alanschu

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are stories told entirely through the eyes of the protagonist. It's not the most explicit story, and all of the "behind the scenes" narrative that Gordon isn't directly a part of is implied with the actions of those around him, or gleaned from radio comm channels. It was really cool listening to the Combine reporting and communicating about my actions as I moved from outpost to outpost when approaching Nova Prospekt. I love both the games. And the only time I can remember being taken out of Gordon's eyes and he "jumps" somewhere in the game is when he was knocked out in the first game. There's zero breaks from Gordon's perspective outside of that (and it's not really a break from Gordon's perspective anyways, as he's unconscious). *Spoilers for Half-Life 1 ahead* I'm going a bit from memory since Half-Life's story started out with Gordon being a physicist analyzing a bizarre mineral sample. He put it in through a mass spectrometer, and it resulted in a resonance cascade that spawned creatures in from a mysterious planet named Xen. Gordon is one of the few survivors not seriously injured, and is suggested by the science team outside to get to the surface and call for help. Unfortunately, upon reaching the surface, it seems that the marines called in for help aren't there to help at all, but rather make sure that everyone stays quiet...permanently. With this hiccup, Gordon must think fast and ends up diving back into Black Mesa (through the air ducts to the surface as a helicopter strafe fires hims and drops marines. Shortly after getting out of the air vents, Gordon stumbles upon another survivor. He suggests that you get in contact with the Lambda Science team. The next few levels is an adventure to get to that science team. The first up is the blast pit. IIRC, you are told that there's a way through in tunnels under the rocket (or not...this would probably be the weakest part of the trip to Lambda). In any case, there's a three tentacled beast that's blocking your path (and one of the few times I was tense because I was so scared I would make a noice and get instagibbed). After test firing the rocket (by getting the power, fuel, and oxygen lines restored) and clearing out the monster, you continue your quest to Lambda. After taking the tunnel shortcut under the blast rocket, you come up to a rail line (and a big baddie fighting some marines). Unfortunately, the power isn't running so there's no way the tram can get moving. Naturally, Gordon will need to restore the power. After getting the power online, Gordon can make way through the rail system on his way to the Lambda team. IIRC you are asked to launch a rocket. I think a scientist needs it up and will get you access to Lambda if you can help him out (though I'm not too sure about this part). Hop back onto the train, and continue heading to Lambda. But dammit, the track has been sabotaged, and Gordon finds himself falling down a hole. Gordon finds himself in a facilities with a high powered crossbow inside a cage suspended above water. I don't really remember Apprehension too much, except that once Gordon gets himself back on track, he's ambushed and knocked out. Still woozy, Gordon wakes up in a strange room with boxes. Suddenly, two walls start closing in. Holy crap! He's in a trash compactor (which makes sense, because Gordon did hear one of the marines dragging him comment about how when they were done with him, they wasn't going to be any body). Quickly hopping out of the boxes, he finds himself without any weapons, with no idea where he is. The best bet he has, is to try to get to the Lambda team since they may have an idea of what to do. Once he's out of the processing plant, he still needs to figure out how to get to Lambda from where he is. Gordon seems to be in a test facility of some sort, and many of the Xen creatures are locked up in cells (some all too willing to get out of those cells too!). On the plus side, members of the Lambda team (I think they are some of the Lambda team...or maybe other scientists that will point you to Lambda. I know you're not at the Lambda facility, as that's on the Lambda Core level) are here! They'll tell you what you need to do. Unfortunately, You'll need to continue to the Lambda facility. Just outside is a dam (and some fun new targets to try out your new Tau Cannon with, including a Helicopter). Since the door at the end of the dam is sealed off, the only other place that isn't going back is to go through the dam (watch out for the bull squid!). The next level is Surface Tension, which is essentially a live combat zone with plenty of Xen vs Marine vs Gordon action (one of my favourite levels as a result). The level has you avoiding snipers, sneaking through a building filled to the brim with laser trip bombs (don't trip one, or the whole building goes up in smoke). Plenty of action in this level. In terms of story it's additional obstacles Gordon has to overcome on his way to Lambda. After this level, and many marine casualties, Gordon overhears on the radio for the Marines to "forget about freeman." It's too hot of an area right now (and a Big Blue is running around terrorizing things), so the solution is to air strike the crap out of the place while tactically withdrawing. (but not before you get to have some fun airstriking places (and Big Blue) yourself. Gordon is now close to Lambda Facility, but the heavy airstriking has caused Gordon to take a small detour underground. AFter dispatching some foes (human and alien alike), Gordon finds himself in the Lambda research facility. Power's out though, and to activate the Lambda Core he'll need to power things up. He also gets the good ol' Gluon gun in this area, by some scientist that cannot bring himself to kill. In the Lambda Core level, Gordon is first introduced to the teleportation balls. There's some goofy parts where you jump through them and go through the core. Too much jumping and didn't care much for them. Thank goodness for quick save. Finally, you talk with a scientist who has discovered a way to create a portal to Xen, where you have shown you're capable enough to deal with the menace head on. Since it wouldn't be much of a game if you called it quits now, you go on through. Xen. Ah Xen. Xen sucked. It was still ok, but a huge step down from the rest of the game. The best part of Xen was the ending. Not only did it mean no more Xen, but it also introduced you to GMan head on (who I think only got his name because an MP model with his skin was called GMan). First off, he thanks you (WTF?). By clearing out Nihalth (or whatever the heck the name of the big boss is), you made it easier for the Armed forces to move into Xen and take it over. The whole time you were essentially a pawn, with the GMan checking up on your progress from time to time (as you can see him around the entire game). In a bizarre twist, he offers you a job, which you can either accept, or he can put us in a battle against overwhelming odds if we prefer (the first time I played this, I figured that the ending was intentionally anticlimactic, as I didn't take him up on his offer). I later realized that the intended ending was to take up his offer and get "employed" by whomever the GMan's employer was. It was a pretty cool ending that I definitely was not expecting. EDIT: And I loved both NOLF games. The code phrases for your contacts in the first one were fantastic. Such a tongue in cheek games. Easily among my favourite games, let alone FPS games.

