Profile for Dintiradan

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AuthorRecent posts
A Statistically Happy New Year! in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Saturday, January 27 2007 14:19 Profile Homepage #120
You're welcome to my spot, Kyrek. It's not like I'm trying to maintain it. I didn't even know I was in the top ten until I checked a second ago.

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v xxxxxxxxxxhnjmnh b
- Nephew
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Downloading help in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 11:16 Profile Homepage #2
By Tyran:
quote:
Finding a webhost that will support files that large is pretty unlikely. Even if you do, you'll most likely have to pay quite a lot for it.
(Waits for the inevitable.)

Seriously, Aran's already offered an *.ermarian.net site for you. Between no ads and simple FTP, what more do you want? Granted, you won't have the page templates that Freewebs offers, but your basic HTML editor should have templates.

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Elan: OK. I'll help you up, if you promise to surrender.
Nale: Fine! Whatever! Just be careful, my hands are still slippery with your blood!
Elan: You're not making me feel better about this decision.
(OotS #69)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Custom titles in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 11:11 Profile Homepage #34
By Alo:
quote:
—Alorael, who needs to clarify a misconception again. Unless you are SMoE or an admin, you do not get to pick a title. On Spiderweb, title picks you! Actually, sometimes an admin picks a title for you, but that's not as catchy.
Wasn't there something with Kel's original title?

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Elan: Now I'm all confused! I wonder if there might be another philosophical perspective to consider...
Right Shoulder Angel: 100101010100010101101011!
Left Shoulder Angel: Turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly!
Elan: So much for Law and Chaos...
(OotS #68)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Custom titles in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 07:59 Profile Homepage #28
Everyone wants to be a mod. Who doesn't want to have greater responsibility and be forced to toe the party line, all without being paid?

EDIT: Nioca? Your 'd' key problem is apparently contagious.

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Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
- Eric Raymond

[ Friday, January 26, 2007 08:00: Message edited by: Dintiradan ]
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Mitochondria and Cancer in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 07:52 Profile Homepage #17
By Sarasaphilia:
quote:
Fascinating. What, exactly, are you confused about? Cancer or this little molecule?
I was more interested in the whole 'Bad mitochondrial function may not just be a result of cancer', and was wondering if anyone here did any cellular research (not overly likely) or just knew more about cell function than me (very likely). But the Big Pharma discussion is enlightening too.

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Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
- Brian W. Kernighan
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
wikipedia forever? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 07:45 Profile Homepage #64
You do learn how to convert between metric units in elementry in Canada. It's very easy; the main difficulty is promblems like converting 1m^3 to 1000000cm^3.

Is imperial internally consistent? I know 1cm^3 = 1 mL, and 1mL of distilled water ~= 1g.

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bug, n: An elusive creature living in a program that makes it incorrect. The activity of "debugging", or removing bugs from a program, ends when people get tired of doing it, not when the bugs are removed.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Episode 3 Continued in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 07:39 Profile Homepage #137
I am pleased. Again.

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IMAGE(http://www.ibiblio.org/Dave/Dr-Fun/df9506/df950628.jpg)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The SpiderWebWorld in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Friday, January 26 2007 07:28 Profile Homepage #152
quote:
Picture edited for clarity. %$$# MSPAINT. Its about time I upgraded, but I am too lazy for how little I actually edit pictures.
I don't know why so many people loathe MSPaint. Sure, it's a terrible photo editing program. It's meant to edit pictures pixel-by-pixel, and this it does. It's like hating Notepad because you can't mail merge in it.

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There's always one more bug.
- Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
I'm feeling sadistic in Blades of Avernum
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 15:31 Profile Homepage #7
By Nioca:
quote:
I'm interested in how you plan to deactivate the normal saving process. I really don't see how you could do it.
It's definitely possible to check that a saved game is valid. I'm guessing that LOAD_SCEN_STATE would check the location of the party. If Laz incorporates mobile save points, LOAD_SCEN_STATE would probably check a SDF for zero, and if positive, decrement it.

