hkmaly

Memory mapped video was standard on PC until expanded VGA cards became standard. I suspect that if, for some reason, you are back in real character based mode, which is tricky to to do on a modern computer, that it's still memory mapped. I'm sure modern card can do the legacy memory mapped graphics as well. You know, that one where you could fit 320x240 256 color pixels in the memory ... or have more pixels but some weird hard to understand tricks how to switch it. Oh yes it is. Intel is talking about abandoning support for legacy BIOS for motherboards, but the CPU itself still boots in real mode. ("Legacy" BIOS basically works by starting CPU in real mode, switch to "protected" mode to do HW/memory initializations, then switch back to real mode, boot in it and then OS switch to "protected" mode again. UEFI keeps the CPU in "protected" mode.) Actually WinMe, but that's sort of 9x. However, if you had EMM386 or any other memory extender, you actually already run in emulation (V86 mode) in DOS ... it just had wider compatibility because there was no multitasking and no protection of I/O, so more assumptions from real mode worked, AND, it had VCPI, which is a way to give all access to application (think game) hoping that the game won't overwrite your memory and give you all the access back when it finish running. You can't do THAT from any OS which either supports multitasking or has basic security. Funny is that in Win 10, the reason of those new depths are not hardware. From hardware standpoint, it runs same as XP. They are only changing software, possibly including throwing again some old legacy compatibility support layers. Intel is working on that. However, I don't think they will remove V86 mode ever. The CPUs are now so complicated it wouldn't really help, and keeping JUST the most modern 64bit part would be too much. Also, they tried multiple times to market alternative CPUs not compatible with the x86 mess and it was always disaster. (For reference, the CPU has real mode, 16bit protected mode, V86 mode, 32bit protected mode, 64bit protected mode, hypervisor mode and some management mode which is supposed to be used for power management. Oh, and the take-control-over-the-computer-remotely AMT mode, if it's real Intel and not AMD.) I suspect those missing things are not related to CPU but GPU.

I used to have one, but I haven't logged in in years. Actually, I generally try to avoid the site these days, as the last few times I visited both their advertisements and their attempts to prevent you from using an add-blocker were intrusive and obnoxious. ... my adblocker must be magic. (Adblock Latitude)

But what would we do with people who fail that class? Yeah, the system how to get popular in high school is not just unrealistic, because your abilities can't help you, but also highly toxic, as you mostly get popular by lowering popularity of someone else. It's wonder that most people get through it as much human as they do, which is not much. Depends on age. I think the first classes of basic math would benefit if instead of apples candy would be used as example unit. But few years afterwards, kids starts to realize how money works, so yes. There is lot of math in stock trade ...

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/party-138 Yes, you sounded sarcastic. Luckily, Grace seem to still have problems recognizing it. Still, it's not win unless it helps with Ashley. Also, you are still trying too hard to get Ashley's approval. Also, I hope Dan wouldn't be working on weight loss too long. If the recent writer's block issues are caused by hunger ... Note: Anybody knows where that hu-mon thing is from? I know mispronouncing human was used for Ferengi in Star Trek but that's unlikely to be first case.

USB is a good example of what you are talking about, so, yeah, I can see what you are saying. My impression is that manufacturers still try to distinguish their products with extra bells and whistles which only their drivers can activate, but I could be wrong. They claim to, but remember that it's in their interest as it can raise the price of device. Note that claiming so cost significantly less than actually build something useful into the product. I doubt if anyone foresaw how much we'd be living our lives online. Now ++, courtesy of COVID-19. That would be good example. And you only need to look at sci-fi to see how surprising some stuff was.

That detail I missed. I did not get the impression from what I read that was even the case, but I'll check out the comic. It's not said directly, but seems pretty obvious that the line "teach me of this thing, strangely appealing hu-man" is either direct quote or heavily inspired by quote from play, which likely features human male lead and female elf lead who ends up having romance with lot of sex, possibly even not just implied. Anyway, "strangely appealing" is admiration by itself. Not from Sarine of course, she speaks sarcastically, but from the one saying the original quote.

Well, they should. ... noone here has account on TV Tropes?

