The end of Dreamfall made me cry. The "end" being the last 2 hours or so.
Some people hated it because it was "short" at about 10-12 hours-ish of gameplay, that it wasn't interactive enough, or it wasn't dynamic enough (There's really only one possible storyline, even though the game attempts to convince you otherwise). These people tended to love TLJ's puzzles.
Other people loved Dreamfall because the story was so *amazingly* good. I basically went through Chapter 11 to 13 with my jaw dropped in shock. If you loved TLJ for its amazing depth of storytelling, Dreamfall is for you.
Dreamfall is basically an interactive movie. Pretend that Ragnar Tornquist made a movie sequel to Dreamfall, that had an amazing plot, but was a middle chapter with practically a "To Be Continued" ending. Would you go see it? I know the answer for me would be hell yes.
One other reccomendation. The controls are awkward at first, and are suited to a gamepad. I found going into the settings and fiddling with the axes on the mouse controls helped immensely.
I believe I read somewhere that the effects of quantum mechanics make forcasts beyond 17 days physically impossible, even if you know the exact position and velocity of every molecule in the atmosphere and had a supercomputer the size of the universe and 10^N years of computation time.
SLAX also has Slax: Frodo which fits on a 50MB iso.
I haven't tried DSL, and I've been using Slackware since 1995, so I admit bias. But SLAX is just so beautiful and works so well... I'd highly reccomend it.
I'd consider switching from my cable connection to ADSL if...
a) My phone company wasn't evil (Telus - British Columbia, Canada)
and
b) If I hadn't cut my phone line this past September and switched to Vonage (see (a) above).
At the moment here in BC, we pay about $40CDN/mo for 5Mbps/500Kbps. Telus has some agressive deals (including a 19" LCD monitor if you sign a 3 year contract), but I'm sticking with Shaw for the forseeable future).
We're honestly not that far away from $75 500GB hard drives. Another 2-3 years, perhaps.
I'm honestly surprised that the state of optical media has progressed so slowly though. BlueRay and HD may seem very large, but considering the size of our hard drives, I'd be happier if 5 inch CD formfactor media could store on the order of ~100GB.
Well, if you want to take the article at face value, probably somewhere in the 2020's. I'd guess 2025-2029 at this rate. Perhaps faster if we really have or are about to hit peak oil as some have claimed.
I understand the sentiment, but this is science: Guilty until proven innocent. Until we see any kind of evidence other than "That mountain is pyramid shaped", this guy is worthy of ridicule in proportion to the size of the claim.
Consider it a "hazing ritual" that *all* scientists have to go through when they make extraordinary claims that aren't (yet) backed up with extraordinary evidence.
I'm a bit concerned about your meter for debunking. "Excavating the entire site", when the entire site is a *mountain*. It will never be debunked. This will probably fall into the realm of consipracy theory in a few years, probably when his funding is cut.
As for hating new findings, I think I'd be pleasantly surprised. I'm not holding my breath though.
For the record, my wife has a degree in archaeology. I would guess that archaeologists are far more defensive about known theories because there's been a fair number of charlaitians and hucksters in the past.
Actually, killing Data was one of the few redeeming features of Nemisis (which I actually watched for the first time just a few days ago). It actually led to this thing called "change over time" and "character development" which you actually see frequently in other kinds of fiction.
I agree Nemisis was pretty bad, but just right for my mental state (I have the flu). The worst part is that it's pretty much a rehash of Star Trek 2 (Captian's Nemisis, large portion of the movie a space battle, major character dies at the end). Consider Spock was killed at the end of 2, and it's considered the best of the ten movies. Leonard Nemoy had similar feelings about the Spock character as Brent Spiner did about Data.
There can be only 2 reasonable explanations for this.
1) They're patenting it so that noone can do this, ever, including themselves. I feel the "patent because they can" falls into this category.
2) The only real economic possibility I can see here? Free TVs. You have the choice between pricey boxes that allow you to skip commercials, or cheap ones that force you to watch them. Likely we'll start seeing modchips for televisions around that time...
