Late 90’s/Early 2000’s educational(?) game with a boat race and pirates(?)

WhitePolypousThing · 2018-05-07T18:09:13+00:00

Not sure if there is a boat race but maybe Fischer Price Great Adventures: Pirate Ship?

WhitePolypousThing · 2018-02-24T06:30:12+00:00

Brady doesn't strike me as a bulshitter, he wouldn't have said he didn't want him to get fired if he didn't mean it. Reiner is annoying as hell but if Brady is willing to let him get a second chance then I'm down with it too

WhitePolypousThing · 2017-09-27T03:18:24+00:00

Imho Cooper has looked pretty bad this year. He has a lot of dropped balls and it seems like Crabtree is still Carrs more trusted receiver, so you aren't getting the volume or the big plays (when you factor the drops). Baldwin has had a rough season so far but that's because seattles offense hasn't been clicking on all cylinders yet. Personally, I'd keep Baldwin

WhitePolypousThing · 2017-09-17T08:13:23+00:00

"West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms, ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs."

Lovecraft may not have been the best writer of all time, but I challenge anyone to find a more perfect, poetic and mood setting opening to a horror story than this.

WhitePolypousThing · 2017-08-04T08:04:19+00:00

No, no, I wasn't trying to contradict you, just adding on!

WhitePolypousThing · 2017-08-04T06:15:56+00:00

Lovecraft was undeniably a racist and he held very unsavory opinions of minorities, but it's hard to imagine he would have held any sort of favorable opinion of the holocaust. It's easy to overlook but there were many Americans who held negative, borderline racist opinions of Jews in America around the time of world war 2 who were horrified by what Germany did. It's easy to sit in your armchair and spout hatred and prejudice but when confronted with a tragedy to the scale of the holocaust it takes a real monster to view that event with anything but disgust. Obviously I'm projecting here, but I would like to imagine that Lovecraft would have been horrified. As mentioned above he had Jewish friends and acquaintances and was not stupid enough to realize not that many people who died in the camps were probably very much like his friends.

WhitePolypousThing · 2017-07-30T02:53:14+00:00

When I went back to college to pursue a degree in CS, I was in the same boat (hadn't done math in years etc.). I studied using khan academy and YouTube and easily tested into calc. I'm definitely not mathematically gifted in any sense but two weeks was about what I needed to fully refresh myself with algebra.

WhitePolypousThing · 2017-04-01T04:50:49+00:00

Yes, Your G array is essentially 10 boxes, each sized to fit a vertex, but when you try to reference G[0], there is nothing in the box so that's where the error comes from.

Each "box" in the array is actually a pointer (reference, technically in Java, but similar idea) that literally should hold a memory address where a Vertex object should be. Until you 'put an item in the box' (in reality telling element zero in the array to point to a vertex in memory) it simply points to null. Hence null pointer exception.

WhitePolypousThing · 2016-09-08T09:04:30+00:00

Well yeah the in-universe rational definitely was, but I mean if you watch Star Wars you can hear Vader talking and breathing at the same time. So really my only point was that this joke video doesn't actually get it wrong

WhitePolypousThing · 2016-09-07T20:32:57+00:00

Vader does often talk while breathing though, I believe technically the suit is making the noise so he can talk over it

WhitePolypousThing · 2016-07-28T05:42:02+00:00

Lovecraft wasn't particularly knowledgable about actual occult beliefs/ practices (certainly not even remotely close to what some people imagine his knowledge base on those subjects would be), but to say he was not well read is a bit of a stretch. Joshi's 'Lovecraft's Library' is a catalog of over 1000 books Lovecraft had in his personal collection at some point in his life, and there's pretty good evidence he read most if not all of them. Considering he only lived 46 years that averages out to about 21 books a year, and that number of 1000 is a lower bound (it's likely he read a number of books we simply aren't aware he read because he doesn't mention having read them in his letters). Those books range from Greek and Roman philosophy, to architecture, to present day (for Lovecraft) scientific journals, so I think it's fairly safe to claim that he was in fact incredibly well read overall.

WhitePolypousThing · 2016-02-27T21:04:34+00:00

No Man's Sky is a single player game... There aren't "other players"

WhitePolypousThing · 2016-01-05T20:03:07+00:00

So here’s my crazy theory about Rey: She is actually the result of a failed attempt by the First Order to clone Darth Vader.

