*i

At least with the Mac, those technically inclined can open a shell with much of the Unix capability. I tend to use this feature quite a bit; admittedly, it is not for everyone, however.

While I can't speak for Jeff, the usual answer he has given on these sorts of things is that it is a tradeoff between the time spent and the likelihood of gain. Granted, Jeff has a few other things than his games going on such as his book, but the games are his niche and reliable source of income. Considering he's one guy whose income lives or dies by the success of his work, he has not been prone to deviate from the proven formula too much.

If they did not disappear, I suspect the "summoned" NPCs may have been part of a scripted encounter or special spell.

The game ends right there as well. Only difference is one less fight.

Der. Always get war curse and weakness curse mixed up.

If memory serves, I believe one reduces the attack power and hence damage the target deals while the other reduces the defensive ability and therefore increases the damage the target takes.

Quote: There was one guy in my college dorm who had an apartment and was a bit older than us that had come back mostly to enjoy the parties which was the main reason he had that dorm room. You can go back, but when you are older your priorities change and you don't do things the same way. My "you can't go back" statement was indeed figurative. Personal story. I attended grad school at the same university as undergrad. While at first, grad school was "College, Round II", it was only perhaps a year or two later that I started to realize things were clearly different. I was older with different perspectives. Friends that I knew since freshman and sophomore year that I had shared many experiences with had left and moved on to other things. New friends were typically grad students from different parts of the country or world, often had very different experiences, some were married, and a few even had kids. The undergrads, well, I was no longer one of them. Because of these changes in myself and my social situation, I found it impossible to go back and live those years as I had lived them before. I've seen people who tried to relive the "college experience", and while there might have been some success for a while, eventually the realization of "it's just not the same" sets in. This might be possible at say 24 or 25, but eventually you will grow old. Quote: I don't think that's actually true for everyone, or even maybe most people. I phrased this poorly because I conflated the statements of "don't forget to enjoy yourself" and not to focus overly on academics. Seldom does anyone come out of college the same way they came in. Where do you fit in? Where your talents reside? Who are you? These are the questions college offers the best opportunity to answer. Once you go off into the "real world", the same level of freedom, flexibility, and access to diverse activities that college affords are greatly diminished. Not saying these opportunities don't exist elsewhere, but they are not so readily available.

You need to make use of a magic forge. There is one available in the basement of Avadon below where the Craftmaster resides.

Quote: My goal is to get a doctorate in computer science (because, you know, that'll be useful), maybe picking up some spare bachelor's if they only take a few more credits to get. Obviously that'll put me in a big hole debt-wise, but I'm hoping to offset that with as much free money as possible. Surprisingly enough, my parents aren't going to help with that, for reasons that can be discussed at some other time, ere I become angry and resentful. You will probably incur some debt in undergrad. You're in luck with your choice of major, because, once you reach grad school, most people who are good get funded. For me personally, grad school was actually a profitable time because I lived reasonably and had summer jobs. On the PhD, be careful if you decide to go that route. It will open many doors, but it will close many as well. Make sure that is what you really want. In my case, it has benefitted me handsomely as my job requires it. That said, there are many industry jobs that I would not even be considered for because I don't have the "correct mindset" anymore. A PhD should teach you how to do science in your field: the process of analyzing existing knowledge and creating new knowledge. Once you acquire those skills, it is hard for many people to go back to a "turn the crank" job. Quote: It seems like everyone here is either in college, grad school, or has had colleging. So I'm wondering, what advice do y'all have for someone who will (hopefully) be attending college a year from now? These are the best years of your life. Remember that because once you're out you can't go back! Work hard, yes, but don't forget to have a good time. You will find most of your learning does not occur in the classroom. Also, appreciate the value of "soft skills". It's easy for technical people to sneer at them, but as someone who hires undergraduate and graduate interns for a software project at a US national laboratory, I can tell you that they are very important. All that technical knowledge is useless if you cannot teamwork, give effective presentations, or write accessible technical reports.

Usually, a power outage shouldn't destroy a file unless it is in the process of actively being read or (much more likely) written to at the time of abrupt shutdown. I say usually, but remember computers are complex physical machines and are not immune to unpredictable failures that can be caused by a power surge, stray cosmic ray, etc.

Quote: There are plenty of complaints about China's repression, censorship, corruption, and rights abuses, but they aren't an American cause. Politicians aren't worked up about it and most people aren't worked up about it. The reason politicians haven't largely been worked up about it is that there would be only be political or material downsides to being vocally anti-China. Doing so would is disadvantageous because we are so economically coupled. Cynically speaking, corporate donors would be none too pleased with such stances because it could end up hurting their market shares and their willingness to fund the campaigns of those politicians.

On the US and China, perhaps my work experiences have given me a different perspective. That same thinking about two mutually incompatible ideologies still exists today on both sides. Unlike with the US and the USSR, the US and China are economically coupled in that there are mutual benefits for both sides to cooperate. I suspect if this economic coupling were not present, we would see a lot stronger rhetoric.

Quote: It's mutually assured destruction the way two sane guys with knives who kind of dislike each other are mutually assured. Yes, there could be a lot of blood, but nobody wants to go through that mess to everyone's detriment. Yes, same as the US and the USSR during the Cold War, except this is economic rather than military. Hence my use of the term.

