Veiva

Darklight Darklight has been re-balanced to be more effective against demons when upgraded from completing Dimension of Disaster: All existing demons are now weak to Darklight, in addition to any existing weaknesses. This means that using Darklight against a demon will bypass any style restrictions.says all existing demons now so does that include zgw and is it worth using over t 85 or 90 That's worded wrong. It only works against demons it worked with after its Dimensions of Disaster buff... This update doesn't add any more. Still, it's the best melee weapon to use against any demons it works on. It's probably the best primary style at Tormented Demons now, for example, since you'll be able to do more damage before they switch to Protect from Melee (instead of 3100 damage, it'll probably be about 5000 to 5500 damage), therefore allowing you to switch less.

Darklight buff? Nice. Makes up for that July nerf to reasonably-priced magic weapons at Tormented Demons.

I didn't think about Strength abilities becoming Range/Mage ones. I doubt Jagex would do that, or at least very well (hi 20+ Attack abilities), but that is an interesting point and could be very useful, all things said and done. I concede.

Nah I'm usually fine if I drink a literal shit ton of water A "literal shit ton"? Isn't that still a just ton of water? After all, 1 ton of water and 1 ton of shit will weigh the same...

Why not merge Attack and Strength? Ooooh, wait, that would lower the max total by 99 and lots of overall XP would be lost when you combine both skills... I do admit my dislike is most personal. However, if you think combing Attack and Strength is "bad" for whatever reason, then that's an equally personal stance. However, I'm not the standard maxed-comped-200m-praise-Jagex-edate-in-Prif player, so my opinion matters less. Also, do note that melee is better DPS than any other class, largely due to Berserker. Unrelated, did Jagex say the NXT client was 32-bit? If so: Hahahahahaha. Incompetent.

That would be stupid. So I would go from being capable of dealing max range and magic damage to dealing below tier 90 damage in one update: Oh, I forgot: 99% of current long term players are otherwise maxed (combat and non-combat, i.e., they can wear max cape) or were "melee prods" from prior to EoC.

Other gear is substantially inferior to Void at Tormented Demons. Void is also pretty much the best gear at DPS positions at the top bosses. Therefore, even considering the time investment getting Void and making money at Tormented Demons as a intermediate step towards end-game PvM, it's the wisest route. It would take no more than 25 hours to get Superior elite void (assuming starting from scratch; if you have Elite void, which a returning PvMer would very likely have, it would take no more than 12 hours) with all three helmets. GWD armor is useless at Tormented Demons, considering you must use at least two combat styles. The only "viable" alternative for a returning player using Tormented Demons as a stepping stone is Dragon rider, and that's only useful if you don't have a Demon horn necklace and attuned ectoplasmator (and don't feel like bringing a Yak with some prayer potions).

That's like 25 hours at Tormented Demons... 8M/hr at TDS with say GWD armor and a limited familiarity with EoC? You use void at Tormented Demons (free). I'm sure Toad has overloads and access to Soul Split and the Turmoil clones. Upwards of 140 KPH is easily attainable with Virtus wand + book and an equivalent tier 80 range weapon; this equates to about 7.7m gp/hr gross considering current prices. The brunt of efficient TD killing requires minimal knowledge of EoC (well, if you don't plan on looking for efficient rotations yourself). It's actually excruciatingly easy to remember the rotations. For dual wield range, it's simply Needle Strike and then one of Shadow Tendrils / Snap Shot / Bombardment (in that order of priority; whichever better one is off cool down, use it). If you use two-handed range, simply replace Needle Strike with Dazing Shot. For dual wield magic, it's slightly more complex: prioritize Concentrated Blast and Wild Magic over Asphyxiate and Wrack. In either case, you wait for the first hit to land (Concentrated Blast or Asphyxiate) and then use the second ability noted. Two-hand magic is worthless because of some bizarre delay with Wild Magic; don't use it. After each rotation, switch ability bars, change prayers, and equip your new weapon(s) and helm. You shouldn't wait to even see if you actually dealt enough damage; maybe twice an hour you'll have so switch back, so it's a case of wasting ~10 seconds an hour or ~3 seconds every switch. That's it. The majority of it simply takes training your muscle memory, not caring so much about mechanics. In honesty, people who are slow/inefficient at killing Tormented Demons and complain about gear switching are simply lazy. You just need to train your muscle memory; after that, while still not AFKable, you don't really concentrate that hard.

That's like 25 hours at Tormented Demons...