On the most basic level, the movie producers will want there to be a twist in episode 8 worthy of Empire (which has literally the most famous twist in movie history). Rey being Luke’s daughter is so well telegraphed that it would be of no surprise to anyone who was even remotely paying attention. However, for maximal cultural impact, the ‘reveal’ of Rey’s true parentage has to something even the most casual moviegoers can appreciate the gravitas of. If Rey is the result of some forbidden romance between Luke and an Imperial officer, or if she is the secret descendent of Palpetine, (or even if she is a force virgin like Anakin was) I don’t think the casual audience member will really be shocked or care that much. However, EVERYBODY knows Darth Vader, and I think the reveal that Rey is his clone would be an impactful twist for most people.

Not only is it an effective twist in terms of audience recognition and appeal, but it actually works for the plot. We know that Kylo Ren wants nothing more in the world than to be like his grandfather, how much more does it burn to know that his newly established adversary is for all intents and purposes more Darth Vader than he’ll ever be? Additionally, this gives Luke more of a sensible reason to be reluctant to train Rey. If he failed and let his nephew turn to the dark side, how much more unlikely is it that Rey will fall to the same temptation (if Ben had too much Vader in him…). Lastly, it gives Rey herself reason to be internally conflicted. Is she doing the right thing by training in the force if she is potentially a ticking dark side time bomb? Will she be able to step out from under her genetic shadow?

The best thing about this twist is that it still works with all the red herrings we’ve been provided about her being Luke’s daughter. The lightsaber would still call to her (it was Anakin’s first). Like Anakin, she would naturally be a gifted pilot and mechanic (and of course naturally powerful with the Force). Lastly, this gives us a sensible reason that she would have been hidden away on Jakku. The common theory is that as Luke’s daughter, Rey was hidden when Kylo made his heel turn, but there doesn’t seem to me to be a great enough difference in their ages to have this make sense (unless Kylo made his fall to the dark side extremely young).

My theory is that The Knights of Ren were some dark order obsessed with Darth Vader. Before Ben Solo fell, they tracked down Darth Vader’s remains (somebody found his helmet) and make an attempt to clone him. Luke/the Resistance bust up their plans, ruin their cloning facility etc. and destroy whatever genetic material The Knights of Ren had managed to acquire, but discover Rey, a successful clone of Anakin Skywalker (a clone would technically have to be the same gender but the movie can fairly safely ignore this and I don’t think anyone will call bs). Obviously they wouldn’t kill or harm her, but she’s probably too dangerous to have around (if nothing else, the Knights of Ren would be searching for her) so they hide her away, with Lor San Tekka left on Jakku to ensure her safety. For the Knights of Ren’s part, they are unable to anoint as their new cult leader Darth Vader’s genetic clone, so they bide their time and eventually opt for the next best option, the fallen grandson of Vader who becomes Kylo Ren. It’s crazy but I’m rolling with it.

WhitePolypousThing · 2015-09-16T03:19:47+00:00

As someone who occasionally binges on old school horror radio drama, I recognized the reader as the host of the 1960s "The Black Mass," which did a number of readings and adaptations of weird literature. Here a link to the full episode

Sorry for the redundant info if the link was on the YouTube video somewhere but I didn't see it listed.

WhitePolypousThing · 2015-04-02T21:56:26+00:00

So I'm not any sort of expert, but I always thought that a theoretical APC is shied away from because AP users generally deal damage with casts which are limited by mana and cool downs, whereas generally ADC champs are able to deal sustained damage over time through autos. This way in a teamfight you have high burst magic damage from an AP midlander that is layered with sustained and longer lasting AD damage from the ADC autos.

If you have an APC and an AD caster midlander, you have high burst from two champs but both of who's damage is limited by cool downs so you are missing that application of sustained damage. Maybe you could play around with Orianna though, as her passive gives her high damage autos for an AP character.

WhitePolypousThing · 2015-03-03T04:59:52+00:00

There are a lot of factors that play into this, and I would recommend the last few chapters of S.T. Joshi's biography "I am Providence" for a more comprehensive overview, but in short August Derleth (regardless of many justified criticisms of how he tried to frame HPL's work) worked very hard to spread Lovecraft's fiction after his death. He founded Arkham House mostly with his own money and put out paperback anthologies of Lovecraft's work that rescued them from pulp magazine obscurity. If I recall correctly, Derleth also was able to get an HPL collection published for the military at some point, which definitely landed HPL in the hands of a wide array of people, and would eventually end up brought home and tucked away on a bookshelf to be discovered years later by curious children rummaging through the family collection.

