metadigital

I've just posted an except from a recent New Scientist article in another thread, which I shall copy, below.

Meh, Alexader The Great was buggering boys in the Aristotlean times! It was not only cool, it was mandatory. What about Achilles? Don't believe that silly Hollywood version of the myth; Patroclus wasn't his "cousin", he was his lover.

Correct. Revan would become a madarin (probably under an assumed idetity): a Private Secretary to the Executive Chancellor, or some such. This would enable maximum leverage in the critical decision making, whilst allowing for the discretion afforded by a career in the public service as opposed to life as a politician, and there is also no need for the tiresome necessity of winning elections ...

And then: so too, the world!

That argument could run and run and run and ... well, you get the idea. Sure, a third game can be made. K2 ended with a lot of vague generalisations about "True Sith" and "beyond the Outer Rim" and so forth, just like it began with a hazily defined Revan: what was the impact on K2 of the players' choices of Revan's particulars? (That's a rhetorical question, the answer is: none.) Just like Paramount never wrote the succeding Star Trek films, they were all written as if they were the last, from the first experimental (Star Trek: The Motion Picture[!]) until the tenth one. (Actually, I seem to recall after the fourth there was a decision made to make ten films in total, but until then, it was one at a time.)

You are a good citizen.

Indeedy. That is where the colloquial term originates from ...

I think we're in violent agreement; I can accept a one-time (at installation, typically) online verification without too much problem, like Valve did with Half-Life 2. I have made a topic on the NwN forum to this affect, but I fear that my lonely voice will not carry much weight.

No, it is your argument. You mistakenly inferred that there was no colour black, when in fact both Launch and I were merely stating that technically, there is no colour "black". Sure people refer to the colour black collloquially, this is demonstrably idiomatic. Similarly, technically, Nero is the Italian for black, but your argument would have us believe that the Italians say "black"!

I collect spores, molds, and fungus.

Spoken like someone who has never had to work in their life! Try standing up in cheap shoes for an eight, ten or fourteen hour shift and you'll soon change your tune. Comfortable shoes are pro-active orthop

I guess they suppose that, because it is only a few dollars, people will be more tolerant. Certainly opened my eyes, though.

This is a trailer for Huxley, a Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter from Webzen Games. Huxley takes place in a high-tech post-apocalyptic world promising to bring a new twist with this genre-defining Title.

"For all you Unreal Tournament fans out there, this is a must for you! Try it out right now!" (sic): Istagib: Source brings the fast-paced, adrenaline inducing and competitive game of instagib to the Half-Life 2 engine. It features not only graphical improvements, such as a shiny new weapon model and cool beam effects, but also the fun physics diversion of sending stray objects flying into the sky or at your enemies.

Yep, I tried both of them, and whilst they were quite professional, they were incomplete. (Witch's Wake actually stops dead and says "Thanks for playing, please wait for Part 2"!)

It's just annoying enough to be an active disincentive to reload games (which may have been an unintentional goal); certainly it has dissuaded me from replaying the premium modules that I have bought (regardless of their replayability): that and the fact that one of the modules was only "part one of several", meaning more purchases later to continue the (two-to-four hour) story ...

Black Loake size 8.5 brogues, because: all-stitched leather uppers leather soles the double-layer of leather (used for the brogue pattern) is excellent for water resistence, comfort (my other non-brogues have lost their shape), insulation from heat and cold, style: they are a smart, yet understated, classic statement of strength, symbolic immorigerous rectitude and functional efficacy that I wish to convey in a business setting [*]longevity: I have had some Loakes last many years, with just a re-sole and a re-heal every six months (and sometimes a re-lining behind the the ankle). [*]They make wide fittings, and I have extra wide feet.

Twelve ounces isn't a colour, but black is. I fail to see the difference between the two different meanings of pound and the two different meanings of black. Technically, black is a colour, as centuries of usage in formal english, artistry, and clothing will attest to. The fact that one particular field of science chooses a different definition of black does not make that definition the technical one. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Actually, there were precious few colours in historical usage, owing to a dearth of methods to create them. That is why such a fuss was made about lapis lazuli, which is mined from a small singlular area in present-day Afghanistan. You will find that there are precious few sources of "black" pigments in nature. For example, there have been ongoing efforts to research a "black" rose; recently there have been "black" tulips and a rose, but if you analyse these flowers you will see that they are darker hues of purples, etc. Nature doesn't have a lot of use for a non-colour, like black. Irrespective of historical chomatics, however, you are trying to insist that because there is a general meaning for the word black, that there is not a specific technical meaning for the word, as well. Which is patently nonsensical. Would you insist that a Mole of Gold is a small furry mammal, too? It's not the vulgar colloquial. It's a valid alternative meaning, I suppse. When I buy a pack of twelve colour felt-tip pens, the pack does not say "Eleven colour pens and one absence-of-colour pen". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> They don't tell you the make-up of the colours generally, do they? It is a specious and circular argument to say that in the common idiom black is a colour, because in common usage it is regarded as a colour!

It's not a barrel of monkeys with broadband, either.

When you reload a save game, the NwN engine spends about a minute connecting and verifying your game. Every time you reload a save game. So if you are scrolling through some old saves, not sure which one you want to reload, then you are in for a hair-tearing time of it ...

I downloaded those last night. First good fan made mode I've played. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The Aielund Series is rather good in my opinion. Though I admit that fact that it was the first module I played that had capes on armour might have coloured my views a little, I still think it was pretty damn enjoyable. I also liked the Way of the Open Hand. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Another brilliant aspect of the [http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=User.EntriesListing&id=377] Aielund Saga[/url] was arQon's rewriting of the magic spells of NwN, to more correctly conform to AD&D standards: EMS. EMS is an Enhanced Magic System for NWN, which fixes literally hundreds of bugs in the BW scripts, and also moves a lot of spells closer to PHB. It is the only complete system with correct behavior for Dispels, AOEs, SR, etc, and is also PW-friendly. This is a 'drop-in' HAK, with notes for builders who want to integrate it with their worlds, and works with SOU/HOTU/CEP though none of them are actually required. Thanks to Savant, author of the superb Aielund trilogy; and the admins and players of the Dreu Noctem PW; for their help with testing and balancing the system during its development. As of v1.02 (23 Dec 04) the zip contains two files: hak/EMS.hak docs/EMS_Changes.txt and should be expanded into your NWN dir with pathnames on. I think Adam Miller is very talented, too. His ShadowLords series was pretty good (and an interesting study in the learning process), whereas his [http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=modules.List&category_show_all=1]Dreamcatcher[/url] series was borderline excellent (especially the latter ones), even though I wasn't a big fan of Demon, and most everyone raves about that.

Yep, I have no problem with an online verification process; I have a big problem with slowing down gameplay by insisting on carrying out the verification every time one does something like loading a save game: a task that is ordinarily done many times in a gaming session. Half-Life 2 only delays the installation process while it decrypts every file with an online registration cypher (which make the installation take in the order of four hours, rather than one). After the initial installation, Half-Life 2 allows for infintite off-line play. This NwN premium module mechanism does not, and is therefore inferior.

No idea, but there was an indepth preview of both The Lost Coast and Aftermath in PC Gamer a couple of months ago, in which I read the above information that you have quoted.

I find this helps. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Classic. Don't let Groin of Dispepsia see it, though, or we'll all be treated to a diatribe on the death of civilisation under captilism, or some equally pointless nonsense ...

Ah, but twelve (imperial) ounces is not a colour, is it? You are deliberately and disingenuously conflating the meanings of two homonyms.