Messages

Apologies are in order.   I was responding to more than your post above:   http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=34497.msg450571#msg450571

Sorry.   That was my fault because I just didn't see any reason for NASA to feel guilty over inclusion of Irishmen.  But I mean, NASA does work in unison with other countries.   NASA just last week transported a Japanese lab to the ISS.   Sure these are countries with space programs but I hardly feel that we are space bigots.

All I want are facts and snippets to go along with your bold statements, that's all.   Generalizations aren't always %100 harmless.    I removed most of my strong rhetoric in the post above.   I felt it was offbase.    But at the same time "Damn you Americans keeping the Irish out of space" is something that struck me as a statement with not only little foresight, but sight in general.

Space tourism future tense?.. well let's examine space tourism present tense.   

What's so uncivil and unreasonable about that.  I read your statement in combination with Nacho's as "the only people who go to space are Yale or Harvard graduates"... you know the same argument that people say about 9/11 and illuminati, and about everything else evil about the U.S.   So again, I apologize for lashing out but that was the image I drew in my head about your assumptions.

Nothing.   I'm just putting the history of space tourism on the public record.

You have a right to say whatever you feel, but if someone comes along and agrees with you they'll also have to ignore that the *only private space tourism company* has sent two native born Americans to space.  That's it.   Everyone else was born outside the U.S.   From looking at the history of Space Adventures alone, a non-native american has a bigger chance of going to space.

So Ireland or any other country that wishes can start their own space tourism companies.  If the U.S. has convinced you that we *own* space, then that's your burden to bear.  The U.S.  is competitive, no one denies that.   It was competition that drove Russia and the U.S. further and further out into space.

The point is that as long as you have money, American citizenship, and you're white, you could very easily buy your way onto a space craft in a few year's time. But the chances of them letting grubby foreigners touch their shiny buttons within the next century seem slim.

I'm fairly sick of these generalizations Emerald.    You seem to feel that American resentment and hate worldwide is a get-out-of-jail-free card to make any unfounded conspiracy you feel like.    American citizenship is a trend for Space Adventures, a private company.     So what does that have to do with NASA?   Or are you asking that NASA send foreigners to do the USA's government missions?

http://www.spaceadventures.com/

List of Space Adventures' Orbiting Clients:

Vladimir Gruzdev - Russian-born Russian

Sergey Brin - Russian-born American

Richard Garriot -  English-born American

Dr. Charles Simonyi - Hungarian-born American

Anousheh_Ansari - Iranian-born American

Greg Olsen - American-born American

Mark Shuttleworth - South African

Dennis Tito - American-born American

Exclusively rich? yes.   Its not even an issue of ethnicity or origin.  This is a private company that caters to whomever pays up.    Looking at the list you should see something remarkable about rich Americans.    Many of our most prolific citizens aren't white southerners, but immigrants.  In fact there's not one white southerner on the list.     The only 2 men born in the United States were born in New York City.  As space tourists, they are actually in a minority - and they make up your proposed conspiracy.    So  Find a new argument for hating white Americans besides space travel.  Knowing you it won't take long.

Thats really sexy.   I'd love to play a game with these graphics

Please do not turn the Mars Phoenix mission into motherfucking Loose Change, allright?


That topic will *explode* so can you guys please take that into another thread? I find it interesting that Ireland's history of space travel rests on the shoulders of 9/11.  I should ask my history teacher about the relevancy there that I had never realized.  Its always aliens or government coverups.   Never anything simple like the space race.    No no no.   

Again I ask, please start a new thread.

I don't know anything about free editors.    But I've found that Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, and Final Cut are all on an equal playing field.   The learning curve is almost exactly the same.

Friday was awesome!  I got wasted on my porch swigging Killian's Irish Red.   Then my friend called and asked if I wanted to watch the Hulk.    So he picked me up and we grabbed some chicken ( a place called Guthries, which was oh so very tasty ).    While we were in line at the theater, I was still very drunk and I dared my friend to ask for a ticket to "The Indellible Bulk".

