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Hey, folks. I'm going to bring up something I've been thinking for the past month or two. I've been using Ubuntu (dualbooted with Windows) for a couple months, and I've been seriously considering getting a MacBook Pro, or an iMac.
My only concerns are:
-Cost
-Quality of OSX (is it good?)
-Quality of MacBooks/iMacs (Are they durable/reliable?)

I've tried Ubuntu, and I liked that. But, I'm sick of my PC. I've heard that the GNOME Desktop is similar to OSX, and it's got some lovely eyecandy. I've heard that it's excellent for animation, sound editing, web design, movie editing, and a lot more.
Also, a handful of games have been ported to Mac, as well as useful apps like Photoshop and Microsoft Office.
So, Mac users, how are Macs? Do AGS games run well on them? How are third-party apps in general?
I'm thinking of working my ass of for it, something to work towards. How are they?

Hey, I posted this on my blog, I thought I would share it. I really love it, and I would like to see your opinions.
I've finally nailed it. The big one. With my best friend Zac, we have solved the meaning of life, a connection of religion, and how to truly live.
We've been having a lot of sleepovers lately, watching countless horror movies, reading books, gaming, and most importantly, talking. Anywho, I had to take Zac to the dentist in the morning, and on the way back, we started talking about death, and philosophy, and then it all hit us.

First off, did you know that virtually every religion has a messiah figure? They all fullfill many of the Biblical prophecies, all of them crucified, claiming to be the Son of a divine being. All of them lived pure lives, cared for the poor. None of them ever broke bones, all of them rose from the dead in 3 days.
Now, according to the Christian Bible, Jesus is the only way into Heaven. But, Jesus and God are one and the same, and God Himself says that He has many names.
Put two and two together. These messiahs of different religions are all one and the same. Every single religion is based on one core religion. It's possible that God (or whatever you want to call him) created different teachings, in order to force us to learn. Unfortunately, humanity distorted it enough to believe that only their version is the correct one, and that all other religions are sinners, and therefore are going to Hell.
Let's take the concept of Hell for a moment. What do you picture? Fire and brimstone? Actually, the Bible hardly describes Hell at all, neither does the Koran, or the Torah. What if Hell isn't really a lifetime punishment, but a lifetime lesson? For instance, if you went through life as a murderer, you would restart your life over when you die. Only the situation is altered to show you a different angle, therefore giving you a fair chance. And, once you live by the easy standards of the core teachings (Be compassionate, love one another, never judge, keep an open mind), when you die, you go to Heaven (or whatever you wish to call the "good" afterlife)
What constitutes good? Is it "the opposite of evil"? If so, then what is "evil"? These words are absolutes, and are therefore irrelevant. Morals are only picked up by your surroundings. If you're raised by people who are polite, you'll be pretty polite yourself.
That said, is there really a right or wrong? Most definately, as taking the life of another is said to be wrong. But, if they die, aren't they going to a better place, or at least going to restart their life to learn more? It's an interesting question, one that I cannot answer.
However, there is one truth that everyone must know, and I'm going to quote Socrates a bit. The only way you can understand anything, is by knowing that you don't know anything. All our sciences, mathematics, they're essentially guesswork. They're good guesses, and they can explain what happens, to an extent. But, although they can explain things partially, they can never explain why, they can only explain how.

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
-Socrates

Now, this is all very good, but you're still wondering: what's the meaning of life? I'll tell you.

The Meaning of Life is to die.

Now, don't panic. The Meaning of Life is only half of what you need to know. To full understand The Meaning of Life, you have to understand the Meaning of Death.

The Meaning of Death is to value life.

Therefore, they complete each other. You die, that's your point in living. But, death's point is to give your life value, making you actually give your life its own point. It's that simple.

And finally, for those of you who disagree.
None of this actually matters.
Why? Because of free will. God loves free will, that's why he gave it to humans. You're free to think what you want, to believe what you want.
And it doesn't affect your fate at all. Only your actions will affect your fate, never your logic, never your thinking, lifestyle, beliefs, or creed. That is because God loves you, and it's high time you came and realized that.
So, use this information. Spread it around.

