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
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| The SpiderWebWorld in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, November 15 2006 23:44
Profile
Not geosynchronous. I want the view to change. But equatorial. I don't want to get dizzy. I dunno about the moon. Lots of square footage, but it's a really long commute. Maybe I can just take a giant dirigible, and stay in the atmosphere. EDIT: Completely off topic, but I was thinking about ways to maintain altitude, and it suddenly occurred to me that Spider-Man can never fight villains in Kansas, or for that matter in the suburbs. He'd have to walk everywhere, and how lame would that be? EDIT 2: Corrected the name of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. [ Monday, January 08, 2007 07:50: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Confessions of a Madman in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, November 15 2006 23:39
Profile
That's a Jack of Shadows play, that is. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The SpiderWebWorld in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, November 15 2006 13:07
Profile
Hey, I thought of how I can get both a position and a velocity. I want an orbit. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Satisfaction Guaranteeeeeeed! in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Wednesday, November 15 2006 12:55
Profile
It's a big step, though. Some people who can afford to pay $25 for a shareware game might be tempted to get it for free if they could, but I expect few of these will be bothered to go through the banal rigmarole of falsely 'returning' the game in order to get that money back, once having parted with it. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| We've lost our Sarchasm... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, November 14 2006 21:25
Profile
The only real units are Planck's. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Very quick Geneforge 4: Rebellion Update. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, November 14 2006 11:25
Profile
I look forward to comparing notes on things like this after release. I have a guy who skipped the third tier, and never made anything from the fifth tier. He did quite well, though of course I have no idea how well he would do in the released version of the game, trying the tactics that worked well in various beta waves. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Postorial Race... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 23:41
Profile
I have a feeling I asked this once before, but I think I got no good answers. What is the etymology of 'spam' in its latest meaning? (The meatish product is supposedly 'SPiced hAM'.) Internet etymologies cite the Monty Python 'spam, spam and spam' sketch, and I suppose it might well spring to mind for someone confronted with a ton of spam in their inbox. But just when and how did this get started? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Things you would like to see in Geneforge 5 in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 23:23
Profile
quote:Submission vlish. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Genetic Templating in Averum? in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 08:45
Profile
quote:The die is cast! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Postorial Race... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 08:39
Profile
I anticipate a fair number of 'such-and-such keeps killing me what can I do' posts. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Postorial Race... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 03:26
Profile
quote:Humour. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Things you would like to see in Geneforge 5 in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Sunday, November 12 2006 00:11
Profile
What do you mean by 'in-town feeling'? To me in G1, most zones felt really isolated from the other ones. I imagined a rather long path connecting them. This worked very well with the atmosphere of exploring an island that was practically one huge sealed tomb. Everything was supposed to be isolated and static, and you were coming along to dig it up. It made most zones feel sort of cosy and quiet; you had all the time in the world for each zone, and nothing else mattered while you were there. In the later games, you were not supposed to forget at any point that there were all these factions working furiously elsewhere. This didn't always work so well, but it eliminated the cosiness. Maybe it would be cool if in G5 you could start out with a static, isolated, cosy situation, and then after a while, you could do something that would make everything accelerate dramatically. That would be cool. Realistically, though, this would have to mean that the quiet times only lasted through part of the demo area, and that would not be much of the game. About using cover: an interesting idea. There is no cover in Geneforge, in the sense of being able to shoot from a spot where most of your body is protected or concealed. But it might be quite possible to add that. Even making a few of the A4 arrow slits would be interesting in some places. What you used to be able to do was abuse doors and corners in ridiculous ways to slaughter enemies without retaliation. You'll see soon what G4 has done about these. You can always use walls and corners to sneak up on enemies and attack them suddenly from short range. The Geneforge AI is not smart enough for your enemies to do this in any deliberate way, but when there are enough of them hunting you, some of them will do this accidentally anyway, and the effect is pretty much there. You can go a long way with this sort of fake AI, actually. [ Sunday, November 12, 2006 00:18: Message edited by: Student of Trinity ] -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| A Public Service Announcement. in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 08:08
Profile
And all the vlishanity! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| [spam] flash games in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 07:42
Profile
Hey, does anyone know if you can edit posts you made in a locked topic? If so, it could be a way to make an 'invitation only' thread. Or a blog. So this post is kind of like the deathbed promise of a spiritualist, that he will try to contact his friends from the other side. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, November 11 2006 01:20
Profile
Heck, I don't remember the Lorentz transformations of the electromagnetic field, beyond what Kelandon remembers. And I just taught them. Well, sort of. I can show what the infinitesimal transformation is, using group theory, and from there I could in principle crank out the full thing. Not worth doing, though, when I can just look them up. My point is (and yes, it's a completely separate point from what I had in mind when I asked the question) that some topics are just a lot harder and more involved than others. And the professor stuck teaching such a thing is almost bound to look bad. Other topics are jam, and can make most anybody look good. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Things you would like to see in Geneforge 5 in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
|
written Saturday, November 11 2006 00:36
Profile
