Off Topic - Main

[John.d.h]

I don't know much of anything about how Canadian corporations work, but I think that really is a pretty good analogy for how a lot of American ones work.  It reminds me of the movie "Office Space".  I highly recommend watching it.

[Kung Fu Panda]

Canada may have some of the most powerful or smartest banks in the world but the reason that America's banks suffered the most is coz the WHOLE HEART OF THE AMERICAN BANKING SYSTEM was planned by the Jews-not that they're not smart, they are the smartest recorded race. But it had a flaw, which they tried to hide but it all came out now and the whole structure crumpled like tinfoil. The American banking deals with EPIC amounts of interests and a very ridiculous concept(no offense) called 'Virtual money' which while explaining seems very practical indeed but when put to practice doesn't seem applicable at all. America is controlled by Israel if you don't know. When a Jewish guy was asked(in private and not in News Channels) "do you think Obama will continue the siege and masacre in Iraq and Afghanistan?" he replied with 100% confidence, "Of course he will! We brought him to the White House for being President or for sweeping the floor?"
I know this I'm not blabbering
PS and enough of this - I hate America for what it has done to Muslims coz I'm one though now that Obama is doing something to decrease my hatred a bit but I still hate America.

[Kung Fu Panda]

something else : The 'economic depression' that the world has suffered is just a cover-up name.
If you have noticed only the banks that deal with the American system of banking suffered most - America, Dubai, etc and the whole system of Virtual money was crushed. So in my opinion this should much better be called 'Great economic Cleanup' I swear. You see Saudi suffered negligibly, coz it follows a system way different from the Jewish banking

[John.d.h]

Well the problem with "virtual money" is that it only works if it's kept in motion.  It's like if you have ten people and only eight chairs.  If people are constantly standing up and sitting down, then it's fine because you'll have at least two people standing and you'll have plenty of chairs.  The problem is when everybody stops moving, you've got two people left wondering "what happened to my seat?"

Edit: Speaking of Canada:

[Omega]

Hah Hah! I like that comic!

I can't seem to find any canadian comics with google... Are we not funny enough?!?

I'd expect more from the world's biggest beer drinkers!

[Kung Fu Panda]

lol ahahahaha
and btw you hit the nail in the head Omega

edit: including Omega, I actually meant to say john.d.h sorry no offense

[hailstone]

I'd expect more from the world's biggest beer drinkers!

Unless something happened in 5 years Wikipedia disagrees with you. Canada comes in at number 19 in 2004. Australia at number 4, although Canada has higher consumption. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_consumption_per_capita

[wciow]

UK is 6th in the world. As a good citizen I need to help my country become top in the world.

Bring on the beer!!

[Omega]

What? This CANNOT BE!!! Damn.

Ok, moving on...

I've been looking around, and I must say, I'm excited for HTML 5. However, the only problem is that even once firefox fully supports it, everyone would need a new version, and IE will probably be at least five years behind. However, it sure would be great. Most people never realize just how hard parsing forms can be. It gets very tiresome going through regular expressions (which are probably the most complexe single part of javascript) to check data. But HTML 5 includes special types of input elements that will allow for automatic parsing. For example, range (ie: 1-5), teletphone, number, email, url, search, etc; In short, it's great. There's also a TON of very shiny new features that will help for using inputs, including a vast number of new attributes.

I just had a lengthy look at how the <canvas> tag works via mozilla's developement center. It looks very interesting, and I wonder if I could use it to make an abstract background for pages by having a full sized canvas and displaying everything else on top of it via z-index. Even if that doesn't work, the canvas could be quite fun! Full JS control!

The video and audio elements are quite obvious what they do. They are a great idea. I'm not sure if any of your have ever tried, but displaying a video or a sound in HTML can be a pain in the ass (more so for the video).

Of course, a load of other things are nice, and the deprecation of many bad elements is great, since it prevents noobs from learning the WRONG way to webdesign, thus securing the internet's future. (Notice how many new people use the <font> tag? Just can't figure it out...)

[John.d.h]

HTML?  Seriously?  Get with the times, man.  It's all about XHTML now.

[modman]

No offense, but your banks are TERRIBLE! Canada has some of the strongest banks in the world (and the smartest).

How can you tell me that the banks in the US aren't powerful?  The Federal Reserve is owned by banks in the US and controls the value of the dollar!  Anyways, I personally think that banking would be in big trouble if people knew how it worked.  They're selling money!  Plus, they don't always have to have the money in hand to loan it to you; this is why a run on the bank is so bad.  The bank only orchestrates and funnels the money around.

Anyways, you guys should all know the dollar is dead.  They're already making the Amero.  This is why I always see commercials on TV of places wanting to buy my gold; they know what's coming.



//Edit:

WHAT??  How does Uganda make #1 for alcohol consumption per capita?  Link

[Omega]

Dude, XHTML is just a stricter HTML. Technically, HTML 5m is the equivilant of XHTML 2. It's even stricter to my knowledge. BTW, I was testing canvas animation, and I'll show you a beautiful idea soon!

[titi]

This one looks very good and is available for linux too....( you can play the beta for free)
But its very hard to learn ( in my opinion )

http://www.heroesofnewerth.com

By the way, I will soon have more time for glest again, I was very involved in the german Bundestags election working a lot for the pirate party .

[hailstone]

I've been playing Heroes of Newerth. It's based off the popular DoTA and has lots of eye candy. It is hard to learn but it's still fun.

[Mark]

Is Heroes of Newerth not free, or is it just in development.  Can someone give a description of it please, because it looks cool.

Edit: This is so similar to Savage: A tortured soul.  Is there a connection?

[John.d.h]

Dude, XHTML is just a stricter HTML. Technically, HTML 5m is the equivilant of XHTML 2. It's even stricter to my knowledge.

XHTML also has the benefit of not speeding towards being obsolete nearly as fast.  If I remember correctly, the W3C has already said that the new version of HTML will be the last.

[hailstone]

Is Heroes of Newerth not free, or is it just in development.  Can someone give a description of it please, because it looks cool.

Edit: This is so similar to Savage: A tortured soul.  Is there a connection?

Same developers as Savage but it's not free. Currently it's in open beta so you can play for free until it is finished. It's basically DotA built with a different engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients

[-Archmage-]

My Dad's a programmer, says he's learned about 10 languages, and thinks it not hard to learn them. Today or rather yesterday, was his birthday, he is now 63.
For his birthday, I was planning to give him that hero model, fully animated, and well textured, but I don't know how to texture, and Hectate never finished the one he started(time, I understand), but I think it's make a good Christmas present. Hectate, I must thank you, because I believe you left me in a place where I can continue work on the texture. Well, while I was homeschooling myself, I baked him some delicious muffins, and let then on a plate under a sheet of plastic, he said they were yummy. Believe me I'm an awful cook, but when I follow directions I do a pretty good job.

[Kung Fu Panda]

just out of curiosity, how does homeschooling work? Like what's the... kinda concept behind it?
like does a teacher come to your house or something?

oh and tell your dad happy birthday from me

[-Archmage-]

No, I stay home. And go to etap.org, which you have to pay for, but I hate regular school so much. To find out about homeschooling just look it up.
Right now I'm doing trigonometry in math, I'm not really sure in LA, and I'm doing the SS lessons just about one per day, science I just finished the genetics lesson.
Can't wait to do physic, because that has always interested me.

[Omega]

Homeschooling... Must be interesting. I learn most of my new things from the web anyway. Most homeschooled people I know are taught by their parents though. For example, I've learned almost 100% of my computer knowledge on my own, some through trial and error, some through the web, and some through various sources (including my BRAIN). The only thing about computers I didn't learn on my own was typing, thanks to the school's ULTRA DULL typing software. Was a pain in the ass, but now I can type 90 words per minute.

BTW: Physics IS awesome. My school doesn't let you do physics until grade 11, so I learned a bit from the web. I guess that's one disadvantage of small rural schools...

I myself am a master cook (a master chef, get it? Halo? ). I'm the kind of guy who does home ec instead of IA. I consider it more handy in the future, and besides, cookies beat a wooden shelf. I mean, you can't EAT a wooden shelf!?!

Say, new topic: What is your all time favorite game and WHY?

I'll go first: Final Fantasy IX. Not just any Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IX! The ultimate game ever, and the last final fantasy with random battles. It had the BEST storyline I had ever seen, and actually made me almost cry at some points it got so sad. But it wasn't all good storyline. It also has a vibrant, powerful battles, and the secret optional boss ozma was very difficult, and took a LONG time to reach. It had the BEST minigames in the entire Final Fantasy series (the card games were fun, and Chocobo Hot and Cold was VERY rewarding!).

I noticed most games had a dull, monoset bunch of civilians, but in FFIX, you could talk to just about anyone, and even after the destruction of alexandria, people are cheerfully going about trying to rebuild it, a cook is seen pounding happily on a nail with his pan, and all the characters are light and happy, despite the often dark, evil acts of the antagonists.

