Norm says:
im right about everything so there wouldnt be a need for a debate


Does anyone have any stories about Miles being completely wrong?

yeah ive got one.

I did a physics exam and i was 53% wrong

I got another one. Miles had coke sprayed all over him when Mitchell tripped on the chain so he thought he was right to try to take it out on me

oh and i was 80% wrong in a chem exam once.

but no...i dont think ive ever been completely wrong. except for spelling. im usally very wrong there. but that doesnt count.

but it was your fault ******

there was that time when i got about 51% wrong in a science test and got excellence.







13 pages.........phat.

Ben Ron...phat

One of the great many things about these forums is that the occupants think that they are hidden away from society, in a place where nothing can touch them. How wrong you all are. Hi, my name is Ben Ron, and I'm here today to talk to you about Internet Forums.

An Internet forum is a web application which provides for discussion, often in conjunction with online communities. Older forums date back to around 1996, following the newsgroups and bulletin board systems which were widespread in the 1980s and 1990s. Popular discussion topics include technology, computer games, and politics, but forums are available for any number of different topics.

Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, discussion groups, or simply, forums.

Early Internet forums could be described as a web version of a newsgroup or electronic mailing list; allowing people to post messages and comment on other messages. Later developments emulated the different newsgroups or individual lists, providing more than one forum, dedicated to a particular topic.

Internet forums are prevalent in several developed countries. In terms of countable posts, Japan is far in the lead with over two million posts per day on their largest forum, 2ch. The United States does not have any one large forum, but instead several hundred thousand smaller forums, the largest of which are Gaia Online, IGN and GameFAQs. China, the Netherlands, and France are also home to hundreds of independent forums. Some countries such as Finland and Sweden do not have many prevalent forums despite having open and easily available Internet access. As of yet no study has been done on the prevalence of forums in countries around the world.

Small forums are often based around a single subject. Usually there is an "off-topic" forum where users can post any items they find interesting (in Japanese, neta) or play "forum games". Larger Internet forums are in general more subject to public conflicts between users, leetspeak, and private jokes. Depending on the level of moderation there may also be conflicts between users and administrators.

Members join the forum and are subject to the rules of the forum. Forums are generally controlled by moderators and administrators. Members who disobey the rules may be suspended or banned.

The barebones definition of a forum is the ability for people to start threads and reply to other people's threads. (Someone posts a message which is visible to everyone, you read it and then have the option to post a reply which will also be visible to everyone, ths a discussion can build up without all users having to be online at the same time.) However, most forum software provides considerably more than this.

Most forum software allows more than one forum to be created. These forums are containers for threads started by the community. Depending on the permissions of community members as defined by the board's administrator, they can post replies to existing threads and start new threads as they wish.

Forum software can be broadly divided between those which allow visitors to post anonymously, and those which attribute posts to a registered username.

For username-based software, visitors register using a username and a password, and possibly an email address for validation purposes. In these types of forums, the members are often able to customise both how their posts display to others (for example avatars, user profiles and signatures) and how the board appears to them (such as different themes). Username-based software may provide for anonymity by allowing visitors to post without registration.

Anonymous forums may offer full anonymity or pseudonymity, but no registration. In order to provide the same set of features as registration-based forums, anonymous forums especially in Asia use a system of tripcodes, derived by encrypting a plaintext password put in the name field. Although blog comment pages are not Internet forums, they often use the anonymous system for the sake of simplicity.

A forum administrator typically has the ability to edit, delete, move or otherwise modify any thread on the forum. These moderator privileges are often able to be delegated to other forum members. The reasons for having these abilities are often to allow peace to be maintained and the rules to be enforced. The ways in which the moderation system works depends on the board software—for example, they can be directly appointed by the board administrator or chosen by an automated process combined with meta-moderation (moderation of the moderators). Many other systems exist and the board administrator is free to choose rules for their own forums.

Threads in a forum are either flat (posts are listed in chronological order) or threaded (each post is made in reply to a parent post). Sometimes, community members have a choice on how to display threads.

Forum software packages are widely available on the Internet, and are written in a variety of programming languages, such as PHP, Perl, Java and ASP. The configuration and records of posts can be stored in text files or in a database. Each package offers a different variety of features, from the most basic providing text-only postings to more advanced packages offering multimedia support and formatting code (usually known as BBCode). Many packages can be integrated easily into an existing website to allow visitors to post comments on articles.

One significant difference between forums and electronic mailing lists is that mailing lists automatically deliver new messages to the subscriber, while forums require the member to visit the website, and check for new posts. Due to the possibility of members missing replies to threads they are interested in, many modern forums offer an "email notification" feature, where an email is automatically sent to all users who have chosen to be notified of new replies, informing them that a new post has been made.

The main difference between newsgroups and forums is that additional software is usually required to participate in newsgroups, a newsreader. Visiting and participating in forums normally requires no additional software beyond the web browser.

Forums, unlike wikis, do not allow people to edit other's messages. Some users, however, may be given this ability in order to moderate content (for example, if spam is posted to the forum).

Unlike weblogs, forums typically allow anyone to start a new discussion (known as a thread), or reply to an existing thread. The range of topics discussed on forums is typically wider—as a website running forum software may have more than one forum, each dedicated to a different topic. While many weblogs allow visitors to post comments in reply, the number of people who can create entries is normally very limited, and the range of viewpoints and beliefs on a weblog are also limited.

Forums differ from chat rooms and instant messaging because they usually deal with one topic and personal exchanges are typically discouraged. Participants in Internet forums should realize that what they have to say will be public knowledge for years to come. For example, Google's Groups (formerly DejaNews) is an archive of Usenet articles dating back to 1981. Forum archives are sometimes the best way to find an answer to very obscure questions, such as how to fix a particular computer problem.

