Profile for Student of Trinity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Student of Trinity |
| Member number | 3431 |
| Title | Electric Sheep One |
| Postcount | 3335 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
Recent posts
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| Author | Recent posts |
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| The Ancient Greeks in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 22:13
Profile
quote:Unfortunately, that's life. If a premise is doubtful, it does not make sense to pretend it's rock solid just in order to have a discussion that presumes it. If the closest thing we have to a fact is still a long way off it, acknowledge that, and discuss the evidence and its weakness. Or, if you want to have a discussion on some arbitrary premise, why not go whole hog, and ask what life would be like in the internet age of the hobbits? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Ancient Greeks in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 14:13
Profile
I presume this is the Olympia, which carried the torch for a while for the 2004 Olympics, and which is presumably the vessel in which these recent tests were conducted. I found more about this somewhere on Wikipedia, where it was mentioned that the Olympia was constructed on the (best-guessed) ancient scale, and is therefore awfully cramped for taller modern rowers. And this might also help explain its comparative slowness. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Ancient Greeks in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 10:35
Profile
That's a good body of evidence, there, all right. But is it enough to pin down what a trireme was? I don't really think I'm prepared to hand over the beer. Harbors don't really say much, especially as harbors change greatly over centuries. Many ancient ones are now miles inland, for example. Physics does not tell us at all how closely ancient designs approached the limits of the possible. No modern ship approaches those limits, since we need ample safety margins. Ship sheds leave open the question of just which ships used which sheds, or whether larger sheds might have been made of wood. The Lenormant relief is certainly nice, but it looks to me as though the indicated total length of the ship is kind of conjectural, since only a few fragments of the actual relief exist. And it, and the equipment lists, leave one wondering whether they refer to typical or unusual specimens. For that matter, what I know of the history of art makes me think that a carved relief could very well depict an outdated model, because it was traditional or something. It might be that two-tiered ships were everywhere when the Lenormant was carved, but that the single tier of rowers was an accepted artistic convention. Oh, and the Carthaginian ship wreck is wonderful, but it consists of the sternmost ten meters of the vessel only. How long it was originally still requires guesswork. And we still have no idea whether it was a typical vessel even for its place and time, let alone for others. What's a trireme? For my money, and my beer, the jury is still out. One more item: looking up the source of your Lenormant image, the promisingly titled Greek Oared Ships, I found this online first page of a review. (UBB won't let me include the link, but if you google 'Greek Oared Ships', it's the fourth item.) It seems to indicate that the 'trireme question' was controversial for a very long time, and that this one book was a major contribution. Whether the book really answers the question, or only lays out the best that can be said on it, I can't tell from this single page of review. Sounds like a cool book, though. Either way, I think it makes my main point about how hard it is to say anything very precise in ancient history. [ Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:01: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Oldbiehood in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 08:15
Profile
Ha. I'll be interested to see what the exhaustive Slartanalysis concludes from all this data. Ideally we should develop an infallible test for oldbiehood, based on what set of people one considers to be oldbies. The true oldbies will (of course) all know each other, so will all answer the test the same way. All others will miss certain less prominent oldbies, or misidentify prominent newbies. No doubt there is a sociology dissertation in these hyar hills. Quite likely it has already been written. From that sort of self-consistent-subgroup definition of oldbiehood, it would seem quite possible for a community to have two or more different sets of oldbies. The oldest oldbies might mostly have moved on, and so only be properly recognized among each other, while a newer but more active set of members might well hold oldbie status as well, according to the sort of test I am proposing. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Ancient Greeks in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 15 2007 08:00
Profile
quote:With all due respect to history as a discipline, every discipline has its weak points. I'm pretty sure this is one of them. No doubt the figures we have are the current best guesses of historians, but that doesn't make them good guesses. From the kind of evidence I'm guessing these guys must have used, I'd say their best guess ought to be reliable within a factor of 2, but not much better. In which case there is no point in us pouring much thought into the question of why ancient Greeks were so much stronger than us, because most likely they were nothing of the kind. Very likely they had a lot more practice in building and rowing triremes, but that's no shock. Here's an example of what I mean: I bet we don't really know what a trireme was. That is, I'd be willing to bet a beer that no-one really knows the size or design of the ships used in any particular famous ancient sea battle. The actual evidence we have would be maybe a couple of weathered paintings or carvings, whose relevance and accuracy would be hard to establish; and at most a couple of written texts, probably composed long after the battle from earlier sources that are now lost, and probably not giving much detail at that. Now it might be that I'm wrong; perhaps we do have convincing evidence about some ancient fleet. But I figure my odds are worth risking a beer on. Ancient history is a tough, tough field. [ Thursday, February 15, 2007 08:02: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Ancient Greeks in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 23:07
