Cool_Freaker

I do doubt it's most of them. Of course there will be a select few who are rather well off, then again, couldn't you say that about young people too? Those who have been spectacuarly successful, early in life, either through innovation or inheritance. I know where there is a pensioner/seniors discount there usually is a Student discount also (though usually the discount is a little less); it's probably sufficient seeing younger people have the capacity to work and support themselves, for some older people working is just not an option no matter how much they want to. Of course, when you see some senior citizens (female) clad with expensive jewellery come and claim their free coffee/tea at McDonalds ( worked there for a spell), you do give them the look. I'm not sure exactly how senior discounts are calculated or whatever, perhaps a better thing to do would be to issue discounts to seniors who really need them (i.e. those who fall below a certain bracket in terms of assets would be eligible for a discount card), those rich enough to support themselves just wouldn't get one.

It really is a shame. Whilst his programs were over the top, and he just fed the American held stereotype of Australians, there was no doubt he was a conservationist at heart. He had a passion for what he did (which was evident throughout his shows and movies), and most definitely made a difference in the world in the way of saving the animals. Condolences to his family, though I believe his daughter already has a headstart in the industry (anyone seen the Australia Zoo ads?) and hopefully will continue her father's legacy.

Indeed. Seriously though, if he'd already done it once, you'd expect his parents wouldn't let him do it again. I'm suprised that they did. If anything, they should kick him out and make HIM pay the rent he could/would have otherwised saved from staying at the house. It's one thing to be going to college, but that really does sound rather extreme. You have to wonder how he'd do by himself. In terms of damage though, a lot of things can happen when there's a group of people, a party, and alcohol. I don't find it particuarly unusual that a lot of things were broken. It tends to happen a lot when parties get out of hand (which they obviously would, if this guy can barely look after himself).

Frontpage is horrid, it adds a lot of useless code. Most other HTML editors are a LOT better (although for mums to make their homepage Frontpage is fine for a WYSIWYG Editor).

The only reason I can see anyone preferring FIFA over Pro Evolution is the licensing. I remember when Pro Evo used to have to use totally generic teams because of lack of licenses. To be honest though, the latest versions have been getting much better and are much more comprehensive in terms of player names/teams and leagues. Pro Evo has much better gameplay and control, FIFA has always been rather arcade-like, which is fine, but you really do want some sort of realism in your games. (Although I remember the kind of funky tricks you used to be able to pull off in the older versions. Funny, and fun, nonetheless)

I agree. It's obviously not a pleasant thing to listen to, but it's more than likely that at that age you would have been similar. On something like an aeroplane I can understand it being extremely irritating on long haul flights, but say in the movies, usually the sound is so loud anyway, that any baby cries are drowned out. In church I have found parents usually do go outside, and if they dont (and the baby is really bad) I've seen the priest actually tell them to go . What I find worse is the three year olds who scream and throw a tantrum when they don't get what they want. That really ticks me off.

It's all a part of marketing. It's quite common for advertisers to have some insanely awesome deal on a poster or on TV, but to have some fine print at the bottom which outlines a minimum purchase or some other condition. Essentially though, there's only so far they can push it until some legal body can bring action against them. In Australia there's the ACCC; I know Kmart used to sometimes have 15% off Storewide ads on television, but at the bottom they'd have "Excluding cigarettes and game consoles". Now the advertisements have to actually verbally say it (however quick, even if you can't see the screen you still hear the conditions). The problem is, you wouldn't really care about an ad with an average lookign person. In my opinion, they'd have to be outstandingly...ugly, before it would draw attention. Anyway it's all about branding. Even if you say you know the good-looker didn't use that product, you're still associating the image with that product. In the end, that's all that matters, as it may be some subconscience thing. (As in, if you see several products on the shelf, all similar, you end up picking the one you've seen the advertisement for).

