DarthTofu

Hey guys, remember 300? Well, Latin III tried to do it with two guys from Latin, a grand total of two girls from latin willing to participate, and the entire German 3 class standing in for the Persians.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, the Quadro is exactly like the GT, just this one can do a few more fancy-pants things that a game wouldn't need to do in the first place? Sweetness!

... so, does anyone know how to analyze a graphics card with regard to a game if it isn't the sort listed under system specs? IE I'm getting a laptop for college (requirement), and I want to figure out what a NVidia Quadro FX770 w/512 RAM with run (I just copied that down from the system requirements Rose gave me; I don't know much beyond that.) I know that it's specialized for CAD and autodesk-style software as opposed to gaming, and I want to figure out what it can handle. Hopefully something (relatively) new on the gaming market, like Empire: Total War, or Left 4 Dead would be awesome, but I don't know how to convert that video card capability to determine how good it would be for playing a game. Also- anybody know if you can do multiplayer through either A) a 10/100/1000 Ethernet Card (don't know if that would be even remotely applicable), B) 802.11 a/b/g/n Wireless (whatever that means), or C) Bluetooth (I know a bit more about that one.)? Anyone who knows stuff would be appreciated, thanks.

So far as people who still bother to post on the site goes, Krytos has the official coolest job. Way to go, mate! I knew you were still doing stuff with 3D design, but I was under the impression it had something to do with furnitue for some reason... That, or a nuclear submarine, given a certain picture you posted some time back.

Transformers! More than meets the eye! Transformers- sneakers in disguise?

Irony: http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a169/DarthTofu/BigBang.jpg

Some opinions a quick internet search gleaned for me (keep in mind, this is purely other people's words): 1 - Have you tried a different IDE cable? If not give it a go and do a repair if needed again! 2 - You may have a corrupt MBR (master boot record)!! You will need to reformat and do Fdisk /mbr to delete the master boot record!! Save all data first as this will not allow you to access any of your data as all file location addresses are located in the MBR!! 3 - Your harddrive may have a bad sector get a zerofill tool(low level formatting tool)!! This will rewrite you HD's sectors putting them back to factory spec's!! Maxtors is called Maxblast you can get it from thier site!! 4 - or it could be a defective drive, but most read errors are due ot corrupt MBR or a bad sector!! I found a temporary fix to the problem that does allow you to get into windows, but does not remove the problem: Boot using the WinXP cd and use the recovery console (hitting R when it asks). IF and only IF you get the dos based screen AND you get something like: 1. C:\WINDOWS Please choose which windows you want to use: 1 .... Or something like that. If you do, then type 1 and hit enter, it will ask for your administrator password which I hope you know . Then at the command prompt enter: chkdsk /r The /r switch tells chkdsk to scan the entire drive and recover any bad sectors. Depending on the size of your drive this could take a REALLY long time. Once that is all said and done. Reboot the computer and you should not get the error. It's up for grabs how long this fix will last, so far it seems random to me. For a real fix, you're going to have to revert back to Fat32. There are 2 ways to go about this. Assuming that you can get back into windows doing the above, you can either use a progam like Partition Magic and hopefully convert your system from NTFS back to Fat32. Or you can backup everything on your harddrive, boot using the Windows XP disk and reinstall the OS and make sure to choose to repartition the harddrive using Fat32. This has all been from my experience from my own problem. If per chance you are using Fat32 and receiving this error, then I would have to say do what Drizzit says. But, I'm guessing you are using NTFS since it is known XP has some issues with NTFS. To answer your above questions directly. Yes, you can repair the bad sectors without reformating using the /r switch when using chkdsk. The information that is in the sector may or may not be recoverable however. As I said above about it not being the MBR that is causing this error, then the fixmbr command will not help you unfortunitely. *None of the above is actually my words. I am not qualified to offer tech support. I take no credit for any brilliance, stupidity, or english errors in the above.*

Happy Birthday, Rob! I have no idea which birthday this is for you (I'm going to go out on a limb and say something like 25th or 26th), but I wish you a happy one all the same! Don't get too wasted on your birthday- otherwise you'll have trouble explaining history to those little snots- er, tomorrow's future, in the public school system!

