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You have managed to accentuate exactly those things that make a face look african.

Hmmm, didn't really pick up on this at first, but now that everyone mentions it .... Perhaps change the color of her skin a bit - maybe a bit less olive and more peach-colored? Also, maybe make her lower lip a little less fuller.

Not sure if someone already mentioned it, but her hairline also needs to be more rounded. I think we should still be able to see the top of her hairline. Also, maybe try making it just a smooth line and draw in the larger strands of hair coming down on her forhead. Right now it looks like she has a hair net on.

Still, though, a great-looking picture!

Hmmm, I was trying to make it look like Shotokan karate (which I know nothing about). But now that I'm looking at some references again (here and here), their arms look quite different. *sigh* Guess I'll have to work on them some more ...

Please don't insult me on the internet. Treat people with respect and manners around here. I am asking you all nice.

Was this directed at me too? I hoped it was obvious that I was actually poking fun at the ridiculousness of skyfire's comment. No insult was meant to you, Helm.

I have been skyfired!

Yeah, he got you good. I hope you've learned your lesson.

But on the plus side, now we know how to make fun of Britons in Irish! They'll never suspect a thing!

I'm a Yank, and if somebody even had the user name DumbYank, i still wouldn't be offended by it.

DamnYank would be cooler though.

Boo! Americans! Boo!

That's ok, we don't need any friends anyway. Just ask our president!

Isn't it obvious - being British is offending lots and lots of people.

Heh, try being an American!

As soon as Turkey and Rusia become part of the Union, they might as well admit China, India and Japan.

Hey, if it makes the world a better place, why not? Plus, wouldn't it be sweet to travel from Tokyo to London and never have to go through customs?

DGMacphee, good job in clarifying the issue.

Obviously if a video is illegal, then whether it should be banned or not really isn't an issue. With something as open as the internet, stuff like this may sneak on once in a while, but it's up to the service providers to make sure it gets removed. What might be worth discussing is, how do service providers ensure this happens? Now if you're talking about some of these terrorist groups' websites, who post their propaganda and vidoes of their prisoners being killed and beheaded, I'm sure they're probably hosting their own content, and the only option is don't look at it. (Actually, not looking at something you don't want to would probably solve a lot of problems! )

Now, the stupid stunt videos? What you said. "The stupid shall suffer," as they say.

And I agree that sites like eBaum, though their viewpoint may be objectionable, should be allowed to express it as long as they're not promoting anything illegal. What's interesting is that a site like this gets people riled up, but the Darwin Awards seem to be ok.

Also, let's just be clear about videotaping without consent and publishing without consent. Illegal or not (and I'm not arguing whether or not it should be), I think the first is relatively harmless. If I tape somebody without their knowledge and watch it in the privacy of my own home, am I really harming anybody? I don't know, I guess it could be argued either way. But I think a law like this would be hard to enforce. Now if I go publish it on my web page without censent, certainly now I'm causing harm to somebody. But I think this brings up an interesting issue with sites like Flickr and YouTube. I wonder how much of their content (pictures of girls in short skirts, or videos of well-endowed woman walking down the street, etc.) is technically illegal?

Finally, I think you make a good point about the news. Really, is the clip Raggit posted news? Who needs obscure internet sites when our "responsible" news media makes this stuff headline news? Is it really a surprise to anyone that sexually molesting somebody royally screws up their head? But ultimately it's about ratings, and stuff like this gets the attention it does because people do watch it.

New games in the US typically cost between $40 and $60 - I think it's pretty much the same whether you're talking computer games or console games.

That's why I never buy new games. If you can wait a bit, for $20 or less you can usually pick up the original game with all the expansion packs bundled into one package.  Plus you wait out the hype and can see which games really stand the test of time. And it also means to you don't have to shell out the money for a cutting edge computer that can run all the newest games.

Well, I finally put some more work into this and finished a punching sprite. I also finally gave her a name. So say hello to Kei and watch out for that fist!





Overall I guess I'm happy with it, but I'm sure it can be improved. Her skirt seems kind of "off" to me. Also it'd be nice to give some shape to her hands/fists, but I'm not sure what to do without giving her gorilla hands. Any suggestions would be helpful. I was hoping to get a kung-fu movie feel to the fighting. Have I succeeded at all? And of course, C&C on anything else you see is certainly welcome.

I'm working on a kick too, so I'll post that up if I ever get if finished.

What Social Reasoner said. I'm all for whacky perspective, but is the front door really supposed to be wide enough to fit a car through length-wise?

I'm in agreement with Gord10's post on victim blaming. I think people tend to empathize with the perpetrator/bully instead of the victim, because it's uncomfortable to put yourself in the shoes of the victim, especially if the victim isn't popular to begin with. So you get a reaction like "that's terrible ... but isn't it funny!"

MrColossal, even if the answer is "yes" to all of your questions, I still don't think that's an argument that videos like this should be banned, for the following reasons:
1. How would you even go about banning something on the internet? Plus, individual households/families already have the capability to filter content of their choosing.
2. Who decides what's inappropriate, and how do they decide what's inappropriate? I don't think anybody would disagree on videos like the ones we're specifically talking about, but what about when you get into gray areas like, for example, the classic Tom and Jerry cartoons? Would those also be banned?
3. Removing the videos doesn't solve the root of the problem: a lack of morals in the people perpetrating the acts. The only solution for that is parents taking some part in raising their kids.

