Messages

1036

Quake / Re: Vanilla mymap :(

« on: November 17, 2008, 02:52:50 PM »

Unreal Tournament '99 has a popup menu at then end of a game that allows users to scroll through the maplist or somehow select one they like, other users vote accordingly and a realtime display of the maps being voted on and the vote count per map is shown. One can go with the majority or make another selection, I think the whole time period is 20 or 30 seconds.

Not sure how one could implement that in Q2's menu. It's such a tiny box and doesn't have a very good scroll feature. 2000 maps on a server can be hard to scroll client-side, ya think? Maybe a way to track most frequently voted maps and put them at the top?

1037

Quake / Re: Vanilla mymap :(

« on: November 17, 2008, 04:36:11 AM »

I wrote two modules for LOX, a voting system and a map selection system that go hand in hand. They are in-mod code so they are not useful for mods who's source is long gone but it might serve as a model for an external system.

The vote code allows a player to initiate only two votes per map, if he can't get it passed in two tries, he's done until the next map. A cvar controls how many tries he gets. It also has built in timers for duration of the vote and how often it announces a vote in progress. The configuration is parameterized so admins can change the spammyness of the announcements and the number of votes a player can initiate.

The map list module allows admins to configure a maplist.txt file for map rotation instead of an array of names. There's also a load-sensitive map rotation that chooses families of custom maps according to how many players are on the server but this has proved to be less useful.

http://www.clanwos.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=1

Maplist Management Module for Quake 2 Servers
and
A Modular Voting System for Q2 Servers

1038

Religion, and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist / Re: Ye Religion Thread

« on: November 13, 2008, 10:01:45 PM »

Regarding the establishment clause: If you view it in the context of the history of England up to the Revolution you can see many examples of the church reinforcing the state (king) and vice versa. This was as much on the minds of the founders as any imputed or stated agnosticism on their parts. They simply didn't want church and state and courts aligned against the people. Remember, the king was the lawmaker, the supreme judge of the law and the head of his church and the founders deemed this to be one of the defects of English rule under George III. The thrust of the Constitution is the separation of those powers in order to avoid abuse of those powers by any one sovereign.

Henry VIII broke with Rome and the Pope over the legality of his marriages and divorces and founded the CoE.
Elizabeth I fought civil wars over Catholicism vs. CoE and Protestantism and her policies were fundamental to the war with Spain. The echos of the dispute continue to this day in Ireland and England.

In 1630, The Puritans, whose beliefs included a claimed exclusive understanding of the literal truth of the Bible, came to Massachusetts for religious freedom while being intolerant of other religions, religious groups or people who were not members of the Puritan church. You had no say in how you were governed and no voice in the government at all if you were not a freeman, and there were very few of those. The "all men are created equal" was a direct address to the concepts of freemen vs. indentured and noblemen vs. commoner. One might as well as said "all men are born equal" or "all men are born free" but it doesn't quite sound as noble in concept. "That they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" implies that it is a natural state for men to be free and self-sufficient. Notice also that this did not apply to women who were still considered chattel, or to slaves. The evolution was not yet complete.

The Revolution was as much an evolution of government as a revolution in government. It was ultimately the casting off of ties to sovereign kings and fealty to lords as it was a abolition of fealty to a kingly Pope or church as state.

1039

Politics / Re: Where has the love for and the pride in America gone.

« on: November 11, 2008, 06:08:17 PM »

The theism of established governments up to the time of the founding of the United States was always instituted as support for the kings or the emperors of their age. The divine right of kings, the deity of the roman emperors, the empowerment of the papal princes, were all necessary components of the "moral" authority of such men over other men and the ability of the powerful to impose their kind of morality on their subjects. (v. the slavery of conquered peoples under Roman rule)

What was revolutionary was that Law could be codified and self-sufficient and that logic and consistent principles could be applied to arrive at a morality that didn't depend on a supreme moral authority for its validity and the People could be trusted to arrive at a concensus of morality and law that would be fair. A morality that prohibited murder while allowing slavery or human sacrifice was not a valid moral code to be followed and was not internally consistent with logic or a morality upon which to base a society. This is the point I think the founders were making and they did so without denying others the right to believe in a creator or to even deny the existence of a creator. Law is man made and morality is self-consistent law equally applied to all men.

