Zork is somewhat overrated; it's from a time when adventure games were a grab-bag of fantasy cliches and "zany" objects. The past two decades have been spent retconning it into something grander than it actually was.
I dunno about that...the Zork series was the first set of computer games I ever played (back on an old IBM PCJr, no less), and I had hours and hours (and hours more) of fun playing through them. For the time, they truly were excellent. I really don't think that they've been retconned into something grander than they were; they simply WERE grand, for their time.
Trinity (a mix of high fantasy and nuclear history)
I loved Trinity, too, and one could make the argument that Trinity wouldn't have been possible without Zork.
I prefer to think that, instead of developing low self-esteem, we instead develop the ability to discern what's real from what is hyperbole. The mere fact that I can see the humor in such a statement without getting my boxers in a bunch presents itself as an argument that we are, indeed, already ahead.
You cannot patent something which exists in nature. This is the main reason that pharmaceutical companies ignore plant based drugs and go for deadly chemical cocktails... further lines of BS Pharmaceutical companies get patent protection for the *processes* that make ALL KINDS of things that already exist in nature - and don't discriminate between molecules that originated in plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, or anything else.
Biotech firms take it a step further (or closer, as the case may be), in that we tend to target those large, very complex molecules (like proteins) that are much more specifically targeted to the disease/symptom of interest, so as not to cause all the collateral damage side effects. DNA patents don't even enter into it. We usually patent the process for making the end product, and may also try to patent the product itself IF we have made some small modification to it.
The process goes something like this:
(1) Find the gene that codes for a particular protein of interest in the human body.
(2) Change that gene just a little bit so that the final protein is also changed a little bit, ostensibly to improve the 'performance' of the protein (e.g., make it last longer in the body)
(2) Splice that gene into a cell line that you can get to grow fast and make many, many copies of that protein.
(3) Patent the process of making that protein outside of the human body (it's novel)
(4) Also patent the protein itself - it's been changed enough that it does NOT exist in nature.
(5) Profit! *
* Step 5 only occurs after 10-15 years of development, testing, scale-up, clinical trials, and several hundred millions of dollars - sometimes billions - and only about 1% of proteins hat start out looking good make it to the end of the process. And timing your patent application is crucial - apply too late, and another company could scoop you, but apply too soon, and by the time the product is approved by the FDA and ready to market, you could have used up a good portion of the years of your patent protection.
The article says that the games it lists are "exemplars of the casual gaming genre--video games meant to be played incidentally, as a break from work, for instance, or in lieu of sending an e-mail."
Kingdom of Loathing (kingdomofloathing.com), of which I am a long-time player, isn't really casual, as I'm sure you would agree. Could you, for instance, only log on for a couple of minutes of Knob goblins, then log off?
b) That the massive number of guns going around in a society will always be used by the people they were intended in the way they were intended.
Are you trying to say that responsible gun owners/users are massively in the minority? I contest your statement that they're in the minority at all, let alone 'massively' in the minority. The BBC reports here ahref=http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art29.shtmlrel=url2html-15758http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art29.shtml> that, in the US, there are some 60 million gun owners with some 200 million guns. If the majority of gun owners didn't use them responsibly, we'd be in pretty dire straits indeed.
Slashdot Mirror
Zork is somewhat overrated; it's from a time when adventure games were a grab-bag of fantasy cliches and "zany" objects. The past two decades have been spent retconning it into something grander than it actually was.
I dunno about that...the Zork series was the first set of computer games I ever played (back on an old IBM PCJr, no less), and I had hours and hours (and hours more) of fun playing through them. For the time, they truly were excellent. I really don't think that they've been retconned into something grander than they were; they simply WERE grand, for their time.
Trinity (a mix of high fantasy and nuclear history)
I loved Trinity, too, and one could make the argument that Trinity wouldn't have been possible without Zork.
I prefer to think that, instead of developing low self-esteem, we instead develop the ability to discern what's real from what is hyperbole. The mere fact that I can see the humor in such a statement without getting my boxers in a bunch presents itself as an argument that we are, indeed, already ahead.
All your base pairs are belong to us.
Most of the Greenpeace flakes are in Southern California, not Sacramento - that area is full of redneck tobacco-chewers. And Arnie.
If this image is any indication, then it pretty much is the top of the plume.
You guys schedule your storms? We Coloradoans need to get with the times; we still just wait for ours to happen sporadically.
The article says that the games it lists are "exemplars of the casual gaming genre--video games meant to be played incidentally, as a break from work, for instance, or in lieu of sending an e-mail."
Kingdom of Loathing (kingdomofloathing.com), of which I am a long-time player, isn't really casual, as I'm sure you would agree. Could you, for instance, only log on for a couple of minutes of Knob goblins, then log off?
b) That the massive number of guns going around in a society will always be used by the people they were intended in the way they were intended.
Are you trying to say that responsible gun owners/users are massively in the minority? I contest your statement that they're in the minority at all, let alone 'massively' in the minority. The BBC reports here ahref=http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art29.shtmlrel=url2html-15758http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/ihavearightto/four_b/casestudy_art29.shtml> that, in the US, there are some 60 million gun owners with some 200 million guns. If the majority of gun owners didn't use them responsibly, we'd be in pretty dire straits indeed.