YHBT:) I had to slip one in to get a usage nazi to correct me.
As for your main point... after going back and reading the entire article... I was mistaken. Thanks for correcting me.
FWIW... In that context, I'm not sure the discussion is really about skill-based vs. level-based advancement. It's more about whether or not to use a class-based system, and if so, how to implement it.
This makes me think that either the article is poorly titled and explained, or the responses were really not what the surveyors were asking. Because what you explain as a skill-based advancement system includes a level-based system where the players have choice in where to place the advancements. To me, that's a level-based system... but it seems that the entire discussion, from the very beginning, has dissolved into semantics rather than the actual issues.
I dunno, but what I'm interested in is what they did with the other 27% of him.
Obviously, they tighted the other 27%.
But that's sexist to assume it's a him.
I'm interested with what they did with the other 27% of her.
Or, since we don't know the state of the core developer, perhaps we should be interested in what they did with the other 13.5% of him and the other 13.5% of her.
Or something. It's a little late in the day for me to be recalling Schroedinger.
The problem came with the fact that, if you were like every other normal person and liked to go quickly from A to B, you'd run the whole way through. That, in turn, meant you leveled the Athetics skill *far* faster than anything else, which in turn meant that after what? 5-10 hours? you had a lv20 character that could run very, very fast but sucked at anything else and since the monsters leveled up with you...
I didn't play Morrowind or Oblivion... but in Daggerfall, the solution to that problem was to not have Athletics as one of your primaries. That way it wouldn't really affect your overall level.
The only reason you'd want it as a primary is if you made an overpowered custom class that was hard to advance in level... otherwise the grinding to level got very tedious.
More than paying for the children... it was about title to the lands.
When a wealthy lord had too many sons, he would have the extras sent either to serve in the military (which cost money, but it was part of the dues to the liege), or to the church. This conveniently got the extra sons out of the way so that his lands could be passed in entirety to his first son.
The son(s) shipped to the church would get a nice title, if the lord donated enough cash (or preferably, land) to the church when he sent his son to them.
The problem is that when some of these sons had sons of their own, they wanted to pass those lands to their sons... and the Church wanted to keep those lands. This caused schisms between the Church and the lords who supported the Church. So the solution was to require celibacy. Then those lordlings could not have sons inherit those lands. If they recognized an heir, then they were guilty of celibacy and the lands were forfeit to the Church (and the lordling would lose their title).
I'm not sure I explained it as well as others could... but the point is that it wasn't just about paying for the children of priests, it was about holding onto the bequests that came in exchange for appointing the sons of Lords to high office.
A skill-based training system refers to a character schema without levels, but with skills that have a proficiency rating. Players receive skill points to allocate towards proficiency, or use-based increases in proficiency. Skills in this context are also occassionally taught by PCs or learned from NPCs, without level restrictions or the abstraction of experience points.
I think you're off a little bit on the skill-based advancement as discussed in TFA...
Specifically, increases in skills must be use-based. Allocation of skill points based on something besides use of those specific skills is, for all intensive purposes, the same as a level-based system.
Experience points are still necessary, but instead of being general experience, they are specific for each skill. They may be called something different, but the abstraction is still there.
It's not an MMO, but ADOM (a roguelike) has a nice combo of level-based and skill-based advancement. There are annoying parts of it (like if you're really good at dodging, you have a hard time leveling shields, because you dodge all the attacks instead of blocking them and gaining shield experience). The author implemented a talent system, a skill-point based leveling system (with some randomization thrown in, affected by in-game factors), as well as a usage-based system -- and they work well together.
Honestly, I wish ADOM was made into an MMO. Unfortunately, being turn-based as all true Roguelikes are, this would be impossible without huge changes to the gameplay (never mind the huge changes in the code).
Also don't forget to apply first aid when you've been injured. It will greatly reduce the time spent healing up (if you're successful...) when you've been injured.
Also, advance your healing skill.
Finally, if you're new to ADOM, try playing a dwarven cleric. High HP + healing spells == longer time to figure out how to survive without them. If you create a character with a spell other than Cure Light Wounds or Cure Medium Wounds, reroll until you get one who has CLW or CMW (should only take a few tries).
What kind of basic projects are out there, with a supportive team/mentor for me to develop, practice, learn, and contribute?
I think you've identified that as being the key for you.
Do you live near a Junior/Community College? They are often great resources for things like this. The computer club or whatever they call it these days is a great way to meet people you could collaborate with, and most of the professors at most of these schools (in my experience) definitely enjoy being mentors. You'd probably need to enroll in a class to be able to participate, but classes are relatively cheap and they might benefit you anyway.