Harehunter, I'm not really talking about offshoring, tariffs, or any other normal economic policy game here. What I'm saying is that China really cannot destroy the US economically without facing devastating consequences of their own.

Furthermore, the US and China have each other in an economical mutually assured destruction game. Sure, China could call back its debt. In which case, the US has a few options. First, the US could, as Dantius says, print more US dollars to satisfy the debt. Secondly, the US could ignore the request, essentially saying "Come and take it, if you dare." Also, the US could embargo China, essentially killing off one of their major buying outlets. In all cases, global economies would tank, which would be an ultimate economic negative sum game. As such, both sides know there is sufficient reason to avoid such a thing from occurring.

Empire Archers would be the most dangerous E3 enemy if bless was not hopelessly broken. Sad truth is, even for low level parties, there is an effective defense in the form of that priest spell. Same cannot be said of magic users, however, where no comparable defense really exists.

Paul Krugman's take on the protests. Quote: In the long run, the protests will make no difference. In fifty years' time, China will be calling the shots. Think we have no influence now? Just wait. Possible, I suppose, but any projections based on fifty years are rarely accurate. The primary assumption people make is that trends of today will continue forever. Just read any science fiction from the immediate postwar period to see a plethora of examples.

I suspect some of this is general loss of opportunity over the decades. Americans, generally speaking, are quite tolerant of wide disparities in income and even high unemployment at times, so long as there is ample opportunity available for class mobility. In the 1950s, it was hard work and financial discipline could support a family and even put kids through college. Nowadays, you need two working parents just to support a family, and it is unlikely that will be enough for college. Success almost requires levels of debt that generations ago would have been seen as irresponsible. With the financial collapse, much of this easy access to credit is gone and people lost a good portion of their invested income because of the irresponsibility of others. Average people lost homes, retirement/college savings, businesses, etc. Meanwhile, those people responsible, the wealthiest, continue to grow their earnings while the avenues to success become steeper at an alarming rate. "Can't get a small business loan from our bank now because your credit is bad because we were irresponsible with your money, well that's just too bad, isn't it? Pardon me while I head off to the country club in my new sports car that I bought with my bonus that we voted for ourselves." It does seem that we're going back to the days where if you were born poor, you're almost guaranteed to die poor regardless of your work ethic. The same can be said if you are rich. Mess up as bad as you want, you can use your wealth to project influence to not only protect you, but to keep the gravy flowing.

Quote: Jobs was an inordinately capable executive, inordinately accomplished, and inordinately mean. Basically, the Walt Disney of our time. He was definitely brilliant, but quite exploitive as well. Although, as Soul of Wit says, comparisons to people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are not quite fair either. First, while Jobs has a ridiculous amount of wealth compared to you (I suspect) and I, he was still in a personal wealth tier below those two philanthropists despite having an incredibly profitable company. Second, his personal life situation was quite different than those other two in that he never really retired as Bill Gates did (I suspect he felt his work at Apple was not done) nor did he have a chance to become old like Warren Buffet. In other words, he did not really have time to become a philanthropist. So yeah, Steve Jobs was a flawed person; however, he did quite a bit to bring computing into the hands of the average guy. That, despite his flaws, is a significant contribution.

This is supposed to be an optional fight, but unfortunately the game narrative makes it out to be one that the player actually should be motivated to do. Near the end, if you could have an alternative choice of working for the other side as a double agent that was encouraged rather than replacing him outright, which would be discouraged by everyone as being impossible, then I think the difficulty of this fight would have been more appropriate. The other problem is that Redbeard is inherently a defensive foe. He won't overwhelm you with power in as much as he just wares you down in a battle of attrition.

Barzahl -- No one said your opinion isn't welcome. We just all happen to disagree with it. I agree that we're rehashing the same argument. You say torment is unplayable, many people are able to play it just fine with difficulty. Not sure how we can progress here other than to all agree to disagree.

These days I always pay. Now that I'm fortunate enough to have a stable job, I figured that $25 or so a year was no real burden, and I do like to support the company that makes the games. Granted, no objection here to cheaper prices either.

Death Knight -- I agree mostly, although I wouldn't go as strongly as you. When the setting is stated as easy, 95+% of users had better be able to beat the game. Can't account for everyone and all, but you should account for the vast majority. Now, on the other end, when the difficulty says "Torment", that's an entirely different thing. Barzahl -- Don't really agree that torment isn't playable, since we have people around here playing it and beating it. I would go so far as to say torment should not be beatable by everyone.

Just to clarify, I wasn't even really addressing Barzhal directly, but more the general trend of a small line of people who, over the years, have essentially complained that a game is too difficult on the hard and torment levels. Look, I'm all for legitimate complaints, but often the essence of it boils down to that a particular section is just too hard for them. When this is the criticism, I don't find it reasonable, although I understand why it is made for the reasons I posted earlier. Barzahl - I'm not calling you an idiot, and I do see your point with the medals and the game being a bit too linear in that you cannot build up your characters more. Although, as Lilith had mentioned, you have quite a bit of flexibility when it comes to tuning your builds. Likewise, at this level, I think it perfectly reasonable to modify your tactics. As for the medals, I'm on the fence as to whether or not having the one "beat the game on torment" medal is too much.

Dantius, you're way over the line. Cut it out now.