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Guys ... this shit is crazy man. I know .. mapping could be a bit "nerdy". But this is just topnotch. How could you enjoy this kind of videos and even talk so serious about it.

You think that's something? According to another forum thread I read about this guy, his next project will be duplicating Spiderman's web shooters using the same chemical/mechanical technology used in the Spiderman comic book. Of what I heard, this guy is wealthy, got money to burn and plenty of time in his hands, so anything is possible with him. With that said, I can't wait to see him try to do his own Iron Man armor! GO MARVEL!

That guy is mental, just like people who believe in god

Uhmm.....raver, that was not a good thing to say. You just offended a lot of people with that bigotry comment.

You should be working for NASA instead, Rimrook. I bet you have Stephen Hawking's number on speed dial on your cell phone.

With all goofing aside, you do make a good point, even if it might be in general concept/theory kind of thing. When it comes to quantum mechanics, gravity, space-time, general relativity and the universe at large, all bets are off, we are just too intellectually backwards as a species to fully comprehend the true meaning of what is really the universe.

Anyone else notice that in the process of showing off his blades, he punched huge holes in his carpeting???

What a dumbass.

When he first did it, he slightly hesitated, like he said "oh shit..." in his head.

I will be the first one to admit that I saw the new "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" twice already, I think it was good, not great in story line like the Dark Knight was, but it was still O.K.

Apparently there is this guy that really went out of his way to recreate Wolverine's famous claws like no other before him! Man, this is what I call a true Wolverine fan!

See the video of these real life Wolverine claws in action: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/05/homemade-wolver.php

It's already a proven fact that space can be bent, black holes do it all the time, even light gets bent by them. If this bend in space can happen, then why not a "localized space separation"? And according to the Space.com story, parts of space traveled faster than the rest of space in the rapid expansion following the big bang, or so it goes the theory.

So my guess is, any future warp drive would need to duplicate this form of propulsion that apparently happened eons ago. Of course, this type of science falls under the field of "Quantum Mechanics", which is by the way is an accepted and legit field of study in the scientific community. So it's like TheGrimReafer said......"Its not impossible until we scout the possibility out a bit more".

Uhmm,....okay.

Sorry, I was about to click the link but then I noticed foxnews.com.

FoxNews is only re-posting this Space.com report just like some of the other news outlets like CNN or MSNBC do all the time. Strider, I did not figure you to be one to just jump blindly on the anti-FoxNews hysteria band wagon, without looking at the original source of the story. Now, don't take this the wrong way, I just don't believe a book should be judged by just simply it's cover, but I guess everybody is entitled to their opinions, anyway. But if it makes you feel better, here's a direct link to the original source of the (non-Fox) Space.com story: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/090506-tw-warp-drive.html

Here's a little interesting story I found that should fit right in with all the sci-fi fans here in TWHL: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519130,00.html

And also don't forget most people do not have a High Def TV either, they tend to cost thousands of dollars, unless you get a small one, but you still will end up paying close to a grand.

Now, this might be a dumb question, so forgive me if it is, since I don't know too much about some of the newer emulators out there, but is there a Dreamcast one?

Oh, I agree with you, that's why I said that I "laugh a bit" when I read this. Unlike the PS2 that is still being made by Sony to this day, the Dreamcast has stopped being made by Sega years ago. I know you can still get PS2's for $50 or less if they are used on eBay, but what I understand is Sony's official listed price for a brand new PS2 is indeed $99. Now, maybe this changed recently, I don't know, so if anybody here has any updated info on this, please share.

Here I am going in to Yahoo.com so I can read my emails, and all of a sudden I read this headline: "Unlikely console revival - This gaming console, defeated eight years ago by the PlayStation 2, has a new life." Intrigued as I am, I click on the link that takes me to Yahoo! Game's Playback webpage with their news video feed: http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/playback/playback-42/1310463

Well, after seeing that short video report, I can't help myself but to laugh a bit. But after thinking it over more, I guess it kind of make sense what they say on the video, with the economy being as it is and all. The crazy thing about this with me, is that I actually still have this console connected to my second 13 inch backup TV along with the Genesis and N64.

I'll tell you why #twhl3 is all Aussies: It's because you all banded together against everyone else. Pretty much, Strideh, Penguinboy and Ant along with their assman Trapt got pissed off at me so bad that they ragequit their own channel just to form a channel that I could not go in then got pissed at all the people who wanted to be in my channel, thus alienating them.

Then.....

Please let me back in #twhl3 I will be good.

Uhmm.....I think you might need to hire the services of a public relation firm, nickelplate. Anyway, let me know how that goes for you.

Hey, there's a report circulating through the news wires saying that one of President Barack Obama's official aids has cached the Swine Flu and now is being blocked to enter the Whit House by the secrete service.

My question is: President Obama just came back from a trip to Mexico a few days ago, who's not to say he himself is not already infected?

I had a whole bunch of various 3d models I did a few years ago in .3ds, .obj, and x3d, but were all lost when my previous old PC's hard drive decided to take a crap. Anyway, a few months ago I did a format conversion of Captain Terror's "StarCraft" game map to VRML with his permission. But now, I have it running live as a navigatable online world. This new version of the StarCraft map as a virtual world can be viewed without no need of additional browser plugins, because it now is rendered through a full screen Java applet! It does not matter which web browser you have, as long as your PC has Java enabled.
Before you click on the bottom link to enter in 3D, please read the following:
Once you load up the 3D Java applet, you will be prompted with a user login popup box. If you don't want to enter in chat mode with an avatar in front of you, then just close the popup box by clicking on the "X". If you want to try out the chat mode with the avatar, then for now click on "I'm a male guest". Then for the avatar's name, just put your own. Skip the password box, don't put anything there. Now go ahead and click on "Log in".

Use the keyboard arrows to walk around, and to look around, press and hold the right mouse button while dragging the mouse.

Well, if you are ready, check out Captain Terror's StarCraft in Java web-3D: http://www.3dxplorer.com/view.php?k=MTExMQ==
NOTE: The scene will take about 1 to 2 minutes load up, so give it some time.

Well, there's the first confirmed swine flu death outside of Mexico. It's in the United States, state of Texas, which of course borders Mexico, so it's not surprising. According to news reports, it was a toddler who died in Texas.

EDIT: The World Health Organization said the outbreak is moving closer to becoming a full-scale pandemic. Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the organization's top flu expert, told reporters in Geneva that the latest developments are moving the agency closer to raising its pandemic alert to phase 5, indicating widespread human-to-human transmission. That's just one step below level 6, a full-fledged pandemic.

I just got a popup security alert from my Avast anti-virus program. It is telling me of a new hacking threat called "iframe", which apparently is a malicious script called "HTML:Iframe-inf". Anyway, the crazy thing about this, is that your PC can get infected just by visiting trusted, legitimate commercial sites.

Here's the official Avast report detailing on exactly how this malware operates: http://www.avast.com/eng/avast-and-forum-users-combine-to-defeat-website-hackers.html

@raver:
Uhmm.....you just might have put yourself on the admin's radar as a "blip", be careful on what exactly you post on the forum. I don't think you crossed the line yet, but I think you at least stepped on it a bit. Use the PM the next time for stuff like this.

Here's the latest from the Associated Press wire:

At least seven people were in U.S. hospitals with swine flu Tuesday as the number of cases nationwide rose to 64 and a federal health official warned that deaths were likely.

Most of the nation's confirmed cases were in New York, where the city health commissioner said "many hundreds" of schoolchildren were ill at a school where several students had confirmed cases of swine flu.

Richard Besser, acting director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that although ordinary human flu accounts for 36,000 deaths every year, he was concerned by this strain.

"I fully expect we will see deaths from this infection," Besser said at an Atlanta news conference.

Not looking good, is it?

Sensationalism. There's nothing to be even remotely worried about, and if you're even remotely concerned I really feel pity for you.

