topbanner_forum
  *

avatar image

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
  • Tuesday March 19, 2024, 6:42 am
  • Proudly celebrating 15+ years online.
  • Donate now to become a lifetime supporting member of the site and get a non-expiring license key for all of our programs.
  • donate

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - alivingspirit [ switch to compact view ]

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5next
1
Living Room / Re: Important Message Within.
« on: June 17, 2015, 09:27 PM »
Your message has been received.

2
OK fine, I guess I should check in.

A long time ago (6+ years I think), I stumbled upon DC while searching the internet for free software. I was never a very active poster but there was a point in time that I read every thread voraciously. It was soon after that Mouser made the programming school and I was hooked into doing the C++ exercises and getting a very cool first exposure to programming with some encouraging pushes from Mouser and other DC'ers. Because of the programming school I majored in CS in College am now am a full time developer in downtown Chicago. I also grew up, got married, had a kid with a second on the way leaving a lot less time to spend browsing DC and the Internet in general.

I attribute much of the success in my career to the DC programming school. If it was not for that I would have most likely majored in a different field and only would have had an interest in software as a hobby and not as a career path. I do occasionally browse the forums so don't be surprised is I suddenly post on some random thread.

DC is a great community and I hope it will remain strong for many years to come.

3
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Google Reader - Mini-Review
« on: March 14, 2013, 01:25 PM »
What Google may not realize is that by shutting down GR they are causing a loss of consumer confidence in their other products as well (at least among those that use GR like myself). I started using GR because I was already using many of Google's other services such as GMail and Documents so GR was just an extension of that. Because I was using so many of G-Products I developed a lot of brand loyalty. I think that now I will be much more open to considering alternatives to their other products as well. I definitely consider this move to be the beginning of the end of my use of Google services.

4
Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Google Reader - Mini-Review
« on: March 13, 2013, 07:16 PM »
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
and
WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHY!
 :( >:(

Google has by far the best feed reader. It seriously baffles me as to why they would do this.

6
Back on topic.

7
Living Room / Re: Happy New Year~!
« on: January 01, 2013, 04:02 PM »
Happy New Year!

8
Developer's Corner / Re: What is the COOLEST language?
« on: December 13, 2012, 04:12 PM »
Python.

9
Mini-Reviews by Members / My experience with board games.
« on: April 06, 2012, 02:17 PM »

I got my first taste at Euro flavoured board games after getting some for free from Mouser during last years freebie give-away and I promised him then that I would give my short reviews on those board games. Now, a year later, due to the enjoyment I had playing those games, I feel compelled to give mini reviews not only on the ones that I got from DC, but on the assortment of other board games I have accumulated since then. I won't describe every game, just the ones that I feel there is something to say. I don't want to describe the rules of the games, since there are thousands of reviews you can find for that information. I am just going to give my impression of the games after playing them.

I rate as follows:
Creativity: the level of unique elements in the games
Strategy: inverse to the amount of luck ( I ask, how likely is it to win based on what is drawn )
Interactivity: The amount of time I spend talking vs. taking actions
Play value: The amount of games you will get out of this game.


Cutthroat Caverns
Probably the most interesting game I got from the DC give-away and the third best game I own, Cutthroat Caverns is a fast paced, light, and non-competitive card game. Buying the expansions is essential, especially the second and third expansions, since the initial game lacks a lot of essential elements that makes cuthroat fun to play. I would like to stress that the game is non-competitive. It is not fun playing cutthroat with people who are trying too hard to win. This game is in a very small category of games where you are both competing and cooperating at the same time, so people who are trying to win exclusively tend to screw over all the other players and make the game not fun for them. The game has lots of initial play value when no one has seen any of the encounters. Later, you can pick the encounters you want to play with to keep it interesting.

Creativity: 9
Strategy: 3
Interactivity: 9
Play value: About 20 games


Memoir 44:
This game has lots of strategy but is fundamentally flawed. A lot of it has to do with the ways you move your units. If you are a WWII history buff, you might enjoy trying to recreate some of the battles, but the mechanics of the game makes the whole experience very unrealistic. Why can't I combine these units together to make a stronger unit, or break them into two smaller ones to outflank my opponent? It is only 2 player so don't even think about buying this for a party.

Creativity: 5
Strategy: 9
Interactivity: Slightly more interactive than chess.
Play value: Don't bother.


Battlestar Galactica - The Board Game:
This game is the best game I own. Knowledge of the show is not required and can even be hindrance to some players who want the game to follow the same plot trajectory as the show. The game is only ideal for enthusiastic and involved players, since it is rules heavy and requires attentiveness to be played properly. A single player who has not been properly initiated before the game starts can ruin the game for everyone. The game's main draw is its traitor mechanic. It is very fun to be a Cylon secretly sabotaging the other players and it is very fun to be human trying to figure out who you can trust. Every game is different, and every one of those games there is a story to tell about it afterwards. BSG is best played with 4 or 5 players.

Creativity: 7
Strategy: 10
Interactivity: 10
Play Value: I have probably played about 40 games so far and counting.


Agricola
This game I bought fairly recently, so I cannot account for it's play value. It is a game of very complex strategy and depth but the core of the game is simple. Most people will need a game to learn how to play. It is the second best game I own right now, and the most frequent that ends up on the table.

Creativity: 9
Strategy: 10
Interactivity: 3
Play Value: Unknown, Played about 6 games.


The Resistance
It only takes about 15 minutes to play a game of Resistance so that factor alone might make it a worthy purchase. The reason why my group does not play it is because every time we have played, the spys have won. Maybe there are some alternate rules which make this game balanced; I have not found any.
 
Creativity: 1
Strategy: 5
Interactivity: 10
Play Value: about 5 right now, subject to change.