I kind of like the gender-limited PC graphics. The Geneforge tradition is to have male and female balance, with the odd numbered figure hooded and robed so it makes no difference. That seems somehow elegant. There needs to be some limitation on how much you can carry, otherwise (a) it's ridiculous, and (b) it actually gets tedious carrying around dozens of equipment items that are overall inferior, but that each confer one particular benefit, on the off chance that at some point you might want that little extra buff. In the current system I often do find myself wanting three or six more slots, but I'm pretty sure that would always happen, with any finite-sized backpack. I'll be happy to let the current system ride for the next game at least. Hard but doable if well-prepared seems quite fine to me for the Inner Crypt area. I don't really want an impossible challenge in the game. My three testing parties have had widely differing levels of difficulty with different parts of the game, despite being on the same difficulty setting, and the last fight (which only two of the three have tried yet) is no exception. I'm pretty sure that there will be builds and strategies that make the final game relatively easy for some classes, but I'm not sure that's a terrible problem. At any rate I think it's an inevitable problem, given Jeff's business constraints, and the only way it could be eliminated from G5 would be dumb luck. Mainly I'd like for G5 to maintain the new standard of sophistication set by G4. Oh, I could live with the variation of having G5 be more of a slugfest, but it would have to somehow be a sophisticated slugfest. Beyond this, I would like more emphasis on genuine strategy, and subtler and more obscure options, that you can't find without some real thinking. G4 initiates both of these, to the limited extent that I think Jeff's business model can tolerate innovation per game. It would be nice if G5 could develop further in these directions. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, November 10 2006 12:53
Profile
Well, I'm playing either Devil's Advocate or union rep, but let me play it a bit further. Five years afterwards, what do you still have that you got from the college instructors you consider good? What from the ones you consider bad? Is this difference really as big as the difference in teaching quality you have been claiming? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| The Postorial Race... in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, November 10 2006 12:34
Profile
Koo-loo-koo-koo-koo-koo! -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| November Posting Stats Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Poll in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, November 10 2006 09:23
Profile
Just what was it that turned Spalmon into the monster he is today? I don't seem to remember him being particularly prolific. At times, downright laconic, in fact. Now he wouldn't know a lacon if it bit him. So what dire event was it, that threw him over the edge? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Very quick Geneforge 4: Rebellion Update. in Geneforge 4: Rebellion | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, November 10 2006 09:16
Profile
Some things one should not joke about. There are NO Avernum connections in G4. Kyshakks, yes there are. That is one of the older released screenshots. I don't know what that mysterious second item is in the party roster of that screenshot, but it must have been some kind of test element from a very early build. It has not made it into the actual game. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, November 9 2006 23:32
Profile
I've heard the same about Mussolini and Fascist trains still being late. I wonder if anyone has any evidence either way. About professors teaching, obviously there are lots of professors in the world, and nobody has seen a significant sample of them. Certainly some are very bad. Some of these are old guys hired in the seventies, when anything that moved could get a university chair. Most of the rest are quite smart enough to do better if they wanted to, and the problem is that they don't care. I wasn't saying that this doesn't happen, just that you can't screen it out at an interview. It's also worth bearing in mind that there are limits to how much any professor can do with a course, especially some courses. A lot of college level material is just really hard. Professors with charisma can make a course amusing, and any professor can make tests and assignments easy. Students tend to like those things, but they don't have anything much to do with learning the material. Some people are so gifted at teaching that they can make a real difference even in very tough subjects. But complaining that not everyone does this is like complaining that most professional athletes aren't superstars. It's really hard to do it that well. I don't think tenured faculty are a big problem for North American college teaching. A bigger problem is that quite a few courses are taught by inexperienced grad students and adjuncts. And large departments generally pay no attention whatever to these people or the courses they teach. Now there are some brilliant grad students, and some extremely competent adjuncts. Some of them have long-term contracts and tons of experience. But there are also courses that get taught, time after time, by brand new PhD's who have failed to secure either post-doc or tenure-track positions. These people find themselves facing huge lecture halls full of early undergrad students, with no experience, no training, no mentoring, and no support. They are teaching stuff that they themselves have been taking for granted for years, and facing for the first time the very difficult task of explaining it to people who are mostly much less naturally talented at the subject than they are. Their pay scale ranges from very modest to totally pitiful. And the next semester they'll probably be gone, doing something totally different somewhere else, no matter how well they do at this course; and they know it. I say all that having seen it from every side now. The German system has an approach that might perhaps be better. In every university there (that is, here), there is a whole category of permanent academic positions that are dedicated primarily to teaching rather than research. They don't have the clout or prestige of the research professors (who also teach, but not as many courses), but their jobs are secure and their work is respected. How is quality control exercised once they have their permanent jobs? This I'm not sure about. But the ones I know seem to do a good job. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Post election gloating in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, November 9 2006 23:01
Profile
Whaddya do, french fry the Great Potato? -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| 1994 Backwards Is 2006 in General | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Thursday, November 9 2006 14:08
Profile
quote:Faculty candidates invariably have to give a talk about their research, but it is pitched at a faculty level. Some places also ask for a lecture on an undergraduate topic, but this isn't common. The attitude is usually that anybody intelligent enough to do research should be able to figure out how to teach acceptably well, so there's no real need to assess this separately. In most cases I'd say this is true. The problem cases are the people who just don't care about teaching, and these ones would make the effort for a job interview, so you wouldn't be able to screen them out that way. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| Parry a riposite in Avernum 4 | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Tuesday, November 7 2006 14:36
Profile
Just imagine if the boards could react to your posts with ripostes. *clicks Add Reply "Avernum 4 parries (74%)" *no post appears *receives 17 spam e-mails -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
| GF2: What? in Geneforge Series | |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Monday, November 6 2006 12:28
Profile
For some reason, throwing a crystal doesn't seem to count as an aggressive action. Apparently anyone with 3 AP has a perfect right to toss around volatile magical gems if they want. If someone else walks into the dangerous flying node of magical force, that's strictly between the two of you. -------------------- We're not doing cool. We're doing pretty. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |