Militaris

Nothing really. One time I got pulled over when I drove through a round about without slowing/stopping. Their was giveaway signs not stop, I did slow but still went through at a good speed because it was empty. The cop was about to enter the roundabout when I drove through. He gave me a verbal warning to slow down in future. Another one pulled with up and claimed that I was not wearing a seat-belt. But I was, he believed me and checked out my car but then left. Thats about it.

Dune II (Or the Dune 2000 for windows remake) was a fun games. But would be dated now. It was one of the pioneering RTS games.

With regards to programmers doing work for free. My brother was a big fan of a certain turn-based strategy games. The company after a while decided to release the games AI code to the public. My brother (Because he is slack and does not work and at one point even claimed he does not believe in money :roll: ) decided to start modifying and updating the AI code for free. Slowly his new AI become popular among the modding community and slowly spread to other enthusiasts. A few other people started to help him program it. It got to the point where the company started to include few bits and pieces of his work in the odd patch. The company then decided they wanted to use his 'mod' in the official expansion of the game due out later in the year. Because it was largely my brothers work they needed permission. So he decided to refuse them the rights to use it unless they offer him a job. Promptly he was offered a good wage and a 7 month contract to continue expanding the games AI. Now the point of my above story. You had a complete slack useless bugger who spent all of his time playing games and rotting on a computer seat. These are the kind of people who normally program for free (like he did), but the moment they start to show any real potential and talent they are quickly grabbed by a gaming studio. The development of his AI mod (AFAIK) has completely halted and would now be released as part of the next expansion.

There are probably several open source MMORPG already being developed (a quick google search found several) and they all look rubbish. Unless a open source project has the backing and support of a large company process is generally slow and the finished product is poor and normally incomplete. The truth is that there are not many people who want to spend a large amount of their free time programing for free.

History proves that walls are often very successful. A good example is the Israeli West Bank barrier. Its construction has greatly reduced the number of hostile infilitrations and suicide bombings. And because of the reduce need for Isralie military incursions it has allowed damaged buildings and streets to be rebuilt. Also in areas where the barrier has been built given much greater freedoms. The wall has also allowed the westbank economy to recover slightly. The Hadrian walls constructed in Northern England allowed for a easier defensible area against fairly frequent attacks from the North. It helped keep peace in Brittian for over 300 years. So that wall certainly did work. There are many examples where walls work to bring peace. Walls are great things and one of the best defensive ways to bring peace to a area.

There is already a wall/fence along much of the US/Mexico border. Not to mention that much of the land on the 'US' side was technically stolen by the US from meixo during historical wars. I always bring the above point up when hippy Americans accuse Israel of stealing and occupying Palestinians lands. America is doing exactly the same thing and any Americian who thinks Israel should return land to the Palestinians should also want the American occupied lands returned to Mexico.

My name was original when I choose it. But because it is such a great name it was widely copied. Someone even went back in time and used my name to identify people and things which occurred thousands of years before I even existed. Now it is widely used because of all of the thief's and their manipulation of time. There is even 742,000 google results for my name now :cry:

You forgot one main factor.

Its been a few years since I studied this topic (the main reason why I am supplying links to wikipedia articles because I forgotten the details) but they mainly got their food from breaking down naturally occurring organic compounds and probably in a few cases inorganic compounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotrophs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemoautotroph

Thinking back, I also managed to read I think "Children of Dune". Thinking back to the edge of my memory it was quite a difficult book to follow and went quite crazy and twisted in places. Was quite addicting.

Just a marketing stunt, if a extra stupid one. If that is one of their key marketing reasons to see the movie then it must not be very good.

