Andrew Turner's page

I don't think it would be a boring RPG; I think it'd be a lot like Rogue Trader. The game wouldn't limit you to Arrakis; there's an entire Imperium out there to explore.

Andrew, which app do you use for all that? Pages?

I use the iWork suite, the standard Notes app, and Penultimate for sketches. They all allow me to email, wifi, straight from the app. Those five apps, (plus iCal, Mail, and Safari, of course), are the most used on my iPad.

...For me, I'm looking for a multi-functional device obviously. My wife will use it differently than I do, as will my son. And use will be different in the car versus the house (I won't be using it at work). Being generally expandable versus "throw away" consumer electronics is important too...

Is that due to the nature of your work?

I'm in the military, which is 99% Microsoft. Nonetheless, I've managed to use my iPad in virtually every situation, and have even delivered desk side briefings from it. I use it to take notes at meetings, draw concept sketches I can then email out during a meeting (saving an amazing amount of time because it allows my staff to work on output from a meeting before the meeting even ends).

The other day I finished an Operational Needs Statement (a type of letter asking for stuff) during the meeting, emailed it out, received a response and signature in the form of a PDF, showed it all to the boss before the end of the conference. Instead of trying this on a laptop (and government laptops are more trouble to carry away from a desk than they're worth; and with about two hours of battery life, that means carrying all the associated junk in the laptop bag), I did it all on an iPad, unobtrusively, with no click-clack of a keyboard, and no screen hiding me from everyone else at the table.

As to expandability, I think you have to ask what you want to expand and why. If expandability means changing out processors and adding USB 3, or new graphics chips and an HDMI port, then I would ask that you consider the idea of the result of those types of physical expansions and changes realized as software and applications. If you want a word document to open faster, you may not need a different processor, just a different way in which the application activates and operates--which may be realized via software. If you want to add a faster way to immediately connect with and download or upload information, so you might want to add a USB 3 port, that same function may be realized as a new application which utilizes wifi and packaged data bursts allowing you to transfer files just as fast or faster, but without a physical connection.

Buckingicehole wrote:

Also, CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth, graphics could use a touch up and the voice overs definitely need work.

I just remembered the hotel chase and my teeth automatically started to grind with rage.

Excellent atmosphere though.

I even tried playing this again over the holidays, but still couldn't get past escaping the hotel.

thenorthman wrote:

I can see the keyboard being plugged in but why a mouse? (Of course I prefer a Bluetooth keyboard which I can use with the iPad.)

Sean

Because I can then stand the thing up like a monitor and use it more like a traditional PC...

I could see getting Bluetooth accessories at some point for it (Adam does support it), but getting back around to my cheapskate ways (I don't have cable/satellite, drive an old beat-up Ford F-150, and do all my own home repair/remodeling, etc.), I've already got several USB keyboards and mice that work just fine.

Here's something really weird I've noticed in myself:

If I use my iPad for most of the day, then sit down at a desktop or laptop in the evening, I find myself constantly reaching forward to touch the screen... seriously.

I would say that a game world that runs itself based on consistent rules is otherwise know as physics, and wouldn't likely be confused with a deity.

Naturally, when I wrote 'fear of death, I was speaking toward creative, imaginative, philosophizing humans, not instinct-driven animals.

Nonetheless, I know that rabbits have religion; I read it in that Adams novel, praise Shadrach...

I'd love to play an updated version of The Thing from Vivendi.

This game came to Xbox and the PC way back in the Long-Long-Ago of 2002. It's still the second best and most engaging video game I've ever played (FO3 is first, of course). Sadly, the Xbox 360 is unable to play it :-(

What if religion is merely man's way of coping with the inevitability of death?

It's not entirely unfeasible that medical science will, in the not too distant future, tame the telomere. Genetic therapy combined with a collection of nano machines could very well render the human species virtually immortal. Imagine nano machines so sophisticated that they could repair almost any injury, almost instantly. Imagine a Nancy Kress scenario where alterations to the human genome result in our ability to subsist from the very air, with no need to eat or drink.

Would we still have religion? Would we still, honestly, believe in God? With no fear of death; with guaranteed immortality, would we need, primally, any higher power?

I'm not sure I'd call this a case of censorship, either. The problem is that it's not a sanitized, abridged Reader's Digest version, or a 19 page children's book you'll find in the Bargain Books aisle next to the Winnie-the-Pooh reading stage at B&N. This is a full-up edition of the novel that has been changed to meet the supposed mores of the current reading public, even if it's only changing a single word (a couple hundred times).

