much shorter

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  1. Posted

    Didn't want to call you out Kroms, just figured you said something a bit stupid (I understand you though).

    Stoner is amazing, Félix Fénéon's Novels in Three Lines is a blend of journalism and poesy and really cool, Dead Souls is insane and Gogol's best (for an English that is), I've heard good things about Butcher's Crossing, the Siege of Krishnapur is a classic, Robert Walser is the current hype-beast on aforementioned pages, Chekov is one of the best short story writers if you haven't read him, Edith Wharton was an interesting gal but I haven't read her, Osip Mandelstam is a classic if you are into poetry, Life & Fate ranks with War & Peace, Patrick Leigh Fermor is cool if you fancy old British manner and mentality (read some of the obits from last year), I've bought Boleslaw Prus' The Doll and it seems pretty cool, Bohumil Hrabal is funny but a bit mundane.

    I just eyed through the list but those are some good lits! However the list isn't complete and you can find more here.

    E: However, these aren't "modern" in the sense that they are contemporary. A few of them can be called Modernists though. I'm not sure what you meant by "modern" so there you go.

  3. Posted

    I just want to illustrate some aspects of how the market metagame works in EVE, this analysis is not completely accurate but it will work and it shows how complex some situations can get.

    So right now CCP are buffing Mining Ships* to make Mining a more viable profession. From the looks of it we will have more Miners, and a proliferation of Miners means more Ore, which means ships will be cheaper to build, which means ships will be cheaper. On top of that Ice-Mining** will also proliferate since Mining Ships are used for that as well.

    They are also, slowly, going through the T1 line up of ships and rebalancing them for racial harmony and more natural progression.

    On top of that the coming Moongoo*** changes means that stockpiling Tech, and certain reactions, isn't as profitable.

    All these changes converge to make long term investment on nigh' everything uncertain, unless you are smart enough to game the market during this turmoil. I'm not so I'll be putting my money in Supercaps, POS modules as well as liquid ISK (which will increase in value as the value of raw materials decrease).

    * Vessels purely designed for aggregation of Ore, THE most basic resource in EVE except for ISK)

    ** Another raw resource to be refined and used to fuel Capital Ships, POS and certain modules. However, Ice is more arduous to extract and complicated to use.

    *** A more advanced resource, gathered by Player Owned Stations anchored in lunar orbit. Used to manufacture T2 items which are more powerful or have other abilities.

  4. Posted

    I played a couple of matches but got stomped. Much like EVE you get destroyed until you get better. Laughting at the "elite Console Gamers" and EVE cronies thumb their chests and threaten each other at the forums doesn't get old though.

    Dust players will be able to send co-ordinates and launch codes to Eve players who, in turn, will use that information to send down a strike that can kill the Dust player's enemies. During this time anti-air turrets will be able to attack the Eve player from across game. On a technical level it is jaw-dropping, and from a gameplay perspective its pretty special.

    Depending on how expensive the new Interdictors will be (the ship class CCP designated for orbital bombardment) and how valuable PI (the mechanics for drawing resources from Planets) will be when the market settles after Dust this may or may not be worth it.

    Other factors that will affect the viability of orbital bombardment: Scarcity of Dust players, value of the resources extracted from a given planet, how expensive Dust-equipment is going to be (including air-turrets) and the ability to circumvent PI through the market.

    Yup, EVE is a great game.

    POSTSCRIPT: I'm guessing since CCP pushed the aspects of EVE-Dust interchange really hard in marketing they will make it worthwhile.

  6. Posted

    N$FW

    "I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send

    them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are

    as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the

    party."

    "My dear, you flatter me. I certainly _have_ had my share of beauty, but

    I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five

    grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty."

    "In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of."

    "But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into

    the neighbourhood."

    "It is more than I engage for, I assure you."

    "But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would

    be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to

    go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no

    newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for _us_ to

    visit him if you do not."

    I can only give highlights: I was in The Trance. Ravished and unaware of anything but feeling his sexy touch.

    I have new appreciation for the one-person-naked-and-the-other-person-dressed sex scenario. That added some kinky flare I never expected. Not unlike my repeat fantasy of visiting Caveman in his office and him letting me remove key clothing items from him and have a really deep blowjob. I think of that every time I see him at his desk. But that's not his thing. Just mine.

