I recall a book I read about 20-26 years ago about a tiny black hole being found in some Minoan ruins. I don't remember many of the details, though. It was an archaeological/cosmological-thriller-type book.
There was generally a lot of singing in The Hobbit. The encounter with Beorn always reminded me of the encounter with Bombadil, maybe that's what Hemos was thinking. I don't think Beorn did any singing in the book, though.
Pippin stabs a troll with it during the battle outside the Black Gate, and later threatens some of Sharkey's minions with it. Presumably he also killed some of them with it during the fighting.
No, he was not Illuvatar. I haven't re-read the books in a couple of years, and don't have them here at the office, but at the Council of Elrond, Gandalf (when the idea of sending the Ring to Bombadil for safe-keeping comes up) says something like: "No, Bombadil doesn't have power over the Ring. The Ring has no power over him. Sending the Ring to him would only delay the inevitable: when Sauron conquers the rest of the world, then Bombadil will fall, last as he was first". (Very heavily paraphrased, sorry).
A hopped-up Maia (Sauron) doesn't get to beat up the Creator.
My personal opinion is that Tom Bombadil was a spirit equal to a Vala or powerful Maia, that came into the world shortly after it was created.
Oblivion has an advantage in continuity (can't say for Planescape Torment; I've never played it, though I'd like to someday), because it's a single-player game. Since it doesn't have to cater to thousands of people all trying to accomplish the same quests in the same world, you can make a difference. For example, the young lizard girl I rescued in one of the towns still greets me as "My hero." when I visit her mother's shop, Oblivion gates appear and you close them, dead NPCs don't respawn, etc....
I'm personally able to overlook the fact that the everyone has to kill the same NPC (or do the same quest, etc) to progress, but I can see how it could be very jarring to some people.
I used to use [2j to clear the screen all the time. I think that was on terminals logged in to VMS, but I believe it still worked in DOS using ANSI.SYS.
Back in my less socially responsible days, I had something similar I used on Apple ][ machines in stores or at school. I think it was:
]CALL -151
*300:A9 4E 20 ED FD AE 30 C0 4C 00 03 *300G
This is a tight loop which will fill the screen with garbage and constantly click the speaker. Ah, good times...
It's probably been 21 years since I last used it. Hmm, I just tried it in an emulator and it's printing the same character over and over. I may be reading the wrong zero page location, or maybe the emulator isn't 100%, it is an old beta version.
Some of the first code I wrote under DOS used Turbo C 1.0. Still have the manuals around here somewhere...
I still have a soft spot for the Brief editor (which Borland acquired at some point from UnderWare), too. Some of my most productive coding was done under Brief + dBrief...
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I recall a book I read about 20-26 years ago about a tiny black hole being found in some Minoan ruins. I don't remember many of the details, though. It was an archaeological/cosmological-thriller-type book.
There was generally a lot of singing in The Hobbit. The encounter with Beorn always reminded me of the encounter with Bombadil, maybe that's what Hemos was thinking. I don't think Beorn did any singing in the book, though.
Pippin stabs a troll with it during the battle outside the Black Gate, and later threatens some of Sharkey's minions with it. Presumably he also killed some of them with it during the fighting.
No, he was not Illuvatar. I haven't re-read the books in a couple of years, and don't have them here at the office, but at the Council of Elrond, Gandalf (when the idea of sending the Ring to Bombadil for safe-keeping comes up) says something like: "No, Bombadil doesn't have power over the Ring. The Ring has no power over him. Sending the Ring to him would only delay the inevitable: when Sauron conquers the rest of the world, then Bombadil will fall, last as he was first". (Very heavily paraphrased, sorry).
A hopped-up Maia (Sauron) doesn't get to beat up the Creator.
My personal opinion is that Tom Bombadil was a spirit equal to a Vala or powerful Maia, that came into the world shortly after it was created.
But is he under 35 in dog years? That's what counts. And is there really anything in the rules about having to be human?
Oblivion has an advantage in continuity (can't say for Planescape Torment; I've never played it, though I'd like to someday), because it's a single-player game. Since it doesn't have to cater to thousands of people all trying to accomplish the same quests in the same world, you can make a difference. For example, the young lizard girl I rescued in one of the towns still greets me as "My hero." when I visit her mother's shop, Oblivion gates appear and you close them, dead NPCs don't respawn, etc....
I'm personally able to overlook the fact that the everyone has to kill the same NPC (or do the same quest, etc) to progress, but I can see how it could be very jarring to some people.
Until your sense of immersion is ruined when you see this appear in your chat box:
Kooldrooddewd tells you, "wtf u doin i was kitin that griffen".
From your response, I'd say he's in the wrong place for an Argument. This is Abuse.
To this day I still say "IBM-PC contemptible"... :-)
I used to use [2j to clear the screen all the time. I think that was on terminals logged in to VMS, but I believe it still worked in DOS using ANSI.SYS.
This is a tight loop which will fill the screen with garbage and constantly click the speaker. Ah, good times... It's probably been 21 years since I last used it. Hmm, I just tried it in an emulator and it's printing the same character over and over. I may be reading the wrong zero page location, or maybe the emulator isn't 100%, it is an old beta version.
> When there is an opening for Bored Housewifes, please call me. I'll be here all week.
:-).
Must be nice to be a bored housewife and be able to post to Slashdot all day
What magical place do you come from where Michael Moorcock's work is considered "pop culture"? :-)
NO CARRIER
I heard that Vecna only became evil after acquiring the Heart of Cheney.
CON:!!!!!!!!!!!
:-(.
My takeoff on "Khaaaaannnn!!!" looks too much like ascii art
> to look for some 'Cacky Pants'. To her, this phrase describes those lightweight, cotton, military styled 'trousers'. She probably meant khaki pants.
> Thing is, the sudden death of 3 or 4 thousand people is not good for society, at all.
Do I get to choose the people?
I agree - the default keybindings in Brief were very intuitive. And the column mode was very easy to use.
Indeed. I'm devoted to emacs, but Brief was my first love among editors :-).
Some of the first code I wrote under DOS used Turbo C 1.0. Still have the manuals around here somewhere...
I still have a soft spot for the Brief editor (which Borland acquired at some point from UnderWare), too. Some of my most productive coding was done under Brief + dBrief...
So it wouldn't be confused with "bazillion"?
> 13:00 Arrested for descent of the government
:-).
While there are many people who should probably be arrested for "descent of government", you probably aren't one of them
I was running it under SIMH on a K6-3/550 running Linux:
s imh.html
:-(.
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/
http://www.wherry.com/gadgets/retrocomputing/vax-
I never got networking to work, though - VMS kept rejecting my licenses
And if the sphere is expanding quickly enough, the ant would never be able to come back to its starting point by walking in a "straight" line.