nolan

I played Runescape years ago, long before it had ever become a fad. (By that I mean when "free" was the only option, the graphics were 2D sprites, only a server or two existed, and only a few hundred people played the game.) It was fun back then due to the sense of community you could feel in the game. When a game only has a few hundred people, eventually you'll get to know the majority of them without even making an effort. When it went fully 3d, I felt that the game actually lost a lot of its niche appeal.A lot of games fail to address community issues and to provide for their legacy users (the ones who have been around for forever). Eventually this just makes old players feel like they're trying to keep up with something that's constantly being pulled away from them.Then again, I'm not a really intensive gamer, so this could just be my perspective.

This sounds like it'll be pretty neat once it's running smoothly. Google Wave has translating functionality built-in for real-time translations provided through instant-messaging like Wave communications. Combining something like a speech feature with that (once it's available for more languages) could open up a tremendous array of possibilities. Consider: > Being able to make a phone call to your Google Wave inbox and hearing voice representations of your unread messages, no matter what language the sender created them in. Or... > For accessibility purposes, someone could opt to have their messages transcribed in their native tongue without the use of a screen reader. Additionally (outside of Wave), this could be used for language learning systems that allow users to interact with words and hear sound representations as the words they're typing are entered and translated. For example, for someone trying to learn English, as they're typing the word cat, they could hear: Kuh-a-Tuh as the individual letters are being typed and then "cat" when it's actually entered. Pretty neat stuff.

I'm going to have to emphatically second what BuffaloHelp said. Google Voice is incredibly powerful for being (mostly) free. I actually use it for my business phone line, due to the fact that it offers free SMS transcripts of voicemails and a "do not disturb" feature that routes calls directly to voicemail. This combination means that you can get calls without ever hearing your phone ring, and then can receive a txt message containing the message they left behind. In addition, they have many thousands of local numbers available which -you- get to choose from. Right now you have to wait for a free invitation after you sign up, but the process was very quick back when I did it. (I got the invitation in <2 weeks.) I highly, highly recommend their service.

Others have already posted that the answer to this question is "no", but there are two small exceptions: 1. If you use some form of limited proxy, remote connectivity, or other Internet tunneling technology. This will make it so that, for the purpose of activity engaged in from the new connection, you have an IP address that is independent of your existing computer's IP. 2. If you are on a network that uses a dual- or multi-WAN setup, which can balance Internet traffic between two or more external connections for any connected PC. The number of IPs will be based on the number of external WAN connections. There may be other exceptions, but these were the two that came to mind.

Depending upon the amount of traffic your site gets, this could be a very bad idea and could upset your web host. By using GD to generate an image that's displayed every single time a user visits your page, you're putting a lot of unnecessary strain on the server's CPU. Imagine if you have a site that gets even 10,000 total page hits a month - that's 10,000 new graphics your website has to create on the fly. As a better option, just use a very highly optimized, large background image that looks pleasant even when a portion of the image is cut off for smaller displays. (This is how most sites with large background images handle it.) Best of luck!

With regards to universities, I think most people have probably skipped a class at some point in time or another. I actually use to have instructors tell me when I could skip classes because nothing important was going to be discussed. (I was always really far ahead of what was currently being taught, however.)If you're in high school, though, or if you're just trying to skip class because you're bored and don't want to learn something, it's not only disrespectful to your parents, but it may come back and bite you later on when you need to understand those concepts in a higher education setting.Reference: I hold two master's degrees (one in business administration and another in management information systems).

Hi there. An important thing to note about supercomputers is that they're not necessarily a single computing system, but more often a network of computers in a distributed computing environment (there are many, many distributed computing solutions out there). With this in mind, and regarding your question, it can be difficult to imagine with a supercomputer "looks" like, as some supercomputing setups span great distances. There's a website (known as TOP500) that contains a list of the most powerful supercomputing setups known to be in operation. I didn't include the link, as I'm not sure if that's allowed on these forums, but a quick google search can find it for you.

Hi. I'd recommend looking into PrimoPDF, which is another virtual printing option. It's the highest-rated freeware PDF printer I've ever come across, and gives you access to features that aren't traditionally included with other solutions, such as save quality settings.I use PrimoPDF whenever I need to convert documents to PDF format quickly for webpages.Hope that helps.

