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Why isn't there a strong magic/medium shaping/weak weapon class? in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 17:08 Profile Homepage #15
I prefer agents with disposable health. For a few paltry points in shaping, or even just the right equipment, you can throw some absurd firepower at things while they try to chew on your equally absurdly buffed buddies.

—Alorael, who doesn't even really see the need for those buddies through most of the later game. It's nice to have a fyora in the beginning and maybe a drayk or two later, but by the end you need nothing but your plexiglass cannon.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 12:44 Profile Homepage #102
Personally, I think you could get a pretty good idea of contents from posts. Do word counts, sentence counts, and comma counts. Look for the variation in words used, sentence lengths, and number of times parts of each post are quoted. Examine the average length of time between posts within a single visit to Spiderweb. Divide up the contents of each post into nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and articles. Give bonus points for gerunds and proper use of the subjunctive! Put those who dangle participles on a special list! Make us watch our words!

—Alorael, who is aware that his suggestions range from the possible to the impractical to the impossible. He has faith in the EndeavorBot. After all, its creator has created bots who have done well on their Turing Tests before.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Why You Suck in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 12:36 Profile Homepage #92
Synergy, I think you're right about quality, in a way, but you're missing kind. Online relationships really just aren't anything at all like in-person relationships. I'd be much more unhappy without the latter than without the former, which speaks to your quality argument. On the other hand, I think I'd be unhappier with no online life because I'd miss it for precisely what it is and isn't. Obligatory odd metaphor: I can prefer peas to lima beans but still want to eat lima beans sometimes.

quote:
Originally written by Thralni[b:

Alorael] I fear that you are right. Most posts here probably are a product of on-the-spot thinking. We are in a fast-paced society here. Thinking isn't much of an option anymore. Things have to be quick, and at a message boards where people seem to want intelectual discussions problems start to arise. Mind you, i don't like the "intelectual" discussions here or anywhere else on the internet, and I don't want them.[/b]
I don't see how that's any different from a conversation in person. In fact, I'd say posts have slightly more thought because we do have more time to think if we want it. I don't know about you, but most of my conversations are pretty meaningless. I do enjoy conversing intellectually, though, whether online or off.

—Alorael, who isn't quite sure how Kel and Syn started picking fights with each other in serious threads. It's become quite a habit, though, and it's unfortunate.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Round Table on Morality, Theology, and Ethics in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 12:26 Profile Homepage #50
Garrison: I'd term your position atheist, not agnostic. Disbelief in God until proven otherwise is disbelief; agnosticism is believing that the existence of God is unknowable.

Kel: It gets worse. What if we accept the many-world interpretation and say that God created an infinite or nearly infinite number of branching universes? (Yes, we're mixing physics and God. Both will survive.) The many worlds cover the spectrum from completely good to completely evil. What does that mean? I've always found it most personally satisfying to believe that somehow our understanding of good and evil is too limited to be meaningful to God, but I'll admit that I don't lose sleep over it and that if I were losing sleep I'd probably look for a better answer.

Dintiradan: That's actually one of the hypotheses for the evolution of altruistic behavior, emotions of obligation and shame, and other socially necessarily but individually unhelpful traits. We're programmed to work together with anyone who will work together with us, and to some extent we're programmed to assume good faith. In other words, genetics are a lot like Wikipedia.

—Alorael, who agrees that religion is groupthink. He's just not sure that groupthink is inherently evil and destructive. Benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government except in practice, so why can't religion be the best form of faith when managed as no real religions are?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Video Production Ideas in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 12:09 Profile Homepage #3
I like the idea of advertising Mac vs. PC. Show the world how wonderful those fruitless debates can be!

—Alorael, who supposes they're perfect for anyone with a debilitating fruit or fruitfulness allergy.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Exile II Music? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 12:07 Profile Homepage #15
quote:
Originally written by Thralni:

I once tried to get it down on paper for a string quartet by listening to the music.
It might be easier to transcribe if you started with the organ score. Or you could accept that the piece works as a string duet.

—Alorael, who now wonders how exactly Tyran recorded all those intros. They sound almost like they were recorded from the computer's speakers.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The first to figure it out gets a cookie! in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 11:55 Profile Homepage #6
You want to celebrate a post count without any Jews or Muslims?

—Alorael, who gives you his meaningless approbation as a fellow poster.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
A problem with +creature str and hit % in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 11:52 Profile Homepage #5
Damage can increase without taking the chance to hit up with it.

—Alorael, who now can't find any games in which he has any creation strength enhancing items. In fact, he appears not to have any saved games at all. Oops?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
I like it, but... in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 11:48 Profile Homepage #42
If Jeff thought he could make more money from putting vahnatai PCs in his games, he'd do it.

—Alorael, who leaves convincing Jeff as an exercise for the reader. You have, oh, ten years to do it. Good luck!
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Resetting Junk Shops in The Exile Trilogy
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Thursday, February 22 2007 11:45 Profile Homepage #1
It's Shift-W, I believe.

—Alorael, who still has nostalgia for those golden moments of heading to the Tower of Magi in E1 and finding amazing things for sale at the random item shop. That might be the part of the game that did the most to make him try to register.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
It's a Wonderful Life in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 20:20 Profile Homepage #11
Sooner or later we'll run out of space, and after that we'll run out of matter. But yes, that's a problem for another day.

What worries me is the fact that the number of people can keep increasing, but the amount of suffering never seems to decrease.

—Alorael, who thinks the world could probably comfortably support its current population if it were very carefully managed. It's more likely to uncomfortably support (or collapse under) around twice its current population in under a century.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Why You Suck in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 20:15 Profile Homepage #71
So Thuryl is a solipsist? That's hardly surprising, and it doesn't stop him from leading a satisfying life surrounded by possible figments of his imagination.

—Alorael, who doesn't think anyone can even know himself, let alone anyone else. You just try for perceived friends who are close enough to the friends' perceived selves for you to get along, or at least for you to perceive that you are getting along.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Round Table on Morality, Theology, and Ethics in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 19:02 Profile Homepage #26
quote:
Originally written by Kyrek:

There are exceptions, and maybe you are the exception or maybe the people I know are the exception. All I know is that the Christians I know don't understand Paganism. They actually think that pagans are people that sell their souls to the devil or whatever evil people are supposed to do.
The problem is that you know ignorant people, not that you know Christians.

quote:
Another annoying thing about religion is that people make attempts to convert you. My friend has made many attempts to trick me into reading the bible and it has gotten extremely annoying. I have t deal with religion every day of my life, and I don't like it. Religion clouds peoples minds and make people think that when somebody helps them it is actually god reaching out to them.
That would be a problem with religions that emphasize proselytizing. Christianity does it a lot, and Islam is fairly good at it as well. Other religions tend not to push themselves so much. Again, I think it's a problem you have with specific individuals who belong to specific religious institutions, not religion in general.

quote:
Also, the concepts of some religions are incredibly ignorant. For instance, Christianity is basically based around someone sending someone else to suffer a lot of pain for others. That is incredibly mean and unfair. To make someone suffer incredibly for others is extremely unfair and cruel.
The finer points of Trinitarian theology aren't my forte, but what if God willingly incarnated Himself as a man in order to die for the good of humanity? Self-sacrifice is neither mean nor unfair. In fact, we usually call it noble. I'm not opposed to a religion founded on the principle of altruism.

quote:
Also, how can there be a god when there is so much pain, cruelty and unfairness in the world. Couldn't he/she change things for the better? Think of all the poverty in Africa. The gods of religions haven't done anything about that. What about Hitler and George Bush? "God" hasn't done anything about that.
What if God gives us free will and allows us to do what we want with it? We may do evil, but that's our choice. Why doesn't God intervene? He is infinitely superior and intervention goes against the divine plan. Theology has wrestled with this question for a long time, and all the best anwers boil down to our inability to comprehend what is best in the long run from our non-omniscient perspective.

Or God could just not care, as Thuryl suggests.

—Alorael, who separates faith and religion into separate categories. It's quite possible to believe in God, or gods, or some supernatural force, without following any structured religion. Likewise, it is possible to be part of a religious community and structure without doing anything more than following the forms. Belief has no obvious consequences per se, but organization does.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Why You Suck in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 18:41 Profile Homepage #65
And to be fair, I don't even notice when Alec is insulting in passing anymore. I really don't. Congratulations, Alec, you've inspired habituation!

—Alorael, who gets the feeling that most posts on Spiderweb are probably made on the spur of the moment. Barely any thought or effort is put into them. It's consequently difficult to get much of a conversation, since even pleasantries require a degree of effort that's beyond most posters here.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Why You Suck in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 17:23 Profile Homepage #60
quote:
Originally written by Synergy:

But why focus unduly on relationship which can never be satisfying a tenth of the richness or in the way real world relationships can be for us?
Why not? If we're communcating and relating, no matter how attenuated those relationships may be, it's worth the time to make them good relationships. Otherwise we should all give up and leave.

—Alorael, who thinks people are more likely to successfully but accidentally and subconsciously misrepresent themselves online. It's much easier to put your best (or worst) foot forward when you are responsible for every single thing that you say and you have a much greater delay in which to say it without scrutiny.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Spiderweb Monthly Stats - February 2007 in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 17:15 Profile Homepage #76
I agree that the post counter promotes spam, but I'm not so sure that it's absence will do anything except reducing the amount of spam without increasing the amount of useful posting. Whether or not that's real progress is a matter of opinion.

In any case, we'll see. I salute you for being the one to attempt to do something about Spiderweb.

—Alorael, who finds it just a bit odd to declare oneself the sole cause of the Downfall of Spiderweb. Don't beat yourself up over it and don't give yourself an inflated sense of self-importance just because you collected and shared statistics.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Epitaph in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 17:10 Profile Homepage #8
quote:
Originally written by Returnedking:

This isn't good. The Lurkers are always the first to go. Followed by the Newbies, and then the MidAgedbies, and finally the Oldbies. In short, it's the beggining of the end. Oh yeah, goodbye and stuff, your sanity wouln't be were you left it.
Always? On what basis do you make this claim? In my also admittedly limited experience, boards can die in a number of ways and the way you described applies mostly to boards with no obvious purpose to sustain them. As long as Jeff keeps making games these boards will keep getting newbies.