I've seen posters for NWN that have credits going to Feargus, Black Isle, and Interplay. There was some friction between Bioware and Interplay.

No. My mail bax is downstairs beside all the other mail boxes.

Wow, a game that is linear. There's a shocker. Especially an FPS. Considering most RPGs (teh "kings" of non-linearity) are linear, this really shouldn't surprise you.

I'm 99.9% sure one was Jefferson.

LOL

Not sure where I could put it, given I live in an apartment building. With my luck someone would just see it and take it. No windows or anything to my front door, aside from the peephole.

Nope. Not that I know of anyways. That's what makes me concerned it wasn't just random. But the only people I associate with frequently that know where I live are my friends and family. And not just "casual" friends, but friends that I've been friends with for a decade and go on trips to the Dominican Republic with and whatnot. Mystary!

Welcome to the club In any case, I took a small break from Half-Life 2 (just got to Nova Prospekt) to play through the new Hitman: Blood Money demo. Neat game. I agree that it's a bit too tutorialish to get the full feeling of how the game will actually play. But it was fun. Looks crazy nice!

In other news, if the Ozone hole goes away, wouldn't that result in a decrease of UV radiation and as a result, a decrease in the amount of energy absorbed?

Hahaha. Go away, this is actually an interesting discussion

At the same time then, wouldn't it have an even lesser impact on the state of our planet as it doesn't emit radiation at a fast enough rate? (since taks seemed to be indicating that sources of energy outside of our sun may be significant contributors). I was referring to any benefit of having additional clouds in the sky, and resulting in an increase in light reflection away from the planet from the Sun. While increased clouds may reduce the energy from the sun, the increase in water vapour required for an increase in cloud coverage would also trap energy in, as water vapour contributes to the greenhouse effect. The energy loss would be more pronounced if it was above the CO2, since energy radiated from clouds towards space would not get reabsorbed by the CO2 (assuming it radiates in the low infrared). Absolutely. You had already mentioned it so I decided to only comment on conduction, which at first glance seems insignificant given the nature of convection. No argument here. I don't recall temperature being dependant on volume though, but rather on the average kinetic energy of the particles. I definitely agree that you measure the gas as whole (since it's an average), but as a whole of its matter (which excludes the void between molecules). naturally being the equation for kinetic energy. Wiki had an interesting discussion about it here.

Surely you could find a different mirror that isn't as slow.

Err, I posted the wrong link. Which would probably confuse people because my previous quote was from a different link. Try this We do? I did not know that we could measure the empty spaces between particles, as I thought temperature was a measurement of the kinetic energy of particles. http://www.answers.com/topic/temperature I don't understand how you could measure the energy/heat/temperature of a void. Me too. And apparently I still screw up as I post the wrong links. EDIT: Going home now, so I'll be a while before next post.

