Profile for Student of Trinity

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1 in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #1
Now that's coming right to the point.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
A featured question on Xanga... in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #10
Do not mess with Big Al's quotations. He knows your rest frame.

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Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
A featured question on Xanga... in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #2
The world contains many religions and a fair amount of science. There are even many people who are widely recognized as both scientists and religious. So the answer seems obviously to be 'yes'.

Some people may find other definitions of 'science', 'religion' and 'co-exist', such that they just as obviously cannot 'co-exist'. In neither case is the discussion terribly interesting.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
So many choices, So little time. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #9
Eh, they're all good. G1 has fewer spells, but the ones that are there still work well, and you do suddenly become death on steroids when you get Searing Orbs. I'd say just play the game you'd most like to play again, regardless of class. The change from Guardian to Agent is pretty much the same change in all of them.

You might think about raising the difficulty level while you're at it, if you're not already at max. Once you know what you're doing, meaning you know how to retreat while fighting, you know when to cast daze or acid, and you know to keep your Quick Action ahead of the curve so you always act first, Agents are a lot more effective than Guardians.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
G5 wishlist. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #152
I always liked using the entry to the lair of the Bound One in G2 as my cache and trophy room.

One problem is that you can only rest in a friendly town. So a town whose inhabitants you have massacred, or a lair you have cleared of monsters, won't work to restore you. That means that however homey you may make it, to pump yourself up after a tough fight you still have to visit some darn town full of annoying strangers. Grrr.

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Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
What have you been reading lately? in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #536
I read King's Dark Tower series, and was very impressed initially, but gradually got a bit disappointed. It was still well worth reading, and the thing that bothered me wasn't exactly a flaw. It was something basic in the way King writes. He is a brilliant improviser rather than a composer. In a massive seven-volume series, there isn't really any big idea. There's a sort of sketch outline for a big idea, but it doesn't really get properly filled in. A jumble of wildly unrelated smaller ideas is tumbled into it, with new chunks still being chucked in right up to the end. Some kind of coherence is missing.

This may be an especially brilliant form of meta-fiction, inasmuch as the story is about the long road towards the besieged Dark Tower that is supposed to hold everything together in its overview. The big idea that is supposed to hold King's story together is the idea of the Big Idea that is supposed to hold the universe together. It's failing, and things are falling apart.

So in that sense his series is probably perfect. It still left me feeling kind of unsatisfied.

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Listen carefully because some of your options may have changed.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Table Updates in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #6
Actually I believe DV has anti-helium. But I started the anti-elements, with anti-hydrogen. For those who find ordinary matter constraining, though, there is still lots of room for leptoniums, muonic atoms, and the like. Not very stable, but, uh, see, how can I put this ...

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Avernum 4 Observations in Avernum 4
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #2
Beta testers aren't supposed to reveal details about the game before release. But I'm pretty sure Jeff has already stated here somewhere that there will be a few more player character models in A5.

I'm pretty sure that A4, like the Geneforge games, lets you pick things up by typing the letter of the little 'box' in which each object shows up, after you type 'g' for 'get' stuff. So 'g' then 'a' will move the first visible item from the ground or container into the inventory of the active character.

The graphical complaints: yeah. Jeff gradually upgrades his graphics, adding or improving a few things every game. So whatever you don't like will probably get improved at some point, but not everything you want may get done by A5. G6 will have further improvements.

I really liked A4 too, since it was my first real exposure to Avernum. I came to Spiderweb for Geneforge 1, and found it hard to get into the more primitive-looking Avernum games. A lot of the people who had already played the Exile series, then their remakes as Avernum, found the plot of A4 too familiar and straightforward.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
I have glasses. in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #53
quote:
Originally written by Jumpin' Salmon:

I wear contacts for killing.
So if anyone hears that the mob has offered a contact on them, we know just who is coming after them.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Man or God in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #229
We should be so Lucky!

[ Sunday, September 30, 2007 10:27: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ]

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
I have glasses. in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #37
quote:
Originally written by Andraste:

Salmon's just embarrassed the he got put under house arrest for indecent exposure while fishing.
That was just some understandable confusion about the term 'fly fishing'.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Man or God in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #216
A toothpick.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
I have glasses. in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #25
20/X vision means that you see as well at 20 feet as a 'normal' person can at X feet. Dikiyoba's 20/200 uncorrected vision means that without lenses she is, roughly speaking, blind as a bat. I'm not sure I'm quite that bad, but I'm in the same league.

My dad told me he once met someone who claimed to have 20/10 vision, which I think is possible but near the limit for humans. The guy was a fighter pilot (for the RCAC people here: a CF-18), so that would make sense.

