Draginol

Reply to You don't like taxes eh? Remember, life ain't fair.. in Politics JoeUser Forums

Do you think it's the government that created our civil society? You sure seem to think so... Or perhaps, just perhaps, our society created our government in our own image in the first place. I'm not willing to credit our government for creating the secure, prosperous society we have today. I credit the American people. All the government in the world wouldn't bring us security and wealth if our culture weren't fundamentally honest, peaceful, and entrepreneurial.

BUG REPORT on JoeUser.com in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Okay, so here is some of my pain on JoeUser today. 1) The custom audience creation doesn't work very well. Here's why: a) When you create a custom audiience, ther'es NO checking whatsoever as to whether you entered a valid name or not. My "JoeUser developer" group (the one I'm sending this to) can have names like "sdfadsfsd" in it. So I might think I'm adding someone when in fact I'm not. b) It should be able to work either by handle OR email in the same field. If the

Beta Woes in OS Customization JoeUser Forums

Ever have one of those days when you're extremely busy but you don't seem to get very much done? I got back from my trip and my todo list is huge. The trip seemed to go well but won't know for a few weeks still but now I'm left with tons of things to do. DesktopX We were supposed to go out with a new public DesktopX build. DesktopX is going to be great...when it gets the bugs out. I ran into so many buglets today that I had to kill today's public beta annou

Reply to CD Copy protection is not the way to stop piracy in Gaming JoeUser Forums

Josef: As I explicitly mention in the article, you do not need an internet connection to use the game. This is not "net activation". What I propose isn't a specific mechanism but rather an anti-piracy policy. A set of policies that result in less piracy.

Reply to Bad Karma and 9/11 in Politics JoeUser Forums

Al Queda has done nothing to Israel. No jetliners flying into buildings there. The evidence that the United States supporting the lone democracy in the area leading to 9/11 seems tenuous at best.

Internet Whipping Boy in PC Gaming JoeUser Forums

Well this weekend we've been taking a beating on the net over Stardock Central. And by we, I mean me as I'm the one who hangs out on the gaming forums. Stardock Central is awesome technology but has the same kind of issues that the early "multi-mission" military aircraft had. Back in the late 60s, the Air force fell in love with the idea of jet aircraft that could perform multiple roles. Interceptor, air superiority, tactical

Why use a 3D engine for strategy games? in Software Development JoeUser Forums

Why use a 3D engine for a strategy game? Especially ones that take place on a 2D plane (like land or a space board game style?) A big thing that isn't discussed much is that 3D is much more hardware accelerated than anything done in 2D. What that means is that at some point, when the lowest common denominator machines start to have Geforce 2 level cards (with T&L) then you will see more games go to 3D. For instance, our next generation strategy game

CD Copy protection is not the way to stop piracy in Gaming JoeUser Forums

I'm going on a trip tomorrow and where I go, so goes my laptop. The laptop is a pretty good game machine. Unfortunately, I can't play very many games on it when I travel. That's because most games now use rather obnoxious CD-ROM copy protection. Copy protection on PC games is, in my opinion, not just ineffective, but stupid. I say that as a software developer and publisher of 10 years. And as time has gone one, I've become increasingly convinced that any copy protection that inc

I hate to travel in Blogging JoeUser Forums

So tomorrow I'm heading out on a 2 day trip. Blech. I don't know why but I just hate to travel. Well actually, I do know why. I don't like the actual "Travel" portion. If I could just beam to wherever I was going that would be great. Gotta pack up and get ready to go. Over the past several years I've gotten packing down to a science: 2 days: light clothes. No suits. I won't wear a suit when I travel. If a suit is going to make or break a deal, then I don't want to do b

Reply to D-Day through the prism of 2003 in Politics JoeUser Forums

If America were "revenge focused" the middle east would be a glass parking lot.

New SkinStudio fun: Icons in OS Customization JoeUser Forums

Lot of cool stuff going on with SkinStudio. The newest internal builds allow you to create your own icons. Now, I haven't created a serious icon since the OS/2 days. Awhile back I started looking into icon editors and it turns out these icon editors are incredibly expensive. Why? Well because they include a whole load of image editing features. But why? Why try to compete with Photoshop and Corel Draw? If I'm going to create a modern icon, I'm not going to use some ico

Fun with DesktopX plugins in OS Customization JoeUser Forums

Welcome to the skinning blog group! If you already have a blog on JoeUser and are interested in sharing your thoughts and ideas on the world of skinning, click here to join this blog group. If you don't already have a blog, get one, it's free and fun! Just create an account if you haven't already done so and then in the account tab at the top you can do it there. So today I decided to try out

Reply to JoeUser Updates for the week of Sept 19th in Software Development JoeUser Forums

How do you create a blog group? I clicked on accoutn and there's nothing there to create or manage a blog group.