Titanium (the metal used in the aerospace applications you elucidate to, when cheaper metals [such as aluminum] won't suffice), reaches its melting point at about 3,100 degrees (F). Does this mean that a microphone made of titanium can withstand 2,000 degree temperatures? Absolutely not. Microphones require a thin sound barrier for sound waves to travel through, and -require- the use of specific types of materials (as one example, crystals), in order to detect the motions of sound waves (read: materials that can't withstand temperatures as high as titanium). In order for a microphone to withstand 2,000 degree temperatures, it would have to be so heavily shielded that no sound waves could come even remotely close to penetrating the barrier. What this article sounds like to me is another attempt to use fear to instill religion. If you want to convert people over to a religion, do so with love and understanding, not hoaxes about discovering Hell. Not to mention the fact that the Earth is finite (it has a creation date and will, eventually, have an end date). Do you really think our immortal burning pit would be located in the center of something with a limited lifespan? Does it make sense? Most of these hoaxes can be though through with only a modest amount of logical thinking.

It's nice to meet you. I'm kind of in the same boat right now. I'll be entering my third day of being a registered member on these forums in a few minutes and still haven't seen any increase to my MyCents balance. I'm not sure if the system is just behind right now, though, so I figured I'd stick with it to try and see.

I think at a place like this you're likely to hear a lot of people saying that they read technical publications, such as how-to guides or language learning books. Personally, I read (of course) technical publications, physics papers, news publications, trade releases, and a few comical prints. (Oh, and not that it's related, but I can't understand why the Kindle is so popular -- I like my books in print form.)

The last book I read was the most recent installment in the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles. (The series is a reenvisioning of the Napoleonic era with an aerial force comprised of dragons.)The last technology-related book that I read was a book on computer forensics, although it wasn't very good.The next book that's on my to-do list is Terry Pratchett's Nation.

I believe that online dating can work (not to mention that it has, many times). I do think, however, that in order for it to be successful, the two people involved have to be mature and understanding of the nature of their relationship. Additionally, I believe that in some cases online dating can be highly beneficial vs. offline dating, due to the fact that the number of people online is immense, thus creating a lot more room for narrowing in on interests and personalities that match your own.(On a side note, I do believe that at some point you have to meet the person physically. A strictly online relationship [for the entire duration of the relationship] doesn't seem that it would have a very high chance of success.)

One problem I see with this idea is the fact that most people probably won't want to pay for a device that's going to shove advertisements in their face. Not to mention that most people use their GPS systems in their vehicles, meaning that advertising could lead (easily) to distracted drivers. A better idea would be to use subtle advertising that doesn't just "show" when they enter a new area. An example of this would be "preferred points of interest" that appear above others or offer more detailed information when you're specifically looking for a POI.

Hi. To answer your question, you have to make an important distinction first: that is, the difference between frames and iframes. Using either -could- have negative consequences on your search rankings, but iframes allow web capabilities to be expanded in ways that CSS cannot always compensate for (I say this because someone recommended using CSS as an alternative). As an example for a good use of iframes, you can build an upload form that loads in an iframe. This way when the user submits a file for uploading, the primary page never has to refresh or change locations. Back to the search issue, there is a reason that frames (that aren't superficial, such as uploading form iframes) can affect your search rankings. This is due to the fact that your content is divided across two independent pages, which are in turn indexed separately by the search engine. This means that instead of getting "points" for the combined contents and page relevance of the one page displayed to visitors, you end up with two individually indexed pages that may or may not seem relevant to your site's purpose when taken out of context. Furthermore, this isn't touching on some of the accessibility issues that can arise from using frames (e.g., for people who use screen readers). Hope that clarifies.

I'm sorry to say, but parenting plays the biggest part in a child's behavior. If you have a child who shrugs off family interaction to watch TV or play video games on a continuous basis, that reflects more on your parenting abilities than generational trends. Sure, you can't be the only one involved in your child's life, but you're already the most influential just by virtue of your role. Instill in them the values you want them to carry and believe they should have and everything else will come together a lot easier.

This has already been done. An old issue of Time magazine (>1 year, <2) had a video advertisement right on the cover. The video was not intensive at all, it merely had a few different logos flickering and scrolling along the screen. On a separate note, I personally feel that video advertising in magazines is pointless. Why would anyone want to spend -more- (yes, cost does go up) to see a video -advertisement- in something that they buy to -read-? Seems like a brief fad to me.

Teleportation is not (and will not be) possible for a few obvious reasons people tend not to think about. Here's just a sampling of the difficulties you'd have with bringing the concept to life:1. The receiving device (or platform, etc.) would have to have all of the exact chemical structures necessary to recreate you.2. The receiving device would have to be able to recreate you INSTANTANEOUSLY. And by that I mean that there couldn't even be a one second total delay (even though you see people "fading" when they teleport in movies). The reason for this is that if the process weren't instantaneous or if you were teleported in fragments, those fragments would be hanging in open space and would fall in globs to the ground.3. The original "you" would have to be uncreated. Decomposition of a human body into raw chemicals in a matter of seconds may be possible someday far into the future, but it'd be hard not to consider it murder, and it would hurt very, very much.4. Continuing from #2, an instantaneous recreation process is flawed in concept due to the fact that you cannot simultaneously create the interior and exterior of a human body.5. Would you really want to leave your memories, personality, etc. in the hands of a computer that's subject to errors?In short: no, teleportation is not possible now, nor will it ever be. Wormholes and other such concepts fall into the theoretical realm of transportation, and anything else would simply be a model of evaluation/destruction/recreation from memory (and still won't work with humans).

