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That was quite an adventure there. I've had my fair share of the "changing of the laptop" over the last couple of years. The one I had when I first moved to Washington I had for a couple of years and it was a low-end laptop; good enough for browsing, great for word processing, but horrible for games that required more than just moving a card from one place to another. So I "upgraded" to a newer model. It wasn't really an upgrade, just more of the same that I was dealing with just with a different exterior, so back to Walmart it went and I dropped another $150 on top of what I already paid for something better.
Was it better? Meh, just enough for me to be satisfied with it for a couple of years. It did great until one day I noticed certain tasks were taking longer. My first thought was malware! I threw everything I had short of formatting the hard drive at it and nothing changed. I stepped it up to checking for spyware, and possibly a virus. Nothing really changed. I started combing the registry (for those not familiar, it's a whole lot of looking for something that you know shouldn't be there. Truth be told I really shouldn't have done it myself) and came up with nothing so one day I rebooted the computer and went into the boot menu. The hard drive was the source of the issue, and by that point I was out of warranty. Went and bought a Chromebook, not realizing what it was and that transaction lived for about two hours when I realized what I couldn't do with it so back it went. That brought me to my present laptop which handles browsing great, word processing is a breeze, and it can actually play AAA title games from a few years back without much of a problem, modern games? Not so much, but not a deal breaker for me.
The free host idea for examples is a good option I think. Just a means of showing what you've done so far sounds great. Thank you for updating us on your current goings on.
Ah the dreaded chromebook. I still don't get those things, they are so limited. Hopefully you can get/got something worth the money that will last you. Anyone who thinks a set back is going to stop you doesn't know you by a fraction, including the project!
Happy Valentines day to everyone who cares, otherwise happy... whatever today is.
Assorro and Mechisla
Byethost totally suspended the account during the uploading and testing of login functions. Nothing more than login and registration functions and it used up allowances. Okay, I'll build a rudimentary system, which, hopefully is more acceptable after the 24hr suspension.
So the changing of the laptop continues....
Yesterday was the first day of my long, overdue vacation. Didn't accomplish much, and didn't want to so mission accomplished. I have a few things on the radar this week that need to be taken care of so it's been a little bit here, little bit there kind of deal preparing for those. My Dad and I were in the midst of doing just that when things took a turn. We're getting maintenance on our gas fireplace tomorrow, so yesterday we figured we'd do a little bit of clean up in and around it. Nothing heavy, just a shop vac will do. I manage to pull off the screen and heat shield as my Dad is coming along with the shop vac. Right at the same time, one of the dogs decides he wants to join in on the fun and down goes my Dad, and down I go because I'm in the path of his fall. It's a good thing I was; he's not fragile or anything but he's up there in years and the last few years haven't been too kind (aging is not for wimps). Down he goes, so down I go right into the end table, the leg of his reclining chair, and right on top of my laptop.
As soon as I hit the floor I knew what happened. It happened and at that point it was just a matter of figuring out how bad the damage was. Knowing that the damage was done, I took my time getting up; at that point it was a matter of making sure I was working properly haha. Once we get up and determine that we'll be okay I take a look. Oof! The display was destroyed beyond repair, the housing for the screen was bent and cracked in a couple of places. As I'm sitting there going over the cost of a new laptop in my head, my Dad goes upstairs and comes back with a box. He hands it to me and says "Happy Birthday". It was a brand new laptop. So I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening hooking up the old laptop to a TV with an HDMI connection (gotta keep that in mind when I want to watch something that I can't normally get on TV) and loading things onto an external hard drive to load them onto the new laptop. Fun and games all around.
I hope that everybody else is doing well.
Assorro, Mechisla, and Nation1204
I've often heard it said that it isn't a party unless it leaves you feeling "Did anybody catch the number of that bus?". On the upshot, aside from getting a new laptop I made the discovery last night that it's a touch screen. Had me entertained for hours. Well, not really, but it is a neat feature that I hadn't anticipated.
I can happily say that the second day of vacation went off much better than the first. Had great weather, took a day trip with the wife down to one of the larger shopping malls for a few things that we could probably live without but picked up anyway.
Let's hope the new laptop lasts a while. While I don't own a computer or laptop and haven't for years I have gone through a couple of phones in a similar way.
No harm in buying a couple of things for fun.
Assorro and The Sheika
Alright guys, I just wonna apologize for something. Our region is very high in the rankings for “environmental beauty”, but, that’s a category Mechisla underperforms in quite badly. I single handedly may have brought that rank down quite a bit.
Unikon and The Sheika
I had that happen once. I remember reading the rankings and I think way back when I was just a foundling nation the environment was garbage. Took a few issues, but brought it up after some time. You'll get there.
Unikon and Mechisla
Well, my nation’s goal is to be a no holds capitalist playground, so, the environment is going to suffer and that is something I built this nation being aware of. Maybe I should make another country for what my actual beliefs represent.
Unikon and The Sheika
I've turned completely inward. I stay away from everyone these days and trust is in short supply. My suspicion is, it's a reaction towards the incredibly high level of stupidity we've all seen from people over the past year. I apologize for my quietness. I'm here, but I find it difficult to find anything nice to say most days, and so end up saying nothing at all. Many, many days are like this, it's a habit I need to break.
Videos From The Vault
Dangerous opinions in Canada
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KitLiKbIsSU
The Great Canadian Milk Bag LIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TeRDhf41Mk
I definitely understand what you mean about stepping back and not being able to find anything nice to say. The last year has been...testing, and that's before you consider the people involved with making it so testing. I'm still here, and with everybody still dealing with the...you know, one day at a time I'm keeping the lamps lit and the WA office rolling smoothly. Thanks for popping in say hi; it is greatly appreciated.
I do have to say that both of those videos have shed a lot of light on my neighbors to the North. Although I am definitely an outside of Canada, I've loosely paid attention to some of the things that happen up that way and it was enlightening to hear about the reality of having two officials languages in a country. I knew that both languages were spoken there, but not all the details from that video. Thanks for the insight.
That fellow has some interesting content concerning the country, which, are views more in favor of serving the needs of reality rather than the needs of government brochures. That much is for sure.
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Yes, it has come to this.
http://parathia.lovestoblog.com/
For the record, parathia does not love to blog. Parathia loves to try and explain away season one development, perhaps, and in the infinite generosity of infintyfree hosting they themselves have declared that parathia loves to blog... some how. Anyway, the web address above is intended for those whom may wish a peek inside the very cluttered shipyards and mindset of... I'm not even going to say the name. It does not love to blog. It's exploring and reporting is all... geez...
I can definitely say that Parathia does not love to blog, but Parathia certainly looks like it's off to a promising start. Reading through the different sections and subsections definitely offered a lot of insight into the project, and I can definitely say it has my attention. I did notice a couple of nods to things here, at least the people here, notably T.I.G.S. and how the concept of a "Quark's in every star system" could be pulled off.
I like your take on having Parathia as it's own entity as opposed to an extension of NationStates, as well as the reasons of it having it's own existence as well as respecting Max Barry and NationStates. The development of Parathia certainly has my attention, and I am sure as time goes on there will be a lot more eyes watching with great interest. Thanks for the update on everything. Onwards and upwards!
Thanks Sheika. Finding some space that would simply allow me to post online progress reports and examples is pretty cool. A small example of detail can be found in the background of the article. The stars twinkle.
Here's the background theme switcher test. I've made it as simple as I could for now. I've discovered that "theme-based" sites can't actually offer a world of variety when it comes to backgrounds in general. If the background is too distracting, it's hardly a complimentary background, full-stop. This offers limits, especially considering I've chosen to stay away from using images as much as possible. CSS or nothing.
[ BETA ] Background Switcher Test
http://parathia.lovestoblog.com/background_switcher.html
A lot of Absolution culture will be represented within Parathia. Some of it front and center, such as T.I.G.S ( Temporal Integrity Gravity Station ), some of it hidden within the naming of things such as using the names Gyntav, AIA, Pytriet or even Tamkurk. Other elements include Emus, Slapping Trouts, Smiting Sticks, Waffles, Cookies, Videos From The Vault, Did You Know That... and perhaps even Clinton, who knows?
How all of it would be used is still anyones guess, but all of it will be used. It's not just the names of things which is provided by the culture of Absolution, we also have well established processes for security through our historical use of The Ministry back in the day. Player-Controlled Factions will make use of this "overwatch" system, all stemming from the pubescent history of Absolution when we were all new, and everything around us was fresh.
Our recruiting applications are also a unique characteristic of our culture, and will be used by factions to attract new members. Just because something's old, doesn't mean it's of no use. Now, I don't know the full extent the recruiter interface itself may be used by factions just now. Do we start out as independents, or are we "stated" as belonging to a predefined faction group or alliance? These are still unknowns, but from the culture of having used the recruiter interface for years I can honestly say from opinion alone, what recruiters all need is a general, centrally-located graffiti park. T.I.G.S. is the perfect location for such a deliberate park where player-controlled faction adverts get highlighted for other players to review. An entire theme park wrapped around the idea that allowing players to attract attention to their faction and/or cause, might not be such a bad idea overall. Why fight the problem when you can embrace it? That's Absolution culture at its core. I envision T.I.G.S. as housing all the same departments a starship would have. At least, some of the main ones.
• Security
• Tactical (I know these are often thought to be one in the same, but I do believe they are truly separate.)
• Engineering
• Operations
• Science (maybe 2 or 3 different departments.)
• Medical
• Flight Control / Navigation / Steller Cartography / Course Planning / Helm
• Astrometrics
Then there are of course areas within T.I.G.S. to round it all off such as:
• Front Lobby
• Player vs Player Casino (Resources as stakes.)
• Contest Arenas
• Lobby Menu(s)
• Faction Central (Including all live faction interactivity.)
• Central Banking/Bartering (Resource Trading. If required.)
• Both faction and individual player communication newsletters
We've entirely forgotten by this point that T.I.G.S. itself is an entry point for all factions to deliver their own dark matter to Parathia. So what is Parathia? It isn't a person or a people or species anymore. Parathia is said to be the oldest known species in the entire universe, but they aren't corporeal or celestial, but temporal, requiring dark matter for unknown reasons. If we want to advance through upgrades, knowledge and technology we'll need to pay. All factions pay it centrally for their members, thus, adding the need for all members to actually earn the stuff individually. There are dues, remember? Factions in turn benefit from averages across its members individual upgrades. Members do not "hoard" technology, so, if one member has an upgrade all members have that upgrade, though, only within the faction itself. Players can make contributions beyond the set minimum requirements for their faction in terms of ships, pilots, crews and resources. Just in case we thought managing our resources within our company would be enough, we add this unique aspect of shipyard gameplay to your day. The universe may start to feel a whole lot larger, possibly to a degree even more dangerous.
The site history will note its origins from NationStates openly. It's the truth. Players such as Drunce, Nerosina, Commerce Heights and Fostonia have all contributed towards inspiring me to advance my own programming abilities in one way or another, and deserve to be recognized as developmental inspirations to me. Absolution deserves the credit for the sites existence, however, the Praetorians. They are those whom compelled creation from me through conversation alone.
the Cattle Pasture once remarked how our pub, The King's Flute, was the only place he'd seen where he could casually remark on how all the place needed was a jukebox, only to discover a week later that an actual jukebox and radio system had been added to the forum simply due to his loose, off-the-cuff suggestion. It was never a place for idle conversation it appeared, and I liked it that way.
I'm really glad to see that some of the facets of Absolution will be making an appearance. I'm not entirely sure how other things would be integrated, but I could see Clinton as a sort of NPC that everybody knows but doesn't know at the same time. Said NPC's name isn't actually Clinton, but the proper pronunciation, as Serak the Preparer from the Simpsons so eloquently put it, "To pronounce it correctly, I'll have to pull out your tongue". That's just the tongue in cheek humor talking, as far as creativity you've set up a lot that has me sitting here "Now this is a sci-fi gamer's dream!".
I think the idea of player factions would certainly come to pass if the option was made available. Kind of like regions in NS; folks with similar ideologies will be drawn to each other. I expect at some point we'd see things akin to Star Fleet, the Galactic Republic/Empire, Systems Alliance, or the Imperium of Man start to come about, and using the idea of TIGS as an amusement park of sorts allowing to advertise said factions would more than likely be a popular option.
That's precisely the idea behind factions. Along with the game-controlled factions mixing up a greater sense of political and resource issues, the player-controlled factions will indeed be set up to have separate control over different departments within their faction very much like how Starfleet is the scientific branch of The Federation. Diversity, don't leave home without it. These separate departments would govern separate things. In theory, T.I.G.S. could handle things such as treaties and embargoes.
Depending on how the map is ultimately set up, there could be no-fly zones established by factions. If anyone sets course through one of these areas, the system can take appropriate measures established by the faction's own ROE, as would be reasonable, on part of the faction itself. Options might be Escort, Engage to Destroy, Engage to Ward Off, Etc. Yes, it's all very fantastic, but in the end comes down to how well those D & D variables work as to what happens next.
If a much stronger fleet meets two or three scouts, it likely can be said that such a fleet would proceed merrily on it way in the end no matter if the scout pilots perished or actually retreated in time to send a transmission. Remember, everything in Parathia is calculated for duration of time, so nothing is instantaneous. If a transmission was sent, the system will calculate time to intercept for additional ships, and so on. These things are all broken down to simple occurrences to the system. Individual tactics can be programmed as responses with things such as luck, diligence, character scores effecting outcome. The system knows what the faction wants done if their territory is penetrated, and so does it.
I look forward to adding those rules. The more options for tactics based on training and experience or weapons vs armor detection, the better. It is a means of training in a way. My mind wonders what occurs when a few dozen of these tactics start being used by our own fleets? Of course none of this will happen over night, which is why I wrote the article. My intent is to eventually have it all built up over the next four years. There isn't much that hasn't been assembled previously, so it's merely a matter of time.
I have to admit that is all stuff I probably would not have thought of, but that's the beauty of it. It allows for a lot of political immersion. The response from the faction can vary wildly depending on what faction it is; for instance, the Federation would likely move to engage and strongly encourage a trespasser to leave while the Romulan Star Empire (pre-Nemesis, of course) would waste no time in engaging to find a reason for hostilities.
Although this will take time, which is great, it certainly does look like you've laid quite the foundation already.
I know that feeling Az... less people is quite peaceful, and I make no apologies... no one is here for me at my darkest, and so I don’t need anyone... a reflection of the inner strength we all have within.
I'm apparently the best nation in this region!!! Yay?
Assorro, The Sheika, Atlantigria, Mechisla, and 1 otherNation1204
That's never been in doubt.
I definitely need to find some of that strength. Thanks dude.
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I had no idea there's fifteen and a half minutes of soundtrack to the original series of Star Trek.
Star Trek TOS Ultimate TV Soundtrack Suite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZAciWLfWPM
The opening theme always makes my head bob side to side thirty seconds into it when it really starts rocking out. I mean, you hear the percussionist go to work with those brushes on that snare, and not to be outdone, the triangle can be heard "twinkling" everything up. Listen to whomever is playing the bongos. No one knows their name? Then at the fifty second mark, we get some of the most famous xylophone music in the world! Now, it may be difficult to pick up chicks in your 1974 Pinto, trust me, I know, but that xylophone music will definitely get you noticed. Aah, the 60s were an interesting blend.
The Sheika, Freeoplis, and Mechisla
Fifty-two episodes of Fables of the Green Forest produced in 1973 played on TV well into the 80s here. I couldn't get away from the theme song despite the fact that I never watched the show myself. It was on all the time. The theme song was so, well, ewww, it made me want to vomit listening to the woman pour her heart into a song for a cartoon about a bunch of woodland critters. Good use of a Hammond organ, I suppose.
Fables of the Green Forest - Theme Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3-vnqMdjlk
Here's another theme song to a children's show from 1974 that you would hear throughout the 80s and 90s if you wanted it or not. I had no idea what the show was called until I went looking for the theme song.
Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings - Theme Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwM_llT-lOY
Why put you through all that? No reason really.
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Sheika, apparently Parathia does love to blog as I've written out and posted a partial article in a new section titled Culture. I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. Anyway, it's meant to highlight some of the aspects of Absolution culture which will be included within Parathia, and how they may be used. I say partial article since I ran out of time before finishing it.
http://parathia.lovestoblog.com/
The Sheika and Mechisla
I had never heard of either of those shows, and now I have. It's given me an Arthur Dent moment, I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.
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Just checked out the culture section and that is quite a bit of information being delivered in a way that grabbed my attention. For instance, I have heard term oubliette from a few different sources like the film 'Labyrinth' and the 'Hithchiker's Guide to the Galaxy' five-part-trilogy, but never really heard the historical reference for it. Not the prettiest nor most comfortable way to go, but interesting to know how it links to Absolution being a "little place of forgetting".
The Regiment section also answered a few questions that I would probably have had at some point. Hmm, it's hard to word that right. In general, information was provided before I was able to form a question, so there's that *thumbs up*.
The little bit about the AIA brings to mind visions of men in black but with a little more punch behind them. Sounds like encountering them in universe would likely be something not easily forgotten. Unless they have something that would make you forget, then that is a whole other story. Wait, what was I talking about again?
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