hkmaly

I wasn't claiming it as a record, just pointing out that creating universes is something some people do for fun. ... wait what? What OTHER reason would anyone have for creating universe? Of course it's for fun. I assume it was and hopefully still is fun for Dan as well. You think OUR universe was created for some other reason?

Hmmmm .... Didn't we used to have more emoticons here? The word you search for is Heka, but it's not certain if it was his NAME. Could be title or job position. In any case, only he gave.

If you count game worlds or game universes I've done over 3 dozen in the last 5 years. Some of which have actually been seen by people other than me. I don't think THAT would be record either. If you want name, I would guess Gary Gygax may have chance ... unless you count worlds created indirectly, in which case it's definitely Roger Zelazny, who specifically created uncountable number of universes.

If you have latest version of Ubuntu LTS, not even Lennart Poettering has it under control. On the other hand, it's likely to be the distribution Wine is most optimized for.

Oh, good point. That might be a major power source in it's own right. Hopefully we will find out later today about that sort of thing. Agree. Definitely very good point. Like, not due that visual nonsense, Tedd likely did it ON PURPOSE, but it definitely would be lot of power ... I would assume they were in reverse order, but yes, unless the "Germany" was actually Prussia or something, the timeline would make it unlikely. He does drink tea, so there is that. Of course I'm an American who drinks a couple of liters of hot tea every day, so tea drinking alone isn't enough to peg him as being a Brit. Jean Luc Picard is FRENCH who is famous of drinking tea. I'm pretty sure that no matter how different it may be in general, Pandora deliberately went for as human experience as possible with Adrian. Wouldn't rule out that Adrian knows all of those 171,476 words and few more And yes ; he might keep the Britishness to cover his other eccentricities, like having a sword - I mean cane. I don't think Noriko was sleeping with Adrian. I don't believe Adrian would do it. I find plausible Noriko tried. I find very suspicious that someone today (with possible exception of Adrian) would know how English sounded at that time, or, for that matter, how should you correctly pronounce hieroglyphs.

I'd love to see an exchange like that in canon, but it would need backstory. Susan got into the group as a friend of Sarah; I think it's established they met in middle school, the only time Sarah wasn't going to the same school as Elliot--and Sarah didn't seem to know Susan was a blonde until Susan revealed how her dad cheated on her mom. Noriko seems to have left before Tedd met Elliot. Now there's a way around this, but it's a long one: Let's suppose that Susan's dad was also had magic and that her mom knew about it but they kept it secret from their child. Then Dad pulls the brilliant move of bringing his mistress into their home while Mom is away. But until that time, Susan's mom knew Nanase's family because Susan's dad worked with them, and she's kept in touch with Nanase's mom, yet another secret Nanase's mom is keeping from Nanase. Since Susan got her fairy spell, and she likes having them around, and they are inconvenient to unsummon, it's not a stretch for Susan's mom to have noticed them by now. But perhaps having taken lessons from Nanase's mom, she pretends she knows nothing of them. Well, maybe... I don't think so. Between how much secrets Nanase moms is keeping and how much Dunkels are keeping, having even Susan's mom keeping that much ... On the other hand, I wouldn't consider impossible that Susan's dad had some magic connections he did NOT told Susan's mom about. Also, I have much simpler explanation why Noriko would immediately see Susan is blonde: She's experienced wizard capable of detecting stuff like that. So only 9 years, more or less, given that Lord Tedd has been hanging fire for 18 years now. Yes that's exactly what I meant It was, Not Tengu SAID it was Noriko who fought him last time. Even Nanase realized this. I'm thinking that when we actually get around to seeing Noriko, Van will be involved, and the WoM wanted to hold off on Tedd finding out Van's their half sibling until a specific time which I don't think is during this party. Agree. However, that doesn't mean she couldn't be the one enchanting the door, just that we don't see her being called by the door. (Still thinks Nanase's mom is more likely, but SHE IMHO wouldn't be called either.) Good point. I find more likely Adrian really picked British accent due to years spent in Britain and it might took him some time to get rid of it. However, what would be "true accent" in his case? The English of Shakespeare? I agree that Edward knows a lot about immortals from Adrian, however I don't think he's ONLY source he has. Specifically, I suspect that he was in contact with Helena and Demetrius before their reset. Not sure what would accomplish Nanase's mom finding out only later, though. Sounds likely. Especially the bits about Noriko scanning Nanase and Mama Kitsune not liking that. Less sure about the successor part.

A hard crash is a hard crash. The did an update of the client and everything stopped working. I was getting a bit burnt out on Eve any way so I didn't push to hard to make a fix. I'm not surprised you are burnt out. I don't have time to play most games I would like either, and Eve looks like very time-consuming game. I recommend trying on linux instead, starting with installation of modern distribution which may have all those problems solved too. Note that I don't mean to do it right away ; that would be hypocrisy, as I myself didn't managed to find time to install 64bit linux distributions for years, pretending to wait for new machine with it ... which I could buy tomorrow if I wanted. Wait, today, it's already after midnight. But, like, I want to spend time finding out what machine to get just to have the good feeling of having machine with parts I decided to buy. Despite possibly doing lot of mistakes in it, as I don't have that much experience in that regard ...

If it is an illusion instead of being actually turned into a smoke-like substance, then the person is "smoke" to the same degree that the Fire Men were "on fire". The illusion could maintain not only the smoke-person shape, but possibly a "formless smoke-cloud" shape and even a "barely visible dispersed smoke-cloud" shape. Meanwhile, the "real" body is selectively intangible to normal matter, allowing passage through obstacles and immunity to kinetic attacks. That's not really illusion (compare to what Tedd says about illusions) but redefining the point as "it can be similar effect to how Fire Men were not really on fire", you may be right. Except, why scratch your chin if you don't feel it? It's more than just autopilot, there's a tactile feedback. There is autopilot which also provides emulation of tactile feedback. I didn't mean that the autopilot made her scratched her chin. I meant that the autopilot made the scratching work. You are confusing science with laws of physics. Remember that any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. Unlike some universes, where magic is fundamentally chaotic and actively avoids understanding, in EGS, magic works by following laws more fundamental than the laws of physics. Granted, lot of that seems to be work of Will of magic, but even THAT seems to be limited by laws which can be revealed by using scientific approach on magic, AS TEDD IS DOING. All the questions you asked HAVE answer. Sure, Dan might not know that answer, but he made the universe so the answer is supposed to exists AND be at least theoretically discoverable. (Speaking about which, you stops being so concerned about the hypothesis of conversation of energy when you accept that Dan, with normal caloric input of human, managed to create not one but multiple universes. Not that he would be record holder in that regard.)

Yes ; while theoretically you could have 32bit emulator of 64bit machine, it would be EXTREMELY slow - on top of the "full" emulators being slow by itself. Wine supports 64bit since version 1.2 and that was in 2010 ... however, it seems that 64bit support has more bugs than 32bit. I find hard to believe it stopped working for you in 2019 because 64bit didn't worked at all. More likely, it was either something else than being 64bit, or Eve hit some of those bug. Also, quick googling suggests that Eve online does work on 64bit wine.

