Profile for Custer
Field | Value |
---|---|
Displayed name | Custer |
Member number | 3151 |
Title | Bob's Big Date |
Postcount | 2367 |
Homepage | http://desperance.net |
Registered | Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
Author | Recent posts |
---|---|
Speculating about Avernum 4's plot in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, February 9 2005 16:19
Profile
Homepage
quote:Probably like three different cities. The merchants wouldn't share a town with the soldiers, the soldiers wouldn't share a town with the thinkers, and the thinkers would want to be as far as possible from the government anyway. The Empire is so staggeringly generic that I'd cringe to think of Jeff introducing its heartland. If I had any say, A4 would center around some new frontier -- space would be nice -- or a distant future. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Speculating about Avernum 4's plot in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, February 9 2005 10:07
Profile
Homepage
quote:Somehow I don't think so either, being as how she is currently engaged being ashes. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Root of all evil in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Tuesday, February 8 2005 17:14
Profile
Homepage
Whenever I see someone earnestly argue that something existing depends on someone sensing it exist, I am reminded of a very young child which, for being unable to see something, believes it has ceased to exist. Either there IS an objective level of the universe -- something that is hard or sharp will be so to animals, for example, or even to other objects -- or within any useful framework, there exists an objective level anyway. Saying otherwise is as essentially useful as arguing there's a universal frame of reference and our not knowing where it is makes all other measures of position and velocity useless -- it's sophomoric beyond belief and even if the argument holds, it renders itself useless due to unravelling the foundations of logics upon which it is built, and making further debate and progress impossible besides. IN SHORT: The contention that there exists no objective reality (given that all formal logics and, by extension, said contention, depend on an objective reality for meaning) is either false or meaningless. This is, of course, only a useful contention if you live in a world where philosophy exists for the purpose of advancing or refining human knowledge, not as a marital aid. Now to sit back and do nothing until the next time I see Thuryl turn a philosophical discussion into a game where he molests the other participants with knives. [ Tuesday, February 08, 2005 17:31: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Fallout 2 has now entered my life in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Monday, February 7 2005 17:22
Profile
Homepage
For a beginner, Thuryl's character, with several caveats. First, tag Small and Big Guns and Steal. The worst-ass readily accessible gun in the game is the Bozar; it is like a gatling gun you can snipe with. You can also easily steal it off of the guards outside of NCR. From there, running around raping and pillaging is deuced easy. Go with 8 agility. That gives you 9 AP, and you can later increase it by 2 points through events (the memory chip and a perk). Don't get strength any greater than 6, because Power Armor Mk2 makes it redundant. Intelligence is extremely important, as it dictates your skill. Charisma you can leave at a fair to middling value on your first playthrough, and I would say Perception may well be the LEAST important statistic. It dictates how well you can hit, yes; but early in the game you're much safer with spray-and-pray weapons, and later you end up with guns that turn a blind man into a quality sniper. Gifted is a good skill to have. Don't bother with Skilled, even though they seem to counterbalance each other out; I favor Finesse tog o along with it. Got all that? Good. Once you get used to it, run through with a significantly weaker but more charismatic and diplomatic character. Absorb the plot. If you approach it this way, Fallout is much like a bottle whose top third is filled with short beer, middle third is filled with fine wine, and bottom third liquid methamphetamine. Once you're done with absorbing the plot, think of what you have NOT done, and do that. Go for a melee character (they are very hard to do!), or design a character around Fast Shot or high Endurance, maybe both. While they seem extremely weird compared to how you have been playing the game, they soon get to be fun in their own warped way. And from there, it's savoring the good moments -- like the satisfying feeling killing an alien in some messy way gives you just about every time you do it -- and engaging in acts of blatant acts of badassry. One piece of advice, though -- never skimp on the Agility. It can really gimp a good character. [ Monday, February 07, 2005 17:22: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Linux? in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Monday, February 7 2005 07:26
Profile
Homepage
quote: quote:FYT -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Linux? in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Sunday, February 6 2005 11:27
Profile
Homepage
