New efforts!

[Tubbius]

Another day.  Another update of my Favorites link to this thread.

[Surelle]

Ok so might interest people to know Windows 10 is fully compatible with some old games like Battlefield 1942. Gives me hope for classic CoH being compatible too.

WinXP and up are NTFS:  There isn't as much difference from OS to OS when they're all based on the same file system.  The hurdle from Win98/Millenium (FAT32) to WinXP (NTFS) was the big one, and was the reason why so many games and programs would no longer run.

[Twisted Toon]

WinXP and up are NTFS:  There isn't as much difference from OS to OS when they're all based on the same file system.  The hurdle from Win98/Millenium (FAT32) to WinXP (NTFS) was the big one, and was the reason why so many games and programs would no longer run.

Several games that I'd still like to play were from the Win95 era. makes me sad that I can't easily load them up and play them now.

[Noyjitat]

WinXP and up are NTFS:  There isn't as much difference from OS to OS when they're all based on the same file system.  The hurdle from Win98/Millenium (FAT32) to WinXP (NTFS) was the big one, and was the reason why so many games and programs would no longer run.

You still have the option to format a hard drive using fat32 or fat. Just not the operating system drive. And if you do some searching some of the older dos/win 95 games have been remade by fans using up to date engines and graphics. XL engine has one of my favorites Dark Forces the first Starwars fps shooter also the beginning of the jedi knight darkforces 2, mysteries of the sith, jedi outcast and jedi academy series. XL engine is currently being used for three other games as well. Have a look! http://xlengine.com/games/

[Abraxus]

Several games that I'd still like to play were from the Win95 era. makes me sad that I can't easily load them up and play them now.

Head over to GoG.com (Good Old Games).  They have literally thousands of titles from years gone by, and they took the time to tweak them (especially the pre-WinXP games) to work on modern hardware, and modern OS.  I recently bought a bunch of Win95 era LucasArts games from them, and they work like a charm on my Win7 system.  The resolutions are low, and on a 27" screen, it only exacerbates the problem, but they play just fine!  They are pretty cheap too.  $10.00 for most of them, and that includes any DLC that came out after the original title, and any game guides and manuals in .PDF format.

[saipaman]

GOG always runs sales on the weekends.   Sometimes as much as 90% off the regular low price.

[MWRuger]

There is also this site on Archive.Org

https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

[Ohioknight]

What if they're gods PRETENDING to be aliens pretending to be gods?

This is the best theory I've ever heard.

[Sinistar]

Several games that I'd still like to play were from the Win95 era. makes me sad that I can't easily load them up and play them now.

GOG.com and other Abandonware sites can supply you with old DOS games that are tweaked to run on modern systems. 

It is fun to play Duke Nukem again.

[Joshex]

This is the best theory I've ever heard.

I tweeted a more realistic theory to stephen hawking this morning, yeah, I'm a nobody so I don't expect a reply or recognition on any level, but, sometimes it feels good to express ones self.

anyways my theory is that aliens are just like us probably not even monstrous and probably have similar if not the same animals. why don't they contact us? cause we are the intergalactic plague. we are the feeble minded race of which the majority of us can't control ourselves and are always looking for acknowledgment and support for personal interests sometimes over the greater good. heck half of us can't even keep our pants on or keep a steady relationship, and saying half is being nice the real scientific statistics are much worse..

seriously If I were an alien I'd consider us a lower form of life.

If I were to even bring politics into this, I'd say the politicians are aliens and are there as an intelligence/ sentience test. will we keep electing them, becoming prey to their ideologies and being placated by them no matter what kind of travesties financial or otherwise they cause?

of course even I have to admit there's a better theory out there than my own, which is "Aliens are a nemesis plot"

[Taceus Jiwede]

I tweeted a more realistic theory to stephen hawking this morning, yeah, I'm a nobody so I don't expect a reply or recognition on any level, but, sometimes it feels good to express ones self.

anyways my theory is that aliens are just like us probably not even monstrous and probably have similar if not the same animals. why don't they contact us? cause we are the intergalactic plague. we are the feeble minded race of which the majority of us can't control ourselves and are always looking for acknowledgment and support for personal interests sometimes over the greater good. heck half of us can't even keep our pants on or keep a steady relationship, and saying half is being nice the real scientific statistics are much worse..

seriously If I were an alien I'd consider us a lower form of life.

If I were to even bring politics into this, I'd say the politicians are aliens and are there as an intelligence/ sentience test. will we keep electing them, becoming prey to their ideologies and being placated by them no matter what kind of travesties financial or otherwise they cause?

of course even I have to admit there's a better theory out there than my own, which is "Aliens are a nemesis plot"

This goes back to all aliens being the same.  Even some humans brush ants out of their way.  Also they don't contact us because space is freaking HUGE.  Its a luxury to talk about aliens because we give them magic technology that can do anything we can't, and we can skip their entire lineage and upcoming.  However finding a planet in the Milkly Way that can sustain life is already challenging enough.  Finding one that already has life on it and that life is booming would make finding a needle in a haystack seem easy.