Hi, I remember you! Regarding RS3, PvM isn't dead. Team PvM is actually pretty intense with elite Rise of the Six and Vorago (even if they aren't great moneymakers anymore, there's heavy competition for efficiency/speed kills), and then there's Raids. Yet still, there's some great single player PvM to be had. Araxxor and Tormented Demons are the most complex (either mechanically or strategically) for solo players, and they happen to be the best and second best solo PvM income. Araxxor duo is supposedly incredibly good money, roasting just about any other source (take current Araxxor average kill times [7 minutes] and reduce them to 66% [4.5 minutes]), but it requires both players to be essentially perfect. Dungeoneering is dead, though. No doubt about it.

I'm writing a script that will transform a plain text file with some markup into a different format, like TeX, not a text editing software. Well, I assume by text editing software, you mean something with a user interface... This is TeX: \documentclass{article} \begin{document} If I might be as \textbf{bold} to say, the \textit{Leaning Tower of Pisa} was the \underline{underlining} reason I went to Italy. \end{document} You run it through some TeX processor, it spits out a nice PDF. However, customizing the end result is pretty gnarly. I'm going to do something similar, like this (complete pseudo-syntax): \begin_template(irc) \chan_op(Morpheus, 12:07:06) i imagine u feel liek alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole \chan_voice(Neo, 12:07:54) u could say that \chan_op(Morpheus, 12:08:01) i see it in ur eyes \chan_op(Morpheus, 12:08:08) oh crap dads home gotta run bbl \quit(Morpheus, 12:08:12) red pill or death!!!! \chan_voice(Neo, 12:08:56) wtf \chan_voice(Neo, 12:09:41) noob \end_template A special template processor, written in Lua, will provide the commands in the template scopes. Each excerpt will be its own file. Extra formatting and niceties aren't too important as long as the output is reasonable. In any case, I can later organize chapters/sections/whatever in their own files, which reference these excerpts. All together, easy. I write the work in some text editor like Sublime Text, invoke my processor on the command line, and then have a nicely formatted output I can marvel at.

I assume you considered it, but why wouldn't HTML work? Particularly considering that would allow you to put it out there in a form more usable to the average reader than pdfs. You can do a lot with HTML. I'm thinking like Homestuck, which plays a lot with its format over the course of the webcomic, and which is all done via HTML with a splattering of flash. No. HTML isn't for print, it's for screens. Doesn't matter what format I initially choose, anyway; in the end, I could have the script output HTML... And I don't know why it matters how Word/Photoshop/mspaint can place text and stuff. That's not my point. It's structuring a large amount of different textual media. Presentation isn't important, it's simply structuring (i.e., organizing and layout them out). Even Word makes "restructuring" too difficult... To be blunt, what I'm attempting is nothing like some random web comic. Instead, I'm trying a modern approach to Dos Passos's U.S.A. Trilogy. Much like Dos Passos used newspaper clippings, headlines, songs, and historical excerpts (aka News Reel sections) to help build the work alongside personal, stream-of-consciousness perspectives (aka Camera Eye sections) and personal character stories to tell a story about the United States during the turn of the 20th century, I'd like to use modern digital text-based media to tell a story about present-day America...

Well I didn't want to patronize you, but are you just meaning to be able to type text in a predefined shape? As much as I don't particularly like Microsoft, it seems to be doable in Word (see a tutorial here). It's easier in Photoshop - more or less draw a shape and then type inside it. Those would take up a lot of space though...I'm not sure how long a story/how many pages you are planning on writing. Word is not even near ideal (and I don't understand who would use PhotoShop as a word processor). It's decent for general text processing, but nothing more complex. I need to organize and structure many different text formats, from IRC chat logs to source code to text messages to forum posts, and then there's the usual prose. Writing them in a TeX-style (i.e., plain-text file with structuring commands) would be exceedingly easy. TeX doesn't make it quite that easy, because customizing the output is... hard. Have fun with that lol libHaru doesn't look that complex (see the text_demo examples). LuaJIT and FFI make binding native C APIs in Lua exceedingly easy. I've also written a decent template processor in Lua before for a code generation tool. In essence, I'm just putting a bunch of crap I've already done together.

I've been tossing around the format for a creative work in my head for a few weeks now. Haven't even begun to write it because I'd like to take a more modern approach to presenting digital, text-based media. I've scoured the internet for an innovative way of structuring the work, even going as far to ask on in this very thread, but the best I found was having to master the arcane inner-machinations of some TeX distribution, even even then, it may not be suitable. So tonight I had a brilliant thought. Why not make my own? I don't need the sheer power (and complexity) provided by TeX. All I'd need is a good PDF output library, and what do you know, there's such a thing: libHaru. I'll roll some simple template engine in Lua, write some bindings for libHaru using LuaJIT'S FFI, and then I'll be able to pull together a useful tool to organize and format MyIdealLiteraryWork. Perhaps I'll be able to use this as a sort of therapy. There's a very personal story, even if the end result is fiction, I want to tell, even if it's just my future self.

