Forum posts

Man, mop, your desktop gives me a choking sensation. I feel like I am walking into a wall of spider web.

I figure if I set low standard for everyone else, I'll never be disappointed. Of course, there are always some who surprise me every now and then. They're even dumber than my already low expectation.

I set high standard for myself, and I always try to improve.

Well, if those lazy old men made HL2, they're still pretty cool old men by my standard.

I've been spending my days playing "Far Cry" lately, and it's a lovely game.

Don't give me wrong, HL2 is still the best game ever, but I just wish that HL2 combines can have the AI of Far Cry mercs. Those mercs in Far Cry are scarily smart sometimes, and it really makes the gameplay more challenging and fun.

But the ambience of Far Cry still looks somewhat cartoonish compared to HL2. No other game has the cinematic feel of HL2, especially the outside environment (i.e. the Water Hazard section).

Wouldn't it be nice for a FPS game to have the best of both worlds? Perhaps Valve should take a hint and spend more research in improving their AI?

Give us a list of your hardwares and make. It sounds like a hardware issue.

Having recently delt with a hardware snafu myself, I might be able to offer some tips.

VLC player worked beautifully. I love it, and I highly recommend it.

Thanks, dajuppi.

What about this guy for a true hero? He's better than Gordon Freeman!

---

The Los Angeles Times
April 5, 2005

The Highest Honor for a Fallen Soldier: He had written that he would 'give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home.'

By Elise Castelli, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON ? Two years to the day after Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith was killed defending his unit from an enemy attack near the Baghdad airport, President Bush on Monday presented his family the first Medal of Honor awarded in more than a decade.

In a tear-filled White House ceremony, Bush handed Smith's 11-year-old son, David, the nation's highest award for valor in combat.

"Scripture tells us ? that a man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. And that is exactly the responsibility Paul Smith believed the sergeant's stripes on his sleeve had given him," Bush told an audience that included Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "In a letter he wrote to his parents but never mailed, he said that he was prepared to 'give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home.' "

On April 4, 2003 ? barely two weeks after the Iraq war began and five days before Baghdad fell ? the 3rd Infantry Division captured the capital's airport. Smith, 33, who had served in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, in Bosnia and in Kosovo, was assigned to turn a courtyard near the airport into a temporary holding pen for Iraqi prisoners.

But as his unit of the 11th Engineer Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Division advanced, it was attacked by more than 100 members of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard.

Outnumbered and out in the open, Smith climbed aboard an armored personnel carrier and began shooting a .50-caliber machine gun, firing more than 300 rounds of ammunition. He held off the attack, killing nearly 50 Republican Guard soldiers before being mortally wounded by Iraqi fire.

"Sgt. Smith's leadership saved the men in the courtyard, and he prevented an enemy attack on the aid station just up the road," Bush said. "We thank his family for the father, the husband, and son and brother who can never be replaced."

In his remarks, the president recalled a young man who, after graduating from high school in Tampa, Fla., joined the Army in 1989 and received "extra duty ? scrubbing floors" for high jinks with friends. But that soldier became a "devoted family man who played T-ball with his son and taught his daughter how to change the oil in his Jeep Cherokee."

Smith's wife, Birgit, whom he met in 1990 while stationed in Germany, clutched the left hand of her 18-year-old daughter, Jessica, and wept as the president handed the framed medal, with its signature blue ribbon with 13 stars, to her son.

"Every one of our soldiers deserves the title of a hero," Birgit Smith, who lives in Holiday, Fla., said after the ceremony. "To truly honor Paul, we must honor all the soldiers and the work and sacrifice they do on a daily basis in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world."

The last combat action for which Medals of Honor were awarded was in Somalia. Two were given to Army sergeants killed in the October 1993 "Black Hawk Down" incident in Mogadishu.

Recommendations for the Medal of Honor take at least 18 months to investigate. Including the award to Smith, 3,460 Medals of Honor have been presented since the award was established in 1861.

Thanks. I'm downloading VLC as I type.

Reset the game configuration file from Steam. It's worth a shot.

Athony, you're right again.

When I load up a DVD, WMP complained "no codec available on this computer" and refused to play the DVD.

Anyways, I'll keep looking. I don't really watch DVD on my computer on a regular basis anyways. I just thought that I should test out all the function of my new computer.

