Ultraviolet

I just corrected Wikipedia's Cyberdemon page: "The widespread claim, occurring in many places on the Internet, that this "pro tip" was published by GamePro, however, is erroneous, as it was actually created by Linguica, founder of Doomworld. [8]"

The thing about seeing with a flashlight is that it's very limited vision. That's the difference, not being able to see really far.

YUSS!

Doesn't work for me, following instructions to the letter. I get an "out of memory" error.

It's funny that people generalize a "soul" as a ghostly thing that flies around without a body after the death of a body, even within Christianity, because in Christianity -- or at least all scriptural reference -- you don't GO to heaven in some kind of ethereal body. You die, you go in the ground, and you're left there until you're brought back up, fully restored, after the restoration of the kingdom of Heaven on Earth itself. S'what it says, anyway. It REALLY pisses me off when certain Catholics *coughcoughhispanics* go on about how their goddamn relatives are ANGELS watching them from UP ON A CLOUD. GAAAHAHHHHH. There isn't any basis. It's NOT "your religion" to believe that! I wouldn't have a problem with it if people would admit that that is not a Christian belief, but when I see Christians of any flavor running around completely getting their own religion wrong, it gives me a bit of a tick.

But it's English and that's how it's supposed to go.

so basically the life fairy sprinkles magic pixy dust on it and it's like "omg im alive now i kin feal it" srsly thx 4 poastin You expounded brilliantly on your points.

If the only directive is survival, and the means are not programmed, then the mind and the machine would both have to simulate possible courses of action to determine what's best. I think the big difference is in level of awareness. A machine, properly programmed to understand a mechanical model of the world (physics and sociology, most likely -- you have to withstand the elements as much as you have to avoid being lynched by people) should be able to analyze a situation and act appropriately, possibly simulating outcomes internally. I know that's how I do it. The way I think humans do it may seem irrational to observers, but they are not privy to the full, unexpressable experience and internal simulation of the thing. Retrospect is always more accurate than the view from the ground, also. Unprotected sex, eating junk food, having a cigarette, driving while intoxicated -- all have roots in survival instinct, I'd say. Every "wrong" thing we do could probably be traced back to how we think we can best affect our own survival. Unprotected sex, for instance, might be explained as reproductive instinct (a sort of survival). Junk food is immediately available in response to a feeling of urgency caused by hunger pangs. Smoking a cigarette, at least the first one ever, for a lot of people, is a response to social pressure. We're social creatures, and probably for survival reasons. Not just reproductive drive, but protection from others by friends. So when you trace it back, though cigarettes can kill you, you smoke it anyway based on a more immediate percieved threat to survival. The thing about analyzing input and simulating courses of action is that you can't just sit and run simulations all day. You have to be, on the fly, simulating and taking input at the same time, whether to respond to new threats to your survival, or to add new variables to whatever simulation you're running. You might not find the right answer in the time you've got available, so you terminate simulation and commit to whatever course of action gave the best results (whether the originally intended success or not) in simulation. But people don't commit -- they never found the right answer, and now they're acting on a hunch. I guess we could introduce faith and hope here, but they seem like they're mostly distractions to full committal to action, at least in this model. There are some very mechanical ways to think about human action here. The trick is having the right programming language to feed it sequentially (and sequentially is probably just plain not the best way) through a processor. I like this, as far as a model for selecting a course of action goes: http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/eightfoldpath.html - It's a set of unspecific directives that can be applied to any goal, really. They're not specific. They're... variable? All a matter of continuing to analyze input. What I've heard is that the human brain makes neural connections based on experience. So, let's say you exercise right view, intention, speech, action, etc. You won't get it right all the time, I'm sure, but you'll have neural connections in place for doing certain things better in the future. It's all quite logical, in fact. Somebody mentioned feelings. Somebody said it's a matter of reacting to chemical sensations. Well, I think it might be more primarily logical. Pain is feedback intended to tell you that you're at risk for injury or death (and hopefully not too late). Fear of rejection goes back to that security within society thing. "Does a robot hand truly feel," I saw. Do you truly feel? Or do you take tactile input, recieve a stimulus telling you it's there, and then act accordingly to established neural procedures? If this hand in your hand is offered in friendship, it's social security, and it's a good feeling. You may note other things about it, such as that the hand is rough, or cold, that aren't of any particular noteworthiness, but they're brought to attention because they're either unusual features (based on pre-established neurology) or because they're familiar but not common and might become relevant, concievably, in some subconscious simulation. (As an aside to that, I think the conscious/subconscious thing is just like how you can dedicate less processor time to processes that are deemed less important.) "Irrationality can be seen as error," I also saw. I think actions percieved as irrational are just decisions that were made in situations where conditions were not right to perform a satisfactory simulation or take in complete input, resulting in a "best guess" scenario. So yes, there's an error, but it's not that the mind is leaving the correct process for determining what the best concievable course of action is, it's just that the simulation didn't work out. As far as robots gaining sapience by having the same mechanisms as a human, I don't think you necessarily have to have the same bits and pieces to achieve the same ends along the same general model. If all things are in constant motion, and this constitutes both life and death, where the ending of one construct is the beginning of another, then life and death are both constant. Could intelligence be definitively a conscious push for survival of one's construct? Fighting the life and death cycle? Is fighting for life the same as fighting for stagnation and death, on some level? (Peripherally on topic, but barely.) Dan: Only if it were a SEXY robot body. Cyberskin. I think we have problems when people ask questions like "is exact mimicry of life the same as life itself" and then say "Life IS:" this or that. I prefer to leave the questions open and see that we just keep experimenting and attempting to create. Creation is the generally agreed upon divine act, no? pre-emptive tl;dr

Someone mentioned him being in high spirits as of last known interaction. This makes me wonder about possible chemical factors, depletion of serotonin or something. I suppose if you wore yourself out on happy, you could feel pretty down. I know I've had that a few hundred times or so. (Not drug related.) Maybe he had one of those days that everybody has had once or twice. A death in the immediate family, a rejection, loss of a job, all three at once? Maybe all this, and the previous, chemical and environmental factors combined, until you've got a hell of a corner case. The mind seeks to explain things that don't make sense. He NEVER seemed dramatic, over-reactive (probably the most cool-headed of any of the IRCers, you could hardly even get a "wtf" out of him most of the time), or anything like that. He let me eCry on his eShoulder a time or three. One regrets never really getting a chance to give back. Or maybe not recognizing the opportunity along the way. I didn't wanna get in on a gay-chain of "I knew him so well and now I'm so sad," because I have to wonder how well anyone here really did know him. I know people exaggerate, but this really does FUCKING SUCK, regardless. Well, enough of my spew.

I'm not entirely sure, but I believe there are ACS commands to freeze the game. There's a console command for freeze mode, but the player can still move, so it's pretty likely that there's an ACS command for it, too. I know there's a player property command for freezing the player. If one command won't do it, use both of those. Alternatively, you could teleport the player out to safety while he manages his inventory. That'd let you, say, put the player in a virtual reality setting like he's inside his virtual equipment warehouse or something like that. Or you could even just do camera changing like in RTC3057 to put a background on it. Lots of potential there, but with lots of work needed.

You could probably switch up the grid colors, have grids pop up as if there is supposed to be some illusion as far as having normal architecture, but bits are missing, stuff like that. I mean, if you want a varied VR experience type deal.

I don't know how helpful they'd be just over the phone. Kinda have my doubts. Still, would be good to know... I don't personally have his last name, phone number, address.

Posting to watch for updates. Has anybody TEXTED his phone? I've had network trouble where calls and call notices don't make it, but texts do, and vice versa.

Oh man, I've had the car control dream. What happens is my brakes will put me immediately into a skid, and I'll end up keeping momentum in the same direction no matter what, while the car rotates here and there, until it's traveling the same direction facing backward.

Rat-eating simulator?