Guitars, especially acoustics, are very dependent on the wood. No two pieces of wood are alike. Go to a store with a good selection and play them until you find one you like. I've played $150 acoustics that sound really good, and I've played $600 acoustics that sound bad.
I wouldn't order an acoustic online.
Quote from MazyAlso, that's some insane weapon bobbing
haha yeah that's the first thing I noticed, he was barely walking and his pistol was bouncin like crazy.
Quote from JetsetlemmingThe police banter was pretty good though, "Have you seen this guy? He wears a tweed jacket!"
Hrm I thought that the police banter was pretty awful, made me cringe every time they spoke.
Hrm. Well I'm not too bothered by viewing angles, I don't move around much when I'm using it, and nobody is really ever looking over my shoulder or anything. We'll see. Too late now to return it anyways 
Finally stepping up from my old Samsung Syncmaster 740N 17" monitor...
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...to a 24" samsung 2494SW. It'll be here tomorrow 
I was looking around on newegg on friday for some black friday deals and saw it. Realized I've owned TWO monitors(a 17" CRT prior to the 740N) my entire life so I felt it was time for a new one 
The old 740N will become my secondary display, holding emails/wave/irc/calculator/etc
Looks nice! But I keep looking at the elbows in the first pic... looks like HL1 stuff, how they fold into themselves like that, so the elbow looks super thin when the arm is bent. just strikes me as very odd considering how good the rest of it looks.
art- The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
game- An activity providing entertainment or amusement
Pretty sure video games fit in both of those quite comfortably. The fact that it is a collaborative effort doesn't mean it isn't art.
I do find it kind of frustrating when games try to imitate movies. Movies have the luxury of pacing and direction, artistic shots. Trying to emulate these in a game where a player is controlling a character just ends up confusing the player with moving/changing cameras and tends to shatter immersion, and immersion is what I believe sets games apart from movies. While this hasn't happened very often for me, there are certain games which had me immersed to the point of obsession. There is no movie at all that could ever keep me seated for 8 hours straight, let alone for multiple days in a row. Most games, even mediocre games, can keep my attention longer than even a really good movie.
Movies generally don't make a person make any decisions, while that is the focus of games. I think the more this gets embraced and explored, the better(and more immersive) a game will get. A truly diverse choice system could be extremely compelling - not this good/evil bullshit. Decisions with no clear right and wrong, but will color the game experience slightly. That would be true immersion.
aye, great use/application of the wii's capabilities.
I'm not saying its impossible, just nearly 
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Its a significant challenge to command respect of teenagers, and many teachers fail at it. It's a different kind of respect, not earned but imposed. Respect in the sense of "respect my authority", to quote Cartman 
A teacher needs the students to know they are in command and control of the classroom, disobeying will result in serious and immediate consequences. But at the same time a teacher shouldn't be a dictator in the classroom, then students could become resentful and disinterested.. its a fine line. Can't be their friend, and can't be their enemy. Being older and more knowledgeable gives a head start in commanding this respect.
Fantastic, I was looking for something to share all my engineering project files from home and school, and with all my teammates. I had to keep burning CDs to distribute to my teammates with every new version, or emailing myself files to transfer them from home to school. I considered an SVN but the school computers don't allow installing software. Since dropbox allows you to access it via a web browser(including upload!), this will work beautifully! It'd be nicer if I could install the application on the school computers so I could work directly in the shared directory, and not have to download and upload every time I want to do some work at school.. but better than self-emailing/burning CD's.
And I don't mind that you gave us your referral link! Thats what you're doing, after all, referring us. Thanks HP!
Oh and P.S., if you do register through HP's referral link, they give you an extra 250mb.. so he's doing us a 250mb favor! Quit hatin'
What?! I doubt he'd actually get hired by the school to teach the class he's supposed to be in... What credentials does he have for teaching? None, he's a student. It may be all peachy now for a few days while he is offering a sub help who doesn't know what is going on(I did that a few times in high school too), but it wouldn't last, especially if he were to be hired on as the teacher... There is simply nothing he could do to maintain control of a classroom, he is their peer. The lack of respect and ability to control is already bad enough with a substitute, a student would command even less. A teacher needs to be a figure of authority. A peer in highschool is not a figure of authority.
Whoever made the decision to fire the chem teacher without considering a replacement should be kicked in the head. The only excuse I can see for such an action would be GROSS misconduct, like having a relationship with a student or physically abusing a student. Incompetence is not something that is revealed 'all of a sudden', its not like she was a good teacher then all of a sudden sucked. Even if everyone started complaining all at once, the administration should have had the good sense to know that even though she may be getting an inadequate amount of work done, it is still more than a string of substitutes could accomplish. Keep her there until you can find a suitable replacement.
Sorry, I date a highschool english teacher and my roommate is a highschool history teacher.. I hear about the dynamics of highschool constantly.
