It was meant neither as an excuse nor as an explanation.

Let's just say that apparently Toady has the kind of skills and character that enabled him to implement DF in the current fashion. And that is both a big compliment and a big gripe...

embarrassingly parallel has a specific meaning, namely that the task is composed of a (relatively large) number of sub tasks that can each be performed completely independent of each of the other sub tasks. So, any sane attempt to pathfind (say an A* search) is not embarrassingly parallel since whether a path can be pruned depends on the best paths found so far in other branches, and there is an optimal ordering for which branches to descend into first which is also dependent on what's happening in the other branches. I'm sure you can make a parallel version by e.g. forking out N possible branches to some depth, gathering state, and then pruning and ordering centrally and branching out again on the most promising branches, but this is not "embarrassingly" parallel.

s/van/can/... I want an edit button on /., even if only for the first 5 minutes after posting...

For one unit, sure. The CPU problem in DF (as far as I understand) is that there are 200 dwarves, 100 goblins and 400 kittens all trying to pathfind at the same time. Unless I miss something, each of these units van pathfind in parallel since they don't "know" about the other's paths.

Yes... From what I gather, the developer ("Toady") is an autodidact that doesn't use any sort of version control and no multithreading. Although the simulation might be difficult to run in multiple threads, I think the path finding is one of the biggest CPU drains and that should be embarrassingly parallel. Also, he is really giving the community a tough time by having a monolithic game engine + GUI instead of some sort of modular system, which would allow the many programming-savvy fans to build tools much more easily (tools such as dfhack and therapist now use direct memory hacking, which is annoying (therapist needs root access, dfhack encapsulates df itself) but also unstable.

Also, if you've never played DF, it is probably best to either wait a couple months until the worst bugs are fixed and the wiki etc are updated, or just grab the previous versions. This new version will still be quite rough at the edges and some of the info on the wiki, youtube etc will be outdated.

I'm pretty excited about the new release, I've been playing for a couple years and I hope that especially the AI behaviour has been improved although it is not listed in the change log as such...

Problem is, using it for good is more and more being outlawed.

Maybe because 99% of the crap of the 16 bit era was more inspired than 99% of the AAA titles of today?

Because today, all that props the average AAA title up is the "oohhhh, shiny!" effect. Once that's gone, you're left with an aging stripper without a boob job.

So we'll have more programmers who don't get why buffer overflows are bad.

In other words, nothing will change.

Yay for job security!

A problem shared is a problem halved?

n^2*(number of browser versions)

I don't know about your CS courses. Ours here pretty much expect you to KNOW programming if you want to have a snowball-in-hell chance to graduate.

So I guess the pay for that extra hour you had to work because your boss made you will go to your insurance company...

Of course, provided that he paid you for it in the first place. Else you not only lose time but also money.

The question today ain't so much whether you're paranoid, it's more whether you're paranoid enough.

I mean, think about it. Ponder that you told someone in 1999 that all our email traffic is monitored by the government, that they log and examine every bit you do on the internet, that they use your cell phone to track your every move and that they basically log, store, monitor and evaluate every kind of communication you do, be it via phone or internet, and that they track what you read, who you talk to, what you talk about and what information you access.

Personally, I'd have asked you whether you want to buy a new tinfoil hat, now with even better anti-government shielding.

Today, I'd ponder buying one.

Well, you have to admit, we have every right to.

Technology used to be what sets us free, what allows us to go where nobody went before, to soar and climb to new heights, to liberate ourselves and our dreams.

Today, technology is just a tool for oppression and control, to monitor and to invade our privacy. What we loved has turned into what we hate.

Isn't that enough to make someone cry?