Comment Re:Sounds reasonable, but look who's in prison (Score 1) 220
RIP Leslie. He was a genuinely funny comedian without reducing to slapstick.
RIP Leslie. He was a genuinely funny comedian without reducing to slapstick.
In my experience elegant source code (1) uses descriptive yet concise names for variables and functions/methods/procedures, (2) each function/method/procedure is documented with a header block immediately preceding it, (3) a competent computer programmer / software developer / software engineer can read through the source code and understand it; this person need not be an expert in the particular language, and (4) the source code is maintainable and extensible. In fact using language specific idioms often detracts from producing easily maintainable source code.
Agreed. Have you ever encountered/worked with such code? Any available for viewing somewhere?
In my entire career I have never seen any examples. Could really use some for morale boosting.
Thank you so much GoG!!!
No DRM, clean installers, good responsive forums, reasonably priced. And now Linux support incoming. Virtually unheard of in today's game publishing/distributing business.
It would seem IBM has no problem with their DB/2 UDB releases, which run on every version of Linux I've thrown them at over the past 5-6 years.
True, but that is IBM you are talking about.
It is a MASSIVE corporation that charges arms-legs-and-all-other-body-parts for their services. They got the resources to spare in order to test and support their products on all the hundreds of Linux distributions.
Contrast it to GoG.com that is a speck in comparison.
You are right about Crimea. Crimea was part of Russia until relatively recently (1954). Their leaving of Ukraine was inevitable.
I am more curious about your opinion on Eastern Ukraine. That part too has quite a bit of Russian population, but was never historically part of Russia. Do you think Russia would be welcomed if they invade?
For as long as Putin and his cronies are in power, the U.S. and the rest of the western world should offer any law-abiding Russian citizen who wants to leave an automatic green card, work permit, etc.
You don't know what you are asking for! All the really smart Russians have been emigrating away in thousands since the fall of the iron curtain. If you open your doors your country will get swamped and you will be complaining about all those damn immigrants taking your jobs for cheap.
Have a look at refugee crisis in Australia.
I will hazard a guess that your grandmother was not Jewish or Roma.
Besides, the Russian oligarchs hold all their funds in US dollars. They won't tolerate a drop in their net worth over something like this.
You hit the nail squarely on the head. This is precisely the reason why I don't think Russia will ever do any kind of economic threats nor will enter any direct conflict with the United States.
Inflation may cost our wealthy creditors, but it will help the much, much larger part of us who have mortgages, student loans, car loans, credit card debt, business loans, etc.
How so? Correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that all loans closely follow inflation rates.
For example if the inflation goes to 600%, wouldn't your loan immediately become 600% of the total amount you borrowed in the past?
Therefore, you have to be a nutcase to get an A in nonlinear differential equations.
Vietnam is a nightmare of jungle.
Afghanistan is a nightmare of mountains and caves.
Ukraine is smooth open fields with some woodland. What is resistance going to use as cover or hiding places?
If enough pressure it put, the question will be put to vote, and with only a small majoriy of Russian speakers in Crimea, it is stastically implausible they would ever have a full majority to join the Russian federation.
I disagree with your assertion that Russians make up a small majority of population of Crimea. In the Wikipedia article on Crimea it states that 58% of the population is ethnic Russians and 24% are Ukrainian. Crimea was traditionally Russian territory. It was only given to Ukraine quite recently: 1954.
I believe that Russia will have control of Crimea no matter what. The navy bases in the city of Sevastopol are far too strategical to lose.
And who is going to oppose them when majority of population are ethnic Russians? Ukraine simply can not win this battle militarily: They need international pressure.
EU get 30% of their natural gas from Russia. They don't want to piss them off. I don't think they care that much about Crimea to have a major confrontation with the great, eastern bear. Have a look at how little was done during Russo-Georgian war.
US doesn't have any interest in the region. Bombing some backwater economies like Iraq and Afghanistan is one thing, but killing Russian soldiers is a whole another ballpark. It will never happen. Again, look at Russo-Georgian war just 6 years ago.
However, everything changes if Russia moves on Kiev. I will be a surprised if that happens, because that will open MAJOR can of worms. I believe NATO will intervene militarily if that happens.