There was also the undertone of the imposition of taxes upon the people in order to support the churches. In other words, everyone paid a tax that supported the theocracy of the churches who in turn supported the state (king) and ensured the status quo. This is what the founders intended to avoid. They didn't want the dual threat of church and state joined to impose their will on the masses as they had in Europe and England.

In that context the quotes make a little more sense and in some cases I also think there was a little bit of devil's advocacy going on as I think John Adams was very likely to argue both sides of a question with equal vigor in order to make his points. Jefferson himself could be labled hypocrite for arguing "freedom" and "liberty" for all men while owning slaves.

1040

Politics / Re: What does this mean to the economy?

« on: November 11, 2008, 02:19:41 PM »

REPORT: Postal Service Looks To Cut 40,000 Jobs; First Layoffs In History...

That's because the USPS went from being a government overhead service to a profit center. Now they run it like a real business. This means layoffs for the actual workers who perform the service and allows preservation of management jobs.

Of course, Allan Greenspan, being the only man who understands the world economy, could have predicted all these events, but he didn't, and now it's too late.

1041

Politics / Re: What does this mean to the economy?

« on: November 09, 2008, 07:46:08 AM »

So..go ahead and respond to this reaper by telling us the same old line again of how this is the Presidents fault because he didn't warn us..even though ive given more than enough examples of him trying to get the point across to congress..and then tell us how its the republicans fault when i've also shown the it was under Clinton that regulations on lending were loosened and pressure was put on banks to lend to high risk groups...

I do consider this the repbulicans fault, because they had control and it wasn't fixed, while at the time their philosphies created this situation.  They ran the country into the ground, and didn't stop greed and people being scumbags, making 500 million dollars, and flipping mortages that are no good.  All this type of business is typical in totally unregulated markets like the republicans always wanted. Like Greenspan said  (the man who knows more about the world economy than anyone) he couldn't imagine the banks would be operating like they were. I'm glad Barney Frank was saying what he was, there certainly was the capability to provide affordable housing, but that wasn't what Frannie and Freddie wanted to do, they wanted to make money in scumbag ways even though they are basically the government, and it shouldn't matter even if they weren't.

Such astonishing ignorance on display that no reply is suitable.

1042

Politics / Re: One Print Media Outlet Says there Coverage was Biased against Senator McCain, wi

« on: November 08, 2008, 04:00:31 PM »

Any after-the-fact coverage now is a complete waste of time. The game is over and it's Monday morning. Sarah's going home to Hooterville and John is going back to AZ for a well deserved rest after running against George W. Bush's record.

Now it is time for the inauguration and a nice 100 day honeymoon, and maybe a couple of terrorist attacks, and then we can get back down to ridiculing the new president and running down the policies that are bound to piss off the majority of Americans the way we are used to being pissed off. The president, no matter who he is, always becomes the object of our disaffection, it's the American Way.

1043

Politics / Re: The Official Obama Bashing Thread

« on: November 02, 2008, 04:59:41 PM »

The country as a whole is in bad condition, the top one percent of america holds a ridiculous amount of excess wealth.  The country needs fixing as a whole.  This doesn't have anything to do with someone's brother in Kenya.  As I said earlier, you can't help all of your relatives, so stop listening to Dr. Phil.

My relatives don't need my help but if they asked I would have the capability to help them in some way. Barack's relatives are illegal aliens who avoided deportation somehow and junk scavengers in Kenya.

At $150,000+ Barack is in the top four percent.
As president he will be in the top one percent.

He will be moving from here:

To here:

1044

Politics / Re: The Official Obama Bashing Thread

« on: November 02, 2008, 02:14:52 PM »

You can help every one of your relatives??  Stop listening to Dr. Phil.

Help is a matter of degree. One can "help" and it doesn't have to be a lot but it can make a difference. In the case of Kenya or Somalia it would have to be delivered by a trusted courier or some non-interceptable method or the right "grease" would have to be applied to make sure the help package arrived at the intended recipient. In Obama's case a $1000 package would have set his brother up for the rest of his life. (Of course, it would have made him a target too.)