However, I can't think of a way to enforce saving at the right place. There's nothing stopping a player from hitting CTRL-S at any point in the game (I, like many others, do this compulsively and without thinking). The minute they do so, however, they write over their old save with an invalid one. I'm very curious about how you've solved this, Laz.

I wouldn't enjoy it, but the existence of save points wouldn't make or break a scenario for me. Stareye and Thuryl make good points. I also think that having save points would break the fourth wall more than the current system would.

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Our one desire is that... the people of Southeast Asia be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their way.
- Lyndon Johnson, 1964
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
bestiary in The Avernum Trilogy
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 15:14 Profile Homepage #14
You forgot their comfy pillows and their ability to destroy an entire town in one post.

I mean, in one day.

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I wouldn't call it an accident. I'd call it a malfunction.
- Edward Teller on Three Mile Island
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Mitochondria and Cancer in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 12:28 Profile Homepage #0
Just wanted to throw this out there; mostly because my high school understanding of this subject is woefully inadequate. There's also this:
quote:
However, as DCA is not patented, Michelakis is concerned that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test DCA in clinical trials.
Comments?

(Dichloroacetate.)

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If a million monkeys were typing on computers, one of them will eventually write a Java program. The rest of them will write Perl programs.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The Halo Suit of the Modern World - Fraud? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 12:15 Profile Homepage #62
In other news, a fully operational mounted ADS was tested yesterday.

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If I were chained to a bench and 'perl' was the only thing that could open the lock, I'd probably cut my hand off.
- Gerald Penn
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The Spiderweb Art Movement. in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 08:48 Profile Homepage #110
Nikki:
IMAGE(http://www.stevensgarnier.co.uk/images/agencies/garnier/Popping%20Champagne%20cork.jpg)

Very good first reads. Is there a back story to "Langley Moor"?

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Karma-riffic!
- Elan (OotS #67)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Episode 3 Continued in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 08:44 Profile Homepage #119
I am pleased.

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IMAGE(http://www.prodigy69.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/prodigy69/pics/animations/kumquat%20ken.gif)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
bestiary in The Avernum Trilogy
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 08:36 Profile Homepage #10
Sorry, Diki, that post was poorly written. I was disagreeing with your statement that dinosaurs in a fantasy setting would be tempting in the least.

The crocolisk is a relative of the basilisk? Come to think of it, I don't recall ever getting hit by one in A4. Does it freeze you too?

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So, um, Vaarsuvius, you don't happend to have any of those really nifty spells ready right now? Like, say, "Hold Half-Orc" for example?
- Elan (OotS #66)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Teleporting Monsters? in The Avernum Trilogy
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Thursday, January 25 2007 08:32 Profile Homepage #5
I've experienced it before, and as far as I can recall, the only time it ever happens to me is when I'm trying to corner something, as you've noted. I'm guessing there's a bug that occurs when creatures with low courage have nowhere to escape (see the BoA calls get_courage and set_courage). It shouldn't be to hard to test this hypothesis in BoA.

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Hey! Some of my best friends are 3rd level fighters!
- Roy (OotS #64)
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
bestiary in The Avernum Trilogy
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 18:44 Profile Homepage #5
A4 had crocolisks.

By Diki:
quote:
Would Dikiyoba say this if the question was about dinosaurs instead of crocodiles? It would be tempting, but the answer would still be no.
Sorry, but dinosaurs in a fantasy setting are not something I enjoy. That, and my instinctive dislike of any creature that has a Swallow Whole ability.

By Thuryl:
quote:
Yes. Also, their attacks did fire damage for some reason.
The tigers in Canopy are capable of speech, and you're worried about fire damage? :)

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His ears are too big. He looks like an ape.
- Talent Scout on Clark Gable
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
wikipedia forever? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 18:21 Profile Homepage #41
By Garrison:
quote:
For most specialized fields these days the standard system has been phased out already, so it is not a big problem. But if I remember correctly, once a NASA launch failed because some idiot forgot to convert between centimeters and inches.
I believe it was a Mars probe, and the problem came up on entry. I can't cite sources, but I'm pretty sure I've read about in Popular Science or Mechanics a while ago.