Let me ask you a little question m0p: Did you even bother watching at least a bit of TV news, or at least read a recent news article on any news related website? I am sorry to say this, but you are WAY off on your assessment on this.

Here's a recent quote posted by a major news site:

Mexico, where the number of deaths believed caused by swine flu rose by 50 percent on Monday to 152, is suspected to be ground zero of the outbreak. But Mexican Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordova late Monday said no one knows where the outbreak began, and implied it may have started in the U.S.

Now, does that sound like "nothing to be even remotely worried about", since especially now this same flu is making it's round around the world?

Here, I will do you a favor and give you a link to a news site that gets updated to the minute on the latest news on this flu outbreak: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518196,00.html
Hopefully this report will enlighten you more clearly to the real state of things.

I am working the urgent care tonight, and we were mobbed by patients.

WHAT!!!......You still here??

Aren't you supposed to be in Mexico now as part of a W.H.O. biohazard containment medical team?

Ha!....just kidding there, satchmo. I am sure the last place you want to be in right know, is in Mexico. Just when you thought their drug cartels bloody turf wars were bad enough, now the Mexicans have to deal with their country being ground cero for the next world pandemic! Oh, on top of all that, I just heard that they got hit with a strong earthquake this morning!

But of course, this swine flu has gone global now, so it's really everybody's problem now. Let's just all hope for the best....

I guess I'm lucky I don't consume that much pork.

What I hear, is that you can not get this flu by eating well cooked pork.

First page looks "possible" at a quick glance. Might be an interesting read for later...

You should do it then, it gets more "graphical" the more you read in to it.

Hahah, awesome article.

Well, I take it then you approve of it by the way your funny bone got tickled.

Mmmm, you know what......I wonder if the XNA developer platform is connected with this somehow. Knowing how the big M$ likes to be very sneaky with their principal apps, it would not surprise me a bit.

Just when I thought I heard everything on 3D graphics.......

Here I was looking around a gaming site I have not visited in a long while called Gamasutra, and I found this little interesting story involving Microsoft's Excel program. Apparently, Excel can be used as a 3D game engine! I don't really know if this is true or not, and I read and tried to understand what this Gamasutra report describes, but I could not really get all of it, I just don't know that much about Microsoft Excel and how it works.

So, if any of you can read the story and understand it's technical jargon, please let me know if the claims of the author sound legit to you.

STORY: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3563/microsoft_excel_revolutionary_3d_.php

Note: There are 5 short pages to this story, so remember to click the tiny, green "Next" button to continue reading.

I think eventually in a few years from now, PC game companies will stop publishing their games on disks, and even stop posting downloadable executables, and completely switch over to a "pay to play" streaming service through a web browser. And without no published disks to rip n' burn or downloaded games to "crack", the world's software pirates will be in a bind. After all, can a streamed game through a browser be downloaded or copied? That's something to think about......

Okay.

Thank god that we all have the right to our own opinions. I mean, that's what public forums are for.....right?

Now, has anybody actually tested out Google's O3D? Any word on what you think on it's graphics capabilities? The reason I did test it out, it just was out of pure curiosity, that's all. Now, for my PC that I am using, O3D was resource intensive, it was like running a powerful game on a not so powerful system.

3D in browsers is rubbish anyway.

Perhaps so, Penguinboy.....perhaps so.

But when you have two internet power houses like Google and Mozzilla dishing out untold resources and getting ready for a battle of standards, it will be for the world next to impossible to ignore this. Remember, is companies like these that more often than not, who dictate the way we use and conduct business online. And then there's Id Software as a good example with their Quake Live website, which is.......You guessed it, death matches (and a few other modes) through a web browser.

I know a lot of these attempts at 3D in browsers might not seem up to the quality level of stand alone PC games or consoles at first, but in time they will and who knows.......might even surpass them too. You just got to give it time just like everything else.

