Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat

not so much now, but especially in late 90's early 00's every single site from political news to metaphysical cults to tv listings for any channel to weather had such images and links. It's inevitable. Here's something interesting, yandex is like a search engine portal thing for russia. well on http://company.yandex.ru/press/1998/10-09_00.xml it says: Following the financial and political crisis an erotic crisis followed in Russia. One month ago on the page "last 20 search keys" over half were "hard and soft porno", "nude girls", or keyword "...", "####", "-----", during the crisis a moral mind was made happy with the following sight: (snapshot) Instructions of Central Bank of Russian Federation for export Mayor's Parade 3DS sending yusna world centre database for employment price of karbamid powder dye dollar exchange rate employment agency (foreign legion) and (address) Red Alert mts Bzhezinsky BUY SEMITRAILERS how to earn money osama bin laden meet a girl weather AMIBIOS

I was just listening to a song on the radio, 1390, sounds pretty good, then found the lyrics, and it struck me it's potentially very similar to the pagans or whatnot situations in the darkmod universe. http://www.lyricsdownload.com/intertitus-d...390-lyrics.html

The connection is of course weak, but still, a similar sense of oppression and masses of people exists in my opinion between the ruling Builder empire and the Union. Ok, that's all BS, but the pictures are nice. http://akuma.ru/article.aspx?control=contr...cx&uid=5350 and large spiders are not out of the question, as are any other large insects: http://akuma.ru/article.aspx?control=contr...cx&uid=5352 Hmm, I'm beginning to feel I might regret posting this evening's posts after brandy.

When my grandfather died I likewise felt 'new' and that I have to take advantage of the remaining time and people. And productivity rose. We were somehow very close, similar in many things, inventive and independent. His family history was industrialist with some nobility mixed in, he fought for Russia then for Germany, stole a German airplane, then crashlanded it, then got sent to America by Americans, then returned to Russia and sent to a Stalin concentration camp. And he refused to talk about any of this during the last days of his life when I visited him after lectures almost every day. I just wanted to record for posterity. Then he died in a house fire. NH, "Counting down each day is fine.", that's when I thought this way: I can create a program for the Palm OS (low-res) where each black pixel would represent a pixel lived and white pixel a day remaining, and it would fit perfectly.

I do not appreciate child-like incessant questions. The generally accepted moral code dictates that some things should be discovered on your own. On a side note, I remembered playing Right up there on the Mountains, it was very good. Especially given that I was familiar with the Evil Dead series.

Be Happy.

We can speculate that they never invented and never will (hopefully) dichlorodifluoromethane as that would be an immersion breaker like the turbojet. In their refrigerators they use ammonia, and the fridges are not powered by electricity (they consume a lot, wireless electricity not an option, best to have direct mechanical coupling), they are powered directly by steam engines. Thus they are only at large industrial warehouses, etc, near rail-lines. We can also concede that they do after all have turbines, but not efficient ones, just less noisy, easier to maintain than steam engines for producing electricity or any motive power (stationary, big, energy hungry). They are or were developing internal combustion engines but (it's somewhat a miracle in my opinion they caught on so early in our world) they never succeeded in making them efficient or practical, so large low pressure turbines and steam engines are the only choices, and all are large, stationary, and increase in efficiency proportionally to size, making movable objects smaller than a locomotive not practical and thus not pursued. It's just more romantic without the otto cycle. the household turbines feed on coal dust, atomized hydrocarbons (fossil fuels, sometimes lipids), and city gas (readily available in some parts. the household steam engines run on wood, coal, or anything combustible. Canals are built around the city and around the country to facillitate efficient disbersement of goods, but because of the recent calamity as described by other people in this thread, most kingdoms and states surrounding the vicinity of the City are in a state comparable to germany before the unification, canals are only built in civilized places and thus there aren't many. I'm referring to the canals which stretch long distances, pass through inhabited places, and move tons of cargo with horses. Like the one that made New York, Buffalo and Chicago prosperous. On other continents in far away lands we can speculate there are. Canals are justifiable because there is sufficient supply and demand, amount of middle class, and economy to warrant them. Because of the availability of canals for cargo, rail lines were never heavily invested in, and are thus almost non-existant. Besides, they are best used for smaller, faster deliveries like people, and people in this world don't have many travelling needs: the poorer people stay put, the rich travel by coach, and states surrounding the kingdom where the City is are not exactly tourist destinations. Because of the canals and lack of travel Steam boats were never heavily developed, although they did exist for about 200 years (remember, this is off the top of my head). The steam engines are still huge and inefficient, and if put on a boat leaves hardly any space (or money) for cargo. Besides they have a 100% chance of exploding at some point because inevitably someone will want to push the extra 5% of power from the boiler. So for local travel, (which is rare) roads and horses are used, and canals for cargo.