It's good to have the name correct if you are meeting friends, who may be using an app to find it. For that case, the proper way to referent to them is like "the pub named Indian Restaurant". (Also, all friends know pubs around my home better than me.) Device drivers are small because they are focused on a specific task. That task bundles the messiness of interfacing with an external real world. Unlike games, where you can generally fudge if you skip a frame, interfacing to hardware has to catch everything while competing for attention with other hardware. It handles all of the hard issues. Your device drivers are essentially competing with each other. And the goal is everyone wins; if one dominates, they all loose. Sure you can skip a frame but users will be angry if you miss a keypress ... even if they already hold five other keys. Yeah, in good old times™ device drivers were struggling to catch everything and competing with each other ... nowadays, most hardware is capable of buffering events and the rest is so slow compared to CPU it doesn't matter. And then you have DMA: you don't need to worry your soundcard goes out of music to play as you can just give it start of several megabytes long buffer and it will fetch it from memory itself, and similarly disk and network card, not speaking about graphics card which usually have it's own memory. Yes, even manufacturer-provided drivers are loaded into kernel and run inside it. Also, no, manufacturers of common hardware are not expected to provide their own drivers, they are expected to follow the standards. ALL USB mass storage devices should operate the same way, no need for specific driver for every one. Of course, manufacturers of something complicated like graphics card should provide better drivers ... and sometimes they even do ... but that's more like exception. <wistfully considers, "How much difference would it have really made?"> Odds are we would have had more accurate math tables published, that was the goal. Would more than one have been built? From our perspective, we'd think so, but they would not have appreciated what they had, early on, and the time to build each would have been daunting. Right, true. After all, computers were underestimated even much later. I'm surprised noone did yet. There definitely were books about it. From William Gibson. It IS possible that this would make the true computers arrive little faster ... but maybe not. Yes, it's definitely hard to say ... but that goes both ways. There are inventions noone would predict how much and how quickly they change the world.

Not necessarily, both are refering to races that are alien in context, and the author is probably geek enough to know the reference. But it's practically opposite. Ferengi use it because they despise humans, this case is supposed to show admiration.

I don't think the Jesus portrayed in the Gospels would like most churches. How many times did he say, "Don't judge"; what are churches known for ... ? Good point. They do a bit more than that. As I said, if they drank only as part of mass and STILL get drunk, they would be doing it very incorrectly. Although it reminds me one joke about a novice priest who was recommended vodka against stage fright ... Here, what the businesses call themselves is often a matter of branding. A lot of nicer restaurants have liquor licenses and serve drinks, with a small bar that is not the focus of the establishment. What the businesses call themselves ALSO has little influence on how I call them I did mention device drivers, that covers a lot of ground. ... no, it doesn't. Device drivers are relatively small pieces of software. Usually part of kernel. ... Which he never finished, and Ada Lovelace wrote programs that never ran in her lifetime. Good idea, too far ahead of his time to implement; it could have been done had there been a compelling cultural focus. As it was, he pushed the state of the art of machining technology in Britain, but he could not retain the people he trained, they were too in demand. Yeah. Pity.

Perhaps not. The comicis newer than the ST episode. It's newer, but the direction is too different. Of course it does Want some more links?

That MIGHT be less this and more reaction to him saying they need someone to man the register. That's why I don't think it's an actual translator deal, but more of a tone the Ferengi use when referring to humans, like they feel humans are inferior to them so they intentionally say it like that. There was a few cases where Quark said human normally but those cases were either when talking about humans in general conversation or in the rare occasion where he's showing actual respect. The "Hu-mon" way usually comes out when expressing more negative opinions. According to https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/63716/why-do-the-ferengi-pronounce-human-the-way-they-do HooMon means "Poor Negotiator" or "Bad Merchant", which matches what Ferengi thinks about humans, so it may be sort of a pun for them. In any case, I would say that there is intention behind this and the fact the Universal Translator is able to pick the difference is not a bug but proof of how good it is. I'm not arguing against that, but I'm still interested in those older examples. I would be willing to believe if it first appeared in ST:TOS, but I'm sure it happened sooner than TNG. Also, I got the feeling the first - or at least earlier - case should be related to "romance" ... I remember it was parodied in other comic with this relation ... oh right found it: http://www.errantstory.com/2008-02-11/768 This obviously was parodying something different than Ferengi, but what?