Actually potatis_invalid, since you put it that way, I would have to agree with you on that one. But the problem with that idea is, all the different companies behind all those web browsers out there have an agenda of their own, they have their own vision on what "this and that" should be. I doubt very much they would all get together for a common cause, and it's all because of two big things: MONEY and POWER over the web.

So to get around this, a third non-profit party is needed to "administer" the standards, and this is where the various official consortiums come in to play. But once again, I do agree with your idea of "by the big web browsers without plugins".

Google has released a plugin for all the major browsers and operative systems, that seems to be a rival for what Mozilla is doing with their "Khronos" ( www.khronos.org ).

Recently, Google made public a series of informations about a new project called "O3D". In the words of their developers, it is:

"...a new shader-based API for 3D graphics in the browser"

So this is something similar to Khronos, and seems there is some will or space to combine it with Mozilla's Canvas 3D. The O3D API will allow web developers to create 3D applications that want to reach the quality of game consoles. O3D is now available as a plugin for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, and for Windows, Mac and Linux: http://code.google.com/apis/o3d/

My personal comments: I already went ahead and installed the Google O3D browser plugin on my PC and gave this a try. What I saw was very interesting, a 3D virtual world with high res textures, hardware accelerated graphics and streamed in real time through the web browser. The scene that I tested was the one called "Beach scene". Now, I heard some people say that the graphics of O3D are on par with the PS3, but that's something to debate.

Now, there is also another thing about Google trying to push this new web-3d standard initiative that's in conflict with an already established web-3d technology standards put forward by the official web3d consortium ( http://www.web3d.org/ ), which happens to be a branch of the main World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The already established Consortium standards for web-3d is the format X3D, along with it's older version VRML.

I am only quoting what the news wire said. Maybe what they meant was: Excellence in Filmmaking........"in the special effects department".

Did I see Prowl (the cat-like thing) and one of those combo bots (2-5 that make one big) in there?

Yes, Devestator is in the movie.

Earlier this month, director Michael Bay received the Vanguard Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the 30th Annual ShoWest, and after accepting the award, Bay gave the exhibitors in attendance a special treat by sharing the first never-before-seen footage from his upcoming sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Now, you can see that footage for yourself as Mr. Bay has graciously posted it to his own official site MichaelBay.com for everyone else to enjoy. It starts with a 90-second clip of Sam telling Bumblebee that he's going off to college and then a quickly-cut montage showing many of the robots we'll be seeing in the sequel. Video: http://vimeo.com/4208071

Why thanks for your kind words there, Habboi. Oh by the way, is that a picture of you on your avatar in Super Saiyan mode?

On that note, you really should learn CSS. Assuming you're fluent with CSS, a website can be made extremely quickly. Time shouldn't be a particular issue. The code is also easier to read and maintain as well. It would also look a lot nicer, as CSS provides a fuckload of options when it comes to formatting anything.

You won't get an argument from me on that. I will see to it using CSS on my next site.

To potatis_invalid: You keep saying "doesn't work without JavaScript". You make it sound like if it's a problem, which makes me ask the question....Do you have JavaScript enabled on your browser? As far as I know, having JavaScript enabled on the browser is a default setting. Did you turned off yours? I know some people do that for security reasons.

Now, as for the looks of things: When you go out to make a commercial site for a paying customer that gives you strict instructions on how he wants to see his site look like, what graphics he wants on it, what color he wants and so on, there is not much you can do about it as a paid developer, except to do what you are told and paid to do. Let me ask you a question: Have you ever heard of the term "The customer is always right?" Well guess what, the customer is always right, even if he's dead wrong!

So yea, some of the things you bring up that you don't like, I brought them up too with my client, but just like I already mentioned: He's way or the highway! Trust me when I say this, I don't like it as much as you do when it comes to sloppy work (at least done on purpose or without a choice).

I'm sorry, but there are many improvements needed.

Now that I do agree with you. I never did say it was perfect. Remember, I am still learning the craft while I make a living out of it.

