Thought or Rant of the day!!!

[Moonflame]

I've finally found something worth using as a sig. Thanks Moonie!

Aww, I'm honoured. It's funny 'cos it's true

[Snowdrop]

I want to be able to breathe through my nose again!!

Had a dreadful night of coughing and blowing my nose, ended up feeling so lightheaded from it all...eventually got to sleep (probably just from being exhausted) and woke only briefly a couple of times this morning, where I was aware of my nose feeling wonderfully clear and it was so lovely to breathe easily that I drifted off to sleep again. Until my dad rang, asking me to look for something in the pocket of a coat he put for washing...except the coat wasn't even there Eventually he realises he has what he wanted with him But by then, I'd woken up too much, started coughing again and my nose had started getting all blocked and stuffy once more - now I'm back to not breathing through my nose and feeling absolutely appalling

[Rebma]

12 and 5.

12 residents of 19.

5 of 13 staff.

This is how many have this nasty gastrointestinal bug. I'm 2 shifts in and 9 hours by yourself with one sick resident is enough, but 12..

....I have no energy. All I know is shit and vomit. I wish night shift had a second staff member I'm pretty sure I'm dying and they're all so sick.

Kill me, though.

[Cdls]

I know it is not polite to laugh at people, but....a really old guy yelling "I want bacon" pretty loudly seemed quite hilarious in the context of everything else.

[Alutka]

Some people show up in our lives just for a few weeks, yet even the short encounter can impact our lives significantly. I am glad for all I got and will probably think about it from time to time in years to come. I wish I learnt more. My evenings will never be boring again.

[ObsessedWithCats]

from here

[Bmot]

from here

Awww, here, take this:

[ObsessedWithCats]

from here

Awww, here, take this:

That is super adorable and made me smile so much I nearly spat out my biscuit :3 Thank you for the smile.

DNA Fibre analysis was given up on for today, but it will be tackled once again tomorrow.

[Bmot]

from here

Awww, here, take this:

That is super adorable and made me smile so much I nearly spat out my biscuit :3 Thank you for the smile.

DNA Fibre analysis was given up on for today, but it will be tackled once again tomorrow.

Usually that's what it does for me too

That actually sounds weirdly interesting What study do you do?

[ObsessedWithCats]

from here

Awww, here, take this:

That is super adorable and made me smile so much I nearly spat out my biscuit :3 Thank you for the smile.

DNA Fibre analysis was given up on for today, but it will be tackled once again tomorrow.

Usually that's what it does for me too

That actually sounds weirdly interesting What study do you do?

I'm a biochemist/molecular biologist currently doing my final year (undergrad/masters) project in molecular oncology. I've basically treated cells so any DNA they made during one 20 minute period can be made to glow red, and then any DNA they made during the 20 minutes after that can be made to glow green. Then I burst the cells and spread their DNA down a microscope slide and look at the glowing DNA with a fluorescence microscope. I did it with some normal cells and some which have certain proteins removed or added so I can compare to see if the proteins make a difference to how they're making DNA.

The fibres look a bit like this though mine are usually less well spread out but more distinctively stained in terms of being able to tell red from green.

I have 56 pictures and I'm trying to count and record different kinds of striping patterns >_<

[Bmot]

I'm a biochemist/molecular biologist currently doing my final year (undergrad/masters) project in molecular oncology. I've basically treated cells so any DNA they made during one 20 minute period can be made to glow red, and then any DNA they made during the 20 minutes after that can be made to glow green. Then I burst the cells and spread their DNA down a microscope slide and look at the glowing DNA with a fluorescence microscope. I did it with some normal cells and some which have certain proteins removed or added so I can compare to see if the proteins make a difference to how they're making DNA.

The fibres look a bit like this though mine are usually less well spread out but more distinctively stained in terms of being able to tell red from green.

I have 56 pictures and I'm trying to count and record different kinds of striping patterns >_<

That sounds awesome, and at the same time I can easily understand how you'd get all "I give up for the day" with it

[Wolfsong]

Games need to be a little bit unfair. I was thinking about some of the stuff I used to get up to a few years back on certain MUDs, and realized that some of the most rewarding plots, conflicts, etc., all occurred because of some kind of inherently unfair situation preceding it. And that stands in pretty stark contrast with my husband's philosophy of game design - he's much more in line with the typical (MUD at least) thinking. When it came to implementing stats and that sort of thing, he fell solidly on the RPI Engine side of things - which is to say that there is a number of different statistics (strength, agility, etc.) with a numerical value assigned to them, and that while these numbers might vary from stat to stat, they will always equal the same total when taken together. All characters of x race will have, say, 70 points to distribute among their stat line however they choose. Equal opportunity. I prefer a bit more RNG thrown into the mix. I'd prefer a numerical range for race x, between 55-75.

