OrbWeaver

Or you could install ActivePerl or ActivePython and write a very short script to do it in Windows.

Yes they can, myself included (to an extent). And people will still be able to read Welsh even if it is no longer used as a day-to-day language. The point is that a language falling out of mainstream use does not mean that its cultural history will be lost. If your business produces lots of documentation and is required by law to maintain Welsh versions of eveything, there will be an ongoing cost in relation to the employment of translators or native speakers. It may not matter much for a corner shop, but for a large web-based business the expense could be considerable. They already have the right to speak it. What they seem to be asking for is the right to be understood in it, which is something completely different. I have the right to speak in Latin if I wish, however I cannot expect service providers to use the language just because I refuse to use anything else.

Just like nobody can understand Homer, Virgil and Pliny because nobody speaks Latin or Ancient Greek anymore? I'm sure that will do wonders for the Welsh economy. Has anyone investigated the cost of maintaining a duplicate Welsh version of every resource alongside the loss of simply not trading in Wales? Most people do not want to actively eradicate minority languages, but forcing people to use them simply to keep them in the mainstream is an emotional decision, not a rational one.

There is difference between learning from the past and using that past as the sole reason to continue doing something (or allowing others to do it with impunity), when there is no other reason to do so. Knowledge is power, and humans should be keen to amass as much knowledge as possible, whether it comes from analysis of past events or observations in the present, but the whole concept of "tradition" is an entirely stupid and irrational excuse for refusing to discard outdated practices.

Culture is OK when it is referring to art or music, but all too often it is used to justify inhumanity and aggression. As in, we shouldn't be against beating your spouse/mutilating your children's genitals/the death penalty/creationism because it is "part of [someone's] culture".

Actually a great many people are still running AGP motherboards. Upgrading from AGP to PCI-E basically requires a new PC, and only a hardcore gamer is going to get a new PC just to upgrade their graphics card. It is true that more or less all new PCs will come with PCI-E, but the majority of people running PCs in their homes will not have blisteringly new models.

I had my eye on the 6800 GS, which is very good for price/performance but unfortunately it's a PCI Express card and I still have AGP. Looks like I have to stick with ATI, possibly the X800 XL will be my next investment (although my current 9800 XT is still perfectly competent and faster than the stock Geforce 6600, although not the 6600 GT). Not that ATI are bad, I think their cards are probably better but they don't have quite such good drivers.

Probably in the region of $10 million, but first you need their bank details and a $5000 fee for "administrative costs".

With a graphics card like that you would do well to upgrade anyway, not just for TDM.

Are "concepts" high-poly models that will not make it directly into game? Would they be used for renderbumping, or just as inspiration?

And that's the problem. Implement silhouetting and suddenly the whole stealth advantage goes out of the window. If you want it that realistic, it would be easier just to scrap the stealth code and let any AI see you if it is looking in your direction, like vanilla D3. In real life this is more or less what would happen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4487366.stm Choice quote: "Nguyen's case has prompted intense media coverage in Australia, though a poll released on Thursday suggested people were divided over whether the death penalty was justified."

It's going nowhere because you are arguing about two different things. You are arguing that free, unrestricted access to drugs would be a bad thing, which is true. Obscurus is arguing that the prohibition on heroin as a prescription drug is inconsistent with other painkillers being permitted, which is presumably also true (although I lack the knowledge to confirm it). I don't think anybody would seriously argue that all drugs should be accessible to anybody, since the government is considered to have a duty of care towards its citizens which it would be abandoning by doing this (although there is a perfectly valid libertarian position that people should be allowed to make their own choices, in practice this does not always work).

They are "actual" mirrors in that they look and behave like mirrors (or shiny surfaces) in game, but they are rendered by taking a snapshot from the mirror's perspective and applying this as a texture, rather than calculating light reflection.

True, it might not be perfect, but at least the act of forcing politicians to provide a logical justification would improve the intelligence of laws over the current level of "Terrorist! Paedophile! Danger! Evil!" waffle that we have to endure.

If I were founding a new country now, I would make it part of the written consitution that all laws passed must be supported by a published and challengable "chain of reasoning", starting from the axioms ("Human suffering should be minimised", etc) right through to the conclusion ("Murder must be illegal"). Any glaring errors in the chain of reasoning could be challenged and if successful, the law would collapse. Politicians would therefore have to pass laws that make sense, rather than using the hysterical buzzwords and emotional manipulation they use now.

Does a mirrorRenderMap use the same RTT mechanism? The performance seems fine for mirrors but maybe it uses some other kind of hack.

Normally I despise music on web pages, but that one impressed me. Downloading the demo now. Although I'm slightly put off by this from Amazon: "Frequent interludes of rapid button pressing simulate physical exertion as your character escapes a looming threat you can see catching up with you.". That sounds like the godawful attempt at "simulating physical exertion" that certain Commodore 64 games used to use by "waggling" the joystick from side to side.

I liked the door opening method in Raven Shield, where you would use the mouse wheel to carefully ease a door open or closed.

A fragment shader is totally useless for this, as it is a function performed by the graphics card at the very final stage of rendering. There is no way of getting information back from a shader into the game, and even if there were the shaders are so limited in scope that they would not be suitable for this anyway.

One has to be wary of increasing the realism to such a point that the game no longer becomes fun to play. In reality, remaining unseen in anything greater than total darkness is exceptionally difficult, but a game that was this difficult would be more frustrating than enjoyable.

OK, I thought you were suggesting that alcohol should be made illegal. If you are referring exclusively to changing public attitudes then I agree that this would be a bloody good idea, particularly in the UK where the amount you drink is as much a status symbol as anything else.

This whole argument has been about what should and should not be illegal, hence philosophical discussions of morality are both inevitable and relevant. If you only want to discuss what is and is not illegal, you can just read the statutes or ask a lawyer.

C++ is not a good language for learning the fundamentals of programming. It is complex and full of nasty things that are important in high-performance applications but not helpful in learning how to design programs. At uni we started with ML and then moved onto Java for object-oriented stuff. Personally I think Python is an excellent language for education as it is as simple to understand as Basic but with all the power of more advanced languages like Java.

Not all parents care for their children either.