Dantius

Originally Posted By: Lilith Ooh, maybe he'll make us mine for our own metals to upgrade our weapons! ...or not.

Originally Posted By: Ook ook ook It works well for China. It works less well for some Chinese. Yes, but the "some Chinese" it does not work well for are are subset of "things that we don't care about", because they are not the Chinese who hold billions (is it trillions now?) in US bonds. Woo self-interest!

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Congratulation Ephesos. The best part is no trees died in the process. I know. That's why whenever I'm away from the computer and need to catch up on lots of now posts, I simply print them out on paper and then settle down in a chair to read them. Much comfier, and it manages to compensate for the environmental green-ness of forums. That said, the electricity powering most of our computers comes from coal and oil power plants, so that's at least some comforts.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES What SoT said. Nonetheless, I refuse to support a bread-and-circuses tradition by participating in it. See, I can see that mentality of applying to lots of things, like organized sports and games and the Internet. But not ever to politics, especially seeing that the who point of the bread and circuses comment was to say that instead of politics, people turned to shallow hedonism and self-gratification.

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity I only recently realized that democracy is not even supposed to be about ensuring good government. All democracy is really supposed to be good for is preventing really terrible government. So upholding democracy is like buying health insurance. You throw away a lot of money and normally you get nothing for it, but if something does go badly wrong, you'll be awfully glad you threw that money where you did. Now that I realize this, I don't get quite so mad about dumb politicians and dumber electorates. That's the premium you have to pay. Well, according to Hamilton and Madison, democracy gets better the more people that participate, so clearly the best thing we can do to insure democracy is to invade other large countries, annex them, and force them to vote. I expect perfect democracy to be attained once all seven billion people on the planet are ruled by one government And no, I see no way this could possibly go wrong.

I arrived early at my polling place and got the Chicago Special: Vote once, get 10 free. That said, I got saddled with really poor choices this year. It usually came down to either incompetent fools or insane wingnuts (both labels apply to both sides equally), so several of the votes for less important positions came down to "who has phoned me to tell me to vote for them the least". And yes, I did keep a tally. I also tallied attack ads. Have I mentioned I really hate how campaigning works now?

Halloween is far less important that the events going on today, and yet I seriously doubt that there will be a thread on that event, and I furthermore will hedge my bets by not even mentioning the name of the event to which I am referring to to avoid upsetting anyone. That said, I handed out candy. I was sure it was my favorite type of candy to insure that when I inevitably had some left over, I would actually enjoy it instead of just giving all the rest to the first person who came after 7:00 and calling it a night.

Originally Posted By: mlahut The minimap colors for "explored but empty" and "unexplored" are essentially the same shade of white. This is very frustrating to me, and it makes it very tricky to figure out whether I've completely explored an outdoor region. Is there anything I can do to change the colors and make them not identical? Nope. Trust me, you're not the first to be frustrated, either. If it's any consolation, Jeff's minimaps could be a lot worse. At least they aren't as bad as Eschalon's.

Originally Posted By: Triumph ... ... ELABORATE. Bad guy was throwing magic grenades. Kurex lobbed a plasma missile at a grenade while the bad guy was throwing it. Kurex forgot about other grenades still on bad guy's person. Large explosion doing 30 damage.

Originally Posted By: meAzuma Hide and Seek to Hide and Seeker Missiles. I would prefer upgrading Global Thermonuclear War to global thermonuclear war.

Originally Posted By: Nioca Okay, so I've got some bad news. Michigan's currently under siege by some rather nasty windstorms, intense enough to cause power outages. I've already lost power once, and have had the occasional surge. Now, the storms should fully debate abate by tomorrow afternoon, but I figured I should... *watches lights flicker and monitor dim* ...should give you a heads-up. In fairness, I heard the same thing about the storms here, and they've totally blown over after a few hours. Especially seeing as you've got another day and a half until the session... Oh, but the winds might pose a problem, though; it's like 35 MPH here.

Wow, that's like the third spanner we've had in the past week. I'm not sure whether that just means we've become more notable, or if we just need to add some kind of captcha to the User Registration screen...