The number of extras, secrets, and hidden things in the game is amazing. There's a wide variety of foes, spells, equipment, items, minigames, and more. My ultimate save has clocked 250 hours, every level maxed (and there's like 8 or so playable characters, but you can only have four at a time), all items, all ultimate weapons, defeated ozma, hades, and every other optional boss, got the 'hammer' for the special ending, completed Chocobo Hot and Cold, completed Mognet, and have all 100 cards (though no max rank. Seems to be impossible. Damn). And I have two other saves as well going for a combined time of over 350 hours of gamplay. Yes, that's one game for the PS1.

If you don't have this game, download an emulator, and play it NOW (of course, I believe emulators are illegal. I dunno. I don't use em. Couldn't figure out how to get them to work).

[-Archmage-]

I don't really have a favorite game.....................

But I'd say I like Star Trek Legacy a lot, Starship battling, I'm pretty good at it too. It doesn't lag much on my new laptop, except when you do the massive race wars scenarios, then there is like 100 high-poly ships on the screen. It's a very fun game! But you have to buy it..............................Of course I could always stick all the files on a disk in a 7zip archive, and upload! But you're not allowed to do that..................so come up with $30, and buy it!

[Kung Fu Panda]

Counter strike
it's a bit violent but you can get really good at it with experience - what I like - it takes a really long time to master and u play with other players on servers. U can chat, there are admin privileges - which u can get if the owner of the server knows u and trusts u. Without internet it's basically useless - just kill...
but when u play in multiplayer, it's a whole different story.
If you're lookin for it I recommend Counter strike 1.6 as it is the most popular currently and u can find many servers to play on and make friends.
the multiplayer is kinda' same like in Glest but u don't have to speak with others to start a game - it's related to half life.
Other things u learn by experience - u can't understand if I tell - like Glest
btw we start physics in grade 9 and I HATE it - because our teacher can't even speak a proper English sentence while explaining!! he gives notes in exemplary english though (indicating he just by-hearted theories and didn't understand them fully) and when he gives a law or formula, he just tells what it states and doesn't tell when to use it, how, etc! Even the textbook sucks ...  

[John.d.h]

btw we start physics in grade 9 and I HATE it - because our teacher can't even speak a proper English sentence while explaining!! he gives notes in exemplary english though (indicating he just by-hearted theories and didn't understand them fully) and when he gives a law or formula, he just tells what it states and doesn't tell when to use it, how, etc! Even the textbook sucks ...  

I know what you mean.  Last year I had physics (in college) and my professor had such a strong accent that I understood barely anything he said.  I've had professors from Morocco, Jamaica, Italy, Russia, India, and probably a few other places I'm forgetting, and I understood all of them just fine, but this guy was incomprehensible.  I ended up failing the first exam and dropping the class.

In regards to games, some of my favorites are...

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, Warcraft 2 & 3, Medieval: Total War, Age of Mythology, LoZ: Ocarina of Time, LoZ: A Link to the Past, Goldeneye, Halo 2, Killer Instinct Gold, Knights of the Old Republic, Battle for Wesnoth, Baldur's Gate 2

Honorable mention (i.e. really fun, but just missing a little something):
Elder Scrolls 1: Arena (kind of a pain to run because I have to use an emulator), Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (looks amazing but I couldn't get out of the first area without crashing), Republic Commando (too short!), Glest (currently lacks a lot of features), Diablo 1 & 2 (repetitive), Atlantica Online (I kinda quit playing after my guild dissolved), Homeworld (the controls are a little weird)

[Kung Fu Panda]

btw we start physics in grade 9 and I HATE it - because our teacher can't even speak a proper English sentence while explaining!! he gives notes in exemplary english though (indicating he just by-hearted theories and didn't understand them fully) and when he gives a law or formula, he just tells what it states and doesn't tell when to use it, how, etc! Even the textbook sucks ...  

I know what you mean.  Last year I had physics (in college) and my professor had such a strong accent that I understood barely anything he said.  I've had professors from Morocco, Jamaica, Italy, Russia, India, and probably a few other places I'm forgetting, and I understood all of them just fine, but this guy was incomprehensible.  I ended up failing the first exam and dropping the class.

Well I got 89 % in physics in the first terminal exams - thanks to my father. Though a pediatrician(doctor of children) he still remembers physics!
anyway what do you mean by 'dropping the class'? I didn't quite get you
and I study in an all Indian school so all teachers are from India - and Indian accents can get VERY difficult to understand