61

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Pandemic Alert!

« on: October 01, 2014, 12:42:00 AM »

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102037055

CDC confirms first Ebola case in the United States.


I'm not worried. Consider this: the Flu kills more people in a year in the United States, than Ebola has ever killed in the world since the 1970's.

62

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Foreign Language

« on: September 22, 2014, 11:49:29 PM »

I looked into some foreign language classes because I need some humanities credits, but wanted it to be something practically useful. Of course the top contenders were Mandarin Chinese and Spanish, being more popular per capita languages than English. Since I took Spanish in high school and learned very little (which was my own fault) I looked more closely into Mandarin. There is a big catch, though: only one Mandarin class is offered at the college I attend, and not only that, but the class is 5:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. 7 days a week for 16 weeks.

What wonderful stories does the FES have about foreign language encounters?

63

Suggestions & Concerns / Secure Connections

« on: September 14, 2014, 04:38:48 AM »

As I'm not technically inclined to networking, how difficult would it be to have some form of secure connection, such as SSL/HTTPS? I can't login to the site from certain terminals because they run through a server that will reject unencrypted connections.

64

Arts & Entertainment / Grand Theft Auto V

« on: September 14, 2014, 04:20:57 AM »

Could have sworn there was already a thread on this, but having searched the 4 pages of the A&E forum, plus using the infamous search feature, I could not find one.

Anyway, the official release date for the PC is January 27. This is a little over two months after the November release for both PS4 and Xbox One. Supposedly the graphics will be more polished, along with some bonus content and more songs on the radio.

http://www.rockstargames.com/newswire/article/52308/grand-theft-auto-v-release-dates-and-exclusive-content

65

Technology & Information / Life in 4K

« on: September 04, 2014, 03:32:51 AM »

Got me one of these newfangled 4K monitors. Everything looks gloriously high definition - and tiny. Pretty much everything on here is quite tiny. I can now use most of the FES site without even scrolling.

In addition, gaming looks pretty nice, though my computer has a hard time going above 40 FPS on Battlefield 4. Another interesting thing is that you really can turn anti-aliasing off entirely. With such a high resolution, most aliasing effects don't present themselves.

66

Arts & Entertainment / Sid Meier's Civilization

« on: September 02, 2014, 02:58:31 AM »

I wish I could play Civ 5 like Russia plays the world. In the game, you can't actually attack another civilization without declaring war. I don't see why I can't send units into my enemies cities and then tell the AI "they're not mine, never seen them before, no idea what you're talking about, DON'T MAKE ME NUKE YOU!"

67

Philosophy, Religion & Society / UK terror threat level raised to "Severe"

« on: August 29, 2014, 09:55:37 PM »

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28986271

Interesting, considering the article also mentions that the threat level has not changed since July 2011.

Earlier, in a statement, Mrs May said: "The increase in the threat level is related to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West.

68

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Pay Someone's Detroit Water Bill

« on: July 27, 2014, 05:00:03 AM »

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/23/you-can-now-pay-someones-delinquent-detroit-water-bill-online/

I don't know how much water meth labs need, but it must be a lot.

69

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Nuclear power

« on: July 19, 2014, 01:49:40 PM »

Then what is the video trying to say? That oil spill accidents sometimes happen and therefore Shell is a bad terrible sinful company which brainwashes the feeble minds of children with insidious Lego toys to turn them pro-industry and pro-oil?

It's a surprisingly good way of killing off an industry you don't like. Just look at how much nuclear power was set back due to irrelevant arguments making it look icky.

Except the world can live pretty well without nuclear. Without oil, the world as we know it will be sent back to the industrialization era. Technological progress will come to a grinding halt as oil is one of our highest energy dense fuels. Energy will become magnitudes more expensive and city suburbs would disappear because people would be forced to move into the city to keep their jobs. All of this is why oil is going nowhere fast, no matter how hard these hippies try to say otherwise.

70

Arts & Entertainment / Watch_Dogs

« on: May 03, 2014, 02:44:33 PM »

Anyone else getting this?



I'm getting it on PC but this video does a good job of explaining the game. If you want a quick summary, it's closest to a Grand Theft Auto with push-button hacking mixed in. i.e. you can force traffic lights to turn green, trains to stop, doors and barriers open/close. That sounds rather boring straight out but mixed into the game it looks like it changes a lot of your tactics.