At least it plays music CD's.

Losing a long post has happened to everyone before, that's why I compose my reply in notepad and copy and paste the text into the box whenever I write something long.

After losing it all, you sort of lose interest in writing your thoughts over again. It's highly painful.

I just realized that I don't have a DVD player on my new computer. Can anyone recommend any quality freeware DVD player for me? I don't want to use the one that comes with the hardware, because it's usually old and crappy.

Thanks in advance.

I am not religious either, but I admire the pope for what he did in his life.

He achieved more than anyone of us would ever accomplish in our life time.

Greed is pretty powerful

Fortunately (and hopefully), so is our conscience.

I would never harm another individual for financial gains. And I believe most would agree with me.

Yeah, but there wouldn't be any reason for religious terrorists to kill innocent people that they don't even know (i.e. September 11th).

There would be a lot less reason to kill each other, put it that way. People usually don't kill for money/resources.

Very seldom. Perhaps every ten minutes or so. And it's very brief--lasting only 50 milisecond or so. It's hardly noticeable.

Religion works via the followers having faith, and by definition no one is suppose to question anything.

That's why I think religion could actually hamper technological progress at times. Scientific advancement would never have happened if no one questioned the world around them.

The Iraqi War and the Middle East struggle would not happen if there were no religion. There wouldn't be any Muslim fighting against the Christians. There still might be conflict, but more on a personal level instead of this global mess.

The game plays very well, with rare intermittent jerks. But I think that's just part of the Source engine.

I just found it hard to believe that the Steam update only took five minutes. It helped that I updated when it was 22:00 PDT, when the rest of the world was sleeping, and the Steam server was having the lightest load.

I graduated from high school in 1991.

Satchmo, are you seriously 33?

Well, I've been a pediatrician for three years already, and that's after finishing twelve years of schooling post-high school.

I can't really be that young anymore. But it's nice, because I can talk to my teenage patients about Half-Life 2 and Halo 2 during check-ups. Most of them don't believe that I am a mapper.

God did not create the world, human beings invented God from simple necessity.

In ancient times before science and technology, the world seems like a scary and unpredictable place. People felt out of control and there was a need to create a supreme omnipotent being to comfort ourselves. Otherwise, all the misery and chaos would just be too much to handle.

But now we understand a great deal more about the world around us. The need for God has arguably diminished. And I don't believe the humanity need religion to behave morally. I am a complete atheist, and yet I try to do the right thing and help people whenever I can because I want to do the right thing.

I don't need to be coerced out of fear by divine retribution to behave myself. And I know most people in the modern world would do the same.

In fact, I believe the world would be a much better and peaceful place currently if there were no religion.

But of course, that's a purely hypothetical thinking. The human brain has a natural inclination to invent a God when there isn't one.

npc_combine_s? npc_metro_police? npc_zombie? npc_manhack? npc_strider? I dont' have Hammer open, but it should be pretty obvious.

Thanks, Anthony. It does say 100% from Properties.

I just can't believe it that it only took 5 minutes.

Oh, how I love broadband.

Now, grab a chair and sit your ass down first.

I am 33.

I recently installed HL2 on my new computer, but I am fairly convinced that Steam did not upload all the patches released since the original version from the CD was installed.

I noticed that after I installed HL2 and ran it for the first time, it only took 5 minutes for Steam to update the files. I know that it should take longer to update all the patches, even with a DSL line.

I am betting that Steam just used the information from my account and only updated the last patch (from March 25th). Consequently, I am missing all the patches from November to most of March.

So how can I get those patches updated manually? I searched the Steam forum, but I didn't find any answer related to this issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

He was fortunate enough to die peacefully, unlike Terri Schiavo. No one intervened and stuffed tubes down his body to keep him alive unnecessarily.

I admire his tireless work to make the world a better place, even though I dont' always agree with his conservative religious doctrines. He's an incredible individual whose life inspired all and affected millions.

Even though I am not religious, I have great respect for Pope John Paul II. And I am deeply saddened by his passing. It's a great loss for humanity.

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that it's the little things in life that makes life so wonderful. I know it's just a website about computer entertainment, but without these little joy, life would be pretty dull and uninteresting.

For some people, it's cooking a gourmet meal for the ones you love. But for me, it's creating a fun map for fellow gamers to enjoy. TWHL makes it all possible.

