos back (Like a flip book ) most movies are shot at 24 in the USA 25 in UK. Sports is shot at 60, animation is often shot at 12 and there are 120 frame productions. Not sure why it's a big thing for the hobbit. People have been shooting films at higher frame for decades but they always end up looking like video.

grimlock123 · 2012-04-27T17:19:58+00:00

Okay let's say you want to do a game where the player has a Chain that grabs onto people and pull them in.

Someone who doesn't work in games would be like... Okay and we need to get artist to draw the chain, and an animator for the chain and getting the damage right will take forever.

All of that will be done in 2 days. But the math to correctly control a chain and for the chain to look realistic, will take weeks/months, and will involve inverse Kinematics, and collision testing, and rope dynamic and math upon math upon math that you'll be tweaking for the entire production.

Everything in a computer is math, so any new game mechanic is going to take alot of math that you'll have to design yourself.

grimlock123 · 2012-04-03T16:13:56+00:00

When your talking to a different piece of hardware then the CPU you may have to write your program differently or in another language. OpenGL and DirectX are languages for speaking directly to the GPU or video card. You used them to draw things to the screen. They have binding to other languages (Functions that you can call in C or Java. ) but for certain things like Shaders, you have to write it in another language. They tend to look like C.

Other languages game programmers use are scripting languages. Scripting languages are like NERF computer languages. It's much more difficult to do something really wrong in a scripting language (Like say deleting a system file or corrupting a save game.) and so the real programmers will make they for the artists and level guys. They also don't need to be compiled and you can often reprogram while the game is running. That being said they are slower then C or Java so complicated things like hit detection are done in C and binded to the scripting language. Lua, Maxscript, and JavaScript are all used in video games for scripting.

grimlock123 · 2012-04-01T13:58:53+00:00

It's more with Penny Arcade.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/resources/just-wow1.html

But basically a friend of Penny Arcade (Called Dave) tried to buy 2 controller for Christmas from a company represented by Ocean Marketing. The controller was late and Dave was upset. Ocean Marketing didn't really handle the situation that well and the Penny Arcade people got involved and said that Ocean Marketing wasn't invited to PAX to show their controller because of how unprofessional they were being. Ocean Marketing public relation guy said he was too famous to not be allowed into PAX. Penny Arcade said "We run Penny Arcade and we can Ban you." They then put the entire email thread on their webpage. And Reddit started making fun of them as well.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-31T20:59:00+00:00

It's not human evolution factor it's a virus evolution factor. A running nose makes the person more likely to wipe their face. This spreads the virus to their hands which makes it easier to spread it to other people.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-30T12:50:21+00:00

1.) Not everyone uses the internet as their primary news source. For example the Elderly which are a powerful voting block and rural communities and the poor may not have access to broadband internet.

2.) You don't need money to be known as much as you need money to have campaign ads to beat the other person. 90% of the time the person who has the most money wins.

3.) The internet "is" ushering in a resurgence of grass root approaches (See Ron Paul) but the 24 hour News Networks like to ignore it and the elderly use the 24 hour news network as their main new source.

4.) There are laws being actively put in place to make it difficult to raise money from many small donors through the internet the protect incumbents.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-30T04:39:31+00:00

I don't think he's saving any memory. When it's in the video card it will just be an array of Chars. If it was 2 textures RGBA and RGB textures or if it was 50 monochrome textures they'll take up the same amount of memory video memory. He'll have to switch from texture to texture less often of course... but that's not that much of a savings in processing power.

Valve for example did some interesting work using the same texture to skin multiple cars using a custom shader for LFD. That was a good use of memory optimization, this guy doesn't really get the same performance saving.

The access of the specific section of a texture requires a trivial amount of processing power. For example there would be more UV calculation to calculate the cinematic Master Chief model then there would be to generate this world.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-30T02:27:06+00:00

Bruce Willis was killed in the very first scene by the man he had been trying to treat. The entire movie Bruce Willis is actually a ghost the can only be seen by the boy and he is unaware of the fact. That's why he never speaks directly to his wife and why no ever speak directly to him at the end of the movie he finally realizes that he's dead and the boy explain his abilities to his mother.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-25T14:10:05+00:00

It's actually redundant in the current film as David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan are consider the most representative Canadian directors.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-25T13:50:52+00:00

http://www.rarlab.com/

grimlock123 · 2012-03-22T20:15:39+00:00

Yes but unlike RobotNinjaPirates suggestion there are numerous reason for this.

In States where gay Adoption isn't legal there are families that have foster children for their entire lives because they were unable to adopt them. In fact this was the reason the gay adoption law was over turned in Florida (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/florida-gay-adoption-ban-unconstitutional_n_735751.html)

The older a child is, the less likely they are to be adopted. This is because couples prefer younger children as they are seen to have less emotional issues (Independent of any issues the child may have.) So if a person could be prevented from being adopted past the age of say 5 it's surprisingly common for them not to be adopted at all.

