Society's moral fabric has been fraying for decades. Centuries. Millenia, probably. Maybe that's where Atlantis myths come from... You take the assumption that "standards" (morals, education, whatever) are slipping, have _always_ been slipping, and then just run time backwards:-)
But anyway, I wanted to tell my Quake cheating story.. I was playing the first Quake mission pack (Heretic or something?), and I didn't have the skill or the patience (probably both) to go through it properly. So I did IDDQD (god mode) and IDKFA (keys, full ammo) and just wandered around, looking at the pretty scenery.
Now, there was some pecularity in Quake that god mode would reset itself every time the level changed. So I started this one level and forgot to turn god mode back on.
So I'm wandering around, and I walk into this room with two monsters that shoot these big exploding green balls which follow you around corners, and three flying things ("shrieks" ?). Now, I know I'm invincible, so I whip out my rocket launcher, head in and start blazing away. But, even though I'm cheating, I want to do this with some kind of style. So I duck behind the flying things and use their bodies to absorb the green missiles, whilst using my rocket launcher with some care.
It's only when the last green ball explodes (taking out the last bad guy) and I catch some splash damage that I realise that I wasn't in god mode at all...
(which just goes to show that it's amazing what you can do when there's no pressure and no risk of failure:-) )
The VAST majority of these big viruses exploit whose products?
The vast majority of these big viruses exploit users' ignorance.
Think about it: The vast majority of these e-mail viruses require the assistance of the computer user to propagate. That's not a software issue, that's a user issue.
So pause, for a moment, and imagine that the world was using Linux (or the UNIX-like operating system of your choice). Someone writes a shell script to parse your address book and e-mail all your friends with the script attached to the e-mail and some suitable message to encourage them to run it.
...then perhaps the rich and powerful would start actually caring about the environment, seeing as they're more likely to live to see the long term effects of their actions.
It's a while since I last played nethack, so my sk1llz are probably out of date...
But the first advice is to make sure you are standing on the up stairs. Monsters which teleport at will (including the tougher lichs) always 'port to the up stairs when they get in trouble. And if you catch them there, they escape up to the previous level. So you need to make sure you're standing on the stairs...
Other than that, I think you can just whack them until they die. It might help if you are using Magicbane (which absorbs curses) (preferably at +2). Otherwise, try to get hold of a decent artifact (Frost Brand and Greyswandir used to be the artifacts of choice) and enchant it up to +5, or +7 if you can manage it. If memory serves, Stormbringer isn't all that hot a weapon, and +2 isn't much of an enchantment.
[generally, you should stock up on useless potions and scrolls in the early levels.. then, use boots of water walking and a moat to turn the potions to water and blank the scrolls. Bless the potions (you can #dip 10 potions of water into one potion of holy water and end up with 10 potions of holy water). Then get a magic marker, bless the magic marker, bless the scrolls, and write lots of scrolls of enchant weapon and of enchant armour. Modulo the disclaimer in the first line:-) ]
If you're being "in-character", you _can't_ have experience points as a motivation, since they're an out-of-character concept. _You_ know that quests are always worthwhile; your character doesn't (and, in fact, wouldn't recognise most of them as a "quest").
I tried to play BG2 evil once... I didn't get very far. I thought I should get "in character" at the start by being arrogant and insulting to Jaheira and Minsc and Aerie, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.. They were "only NPCs", but I still didn't want to hurt their feelings.
(well, maybe not Jaheira... She got on my nerves:-/)
I tend to have the same problem when it comes to changing party members.. I'm like, I'd love to have you join me, but I'm too attached to these other folks to kick one of them out.
But maybe I'm just weird...:-/
How much can you _really_ be evil in RPGs? I mean, consider: Say you're playing some RPG and some old woman walks up to you and asks for help. Do you:
Tell her to.... off, you're too busy unless she has lots of money up-front.
Draw your sword and slay her for disturbing you.
Say Of course! No trouble! and go with her.
?
The answer is... option 3. Options 1 and 2 are the role-playing things to do if you're being evil. But you KNOW that if you do the quest, you will get experience points, probably lots more than you'd get for a typical bout of random killing. And you know that there's a good chance that once you've killed the rats in her basement, she'll go up to the attic and drag out a blessed Shield of Reflection +3 that her husband used to own before he died and give it to you as a reward.
Y'know? Are there any RPGs out there where you can actually get more xp (or, at least, better loot) through being evil?
Y'know, I thought of that article when I made the comment... But I couldn't summon the energy to consider whether I was using the word correctly.
...
Well. Someone posts on slashdot that people buy console games "because the work" just after slashdot runs an article saying that many console games these days _don't_ work correctly. It's not too far off the definition the Guardian gives..
The ironic thing is that, even if you were using these utils, if the numbers you wanted to sum up didn't happen to be in the first column, you'd have to use awk to extract them anyway...
(actually, the '' is redundant in that command line... awk takes input files as commandline arguments)
I am not American:-) I have never sued anyone in my life, not ever felt any desire to.
The MUD I play on is policed by the admin.
My point is not that I think the government should make laws regulating online interaction in these games. I don't really see that as workable (which government?). My point is that online games are often _more_ than "just games". In these cases, telling someone to "quit whining because it's just a game" is (a) offensive, and (b) just play incorrect.
I'm afraid the sims players who can't handle a group of people pee'ing on their lawns will have to develop a thicker skin if they choose to play online games with strangers. If you think that's bad, wait until you play a PvP game.
I hate this sort of attitude.
Why should people be obliged to put up with harrassment just because it's online?
Is there some kind of rule somewhere that says the only sort of fun you're allowed to have online is antisocial PvP-style conflict?
What really gets me is the suggestion of law to control MMO*s. Really now, its just a game.
The "just a game" line shows up now and again in a MUD I play on. It usually looks something like this:
"Hi there! Sorry I abused a bug, repeatedly killed you, looted your corpse, and generally harrassed you. I know you've logged thousands of hours on this MUD, made many close friends, had memorable experiences, collected objects to remind you of particular events or special people who have left. But hey! It's just a game. So don't get so uptight!"
I'm not sure laws are appropriate (or workable). But an MMOG --- particularly one such as the Sims --- is _not_ "just a game".
One interesting thing about the deciBel is that it is a "dimensionless" unit. As a result of this, apparently engineers use deciBels for other purposes totally unrelated to sound, because they are a convienient way of converting to a logarithmic scale.
(or something like that)
Plus, the other issue: Console games seem much more likely to have an identifiable "hero" than PC games.
Consider some of the top PC games, say, Starcraft? Civilisation? Quake?
One of the big PC genres is the real-time strategy (Starcraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, etc). A few modern RTSs have named heros, but how often will the gamer actually identify with the hero? (quick quiz: Who is/was Sarah Kerrigan? Would you vote for her against any of the big names from the console world?)
The other big PC genre is first person shooters, and has similar issues --- if you're playing Quake or Unreal deathmatch or Counterstrike or something, you aren't playing a studio character with a name and a history, you're just contributing your own skills to a generic.
[although there are exceptions to this in the world of single player FPS gaming. I notice Gordon Freeman (Half Life) and Max Payne both made it, although they're matched up against each other in the first round... Plus, there is no J.C. Denton (Deus Ex) or Garret (Thief)]
There's probably a thesis in this somewhere (or at least a few papers)...
[personally, I'd've liked to have seen Billy Blaze in there... Or even Repton:-) But they're both a bit too old-school, I fear...]
reverseengineer wrote:The Leidenfrost effect is also sometimes demonstrated by wetting your hand with water, and then briefly plunging your hand into a container of molten lead. The same principle applies, as the lead is above the Leidenfrost point of water, so the water will form a vapor layer around your hand that insulates it from the molten lead.
If memory serves, Richard Feynman did this as a kid.
Then, when he was older (early twenties, say), he was telling some friends of his about it, but they didn't believe a word of it.
So there was nothing for it but to get some molten lead and give a demonstration.
Unfortunately, what he failed to realise was that, in the intervening years he had passed through puberty and grown a lot more hairs on the back of his hands. The hairs acted like wicks, and so it hurt like hell.
(of course, afterwards, his hands were quite bald again)
(at least, that's the way I remember the story.. It's probably in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!. Even if it's not, I highly recommend reading that book anyway. It's a great (nontechnical) read).
There's a free MoM remake project at AgeOfMagic.org. Not sure what the development status is (last news is almost a year old), but I'm living in hope...
Have a look at the Archive Comparison Test page. WinACE does better than RAR in some areas, but not in all. And neither of them are the absolute best (in terms of compressed file size) at anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Society's moral fabric has been fraying for decades. Centuries. Millenia, probably. Maybe that's where Atlantis myths come from... You take the assumption that "standards" (morals, education, whatever) are slipping, have _always_ been slipping, and then just run time backwards :-)
But anyway, I wanted to tell my Quake cheating story.. I was playing the first Quake mission pack (Heretic or something?), and I didn't have the skill or the patience (probably both) to go through it properly. So I did IDDQD (god mode) and IDKFA (keys, full ammo) and just wandered around, looking at the pretty scenery.
Now, there was some pecularity in Quake that god mode would reset itself every time the level changed. So I started this one level and forgot to turn god mode back on.
So I'm wandering around, and I walk into this room with two monsters that shoot these big exploding green balls which follow you around corners, and three flying things ("shrieks" ?). Now, I know I'm invincible, so I whip out my rocket launcher, head in and start blazing away. But, even though I'm cheating, I want to do this with some kind of style. So I duck behind the flying things and use their bodies to absorb the green missiles, whilst using my rocket launcher with some care.
It's only when the last green ball explodes (taking out the last bad guy) and I catch some splash damage that I realise that I wasn't in god mode at all...
(which just goes to show that it's amazing what you can do when there's no pressure and no risk of failure :-) )
.The VAST majority of these big viruses exploit whose products?
The vast majority of these big viruses exploit users' ignorance.
Think about it: The vast majority of these e-mail viruses require the assistance of the computer user to propagate. That's not a software issue, that's a user issue.
So pause, for a moment, and imagine that the world was using Linux (or the UNIX-like operating system of your choice). Someone writes a shell script to parse your address book and e-mail all your friends with the script attached to the e-mail and some suitable message to encourage them to run it.
What part of this won't work in Linux?
...then perhaps the rich and powerful would start actually caring about the environment, seeing as they're more likely to live to see the long term effects of their actions.
See http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/341/art2-341.htm l for more details.
The history document linked from the O'Reilly page isn't loading for me ... slashdotted, maybe.
Anyway, there is an alternative link here. Also the Google cache, although you have to imagine the arrows yourself...
It's a while since I last played nethack, so my sk1llz are probably out of date ...
But the first advice is to make sure you are standing on the up stairs. Monsters which teleport at will (including the tougher lichs) always 'port to the up stairs when they get in trouble. And if you catch them there, they escape up to the previous level. So you need to make sure you're standing on the stairs...
Other than that, I think you can just whack them until they die. It might help if you are using Magicbane (which absorbs curses) (preferably at +2). Otherwise, try to get hold of a decent artifact (Frost Brand and Greyswandir used to be the artifacts of choice) and enchant it up to +5, or +7 if you can manage it. If memory serves, Stormbringer isn't all that hot a weapon, and +2 isn't much of an enchantment.
[generally, you should stock up on useless potions and scrolls in the early levels.. then, use boots of water walking and a moat to turn the potions to water and blank the scrolls. Bless the potions (you can #dip 10 potions of water into one potion of holy water and end up with 10 potions of holy water). Then get a magic marker, bless the magic marker, bless the scrolls, and write lots of scrolls of enchant weapon and of enchant armour. Modulo the disclaimer in the first line :-) ]
If you're being "in-character", you _can't_ have experience points as a motivation, since they're an out-of-character concept. _You_ know that quests are always worthwhile; your character doesn't (and, in fact, wouldn't recognise most of them as a "quest").
I tried to play BG2 evil once ... I didn't get very far. I thought I should get "in character" at the start by being arrogant and insulting to Jaheira and Minsc and Aerie, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.. They were "only NPCs", but I still didn't want to hurt their feelings.
(well, maybe not Jaheira ... She got on my nerves :-/)
I tend to have the same problem when it comes to changing party members.. I'm like, I'd love to have you join me, but I'm too attached to these other folks to kick one of them out.
But maybe I'm just weird...:-/
How much can you _really_ be evil in RPGs? I mean, consider: Say you're playing some RPG and some old woman walks up to you and asks for help. Do you:
- Tell her to
.... off, you're too busy unless she has lots of money up-front.
- Draw your sword and slay her for disturbing you.
- Say Of course! No trouble! and go with her.
?The answer is ... option 3. Options 1 and 2 are the role-playing things to do if you're being evil. But you KNOW that if you do the quest, you will get experience points, probably lots more than you'd get for a typical bout of random killing. And you know that there's a good chance that once you've killed the rats in her basement, she'll go up to the attic and drag out a blessed Shield of Reflection +3 that her husband used to own before he died and give it to you as a reward.
Y'know? Are there any RPGs out there where you can actually get more xp (or, at least, better loot) through being evil?
Y'know, I thought of that article when I made the comment ... But I couldn't summon the energy to consider whether I was using the word correctly.
...
Well. Someone posts on slashdot that people buy console games "because the work" just after slashdot runs an article saying that many console games these days _don't_ work correctly. It's not too far off the definition the Guardian gives..
What adjective would you prefer?