It made sense per the criteria. There's a whole belt of Pluto-like objects. This has happened before. Initially, individual asteroids were considered to be planets, until it was discovered how numerous they are. Today, we don't even question it. When's the last time you heard someone protesting that Vesta should be a planet? Neither have I. Whole belt maybe, but not THAT many. Granted, students are likely glad they don't need to learn more planets. Also, the criteria needs to be VERY specific to exclude Pluto. Earth co-orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Jupiter has 100,000 trojans in its orbital path. "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", said Stern, current leader of NASA's New Horizons mission. This whole thing is just religious discrimination. Hail Eris! (Also, the people deciding that should be careful not to die. Pluto might take it personally.) True, and you are highlighting a point, the move to realign the 'tree of life' makes sense in many cases, but the adherents are often overzealous. I find it useful to be able to easily distinguish between modern birds and dinosaurs without having to explain myself. "I like birds.", "Yes, the T Rex skeleton at the museum of Natural History is most impressive. I quite agree." Yes. It is useful to have categories of animals which don't really match the evolution tree. On the other hand, the T Rex skeleton IS impressive. I don't think most people, even older children are confused by 'whales are mammals not fish'. I could be wrong; I haven't lived outside the US. They are AWARE of that. I don't think that means they are not confused. Interesting. In my language, only Osteichthyes are considered "fish". This makes me wonder who made the distinction and how it happened that it was different decision than in English. Whoa there, Trigger, the US has no monopoly on the commodity, 'stupidity'. If anything, we're a bit of a late comer to the game. I'll grant that we're highlighting ourselves in our attempt to make up for lost time, but have you noticed that things aren't exactly peachy everywhere else either? Hmmm ... you definitely don't have the monopoly but you seem to be the one making game from it ... and trying to win. But you also have the point that it seems to be relatively recent development. There is definitely no shortage of stupid politicians everywhere ... and people voting for them ... hmmm ... ok, I'm not sure where exactly is that coming from. Must be something in media. Oh, wait, media ... there is no shortage of stupid celebrities elsewhere either, but you definitely have most celebrities, so maybe that's the reason? Still, I'm keeping the point it's unlikely to happen everywhere at same speed. <sigh> That is simply not true. I don't even get why you think it is true. Germany in the early part of the twentieth century was at the forefront of science. The Soviet Union led the space race. China is at the cutting edge of technology. Hell, I know some Fox viewers personally, and I wouldn't call them stupid. Quite the opposite. I don't know how they drank that Cool Aid, nor why it holds them, but many of them are otherwise bright people. Unity behind some ideal seems to be the common thread to being controllable. Unified people are willing to make significant sacrifices toward their goals. Stupid people, on the other hand, do their own thing and won't unite, and are more difficult to control. Your point that even clever people can do surprisingly stupid decisions if they catch some idea is definitely true, but it's still easier to infect stupid people. Intelligent people are more likely to resist. Universities were always places protesting against those leaders. Granted, they are also places protesting about other things, and can catch some stupid ideas themselves ... but still. That's why I think it's true, in any case. During cold war, lot of clever people emigrated to west, often specifically US, because "communists" regime was not nice to them. Another reason. Also, the Soviet Union led the race but didn't really had better technology. More ... determination I think would be the word. And possibly courage. Or desperation. But not technology, at least not technology in general, there likely were some specific technologies used in space race they had best until US took the lead. And China is not cutting edge of technology either, it is still stealing ideas from elsewhere (mainly the factories companies from rest of world are building there). It's Korea (the South one) who is cutting edge of technology now, after stealing that from Japan. And, I suppose, still US, considering both Intel and AMD are still operating from California. Of course, if you look at big projects, China leads because it has lot of space for them, lot of money and is playing catch up. And can afford to ignore people living around and ecology. Yeah, that went so well the last time, huh? Last time it wasn't long enough to really have effect on genes. It still caused gigantic technological progress. It also caused lot of suffering, of course, but evolution doesn't care about suffering. If it did, birth would be much more pleasurable experience for mothers. Remember cold war again: both sides wanted better weapons. Both US and Soviet Union specifically worked hard on capturing german scientists. If regime which believes in eugenics would be doing steps like that, those scientists would DEFINITELY be forced to reproduce. (Of course, Wernher von Braun specifically wouldn't need much help on that.) I quite agree, I don't give us great odds to survive long enough for Idiocracy to happen. Yeah. I still believe we manage to have technological progress which will save us from all those problems. But I don't believe anything else can save us. Well, ok, personal intervention of major deity, but those usually tend to be SOURCES of catastrophes, not solution for them.

Given the sheer number of time wasting delays in this story line, I'm almost sure that The Dan had decided on fem!Justin as the barber and waited until he was shown in the main story line to show him here. I'm using he/him because Justin does not identify as female, even when in fem form. Those delays could've been due to Jay. Those are almost the best. Seriously, it has the advantage of being surprised AND the advantage of the feeling you are keeping up with the story. Only better ones are the ones where you guess what's happening just before you scroll to next panel where it's happening. (Of course, that requires small enough screen to need scrolling.)

They are paying rent. Time IS sort of passing for them. Yeah, but that's mainly because Eve has been for the most part 90% player driven. though from what I hear, the latest update has introduced a new NPC faction that will actively conquer systems in all parts of space, and players can either join them, or fight them, so that could add a new dynamic to the game. ... are players quitting the game so there is not enough player-driven factions or are the player-driven factions too clever so they need some easy target? ... and with WHOM? ... it seems obvious that he has something else to do in addition to pushing player. Not much of it, but something. Unless he was searching for Susan between her decoys again. The cheats off could fool him. Check 6.5.4 and 6.5.3 in the WINE FAQ, it may be what you are looking to do. It definitely isn't. This is for cases when the game stayed 32bit but the computer didn't. I have no experience with Eve online, but I guess the switch to 64bit was accompanies by changes in engine the wine doesn't support yet. Or Godzilla the butt warmer is 32bit.

Considering Dilbert's company, it's possible he remains on his place BECAUSE he's no threat to those above him. Despite the fact that sometimes even he seems competent compared to them. The last company I worked for had a pointy haired owner. Is the company still in business? Oh. Well, good, I don't intend to disclose. I thought that was clear. Oh, it was, I was just saying that I'm not going to even try and figure out which company you were talking about. Not only did you say you weren't going to tell, I really don't have the background anymore to make an intelligent guess as to which pointy haired company you are dealing with. Would 20 questions be enough? Doesn't seem there is shortage of such companies.