I wish to be eaten by a grue in glorious HD on multiple monitors at about 60 FPS, and with full surround sound.

Originally Posted By: Nioca I'm guessing... no. We should revolt! We demand our level up cookies! Or we could just do what the French are and stop all importation of gasoline to Spiderweb until our demands are met- that's working out really well for them.

Originally Posted By: Flipstylez Hi guys. I get the Undead part, but what are "Constructs"? The monsters around the Undead? Or whatever the enemy shapes DURING the fight? Also, what does "+2% Energy Preservation" do to me? Thanks in advance! I believe the Construct template is a holdover from Avernum, and in Geneforge it only applies to Golems. +10 Probably just means 10 extra damage points. 2% EnPres just means that spells cost 98/100ths the usual cost.

Originally Posted By: meAzuma Then that defeats Avadon's purpose of being a new game. Everybody knows the purpose of new games is so that people can complain about how bad they are compared to the old games. Have you not heard of the Fallout series?

Originally Posted By: Randomizer Still you can graduate without learning anything useful. Most colleges have that, it's called an "English major".

Originally Posted By: Flipstylez I saw a "hint" tip down at the bottom while I was playing. It said I will eventually have to pick from the five factions.. what are they? I'm guessing there's the Rebels, Shapers, Tracksomething, and who are the other two? There's the unofficial faction of Rawal, and then you get to chose from Radical rebels: Ghaldring Medium radical rebels: Trakovites Peace/status quo: Astoria Medium Shapers: Alwan Genocidal Shapers: Taygen.

Originally Posted By: Flipstylez Hi again. =) What is that exactly?... A +5 to HER is the same as getting a +5 to Cold Resistance, Fire Resistance, Energy Resistance, Poison Resistance, Mental Resistnace, Acid Resistance, and Stun Resistance, all at the same time.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba As Dikiyoba went to a high school that only offered one calculus class, what does "real Calc 3" entail? Calc 1 is probably a single variable differentiation/integration/limits. It's an easy class for high schoolers. Calc two and up is probably more like a multivariable class, with partial differentials, differential equations, contour/surface integrals, and more advanced stuff like that. I'd image that the order varies depending on the college/highschool.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Originally Posted By: Dintiradan EDIT: Oh man, have I got to get a copy of this. "...three giant Qur'ans appear in the sky and fire energy beams..." oh man. If Muslims can summon energy beam shooting Qu'rans from the sky, I might have to convert. That said, Rushide definitely does look kind of diabolical with his goatee and moustache...

Originally Posted By: tridash This seemed the best place to put this without starting a pointless new thread or something, though it's probably rather too specific a request anyway....does anyone have any suggestions for a good book (or webpage i suppose) that talks about why quantum mechanics developed as it did? I don't mean just describing the problems QM had to solved, but going over more how the operators (and the maths behind it) arose etc..i suppose the motivation behind the actual structure of QM. So do you want a serious and analytical treatment that basically teaches you QM, or more an explanation in simpler terms, or more a history of its development and the invention of the mathematics behind it? If you're looking to learn the math and concepts, try the Feynman Lectures, but that does require a substantial background in math and science. I'm not familiar with any solid yet easy descriptors of the math accessible to laymen. I'm sure there's about a dozen books tackling the history of the development, just check the science and mathematics section of your local bookstore/library.

Originally Posted By: waterplant Agreed. Leaving unproven concepts open for discussion (criticism being an essential part of this process) may be a good way forward. Oh cool, so yo- no wait, I see where this is going. This is going to turn into another attempt to critique science, isn't it?

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES We've analyzed this before. You CAN have a shaper who uses batons effectively. Strictly speaking, it won't work as well as a shaper who focuses entirely on shaping, or who uses a bit of battle magic, and it will require greater investment than either. But it is possible. ...That was exactly what I said. Did you read my first post?

Originally Posted By: waterplant The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie. I wish I was Salman Rushdie. You wish you were permanently in hiding so you wouldn't be executed with a meat cleaver in the middle of the street by Muslim extremists?