The term for the male version is Marty Stu, a play on Mary Sue. Most commonly, yes, but it's not as definitive as Mary Sue - first, sometimes even male is called Mary Sue, second, there are less common alternatives. She has serious flaws as well, and vulnerabilities. Yes, but that only makes her less Mary Sue ; those are irrelevant to her Deus-ex-machina-ness.

I wouldn't say that overgrinding makes for less fun gameplay; rather you're putting in more time in order to have less challenge - sort of a very slow way to turn on "easy mode". Also, with the right game and the right mind-set, grinding itself can be fun (usually in a meditative sort of way in the games I'm thinking of). Both the grinding itself and the playing with too little challenge is usually boring. That said, grinding can be sort of meditative in some games, or simply fun enough if you spread it over long enough time, and the point when the challenge is too low to be fun is individual ... so yes, it's not absolute. As for "make it impossible to grind", I was thinking of something similar myself: if the designers want the enemies to always be roughly the same relative strength compared to the player, why have a leveling system at all? Plenty of games get by without one. I mean I suppose there's a small thrill to seeing a number increase, but for me it mostly only applies if the number actually means something; I've always found the true appeal of gaining levels is seeing how much stronger I've become relative to enemies that used to give me trouble. There is nothing small on the thrill to seeing a number increase, and players may miss that the increase is just illusion, especially if your abilities gets more flashy on bigger levels. But yes, in this sense having a leveling system which don't really allow to get better is cheating.

Hell, no, Planck Units for everything! Actually, speed of light IS planck unit for speed. Of course. I don't think Jesus would like to see gambling in church, even bingo. Of course they do, it's part of mass. ... I think they are doing it wrong if they need it Not interchangeably, but not with clear borders either - it is possible I call the same thing different names depending on context and/or mood if it "fits" both. Although if I would focus on it I would agree with your "google" paragraph and with that point about bar possibly being just section. Also, you can have minibar which is basically fridge or other piece of furniture with alcohol ; you can't have minipub. Oo! Tomato Webcam and phone accessible watering and shade controls! Yeah, exactly what I'm missing to see IT in my gardening. It's math, applied differential equations, and definitely predates the digital age. The governor on an engine is a simple example, and those date from the 1800s, no? So what? Babbage was already working on his computer in 1820 and first programs appeared no later than 1843. It's true that computers were not really practical until they started to use transistors. I would argue with that, but I also don't consider Windows useful software, so ... You do realize that for example, all games are event-driven? Also, it's hard to avoid event-driven programming when doing anything with GUI. When I was in my formative years, I've got something they called pizza and used ketchup. It made me avoid pizza for more than ten years, until I found out that in real pizza tomato sauce is used.

Yes, but original Traveller has that (almost?) unique feature where you can die while rolling up your character. Technically, yes, but you can just as well say that in Traveller, the game started before you finished rolling up your character. (I didn't played Traveller, but looked at how that works, someone argued that way and it seems to make sense.)