"The poets are only the interpreters of the Gods."
-Socrates

[Project Centrifuge]

I've had this idea for a while now, and I think I might as well get started on it. I don't really know that much about programming in Linux, but I can usually look at source code, and find out what everything does.
So, here's the idea: create an app that gets games out to Linux (and possibly Mac, BSD, etc) users through a client. It would most likely be based off of  the "Add/Remove Programs" app. found in Ubuntu. I figure it would use some sort of XML reader to show details about each game entry, and also an actual site where you can download the games without the client, as well as rate and review the games.

Project Centrifuge

The client would be pointed to a large repository of games in different genres:
-Adventure (Free Games made with AGS, and such)
-Demos (Demos of commercial Linux games, like Vendetta Online, or maybe some of the demos from Loki Games)
-FPS (Free First Person Shooters)
-MMORPG (Eternal Lands and such)
-Platform (Mario clones)
-Desktop (Solitaire, Blackjack, Pinball)
-RPG (Role Playing Games)
-Strategy (Games similar to Command and Conquer or War/StarCraft)
-Sports (Football, etc)
-Racing (Tux Racing, etc)
-Simulation (Flight sims and such)
-Game Makers (Startugus, FIFE, and the future ported AGS)
-Tycoon (SimCity clones)
-Other (For whatever else doesn't quite fit in the other categories)
-Engines (Required engines to play AGS games, Unreal/Quake based games, etc)

It's all just in an idea form right now. I've been playing with Automatix a little, and I would like to get this project started, and with community support, it could become a terrific product!
Sadly, I don't know all there is to coding (like I said before), so I would be more than happy to get a coding team together to:
1) Build the client so that it's not just some rip-off of the "Add/Remove Programs"
2)Maintain repositories.
3) Constantly improve the code, to make it better for the user.
Lets face it, there's actually quite a lot of free games for Linux out there. The problem is:
1) They don't know about it.
or
2) They don't know how to unpack it and run it, getting the game engines set up can be a hassle, etc.

It would be good for the Linux (and Mac and BSD and so on) gaming community in general.

If anyone's interested in this, and wants to give their time and effort to make this project into a reality, feel free to PM me. I think it'd be great.

Here is a mockup of what I think it should look like. Give me your opinions, please. Yes, I was lazy on the icons, most of them were just default ones from Ubuntu's Program Library.



I've also decided to build this off of an already existing product, known as "GetLibs", which solves dependency conflicts, and makes the games much easier to install.

In any case, I'm looking all around for help, so if you know how to code in Python/XML or would like to contribute, please let me know!

I also have a launchpad entry for it, feel free to check it out: https://launchpad.net/centrifuge/

Hey all,
I downloaded this game the other day. Man, it's a tough one, and I'm totally stuck.

Spoiler

I've gotten the second cassette that was meant for me. I also got Allen's tape, a saw, a triangle piece, a newspaper, casette player, VHS tape, a hypodermic needle, and a shovel. I found out the hint (1=0), but I'm not sure what it means. Also, I don't know what to do. There's numbers on every box, and I reckon that they're for a combination. But, Jason doesn't want to push any buttons, and I cant open the door to the south. Where's the key? Also, what's the triangle piece for?[/quote]

[close]

Hey, all. I decided this would provide an interesting discussion. I've written about Open Source, Linux, and the power of communities.
You can read it on my blog:
Read it Here
I just want to raise a little bit of awareness about Linux, Open Source, and completely new concepts. Feel free to discuss it.
Cheers,
Alliance

EDIT- For those of you who don't like blogs, I've put most of the article below.

Today I'm going to talk about Linux. I'm not going to rant about how I got my license yesterday, or how I drove my car into town today. I'm going to talk about something different.
Have you ever noticed that Windows is incredibly common? It's THE Operating System, and Mac seems to be "the only alternative" ?

Let me tell you something. There are several alternate OS systems. There's Sun Microsystem's Solaris,, there's OS2/Warp, there's Amiga, and the list goes on.
However, Linux is more than an operating system. It focuses on the ideaology of a little something called Open Source.

