The Old Hack

Hrm. At the risk of starting another computer discussion, what if Magic kinda sorta works like an operating system or a programming language? The messenger himself made that comparison in his warning. If so, magic might consider fairies, fake fire elementals and the bulldog dragon to be mobile objects. (I found it hilarious when I learned that slang for a single monster in an MMO was a 'mob' or mobile object. A one-person mob strikes me as a bit small.) Each mobile object might then have a duration, durability in what it could withstand of damage and so forth. It might also have a desummoning condition like Susan's fairies going boom when she sends them away before they expire naturally. Don't put too much into this if you aren't interested or convinced, though -- this is just a brain fart of mine.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'USED TO BE', FOUL UNBELIEVER!!!!! (!)

*frantically pages through Necrotelicomnicon* ... ...er... does Discord count as an Elder God? *scratches head* Or maybe Q?

This does not have much to do with electronics, but this reminds me of an internet argument I was especially saddened by. It irritates me when people cherry pick from the Bible to justify their positions -- I may be a sorry excuse for a lapsed Christian, but I still respect many of the messages the Good Book has for us. I tried to get through to this person that I simply didn't find her attitude reconcilable with what Christ had said, and she replied, "The Bible is not for people like you." I didn't even get mad. It just saddened me so very much. I still cannot comprehend that attitude. And I hope I never will.

I once had the distinct displeasure of being in a chat where a troll fine specimen of Conservative manhood kept calling me a Liberal... f-word aimed at denigrating my sexual orientation. When sufficiently annoyed, I started to refer to him as a Commie Monarchist. Wonderfully, he took the bait and asked me what the nether regions I meant. I told him that since he came from the red part of the political spectrum, he was presumably a redcoat loyal to King George and a devoted communist. This annoyed him considerably. I admit I mainly did it because I was vastly amused by the inherent incompatibility between communism, monarchists and the US government. ETA: Yes, I know I have stated I will not normally post here. I was tired and didn't realise what thread I was posting in. My apologies.

Vorlonagent didn't say he couldn't, only that he couldn't do it without using energy to warp the spell.

I'm not quite sure I agree. My impression is that Catalina's plans are seldom that complicated -- it is just that their consequences have a tendency to very rapidly spin out of her control.

The Moderator: I can see poster histories but in this case I hardly needed to. An entire forum full of spam from a new poster. He got the boot at once.

Mph. Good enough. But I am keeping an eye on OK. Just so you know. *muttergrumblemutter*

*looks into old handwritten copy of Necrotelicomnicon, compares weather conditions with certain ancient prophecies, and glares suspiciously at mlooney* Have you or your household hardware been trying to summon elder gods again?

That was the Abalamahalamatandra part. The rest I just made up or snatched from elsewhere.

Possibly not but I felt it deserved an honourable mention, given that I had it happen to me so many times.

Many a time have I sat at the computer, quietly working, when one of my cats decided I was not paying attention enough to them and walked across my keyboard, leaving havoc on my screen and whacking my face with their tail. For added effect, sometimes the other followed the first one.

The Moderator: Thank you for the reports! I have dealt with the spambot. Hopefully this will not become a recurring problem. ~tOH.

"My full name is Alucitiarina Alamatara Agiltania Articimedea Abraxas-Abalamahalamatandra, but my friends call me Al."

Not good. I hope you feel better soon. Sympathies from my wife also; she frequently has to struggle with weather induced migraines or bodily pain.

See? I told you, nothing to worry about. And it sounds great!

Languages can result in funny things at times. 'corn' meant 'horn'. 'Licorn' meant 'the horn', referring to a winged, horned horse. This went into another language and became 'Alicorn', where the 'a' was another definite article, resulting in 'The the horn.' Which means that anyone who in English refers to a specific alicorn ends up saying "The the the horn."

Most of the time! But not always.

That reminds me of the time where my two cats got into one of their catfights (usually not very serious ones) and they stalked one another with their tails going HUGE. My then wife-to-be was rather shocked by it and exclaimed, "I've never seen them make bottle brush tails before!" And I replied, "They don't do it often! I'm gonna go grab some bottles that need brushing out!" My wife-to-be did not feel this was wise, and told me so. I agreed and we let the kitties have their wrestling match in peace. So to speak.

Some of the science fiction I've seen involving AIs often has it appear spontaneously from very large computer systems devised to operate in parallel. Good examples would be Skynet from the Terminator movies and Mycroft from Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. (Which last I highly recommend -- it is some of Heinlein's best work, I feel.)

To be fair... ahem... there are those who spend so much time bragging about the processing power of their rigs that they make me wonder if they are compensating for something. I have more than once seen people throw massive amounts of money at a monster hugely more powerful than what they really needed.

Gimme that. *grabs list from mlooney* *makes a note in list, involving execution methods devised by the Spanish Inquisition and Weber's Schulerites* *hands list back to mlooney*

It's not necessarily a totally bad approach. I wouldn't like to try to program AI on a VIC-20.

That depends on whether it is Heterodyne-built.