Bay 12 Games Forum

It would indeed have been placing DF into a program that simply interfaced with the systems, rather than being dependant on any single one. However we've been informed by those that know such things that the idea is impossible. The main reason being that Toady would not like to give us the resources we would need to do anything of the kind.

To call the Tower of Babel mythological is a bit of a misnomer, it's legendary but certainly a reference to a real event. This is confirmed by many separate extant references from many cultures (so far as evidence can confirm any historical event or physicality).

To get off my soap box and back into topic, I've never heard of such a thing. Personally, I thought about doing the Colossus of Rhodes, but after a desultory search for a proper location I wimped out. Just not interested enough; more interested in the technicalities of my big-arse "permanently empty the magma pipe!!" operation.

A river of sludge would be very nice, and you could have gods of filth and disease. Hey, as long as you're randomly assigning domains to randomly generated gods, you might as well take it there.

I don't find circumnavigating Toady's ban on the source code to be an edifying topic. Let's not go there again. (not pointing fingers; I'm well aware that many people are just answering questions)

Allllrighty then. P.S. thrown in after writing this, it's probably the longest post in history.

So, this thing festered a little in my absence, but due to our relatively stable community things are going smoothly and without too much of a flame-fest.

Aqizzar: I really don't feel the need to dig up a politician's dirty underwear. Obama's a liar like any other modern politician (or anyone else willing to do whatever it takes for power). He has supported many things that are simply intollerable to me, such as the provision for death education classes for the baby boomer generation. "You're dragging everyone down, we don't want to deal with you, in the past the government spent all of your money instead of investing it so that you would have something to retire on, and you should just learn how to die gracefully to get out of our way." That's what it says to me, at least. To move on, supporting a socialistic market is simply wrong. If people choose to share, they can share. The choice is part of the freedom so many of us hold dear. As far as your comment on Christianity's relation to socialistism: Jesus advocated taking care of the poor, yes. What non-hypocritical believer in God wouldn't? If we didn't have to deal with human nature and make allowances for people who are not subscribers to fundamental Christian beliefs, we would be able to have a functioning socialistic society. However we must in fact make allowances for the immoral and selfish in our society. Such is human nature. We can't afford to give freely and with open arms because the lazy, selfish, and greedy will take all that they can get with the least effort they can put forth, even if it means that the less selfish or the helpless will starve.

For a reference on the effects of undiluted human nature on a socialistic society, carefully research the history of Jamestown. You'll find out very quickly why and how socialism is incompatible with corrupt human nature. And as "good" as any individual may be, we're all corrupt and selfish to an inexcusable degree in some ways at some times.

Blacken: You seem to have an understanding of human nature and (at least, and read "at least" literally) enough knowledge and understanding of history to back it up. Bravo, in all sincerity. Observing your writing and responses to Neonivek, it's easy to confirm that the source of our disagreement elsewhere is your belligerent forum attitude. I'm not going to politely sugar-coat it like he did, though I started this paragraph with honest flattery. I really respect your knowledge and the fact that you aren't a "sheeple", but an educated and researched individual. However: The tone and language of your responses is offensive. It brushes on the border of the kind of writing that will cause me to lock the thread. You have a lot of valuable things to say, but you're being an ass about saying them. Tone it down, or I'm locking it for lack of the ability to restrict or react to such activity in any other way.

Neonivek: Blacken's right about a lot of things. His tone of writing is offensive, and if he won't apologize then I will apologize for provoking flaming with this topic. To move on: You really ought to read more carefully, and judging by your other posts you have plenty of knowledge and critical reasoning skills to apply to this. For one thing, he never said "more government", he said "different government". He wants the government to do its job and restrict immoral and irresponsible behavior, not continue to expand its own power base. Our government right now is a mix of people with the intent to do the formal and those with the intent to do the latter.

Blacken's quite right that unrestricted government exists to perpetuate itself. People in a position of power will enjoy the power and perpetuate the system that allows them to do so. Power represents the ability to be the god of your own life, and to have what you want with less restriction. It's one of the most alluring things for a human being to desire.