Then contacting them would be even harder and would take a lonnnnngggg asss time unless they managed to broadcast radio signals faster then the speed of light.  People seem to forgot that the Milky way is about 130,000 light years across.  It would be insanely difficult to contact or reach any other species quickly in this galaxy without a magic ship.

Also hostile or friendly aliens would be badddddd newwwsss no matter what.  They could have different immune systems and diseases.  We could possibly wipe out hundreds even thousands on accident just by spreading the common cold.  And vice versa. 

And for being the "virus" of the galaxy.  Doubtful.  Evolution and life follows similar blueprints.  I don't know why it is so commonly assumed that species on other planets would behave differently or wouldn't follow the same basic primal instincts all animals have.  And a species intelligent enough to engineer things like space ships would mean they use tools.  And they didn't start by building spaceships.  Tools that support survival would come first.  Sharp objects, blunt objects, projectiles, houses, and walls.  Also the slow rate at which we mature plays a big part in humanity being what it is.  The need to build cities and have people teach our slowly developing offspring only encouraged our need of society and education.  The strong and intelligent would do this all over the planet.  As society grows. Resources and space's dwindle.  That species then competes for land and resource the only way species know how to compete.  Winner survives and flourishes and the technique passed on. 

I could keep going but the point is I doubt any species as intelligent as us, or even more intelligent didn't get a little dirt under the nails to get where they are.  Unless they lived on a giant planet, with non-hostile animals, seemingly endless materials, and all of their species evolved in one place and never traveled out so they grew and expanded together. 

I doubt any species could rise to that point without following a somewhat similar path.  Especially your idea of our long lost genetic brother/sister's.  If they were that similar to us it would be because they were on a similar planet, with similar animals. and they followed a similar evolutionary path we did.

[Twisted Toon]

Head over to GoG.com (Good Old Games).  They have literally thousands of titles from years gone by, and they took the time to tweak them (especially the pre-WinXP games) to work on modern hardware, and modern OS.  I recently bought a bunch of Win95 era LucasArts games from them, and they work like a charm on my Win7 system.  The resolutions are low, and on a 27" screen, it only exacerbates the problem, but they play just fine!  They are pretty cheap too.  $10.00 for most of them, and that includes any DLC that came out after the original title, and any game guides and manuals in .PDF format.

I've looked a several sites like that for Outpost (the first one). Unfortunately, I can't seem to get it to run on my Win7 system.

[Arcana]

The flak was never about accessing their transmission. The flak was about him being able to write a virus on his mac, upload it to the alien computers, and it actually run...

Not. Going. To. Happen.

I don't see why not.  The presumption was that the virus was a virus like a typical computer virus.  But the virus might have been nothing more than a signal properly formatted to be accepted by and relayed throughout the alien communication network.  Or even better because it was explicitly stated in the movie that the aliens were using Earth's communications satellites to broadcast their signals, David, being very familiar with the technical details of satellite communications could have had most of the work done for him: the aliens themselves formatted their communications signals to be automatically relayed through Earth's satellite transponders.  That means the alien ships were already configured to accept the right encoded signals from Earth's satellites and the mothership was also already configured to accept such signals broadcast back to it.  All David needed to do was a) find a signal that would trigger the effect he wanted in the alien craft and then b) find a way to broadcast that signal to the mothership in the right way to cause it to forward it to the communications satellites.

Most of the things most people today call computer viruses aren't even technically viruses.  I don't have a problem with David calling his construct a virus when it was really more of a ricochet signal.

[Arcana]

If I were to even bring politics into this, I'd say the politicians are aliens and are there as an intelligence/ sentience test. will we keep electing them, becoming prey to their ideologies and being placated by them no matter what kind of travesties financial or otherwise they cause?

Someone's been watching They Live on Netflix again.

[Joshex]

This goes back to all aliens being the same.  Even some humans brush ants out of their way.  Also they don't contact us because space is freaking HUGE.  Its a luxury to talk about aliens because we give them magic technology that can do anything we can't, and we can skip their entire lineage and upcoming.  However finding a planet in the Milkly Way that can sustain life is already challenging enough.  Finding one that already has life on it and that life is booming would make finding a needle in a haystack seem easy.

Then contacting them would be even harder and would take a lonnnnngggg asss time unless they managed to broadcast radio signals faster then the speed of light.  People seem to forgot that the Milky way is about 130,000 light years across.  It would be insanely difficult to contact or reach any other species quickly in this galaxy without a magic ship.

Also hostile or friendly aliens would be badddddd newwwsss no matter what.  They could have different immune systems and diseases.  We could possibly wipe out hundreds even thousands on accident just by spreading the common cold.  And vice versa. 

And for being the "virus" of the galaxy.  Doubtful.  Evolution and life follows similar blueprints.  I don't know why it is so commonly assumed that species on other planets would behave differently or wouldn't follow the same basic primal instincts all animals have.  And a species intelligent enough to engineer things like space ships would mean they use tools.  And they didn't start by building spaceships.  Tools that support survival would come first.  Sharp objects, blunt objects, projectiles, houses, and walls.  Also the slow rate at which we mature plays a big part in humanity being what it is.  The need to build cities and have people teach our slowly developing offspring only encouraged our need of society and education.  The strong and intelligent would do this all over the planet.  As society grows. Resources and space's dwindle.  That species then competes for land and resource the only way species know how to compete.  Winner survives and flourishes and the technique passed on. 