quote:Word of advice from Djur by way of me: there are several good reasons for switching to Linux. 1. You are using your home computer to host a webserver for some reason, and require the extra security 2. You are a programmer and a wealth of tools and an efficient, stable background would directly benefit you 3. You need the extra shortcuts given by a terminal environment. If those do not strongly apply to you -- at least one, let's say -- there's not an awful lot of reason in getting Linux. He advised against me getting it, because I use my computer almost exclusively for games, browsing, and AIM; for each of these, Linux can be treated as essentially inferior to either of the other major OSes. So far as I was concerned, its only advantage was a marginal increase in stability, counterset by general inconvenience, user-hostility, and (most importantly) a lack of products and support so far as games are concerned. WinE is improving, but a lot of excellent titles are still PC- or sometimes Mac-only, and cannot be emulated at all. Bear all that in mind. Also, amateur Linux conversions tend to suck. Take Exile 3, for example; Djur reports the Linux-native version actually runs worse on his system than Windows-native Exile 3 run through WinE. [ Sunday, February 06, 2005 11:28: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
The Oort Cloud in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Sunday, February 6 2005 11:20
Profile
Homepage
This is the best topic I've seen in months. If there were a way to sticky topics in UBB, I'd want it stickied. No sarcasm at all. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
IMPORTANT NEWS in Richard White Games | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Friday, February 4 2005 17:54
Profile
Homepage
I am a SEABIRD. ![]() My DIET consists mostly of FISH. ![]() It also includes SOME CRUSTACEANS. ![]() I am CAPABLE of FLIGHT. ![]() I am DIRECTLY ENDANGERED by AQUATIC POLLUTION. ![]() If owned as a PET, I must be GROOMED on a REGULAR BASIS. ![]() I may be SUCEPTIBLE to PARASITES. ![]() Please DO NOT use me for SEXUAL PURPOSES. ![]() Thank you! -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Video Games 101 in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Friday, February 4 2005 16:31
Profile
Homepage
quote:THROW STEAK TO DOG -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Video Games 101 in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Thursday, February 3 2005 18:10
Profile
Homepage
You people are just playing the wrong games. Final Fantasy, Dead Or Alive? Yeah, maybe that'll teach you how to briefly survive some kind of screwed-up Japanese convention. The Fallout series, on the other hand, reads like a textbook. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Favorite spidey product in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, February 2 2005 20:10
Profile
Homepage
I liked the one with the whales. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Graphic Novels-- Comic Books in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Monday, January 31 2005 18:37
Profile
Homepage
The only comic book I ever read was Maus. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Announcment! get your Player Character concept made! in Blades of Avernum | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Sunday, January 30 2005 17:54
Profile
Homepage
quote:Slith females would not be visibly different from Slith males. Being either reptilian or amphibian, they possess neither hair nor significant body fat, and the only typical distinguishing characteristic between male and female in reptiles and amphibians is the females being slightly larger and duller in color -- neither of which have any evolutionary imperative in Slithzerikai, who raise their eggs and young creche-style anyway. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Root of all evil in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:37
Profile
Homepage
I think the current discussion is a tad on the silly side; saying 'Christians can be great scientists' or 'Christians cannot be great scientists' is really irrelevant. Even at its most germane, it is only an elaborate appeal to authority for both sides of the argument. To the last poster: Why do you assume that atheists reject the concepts of good and evil, or that Christians accept them? [ Saturday, January 29, 2005 21:39: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Root of all evil in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Saturday, January 29 2005 18:15
Profile
Homepage
Fantastic proof, please? If that's so, the bottom should have fallen out of the opal market entirely. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Root of all evil in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Friday, January 28 2005 20:28
Profile
Homepage
More importantly, the dragon is also inscrutiable, and the purpose of theoretical science is establishing cause-and-effect relationships between as many factors as possible. 'God did it' does not exactly make for good progress, because it's curiously difficult to reproduce divine intervention in the lab or the factory. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Repeal Amendment XXII in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Thursday, January 27 2005 06:12
Profile
Homepage
Bush passes a lot of the buck for the crap that happens upstairs; I'm convinced he's been playing dumb on a semi-permanent basis since 2000. (The most oft-cited statistic about him -- a 1250 SAT, a Yale C-, and so forth -- are surely indicative of nepotism, but not of stupidity; a C- represents about as well as you could manage at Yale without actual work, but it takes more intelligence than most people would think to skate by without working -- especially somewhere like that...) The question is what kind of implication an administration needing someone to play dumb, and someone to play a semi-professional scapegoat, and a whole host of people ready to sacrifice their good names and futures, has, exactly. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
In this thread, we have an abstract discussion without befouling pastries of any size in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, January 26 2005 17:08
Profile
Homepage
So how exactly does someone being born into an assload of money fail to distinguish from someone being born into dirt poverty? -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
In this thread, we have an abstract discussion without befouling pastries of any size in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, January 26 2005 16:12
Profile
Homepage
quote:You dodged the question. You're saying you don't believe it's necessary to give everyone the same shot at a good life, and that it is in fact desirable to have social status distinguished immediately at birth? -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Repeal Amendment XXII in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, January 26 2005 06:02
Profile
Homepage
Yeah. And I suppose besides setting up the counterterrorism systems, modern military organization, diplomatic hegemony, necessary budget surplus reserve, and 21st-century attitude -- all of which the GOP gutted like so many trout after holding power for a few months -- Clinton really wasn't so great, either. Really, I say we repeal it because 2008 is otherwise going to be something inane, like McCain versus Dean or H. Clinton versus Giuliani. Two men representing the most respected living leaders of two dramatically contrasting political factions going head-to-head to win the newly-reinstated right to hold a third term in office would be utterly awesome. [ Wednesday, January 26, 2005 06:03: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
Repeal Amendment XXII in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Wednesday, January 26 2005 00:08
Profile
Homepage
Amendment XXII: the amendment passed in 1951 by Republicans who had gotten tired of the Roosevelt legacy to prevent running for President after having successfully done so twice. Repealing Amendment XXII would make eligible for election in 2008 exactly two living men. I'm for ridding ourselves of it. Opinions? -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
In this thread, we have an abstract discussion without befouling pastries of any size in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Tuesday, January 25 2005 22:53
Profile
Homepage
quote:Fair point, I suppose. I hope you recognize the difference in degree present here; people do die on a daily basis for want of things which we could comfortably do without. quote:Even after they're dead and have no more use for it? Wow. Someone's got a pretty disproportionate respect for the right to property. quote:You're unconvinced because it's easier than addressing the blunt facts: economic mobility is near to nil and stuff like vigorous respect for inheritance only hurts it; people can and do make it in the world based on their family tree; and a person can readily cruise through life without developing anything that makes life worth living so long as his parents are rich. I don't mind people working their fingers to the bone to get what they ought by rights to have coming to them -- an education, a comfortable living, and so on -- and I know people who chose to do so even though their parents had the money and would give it to them. The difference is that I don't believe it ought to be forced on anyone. It's not wrong for someone to get more than he deserves so long as everyone else who could readily be getting what they deserve is. Consider the example of Melinda Gates - she essentially has the world set out before her on a platter, while other children her age are already working to support their families. quote:There is a reason for criminal neglect as a crime. That reason is this: while it is within your power not to do good even if it costs you nothing, at some point failing to do should be a repugnant offense in a civilized society. Saying that perfunctory respect for human decency should be voluntary is much like saying criminal neglect should be stricken from the books inasmuch as it makes sense on some abstract, perverse level, but in the concrete it is an ugly idea that goes nowhere good in a hurry. Quick and important question, C: do you consider the idea of equality of opportunity an essentially desirable one? [ Tuesday, January 25, 2005 22:59: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
In this thread, we have an abstract discussion without befouling pastries of any size in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Tuesday, January 25 2005 22:02
Profile
Homepage
quote:The basic essentials of life vary from place to place. Here a certain amount of shelter is one of them; in Nigeria, a man with that much shelter is well-off. The same goes for quality and quantity of food and water. These distinctions and inequalities exist -- and, incidentally, thousands die daily of cholera and misnutrition -- precisely because people are unable to see enough of the world outside of their peripheral vision to realize how very callous overfeeding their own children is when there are those who cannot eat. Creator: What I expected. I'll quote out the parts I'm interested in a response for for you, then. quote: quote: quote: quote: [ Tuesday, January 25, 2005 22:08: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
In this thread, we have an abstract discussion without befouling pastries of any size in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Tuesday, January 25 2005 21:00
Profile
Homepage
The provision defeats the utility of the query; the only way one man can get more than he deserves in the long run is by ensuring at least one more gets less than he deserves. -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
In this thread, we have an abstract discussion without befouling pastries of any size in General | |
Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
|
written Tuesday, January 25 2005 20:20
Profile
Homepage
Sometimes I read the post and then hit the quote button for a blow-by-blow. Sometimes I just hit the quote button. Creator is one of the people who encourages the latter. quote: -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |