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[Cthulhu]

It may not be conductive, but somehow I think dipping a computer in cooking oil is a bad idea.

[Rictus]

quote:Originally posted by Dadamh:
<STRONG>Bugs like !!CPU!! can end progress on a new version pretty quickly.

This may be a stupid question, but there ARE regular backups of the code to other machines, preferably occasional off-site backups as well, right?</STRONG>

Toady backs up on a daily basis to CD, if I recall correctly.

Although I prefer Bullion's idea though. Much more DF-like.

[PTTG??]

quote:Originally posted by Torak:
<STRONG>Couldn't you release the current version to a group and let some people run a worldgen to see if it's just you that it freezes on?</STRONG>

Nice try.
I should mention that I am willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement, or possibly donate a kidney*, as necessary to become a member of the elite DF Test Group.

*Although I am pretty sure Toady One has two kidneys, as we have learned from DF, one can never have too many back-up organs.

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by PTTG??:
<STRONG>

Nice try.
I should mention that I am willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement, or possibly donate a kidney*, as necessary to become a member of the elite DF Test Group.

*Although I am pretty sure Toady One has two kidneys, as we have learned from DF, one can never have too many back-up organs.</STRONG>

More organs means more human!

[Frobozz]

quote:Originally posted by Athmos:
<STRONG>The problem with precalculated pathfinding is that environement change. you dig, you wall, you lock doors, monsters or stuff get in the way, other dwarfs or a kitten is in the way this time and you'll need to get around.

When to recalculate your path ? Concerning pathing, i'd simply like if it was a bit better with Z level, not considering the above or below tile like if it was necessarily near. They may be at the far end of the fortress, in term of the real pathfinded length.</STRONG>

One possibility for reducing pathfinding processing would be a sector-based system where the map is divided into a number of sectors. Then when a blockage is created or removed, attempt to isolate the changes in path to just that sector.

[ June 12, 2008: Message edited by: Frobozz ]

[Faces of Mu]

I know with my hot lappy that my lap would get quite hot from sitting with my lappy on my lap. In winter this wasn't such a problem as it was a very nice personal heater, but in warmer times I would put a pillow between my lap and my lappy and it would churn away quite fine. While I don't know about the physics of it, I generally thought that if the laptop had a solid material under it to dissipate the heat, then it would stay cooler than if I just placed more air under it. These days, when it's on my desk, I have a cloth dinner placemat under it (but more so it doesn't start leaving burn marks in my desktop as opposed to protect the laptop! The windows sticker underneath the laptop has already reduced down to several thin metal strips!).

But back to the future of DF: I'm all for Toady doing what he wants to keep his interest in the game and programming it. I know a lot of us have called for more adventurer skills (I'm assuming this means give adventures the skills dwarves have in dwarf mode?) and there's been plenty of comments about more efficient presentation.

[Toady One]

I've got a laptop with a USB keyboard and mouse attached.  It was good for when I'd fly back up from Texas on vacations, but now it's not as important.  I've got it on toilet paper roll stilts now, and I'm running around 56C idle with the fan blowing underneath it.  It was around 70C sitting on its own micro-legs on the wooden desk.

Sure, I can post the entity/creature defs with the dev update tonight, and I'll put up the world params as well.  I didn't end up adding any history cull parameters other than a yes/no.  We'll see how that works out.

The beasts don't currently care that they are being worshipped.  Only pantheon creatures can worship megabeasts at this point, so sphere conflicts don't come up (not that gobs have any religion spheres at this point -- the appropriate power is appropriate simply because it's evil and the goblin entity uses evil creatures, though religion spheres are checked if you mod them in).  Later, when humans and so on have stigmas associated to certain spheres either based on ethics (e.g. torture), lifestyle (e.g. blight) or just a new raw entry, and worshippers of the associated gods are forced underground if they aren't in power, then megabeast worshippers of conflicting-sphere beasts could also secret-cult up instead of being out and about.  The original plan was to stop demons from being automatically placed at the top of goblin civs, so that they'd have to claim their spots, in which case goblins would also be able to worship other powers and swap the object of their worship or just not always have a power (though the demon is the only matching power at this point anyway), but I ran out of time.

Initially I was thinking of a bitmap loading option, since my paint utility is naturally going to be ass compared to anything else, but my bmp loader is crap right now so I didn't want to dive into it (it only supports certain 24bit bitmaps since it doesn't look at the headers, or something).

Yeah, frequent backups, located here and there.

[nagual678]

What about a USB notebook cooler ?
http://images.google.com.au/images?q=usb%20notebook%20cooler

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: nagual678 ]

[Reasonableman]

quote:Originally posted by Faces of Mu:
<STRONG> In winter this wasn't such a problem as it was a very nice personal heater, but in warmer times I would put a pillow between my lap and my lappy and it would churn away quite fine. While I don't know about the physics of it, I generally thought that if the laptop had a solid material under it to dissipate the heat, then it would stay cooler than if I just placed more air under it.</STRONG>

The problem with this thinking is simple. If air is such a great insulator, why don't we have blankets made entirely of air?

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Reasonableman ]

[Frobozz]

quote:Originally posted by Toady One:
<STRONG>Initially I was thinking of a bitmap loading option, since my paint utility is naturally going to be ass compared to anything else, but my bmp loader is crap right now so I didn't want to dive into it (it only supports certain 24bit bitmaps since it doesn't look at the headers, or something).</STRONG>

One more reason to eventually switch to SDL to make the game portable. It has an image loader and can support loading a variety of images using SDL_image.

[Tamren]

quote:Originally posted by JT:
<STRONG>I'm fairly sure he was being facetious (like I was about Sindai's comment about Windows).  Hard drives aren't perfectly sealed and immersing them in oil could severely damage them.  Plus, you wouldn't be able to use the CD-ROM drive ever again because the laser would be covered in goo even after taking it out of the oil.</STRONG>

True, but it has been done before. That is not a serious problem as neither of those get very hot and you can get corded external versions of both.

[Faces of Mu]

quote:Originally posted by Reasonableman:
<STRONG>

They problem with this thinking is simple. If air is such a great insulator, why don't we have blankets made entirely of air?</STRONG>

Or, I suppose you were meaning, put more blankets on us in summer rather than take them off?

True, very true.

[Tamren]

Whups messed up.

   

quote:Originally posted by Reasonableman:
<STRONG>They problem with this thinking is simple. If air is such a great insulator, why don't we have blankets made entirely of air?</STRONG>

We do, only the air has to be contained. Air is not an insulator on its own, its main use is to separate two materials so that they have a harder time conducting heat to each other.

Ie instead of the surrounding air leeching heat from your body, the heat has to go from you -> blanket -> air inside blanket -> outer wall of blanket -> surrounding air.

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: Tamren ]

[Zemat]

quote:Originally posted by Reasonableman:
<STRONG>

They problem with this thinking is simple. If air is such a great insulator, why don't we have blankets made entirely of air?</STRONG>

Air is a great insulator as long as it doesn't moves. But hot air tends to go up and cold air down. Your hot air blanket floats away every time unless you keep it down with a blanket that doesn't let pass air. Ask hobos why they use newspapers as blankets  

[FunnyMan]

quote:Originally posted by nagual678:
<STRONG>What about a USB notebook cooler ?
http://images.google.com.au/images?q=usb%20notebook%20cooler

[ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: nagual678 ]</STRONG>

I second this idea.  I've been borrowing one from a relative and just got my own.  The laptop was getting hot enough to give me a minor burn on one leg, and this thing keeps it nice and cool.

Toady One, if you're interested, let me know, I'll be happy to donate it.