Thank you for your recommendations. I will check them out.
I think that you're looking at WD through different levels of engagement (which is a legitimate failure on WD's part).
It is not a failure of WD. The two games are just different with different focus. PT is about philosophy and meaning of existence. WD is about interpersonal relationships under stressful situations (With some philosophical questions also included as you rightly point out). Both games lead to quite insightful realizations and introspection. Both games focus on writing and quite good in their niche.
... Examples of Walking Dead beauty
I agree completely. Walking Dead is quite a gem of immersiveness and introspection in its own right. It really does strike a lot of emotional cords and is very well written. Dividing the food is one of the best examples of how well crafted it was.
If good writing is something a player is looking for in modern games. WD is where I'm going to point them.
And I also completely agree that at the moment when you look at game industry's obsession with graphics, online content and focus on e-sports, the Walking Dead series is a pleasant outlier. I would also point a player that is looking for a good writing to the WD series. It was not my intention to put down Walking Dead.
Sadly, I can't recommend Planescape Torment anymore. It is just too old. All the times I tried, players just can't get past the dated graphics, the amount of reading required and most of all slow start. Very few players I convinced to give that game a go made it out of the Mortuary. It is hard to get it to work on modern systems as well.
What other games would you recommend to players that are interested in writing over graphics and gameplay?
1) Planescape torment - One might reference Neverwinter Nights games (specifically with the expansion stories) to get the isometric D&D style gameplay. But the gameplay in Planescape was not important at all, it was all about the protagonist's existential dilemma and top-quality writing, that's the element that people remember so fondly. With that in mind, The relatively recent game I'd recommend that you try is Walking Dead Season 1. If you don't watch the show, or read the comics, that's fine, because this game is both totally unconnected to, and is much better than the source material. Unless you're the kind of person that likes to jump on the bandwagon of hating things that are popular? This "game" has hardly any game mechanics to speak of because this is an RPG in the purest sense. You play a role, and the entire focus of this game is on making you really feel like you're IN the role. You make weighty decisions that result in significant consequences.
I own and played through all the four episodes of Walking Dead and quite like the game. I also replay Planescape Torment every few months. While Walking Dead is a good game, it is nowhere near Planescape in my opinion.
Writing is the only thing we will compare. Gameplay is quite poor in both games.
The vastly summarized premise of Planescape Torment: You are an immortal being, tormented for all eternity by losing your memory after every death. Your goal is to decipher the origin of your curse and find a way to finally die. Set in a world where thoughts and believes shape the very fabric of reality. Major question being asked "What is the nature of a man?" is quite deeply philosophical and is treated with great depth.
Contrast it with the Walking Dead: You are a convicted criminal. The goal is to survive in a standard run-of-the-mill zombie apocalypse. You come across a stranded child and take over the role as her parent. The major choices are how to earn the trust of others, how you treat others, how far you go to look after yourself vs looking out for others in a survival situation, making alliances and enemies inside a group of survivors.
Straight up, Walking Dead's writing just doesn't compare. Planescape deals with deep questions of philosophy and the meaning of life. In addition it also deals with same issues as WD: You have a very wide range of how you can treat your companions. Good example is Dakkon: He is your slave chained by his oaths. You can torment him about it, remain neutral or help him achieve the next level of enlightenment of his philosophy.
Decisions in WD are not really weighty. At most your choices result in a character being killed earlier or later. You never shape their development. No matter how badly you treat Clementine, you will still be there at the hotel rescuing her from the psychopath and you still will help Clementine get away from you when you turn. The only difference is if she shoots you or lets you become a zombie. You can't stop Kenny's wife from suicide no matter how you treat her or whether you volunteer to put down their son yourself. Moreover the game's writing quite simply lacks depth: I can finish it at relaxed pace in three days and there is no reason to replay it beyond three times or four times since the decisions are so limited and you will see almost all content by the second playthrough.
Contrast it to PT where my decision will dictate the very state of the plane of existence. I can also have a huge impact on the fate of the companions and their outlook on life.
There is simply no game that I know of that rivals Planescape Torment. It is a masterpiece of its genre.
"Look! There! Evil!.. pure and simple, total evil from the Eighth Dimension!" -- Buckaroo Banzai