But more than stats, I was thinking specifically about wounds. I was reading a book where one of the characters is gut shot, and that's that. There isn't the technology in the world yet to fix that sort of wound, and the character dies. And that doesn't really exist in any of the MUDs I've played. There have been situations (briefly) that came close to that, but in general all wounds can be healed. It might not be easy, and it might require high skill, a particular item, etc., but all wounds can be healed, unless you die and then you're dead. And I realized I really want there to be some kind of gut shot equivalent, setting appropriate, even if it's unfair. I understand the arguments against it. If you're going to consign someone to an unfixable situation that will ultimately result in the death of their PC, why not just kill them right off the bat? And if you're going to kill them, then why not just not code that situation at all, and instead let players roleplay it for themselves when permadeath occurs as it naturally would - due to hit point loss or whatever?

But I still really want it, because it shouldn't be 100% lethal. Maybe it'll only be 95% lethal, or 90% lethal. There has to be that little ray of hope, or else players rebel completely.

I want it because I was thinking about this one survival horror roleplay enforced permadeath MUD, and how it introduced basically the equivalent of a zombie bite. If a certain NPC did a certain amount of damage to your character, you had a chance of becoming "infected." Infected people received pechoes and a few effects - if moving, they might stumble and fall down, black out, fall unconscious, etc., while receiving messages about things crawling under their skin, whatever. And the thing about this infection (in the beginning) was that there was no cure. A PC was infected, and then everyone just had to wait. Behind the scenes, a counter ticked up randomly for x amount of time. If after x amount of time, it was over a certain number, the PC instantly died and was reanimated as a scary ass aggressive NPC. If it was under a certain number by x amount of time, they did not die, and the infection ended.

And this infection scared players OOCly so much more than actual combat did. It absolutely terrified people. And that translated into a really interesting situation where the society on that game segmented into two halves. You had the group that went out routinely to fight monsters and protect the other half of the game. They lost people to unspeakable horrors on an almost routine basis, and they became pretty numb to it all after awhile, and quite a few of them started to hate the people who didn't go out to fight on a regular basis, resenting the people they were tasked with protecting. And then you had that other half, the people who didn't go out to fight regularly - but there was overlap. Sometimes people from the latter group would join the former group, and they'd go up and fight... but that infection was still there, scaring the shit out of them, so they wouldn't fight on the front lines. They would place underlings between them and the monsters, and fight on the edges, not in any harm's way. And if harm got in their way, they would run. And then they would go back down to the other group, the group that didn't fight regularly, and they would be praised as heroes. And the group that did fight regularly, the ones who resented and died, were not praised, not noticed, generally not glorified at all.

And this ended up leading to all sorts of awesome conflict between the two groups gradually - and in hindsight, it was really damn cool. So I think I'm going to have to include something similar, something unfair, something a bit like being gut-shot or zombie-bitten in any game I create.

[SekoETC]

An excellent writing, Wolfsong. I think Cantr could benefit from something like that. Right now you can go into the wilderness with no healing food and know that you can still get in your vehicle/on your steed and drive/ride to safety once your hit points go lower than the comfort zone, heal up with no repercussions. Some characters that are strong enough can be completely immune to any animal attacks. And some characters take 1 hp from a wolf and 3 hp from a bear past the kite shield, so if they heal after the attack, they will never be weakened to a state where animal attacks would be considered dangerous.

[Alutka]

I must say that every time I see Seko's new avatar it makes me grin. Also, she seems so happy now that I feel like drinking vodka with her.

[Snickie]

I got home from band tour at 10pm last night.
During that time I received a rude reminder that Cantr II is a game that runs in real time.
Also my body hates me right now.
I've been lethargic all day. I hope it's just post-travelling whatever and it'll be gone by tomorrow. I have no appetite, and with all the time I've spent in the bathroom today I'm pretty sure I'm also dehydrated.
Also I've had a dry cough for going on two weeks now. That's like "go to the doctor and make sure I don't have heart disease" level.