Can Barack "help" his half-brother? Certainly. A U.S. Senator makes $165,200 base salary, plus all the nice perks and under the table contributions he dares. Barack certainly had the means to help his brother. His wife makes some nice coin too. As a dual-income American family they are wealthy and elite.

Fortunately, his salary is below the $250,000 threshold for taxing the rich to give to the poor in his tax plan. Unless Michele Obama earns some extra coin as she may decide. Of course they will be eager to pay more tax, it's the Patriotic Thing to Do.

1045

Politics / Re: The Official Obama Bashing Thread

« on: November 01, 2008, 09:27:42 PM »

The Bill of Rights is about what the Government CANNOT do, not about what the people are entitled to receive.

Entitlements like Social Security, Welfare, Food Stamps, government provided housing, marriage between persons of the same sex, are 20th Century concepts not originally conceived when the country was founded.

The right of individuals to be free from government interference is the most fundamental right and the source of all the others. The right to property, speech, freedom from unwarranted search, the right to bear arms, these are all part of individual freedom and personal protection from those who would trample on us. Taking my wealth and spending it on someone else is not a right of the government.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments state the situation clearly:

9th: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

10th: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Sheep vote for candidates who promise to give (grant) to the people what they already have.
Elitists think they are great because they think they have the power to grant what already belongs to the people.

1046

Politics / Re: The Official Obama Bashing Thread

« on: October 31, 2008, 01:33:34 PM »

The point is that no Congressman or Senator is a self-made man. They are all on the public tit for as much power and money as they can get their greedy hands on.

Obama as President will have very little to say about taxes and spending since Congress passes the budget bills and they control the tax code. The president submits a budget but it's bloated beyond his control once the house and senate jamb their pork into it. Even then once it gets into the hands of the bureaucrats none of our elected officials have anything to say about how the national budget is spent. That's what makes it so wasteful.

1047

Politics / Re: another terrorist attack

« on: October 31, 2008, 11:28:09 AM »

Simple scenario.
Iran nukes Jerusalem and Bethlehem. US nukes Tehran, Qom in Iran; Mecca, Medina in Arabia; and Peshawar, Pakistan where Osama has been hiding. WW III is over and done in 48 hours.

Religious monument cities of the two most harmful doctrines of the world are radioactive cinders. Islam, with no more centers and no more memorials to fanatical criminal masterminds like Muhammad, disintegrates. President Barak Obama is charged, tried and convicted as biggest mass murderer in history since Hitler.

Life goes on.

1048

Religion, and the Changing Moral Zeitgeist / Re: Ye Religion Thread

« on: October 31, 2008, 07:54:36 AM »

Owned? Hardly. The fallacies in his logic are legion.
None of his audience are qualified or willing to call him out on them.

What doesn't harm me or another is "good".
What harms me or another is "evil".
The existence of "good" does not prove or depend on the existence of "evil' or vice versa.
The only time good or evil exist is when man does action to man, there is no good or evil in nature or natural events.
Only man can say one thing is good and another not good and only in reference to his flexible and variable moral code at the moment.

1049

Politics / Re: Tastyspleen U.S. Election Poll

« on: October 30, 2008, 07:41:50 AM »

... and $5.3 billion more than will be spent carrying out the promises made during the campaign.

1050

Trouble Shooting / Re: Mah computer, it be dead :|

« on: October 28, 2008, 07:16:49 AM »

You don't say what model computer you have but "spam pressing" the power button would seem to indicate the power button is malfunctioning. Current power supplies (PSU) use a button that "requests" the power supply turn on power to the main board. A bad contact in the switch means no power.

Test the power button with the power plug pulled and an ohm meter across the contacts. Look for zero ohms (continuity) when the button is pressed.

Replace the PSU and power button for starters. This may require replacing the entire chassis/case if it's ancient and spares can't be obtained.

Take it to someone who is studying for a degree in how to fix computers.
Buy him beer AFTER he's fixed it, not while he's fixing it.