Comicbook nerds ought to enjoy this... Admittedly, even folks with no idea who Deadpool and Captain America are can still enjoy it.

Fair warning- that last level will be a pain in the butt. Play it on singleplayer, as Chris, if you want to not have it be a pain.

Hehe- old people? I got into this thing three years ago, when I was fifteen! Clearly your son has just spent too much time with today's flashy, shiny games, and can't devote himself to the wonders of Rebellion! If you can find a second copy, you can play him head to head, and then he'll like it! For the record, I give your props for figuring out anything without the manual. My older sister got it in 1998 when it was new, tried it out, and couldn't figure it out; she hated it. If it hadn't come with a LucasArts pack, she wouldn't have even gotten it in the first place. Then, in 2005, I picked the thing up, tried it out and, not surprisingly, had no clue what I was doing as either Rebels or Imperials, and failed miserably. The manual helped me a ton, but unfortunately I went and lost the thing. I read it cover-to-cover beforehand (this is how bored I got some nights), so it wasn't a detrimental loss, but it makes explaining the game to folks a lot more difficult. If you have any future questions, feel free to voice them in the "Questions from Newbies" section. I think I have a long cry on resource points in there somewhere, but other folks who bother to micromanage their resources are probably a better source of help for you; I just right click on my advisor and select "Manage resources" once I hold two or three systems; makes thing a lot easier. Hmm... here's some other helpful stuff, if you want it: all facilities, troop training, shipyard, and construction, will increase speed by a factor of two for each additional unit. As you progress through the game, new versions of those facilities (advanced versions) will become available. You can speed the process along by sending characters who have research capabilities (Right click on the character, select "status" and see whether or not the characters can do research; this is fixed, but not all characters can research, and in most cases they're limited to one of three branches) on missions to do, well, that research. On a planet with a shipyard (I'm not sure if the number matters for any of these, but I generally treat it like it does) send a ship design research mission character. Facility design goes to one with construction yards, and troop training goes to one with troop training facilities. Each faction has one character who can do research in all three, but he can't do it at the same time for them all. I think for the Imps it's Bevel Lemlisk, and for the Rebels it's Adar Tallon; The Imps one is right, don't know about the Rebels. Anyway, you'll naturally get these improvements without the research, but researching them makes the whole thing go along much faster; you'll be building Imperial II Star Destroyers by day 150 instead of day 500. Also (I didn't realize this for a while, and I felt stupid for missing it) if you right click on the time bar, you can select high, medium, slow, or very slow speed for the game. Especially later, when you send fleets to different systems, these moves the game along at a much better rate.

Commandos sabotage, noghri capture/assassinate/rescue characters, and espionage droids do the obvious.