[ Saturday, September 29, 2007 04:52: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ]

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
I have glasses. in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #21
I'm pretty used to glasses now. Contacts don't fit me well, because my eyeballs aren't round enough. I had to get so-called toroidal contact lenses, which have to line up in the correct orientation on your eye, and they were never very comfortable. That was a few years ago, and maybe contact technology has advanced enough now that I should try again.

I know people who have had laser eye surgery and love it. I also know people who work on lasers and understand exactly what those surgeries do. They wear glasses, so I do too.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Which Spiderweb game do you like most? in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #34
Welcome to the boards. If a game rocks in the forest, and it never gets shrinkwrapped, is it still a good game?

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Which Spiderweb game do you like most? in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #26
Does it annoy anyone else that the Celt in that picture is clearly about to get a gladius through the sternum, and all he is poised to do in retaliation is smear some woad on the Roman's shield? At least, it annoyed me when I was playing the Celts.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Man or God in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #213
Kittens decohere almost as quickly as cats.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Which Spiderweb game do you like most? in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #22
8.9 = 'inspired lunacy'
9.0 = 'I laughed, I cried'
9.1 = 'heady, tart, with a hint of arrogance'

Is this so much clearer?

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Yay! in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #24
That's exactly what the snails would like us to think!

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Yay! in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #17
Divide and conquer, but multiply and devour.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Man or God in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #205
Symmetry or no, conserved or not, energy is not a substance, and nothing is made of it. Sorry. Being composed of pure energy is as impossible as being composed of pure height, or pure velocity, or pure happiness for that matter.

Not being a substance at all, energy is not a counterpart substance to matter. Speaking of matter as opposed to energy makes as much sense as speaking of matter as opposed to happiness. Matter and energy are not some sort of basic duo like yin and yang.

Why has this basic error become so prevalent? Bad science writing, and bad sci-fi screenplays, have no doubt perpetuated it. Did they originate it? Probably not.

I suppose the original problem dates back to the collapse of the ether theory of electromagnetism in the early 20th century. Electromagnetic fields are tremendously important, and it is natural enough to ask what they are made of. As long as we believed in the luminiferous ether we could explain that electromagnetic fields were not exactly things, so the question of what they are made of was really misplaced; but we could nevertheless clearly explain what they were in terms of a material thing. We could say they were stress patterns in a material substance, like the wobbles and wibbles in a hunk of jelly. The jelly in this case being the ether, a substance supposed to fill all space everywhere.

The ether had to be rigid enough to transmit transverse waves at the speed of light, but it also had to be 'thin' enough that it could penetrate all other matter without any difficulty. Objects from planets to mosquitoes had to be able to move through the ether without resistance. It was undetectable. It was all getting to be a bit too much to swallow, in fact, even before Michelson and Morley disproved it experimentally, and Einstein made it absurd theoretically.

The demise of the ether theory is often recounted as a milestone in the advance of science, and so it was. But people who tell this story generally breeze blithely on to the next chapter before anyone can catch them with the question, So what now can we say that electromagnetic fields are made of? I can rub a balloon and feel 'static' forces; I can feel the forces on a fridge magnet. Light is electromagnetic fields, and I can feel and see sunlight on my hand. What is this stuff, then?

Some bright lad, somewhere, must have answered with the glib nonsense that electromagnetic fields were made of pure energy. And for some reason people liked that answer, and it stuck.

The truth is that we can't say what electromagnetic fields are made of. They are themselves. They are as fundamental, as far as we know, as any material.

(These days we could say that they are made of photons, but this is a tautology rather than a true explanation, since photons are simply the quanta of the electromagnetic field. Photons are not really the answer to what the fields are made of, but the answer to how the fields can manage to obey quantum mechanics.)

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Man or God in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #193
Time within the universe turns out not to conform to all our intuitions. So any suppositions about time outside the universe are such wild shots in the dark that no-one really ought to pay them any attention. There might be time outside the universe; there might be duckies.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Which Spiderweb game do you like most? in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #2
A5.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Man or God in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #188
Physics does not speak about time outside the universe.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00
Other RPGs in General
Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
Profile #1
This is a perfectly reasonable question, but I'm not sure this is the place for it, since answering it would amount to plugging Jeff's competition on Jeff's own website. Sure, in your case you've been as good a Spiderweb customer as possible, and plan to continue so. But maybe someone would read my rave review of Spawn of Bashan, by that other company, and decide to buy it instead of Avernum 5. Before we know it, Jeff's on the street offering to write code for food, and we never find out what happens to Khyrryk.

Or maybe Jeff doesn't care. He himself plays other games, after all. But he might, since this is his business. So don't take it personally if he or his minions lock this topic.

Spawn of Bashan does not exist as an actual game, but a gold star to anyone who recognizes it as a game title.

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We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty.
Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00

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