Pretty nifty. Nice clean design, too. But a solid half hour? Were you, um, Clownæ-style?
I don't know what it is. I'm now glued to it again.
I am obsessed with keeping all the dots onscreen and unreplaced.
Last night I got them all to stay still in a clump.
You can move (not just rotate) the ramps.
They apparently hide behind one another, because, when I got them all to clump together, they appeared as one dot, and when I freed them, they emitted as a stream. Very exciting.
re: 3
yeah, it's possible to do that. Cool.
1 is a very nice idea for a future activity. But tonight is already scheduled for watching "Out of the Past".
If you put one ramp near the upper left-hand and the other in the lower right-hand, and both attractors a little bit above and to the right of the second ramp, you can get a situation where all the dots are orbiting eccentrically around the two attractors and occasionally flying off into the void.
I spent a lot of time trying to get them to stay on a flat ramp with the gravity balls moved away into irrelevance, but I couldn't manage that.
I wish there were a way to share configurations with other people.
I just did it. The ramps are touching in a vee shape, with all the dots on the surface of one ramp sliding back and forth. I'm going to try to pick them up with the balls now.
Here is something strange: while you're dragging a ramp, some dots will be reflected by it and others will pass through. I don't see what determines which dots do which.
Funny -- I've got one dot orbiting the balls now (I dragged the balls on top of each other and can't reseparate them), and its orbit is unstable. I'd think it would settle down into a pattern pretty quickly.
I haven't managed to get a stable orbit yet. I figured it was because the other gravity ball always exerts some pull, but I can't explain why it would happen with the gravity balls on top of each other? Are you sure you can't separate them?
I restarted -- now I've got all the dots in exactly the same orbit (they look like one dot) going back and forth between the two balls, with the ramps uninvolved. Still not a stable orbit, though.
13: It's Clownænburg's Uncertainty Principle.
This arcade game is lacking in two key elements: high scores, and lives.
now I've got all the dots in exactly the same orbit (they look like one dot) going back and forth between the two balls
Cool!
One of my favorites so far is putting the gravity balls on either side of the stream, so that the dots fall straight onto a flat ramp, where they eventually all stay, just rolling back and forth a bit.
Maybe there are no regular orbits because "down" also has some gravitational force?
So, there's weak gravity toward the bottom of the screen, and strong gravity toward the balls?
The ramps are semi-permeable membranes -- the balls can go through the bottom, but not the top.
21: I think so.
Jesus, see, I forgot to go swim. Later!
On the subject of better time wasting through physics, here's an awesome video of a Rube Goldberg-type contraption made by some English nerds/viral marketers. Not interactive, but sofa king awesome.
12:
The ramps are touching in a vee shape, with all the dots on the surface of one ramp sliding back and forth. I'm going to try to pick them up with the balls now.
Huh, I just did this, with the balls basically centred between the V'd ramps like smiley-face eyeballs, so the dots are self-contained, orbiting around each other, and I find this very disturbing for some reason. I really have to go change it.
I got sucked in by these games for a while.
I can't decide if the particles themselves have mass. I think a stable orbit is impossible even if they do - there's a large attractor below the screen pulling them away. The circles are like little Jupiters, capturing satellites from the asteroid belt every once in a while, but eventually losing them to the sun.
While you're at it, come get immersed in this:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz
re: 24
There was one of those done a few years back, I can't remember if it was British nerds or Scandinavian nerds. but it took roughly half an hour to play out and was done in a huge warehouse, complete with chemical reactions, explosions, fire, etc. Totally hypnotic.
28: awesome. Also their progress bar for loading is way cool.
28 has a lot in common with Tetris except it is way more fun.
re: 28
Arrgh. That has the same sort of hypnotic quality that Lemmings had, back in the day.
Daaaamn Yooouuuu Heeeeebie.
God this game rules.
Except I'm completely stuck on what I believe is level 10.
I would talk you through it, except I haven't the slightest idea how I would do that.
You can find solutions on YouTube, if you run out of patience.
Patience is a renewable resource.
Dammit, I was up to level 16 and I accidentally closed the window.
