h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So you basically get a few people who are almost computers in themselves? How do they interface with the net? Do they just connect and decode the pages in their minds? I can see that the brain is just as effective a decoding device as any software, it just has to be "wired" to do so. It might be a bit like autistic children, who can't realize social interactions merely by watching others, but can tell you what day of the week any specific date fell on.

Ataku are basicly people who are inately connected to the matrix. They can change it arround them, form it, shape it and so on. They make extreemly complexe programs faster than any software engineer. They are just connected by some mysterous force, noboddy knows how or why (at least from what I understand of the shadowrun world). I am not sure of there grasp of the world arround them other than what is on the net.

Cool.

Will say more later. I'm tired.

Ok. I understand the feeling.

Still tired, but awake through caffeine.

The shadowrun/internet mages sound really cool. I'm thinking I need to go and read that intro and see what the official take on them is.

I think I'm more of a magical idealist, because I see magic in the modern world as rather more like that in fantasy books where the sorcerers are born with some strange "Gift" and learn control and spells and whatnot, but magical creatures are around as well. They're more in touch with nature, like the Dryads in the trees. I'm not sure what my take on elemental magic is. I do have quite a fixation with mythical beats, like dragons and griffins and phoenixes, and also anything with wings. (note nickname) Of course, that type of natural magic would probably be really difficult to interface with electronics, which is a major disadvantage when you consider all the possibilities of combining magic and machines, as well as having people who are born with this automatically, like your Shadowrun Internet people.

Well from what I can remeber the Ataku are considerd curesed as they are constently on the internet, its more like a two edged sword than you think. The Ataku can be attacked by computer viruses, hackers, and just about anything else almost perminently. Almost as bad as being astraly perciveing all the time (when your astraly perciveing you acn see things, and hurt things on the astral plane, but they can hurt you to (only they can do it when your not looking)). At least those are the rules in the Shadows. I like the shadowrun world but the gaming system (d6 based) is completly succy (and overplayed) and the world is getting like dargonlance. If you don't know what happend to dargonlance then let me tell you. It was a D&D (2ed) world were the history and control over the world becme so tighly controlled and railroaded nobody played it (as there was nothing you could really do) the world was nice (and had lots about dragons) though.

Hmmm. I hadn't thought about being able to catch computer viruses. That could seriously mess a person up, and maybe since they had them in their bodies the viruses could become contagious among the general population rather than just among the computers.

I am not sure if that is possible. But those with cybernetic enhancements might be in a little trouble.

So it'll be a royal nuisance when they get around to implanting chips into pepole.

Well I whould rather die than have some chip inserted in me. I like computers but not that much. Chips give far to much authoraty and I am dead agaisnt it. You could know eher someone was all the time. Although this sounds like an advantage (you know where your children where for example, or where a kidnapper was or watever) whats to stop someone hacking in a doing you dammage (ie making it look like you where in a brothel at a certian time and erraseing your other movements for the time). Although people say its "totally sacure" whats to stop someone from the sucurity company doing somthing with there power (and knowledge)? Or a teacher (with the fact they whould have the chips for ID), or anyone who can get that information using it to there advantage? I sure whould. I could be said I don't trust enougth but after some of the stuff thats happend to me who whould?

It would also make ID theft even more of an issue. Since all you'd have to do is scan a chip to get full access to information about someone, who's to say that you couldn't manage to implant in yourself someone else's chip and then be able to confidently walk into every part of their life while they were locked out through loss of chip. There are some things that really should be kept private and inaccessible through computers, and I wouldn't want to lose my personal privacy through chips. If you can't find me, chances are that's because I don't want to be found and a locator would completely defeat that purpose.

Exactly. Just rip the chips out and seek trusted medical attention.

Anyway back on the subject of roleplaying rouges, I can now say that Monk's, Berberians, Fighters, Clerics are all easyer to play. I am yet to play a mage, soucerrer, bard, paladin or ranger. I don't plan to play a paladin as I don't like them. However I do plan to play at least one of the classes I made up.
Anyway I better get back to C++.

I almost always perfer to use things I made up. It's so much more fun that way.
Ugh, C++. I hated that class. People keep insisting that I learn to program. There's no escape.

Well ou shoudent try and learn C++ in university, it requires years if not centurys of hard tuned strageness to do anything in the pedatic little things. Its Worse than blue-j and thats somthing that takes real achivement!

Trust me, it was not voluntary. I just don't have the right sort of patience required for programming.
Too bad.

Well I got my assigment working, it passes all me tests and stuff so it should theoreticly work when I hand it in on monday,

Yay! Hope it works for your instructor! I think the code moves around a bit when you hand things in though. My last project (assembly language) worked absolutely beautifully until we had to demonstrate it to the instructor, and then it picked up some minor, but fairly confusing little error so we couldn't quite get full credit for it. Bah.

Ooooohhhh assembly lanugage? Wow. Thats like totally danergours. But eh, just becuase you ruin the Tutors machine doen't meen you can't get full credit right?
Unforntently In C++ the OS will kill your program befor your RAM is scrambeld.... "Owwh! But I wanna!".
I also discoversd that Microsoft is even more sleasy than I susspected. Bad old Soft will make your programs 2.3x bigger than they really should be. I conversted from MacOSX a system where C++ was kindof ignored as old stupid thing and it was a nice safe flooppydisk hugging 1.02MB ziped but of course, convert it to Mircrosoft 2000 which advatised the fact that C++ was a integral part of it and we get a 3 floopy 5.6 MB ziped! What the hell can you possibly put on the disc that takes up 4MB? what? Explain this to me? How? Huh? Where? Aghhhh! My brain Is a bout to explode at the mere concivesion of it,

I like being dangerous.

Microsoft does tend to make ones brain want to explode. I really hate the new versions of Windows, especially where they want to make everything integrated with the Internet. I know how to use a program without having to call up a special website telling me how to click on the file menu to open a file.
And next lab in assembly language is one where the teacher told us, "Be careful with the hardware you're wiring in because if you do it wrong you'll blow out the bus on your microcontroller board."
Oh well. It's also fun when you make mistakes where the instructor can't figure out what the heck you did.

Oh yeah. In Pascal I did that, we got a non-submit on our assignment and we got to have our exam count for what we were not assesed in, in the assignment. Needless to say I stuided hard for that exam... Aced it of course and thus got a 81.