I could keep going but the point is I doubt any species as intelligent as us, or even more intelligent didn't get a little dirt under the nails to get where they are.  Unless they lived on a giant planet, with non-hostile animals, seemingly endless materials, and all of their species evolved in one place and never traveled out so they grew and expanded together. 

I doubt any species could rise to that point without following a somewhat similar path.  Especially your idea of our long lost genetic brother/sister's.  If they were that similar to us it would be because they were on a similar planet, with similar animals. and they followed a similar evolutionary path we did.

My basis is the weak and suggestible human mind, what if we're the only ones in the universe that have that? that would explain why if there are aliens they don't contact us and consider us lab subjects to run tests on.


Speed? I disagree with theorists that there is some "max speed" the laws of intertia in a suction + constant one directional increase in motion quite clearly = ZOOM. Stopping is the only problem lol.

[Jim Justice]

tsoon?

[Pengy]

Speed? I disagree with theorists that there is some "max speed" the laws of intertia in a suction + constant one directional increase in motion quite clearly = ZOOM. Stopping is the only problem lol.

At a speed of 1234 she goes from suck to blow.

[darkgob]

Speed? I disagree with theorists that there is some "max speed" the laws of intertia in a suction + constant one directional increase in motion quite clearly = ZOOM. Stopping is the only problem lol.

That Einstein fellow was a hack.

[Nyx Nought Nothing]

Speed? I disagree with theorists that there is some "max speed" the laws of intertia in a suction + constant one directional increase in motion quite clearly = ZOOM. Stopping is the only problem lol.

Short answer:
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2581/3779834896_a9c1d7f4d7_o.png


Longer answer:
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2938/14669333801_079d5a9200_o.jpg


<Edited for brevity.>

[The Fifth Horseman]

On a related subject, I've never understood the flak that ID4 gets for depicting David tapping into and later hacking into the alien systems' communcations network with a Macbook.  If it was a linux laptop with a software radio transceiver I suspect there would have been fewer objections, but I have often asked people what tool they would have used instead.  What's the appropriate tool to receive radio signals, process them, and then write software to analyze it, if not a computer?

Right, to begin with, he instantly tapped into a completely unknown communications protocol (it's not just "signals", he ) and was able to both send and receive valid data with no issue at all, using (as far as is shown) off-the-shelf software.
A military (or at least military-used) communications network not using encryption is also less than plausible - without knowing how to encode the data, all you are transmitting is garbage, and all you are receiving can just as well be.

All David needed to do was a) find a signal that would trigger the effect he wanted in the alien craft and then b) find a way to broadcast that signal to the mothership in the right way to cause it to forward it to the communications satellites.

Most of the things most people today call computer viruses aren't even technically viruses.  I don't have a problem with David calling his construct a virus when it was really more of a ricochet signal.

No. Note that all displays in the alien's control booth - previously showing some sort of data - suddenly started displaying the Jolly Roger. Base implication is that whatever he did, he was able to run at least some arbitrary instructions on the alien system. This is not something that can be handwaved with a "ricochet signal".

Developing on the fly an exploit against a completely unknown operating system is nonsense - especially in the time frame given (note: earlier in the film it's established that the alien fighter was completely shut down until July 2nd - it's impossible for Area 51 scientists to have done any prior work with its software). Even human-made operating systems differ enough that same attack may not be effective against different versions of the same OS.

Then there goes the assumption of no data security in the alien system whatsoever (again, nonsense).

With the knowledge of the communications protocol itself it might have been possible to use other means to disrupt or temporarily crash the network, but the movie is extremely insistent on "virus".

TL;DR: The movie ignores several MAJOR issues that each of whom individually shuld have made the entire "virus" plan impossible, and only some of them can be handwaved with "aliens don't think like humans". Some films did it worse. Doesn't matter - techno-heresy has no right to remain unpunished.

And to all writers / directors out there: If you're writing a bloody hacking scene, either do your research first, ask an expert to provide a plausible technical explanation or just gloss over the process as much as possible without trying to make up any details; in any case, make sure the time frames for the task are realistic.
Nobody's demanding an insane level of detail like what's been done in Dopamine, but don't try to pass off nonsensical gibberish as computer science in a way that gets you on the shitlist of every self respecting computer geek on earth. :p

WinXP and up are NTFS:  There isn't as much difference from OS to OS when they're all based on the same file system.  The hurdle from Win98/Millenium (FAT32) to WinXP (NTFS) was the big one, and was the reason why so many games and programs would no longer run.

No. Filesystem is the least part of that. For the most part the software just makes a request to the operating system and doesn't care what filesystem is actually on there, because the OS handles that part.
The real problem in that jump was that XP was basen the Windows NT architecture, which was distinctively different from what was used in the 9x series, and much of the backwards compatibility had to be added on top of that.