A common BBS is phpBB. phpBB is a popular free and open source forum system using the PHP scripting language and supporting a variety of database management systems including MySQL, PostgreSQL, MSSQL, Microsoft Access and, with modification, Oracle.

Besides the database support, some of phpBB's greatest advantages are:

A templating system designed with ease of use and rapid customisation in mind
Internationalisation support with 54 translations available at the time of writing. Supporters of phpBB may claim that phpBB has the most translations available of any web-based forum software.
Large community of users providing free support and modifications

phpBB was started by James Atkinson as a simple UBB-like forum for his own website on June 17, 2000. Nathan Codding and John Abela (both now former team members) joined the development team after phpBB went into SourceForge CVS, and work on 1.0.0 began. A fully-functional, pre-release version of phpBB was ready by July 1, 2000.

phpBB 1.0.0 was released on December 16, 2000, with subsequent improvements to the 1.x codebase coming in two more major installments. (phpBB 1.2.0 was released on February 16, 2001 and 1.4.0 on April 25, 2001.) The final release in the 1.x line was phpBB 1.4.4, released on November 6, 2001. During the lifetime of the 1.x series, Bart van Bragt, Paul S. Owen (former co-manager of the project), Johnathan Haase (now a former team member) and Frank Feingold joined the team.

phpBB 2.0.x was begun on February 17, 2001. It was developed entirely from scratch; the developer's ambitions for phpBB had outgrown the original codebase. Doug Kelly (now a former team member) joined the team shortly afterwards. After a year of development and extensive testing, phpBB 2.0.0, dubbed the "Super Furry" version, was released on April 4, 2002 (three days later than intended). The latest release in the 2.0.x line was 2.0.17 ("no, we did not forget naming it last time"), on July 19, 2005. Releases in the 2.0.x line are now restricted to bug and security fixes, and 2.0.x is the only line for which support is currently given.

With the new 2.0.x codebase in a stable state, the development team, now led by Meik Sievertsen, has begun building upon and altering the codebase to produce "Olympus"; when it reaches production quality, it will be released as 3.0.0. The improvements in "Olympus" to date are comparable with the improvements between 1.4.x and 2.0.x. It was originally planned to be released as 2.2.0, however, in keeping with the Linux Kernel numbering scheme, because 2.1.x eliminated virtually all compatibility with the 2.0.x line, the version number for release was changed to 3.0.0.

[edit]
Improvements due in 3.0.0
The "Olympus" codebase is now feature frozen, but the developers are prone to keep some features up their sleeves. However, an incomplete list of additional (over 2.0.x) features expected for the 3.0.0 release follows.

DBMS (DataBase Management System) support widened
Firebird
SQLite
Friend/Foe lists
Forum model overhauled
Forum rules can be given for each forum, either as text or a URI
Link forums added (redirecting to a specified URI)
Styles can be set on a per-forum basis
Subforum functionality added; subforums can be nested without limit.
Categories are now a type of forum; forums are added to them as subforums
Performance significantly improved, partially by removing PHP3 compatibility
Permission system reworked
Automatic groups
"Administrators"
"Bots"
"Guests"
"Registered Users"
"Registered COPPA Users"
"Super Moderators"
"Unapproved Users"
"Unapproved COPPA Users"
Fully atomic permissions; control even the abilities of administrators
"Super Moderators" added, for easier creation of a board-wide moderation team
Private messaging reworked
Custom message boxes
Draft messages
Filters
Multiple recipients
Tracked conversations
Templating system overhauled
Caching of compiled templates
Images in a style can now be switched by changing the "imageset"
Online style editor added to the admin panel
Choose images to form an imageset
Edit CSS-based themes
Edit HTML-based templates, and store the changes on the filesystem or in the database
Topic/post system overhauled
Add attachments
Copy topics
"Global" announcements, displayed in all forums
Icons for topics
Move (merge) multiple posts into another topic
Posts can be automatically placed in a "moderation queue" for approval
Report posts to moderators

Another popular BBS is vBulletin.

vBulletin (sometimes abbreviated as vB or incorrectly as vBB) is a commercial Internet forum package produced by Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. It is often used to run larger boards and discussion communities. Written in PHP with a MySQL database backend, it is comparable to other forum software such as Invision Power Board and UBB.threads.

vBulletin is priced at $85 (per year) for a leased licence, and $160 (lifetime) for an owned licence to be able to run the software. With a leased licence, you can only legally run the software for one (1) year. However, with an owned licence, you can run it as long as you want, but to upgrade, there is a $30 fee for one additional year for continued access to download from the members area (although the first year is free). This $30 renewal fee can be purchased at any time and is completely optional.

Many versions of vBulletin has been released over the years.

[edit]
v3.5
The current version which was officially released by vBulletin on 29 September 2005. This is vB's flagship version of their forum software. It boasts many new features such as:

Plugin system for forum modifications without the need to edit the program scripts. This allows a forum operator to keep their "hacks" and not re-edit scripts after upgrading.
AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML) "quick editing" of thread titles and post content.
Data API (data managers) for third-party software integration.
Template history and comparison.
MySQLi wrapper
For full list of features
[edit]
v3
This is an older version which was released by vBulletin. It has had several updates: v3.0 Beta, v3.0.0, v3.0.1, v3.0.2, v3.0.3, v3.0.4, v3.0.5, v3.0.6, v3.0.7, v3.0.8 and v3.0.9.

[edit]
v2
An older version which still is available, but which doesn't have active development anymore. If security issues or major bugs show up in this version they'll most likely still be fixed.

The thing is that these BBS packages need a good server to run on. A compaq server, perhaps.

Compaq was a personal computer company founded in 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto. During the 1980s Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers at a low-cost. The term "COMPAQ" is an acronym for "Compatibility and Quality". It existed as a standalone entity until 2002 when it was merged with Hewlett-Packard.