You don't need to go to school to do #2. I thought this discussion was about so-called useless CS courses... Seems I was wrong. It's about useless courses for random person who knows some PHP and SQL, which is a career path that doesn't require a degree. In the case of this "typical web programmer," I would be cautious if they don't have a decent understanding of security (which would include cryptography) if they handle any data that's uniquely identifiable or even have an account system (and therefore, passwords). They'll probably store passwords as plain text... or a simple MD5 hash...

1) Yes, but you don't need to have a doctorate in linguistics to write a good book. 2) Calling it unskilled is probably a little unfair. I'd say less-skilled. To analogize: for a beautiful symphony to be performed, someone needs to write it, and some people need to play it. I'd say playing is not as impressive as writing, but it's still critically important. Also, people have been predicting the death of unskilled programming for quite literally thirty years, and it's yet to happen. 3) Excellent programmers could figure it out, but they might not know right now or have learned it formally. Ultimately, I think we're on a different page regarding just how much knowledge of these things you need. Any competent programmer should know the difference between the stack and heap, but someone who builds straightforward web applications for a living doesn't need to know how to write a static analyzer. 1) James Joyce spent over 15 years writing Finnegans Wake. Pretty sure he spent more time writing and developing his craft on that single work than anyone spends pursuing a Doctorate's. I'm not arguing you need a formal education, I'm arguing you simply need proper (self-taught or not) education to be an excellent programmer. 2) It sucks that being a script kiddie isn't, in any way, an achievement, compared to a hacker, but that's how it is. I suppose if your aspiration is to just crap out PHP, a proper education might not matter too much. However, someone will have to compensate, be it the system architect or your fellow coworkers. 3) Excellent programmers will have the foundation to pick up a native language, yes. That foundation includes all this "unnecessary" crap. I'm also frustrated about your hyperbolic statements. Writing a static analyzer or a compiler or an operating system all require a foundation of computer science and software engineering experience. Once you have this foundation, your task is pretty much an application of your experience. This goes from web applications to compilers, from video games to mission critical simulations. Seriously...

I never said you should limit yourself to necessary knowledge, I just said that taking courses on compiler theory isn't necessary for the majority of programmers, which is true. I also wouldn't call that liberal arts. Having a general knowledge, sure. Having to actually write a compiler, no. There are plenty of excellent programmers using high level languages who have little or no experience with low level languages. You won't write a good book in any spoken language if you don't have a solid understanding of what makes literature good. You can learn and be fluent in French, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Latin, any and all languages you want, but it won't make you a good author or speaker. "Unskilled" programming (which, admittedly, is a large majority of the available jobs) is easily replaceable, by cheaper labor or, in the near future, perhaps even "simple" AI (simple in comparison to a fully fledged technological singularity type of AI; still advanced compared to modern AI). Not knowing how to implement a common data structure, not knowing how memory is managed, not knowing how the hardware runs your code, not knowing how to write an algorithm from a formal description, simply because someone else has done it for you is a terrible excuse. What happens when you're given a task that has no previous implementation in your language of choice, yet you don't have the skills to implement it? Even in business logic kind of apps, you will run into these issues, and you won't always have someone who gives a crap to make up for your ineptitude (note, this is a general usage of "you," I'm not directing this at anyone in particular). "Excellent" programmers not knowing how to use a low level language is contradictory. Excellent programming is independent of language, so you can easily apply your knowledge and skills in any language you need. In fact, knowing which language is best in implementing an idea is part of this process.

I never said you didn't need to have a good grasp of software development, I said that understanding complex compiler theory and other abstract things isn't necessary for the majority of programming. I don't need to be able to write an OS from scratch to be able to understand keeping app footprints small is a good goal. Liberal arts is an important aspect of education that most people do not quite understand. Having a general grasp of the massive amount of knowledge attainable is a good thing. Limiting yourself to "necessary" knowledge is backwards and actually damaging. I would go as far to say that being against a general education (context is important) is like embracing ignorance. The methodology of liberal arts can also be applied to general computer science and "oh so you just want to write PHP apps, huh." The former will excel, the latter... will only write PHP apps. Knowing how hardware and software interact and the theory behind computing is actually crucial to writing well performing software, surprisingly. That's why languages like Python and JavaScript and C# and all the others are actually harmful if you don't already have a solid understanding of how a computer works, because you're going to write crappy software that requires way too much hardware for the task you are doing (see Facebook app). Interestingly enough, to be a good software developer, you'll essentially understand how your operating system works, how programming languages are compiled, and much more.

