Stuff that's too good for the shoutbox but not enough for its own thread

[Zichao]

Found out about this conflict simulation day by going out for a drink with a bunch of people who had just come out of the first session. Cynical Canadian Navy Girl said it was "retarded" and that she "wanted to slap everyone", Chinese Exchange Girl played Chinese Business Man, which I think is a pretty minor character. Everyone agreed that the girl playing the rebel chief was the best negociator but she lost in the end, for yea, he who leads the upright along an evil path will fall into his own trap, but the blameless will receive a good inheritance.

From now on my strategy is to remain as unmemorable as possible in class so that I get a pointless role that will allow me to spend the day drinking and reading manga in the Basile.

They didn't even get a lunch break.

[contracycle]

Mentioned Solium Infernum, in the SB.

It's very good. The game inolves rival lords of Hell fighting for sufficient prestige to take the throne since Satan went AWOL. It's turn based on a card-game like structure, rather like Armageddon Empires, but unlike AE the turns are simultaneous and there is generally less fiddlyness.

Ytou start by creating an Archfiend as your avatar, with a apoints buy system. Once play begin you recruit legions to fight for you and praetors to lead them, as well as buying artifacts, relics and manuscripts from a central bazaar. Praetors can also fight each other in duels, and even challenge the champions of the arena of Pandemonium. The bazaar is one of the prime mechanics, in that everyone buys from the same pool and so you have to compete for various assets. AE was a game which was mostly about recon, but this is a game that is mostly about plotting. Very little is hidden and most things can be calculated quite finely in advance.

One exception is another major mechanic. Instead of being a fixed number of turns, the game length is determined by a semi random system, making it difficult to plan an end-game with any precision. The Archfiend with the most prestige at the end of the game is elected to the unholy throne by the Infernal Conclave and is declared the winner. Prestige is gained by seizing Places of Power with your legions, and by winning battles, hurling insults, or winning duels. It's not quite a zero sum asset because new prestige is produced each turn, but once it is in the game it's always in someone's hands.

I've only played against the AI, but apparently it really excels as a multiplayer PBEM. there is a good after action report over here at Rock Paper Shotgun, and it really seems to engender an entertaining degree of fear and loathing between the players.

[Zichao]

Today in Security, control and surveillance we were talking about manipulating conventional images of space to provide better representations of how we think about stuff, and this came up: Urban Mobs

The football match graphics are especially good.

There were also some articles by Michaelis Lianos which would have been interesting to discuss, but they're protected content.

[Zichao]

In this week's Sunday Funky Winkerbean, the truth suddenly hits Wally that his halcyon days as a hostage in Iraq are truly over and he is back in Westview. Paralysed by the horror and sense of paradise lost, he rushes out into the darkness to seek comfort in the memory of happier times.

[Zichao]

And the thing is, FW is probably the best drawn comic there is. Look at the fire/torch effects on that strip and the reflections in the shiny hallway floor (lose a couple of points for terrorist #2's leg, but that's an unusual slip up). I wish I could get effects like that.

[Benjamin]

Lynn Johnston used to do some lovely renderings for "For Better or For Worse." I think for a while she and Batiuk were sort of battling for the "best art" title.

In this 2004 strip, the colorization is quite sophisticated, and very dramatic movements and angles are employed to tell what is, as always with FBOFW, basically a little slice of domestic drama....

[Zichao]

Best grafitti ever:



On a whiteboard, sans explanation, in one of the university computer rooms.

[roadkill]

Zichao,

You and I may have different standards on the matter. I like this one better, on the side of a warehouse in an industrial district:

[Gilles de Rais]

I thought the grammar was strange and i half remembered a quote starting with "... lies", which sounds better anyhow so a quick search got me the original. I didn't know it was Shakespear...

"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves if we are underlings"...

[Benjamin]

It's quoted typically with the "underlings" phrase left off, and I'd forgotten that part.