I love grow games! And somewhere there was a game where you had to shoot a ball (or a penguin) into a black hole by manipulating the starting angle of your slingshot.
Disgraceful! This thread contains no thoughtful discussion of Jonah Goldberg anything. I used to like liberal blogs, but now they're all petty and frivolous. Christ, what's next, lolcats?
This is relevant to your interests.
34 gets it exactly right.
When I get fired, I'm suing the maker of this game.
Must be a lawyer thing.
I cheated, spoiler:
you have to double back after going around the horn w/o tripping switch.
Dammit, I can't past 11.
Keegan's been doing it for about 25 minutes. He's on level 14.
I have to admit, I watched part of the video for 28.
oh fuck. send a search team if you don't hear from me for a month.
I'd venture Keegan's not drinking and pretending to practice law while playing.
Dammit, geebie. Stuck at 16. Going home now.
It's hard to imagine a game I'd be worse at. Sometimes I fall off the board on the first move. No ability to visualize how shapes fit together.
I'm glad I'm not the only one struggling. It's easier for me to forget the block and deduce backwards from the end.
must go home now. must.
Haha! Completo! Beat THAT, Keegan!
I just spent an inordinately long time on level 3. I expect to suck at this as it goes on.
Level 11 is the last one I did without cheating.
I got to nine before I started cheating.
So, sharing a seemingly harmless little physics game has led me to a place where I'm tap-tap-tapping a lever to move a little block around the screen. 367 moves and counting - no idea what level I'm on. This could take a while.
I think this is why I prefer games without endpoints. Thanks for the shoutout.
66: it took me about 4000 moves to finish it, but it sounds like you can do it in roughly 2000 if you're efficient.
No fucking way am I getting sucked into this game. Spatial arrangment games make me want to hurt people.
Sometimes I fall off the board on the first move.
This is a marvelous statement.
I have no idea what this game is about; it seemed to be taking forever and a day to load, so I deduced that it required a high-speed connection, so I ditched.
I managed to resist this game when I read about it on Jayisgames, and now HERE I AM, A RUINED WOMAN, thanks to Heebie. (Actually I seem to have managed to pull myself away after level 15, but owww.)
c'mon, rfts, you're almost halfway there!
C'mon Ogged, you wuss. My 10-year-old is on level 28.
I gave up at level 8, apostropher. A man's gotta know his limitations. I'm still making pretty patterns with the gravity balls, though.
I should admit that, although I quit trying around level 12 or 13, I kept being drawn back to it by compulsion until I just followed the walkthrough linked above through level 33 just to kill the itch. I'm not proud of myself, but at least I have my evening free.
I've stopped at 12 for the time being, but I find I can't do spatial puzzles unless I can find an algorithm for moving the pieces around. I'll have to show this to shivbunny later. I'm pretty sure he'll probably crack the thing in about half an hour.
Yeah, I'm like Cala wrt the algorithm. Maybe we just need to look at more case studies, Cala.
Or if the block were shaped like a trolley...
It's a little weird to see how fundamentally stubborn my brain is. No, no, we must break it down into principles and patterns. Fuck you, brain. Why can't you move the blocks like shivbunny's brain does?
On a related note, fuck Rubik and his cube.
Alas, I can no longer find the Falling Sand Game. It was good for making pretty pictures.
I gave up on level 13 because I was just totally stuck, then I went back to it just now and am still totally stuck.
I gave up on 12 because I'd cracked the puzzle and kept walking the damn block over the edge. I figure it will make a good study break tomorrow.
I felt the homicidal rage coming on at 11, and that's when it's time to stop.
I can't even figure out level 2. Level 1, I got. No problem, but I'm struggling with level 2. I think that that deserves the prize for excelling at excellence, or something like that.
82: World of Sand is here: http://ishi.blog2.fc2.com/blog-entry-158.html
Enjoy!
Sometimes I'm so happy about the vices I don't have. Unfortunately video games, popcorn, potato chips, and soda are pretty much the complete list.
Shouldn't you people be screwing your brains out at this time of the night? Hmph.
It's a bit early yet. They need to warm up with some videogames first.
And y'all thought the quorm discussion was dull.
88: Thanks, but no, that doesn't give me anything. A dead end.
The link I have to the Falling Sand Game the same way. Uh,
Did that work? Anyway, too bad. It was a beautiful game.
Both of the sand game links work for me.
Parsimon, it sounds like you might not have java installed.
I have an idea. Let's each of us tell the others about a recent dream, and then once everyone has had a chance to share, we can analyze each others' dreams and talk about our relationships with our parents.
96. Well, fuck, then. I don't know why I can't get them now. I get a box with a little red square with an "x" in the upper corner. This is sort of annoying me.
We haven't made sexual comments about an athlete's body recently. I suggest Heidi Klum. I forget what sport she was in.
It's way too fun, this sand thing. I can't figure out what the namekuji's doing, or what I'm supposed to do about him. Sometimes he just curls up in the corner of the screen and goes to sleep.
AWB, go to bar and pick up a slightly psycho stranger dude to screw right now. I mean it, young lady.
97: Oh. Java. Possible. I'm not going to pursue this at length tonight, but, uh, I'm not sure how to install/update Java if I haven't been prompted to do so.
Thanks, ogged. I'll do this later. I can't imagine that I don't have any version of Java installed on this computer. Granted, my hard drive crashed last year, so this is a reconstructed drive.
It causes me problems, in case you can't tell.
You should all try the sand game.
Messaging the same girl on another site? No.
You've only messaged one? Getting a girl is like getting a job. Plan on sending out a lot of resumes.
Teo, totally do it and then tell us how the restraining order works for you.
Getting a girl is like getting a job.
The only thing worse than having one is looking for one.
B, what can we do to help these people?
The only thing worse than having one is looking for one.
Heh indeedy.
27: If you use the platforms/membranes, yep, you can, it's easy.
Heebie's link is addicting, and also kind reminiscent of Portal (warning: awesome vaporware)
113: I dunno about you, but I'm going to go buy smokes. If you like, we could hang out by the koi pond and smoke and drink beer and make fun of them when I get back.
Don't say shit like that, Teo. This place is crawling with geeks who finally managed to get laid somehow and made decent lives for themselves. You will too. Which is exactly zero help, I know, but it really will get better.
It's not just the dating. Everything about my life right now is just about the opposite of what I was hoping it would be.
You have plenty of time to regroup, teo.
120: a pool?
Have you tried the block game? Probably about as useful for advice as unfogged is.
But you're also at the point in life where things just start getting a lot more random, and while random bad stuff sucks, there's also random good stuff. This grownup shit is a pain in the ass, but it's an interesting ride.
126: No, see, I'm not at that point. That's the point I want to be at. The point I'm at now is more of the same, probably for another six months or so.
Aren't bars the best places to find psychos? That's where I seem to run into them.
124: I'm not going to blow you, if that's what you're thinking.
127: Keep in mind, any life event, including ennui, will be represented for surprisingly long periods in a truly random life.
The point I'm at now is more of the same, probably for another six months or so.
Six months? That's nothing! I've had ruts that lasted five years.
Hold tight, play some flash games, and wait for the opportunity to create opportunities.
See, the no-relationship policy is the Peewee Herman solution. You're in exactly the same place, but you say "This is where I wanted to be!" Beautiful, no?
Again, I'm not just talking about dating. I'm just saying that when I imagined life after college, it didn't include nearly this much living with my parents.
People, Teo is being polite, but his father is quite ill.
again, living with your parents for six months is nothing. My wife's cousin has been living with her parents for 10 years after college.
Are either of your parents talkative drunks? That can be entertaining.
Nice job, Helpy. Don't you claim to be some kind of hippy?
137: Don't worry about it.
And yes, he's quite ill, and getting worse rather than better. That's probably at the root of a lot of my unhappiness right now; it's not just that I'm living with my parents, but that it's not really a joyous, carefree time to be part of this family.
A very dumb one, apparently.
I hear ya téo. While I wasn't at home for the same reasons you've elected to be, the summer and year after college was a little weird, living at home. I hadn't been living their regularly, of course, in the time at school, and it was as if my parents' sense of how old I was hadn't changed in four years.
Plus, there's something weird about being in your hometown when none of your hometown friends are.