I don't think it takes mental energy and constant concentration for a few reasons. You couldn't do it; if you had to keep your components organized, it would be too much. Camdin couldn't do it at all; just saying, Smoke wasn't focusing on herself, she was interacting with Sam and Grace. If she was in deep concentration, the conversation would have gone differently. There is definitely some sort of autopilot taking care of this. Note that there must be one for extreme size changes as well (not what TF gun does, but what Rhoda can do) because if you examine how it must be working on particle level there is lot going on as well. ... this actually shows how GOOD the autopilot is. Presumably, you can do all sort of stuff only possible while actual smoke, but you need to focus on THAT, because you are effectively disabling part of autopilot. Some mass might be going to where most of Grace's mass goes when she's full squirrel. Along with all information necessary to reconstruct your body. Remember, this is enchantment: if the spell expires, fails or something, you will automatically return to human form, just like Not-Tengu did. The smoke form is not that much harder than other spells we already saw: it makes really obvious how some aspect of how EGS universe works are complicated, but the same aspect needs to work in complicated way for other spells as well - it only needs more thinking to realize that.

You know the premise of Idiocracy? Thanks in part due to contraceptives, it's entirely plausible. Wasn't almost everyone white there? Civilization moves FAST. And not only it does, it MUST because it's pursued by problems its causing. The idea of Idiocracy was that everyone was stupid but somehow the world didn't collapsed. While the premise of people going more and more stupid due to evolution would be plausible by itself, in time required for that to happen and without clever people doing technological advances some problem would catch up and kill most of world population ... which would be extreme evolution pressure for solution. Also, the factories for contraceptives would stop working. Also, while it's easy to see how Idiocracy could happen in US, it's less likely it would happen in whole world, or at least not at same speed. There would be nations taking advantage of US going stupid. (They already are, in fact.) Probably war. Again, evolution pressure. And finally ... stupid people are easier to control. You only need ONE clever person to take over and decide it's time for some eugenics. It would be end of democracy, but it's quite likely it would be positive from evolution standpoint. (There are some signs of this happening as well, actually. So far it's about race, but as long as someone is thinking about eugenics, well, someone needs to be researching new weapons and people like this LIKE new weapons.) So, together, three very good reason why something else would happen before Idiocracy. Each of them would be something which would be popular as movie but not good to live through. Not sure which of one would be first. Maybe all at once. Generally it is assumed an animal cannot be both a bird and a reptile, or both a mammal and a reptile, or reptile and amphibian, etc. On the other hand, I've also heard it argued that birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians are all really just varieties of fish... We already have word for this: vertebrate. On the other hand, the definition of fish might not be clear enough to survive, considering neither shark nor dolphin are fish. Yeah, that was ugly as well.

Agree. Still, I don't consider it too likely unless it will be parodying something from existing game ... This is progress of the meta plot. Seems that she INSERTED herself as hero of magic. May still be antagonist on meta level. That works the other way as well: she's not tall BECAUSE she lacks the ranged levels. Also, there were NPCs with same look (assets) as main hero, but having another hero looking almost same would be weird. Actually, this makes EXTREME sense in combination with all those delays. Dan could be timing this to not reveal something too soon. And it makes lot of sense if we look what we know about her in main story. She knows about Grace, but doesn't know she's nudist and it would be exactly the thing she would be interested in ...

So, Arthur again decided he waited too long. Not that I'm complaining, but I wonder how is he deciding that. Also, considering in most games SEASONS depend on plot progress as well, if not WEATHER, I think most of population would NOT be satisfied with stopped progress. I know what's my opinion on weather staying same too long. And that's ignoring the question of how long will it take to run out of food with no season changes. Wait, running out of food can't happen unless plot progress, so THAT is not an issue.

I have no idea how my boss or her boss kept their jobs at EDS. Both were badly clue deficient. I know exactly how my boss is keeping his job. He OWNS the company. (Also, for a manager, he seems relatively competent. Like, still not much technical skills, but the company still exists, so ...) Advantage of small companies with flat management structure. There are disadvantages, of course. For several years, I WAS the IT department. Now we hired few more people. Well ... hired ... they work for company. I assume they are getting paid. I don't care if they are employees in legal sense. I'm not.

