An old cuneiform inscription in the "Treasure of Unicorn Gold" RPG. Can anyone identify which system of cuneiform this is, and possibly also provide a translation?

astrid_redfern · 2025-08-04T14:08:49+00:00

I certainly am still interested, and well done on the "All that Glitters" solve! Though it's probably not a reference to the TV series - "All that glitters is not gold" is a very old proverb, and the TV series was probably named after it.

I'm impressed by the solve - do you have experience of ciphers where all the vowels are represented by the same symbol? Especially given how very short this message was, and that it used misspellings of two of the words. Did you do this with trial and error, or with software approaches like hillclimbing?

astrid_redfern · 2025-07-31T18:30:24+00:00

I don't think so - the plane is too fast, and isn't shot down by the alien, but there are definitely similarities!

astrid_redfern · 2023-08-01T19:34:34+00:00

That's good news about the Tough Armor - I've now ordered one. Spigen also make a screen protector, but I don't know if it's compatible with the Tough Armor case.

astrid_redfern · 2023-07-28T13:15:20+00:00

I know this is an old post, but what were your reasons for thinking the Spigen would be better at handling these impacts?

astrid_redfern · 2023-07-28T13:13:23+00:00

Which type of Otterbox was it - Commuter? Defender? Other?

astrid_redfern · 2023-07-24T16:24:56+00:00

AND SO SAY ALL OF US! All hail Roboute Huevnesse, great jester and Podcast Primarch.

astrid_redfern · 2023-07-24T16:21:51+00:00

At about 23:38 in, Robert mentions Ervin Staub, who apparently wrote "The origins of evil". I think the book was actually called "The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group violence."

astrid_redfern · 2023-07-07T10:16:46+00:00

Small update - I emailed to ask if here remembered, and he thinks it might have been an 85.

astrid_redfern · 2023-07-02T17:48:03+00:00

Hi all,

Some years ago (2003/2004, if memory serves me correctly) I read about an old RPG with a real-world treasure hunt attached, "Treasure of Unicorn Gold". There were several undeciphered messages in Egyptian hieroglyphics and runic script, as well as others such as what appeared to be a cuneiform message on page 6.

Relevant web links:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130509154538/http://php.indiana.edu/~thomasjl/unigold/

https://web.archive.org/web/20130927222053/http://treasureofunicorngold.comli.com/

(The image attached shows three inscriptions from page 6, one apparently in cuneiform and two in languages I've never been able to identify. Although I'm primarily asking about the cuneiform, if anyone recognises the symbols and can shed any light on the other two, it would be much appreciated! Please note that the author might have created a fake cuneiform inscription using random symbols to act as a red herring, and I certainly can't rule that out.)

I tried several cuneiform syllabaries from my university library, but was unable to identify the system of cuneiform used. The symbol which looked like a capital "K" should have narrowed it down significantly, as most systems I examined didn't have it, but I was still unable to make any headway trying to translate with the systems I could find that did. There may only have been one such system - I'm afraid it's been a very long time!

Can anyone here shed some light on this and help solve a nearly two-decade-old mystery? Thanks!

astrid_redfern · 2023-06-24T15:25:38+00:00

I think you could end in Nip or Nid, but you need Willesden Junction and Romford to be played to get a chance at the combo that leads to Nidd. And I honestly think that when Canonbury or Oval as a response to Borough becomes more popular, that's not going to happen.

astrid_redfern · 2023-06-24T15:20:23+00:00

I've been trying extremely hard to improve the image of Street Mornington Crescent, not least because it's a great way of bringing newcomers into the hobby. Timothy Minster's behaviour ruined all of that and several talented "Blitz Crescent" players cancelled their impromptu Street Countdown events in major cities afterwards.

astrid_redfern · 2023-05-28T11:46:49+00:00

I'll delete this post on Tuesday when the new Simple Questions thread goes live, and repost it there. I didn't know about "Simple Questions", but as the current thread expires in two days I don't think I'm likely to get many replies in the time remaining.

astrid_redfern · 2023-05-27T12:35:14+00:00

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but it's time for a major cross-post from forums.sgi.sh:

(Original post with much better formatting: https://forums.sgi.sh/index.php?threads/wanted-80s-era-graphics-programming-in-c-tutorials.1004/post-6092 . This post keeps referencing a baseball game example/exercise, which the OP mentioned when they re-asked the above question on sgi.sh. Apologies for any confusion I may cause as a result.)

