In which is discussed Cepheid variables, Kieron Gillen, computers and their malicious spirits, work, Kenan and Kel, maths, programming and vinyl DVDs.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:24
Heavens above! You're still
online!
What are you doing, man?
10998521 06/04/01 23:24
Noding. Just finished Cepheid variables.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:25
Do tell.
10998521 06/04/01 23:25
Go have a look. it's a
serious factual node. With
research from Universe Fifth Edition.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:27
Oh yes. Them celestial
fellows. We Learnded about
them last summer. Then we drove Lynn mad. And I
drove Lynne mad, but that's another story.
10998521 06/04/01 23:28
Possibly nodeworthy in its
own right, but we
digress.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:30
Examinig the softlinks now,
I find that I desire
a Standard Candle.
10998521 06/04/01 23:33
Don't we all? Well, no we
don't. They're not much
use for non-astronomical purposes.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:35
It sounds cool though. It
should be something
that continually glows at a nice big decimal
value of some metric luminance unit and has an
inexhaustible power supply and is indestructible,
while we're at it.
10998521 06/04/01 23:36
The 100w bulb of the heavens.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:39
Preferably contained in a
hurricane-lantern-style
shell. Such as my own hurricane lamp.
10998521 06/04/01 23:40
Is there any problem with
your hurricane lamp as
a standard candle?
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:42
It doesn't last forever.
Also, it's out of
paraffin.
10998521 06/04/01 23:43
Ah. I see.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:52
And I'm not sure where it
is.
I think it's propping up my PC Gamer collection,
but I can't be sure.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:52
New Thread 1: Deus Ex and
Snow Crash have
surprisingly similar plots.
New Thread 2: I'm finding far too many
compression artifacts on cable TV, even though
it's still analogue. The cable people get digital
satellite and pass their crap on to us. It's DVD
all over again.
New Thread 3: Kieron Gillen is heading a team
responsible for a Deus ex mod. It's pretentious.
10998521 06/04/01 23:54
Thread 1: Yes, yes they do.
Thread 2: Strange. I have digital satellite and
get very few compression artifacts.
Thread 3: Interesting. Pray tell.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:55
Kieron cites it as his
recommended site in this
month's magazine.
www.deusex-machina.com/cassandra-project/
10998521 06/04/01 23:55
Am about to indulge.
Weishaupt 06/04/01 23:57
It fails to reach Mr. G's
previous standards of
pretension, but nonetheless...
10998521 06/04/01 23:59
I don't know. There are many
layers of pretension
in "The Narcissus Entity". And he says
"re-contextualisation" and "non-sublimated".
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:00
This is true. And he calls us flesh beings.
10998521 07/04/01 00:01
Whereas he himself operates
on a complex
mechanism of levers and pulleys.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:03
A lot of the Narcissus stuff
is second-rate
pretension at best, though. A little puerile at
times, by no means on a par with the lofty
heights of the Thief II review.
10998521 07/04/01 00:04
No, I suppose not. Although
Narcissus is
second-degree pretension. Being a pretentious
reference to pretension itself.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:07
This is true. And check out
the character
portraits for pretension as well. They're lo-res
comic art, for chrissakes.
10998521 07/04/01 00:08
Quite. And the pictures of
the various
"sub-routines" are even worse.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:12
It's a Pretentious-Fest for
all. And they don't
appear to have actually done any work so far,
excepting of course the single room and hallway
in the screenshots. And they wear black polo
necks and berets and sip cappucinos while talking
about the machine intelligence they're pretending
to be, pretentiously.
10998521 07/04/01 00:13
So do we. Apart from the
polo-necks and the
berets and the cappucino.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:16
Yes, but at least we say
"Bollocks!" or words to
that effect at the appropriate points.
Extrapolating from his output thus far, Gillen
does not.
10998521 07/04/01 00:17
True. But were we to ever
set up a
pretentiousness factory like this, we would most
likely strip it of all references to said
bollocks.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:18
This is true. We must swear
never to allow such a
thing to pass the Bird's Eye... dear God, I'm
tripping again. Too late. Must stay online. Virus
was an excelent game.
10998521 07/04/01 00:20
Can't say I played it.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:22
You could get it, except
that Forsakenware went
down (webmaster was being told by his mother to
go study or somesuch) and it'd be an unholy trawl
through the other sites trying to find the game
with no search engine.
10998521 07/04/01 00:22
Yes. And I can't be arsed.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:23
Or I could try and send you
a 44k zip and a copy
of Mo'Slo.
10998521 07/04/01 00:24
If you like. But my
connection isn't behaving
well tonight.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:26
Unknown Network Error!
10998521 07/04/01 00:27
Something of the sort.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:28
Get a new copy of ICQ, a new
account and a new
computer. Then transfer your mind into another
body and your body to another mind, thus erasing
any grudge ICQ hold against you.
What version are you running?
10998521 07/04/01 00:30
2000b.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:33
Odd. Same here.
10998521 07/04/01 00:33
I think my machine's just
jinxed. Too many old
bits and half-fixed problems.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:37
Yep. Next year's Deferred
Work-Fest For
Acquisition Of Technology will solve all of my
problems in this area. I hope.