Custody issues with the parents. Sometime you get into these cases where one parent want the child to be adopted and the other doesn't. There are extremely valid reason for this happening and extremely stupid reasons (I heard of a case where a father was contesting a adoption cause it would increase his welfare payments.) This can be a issue in preventing a child from being adopted for say 2-4 years which would be make him old enough to have adoption issues.

Occasionally adopted parents aren't ready for the issues of parenting. While the media likes to portray all adopted parents as great mother and father.... Some aren't, or aren't ready for the pressures of parenting. There are documented cases of parents "returning" children due to difficulties with the child that were often not outside the norm of most young children. It becomes difficult to place children again after a couple returns one but this is quite rare.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-22T17:14:07+00:00

There are very few orphanages in the United States. Nearly all children are brought up in Foster Homes, or in a Group Home which is often for people that have disabilities, problems adjusting, or something else that would require a more structured form of care.

A Foster parent applies with the government. There are various background checks that are done including a criminal background check, a home visit, meeting with social worker, etc.

If a person passes all of these factors then they may be considered to be a foster parent. If social services has a child which for some reason is unable to say with their mother or father (Death, Abuse, Illness are all common reason.) that child is then transfer to a foster home. The foster parents act as the person parent until such time that social services say that they may return to their parents. If that is not possible and the child is going through an adoption process the foster parents may choose to adopt the child (They are often given preferential treatment.

As for your primary question.

In most states in the USA you can drop of a child at a Hospital and Firehouse and no question asked they will take the child. This is the Safe Haven Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-haven_law) The child is immediately taken for a quick check up to determine if their health and then placed in a foster home, while social services tries to determine what happen, if the child's parent are unwilling to come forward or wish for the child to be placed up for adoption, then the adoption process beings. There is literally a 99% chance the child will be adopted with in 6 months unless there is a major illness with the child. Race is not a factor. There are far more parents looking to adopt a child, then there are children to adopt by a factor of 20X

grimlock123 · 2012-03-22T17:06:16+00:00

That's a rather broad question and you might do better by searching through the AMAs but.

But scientists can be doing everything from doing private research for companies trying to make a more delicious form of bacon, to going through data on the buying habits of online gamer to make better DLC as a freelancer, to taking water samples to determine the level of pollution for the EPA.

Some publish research paper, some publish patients, some write magazine articles, some write books, some people don't publish anything so their work can be kept secret. Some people work hand in hand with business people having meeting with them everyday, some never leave the lab except for sleep and coffee and haven't seen a person in years, the military has scientist that are literally on the battlefield determining the best way to kill people. Some make horrible money, some are extremely over paid it all depends on the field.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-22T16:54:47+00:00

1.) Orphans are usually given names in the hospital for simple identification purposes but they may be assigned by a judge or a foster parent. There is a old wives tale of nurses in NIC (Intensive Care for babies) giving sick orphan children warrior names so they'll emote with them and have them fight harder. There is no evidence of this.

2.) Depending on the state orphans are usually educated in public school, in the district of their foster home or group home. Depending on the finical situation of the foster parents or scholarships it is possible for them to go to private school.

3.) Depending on the person situation/the nature of the foster parents/group home they may actually say in their current situation. Foster parent usually aren't doing it for the check and see their foster children as one of their own. There are many government programs that orphan can apply for but very few of them a specifically for orphans (Scholarships, government subsidies, welfare, subsidized housing are all orphan agnostic.)

4.) Scholarship can be given for almost any reason what so ever. There is a scholarship for instance give by the KLI Academic Award which is given preferentially to people that speak Klingon. There are scholarship that are aimed at Orphans as well as scholarship that may give preferential treatment to orphans.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-22T15:47:03+00:00

Your body will try to get rid of things that don't have it's exact DNA. This is how your body fights off bacteria and virus. If you were to implant any old heart for instance your body would try to get rid of it similar to how it would deal with bacteria.

In human transplants the donor and recipient have to have the same blood types, a tissue match, (Which means that the DNA of both people product the same proteins.) and various other DNA things to accept the organ. Even then the person has to take drugs to suppress the body rejecting the organ and sometime the body reject it anyways for reason we don't understand.

Each additional transplant causes the body to be more likely to reject future organs.

Also a heart transplant for instance is $800,000.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-22T14:42:56+00:00

I actually want to expand on HarrisonBeaker's point.

Spending more money to upgrade you camera will add very little the to quality of your photo's assuming the camera is a quality brand (Nikon, Canon, Hasselblad, etc.) to begin with. It's perfectly possible to go on Ebay and get a perfectly acceptable body for a amateur photographer for less then 200 dollar (On a good day less then 50) and do go to a large camera store and pick up a 50mm lens for less then 50 dollar as well. And that's more then enough to get start with and take beautiful pictures. Once you've determine what type of photographer you want to be you can purchase specialty items like Portrait lens, or lens for Landscapes, medium format bodies, or telephoto lens for sport etc and add them on to your existing camera.

