Dantius

EPIC FINAL SESSION! I was amazed at how it turned out. Well, I wasn't, but everyone else was. Serious WTF-ery, though.

The log is up, as is the calendar, and everyone levels up! I'm really looking forward to the next session to see what the party does not that everybody on the planet now officially hates them!

Originally Posted By: Goldenking Originally Posted By: —All we zombies— —Alorael, who on the other hand thinks that the most effective way to cause widespread death and panic is to unleash smallpox on a large university with a student body from all over the country just before a summer break. Smallpox is terrifying and effective. Getting the timing right on that one would be extremely difficult. Couldn't one just infect those airplane blankets they have in airplanes? Yeah, or you could give a airline steward a deadly sexually transmitted disease and have him spread it through the country, like AIDS did.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES When the meltdown occured, Geiger counters in Sweden went off for some time. Not surprising, all things considered. With a nuclear explosion like Chernobyl, it wouldn't surprise me if Geiger counters worldwide went off to some degree. To vastly oversimplify what Stareye said, think of Chernobyl like a huge dirty bomb: a large conventional explosion spreads a cloud of highly radioactive waste all over the blast radius and more. It's not nuclear, but it's almost as devastating.

Originally Posted By: waterplant Originally Posted By: The Mystic I just had a thought: When I hit "oldbie" status, what will today's oldbies be called? Ancientbies? Antiquebies? Foreverbies? Universal constants? In an case, I don't plan on considering myself an oldbie until I've been here for almost a decade. Pensionerbies? just a guess... What about "Senilebies"?

Originally Posted By: Prufrock Originally Posted By: Nikki. Look at me, I can't even be bothered to write my own message! I am truly the more optimal spammer! (Also, images are a requirement with these kinds of things, FYI.) I'll get you next time, and you little dog too!!!!! Also, congratulations Nalyd.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: The Mystic Originally Posted By: Actaeon Lightning Awesome photo. Seconded. Dikiyoba. That picture reminds me of the photo of Eyjafallajokull erupting with lightning in the background. I had that as my background for a few days during the ash cloud "crisis"

Originally Posted By: *i On the contrary Alo, it is not obvious at all that wildlife would be "unhealthy and likely to have markedly reduced lifespans". Certainly, no one argues that extreme doses of radiation are hazardous for life, what is far more questionable is how elevated, but smaller doses impact a population. This is still a subject of vigorous debate amongst the scientific community. But wait a minute, was not the land around Chernobyl rendered uninhabitable by vast quantities of radiation? I'm sure you can still find isolated hot spots and the area within and immediately surrounding the plant would indeed be quite toxic, but, by and large, the levels of radiation from fallout are not in, or even close to, the range where it would necessarily induce radiation poisoning. Also remember, that it has been 25 years since the event and that the radioactivity from the fallout has been, in accordance with the laws of physics, decreasing exponentially since then. Consider that natural background radiation varies quite a bit over the world. The lowest areas are typically found at sea level and increase with elevation because of cosmic rays. However, certain areas have marked increases as a result of certain natural mineral deposits. Some areas have a dose rate of ten to twenty times higher than at sea level; in these cases no statistically significant impacts on human lifespans or cancer rates have been observed. But wait again, is that not natural radiation and the stuff from Chernobyl fundamentally different? While the isotopes emitting the radiation would be different, the radiation itself is no different from what you get everyday from natural sources. Your cells do not care whether it was struck by a gamma ray from the decay of a naturally occurring isotope of radon or one from synthetically made plutonium-241. WIth this in mind and the fact that typical radiation levels are not to the point of grave concern, it is not surprising at all that life is doing just fine. But but... we don't all have degrees in nuclear physics .

Originally Posted By: Lilith on the bright side they've also discovered a new species of fungus in the exclusion zone that seems to have independently evolved a form of photosynthesis, using melanin to capture background radiation and convert it to chemical energy Really? I doubt that...

Originally Posted By: Niemand I'm not sure if taking the Power Armor feat was such a great idea, since it does Pulver no good until he can acquire some fancy armor, which may be difficult, particularly given that he's unlikely to ever be able to buy it. None of the others just seemed like a very good fit, though. Oops. Power Armor and Assassin were my placeholder titles I never changed. My bad. You don't actually need the powered armor, all it does is give a bonus to what level of armor you can wear.

Originally Posted By: waterplant Maybe some might find this article interesting - I was going to put it in the 'globilization' thread as a continuation of that but didn't. www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-10819027 This is interesting as I heard that biodiversity had increased in the restricted zone. There are a number of aspects to measuring biodiversity (abundance, richness, etc.) which may lead to differing conclusions. What, a toxic nuclear meltdown capable of poisoning and killing thousands of humans kills animals too? No, that's impossible!