10998521 07/04/01 00:38
Remember not to carry over
any old bits. Just
transfer data files and burn the rest.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:41
Yes. Consign them to the
flames. Apart from
having every console ever, I'm gonna get myself
two new computers - a linux box with nice,
ordinary features for finally learning to code
and a Windows box with far too much power-user
hardware for serious games and graphics work. My
current computer will become a music server.
10998521 07/04/01 00:42
You're gonna need some serious cash.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:43
I'm liable to live at home
and eat nothing but
bread while working. Then I go to college and
have all this cool shit I was too busy to play
with last year!
10998521 07/04/01 00:44
Interesting. What work have you planned?
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:45
Not entirely sure, though I
have no doubt that
someone of my epic properties will have no
trouble in this department.
10998521 07/04/01 00:46
I suppose not.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:48
I'll just have to invent some qualifications.
10998521 07/04/01 00:49
Nah. We've done that before.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:50
Or write novels
continuously. And be more
prolific than Stephen King within a week.
10998521 07/04/01 00:51
You could try that.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:54
One potboiler a day. Make it
"more prolific than
Stephen King within a year".
10998521 07/04/01 00:55
More likely. It could
probably be done. Although
it could be difficult to earn money from this.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 00:57
Yes. I will convince fat
stupid Americans to give
me money instead.
10998521 07/04/01 00:57
Quite intelligent as plans go.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:00
Or maybe I'll steal one off Kenan and Kel.
10998521 07/04/01 01:01
You'll need a bulldozer,
some mangoes and a
toothbrush and meet me at the library.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:03
Awwww, here goes.
Or I could go to some design place and tell them
I'm 133+. That'll show'em.
10998521 07/04/01 01:04
According to Natasha, being
133+ and speaking
German qualifies me as Hitler.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:08
If Hitler wrote a great
humanitarian work when he
was fifteen, before he got into the genocide
phase, would it have been burned and vilified
later anyway?
10998521 07/04/01 01:10
Probably. Does anyone
remember Napoleon
Bonaparte's contributions to geometry?
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:11
Did he contribute to
geometry, or is this more
bollocks?
10998521 07/04/01 01:12
He did. Napoleon's theorem.
The centroids of the
equilateral triangles erected on the sides of any
triangle form an equilateral triangle.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:15
Ooh. Nice and fundamental.
10998521 07/04/01 01:16
Yes. Not that useful, but
interesting-sounding
and simple.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:21
Yes. Should be in the
Táblaí Matamatice. Or
somesuch.
10998521 07/04/01 01:23
No. 'Cos that stuff is all usefulish.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:26
If there was a lot of
elaborate geometry on the
LC course, it would be useful. And Marty would
not approve.
10998521 07/04/01 01:28
I would. It'd be a lot
better than all this
bloody integration shite.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:30
'S'truth, indeed. Good for
me with my better
spatial than numerical reasoning.
10998521 07/04/01 01:31
I'm better at the pure
abstract logic myself.
Which is why I want number theory and abstract
algebra.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:35
I say we scrap the maths
course and replace it
with ground-up computer graphics. The stuff
you'll learn that way...
10998521 07/04/01 01:36
As long as we have an
algorthm design section to
teach things like number theory.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:38
It'd be a cross between
Maths, Engineering,
Technical Drawing, Physics and Programming, which
ain't an LC course but should be.
10998521 07/04/01 01:39
Lots of things should be LC
courses but aren't.
Programming is definitely one of them. But there
are no teachers.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:41
Oh well. Ah'm gonna be a TA
next year anyway. I
don't care if they don't want me back, at least I
won't get kicked out for possession...
10998521 07/04/01 01:42
You'd better not.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:47
I was already nearly kicked
out once or twice.
And Feargal tried to do so again when he heard
someone say that an RA saw some people smoking
and someone else said that I might have been
hanging around with them.
10998521 07/04/01 01:48
I heard about that. They all love you really.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:50
Except Feargal. He told me I
was off the course
and to get my stuff together before I'd even
unpacked it. Then he instituted a Feargal Close
Trophy.
10998521 07/04/01 01:51
So he did. And we laughed.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:53
And he referred to my fire
extinguisher as a
"cannon".
10998521 07/04/01 01:54
Feargal is truly a master of irony.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:56
No, he is not. He was trying
to convince my
father not to reclaim the aforementioned artefact
from the Site Office.
10998521 07/04/01 01:57
An inspiration to us all.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 01:59
Yes. He leads by example. We wilfully meander.
10998521 07/04/01 01:59
A king among men.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 02:00
I want the DVD standard to
be abolished and
replaced with lossless compression and
ludicrously large discs, dammit.
10998521 07/04/01 02:01
Or a highly efficient
storage system which allows
lossless compression on a normal disc
Weishaupt 07/04/01 02:02
Well, yes. Large as in capacious.
10998521 07/04/01 02:03
Although 12" DVDs could be fun.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 02:03
Make'em black and grooved
with some anisotropic
reflectance.
10998521 07/04/01 02:04
And out of vinyl. Oh wait, no.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 02:06
Ooh! Ooh! Coat the read side
with synthetic sheet
diamond!
10998521 07/04/01 02:07
Sound fun. Well, I'm going to bed.
Weishaupt 07/04/01 02:07
Darn. My excuses for staying up are diminishing.