For me, it's not the word itself (which I find deplorable, with my 21st century sensibilities; and confusing, since it's currently used positively, negatively and neutrally by the very ethnic group which it derogates...), it's the idea of deliberately altering another's art because its present state makes people uncomfortable. Most importantly, it's the precedent it sets.

My examples using the Bible were less than awesome, but the point is still valid, and I think most readers here got it; I could have used a made-up book and the idea would remain the same.

All Butcher's novels are available as ebooks.

I assure you, n%@##! was just as offensive in the 19th century as it is now, its place in legal documents of the time notwithstanding.

I think it's pretty universally pejorative today, but I'm not so sure that was the case prior to 1900.

Err... you do realize that the Bible has been translated and revised numerous times throughout history, yes? Hint: If you don't read Hebrew, ancient Greek, or Aramaic, you probably haven't read the original version. ;)

L-

Of course, all of us are talking tongue-in-cheek, and Paizonians as a whole are a pretty educated audience.

With regard to the Bible, we're specifically trying to point out that if it's OK to revise Mark Twain to remove 'N%+$~~', then it's OK to revise the Bible to remove a term like, say, 'homosexual'.

In the same way that 'N$@#@%' was not necessarily offensive in the 19th century (in fact, it was used in legal documents), but is currently offensive--no matter the tone or context, at least when spoken by a caucasian--, 'homosexual' may soon become a term which offends enough people that it gets referred to as the 'H-word'... (and maybe, in the not-too-distant future, Paizo's anti-profanity software with turn 'homosexual into 'H+#8!23?w$'...)

And if it's OK to change a word because it causes emotional stress, then why not an entire scene...why not the entire story? Or, say, we just chuck the whole thing down the Memory Hole and be done with it.

Happily waiting for my Adam from Notion Ink.

Cheaper, faster, more powerful than an iPad and has a duel screen for indoor and outdoor use.

A demo of the Adam

This device is going to be awesome!

The Samsung Galaxy tablet is very popular over here right now; you even see it in all the corporate-funded soaps and dramas. I notice on the train, Americans are usually the only ones I see with iPads, but the Galaxy is everywhere.

On another note, Please consider not using that alias again. If it's mean to be funny, the joke's died of old age long ago. It's borderline misrepresentation.

No, it's parody-- absolutely no reasonable way anyone should think I'm the real Steve Jobs, since I use a white tiger to parody the snow leopard, everything the alias 'says' is ala SNL, and last but not least, all you have to do is hover over the alias and it reads 'alias of Andrew Turner'...

Andrew Turner wrote:

Pretty amazing photos, sadly I thought of the Lone Wanderer and how many locations would be great for a Fallout movie...

BTW, what kind of Librarian would leave all those books behind and in such disarray!?! Libraries all over the US have programs to accept books from libraries-in-closing, and the Feds even have a system for redistributing funded library materials across the US to other funded facilities.

This blog talks about how some of the library books and other resources fell through the cracks (often despite employees' offers to volunteer their help).

Also upsetting in the slideshow is the photo of the pile of abandoned evidence in a police station, consistent with this report of someone finding abandoned student records, including psychological records, in abandoned schools.

The police photos looked a bit placed; I assumed the photographer arrayed them.

Pretty amazing photos, sadly I thought of the Lone Wanderer and how many locations would be great for a Fallout movie...

BTW, what kind of Librarian would leave all those books behind and in such disarray!?! Libraries all over the US have programs to accept books from libraries-in-closing, and the Feds even have a system for redistributing funded library materials across the US to other funded facilities.

HPL absolutely doesn't need a PS book, but there are some neglected Mythos Circle Gentlemen who do!

While the Hounds have seen their signature story published in several small press books lately (as in, the last few years), there's still been no reprint of the classic, original collection The Hounds of Tindalos by F.B. Long...

Bob Price's newish collection, The Tindalos Cycle, collects some great Long fiction, but doesn't include any of the stories from the original THoT collection except the signature tale.

Plus, Eric, all Long's fiction is out-of-copyright...

Notwithstanding the larger US audience, who seem to have completely overlooked this story, the British audience has helped establish the ebook version in the top 100 Paid Books over at Amazon.uk.

Great comments, Moff and Samnell!

As I understand it, Christ is rather specific in the New Testament with regard to Heaven and the afterlife--without looking any of this up, I believe it goes something like this: your reward in Heaven is holistic reunification with God including the eternal direct worship of Him in His presence.