A Frungy mini game inside the game would be *most* excellent.
Hell, let's face it, Toys for Bob could probably release "Frungy! (The Sport of Kings)" as it's own title and we'd probably all wet our pants in excitement.
Just think of it... the Interstellar Frungy League, with the Pkunk players screaming out "Idiot! Moron! Worm!". Khor-Ah with their Talking Pet cheerleading squad cheering: "You will be annihilated!". The Chmmr won't ever be ready to take the field when gametime comes around.
I spent years believing that Star Control 2 was the very best game of the 90's. Particularly for the plot. Layers within layers within layers, and humour to boot! Side stiching laughter.
Hell, I admit it. I played one of the pirated versions from the 90's whlie I was at university. The ones that deliberately crashed in the starmap because (said the urban legend at the time) it knew if the game was cracked in the "obvious" manner, and crashed a lot as punishment. It didn't matter, I managed to play it all the way through anyways.
I've played the game several times since, including the latest version of the open source Ur-Quan Masters, which is pretty rock solid at this point. I also now own the game (A CD re-release), with the box proudly displayed in my computer room.
I've raved about this game for the past 13 years. Plotwise, the only game I've seen that's beaten out SC2 has been "The Longest Journey" by Ragnar Tornquist, which has a sequel "Dreamfall" finally coming out on Monday. I've been dreaming about a Longest Journey sequel for 5 years, but come to think of it, I've been dreaming about a SC2 sequel, a *PROPER* SC2 sequel, for 13. SC2.1 would have "nerd-squee!" (or "OMG! Ponies!!" if you prefer) written all over it.
Hell, at this point I'd be happy if they used the existing UQM open source engine, and gave us a new plot in the StarCon universe. Hell, I'd be willing to do voice acting for the thing. (UQMites, I'm also hopeing that someday soon we'll see UQM mods with user made storylines. That would be cool too)
Yes, but why? I've seen discussion that suggests that a lot of that atmospheric CO2 is locked up in carbonate rocks on Earth. I'm uncertain if the levels are comparable.
Venus and Earth likely were practically identical at one point, moving at similar but subtly different evolutionary paths. What was the difference?
Unless the greenhouse effect is runaway, like Venus, and all the water is evaporated away. Then we're all fucked.
I did some scary back of envelope calculations today about Venus. It's closer to the sun, and receives about 1.9 times the sunlight as Earth. But its atmosphere is so reflective (which is why it's so bright in the sky, the albedo is almost twice that of Earth), that only half the amount of sunlight gets through the CO2 and SO2 clouds without being bounced back into space.
Venus receives less energy from the sun than Earth does.
I try not to think too much about that, it scares the living crap out of me. Something went terribly terribly wrong with Venus. We need to figure out what that was.
It's likely that earth has a corrective measure that will throw the planet back into a severe ice age if CO2 levels rise too high. Our history is dominated by ice ages. Still I like my planet the temperature it is now, not severely hotter or colder.
Slashdot Mirror
The end of Dreamfall made me cry. The "end" being the last 2 hours or so.
Some people hated it because it was "short" at about 10-12 hours-ish of gameplay, that it wasn't interactive enough, or it wasn't dynamic enough (There's really only one possible storyline, even though the game attempts to convince you otherwise). These people tended to love TLJ's puzzles.
Other people loved Dreamfall because the story was so *amazingly* good. I basically went through Chapter 11 to 13 with my jaw dropped in shock. If you loved TLJ for its amazing depth of storytelling, Dreamfall is for you.
Dreamfall is basically an interactive movie. Pretend that Ragnar Tornquist made a movie sequel to Dreamfall, that had an amazing plot, but was a middle chapter with practically a "To Be Continued" ending. Would you go see it? I know the answer for me would be hell yes.
One other reccomendation. The controls are awkward at first, and are suited to a gamepad. I found going into the settings and fiddling with the axes on the mouse controls helped immensely.