Were I you, I'd try to get involved in something: kickboxing, basketweaving, alumni club, synagogue stuff, whatever, that gets you out of the house meeting people more or less your own age as often as you can. You can't live as though your life is on hold.
Were I you, I'd try to get involved in something: kickboxing, basketweaving, alumni club, synagogue stuff, whatever, that gets you out of the house meeting people more or less your own age as often as you can. You can't live as though your life is on hold.
This is good advice, and I really should try to find something to do. I basically haven't been leaving the house at all, which hasn't been a good way to live. I'm starting a full-time job on Monday, which should help, but it'd be better to find something to occupy my free time that's both social and fun.
Is there any way you could be there for your dad and rent a room from someone, or crash with a friend for a while or something? There's no need to make yourself suffer just for the sake of suffering.
I love my parents dearly, but I don't think I've lived under their roof for more than three months consecutively since I was 16, and that's including a minor nervous breakdown (which itself is part of why I haven't etc etc).
144: I'm actually going to be housesitting for our neighbors for a month starting tomorrow, which should help, and now that I'll have some significant income I've been thinking of looking for a place to rent after that. I think just getting out of this house would help my mood a lot.
143: that's tough, teo, I'm sorry. Certainly best to get out of the house.
127, 135, 139: That's kind of what I'm talking about. You're not living at home because you're in a rut or because you're still a kid, you're living at home because your dad is ill and you need to be there. You have every bit of sympathy and respect I can send your way, but the point still is that good stuff finds a way to happen too.
Plus, Teo, you can think about all the ways you could reinvent yourself after you move somewhere new. Partly because I stuck around in my college town for two years after graduation to get my MA, I felt very stuck in old patterns of behavior that were not conducive to creating new, adult happiness. Moving to NYC sucked, in that I desperately missed my old friends, but I got to do all these things my friends never would have thought I'd do. The expectations old relationships place on you can make creating an adult life hard.
To the extent that you can, I second all suggestions to do really random stuff with your time. Go to parts of town you don't usually go to, be open to meeting people you wouldn't have previously chosen for yourself. Even if it's not terribly fruitful, I think everyone needs a period of post-collegiate adulthood in which to surprise themselves.
True, but I've been thinking about how to reinvent myself for a long time now and I'd rather just get it done. I wasn't very happy in college either, and part of what kept me going was thinking about how much better my life would be once I graduated. It's kind of hard to accept that that hasn't happened yet and may not for a while.
My life bears almost no resemblance to what I thought it would be when I graduated from college. I've been a lot happier since I've mostly stopped trying to figure out how to live (or at least mostly stopped trying to act on the daydreams) and just tried to make the best of what comes along. That's a hell of a lot easier at my age because I'm more settled and there's more in my life that I can more or less rely on, but in hindsight I think the random stuff has done me more good than the plans pretty much every step of the way.
Not that any of this is a consolation, and I hate pontificating, but the commitment to just keep going and find ways to make things work is an important one.
Teo: I recognize the line of thought. Don't bother about trying to feel happy right now because circumstances are such that it would be more trouble than it's worth. Just accept the misery for the time being with the expectation that the circumstances will soon be different in such a way as to be conducive to happiness. I speak as somebody who spends a large portion of his life in that frame of mind. The times I am happy are (fleetingly) during moments of transition, when I see my circumstances changing and a new vista opening before me; and (also fleetingly) in the moments when I can just reorient my mind to allow myself to feel happy about (or independently of) my circumstances. Marihuana can be very helpful with this latter, drink less. Not so much advice to give -- or none that I can crystallize into words. I think if I would have recognized much younger than I did, that the nirvana of blissful circumstance was not to be my lot, that I might have sorted myself out a little better by this point in my life. But who knows.
Pwned by DaveL. Much pithier and more to the point.
And don't read any Chekov, Teo, whatever you do!
Is it like, uh, ma/ri/jua/na? So she won't find herself here and realize she's being used?
Did you see the cartoon in the recent New Yorker where a woman's reading a book and the guy's saying to her, "need some help with that Chekhov, little lady?", AWB?
I'd try to get involved in something: kickboxing, basketweaving, alumni club, synagogue stuff
Bartending school! Part time bartending might get you a lot of tail.
That spelling has been a characteristic of the CÆ style for quite some time now.
15[1-3; 5]: cheeba, dudes. Doobies!
156: Yes. Gah. I'm going to bed.
i'm sorry, teo. i'd second advice to get out of the house for some physical activity that's preferably in a group setting...join a team; take up a martial art, maybe? or something like ultimate frisbee, soccer, kickball? i'm not sure if it's the same where you are but there are any number of intramural activities here in dc that i know people join pretty much for the purpose just of meeting people and getting out and about. i also know folks who have had some success just meeting people through meetup.com. and i know you're looking to date at this point, but i think just focusing on meeting good people and creating friendships right now could potentially be more useful. dating's often stressful and even a good date doesn't just magically solve a problem; friendships are a much more reliable way to get through things.
friendships are a much more reliable way to get through things.
This is true, I think. The truly miserable times in my life were the periods where, for various reasons (moving to a new city, etc) I was living somewhere my friends weren't.
or something like ultimate frisbee, soccer, kickball?
I can also recommend disc golf. You'll find, generally, a good-hearted lot. And it's a low barrier of entry: two discs (driver & putter). Head on down to the local course. Meet some nice people. They normally want to help you/get to know you. Sort of hippy-dippy, but more active and interesting than your garden-variety PS2-playing stoner.
The friendship advice is good in general, of course, but there are some idiosyncrasies about my specific situation (and personality) that make me wonder a little how applicable it is in this case. I grew up here and have plenty of friends here already, so I'm not sure making new ones is really going to help, though, obviously, it couldn't hurt. I haven't really seen my friends much since I got back, and to be honest I never put much effort into keeping in touch with them while I was at school, so we've kind of drifted apart. Now, this might be reason enough to find some new friends, but I just wonder if I can really find any new friends who I'll form close enough relationships with to help me through this rough patch of my life if I don't even have relationships like that with the friends I've known for years.
I don't know. I may not be making any sense.
164: Disc golf? Never heard of it. Like, with frisbees?
Figures that Roosevelt Park would be the oldest disc golf course in the state. That's where all the hippies hang out and deal drugs.
167: That's fine. Unlike the Grateful Dead or Phish, disc golf can be enjoyed among the drugged-up without actually doing the drugs.
I have to say, though, that frisbee and golf are two things I have basically no aptitude with or interest in.
Or, you could be getting paid to get hot chicks drunk.
It's the perfect time! You've got a job and no rent. Screw hippies and frisbees, you owe it to yourself to give drunken hookups a chance.
171: Does your new job give you nights off? I tend bar for a night, here and there. It can be quite a bit of fun, and a nice spot of tax-free (shhhhhhh!) cash. Plus the restaurant-working crowd is quite social.
The new job is 9-5. I may stop by the bartending school if I'm up in that area (or just have them send me some literature). It'd be something to do, at least.
My two cents on the teo situation: friends are good, activities are good, etc. Bottom line: the best response to intolerable shit is stimulus. Hence, new friends, new activities, etc... I'd add: read new books. If you've never read much nonfiction, read Guns Germs & Steel or The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. If you've never read much fiction, read The Razor's Edge or Gravity's Rainbow. Never mind reinventing yourself just now, expose yourself to new things and let the reinvention follow.
Stages 31 and 33 were really tough and took quite some time, but I never looked at any of the hint/cheat sites.
Damn, teo, that sucks. A couple of thoughts: first, this doesn't say anything about what your life generally is going to be like -- this is a short period out of your life to be with your father. Second, this is probably a fine time to work on something timeconsuming and difficult as far as physical or mental skills go -- learn to cook; learn to draw; work on a language; play the guitar. Anything that you can spend six hours doing and then wonder where the time went.
Heebie is a bad person. I'm now stuck on level 30 of that damn game; no cheating other than that hint from Ugh on level 11.
The learning process is weird -- suddenly, after I'd been playing for a period of time, manuvering the damn block got much easier and more intuitive. I still have to count squares for any movement over six or seven blocks.