What is Open Source? Quite simply, it's free software. Not just free in the sense that you don't have to pay for it. I mean true freedom. Don't like how one feature is in a program? That's ok, you can open the source code, change things for yourself, and make it to suit your needs. A lot of times, you don't even have to do that. Everyone contributes in Open Source. Let's say a project is started to help making surfing the web easier. But, let's say it's a little bit slow. That's where Open Source comes in. You (or somebody else) can open it up, tweak the codes, and speed it up a bit. Then, you put it online, tell some people, and somebody else makes your code even better. Open Source is true freedom.

Linux started out in the early 1990's by a guy named Linus Torvalds. He was working with a system at school that he didn't like, and so he decided to make his own. After months of hard work, he made the first Linux operating system. Then, he did what most companies would consider insane: he released it for free.
This started a movement. People thought it was a great idea to make Open Source stuff, and Linux developed wildly. It kind of had a rocky start, but because it was Open Source, that meant that anyone could help it grow.

So, it's not just a system. It's an ideaology. A way of thinking.
   In fact the whole concept of Open Source was started by a guy named Richard Stallman, back in the 80's. He worked on developing a free, Unix-like system. He invented the concept of copyleft, which basically meant that anybody could do anything with whatever product that happened to be part of his copyleft plan. With these concepts, he came up with the GNU Public License, a license that allowed everyone to contribute to Open Source. It began as the tool of free thinkers, and has impacted the computer world in more ways than you can imagine.

  I'm not saying that 'It's better than x product.' or 'More people use it.'
I'm offering something more than that: difference.
So many people think that just because Windows is the "leading Operating System" that everyone has to upgrade to the latest version. It's a way out of the mob mentality, and a way into the Open Source ideaology.

So, what does that mean? Does that mean that a bunch of people sat in their basements programming all day. Well, there's a bit of truth to that.
However, many companies have started contributing to Linux and Open Source.


-Sony
-IBM
-Verizon
-Dell
-Ubuntu Foundation
-Novell
-Open Source Foundation
-Mozilla (creators of Firefox)
-Google (many of their computers run on Linux)
-YouTube
-Wal-Mart (Actually sells some Linux computers)
-Hewlett-Packard
-Amazon (sells them)
-EnterpriseOne
-PeopleSoft Enterprise
-Oracle
-AOL
-AT&T
-BBC
-CodeWeavers
-Corel
-GarageGames
-Id Software (The creators of the DOOM and Unreal Games)
-Linpire
-Loki (Now out of business. Used to port awesome, popular games to Linux)
-Lucas Digital
-Motorola
-Tera Soft Solutions
-VIACOM / VIVA PLUS Fernsehen
-Xerox
-And many more.

Linux used to be for geeks. However, it is constantly getting easier and easier to use. There's a lot of different distributions out there, meaning tons of different flavors of Linux.

The one I prefer, and suggest is Ubuntu. It's very customizable, and it pretty much works out of the box. You can get it at www.ubuntu.com.

However, if that doesn't fit your fancies, there's other simple distros to try.
-Linspire: An extremely easy to use distro, though you have to pay money for an offical cd. You can try if for 30 days, though.
-PcLinuxOS: Another nice alternative for the desktop: http://www.pclinuxos.com/

It's only problem is wireless. You might have to mess around with that, but to save you the trouble, you could always buy a "Buffalo Air Station Turbo G", which recieves the signals, and you just hook it up to your ethernet port with a short wire. You might have to use this, seeing as some wireless card manufacturers don't make drivers for them. If you get the drivers installed, and they don't work, try taking the card out, and putting it back in. However, this is pretty much your only really serious problem.

Your next question is "Can I run Windows games in Linux?"
The answer is yes, for the most part. Some games run better than others, and some games don't run at all. There's a few places where you can get emulators to run them.

-ScummVM: A LucasArts engine, lets you play alot of LucasArts games from the 90's. (http://www.scummvm.org/)

-FreeSCI: Like ScummVM, except it's for old Sierra games. (http://freesci.linuxgames.com/)

-WINE: The granddaddy of Linux emulation. Although it craps out sometimes, it's a very nice emulator that can run a range of apps. It's free though. (http://www.winehq.org/)

-Cedega: Built on WINE, it lets you install and play your Windows games. It costs money to buy it, but it's a damn sweet emulator. They even have a library to see which games work with it, and how well they run. (www.cedega.com)

-CrossOverOffice: Built on WINE, lets you run Photoshop, Itunes, and even World of WarCraft without problems. You can go to their site, and even get a 30 day trial. (www.codeweavers.com)

Also, it's pretty easy to install apps in distros like Ubuntu. You can also get AutoMatix to install even more great free stuff. (www.getautomatix.com)
My favorite thing about Ubuntu is the community support. If you're stuck with something, zip on over to www.ubuntuforums.org, register yourself, and post what's wrong. Within a very short period of time, you'll get excellent advice on how to get around the problem.