Just remember: people buy consoles - and console games - because they know they'll work.
Oh, the irony...
(actually, the '' is redundant in that command line ... awk takes input files as commandline arguments)
Well ... Perhaps. But for most people, "fantasy" means magic and mediaeval technology.
So it's useful as a way of distinguishing it from games like Fallout or (perhaps) DX.
No, nethack players are all too busy training their pets to rob jewellery shops...
- I am not American
:-) I have never sued anyone in my life, not ever felt any desire to.
- The MUD I play on is policed by the admin.
- My point is not that I think the government should make laws regulating online interaction in these games. I don't really see that as workable (which government?). My point is that online games are often _more_ than "just games". In these cases, telling someone to "quit whining because it's just a game" is (a) offensive, and (b) just play incorrect.
Hope this clears things up.I'm afraid the sims players who can't handle a group of people pee'ing on their lawns will have to develop a thicker skin if they choose to play online games with strangers. If you think that's bad, wait until you play a PvP game.
I hate this sort of attitude.
Why should people be obliged to put up with harrassment just because it's online?
Is there some kind of rule somewhere that says the only sort of fun you're allowed to have online is antisocial PvP-style conflict?
What really gets me is the suggestion of law to control MMO*s. Really now, its just a game.
The "just a game" line shows up now and again in a MUD I play on. It usually looks something like this:
"Hi there! Sorry I abused a bug, repeatedly killed you, looted your corpse, and generally harrassed you. I know you've logged thousands of hours on this MUD, made many close friends, had memorable experiences, collected objects to remind you of particular events or special people who have left. But hey! It's just a game. So don't get so uptight!"
I'm not sure laws are appropriate (or workable). But an MMOG --- particularly one such as the Sims --- is _not_ "just a game".
One interesting thing about the deciBel is that it is a "dimensionless" unit. As a result of this, apparently engineers use deciBels for other purposes totally unrelated to sound, because they are a convienient way of converting to a logarithmic scale.
(or something like that)
Plus, the other issue: Console games seem much more likely to have an identifiable "hero" than PC games.
Consider some of the top PC games, say, Starcraft? Civilisation? Quake?
One of the big PC genres is the real-time strategy (Starcraft, Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, etc). A few modern RTSs have named heros, but how often will the gamer actually identify with the hero? (quick quiz: Who is/was Sarah Kerrigan? Would you vote for her against any of the big names from the console world?)
The other big PC genre is first person shooters, and has similar issues --- if you're playing Quake or Unreal deathmatch or Counterstrike or something, you aren't playing a studio character with a name and a history, you're just contributing your own skills to a generic.
[although there are exceptions to this in the world of single player FPS gaming. I notice Gordon Freeman (Half Life) and Max Payne both made it, although they're matched up against each other in the first round... Plus, there is no J.C. Denton (Deus Ex) or Garret (Thief)]
There's probably a thesis in this somewhere (or at least a few papers) ...
[personally, I'd've liked to have seen Billy Blaze in there ... Or even Repton :-) But they're both a bit too old-school, I fear...]
It is official; Activision confirms: Star Trek is dying...
There's a lot of stuff on Imerator here.
"It doesn't affect me so I don't care." Uhuh. Now, _there's_ a good attitude.. </sarcasm>
Especially considering that no one affected by the law is able to vote... (assuming voting age of 18)
Well, FWIW, the OED says:
orientate, v.The Straight Dope on brain usage...
reverseengineer wrote: The Leidenfrost effect is also sometimes demonstrated by wetting your hand with water, and then briefly plunging your hand into a container of molten lead. The same principle applies, as the lead is above the Leidenfrost point of water, so the water will form a vapor layer around your hand that insulates it from the molten lead.
If memory serves, Richard Feynman did this as a kid.
Then, when he was older (early twenties, say), he was telling some friends of his about it, but they didn't believe a word of it.
So there was nothing for it but to get some molten lead and give a demonstration.
Unfortunately, what he failed to realise was that, in the intervening years he had passed through puberty and grown a lot more hairs on the back of his hands. The hairs acted like wicks, and so it hurt like hell.
(of course, afterwards, his hands were quite bald again)
(at least, that's the way I remember the story.. It's probably in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!. Even if it's not, I highly recommend reading that book anyway. It's a great (nontechnical) read).
There's a free MoM remake project at AgeOfMagic.org. Not sure what the development status is (last news is almost a year old), but I'm living in hope...
Have a look at the Archive Comparison Test page. WinACE does better than RAR in some areas, but not in all. And neither of them are the absolute best (in terms of compressed file size) at anything.