Compaq was founded in February 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, three senior managers from semiconductor manufacturer Texas Instruments. Each invested $1,000 to form the company. Their first venture capital came from Ben Rosen and Sevin-Rosen partners. It is often told that the architecture of the original Compaq PC was first sketched out on a table napkin by the founders while dining in a Houston restaurant.


Compaq PortableIn November 1982 Compaq announced their first product, the Compaq Portable, a portable IBM PC compatible personal computer. It was released in March 1983 at $2995, considerably more affordable than competitors at the time. The Compaq Portable was one of the progenitors of today's laptop. It was the second IBM PC compatible, being capable of running all software that would run on an IBM PC. It was a commercial success, selling 53,000 units in it's first year. The Compaq Portable was the first in the range of the Compaq portable series. Compaq were able to market a legal IBM clone because IBM mostly used "off the shelf" parts for their PC, furthermore Microsoft had also kept the right to license the operating system to other computer manufacturers. The only part which had to be duplicated was the BIOS, which Compaq did legally by using reverse-engineering for $1 million. Numerous other companies soon followed their lead.

In 1985 Compaq released the Compaq Deskpro 286, a 16-bit desktop computer using an Intel 80286 microprocessor running at 6Mhz and capable of 7MB RAM, it was considerably faster than an IBM PC and was, like the Compaq Portable, also capable of running IBM software. It cost $2000 for the 40MB hard disk model. It was the first of the Compaq Deskpro line of computers.


Compaq Portable 386After making half a billion dollars turnover, in 1986 Compaq released the Compaq Portable II. The Portable II was significantly lighter and smaller than it's predecessor, featuring a revised design with an 8Mhz processor and 10MB hard disk. It was cheaper than the IBM PC/AT at $3199, or $4799 with a hard disk. A year later in 1987, Compaq introduced the first PC based on Intel's new 80386 microprocessor, with the Compaq Portable 386 and Compaq Portable III. IBM was not yet using this processor, and subsequently Compaq established what is known disparagingly as the PC clone business.

In the early-1990s, Compaq entered the retail computer market with the Presario, and was one of the first manufacturers in the mid-1990s to market a sub-$1,000 PC. In order to maintain the prices it wanted, Compaq became the first first-tier computer manufacturer to utilize CPUs from AMD and Cyrix. The price war resulting from Compaq's actions ultimately drove numerous competitors, most notably IBM and Packard Bell, from the marketplace.

In 1997, Compaq bought Tandem Computers, known for their NonStop server line. This acquisition instantly gave Compaq a presence in the higher end business computing market. In 1998, Compaq acquired Digital Equipment Corporation, the leading company in the previous generation of computing during the 1970s and early 1980s. This acquisition made Compaq, at the time, the world's second largest computer maker in the world in terms of revenue.

In 2002, Compaq engaged in a merger with Hewlett-Packard. Numerous large HP shareholders, including Walter Hewlett, publicly opposed the deal. Michael Capellas, then HP CEO, left the company soon after. Carly Fiorina became the new CEO of HP and was in charge of the combined company. Fiorina helmed Compaq for nearly three years after Capellas left. During that time, HP laid off thousands of former Compaq employees, its stock price generally declined, profits did not perk up, and it continued to lose market share to Dell. Facing dismissal from a hostile Board of Directors, Fiorina opted to leave in February 2005 before the board could fire her. Many Compaq products were re-branded with the HP nameplate, while the Compaq brand remained on other product lines.

However, this server must support the internet.

The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP) and many other protocols. It is made up of thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic and government networks. It carries various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat and the interlinked web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.

During the 1950s, several communications researchers realized that there was a need to allow general communication between users of various computers and communications networks. This led to research into decentralized networks, queuing theory, and packet switching. The subsequent creation of ARPANET in the United States in turn catalyzed a wave of technical developments that made it the basis for the development of the Internet.

The first TCP/IP wide area network was operational in 1984 when the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) constructed a university network backbone that would later become the NSFNet. It was then followed by the opening of the network to commercial interests in 1995. Important seperate networks that have successfully entered the Internet include Usenet, Bitnet and the various commercial and educational X.25 networks such as Compuserve and JANET.

The collective network gained a public face in the 1990s. In August 1991 Tim Berners-Lee publicized his new World Wide Web project, two years after he had begun creating HTML, HTTP and the first few web pages at CERN in Switzerland. In 1993 the Mosaic web browser version 1.0 was released, and by late 1994 there was growing public interest in the previously academic/technical Internet. By 1996 the word "Internet" was common public currency, but it referred almost entirely to the World Wide Web.

Meanwhile, over the course of the decade, the Internet successfully accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks (although some networks such as FidoNet have remained separate). This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.

Apart from the incredibly complex physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is held together by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (for example peering agreements) and by technical specifications or protocols that describe how to exchange data over the network.

Unlike older communications systems, the Internet protocol suite was deliberately designed to be independent of the underlying physical medium. Any communications network, wired or wireless, that can carry two-way digital data can carry Internet traffic. Thus, Internet packets flow through wired networks like copper wire, coaxial cable, and fiber optic; and through wireless networks like Wi-Fi. Together, all these networks, sharing the same high-level protocols, form the Internet.

The Internet protocols originate from discussions within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its working groups, which are open to public participation and review. These committees produce documents that are known as Request for Comments documents (RFCs). Some RFCs are raised to the status of Internet Standard by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

Some of the most used protocols in the Internet protocol suite are IP, TCP, UDP, DNS, PPP, SLIP, ICMP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, Telnet, FTP, LDAP, SSL, and TLS.