So, I recommend you all take a look at Open Source, and Linux. Simply put, it's kickass.
Oh, and Linux is getting increasingly more moron-proof. It gets easier to use every day.
The Future is Open...

[American Boy]

Well, I'm working hard on writing a punk rock song. It follows the theme of Man vs. His Demons.
There are two major characters:

American Boy: Lost his parent's to "The Industry", seeks revenge.

The Industry: A metaphorical representation of everything that's wrong with people. Drugs, sex, hate, everything.
It's still a bit rough, and feels a little incomplete to me, but I like how it is so far. Also, I'm still trying to think up a name for the song. It was originally going to be called "Eddie Vs. The Industry", but the character's name sounded better as American Boy. Meh.
Comments and crits are welcome.
So, without further ado, here's what I've got so far:



I. Pressure
It's a whole new way of life
The way you blind yourself to see
Alternative to suicide
In Lives they call an Industry
Mom and Dad they wanna try
The Industry would never lie.
What kind of friends would they be?

II. Death of Mom and Dad
Mom and Dad, they lived a lie
some would say it was depraved
Why did they have to die?
Digging into their own graves.
Kissed each other farewell.
Their dreams began to break.
End for a Private Hell
Trapped in a world of Fakes.

III. Blind
Well nobody dreams
and everyone bleeds
they're slaves at the seams
and kill all their needs
It's time to rebel
crawl back out of Hell
Who do you believe?

IV. American Boy
Here he comes
Sees like Religion
There he goes
Seethes like Incisions
The One who can See
It is Only He
He's American Boy
American Boy
American Boy
Another broken child
They branded him as wild.
Will He fight?
Save us?
Like the light
Gave us?
(2x)

V. Justice
There's no justice anymore
No justice anymore
We'll start our own war
Streets are redder than before.
The world turns around
The city's burning down
As the world starts to drown
The world starts to drown.

VI. Viva Rebellion
Marching on like a broken nerve
Fighting for lives that we deserved
We scream
"Viva rebellion
long live the crowd
Sheltering the broken
As we kill the proud.
Viva rebellion
Don't hold us back
we're sick of living
out of cigarette packs."

VII. Onwards
We're marching onward
Army of freedom
We'll never be hurt
We're going to free them.
We won't surrender.
We won't die
Ten million graves
pass us by.
American Boy
American Boy

Well, with all these controversial threads, I figured I might as well give this a shot.
I've been very afraid about myself, so here goes.
I think I'm bisexual. Not like, attracted to men. I'm attracted to girls, but I'm heavily attracted to crossdressers, and tgirls (both pre and post op)
I'm 16. Is this normal, or is there something wrong with me?
I just don't know what to think sometimes...
What do you think?

Right, I've been going through some of the old backgrounds, and I decided to redo this one. I didn't quite like it the first time around.



I don't quite like the trash piles. I tried photoshopping some real trash and inserting it in there, but that didn't come out so great.
So, what should I do to improve this?

EDIT: Improved trash piles a bit, most recent version.

Well, I saw Helm's airplane comic, and was very impressed with it. I wanted to do a colored version, just to see how it would turn out, and I'm very proud of the result.



It's not quite done yet, but I've been working at it for a few days with a totally new technique (new to me, that is)
Anyway, what do you think?

Well, I was goofing off with an improved version with the S6E logo, when I tried to actually make an animation (the kind that pops up just before you play a game)
It's not fantastic, but give me some thoughts on what I could do to make this better (or, perhaps suggest a different animation for it. I would have done some fancy 3D animation, but I don't really know how to do that)

[The rules:]

Hey folks, Welcome to the AGS Coloring Ball

The rules:
24 colours max + the bg.
You may alter the outline to make him a her or stronger/skinnier.
You can alter the shape to give the character accessories
Sprite must have at least one accessory.
Deadline is the 3rd of March.

