demagogue

Just a clarification question ... if you have separated a use-object and frob button, does that mean that the use button has been taken off the mouse and put on the keyboard -- so the mouse now has weapon-use & frob, but if you wanted to use a health potion or mine on-the-fly you'd have to find the key on the keyboard? My intuition was that frob and use were integrated to have a good amount of interaction kept on the mouse, particularly the stuff you might be doing on-the-fly, like running through doors you need to open, using a weapon, using a health potion as you're getting pelted, or blowing the horn of Alarus just as the burricks start charging. (I'm sure you have all thought about all the issues and have made a good decision, and have thought about the trade-offs; I'm just wondering about the mechanics and if I understand what's going on.)

Hey, happy birthday, Schatten. I can only say that turning 30 feels pretty cool, actually ... even though it was only a few months ago for me. You really can't get away with considering yourself a kid anymore!

There's a known history of music publishers bribing radio stations for play-time of songs; every once and a while you hear about it. I don't think game producers are necessarily above it any more than the music industry, esp as the whole game industry seems perpetually on thin ice. I would think that EA is a little too established and risk-adverse to be that stupid, though. But it could be like the Nixon syndrome ... so established you get paranoid.

Yes, another example of misunderstood iconography. Dragons still have a good connotation in the East; shame they lost that in the West. I'd think there are flags that are worse, though. In fact, I think a lot (if not most) flags have a little tainted pedigree somewhere or another. Turkey's flag is apparently (a metaphor for) the crecent moon that Ataturk saw reflected in the pool of British blood on the eve of its independence struggle from being a UK mandate. The German flag, I've heard, is the transformation from the black darkness of foreign rule to the gold glory of independence through the red blood of its struggle for independence ... or something. My personal favorite is Mozambique, which literally has an AK-47 emblazoned right in the middle, lol. Not much ambiguity there.

I was thinking it's already in post-production. I stumbled into a script for Indiana Jones IV once and had to stop myself from reading it because I want to see it fresh.

That would be Calendra's Legacy, only probably the most renoun FM set there is.

Wow ... I didn't notice it at all!

I vote we lock ZB in a room with some Bob Marley or Lesbian Seagull piped in through speakers, a plateful (or should I say a singing-bowl full) of magic brownies, the TV on Animal Planet, plenty of beads, birkenstocks, bree and burlap, and some free-love hippy girls. That ought to calm that cat down.

I like fiction and nonfiction, and would even consider alternating. But it seems that non-fiction is the head-runner here so far. Other book clubs I've seen run by members giving recommendations and then voting. We maybe don't need to be so formal, but it wouldn't hurt to have a few ground rules. I agree that it's a good idea to stick to good discussion-provoking books that aren't too technical but allow for lots to talk about ... philosophy, politics/policy, history, economics, sociology of science. Another idea is books that are inherently multidisciplinary, because they tend to explain the basics for each field and try to find connections. I had a good first list*, actually, but they weren't free. And maybe Maximius is on to something starting with free, online books, to get some momentum going with this. I'll think more about it. But for now I can list some archives that I like, although these tend towards articles, not books. Global Policy Forum (topics on globalization): http://www.globalpolicy.org/ David Chalmer's epic collection of online papers on all-things "consciousness": http://consc.net/online.html Two economics archives I like are econpapers.repec.org, and http://www.econlib.org/library/archive.html (that latter tending to the political right. For good karma I'll throw in http://www.marxists.org/reference/index.htm, lol; while nothing is easier to kick around than a Marxist, at least their archive is pretty well stocked with stuff that's hard to find elsewhere). Stanford's encyclopedia of philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/ (I also like semanticsarchive.net and arxiv.org, but those are going to be probably too techy). The advantage of articles, though, is that the commitment is less for each one, and you can line up like 5 articles in a row on a topic, to get a more diverse spread of perspectives, and see how a debate is shaping up. (it's sometimes fun when a class posts its readings online to go through them for the same reason). Oh, recommendations that are free online but not too technical. These are tougher to find than I thought... - Ariel Rubinstein, Economics and Language unites probably my two favorite subjects in one book on the relationship between the two (http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/el.html) - It might be fun to line up a few articles (4 or 5) on the free will debate: http://consc.net/online2.html#freewill , one essay every week or two (or any one of the subtopics from that list, for that matter, if we want something more focused; the *Chinese Room* argument, the Turing Test, whether consciousness exists and what is it, etc. I'll think about it some more. The Nanny State book looks interesting just because the administrative state dominates in so many areas of life these days; it's a topic that seems too over-neglected (with half baked arguments) or misunderstood given how important it is (well, that and I myself concentrated in administrative law at law school). --------------------------------- * My first list of non-free books, for the record : Dennett, Freedom Evolves (2006, arguing that what we call "free will" is a product of natural selection) Dan Dennett, Consciousness Explained (1992?) (We could talk about stuff like consciousness or free will, usually fun topics; he's a provacative writer; it's science based; not too technical; but still lots to talk about.) The latter reminds me of one fun idea I had before (although its a longer commitment), which is to look at two books that argue opposing theses, and then on top of the discussion about the books themselves, there's a discussion about the underlying debate, who makes the better case, etc. E.g., Dennett's Consciousness Explained (which argues that experience is derived from functional properties of the brain; no new physics needed) versus Chalmer's Conscious Mind (which argues that experience is an irreducibly basic element of the universe; new physics needed) Another pair is Pinker's The Blank Slate (which argues that much of what we call "human nature" is set by natural selection, debunking the old Locke "blank slate" idea and the political implications that come with it) versus The Adaptive Mind (I'll look up the author's name), which argues that human nature is more like the immune system, set only to adapt to its environment but not really hard-coded. Two others I was just thinking on my own were Don Ross's Economic Theory and Cognitive Science and Elementary Particles (forgot the author), but maybe too technical here.

You forgot your usual, favorite disclaimer, NH: "You can always add things you want after the basic toolset comes out." I always thought the sword in Thief was so apparently a remnant of its Dark Camelot origins. It seems odd for a thief to be dragging along something that large, unweildy, and clang-producing if at the same time he's wiggling through windows and trying to stay in the corners and shadows. But gameplay wise I thought the sword was much better -- it really sends the message that this guy wants to stay out of fights if he can help it, and even then is on the defensive; it really captures Thief as the anti-FPS -- so I like it coming back in TDM. I personally wouldn't try to further rationalize it by thinking it's more natural or intuitive for a medieval thief, per se (not that that's what you were doing, I'm just saying...). I'm content just thinking it makes for better balanced or more appropriate gameplay for this kind of game. Although since I never noticed any immersion-break, it was never a real issue for me, anyway.

Isn't Bukary from Poland? His Old Comrades, Old Debts was classic and had some guard zig-zagging, at least the opening puzzle, but it seems the one you (Maximus) are thinking about is full-FM sized, not this one. Anyway, a lot of the FMs I like seem underrated ... Ab Dr. Dragon, Lord Alan's Fortress, Trickster's Gem Mine series, Saturo Returns Home, Art of Thievery, Emilie Victor. I like an immersive story (which for me means actually not too story-heavy or it starts flagging under its own weight), but even with that good gameplay is still essential.

That's easy: Franklin Gothic.

I'm game. Just right now it may take me a little bit to get settled into a new job, though. After that it'll be better.

Reading some of these posts on the City on the edge of a dying empire brings to mind something I tended to think about the City sometimes, which that it reminded me so much of Constantinople as the Byzantine/Eastern Empire slowly eroded away to the Turks (I minored in Middle Eastern Studies in college, BTW) ... very cosmopolitan, a center of trade, politics, culture, the Eastern Church. It was really the city itself in which everything thrived; esp towards the end, the last remant of the entire Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire, which once stretched from ... well, it was huge, left to one city. And while there may have been stuff like Church councils going on in Anatalia (Nicene, etc), outside the city, the engine running the culture was always Constantinople. Another fun connection is that, in fact, Istanbul the word itself is literally a Turkish vulgarization of the Greek Ista Polis, "(to) the City"; Turks just called it by "the City". If I were to add anything to this discussion, it's just that I find it fun to think about alternative histories in terms of playing with ideas brought up in real history. And I find Istanbul good fodder in particular. I'll think more about it.

It had to happen ... the day they started coming to the TDM forum to ask for Thief hints.

Haha, this from the person with almost thirteen-thousand posts at you-know-where. Please! Sorry, not my fight. But you have to admit the irony is beyond dripping in this case.

Well at least they've moved on from blatant antisemitism. Give them a little credit. Edit: In all seriousness, though, I can't have that much sympathy with Ford cars after I was driving my Dad's Taurus and in the middle of driving on a highway it started emitting noxious yellow fumes out of the air conditioning, blinding me to the road, as the engine started loudly knocking and sputtering. Scary as hell. I had to stick my head out the window, slow down and pull over with my eyes still stinging! And then I was late for work and had to make them believe my story, lol.

Why don't you post new screenshots so we can see just how it makes things look better. I'm curious now.

Yeah, that was the issue. I had it backwards ... not whether the Americas got it from Europe but whether Europe got it from the Americas or not. Thanks for keeping me honest. I always find these kind of documentaries a little humbling in that a few pieces of evidence have the potential to overthrow very old "established" ideas, and suddenly it's a different world (maybe not the history of siphilis as much as stufff like the big bang and plate tectonics, but you get my meaning.)

To demonstrate just how out of the circle I personally was, I can honestly say I don't remember offhand; I'd have to look it up again. It wasn't really *my* schtick (except for BASIC programming, lol, and breaking games, I liked trying that). I was just fortunate enough to have some friends in that world. I remembered while I was reading that book that one of the stories sounded familiar, and the town where it happened was very close to where I grew up, so I asked some old friends and they were like "Oh, yeah ... that guy. I knew him." It's not really as impressive as I made it sound. In the book, there were three hacker "gangs", one in NYC (MoD), a German one, and a North Texas one. It's the Texas one I'm talking about; the main Texas guy they talk about in that book is the one I mean. Of the people I knew, one guy, Chris Kao, was a Laotian immigrant building/selling computers out of his garage by 16, and he had a friend that seemed to be part of that circle - where I picked up all my game-breaking info, and another guy Drew Subke did a lot of cool stuff with phones and routing and digging around offsites. I gather they themselves weren't all that notorious, but enough in the circle to know others in town that were.

I read a fun book recently about that time called "Masters of Deception: the Gang That Ruled Cyberspace", and was surprised to see some people I knew of (friends of friends, anyway) made it into the book as legendary '80s hackers!

I saw a documentary on the history of siphilis that was related to what you guys were talking about. Apparently the traditional story about Europeans bringing it to America, and when they brought it, was wrong on a lot of points. Let me see if I can find a link; it was interesting. I recall that strained race-relations was part of the story.

I have an uneasy feeling remaining, though. I don't know if I'll express it well, but I'll try. Sorry if it's long. I feel uneasy when so-called skeptics take a position of enlightenment just because they've been able to transcend religion or whatever that they feel safe in concluding there's no bigger picture to even try to figure out ... in a sense it's like they let themselves off the hook too easily. I happen to think that the phenomenon of "faith" is deeper in humans than just what we traditionally consider "religious" thinking. To my mind, people and societies are still grasping towards the bigger picture in uncertainty; it's part of being human whether you call it religion or not. So a lot of people have a kind of faith in capitalism, or technology, or technocracy/bureacracy, or social planning ... that advancing these projects really will make all our collective lives better. Most politics comes across like based on a kind of "faith" to me, there's reasons to think that the brain treats both in similar ways, grasping towards some "end" to the world, the most recent one maybe "free-market globalization". So that's one issue. I think some skeptics are either too quick to think that (what they consider) "faith" doesn't have a role in human affairs outside of religion. Or they go too far the other way and conclude that because there is no ultimate end to the world, so there's no real need to contribute to these kinds of big projects; like there's no reason to take a stand on whether globalization is the "right" end for us to push towards, and what kind of globalization, or some alternative. I'm not saying anyone here is doing that; it just makes me feel uneasy that some skeptics let themselves off the hook too easily in thinking because there is no "meaning" to it all, they don't need to take a stand on what kind of values we should promote, not just for ourselves, but for everybody. Another issue, the deeper one, is the existentalist/Sartre schtick of *really* taking human "freedom" seriously; that we've been "abandoned" in this world and we really have to make our own values, but are also totally responsible for them. It's easy to say, maybe, but how many people really act as if they are absolutely responsible for what their values stand for and who they become. Oh, also, on science... that's actually a good example of my uneasiness. The problem with science is that, in the end, it doesn't really give any normative guidance at all. It just tells us what possibilities are available to us, but not which possibilities are better than others. It really doesn't contribute any set of values for one way of life over another. That's why nobody has ever died for a scientific principle. But of course, we appeal to values all the time when integrating science and technology into our lives. We think it's a better life when we can communicate and travel faster and more efficiently. But these values are actually outside of science, and we appeal to them often like a kind of faith; thinking if everyone could only communicate and travel faster it will make life better for everybody. A better example is what I study, risk regulation. We have to draw a line whether a 1:1 million risk is acceptable for the water utility bill we want to pay. Science can only give us a risk/price graph, but it can't tell us which point is "best". To do that, we need to appeal to values. I think it's good people can make stands like that, but I think people should be clear that that's a value they are positing without full certainty of it's truth, and science isn't really offering any guidance on that answer, so it isn't fully rational. it has to do with the kind of people we want to be, and the kind of way of life we want to lead and promote. One can say this isn't anything like religion, but to my mind there's a lot of crossover if you are looking at the situation honestly. It seems we would be too quick to think our "tough decisionmaking" is over now that we don't have to read the mind of God. I think we *still* have a duty to figure out what's the best way of life for ourselves and society. And a lot of that is just choosing way X because that's the kind of people we want to be, or values we want to represent. But if pushed to say why it's a better value, people's answers start looking quite "faith" like, whether they want to admit it or not. Anyway, too much to say on this topic; it's not even all my thinking. It's a classical Continental take on it, at least until the postmodernists came and really made a mess of everything. I just wanted to get the perspective on the table as part of the discussion ... just as an alternative to all the back-patting going on.

In the pre-Internet days, I remember friends of mine pulling off War Games schticks all the time, breaking C64 games, breaking into phone companies, way before information security meant anything. It was sort of funny at the time for what it was. They'd call up two people at the same time and connect them to each other, as if one called the other, "hello?" "Hello?" "who is this?" "Joe, who is this?" And then my friend would join in "Hello?" and 14-year-old hilarity insued. It all seems pretty tame by today's sandards, although in some respects more hard-core when you figured out how laughably easy it was to break into people's phone records and company's financial records.

On that last point, I like the quote "Nobody ever lost money on underestimating the public's intellegence." (PT Barnam, I think?). TGGP, a user at ttlg, used to quote it.