He mumbled something like that to his cashier while I definitely said "One for the Indellible Bulk please."   The girl giggled and gave me my ticket.  She asked me if I wanted to donate a dollar to some charity and get my name on the wall.  "Oh not today!   The wall looks full.   Too full... Looks like you guys may need a new wall."    I was so drunk and my friend hadn't said anything.   We walked into the theater, watched the movie, and I made more wisecracks than usual throughout the movie.    When we got up to leave, I realized I had LOST MY WALLET.      I used a keychain flashlight to try to find it.... with no luck.  It was extra embarrassing because the keychain moos constantly while you use it.  And the entire audience sat through the credits hoping for a surprise....  so sticking my face on the floor and shining my mooing light at people's feet was sort of a disaster.



I was on my way out of the theater to ask the staff if a wallet had been turned in.   Then my friend told me I had been searching the wrong seat.   So I went back and found it on the lower part of the armrest.   Score! 

As for other notorious numerical days...

I remember 06.06.06 being a rather dull day.   Oh I asked a gas attendant how his day had been and he yelled "I'm not superstitious!"   ** I retold this event to my dad two years after the fact and he asked me "So did you buy $6.66 of gas?    I said that I just bought a drink... then he huffed and puffed and was furious that I bought a bottled drink two years ago.     That's my dad..

Well think of it as sort of a once a day sort of game.

The longer you play and build up your main building, the shorter building time becomes too.

I have only been attacked by one guy so far.   I sent a message to him and he has since ceased.

Luck of the draw I guess.

[soil stickiness.]

Yeah I was thinking about this thread today, wondering if there were any updates with that land rover.  <-- *cough* Evenwolf, this is where you jump in buddy.

Haha, feel free to visit http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/newsArchive.php  for constant updates.

Right now its all about soil stickiness.


June 13, 2008 -- New observations from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander provide the most magnified view ever seen of Martian soil, showing particles clumping together even at the smallest visible scale.

In the past two days, two instruments on the lander deck -- a microscope and a bake-and-sniff analyzer -- have begun inspecting soil samples delivered by the scoop on Phoenix's Robotic Arm.

"This is the first time since the Viking missions three decades ago that a sample is being studied inside an instrument on Mars," said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Stickiness of the soil at the Phoenix site has presented challenges for delivering samples, but also presents scientific opportunities. "Understanding the soil is a major goal of this mission and the soil is a bit different than we expected," Smith said. "There could be real discoveries to come as we analyze this soil with our various instruments. We have just the right instruments for the job."

Images from Phoenix's Optical Microscope show nearly 1,000 separate soil particles, down to sizes smaller than one-tenth the diameter of a human hair. At least four distinct minerals are seen.

"It's been more than 11 years since we had the idea to send a microscope to Mars and I'm absolutely gobsmacked that we're now looking at the soil of Mars at a resolution that has never been seen before," said Tom Pike of Imperial College London. He is a Phoenix co-investigator working on the lander's Microscopy, Electrochemistry and Conductivity Analyzer.

The sample includes some larger, black, glassy particles as well as smaller reddish ones. "We may be looking at a history of the soil," said Pike. "It appears that original particles of volcanic glass have weathered down to smaller particles with higher concentration of iron."

The fine particles in the soil sample closely resemble particles of airborne dust examined earlier by the microscope.

Atmospheric dust at the Phoenix site has remained about the same day-to-day so far, said Phoenix co-investigator and atmospheric scientist Nilton Renno of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

"We've seen no major dust clouds at the landing site during the mission so far," Renno said. "That's not a surprise because we landed when dust activity is at a minimum. But we expect to see big dust storms at the end of the mission. Some of us will be very excited to see some of those dust storms reach the lander."

Studying dust on Mars helps scientists understand atmospheric dust on Earth, which is important because dust is a significant factor in global climate change.

"We've learned there is well-mixed dust in the Martian atmosphere, much more mixed than on Earth, and that's a surprise," Renno said. Rather than particles settling into dust layers, strong turbulence mixes them uniformly from the surface to a few kilometers above the surface.

Scientists spoke at a news briefing today at the University of Arizona, where new color views of the spacecraft's surroundings were shown.

"We are taking a high-quality, 360-degree look at all of Mars that we can see from our landing site in color and stereo," said Mark Lemmon, Surface Stereo Imager lead from Texas A&M University, College Station.

"These images are important to provide the context of where the lander is on the surface. The panorama also allows us to look beyond our workspace to see how the polygon structures connect with the rest of the area. We can identify interesting things beyond our reach and then use the camera's filters to investigate their properties from afar."

[US server 2.]