You are partly correct. But it is bacteria colonies which use the thermal vents for energy not plants. P There was life for millions of years before photosynthesis (Gaining energy from the sun) occurred. In fact once Photosynthesis become common the Oxygen it created poisoned the atmosphere which caused widespread death and extinction among the early form of life. More reading here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_Catastrophe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism

The last series of book I read were probably the Earth's Children series, the first book being "The Clan of the Cave Bear'. The series pretty much follows a young girls who family is killed by a earthquake and she is adopted by a Neanderthal tribe. In the later book she leaves the Neanderthal looking for her own kind and gets into all sorts of Journeys and troubles. In all the books are well worth a read, but the main character was made to 'powerful' and 'eventful' which made the books seem a bit cheap. The author Jean M. Auel also goes into long periods describing just the environment and the surroundings. These are very informative but once you read the first 20 descriptions you would find yourself skipping these parts. They simply contain to much information (which is often repeated) and prove to be slow reading. I did not manage to finish the last book in the series just got sick of how 'powerful' the main character got. Another book worth reading is 'Dune'. It is based in the future on the planet Arrakis. If you have not played the game Arrakis is a desert planet which grows a powerful spice which has all kinds of magical powers and is essential for interglatical travel. The Atreides were ruling the planet until they got into conflict with their enemies the Harkonnees. It is a good book, gets a bit hard to follow in a few places but worth the read. I have the other books in the series but never got around to reading them.

So many games I would have to try. Glad I waited so long before considering playing them, could of been costly. Many are still quite expensive for second hand games. So far I have found the following games. Starfox Adventures Zelda: The Wind Waker Killer 7 Metroid Prime

A couple of years ago I brought a gamecube but it has never seen much use. I played pikmen a few times and found it fun but never brought a memory stick so could never save the games. Now I decided it is about time I dust it off and purchase a few more games. They should be nice and cheap now. So I am after suggestions on what would be a few good games to buy. I prefer adventure, RPG and FPS if they have a good plot. Never really played any sport games but find racing games fun on the rare occasions I play them. I have read this thread here but would like more suggestions. Has there been any decent Starfox games for the cube. I loved it on the N64.

For a Aussie vs Sth Africa final to occur New Zealand would have to completely thrash Australia in their last super 8 game and move to the top of the table. Then SF1 would be NZ vs SA, and SF2 would be Aus VS SL. It might happen but it is about time for NZ to choke.

I doubt it. Probably be a New Zealand vs South Africa final. But sri lanka should not be written off.

The homeless episode was good but not great. Getting sick of all of the parodies they are doing. Would love to see more original content from them. Ending was quite boring.

Yes but the limit is something ridiculous like 120 million items per slot. For all points and purposes it provides endless storage of items. There is also around 280 slots available for Members. There is not really anything which stops players from keeping any potentially useful item. People now play the games around what resource is nearest to the bank. It has made large parts of the game irrelevant because players quickly find out the most efficient paths. Before Item banks was released there was dozen more variables. If someone wanted to smith steel they would have to find the closest combination of Iron, Coal, Furnace and Anvil. Today the player just finds the Iron source nearest to the bank, the coal source nearest to a bank, the furnace nearest to the bank and the anvil nearest to the bank. They also have to decide wither to drop their pickaxes or hammer to gain extra inventory space or to keep them between trips. Now they just stockpile them in their bank accounts.

Aye ... back in the days when the only bank space you had was your inventory. I preferred money only banks over. Even back when they were new I never really supported the idea of Item banks. Sure it was nice to be able to store valuable items but I think they made them too good. They should never have given players more then a single bank page, also the 'almost' endless ability to stack items in the bank was not wise. Thirdly I dislike how items deposited in one bank can instantly be gotten from another in a far away town. Item banks simply made the game to easy and made large parts of it irrelevant.

Out of interest is anyone seriously following the Cricket world cup. I check on the scores but have not watched a minute of any match. I am finding the Super 14 much more exciting and interesting.

Never heard of 300 before, but several people mention it. I still thought it was a great episode. Reminded me of the battle of Thermopylae where a small force of Spartans heard of a massive Persian army.

Now this is what you have to do. Sell the heirloom on Ebay. Then tell her that you sold it and that you used the money to buy meaningless commodity, you also have to remember to video her response with hidden cameras. If it is funny upload the video to youtube. Then a couple of days latter tell her about the video on youtube and show it to her. You also have to video her response to the video on youtube. Obviously you would have to upload the new video.

I have been looking and posting on these forums for way to long. I joined a couple of months before Scapeboard was created. I have no idea how long that has been and I am not going to work it out.

I watched parts of the Olympic cycling races. Once you start watching it gets strangely addicting to watch more.