I believe I read somewhere that the effects of quantum mechanics make forcasts beyond 17 days physically impossible, even if you know the exact position and velocity of every molecule in the atmosphere and had a supercomputer the size of the universe and 10^N years of computation time.
Why don't we just store all our data in strands of DNA and be done with it.
;)
Then we could carry arround our entire porn collection in a small cancerous lump on our neck.
SLAX also has Slax: Frodo which fits on a 50MB iso.
I haven't tried DSL, and I've been using Slackware since 1995, so I admit bias. But SLAX is just so beautiful and works so well... I'd highly reccomend it.
I'd consider switching from my cable connection to ADSL if...
a) My phone company wasn't evil (Telus - British Columbia, Canada)
and
b) If I hadn't cut my phone line this past September and switched to Vonage (see (a) above).
At the moment here in BC, we pay about $40CDN/mo for 5Mbps/500Kbps. Telus has some agressive deals (including a 19" LCD monitor if you sign a 3 year contract), but I'm sticking with Shaw for the forseeable future).
Another factor is that there simply isn't any good new music anymore. Everyone has downloaded everything they ever wanted and have now given up.
I like my personal theory on Dark Matter.
It's all Dyson Spheres
I'd give a 2 month's worth of mod points for a single +1, Insightful right about now.
Kudos!
We're honestly not that far away from $75 500GB hard drives. Another 2-3 years, perhaps.
I'm honestly surprised that the state of optical media has progressed so slowly though. BlueRay and HD may seem very large, but considering the size of our hard drives, I'd be happier if 5 inch CD formfactor media could store on the order of ~100GB.
Just like the Vietnam war, the moon landing is fading from history into modern day mythology. Something about "he who forgets the past..."
The Vietnam war was still being fought in my lifetime. I can't say the same thing about an Apollo moon landing.
Well, if you want to take the article at face value, probably somewhere in the 2020's. I'd guess 2025-2029 at this rate. Perhaps faster if we really have or are about to hit peak oil as some have claimed.
Is it possible we might put finalists up for a Slashdot Poll?
Taco would still get the final say, but he'd know if we outright hated one of the designs first.
(That being said, if this truly is just CSS changes, I'd love to see the option to choose between themes at the user level)
(tough guy) Old Man, you seek the Spell of Mastery!
... you have come to late, my efforts have already met with success....
...
(old man mubling)
(tough guy) If that is the case, you must be stopped!
(old man) (mumbles some more)
*lightning*
You may mod this OT, but those of us over 30 know EXACTLY what I'm talking about...
The curse of plutonium packs a painful penalty.
And probably makes more sense millenia to come than the English phrase:
"Do not install this software, 'Duke Nuke 'em Forever', under any circumstances!"
RIMMER: Of course aliens have visited Earth. Look at the pyramids! How else could the Egyptians have moved such massive stones?
LISTER: They had whips, Rimmer! Massive, massive whips!
(Side note: Agreed with the reply above that the pyramid labourers were likely paid)
Oh why did I have to make a rational response when I could have simply modded this up... :)
I understand the sentiment, but this is science: Guilty until proven innocent. Until we see any kind of evidence other than "That mountain is pyramid shaped", this guy is worthy of ridicule in proportion to the size of the claim.
Consider it a "hazing ritual" that *all* scientists have to go through when they make extraordinary claims that aren't (yet) backed up with extraordinary evidence.
I'm a bit concerned about your meter for debunking. "Excavating the entire site", when the entire site is a *mountain*. It will never be debunked. This will probably fall into the realm of consipracy theory in a few years, probably when his funding is cut.
As for hating new findings, I think I'd be pleasantly surprised. I'm not holding my breath though.
For the record, my wife has a degree in archaeology. I would guess that archaeologists are far more defensive about known theories because there's been a fair number of charlaitians and hucksters in the past.
Risk to Established Canon
;)
You did see the season two finale, right?
**What** canon?
Or you could be playing "Dreamfall" which as far as I can tell is a new genre of "Movie Game". Or maybe "Pseudo Interactive Fiction".