    A favourite erotic moment. I was insanely randy. The orgasms came really quickly but the disappointment over the speed of attaining them (I get off too fast) was dulled by the sexy, sexy intensity and sensuality of it all. At one point, Caveman is lying on his back and I am beside him. Because he is so fully dressed, my nakedness feels extra naked. He holds my legs as wide apart, as wide as they will go, using his legs as straddlers. He's very tall so it works well. I am prisoner of love. My cunt feels like the clown behind the board, where you throw wet sponges at it, and it knows one of those wet sponges is going to be big and wet and warm and hit bang on. But which one? And when?

    "You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very

    glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my

    hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though

    I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy."

    "I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the

    others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so

    good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving _her_ the preference."

    "They have none of them much to recommend them," replied he; "they are

    all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of

    quickness than her sisters."

    "Mr. Bennet, how _can_ you abuse your own children in such a way? You

    take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves."

    "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They

    are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration

    these last twenty years at least."

    "Ah, you do not know what I suffer."

    "But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four

    thousand a year come into the neighbourhood."

    "It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not

    visit them."

    "Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them

    all."

    Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour,

    reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had

    been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. _Her_ mind

    was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding,

    little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented,

    she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her

    daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.

  8. Posted

    Interested in that one!

    Trying to express opinions about this book in an hour is impossible. You really need to key in and jam if you want to draw anything meaningful from this pool.

    I have never really got on with Borges, which is odd, I think, when Calvino is one of my favourite writers.

    Well Borges was a baller and machismo, Calvino had some glory days (his father was a baller like Jorge) but not as fierce.

  9. Posted

    I do kind of wish these more modern high-brow(ish) books talked about something besides a dysfunctional family, though. It seems that half the meatier stuff I run into is about that.

    There's so much being written at all times that are high-brow and NOT about families I'm not sure where you get your lit from.

    It seems like most "lit" discussed here are straight from the gilded pages of NYRB, New Yorker, the Review and such. Perhaps you should try and broaden your views Kroms?

  10. Posted

    I noticed Chris mentioned the thousand summers of jacob de zoet, and how the Dutch were the only Western interested allowed in Japan.

    If any of you are curious to learn more about that, and learn some history, pick up After Tamerlane by John Darwin. Five Thumbs

  11. Posted

    I don't really care about the Xbox 720, the fact that all console systems are so limited is really a dealbreaker for me. The only games I've played on consoles the last few years were Demon's Souls and Dark Souls and even then I'm pissed that I don't have more control. Now I understand that it's a necessary sacrifice in order to have a better user experience but it just ins't for me. Now I'm going to shut my mouth before they announce Dark's Demon Souls and I'll end up buying a PS4…

    Well, some friends of mine who follow the industry news (business side) pointed out to me that Sony has 19 billion dollars in reserve. But what I'm more of getting at is earnings from latest pereformance from the last few years. Sony recently issued a demand to retail partners to no longer put 3D TVs up on discounted sale prices, just full retail now. And the PS3 was selling at a loss (even the PS2 sold at a loss for a while), and they've invested in Home, the PSP Go, which are each not the hottest things ever... So with the video game division not doing much performance wise and just now climbing up with the PS3, how would such a purchase even be considered?

    Somewhat related, Sony shareholders recently put out their demand for the board of directors at Sony to change up, with Kaz Hirai heading it up.

    Also to bring this back to MS, they have 54 billion in reserve apparently. So they could make this buy.

    But both Sony and MS have other worries than their games division? Or are those reserves exclusively for their game divisions?

  14. Posted

    I think a good way to describe EVE is that if you're not running another program at the same time as about 90% of your EVE time played, you are slowly killing yourself.

    Yeah I agree to some extent, but EVE is a sandbox and you create your own fun. When I'm not flying around shooting I do supply and trade, talk to people/contacts, or do spywork on other accounts.

    Then again, without several accounts I wouldn't be able to do any of this.