At first, I thought about the site's web standards being up to date when I went out to do this website, but the truth is, I was under a very tight deadline to get this job done right away without delay, or else forfeit part of the pay if I took too long to do it. So using FrontPage, I whipped up most of the site as fast as I could with the WYSIWYG tools.

I know TWHL's forum is mostly for mappers by mappers talking about, well......maps. Nothing wrong with that, I like maps so much I can't get enough of them! Now, with that said I also know for a fact that their are among us here a few good and so-so webmasters, people with a fairly good or better grasp of doing websites as a hobby or even as a living like I find myself doing of late. Some of you might already had the fortune (or misfortune - depends on the way you see it, I guess) of coming across one of my earlier and strangest sites I have made from scratch: www.VirtualHL.info

My Virtual HL site is definitely a hobby on the side, nothing serious. Looking back now on it, the way it looks and all, I am not all too happy with it on the source code side of things. But at least I still get a few hits a day, so it's not a total loss for my goofing-off hobby site. Now, I mentioned that I am doing a little of e-commerce on the side too, and just recently got done doing a paid job for a client friend of mines that owns a pizza restaurant. This website that I did for the pizzeria is not just to showcase the restaurant and it's food menu, oh no.....it's more than that! The site's navigation menu is actually a full fledge ordering form connected to a remotely hosted shopping cart which in turn is connected to the PayPal gateway. So the whole idea here is that when a potential local customer visits the site from their place of work or home's computer, and let's say they are in the mood for some pizza, all they have to do is start selecting the pizza size they want, then they can add all the toppings they want from a list of 56 flavors, and once they are done selecting what they want, it's just a matter of filling out the shopping cart form with the credit card details, and submit the order.

Like all of you know, when the contents of a shopping cart are submitted online, a copy is sent as an email message back to the vendor's email box. But for the website I did for my client's pizza shop, I added another thing to this whole deal. You see, whenever an order is made on the pizza site, the submitted order form message gets re-routed through a fax server, which then converts it to a analog fax signal, which then is automatically sent to a fax machine located in the pizza restaurant. This way, the owner of the pizzeria does not have to be in front of a PC all the time checking to see if any orders came in, because the fax machine will take care of that and will let know the pizzeria manager of any incoming order with a special ringing sound. Between the order submition and it getting to the fax machine, it takes about 45 seconds to a minute or so.

So, to wrap this up.....I would humbly like to especially ask the fellow webmasters in the house to check out my first paid web development job and if possible, give some constructive critique. You know what, the heck with it.......everybody is welcome to check it out. Now, before you do, there is one little thing about the website: Due to the fact that my client's pizza restaurant is located in Spanish speaking Puerto Rico, just like I am too, the website is also in Spanish. But it should really be no big deal for most to get an idea of the contents on the site, since a good part of Spanish is similar to English anyway. In fact, many of the same words with the same meaning in both languages are spelled the same! Well, here's the URL to the website: www.WaldyPizza.com

Well, according to the little bit of what I read so far, it smacks to me of some kind of weird Hollywood viral campaign for some upcoming movie, but I might be wrong. It could also be for some game or both. Apparently it has to do with this strange site: http://babel-research.eu/

I don't get the whole heaven and hell thing either. Bad people go to Hell, and God made everything how he wanted it. That means that he made them bad, with the express purpose of sending them to Hell.
What a douchebag.

Remind me not to be standing anywhere near you during a lightning storm.

Since we are in the subject of snipers, I feel the need to share this info I came across just now dealing with this topic. The U.S. military has been developing for years now a series of non-lethal weapons in all shape and sizes. To make this post short and to the point, there is a particular weapon story making the rounds right now online due to the current situation with the pirate problem. Anyway, the weapon in question is known as the "Dazzle Rifle", but officially is called the "PHaSR". Here is the only known and released photo of this weapon:Now, doesn't this look like something out of the Halo game? Read the official story here strait from the source: http://www.army.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/73

Every good night begins with a few shots of 151. It really wakes you up!

Damn Tetsu0, if you actually do that, then you must have a set of lungs and throat made of steel!