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/209 ... new-vegas/
Being developed by Obsidian Entertainment, aka the studio formerly known as Black Isle. Slated for 2010 release date.
Bethesda said the game is not a sequel to Fallout 3, it's simply another Fallout game in the universe, and has no impact on Bethesda's Todd Howard and his studio's unannounced projects, which may or may not be Fallout related.....Bethesda did confirm that Fallout: New Vegas will be the same sort of role-playing game as Fallout 3.
Perhaps having Obsidian develop it will aide in some of the issues many had with it(dialog, atmosphere, etc)? Personally I loved the atmosphere and functionality of FO3, but I feel there is certainly room for improvement on the dialog and main storyline. The first time I played FO3 it felt a bit rigid, some of the freedom of FO1/2 seemed to be gone.. But I'm playing it through again now, and completely giving the bird to my in-game "dad" and just running around exploring, and I the freedom feels back again.
I think the issue with FO3 was the immediacy of the main story line. In FO2, someone just says "find the geck" and boots you out of town with no more than a loincloth and a spear. Its overwhelming, and I think that helps the immersion. In FO3 you always have a green arrow somewhere on your radar telling you where to go next to find daddy. Kinda sucks the 'how the hell am I going to get there?' feeling out of it. Perhaps the storyline is as linear in the FO2, it just isn't as apparent.
Anyways /rant, I hope FO:Vegas immerses the player a bit better, leaves them in the dark a little more, just give them a starting place and a goal, don't illuminate the path quite so much. Vegas is certainly a top-notch choice for a setting.
Discuss.
the thing that was throwing me off about that concept art was how friggin wide his head is, he looked like an old washed up football player. But that lovely GIF explains it, they drew over half a picture of a not-quite-straight-on headshot and mirrored it, so it makes his head look huuuuuuge.
Seriously, thats really half assed. Looks like something you'd find on deviantart. Or maybe halfway through a speedpainting video on youtube. Even most of the blood splatter is mirrored.. look at the tip of his nose..
What the fuck? Did they give it the go-ahead, and decided it needed to be announced in the next 45 minutes? QUICK throw some art together!
I mean, it looks like something I'd make... That's not a compliment.
but anyways, I won't comment on the game itself. I reserve judgment until I play it. you never know.
Quote from BuddyWay below my expectations.
Go play FO and FO2 and then say anything about expectations.
Played them. FO3 met my very high expectations. I played it thru when it first came out, and even though I did a fairly thorough job with exploring and spent many many hours with it, I still have the itch to play it again, PC this time. Once I find 50 bucks I'm going to buy it.
I don't want to get into the classic FO/2 vs FO3 arguement or anything, I'm just saying.. I felt it captured the spirit of FO/2 very well, it could have had a little more depth but honestly it was pretty damn interesting/immersive all the way through. The end sucked but everything else was great. TBH the storyline wasn't the great part about FO/2, it was the freedom, and that is still there in FO3.
Ahh heck with it, fridge is full of food, I can swing the 50. Purchased
"eh pretty good" is what I was thinking until the last 20 seconds. then 
Looking up at the pine trees w/ sun in background, rock overhead, and the waterfall at the very end.. yowza.
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Oakley Splinter 
Are you guys serious? you've never read this book?... 
Seriously go read it, the art and story are spectacular.
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Just a beautiful story. I'm wondering how they could stretch the rather short book into a movie, but it seems like they captured the feeling and spirit of the book and expanded on it.
Between this and 9, I think its going to be a great fall '09 for movies.
Seriously thats the best music video I've seen in a very long time. Possibly ever. I think Fat Boy Slim's "weapon of choice" has the edge on it, but this is definately gold.
Quote from kleinlukaYeah i was just about to say that. mazy's showreel was fucking awesome! I guess a good way to think about it is: showreel for leveldesigner is not necessary, but if you go the extra mile and present it well it might score you some bonus points.
+1. Can't hurt, and I find it a bit sad that "no one ever looks at it". I don't know much of anything about the games industry, but I'm starting to get to the job-application phase of my career(junior in college, mech. eng.), so I'm looking at job requirements and resume requirements, portfolios, etc... And everything I see and hear is all about showing what makes your work better than the next guys, and I feel that if a company is serious about making the best product, they're going to take as much time as they can to overview the candidate's work/abilities, and that includes scrutinizing everything in their resume/portfolio. And if they aren't serious about making the best product, then I don't want to work for them.
I can understand if they have 1000 applications, they'll probably go through and weed out all the "definately nots" real quick, and not watch your showreel... but I'd be amazed if you made it through to the serious consideration stage, interviews etc, if someone hadn't looked over every single thing in your resume.
Making a pretty looking scene isn't the only part of level creation.. The atmosphere is just as much created by the sounds, lighting, and motion of the surroundings. I personally think a showreel would be a great idea.