Profile
In the first place I really wonder how we got this data about the speeds of ancient triremes. I'd bet there's a fair amount of squishiness to the figures. Last I read, we were still kind of fuzzy on exactly what ancient length units even meant. The possibility that those supposed ancient speeds are high by a few knots seems very plausible to me. But secondly, we are trying to compare ancient triremes, that were made and crewed by expert teams with many years of experience, to a first modern prototype with a crew that had no experience with triremes. The rowers may have been trained, but trained how? There have been no expert trireme crew trainers for a long time. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Things to improve Dikiyoba's ausome story! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 12:31
Profile
One more reason to go Mac. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Brain Teaser(s) in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 12:22
Profile
I've seen this one explained before. If you don't want to hack up your chessboard, it will work with a piece of graph paper. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Things to improve Dikiyoba's ausome story! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 08:20
Profile
Fear not. Though computer viruses abound, there have yet to be any authenticated cases of computer cooties. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Geneforge 4 on Digg.com, digg it and help out Spiderweb Software! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 08:03
Profile
quote:But as Einstein explained, the universe spontaneously develops more holes. He was speaking specifically of a subset of the universe, to wit socks, and explaining why he never wore them. No one-trick pony, but a genuine all-round genius, was Mr. Albert. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Valentines' Day Suprise in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 14 2007 00:21
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Thuryl is saving himself for Wonder Woman. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Things to improve Dikiyoba's ausome story! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 13 2007 10:50
Profile
Hmmm. Putting turrets into the story. I'd kind of like to see what Dikiyoba could do with that. Maybe a sad, misunderstood turret, who doesn't really want to shoot reapers at people, but can't help it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Agent Miranda in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, February 11 2007 22:26
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Of course you're entitled to retain "Nico", but for the record I assure you that the Hispanic members here can all type "Warren" very clearly. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| A Year and a Day in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, February 11 2007 22:17
Profile
A product has to tout the fact that its peanut butter is not fake? quote:[/b] The use of "unsellable trowel" as an ultimate term of abuse is an obscure in-joke of long standing. It emerged from a discussion of how many useless bits of mundane junk could be found in the Geneforge world. In the earlier games many of these items could at least be sold for tiny sums, but someone pointed out that some of the trowels were unsellable. The unsellable trowel thus stands as the poignant symbol of utter worthlessness. [ Monday, February 12, 2007 01:00: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Quick action in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 10 2007 06:26
Profile
The second swing is not animated. You won't see your character swing twice. You just have to watch your damage and the scrolling messages. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Quick action in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, February 10 2007 03:26
Profile
I'm not sure exactly what you're expecting under the name 'double shot for quick action'. All that happens is that when you make a successful melee attack, sometimes you do extra damage. When this happens you get a message about a 'second swing'. There is a chance that you'll get such a second swing with any melee hit, and this chance goes up with increasing quick action. 13 is high enough that you should be getting this fairly often, but not every time. What you never get is a chance to make an extra attack with your choice of target. All you ever get is a (big) damage bonus on top of your normal attack. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Brain Teaser(s) in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, February 9 2007 23:18
Profile
Somehow an efficiency constraint makes me lose all interest in a problem (unless, of course, I really have to do it). It's as if one of the main things I like about puzzles is the freedom to explore a line of thought, and just keep going with it, wandering my way to an answer no matter how convoluted the path ends up being. Once I get an answer, I'm happy to try to tweak it to greater efficiency or clarity. But ensuring that the solution thus reached satisfies some global optimality constraint somehow disgusts me. Of course I know very well that efficiency matters a lot, especially with algorithms. It's just a job I'd really prefer to outsource. But here's a sort of dumb-ass solution based on extrapolation from the cases of 6 and 4 chips. For N chips, test N/2 pairs, and then just as Slarty suggested, discard all M pairs that do not show "double positive" results. That leaves us with (N/2)-M pairs, where M < N/2 because the number of discarded pairs M must be less than or equal to the number of bad chips, which we know is less than N/2. The maximum number of bad chips we can have left is less than N/2 - M, because there were less than N/2 bad in total, and we must have tossed out at least M bad ones. But these remaining bad chips must be in pairs. So we now have N/2-M pairs, of which B are both bad, and the rest both good; and B is less than N/4-M/2. So now the step I propose beyond Slarty: discard one chip from each of the remaining pairs, which are all either both-good or both-bad. This leaves a set of N/2 - M chips, of which no more than B < N/4-M/2 can be bad. This is the same problem we started with, except reduced by at least a factor of 2 in size. Rinse, lather, and repeat. What I haven't bothered about here is what happens if at any stage we have an odd number of chips. I bet that can be worked out by fiddling somehow. [ Saturday, February 10, 2007 00:58: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Not yeti another photo thread in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, February 9 2007 10:21