Some of the popular services on the Internet that make use of these protocols are e-mail, Usenet newsgroups, file sharing, Instant Messenger, the World Wide Web, Gopher, session access, WAIS, finger, IRC, MUDs, and MUSHs. Of these, e-mail and the World Wide Web are clearly the most used, and many other services are built upon them, such as mailing lists and web logs. The Internet makes it possible to provide real-time services such as Internet radio and webcasts that can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Some other popular services of the Internet were not created this way, but were originally based on proprietary systems. These include IRC, ICQ, AIM, and Gnutella.

There have been many analyses of the Internet and its structure. For example, it has been determined that the Internet IP routing structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are examples of scale-free networks.

Similar to how the commercial Internet providers connect via Internet exchange points, research networks tend to interconnect into large subnetworks such as:

GEANT
Internet2
GLORIAD
These in turn are built around relatively smaller networks. See also the list of academic computer network organizations

In network schematic diagrams, the Internet is often represented by a cloud symbol, into and out of which network communications can pass.

The Internet is also having a profound impact on work, leisure, knowledge and worldviews.

Through keyword-driven Internet research using search engines like Google, millions worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data.

Some companies and individuals have adopted the use of 'web-logs' or blogs, which are largely used as easily-updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to fill them with advice on their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One example of this practice is Microsoft, via whose product developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public's interest in their work.

For more information on the distinction between the World Wide Web and the Internet itself — as in everyday use the two are sometimes confused — see Dark internet where this is discussed in more detail.

The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security, authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements.

This is encouraging new ways of home-working, collaboration and information sharing in many industries. An accountant sitting at home can audit the books of a company based in another country, on a server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working book-keepers, in other remote locations, based on information e-mailed to them from offices all over the world. Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of private, leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice.

An office worker away from his or her desk, perhaps the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop session into his or her normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives him or her complete access to all their normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while they are away.

This low-cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge and skills has revolutionized some, and given rise to whole new, areas of human activity. One example of this is the collaborative development and distribution of Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS) such as Linux, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org. See Collaborative software.

A computer file can be e-mailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be uploaded to a website or FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared location" or onto a file server for instant use by colleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers or peer-to-peer networking.

In any of these cases, access to the file may be controlled by user authentication; the transit of the file over the Internet may be obscured by encryption and money may change hands before or after access to the file is given. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example a credit card whose details are also passed - hopefully fully encrypted - across the Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by digital signatures or by MD5 message digests.

These simple features of the Internet, over a world-wide basis, are changing the basis for the production, sale and distribution of many types of product, wherever they can be reduced to a computer file for transmission. This includes all manner of office documents, publications, software products, music, photography, video, animations, graphics and the other arts. This in turn is causing seismic shifts in each of the existing industry associations, such as the RIAA and MPAA, that previously controlled the production and distribution of these products.

Many existing radio and television broadcasters have provided Internet 'feeds' of their live audio and video streams (for example, the BBC). They have been joined by a range of pure Internet 'broadcasters' who never had on-air licences. This means that an Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a TV or radio receiver. The range of material is much wider, from pornography to highly specialised technical web-casts. The simplest equipment can allow anybody, with little censorship or licencing control, to broadcast on a worldwide basis. Time-shift viewing or listening is not a problem as the BBC have shown with their Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features.

Web-cams can be seen as an even lower-budget extension of this phenomenon. In this case the picture may update only slowly - perhaps once every few seconds or slower, but Internet users can watch animals around an African waterhole, ships in the Panama Canal or the traffic at a local roundabout live and in real time. Video chat rooms, video conferencing, and remote controllable webcams have become popular. Some people install webcams in their bedrooms that can be accessed by other voyeurs, often with two-way sound. There are even sex-workers who operate commercial bedrooms-cum-studios.

VoIP stands for Voice over IP, where IP refers to the Internet Protocol that underlies all Internet communication. This phenomenon began as an optional two-way voice extension to some of the Instant Messaging systems that took off around the turn of the millennium. In recent years many people and organisations have made VoIP systems as easy to use and as convenient as a normal telephone. The benefit is that, as the actual voice traffic is carried by the Internet, VoIP is free or costs much less than an actual telephone call, especially over long distances and especially for those with always-on ADSL or DSL Internet connections anyway. The disadvantages are that it is still difficult to initiate a call with someone, unless they also have a VoIP phone or are at their computer and that there are still several competing standards that are mitigating against universal acceptance.

In all of these cases, existing large organisations, that have grown accustomed to regular incomes for their services, are finding increased competition in their service areas, coming directly from the Internet. While newcomers strive to make these inroads, the traditional industries are having to adapt, adopt, complain or suffer. Meanwhile the consumer in each case most probably benefits from the increased range of services and possible price reductions. Some worry about censorship and control while others see a continuing globalisation of culture and norms.

The most prevalent language for communication on the Internet is English. This may be due to the Internet's origins or to the growing role of English as an international language. It may also be due to the poor capability of early computers to handle characters other than those in the basic western alphabet (see Unicode).

After English (56 % of websites) the most-used languages on the world wide web are German 8 %, French 6 %, Japanese 5 % and Spanish 3 %. These statistics are probably already out of date.

The Internet's technologies have developed enough in recent years that good facilities are available for development and communication in most widely used languages. However, some glitches such as mojibake still remain.

Some countries with totalitarian regimes such as Iran and the People's Republic of China restrict what people in their countries can see on the internet. This has made blogging very popular in Iran in order to avoid the censorship. The BBC is proposing to offer its entire range of terrestrial television broadcasting as free downloads, but at first only to people within the UK. At the moment most Internet content is available regardless of where one is in the world, so long as one has the means of connecting to it.

Common methods of home access include dial-up, landline broadband (over coaxial cable, fiber optic or copper wires), Wi-Fi, satellite and cell phones.

Public places to use the Internet include libraries and Internet cafes, where computers with Internet connections are available. There are also Internet access points in many public places like airport halls, in some cases just for brief use while standing. Various terms are used, such as "public Internet kiosk", "public access terminal", and "Web payphone". Many hotels now also have public terminals, though these are usually fee based.

