What, these kits also detect methane?

I don't recall Reaper bots learning opponent play styles. They did learn to path around new maps (the guy who wrote the AI had a day job writing routing routines for network routers, and he applied concepts from that to game pathing), and they had a simple finite state machine that allowed them to tarck enemies, search for enemies, engage in combat using techniques like circle-strafing, disengage from comat if canditions like health/armour/powerups/weapons were unfavourable, etc. As far as I remember they treated all players the same, though.

GALAHAD: Look, it's my duty as a knight to sample as much peril as I can.

LANCELOT: No, we've got to find the Holy Grail. Come on!

GALAHAD: Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril?

LANCELOT: No. It's unhealthy.

GALAHAD: I bet you're gay.

LANCELOT: No, I'm not.

Best laugh of the day. Thank you, Anonymous Coward.

The poster you responded to above did not say anything negative about athletes, musicians, actors or models; he just pointed out that you don't necessarily need intelligence to succeed in those fields. Since you couldn't parse the message, it's obvious your strengths lie elsewhere as well, and that's cool, but maybe you don't want to poke a wasp's nest of intellectuals and take them on in their home turf.

Just a suggestion.

The picture that formed in my mind was disturbing, to say the least.

Are you on Canadian Netflix? There are more Canadian shows on Netflix in Canada, compared to the U.S. Netflix.

At least, there were last time I checked.

This is an announcement from Genetic Control:
"It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on humanoid height."

[Extract from conversation of Joe Ordinary in Local Puborama]

"I hear the directors of Genetic Control have been buying all the
properties that have recently been sold, taking risks oh so bold.
It's said now that people will be shorter in height,
they can fit twice as many in the same building site.
(they say it's alright),
Beginning with the tenants of the town of Harlow,
in the interest of humanity, they've been told they must go,
told they must go-go-go-go."

"Stand on Zanzibar", anyone?

Much like "The Sheep Look Up", it's one of John Brunner's novels that has stayed fresh and relevant. The guy wrote a lot of "throw-away", thin novels, but his great stuff was prescient and stylish in a way that has not tarnished with time.

I loved launching homemade hot-air balloons made from dry-cleaning bags, straws, toothpicks and birthday candles, as well as alternative heating experiments with Sterno and aluminum foil. Protip: camping fuels like Sterno are poor choices. They do burn at a very high temperature and don't weigh much, but the downside is twofold:
1) They burn so hot that the hot air near the flame is so much hotter than the air at the top of the bag that they tend to turn over easily.
2) Combine #1 with the fact that, unlike birthday candles (which go out when they drop from the sky), Sterno keeps burning.
I accidentally napalmed the local cop shop one night. Oopsy.

Wait a sec, you are a Slashdot reader, but don't concede that Brian Krebs is a respectable journalist specializing in computer security issues? I hereby revoke your nerd card!

Seriously, Brian Krebs is the gold standard of reporting on this stuff. His prominence as an expert who constantly exposes the computer criminal underworld is unparalleled in journalistic circles, and is the reason that he actually has been the target of attacks by the aforementioned underworld denizens. As for dismissing his professional investigative reporting because it's on his "blog", I will point to his previous highly successful 14 years as a tech/security reporter for the Washington Post.

Dismissing Brian Krebs as a hack because he reports via a blog is like dismissing Bruce Schneier's thoughts on some new encryption algorithm because he wrote about it on his blog. Would you feel differently if I had linked to a Fox News video?

http://krebsonsecurity.com/201...

You're welcome :)

Some moved to Pathfinder, for sure, but many of us just kept playing 3.5 with house rules. The DnD sessions I participate in are fast'n'loose and fun as hell.

Almost nobody plays 13Th age (not dissing it, just am unfamiliar with it because ...er, nobody plays it).

My wife has multiple certifications in water and wastewater treatment, and she claims that it is only impractical from a P.R. standpoint; in most places, people would raise bloody hell if you told them that they were drinking water straight from the wastewater treatment facility, but it really is no different than drinking water from a municipal watershed. As she puts it, we are all drinking dinosaur pee anyway :)

Erotic is using a feather. Perverted is using the whole chicken.