Red

Unlucky that you got one of the youtube crowd but as you said they're pretty much everywhere on there; I've always thought it best to ignore rather than feed the trolls, they tend to come back for more otherwise. You'll nearly always get positive comments to counterbalance the trollish ones! Anyway, to answer your questions: 1. Moderating here/other forums & 6+ years of playing games online. The former was nothing compared to the latter in terms of volume & what was said but it was always a tad more personal; most users have established personas on forums. In games it's a constant stream of instantly forgettable people who act the same way. 2. Never, it's just the internet. I'm sure there's a fair proportion that act the same way in real life, but it's obvious that being given near-anonymity turns some perfectly reasonable people into frothing retards. Penny Arcade had a great panel that covered the transition quite well if anyone can be bothered to dig it up. 3. Can't say I've never, [i]ever[/i] done it as for most of my time on the 'net so far I was a teenager but these days while wandering around on the interweb, no. I try to avoid it as it nearly always causes any sort of normal conversation to disintegrate into acronym-laden piddling contests. Games are a different story, winding particularly annoying players up until they completely lose it can be hilarious at times. 4. When it's flame baiting, in jest or in the aforementioned gaming situation I think so, aye. All other times, no. 5. As I said, because they're under the (false) impression that they're 100% anonymous & can say what they like without serious consequences. Manners don't matter and the person you're going after is hardly going to reach through the screen and punch you (unless you're Peter Griffin). Some are like that always but others do it just because they can.

Not a sausage of a clue. It's worth doing a quick virus/spyware scan to double check that nothing's trying to run some malicious scripts or something of the sort at startup. What version of windows are you running? If you can be bothered a screenshot of the 2 windows might help (hit the prntscrn key to take the screenshot & use paste in paint or another image editing program, then save and post it here!).

[quote name='MistressRoxie'][color=#9933ff]I talked to someone a week fews ago who told me that there are drivers to play DVDs that should be free.[/color][/QUOTE] Long time no speak, hope you're well! :p Don't know if you've managed to solve this one or not but just in case you haven't got round to it, go here: [url]http://www.videolan.org/vlc/[/url] It's not a driver but a free media player that will play almost any video under the sun, including DVDs. Afraid I don't know of any free drivers that will plug into windows media player or any of the sort. [quote name='Aceburner']Alright. I got a phone that's compatible with Bluetooth today. I want to put some mp3's on it, but when I plug it in to my computer via USB, all it does is charge. I thought my laptop was compatible with Bluetooth, but I don't seem to have that driver. So what I need is: 1 Bluetooth driver for Windows Vista Home Premium that allows me to share files between a blackberry cell phone and a computer. And no snide remarks about Vista being my problem. I've already acknowledged that.[/QUOTE] Broadcom do a general bluetooth driver: [url]http://www.broadcom.com/products/bluetooth_update.php[/url] however you'll need either bluetooth in your laptop/pc or a usb dongle if you want your pc to communicate with your phone this way. Not a snide remark but Vista may very well be your problem. Whack your phone model number into google and just add "vista bluetooth" to the search, if people have been having problems you'll most likely get a few results detailing why. Alternatively you should be able to copy files across just using USB, it's faster anyway.

[quote name='ZeitGeist']What about them? Can you track them for millions of years? [/QUOTE] Evolution as a whole might take longer than it took kuja to run one of his posts through a spell checker but scientists can still observe mutations that happen from generation to generation. S aureus is a fantastic example as over the years it's managed to become resistant to a wide variety of drugs via genetic mutation, among other things (that was the easiest to type/pronounce :p). What I'm trying to say is that the myriad ways S aureus (which I chose to make a point about as it's so bloomin' common) has changed demonstrates both natural selection & mutation at least; both of which are aspects of evolution.

[quote name='ZeitGeist']By this measure, evolution is not science. You can have all the supposed evidence in the world, but how can you test the hypothesis of a process that takes millions of years? You don't, you can't. Think about that carefully before you completely dismiss me for being a zealot. Evolution by it's nature is [I]untestable[/I]. You can collect data and interpret it, but there's no way to physically test the hypothesis of evolution, to see the pieces fit.[/QUOTE] What about Staphylococcus aureus & MRSA?