The Theme:
The Punk Revolution
Create a sprite of an 80's style punk. You can go all out and give him/her wild hair, bizarre clothes, a guitar, whatever you want.

The Prize: Because my sprite making skills are only so-so, I'm going to offer something else:

First place: A custom sig done in Photoshop, with the winner's name (and yes, there will be a rebellious/punk theme), as well as a ridiculous avatar(You can request what you want it to be). Also, you get an exclusive sneak peak at the SQ3 Remake.

Second Place: Custom Sig, same as above, and ridiculous avatar. (You request what you want it to be)

Third Place: Riduculous Avatar (You request whwat you want it to be)

The Shape:
Here you go.


Have fun!

EDIT- Bonus points for putting your character into a scene!

I did this for practice. The original drawing of Gerard Way is not mine, but it was in black and white, and I figured it would be a good way for me to teach myself how to shade and color a Sierra-ish cutscene.
What do you think?

A friend and I were talking, and somehow we got into the conversation of DZ, the Discovery Zone. That led to talking about other great things in the 90's, and led to many other highly amusing discussions just about growing up in the 90's. We talked about everything from "Hey, remember Power Rangers?" to "Hey, remember how easy it was to play Guess Who?"

An idea popped into our tiny little heads. Why not start some message boards, and attract other 90's lovers? It was a whole decade of bizarreness where people like myself were born, so why not.
Pff, so what if I run too many websites.  :nana: , I get a kick out of stuff like this.

Anywho, check it out at: www.savethe90s.ulmb.com

Well, our last band disbanded due to scheduling conflicts, illness, and a death in the family, and plus our last name was, well, sort of emo.

Anywho, the one other guy who's in the band with me right now are going to restart everything from scratch, so I'll start off with our new logo.


The Jekyll and Hyde Effect- A punk rock band with a touch of ska. Right now we're still working on our debut album, so we're still trying to think of a name for that (we've got a few songs written)

Among the album names are:
-Life at the Carnival (the album could be about a guy who runs away from home, become a man, and then realize it was his family he wanted all along)
-Death of a Hero (could be about an old man in a hospital dying, and he's telling his life story to a young man)
-The Odds of Failing (showing a guy standing on a mountain of school papers with F's all over them)

[Setting:]

Well, I've been randomly getting ideas, and I have several story ideas that could become AGS games (once I get my other projects done. Aaah!)

1. A Cause for War
Setting: 2044, in a world at war.
Story: In 2032, the U.S government sold out. Due toa large loss of soldiers during a war, the government funded a secret project known only as The Brooklyn Project.They tore down all the laws against human cloning and began mass producing clones to hep win the war. The clones have an extreme growth rate, and for some reason only live 33 days. During the last days of their lives, they are affected with a virus that destroys the nervous system from the inside out.
For the first week of their lives, clones are hooked up to machines that fill their heads with horrifying images, and they are subliminally trained to be killing machines.
This story is about the one clone who, through human and mechanical error, grows differently than the other clones. His neural pathways develop differently, and he begins to think for himself. He begins to develop superhuman abilities. He starts to question the government, and begins to get clones on his side. With only 17 days left to live, the clones declare war on the corrupted U.S government, and the clones start destroying the cloning facilities, to make sure this will never happen again. They fight for a cure to their disease, and go on the ultimate quest to become human.

2. Pheonix Rising
Setting: 2010, in a large city
Story: Jack Slate was a brilliant scientist who developed the worlds first interstellar warp drive known as the Moebius Reactor. During an experiment, he accidentally fused the wrong wire, and the reactor hit him with energy rays. The rays caused him to have immense strength, rapid regeneration, and an assortment of other extreme powers that I haven't really thought up yet. He becomes a superhero known as The Pheonix, and goes off to protect the city.
  Fast forward five years. After raising his own family, and being recognized as a superhero, tragedy strikes. Pheonix's arch enemy holds our hero's family hostage, and then somehow causes The Pheonix to release an energy wave that destroys a city block and kills his enemy, his family, and a couple hundred ordinary people. Pheonix vows never to use his powers again.
The game officially begins exactly one year after this tragic event. Jack Slate has become an alcoholic and a nervous wreck. He also constantly gets sick from not using his powers. He tries to drink away his problems, but it does no good.
  That night, he walks past an alley and sees a woman being beaten. She's screaming and kicking and bleeding. She sort of looks like his dead wife, and this triggers flashbacks of his enemy hurting his wife when she was a hostage. Jack goes beserk, and beats the criminal to death, saving the girl. He then runs away, ashamed that he has killed again.
The story goes on to show Jack's inner conflicts of past and present, and shows how he gets back on his feet and becomes a hero once more.