--Oh, I just saw your new post. Seems like we're mostly in agreement.

Ah yes, and so goes the universe. But if the universe is an isolated system, what set things in motion to begin with? Will it happen again? If the universe isn't an isolated system, then what is it reaching equilibrium with? Does the universe even obey the second law of thermodynamics? And what are the implications for smaller systems like us?

Anyway, aren't biological organisms open systems, feeding from the environment and dumping waste into it? If I can keep extracting useful energy from the environment in exchange for my entropy, then why should I ever have to die? Interesting that science doesn't really have an answer either. And if people are just simple thermodynamic systems, then why are they saddled with these inefficient, irrational conscious - in effect, what makes us who we are?

The ironic thing is that once you reach the conclusion that nothing is knowable, science and reason - those tools so fervently brandished to argue against the existence of god - are suddenly no better than religion. In fact, would it be wrong to say that faith is required for science and reason be conducted in a meaningful way? After all, how do you know that this is reality, that this isn't a figment of your imagination, that you're not hooked up to the matrix? You don't take it on ... faith ... do you?

Nice video! I've got it stuck in my head too. Is that you singing? Nice voice!

I thought you were going to turn black at the end after you were "disabled"!

AMD CPUs are great value at the moment because they are way behind the Core2 Duo on performance and have nothing better in the pipeline, so they can only win on pricing... but the Core2 wins out on "better processor" in almost every situation, plus a 4-core one is coming soon.

That could be. I don't really keep on top of stuff like this unless I'm looking to upgrade. At the time, it seemed like the Athlon 64's were relatively new, and Intel didn't have anything in their pipeline to counter with. Typical escalation process, I suppose. Although, with processers as powerful as they are today, there might not be any reason to pay more for a Core2 Duo. I guess it depends on what you're after.

monkey, you got me beat. Only 4 svchosts here!

I think there's enough mystery and wonder in the universe to get romantic about without religion. Who knows what happens when you die? No-one knows obviously.

I somewhat recently had this put to me in a way I had never thought of before. If the law of conservation of energy is correct (energy is neither created nor destroyed, only altered in form), than something must happen to us - or at least to our energy - when we die. Hopefully we don't just dissipate as heat as a result of some sort of cosmic/spiritual "friction".

If these civilizations commonly interact with each other, I'd think either the merchants or the player would know enough of the other culture's language to conduct basic business transactions. I'd think it would be something similar to Europe where (correct me if I'm wrong) it seems like it's common for people to speak 2 or 3 languages, or as Gord10 mentioned, there's a common "business" language (historically I think this would be French, nowadays probably English).

In this case, you could probably do something fairly transparent with respect to game play. Something like you can pick what language you're talking in, and while this wouldn't change the actual game output (everything would still be English), in the game world people that don't speak that particular language won't understand you. I'm sure you could even have a little fun with this - have the player purposely speak (or hear) bad english or say the wrong words because he's not actually saying what he thinks he's saying.

Now, if learning a new language is part of the challenge - maybe it's a culture you haven't bumped into before - than the player should have to learn the language. In this case you'll probably want to look at SteveMcCrea's suggestions to see how other games did this without turning into a language course.

How about the opposite - Red Herrings, I guess you'd call them - where you get a potentially useful item that ends up not being useful at all? I'm thinking specifically of Maniac Mansion, where you pick up a chainsaw almost immediately but never find any gasoline to use it.

Actually, I think more games would benefit if they included items that you don't ever use. I think it would probably help discourage the "what haven't I used in my inventory yet?" syndrome. Also, I find it kind of annoying/unrealistic when you, for example, open a refrigerator or look in a desk, etc. and there's one item you can take, which you know must be useful later.

Just so as we're clear, I don't want my stepdad to be aware of this option.

Uh ... what option?

Have you looked at any AMD processors? I started going with AMD back when Intel was the big evil empire. I think they're a better value, and nowadays I think they're probably better processors too.

It sounds like you're going down the path of complete upgrade. But it would be possible to just upgrade your CPU to a Pentium 4, which were also designed to fit in Socket 478. Yes, Socket 478 is outdated, and yes Pentium 4 is no longer in production, but I think it would give your system a nice boost. Snce it is old technology, just browsing on Newegg, there aren't many options available.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend going this route, but I just wanted to be sure you're aware of this option.

As other people have mentioned, unexplained slowdowns and CPU usage is usually an indication of some kind of malware on your computer.

Make sure your virus definitions are updated and do a scan. Also, download an anti-spyware program and run it - virus programs don't usually catch spyware. CounterSpy is probably the best program. It's not free, but it has a 30-day trial, and it's only $20 to buy. A number of free alternatives: Spybot (already mentioned), Adaware, and Windows Defender. If you find anything, I'd recommend a system reinstall as spyware can be very tricky to completely remove.

As for upgrading: keep in mind that if you're going to do any sort of significant CPU upgrade, you'll probably also need a new motherboard, which in turn may also require buying new, compatible RAM. So if you're looking for a quick speed fix, RAM is the way to go. If you're looking to do some significant upgrading (basically a new computer), go with the CPU.