Wi-Fi provides wireless access to computer networks, and therefore can do so to the Internet itself. Hotspots providing such access include Wifi-cafes, where a would-be user needs to bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A hotspot need not be limited to a confined location. Whole campuses and parks have been enabled, even entire cities. Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks.

Apart from Wi-Fi, there have been experiments with proprietary mobile wireless networks like Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular or mobile phone networks, and fixed wireless services. These services have not enjoyed widespread success due to their high cost of deployment, which is passed on to users in high usage fees. New wireless technologies such as WiMAX have the potential to alleviate these concerns and enable simple and cost effective deployment of metropolitan area networks covering large, urban areas. There is a growing trend towards wireless mesh networks which offer a decentralised and redundant infrastructure and are often considered the future of the Internet.

Broadband access over power lines was approved in 2004 in the United States in the face of stiff resistance from the amateur radio community. The problem with modulating a carrier signal onto power lines is that an above-ground power line can act as a giant antenna and jam long-distance radio frequencies used by amateurs, seafarers and others.

Countries where Internet access is available to a majority of the population include Germany, India, China, Chile, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, the United States, Canada, Britain, The Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Norway. The use of the Internet around the world has been growing rapidly over the last decade, although the growth rate seems to have slowed somewhat after 2000. The phase of rapid growth is ending in industrialized countries, as usage becomes ubiquitous there, but the spread continues in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East.

However, there are still problems for many. ADSL and other broadband access is rare or nonexistent in most developing countries. Even in developed countries, high prices, mediocre performance and access restrictions often limit its uptake. Within individual countries, wide differences may exist between larger cities (often having multiple providers of broadband access) and some rural areas, where no broadband access may be available at all.

The expansion of the availability of Internet access is a way to bridge the so-called digital divide.

In formal usage, Internet is traditionally written with a capital first letter. The Internet Society, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the World Wide Web Consortium, and several other Internet-related organizations all use this convention in their publications. In English grammar, proper nouns are capitalized.

The majority of newspapers, newswires, periodicals, and technical journals also capitalize the term. Examples include the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time, The Times of India, Hindustan Times and Communications of the ACM.

In less formal usage, the capital letter is often dropped (internet), and many people are not aware that there is a convention of using a capital letter. There are also some people who argue that internet is the correct formal term.

Since 2000, a significant number of publications have switched to using internet. Among them are the Economist, the Financial Times, the London Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. As of 2005, most publications using internet appear to be located outside of North America. One American news source, Wired News, is well-known for its use of the lowercase spelling.

The Internet has been a major source of leisure since before the World Wide Web, with entertaining social experiments such as MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related USENET groups receiving much of the main traffic. Today, many Internet forums have sections devoted to neta; short cartoons in the form of Flash movies are also popular.

The pornography and gambling industries have both taken full advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other Web sites. Although governments around the world have attempted to put restrictions on both industries' use of the Internet, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity.

One main area of leisure on the Internet is multiplayer gaming. This form of leisure creates communities, bringing people of all ages and origins to enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from MMORPG to first-person shooters, from role-playing games to online gambling. This has revolutionized the way many people interact and spend their free time on the Internet.

Online gaming began with services such as GameSpy and MPlayer, which players of games would typically subscribe to. Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of gameplay or certain games. With the release of Diablo by Blizzard Entertainment, gamers were treated to a built in online game service that was free of charge. With Blizzard's next game, StarCraft, the gaming world saw an explosion in the numbers of players using the Internet to play multi-player games. StarCraft may have been the first non-MMO game in which most players utilized the online gameplay as opposed to the single-player gameplay.

Online gaming has progressed so much in the last 10 years that gamers earn a living from being a professional at the subject by winning tournaments and prizes as well as signing sponsor deals. Because there is a huge community for online gamers (over 1/3 of the Internet users), a new community is born which is called modding, where users edit games to add a whole new element to it. This is how games such as Counter-Strike were born from the Half-Life Gaming Engine.

Half life is a very good game, developed by Valve. Maybe it's published by Valve. Anyhow, it's one of the two.

Half-Life is a science fiction first-person shooter computer game developed by Valve Software and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1998, based on a heavily-modified Quake game engine. It was first published for PCs running Microsoft Windows, and was later ported to Sony's PlayStation 2 video game console.

Half-Life, often shortened to HL, has been heralded by computer game critics for its gripping in-depth storyline, which would influence the development of other first-person shooters in the years to come. It was among the first games to feature a story that was told entirely in-game and in real time, without the use of cutscenes. Half-Life is also known for its highly sophisticated enemy AI. Its own success continued for years with expansions such as Half-Life: Opposing Force (OP4) and Half-Life: Blue Shift (BS), mods such as Counter-Strike (CS), Team Fortress Classic (TFC) and Day of Defeat (DoD), and its sequel Half-Life 2 (HL2).

The game is set in a remote area of New Mexico at the Black Mesa Research Facility, a fictional complex that bears many similarities to both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Area 51. The game's protagonist is the theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, a survivor (and catalyst) of an experiment that goes horribly awry when an unexpected resonance cascade rips dimensional seams that allow aliens from another world - known as Xen - to invade Earth.

As Freeman tries to escape the ruined facility whilst fighting off aliens, he soon discovers he is caught between two sides: the hostile aliens, and the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a military force dispatched to cover up the incident—including eliminating Freeman and the rest of the scientists. Throughout the game, a mysterious figure known as the G-Man regularly appears to monitor (and direct) Freeman's progress. Ultimately, Freeman uses the co-operation of surviving scientists and security officers to work his way to the mysterious "Lambda Complex" of Black Mesa, where a team of survivors teleport him to the alien world Xen, where he must kill the creature keeping Xen's side of the dimensional rift open.