I know a lot of the Mario/Nintendo branded games are quite good, so Mario Kart, Mario 64 Advance, The New Super Mario etc (though those you probably have). The Brain Games (Brain Academy and Brain Age) are certainly interesting, I don't mind them, some people may not like them, but I'm always up for saying I'm playing a game that requires some thinking .Also, you can't really go past Metroid Prime: Hunters. FPS on the DS? Brilliant. I have heard the DS version of Advance Wars is great also, though I've only had experience with the GBA versions (which I quite enjoyed).

Without the internet? Gee, I'd probably play a hell of a lot more of my PlayStation, and spend a lot more time reading actual books (instead of forums and other various internet sources ). Not to mention I'd probably waste less time, and study more. The internet is a great resource, but because of its versatility I find it really easy to be sidetracked, and end up wasting a lot of time on it. Then again, there's a lot I've gained/learnt from the internet, but it really does make you wonder, what a world without it would be like.

I used a lot of Altavista and Yahoo. Yahoo's not really that bad, in my opinion they're not that far behind Google in terms of services offered (if not ahead in some areas), although the search is not quite as comprehensive, obviously.Oh and Copernicus (sp?) was a nifty program which used to search many engines at once; I used that a bit too - not quite sure if people still use it. I believe Google was around, but it hadn't quite reached the popularity it had now.

For price performance on most levels, I believe nVidia has the upperhand. ATi has some really really good high end cards, but they cost two arms and a leg. For super budget I believe they also have some very cheap cards which are good if you don't want to use onboard graphics, which suck up RAM, for non-gaming computers. For most average/casual gamers though, nVidia's mid performance range is great, with the 6600GT and 7600GT, as well as some of the higher end 7900GT's etc. For my purposes nVidia is better

I have played all the games in the Age of Empires series quite a bit (though admittedly I still suck, and perhaps didn't do too much in the original). I really love them, mainly because there is a strong economic aspect with a range of resources, as opposed to say Command and Conquer. Also the ability to amass a gigantic army if you didn't play a rush game, which I found was the restrictive element in Warcraft that I didn't like. A 90 or 100 population cap just doesn't cut it for me, with micromanagement being key. I'm much more of a macromanagement person.In my opinion Age 2 is still the high point of the series. The graphics were crisp and had detail, though 2D; the gameplay was fairly fast, and the online presence was just great. Deathmatch, Custom Scenarios, Random Map, all were popular. With the newer games it just seems to be RM non-stop. Age of Mythology was fun, but felt a bit slow and I didn't particularly like the fixed Town Centre aspect. Age of Empires 3 is quite good too, but once again doesn't quite capture my attention as Age of Kings did. I can't say I find the improvements all that significant - basically it's a new age Age of Empires with Home Cities and shipments, and many people say that shipments aren't necessarily a good thing for the game.

You probably won't notice any difference between an AMD and Intel PC for general use (especially if they're of comparable specs). The thing is, the Intel Laptop has a Dual-Core CPU and has a faster memory speed. It is a lot better to have Dual-Core, especially for Photoshop work. Intel is proven to be better for PS. Gaming wise, the GeForce Go 7600 is a decent mobile card, whereas I dont believe the Radeon Xpress is.For your purpose, most likely you will be served better by the Intel.

So true. People like that are best ignored. Anyway, the fact that he is in the internet cafe also, and that you've seen him several times in there before would suggest that he also spends some time in net cafes. If that's what he's basing your "lack of a life on" then he doesn't have one either. If anything, he sounds like just a person out to annoy people because they have nothing else to do. I agree. It's just the way that stereotypes are constructed, and how they havent' really changed (although they probably are getting better). Though, if anything, Football is a social sport (well team based anyway), and also gives physical exercise. Many people still tend to disregard internet talking/chatting as socialising also. It tends to be a bit of a joke amongst gamers anyway - I know with my gaming friends we say things like "wanna do this at x time tomorrow?" - "sure, I have no life anyway".

I've never heard of this problem before to be honest. Usually people are commended for taking short showers and saving water! Anyway, I believe you can clean yourself in under two minutes if you're rather efficient. From the two minutes he does spend, I reckon he'd be able to at least rid himself of most of any smell he may have... it'd be more difficult dirt which may still remain. Smells can always be masked with deoderant if it needs be. Buy him a can for Christmas and his Birthday perhaps? Heh, kinda funny to imagine him getting the whole row to himself... maybe take him to the movies

If you want to just play games, the PlayStation 3 is going to be a much cheaper option than getting the equivalent computer hardware. Just think of the box you could put together with the cost of a PlayStation 3. Sure it has more versatility, but in terms of raw hardware power, it's just not going to match. I'm not saying I like the pricetag, but I guess there is some reason behind it. I doubt I'm willing to spend that sort of money upfront for a console though, especially seeing their sharp depreciation in value, and the fact I don't need to always play the latest and greatest games. Here's to hoping that the prices of Nintendo's Wii and the Xbox 360 force Sony to compromise soon after launch to remain competitive in the market. That way, some more of us may be able to afford their offering.

Certainly some nice swirly things you have there. Was wondering if you had the direct links to the tutorials for yours, as you had suggested in your own post?I particuarly like the first two as they have a nice patterned feel to them. The others aren't quite stylish or original looking.

I have to agree with Icelight on this. There are just so many damn Battlenetwork games, of which offer almost no improvement over the previous ones. Originally it was fun, but I do believe Capcom is pushing it if they expect gamers to follow through a series which contains so much repetition. Hopefully the next Megaman series will offer something more in variety...

It's also because it's such a large corporation that internal organisation may not always be as efficient as it should. Your account is one in many thousands, probably handled by a different staff member each time. I've had similar problems with the telco I use, in terms of the connection of internet being arranged, but not connected when agreed to, and many a billing problem. The good thing with large corporations is that if you complain, even just a bit, usually they give in and give you some sort of discount or refund as they make enough money to be able to give way in order to keep customer loyalty.

Best weapon in any game? Such an obvious answer, the Atma Weapon from FFVI. I mean, get a character with max hp, the sword hits max damage THROUGH SHIELDS! Therefore, imagine your fighting an enemy with a huge defense level, with only 200 hp because you can normally only do 1 damage to hit each hit. With the Atma Weapon, its a one hit kill! Here we have a picture of this mighty weapon in use: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Impressive no? Then, think this attack 4 times! Yes, that's right, with the "Offering" relic, you can lay down this much smack 4 times each turn!

Actually, recently I stumbled upon this site which lists a multitude of free games, and though some are yuor classic poor graphics MMORPG's, some of the games listed are very impressive graphic wise, and well worth your time. This is the site: http://play-free-online-games.com/games/games_all.html I suggest looking at some of the FPS games, as well as the few flight simulator games. As an aside, you guys should all get the StumbleUpon add-on for Firefox. Naturally, you guys are all using Firefox already so you needent download that.

This is indeed very impressive, however, I do not know at what speed firefox loaded the pages prior to the editing. Therefore, I do not know by how much loading time actually decreased by, and whether it decreased at all, or its just an illusion.

I'd have to agree with most of what's been said. IM'ing, usually I do shorten words, namely because to have a conversation without some shorthand, would be finger typing suicide in many situations. On forums though, typing properly really does help make everything more readable. Even then, I guess shorthand is acceptable, but when it also results in the loss of grammar and punctuation, then it really is irritating.l33t speak is another matter, but to be honest I haven't seen much of it on any forum. Rather it's more of an ingame occurance if at all, and it can be quite novel to decipher. Anyway, as there is no body language and appearance over the internet, the way you communicate tends to be how people get their first impression of you - typing properly results in a more sophisticated, mature image, which is probably a good thing

'grats on your purchase mate. Looks a bit outdated to me, but as long as it suits your purposes it should do fine (whether that processor will be able to run Vista well is another thing). Let us know when you're upgrading

For now, HD is probably not a huge issue, though later on closer to the end of the console's life, the Wii will probably age much faster than either the PS3 or Xbox 360. Nintendo is not going all out in terms of processing power and graphics anyway; their focus seems to be on innovation in other areas.Considering that the Wii is using hardware not too different to the Gamecube, I doubt that having HD or not will make a big difference. To me, anyway, I'd much rather have a cheaper system/games