You don't have a class that teaches push down automata, context free grammars, and Turing machines? Those are all really important to creating compilers, and the two classes we had on it both liked to imply that CFGs were one of those things that every programmer had to know. Not every programmer writes compilers, drivers, cryptography software, or operating systems. The vast majority of programmers deal with (relatively) straightforward business logic and that stuff is overkill for that sort of job. Yeah, when you get programmers who don't have a good grasp of software development and computer science, and they write business software, you get FACEBOOK SCALE, yeah!: http://quellish.tumblr.com/post/129756254607/q-why-is-the-facebook-app-so-large-a-ios-cant To be honest, if (or when, I don't know) I get a job in software development, I really hope it's something interesting. I've spent my personal time writing interesting software. I found a reasonably viable exploit in Windows Media DRM to simply dump decrypted frames (better put, packets) of a DRM-protected media file using WMP itself. I wrote a pretty neat hardware-accelerated resolution independent curve renderer with some interesting design decisions that enable styling, groups (for translucency hierarchies), and clipping that efficiently utilizes modern GPU resources and state. I wrote a spiffy DLL injection utility that provides a nice API for overriding existing symbols. Using this DLL injection utility, I made a program that can capture visual rendering state of an OpenGL application so I can later render it (I'm aware tools like this exist, but they're for debugging the output, not just saving it). And there's plenty more I can't think of. And there's plenty more I'd like to do. Oh well, depending on any AI revolutions in the next few decades, programming might not even be a job anymore. So it goes.

I started with the GBA Red/Blue remakes. To be honest, I suggested to my mom that my brother would probably enjoy the Pokemon games, and I had, at best, a vague understanding of the series (I couldn't stand the show or the extreme popularity of the card game throughout elementary school and didn't know it was a video game first, and a Nintendo first-party series at that). So he got LeafGreen for some special occasion. Perhaps a year later, I stumbled across the game and found out he had never won the game, and in fact, had restarted with Bulbasaur as his starter at some point. Still in Pallet Town, I decided to play it. That was a mistake. Now I have physical copies of FireRed, Sapphire, Emerald, Diamond, HeartGold, Black, White 2, Schwarze 2*, X, and OmegaRuby. On top of that, I have made digital copies of my games (using my AceKard 2i or SuperCard DSTWO flash carts, EZ-Flash 3in1 expansion pack, and your bog standard DS Lite) and my brother's games (LeafGreen, Pearl, SoulSilver, and White). Then there's the spin-offs... and the Ditto merchandise... save me... *: However, it's not in my "box" of Pokemon games. I have no frigging clue where it is, actually... this bothers me. It took a month to get here from Germany and cost upwards of a new DS game.

[qfc]15-16-882-65678246[/qfc] ty jagex good qa 10/10 edit: yay, it's fixed. Oh wait, I shouldn't have to say "yay, it's fixed." It should've never happened.

So I just came back from talking to the store manager. He says it's up to my immediate manager. I feel better now, though there is still some worry. I'll contact him later. On a side note, would anyone know how to piece together different forms of text-based media in one document? If you've read, say, House of Leaves or other similar esoteric postmodernist literature, there is a distinct formatting and structure that works alongside the text itself to deliver the story. I have an idea for a modern approach to a diary-styled narrative* involving a variety of text, from things like IRC chats to terminal/console input to source code to general notes and ramblings. I suppose I could use some TeX engine, but the last time I used text was in high school... *: Inspired by my experiences and desires, particularly since August 2014 and especially since April 2015. Also, I'd like to pay homage to my favorite short story, Charlotte Perkin Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, which features a diary-like progression of events and an unreliable narrator. Considering the approach I want to take, it would be nigh unpublishable, hence my desire to generate the layout and formatting myself.

