This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Did Too Much Research launched as Shown Their Work Discussion: From YKTTW
Ru: I zapped the following paragraph:
- Some of their methods, however, despite being correct, are there more because they're Awesome, but Impractical: the first chapters, for example, show Randy feeding a CSPRNG with randomness harvested from keyboard taps, even though harvesting it directly from the memory and the system's drivers is faster, usually safe, and much more practical.
Harvesting additional randomness doesn't hurt, especially from heterogenous sources (such as the big organic thing using the computer). Consider that the SSH client Putty uses mouse movement to see randomness, and the particularly security-minded operating system OpenBSD uses random keyboard input to seed the OpenSSHD server's key generation process.
In short, it is a sensible process used in real life.
Althor Enchantor: I added a page quote. We like?
The original Japanese novel of Parasite Eve has a giant bibliography—should it go under Literature or Games?
It seems like the Railroad Tycoon video game series and the TV show [[Spooks]] both show their work, but I don't know enough about either to say so definitively.
Under the Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri example, there's a comment: "Not so realistically, however, in Alpha Centauri, it takes more research to develop a boat than a spaceship." There actually is an excellent in-the-manual explanation for this (the "technology" represents your society's ability to sustain a metal shipbuilding industry rather than the technology to hollow out a tree trunk), but I didn't want to take the discussion to the page itself. Do I just zap it?
Prfnoff: Changed "Tolkien impersonator" to "Tolkien imitator"; the suggestion that lots of people would be impersonating J.R.R. Tolkien seems to have been the product of a Malaproper.
Daibhid C: I'm really not sure about this, but I've not actually read Patriot Games (or seen the film), so it's possible I'm missing something:
- Subverted in Patriot Games: this troper had an Unfunny Aneurism Moment when the Big Damn Hero asks Prince Charles, "You really love your wife, don't you?" and the prince replies that yes, yes he does... Apart from treating the heir to the throne as though he were some kind of innocent Kansas schoolboy, there is also the feeling that he would never be able to convey anything from a British point of view, purely absorbed from the down-home applepie sentiments and democratic He'sJustLikeUs metaspeak.
Quite apart from the fact that Unfunny Aneurism Moment a) doesn't exist, and b) if it did, probably wouldn't mean what the troper wants it to mean, I'm not sure what the troper thinks Prince Charles would have said if asked in 1987 if he loved his wife (I suppose "No, I had to marry her for political reasons, I actually love Andrew Parker-Bowles's wife" would be honest, but I don't think it's very likely.)
KJMackley: I cut this comment on the Ghostbusters because there is a difference between making your own mythology using inspiration on prior fantastical interpretations and doing the proper research on an accredited (if dubious) scientific field. The example was saying that they didn't just make up everything.
- But this is kinda like saying that the Harry Potter books accurately portray magicians, witches and elves.