Originally Posted By: Cryolemon Originally Posted By: Thaluikhain Originally Posted By: Lilith You can begin with even more skill points to spend on spell levels by starting with the pre-generated party and taking all their stats down to 0 instead of just deleting and replacing them, but at that point you're basically cheating and you may as well just use the character editor. Hey? The pre-generated party costs more to create than what you're given? Yeah, not sure why, but they do. It's true in BoA, too. Using a prefab class as opposed to a custom class can yield you lots more skill points. I think that the Hedge Wizard has ~12 more skill points than a custom, which does make a little difference at earlier levels. Of course, most of those skill points are spent in things like First Aid and Thrown Missiles and Potion making, but it's still a decent deal.

Originally Posted By: The Mystic Originally Posted By: Roentgenium Edit 2: Okay, I give up. I'd love to make scenarios, but I don't know anything about scripting. I don't even know where to type the scripts. The editor PDFs and especially the BoA cookbook (both of which are mentioned above) are a great resource for those who are new to scripting. You should at least skim them over, and take a few notes before trying to write script. Also, there's nothing wrong with good old-fashioned trial and error; that's how I learned most of what I know (which, I'll admit, isn't much; I'm still fairly new myself). It's discouraging at first, but with some practice, I know you'll get the hang of scripting. Just give it time. Kelandon wrote a pretty decent introduction to scripting called "Basic Scripting for Complete Beginners". I think it's hosted of CalRef, though, so it's down for now...

Originally Posted By: A Bat and a Gentleman —Alorael, who tried to outdo Slarty at graph trickery. Unfortunately, the graph between time spent on Spiderweb and age was initially promising, but it went downhill rapidly. Or uphill steadily, actually. I can't hear you. Speak up, young man!

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES <pre><b>RETRIOACTIVITY IS IN THE AIR FOR UBB</b></pre> Oh dear lord, please not again!

Originally Posted By: VCH I bet you China will be the country that leads the "Green revolution". They'll be forced into being a leader by their own growth. Wait, so Green is now a synonym for Cultural?

Originally Posted By: Sword of Sleeping Memories Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Eld Well, to me, everyone that I didn't see join is a member of a mysterious, elite forum cabal to which I am but a worthless bystander. this is actually true, it's called desperance This was called Desperance. Today, Spiderweb is off the rails. Our future is uncertain. One single man or woman can tip the balance to a brave new future or to utter chaos. No, wait. That's Geneforge. You must... bring balance.. to the Force Spiderweb...

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba Originally Posted By: Dantius Last time I checked, humanity is and was and will remain the only... thing... capable of wiping out the entirety of Earth's biosphere at will. That's hardly a "little" sphere of influence. Humans are hardly likely to be able to kill off all life, considering how hard we've been trying to eradicate certain species for centuries and still haven't succeeded. Dikiyoba. Did you know that malaria has killed more humans than anything ever, in all of history? And despite knowing how to cure it and how to prevent it, we still can't stop it? That said, I highly doubt mosquitoes could survive a nuclear detonation. Or tens of thousands of nuclear detonations.

Originally Posted By: Txgangsta It is ridiculous to be so arrogant as to think our entire 5 billion year-old world can be effected in a mere 150 years by people. Can we effect parts? Obviously; we had no ozone not too long ago. But can we truly effect the entire system that scientists say has been around for 10,000 years (last ice age)? While we can effect it a little, our sphere of influence does not currently exceed that of the globe. Last time I checked, humanity is and was and will remain the only... thing... capable of wiping out the entirety of Earth's biosphere at will. That's hardly a "little" sphere of influence.

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Here's a list of numbers. generation formula plz kthxbai

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES *shoooom* ...anyway, realistically, post count does not have a lot to do with oldbesity as it was traditionally conceived of. It might also be possible to include some kind of multiplier system: *1.5, say, for being a Very Controversial Figure, some bonus for being a long-term admin, etc. Or perhaps the postcount part should simply have its influence reduced: say cut it in half to ( (posts / 25,000) + 25000) times everything else. 25000 chosen since that's where Postaroni, Pizzabella currently sits, I believe. It's not too late to have it be a differential equation!

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Lt. Sullust I believe TM, Stareye, and Drakefyre should be above Alorael hey look who's conspicuous by her absence Hmm. Is it Kelandon? No, wait. It's Krizsan!

Originally Posted By: CRISIS on INFINITE SLARTIES Since when is Jeff interested in assuaging fans? Well, he's done it before when faced down with major hostility. Look at the boat system or the Geneforge encumbrance system.

Originally Posted By: Roentgenium The hint sheet for Roses of Reckoning on true site for blades says that there's a pierecing crystal and a Dispel Barrier scroll in the east half on the manor. I found the pierecing crystal, but I can't find the Dispel Barrier scroll. I've searched all the sarphogophuses already, but I still haven't found it. Help, please? IIRC, it's in a secret passage on the south side of the room with the vampires lounging in it. Run into the walls to search for it.

Originally Posted By: Micawber Off the top of my head, given the posting history per month for all users, I think some kind of EWMA could be used to measure oldbitude. What I'd like are regressions of our posting styles. Does my postcount grow exponentially? Logarithmically? Is it constant? Linear? What is the derivative of my post model, and, more importantly, is it larger than anyone elses?