Ross Scott

Pretty good, I wouldn't mind seeing some more interpretations.

Yes, I really was running out of ammo, but when you do so normally, the game will automatically put away your weapon, so I cheated to give myself one bullet and the dryfire sound was added later.

Download 848x480 MKV (80MB) Here is the exciting conclusion, I mean, next episode of Freeman's Mind. This one took a lot longer to come out than it should have. Upgrading to Windows 7 set me back a week or two, which completely shattered any time predictions I had, then for various reasons, the episode is coming out almost 2 weeks after the dialogue was completed. This episode may also be the new record for the most amount of wandering in the game. As a result, it's not necessarily the most interesting one, but the next one should have some more action. At the moment I'm split between 3 different projects, but I'll be starting the next FM episode soon. If you're artistically inclined, feel free to submit concept art of Freeman's alien design in the forums.

I'm vetoing these as being obscure, Bioshock was practically a recreation of SS2 as it is.

Windows 7 set me back 1-2 weeks (and still ongoing, but I can work on videos now). 38 is a longer episode, so that took me a little longer, but the dialogue was finished about 4 days ago, I'm currently waiting for the audio mix back from Otto for that, then I'll upload it to Machinima. I'm working on tons of different things, including motion capture and trying to get another series idea at least remotely possible, there are more technical barriers I need to solve. Also that bug mentioned on the last post is huge, I even emailed Valve about it a couple days ago, but haven't had a reply yet. If it continues, I may have to revert to the 2006 version of the Source engine, it really is that bad.

Hey, well now I'm conflicted. I need to do an update, but I ended up buying a new soundcard because I have issues with how Creative handles their drivers, and ended up getting an Asus Xonar card. This has all but solved the mic overwhelming problems I was having, I'm amazed. (The next FM episode has already been recorded on it). So while a higher quality mic wouldn't hurt, I'm wondering about the extra equipment needed to handle that kind of adapter since the current one is just a regular headphone jack. Either way, I'm definitely keen on routing it through the soundcard unless that's a bad idea.

I've only tried it on a few games so far, but it's been successful. Pretty good alternative for games that absolutely refuse to support AA or else where Supersampling is too punitive on the system. Also maybe there's a difference between Nvidia and ATI compatibility.

You beat me to it, I was going to announce someone made the hack for it. This is awesome. Here's the thread with an updated binary on it: http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=348097

Yeah, it reminds me of the old days where with the S3 virge it was a "3d decelerator" because it actually ran slower than software because of the extra features hardware 3D was using. I doubt my card is holding the operation up, but maybe something about the programming is.

Well I don't know about the Adobe programs, but I solved the input lag problem I was having in Gmail. By disabling hardware acceleration everything seems much faster now.

That would make sense if it was accessing my hard drive like crazy, but I have 6GB of RAM and it's not even breaking 2.5GB most of the time. It still doesn't explain why I'm having input lag when typing emails in Gmail now.

I think there was plenty of room for improvement over XP, but I totally agree on the speed thing. Windows 7 feels smoother, but it also feels slower. Maybe it's how buffering for Aero works, I'm not sure, but I'm absolutely noticing some very minute input lag on some programs / maybe overall. For example, if I type an email, I can tell the difference compared to typing in XP. I'm sure it's only milliseconds, but at the speed I type, I'm noticing some very small input lag. It's a lot worse inside Adobe's programs, but that could just be Adobe.