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see it made into a movie. It's the best story I've seen in a game since the prequel "The Longest Journey" from 1999.
Actually, killing Data was one of the few redeeming features of Nemisis (which I actually watched for the first time just a few days ago). It actually led to this thing called "change over time" and "character development" which you actually see frequently in other kinds of fiction.
I agree Nemisis was pretty bad, but just right for my mental state (I have the flu). The worst part is that it's pretty much a rehash of Star Trek 2 (Captian's Nemisis, large portion of the movie a space battle, major character dies at the end). Consider Spock was killed at the end of 2, and it's considered the best of the ten movies. Leonard Nemoy had similar feelings about the Spock character as Brent Spiner did about Data.
There can be only 2 reasonable explanations for this.
1) They're patenting it so that noone can do this, ever, including themselves. I feel the "patent because they can" falls into this category.
2) The only real economic possibility I can see here? Free TVs. You have the choice between pricey boxes that allow you to skip commercials, or cheap ones that force you to watch them. Likely we'll start seeing modchips for televisions around that time...
A Frungy mini game inside the game would be *most* excellent.
Hell, let's face it, Toys for Bob could probably release "Frungy! (The Sport of Kings)" as it's own title and we'd probably all wet our pants in excitement.
Just think of it... the Interstellar Frungy League, with the Pkunk players screaming out "Idiot! Moron! Worm!". Khor-Ah with their Talking Pet cheerleading squad cheering: "You will be annihilated!". The Chmmr won't ever be ready to take the field when gametime comes around.
Maybe a Slylandro would be the ball.
I spent years believing that Star Control 2 was the very best game of the 90's. Particularly for the plot. Layers within layers within layers, and humour to boot! Side stiching laughter.
Hell, I admit it. I played one of the pirated versions from the 90's whlie I was at university. The ones that deliberately crashed in the starmap because (said the urban legend at the time) it knew if the game was cracked in the "obvious" manner, and crashed a lot as punishment. It didn't matter, I managed to play it all the way through anyways.
I've played the game several times since, including the latest version of the open source Ur-Quan Masters, which is pretty rock solid at this point. I also now own the game (A CD re-release), with the box proudly displayed in my computer room.
I've raved about this game for the past 13 years. Plotwise, the only game I've seen that's beaten out SC2 has been "The Longest Journey" by Ragnar Tornquist, which has a sequel "Dreamfall" finally coming out on Monday. I've been dreaming about a Longest Journey sequel for 5 years, but come to think of it, I've been dreaming about a SC2 sequel, a *PROPER* SC2 sequel, for 13. SC2.1 would have "nerd-squee!" (or "OMG! Ponies!!" if you prefer) written all over it.
Hell, at this point I'd be happy if they used the existing UQM open source engine, and gave us a new plot in the StarCon universe. Hell, I'd be willing to do voice acting for the thing. (UQMites, I'm also hopeing that someday soon we'll see UQM mods with user made storylines. That would be cool too)
Yes, but why? I've seen discussion that suggests that a lot of that atmospheric CO2 is locked up in carbonate rocks on Earth. I'm uncertain if the levels are comparable.
Venus and Earth likely were practically identical at one point, moving at similar but subtly different evolutionary paths. What was the difference?
Unless the greenhouse effect is runaway, like Venus, and all the water is evaporated away. Then we're all fucked.
I did some scary back of envelope calculations today about Venus. It's closer to the sun, and receives about 1.9 times the sunlight as Earth. But its atmosphere is so reflective (which is why it's so bright in the sky, the albedo is almost twice that of Earth), that only half the amount of sunlight gets through the CO2 and SO2 clouds without being bounced back into space.
Venus receives less energy from the sun than Earth does.
I try not to think too much about that, it scares the living crap out of me. Something went terribly terribly wrong with Venus. We need to figure out what that was.
It's likely that earth has a corrective measure that will throw the planet back into a severe ice age if CO2 levels rise too high. Our history is dominated by ice ages. Still I like my planet the temperature it is now, not severely hotter or colder.