I didn't know I posted sufficiently enough to warrant being classified as such. My favourites are; lampfire hills, 7th crystal, calendra *, yandros's *, kfgecko's *, lord edmund+, DoG, Lorgan's web, Stronghold, hush hush sweet harlot, durant, stowaway, Inheritance, mages area, gatb, lord rothchest, docks, cauchemars, bloodstone prison. I never understood what people saw in CoS or Washout central. And then I have memories of great missions but have no idea what the missions are, maybe somebody remembers what i'm talking about. first, a huge city which is time-limited, has a gem-store with tons of gems, an iron foundry, a big cathedral at the end to which you can swim through canals, clothes hanging on the streets, and lots of zombies at the end. second, some place where it seems cold, i come unto this street with some mysterious building, there's a vampire inside whom i kill, inside the building some elevators, magical potion things, several floors, but not expansive, outside the building, and across the bridge i think is some hammers, and under something the entrance to some thieves' guild. great artists: gonchong, kung fu gecko, strawman, deep qantas, purah, yandros, schwaa, *fox*, jonquil, trimfect, nightfall, yametha, mokkis, saturnine,

I propose we all stay out of it. (However it is impossible to propose without posting)

Orb, I decided not to discuss that because it's pointless to those for whom it is self-obvious and for those for whom it isn't.

It's ok, when engineering gets to me I startr speelling accordingly: frents for friends, doubel faze flow, etcetera

Indeed, the scalp i s very w ell saturated with capilaries. I had the same feeling.

There are extensive discussions, recommendations, lists of best of the best, categorization by genres etc, on the ttlg forums.

It's a nice thing they're free and online because I wasn't planning on lugging around a 4 pound hardcover in my backpack for the occasional time I have nothing better to do. I always have my Palm and on it always 10+ books just because it's convenient.

Knowing now that it's non-fiction kind of attracts me. Not fully though.

btw, I read an interesting book, which if the occasion arises I shall transcribe into the computer form for availability in FMs, on the measurement of calorimetetry and illuminating power of city gas. Also I saw the philosophical transactions in the basement of the university library, but didn't bother reading it, as well flipped through Newton's Principia in latin published in 1712, very oddly standing along with the other books published in japan and russia on obscure physics and mathematics topics, which I found odd and interesting.

umm, hasn't this been asked and answered many times previous?

Until the empire started to collapse and it was very hard to fuel slaves or any other people. I remember some politician handing out bread to people to be voted into the office. I think the most obvious is the technology. Magic, as is religion, a belief system, and is therefore under the same scrutiny as anything belief-based is customarily, that is, none. Technology and science though, by definition can be expected to be explained in scientific and technological ways. Using Aristotle's physics to say that an air balloon (carrying people) rises because it is mostly air and thus undergoes natural motion upward is perfectly acceptable, as is saying that the sky consists of crystal shells. It is also semi-alright to say the moon has atmosphere, and as the earth's gravity diminishes with square of distance (according to some guy called Newton) it has less and less hold on the atmosphere, which rarifies as one goes up, until starting to un-rarify as one approaches the moon (and direction of gravity reverses), thus balloon travel to the moon is possible. Of course then the question of friction arises, which was well known by Galileo (rather stupidly) and Newton (rather well) as well as all the latter scientists. I hear people say the keepers use magic by way of glyphs, yet as far as I can remember the glyphs were used only once to seal up a cathedral, and overall magic is not widely used by the keepers. By the way, a good question is where do they get their wealth. And in my opinoin the tech is not as one would expect with the occasional inclusion of higher tech. The higher tech (as well as any) requires a history of its appearance in the world and an infrastructure. Also most times after a demonstration of its capability, and if its not prohibitive in cost, it spreads and develops very fast. As far as I remember gas which burns was discovered by Dr Hales and published in a common scientific journal, philosophical transactions, and first used to light the outside of a building in 1802 which astonished the public (by Watt's friend at their steam engine factory), while the steam engine (used to sump water from coal mines) was invented by Newcomen in 1712, but because of crappy craftsmanship at the time it couldn't have been a positive pressure one and thus was by a vacuum. it was 50 years before some guy named watt decided to improve upon it. Remember the romans considered it a highest honour and demonstration of civilization to build gigantic building, temples, and stone structures. Can we assume that the empire before did likewise with strong iron things like boilers and apparati that could withstand high pressures? And the steam engine was actually invented a very long time ago? Back to the gas lights, it's rather unlikely or impossible that the situation transpired as above described, as iron foundries are the most obvious source of gas. Because of making coke. And in real life many people experimented with different sources for gas and methods of production to achieve the most illuminating power. The dirtiest gas (with long hydrocarbons, oily, tar, etc) burned the brightest. Also, these days most people visualize gas lights as they are found in the modern context, propane burning in rare-earth mantles, not the fish-tails of before. So perhaps not because of the unavailability of capable technicians and swamps but because of limited production from coal caused by political and economic surcumstances only the rich have afforded to have the brightly illuminating and "cool" gas piped into their houses and gardens. You mean evil by definition?Evil by definition is only that what the current ruling moral-enforing agency defines.

Now this is something!

Regarding before, more than a dissatisfaction with life I meant seeing the flaws in the surrounding world, as when a person with certain ideals sees the world by far not conforming to those ideals. Regarding now, Ishtvan, that sounds nice and to me very complicated as I'm a complete zero when it comes to big-time politics or economics involving more than a dozen people. I always "fail to understand". Sounds nice. The overextension I can say has been caused because the empire kept expanding, overfarmed its nearby lands necessitating organization of farms far away in the empire and importing the food, had an increasing military force which was increasingly less efficient, and had a growing bureaucratic layer who consumed increasingly more taxes and state-resources to run things. Thus they relied on continual expansion and capture of neighbouring states as well as the exploitation of easy to get fresh water, iron, gold, coal (perhaps the heat engine has been here for a while?), marble, stone, and food. They considered it a mark of the modern civilization and their achievenement to build gigantic stone and marble buildings in all reaches of their empire. They were also originally polytheistic and the builders (monotheistic) came to popularity only close to the time of and after the collapse of the empire. Their carpenters built gigantic wooden human-powered cranes using the very tall trees that grew around the empire as timber, which could lift blocks of stone into position up to 5 tons. Of course if they had such cranes then they only developed heat engines and industrial steel production (bessemer or siemens-martin process) only after the collapse of the empire. Maybe only the Inventor's guild, or the precursor to the Guild, some kind of Royal academy of industrial hammers in experimenting with iron making furnaces, made the temperature hotter, oxidized the carbon, etc, and made steel. So we can guess cast iron was discoevered a very long time ago. In our universe, the chinese discovered cast iron in 500BC and the europeans in 1200AD and started using it only in 1400AD. edit; in ancient greece there was an inventor's guild or an academy some long time ago who almost came to the point of a heat engine, (they had something rotating by the power of steam upon heating), but they were not practical people - they preferred to invent for philosophical reasons. Due to overexpansion, and increasing complexity and exploitation the empire obviously could no longer sustain itself, people rebelled in various places, eventually rebellions could not be controlled and it collapsed. After the collapse a part of the empire remained as the "holy builder empire" or something. And I myself read 60% fantasy, 35% science fiction, and 5% other when I was younger. Now it's mostly things like American Genesis by Thomas Hughes, upside of down by thomas homer-dixon, and success through failure by henry petroski. On my Palm I've got a bunch of older books which I consider it a must to have read eventually, and currently on the bus when I have nothing better to do I read the adventures of Hans Pfaal on the palm.

this seems to be a new one compatible with all oses. I saw that one in 1997 and it was worked only for win95.

You mean the one that turns asterisks into the password?

I do not understand if the above replies carry negative or positive emotions; just in case the first I'd like to defend myself by saying it is no more an excersise in psychology than an observation that when things go well people tend to be optimistic about the future.

When life seems unsatisfactory flawed some people turn to fantasy.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...11/ai_105162050 I thought it was safe.