Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: doomchild on February 11, 2016, 04:26:27 am

I definitely wouldn't try game stuff in Java.  My day job stuff has me doing some Java lately.  Hopefully, we'll get Mono integrated into our workflow so I can go back to C#, but for the time being, I'm stuck.

Stuck with Java in particular, or just with the JVM?  In the latter case, there are a few nicer options available.

In the short term, stuck with Java itself.  Putting another language  into play isn't out of the question (our stuff is all microservices, so we've got a lot of freedom with regard to languages, but right now the path of least resistance is to just use Java.  One of the other developers and I are working on getting Mono up and on the platform, but we haven't finished that yet.

I've been reading the Mafia games in this subforum for almost five years now, but I've never felt like I was in a good place life-wise to commit to playing a game of it.  I came back and started re-reading things last week, and I'm ready to give it a go.  Put me on the list, and give me a ring when the next Beginner's game starts.

Quote from: Artanis00 on June 20, 2011, 04:18:49 am

I wasn't saying exclusive. Just, don't stop plugins support at C/C++. Clearly, graphics intensive applications need a language with more and better graphics support. Python can do it, but I certainly agree with your sentiment on that!

Well, the plan is to create an external API based on the Google Protocol Buffers library. This allows describing the interface itself and then generates the required code for various languages. The data transport would have to be handled using some (local) IPC method. Then all you'd need is implement the IPC bits, let the compiler generate the protocol bits for you and be 'done' with the thing. Less maintenance for everyone is the key here. The performance could be on par with the old dfhack... maybe a bit better in some cases.

I'm definitely looking forward to this.

Quote from: Nikov on February 23, 2011, 05:54:48 pm

Just so you all know, even I don't think Obama would do something like the OP suggests.

The Collective has noted and will factor your good intentions in ascending order. Have a nice day, citizen.

OBEY
CONSUME
CONFORM
SUBMIT

Well symbols and such have meanings behind them, history shows a bunch of figures plastering them all over the place (one example being Hitler and the swastika (whirlwind of power or some crap like that); King Solomon has used symbols all over the place and such too; claimed to have made several himself), and we couldn't have just been here for just 6 millennia. It just seems so, well, short.

Firstly, symbols are just things that stand for other things.  They're just placeholders, in the same way that "U.S.A." is a placeholder for "The United States of America".  There's nothing extraordinary or supernatural about that.  Hitler's use of the swastika (originally an ancient symbol associated with well-being) changed the association for the western world, but it wasn't magical.  It's just an equilateral cross with right-angle arms.  And what does any of that have to do with the length of time humans have existed?

Considering mankind's behaviors with great powers, I think it's a pretty rational reason to lock such capabilities, and obscure it into oblivion to ensure the safety of mankind and rebuild after some heavy destruction. Some jackass must've summoned a meteor to end everything. Plus, we can't let secret societies get off the hook with their odd behaviors. Who knows? They might be spending eons trying to unlock their potential. Some may have achieved it, and are just dicking with us with what power they have found.

I was asking for a rational explanation of why you think such "powers" ever existed at all, not why somebody would hide them.

So... not being a libertarian automatically makes you a liar?

No, making campaign speeches deriding the current administration's deficits, then enacting policies that pushed the deficit to unheard-of levels makes one a liar (FDR).

Campaigning on a platform of reducing crime and pulling out of an unwinnable war, then engaging in political espionage and continuing military involvement makes one a liar (Nixon).

Saying one thing and doing another makes one a liar.  It's got nothing to do with anything else.

Quote from: doomchild on February 18, 2011, 01:06:51 pm

Quote from: mainiac on February 18, 2011, 12:39:40 pm

Fun fact: federal government employees are less then half as large a fraction of the population as they were 50 years ago.

I've never seen any data to support that.  I'm not saying it's not true, just that I've got no data.  But even if it is true, government expenditure has continued to rise, and I think that's a better metric for gauging growth.

Has it? Now, I know nothing about the USA's government expenditure, but if the number of government employees has relatively decreased, it kinda makes sense that government expenditure has also relatively decreased (relative to USA's GDP, I mean). Of course, I could be completely wrong, not sure if they had War on Drugs 50 years ago.

Nixon started the "War on Drugs" in the early 1970's, so it's been going on for about 40 years now.

Just because the number of civil employees has declined (if it actually has, that is) doesn't mean government expenditure will go down.  You've got military and intelligence spending, welfare spending (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc), federal highway funds being used to coerce states into doing what the feds want, incredible inefficiency and waste in existing agencies, and a legacy of poor budgeting.

American regulations were castrated over a period of years, whereas Canada's more-than-a-decade-of-straight-liberal-governance allowed regulations to be put into place that effectively tied the hands of banks so they couldn't do as many stupid things to make a buck. If we hadn't tied the hands of our banks they would have followed the US banks off a cliff.

See, and I think that they should have to face the consequences of their actions, instead of being hamstrung from the get-go.  The idea that our government can enact policies and setup bodies to scrutinize all of the myriad actors in an industry, and that those regulatory bodies will be able to promptly and successfully identify and punish infractions seems ridiculous to me.

I think you have to remove both sides of the regulation equation.  You don't wrap a huge, complex, confusing mass of regulations around them, but you don't bail them out if they screw up, either.  No amount of regulation will ever remove the desire to steal or defraud, and you can't punish somebody because they might do so later.  The only thing that makes sense to me is to make them responsible for the consequences of their own actions.  If a bank defrauds a bunch of homeowners with some huge, byzantine, Escher-esque cluster of deals, they're going to get the shit sued out of them, and they should have to pay back every cent.  Corporate liability caps should be removed, and the weird corporate personhood that we use to keep executives from being culpable should be removed.  Make real the threat of a truly equal and opposite reaction to financial hanky-panky, and it stops being worth the risk for all but the most sociopathic of people, and you'd never be able to stop them with regulation, either.

Quote from: doomchild on February 18, 2011, 10:51:25 am

I think FDR was wrong, Mises was right, and Reagan was senile.

Yeah, Hoover's libertarian policies were helping America a lot.

Hoover was a libertarian in the same way that I'm a bathtub full of lemons that has been floating through outer space for the last ten million years.