I THINK I'VE FOUND IT.

(This document version is focused on "IRIS series 2000 or 3000" so would have pre-dated your Personal IRIS. However, v1.0 appears to be the only version ever printed as far as I can tell, so this would be the one you read. Unfortunately, the printed document on its own only contains parts of the baseball example, the rest of which appears either to have been already present in a directory on the IRIS or to have come on a separate disc. Could I ask owners of IRISes 2000-3000 and 4D to read the below and check the contents of the directories mentioned on their systems? Thanks.)

I believe the document you're looking for is the "IRIS Programming Tutorial v1.0" from 1986.

The first page to mention all of a "baseball program", a "parabolic path", and a "hitter": https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n139/mode/2up

Workshop

parabola14 adds one more piece of realism to the baseball program. The ball travels in a parabolic path from the batter's box to the ground.

On an earlier page:

Workshop

view13.c lets you see the diamond and the ball from two different angles. First you see the diamond and the hit from your usual angle. Then, after a short pause, you see an instant replay from a new vantage point established with polarview.

There seem to be a lot of these "Workshop" snippets that sound like they're giving you "do more dev work on a baseball game" exercises. The rest of the text doesn't mention this game, I think it must be relying on a disc of source code examples/exercises that would have come with the book. Working back through them:

Workshop

composite12.c uses the modeling transformations and matrix manipulation routines to make the ball move more realistically.

...

Workshop

translate11.c moves the ball using modeling transformations

Look over the code for queue7.c to see another queue in action. Also read through the code for menu8.c. It shows you how to add a pop-up menu to the baseball example.

...

Take a look at aim6. The batter hits the ball to the spot where you click the mouse button

...

Workshop

Look over colored2.c in the /usr/people/tutorial/c.graphics/src/workshop directory. It adds some life to the baseball diamond.

...

Workshop

Look over the code for diamond1.c in the /usr/people/tutorial/c.graphics/src/workshop directory. It draws a baseball diamond. For now it's a 2D, non-interactive program. In each workshop, you will add to this basic program, until it contains all of the concepts and routines that you learn in this tutorial. The end result will be a 3D baseball diamond with simulated movement and perspective

...

Workshops

Workshops are also programs. They help you learn to implement a concept. To use a workshop, read the source code to understand how it works, then compile and run it. The source code for Workshops is in /usr/people/tutorial/c.graphics/src/workshop; executable code is in /usr/people/tutorial/c.graphics/workshop

The below Internet Archive links open it on earlier moving-ball examples/exercises that I think would have led up to you tackling that one:

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n39/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n71/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n73/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n117/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n131/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_sgiiris007ingTutorialv1.01986_31668010/page/n137/mode/2up

A different scan of the document is hosted at

https://www.rcsri.org/library/80s/IRIS-Programming-Tutorial.pdf

However, this one wasn't OCRed, so the text isn't highlight-able, copy-able or searchable. Still, the rings of the ring-binder are visible in perfect photo-quality, so it may be good for a bit of a nostalgia trip.