When Christ answers the question of being reunited with one's wife (and the specific question was in effect, 'will I be married in Heaven, and will it be to my first wife or the fourth one...?'), His answer is that you are beyond such mundane concepts in Heaven; that your sole focus is glorification to God; that you would not, in fact, even recognize your former earthly spouse (to whom, ultimately, you were only married in order to produce more faithful worshippers...apparently).

There's connection here between this concept of Heaven and the idea of worshiping God without the benefit of iconography, which many Christian sects interpret as strictly disallowing any representations beyond a simple cross. Both are almost too ultimately intellectual for the average person to accept...or understand.

Essentially, the anti-image rule ultimately requires the worshippers to focus prayer and intent on the concept of God itself, which I akin to doing higher math with no paper and no Greek. Likewise, the Heaven-as-a-higher-state-of-consciousness concept, where one simply continues to worship, but now in the direct Presence, I feel neglects to remember that most people can really only imagine something better as, well, something better. If life is full of cold weather and rain, dirt floors and three day old soup with mouldy bread, then Heaven, rather than a place where such things have absolutely no meaning, must be a warm, dry and sunny temperate park with picnics, oven-fresh French loaves and bisque...

And don't forget, Christianity doesn't, apparently, allow for multiple go-rounds to get it right...no coming back as a mosquito in order to help teach you a lesson and motivate you closer to a higher understanding.

Changed your avatar?

I and Charlie Bell were getting each other's mail, so to speak. Plus, I've been the Bald Butler for as long as I can remember. DM is my beat-a-dead-horse alias, but my AT avatar is Cthuluesq now, at least for a while...

On topic, if GW was truly universalist and as my friend alludes, more Greco-Roman in beliefs than Judaeo-Christian, it begs the question was his concept of Heaven 'right' or 'wrong'?

As I've mentioned in previous posts, most Christians have a Greek concept of the Afterlife and simply don't realize it--like meeting and recognizing loved-ones in Heaven; like relaxing and enjoying oneself in Heaven; eternal dinner parties and long-walks on celestial beaches with one's spouse and Golden Retriever; actually going to Heaven immediately after dying...

I, myself, if I truly believe in Heaven (and I'm not entirely sure I do), have often thought wistfully of it as a strange amalgam of some book-lined Victorian gentleman's study and a Gothic manor, yet rife with the scents of freshly-brewed coffee and a crackling fire in the hearth, a glorious New England autumn visible outside the blown-glass paned windows... but I digress.

Is my picture of the Afterlife 'wrong', or simply different? I'd answer myself -- If it's different, that's OK, but it's not a Christian Heaven. From a Christian (fundamental, literalist) POV, my picture is flat-out wrong, and decidedly 'pagan'...

Having the winner 'portray' their character doesn't mean they need any acting ability at all. In fact, I'd be surprised if there is very much for the winner to do at all except get dressed up and stand where told. If there's dialogue, voiceovers can fix the worst of it.

Just like most of us are still listening to the same music we loved in high school, 20 years ago, parents can't help but think of us as little kids still running round underfoot, and they gift us like we're still those little kids. Once you have kids, it's easier to understand.

Friends who know us, and I mean really know our tastes, are often limited by two things: we tend to buy for ourselves the things we really like; and the things we like but can't afford, they can't afford, either.

Kids, especially the young ones, usually do a pretty good job of buying us that one thing we want but won't buy for ourselves; we probably don't have anywhere to put it, but here's a case of the thought-cliche being true. Those World's Greatest mugs tend to be bought by someone else on behalf of the kids, so blame likely goes to the spouse on that one...

The spouse who buys you that Warhammer Deathwatch Collectors Personalized $300 rules book is a rare bird, indeed--with all respect, if she knows what that is, you've got a special mate! So don't hold it against her when you get a watch or a bottle of cologne instead--you probably aren't very good at combing the internet for this year's Gucci and Burburry Special Edition Handbags yourself.

Lastly, Party Gifts are almost always throw-aways: how many of us really wanted to attend the office Xmas party anyway? Just look around... I bet everyone is glancing at the clock.

Katie Goldman--The Coolest Geek in the Universe!

I'm wearing my Mandalorian signet ring tomorrow.

What will you wear?

Abnett is my favorite 40K author; he's never failed to deliver a story.

I'm most fond of authors who tell stories with characters rather than events, something I think is more than difficult in the event-driven 40K universe. Abnett manages to do this quite well, creating characters that carry the story because the story is about them and their reactions, not the battles or events ( which sums up most combat-gothic-neo-honor Space Marine novels).

Ultimately, I remember well the exploits and fame and infamy of Ravenor in his Chris Pike chair, but I have to pause from this post and think hard to remember the name of... Uriel Ventris...? the Ultramarine extraordinaire of Courage and Honour... just my opinions.

The Burning City by Niven and Pournell

Sounds like what I remember from this novel some 10 years ago.

The Worst DM Ever...

5...

...The fear I have is that we'll see the obvious a%@%**@s die, but that the nice popular characters live even if they reach the point in the novels where they would have been killed instead an obvious a%@%**@ is there to take their place and die instead. While the story could still be effective, overuse of obvious a%@%**@s to die instead of the nice nice characters (like the sisters) will take away from the story IMO...

OFF TOPIC:

This was just about the only redeeming quality of the film Hostel. In 99% of horror films, the sweet-innocent lives and the a&#!+&!, morally-deficient die early and gruesomely; and that's all nice for allegory and commentary and all that.

In Hostel (and in the Warhammer novels, from a literary point of view), the innocent ones die first because of the wonderfully-realistic combination of their own naivete and the devious run-faster-than-the-fat-guy-so-the-bear-eats-him mentality of their less than honorable friends. In Hostel, the last man standing is the one who would have died first, traditionally.

I'm happy if TWD follows this darker, more realistic bent.

Just watched this last night--having not paid much attention to the Nick series, I realize I may have an advantage.

I liked the movie, and my oldest enjoyed it enough that we saw it again this afternoon (AAFES theatre second run). In fact, I went ahead and preordered the Blu Ray; so I don't know or understand what everyone here, and at Amazon and Rotten Tomatoes are talking about...

Maybe I'm losing my discernment... :-(

I made my Will save and did not watch it, so could you articulate what was bad about it? Or was it like a made for Syfy movie that is just so bad that the San drain made it impossible to describe it in words?

...yet, we're helpless to change the channel...

If they do a Broken Steel type DLC, it'll depend on which ending they decide is the canon ending. For Fallout 4 they're going to have to decide who is actually in charge of the Mojave but, until then, I kind of hope any DLC they come up with for New Vegas skirts the issue. I'd like something similar to The Pitt and Point Lookout where you visit a nearby region via a train tunnel or an old highway. Maybe you could find a working Highwayman and use it to "drive" to the new location.

Michael Dorn also voiced Marcus in FO2. My favorite from this cast was probably Dave Foley as Yes Man.

I started my pacifist character today, and I'm already in Novac after about two hours of play. It's amazing how fast you can get through the game when you spend most of your time fleeing in terror.

Are you totally nonviolent, or are you killing geckos and bloatflies, et al.?

Focus on something else exclusively.

Agreed! This works without fail! I would say write the bits that you're most excited about and save the hard stuff for last... Unfortunately, that's why I have lots of middles and too few of all the rest.

I see this book is much loved by the Paizo masses...

How is this newest Salvatore novel? Is it worth checking out?

This is generally regarded as the first post.

Awesome! Sadly, poor Njorgard only posted 4 times!

So, what was the very first post? What was the first thread?

Apparently, either SF kids are employed and buying their own meals, or parents are not responsible enough to be parents without the City Council's help.

McDonald's Happy Meals May Soon Be Banned in SF

Interestingly, the hamburger Happy Meal is 590 Calories, which for the math-challenged is 10 calories under the 600 calorie limit. The entire meal contains no trans fats, in compliance with the less than 35% SF ordinance stipulation. Finally, while a half-cup of fruit and 3/4 cup of veggies is not standard in a Happy Meal (and carrots and apple slices do not a Happy Meal make, IMHO), these things are available at SF McDonalds.

I don't understand the hullabaloo.

For more info on McD's nutrition, simply google McD's nutrition...Sorry, but I'm too lazy and lethargic from my ginormous Happy Meal to link it for you...

How many of you installed Yes Man vs. continued on with House's missions?

... For instance, I reprogrammed Primm Slim (the robot at Vicki and Vance's Casino) to become the sheriff of Primm because I didn't want to have to go to the prison and risk getting shot at or having to kill people to rescue the prison guard. I didn't want to talk the NCR into taking over because my character sees them as just another gang. Heck, I rescued the people of Primm by accident. I was just looking for the guy who ran the Mojave Express and walked into the wrong building (by the way, the disguises have only gotten me shot. Nobody is ever fooled by them and opposition factions seem to go out of their way to hunt me down if I'm wearing faction armor.)

The quest XP combined with hacking computers, picking easy locks and disarming easy traps has gotten me a small, but noticeable amount of XP as well.

Ah... I forgot that you get XP for these things. I think I'm going to build a Reluctant Warrior (practical pacificst) tonight and give it go.