Unlikely. As far as we know, she's still active monster hunter. That's LOT of magic use and generally healthy exercise. ... also, she MIGHT be using magic for keeping her appearance ... Susan: So you are Noriko? You look good for your age. Noriko: And you look dark for blonde. I agree; I've posted before that the Agent Wolf version could be how he thinks Noriko looks. Wolf has probably never met her in person and might not even know she's Edward's ex-wife--although I'm pretty sure Agent Cranium knows from the deadly stare Cranium gives him after Wolf blurts out his "powerhouse" spiel. Based on her being sort-of celebrity I would assume he saw her photo. Also, he might not REMEMBER she's Edward's ex-wife but he has enough clearance to know and was probably told - if he didn't know, the deadly stare would make less sense ; it's more likely Cranium thinks he should know.

Noriko has appeared three times: with Adrian and the infant Tedd in a flashback comic when Agent Wolf was describing that real powerhouse that took down not-Tengo in Europe. when Nanase's mom asks Nanase what happened at the party the night before The last instance repeats the image Dan used before. Dan has never shown Noriko's face--just like he's never shown the face of Susan's dad. It may just be coincidence, but the flashback comic at the end of Hair begins with the same words over the first frame: "Many years ago..." That Agent Wolf illustration might not be considered real appearance. I meant the one with infant Tedd. Regardless who it was, the time frame is very similar. Like, 18 years ago give or take 3 years? Unlikely. As far as we know, she's still active monster hunter. That's LOT of magic use and generally healthy exercise.

... it's even possible it requires constant adjustments of the spell, making the spell easier to copy ...

Dinosaurs were not intelligent by the standards of animals today. The estimate I've seen is that the smartest dinosaurs were about equivalent to a duck. Consider, for a moment, it is an arms race. You do not invest in a large brain unless you need one to compete. Nor, per current thinking, were they pack hunters. Based on remains found, when predator an prey are found, it is one on one. The exception is when several of a predator appear to have wandered into the same trap in pursuit of a carcass. The smart raptors of the movie made an engaging film, but there is little reason to believe that a larger raptor cousin could have opened the door, or repeated the feat if they did it accidentally. ... ok, I might not be as aware as I though. On the other hand, there is still chance paleontologists have it wrong and there is some pack-hunting species of dinosaur. Like, older than this one. Yeah, widespread effective contraception is pretty much a modern invention. Before the 20th century, having more sex meant having more children, statistically. The physical and chemical ones, yes. I wonder how good was knowledge of menstruation cycle before that, however ; it's possible using this math-based contraception was widespread enough. Also, there was supposed to be quite widespread use of chemical contraception which were not as much effective and definitely considerably less safe, but, well, still used. Also ... good point considering the fact that from evolution point of view, both the modern social state AND contraception didn't have that much influence yet. It's what, six generations?

Apples and oranges. No man ever met a velociraptor. The megalania is believed to have become extinct through human efforts. Well ... ok, but no European ever met them Of course they are lumped with birds. However, I didn't realized this made them no longer reptiles. I'm aware and deliberately choose the dangerously intelligent pack hunting version over the slightly larger one. Size didn't helped tiger either. After this, you have no right to call me on my "3 meters may be too much" understatement.

But The Dan always creates a new character Of course in this context he might not and for all intents and purposes, Tedd's mom is a new character. Not really, she already appeared once in similar way. Yeah, years. Like how long has Lord Tedd been hanging fire? I think that Dan learned this lesson and it will only be half as long. Grace wasn't in front of the mirror when she changed clothes. Depends on range. She WAS suspiciously tired. She looks heavier now, but years ago? We saw in Goonmanji 2 what Nanase's mom likely looked like when she was younger. Like I said in a previous post, maybe she stopped using magic, but didn't cut back on the cheesecake. Yup, makes sense. Only if Nanase finds out it was Mama Kitsune who did it ... but yes, that could work. I'm still looking forward to the part where Nanase would be deliberately trying to make her mom admit magic is real and Mama Kitsune would pretend she doesn't know in more and more absurd ways. Definitely not an art error, as we see when they first brought out the door, the paneled part is at the bottom with the knob on the right, in this page, the door is essentially upside down...or rather Elliot and Justin got it turned upside down when they brought it out. Oh. Right. So the feeling it's mirrored was mistake on my side; it's not, they are just using it upside down. I knew I should verify that feeling ... was too lazy.

So that leaves the question how simple a spell is converting your body and mind to smoke? Well, yeah. Saying it like this makes it sound hard, but maybe it's not that hard? No, the hard part is to keep the human conscious and able to move in direction he wants while smoke.