Hi.It is grammatically incorrect to do so (e.g., "Yes," Bob nodded -- Bob cannot "nod" words), but it's still a common practice. I don't personally frown upon it, so long as everything reads well. The problem arises when you have characters "saying" things different ways without any consistency, or if you use words that trample the fluency of what you're writing (e.g., "Yes!" Bob triumphantly projected). Most authors recommend simply using "said" due to the fact that the average reader's mind skims over it more naturally than any other expression, therefore making the experience more like true dialogue.Hope that clarifies.

If you're dialoging an incomplete sentence (that reaches completion after a break), you don't begin the second half as its own sentence. Here are the appropriate corrections to your examples: Incorrect: "Yes," Bob answered. "These are indeed the freshest grapes around!". Correct: "Yes," Bob answered, "these are indeed the freshest grapes around!" (Note: There's no period after the ending quotation mark in the correct example. Also, it's not recommended to use exclamation points for long sentences, as this isn't natural in true speech. Bob would need a lot of breath to be able to yell "Yes, these are indeed the freshest grapes around", and it wouldn't sound natural at all. In native speech, you tend to yell short phrases, not long ones.) Incorrect: "Uhhu?" Alice was sceptical. "Then why is this one brown?" Correct: "Uhh," Alice said, skeptically, "then why is this one brown?" (Note: You follow or interject dialog with the appropriate speech verbs. You can "say" words, but you cannot "was skeptical" words. Another example would be to say: "That's right," Tim nodded. Tim cannot "nod" words. He can say words -and- nod, but "nodding" words is incorrect.) Incorrect: "Erm....It's a Spanish brown grape, I've sold the rest already!" Bob hesitantly replied. Correct: "Erm, it's a Spanish brown grape; I've sold the rest already!" Bob replied. (Note: An ellipsis [three dots] is used to signify speech that trails off but does not pick up again. There is an ellipsis with a fourth dot, but it's not widely used, and when it is used it's to represent that the omission included a complete sentence, not just a sentence fragment [Chicago Manual of Style]. Secondly, in your example you have two complete thoughts: Bob describing the grape and Bob stating that the rest were sold. In this context [where it's likely that they're closely related], you can join the two thoughts with a semicolon, but not a comma. You could also just make them two independent sentences, since they're both complete on their own.) Hope that helps, and let me know if you need further clarification.

I think that "crazy" names is a pretty subjective thing to ask for. With that in mind, here are my thoughts on website names that may not be crazy, but seem either unattractive or irrelevant in some other way: 1. Website names that are long (as in >= 20 characters or so). This creates more work for the user, and should be avoided as often as possible. 2. Website names that are misleading. I'm not sure if this is an actual site or not, but just as an example, a website named "free credit report" shouldn't lead you to a page where you can pay $20 for a credit report or have to subscribe to a dozen offers from "affiliates". 3. Website names that are difficult to remember. 4. Website names with excessive use of hyphens, numbers, or pointless singular letters. our-company-website-name, for example, is horrible looking. ourcompanyname123 is likewise awful, and shows an immense lack of originality. Finally, websites that begin with an unassociated 'i', 'e', or 'u', or that end with an unassociated 'x' are very cliche. The world doesn't need another iwebsite or edomain, much less an e-domain or e-domain123. These are just my thoughts, however. Take care, Nolan

Hi, Many large websites use multiple programming language in their back-end depending upon the particular feature you're utilizing. The back-end of Google search is powered by Python, although they also make use of PHP, Java, and other language at various locations. (The creator of Python is employed at Google, by-the-by.) Amazon and eBay primarily rely on CGI, which isn't a programming language, but rather an interface that allows a web application to communicate with a program on the server, such as one written in C. These (typically and predominantly) offline languages that are compiled tend to offer greatly improved processing speeds vs. interpreted languages, such as Python, PHP, or Ruby. Microsoft-owned websites tend to rely on ASP.net, but although many would say they strictly rely on this technology, it's not true. You'll find Python code and others within Microsoft projects, as well. Wikipedia relies predominantly on PHP, and Twitter relies mostly on Ruby on Rails, although their most intensive features are handled by Scala, due to scaling problems they've had with Ruby. I hope this helps clarify a few misconceptions from earlier posts.