CJ brought up a good point in a related and most awesomely-awesome thread, chiefly that the winter months are just as good for creepy ghostly readings as the autumnal months. As I mention over in yon thread, technically, autumn doesn't close until 21 December...

I think the illimitable CJ is right--Thanksgiving and Christmas aside, I'm from Alaska where November and December are synonymous, in my mind, with absolute and utter quiet; desolation and drear; solitude and a queer, silent, tangible agoraphobia, where the entire world echos soundlessly back at you. New meaning to all that the-woods-were-lovely-dark-and-deep jazz...

Still, I think of September-October as haintish, and November-December as murderful.

To this end...

Best Books for a Murderous, Desolate Winter.

What are some of your favorite, deathly-cold titles?

Technically, autumn doesn't close until 21 December... and I think you're right--Thanksgiving and Christmas aside, I'm from Alaska where November and December are synonymous, in my mind, with absolute and utter quiet; desolation and drear; solitude and a queer, silent, tangible agoraphobia, where the entire world echos soundlessly back at you. New meaning to all that the-woods-were-lovely-dark-and-deep jazz...

Still, I think of September-October as haintish, and November-December as murderful.

We need a new thread, maybe...

Best Books for a Murderous, Desolate Winter...

I finally got fed up with dying. I recovered the Alien Blaster from the Hovering Anomaly site near Horowitz Farmstead.

...wonder where I'll find alien energy cells later on...?

The Orange Spine GHA was one of the first/last sourcebooks printed for both 1/2E--mine actually has a callout on the cover saying it's for use with both editions.

This is one of the few old hc orange spine 1E books you may still be able to find in cellophane. I picked up a couple for five dollars each through eBay a couple years ago. It seems TSR printed quite a few.

Best American Nonrequired Reading 2010

Excellent anthology; gathered from a variety of venues, nicely collected.

Well, we're at the close of another great year, October-Halloween 2010 come and gone and gone again.

November peeks from around the trailing skirts of yon Hallow's Eve Queen, begging a month of murder (most foul) and the thousand subtle mayhems of our Mistress Winter's late-fall criers.

Sing her paean next, and we'll bless all the haints and ghouls good-bye, anon good-bye; 'til the year next, good-bye...

Another issue, Someday TV networks will learn that the lose viewers when they put a many month break in the middle of the season.

Absolutely! Americans are so used to the September to May TV season, with repeats in the summer, that the strange mid year seasons that return in the summer, or start in the summer and return in winter...or start in summer and return nine months later? Kids actually grow up in that amount of time and move on, and adults are too busy to keep up with off cycle, unpredictable seasons for relatively fringe programming.

Thus Caprica goes the the way of Defying Gravity.

The truth is neither show had enough baseline, primal action to balance the cerebral content--it's crude to say it, but the majority of the viewing public hasn't changed much since the days of the Circus; even Hamlet needs a good knifing or two to keep the average dude's attention, so it's no surprise a show about religious fanaticism and the nature of the human soul just couldn't stay afloat without an extra sex scene and a drive-by shooting or two...

What level were you? I got in there at level 7. My sneak is only around 25, but I had four stealth boys in my pocket and ED-E's Enhanced Sensors. I waited for the Nightkin sentry to pass in the main hallway and, out of habit, I went left and ran into Davison. I only started using the stealth boys after Harland asked me to find his girlfriend so I only needed to use two to get to her and back.

I'm basically playing a charismatic geek (CHA8, INT8, Repair, Science, Speech tags) so I'm rubbish in combat. I'm not necessarily a good guy, but I typically only fight if I've run out of options or if somebody is attacking ED-E. However, I did blow up Vulpes Inculta and his friends with my mercenary grenade rifle and some strategically placed frag mines because I wanted his hat.

I want to play a character like that, but how do you advance without killing; how else can you rack up enough XP to level up? I'm very willing for things to take longer to develop, but I can't remember a time I received XP that didn't involve killing someone or something. Not to mention, so many wastelanders shoot first.

I'm about eight hours into the game, playing in lone wanderer mode. I'm really enjoying it...but I can't help but feel I paid a lot of money for an add on to FO3; The Pitt on steroids.

A couple of gripes...

Initial available weapons absolutely rule the suckage--when I fire three times, with a .357, point-blank range and in an unarmored enemy's face--and they don't die! Yet four or five rifle shots at distance cripples me!

Third person doesn't allow that nice pulled back view from FO3, and there are literally areas in the mountains you cannot cross, similar to sections of DC that you should have been able to reach, but were inaccessible.

Some enemies are literally too powerful: like the giant wasps. Two stings and you're out.