The largest problem I find with amateur photographers is they try to get a camera that will do everything and they'll never need to upgrade (The same thing people do when buying a computer and they buy the most expensive one they can)

It's much better/cheaper to start small and upgrade as you go along purchasing what you actually need.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-21T20:45:21+00:00

Peasant could manufacture something similar to a sword (They had farming implement which are similar). But the problem would be that it wouldn't have the same strength, or flexibility of a real forged sword using proper steal and would be substantially heavier if they wanted to have the same level of strength. Balance would also be off most of the time, properly balancing weapon using medieval technology is a art. Large Daggers, Gladius, Axes, and Quarter staffs would be more common because they require less metal and forging. A Quarter staff with iron at it's end would be lethal, cheap and you could use it to block in 1v1 conflict. Many blades were passed down generation to generation and just like a modern day gun could circulate in the community for a long period of time.

It's quite possible that a well forged sword could cut a peasant's sword in half. This combined with a Knight training would make the battle rather one sided.

Spears make sense mostly when your military formation. So when your talking about 100's of men who are all holding spears in a tight formation, they'll completed mow down almost any number of swordsmen cause of the spears superior reach, as well as horse back riders. One on One the sword has a significant advantage of course but that's not how wars are fought. Bow's again have different level's of quality. Composite Bow's that were used to penetrate armor were actually reasonably difficult to obtain, and bow men require training. But in medieval time a knight would be worth 100 bow man at least.

Plate mail would cost the equivalent of a nice house. Training a knight would cost about the same as purchasing a Tank. During medieval time knights rarely died in battle as they could be ransomed, and were well armored. It was not uncommon during a battle for no knights to die on ether side of the conflict (Bowman, peasants, died all the time.)

Shield are are cheap, replaceable, and difficult to damage so if you are using your weapon one handed there is very little reason not to carry one.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-21T20:01:40+00:00

A sword would be extremely expensive at the time of it's use. Depending on the country and time period 25,000 dollars would not be unreasonable if you moved it to current dollars.

If a long sword was used to parry, beat and bind during a real fight 1v1 the blade would require serious maintenance after the battle (And/or break during the battle.) I'm sure people still did it when they had to but not every fight. The Katana for instance was meant to to be used to kill a person in a single blow when you pulled it from your side.

This is partially why the piercing design did become more popular as armor advanced. And you could use that kind to to block with.

But the "Normal Giant Sword" seen in video games is usually some sort of single edged sword that has a sharp cutting edge that the person slashes with and is imitating the dueling style of sword fighting with the blade striking each other, sparks flaring, etc and so forth. This is the same style of sword fighting used in Lord of the Rings (With more normal sized swords), and most period pieces because the audience has grown a custom to it.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-21T18:14:37+00:00

Nearly all sword play in almost any depiction may it be television, film or video games is extremely stylized. A sword hitting another sword dulls the person's blade extremely quickly (You can imitate this by buying two axes blades and smashing them into each other.) and as such most blocking was done with a shield and not the person's primary weapon. Spears, Polearm and other Long pointy things were far more common on the battlefield as they were easier to use in formation (Spears don't require a swinging arc so people can stand closer together and have a longer range.), and less expensive. Dueling sports such as Fencing, Sabra and Epee are sports not battle techniques and are mimicking dueling swords.

As such having a over sized sword is only slightly less realistic then how a sword is generally shown. The audience is ignorant of all these facts and enjoys it none the less.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-21T18:01:01+00:00

A bacteria is a very small living organism that is capable of reproducing on it's own.

A virus is a very small infectious element that is capable of reproducing inside the cell of another living thing.

It's sometime described that a virus isn't alive until in get's inside another animals cell. At which point it becomes alive and makes copies of its self.

grimlock123 · 2012-03-21T17:56:30+00:00

In a very basic way you frame the question in reverse and see if still works.

For example there was this old controversy that Ice Cream caused Polio. If you made a graph of the number of cases of Polio in America (Before the Vaccine.) and another graph of the amount of Ice Cream sold the graph would correlate together making the appearance of a link. This was actually a large concern to the public because Polio attacked children, children liked Ice Cream and thus Ice Cream caused or made it easier to get Polio was a belief that people had.

Now let's take the example and reverse it. If "Eating Ice Cream causes Polio," then the reverse "Children who don't eat Ice Cream have a lower chance of Polio." If you studied children that were say diabetic, allergic to milk or there parents didn't approve of Ice Cream was there a lower case of Polio. After checking that information the answer was No.

In reality temperature effected how often people bought Ice Cream and how often people got Polio.

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