Bartimaeus

I've always wondered what exactly causes a program to freeze up in Windows. Like, you look at what it's doing, and it's still using CPU and RAM, so why isn't Windows receiving any updates from it? How can Windows not know what's going on so badly that it thinks the process should straight up be killed when it's actually working just fine? Clearly, a little better prioritization should be implemented so that the user doesn't prematurely kill the process...

Well, I apologize if you're not a bot...but...what the heck is this, then? This stuff would be hard to follow even if it were on topic...and the line-breaks appear to be totally random (one paragraph, you're using them very liberally and cutting every sentence in half for no apparent reason, while in another paragraph, you don't use them at all?), and the way you're pasting links everywhere makes it look like you're advertising. What's going on, man? The sentence structure isn't even very bad. If you read the sentences in isolation, it's pretty readable. When taking everything as a whole is where things seem to go wrong, because it's like an endless list of segues. I've moderated other forums before, and it really reminds me of some of the slightly more subtle spam I've seen over the years...but uh, I guess it's not.

I'm actually not one hundred percent sure if they are a bot, but jeeze Louise, they sure mostly write like one. Their posts are mostly total nonsense randomly stringed together that looks super bot-ish, but then there are a few things in it that make you think maybe it's not. This post is probably their worst so far, as it doesn't make any clear callbacks to previous posts, which their other posts actually did (which made me originally think they weren't a bot). Maybe they're a bot that has a little manual input or something - I'm not sure. Either way, the link spamming/advertising sure is annoying. (e): I don't know how to spell "Louise", apparently.

the bots appear to be evolving

...is it deliberate that there are an even number of options here, and therefore no "middle" option?

Why is Johnathan Frakes killing librarians for a TV show?

I remember the book and the movie both having a funny name for cars...I remember them pronouncing it in the movie like "roo-doo-doo", but I looked back at my copy of the book just now, and apparently, it was "hrududil". ...Well, that's not that far off of roodoodoo,

The worst example of a child "taking over" for one of their parents, though, I'd think would have to be Todd McCaffrey and the Pern series. His mother, Anne McCaffrey, wrote this fun little coming-of-age sci-fi book series, and he writes this weird...like metrosexual fan-fiction-esque subseries about a young teenage girl, taking place somewhere else in the timeline. It was really strange and, I have to say, kind of gross. I've read some of Christopher Tolkien's work, and I've read some of Brian Herbert's work, and I don't think either can be said to be as bad as Todd McCaffrey's.

I sadly have actually watched the entirety of this movie. I would prefer to keep repressing the memories, thanks.

Not at all. Someone will retain the rights, however, and no doubt someone will want to bring it back somewhere down the line, whether in writing or in film.

Will anyone take over after Christopher, I wonder? The bloke is in his 90s now, after all...

Yes, from my own guess, and based on what I'm reading in the foreword of the book, this is basically a reframing of the story as to separate it from the Simillarion, and to make it easier to follow. On a side-note, I just remembered that I don't like Christopher Tolkien's writing:

"New" J.R.R. Tolkien book: https://www.amazon.com/Beren-Lúthien-J-R-R-Tolkien-ebook/dp/B01MG2HOWD/ Article on it: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-40109396

I tried to find more info on the issue by searching for recent news about it, but failed pretty miserably.

When I last played BG2 about a year ago (or something like that), I discovered that a random Shadow Thief in Trademeet held the Gloves of Missile Snaring. I knew that they existed from mucking around in the files, but figured (without checking) that weren't actually present anywhere in the game. It's an odd location for a unique magical item, too, because the character is only there for one encounter under very specific (and limited/fleeting) circumstances and immediately disappears after the first time you talk to them (and they automatically talk to you the moment they see you), you can't pickpocket them for it, you can't obtain them from them via dialogue/quest, and there's no reason to fight or kill them. So...a pair of unique and useful gloves that the vast majority of players probably didn't even know ever existed and had no realistic possibility of obtaining without already knowing they were there. Strange.

In other news, Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris climate deal, making them one of three countries (Nicaragua and Syria being the others) to not be party to it.

Gotta get rid of the "&feature=youtu.be" tag at the end for it to automatically embed...and because you already posted it, you have to remove the bbcode in BBCode mode (or just remove it entirely and re-paste the link without the aforementioned tag) because the forums automatically hotlink it with the original link that you posted. See above. (e): I might as well take this opportunity to complain about the BBCode mode being broken again, because yes, it's still broken, and yes, the default non-BBCode mode is terrible, and so the current state of affairs is also terrible. It sure would be nice if it were fixed.

Probably only on one of their useless Extreme sockets, though...and $2000 on top of it...

I didn't know that, either. Huh.

Well, Veterans Day is really more honoring veterans, dead or alive, which is what I was getting at with my "not specifically" comment,

Not...specifically, but Veterans Day more or less covers it to the same effect. (e): Condolences, Tale.

That's not a real thing though. Just because a bunch of twitter wierdos tweet and some blog complains about it, doesn't make it an actual movement. This article is actually spreading the dumbness by bothering to react to it. Ceterum autem censeo Twitter esse delendam.

Games kinda sucked in general from that period. The advent of awful shallow open world settings and gameplay mechanics, the popularization of MMOs (and the industry seemingly revolving around them and trying to ape their awful mechanics and norms as much as possible), and it was still pretty early into 3D graphics (graphics not mattering insomuch as the effect it had upon game design and mechanics)... There were exceptions, of course, but it was a pretty bad time for gaming, especially with the tiny indie scene - nowadays, there's so much more going on everywhere.

It will differ from game system to game system, because sometimes a "10% increase" means adding 10% to your critical chance (so if your base chance was 5%, it would then be 15% - examples of this would be in Diablo, and as Azdeus just said, World of Warcraft, apparently), and sometimes it means to multiply your base chance (so 5% * 1.1 = 5.5%). Sometimes, games aren't totally clear about what they mean at first glance.

What kinds of mods are you looking for? Personally, I'd say Stratagems is my single most important mod for playing the BG series, which is a collection of small feature changes, but also mostly an AI mod...plus some additional challenges if you're interested in that.