Profile for Or else o'erleap.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Or else o'erleap. |
| Member number | 335 |
| Title | Law Bringer |
| Postcount | 14579 |
| Homepage | http://www.polarisboard.net |
| Registered | Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| Annatolia or Crewl? (possible spoilers) in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 21:36
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Bashing walls is unnecessary. Walking around west of Bargha where Crewl tells you to look is. There's no great secret to finding the agent. Just poke around. —Alorael, who hopes you aren't poking around in the houses in the no-man's land between Spire and Bargha. This house is definitely about as northwest as you can get in the Abyss. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| I don't find the wheel to open the grate in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 16:26
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They look like books, they are scattered in the tower, and you can get more than four of them. —Alorael, who got the impression that Ephesos was talking about the quest-appropriate books of research notes. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Stop me before I murder Lark in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 16:23
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I was a little bit annoyed by that quest. I pushed straight on to the end from Khoth's lair and never made it back to Fort Monastery for the reward. Then I decided to finish every quest, so I went back and translated the scrolls and did other things. Then I realized that I never talked to Lark after translating the scrolls, so that was the last quest I completed. It's more irritation than it's worth. —Alorael, who also does not like that iron bars quest. It's the only quest that can't be completed. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Best way to kill damned slimes!! in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 16:20
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Most slimes take more damage from magic than weapons. Any magic will do. —Alorael, who never took that much damage from slimes although it took a while to kill them. Standing and hacking works if you're not in a hurry. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Observation of MLK, Jr. in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 11:20
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The SCLC leadership decided deliberately that MLK was a great public face for the movement. They also decided that Rosa Parks was more likely to generate good publicity than Claudette Colvin. I think both may have been smart strategic decisions, however unfair to the fame of others they may have been. —Alorael, who knows that King's role as the man behind civil rights angered and alienated some other activists, particularly in light of his moderation. The younger activists in particular weren't all that eager to throw everything behind one man who, in their view, caved in to the government too easily. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Oh no you don't. There is no disadvantage when soloing. in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 11:09
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If an area is already cleared, the only difference between playing a singleton and having pack mules is how many trips it will take you to retrieve all the loot. The challenge of a singleton shouldn't be time wasted. —Alorael, who never created pack mules for his singleton because it never occurred to him. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Observation of MLK, Jr. in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, January 16 2006 11:07
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I think it's a little sad that MLK absorbed all the credit and left some other very important activists outside of common knowledge, but that was part of the plan. He was a great orator, a charismatic man personally, and a man with his heart in the right place. Was he necessary to the Civil Rights Movement? I don't think so. It would have happened without him. Did he help to speed up and facilitate the process? Definitely, and he did his best to follow the rules set by the government and keep everything as peaceful as possible. That is no mean contribution. —Alorael, who doesn't care about MLK's personal life. It was not and is not relevant to his work. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Yarrr... Linux! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 23:29
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If you invent something spectacular, you deserve a reward for it. I think quite a few inventions are motivated by greed. A whole lot of biotech research may be done by biologists who love their work, but the investors and such who underwrite the R&D want their money back with interest. That's fine. However, the fact that you can make millions of dollars off of your work does not mean you should make millions. What, practically, is the difference between $100 million and $200 million? To the average person, very little; those are figures so high that there's no real difference. So if you make $200 million and half of it is taken in taxes to be used for the good of everyone, perhaps by paying those teachers who make so little, is that disastrous? I think not. —Alorael, who is bothered by the amount of money made by most researchers. After going through college and often graduate school, a long and expensive process, they make next to nothing. Aside from unfairness, this means that it can become hard to attract scientists to the career, although those who do become scientists are obviously in it for love of science. It's also rather difficult to attract young doctors to researchers hospitals when private practice is far more lucrative, although increasing lawsuits and rising costs balanced the scales a bit. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Yarrr... Linux! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 19:05
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Money is an intermediary step in the bartering process because there are problems with trying to exchange services, extremely bulky items, perishables, and so on. —Alorael, who will give you a foo in exchange for an item of no particular use except agreed-upon value equal to one foo. He will then trade two of these units for a bar, which has a value of two foos. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Holy Mac Windows Batman! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 15:57
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Systematic problems aside, I still think there's a fundamental difference between a dead-end retail job and a dead-end porn career. In addition to career life expectancy, there's also a level of raised eyebrow and muttering when you respond to the inevitable, "So, what do you do?" This can be see as a problem with societal attitudes rather than pornography, though. —Alorael, who wouldn't want to entirely discount the niche market for those who are no longer as young as they used to be. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| The nephilim language in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 15:53
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Corpses are, by definition, not living. Necrophiles are nonetheless generally not open about their preferences. —Alorael, who concedes that he can't think of any living prefixes that play nicely with -philia. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Yarrr... Linux! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 15:50
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Direct representative democracy is an oxymoron. Direct democracy requires the people to hold power. Indirect democracy, which includes representative democracy, is a system in which the people invest sovereignty in a body of elected representatives. Neither pure system is used in America or anywhere else that I know of. On a federal level, though, with a few exceptions, we give power to elected officials, who then appoint some non-elected officials and create policy. The only real force preventing the president and Congress from jilting the country and following some bizarre agenda of their own is a desire to be reelected. —Alorael, who does not believe in inflicting meat on pizza. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Holy Mac Windows Batman! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 12:35
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Very few jobs are likely to generate the level of instant recognition and notoriety as pornography, and few jobs are stigmatized as much as pornographic acting. Once you've been in pornography, your life is difficult. Once you've worked at McDonald's, you're not going to face any difficulties with other jobs. [Edit:, comma, hell, problem.], [Edit 2: Oops. "You're in trouble" and "your life is difficult" don't average to "you're life is difficult."] —Alorael, who is glad to know that the number of Blademasters is back down to two. Now if only he could get Seletine Canned... [ Sunday, January 15, 2006 19:07: Message edited by: Semistapling Incident ] Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Yarrr... Linux! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 12:27
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I think the causality of Jeff's Mac audience has been reversed. He has a large Mac audience because his games start out for Mac. He'd have to generate a Linux audience from scratch. Linux users who can already play his games would be happy to have them ported to Linux, but they're not actually a new market representing more income. Communism (or socialism) is an economic system, not a political system. It just so happens that the only way to make humans behave under a communist system is by exerting a great deal of force from the top. Communism is "inherently" less free than capitalism because it requires the government to enforce communist policies. Pure apitalism does not require enforcement. In fact, it requires a lack of enforcement. The problems with capitalism have nothing to do with lack of freedom. Power of wealth an inertia would be better terms for the rich-poor divide and other phenomena of capitalism. Eldibs, what you described is indirect democracy. Direct democracy is everyone voting on all legislation, which as Stareye says has problems. It would also be a logistical mess and require way too much time and knowledge even from those interested and capable. —Alorael, who now sees too many debates going on in this thread to keep them all straight. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Yarrr... Linux! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 00:51
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So wouldn't that make porting Spiderweb games to Linux an endless or inherently very imperfect task? —Alorael, who humbly suggests that the Linux port of E3 runs flawlessly. You just need to find the right distro for it. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| The nephilim language in The Avernum Trilogy | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Sunday, January 15 2006 00:50
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I can proudly say that I'm a bibliophile without getting strange looks in polite company. —Alorael, who likes books in a good, wholesome way that gives TM no grounds for commenting in italics. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Yarrr... Linux! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 21:49
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The number of people who use only Linux is very small. The number of people who use only Linux and can't play Spiderweb games because of it is zero. Jeff has no incentive to spend time and money porting to another platform when he could be working on something new. The Blades of Avernum editor is open source already. Making the program that runs scenarios open source would make Jeffs fears of each scenario requiring a different version well-founded, and he wouldn't make money because everyone could edit it to be registered. If Linux distributions are so different that a virus written for one can't run on another, doesn't that mean there are also cross-distribution issues for programs? Besides, I think the real protection is the one cited by Firefox and Wikipedia: while crackers can find holes to exploit, the number of people interested in maintaining security and protecting other users is larger. Problems are likely to be fixed before or very quickly after they are discovered by the unsavory folks. —Alorael, who can see no hope for communism. It has failed spectacularly several times in different situations and it's fairly clear that human nature does not get along with it. The proper ratio of capitalism to socialism for a functional utopian has yet to be determined (which has a whole mess of problems of its own), but eliminating all elements of capitalism is bound to cause large problems. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Holy Mac Windows Batman! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 21:37
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Your argument for why pornography isn't wrong or degrading because the actors chose their jobs because they're poor and/or uneducated extends a few more steps. They're poor because they're defective or lazy people, and that's their problem. That's also the perfect justification for absolute, unmitigated capitalism, and that view tends to be unpopular on Spiderweb. Political debates never go anywhere. [Edit: I can't let go of anything. It's a definite failing.] —Alorael, who doesn't quite understand how the conversation has drifted into this rather unpleasant subject that doubles as something of a straw man. Even if child pornography is evil and wrong in all forms, which is a very reasonable assertion, that doesn't say a thing about why hentai is worse than acted pornography or why anime is bad. [ Saturday, January 14, 2006 21:39: Message edited by: Cruniac ] Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Stuck. in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 21:23
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His office is in the southeast corner of the upper level, however. —Alorael, who was always annoyed by the lack of easy access to Avernum's leading J. Edgar Hoover type. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Bandit Castle in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 21:17
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He's in the ruins west of Fort Dranlon on the upper level. There are two stairs up in different corners of the first level, and you probably missed one. —Alorael, who wonders why Avernum didn't do something about the ruins the first time bandits had to be cleared out. What did the ruins start out as, anyway? Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| where is this sleater fellow? in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 17:09
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Killing shrubbery is rather easy as long as you are willing to take some time lobbing spells with casters and then shuffling them out of sight with fighters. It's entirely possible to never give the plants a target during their turns. —Alorael, who is very proud of his immobile target destruction tactics. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Holy Mac Windows Batman! in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 17:06
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I'm with Thuryl on the hentai. No matter how disgusting it is, and I have it on the best of authority that some can sap your will to live quite rapidly, it's drawn. Pornography involving the photography of real people can and does cater to the more exotic tastes as well, and that's degrading to the people involved as well as (arguably) the viewer. The facts that anime fans have unsavory elements and that there is terrible anime around do not amount to a valid condemnation of anime. That's like judging all science fiction by the worst pulp, all horror by Manos, or all Star Wars movies by Episode I. I'm sure there is anime that is good in all respects but visually, and that's obviously a matter of taste. —Alorael, who is not himself a fan of anime, bad or good. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| The Blosk Maps in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 14 2006 10:15
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It's in Blosk. —Alorael, who actually can't remember finding the maps in Blosk. He can remember not finding them anywhere outside the Great Cave, though. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Helping Jeff advertise in Avernum 4 | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Friday, January 13 2006 22:12
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Funny RPG could be both an explanation for the Puzzle Box and the sequel to Nethergate that's been requested so many times. Your intrepid band becomes trapped in the bizarre miniature universe devised by that oh-so-impressive wizard Sylak and, armed only with assorted quirky items and the good advice and taunts of a talking skull (who isn't Morte), you must save the world from the perils represented by Ambrose the Shareware Monkey. —Alorael, who can at least see a very promising BoA scenario here. All other considerations aside, it will definitely stand out. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
| Pied Piper Project 3: Revenge of the Boards in General | |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Friday, January 13 2006 22:08
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We're speaking English. I'd be more than happy to use terms such as correctifingerous. —Alorael, who wonders if this is prescriptive, descriptive, or destructive English. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |