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Welcome! 03/05/2016
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hkmaly
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Days Won
57
Posts posted by hkmaly
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On 6/1/2020 at 5:19 AM, mlooney said:On 6/1/2020 at 3:04 AM, hkmaly said: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.
I'm running 20.04 using XFCE4 as my window manager. It's under as much control as I feel it needs. Lennart works for RedHat, a distro I haven't used this century. Granted I did use it in the late 90's.
I see you somehow missed whole systemd controversy. Ubuntu 20.04 is using systemd as init.
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2 hours ago, mlooney said:So Justin and Grace know of Jay, but don't know Jay.
And I agree with Justin, Grace is supposed to be great with faces. Well, ok, still not so weird as Elliot not recognizing Sarah's sister on TV.
2 hours ago, mlooney said:Also Grace wants to feed Jay carrots while brushing her hair.
Apparently, she has issues with ponies.
2 hours ago, mlooney said:Diane points out that Grace is going to have some gossip issues come next day at school.
1 hour ago, Prof_Sai said:I hate to be the voice of reason, but they could just say that Grace was playing around with pads to be silly, but wouldn't be caught in public with them. Of course, goonish magic may make this impossible somehow.
I sorta fail to see where would be problem and what OTHER explanation can Jay put into those gossips, but I'm not girl so I'm going to assume this somehow is problem.
1 minute ago, mlooney said:I said "padded bras are a thing" back when Jay started making comments about Grace looking different.
Yes I know it appeared there already.
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13 minutes ago, mlooney said:15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:On 5/29/2020 at 11:53 PM, mlooney said:I wonder if Tedd is aware of the MV5 forms that Sarah, Ellen and Grace made.
Good question. Is that form even finished already?
The official timeline on MV5 is "slightly before Squirrel Prophet" so, yeah, it's finished.
It wasn't finished at end of MV5. Also, re-reading it, of course Tedd needs to be aware - or WILL be aware - before they can make watches with that form. So, unless Grace makes the form on TF gun, which would have the disadvantage of possible garderobe malfunction ...
13 minutes ago, Scotty said:15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:I wonder what would his uncle think about that. I mean, maybe he already count on Justin inheriting the shop?
I suspect his uncle would be saddened, but supportive of whatever Justin chose to do.
You're probably right.
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6 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:Hmmmm ....
That's my take on it, too. Granted, it's making an assumption on when said divorces happened, but since this door seems interested in transformation magic in various ways, I'm still wondering if she might be the blond Susan found him with. Also, if she brought him over and/or Edward just happened to catch them in a romantically compromised position as well, it would certainly explain the rift between him and Adrian. Susan did say Adrian is a near-dead ringer for her dad...
The door seem interested in ANY magic, not their problem transformation was only magic around.
Also, I don't think that blonde had magic OR Noriko's attitude.
That still doesn't rule out they hook up. I mean, the blonde likely wasn't ONLY woman Susan's dad slept with.
Personally I think that Noriko disappeared sooner than Susan's dad divorce, based on Susan/Tedd age, but, well, hard to say.
Now, the reason Adrian looks like Susan's dad is same as why Diane looks like Susan, and I don't think EGS is the bad kind of comedy necessary for Edward really mistaking some human for Adrian.
13 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:21 minutes ago, hkmaly said: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.
Yes. Him. Thank you. Also, a good point with the name/title. (I already have four tabs opened on various points in EGS and didn't want to open a fifth. A-heh.)
Just five tabs?
Also, do you know about the wiki?
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4 minutes ago, mlooney said:8 minutes ago, hkmaly said:What OTHER reason would anyone have for creating universe?
I know of writers and game designers that don't think of world building as being fun, but something you have to do to get to the fun parts of writing or game design.
Hmmm ... ok, in that sense yes, although wouldn't those other parts be technically also part of world building?
5 minutes ago, mlooney said:In general, however, it shows when a game designer thinks of world design as "just part of the job" as there tends to be odd holes in the fluff about the game world.
Right. There are holes in EGS word as well, but I know what you mean ; Dan is at least trying, lot of game designers don't care, and the number and severity of holes matches that.