Funny thing is, as soon as its legal, alcohol seems pretty boring after a while.

Maybe what you need is something a bit more exiting to get you back in the groove of drinking. So, upgrade from beer to the good stuff, go for the best, try some Puerto Rican Rum:Note: If you do try some Bacardi 151, make sure you mix it with something else, unless of course you think you are a real hardcore man-drinker, then by all means drink it straight, that's if you have the balls.

Mmmm.....20 years old you say, well this brings you within just one short year of the magic 21. Yea, 21 is when you can in most places (assuming you are from the U.S.) legally walk in to any bar with a big smile on your face and order a cold draft beer. Enjoy the start of your 20's something's.

First trailer is dead.

Oh man, that's a bummer. Well, I guess anybody that wants to see it now, will just have to tune in to the Super Bowl, or wait like a couple of days for the official posting to show up on the trailers section of Apple.com or the Yahoo! movies page.

The one major gripe I have about the GI Joe movie, is they made all of the character's uniforms mostly black, with that run of the mill body plating so heavily used of late in movies, such as Batman's costume in the Dark Knight movie. Come' on, couldn't they just kept it original and used the same looks as in the cartoons?

Well, for us American football viewers the big game is almost upon us, the great Super Bowl! And besides the actual game, there are of course those funky 3 million dollars per 30 seconds airtime commercials which makes the Super Bowl even more famous. Among these commercials are two movie trailers for two highly anticipated big budget Hollywood flicks: The Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.

Transformers 2 trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAujq_F_AD0&eurl=http://www.superherohype.com/news/transformersnews.php?id=8036&feature=player_embedded

GI Joe trailer: http://www.superherohype.com/news/gijoenews.php?id=8032

My personal comment: I think Transformers 2 is going to be a mindless blast of fun to watch just like the first one was. As for the new GI Joe movie, well I don't know, I have my reservations about it, I guess we will just have to see.....

I have six email accounts so that I can use some of them as junk email black holes.
When a site asks me for my email, I just provide one of these dummy accounts.

I do that too, but not as many email accounts as you, I only have 3 of them, it's all I need.

mostly because nobody emails me = )

Oh really!.....Man, do I have a solution for you for getting more email. Have you ever heard of a "Free For All Links" portal? If no, start by looking here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free+for+all+links (clicking on any one results link you find there will do)

Just follow the directions any of the websites give you, but especially above all, make sure you supply your email address. Once you are done submitting, it won't be long before your email account gets loaded on a daily basis with hundreds of crazy spam messages (many of them offering a magic pill that can enlarge a certain male body part).

Free for all links.....He he he,....the scourge of the internet.

Well ATDestroy, assuming it was not you then, let me ask you this: Have you shared your login details with anybody else, or suspect your login info was somehow breached behind your back? Because unless somebody else is login in as you and typing those things in the shoutbox, I can't see how it was not you.

Google is already the top search engine and web advertising provider in the world. Now, they want to have what's on your PC's hard drive, and while they are add it, maybe even put out of business Microsoft Windows. I know, it sounds like bull shit, but this is more or less what this news story says that I found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/25/google-drive-gdrive-internet

Not sure why you used the term "other", but this clearly isn't a "big entertainment topic board".

Well, the last time I checked, video games are considered part of the entertainment industry, which also includes movies, TV, music, some types of books, and among few other things. And what topic is mostly talked about on TWHL boards? The Half Life games you say? Well I will be damn, that's on the entertainment list of things! So I guess that answers your question about why I used the term "other". But hey, don't take my word for it, go ahead, ask around.......

You have to remember most of the members here are young'ungs and the average age of our members is about 15-20. He was already pretty old so he probably retired back when we were kids.

That pretty much sums up on what I said about the big generational gap going on here, so hlife_hotdog, you hit it right on the nail's head with that one, good job.

Huh? Who? Khan Noobian? Star what?

After going through 2 six-packs of beer, I think I was saying the same thing too.