When I finished college and relocated for a job, but didn't have a family yet, I took classes at my local CC for fun and to meet people, and joined a couple of clubs. This was a great experience for me, and there were several non-traditional (read: older) students who also participated (you might fit into this group). The great thing about the computer club was that other groups would come to us for help... we wrote a lot of programs to help the other clubs (especially the engineering club, since there was so much crossover in membership).
I'd imagine that the computer clubs now participate in open-source projects a lot, but it's been a while since I was involved... but it probably wouldn't hurt for you to start there.
Ok, so you were discussing the reprocessing issue, thanks for clearing it up.
But the ban was lifted in 1981 by Reagan...And it was an executive order, not legislation.
So the current situation is that reprocessing is legal, but not funded via the DoE, and no private institution is working on it.
Seems to me the current problem is that there's no funding for reprocessing (the reprocessing centers built in the late 70s were never opened).
In effect, it's the same thing... lack of funding (and not allowing the private sector to do it -- not that they would, because of the cost) is just a less vocal way of forbidding it.
But I really hate to see Carter blamed for things that are not his doing. He sucked on foreign policy, but his energy policy was pretty darn good.
If they were interested in cleaner power, then why not relax laws and restrictions put in place back in the Carter administration and allow nuclear tech to proliferate
Citation, please?
The only legislative "restriction" on nuclear placed during the Carter administration was the deregulation move that forced utilities to buy power from independent renewable-source power companies.
The real reason that nuke plants were not built after Carter (and existing projects were canceled) were the simple economics. Borrowing costs (interest rates) were too high (and Carter's administration does share some of the blame in this). This made it a losing proposition to build nuke plants.
Contrary to your post, there was no anti-nuclear legislation during the Carter administration. There was a bill in discussion in 1979 (the NSLA), that would have increased state oversight of nuke plants and streamlined the NRC processes, but it stalled after the Three Mile Island accident.
Please, can you provide a single citation for your dig at Carter? It just doesn't agree with the facts, and I'd like to know if I'm missing something...
So there is not, and has never been, a valid reason for creating acetaminophen based competitors to the aspirin based compounds that were prevalent before 1980. Such as Emperin #3 (replaced by Tylenol #3), APC, APC with Codeine, and so on.
The problem with aspirin in this regard is that about three decades ago several marketing campaigns were pushing Tylenol products by putting undue emphasis on aspirin sometimes causing stomach distress in some people. This was before it was known that stomach ulcers were caused by a bacterial infection, and it was easy to suggest that too much aspirin could be causing some ulcers.
What? ASA (aspirin) is much less selective for COX2 receptors than APAP (acetominophen). While neither is as selective as, say, celecoxib (which has its own problems), it's well known in the field of drug development that this is the case.
Re: the higher margin between therapeutic level and destructive overdose level, I'm not sure, and I can;t be bothered to look up the LD50 and therapeutic levels right now. What I DO know is that the margin between minimum therapeutic level and minimum toxicity level is much smaller for ASA than APAP. For a lot of people, side effects from ASA are experience at a *lower* blood concentration than the minimum therapeutic level.
Two more notes. ASA in kids can be very dangerous due to risk of Reye's syndrome. So much so that many parents choose not to have ASA in the house at all. And the anticoagulant side effect of ASA means that anyone who has suffered physical trauma should not take ASA without consulting with a doctor.
Taken as directed, APAP is safer than ASA. The problem is the morons who think instructions don't apply to them.
I've played dungeon crawl... and in my opinion it wasn't as fun as nethack. But then again, I haven't played nethack in years, so I'm not sure how I'd rate the fun-ness now.
This is great advice, although I don't particularly agree that a pharmacist will have better knowledge of the drug interactions.
Your wife spent a good part of her second year studying drugs and interactions, plus has CE.
Pharmacists spent 3 (or 4, if the have PharmD, which is all the schools give out these days) years studying the same thing (first two years being more general things). It is also the primary focus of their careers, instead of one portion of a greater whole.
There are some doctors who are very good about DI, but I can't count how many times I've read incident reports and/or change logs where the pharmacist caught a DI that the prescriber missed.
While doctors should feel responsible for catching DIs, I haven't talked to many doctors who would not readily admit that the pharmacist is the expert on that topic. Particularly true in a clinical setting.
And on that note, what about the other animals that eat tuna?
There aren't very many of those. Tuna are damn near an apex predator. Maybe tiger sharks and great whites will eat mature tuna. Other fish may prey on juveniles, but I'd suspect that given the faster reproductive rate of these GM tuna, this would be a boon to those species as well as to the tuna.