That would make sense. I'm not sure why this was brought up though. The cloud part was a reference to the fact the idea that warmer temperatures would cause an increase in water vapour (and hence clouds), which would help to reflect sunlight. I suspect that if more clouds occurred, the amount of energy reflected would account for more than 30% (since most energy from the sun is in the visible spectrum, and given that clouds are white, they are reflecting in the entire visible spectrum). Though at the same time, water vapour is also a greenhouse gas so any bonus here would probably be nullified. Interesting points about the clouds being emitters as well. Any idea what spectrum they would emit at, and what the density the particles of a cloud is compared to CO2? They obviously don't emit very well in the visible spectrum (since poor absorbers are poor emitters, and clouds reflect visible light quite well). Though if the CO2 is still above the clouds, does this provide any real benefit? At the same time, energy from the cloud formation and whatnot will still be transferred via conduction to other air molecules, though IIRC conduction among gases isn't as common. Is this cause or effect though? A runaway greenhouse is supposed to result in extreme increases of CO2 into the atmosphere. If we're before and they are after, it would make sense that our atmosphere would be less dense. It isn't composed of nearly as much CO2. What would happen to our atmosphere if a runaway greenhouse did occur?

Yup yup. Well, I have the options selected, and can not see aliasing, while it still looks like HDR quality. So I'm assuming it's working.

I see your italicized name down there....hurry up

Agreed. I love HDR. Lost coast was beautiful

It seems as though, according to a quick look around through the internets and my old astronomy textbook, heat = energy. Temperature = kinetic energy, but temperature != total energy. That link I posted indicated that heat = kinetic energy + potenetial energy = total energy. Empty space wouldn't contribute to an average temperature rating, since there's nothing to hold the energy.

If the average temperature is 2.73 Kelvin though, and there's an immeasurably large number of stars that have fusion reactions in them that range in Billions of Kelvin, means that there's a whole lot of stuff out there that doesn't have much energy at all. And since they don't have enough heat/energy, the bulk of their EM radition will be with really long wavelength. An important thing to consider is that clouds would also prevent additional energy from the sun as well. White clouds are fantastic reflectors for visible light obviously. I actually did comment in post 104 that energy absorbed in the atmosphere would also be radiated into space as well. I guess the big thing is that currently some of it seems to get past (as we only have 75% effectiveness), which means of those photons, 100% of the energy is gonzo. Now, if none of it escapes, at the very least we should be able to conclude that not all of it is gone. I know has air temperature rises, the amount of water vapour that can be absorbed in the air increases. Is cloud formation a factor of absolute quantity of water vapour in the air, or is it also a factor of what percentage of the air has water vapour? How else does the planet liberate heat outside of EM radiation? I'm not so sure it really is that absurd either. It would help make sense of the runaway greenhouse on Venus, a planet which is significantly hotter than Mercury (so it's not just distance to the Sun). I agree. The discussion more evolved into discussing the plausibility of whether or not a runaway greenhouse could occur.

But if you have an ATI card, you can still do both :D I prefer HDR myself, and haven't noticed any incidents where things are so small that flickering becomes an issue (the only places where I really notice that is in a game like a flight sim).

Interesting: http://physics.indiana.edu/~brabson/p510/s...vesurfaces.html It's been a while since I took my astronomy and physics courses, so I've had to check on some things to make sure I'm not remembering something wrong or making other mistakes When I mentioned 2.73 Kelvin, that is a temperature rating. But an exceptionally cold one. I can't imagine something having too much potential energy that close to absolute zero, so I suspect a lot of the particles not relating to stars and whatnot do not have much energy (heat) at all. I was going to say heat is energy in my previous post, but I wasn't sure I was correct in that statement so I said heat is a type of energy (which ironically is wrong statement). I was equating heat with temperature (a common mistake). I still contend that something that has an average temperature of 2.73 doesn't have that much heat/energy. Temperature is related to kinetic energy (double the kinetic energy and you double the measurement on the Kelvin scale). I should have known better after thinking a bit about things like the Specific Heat Capacity and whatnot :"> Considering the temperature of the fusion reactions of stars is in the billions of Kelvin, and the fact that no matter how small of a sample we look at in space with Hubble for any type of time exposure, we see clusters of galaxies (which naturally are made up of a massive amount of stars, which have fusion reactions in them otherwise they wouldn't by warm enough to emit the visible light for us to see on the HST), leads me to believe that there's a whole heck of a lot of particles out there that don't have much energy in them at all. Though it does have to do with entropy and whatnot, which wasn't covered in too much detail in my physics and astronomy courses.

Heat is a type of energy. What other energy were you referring to? Mechanical Energy? Sound energy? And heat is directly correlated with the EM radioactive properties of matter. It is a minimal player, and according to most astronomers, an insignificant player. It does not, and will not, play a role in affecting the temperature of our planet. What? And, as I've stated before, the certain wavelengths are the wavelengths that the Earth radiates energy as a block body emitter. Yes. And it's reradiated in the low infrared, which is a frequency that CO2 affects. I know, at the low infrared. Which is what the Earth radiates most of its energy at. A few degrees warmer will not result in a significant change in the wavelength emission of the planet, so energy will still be radiated at the level that CO2 affects.

It's uncommon enough though that it's not usually an issue. As an aside, one thing I like about ATI was when my motherboard didn't have a powerful enough AGP slot (though I didn't realize it at the time), and I figured my problems were related to my video card. When I got my card back from ATI, they mentioned that their tests showed nothing wrong with the card I gave them, but to be on the safe side they shipped me a new one anyways. They also suggested other things too look at (such as the AGP slot) if the problem persists. I remember my Dad telling me about a story how when he worked with Digital in the late 70s, and he was servicing a computer at one of the local Oil Refineries. He was convinced of what the problem was an ordered the replacement part. When he replaced it, the problem persisted. So he was very confused. So he started testing other things and couldn't figure out what the other part was. On a hunch, he tried a third part, and it turns out through bad luck, he had two components that were both faulty and created the same error. Apparently it was quite expensive as it meant oil wasn't being refined, and the part itself wasn't particularly cheap :D

Well, current astronomy theory has the collective universe having an average temperature of 2.73 Kelvin. So it's not exactly toasty warm. Convection and Conduction are pretty much moot as a result. And what do you mean by radiation? We can already detect radiation coming in every direction (considering radiation is emitted along the Electromagnetic Spectrum). Outside of our sun, the closest blackbody emitter is Proxima Centauri, at the cool distance of about 4.2 light years away. Given the intensity of light is measure is signficantly influenced by the distance (I = X * 1/r^2), this means it's not affecting us too much. We receive more EM radiation from the Sun's energy reflecting off of Jupiter than we do from the nearest star. The energy emitted in the form of radiation is, according to the Stefan-Boltzman law, is emitted in the low infrared. Which happens to also be the range of EM radiation that is blocked and absorbed by CO2. I'm well aware of shifts in wavelength for light, since the energy that comes in is not part of the low infrared. And yes, energy is reflected back into space, but the peak of the EM spectrum that the Sun emits energy at is in the visible spectrum. Which is not reflected by our atmosphere (otherwise we wouldn't see it). Ultraviolet light is also not reflected by our atmosphere). This energy heats the Earth, which as a black body emitter, radiates its own energy at a certain length (it's also the only way energy can leave Earth, since convection and conduction require matter, and there's not much in space) As much as you were suggesting that 75% was close enough to the maximum that there won't be a significant increase. And I'm not saying that this is a concern now, and I never said that there was a wall now. But you were saying that even at 100% it was insignificant. At 100%, very little of the energy radiated from the planet can get past the atmosphere. It will either get absorbed, or reflected back. The problem with the absorbed stuff is not only does it reemit EM radiation (which might not be bad thing, as it radiates out into space...though it also radiates back down to Earth). However, the energy absorbed by CO2 can also warm things up through convection and conduction, transfer its energy in that way. The stuff that the planet emits and gets reflected back will get absorbed by something else, which will raise its energy level. This will increase conduction/convection temperature changes, as well as Black Body Emitter EM radiation changes. Since this raditation will, on the whole, be reabsorbed by the planet itself (some will be reflected as well, but since it can't escape the atmosphere and it's not going to bounce around forever, it will be absorbed by something), it will warm the planet, which will result in evaporating water, reducing CO2 sinks and increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The concern is that if CO2 concentrations increase (since they're not at 100%), less and less energy will be able to escape. In order to balance itself, the planet will have to warm up (since the energy isn't escaping and will be reabsorbed...unless you think that trapping energy will somehow cool the planet) to a temperature where enough of its energy will be emitted above the low infrared (since hotter black body emitters have shorter wavelength radiation) in order to reach an equilibrium between the Sun's radiation and our planet's ability to regulate its temperature.