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The band's okay, but, if I were you, I'd get rid of the singer with the tire-tread lips.
- BBC producer to The Rolling Stones (and Mick Jagger), 1963
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Episode 3 Continued in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 18:10 Profile Homepage #95
So... we've drifted from RA to APF. What next?

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Go learn to cook. Your book will never sell.
- Agent to Danielle Steel, '70s
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The Halo Suit of the Modern World - Fraud? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 12:45 Profile Homepage #37
Alright, point. However, the morale of the troops isn't too much of a concern: with the US & UK doing their thing in Iraq and the other countries not willing to step out of Kabul, it's just us and the Dutch in Kandahar. Morale isn't going to get much lower.

Perhap we could distract them with Carrie Fisher in a metal bikini.

Or not.

EDIT: Speling.

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I have a pretty major problem with a language where one of the most common variables has the name $_
- Brian Hook

[ Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:46: Message edited by: Dintiradan ]
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Who's Planning To Compete in the 1/10 Contest? in Blades of Avernum
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 12:03 Profile Homepage #14
Possibly.

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Manually managing blocks of memory in C is like juggling bars of soap in a prison shower: It's all fun and games until you forget about one of them.
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
while() in Blades of Avernum Editor
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Wednesday, January 24 2007 11:55 Profile Homepage #12
By Aran:
quote:
A final nitpick: "die unless tryThis" makes no sense at all from the readability perspective. Are you expecting an error and surprised if it doesn't occur? That's what it looks like...
Actually, the only reason I posted that example is because my instructor always wrote that way. Usually, I writefclose($name) || die "Error";But for some strange reason people find that unreadable. :)

Basically, the use of STATEMENT unless CONDITION in Perl stems from Larry's decision not to have naked if statements like C does.

Sort of like having elsif because he thinks elseif is ugly...

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C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.

[ Wednesday, January 24, 2007 11:58: Message edited by: Dintiradan ]
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
The Halo Suit of the Modern World - Fraud? in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Tuesday, January 23 2007 15:02 Profile Homepage #31
Star Wars is only known to the Western world, so the psychological impact of the armour would be lessened. How about we drop VCRs and Star Wars VHSs instead of leaflets and aid next war? That way, they'll be running when the first white-armoured trooper appears.

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The girl doesn't have a special perception or feeling which will lift that book above the curiosity level.
- Publisher on The Diary of Anne Frank, 1952
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
Endeavor and Privacy in General
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Tuesday, January 23 2007 14:56 Profile Homepage #24
By Nemesis:
quote:
Honestly, I think the opt-out is a good solution. Opt-in would be a pain for Aran. Think about it. Every time someone wants to be included, they say something, and Aran has to get on it. That sounds like a whole lot of trouble to me.
Apparently it's beyond his abilities to automate the process.

Of course, validating the members who want on/off the list might be a problem, so maybe it would have to be done manually if that becomes a problem.

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You have a chip on your tooth, your Adam's apple sticks out too far, and you talk too slow.
- Univeral Pictures to Clint Eastwood, 1959
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00
while() in Blades of Avernum Editor
Dintiradan
Guardian
Member # 6670
 written Tuesday, January 23 2007 12:34 Profile Homepage #9
By Aran:
quote:
Yes, it's "while", not "until".

(Which supposedly exists in some interpreted languages. I find it hard to believe - what part of "!" is so inconvenient?)
Perl has unless as an alternative to if. The only time I use it is in cases like
die "Cannot open file: $!\n"
unless fclose($name);
# I think I'll leave this typo
Not to useful, though I find having the condition after the statement sometimes makes more sense than a naked if.

I've never seen until, though.

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Who needs if when you have Boolean operators?

[ Wednesday, January 24, 2007 11:49: Message edited by: Dintiradan ]
Posts: 1509 | Registered: Tuesday, January 10 2006 08:00

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