Wednesday, October 26. 2005
0.1: Another Glimpse Posted by Ancient of Days
in The End is Near at
19:02
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[Author's note: I'm not happy with this chapter as-is, but if I wait any longer, I'll lose interest in the story completely...]
The young woman approached the cliff's edge, gently bouncing the bundle in her arms. From his position behind her, Jack couldn't make out what she was holding, but her body language made it an easy guess. With the faint thud of his own heartbeat sounding in his ears, Jack watched as time slowed to a crawl. The anonymous young woman stood, her back stiff as a rod, and flung the bundle of blankets out in the blackness. Jack felt a strangled cry rip from his throat, and he lurched towards the edge, feeling the wind drag at his clothing, holding him back as if to prevent his interference in what was happening. In the flash of colors both bright and pastel, Jack saw a tiny foot, and then a leg, before the baby disappeared over the cliff. His neck taut with rage and eyes wide in horror, he grabbed at the girl and spun her around to face him, then flinched in shock. Where he should have seen the eyes of a young girl, be they brown, blue, green, or hazel, two pure pools of liquid silver gleamed wetly. Jack watched as the girl pulled her arm from his grip and then, with a motion that was neither forceful nor sudden, cocked her elbow and drove her stiffened hand right through Jack's chest... "Watch 'ere you're walking, bub." a voice growled at Jack from the void. Jack looked around and found himself in the mall food court once again. Looking over his shoulder to apologize to the man he'd bumped into, he noticed Angel standing in line at the Speedy Panda stand, talking to someone from her office whose name he ought to remember, but didn't. As he crossed the court to meet them, a chill ran up his spine as he saw the face of the young woman from his vision near the center of a gaggle of high school girls. Deftly, Jack reached into the group of young women and grabbed the girl just above the elbow. She turned to him, startled but not scared, an expectant look on her face. "Do I know you?" she asked quizzically. Jack pitched his voice low so that only she would hear what he said. "Don't sneak out tonight. Don't go see him. Your parents will find out." Shock and shame flooded the girl's face, but Jack released her arm and let the flow of traffic caused by her friends carry her away as he headed toward Angel and...Mary? Marcy? It didn't matter. The girl would still sneak out tonight; she'd still get pregnant; her boyfriend would still become a dead-beat dad; and the literal offspring of her choices would still pay the price. Nothing could stop it. In a way he couldn't ever explain, it had already happened...but, as always, Jack was the only one who knew it. Suddenly, Jack found himself thinking about that mysterious email again. Some of you have been harder to protect than others, almost as if you were deliberately fighting me... Tuesday, October 25. 2005Curtis. . .
I'm sorry! Please come back..........
Tuesday, October 25. 2005
When you look at it this way, it's ... Posted by Ancient of Days
at
14:45
Comments (9) Trackbacks (0) When you look at it this way, it's slightly more interesting
World of Warcraft Auction Analysis: The first in a multi-part series on the online economy of World of Warcraft.
I found myself growing bored with World of Warcraft, so I turned to an old habit of mine for making things more interesting: analyze them to DEATH. My first report is *very* brief. I recently started keeping track of how much items sell for at auction. However, as I do further analysis, I will also be growing this dataset to show the relative value of compenents. I will also tie in vendor prices, at some point, including a record of where (and how) those prices vary (e.g., Grey Dye is almost 50 copper cheaper in Thunder Bluff than any other part of the world I've visited to date, while The Crossroads vendors pay more for Mottled Worg Hearts than do the vendors around Tarren Mill...and I think these locations may change, from time to time). For those of you who might want a deeper understanding of these places, I'll also include as a future part of this report, a tie-in to an expanded version of the site Sideshow posted yesterday that was a "tour guide" to the World of Warcraft. Other plans for the future include: The impact of inital list price and buyout price on final sell price, as well as time to sale A link to thottbot (or similar system) to details of items [I'm leaning against thottbot right now, because there seems to be a lot of garbage data there, but I haven't found anything better...] Analysis of area recovery rates for items vs. average sale price [This should be fun for picking the best areas to farm for a given item, or simply for maximum ROI] Analysis and discussion of the benefits of various classes and professions Some of these data items will take longer to collect, as Blizzard does not make it easy to track some of the information. (For example, when a given item sells at auction, I have little-to-no way of knowing which of my various instances of that item sold, so it will require painstaking one-auction-at-a-time work to identify some trends.) My question to those of you who play World of Warcraft is this: If I wrote an interface plugin that facilitated in the collection of some of this data, would you be willing to install it? What hesitations/questions/concerns would you have? Monday, October 24. 2005
Have you noticed Firefox popups? Posted by Ancient of Days
in Gathering Darkness at
22:50
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If so, you're probably a victim of Flash popups. See this page.
Tuesday, October 11. 20051.1: Personal Journal of Capt. Mordecai Ashton
03.32.1434 Anno Dissolutio
Not ten days after the loss of L. Cpl. Masterson, Lieutenant James Allin, commander of 4th Regiment, Charlie Company, was turned. He took 4 men with him before a Sgt. Verdugo was able to bring him down. For the time being, I've given Sgt. Verdugo a field promotion to Lieutenant. It has since come to my attention that many in the regiment knew that Cpl. Masterson and her Lieutenant had been engaged in...extracurricular calisthenics. Looking back, I should have realized something was wrong when Lt. Allin was unable to put down Cpl. Masterson. My internal conflict is drawing too much of my attention away from the performance of my martial duties, and it occurs to me that it might be time I step down, but I fear the effect that might have on the company. Word has come from SigInt that the Guardian's Tower has dimmed; not so much that we can see it with the naked eye, but many of our most brilliant minds have been studying the tower from afar for years, and their equipment seems to indicate that the tower is growing dark. As we never understood what the Tower was in the first place, I can't understand what importance Command has attached to this information, so I have decided to withhold this information from the company until th The Captain is missing. The only thing left in his tent is this journal, and I don't know what to do. Command hasn't responded yet with orders, so I'm pretending that the Captain is ill while I stand here guarding his tent, but at some point, I'm going to have to sleep. -- Sgt. Robert Verdugo Monday, October 10. 2005This is the Creature
Something in one of the recent "Hacking" episodes brought this to my mind. It's a translation from the German, so if it doesn't exactly match your idea of poetry (*cough* Johnny Elbows *cough*), cut it some slack. :)
This is the Creature, by Ranier Maria Rilke This is the creature there never has been. They never knew it, and yet, none-the-less, they loved the way it moved; its supleness, its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene. Not there, because they loved it, it behaved as though it were. They always left some space and in that clear, unpeopled space they saved it lightly reared its head, with scarce a trace of not being there. They fed it, not with corn, but with the possibility of being. And that was able to confer such strength, its brow put forth a horn - one horn. Whitely, it stole up to a maid to Be within the silver mirror, and in her. Monday, October 10. 2005New WoW pics
Posted some new pics.
I was feeling especially fascinated by the lighting engine as seen on my laptop. Very shiny. And it would seem Murin already explained the whole ninja thing... *sigh* Monday, October 10. 20051.0: Personal Journal of Capt. Mordecai Ashton
01.31.1434 Anno Dissolutio
Lance Corporal Ellen Masterson of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion turned this morning. Upon noticing the silver tint on her cuticles and at the corners of her eyes, Lt. Allin found himself unable to perform his duty, so it fell to me. I put two bolts right into her heart, and stayed with her until the light faded from her eyes. I've grown sick of this war. They turn our own soldiers against us, tainting the unwary, the innocent, with their madness. I don't know how to keep up morale when I'm questioning my own dedication. We need a victory, and soon, or the entire Battalion will be lost to despair. I don't know where the Guardian is. It's been far too long since we've seen him wandering through the camp, encouraging individual soldiers. Just the power of his presence would be such a boon in these dark times... Wednesday, October 5. 2005Spore watch, 2005
With "fiscal September" officially closed, we now know that the following blurb is the only information we're going to get regarding Spore for Summer, 2005.
"09 SEP: EA this week announced some internal shuffling of the company's PR staff. Tiffany Spencer has moved to EA headquarters in Redwood City to head PR on Sims and Spore. Spencer previously worked at EA's LA studio as PR coordinator, working on such titles as Medal of Honor and Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle-earth. Prior to joining EA, Spencer led PR for Ubisoft's Tom Clancy franchise." *sigh* Wednesday, October 5. 2005The Oath of Murin
[Ed. Note: Curtis corrected me: the inital sack can hold 16 items, not 8]
For those who don't know, one of the more annoying parts of starting out in WoW is the fact that you can't carry very many items (initally, you can only carry 16 items at a time), so you have to go back to the closest town quite often to sell the stuff you've picked up, then walk back to the area where the monsters are. Well, Curtis' character (Murin) can make these bags that let you carry more stuff...6-slot bags, and you can have 4 bags in addition to the standard 16 slot backpack you start with. Anyways, Curtis mentioned last night that he can now make 8-slot bags, given the right ingredients (which are gleaned from the booty of dead monsters). After I pestered him for a bit, he agreed to make me one. But, as that would require me dropping one of my 6-slot bags, he asked me to pass the bag along to some other new player. So I took an hour or so to walk back to one place where new players are dropped into the game, a town called Bloodhoof Village in the area known as Mulgore. (12:15:56) TML: I walked back to Bloodhoof Village in Mulgore yesterday and started making some stuff to bring up my leather working skill, and pretty much gave them away to newbs (12:16:02) TML: I also passed your bag along (12:16:12) Curtis: cool (12:16:32) TML: And extracted an oath that, when the time came that the newb couldn't use it anymore, he'd do the same (12:16:42) TML: That is, pass it to a newb rather than sell it (12:16:51) TML: I told him it was Murin's Oath (12:17:06) Curtis: awesome (12:17:09) Curtis: you really did that? (12:17:12) TML: yeah (12:17:14) TML: It was funny (12:17:17) Curtis: cool (12:17:55) TML: I just stood there in the newb village shouting "Free 6 slot bag" until someone came up to me and said "Is it really free?" I said "The only condition is that you take Murin's Oath." (12:18:09) TML: Then I made up some goofy oath and made him repeat it (12:18:18) TML: I even did the "I, <state your character's name>" (12:18:33) TML: And he's like "I, Ogthar..." (12:18:41) TML: I laughed. (12:18:42) TML: :) (12:18:49) Curtis: that's so cool Wednesday, October 5. 2005
All right, This Cat...it's ON! Posted by Ancient of Days
in Group Activities at
16:19
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Ever heard of Kitten War? Seems the sort of site Las Dos Hermanas would really enjoy, if no one else.
I especially enjoyed Stretch and Shadow. Someone should add This Cat...I think he'd win. Monday, October 3. 2005So...there's this spaceship
Wow.
Serenity. So, Curtis linked me this morning to OSC's 'review' of Serenity. Made some good points, as usual. Thank you, Katie. I am forever endebted to you for getting me the ticket. Curtis and Brandon and Pete and Jared: What can I say? Without the glowing reviews from the four of you, I would never have made it through "Train Job". And lastly: Mr. Whedon, you're either a genius, or a madman. Either way, you must die before you make my heart break...yet again. Monday, October 3. 2005s9y Upgraded
I just completed an upgrade of our s9y installation to fix a session fixation issue (see this page for the dirt). I don't expect any problems with the upgrade, but did make a backup copy of both the s9y install and the db before doing it, so please let me know right away if you see any errors, and we'll roll back until I can fix it.
Thursday, September 29. 20050.0: The WarningFor over four thousand years, I have protected your world from the gibbering madness that lies just beyond the edge of your perception. Silently, I have stood, the sole guardian of mankind. I have wearied at times, and always the darkness was presciently poised to strike in my moments of weakness, giving view to its horrors to men such as Lewis Carrol, Bram Stoker, and H. P. Lovecraft. Some of you have been harder to protect than others, almost as if you were deliberately fighting me. Your subconcious minds struggled to grasp that which it could glimpse, but never fully grasp. Today, the signal came. My time is at an end; your time has just begun. Like the Guardian before me, I leave you a message in the manner most familiar to you. Be warned, mortal. Before the passing of feowertiene niht, the price will be paid, I will be laid to rest, and you will be called to take my place. Jack shuddered and read at the email again. Creepy. The origin was very well masked. Either someone had accidentally hidden their tracks perfectly, or one of his friends was trying to play a joke on him. Running his hands through his greasy black hair, he tried to ignore the goosebumps appearing on his arms. Some of you have been harder to protect than others, almost as if you were deliberately fighting me... Finally, with a jerk, Jack grabbed his mouse and closed the email, shunting it off to his "psbl spam" folder. Plucking the empty styrofoam cup from the heap of papers and books scattered around his work area, he moved rapidly towards the office common area. It was nearly time to meet Angel for lunch, and she was never very pleased when he was late. As he passed the wall of glass that served as a common window, a flicker of movement drew his attention to his reflection. What the...? For the briefest of moments, there had been another image in the glass...someone standing behind him. With a nervous glance over his shoulder, Jack crashed through the door and into the parking lot. Sunday, September 25. 2005
Pardon our Dust Posted by Ancient of Days
in Gathering Darkness at
02:28
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You may or may not have noticed the google ads showing up in the lower right hand side of the blog. It's something I'm trying out because there's a chance I may have to either start paying for the hosting of this site, or move the server to Orem, and I want to know what my options are. Is this annoying or disturbing to anyone? Please post any comments to this article.
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