There's a lot of free software out there that will give better skymaps than most books can. After all, the sky changes from minute to minute, not just day to day.
XEphem is my choice. The interface is pretty old-school, but the maps it prints out are perfect for my uses.
KStars has more bells and whistles but, in my experience, doesn't print as well.
If you want a real travel RPG, try Sherpa. It's an actual RPG (traditional, pen-and-paper-type) that's designed to be played while hiking, camping, riding in a car, etc.
CRPGs are great fun. I've played Morrowind far more than I probably should've. But CRPGs aren't really RPGs; you simply can't have the same kind of non-scripted, creative interaction with the gameworld that is possible in traditional RPGs.
For those who want to play traditional RPGs but can't find players, I've listed a few ways to do so on my site. Included are several IRC or other chat-based systems to play actual RPGs online. Not as beautiful as some of the MMORPGs out there, but infinitely more freeform and open-ended.
What? Dictionaries are great sources of information about the English language. They're usually pretty correct about the words that they list. The OED is pretty helpful in finding word origins or first printed uses, for example.
You're right, though, that dictionaries are not a good source of information about what words don't exist. Too many people make the mistake of thinking that dictionaries are the only authoritative source of information about English. Saying "It's not in the dictionary, so it's not a word" or "here's what the OED says it means, so that's the only thing it can mean" is the real mistake.
Remember, a dictionary is a mirror of reality, not the reality itself. "A map is not the territory."
One of the biggest RPG forums out there is RPG.net. 1.3 million posts on the RPG Open section, several million more elsewhere on the site. Lots of friendly folks with good ideas.
Enworld is probably the biggest D&D-focused forum out there. I can't vouch for its quality, though, as I'm not into D&D and don't hang out there.
While it doesn't completely eliminate the scheduling problems, there is playing via IRC. There are a half-dozen different programs out there for doing chat-based gaming. I've reviewed some of them on my site. Some of the apps are really quite good, with maps, miniatures, dice servers, PC and NPC records, etc.
Playing via IRC is an especially good idea if you're stuck somewhere where you can't find players. It's not too far-fetched to have a game with two people in Australia, one in the UK and a GM in the US.
Taiwan's not doing too well at fighting anti-intellectualism, either. There's a generally higher respect for teachers in Taiwan, and a bit more understanding that learning is both necessary and lifelong. But education in Taiwan is still largely something ypu pursue for monetary gain -- there's not much understanding that education is about making better people and better citizens.
All the statistics you see about how Taiwanese high school students know geography (or whatever subject) so much better than American kids the same age? BS. Taiwanese kids are taught to take tests, and little else. Rote memorization and regurgitation are the norm. I'd like to see stats on how well 30-year olds in the US and Taiwan know their geography. I'm almost certain Americans would do better, though marginally.
Taiwan's media is also about as anti-intellectual as you can get. The number of idiotic gameshows and celebrity gossip shows in Taiwan, and their viewership, is almost certainly far higher than in the US. Women on these shows get to laugh and titter and be cute, but little else. Men get to make fun of women. No displays of intellectual prowess here, please. There are debate shows, but they're no smarter than Crossfire and its ilk.
That's not to say that Taiwan is an intellectual wasteland. Far from it. Students do still value learning pretty highly, and saying someone is "smart" doesn't automatically mean they're arrogant, uppity or abstruse. But Taiwan is also the land of "You think too much" as a common admonishment. It's not horrible, but it's not perfect, either.
I agree, RPMdrake is a pain in the butt. I have been stuck in dependency hell probably a dozen times. Latest example: I was trying to install something that required Gnome-Panel. Gnome-Panel requires libhowl, which requires howl -- which requires libhowl! Arrgh!
However, I don't think Mandriva including an additional DEBdrake or Portagedrake or whatever would solve the problem. I've tried installing Apt-Get on Mandriva and, while the app itself installs fine, getting a decent source for packages is a huge pain. Why? Because, due to architecture, it looks like (from my experience) Mandriva would have to come up with their own.debs, etc. Otherwise, the packages won't install right. (I've tried using non-Mandriva apt sources, and they don't work.) In other words, for Mandriva to have both an RPM-based application installer and a.deb installer, Mandriva would have to split its time between two complete package sources. (If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me! I'd love to stop having dependency problems.)