[quote name='Korey'][FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Let me tell you, unless your computer is highly sufficient and you have little to nothing else on there, mods will DESTROY your computer's running speed....simply because they are hacking into programs that have written code into them and changing code to make your game different. Plus a lot of mods come from questionable sources and a lot of them can contain harmful things in their code package that may harm your computer, especially if your computer isn't up to snuff with theirs, which I suspect it isn't. So try uninstalling CnC 3 and taking off all the mods. That should free things up a bit. [/FONT][/QUOTE] A mod uses the structure of an existing game to modify the original or create a new game on top of it. Either modders are provided with an SDK (software development kit, e.g Half Life 1/2) or they modify files directly (e.g Freelancer) - either way, if modding is officially supported & the mod is coded properly it should use around the same level of resources as the original game. Simple things such as map/unit hacks shouldn't do squat. Of course all this is ignoring things such as a total conversion mods, high res packs & mods that add new features like updated graphics, which can up the minimum requirement spec by a fair amount. That doesn't mean they're guaranteed to run your machine into the ground, though. Unless the mod contains malicious files it should have no effect on your computer when the game isn't running. That said, software can be a bugger and at times there will be completely inexplicable performance problems with certain mods - generally speaking, though, there aren't. It is true that some files claiming to be mods contain malicious files, but the same can be said of every file on the 'net. That's why it's a good policy to scan everything you download! It's also worth using a reputable source like moddb.

[quote name='Odin M Yggdrasi']Actually it is very incredible how much speed even two year old machines have when running like that, at this very moment I am watching my hand-loaded Prescott HT3.4 run circles around a Core2Duo that has an OEM build/load with a benchmark program.[/quote] Hard to believe unless you've got a terrible Core2 or a crippled system surrounding it, but I'll happily eat my words if you can provide solid proof. [quote]What I am interested in is how I am connecting to the same 'contaminated' internet as everyone else, and yet my computers remain clean while everyone else I know gets plastered. Likely it is because of how I work- knowing what I do about computers I avoid areas that are likely to cause trouble. [/quote] Aye, a little common sense & caution goes a long way towards protecting yourself from threats on the internet. [quote]And my claim about some sites using essentially viruses to track your movements and get you to pay for their product, I have encountered viruses designed for exactly that purpose on customer's machines. Suprisingly persistant about it too, took me forever to isolate and kill it.[/quote] Again, proof please. I also said legitimate site :p [quote]And I love conspiracy theories, they actually explain a lot.[/quote] The ones you mentioned don't explain anything. [quote]Knowing what happens behind the closed doors of the industry gives me good reason to make them.[/QUOTE] Judging by your first post you don't seem to know much about what goes on "behind closed doors" since it's all made up :/

[quote name='Odin M Yggdrasi']Many of these viruses are released under wraps from major security companies- methods by which to promote their product and keep themselves in business. One of my favorite examples: Dr. Norton, he was once a hacker (second rate actually, but a hacker nonetheless) before he was hired by Symmantec to work on their anti virus and security products. It is high likely that he still does a fair amount of hacking and releasing of viruses, for the purposes of continuing Symmantec's business. Also, a lot of exploits were devised for information gathering, not only could they have originally been meant for agencies like the CIA to snoop on potential threats but also for scammers to obtain the credit card information they desire. There is one more point I would like to bring up- A lot of porn sites use viruses to track your movements, and see to it that you pay up for viewing their material. It might not make any sense at first, but obviously the information is useful to someone or there wouldn't be codes to track it. And I still want to know how you people get viruses so often, my computers almost never get them- the few that do get in are usually in downloads, and I catch and kill them before infection occurs.[/QUOTE] Dear dancing zombie jesus, I don't know whether to take this as a troll or one of the most hilarious pieces of bull's particulars I've read in a while. Peter Norton was a developer (among other things) who created a few applications that fell under the "Norton Utilities" umbrella. His company was subsequently bought out by Symantec, who mainted the use of the Norton name on a few of their products. He was never a hacker, and as far as I know he hasn't taken up for giggles. I'll admit, you'd be hard pressed to prove that security companies don't benefit from the continued propagation of viruses & exploits - but to suggest they cause them in the first place is, well...silly. It would require a conspiracy of biblical proportions; one that would totally dwarf the scale of something like the Manhattan Project. Exploits are quite often the result of poor design, coding, quality assurance processes or a combination of all. Take a gander at my conspiracy note as it applies to your comment about the CIA, countless employees of god knows how many companies would have to be involved. As for scammers, some do indeed use exploits to carry credit card scams, but they're certainly not in league with the developers whose applications they exploit. With regard to what you brought up about porn sites: it seems you're merging the concept of DRM with bog standard trojans and coming up with a tactic that no legitimate company could use without being caught at some point. That's not to say that all porn sites are virus free or that no virus would ever track your movements on the internet, though. Finally, judging by the post quoted above I sincerely doubt that you personally intercept & destroy every virus that hits your machine. Any chance it's done by security software? :p Spy46: it's done for a number of reasons, though the term 'hacker' used to be used only for those who covered their tracks, caused little if any damage and only infiltrated systems to gather information. There's plenty of money to be made in botnet harvesting (massive numbers of infected computers that are co-ordinated to spam or perform attacks), regular spamming, scamming etc. Some people create viruses as a proof of concept, some just want to try & bring the internet to it's knees. Some just find it fun! The ol' sweaty-guy-in-a-basement stereotype is pretty much gone these days, though; people of all ages & backgrounds do it.

Ahh, quote tangents. Weren't we all talking about green ray a page back, or something? :p [quote name='The Blue Jihad']Vague? Like I said earlier, digital distribution still has issues. But those issues are due to most companies failing (neglecting) to establish any real standardization. Catalogue problems? Poor sales? Restrictive DRM? Classic examples of corporate half-assery. What you say is vague I say is a summary.[/quote] What are you on about? My point was that you [i]didn't[/i] summarise most points of why uptake of digital distribution has been so poor, which is why I mentioned things such as DRM! [quote]Nah. I just wanted to summarize instead of going into every little detail.[/quote] You said Internet2 was "...a viable new way of examining data and information transfer." Not for us it isn't, certainly not anytime soon! You also claimed Web 2.0 = Internet2, which certainly isn't the case. Summaries involve facts, not conjecture & poor understanding! [quote]While his individual points about Amazon and Google seem asinine, his thoughts on designing systems with user flexibility in mind are pretty smart (especially hackability), as are his views regarding a sort of "collective intelligence."[/quote] Wikipedia is a classic example of how well collective intelligence works. Not going to bother arguing the rest of the Web 2.0 stuff because it leads to much frothing at the mouth from all sides :p [quote]Ah yes, the universities. Birthplace of the internet. Seems only fitting that universities are again the starting place for the next huge technological breakthrough in data transfer. You honestly aren't sure who would pay for the national/global fiber lines? Tax dollars, obviously. Who wouldn't prefer their money going toward that than, say, a government-endorsed "Focus on the Family" media campaign?[/quote] Universities had a hand in the creation of the internet but they weren't the birthplace. Nor were they the only starting point for internet2. Fibre is incredibly expensive to lay, install & maintain. There's a reason there is so much "dark fibre" (lines that haven't been switched on) in the US, and why it wasn't taken up by many countries at all. [quote]While I don't agree with illegally downloading, I can't say that I'm terribly sympathetic to the media companies' plights. Illegal downloads aren't the problem; it's unregulated, non-standardized digital distribution. I'm amazed that so few businesses and companies haven't caught on how to [I]use[/I] the allure of digital distribution. Regarding DVR, considering how far it's come in the past year with such limited support, and how useful it already is...with the right backing, I don't see it having a long way to go at all.[/quote] Unregulated, non-standardised digital distribution...in other words, illegal downloading? I don't understand what you're getting at with that point. Agree with what you say about companies not catching on though; I suppose you have executives and the like to thank for that. I'm guessing you live in the US, where DVR has had a pretty good run for the past few years. Over here in the UK it's been an abysmal failure.

[quote name='The Blue Jihad']And come to think of it, big reason I see that digital distribution might take another few years to really kick off [I]is because[/I] so many companies are focusing all of these resources on physical media.[/quote] That's awfully vague. What about the fact that the big media companies are quite schizophrenic about whether their catalogues will be available to legal online distributors? Or that sales are poor because customers don't enjoy the (very) restrictive DRM & lack of physical product despite most movies being the price of a normal DVD? [quote]EDIT: Des, the industry is looking at it as a new, faster way to distribute information using existing technology. Combine that faster, more efficient means with fiberoptics and you've got yourself a remarkably better way to transfer data. [URL]http://www.internet2.edu/[/URL] Plus, even as much as you'd like to be a little ***** about it, Internet2 (or Web 2.0, whichever you prefer) isn't something to be scoffed at. It's a viable new way of examining data and information transfer.[/QUOTE] The industry is currently looking to throttle nearly all kinds of distribution until they can figure out how to monetise it in a way they like. From what you've said it seems like you've linked to a site you haven't read. :/ Web 2.0 is a buzzword with no real meaning outside of Tim O'Reilly's fluffy mind; Internet2 is a group overseeing the installations & use of high-speed fibre backbones among companies/universities that exchange huge amounts of data. That sort of speed being made available for everybody else is a [i]long[/i] way off (who will lay & pay for the fibre? Who will maintain it? Where will the capacity come from? Sure as heck won't be Sony or MGM). I sincerely doubt media companies are interested in having people illegally download HD movies in mere minutes. DVR is slightly better but it has a long way to go.

[quote name='James'][color=#606060] One, capacity. Blu-ray discs weigh in at around 50GB (with Sony promising 100GB discs shortly). HD-DVD discs hold around 30GB.[/color][/QUOTE] In fairness to HD-DVD there's a DVD Forum approved triple layer disc that can hold 50GB but the uptake has been incredibly slow. [quote name='SunfallE'][COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]The problem with that statement is that it's all to easy to find different opinions as to which side isn't doing well so as a result, like Crystia, I intend to sit it out and wait for one to become more widespread than the other. At this point in my opinion, it's not worth the expense to invest in either one.[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Actually blu-ray has been outselling HD-DVD in most territories, probably thanks to the PS3. As an example, blu-ray outsold HD-DVD 2:1 for the first 9 months of 2007 in the US. James is right, it's not looking too good for HD-DVD at the moment; but in general terms neither format is doing very well. It could all change though...Betamax vs. VHS is a good example!

[quote name='Sojio']You guys might be interested to know that downloading isn't illegal so long as you are able to prove that it is for educational reasons. I recently finished an arts management and copyright course at my local music academy and while we were doing the copyright section the topic of downloading music came up. Our lecturer told us the story of how an American college student downloaded 300 GB of music but proved to the court that he was downloading it for a study into music and society or something along those lines. [/QUOTE] No, it's still illegal. There are specific provisions in the law that allow for (some) educational use of copyrighted material. Since I can't find anything online about this supposed case I can't prove your lecturer right or wrong but it still sounds like you've been told a few porkies. 300GB is a phenomenal amount of music files: at a high average of 5MB per song we're still talking 60,000 tracks. It would be pretty tough to successfully argue that you downloaded that many files for educational purposes; especially considering the fact that it would most likely take weeks of continuous listening to get through all of it. As for myself, I download a ton of music and buy it later; I'd have to wait months to hear what music I like if I waited until I could afford it.

This smacks of judge & jury having all the technical knowledge of a grapefruit (since the RIAA were able to provide very little proof of actual sharing taking place), which is a pretty common occurrence in these cases. There's no denying it's illegal but the fine is way out of proportion here.

[quote name='SunfallE'][COLOR="RoyalBlue"][FONT="Lucida Sans Unicode"]No, I have the same service and this is exactly what it says on their website for customers here in Utah:[/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] Fair enough, I guess the contention ratios are much higher than they are here in the UK =s How much does it cost you a month?

[quote name='Aaryanna'][COLOR="goldenrod"][FONT="Comic Sans MS"]We have Internet through our cable company, Comcast. It's suppose to be as fast as 8 megabytes but I've never seen it go faster than about 1.5 megabytes for downloads. Not that I'm complaining though. That still works beautifully. The only problem we seem to have is every year when school starts back up, for the first couple of weeks we'll have times that it doesn't work at all since they are always too cheap to upgrade to handle the capacity before school gets going. And of course there are other times it doesn't work, but most of the time it does. [/FONT][/COLOR][/QUOTE] It could be that your internet connection is 8[b]mb[/b], which denotes megabits rather than megabytes. 8 megabits = 1 megabyte (MB).

I'm on good ol' British Telecom 2mbps down/256k up. It used to be 512k/256k, but most of the ISPs in the UK have upgraded everyone to speeds that their networks can't handle. [quote name='Zidargh']I unfortunately use a Netgear router which is a pile of crap in my opinion.[/quote] Give an update of the firmware a try.

[quote name='Zidargh']Thankyou very much guys, you've all been a superb help. I'm caught betweenthe [b]Alienware Area 51 m9750[/b] and the [b]Dell XPS M1710[/b]. I can get the Alienware for £1,350 with the 2 gigs RAM and 7,200 RPM hard drive, also contemplating the downgrade from Vista. Is this a good deal? For alot more (which I can't afford) an upgrade with the Alienware Area51 m9750 model is Dual 512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX GDDR3. I can't afford this but would this be phenomenal power, or would I be fine with just the single card? Actually, how good is the damn card? lol. Argh I'm confused. It's too much money to throw away.[/quote] You'd be fine with a single card - the one you've mentioned is very powerful, a close match to one nvidia's highest rated 7 series desktop cards (the 7900GTX). That bugger can run nearly all DX9 games flawlessly. If you did feel like going way over budget in the end, an SLI (dual card) setup would give you roughly 50% extra graphics performance over a single card. [quote]Haha, Red I was thinking of cutting a few quid on ordering from the US, but I decided for guarantee purposes that I'd better not. What was your reason for not ordering from the US?[/quote] Warranty. You'd end up losing the dollar savings when they asked you to mail the laptop back to the US :p