This is another post I've been meaning to make for a while. In the last episode of Civil Protection, I encountered major, major bugs that would have prevented the episode from being made if I hadn't received help with modifying the code for the game. Since then, there are still some significant bugs that I could really use help with. I've already sent this information to four programmers in the Source engine, but haven't heard back from any of them. Thus, I'm trying to expand the number of eyes that can look at this. You'll need some experience working with the Source engine to be of much help. HIGH PRIORITY BUGS: -Animation playback in recorded demos in the game is flawed. I'm not sure what's happening, but the behavior between what's seen in-game and what's played back via demo is clearly different. I've included 2 examples of where this happens and can be reproduced reliably. While these examples are relatively subtle, I'm encountering this bug EVERYWHERE in small doses and has resulted in me having to do a lot of workarounds or redo entire scenes because of it. This bug appears to be present in Episode 1 as well, but I definitely find it more drastic in the Episode 2 engine. You will need a copy of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in order to test out the files. Example 1 (download): Involves a book moving as a prop_physics object. Example 2 (download): Involves a NPC turning via a scene file. All instructions and details are included within the downloads. BUGS I DOUBT WILL EVER GET FIXED, BUT I CAN DREAM: -Fix the AVI output function so that it can handle files greater than 2GB before corrupting and greater than 4GB, period. -Fix demo smoother so that it doesn't feel compelled to reset the viewing position almost randomly when a mouse button is clicked -Fix demo smoother so that listing a specific tick number on the timeline actually results in that tick being selected and not a semi-random larger number. -Fix demo smoother so that the camera path shown in preview mode is actually the end result once the demo is modified (and not slightly higher or lower) -Fix demo smoother so setting keyframes and targets actually appear in the position your camera shows at the time -Fix demo smoother so that when paused and moving the camera, it doesn't cause the camera to move up or down after moving forward or backward by a certain amount. -Find a way to apply high quality engine motion blur to the entire scene, not just based on player movement, AND be capable of exporting the effect to AVI or raw frames. If you're able to solve any of these bugs, please contact me at [email protected]. If a reliable fix is produced to any of these problems, it means there's a real chance your name could appear in the credits for every future episode of Civil Protection.

I don't think there will be any trouble in the Senate. It doesn't sound like a plan that will help much economically, but pretty much anything is better than a default.

Good news, it looks like the economy won't be completely destroyed: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/07/obama-boehner-announce-agreement-to-raise-debt-ceiling-avoid-default.html Still have to wait for the house vote though.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to get faster benchmarks from this one: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/eurocom_panther_20_review

Yes, I've heard that as well, I was looking at some videos on the Wall Street Journal's site about the issue and some investors think America has already lost its AAA rating unofficially. As for the debt ceiling being lifted, I agree that's what will probably happen, but it's still quite uncertain as to what terms that will happen under.

Yeah it was announced before the orange box and was going to to be the same thing as the orange box at a lower price, minus half life 2 and episode 1. They later cancelled it and raised the price, making the orange box the only option.

It is a game rip and I was able to contact the original composer of it and even HE doesn't have it at higher quality. It's a shame too since one of the tracks I think had some minor volume clipping that probably didn't in the original. I think the soundtrack comes from the special edition of Black Mirror 3 bundled with it. I haven't played it yet, I've only done 1 and 2. In my opinion 2 was okay, but I didn't like it as much as the original (different composer too).

This is pretty much it. It's not really a matter of challenge, so much as all my best ideas (or what I consider my best) are with other series and not FM. I don't really like neglecting any series I do, though I will say fan interest is keeping FM alive more than anything else. Stuff like CP and some of my other ideas would stay alive almost independent of fan interest just because I have movie ideas that I want to manifest any way I can and would feel much happier if I ever got them completed. For what it's worth, I really do take how much some fans appreciate the series into consideration. Whenever I hear of somebody re-watching a bunch of episodes, it makes me feel guilty I haven't progressed farther in the game yet.

To be honest I do the same thing in my videos, but I try my damndest to credit everyone who created content I use. I probably get more leeway however since I don't actually distribute their files, just use them in making the videos.

Also, anyone want to take guesses as to what will happen? I saw this chart listed here: If I had to guess, I'd say we'll have the 6+ month extension, but the situation seems kind of tenuous. EDIT: The other option not listed on here is that the republicans compromise more to meet more of the democrats' demands, like allowing Bush's tax breaks to expire, but I think the general consensus is that's unlikely.

Regarding spending by democrats and republicans, this might clear up some confusion: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/07/24/opinion/sunday/24editorial_graph2.html?ref=sunday As you can see there's been a lot of spending over the past decade, however keep in mind these are CHANGES in spending, it includes the spending that was already in place by the former president. So you can add Bush's spending on top of the Clinton administration's and the Obama's on top of Bush's. So more spending was enacted under the Bush administration, but more OVERALL spending has occurred under Obama's since it includes what Bush's added. So which party spent more? It depends on how you define it. If by "more" you mean: 1. The DIFFERENCE in dollars spent from the beginning of the term v. the end of the term (or equivalent) = the Republicans have currently spent more. 2. The TOTAL dollars being spent during the term (or equivalent) = the Democrats are currently spending more