The game's plot was originally inspired by the computer games Doom and Quake both produced by Id Software, Stephen King's short story/novella The Mist, and an episode of The Outer Limits called "The Borderland". It was later developed by Valve's in-house writer and author, Marc Laidlaw who wrote the books Dad's Nuke and The 37th Mandala. However, the more influential aspect of the single-player mode is not the plot itself, but rather how it is presented to the player.

The game tells the story by flowing into scripted sequences that are integrated as part of the game rather than as cutscene intermissions. The importance of these sequences ranges from major plot points such as the resonance cascade, to humorous moments (usually involving the accidental death of cowering scientists), and to "dialogue" that provides instructions to the player. Two of the intended results of this style of presentation were to increase immersion and to maintain a smoothly-flowing experience that keeps the player's interest.

Valve implemented other factors to heighten the feeling of immersion, including that the player never sees or hears their own character (dialogue is handled as if Gordon responds in an appropriate manner) and that the player rarely loses the ability to control Gordon, even during monologues. The scripted sequences help flow by keeping the player in the game, whereas cutscenes in other contemporary games had often been a diversion from previous segments of their gameplay. The levels for HL were also divided into small sections to minimize long interruptions from loading.

The game storyline is divided into "chapters":

Black Mesa Inbound — Gordon starts his day riding a tram into the Black Mesa Facility to begin work. On his way he witnesses many interesting things, such as a military helicopter preparing to leave and a strange man in a blue suit watching him from another train.
Anomalous Materials — Gordon is running late for an important experiment. After donning his HEV suit, he proceeds to the test chamber to assist with the experiment, but something goes terribly wrong.
Unforeseen Consequences — Disaster strikes: A resonance cascade has been triggered, causing massive structural damage to Black Mesa. Worse yet, bizarre aliens begin teleporting in across the facility, attacking the confused and terrified survivors, who are left to fend for themselves.
Office Complex — Gordon works his way to the surface through an office facility filled with panicked scientists. He finds out that a military force is en route, and hopes to get help from the soldiers.
We've Got Hostiles — The soldiers of the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit take control of Black Mesa and begin a cleanup operation, killing aliens, facility personnel, and brutally interrogating scientists. Gordon learns that many members of the science team have retreated to the fortified and relatively undamaged Lambda Complex at the other end of the facility, and begins a journey across Black Mesa to reach it.
Blast Pit — His normal route blocked, Gordon finds himself deep underground in a rocket testing area inhabited by three tentacles. After sneaking around the tentacles' lair and fuelling the engine, he fires the rocket and is able to follow the tunnel it leaves behind.
Power Up — Gordon arrives at the terminus of a deactivated underground rail system and is forced to fight off hostile soldiers and a Gargantua. He restores power and begins a journey deep underground.
On a Rail — A guard informs Gordon that a communications satellite needs to be launched to allow the scientists at the Lambda complex to seal the dimensional breach. Gordon fights his way through the rail system, finding entrenched soldiers lying in wait for him, and launches the satellite's rocket.
Apprehension — Working his way through old, abandoned underground areas, Gordon runs into a team of mysterious assassins and is captured by soldiers, who dump him in a garbage compactor.
Residue Processing — Gordon escapes from the compactor and carefully moves through "residue processing", an old and sparsely populated industrial area of the complex filled with hazardous materials and automated materials processing equipment.
Questionable Ethics — With the help of hiding scientists, Gordon makes his way through a deserted laboratory complex where unpleasant experiments were performed on Xen creatures. He eventually makes it outside and continues his journey to the Lambda Complex.
Surface Tension — The surface is swarming with aliens and soldiers, who have brought in vast amounts of military hardware to try and even the odds against the Xen forces.
Forget About Freeman — The marines begin to evacuate Black Mesa and airstrikes begin. Escaping a Gargantua in a car park, Gordon tricks the military into bombing a sealed entrance into the fortified Lambda Complex.
Lambda Core — Gordon arrives in the Lambda Core to find that aliens have broken in and killed most of the survivors. He brings the nuclear reactor online and discovers the secret teleportation labs which have allowed expeditions to travel to the alien borderworld of Xen. The handful of surviving personnel inform him that an immensely powerful being in that borderworld is keeping the portal between the worlds open, and that he must kill it to prevent the Xen aliens from taking over completely. They activate the teleporter and Gordon is relocated to Xen.
Xen — On the strange borderworld, Gordon encounters many of the aliens that had been brought into Black Mesa, as well as the remains of HEV-wearing researchers that came before him. He activates an alien teleporter and is whisked away.
Gonarch's Lair — Gordon faces a powerful spider-like creature which continually gives birth to headcrabs. After killing it, he finds a portal and enters it.
Interloper — Gordon arrives at an alien factory. To his horror, it is a genetic flesh factory, manufacturing an army of engineered soldiers (presumably for the invasion of Earth), and it is entering the final phases of production (the soldiers are being packaged into portable containers for transport). After sneaking and fighting his way through, he finds another portal and enters it.
Nihilanth — In a vast cave, Gordon finally confronts the powerful and mysterious being that is holding the portal open: Nihilanth. Gordon immobilises the being and destroys its vulnerable brain.

