could be he's basing what he knows off of old data/info, one of the more recent Half Life Episodes (2 or 3) was supposed to be Half Life 3 if I remember right or something like that, so could be your more informed than he is, and he's just threatened by it or jealous.
though doing more research looks like HL3 is in the works, not another episode, but a completely new game.
so before doing the following, maybe find that out first...
used to have a few "friends" from around the neighborhood when I was younger that were like that, they "knew" everything there was to know about Star Wars, Transformers, Go-bots, Voltron, etc etc, and some how I was always more up to date on the info, but they'd be spouting off all sorts of crap, that wasn't even related...
couple times I even invented stuff just to get them started & show others the ridiculous crap they'd spout off, just to test them so to speak.
but that was 20+ years ago.
a couple years ago, had a co-worker that knew everything, me & one of my current co-workers set him up and what not...
the one I work with now, Branden, played Football in Jr High & Sr High, the other kid, Austin, claimed he used to also, this & that, and was pretty good, funny thing is there's only a 2 year age difference between the two, and Branden called him out on it and mentioned never seeing him at the practice's, try outs, scrimmages etc, but austin always had an excuse, then one day me & branden were BSing about the stuff, and austin started in on his "Comparative" experiences (thing is, I never played football, never was into it, was more of a Tennis Player during summer break when I could focus on that instead of during school year) but anyways, we mentioned something about his coach, well austin claimed that was his too... then we mentioned about another one of the coaches, and austin said he was coached by him also, but couldn't remember his name, so we "helped" him a little, acting like we couldn't remember at first, but then remembered... when we used one of the Coaches for the Minnesota Vikings LOL, sure enough Austin, with out even realizing it, said yeah, that was his too... we had him busted...
then after a few moments he realized what we had done, & started to claim that he was just going along with us etc etc...
but we knew better.
but for sh!ts & giggles maybe next time your friend starts trying to best you in knowledge or story telling, make something up, set him up & put him in his place, I know it sounds mean, but people like that need to understand they don't need to always be better than someone else by making shit up and being better than others, if their misinformed about something, then by god have the dignity & self respect to admit when wrong, but if its just to be better than someone else, they're going to find out the hard way down the road, that few people really like it when there's always some "know it all" around... just be them selves & be happy with it.
its like being on here, crap I wish I knew as much about Overclocking as Karma does, Power Supply stuff as JP does, networking & the like as some others.
even sometimes know as much about current events & religious Dogma & Politics and other crap as some do, along with proper grammar, sentence structure & BIG COMPLEX UBER INTELLIGENT LIKE WORDS, lol
just so I could match wits with know it all's like Beemer (If you want a perfect example of a know it all, check out 99% of his posts in the debate section, no matter what one says, he's always got something thats better & puts them or their opinions/thoughts/morals/principles/etc down, and always has to be right even when he's dead wrong) & some others in the debate section.
but, I don't go spouting stuff thats wrong, if I'm misinformed & someone calls me on it, I'll admit to it, if I don't know for sure or can't remember exactly, I'll say so...
I guess its just growing up around people like that all my life , that I'm that conscious of what I can & can't say for any certainty with out sounding like a Douche Bag
(People from both sides of the tracks, ones with anything they wanted from mom & dad & should know better as far as being informed & up to date, and others on the other side, with barely anything, except for UHF/VHF TV, maybe a radio, occasionally a newspaper, etc, but few toys, few this & that, etc, so can understand why they may have the need to be better than others)
anyways, enough ramblings for now...
as far as C++ goes, the basics are pretty easy to learn, once you get into a bit more indepth programming then it gets progressively harder.
Memorizing Binary can be a bitch too, though.
hardware
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400TH POST!!!! 