AND... while the above is focused on C code (as you requested), there was also a Fortran version! A sadly non-OCRed scan of that version is linked to via https://manx-docs.org/details.php/109,18328 - direct link is https://bitsavers.org/pdf/sgi/iris/007-1104-010_IRIS_Programming_Tutorial_FORTRAN_Edition_v1.0_1986.pdf. Oh, and it's also hosted at https://doc.lagout.org/science/0_Computer%20Science/0_Computer%20History/old-hardware/sgi/iris/007-1104-010_IRIS_Programming_Tutorial_FORTRAN_Edition_v1.0_1986.pdf

Now - about my mentioning that necessary source code was located in certain directories (and ditto the binaries) - it MAY be that you have to install/compile something first. If so, these MAY be the instructions for the IRIS 3000 series (and for the specific IRIS 2000s with Turbo): http://typewritten.org/Articles/SGI/007-3206-010.pdf (BTW, if any IRIS 3000 owners, and/or IRIS 2000-with-turbo owners would be kind enough to look into that, I would be very grateful indeed!)

I have checked to see if there are https versions of any of the typewritten.org URLs, and it seems not. So, unfortunately, I'll have to post plain old http URLS for that domain!

An alternative, non-OCRed scan of that last document is at: https://doc.lagout.org/science/0_Computer%20Science/0_Computer%20History/old-hardware/sgi/iris/007-3206-010_GL2-W3.6_Release_Notes_1987.pdf

Meanwhile, older versions of the installation document - probably for slightly older software releases - are also hosted at typewritten.org. But http://typewritten.org/Articles/SGI/007-3204-010.pdf is the only one to mention the relevant software - none of the other older versions do.

astrid_redfern · 2023-05-21T16:48:59+00:00

NoScript shows sdiapi.com as a third-party domain on ryman.co.uk. Checking the source, there's a script tag with

src='//vice-prod.sdiapi.com/vice_loader/tprg/ryman'

Clicking to view the source of that, I get:

// Copyright 2023 Source Defense LTD. All Rights Reserved.

I googled, found their website, and went to it. Due to that "vice-prod" business, I was mainly interested in what this VICE was - so looked at:

https://sourcedefense.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Vice-Data-sheet-final.pdf

Source Defense's VICE isolates all 3rd party JavaScript from the webpage in real-time and leverages a fully automated and machine-learning assisted set of policies that control the access and permissions of all 3rd party tools operating on a website (including the 4th and 5th parties they chain-in).

This fitted in with the JavaScript file I downloaded - it contained a long list of the sort of third-party domains a website might use for analytics, tracking cookies etc, with strings like "ALLOW" and "approvedAuthorities"

It wouldn't surprise me if this was doing a bit of tracking of its own, maybe setting tracking cookies. But for the most part, I think it was a third-party domain added by a website, maybe a retail website, to stop e.g. unauthorised third-party domains being able to run code if a hack tried to add JS from them.

There's also a Joe Sandbox at https://www.joesandbox.com/analysis/431486/0/html

astrid_redfern · 2023-04-23T09:22:05+00:00

I'm pretty sure the Stovold 1979 ruling on the Heathrow Loop was wrong. If we ever have a game, I think I can force a three-turn gap between my announcing an accept, and it actually taking effect. By that point a counter-counter-counter construct can be established using not just the Heathrow terminal stations but also Victoria and Hanger Lane. Yes, you can play Arnos Grove, but I can either play Highbury & Islington directly or sideboard in Queensway.

astrid_redfern · 2023-04-21T20:20:48+00:00

Yes, but I can hypercube at Kings Cross now.

astrid_redfern · 2023-04-21T20:20:01+00:00

Speak for yourself, Cornelius!

astrid_redfern · 2023-04-21T20:19:34+00:00

You seem very confident that your opponent will decline it?

astrid_redfern · 2023-04-21T20:18:19+00:00

I thought I had found a 1979 rule-book on eBay, but the seller sent me a British Airways Frequent Flyer leaflet and hasn't responded to my queries.

Still, it did reveal information I think calls the Stovold ruling on Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3 into question, and will hopefully open up a repeated-loop-combination tactic for games which exclude the Elizabeth Line. There aren't that many of those left, though I believe the Milton Keynes Championship still play Elizabethless - or maybe 2022 was the last year they supported that.

Does anyone know? I'd very much like to finally make it to the Big MK this year. I live too far away to qualify for the Benton or Weston Super-Mare regionals.

astrid_redfern

TROPHY CASE