Here's the route most people take: They get themselves a massive fleet or two, stick Luke on board, and then run off to ransack Coruscant. Now, depending on how well Luke's doing, this could go a few different ways: If Luke is moderately strong in the Force (ran off to get some training with Yoda), you can send him down to try to capture Palpatine (he's always on Coruscant if you're playing the AI). This is an important thing to note: Luke never, ever, ever actually succeeds at this. Palpatine is too strong in the Force, detects him, etc. However, you'll get a little message saying that Luke duked it out with Palpy, and then it will tell you who was injured/whether or not both combatants escaped unscathed. If Luke is still in good condition, you can send him down to keep up the fight. Assuming Palpatine gets injured and Luke can escape every time, you've got yourself a very, very easy way to get Luke leveled up out the wazoo very, very quickly. He can be a Jedi Master in just a few missions. If he encounters Vader things go a bit differently. Vader will tell Luke that he's his father on their first meeting, and Luke will yell the usual, "THAT'S NOT TRUE! THAT'S IM-POSS-I-BLE!" thing, before running off to be emo for a little while. After enough days (let's say fifty, though I don't know how true that is, because Vader and Luke are NEVER in the same bloody system when I play), Luke will build a bridge and get over it. Afterward, he'll run off to help you out again, with a significant boost to his Force powers. He can also tell Leia that she's his sister and start training her in the Force. Any subsequent encounters with Vader will (I think) be like encounters with Palpatine, though they could go slightly differently- Palpatine isn't as strong as Vader in combat, I don't think. So far as training other Force-users, Luke can detect them after a few days if he's on-planet with one of the characters for a bit. Let's say that Roget Jiriss has been selected by the game to be a Jedi (it's purely random). If she's on Corulag and Luke's on Hoth, Luke will never figure out that she has Force potential. However, if She and Luke are both sitting around on Yavin, after a few days (we'll say ten, but again, that's an arbitrary guess), Luke will figure out that she has Force abilities. He figures it out quicker depending on his own strength; Force-trainee Luke will have one time period, Jedi-Student Luke another, Jedi Knight Luke a different one and, you guessed it, Jedi Master Luke a fourth. When Luke is Jedi Knight-level or better, he can go about training any Force-users he's detected. These missions take forever and a day- I'm not sure why, but he seems to want to spend something on the order of one hundred days with these people to teach them how to hurl rocks with their mind. It isn't like a screw-up on his part will lead to massively evil forces that could take over the galaxy... bah! Again, depending on Luke's Force rank, they'll level up quicker. Unfortunately, I don't think (and I don't know this for sure- it's what I think) that Luke trainees can ever train other Force users or detect other Force users, even if they have Jedi Master rank. They can, however, sneak into your enemy's bases and blow the top off of just about anything, assuming the characters on base aren't already trained in the Force. Then, oddly enough, your best bet might be to send in someone like Han, who has no Force abilities, to take out the sight. If you play as the Empire, things are easier. Vader will detect Force users in a snap, and given his already massive Force rank, he can start training from day one. It still takes a while, and there are no garunteed Force-users beyond Palpy and Vader, but on the upside you can start off early, like I said, and you don't have to worry about command prompts like running into another Force user before they can be fully useful. That being said, they can't level up to the same degree of ridiculousness as Luke can, so choose your battle. Hope that massive post helped, mate.

I'm back. My opinion sort of varied from day to day- I'd describe it as a sinusoidal opinion (get it? Like a sine wave? 'Cause it goes up to one, then down to negative one, then back up and... nevermind). There's absolutely nothing wrong with the school, not by any stretch of the imagination. The facilities are all pretty darn-tootin' great (they have their own machine shop, and even a (relatively weak) machining laser!), and the faculty is composed of top-notch professors and the like. No TAs handing out homework at Rose, so that's not the issue. My biggest issue, I guess, is the student population. I'm worried there, because looking around, there seem to be two preeminent types of students: The "look at me, I'mageekI'manerdI'mageekI'manerd!"-style students, with exotic facial hair that reaches down to their knees and pimples popping up everywhere, and the "jocks" for lack of a better word. I mean, to get in you have to be pretty bright, but a lot of the kids are local, from Indiana, and not necessarily brilliant. I don't want to have a swollen head, but looking at the academic standards Rose has, I'm overqualified according to high school grades. That doesn't mean that there aren't bright people attending- far from it, because some of these kids are ridiculous- but it'll be like high school, I think, where out of the 350 kids in your class, you only wind up interacting with around thirty of them, because only about thirty of them can really keep up with you academically (and you don't wind up liking all thirty of them). I just... I want college to be a place where I can have fun, and grow as a human being. I'm pretty sure about engineering, but by the same token, I'd love to be able to have a conversation with someone about something unrelated to math and science, and I'm not certain that I could do that at Rose. I like to think that I'd be able to, but.... well, we'll see. My options are pretty limited right now, as I already turned down other stuff (yeah, I know, dumb, but I was thinking Rose was a sure-fire thing), but the worst-case scenario is that I go there for a year, passionately hate the experience, and then transfer to a different school. In the event that that happens, I'd probably go to UF. And on the upside, I'll be able to transfer my credits over more likely than not, and I can get ahead in mathematics credits before I transfer if I take Fast Track Calculus (pretty much the most brutal summer calculus session you can imagine)