I'm still fleshing them out a bit, what do you guys think? How can I improve them?

Well, today's the big day. Here's what I got:
-Guitar Hero I and II, with those awesome controllers
-Futurama Volume 4
-Remote Control Helicopter
-A huge HD flatscreen monitor

Early gifts that I got before Christmas:
-Walmart $40 gift card
-a shirt
-A pet weiner dog
-a Playstation 3

I came up with this idea the other day, so here goes:

Plot: A boy named Jack gets in a tragic accident of some sort, and he's put in a coma for 10 years. Trapped inside his own mind, Jack must make his way through his dreams if he wants to recover. He must fight to wake up again. He has to go through everything from the most beautiful dreams to the most horrific nightmares. If he fails in the dream world, his heart rate flatlines in the real one, and he dies.
Later in the story, he meets a girl in his dreams, and falls in love with her. However, he has to face the possibility that she's not real.
However, she is. In the end of the story, Jack wakes up. He was in the accident at age 15, and he always pictured himself at that age. He is now 25.
He stumbles into another room in the hostpital, and finds the girl. She's in a coma, just like him. He has to find a way to wake her up, so he gets back in bed, and aids her in her dreams.

The gameplay would somewhat resemble Quest for Glory. You would complete tasks in your dreams to gain points. You could then pull out a medical file for Robert, and see what new skills you have. Eventually, you'll learn how to manipulate your dreams using powers (flying, levitation, telekinesis, chronokinesis, invisibility, etc)

This idea is still very rough, but what do you guys think of it? How can it be improved? (I really need some C+C on this, I think it could definately become something great)

I came up with this idea today, so here goes:

Plot: A boy named Robert gets in a tragic accident of some sort, and he's put in a coma for 10 years. Trapped inside his own mind, Robert must make his way through his dreams if he wants to recover. He must fight to wake up again. He has to go through everything from the most beautiful dreams to the most horrific nightmares. If he fails in the dream world, his heart rate flatlines in the real one, and he dies.
Later in the story, he meets a girl in his dreams, and falls in love with her. However, he has to face the possibility that she's not real.
However, she is. In the end of the story, Robert wakes up. He was in the accident at age 15, and he always pictured himself at that age. He is now 25.
He stumbles into another room in the hostpital, and finds the girl. She's in a coma, just like him. He has to find a way to wake her up, so he gets back in bed, and aids her in her dreams.

The gameplay would somewhat resemble Quest for Glory. You would complete tasks in your dreams to gain points. You could then pull out a medical file for Robert, and see what new skills you have. Eventually, you'll learn how to manipulate your dreams using powers (flying, levitation, telekinesis, chronokinesis, invisibility, etc)
This idea is still very rough, but what do you guys think of it? How can it be improved?

Right, I am starting a band called Bullets for Beloved. It's a Christian rock band (but not preachy like other Christian rock bands)
Anyway, our first album is going to be called Death of a Hero, so here's what it looks like so far:


Basically, it's a skull wearing a gas mask in front of his honorary funeral parade/ funeral in the middle of nowhere...

And also, here's our band logo:



Originally, there was going to be a different debut album, but right now the project seems a bit big for a debut album. (Which will be called The Inventing Room, and is a metaphor as God as an Inventor.)

Anyways, what are your thoughts on how the cover looks?

Well, I was goofing around in Photoshop today, and I wanted to try and make the earth. Without further adue, here it is:



I thought it looked okay. Slightly lumpy, but nevertheless I had a good time doing it, and that's what's important.

EDIT: Tried it with a completely different approach (screwed up a little, though)