I would think that would have some notice in the comic aside from this reference. It would make more sense. Well, maybe. Depends on how her flight works. Not really. "Making scale say 50 pounds" is quite open task which can be done in different ways depending on how her flight works. Thing is, I expect the fairy can light much more than just 4 times her weight. That's why I said I agreed with you. I think the only character capable of lifting at least 4 times her weight would be Grace and she's stated she could lift a car, granted she has to morph into her omega form and buff herself up, but I wouldn't be surprised if she could use her telekinesis to assist. I wouldn't be surprised if she would be unable to NOT use her telekinesis to assist, however she may also be unable to NOT morph - I mean, she would morph instinctively while lifting similarly how she instinctively morphed into omega form first time. The real question is: since Grace can actually gain mass when morphing, how much would she weight in the form in which she can lift a car? The first definition I heard (which I've always understood to be the first definition; at any rate it was over 15 years ago, immediately following the first time I heard the term "Mary Sue" at all) included a part about the character stealing the spotlight from the series' true main characters. Unless one thinks one can determine better than the author who the story's main characters should be, this by definition limits Mary Sues to fanfiction. Not completely. Obviously, single story with single author would mean that author determines who's main character, but in series, different episodes can and often do have different authors and even if it's just single author, some consistency is to be expected. You can then say someone is Mary Sues when stealing the spotlight from main characters as established in previous episodes in unrealistically quick way. While this specific gender combination might be more common than it should, I don't think the feeling author should be focusing on someone else is limited to it. Normally female ... or Wesley Crusher (Who, by the way, is good example of author's character stealing the spotlight from previously established main characters in unrealistic way. There ARE characters from which you would expect such capability - like Data doesn't really surprise in Brothers - but Wesley has no objective in-story reason to be that good.) Nanase was shown as more powerful magic user than everyone else quite soon after she appeared, but yes, Grace shown quite a lot of power from start and in some way, other characters then played catch-up with her, only recently getting to similar level (like Elliot with his superhero spell ... ok, that's not THAT recently anymore ...). Note however that pre-reset Pandora specifically can't really be Mary Sue because she's not "full-time" character. Any complain about her power would lead in direction of labeling her Deus-ex-machina, not Mary Sue. Note that I don't think she IS one - she was established quite well in advance and while she never before used this much power, the possibility was foreshadowed quite obviously at least in hindsight if not directly - but she's still much closer to that than to Mary Sue.

Then why don't the bad guys have guns? I like Slayers answer to that: Why don't we use guns and explosives? Because spells are just so more powerful and convenient it's not worth it. Who would be carrying dynamite when she can cast fireball while naked? (Of course, the explanation doesn't really scale to advanced guns and guided rockets.) That I don't know as I haven't played any of the Fable games. But yeah there are games like Final Fantasy 8 and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion where enemies scale with your level, but with those two examples, you can also do things to make your character(s) very powerful while keeping their levels low. Like FF8 has a junction system that lets you slot spells into stats to boost them, and there's summons, called Guardian Forces that you can assign to characters that as you level them, they learn abilities. One such Guardian Force, Quezacotl, you can get fairly early in game and has an ability called "Card" that turns enemies into cards that either be used in the Triple Triad minigame or they can be converted into materials by other GF abilities that can then be used to upgrade weapons or further refined into spells. The thing about "Card" though is you can use it multiple times in battle so you can turn all enemies (except bosses) into cards and doing so doesn't earn character experience so your characters won't level, but you do get Ability Points which go towards leveling GFs and unlocking their abilities so you can effectively grind out all your GF abilities while keeping your levels low and also turn the cards you get into powerful spells that can be junctioned into your stats, so you could potentially have 9999 hp and do max attack and spell damage at level 20, and one shot most enemies. I know, and it was more fiddly in Oblivion because it was very easy to fall behind, at least in FF8 if you happened to level to 50 or so, sure the battles may be tougher, but you can still go and stack your junctions to max stats and you'd also be able to slot abilities that either reduced, nullified or absorbed damage. With Oblivion, since you leveled as your primary skills leveled, if you only used those primary skills then chances are you'd only be able to increase stats by the minimum amount per level, which sadly meant that enemies would outclass you pretty quick (and as I had found out my first playthrough, left me with no way of doing any significant damage to the final boss). In order to make an effective character, it was ideal to have the stats you were most likely to use often as your secondary skills, and least likely to use skills as your primary, and then you grind out your secondary skills for a bit. Since skills were tied to attributes, like heavy armor and 2-handed weapons to Constitution and Strength, magic schools to Intellect and Wisdom, etc, you'd want to put up to 5 levels towards those skills so that when you do level up you can put the max amount of points into the attributes of your choosing (I can't remember if it's 2 attributes or 3 per level). The grinding though was very tedious and armor and shield skills amounted to just letting enemies beat on you for a while. Personally I would say that the biggest problems with these scaling system is that you need to go out of way - play differently than natural - just to level up correctly and not fall behind. Leveling should make sense - and the game mechanics should be consistent with how the story says it works. If the enemies don't scale, sure you can overgrid and one-shot everything, but if you overgrid you get what you wanted - that is, less fun gameplay. If they do scale, it means someone must've though about what exactly they scale with, and that means the game is much harder to balance ... and let's face it, balancing usually means removing more interesting abilities because those tend to be harder to balance. Of course, you can get similar result if you make impossible to grid. If there is limited number of opportunities to get better, it means that it either needs to be very carefully balanced - or that people will be forced to read walkthrough to find out how are they expected to level to make the game work.