The bigger concern would be the prey species of tuna. Baitfish populations are crashing from overfishing pretty much worldwide. So much so that trash fish like pollack now command a premium price because we've eaten all the herring.
Grinding too long will kill you via corruption. It's advance in the game or have no chance at success. There are also level limits on some of the quests that, while not mandatory, are pretty much necessary for the special endings (and for certain classes, very much necessary for a regular ascension).
There is also the fact that the more time you spend on a level, the more likely it is for an out-of-depth monster to come and kick your ass.
In short... try ADOM. It's definitely a roguelike, but is different enough from a lot of other roguelikes that the gameplay is, IMO, much better.
I think perhaps the parent to your post is currently under the influence of one or more of those narcotics. Or he just made an regular casual mistake, but I prefer to be cynical.
Hydrocodone is very mild compared to oxycodone. Oxycodone has something like 3000 (IIRC from medicinal chemistry well over a decade ago) times the affinity for the relevant receptor sites in the body as hydrocodone. Taking 30 oxycodone tablets is far from harmless... untreated, it would likely be fatal, as you'd stop breathing. Of course, it's illegal to take oxycodone in any manner other than as directed by a physician, so we don't have to worry about that, right? Right?
Anyway, here's the deal:
Ask your doctor before you take any medication in conjuction with a prescription medication. At the very minimum, ask your pharmacist (the pharmacist will have better knowledge of potential drug interactions, but poorer knowledge of your personal medical situation). I'd do both.
Posted non-anonymously because it's not embarrassing or a big stigma.
I applaud your courage, but I find it humorous that you feel you are posting non-anonymously when using an anonymous pseudonym.
I know there's a lot of truth to the fact that our online personas, in the context of online interactions, are an analogue to our meatspace personas, and we have a sense of identity with them that is really not much different (if it differs at all) from our meatspace identities.
I think the problem is that ants rely on a single queen to lay all the eggs. If a queen was born without the correct pheromones they might instantly kill it.
But if her pheremones only differ slightly... not enough to trigger the 'attack' behavior...
And then when she begins a new colony, one of her offspring is also only slightly different...
the mole with the hair on the cheek, the kiss on the nose with the bad breath, the completely lame christmas presents, the drunk hysterical laughter at the adult table
You seem to have forgotten the upsides to aunts. The shoulder to cry on, the insights on dealing with your parents, the awkward introduction to sexual contact...
Slashdot Mirror
YHBT :) I had to slip one in to get a usage nazi to correct me.
As for your main point... after going back and reading the entire article... I was mistaken. Thanks for correcting me.
FWIW... In that context, I'm not sure the discussion is really about skill-based vs. level-based advancement. It's more about whether or not to use a class-based system, and if so, how to implement it.
This makes me think that either the article is poorly titled and explained, or the responses were really not what the surveyors were asking. Because what you explain as a skill-based advancement system includes a level-based system where the players have choice in where to place the advancements. To me, that's a level-based system... but it seems that the entire discussion, from the very beginning, has dissolved into semantics rather than the actual issues.
Obviously, they tighted the other 27%.
But that's sexist to assume it's a him.
I'm interested with what they did with the other 27% of her.
Or, since we don't know the state of the core developer, perhaps we should be interested in what they did with the other 13.5% of him and the other 13.5% of her.
Or something. It's a little late in the day for me to be recalling Schroedinger.
I didn't play Morrowind or Oblivion... but in Daggerfall, the solution to that problem was to not have Athletics as one of your primaries. That way it wouldn't really affect your overall level.
The only reason you'd want it as a primary is if you made an overpowered custom class that was hard to advance in level... otherwise the grinding to level got very tedious.
More than paying for the children... it was about title to the lands.
When a wealthy lord had too many sons, he would have the extras sent either to serve in the military (which cost money, but it was part of the dues to the liege), or to the church. This conveniently got the extra sons out of the way so that his lands could be passed in entirety to his first son.
The son(s) shipped to the church would get a nice title, if the lord donated enough cash (or preferably, land) to the church when he sent his son to them.
The problem is that when some of these sons had sons of their own, they wanted to pass those lands to their sons... and the Church wanted to keep those lands. This caused schisms between the Church and the lords who supported the Church. So the solution was to require celibacy. Then those lordlings could not have sons inherit those lands. If they recognized an heir, then they were guilty of celibacy and the lands were forfeit to the Church (and the lordling would lose their title).
I'm not sure I explained it as well as others could... but the point is that it wasn't just about paying for the children of priests, it was about holding onto the bequests that came in exchange for appointing the sons of Lords to high office.
I think you're off a little bit on the skill-based advancement as discussed in TFA...
Specifically, increases in skills must be use-based. Allocation of skill points based on something besides use of those specific skills is, for all intensive purposes, the same as a level-based system.
Experience points are still necessary, but instead of being general experience, they are specific for each skill. They may be called something different, but the abstraction is still there.
It's not an MMO, but ADOM (a roguelike) has a nice combo of level-based and skill-based advancement. There are annoying parts of it (like if you're really good at dodging, you have a hard time leveling shields, because you dodge all the attacks instead of blocking them and gaining shield experience). The author implemented a talent system, a skill-point based leveling system (with some randomization thrown in, affected by in-game factors), as well as a usage-based system -- and they work well together.
Honestly, I wish ADOM was made into an MMO. Unfortunately, being turn-based as all true Roguelikes are, this would be impossible without huge changes to the gameplay (never mind the huge changes in the code).
Also don't forget to apply first aid when you've been injured. It will greatly reduce the time spent healing up (if you're successful...) when you've been injured.
Also, advance your healing skill.
Finally, if you're new to ADOM, try playing a dwarven cleric. High HP + healing spells == longer time to figure out how to survive without them. If you create a character with a spell other than Cure Light Wounds or Cure Medium Wounds, reroll until you get one who has CLW or CMW (should only take a few tries).
I think you've identified that as being the key for you.
Do you live near a Junior/Community College? They are often great resources for things like this. The computer club or whatever they call it these days is a great way to meet people you could collaborate with, and most of the professors at most of these schools (in my experience) definitely enjoy being mentors. You'd probably need to enroll in a class to be able to participate, but classes are relatively cheap and they might benefit you anyway.
When I finished college and relocated for a job, but didn't have a family yet, I took classes at my local CC for fun and to meet people, and joined a couple of clubs. This was a great experience for me, and there were several non-traditional (read: older) students who also participated (you might fit into this group). The great thing about the computer club was that other groups would come to us for help... we wrote a lot of programs to help the other clubs (especially the engineering club, since there was so much crossover in membership).
I'd imagine that the computer clubs now participate in open-source projects a lot, but it's been a while since I was involved... but it probably wouldn't hurt for you to start there.
Ok, so you were discussing the reprocessing issue, thanks for clearing it up.
But the ban was lifted in 1981 by Reagan...And it was an executive order, not legislation.
So the current situation is that reprocessing is legal, but not funded via the DoE, and no private institution is working on it.
Seems to me the current problem is that there's no funding for reprocessing (the reprocessing centers built in the late 70s were never opened).
In effect, it's the same thing... lack of funding (and not allowing the private sector to do it -- not that they would, because of the cost) is just a less vocal way of forbidding it.
But I really hate to see Carter blamed for things that are not his doing. He sucked on foreign policy, but his energy policy was pretty darn good.
Citation, please?
The only legislative "restriction" on nuclear placed during the Carter administration was the deregulation move that forced utilities to buy power from independent renewable-source power companies.
The real reason that nuke plants were not built after Carter (and existing projects were canceled) were the simple economics. Borrowing costs (interest rates) were too high (and Carter's administration does share some of the blame in this). This made it a losing proposition to build nuke plants.
Contrary to your post, there was no anti-nuclear legislation during the Carter administration. There was a bill in discussion in 1979 (the NSLA), that would have increased state oversight of nuke plants and streamlined the NRC processes, but it stalled after the Three Mile Island accident.
Please, can you provide a single citation for your dig at Carter? It just doesn't agree with the facts, and I'd like to know if I'm missing something...
What? ASA (aspirin) is much less selective for COX2 receptors than APAP (acetominophen). While neither is as selective as, say, celecoxib (which has its own problems), it's well known in the field of drug development that this is the case.
Re: the higher margin between therapeutic level and destructive overdose level, I'm not sure, and I can;t be bothered to look up the LD50 and therapeutic levels right now. What I DO know is that the margin between minimum therapeutic level and minimum toxicity level is much smaller for ASA than APAP. For a lot of people, side effects from ASA are experience at a *lower* blood concentration than the minimum therapeutic level.
Two more notes. ASA in kids can be very dangerous due to risk of Reye's syndrome. So much so that many parents choose not to have ASA in the house at all. And the anticoagulant side effect of ASA means that anyone who has suffered physical trauma should not take ASA without consulting with a doctor.
Taken as directed, APAP is safer than ASA. The problem is the morons who think instructions don't apply to them.
I've played dungeon crawl... and in my opinion it wasn't as fun as nethack. But then again, I haven't played nethack in years, so I'm not sure how I'd rate the fun-ness now.