lol- how's that gong for you, by the way? What sort of kids are you responsible for right now, Rob? I checked your website and saw that you were teaching, and I was like- "Woah! Rob? In charge of kids? When does the apocalypse get here?" Are you teaching inner-city kids, preppy kids, what? On a note related to my attendance at Rose, I'm heading up north to visit tomorrow, so I won't be on 'till around Saturday (I'll pretend you're all going to miss me/argue over who gets to have the desert in my lunchbox), but while I'm up there I'm going to ask about the Fast Track Calculus program. They approached me about it, and I've been pulling in A in AP Calc with minimal effort all year, so it's less a question of if I can manage in that environment, more of a question of whether or not I want to surrender five weeks of my summer to take what has been described as "24/7 Calc" when I could be chilling with my high school friends for the last time, doing fun stuff that I never seemed to have time for up until now. On the upside, it would free me up to take an extra elective my freshman year, taking me out of Freshman calculus, and this program apparently has some long-term benefits for students who enroll in it; first pick of classes, meet the other students earlier, get acclimated to college life, etc. I'm still weighing it over in my head, but I'm leaning toward going for FTC.... I'll know more day after tomorrow when I visit.

Heh- I'm sort of a big fish in a small pond, academically. Apparently there are a grand total of three or four guys in my class who have been branded "nerds," and I'm one of them. The other two are the valedictorian and saludictorian, respectively. I'm generally known for being good at Calculus (I tutor/have tutored about half of the AP Calc AB class), good at AP Physics, hating AP Statistics with a fiery passion born in hell (God help the Junior or Sophomore who tried to sign up for that class if I got wind of it), and failing miserably at most any sport that involves (insert body part here)-eye-coordination. I'm a source of way too much knowledge on Star Wars and Marvel comic book characters/plot lines for my own good, which probably aids my "nerd" status. I'm at least considered friendly by most people, but I wouldn't say that I have that many friends- probably around ten at most, and of those ten, I only feel like I can get involved in anything approaching an intelligent discussion with one or two. I am not good with women. At all.

Best... riff... ever.

*Shakes fist* I have another month before I get to exams and freedom! On the upside, Spring Break starts as soon as I finish school tomorrow, so that's good.

Alright, so sorry to double post, but, hey, I filled this out way back in the day. Long story short: I'm going to Rose Hulman Institute of Technology, out in Terre Houte, Indiana. Rose is actually a much better school than I originally gave it credit for being; it's a small, engineering-centered school, on par with Franklin W. Olin Institute of Technology and Harvey Mudd. I plan to go into ME (Mechanical Engineering, not a highly emphasized version of studying myself), so Rose is a great deal for me. They're giving me a $13,000 per year merit-based scholarship, and they're cheaper than anywhere else to top that off. Oh, and they're the top-ranked school in the nation for undergraduate engineering. I'm excited to go; if I hadn't gotten rejected by Carnegie Mellon, I wouldn't have looked into it so much, but now I really pretty pumped to go visit next week. It's within an hour of Indianapolis, and within three hours of Chicago. I'll actually be very close to former-recurring-member Mitth's alma mater, Purdue.

The sad part is, I half don't want to believe that it's an April Fool's Day joke. Same goes for thinkgeek's April Fools page. All of that stuff looks legit. Well, except for the Portal shirts. Those are kind obviously fake. But the Swedish Bacon Squeeze looked like it could be real; same goes for the TaunTaun sleeping bag.

I really, really wish I had my old MS paint comics lying around, still. Sadly, the computer they were saved on died, and I deleted the originals from my photobucket account to make some space.... Edit: Way #2 http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a169/DarthTofu/JarJar.jpg

lol- nice. Is the idea of this for the comic to be made as a collaborative effort, by all of the forum members who stumble into this topic, or do you already have 101 ideas (well, 100, really, since we have number one already) for how to kill Jar Jar? Either way, this promises to be an entertaining means of passing the time waiting for them college letters to come back.