Endgame — Gordon, having just obliterated Nihilanth, is met by the mysterious G-Man who offers Gordon an ultimatum: either work for him or be abandoned on the alien world, where he would have no chance of surviving.
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Weapons
There are 14 weapons available to players in both single-player and multiplayer games of Half-Life. Half-Life: Opposing Force added several more weapons. Many reviews of Half-Life mentioned the impressive functionality and "usefulness" of all the weapons designed. Each weapon's damage profile is distinct, none feeling superfluous or overpowerful; each has a specific advantage in the appropriate situation. The weapons in HL (without expansions) are:

Crowbar: A simple melee weapon that is iconic of Gordon Freeman and Half-Life.
Pistol (GLOCK 17, Beretta 92F/FS pistol with the High Definition pack): The first and simplest ranged weapon. Has good accuracy and does more damage per shot than the MP5, but these advantages are offset by a low rate of fire that makes it more useful on weak targets, like headcrabs or laser trip mines. Unlike most other ranged weapons, this pistol is effective underwater. Primary fire is accurate with every shot; secondary fire is faster but less accurate. Patient players will sometimes use the G17 to pick off targets from a distance when sniper weapons are unavailable, as most enemies cannot attack over extreme ranges.
.357 Magnum (Colt Python revolver): An extremely powerful and accurate gun. It has a long reload time and a small 6-round clip. Good for dispatching enemies in one hit, especially from a distance. In multiplayer mode, secondary fire gives the player a zoomed view.
Submachine gun (Heckler & Koch MP5, Colt M4 Carbine/M203 assault rifle with the High Definition pack): Excellent for close-range combat. Has a fast rate of fire that compensates for its poor damage and accuracy. Secondary fire launches a grenade that detonates on impact. Uses same ammo pool as the Pistol.
Shotgun (Franchi SPAS-12): Does high damage at close range, but its broad fire cone makes it weak at a distance. It can be reloaded one shell at a time, but is slow to fully reload. Its secondary fire shoots two rounds at once.
Crossbow: A sniper weapon with high damage and accuracy, but with a slow rate of fire and reload time. Like the pistol, the crossbow works underwater. Secondary fire toggles its zoom mode. Multiplayer behavior is quite different: It fires explosive bolts, and when zoomed in it is an instantaneous-fire sniper weapon.
Hornet gun (alien weapon): The same weapon used by the Alien Grunts, this gun is a sort of living hive of constantly replenishing "hornets" (sometimes known as "thornets"). Primary fire shoots up to 8 homing hornets that can hit unseen enemies around corners. Secondary fire launches straight-flying non-homing hornets that move faster and have a higher rate of fire compared to the homing ones.
Rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher (ATGM-4000 RPG Launcher): Does a large amount of explosive splash damage. Secondary fire toggles a laser that guides the RPG to its target. Can only hold one rocket at a time with 5 more in reserve.
Gluon/Egon gun: This experimental weapon looks and operates similar to the proton pack used by the characters in the movie Ghostbusters. Because of its internal weapon name, weapon_egon, it is also known as the Egon gun; this is probably a reference to the eponymous character from the movie.
Tau cannon/Gauss gun: Another experimental weapon that rapidly shoots beams of tau particles that reflect off walls if hit indirectly. Secondary fire allows the gun to charge up to shoot a more powerful beam that can penetrate thin walls and pushes the user in the opposite direction. The recoil is deliberately exaggerated in multiplayer so the player can "Gauss jump" very high and reach hidden areas or escape opponents. This feature is a deliberate nod to "rocket jumping" in Quake. If the gun is kept charged for too long (ca 10s), it overloads and damages its wielder.
Hand grenade: A frag grenade that explodes a few seconds after being thrown.
Laser trip mine: A high-explosive Claymore mine-like device that can be attached to walls. It is set off either by damaging the mine or by "breaking" the laser "tripwire" emitting from it.
Satchel charge: A high-explosive that can be thrown a short distance and detonated when the player presses fire. Secondary fire allows the player to place several satchels and detonate them simultaneously.
Snarks (alien weapon): Aggressive little alien creatures that quickly pursue their target, pestering and biting, until finally exploding after several seconds (or if shot). If they cannot locate a hostile target, they will turn on the player that set them loose. Can be used, for example, to draw enemies out from their cover.

This is an excellent selection of weapons, the most influential of which would be the MP5. The MP5 is a submachine gun, developed by German weapons manufacturer Heckler & Koch (HK) in the 1960s. A typical MP5 fires NATO 9 x 19 mm Parabellum ammunition from curved box-type magazines. The MP5's accuracy, reliability, and wide range of accessories and variants have made it the submachine gun of choice for military and law enforcement agencies worldwide.


As with most HK weapons, the trigger assembly is completely replaceable, and includes fully automatic, 4-, 3-, and 2-round burst, single shot, and safe positions in various combinations. MP5s were long chambered for the 9 mm × 19 mm Parabellum round commonly used in pistols. In the late 1990s more powerful .40 S&W and 10 mm Auto versions were introduced, but soon phased out in favor of the new UMP submachine gun.

The original MP5 was available in fixed or folding butt forms. Some variants did not have a 3-round burst capacity, or had only a 3-round burst mode. In 1971 (MP5A2) and 1973 (MP5A3), HK made several general improvements in the MP5.

The next major development was the MP5SD series (SD1-SD6) introduced in 1974. This model had an integrated suppressor and a specially made barrel which reduced the muzzle velocity of its ammunition to just below the speed of sound. The result was that the MP5SD series is almost inaudible at distances of more than 15 m.

The MP5K ("Kurz", meaning "short"), which is only 325 mm long, was introduced in 1976 at the request of a South American arms dealer who saw the potential for its sale to bodyguards as a concealable, but fully automatic weapon. It has a foregrip to reduce muzzle rise and aid in automatic firing. A further development of this is the MP5K-PDW (Personal Defense Weapon) in 1991. This model was built for US Air Force pilots who needed a compact weapon. It has a folding butt and can accept a silencer and laser sight. It can also be fired from inside a special briefcase. All variants of the MP5K are available in the similar configurations as the original weapon.

Under a special contract from the US Navy, HK developed the MP5N or "MP5 Navy" variant for the Navy's elite special operations units (including the US Navy SEALs). The MP5N features a fully ambidextrous trigger group, a telescoping stock, and a threaded barrel for accessories. In addition, HK replaced many of the metal parts on the MP5N with lighter and corrosion-resistant plastics.