The oldbies could start leaving and then down the chain, killing Spiderweb as we know it but leaving whatever newbies make, but that wouldn't really be so disastrous.

—Alorael, who apologizes for the unnecessarily explanatory moment and wishes Clam a farewell that would be more fond if he had done anything of note with his time on Spiderweb. Best of luck elsewhere on the internet.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
It's a Wonderful Life in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 17:06 Profile Homepage #7
That's one reason that it can be useful to track the difference between mean and median for some statistics, particularly income. An increasing gap is a bad sign.

—Alorael, who also thinks it's telling that there are countries in which widespread death from AIDS doesn't noticeably affect income.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Round Table on Morality, Theology, and Ethics in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 17:03 Profile Homepage #20
I misread your original post. Yes, I more or less agree with Hobbesian society. Living in a state of nature would be no fun, which is why it just so happens that states of nature don't occur very often in nature.

—Alorael, who does wonder sometimes about the evolution of belief. Why is it that humans across the globe have believed in spiritual forces and beings since long before such beliefs could be recorded? What human need does belief fill, and are atheists in trouble for not filling it?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Round Table on Morality, Theology, and Ethics in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 16:47 Profile Homepage #18
quote:
Originally written by Emperor Tullegolar:

It's easy to have morality without religion. Without religion, the object is to make this life as enjoyable as possible. If we all do what we want, everyone (except for maybe one or two) will suffer. Overall happiness is increased by joining a society and following it's rules.
Explain the leap from religion to society. The two are not the same. Secular society works just fine for me, thanks.

I'm not sure about religion. Certainly religions, both organized and disorganized, have caused a great deal of harm. The thing is, I'm not sure the religions are responsible. People are capable of being good and moral without God, and they're capable of being bad and immoral without them too.

The question for me is whether or not religions focus and enable war, hate, and ignorance more than they enable more positive results and more than the absence of religion does, and I don't know the answer.

—Alorael, who who also notes that it's just as possible to be a fanatical, ignorant atheist who roundly and wrongly despises all religion. All religions have unfortunate fundamentalists, and atheism is no exception. Please do not judge atheism by its worst constituents.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Oldbiehood in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 13:40 Profile Homepage #91
I actually still have a few avatars saved on my computer. I've got... let's see... Paterick's abomination, and a few of Lady J's interesting creations, and my flying saucer sword. Nothing exciting.

I also don't remember a single avatar besides the ones I can look at right now except Drakey's, which is memorable to me for reasons I cannot explain.

—Alorael, who may have to find somewhere to use his alien abduction blade. It could be useful for locking topics.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Exile II Music? in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 13:33 Profile Homepage #7
The A3 intro music is there, and no Spiderweb game besides E2 had any music besides an intro.

—Alorael, who still thinks Nethergate and A2 win the music contest. If sidhe and vahnatai got into a fight, who would win?
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The Ancient Greeks in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 13:30 Profile Homepage #80
It doesn't take billions of years to lose a gene. The exact length depends on how common the gene is and how large the breeding population is, but it can be anywhere from forever (genes for absolutely essential proteins, say) to a few years (losing a recessive instant death gene in a tiny population).

Genes changed a fair amount between Australopithecus and "modern" humans, but not very much between ancient modern humans and us. Strength and endurance have been essential for millenia. They've arguably become less so now, but there's no selective pressure against them either, so they're at worst neutral traits. There's no reason to expect strength to breed out of humanity, let alone for it to have been slowing disappearing for thousands of years.

We may not have selective pressure for intelligence, but we also don't have selective pressure against it.

—Alorael, who admits the often raised point that education and possibly intelligence correlate with fewer children, which means that they are in fact losing ground in the gene pool. There's certainly no imminent risk of stupidity, though. Or no imminent risk of stupidity worse than the present, anyway.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
The Abominable Landscape photo thread in General
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 13:18 Profile Homepage #47
quote:
Originally written by upon mars:

Spent salmon what place is depicted on your picture i would like to know.
Let me clarify that where was the picture taken.

Remember i want a strait answer or i shall kill every person that have cared for you.
What the CoC says not to do: "threaten... a fellow member." There are honestly better ways to get photo information from someone.

—Alorael, who doesn't want any absurd vegetative behavior here.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00
Jeff, please respond - Magic and Avernum 5 in Avernum 4
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
 written Wednesday, February 21 2007 13:11 Profile Homepage #30
Jeff has always responded to emails, but I find the posts preceding and following Jeff's highly ironic. The second especially.

—Alorael, who supposes the game would be even easier if all the damage types and statuses could be easily caused by the party. Not being able to completely cripple your enemies is a balance concern.
Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00

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