And all in you is youth, and you make new,
By quoting them, old things I made for you.
John Shade, in Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (Canto Four, lines 955-6)

Tribes of North originally began as a gift for an old friend, but quickly grew into something much larger.

There is a puzzle here- it can't be solved by bruteforce- of that I am almost positive. The key to the purpose puzzle will later be found in the storyline, but the puzzle was designed to be delivered tothe game player outside of the game-experience.

This game also revolves around the book "Pale Fire" by nabokov as its main keystone. most of the clues and references to the game are found inside it.

The last entry of a fictitious 'journal' is encrypted, and I've presented an example of the encryption (an unbreakable simple substitution cipher) represented in the shape of dominos, and two clues to help solve the problem through logic, as this puzzle cannot be brute-forced. It is a logic puzzle, not a puzzle you need to get a pen and paper to do, in fact, it would be easier if you didn’t

The Truth about the Arkhangel'sk Dynasty and The Guild of the Divided House's Past


by Atsuko Ng and Jonaton Ström


Anthropologists have long taught that myths and legends die hard, if ever. This is certainly the case with the fables and stories surrounding the roots of The Guild of the Divided House (Domesticum Bipertito Conlegium). For many years now, families and writers have perpetuated the myth that five monks survived the burning of the Septemtrioniale Torre degli Angeli (Northern Tower of Angels) at Dee's Peaks on the southernmost tip of Greenland, and that one or more of these monks began the teachings of the Guild's occult practices. In truth, the Guild originated as an ancient Ethiopic observance of the Royal house in virtually every respect of structure and code. It was the burning of the Wede Debub Foke Mekonneniwl (Southern Tower of Angels) in the city of Axum that released the Guild to the revolutionary hotbed surrounding the Arkhangel'sk Dynasty. More than twenty monks and fourty nuns actually survived that disaster and helped promote the growth of three core factions of the Guild Dynasty amongst the ruling class, female warriors, and natural philosophers. Those factions were Rex, Viraginis, and Augustus.

To complicate matters even further, the proponents of the Northern Tower of Angels / Five Monk Theory also hold that one of the "monks" was actually a woman named MingLi Augustus Archangelo . They believe she designed and developed the observance of the Guild and later taught it to another woman, named Uriquathea Abstrusum Arkhangel'sk, after whom the Dynasty was eventually named. Aside from the fact that Guild was not in the habit of training females in the Rex or Augustus observances along with males in a celibate monastic environment, least of all the very traditional Northern Tower of Angels at Dee's Peaks, evidence now suggests that Uriquathea Augustus did indeed exist and did provide the basis of both the Viraginis and the Augustus factions of the Arkhangel'sk Dynasty.

Recent findings uncovered by historians and scientists feeding continuous streams of information and documentation to the Museum at the University Centre on Svalbard, Norway in Longyear City, Spitsbergen -- and verified through extensive travel by the Museum Curator and staff to substantiate sources and documentation -- reveal that Uriquathea August Arkhangel'sk had a critical role in the creation and development of the Domesticum Bipertito Conlegium. This fact is verified through cross-referencing information from the history of the British investigations for a northwest passage, the Saxo Grammaticus's descriptions of the Lapps, the descriptions of the far northerners by Adam of Bremen, Russian secret societies, various Guild lineages, and, ultimately, recorded Russian history. These findings further reveal that Uriquathea Abstrusum Arkhangel'sk was a reserved leader carefully protected by the Guild's followers to keep both her origins and her lineage secreted from Christian authorities.

"Augustus Archhangelo Domesticum Bipertito Conlegium" itself means "Guild of the Divided House of the Majestic Archangel ", symbolizing its founders' focus on the fall of the third aggregate of heaven upon earth, and the origin of the Nephilim, the product of Angel-human relations, of whom the Arkhangel'sk family attributes its heritage. During the early 11th century when the Southern Temple was destroyed, a dictum was added to the Guild's observances; that all members observe the law of the “domniportae”, living as the snail with their homes upon their backs. This was a reminder to the art's practitioners to that their temples may be destroyed, but it should have no impact upon their observance to the Guild.

The Latin word "Abstrusum" means "to be concealed or secret." By adding this word to the founder's name, the followers were instructed to remain discrete about the art's origins and practitioners, but to continue to speak out about the return of the Archangelo family to the ruling societies in Britain and Russia.

The burning of the Southern Temple represents a significant turning point in the history of the occult arts. For the first time in over 1,000 years, the monks moved the teaching and spread of their art outside of the tower walls.

In essence, The Guild of the Divided House is the culmination of a defensive development effort (of both the Northern and Southern Angelic Towers) funded by Arkhangel'sk Dynasty family members and sympathizers. The project's intention was to employ the Guild's extensive knowledge of occult philosophy and oriental fighting postures in the development of a secret society centered on its own learning, propagation, and defense. In addition, the Guild had to lend itself to training inductees in minimal time without 10 years of discipline in their appropriate faction. Finally, the Guild needed to be accompanied by highly scientific occult philosophies grounded in a system that could be understood and taught quickly and simply to facilitate conversion of the brightest minds in Europe and Muscovy Royal house in far less time than it took to recruit nascent Templars in the Christian Legions.

Some might question the contention that occult philosophers would engage in such a military development effort. In point of fact, military endeavors were not new to The Guild. They were fiercely loyal to the Arkhangel'sk Dynasty. Royal family money greatly enhanced the Guild's growth and influence throughout their respective provinces. In support of the Arkhangel'sk Dynasty, a powerful Guild fighting force of female warriors (the Viraginis) were organized and employed on numerous occasions to border regions in an attempt to hold back Templar incursions. It is not a stretch of the imagination that the Viraginis would develop styles and training methods tailored to aiding Arkhangel'sk Dynasty revolutionaries recapture the influence of the British, Ethiopian, Russian, and Muslim ruling class from the Christian Templars.

While a complete list of key players in The Guild's support of revolutionary activities and the ultimate development of the Viraginis is still being researched, some principle figures have already been identified.

Today's 'day in the life' can be described thus:

A History of Girls in Science


Chapter IV: The Midterm
Girl looks at equation on blackboard, professor asks,
"How does this equation make you feel?"

The End.

Yes. this project has me totally hung up. Talked to V about it, I'm going to try just rewriting it with vectors, try to rewrite some of the methods as constructors, try to wrap my head around pseudocode, and throw all the old code away (300 lines). Once I have that, hopefully I can solve this mess. I'm proud, though, of how well I understand the methods, the code, and the things the code is trying to do. If I had a month, I bet I could really make this into a very cool tool to teach others.

The above "joke"was actually said to me, along with "all men know java fyi. Women know php." As well as the comment, "I know you are only competative because you are the only girl in the class." As if being female has anything to do with it. Although, after listening to this comment, perhaps it has more to do with it than previously realised.

I 

http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/glossry1.Html
This is an awesome glossery of hard-core turn of the century train terms. You'll see a bit of it in my next entry.

http://www.capturedbyrobots.com/videos.htm
The video for "Robots Only" is particularly fine. They are coming to NYC soon. Perhaps I'll go?

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-10/01/content_379267.htm
Two women found with HIV-immune mutant gene
Possible?



and I were talking today when he said:
there's some joke that goes 'assume a cow of radius r'

And, in the vein of "assumption" jokes:
A farmer was upset that the cows were producing less milk so he engaged an efficiency expert, a physcologist, and a physicist to find out why.

The efficiency expert looked at the problem and decided that the cows had too much room. He recommended the construction of cells 1.2 length of the average cow by 1.2 times the width of the average cow, increasing the packing factor by five, and thereby increasing output.

The psychologist said that the cowbarn
should be painted an uplifting green rather than the depressing
brown.

The physicist asked for a blackboard. When it was brought he drew a circle on the board and said "First, we'll assume cow is a perfect sphere...."

I'm still having trouble coming up with an intuitive fitness test for my bugs. I know which variables are the most succesful, but I can't hard-code a preference, obviously. If a bug breeds, then it has obviously developed some good gene. Sex is asexual in the bugs (and probably will be in the predator), so what kind of test can I devise to choose which genes to copy and which to discard in crossover? I need to figure that out by tomorrow.

Two other projects:
How can I take my exported mywallop rss and present it as a blog on an external page? Is that even the right way to do it?

Also, I should invite people here to collaborate on my multimedia project- this would be a good place to work and develop.


Last night was great - Marcel and I designed a programing language called ASL which only uses / m f $STATE and <17. Its a lot like whitespace. Apparently this isn't humourous to anyone but me. So, I'll just note this little tidbit for myself.

My wallop seems to have a few things right, but the interface is impossible, and difficult to understand intuitively. However, working for your social constructs might be a good idea, but, you have to present the value proposition that generating content will bear fruit. So far, I doubt it.