Here's an "old" movie that's pretty darned good- A Dog's Breakfast. It was filmed way back in 2006 (ancient, I know), and has to be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. It's available on Hulu for free (legal) viewing, and throws out a number of hilarious little Easter Eggs for those of us who have been fans of the Stargate series. Christopher Judge (Teal'c), Paul McGillon (Carson Beckett), David Hewlett (Rodney McKay), Rachel Lutrel (Teyla), and Kate Hewlett (er... McKay's sister on the show) all appear in the movie, and all perform wonderfully funny parts. Here's a "sneak peek" clip if you want to get an idea of what the funniness is: Edit: Okay, so I finally so Watchmen today, and here's my review: I wasn't big on it. Everyone else has loved it, so maybe it's due to the fact that I and the person I watched it with are fairly non-conformist folk, but I didn't care for it. The action was pretty cool, the visuals were stunning, but the plot seemed more like a sagging bridge to me. It started out strong, very nice, then took a large dip as I found myself not caring about the characters worth jack, then came back up again toward the end. I'm going to include spoilers from this point on, so feel free to skip this bit if you haven't seen: Rorschach (sp?) was a neat idea for a character; out of all of the characters represented, I think he was done best. Seeing him as "Just a man" without his mask on made him that much more human, and his sociopath's mind was an interesting one. That being said, he tried to cram "I'M AWESOME!" down your throat on a regular basis. Dr. Manhattan tried to be cool, but ultimately failed for me. He never seemed to be able to decide whether he cared about the world or not, and while his wischy-washyness was a big point throughout the film, it just made me go, "make up your damned mind!" The Comedian had me wondering what, if any, the guy's redeeming qualities were. He really didn't seem to be the sort of guy who deserved to live; in fact, the Watchmen should probably have been hunting him. That was a high point for the film- power, the power to be a vigilante, and what it had done to the guy. So a plus there. Silk Specter: The older one was interesting, as the washed-up beauty queen who couldn't get over the position she was once in. The younger one was an annoying sex appeal. While she was good looking, that was about all she had going for her. Nite Owl: Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah... I liked how they made him look like a dork outside of the suit. Didn't like much else. By the end, he was trying to be perceived as the wonderful "hot guy" for Miss Jupiter (or whatever her name was- still not clear on that) to love. Ozymandias: He didn't get enough screen time throughout the buildup for me to understand jack about him. I liked how he was portrayed- he literally was smarter than all of the other characters, which was nice. I particularly enjoyed him explaining his endgame, half an hour after it had been implemented. His ethics and morality, along with Doctor Manhattan's at the end, were very interesting, and left you thinking about the greater good and all that. It was a brilliant, evil-but-good plan, but it really failed to go into the whole "human nature" thing. So, the plot... I enjoyed the opening, with the look at the different super heroes, and with the way they changed with the times. I enjoyed the old costumes, the changing of the guard, the interesting endings some of the heroes met, from death to retirement to insanity. That was good, that was strong. Comedian's death: done well. Enjoyed it. Well, not "enjoyed," per se, but it was done well. I just couldn't help thinking, as his blood was washed down the gutter, "Christ, how much blood can this guy possibly have in him?" In fact, that was a pervasive theme of the movie: Is that really necessary? The gore was a little bit (and by "a little bit" I mean "really") over the top. Watching some inmate get his arms taken off by a buzz saw was rather nasty, as was the exploding of random people by Dr. Manhattan. Fight scenes were well done and action-tastic, but I never really felt that they added anything to the plot. It seemed totally unnecessary. Dr. Manhattan's giant blue pervasive wang really came out to smack you in the face from time to time. The way I'd heard it described, I assumed that it was just in one scene with Silk Specter. When I saw that first (of six) sex scenes, I assumed that would be it, and that this would be the one time I'd have to endure the giant blue penis. Nope. It shows up on and off throughout the whole bloody movie. It really didn't do much more than make me add a nickle to the swear jar every time he whipped it out. So, all in all, here's my rating: Action: 10/10 Visuals: 11/10 Plot: 6/10 Acting: 5/10 (nothing too special, but not bad) Three hours was excessive, in my opinion. That plot could have been handled in two, maybe less, especially if we hadn't wasted so much damned time on pointless scenes on Mars, and that weird, completely random and pointless machine Dr. Manhattan ripped out of the ground. If the movie would have focused on its strong points a bit more (Ozymandias, Rorschach's personality, the way he saves the world) and less on the annoying crap (Nite Owl and Silk Specter getting it on (three frigging times in a row), Dr. M's giant blue wang, The Comedian being Silk Specter's father), the plot would have had more points. But because it didn't, it doesn't. That's my review, anyway. I'm going to be sure to pick up the comic book at some point to see if that did a better job; I get the impression that it did, and that Watchmen deserves its status as "best graphic novel of all time."