I'd rather see Mandriva move to a completely.deb based system -- or better yet, make a concerted effort to get rid of dependency conflicts. That would probably even get me to buy into the Club.
I personally support the liberation of Tibet. But as an American, it's hard for me to say that without also believing that the territory of the US should be returned to the people it was stolen from -- the Native Americans. It's clearly impractical to return the land to them, but the US really, really needs to do some major compensation for all the deaths, land lost and cultural destruction suffered.
[snark]Now, if we could just figure out which Native Americans... After all, the First Nations weren't exactly on the friendliest terms with each other all the time...[/snark]
You mean snail mail, right?
When I was living in Taiwan, there was a company that sent mail to me marked "Taipei, Republic of China". I only got it a couple months later, after it'd been routed through China -- the People's Republic of China.
I found that marking my mail "Taiwan" -- no ROC, no China, nothing other than just "Taiwan" -- was the surest way to get the mail through.
I think the US post office officially requires mail to Taiwan to be labeled "ROC", but that clearly doesn't work, and isn't even their de facto preference.
Ambiguity, strategic ambiguity, is the way to go here.
As for e-mail, well, the US isn't in charge of the group who decided on.tw. If the US had been in charge, we'd probably have some weird thing like.rc.o for Mainland and.rc.p for Taiwan.
I'd say it's well-established for the US to refer to them in intentionally ambiguous ways, rather than with specific terms. The US deliberately (and, in my mind, quite rightly) avoids clarity on the issue. "Taiwan, ROC" or "Taiwan" or "the ROC" or whatever will make the situation less clear.
This is unfortunate -- it'd be nice if it was possible to be specific and clear -- but specificity and clarity only create diplomatic incidents and lead to saber-rattling in this case.
Which user-requested features are you implementing?
One of the things I've wanted most is the ability to name geographical features (Commander Taco Mountain, The River Sid, etc.). This is helpful both aesthetically and practically. Any chance of such an improvement in Civ IV?
I hope that rivers make more sense generally -- i.e., movement by river should be faster than overland. The model in Civ III leads to explorers going from mountaintop to mountaintop, which is not at all historically accurate.
Oh, also -- any chance you'd be willing to pay for a new computer for me, so I can actually run the game?
Some of the most brilliant directors have been the ones who are the biggest control freaks. Kubrick, for example, demanded extremely exacting control over every facet of his movies' creation. That's how he managed to keep his art intact and coherent.
Ridley Scott's work on Blade Runner shows a similar link between hard-nosed directorial oversight and strong art.
Miyazaki is, I think, one of the few Japanese directors who really gets to make the whole production his. If he needs a spare half-million for some complicated animation or a long sequence, he gets it, and then he gets it right.
He may seem like an asshole, but that's necessary to get lasting art. I just wouldn't want to be an in-betweener or designed on one of his productions. (Well, maybe...)
My personal favorite is Laputa. It's got a lot of the classic Miyazaki tropes: kids who are genuinely cute, not just annoyingly big-eyed adults; tons of cool steampunk-type airships; complex characters that aren't necessarily what they seem; some very funny moments; a lot of excellent animation; a lot of "gosh-wow" sense of wonder; and a very emotionally affecting story.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that if you don't like Laputa you won't like Miyazaki's other stuff (definitely try more if you don't like the first one you try!), but it's really some of his strongest work. It's probably one of my three or four favorite movies of all time.
I've only heard small rumors and such from various sources, but from what I've heard, what Linda's going through is transsexualism, not transgenderism-or am I wrong?
The terms are still being debated, but most agree that transsexualism is a part of transgenderism. A transsexual is also transgender, though not all transgender people are also transsexual, in other words.
although they use the outdated and problematic term of transgendered as a category
I'm not clear what you mean here. Do you mean "transgendered" isn't a different class from transsexual (in which case I agree)? Or that it isn't a category at all (in which case I don't agree)?
Project Dogwaffle seems like one of the better natural-media paint programs out there. It also has a freeware version. It's fractal-based, so I suspect it's able to simulate the way ink bleeds through paper quite nicely.
I also agree about the "Oriental" thing. That words is quite outdated; it has been used to mean pretty much anything in Asia, and lacks specificity; it tends to be used by people who think China, Japan, Korea, etc. all have one culture.
Re:She should take her employer to court.
on
A $251 Million Typo
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· Score: 1
In Taiwan, she probably has even less right to sue. Taiwan's laws try to be Confucian, which means they don't like suing if at all possible. It's supposed to promote harmony, but it usually promotes *&#!*^$* Mercedes-Benz drivers who like to park anywhere on the sidewalk that they want...
Nope. The "dangling preposition" thing is a shibboleth. As Winston Churchill supposedly said, "This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put."
Slashdot Mirror
There's a lot of free software out there that will give better skymaps than most books can. After all, the sky changes from minute to minute, not just day to day.
XEphem is my choice. The interface is pretty old-school, but the maps it prints out are perfect for my uses.
KStars has more bells and whistles but, in my experience, doesn't print as well.
As for advice on buying scopes, etc., check these places too.
If you want a real travel RPG, try Sherpa. It's an actual RPG (traditional, pen-and-paper-type) that's designed to be played while hiking, camping, riding in a car, etc.
For those who want to play traditional RPGs but can't find players, I've listed a few ways to do so on my site. Included are several IRC or other chat-based systems to play actual RPGs online. Not as beautiful as some of the MMORPGs out there, but infinitely more freeform and open-ended.
You're right, though, that dictionaries are not a good source of information about what words don't exist. Too many people make the mistake of thinking that dictionaries are the only authoritative source of information about English. Saying "It's not in the dictionary, so it's not a word" or "here's what the OED says it means, so that's the only thing it can mean" is the real mistake.
Remember, a dictionary is a mirror of reality, not the reality itself. "A map is not the territory."
I agree, the map shows intent. The mapping software, however, does not.
Is use of Mapquest now prima facie evidence of intent to commit a crime?
Enworld is probably the biggest D&D-focused forum out there. I can't vouch for its quality, though, as I'm not into D&D and don't hang out there.
Playing via IRC is an especially good idea if you're stuck somewhere where you can't find players. It's not too far-fetched to have a game with two people in Australia, one in the UK and a GM in the US.
All the statistics you see about how Taiwanese high school students know geography (or whatever subject) so much better than American kids the same age? BS. Taiwanese kids are taught to take tests, and little else. Rote memorization and regurgitation are the norm. I'd like to see stats on how well 30-year olds in the US and Taiwan know their geography. I'm almost certain Americans would do better, though marginally.
Taiwan's media is also about as anti-intellectual as you can get. The number of idiotic gameshows and celebrity gossip shows in Taiwan, and their viewership, is almost certainly far higher than in the US. Women on these shows get to laugh and titter and be cute, but little else. Men get to make fun of women. No displays of intellectual prowess here, please. There are debate shows, but they're no smarter than Crossfire and its ilk.
That's not to say that Taiwan is an intellectual wasteland. Far from it. Students do still value learning pretty highly, and saying someone is "smart" doesn't automatically mean they're arrogant, uppity or abstruse. But Taiwan is also the land of "You think too much" as a common admonishment. It's not horrible, but it's not perfect, either.
Found this thanks to the excellent Open Office.org 1.0 Resource Kit, by Haugland and Jones.
However, I don't think Mandriva including an additional DEBdrake or Portagedrake or whatever would solve the problem. I've tried installing Apt-Get on Mandriva and, while the app itself installs fine, getting a decent source for packages is a huge pain. Why? Because, due to architecture, it looks like (from my experience) Mandriva would have to come up with their own .debs, etc. Otherwise, the packages won't install right. (I've tried using non-Mandriva apt sources, and they don't work.) In other words, for Mandriva to have both an RPM-based application installer and a .deb installer, Mandriva would have to split its time between two complete package sources. (If anyone knows otherwise, please correct me! I'd love to stop having dependency problems.)
I'd rather see Mandriva move to a completely .deb based system -- or better yet, make a concerted effort to get rid of dependency conflicts. That would probably even get me to buy into the Club.
Very good point. I've made other posts elsewhere in the thread that said almost as much, but they didn't get moderated as highly... :)
[snark]Now, if we could just figure out which Native Americans... After all, the First Nations weren't exactly on the friendliest terms with each other all the time...[/snark]
I found that marking my mail "Taiwan" -- no ROC, no China, nothing other than just "Taiwan" -- was the surest way to get the mail through.
I think the US post office officially requires mail to Taiwan to be labeled "ROC", but that clearly doesn't work, and isn't even their de facto preference.
Ambiguity, strategic ambiguity, is the way to go here.
As for e-mail, well, the US isn't in charge of the group who decided on .tw. If the US had been in charge, we'd probably have some weird thing like .rc.o for Mainland and .rc.p for Taiwan.
This is unfortunate -- it'd be nice if it was possible to be specific and clear -- but specificity and clarity only create diplomatic incidents and lead to saber-rattling in this case.
As for other Western countries -- I can't say.
If the school bully says you have to say "uncle", that doesn't mean he's suddenly your real uncle...
Well-phrased!
Which user-requested features are you implementing?
One of the things I've wanted most is the ability to name geographical features (Commander Taco Mountain, The River Sid, etc.). This is helpful both aesthetically and practically. Any chance of such an improvement in Civ IV?
I hope that rivers make more sense generally -- i.e., movement by river should be faster than overland. The model in Civ III leads to explorers going from mountaintop to mountaintop, which is not at all historically accurate.
Oh, also -- any chance you'd be willing to pay for a new computer for me, so I can actually run the game?
Some of the most brilliant directors have been the ones who are the biggest control freaks. Kubrick, for example, demanded extremely exacting control over every facet of his movies' creation. That's how he managed to keep his art intact and coherent.
Ridley Scott's work on Blade Runner shows a similar link between hard-nosed directorial oversight and strong art.
Miyazaki is, I think, one of the few Japanese directors who really gets to make the whole production his. If he needs a spare half-million for some complicated animation or a long sequence, he gets it, and then he gets it right.
He may seem like an asshole, but that's necessary to get lasting art. I just wouldn't want to be an in-betweener or designed on one of his productions. (Well, maybe...)
My personal favorite is Laputa. It's got a lot of the classic Miyazaki tropes: kids who are genuinely cute, not just annoyingly big-eyed adults; tons of cool steampunk-type airships; complex characters that aren't necessarily what they seem; some very funny moments; a lot of excellent animation; a lot of "gosh-wow" sense of wonder; and a very emotionally affecting story.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that if you don't like Laputa you won't like Miyazaki's other stuff (definitely try more if you don't like the first one you try!), but it's really some of his strongest work. It's probably one of my three or four favorite movies of all time.
to formulate new ways of spelling "Al Qaeda".
I'm not clear what you mean here. Do you mean "transgendered" isn't a different class from transsexual (in which case I agree)? Or that it isn't a category at all (in which case I don't agree)?
I also agree about the "Oriental" thing. That words is quite outdated; it has been used to mean pretty much anything in Asia, and lacks specificity; it tends to be used by people who think China, Japan, Korea, etc. all have one culture.
In Taiwan, she probably has even less right to sue. Taiwan's laws try to be Confucian, which means they don't like suing if at all possible. It's supposed to promote harmony, but it usually promotes *&#!*^$* Mercedes-Benz drivers who like to park anywhere on the sidewalk that they want...
Nope. The "dangling preposition" thing is a shibboleth. As Winston Churchill supposedly said, "This is the sort of thing up with which I will not put."