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A Thread for Random Musings


Old Man

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Long ago, back before the Great Renaming, back when you sent emails to people at other sites using "bang path" addresses, before nethack or angband or even rogue, back when Ultimate Gaming Nerd status hinged on becoming Commodore Emeritus in trek and getting all 350 points in advent, I taught myself ANSI C. As I have done with several languages I've picked up by myself, one of the first things I wrote in it was a game. It was a very simple text game, "Aliens from Outer Space". The player was nominally in charge of the forces defending Earth, he had a finite number of troops, as did the aliens. You gave orders, read the results, and continued until one side went down to zero.

 

The game was deeply tongue in cheek. Options which sounded stupid (e.g., rocks) were, probabilistically speaking, the best. Options which sounded cool (e.g., laser cannon) were, again probabilistically speaking, poorest. You could try using Dick Nixon imitations (though the only result of such a tactic was "Of what conceiveable use is that form of attack?"). You could use tire irons, jet fighter planes, obscene gestures, handguns, and nuclear missiles. There were possible outcomes which could bring in alien reinforcements, wound humans, cause casualties on both sides. There was a secret weapon (which never worked, and Professor Scheisskopf screamed "Donnerwetter!" and gave a different excuse each time); there was a trap ("You truck your wounded out to White Sands Missile Range and leave them there amidst many large 'FREE LUNCH' signs. The aliens show up and start chowing down on your delicious wounded. You then set off the 20-megaton warhead buried just under the sand..."). You could appeal for Divine Intervention (but if you did that, the aliens did it at the same time). You could negotiate a treaty (among the terms of which was that the aliens got the right to set up Colonel Zurgznart's Kentucky Fried Humans franchises world-wide).

 

After getting it ("aliens.c", I called it) to a point where I had problems getting it to crash, I posted the source out on the Usenet. A couple of years later I got the highest compliment a game programmer can receive. In an unsolicited email, someone explained that one of their favored late Saturday night pastimes was to get stoned out of their minds, play the game, and giggle for hours at the silly responses they got. They asked if I'd updated it. I had, I sent them the new code code, and that was that.

 

That was over 20 years ago now. I've moved many times, changed storage media at least three times, and things got lost. Among them, sometime, was aliens.c. It doesn't show up on the web (certain phrases like "Zurgznart", "Fzurgtaprotz", etc., draw no hits). I'd kinda like to recover it someday, but maybe I'll just re-do it from scratch (probably in python this time) and hang it off a web page. We'll see.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Summer nights and long warm days

Are stolen as the old moon falls

My mirror shows another face

Another place to hide it all

Another place to hide it all

And I’m lost, behind

The words I’ll never find

And I’m left behind

As seasons roll on by

 

Sleeping with a full moon blanket

Sand and feathers for my head

Dreams have never been the answer

And dreams have never made my bed

Dreams have never made my bed

 

And I’m lost, behind

The words I’ll never find

And I’m left behind

As seasons roll on by

 

Now I wanna fly above the storm

But you can’t grow feathers in the rain

And the naked floor is cold as hell

This naked floor reminds me

Oh the naked floor reminds me

 

And I’m lost, behind

Words I’ll never find

And I’m left behind

As seasons roll on by

 

If I should be short on words

And long on things to say

Could you crawl into my world

And take me worlds away

Should I be beside myself

And not even stay

 

And I’m lost, behind

Words I’ll never find

And I’m left behind

As seasons roll on by

 

-- Seasons, Chris Cornell

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Guest George Kirby

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

For once, Limbaugh has said something that ticks me off. I've been a fan of the man for a long while, ever since the heady days when he was truly a lone voice of reason in an otherwise liberally-conquered media wilderness. But what he said not too long ago ticked me off and I am considering giving him up.

 

Speaking about Cindy Sheehan, Veterans for Peace, and others, Limbaugh said "You look at these people and you just know that they are incapable of making the sort of sacrifices that are necessary to keep this country safe, and because they are incapable of making those sacrifices they are unwilling to support the troops."

 

I thought about that for a bit, and the following reply formed in my head. I know Limbaugh will never receive it, but I wanted to put it somewhere other people would.

 

"Sitting in your barcalounger in your Florida home, what precisely have you sacrificed, Mr. Limbaugh? You managed to utterly avoid any sort of military service of your own, nor have any of your closest relatives ever served in the military. Of your own admission, neither you nor anyone close to you have ever put their life on the line for this country.

 

"On the other hand, Cindy Sheehan has given up one of her children to the hopeful betterment of this country. She has given up her own flesh and blood and the country gratefully accepted it. Her son is dead. That is more of a sacrifice that you have ever attempted to make on behalf of this nation. So agree with her or not, you owe Cindy Sheehan a lot more respect than you are showing her."

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

I find that, the more time I spend away from the Hero Games boards, the less compunction I feel to post to them when I DO have time to post again.

 

Or have the boards really become a black hole of suck since I stopped spending so much time here? I honestly can't tell whether they were this irrelevant before my semi-hiatus.

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Guest PenguinKiller

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Everyone at school is scared of me cuz I'm so hyper all the time! Like today at lunch I was saying chicken really fast, then I'd say, "Cubes that look round." And also, I was muttering, "He scares the bejeses outta me," under my breath. Yay!!! :celebrate

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Well, Life has been busy. Made not posting here a bit easier.

Looks like Jenn & I will be looking for better living arangements now. Meeting with a lender tomorrow and find out how bad it is. Figure worst case, we buy a decent sized lot and put something temporary on it while we get to the point of building something better.

 

Hopefully the next Portland trip will be longer than 24 hours so we can see some people.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Haven't had insomnia as bad as last night's in a while. I lay there staring at the ceiling, and started tallying in my head who I'd sacrifice to the Sleep Gods, just to get a few hours of shuteye.

 

Sleep tonight should be just within my grasp, though, provided I get there at a decent hour. Which kind of relies on getting game posts for the game I've temporarily taken over.

 

Or they can just wait another friggin' day.

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Re: A Thread for Random Musings

 

Haven't had insomnia as bad as last night's in a while. I lay there staring at the ceiling, and started tallying in my head who I'd sacrifice to the Sleep Gods, just to get a few hours of shuteye.

 

Sleep tonight should be just within my grasp, though, provided I get there at a decent hour. Which kind of relies on getting game posts for the game I've temporarily taken over.

 

Or they can just wait another friggin' day.

 

Did you try sacrificeing Mightybec?

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