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On 5/29/2020 at 11:53 PM, mlooney said:So, no progress on the door
Which is not surprising.
On 5/29/2020 at 11:53 PM, mlooney said:but some nice point of view things between Justin and Tedd.
Hmmm ...
On 5/29/2020 at 11:53 PM, mlooney said:I wonder if Tedd is aware of the MV5 forms that Sarah, Ellen and Grace made.
Good question. Is that form even finished already?
On 5/30/2020 at 1:54 AM, mlooney said:I'm not sure that they are going to work on the masc forms right now, unless Tedd is willing to let Diane know that Tedd is gender fluid.
That only means Tedd is not going to personally test that form. Can still do it for Justin.
On 5/30/2020 at 3:04 PM, mlooney said:On 5/30/2020 at 0:01 PM, ijuin said:It seems like Justin is still trying to feel out what the limits of Tedd's comfort zone are. Elliot, Grace, Ellen, and Sarah already have a better idea given that they have interacted with Tedd a lot more, but Justin not so much--he's not one to just drop in at the Verres house all the time.
Knowing your friends comfort zones is an important thing to know.
Yes, and good point about Justin not knowing so much about Tedd yet.
On 5/30/2020 at 7:36 PM, mlooney said:On 5/30/2020 at 7:22 PM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:If Justin and Tedd really want distinctly male hair styles...
Might I suggest the classic Lion's Mane?
Or perhaps the Gorilla Silver Back?
Well, while those are male hair styles, the aren't really human hair styles, which might make the whole thing a bit weird. Not that Mooperville doesn't have enough weirdness as it is, but I suspect that DGB would be happier if Tedd and company didn't add to the weirdness factor if they could avoid it.
You think?
Might be the other way around and DGB would WELCOME some sort of weirdness which has nothing to do with magic (or aliens) ...
On 5/30/2020 at 8:51 PM, Scotty said:If Justin doesn't plan on running the comic shop full time after he graduates, I'd be very disappointed if he doesn't become a stylist/fashion consultant.
I wonder what would his uncle think about that. I mean, maybe he already count on Justin inheriting the shop?
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3 minutes ago, mlooney said:5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:I don't think THAT would be record either.
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? -
1 minute ago, Kazzellin said:Also wouldn't be surprised if he already knows Uromoco.
Not to mention knowing how to use said sword.
This is true, yes. I can therefore also see her recently-divorced self being attracted to Mr. Pompom's also-recently-divorced self...
Hmmmm ....
1 minute ago, Kazzellin said:[insert grining sweat-drop emoji here]
Didn't we used to have more emoticons here?
2 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:Well, he could always ask... Hetep? Was that the name of the god Pandora visited?
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.
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27 minutes ago, mlooney said:45 minutes ago, hkmaly said:(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.)
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.
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29 minutes ago, mlooney said:My current installation of Linux is the latest version of Ubuntu LTS, so I have that under control.
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.
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On 5/29/2020 at 7:46 PM, mlooney said:On 5/29/2020 at 7:43 PM, Haylo said:Has anyone yet considered, while debating how much magic the mirror might have seen since being uncovered, that a seer recharged a wand not far from the mirror? I'm guessing that flares off as much magic as all the spells put together, since the "visual nonsense" is pretty flashy.
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 ...
On 5/29/2020 at 11:17 PM, Tom Sewell said:When Pandora visits Adrian in the hospital, she lists four countries Adrian has lived in, maybe in order: The United States; England; France, and Germany. Maybe they're not in order; Germany wasn't really a nation until 1871, but this does establish that at one time Adrian wanted to fight for England. Not exactly great evidence for Adrian being an Anglophile; I kind of think Adrian became an Anglophile some time between Monday's and Wednesday's comic.
I would assume they were in reverse order, but yes, unless the "Germany" was actually Prussia or something, the timeline would make it unlikely.
On 5/29/2020 at 11:26 PM, mlooney said:On 5/29/2020 at 11:17 PM, Tom Sewell said:Not exactly great evidence for Adrian being an Anglophile; I kind of think Adrian became an Anglophile some time between Monday's and Wednesday's comic.
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.
On 5/30/2020 at 1:10 AM, Scotty said:I honestly can't guess how Immortal pregnancies work, I would of course assume there's really no difference between Immortals and Humans anatomy-wise, but I doubt Dan would get into the nitty-gritty of that
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.
3 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:Personally, I think he's keeping up the Britishness for two reasons: first, it gives him a valid reason to be eccentric (recall the ascot on his first appearance?) in a way that no-one will overly question his reasoning behind (though they may question why he's in the US in the first place). Second, British English, when spoken with the right accent, comes off as potentially posh and educated, thereby allowing him to be quite verbose, and, if he is so inclined, to be rather on the sesquipedalian side. I mean, English in general has 171,476 words, and the average person only knows about 20,000-40,000. (Yes, I did google both of those facts.)
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.
6 minutes ago, Kazzellin said:As for the comic, I'm more inclined to think it's Noriko (since her kvetching would be at odds with her sleeping with him later), but I like the idea of it being Mama Kitsune.
I don't think Noriko was sleeping with Adrian. I don't believe Adrian would do it. I find plausible Noriko tried.
3 minutes ago, mlooney said:So his "native" accent sound like an appalachian hillbilly? That is what most people who claim to know what early modern English sounds like say it is closest to.
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.
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On 5/28/2020 at 8:26 AM, Tom Sewell said:On 5/28/2020 at 7:53 AM, hkmaly said:Susan: So you are Noriko? You look good for your age.
Noriko: And you look dark for blonde.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.
On 5/28/2020 at 3:08 PM, mlooney said:On 5/28/2020 at 6:27 AM, hkmaly said:I think that Dan learned this lesson and it will only be half as long.
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
On 5/28/2020 at 3:19 PM, Scotty said:it was assumed the figure we saw when Wolf was describing the last person to fight Not_Tengu was Noriko
It was, Not Tengu SAID it was Noriko who fought him last time. Even Nanase realized this.
On 5/28/2020 at 4:01 PM, Scotty said:On 5/28/2020 at 3:54 PM, mlooney said:The same could be said for Lord Tedd, but I see your point. That being said, unless she shows up because the door/mirror calls her I'm not seeing a major or for that manner minor role for her in this story line.
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.)
On 5/29/2020 at 3:46 PM, Scotty said:Another point that I missed but someone on Discord brought up that would be in favor of this being Nanase's mom, in the 4th panel she mentions Adrian's "British-ness" and talks about it like "oh! they act soo posh and proper and like they're better than the US" meanwhile after the divorce Noriko seems to have ended up in England and having another child with a British man, or at the very least Van's development was spent around people with British accents. Still, I'd think if Noriko wasn't of fan of the British, she might have been inclined to avoid england.
Good point.
On 5/29/2020 at 3:46 PM, Scotty said:Also, I am curious if Adrian British accent is just part of the old man disguise or if that's his real accent, cus I do get the feeling he switched whenever he dropped the illusion. I also got the feeling that Noriko and Edward knew what Adrian was by the time they were married. Because Adrian had said they remained friends after they graduated it's not a stretch to think he told them about being the son of an Immortal, and maybe Adrian is the reason Edward knows a lot about them. Nanase's mom though, if her dislike of Adrian as a teacher made it so she never found out about him being an Elf until later (like around the time of the divorce maybe, or at least when Tedd was born and Adrian was named Tedd's Godfather).
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.
On 5/29/2020 at 3:46 PM, Scotty said:And now, another theory as to why Mama Kitsune would have a "I have no sister" response, and her not wanting Nanase to know what she knows. When we saw Noriko and Adrian in that flashback and Noriko's seen still scanning Tedd in case she missed something, Noriko mentioned that magic was always straightforward with her family, what if she got it in her head that, if Tedd might not end up being her successor, could her sister's daughter have the potential? Tedd and Nanase are about the same age (Nanase being a little older, but not by much apparently) if Mama Kitsune caught Noriko scanning Nanase one day, I'd imagine Mama Kitsune would go full on Mama Kodiak.
Sounds likely. Especially the bits about Noriko scanning Nanase and Mama Kitsune not liking that. Less sure about the successor part.
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21 minutes ago, mlooney said:27 minutes ago, hkmaly said:More likely, it was either something else than being 64bit, or Eve hit some of those bug.
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.
23 minutes ago, mlooney said:I might reload if and when I get a modern not a laptop Winbox.
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 ... -
16 hours ago, ijuin said:17 hours ago, hkmaly said: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.
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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:17 hours ago, hkmaly said:... this actually shows how GOOD the autopilot is.
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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:Yes, I agree, and would point out that this is less than scientific. You can look at it from "Where does the mass go/come from" or "If your mass remains the same, then your density changes; do you leave deeper footprints on the beach when you're smaller?" "Why isn't there a big nuclear flash?" "When you change size, do you have fewer/more brain cells? - if not, why isn't your head grotesquely the same size it was? - If so, why aren't you dumber when you're smaller, or confused by the lack of structure when you're larger." "For that matter, how does squirrel Grace remember how to change back, or even that she should?" "Does gender change go down to the genetic level? Where does the extra genetic material come from? Is it a legit extension into an X chromosome/redaction into a Y?"
I have to go with, 'put brain on hold, it isn't adding to the entertainment', to some degree. "We view the laws of physics more as polite suggestions."
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.)
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56 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:Yes, but there wouldn't be much issue going that way; you just flat out couldn't run 64 bit stuff; because, Wine Is Not an Emulator, so no support for 64 bit if you aren't already 64 bit (which would suck anyway).
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.
9 minutes ago, mlooney said:Eve has gone pure 64bit. I don't know for a fact that the current version of WINE don't support 64 bit only apps, but when it went 64bit, on the version of Ubuntu I was running at the time it stopped working. I haven't tried with the current all 64 bit load of Ubuntu and I'm not likely to try for a while.
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.
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5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:15 hours ago, hkmaly said:Yeah, that was ugly as well.
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.)
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:15 hours ago, hkmaly said:We already have word for this: vertebrate.
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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:15 hours ago, hkmaly said:On the other hand, the definition of fish might not be clear enough to survive, considering neither shark nor dolphin are fish.
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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:Sharks are fish by any definition I've ever read. They have a skeleton, made of cartilage rather than bone. By descent, and in terms of structures and function, they are fish.
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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:16 hours ago, hkmaly said: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.
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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:16 hours ago, hkmaly said: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.)
<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.
6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:16 hours ago, hkmaly said: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.
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.)
7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:16 hours ago, hkmaly said: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.
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.
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8 hours ago, mlooney said:9 hours ago, Scotty said:I think Justin would have been the barber even if Dan hadn't gotten to the point of fem!Justin in the main story yet, it's been long established that Justin likes playing with hair.
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.
5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:I am expecting a big dose of "Oh that was obvious" in the very near future
But I have no idea what that obvious thing will be
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.) -
14 hours ago, ijuin said:Time's not actually passing for anybody who isn't interacting with the player character or the plot-important NPCs, so they wouldn't notice.
They are paying rent. Time IS sort of passing for them.
8 hours ago, Scotty said:8 hours ago, mlooney said:Well, that too. Sort of goes to show that time passes when you aren't there.
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?
5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:What has our Plot-Vehicle Conductor been doing for the last n strips?
... 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.
58 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:7 hours ago, mlooney said:Yeah, they were adding that in just as they made it 64bit and I really haven't had a chance to try it again. If we get a 2nd covid-19 check, I may buy a computer to run it and DAZ-3D on. I've got a windows laptop but when I ran Eve on it it was very low res and slow, slower even than it was under WINE on Godzilla the butt warmer.
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.
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14 hours ago, ijuin said:Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss, by contrast, is a low-level manager in a large company. He specifically does NOT have enough importance to survive without the favor of those above him, so somebody must like him up there.
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.
9 hours ago, mlooney said:15 hours ago, hkmaly said:I know exactly how my boss is keeping his job. He OWNS the company.
The last company I worked for had a pointy haired owner.
Is the company still in business?
6 hours ago, mlooney said:7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:9 hours ago, mlooney said:I'm not going to play 20 questions on who it was.
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.
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2 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:13 hours ago, mlooney said:Something like that. I was just thinking that keeping your self together when you were smoke might take some mental energy.
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.
3 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:That would explain the chin scratching.
... this actually shows how GOOD the autopilot is.
4 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:I'd be curious to know how far the smoke analog goes. Can you flow through a screen door without opening it? We haven't seen the smoke form interact with anything. If it is actually like smoke in a physical sense, your body has to be recorded somewhere, and your actual mass has to be preserved.
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.
5 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:your body has to be recorded somewhere, and your actual mass has to be preserved.
When you're done your body mass stays close to what it was, if not the same; neither Camdin nor Jay looked emaciated.
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.
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On 5/28/2020 at 2:42 PM, Darth Fluffy said:On 5/28/2020 at 7:39 AM, hkmaly said: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?
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.
On 5/28/2020 at 8:08 PM, ChronosCat said:On 5/28/2020 at 6:44 AM, hkmaly said:Of course they are lumped with birds.
However, I didn't realized this made them no longer reptiles.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.
On 5/28/2020 at 8:42 PM, Darth Fluffy said:There's a bit of 'Pluto is not a planet'
Yeah, that was ugly as well.
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11 hours ago, Scotty said:Would be funny though if it turned out that all three "Heroes" used Rhoda's model.
Agree. Still, I don't consider it too likely unless it will be parodying something from existing game ...
10 hours ago, mlooney said:So, it might not be plot progress, but at least it's not fafing about with haircuts and what not.
This is progress of the meta plot.
10 hours ago, mlooney said:Also I'm some what surprised that the shadowy figure turns out to be one of the heros, not an antagonist to the whole thing.
Seems that she INSERTED herself as hero of magic. May still be antagonist on meta level.
7 hours ago, Scotty said:Yeah, but Lucy's also an amazon and unless the anti-spoiler veil hid this person's height as well as their breast size (which I guess could be possible), she'd be maybe as tall as Catalina.
This is the hero of Magic and we know what having high levels in Magic means to breast size, if Susan can have big boobs, I can see Diane having big boobs.
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.
2 hours ago, Scotty said:Pizza/Gossip/Smoke more or less just came into play, not really sure Dan would set her up as a "hero" before we've learned what her intentions are in canon.
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 ...
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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.
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On 5/29/2020 at 8:58 AM, mlooney said:On 5/29/2020 at 7:54 AM, ijuin said:The Pointy-Haired Boss is so incompetent that the only ways he could be keeping his job are either through sucking up to his boss, or nepotism/political connections. He's just not important enough in the company to keep his position without somehow benefiting those above him.
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.
Story Friday, May 8, 2020
in Comic Discussion
Posted
What I meant by "not that many".
... well, ok, maybe there are more hiding.
It was a triple reference to Eris, Eris and Eris.
I think Pluto will find more fitting punishment. Remember Sisyphus? Oh, wait, that was Zeus thinking that up.
I don't think T Rex would care about bird feeder.
I think even the neighbor kids would be too small for him to consider, although he might eat them if they got into way.
Yeah, spiders would be prime example of something often called bug despite being VERY different.
To "translate", we call Chondrichthyes false fish. Well, ok, mostly we call them fish, but it's supposed to be almost as big deal as calling Cetacea fish.
We mostly don't call them. Like, sure, there is "local" name for Cystostomata, but unlike the issue with sharks this is not likely to appear in normal conversation.
I fail to see what's there to win either. But I fail to see while celebrities boast about not being good at math in shool instead of being ashamed of it too.
It's not. Lot of people are watching it and makes fun of how stupid other people are. Like, unless it's something they mistaken for good idea
but that's not that common unless they are already stupid.
(Not TOO rare either, but not that common.)
Oh, and yes, lot of those videos are from US. It's normal as US is relatively big and with lot of people having access to internet, but it DOES have some influence on subconscious internal image of US population.
...
... damn. Quote stopped working again, I'm going for another post, sorry.