Science Fiction Trivia

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RockDoctor
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Re: Question about change in Oolite

Post by RockDoctor »

another_commander wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:41 am
And you can run the game with the -showversion parameter, which will display the game version on the startup screen as well.
That's another place to look which the yoof of tomorrow are going to go "huh?" over. "Wots a commandline? (to the tune of knuckles sparking off cobbles)
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Re: 2025-07-30 Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

Cholmondely wrote: Wed Jul 30, 2025 4:25 pm
RockDoctor wrote: Wed Jul 30, 2025 3:13 pm
Over to you. Let the spelunking commence.
How about the hidden cave system underneath the city of Threerivers in Paul O. Williams' The Fall of the Shell? Set in the aftermath of a nuclear war destroying the US, some refugees build cities along the Mississippi and hide away in them. Threerivers has hidden caves where the stone for the city above was carved from the bedrock and the hero Brudoer hides there for yonks, spying on those living above. Don't recall any super sonics, sorry!
Never heard of it, so I'll take your word for it.

Place 1 : Moonraker ; Wildblood ; no MBPs. Correction - in his list of Bondisms, Wildblood did include the MBP I had been thinking of - the sub-volcano cave (magma chamber? I shudder, geologically) in You Only Live Twice. He also took several other shows off the table (Thunderbirds, UFO) but not all of the other examples I'd been thinking of.
Place 2 : Cholmondely with "hidden cave system underneath the city of Threerivers in Paul O. Williams' The Fall of the Shell?"
Place 3 : TBA
Place 4 : TBA
Place 5 : TBA

Caves excavated for building stone? Well, it's not without precedent - volcanic tuffs under Rome (that's another city on a short fuse, along with Naples) ; Box stone mines just outside Bath (I got "tagged" by a sniper's laser down there; part of the complex is a military nuclear bunker. They probably weren't loaded, because I was on the "public" side of the tunnel full of razor wire, but it's a very effective "Fuck. Off. Now.")
It'd be a hell of a lot of effort for a just-post-apocalypse society though.
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Shooting aliens for fun and ... well, more fun.
"Speaking as an outsider, what do you think of the human race?" (John Cooper Clark - "I married a Space Alien")
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Re: Question about change in Oolite

Post by Cholmondely »

RockDoctor wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:11 pm
That's another place to look which the yoof of tomorrow are going to go "huh?" over. "Wots a commandline? (to the tune of knuckles sparking off cobbles)
But with all their jobs taken by AI, they won't have any use for an education (not that education should need a use, it is a goal in its own right, without being a means for something else). Not that many of them will be capable of an education, the way they are degenerating.

Just get a certain member of our community to show you his "games" with AI... and then get ready for a heart attack and recurrent nightmares. And then worse in a few year's time.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by spud42 »

this will push the definition of "cave"...

Caves of Steel Asimov 1953....
Arthur: OK. Leave this to me. I'm British. I know how to queue.
OR i could go with
Arthur Dent: I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
or simply
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Re: Question about change in Oolite

Post by MrFlibble »

RockDoctor wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:08 pm
MrFlibble wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:35 am
At least on Linux *-test builds, the major version (e.g. 1.91) and build date appear in the window title. On dev builds, the full version name appears in the top of the screen.
Standard builds too.
I've never been tempted by the "dev" builds.
IIRC, dev is the same as test (has debug console support), but with the version showing on-screen.
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by RockDoctor »

spud42 wrote: Sat Aug 02, 2025 4:03 pm
this will push the definition of "cave"...

Caves of Steel Asimov 1953....
Well, having recently reminisced about "caving" in the Box stone quarries near Bath, I think I can accept that stretch.
Oh, hang on, sequence check ... Yeah, that's good.

Place 1 : Moonraker ; Wildblood ; no MBPs. Correction - in his list of Bondisms, Wildblood did include the MBP I had been thinking of - the sub-volcano cave (magma chamber? I shudder, geologically) in You Only Live Twice. He also took several other shows off the table (Thunderbirds, UFO) but not all of the other examples I'd been thinking of.
Place 2 : Cholmondely with "hidden cave system underneath the city of Threerivers in Paul O. Williams' The Fall of the Shell?"
Place 3 : spud42 with Asimov's "Caves of Steel" (1955, or so, IIRC)
Place 4 : TBA
Place 5 : TBA
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"Speaking as an outsider, what do you think of the human race?" (John Cooper Clark - "I married a Space Alien")
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Re: Question about change in Oolite

Post by RockDoctor »

MrFlibble wrote: Sat Aug 02, 2025 4:09 pm
RockDoctor wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:08 pm
MrFlibble wrote: Thu Jul 31, 2025 7:35 am
At least on Linux *-test builds, the major version (e.g. 1.91) and build date appear in the window title. On dev builds, the full version name appears in the top of the screen.
Standard builds too.
I've never been tempted by the "dev" builds.
IIRC, dev is the same as test (has debug console support), but with the version showing on-screen.
The regular edition has the version number in the window title ; I just wasn't registering it because I was looking in the screen display.
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Shooting aliens for fun and ... well, more fun.
"Speaking as an outsider, what do you think of the human race?" (John Cooper Clark - "I married a Space Alien")
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Re: Science Fiction Trivia

Post by Wildeblood »

RockDoctor wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 1:51 pm
spud42 wrote: Sat Aug 02, 2025 4:03 pm
this will push the definition of "cave"...

Caves of Steel Asimov 1953....
Well, having recently reminisced about "caving" in the Box stone quarries near Bath, I think I can accept that stretch.
Oh, hang on, sequence check ... Yeah, that's good.

Place 1 : Moonraker ; Wildblood ; no MBPs. Correction - in his list of Bondisms, Wildblood did include the MBP I had been thinking of - the sub-volcano cave (magma chamber? I shudder, geologically) in You Only Live Twice. He also took several other shows off the table (Thunderbirds, UFO) but not all of the other examples I'd been thinking of.
Place 2 : Cholmondely with "hidden cave system underneath the city of Threerivers in Paul O. Williams' The Fall of the Shell?"
Place 3 : spud42 with Asimov's "Caves of Steel" (1955, or so, IIRC)
Place 4 : TBA
Place 5 : TBA
Do tunnels count as caves? If so, I just thought of very good example.
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