Not only that, it seems that he noticed it's being cast. Now, how well is Susan capable of fighting without the slow spell? ... assuming she will catch him.

Her default form can't lift 4 times her weight unless she only weighs 50 pounds. That has to be her fairy form that Ellen was talking about. Maybe she got stronger meanwhile? Not that Nanase wouldn't be able to stay on scale and make it say 50 pounds. Maybe, but I don't think six is that many ... well, not every exercise is record-breaking. Bull or bear is where I would put her. Bull probably. Note that she's probably not destroying punching bags always, just when ... "focused". Maybe if she would be benchpressing in THAT state she would do more.

Yes. And that Power-per-weight thing should be converted to unit s-1 meaning how big part of it's mass the machine can use for usable work per second. Preferably, in scientific notation, as I don't think we have big enough SI prefixes.

I never really thought Nanase had a ego problem, throughout the comic she'd shown a lot of selflessness and I never got the impression that she tried to flaunt her abilities for attention, even when she wasn't being discreet about using magic I don't think she was intentionally showing off. Any kind of attention she got, she probably enjoyed, but I doubt any of it was forced. I'd say an unhealthy ego would be going out of one's way to make someone notice you which I'd have to say was what Nanase was doing with Ashley earlier, but at least now Nanase's realized that before it got worse. Yup, and I already discussed it in previous comics forum topic. Dan's giving her some depth, which is good Also, like, while she started relatively complicated compared to some other characters (like Diane or Susan), those got recently serious depth upgrade, so it's probably her turn. Nanase isn't the Mary Sue of EGS, if one exists at all it is Grace. I don't think that the term, as originally meant applies to any character in EGS, but as I said, Grace comes the closest. Well, if you are looking in the "correct" wrong way, you can see whole casts of Mary Sues in multiple comicses ... and, if you are looking for the self-insert element, then Tedd and Susan should count as well. Personally, I think that no character can be Mary Sue by itself. The negativeness of Mary Sue is not in any trait she has, nor the combination: it's in what she does with the story. (Also, I really liked the example where someone wrote deliberately overdone Mary Sue story ... and then someone else rewrote it so it happened exactly same way, but additional explanation made everything totally normal.)

Yeah, that's one of those non-obvious ... although it might be generic enough for anyone except atheists ... You're better than me in this. Only results regarding offensive swears I got are negative. Of course, even those are not necessary. Prayer should be just between you and the God anyway. Matthew 6:5. I think it is the idea of meeting that is emphasized, and that's not entirely without merit. Social isolation is unhealthy, and even though some folk prefer it, it's not without costs to them in terms of mental health. That's true, however is still mixing two totally independent things - religion and social life. Also, I would argue that church would be even worse for social life than theatre/cinema ... or did YOU ever saw groups of people discussing preaching in front of church? (And, obviously, the best place for social life seem to be pub. Which is not exactly compatible with religion, unless you worship Dionysus.) I've just said that it doesn't seem it would matter to them. Engineering not relevant? Is there such a topic? I see control systems in everything around me, including the way COVID-19 spreads. Who wouldn't want to maximize his tomato crop? Well, I see IT all around as well. You know they are planning to use phone tracking data to find who the infected were in contact with? But I must admit, it's hard to see it in my tomatoes. Wait. Control systems? That's programming isn't it? Actually, there are possibilities which would allow acquired immunity to work without providing workable options for vaccine. Are you an adherent to Gnocchicism? Definitely no. And I would rather convert to Pastafarianism than to eat that. Spaghetti I at least like. Well, megaton of TNT is not exactly SI either but pretty standard ... and of course, energy should be measured in grams, anything else is just adding unnecessary unit as if it would make the calculation work in different universe ... Wait what? You mean that haircut length can differ between units without causing any interoperability issues?

This one is better: http://freefall.purrsia.com/abyother/freefall_fanservice1.png Or this one: http://freefall.purrsia.com/abyother/fanserv.jpg

Hmmmm ... and when I don't want to say it's excessive?