Profile
quote:No, the Jutes. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Papers from Monarch in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 8 2007 10:21
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No, they're south of his little living suite. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Calling all empires in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, February 8 2007 00:28
Profile
Excellent. So far we have, in some sort of rough chronological order: Galactic Empire Chinese Empire Persian Empire Byzantine Empire Holy Roman Empire Incan Empire Mayan Empire (could use a bit more info on this one) Mongol Empire Ottoman Empire Russian Empire French First Empire French Second Empire British Empire (when did Victoria become Ind. Imp. ?) German Empire (could use some more info here too) There's a lot more though, folks. Keep them coming. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Sulking. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 7 2007 13:42
Profile
They are the brothers of banned. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Calling all empires in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 7 2007 12:16
Profile
We haven't had a good pointless historical topic for a while, in fact since Alec let his last one peter out. So, the purpose of this thread is to collect empires. Throw in a few odd or cool factoids about each one, and, I dunno, make some sweeping statement about whether it was a Good Thing or not, or whatever. If the mood strikes me I'll edit this post occasionally to update the list of what we have. So, to start off: The French First Empire The original Napoleon, last name Bonaparte, was a brilliant general who managed to morph the First Republic, by stages, into an Empire with himself as Emperor. He gradually appointed most of his large family to be kings of various places he had conquered. He used bees as his personal heraldic symbols. Last I heard the consensus was that he died, in exile after his last defeat in 1815, from arsenic poisoning by one of his entourage. The First Empire was cool for having all those Marshals and a guy whose bizarre first name became an adjective, but it was pretty bad, since Napoleon got enormous numbers of people killed in wars of megalomania. The Second French Empire Somehow I still find this story amazing, just because I knew all about Napoleon long before I had even heard of his successor. The first Napoleon's only legitimate son died a quasi-prisoner in Vienna, but one of his nephews, a Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, became the first and last elected President of the Second French Republic. As the end of his term approached, in 1850, he ditched the constitution, got himself elected Emperor, and ruled france for twenty years as Napoleon III. The color magenta was named after his victory over the Austrians near the northern Italian town of Magenta (those were the early years of artificial dyes, and new colors came out regularly). His regime collapsed when it failed to repel the Prussian invasion of France in 1870. His only legitimate child went to Sandhurst, hung out with the British army, and was killed by Zulus. The Second Empire had far better style than most military dictatorships, and only a couple of megalomaniacal wars. It had the distinction of directly spawning two other empires. Still, it was mostly a vanity project for one old guy with a famous name. That's no way to run a country. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Avernum 5 Early, Early Notes in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, February 7 2007 00:24
Profile
Moving to a new area, and with a fresh plot, should work well with the new engine. I think a fair number of A4's limitations came, directly or indirectly, from using an engine that had received a lot of development through the Geneforge series, to pick up a plot and setting that were leftover from the old engine. A lot of things kind of got modulated into a weird key, so to speak. Not just the scale; even the heavy emphasis on combat was, I think, a matter of a suddenly much-upgraded combat engine burning a hole in the pocket of the plot. But in fact I really liked A4, doubtless because I was almost entirely new to Avernum when I played it, so I'm really looking forward to A5. Adding height would be the coolest factor, I think. And then maybe that can be translated over to G5 when its turn comes. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Sulking. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 6 2007 14:52
Profile
Pssst. Keep this quiet. But, if you can convince him that you really know how to be discreet, Alorael can get you some really good grammar. Top notch, absolutely. Not cut with slang or anything. And the first sentence is free. But you never heard it from me, understand? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| turabi gate and unlock in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, February 6 2007 12:03
Profile
You have to view the Gate from fairly close from two different angles. So to do it stealthily you have to sneak around once from the north, and once from the south. The order doesn't matter, and both routes have enough corners to hide behind. I've always found it helpful to be hasted, in order to be sure to have enough movement points to scoot to the next rock. You have to stay out of sight of the sentinels, but don't worry about the servile. Fighting the guards at the Turabi gate is fairly tough, but can be done eventually. I've usually come back at some point in Chapter 4 to do it. The sentinels respawn, and if a sentinel triggers an alarm then some creations will be summoned; but the main gate defense force doesn't respawn, so you can whittle them down if you want. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |