1/25    "The challenges of today still exist but they are different."
        -sound bite
        \_ What's wrong with that?
           \_ Boy, you must be the type of person, when asked to write
              a simple 5 page English paper, use the 14.5 point Courier
              font with 1.33" margins on all sides and inundate your
              paper with irrelevant quotes from the book you were supposed
              to have read not thinking that the teacher will notice.
              \_ No, I'm a politically savvy conservative who knows
                 how to connect with the common people, while pleasantly
                 surprising dismissive intellectuals who learn that
                 there is intelligence behind empathy.
                 \_ Isn't "savvy" a bit of an overstatement there?
                    You're certainly not connecting with me or
                    impressing anyone with your self-praising concept
                    if "intelligence". I don't know who the hell said
                    that challenges still exist and are different but
                    (s)he must have been a real dumbshit and the
                    journalist who quoted it must have been a moron
                    himself.

1/25    Do most games now support Win2k/NT or do you still need 95/98/ME?
        Is the first clause equiv to asking if most games now use DirectX?
           \_ No, they're not equiv because NT won't run recent DirectX games.
                \_ NT4.0 does up to directx3 which is all old stuff.
        \_ I've been using my Apple IIc to play "Montazuma's Revenge" for
           months and it's worked dandy.  Never crashed once.
           \_ No, they're not equiv because NT won't run recent DirectX games.
                \_ NT4.0 does up to directx3 which is all old stuff.
        \_ Running w2k with nvidea gforce 2mx card, pentium 3, direct 8.
           So far all games work fine but I don't play FPS games so YMMV if
           that's your thing.
        \_ Well, there's minesweeper for w2k (don't believe there was a nt
           Starcraft.
           version), so i'm happy.
           \_ Pinball is kinda cool too.
        \_ My friend didn't listen to me and he installed ME instead of w2k.
           His computer crashed 6 times in a night while trying to play
           Starcraft.  "ME is a piece of crap and bill gates is a con man!"
           was his conclusion.  "ME even crashes just sitting there after
           boot up!" was his latest observation.
           \_ i play starcraft and/or RA2 all the time on ME and never crash
              -shac
           \_ I just installed ME on my system, and it hasn't crashed yet.
              I think it depends a lot on how you treat the system.
                \_ Totally.  Have you ever tried speaking nicely while
                   watering your plants?
                   \_ I don't water my plants.  Who has time for that?
           \_ If your computer crashes randomly after boot up you
              really need to look at whether your motherboard is
              messed up.  Overclocking, overheating CPU, bad mobo, bad
              memory.  Then again if it worked fine in Win98/95 then
eq
              it's probably not your hardware.
              \_ I did suggest to my friend that maybe it was a
                 hardware problem, but he said that linux ran just fine.
                 \_ linux != windows.
                 \_ linSUX has a higher toleration for some types
                    of PC shit like OC'ing, bad ram, etc.
                 \_ Random crashes while the box is doing nothing are almost
                    guaranteed to be hardware problems.  And by nothing, I
                    do mean nothing.  You don't have any random toys running
                    in the background doing god knows what while talking to
                    Real's servers.

1/25    ali, how long are you going to be editing the motd?

1/25    Java is dead as of today.
        \_ I love C#.
           \_ Hi talg!

1/25    "Today, the challenge is different, but there's still a challenge."
        -sound bite
        \_ Only in this day and age can a quote that dumb make the news.
           \_ It's called, "slow news day".  Then one has to wonder if that's
              actually the quote and what the context was, if any.
        \_ What's wrong with that?
           \_ Boy, you must be the type of person, that when asked to write
              a simple 5 page English paper, use the 14.5 point Courier
              font with 1.33" margins on all sides and inundate your
              paper with irrelevant quotes from the book you were supposed
              to have read not thinking that the teacher will notice.
              \_ No, I'm a politically savvy conservative who knows
                 how to connect with the common people, while pleasantly
                 surprising dismissive intellectuals who learn that
                 there is intelligence behind empathy.
                 \_ I don't think anyone reading the motd counts as "the
                    common people".
                 \_ Isn't "savvy" a bit of an overstatement there?
                    You're certainly not connecting with me or
                    impressing anyone with your self-praising concept
                    if "intelligence". I don't know who the hell said
                    that challenges still exist and are different but
                    (s)he must have been a real dumbshit and the
                    journalist who quoted it must have been a moron
                    himself.
                    \_ Well, you do what you gotta do.
                        \_ None of this has anything to do with anything.
                           \_ But today, this none is different, but there
                              is still none of it to do with anything.
                              I have a surprisingly savvy intelligence.

1/25    Now is the winter of our discontent.
        \_ Turned glorious summer by this Mint of York
           The peppermint tingles my tongue and still
           Most scrumptious chocolate lingers on my lips.
        \_ Twillig was the night brigade, rode the 600!

1/26    What fantasy books are you guys reading these days? I've went thru
        Tolkein and Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and looking for more.
        \_ Philip Pullman, CS Lewis if you don't mind xtian mythos.
           Brust, Dave Duncan, S. King's Gunslinger books, AS Byatt.
        \_ I liked the Dragonlance world, especially the books about Raistlin.
        \_ I got depressed and re-read all the Wizard Of Earthsea
           books, it cheered me up, they are pretty short and it
           would probably only take you a few days.
        \_ I read Playboy. Quite a fantasy away from my marriage that I
           can't get out of.
                \_ http://www.worldcon.org/hy.html
                \_ http://www.hitmen.org
        \_ Actually, David Edding's series is very good. Check it out.
           \_ It's good for exactly one read.  Do not under any circumstances
              reread this series, or you will lose your respect for Eddings
              (let alone because he keeps retelling the same story over and
              over again from a slightly different perspective... a sure sign
              of someone who's run out of ideas... like Orson Scott Card)
        \_ The Feynman Lectures on Physics. The author's narrative
           is captivating throughout the entire trilogy, AND IT ISN'T
           ALL MADE UP. When will you people grow up, D&D is for kids.
           \_ grumpy!
           \_ I shall lop off your tongue with my +5 Vorpal Sword!
           \_ Is it just me or do most people's FANTASY NOT INVOLVE
              Physics?  The guy asked for fantasy books and most of
              the people above gave relevant answer.  Yes fantasy books
              are a waste of time but THAT'S THE POINT.  Keep your
              pedagogue to yourself.  The rest of us know where to
              look when we feel like using our brains.
              \_ my main reason for reading fantasy and watching cartoons
                 is to stop the goddamn phsics /math dreams.  when
                 you wake up after 7 hours and all you can remember of
                 your sleep is hour after hour of equations and seeing
                 graphs of fundctions that you *almost* know how to integrate,
                 but can't wquite find an anyalytical expression because
                 you're fucking sleeping, it just doesn't feel like you really
                 dreamt.  i think feynman's books are overreated anyway.
                 robert asprin kicks ass.
                    -physics grad student
        \_ Fantasy shmantasy.  David Drake's Hammer's Slammers is what you
           need to brighten up your dull dreary day.  Several books worth of
           testosterone driven blood 'n' guts, boy!
        \_ Tolkien was great, but nothing beats wuxia novels, if you can
           read Chinese.  It was worse than opium.
           read Chinese.  It was more addictive than opium.
        \_ Hammer's Slammers.  David Drake.  No weird shit, just raw blood n
           guts.  Simple, straight forward, no science-as-magic ringworld crap.
           Try it, you'll like it.  Remove your fantasy straight jacket.  Be
           free!

1/25    "People prefer beautiful, rich, smart people. If you pick a good
        stock you want to tell people about it. And what you're really
        telling them is that you're smart and that you're rich."
           \_ "You can never be too thin or too rich."
        \_ Duh.
        \_ "I'd rather be rich than stupid."
           \_ 49.5% of voting Americans don't seem to think so.
                \_ Which 49.5% was that and how many of those were stuffed
                   into Chicago and NY ballot boxes?