One of the best online forum discussion occurred right here at TWHL. If anyone is interested, here is the link.

I was a mapper born and raised at TWHL. I learned the basics (and some advanced techniques) of mapping entirely from TWHL. Nothing can replace those wonderful memories of having my first map being downloaded by someone else across the continents and played for the first time.

And when I received the first positive feedback from the members (ministeve and Zombieloff in particular), I was so elated that I couldn't sleep for two nights. I kept on checking back at my map for new comments.

Call me geeky, but that's where my passion lies. A life without such passion isn't really worth living. And TWHL certainly provided that old flame when mapping begun for me.

TWHL is a special place, and it will always be. I spend time at the SnarkPit because I wanted to expand my horizon, but I'll never forget about TWHL.

You see it in the intro while its going over the part where it shows the inside of the citadel.

I believe that's the correct answer. When GMan was talking to Gordon in a dream-like state, the background flashes to views inside the citadel. You can see strider very briefly.

The more obvious (but I believe incorrect) answer is from the ally behind the trainstation, where a few citizens are being messed up by the Metro Police (with stun sticks).

I can't IRC. I talk on the forum at work most of the times, and I can't install IRC on the work computer.

So without a forum, I am pretty much mute.

Yeah, SnarkPit members tend to be more mature, perhaps it's because immaturity is not tolerated in the forum. Any childish behavior immediately triggers a ban from the site for a period of time.

I like that.

Man, that was the most description thread title I've ever seen.

Just want to throw out a trivia to those who have played HL2 already.

When was the first appearance of strider?

I bet a lot of people would get it wrong.

PC's don't fight. Players do. Without the right combination of deathmatch skills/strategy, a powerful machine is useless against a smart attack.

Yeah, SnarkPit has been consistently down for most of the last two months. No one can upload maps, and no one can comment on the ones that are already uploaded.

It's a pity.

Gmail is increasing the storage capacity to 2 GB though. I know it's April Fool's, but this is true.

Hey J3r3my, is your avatar from "Steamboy"? Looks great.

And I woke up at 3 am this morning and played Half-Life 2 until my eyes are blood-shot. HL2 played as smoothly as HL1 on my old machine, with framerates around 80-150 fps.

How can life be so sweet?

Allright, Gwil. It's April already, and instead of getting the bandwidth message, "www.snarkpit.com could not be found" now.

Perhaps it's a good sign that the error message is changing? Does it mean that Lep has dumped Oktagone already?

No more rebooting. I just needed to downgrade the FSB speed from 200 MHz to 166 MHz to accommodate the Kingston PC3200 memory.

Far Cry demo loop has been running all day so far without a problem.

Still tweaking the timing for those PC3200. Probably have to relax the timing to 2-3-3-8. Also, I am considering tweaking the voltage to a bit higher. Any ideas?

The computer reboots a lot less frequently, but it still happens every now and then.

What's really lacking in HL2 modeling are small bushes and things like palm trees.

But I imagine that's diffiicult to model. I love the HL2 tree models, though. They did a really good job at those.

If its random then theres nothing you can change. Everything crashes on me every so often.

I'll no longer be an atheist when computers run smoothly without crashing intermittently. It's just like a part of life for me, like catching the flu or getting food poisoning every now and then.

satch: have you formatted, tried a NIX live-CD, or have you already determined it to be a hardware problem?

I brought my computer to my friend's house over the weekend, and he solved the problem (rebooting during Far Cry) by turning off dual-channel mode for the PC3200.

I can't explain it, but I don't care. As long as HL2 runs, I am happy.

I bought some Play-Doh from a toy store and sculpted this devil head. I also made several other body parts, but they're not suitable for a rated "G" avatar.

I also made a foot, but I thought the devil head looks better than a blue foot.

Under the devil's head, there is an advertisement for Target. You can spot part of a lady's face on the poster.

I am willing to give my life for the SnarkPit. In fact, Lep already owns my first-born son.

Having a life is so over-rated.

Can anyone else besides Gordon see GMan? Did Barney know that Gordon was going to be on the train when GMan "placed" him there?

Okay...a week and counting. I have been patient, but patience can only get you so far.

Man cannot live on bread alone. We must map to feel alive.