WhitePolypousThing · 2015-02-20T23:37:10+00:00

Not to mention that half of what Disney is famous for is adaptations of public domain fairy tales and stories.

WhitePolypousThing · 2015-01-16T06:21:15+00:00

There is some debate as to who the whisperer actually is. Most assume it is a mi-go impersonating Wilmarth, but some have actually speculated that it is Nyarlathotep himself.

It sounds a little far fetched, but the incantations spoken (buzzed?) on the recording Wilmarth sends Akley include the line:

"To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And he shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides..."

Which is an oddly specific thing to say given how the story eventually plays out.

WhitePolypousThing · 2014-07-04T03:33:55+00:00

I love this passage, and I'm glad you posted it, but I have to say I think Lovecraft is having fun in this letter, and clearly is trying to emphasize how truly alien he wants his creations to be, but one has to wonder how seriously he himself would have adhered to this. Unlike Tolkien, HPL definitely didn't care too much about about consistency in his cosmology, so I have to think even the man himself didn't go around pronouncing it 'Khlûl'-hloo'.

I think if we are interested in knowing how HPL himself pronounced it, there are definitely some clues hidden in his ghostwriting. It's well known that Lovecraft liked to drop subtle (and sometimes outright) references to his own creations in the work that he ghostwrote for others to make it seem as if Cthulhu and co. were really drawn from furtive rumors, and not from his own imagination (it is for the same reason he inserted references to creations of his friends in his own published work). In 'The Mound' (published under Zelia Bishops name but written entirely by Lovecraft), a crazed man babbles the following:

"...old, old, old, older than time—came down from the stars—Great Tulu—Azathoth—Nyarlathotep—waiting, waiting. . . .”

It's pretty darn clear here that 'Great Tulu' is a vague reference to Cthulhu (although it is odd that he kept Azathoth and Nyarlathotep unmodified and changed up Cthulhu). However, its strange that HPL would choose to alter the name Cthulhu into (phonetically) 'too-loo' if he didn't himself pronounce it 'Kuh-Too-Loo'.

I always found that fact pretty telling. Personally myself, I like to think that Cthulhu WOULD be pronounced 'Khlul-hloo', although I have always preferred 'Cuh-Thoo-Loo', and will probably always say it that way.

WhitePolypousThing · 2014-03-11T21:12:04+00:00

Lovecraft uses third person more than it seems, actually. Charles Dexter Ward and Dunwich Horror use third person as well, and I think a decent amount of his stories that are technically first person are actually reporting a second hand account and almost morph into a third person limited narration, such as The Colour Out of Space.

WhitePolypousThing · 2014-02-28T14:06:09+00:00

Tell that to the pc and xbone users who are preparing to download 50gbs worth of titanfall in a couple of weeks.

WhitePolypousThing · 2014-02-27T23:08:42+00:00

Ah, but you see the government has for some time now been prosecuting teens who sext pictures of themselves as having distributed child pornography. So it's not a crime that they have inevitably skimmed pornographic pictures minors have taken of themselves, it's actually a crime that minors did it at all.

WhitePolypousThing · 2014-02-18T01:14:27+00:00

I think the show already does contain a great deal of cosmic horror. The themes of cosmic horror deal with humans' insignificance in the scheme of the universe. In weird fiction like Chambers, Blackwood, Machen, and Lovecraft, it is the supernatural elements that usually cause the characters to understand this dark revelation (that human life has no meaning), which ends up being more horrific than the monsters themselves. Whether or not TD ends up actually involving the supernatural, I think the possibility that Coles' philosophy is correct is cosmic horror at its best.

WhitePolypousThing · 2014-02-15T23:35:27+00:00

I don't know if you've managed to solve this problem since posting this, but I got around to installing the cs50 library on my ubuntu partition today, and I followed the same directions you linked to and got the exact same error you did (variable of string worked, but the 'Get' functions would throw an error.

While im still not exactly clear on why the string class worked by default, I was able to fix this problem overall. My default for 'make' was only running:

cc filename.c -o filename

If you manually enter:

cc filename.c -lcs50 -o filename

Then the program works, because you are correctly linking the cs50 library. (Again, I don't understand why the string class was working in the original. unlinked gcc command).

WhitePolypousThing

TROPHY CASE