    I always feel like people talking about EvE are speaking another language. Not just in the "wtf is this jargon" sense. It's like you've stared into the black abyss and can no longer communicate reality with others who haven't shared your vision.

    I really enjoy the drama an insanity of the open market.

    Yeah I do understand you, but the jargong is very confusing and understanding tactical warfare is very hard unless you have played the game. I'll try to break it down more in the future.

  15. Posted

    Tech is also good for selling for actual money. Russian (and everyone but Goonswarm really) alliance leaders, I'm looking at you.

    Note: Highly illegal.

    Actually it's not "highly" illegal and very hard to trace. I wouldn't do it, but I can see why you would. Especially if you run off with your Alliance Wallet and RMT that. You could probably buy a new car.

    But in the last three months, I have found that I just haven't got the heart to grind cash with my mission runner to support my PvP antics. I did get a lucky mission reward from 1 that was worth 1 billion isk, but it soon goes :)

    I've not heard about the OTEC< but then I haven't been reading EVE24 slavishly, and so think my love affair with this game is dying somewhat.

    Still, great vision, and great game. Wish I had the time to devote to it to get really embroiled again.

    1. If you make a decent buck you can keep on growing that into a small fortune. Even simple stuff like playing the market and trading between different regions can earn you good ISK.

    2. EVE 24 is a pretty bad source - or EVE 24's sources are pretty bad. I'd recommend you read (and wade through the shit on) Kugutsumen and perhaps FHC.

    And I agree - Eve devours time like no other game. I've never found myself looking at a map planing out my logistics POS and rep POS while making arrangements for new characters with a neutral history in any other game, nothing even close to that…

    But when the shit hits the fan, it is amazing.

  16. Posted

    Yeah Tech is good if you are on the inside. Bottlenecks happen from time to time, and some people high up get rich.

    It is funny, you need shitty/RPing players for the game to run. If everybody played efficiently, EVE would be very boring…

  17. Posted

    You can't play EVE alone, and really some form of PvP is for me the only reason to play the game. Logistics like chaining Cyno alts (people without JDC V :tdown: ) or anchoring staging POSes suck but are necessary, and without people that would be even worse. And let us not forget that there is no "curve" when it comes to this game. Until you understand some of the concepts involved and get enough SP and ISK to do some fun stuff there is not much to this game, when you hit that point though, everything becomes player skill, shrewdness and psychology. The metagame in EVE really is amazing and insane… You can read about some anti-Spy stuff Pandemic Legion did (an old, high quality alliance) on this forum mirror.

    Are you a miner and if so where do you keep your Hulk?

    If not, are you willing to fly a ridiculously expensive ship through Deklein so I can blow it up?

    No.

    Though you might catch my bumping Machariel when I've got JF intel. Especially when I've got something bigger to drop on top of them. I really want a Nyx to play with in lowsec.

    Also I'm going to jump down my Loki to do a boosted nano-Tornado, we'll see what that does for tracking...

  18. Posted

    As we all know there exists a giant, insane and amazing galaxy that is the game EVE Online. In this galaxy, not using ISBoxer and running several accounts in suicide, and to go with that you need Mumble, Jabber and a BUNCH of API-based applications to play on a larger scale (people and ship-wise). Some bulletpoints:

    • A "Sandbox" world with very few limitations - almost everything is built by the player, and almost everything can be destroyed.
    • No level grind; instead you gain Skill Points (SP) at an hourly rate as you train skills. The SP gain is affected by your stats, which you can relocate once a year and change by getting implants to your clone (which you can loose). There's also permanent SP loss if your clones aren't updated and somebody destroys the one your in. There are no classes.
    • There's only one shard which all players share, which means New Eden have nine years of history.
    • You can pay the monthly fee with in-game currency, you can also buy characters with in game currency. The going rate is 1B ISK for 1M SP.
    • Each expansion adds complexity and new tiers to the game, but (most) old stuff remains relevant.

    I've been playing on and off since 2006, rolling around with a bunch of characters and doing all kinds of crap but mostly fighting smaller forces. I love and hate the game so damn much, it's a lot of fun coming up with complex ideas and ISK plans, but sometimes very frustrating to put them into action. The combat is still awesome because you can wreck people's day for profit.

    Questions?