Speaking of happiness, today I'm going to meet with the store manager (well, in four hours; it's almost 4:00 am). I was unable to attend work Friday due to a fragile state I was in for several hours prior to work (though I had the foresight to force myself to call the store and let the manager on duty know a few hours in advance). Apparently, policy considers any absence the same, regardless of the validity. I mean, I can understand they need me to come in when scheduled. But I can't know how stable or able-minded I'll be in the future (be it a few hours or a day), and this is the second time it's clashed with my going to work. If I did not have some psychotic disorder and depression and whatever else, I would have no problem getting to work. Heck, even at work I'm able to relax (in some manner of the word) a little, knowing that if something goes too wrong, there we be at least acquaintances who can call emergency services. But on the 20-30 minute walk to work, the same cannot be said, at all. I could easily become disorientated, confused, and never arrive to work and end up who knows where surrounded by total strangers. Will the ADA's provisions protect me? Who knows. Unless it's "undue hardship" to call in another person to fill my role with reasonable notice, I would hope so... In any case, I'm genuinely afraid of disciplinary action of some sort (being written up, or even a "last warning" kind of thing, or the worst-case scenario, "bye"), especially considering I'm still on a "probationary period" after being hired and have had two absences so far. Also I'm one of those random people who PM'd muggi for advice a while ago. If you find his advice unsuitable and general content not favorable, you can ignore him (I've done this to other users on other forums). I don't often agree with him on happiness attainment (though I suppose his advice is irrelevant considering internal factors I face), but I enjoy reading his posts often enough. Also, the dude got a fire cape at a really low level before Jad was made ezpz and was a cool PKer, come on, that's some cool RuneScape history there.

The Pokemon holding an Everstone during breeding has a 100% chance of passing on the nature to the child Pokemon (in Generation 6 [XY and ORAS], it's 50% in prior generations with this mechanic). You technically only need one perfect Ditto if you're breeding flawless Pokemon (in XY or ORAS), but having all the competitive natures is beneficial because you don't have to catch a parent with the correct nature or breed until one of the children has it. That's also the reason I have two of each Hidden Power Ditto, since Pokemon who do use Hidden Power tend to depend on speed or special attack, so it makes the most sense for the Ditto to be Timid or Modest. Of course, there's the oddballs that also use physical moves, in which cause a different nature is more useful (generally, one that lowers one of the defenses to boost attack, special attack, or speed), but that's really uncommon and I can just use another Ditto to get the right nature, and then use that child to pass it on. Also, using a foreign Pokemon while breeding increases the chances of a shiny since Generation 4. It's dubbed the Masuda method. That's why I decided to get foreign Dittos to improve the odds :P. Though I personally don't hunt shiny Pokemon too often, even when I RNG. In any case, getting a shiny by chance would be pretty cool. The Nintendo DS was region free until the DSi (and then only DSi titles were region-locked and even then only on the DSi [or later, 3DS]). I have Pokemon: Schwarze Edition 2. Used it to RNG perfect Dittos of all the viable natures (essentially all but the neutral ones [i.e., Quirky] and the "lower defense, higher special defense" and vice versa), Trick Room Dittos, and viable Hidden Power Dittos with both Timid and Modest natures (Ice, Electric, Grass, Fire, Rock, Ground, and Fighting). For reference, this is 32 different Dittos... Why? Well: the Hidden Grotto in the crater with Kyurem could spawn a Ditto. Simply RNG the Grotto to spawn a Ditto, and then RNG the Ditto. I could have done this on my English copy, but then I would have English Dittos, which are less useful for breeding than a foreign Ditto. Since I can't read Japanese (well, I only speak/read English), I chose a European edition so I could quickly translate anything, if necessary (during the "story" and to verify natures/characteristics when RNGing the Dittos). That being said, Gen. V are considered DSi games, as they are DSi-enhanced. So I wouldn't be able to play 'em. On my DS, maybe, but I wouldn't be able to play 'em on my 3DS which puts me off from buying them. I don't really want to bother with getting Japanese versions of Gen V-VI for that reason. Show-off time~ The sticker on my FireRed screwed up... I hate that... It's developed some kind of air bubbles under the layer of transparent stuff and it's never been the same since. You can play Generation 5 games, no question, on the Nintendo DS Lite and the original Nintendo DS. However, I checked, and it appears the region-free loader for the 3DS doesn't work on DSi games (you need to downgrade the DSi firmware on the 3DS, which isn't easy [or possible on recent system updates]).

The Nintendo DS was region free until the DSi (and then only DSi titles were region-locked and even then only on the DSi [or later, 3DS]). I have Pokemon: Schwarze Edition 2. Used it to RNG perfect Dittos of all the viable natures (essentially all but the neutral ones [i.e., Quirky] and the "lower defense, higher special defense" and vice versa), Trick Room Dittos, and viable Hidden Power Dittos with both Timid and Modest natures (Ice, Electric, Grass, Fire, Rock, Ground, and Fighting). For reference, this is 32 different Dittos... Why? Well: the Hidden Grotto in the crater with Kyurem could spawn a Ditto. Simply RNG the Grotto to spawn a Ditto, and then RNG the Ditto. I could have done this on my English copy, but then I would have English Dittos, which are less useful for breeding than a foreign Ditto. Since I can't read Japanese (well, I only speak/read English), I chose a European edition so I could quickly translate anything, if necessary (during the "story" and to verify natures/characteristics when RNGing the Dittos).