Your wife spent a good part of her second year studying drugs and interactions, plus has CE.
Pharmacists spent 3 (or 4, if the have PharmD, which is all the schools give out these days) years studying the same thing (first two years being more general things). It is also the primary focus of their careers, instead of one portion of a greater whole.
There are some doctors who are very good about DI, but I can't count how many times I've read incident reports and/or change logs where the pharmacist caught a DI that the prescriber missed.
While doctors should feel responsible for catching DIs, I haven't talked to many doctors who would not readily admit that the pharmacist is the expert on that topic. Particularly true in a clinical setting.
There aren't very many of those. Tuna are damn near an apex predator. Maybe tiger sharks and great whites will eat mature tuna. Other fish may prey on juveniles, but I'd suspect that given the faster reproductive rate of these GM tuna, this would be a boon to those species as well as to the tuna.
The bigger concern would be the prey species of tuna. Baitfish populations are crashing from overfishing pretty much worldwide. So much so that trash fish like pollack now command a premium price because we've eaten all the herring.
Play ADOM.
Grinding too long will kill you via corruption. It's advance in the game or have no chance at success. There are also level limits on some of the quests that, while not mandatory, are pretty much necessary for the special endings (and for certain classes, very much necessary for a regular ascension).
There is also the fact that the more time you spend on a level, the more likely it is for an out-of-depth monster to come and kick your ass.
In short... try ADOM. It's definitely a roguelike, but is different enough from a lot of other roguelikes that the gameplay is, IMO, much better.
I think perhaps the parent to your post is currently under the influence of one or more of those narcotics. Or he just made an regular casual mistake, but I prefer to be cynical.
Hydrocodone is very mild compared to oxycodone. Oxycodone has something like 3000 (IIRC from medicinal chemistry well over a decade ago) times the affinity for the relevant receptor sites in the body as hydrocodone. Taking 30 oxycodone tablets is far from harmless... untreated, it would likely be fatal, as you'd stop breathing. Of course, it's illegal to take oxycodone in any manner other than as directed by a physician, so we don't have to worry about that, right? Right?
Anyway, here's the deal:
Ask your doctor before you take any medication in conjuction with a prescription medication. At the very minimum, ask your pharmacist (the pharmacist will have better knowledge of potential drug interactions, but poorer knowledge of your personal medical situation). I'd do both.
Well, then, I stand corrected. My apologies.
:(
You bastard. You've just made me lose a chuckle.
Thank you for making my day that much worse.
Sorry for second reply.
I see... there is confusion on the meaning of the word "every".
I think your interpretation was that "every" means "each"... when instead the term "every home in..." means the same as "all homes in...".
I applaud your courage, but I find it humorous that you feel you are posting non-anonymously when using an anonymous pseudonym.
I know there's a lot of truth to the fact that our online personas, in the context of online interactions, are an analogue to our meatspace personas, and we have a sense of identity with them that is really not much different (if it differs at all) from our meatspace identities.
But it still makes me chuckle.
But if her pheremones only differ slightly... not enough to trigger the 'attack' behavior...
And then when she begins a new colony, one of her offspring is also only slightly different...
And so on until differentiation is complete.
Sorry for double reply...
But obviously Google is superior to Bing.
On Google, my post is the #1 result for ant colony differentiation.
If you use quotes -- "ant colony differentiation" -- it is the only result.
By virtue of the fact that I consider myself to be the most important person in the world (to me), Google is therefore superior to Bing.
Case closed.
Hence why I mentioned geographically isolated colonies.
Well, it just depends on the number of residences.
65 MW is not a lot for 100,000 homes. Hell, it's not even a lot for 30,000 homes.
Go check your electric hour. How many kW are you pulling right now, even without any of the following high-wattage appliances on:
Microwave
Hair dryer
Vacuum cleaner
Electric Oven
Electric heat
I tried it.
I got a black screen (apparently no history to be shown).
Either the engine is borked, or my privacy add-ins are working properly...
Or possible the Oracle of Browser History has determined that my history is darker than the darkest dark, and refused to show images.
You seem to have forgotten the upsides to aunts. The shoulder to cry on, the insights on dealing with your parents, the awkward introduction to sexual contact...
Wait, was that my out-loud voice?
I have tried something similar with hornets nests. It failed miserably.
How do you get the molten aluminum to keep from freezing in the tunnels and blocking the penetration of the rest of the aluminum?
How do you get it to flow up the tunnels that ascend from intersections?
Inquiring minds want to know. (And evil minds want to apply your techniques to subway tunnels.)