The MP5/10, an MP5 chambered in the 10 mm Auto cartridge, was HK's first attempt to increase the power of the MP5 series. In 1994, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation adopted the MP5/10 as their standard submachine gun. The MP5/10 series has been plagued by mechanical failures not present in the original MP5. This is most often attributed to the MP5 design being unable to handle the increase in caliber.
The MP5 was first introduced by HK in 1966 under the name HK54. This name comes from HK's old numbering system. The 5 designates the model as a submachine gun, while the 4 identifies it as taking 9 x 19 mm Parabellum ammunition. The current name dates from when it was officially adopted by the West German government for use by its Police and Border Guard as the "Maschinepistole 5", or MP5 in mid-1966. The GSG-9, the counter-terrorist part of the Border Guard, then introduced the MP5 to other Western counter-terrorist units.

With the increased use of body armor, the future of the MP5 is uncertain. Several new trends in gun design have begun to eclipse the submachine gun; small caliber PDW like HK's new MP7 and compact carbines such as the M4, AKS-74, the G36C variant of HK's G36, and the XM8 based on the G36. The only major criticism of the MP5 has been its high cost—approximately 900 USD for an MP5N, or the same price as an assault rifle. HK has started to complement the MP5 series with the more powerful and cheaper UMP, which is available in both .45 ACP and 9 mm × 19 mm parabellum calibers. However, since the UMP uses a simple blowback action, it may not necessarily be a rival for the MP5 among the most discriminating users.

One famous counter-terrorist operation involving this gun is Operation Nimrod (April 30, 1980) in the UK. The Special Air Service, armed with MP5s, was deployed to neutralize the terrorists who had taken over the Iranian embassy in London. Stun grenades were used to startle and confuse the terrorists. Then, SAS members went through the front door, second, and third story windows. Most of the terrorists were shot and killed. Almost every special forces and counter-terrorist unit in the world uses MP5s.

The MP5 was also used by Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal to massacre the royal family (including King Birendra and Queen Aiswarya), in a shooting spree in 2001.

The MP5 is a very popular image in popular culture. The MP5 is a very common movie prop, appearing in countless movies such as Die Hard, S.W.A.T., Bad Boys, End of Days, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, GoldenEye, Predator, Air Force One, and The Rock, to name a few.

In Die Hard, Bruce Willis dangles in an elevator shaft suspended from the sling of his evidently sturdy MP5. In The Matrix, the first gun Neo uses in the lobby scene is an HK MP5K, a variant of the MP5.

During the first few seasons of the television series Stargate SG-1, based on the movie, the MP5 was the team's standard-issue firearm. It has since been replaced by the FN P90 SMG.

MP5s are ubiquitous in video games. The weapon appears in name or a similarity in many first person shooters, most famously Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six.

The MP5 is also pictured in the logo of the former German radical leftist terrorist group the Red Army Faction.

The Red Army Faction (in German: Rote Armee Fraktion; RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, or the Baader-Meinhof Gang, which was one of the core groups within the RAF, was postwar Western Germany's most active left-wing terrorist organization. The RAF referred to its members as "urban guerrillas". It operated from the 1970s to 1998, causing great unrest (especially in the autumn of 1977, which led to a national crisis) and killing dozens of high-profile Germans in its more than 20 years of existence.

The origins of the group can be traced back to the student protests of the late 1960s. In Germany, the protests turned into riots when on June 2, 1967, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, visited the western part of Berlin, at the time a divided city. After a day of violent protests by exiled Iranians, supported by German students, the Shah visited the Deutsche Oper. In the course of events after the show, the German student Benno Ohnesorg—who was attending his first protest—was shot in the head and killed by West German police.

This, together with perceptions of state brutality during other protests (West German police tactics of the period are viewed in contemporary times as generally overly aggressive) and the widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, brought Thorwald Proll, Horst Söhnlein, Gudrun Ensslin, and Andreas Baader together, after which they decided to set fire to several German department stores. They were arrested in Frankfurt on April 2, 1968; while they were on trial, the journalist Ulrike Meinhof published several sympathetic articles in the political magazine konkret.

Meanwhile, on April 11, 1968, Rudi Dutschke, the intellectual leader of the student protests, was shot in the head (though badly injured, he was able to return to political activism until his death in 1979, a late consequence of his injuries). The attacker was Josef Bachmann, a conservative, German unskilled laborer. The students considered the tabloid newspaper Bild-Zeitung, which had headlines like "Stop Dutschke now!", the chief culprit and thus the conservative press and especially the Axel Springer corporation, the publisher of the Bild-Zeitung, became the new target of the leftist protesters. Meinhof commented, "If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action."


Baader and Ensslin managed to hide after their trial, but Baader was caught again in April 1970. On May 14, 1970, in a violent shootout, Baader was freed from custody by Meinhof and his lawyer, Horst Mahler; after this incident, the group was commonly referred to as the Baader-Meinhof-Bande. Baader, Ensslin, Mahler, and Meinhof then went underground to the Middle East for training. They were thrown out of the Palestinian guerrilla camp because they would not accept the rules and discipline.

When they returned to West Germany, they began what they called "anti-imperialistic fight", with bank robberies to raise money and explosives, and arson attacks against U.S. military facilities, German police stations, and buildings of the Axel Springer press empire. A manifesto authored by Meinhof used the name "RAF" and the red-star logo with a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun for the first time. After an intense manhunt, Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, Holger Meins, and Jan-Carl Raspe were caught in June 1972.

In conclusion, George W Bush is bad, linux is awesome and the counter-strike source was extremely badly written. Valve should have taken this criticism seriously and released a better version of Half-Life 2 with less aggregate compounding data types, and instead should have use dynamic memory allocation to service the variadic functions controlling the I/O system interfacing with the public. This creates tension, which Ken Kesey does purposely to enhance the plot.

Outstanding.