71

Technology & Information / Oculus Rift Acquired by Facebook

« on: March 26, 2014, 01:55:03 AM »

https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101319050523971?stream_ref=1

Facebook is here to crush your gaming hopes and dreams. What the fuck Oculus? How could you sell out A CROWD FUNDED PROJECT? YOU TOOLS.

Minecraft on the Oculus is now cancelled. Notch claims he refuses to work with Facebook.

Watch an entire community meltdown in HD: http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus

72

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Russia Invades Ukraine

« on: March 01, 2014, 07:29:47 PM »

Putin has sent Russian troops into Ukraine despite warnings from President Obama. I foresee that Obama will wag his finger and sternly talk in Russia's general direction and no action will be taken whatsoever.

http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6751

The vote to invade Ukraine was approved by Russian Parliament 90 to 0.

73

Technology & Information / Ask Rushy about Bitcoins.

« on: January 28, 2014, 02:23:09 AM »

As titled ask plain and concise questions about the Bitcoin protocol or bitcoins in general.

The other thread basically turned into people who haven't looked into Bitcoin trying to discuss Bitcoin with more people who haven't looked into Bitcoin. I think it's important at least some of you learn about cryptocurrency now rather than later.

74

Arts & Entertainment / Star Citizen

« on: January 26, 2014, 02:49:07 AM »

This game was kickstarted a pretty long time ago but is getting closer to being, well, a game.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/about-the-game

It gives off a definite feeling of "looks like Eve Online" but it has some key differentiating factors. Star Citizen, unlike most MMOs, is abandoning certain RPG elements, such as skills (you can fly/use anything, assuming you can obtain it). This more or less limits itself to what you can do, rather than what your character can do. It also is primarily in first person and merges the piloting of spaceships with FPS combat. Ships can be boarded as a means of attack, rather than locking on to them and hitting your "fire rockets" button.

I think this is a much more interesting MMO versus something like ESO.

My referral code is STAR-4LZP-G4TL. If I finally trick you into buying this scam, Chris Roberts himself will give me virtual items. You also get $5 in credits added to your account (5000 UEC).

75

Technology & Information / Coinye, a Bitcoin spin-off, is being sued by Kanye West

« on: January 15, 2014, 04:17:41 AM »

Among the defendants is Amazon.com, for hosting the websites, Johnny Bravo, I don't even know why, and Dogecoin, the person, not the coin, since someone is squatting Coinye domain names under the alias "dogecoin."

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/01/15/coinye-im-sorry-kanye-west-suing-dogecoin-amazon-coinye-exchanges-developers/

Either Kanye is a complete tool or a marketing genius. I'm going with the former.

76

Arts & Entertainment / Planetary Annihilation

« on: January 01, 2014, 04:37:51 AM »

Anyone else have this game? The computer is dreadfully easy to defeat, I expected a better AI fight from a beta-level game, but oh well.

77

Technology & Information / Xbox users are bricking their consoles

« on: December 08, 2013, 04:44:21 PM »

Brought to you by the same people who convinced millions that iOS7 made their iPhone waterproof, I give you the new "compatibility mod" for the Xbox One.

78

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Man in Vermon creates a rifle using a shovel.

« on: December 03, 2013, 02:18:11 AM »

Just to prove a point this guy bought a shovel (and with some spare parts lying around) manufactured an AK-ish rifle, that looks like complete garbage but it, per his pictures, bullseye accurate with normal ammunition.

http://www.northeastshooters.com/vbulletin/threads/179192-DIY-Shovel-AK-photo-tsunami-warning!

79

Suggestions & Concerns / Unresolved DNS server name

« on: December 03, 2013, 01:34:02 AM »

My work computer can not access this site due to that. I know the base uses their own DNS server, so is it something with that? Or do you computer peoples have a different idea of what the problem is?

80

Technology & Information / Amazon PrimeAir

« on: December 02, 2013, 02:03:20 AM »

Amazon.com wants to deliver packages to you, by air, in 30 minutes or less, using helicopter drones.

http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/EVKb8xVjuajoiyHOiF0_BCg94I9PYEpQ/amazon-unveils-futuristic-plan-delivery-by-drone/

Might want to skip about two minutes in if you want to go straight to the actual information.