This is an addictive game so be warned.   If you were about to grab a smoke, or start a semester of summer school..... do not click!!!!!

Travian

This is a browser based MMO that reminds me of the board game Settlers of Kattan.    You start off with a small village with a single building.   Then you ration your resources of Clay, Wood, Iron, and Wheat and try to construct more buildings and eventually an army.

This is not a very graphical game.   You can download graphic packs which change the look of your town, but bear in mind that battles are simply calculated and you never see any of the combat.    Starting off may be tough, because there are alot of folks farming/raiding newbies.   So build up those crannies!

If you do choose to sign up, I would love to have you as my neighbor.   I wouldn't mind some referral gold either.   

I play on the SouthWest /  NorthWest border on US server 2.   My name is Ogleby and my village is Gumble Goat -92, 12.     Message me once you get it started!

If you choose NorthWest or SouthWest  there's a good chance you'll end up somewhere near my village.




Please remember to refer Ogleby!!   I needs the gold to make some Axemen!  ( << sadly addicting)

What's the latest?

I hope these guys lose some big time bucks.  Since they basically set out to exploit amateur videogame making.

I liked Donnie Darko so much I saw it during its 2nd theater release and I bought the DVD.   Then I spent 4 years listening to film students rant and rave about the movie.    Then I watched it again.      And now when I watch it the dialogue is too distracting and sometimes forced.    It's still a great movie but one of those that's sadly become too overrated for its own good.

It doesn't surprise me that they're making a sequel... doesn't really ruin anything for me.   

isn't about immersing yourself in a random persona so you can do every puerile thing you can't get away with in reality, it's about imagining yourself in another time as some kind of hero/villain/neutral person surrounded by fantastic things that, for them, is commonplace.

Yeah but you're simply leaving out the level of detail of interaction.  I wasn't being an ass as you stated.   I was exploring the given environment more thoroughly than anyone else.   I was sticking my hand down tree stumps rather than just walk past trees trees trees.    For my first night I didn't know what to expect so I really looked for the termites in the trees, so to speak.     

Hahaha, you know you would have metagamed if I was eating your horse's hooves.   That night was pretty awesome just from improvising and testing the GM's brain.

But everybody else - I can't explain the joy they received from playing it because I honestly can't empathize.   Just rolling dice over and over and leveling up mindlessly.    Imagine watching a movie of one of these D&D games...   it would be like LOTR starring the Borgs from Star Trek.

My friend took me to play D&D and I was a non-human druid or a warlock - basically I was an evil munchkin wearing a cloak.

The party kept getting pissed at me because they'd be asking townspeople for information while I bit the heads off of rabbits and peed down chimneys.    The game seriously pissed me off because nobody ever actually roleplayed with me.    Everyone was omnipotent about everything I did in secret.

I'd be outside chewing the hooves off everyone's horses while they were asleep, and still they *knew* to roll for "run outside and stop the guy from eating our horses".      The game is such mamsy - pamsy shit.     Roleplay my ass.


I would have had fun if there was ANY tolerance for goofing off.   Serious D&D is not for me.

magintz?  Wow!


Hey I didn't dig this thread up.... but you can bet I have more comments!

And it took them 10 years to make such game, wtf???

It sounds like they imagined doing it a long time ago for the Amiga but lacked the resources and time.   (They each have day jobs right?)    Now fast forward a few years where there are programs like Photoshop and AGS (and whatever engine they used)   and making a video game was just a matter of programming and creating graphics.      All the hardest challenges they faced 10 years ago were gone.

Problem is they were still pretty lazy about making graphics.

Yes, its been stuck up Benjamin Franklin's nose at Mt. Rushmore.    Its one of several missing links in the "National DaVinci Code Treasure of our Forefathers The Matrix".

Heh yeah, I can't decide about this. On the one hand, they're three middle-aged men who may simply have not understood that using screenshots from other games as their backgrounds was illegal; but on the other hand, being middle-aged, they should have had enough common sense to realise that it was likely to get them into trouble.

I read that article and it seemed a bit naive.    I think these guys do enjoy video games but that this project was more about making money.    So someone probably *tried* to draw all the graphics and quickly realized how hard it was.    So stealing one image quickly led to stealing all the images...   with the intent being to release the game as quickly as possible and pray that noone notices.

Just a theory, but these guys seriously underestimated their audience.