D-Day through the prism of 2003 in Politics JoeUser Forums

To me, removing Saddam from the board seems like a pretty clear cut "smart" thing for the US to do for so many different reasons. But if you try hard enough, you can make any foreign policy decision look foolish. Why, in June 1944 did the why did the US invade northwest Europe? Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in Europe. Why? The USSR would have defeated Germany on its own. That was pretty obvious by June 1944 so we don't have t

Reply to So what should the US be do about Iraq? Listen to France? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Eric, Totally agree. It's amazing how quickly historical revisionism comes in.l Since when did France or Russia believe that Iraq didn't have WMD? Their view was simply that there was no clear and present danger from them and that sanctions would eventually get Iraq to comply with UN resolutions. Of course, France and Russia didn't have to spend billions per year enforcing the no-fly zone. France and Russia didn't have their pilots being routinely shot at. This whole

Reply to Why does the French Political class despise America? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Huh? Since when did France or USSR believe that Saddam didn't have WMD?

Reply to Michael Moore takes a pounding on the net in Politics JoeUser Forums

Falaffel, You keep weaseling out of answering the questions or when challenged you raise the bar. When I point out that the US was the #1 humanitarian aid provider to Afghanistan, you raise the bar saying how we didn't giv eneough on a per capita point of view. Who the hell cares? Talk about irrelevant. The bottom line is that we still give the most food to Afhganistan before and after 9/11. Are you suggesting that terrorists attacked us on 9/11 because our aid on a pe

Reply to So what should the US be do about Iraq? Listen to France? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Heh. ;)

So what should the US be do about Iraq? Listen to France? in Politics JoeUser Forums

In an article asking whether Europe liking the US should be a campaign issue or not , I pointed out some of the questionable international actions of France in the past century. Admittedly, the article had its share of French bashing. My point wasn't just to bash France though. It was to point out the absurdity of listening to France's advice on foreign policy. I got a lot of email on this as well as comments on i

Reply to Bad Karma and 9/11 in Politics JoeUser Forums

Mr Frog, The problem is that you have people who say we need to change our foreign policy and that 9/11 is the result of foreign policy. If one assumes that these people are just ranting mindlessly then the quesiton they need to answer is: What exactly did we do to provoke 9/11? From my vantage point it just seems pretty straight forward that Al Queda and its ilk are really just another form of monstrous fascism of the kind that brought us death camps. Or pu

Reply to Bad Karma and 9/11 in Politics JoeUser Forums

One thing that is kind of interesting is that the Karma people like Falaffel can't seem to put up a specific example of horrible US behavior that could remotely justify 9/11. What American action in the middle east could possibly justify 9/11? Or if that's too much of a challenge, how about an American action that could incite a reasonable person to want to commit those acts. As I said earlier, be thankful that Americans aren't a bunch of blood thirsty fanatics like the Islamo

Reply to Bad Karma and 9/11 in Politics JoeUser Forums

The US certainly has turned the other cheek. Let us remember that the United States has the capability of turning the middle east into a glass parking lot. Obviously, it would be monstrous to even consider such an action. But then again, if the terrorists had that capability I think we know what they would do. That is why I find moral equivalence arguments so bothersome. Because if the American culture was as warp and sick as the Islamo fascist culture, there wouldn't have bee

Reply to Ray's Take on Galciv - Part 1 in PC Gaming JoeUser Forums

Great stuff!

Reply to Bad Karma and 9/11 in Politics JoeUser Forums

Brian, Thanks for the good response. However, there is nothing in it that really shows what we coudl have done to "provoke" it. At least in the sense that there is something we could constructively do about it. My view is that they "hate us" simply because we exist. Our existence demonstrates their own failings. That western civilization, examplified by the United States enjoys a cultural, material, and technological success that the Islamic world cannot even begin to match.

Reply to Automated news. in Personal Computing JoeUser Forums

I agree. That is pretty darn neat. Google is one of the smartest companies on the net. They truly "get it".