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OriginalGriff wrote: give it to parasitic morons.
Parasites? Perhaps. Morons? I think not. They are predator, not prey.
Sometimes they set up huge megachurches and get rich in the process
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Beware of the prophet who profits.
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Sure, there are some interesting experiments with that. To start with, I'd plan to either go drink a coffee or a tea right after getting that info dump, whichever is the opposite of what the information said I would do. What does the information say? Will I be able to do the opposite thing? Will I somehow be forced to cancel the whole plan?
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If you were to do the opposite thing then you were always going to do the opposite thing and so the first thing never could have happened.  
Real programmers use butterflies
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Anyway, I will come to know the future in course of time. So, no need of knowing it now.
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No.
My life is normally boring, I will continue my normal boring life until I die in a normal boring way in a retirement home 30 something years from now.
![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
I'd rather be phishing!
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I'm with you. Take a deep seat, and a faraway look and fly under the radar.
For me the nursing home is out of the question, though. I expect to drop dead over my keyboard having just made a syntax error!
"the future's uncertain and the end is almost near" - some song lyric
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Implying it would have to be supernatural. I tend to believe that the universe is ultimately deterministic, so at least theoretically how much of the future we can know is based on how much we know about how what we consider to be reality operates. I believe free will is a compelling illusion, and if we understood the 11th dimensional synaptic interconnects[^] and all of the related sorcery in the human brain well enough we could predict human behavior to the Nth decimal place.
I was always going to write this comment. I couldn't escape it if I wanted to.
But I digress.
To answer your question, I think if we knew all of this it would take the wonder out of life. I think without mystery we'd be miserable creatures. I think the lesson of Pandora's box applies as well - if we knew the future where does that leave hope?
Real programmers use butterflies
modified 14-Nov-20 7:14am.
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No.
What if there were no hypothetical questions?
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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The boredom would probably become intolerable. Watching yourself in a movie you've already seen.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Well, then it wouldn't be "supernatural" then would it?
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No, hell no.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
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What does he mean "will"?
Hey you, I DO know ...
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Member 14992578 wrote:
Will you choose to know it? Do you want to know it?
Uh, no. 
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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In the end, I'd only want to know the date on which I die. Even just the year. Not how, or the circumstances or anything else surrounding it.
Knowing that, I'd work out when I can retire so I can make it comfortably to that day. OTOH, I've always suspected if I knew, I'd have an incentive to retire right now.
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OOO! Bad news - it should have been yesterday ... 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Well, I'm still here...so...knowing changes the outcome?
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Just give me the Powerball numbers for next week.
“Humility is an important quality - especially if you’re wrong a lot.” — Gregory House
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- First I would be frightened to discover that supernatural entities are real.
- Then, I would become extremely depressed to realize that knowing my future means the future is fixed, so even if I knew my future, I couldn't change it.
- If I can know my future, then the decision to find it out is predetermined, so the question is moot.
- If the future is not fixed, then I can predict your future as well as anyone, and if it doesn't come true, I can say that knowing your future changed it.
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If it was an ability like Nicholas Cage had in the movie 'Next', yes I would! He could see multiple paths into the future so he could choose which path to take to accomplish his goal(s).
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You know that feeling when you get something working and it was like magic?
It's like being a kid again. 
I was looking around for a way to play those old Infocom games. (Sure I had Zork1, but I need them all!!!) 
They're all available at: historicalsource (Historical Source) · GitHub[^]
Z-Machine[^]
But I don't have a Z-Machine -- the old virtual machine that lets you run those.
Well, I searched GitHub to see if someone built one.
I found one written in Go-Lang[^] (github again).
I've never used Go at all. But I was game so I installed it:
sudo apt install golang-go
I ran it but it was expecting zork1.dat file and it failed.
I opened up the source and searched for zork1.dat found this line in the Go source.
func main() {
buffer, err := ioutil.ReadFile("zork1.dat")
I went back to the Historical Infocom Github, found Deadline[^] project and didn't know what was a which. But then I decided to download the raw deadline.z3[^] file from the repo.
1) I dropped it into the folder where the ZMachine is located
2) Changed the line of code to ref the deadline.z3 file:
buffer, err := ioutil.ReadFile("deadline.z3")
3) went back to the command line and started the zmachine:
$ go run zmachine.go
Here's what I saw!!!!
DEADLINE: An INTERLOGIC Mystery
Copyright 1982 by Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
DEADLINE and INTERLOGIC are trademarks of Infocom, Inc.
Release 27 / Serial number 831005
South Lawn
You are on a wide lawn just north of the entrance to the Robner estate. Directly north at the end of a pebbled path is the Robner house, flanked to the northeast and northwest by a vast expanse of well-kept lawn. Beyond the house can be seen the lakefront.
>
I've wanted to play Suspended [^] again since I bought it for my Commodore 128 back in 1987. Now I can.
Update
It's like it's 1987 all over again. The good old days.
Suspended is running.
SUSPENDED: INTERLOGIC Science Fiction
Copyright (c) 1983 by Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
SUSPENDED and INTERLOGIC are trademarks of Infocom, Inc.
Release 8 / Serial number 830521
FC ALERT! Planetside systems are deteriorating. FC imbalance detected. Emergency reviving systems completed. You are now in control of the complex.
SENSA INTERRUPT: Seismic aftershock detected ten meters north of Beta FC. Tremor intensity 9.7. Projected damage: connecting cables in Primary and Secondary Channels.
FC INTERRUPT: All Robots, report locations.
IRIS: In the Weather Monitors.
WALDO: In the Gamma Repair.
SENSA: In the Central Chamber.
AUDA: In the Entry Area.
POET: In the Central Chamber.
WHIZ: In the Advisory Peripheral.
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I have the original first boxed set on floppy. Luckily, I copied them to USB a while back. I'm going to have to find that and load them up in my well-preserved Windows 98 VM and play them. I've been itching for some old school gaming that makes me feel like a kid again.
-Sean
----
Fire Nuts
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Windows 98 VM?
What are you using? Hyper-Visor doesn't support 16-bit mode.
I know 98 is 32-bit, but for DOS mode it runs in 16-bit.
The difficult we do right away...
...the impossible takes slightly longer.
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I have it running in VMware Workstation. I haven't fired it up in ages, so we'll see if I can get it to run in 16-bit mode.
I did find this though:
16 bit color mode on a win98 virtual machine - VMware Technology Network VMTN[^]
I'll give that a try once I get the binaries for all the Infocom games moved over.
As much as I liked Zork I/II/III, I liked Starcross more. I need to find a copy of that somewhere.
-Sean
----
Fire Nuts
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Sean Cundiff wrote: I liked Starcross more. I need to find a copy of that somewhere.
GitHub - historicalsource/starcross: Starcross by Dave Lebling[^]
I'm playing it now on the Go Zmachine. Seriously. 
EDIT
STARCROSS: INTERLOGIC Science Fiction
Copyright (c) 1982 by Infocom, Inc. All rights reserved.
STARCROSS and INTERLOGIC are trademarks of Infocom, Inc.
Release 18 / Serial number 830114
You are sound asleep in your bunk aboard the deep-space black hole prospecting ship "Starcross," operating out of Ceres. Just as your sleep becomes deep and comfortable, an alarm bell begins ringing! It's the mass detector! Instantly you awake. This hasn't been a profitable trip so far, and you don't even have the cash for repairs. This could be the break you've been waiting for.
Living Quarters
(You are in the bunk.)
This nook is your spartan living quarters, containing only a bunk and a bureau. The only exit is to starboard.
There is a tape library here. (outside the bunk)
>
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