[quote name='Zidargh']So will the laptop still be respectable in 2 years time? Because obviously Direct X10 is going to be utilised, and I always read criticism of Vista... so how would, say, a Dell XPS M1710 hold up with top of the range games out at the moment?[/QUOTE] Short answer to your first question is no, at least not for games that will be the norm in 2 years. You can almost guarantee that even the first generation of DX10 games will run poorly at best on any current (DX10 capable) laptop. The M1710 has a DX9 card but it will play most of today's games very well. I guess all of the below only applies if you don't go for that Dell model ;) Get a dedicated graphics card! You don't want a 100% integrated card (anything from the Intel GMA line as an example), since these use your computer's RAM (memory) rather than their own. Newer Nvidia & ATI cards do use some system memory but they also come with their own - that's the kind of card you'll need if you want to play any recent games. If the laptop comes with Vista, downgrade it to XP. Vista chews up available memory & generally makes a system chug due to all the fancy bells & whistles. Don't settle for anything less than 2 gigs of RAM. For the HDD, speed rather than size is important; a 7,200rpm hard drive will be much nippier than a 5,400rpm. Use USB/FW drives if you need oodles of storage (though I wouldn't advise storing games on external drives)! Last but not least: unless you've moved away from blighty, don't buy your laptop from the US.

[quote name='Aaryanna_Mom']I've seen people destroy themselves over the hard drugs to the small time stuff such as Weed/pot. Just about anything can be an addiction if it is interfering with your life. From the workaholic to the druggie to one who is drunk all the time. Moderation is the key really. Provided it's legal that is. [/QUOTE] I completely agree that moderation is the key. What I don't get is why legality matters, unless you mean with regards to avoiding da fedz. If someone's able to moderate their weed (or another drug, but not the physically addictive ones such as heroin or meth) intake, what makes it any worse than having a few beers every now and then?

[quote name='Premonition'][COLOR="Navy"]And dying from drug abuse/addiction does in fact make someone a loser, because they [B]lost[/B] to addiction. [/COLOR][/QUOTE] You complain about generalisations yet make a massive one yourself. How about kids with ADHD? They have a tendency to abuse substances due to their condition and can end up dead as a result - does that make them losers? If that's your opinion, fine, but don't make it out to be some sort of factual statement. There are many reasons why people get addicted in the first place, and just as many for why they end up dead.

I'm fine with intelligent design itself. Here in the UK many schools have compulsory religious education classes, which cover the idea pretty well. Under no circumstances should it be presented as a subject of science, though, because it simply isn't one. Evolution is.

They're right in saying that they should've been asked for permission, but hamming the whole thing up with the bit about gun crime was a tad silly. Reverend Rogers Govender has asked for a substantial donation to be made so the church can 'fight gun crime' (expect bazooka-toting nuns at your local Primark sometime soon). Hopefully that will make the whole problem disappear.

Still on Tekken eh? Come back to cs! :p I played Counter-Strike 1.5/6 competitively for a year or two, but it was very draining due to the team play aspect...you couldn't expect to win any matches unless you practiced regularly. There was also a high level of churn among clan players, so you'd be almost constantly trying to get new members to gel with old faces. The money was also poor, despite CS having the largest prize pots at the time - splitting the winnings between five people (and possibly a sixth if your team had a manager) left the individual with peanuts! That aside, meeting (and playing against/with) people from across the globe was a blast, especially when they were from the more famous/skilled clans. Unfortunately CS Source split the entire scene in two, due to it being a rubbish game that has next to no learning curve for new players. Beyond that I've dabbled in competitive Pro Evolution, SSBM/SSB, WoW, Goldeneye & Soul Calibur (on the DC), although never enough to do anything noteworthy. I just wish my time with games wasn't so limited these days, there are a lot out there that have competitive potential!

[quote name='TherapySessions']Well I didn't actually, but did you just say that people can't "enjoy" most drugs in moderation?[/quote] What is moderation when it comes to drugs?

[quote name='Kenshin DX']Am I the only one really pissed about this? This and MGS4 were going to be the PS3s top games. THis is ridiculous first Virtua Fighter 5 not this? One of my favorite systems getting brought over to the 360. THnaks Capcom for becoming **** sucking whores. i was hoping it was a really bad joke. This game was the reason I bought a PS3. Screw you Capcom :animedepr[/quote] The game hasn't been ripped out of your hands. You're still going to be able to play it. What difference does it make if someone with a 360 is going to be able to play it, too? Your reaction strikes me as pretty bizarre; the only people hurt by this are the people at Sony!