Bay 12 Games Forum

My favourite developer/publisher: Stardock
Least fav.: EA [It's a shame, since many years ago I used to like EA also... ]

Quote from: Axe27 on April 14, 2009, 02:23:29 pm

That's actually kind of weird that you should post this. A person I knew in the game EVE Online (If any of you play that) died while hosting a LAN party last week. Apparently, he stepped on an exposed cord, and the electricity stopped his artificial heart.

Its horrible that i find this funny

I think that it was a joke, isn't it? 

It's Internet Explorer.

I've always used IE, and never had a single problem with it. 

Barbarossa: I'm betting you there was a lot of DoTA. They just don't mention it because it doesn't sound so official when the game you're playing is just a custom map for Warcraft 3. It's kinda like how WoW is so popular in the US, DoTA is way more so everywhere else.

WoW is also extremely popular in Europe. 

12 year old sister drew a picture of my hammerchampions fighting the orcs that I modded to be 2.5 times the size of megabeasts, made of iron and most of the "no"-tags added.

She has quite an.. interesting view on how the orcs look.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The dwarf at the bottom of the image looks like psycho!

Sounds like an interesting concept.

Yeah, I suppose you're right on it being too optimistic. But I feel that there is a good chance that as technology advances in the next few years, we will see this idea become more and more plausible.

I don't know...maybe. 1 thing is for sure: The future of gaming is: "mind controlled", realistic virtual worlds. [If you have seen the movie called "Jason X", you know that what I am talking about.] 

Sounds like exactly like DotA.

Huh? I think that it will be very different.

Aye-aye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aye-aye

The Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis) is a strepsirrhine native to Madagascar that combines rodent-like teeth with a long, thin middle finger to fill the same ecological niche as a woodpecker. It is the world's largest nocturnal primate, and is characterized by its unusual method of finding food; it taps on trees to find grubs, then gnaws holes in the wood and inserts its elongated middle finger to pull the grubs out. The only other animals known to find food in this way is the Striped Possum.[citation needed] From an ecological point of view the Aye-aye fills the niche of a woodpecker as it is capable of penetrating wood to extract the invertebrates within.

Daubentonia is the only genus in the family Daubentoniidae and infraorder Chiromyiformes. The Aye-aye is the only extant member of the genus (although it is currently classified as Near Threatened by the IUCN); a second species, Daubentonia robusta, appears to have become extinct at some point within the last 1000 years.


Physical characteristics
The Aye-aye is the world's largest nocturnal prosimian, and dwells predominantly in forest canopies. It weighs about 2.5 kilograms, with the female weighing in slightly less (by an average of 100 grams) than males. Other than weight and sex organs, aye-ayes exhibit no sexual dimorphism of any kind. They all grow from 30-37 cm from head to body, with a 44-53 cm tail.

The adult Aye-aye has black or dark brown fur covered by white guard hairs at the neck. The tail is bushy and shaped like that of a squirrel. The Aye-aye's face is also rodent-like, the shape of a raccoon's, and mouses bright, beady, luminous eyes. Its incisors are very large, and grow continuously throughout its lifespan. These features contrast its monkey-like body, and are the likely cause of why scientists originally deemed it to be a rodent.

The Aye-aye's hands are arguably its most unusual feature. Much like other primates, it possesses opposable thumbs, but both the hallux and the fingers are long and slender, and appear to be in a curved position somewhat similar to that of a fairy-tale witch when the muscles are relaxed. The middle finger can be up to three times longer than the others.

Gestation for the Aye-aye lasts from 5 to 5 1/3 months. Births can occur at any time during the year, and females often wait 2-3 years between births. The infant takes about 7 months to be weaned, and stays with its mother for two years. The Aye-aye matures quickly; males rarely take more than 1 1/2 years to mature, and females take about an extra year. Lifespan is not known, but the world record is 23 years in captivity.

Superstition and public controversy
The Aye-aye is an endangered species not only because its habitat is being destroyed, but also due to native superstition. Besides being a general nuisance in villages, ancient Malagasy legend said that the Aye-aye was a symbol of death. It is viewed as a good omen in some areas, however, but these areas are a minority.
Researchers in Madagascar report remarkable fearlessness in the Aye-aye; some accounts tell of individual animals strolling nonchalantly in village streets or even walking right up to naturalists in the rainforest and sniffing their shoes. Therefore, it is no wonder that displaced animals often raid coconut plantations or steal food in villages. It is not unlike the Common Raccoon in this regard.

However, public contempt goes beyond this. The Aye-aye is often viewed as a harbinger of evil and killed on sight. Others believe that should one point its long middle finger at you, you were condemned to death. Some say the appearance of an Aye-aye in a village predicts the death of a villager, and the only way to prevent this is to kill the Aye-aye. The Sakalava people go so far as to claim Aye-ayes sneak into houses through the thatched roofs and murder the sleeping occupants by using their middle finger to puncture the victim's aorta.
Incidents of Aye-aye killings increase every year as its forest habitats are destroyed and it is forced to raid plantations and villages. Because of the superstition surrounding it, this often ends in death. On the other hand, the superstition can prevent people from hunting them for food.