Everyone: let's fix some foolish and misguided terminology here.
1) Capitalism is not an economic system. Capitalism is a business practice in which profit is the primary goal, often in spite of secondary consequences. Its side effects are numerous, and largely negative. Capitalism, like anything else, MUST be tempered by morality.
2) Free Market is not Capitalism. Capitalism is not Free Market. Free Market is the ability to perform business with minimal interference, more specifically without tarrifs or trading restrictions. It is the system in which you do the business you want to do and collect your own profits. A pure free market does not exist, and cannot exist. Human nature prohibits it. However, it is logically, mathematically, and practically the most effective system. Along with an abundance of resources, it is the reason for the United States' near-incredible prosperity. It is also the reason for Great Britain's previous prosperity, along with colonialism and many atrocious practices. It needs to be tempered with morality, and its regulation is the government's duty. Thus the Sherman Act, among other policies.
3) When stepping outside of modern political rhetoric, Free Market and not Socialism is the liberal point of view. Socialism and big government are actually both conservative/restrictive ideas. However, the meaning of words has been obscured by abusive rhetoric, and we find ourselves referring to any change (even a regressive one, leading us back into the historic pitfalls Blacken mentioned) as liberal, and any resistance to change, good or bad, as conservative.

Thanks to a generally left-wing media (which is left-wing because left-wing makes money, and those concerned know it, not because of some insane conspiracy) we continue to degenerate as a country. Mass-media exposure has become an enormous part of our culture and thus our government. Government is the people, after all! And we are ignorant, unconcerned and easy to manipulate. It's not a conspiracy. It's simply the natural tendency of a pure pursuit of power and pleasure.

For an example of the way these things naturally snowball:
Sex sells. Everyone knows this. An easy case to examine if you don't understand that is GoDaddy dot com, which until recently didn't even bother actually selling a product. They just halfway undressed an attractive woman on TV, then told you to go to GoDaddy. Their product is domain names, by the way, in case you are interested. I found that out in a magazine describing their success. Which was meteoric. Anyway, knowing now that sex sells, we can move on to say that everyone in marketing knows this, and we're constantly exposed to sexual imagery. If you want to sell shampoo, force sexual imagery on them, arouse their hormones. Video games? The same. Food? the same. Virtually any product is the same. As a result we're saturated with sex, constantly, and if you live a normal life you're forced to think about it hundreds of times a day. So sex has lost its place in our culture, and it's necessary to educate your 10-year-old children so that they understand what is happening in our sex-soaked culture.

Our entire culture is the same. We are all the victims of our own greed, laziness, and in truth unregulated capitalism, a byproduct of the glorious free market. It's the price we pay. The trends are not obvious at first, but everything in your life is a product of a push by someone else to make money. Our whole culture revolves around what the large corporations do to further their own goals, from Walmart to Kellogs. Is it bad? Is it good? It certainly has many side effects, from moral and familial degeneration to a luxurious style of living enjoyed nowhere else on the planet. I'm not goin to pass judgement, only repeat that logically a free market is the most effective path to financial prosperity. Discuss. Tear it down, back it up, enough of the responses will undoubtedly be well-thought-out to make very interesting reading.

Relative peace is still peace.

Who decided that, what is "relative peace", and what on Earth does it have to do with the Nobel Peace Prize or awarding it to our new President?

~Useful test ideas~

That seems like it will provide a relatively good picture of what in particular is causing the performance hit.

I do think you'll get some useful data, but I seriously doubt we will be able to determine what effect pathing has. From what I have seen, job assignment and the number of items are so interlaced that changing these factors won't give you a clear enough picture.

Liquid flow needs to test flow across z-levels as well. A chasm would be appropriate, or a simple waterfall if you can find one. I'm told a waterfall is a huge drain, and a magma pipe also a huge drain relative to running water. From what I've heard, a brook or river is hardly a drain at all in comparison. I certainly haven't found undisturbed running water to be problematic.

To test pathing, I suggest animals with simple behavior patterns. Placing Dwarves on patrol with ridiculous numbers of moronic pets following might serve the purpose, although some pets have very limited pathing. (They are told to path to a destination then left alone until they arrive, at which point the game checks for proximity to owner and then either designates a new path or leaves em alone. You won't see as much constant pathfinding as you might like to for experimental purposes.) You can mod various animals to all be trainable if that will help pet assignment. I really, really don't see pathing itself to be the issue. I think it's job assignment and stock processing. But we'll see, if you test with animals and not dwarves performing jobs.