Citadels
I hate this game. It may have a lot of strategy to it, but for what purpose? Putting down building cards is boring. If there were more interesting building cards that more substantially altered the rules of the game, it would be a lot more fun. As it is now, the only fun part about this game is trying to steal other peoples gold. And you don't get to do that often enough.

Creativity: 4
Strategy: 8
Interactivity: 5
Play Value (-17) games my friends forced me to play.


Carcassone - Big Box + River 2 expansion
As the title says, this game comes in a really big box. There are lots of different ways to play to suit your tastes. It can also be played competitively with two people but not more than two. I claim there is a lot more strategy to this game than others give credit, otherwise I cannot explain why I am so bad at it. There is a lot of randomness, and it plays in a style a lot of people would describe as "dominoes with a twist." I think it is light fun, and a great default game to fall back on when you don't want to play anything else. It is a game that is agreeable to everybody, but no one is going to love it.

Creativity: 7
Strategy: 5
Interactivity: 2
Play Value: 40 games



10
Living Room / Re: Undervolting -- my hands are thanking me
« on: August 22, 2011, 09:48 AM »
I guess I'm going to be doing this tonight. There goes my evening.

11
Developer's Corner / Re: Coding Standards
« on: April 03, 2011, 11:10 AM »
Wow that is annoying. >:( That is the kind of coding standard that makes me want to scream "Why?!". Usually coding standards are supposed to make code easier to read. This just makes you second guess every variable. Is it a property or no? Do we want to set it using the property store?
I strongly am of the opinion the property stores should only be accessed directly under the most dire of circumstances because of how unclear and unstable it makes the code look. They should therefore be unmistakably different from the rest of the code. I hope they change the standards back to the "_" way. Sounds like your work place is a tough bureaucracy. Good luck getting it back the way it was.

12
I sympathize. I also am having apple-buyers guilt. I think it helps if you don't think of the ipad as a computer, rather just a new toy that you can play with. Gain comfort with the idea that productive computing still remains mostly in a non-apple world. Don't get me wrong, the ipad is useful, but I would never use it a productivity tool. I don't consider checking email a productive activity either so don't pull that on me later.
It seems like that is Apple's philosophy as well, being that you still have to tether the ipad to an actual computer and the lack of any kind of file access ability.
I bought the ipad as a fun new toy. That is an excuse enough for me.

13
Yay, Board Games!  :D
100% Happiness indeed. Plus more % once I see whats inside. :tellme:

14
Living Room / Re: Real Life Pearl Tree Game
« on: March 02, 2011, 08:21 PM »
The Bud is an iF concept design entry for 2011
Awe shucks, I want one! The concept art got me all excited.

15
Yes that does explain everything. When I last posted I was on my work computer so I saw my new avatar on the page. When I came back to my home computer I still saw the old images. I cleared my cache and got the new images. I am using Firefox 4 beta if anyone is curious.

16
Thats weird. I just noticed that my avatar is now changed without me doing anything. I could be that after I changed it there was a delay in the change but my old avatar picture was defiantly visible when I logged off last night. I will try again with video and see if I can replicate it.

17
Well for the record: it seems to work just fine in my case now :)
Hmmm... I guess I will try again later then.

18
I stumbled upon a glitch on the site. I cannot seem to upload a new picture to be my avatar. I can browse to a new picture but when I hit save profile it doesn't swap for the new one. I can switch to a predefined avatar but when I switch back to upload I get the same old avatar again. What am I doing wrong?

19
Find And Run Robot / Re: FARR 2.88.01 beta - testing requested
« on: August 17, 2010, 06:04 PM »
I've been using it for a few hours now. I use the stop media button to display. It's been working fine so far.

21
Living Room / Re: Five Reasons Why People Hate Apple
« on: August 07, 2010, 09:53 PM »
As the author notes, however, a key point is how Apple -- and its followers -- respond to the ordinary criticism that other companies have encountered. Apple and Steve Jobs choose to respond with threats, lawsuits, bluster, cutting off media access, among other embarrassing recent problems (such as how to hold the phone in a magical way that it doesn't drop calls). Apple invites further criticism if it doesn't step up and do right by its customers, no matter how fanatical or zealous.
It seems as though the arrogance that Apple fans are prone to starts at the company.

22
Living Room / Re: Five Reasons Why People Hate Apple
« on: August 06, 2010, 05:17 PM »
 :-[ Oops. I guess that came across wrong. I agree with you Josh. I didn't mean it is like that in all cases.
Just like people don't necessarily think that all mac users have mac-user values. All I meant was that some Mac users would also assume the other way around because they strongly defend their beliefs and assume that non-Mac users are hostile to that belief. Its a double edged stereotype.

23
Living Room / Re: Five Reasons Why People Hate Apple
« on: August 06, 2010, 03:12 PM »
Apple as a religion: How the iPhone became divine
If you say, 'I'm a Mac user,' people expect you to have those Mac user values."
And by saying I am a windows user, people expect me to be a mac-lover hater.

Edit: :)

24
Living Room / Re: Five Reasons Why People Hate Apple
« on: August 05, 2010, 03:24 PM »
Hating Macs, like hating anything, has nothing to do with reason. A person will hate anything that does not reinforce the decisions they made previously in their lives, in this case, the decision to stick with windows. The reason for the hate comes later in order to justify the emotion. Therefore, articles like this are pointless because there is no rational reason for hatred, people just hate. Its not like someone is going to read the article and think "Oh my! I have been so irrational". More likely, they will come up with a different reason why they hate apple and write a very elaborate explanation in the comments ( just go read, some are very amusing ), or they just ignore the article as illogical.

25
I love this website. :Thmbsup: This is my favorite post.

Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5next