Walsingham

LOL@ Nepenthe. My training made camping much less worrying. I realised that half my problem was all the crap I was schlepping out with me. A shelter half and a good sleeping bag* will do for any reasonable casual situation. You don't need a tent at all! Bruce, you're saying you live in Jo'burg and you've never been out in the bush? Find yourself a good tough girlie and go up the Drakensberg mountains. Baboons notwithstanding it's the best location I've ever been. Hands down. *Plus items one and two from my previous post.

GD's probably forgotten more than I know about camping, but I do have four tips: 1. Bring a good knife 2. Bring strong twine 3. Bring dry rice and dry red lentils 4. Bring salt and spices Your most basic problems will be getting things apart or holding them together (1 and 2). Your next most basic problems are being fed, and enjoying feeding (3 and 4). If you can get water on site, you're not going to suffer, given the above.

Jiggling. Swaying. WHY THE HELL HAVEN'T I WATCHED THIS SERIES YET?

1) Doing a drill at a live event is best practice. Plus they might have found something, with better luck. 2) If you're going to start reading sinister subtexts into a drill coinciding with an event, then I heartily recommend you spend a couple of hours reading up on conspiracy and never sleep again. You deserve every misfortune accruing to the full retard. 3) The Canadian situation looks like it was a group planning on targeting a train. This has been done before by (apparently) Chechen related groups in Russia. 4) The halfwits engaged in terror tend to get fixated by 'bright ideas' so we can expect one or two more attacks in the same vein as the train bombing and marathon bombing before they distracted by a shiny object or their own tails or something. 5) If anyone hasn't watched 'Four Lions' yet, then you really have to.

Last night had almost aexactly the same thing happen. Some sword brandishing bravos accosted our mixed race party and accused them of being murderous freaks. One damage dice rolls 6, 6, 2. And the party's lead swordsman suddenly has grown an iron tongue and ear. Of course in Warhammer the players have 'Fate Points' which get them off the hook if they die. But our man is still going to be deaf on one side.

First edition, baby. On paper. Surely it would be pretty easy to adapt Delta Green to your circumstances? If, perhaps somewhat more politically resonant than 90s America. What if UN Forces were actively siding with cultists?

Do you think this is a significant enough amount of people to make them care? IMO, most people probably dont care, its only we hard core nerds that even notice. And even out of us its a small fraction that is bothered enough to actually not buy the product. I think I mentioned this point earlier, but in any case you underscore it. The issue has to matter to the decision factors in play. In this case it's going to be cash. And by which Gfted and I mean Big Cash. So, to be more blunt, the choice (for regular people) is between two versions of the same game. One with all kinds of bull**** that you have to be a nerd to resolve. The other doesn't. And the one that's better is FREE. If you want the game to be bought you can't make it worse. You have to make it better somehow.

Er... I don't think 'Roid Rage is actually a super power. I'll take calm professionalism over looking buff any day.

I think it's harsh to condemn Game of Tthrones for sex. I've read the books, and they're bonktacular. But yes, I agree it's a bit of both. But also the kind of people in that environment. I mean Al Pacino's a great actor but he also apparently nurtures very young actors. (Someone's bound to correct me on this). ~ As an aisde, I'd forgotten who Tricia Helfer is, so I googled her and now my brain has... Well what happens when you undo the rear TMH locking pin on an SA80 without due care and attention.

I wonder if good shows hire good people, or if working on a succesful show 'trains' good people somehow?

A useful review. But we're quite comfy with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Delta Green at the moment.

I felt I had to quote some of the BBC's work on this story, as an example of how unbelievably weak their news has got since going 24 hours. My emphases. "The president might be wise to start by asking President Putin. I have no evidence that the "foreign government" asking questions about Tamerlan Tsarnaev was Russia, but that is my strong suspicion. Whoever it was, they warned the FBI that Tamerlan was a strong supporter of radical Islam. The FBI say they investigated, interviewed him, and found no links with terrorism. This is quite remarkable. Let me repeat it. The FBI had been warned that the man who apparently carried out the first terrorist attack on an American city since 9/11 was a strong supporter of radical Islam. People will want to know how far they delved, how hard they tried, how seriously they took the information. Some of the criticism will be unfair, based on hindsight - they must get thousands of such warnings every year. Or perhaps they are quite rare. That is another question." Really? I think we've given casual posters on HERE a hard time for making zero effort to substantiate a claim. This is from the BBC's North America editor. Drivel.

"Bristol mayor George Ferguson has had a cup of cold coffee poured over his head at the Bristol Anarchist Bookfair... He said he had had heated conversations with some people, and was pushed to the ground when he offered to shake the hand of the man who poured the coffee... ... Mr Ferguson, who stood as an Independent in November's mayoral election, said he was slightly bruised as a result of the attack but basically unhurt. He added that it was "surprising" it had taken five months for somebody to pour something over him." Thought that was amusing. LINK

I simply don't buy the idea that the Chechens got significant help from the West in Chechnya. I don't expect anyone else to be swayed by that without better justification, but it's a lovely sunny day and I'm damned if I'm going through my old books to get 'evidence' for an absence of something.

You got a point. Also, those who've never been in a big project need to understand that there's rarely a point where someone says "I have an idea: what if the product could just suck?" You get agendas, and different power dynamics and trade offs are made. It's why its so rare that creative projects achieve clarity and consistency in what they deliver, IMO. And the OP is quite right. The only way that the message about DRM will get across is by affecting the bottom line. I'm just not clear how. I don't understand how they're calculating that bottom line. I fear it's by the entirely laughable approach of saying that DRM will translate illegal use into legal rather than what it's done to me, which is translate legal use into not use.

Ecclesiaton was fine, Tennant has the best situations and companions and Matt Smitt has the best writing. You are all far too jaded to enjoy Dr. Who anymore, tis a pity Point is, Harry Potter is more grown up.

I thought you got patched up like a smashed vase a few years back, GD. How does camping affect you? You just tough it out?

I'm not sure I'd be so cavalier about describing Serbia as having no Muslims, Drowsy. Even if it were true it wouldn't be because someone was frying bacon, in the nineties. On the subject of Chechnya, I'd remind those old enough that back in the day, Jihadis said Chechnya was proof that there was a Christian conspiracy against Muslims. Because - so they said - we should have sent in troops to support them against Russian oppression. Then of course using troops to liberate Muslims later was used by the exact same ideologues to 'prove' we were out to dominate and control Muslims. This is why I have zero time for people who say foreign policy is the problem. The bastards are just as creative with truth as they are with wire and ammonia.

Going to watch that. Those revolvers looked a lot like nerf guns.

Excellent question, without being ghoulish I will wager he shouldn't be taken alive as he would want to martyr himself Assuming the info 'leaking' out is sound I'd put a fiver on him eventually surrendering if they catch him right. Remember that it's not unknown to have vested (no pun intended) suicide bombers surrender. The reality of what is going on can eventually hit home. From my own experience it can get very scary when you know you could die soon. I just wanted to hang onto everything, as if dying was like sliding off everyday details, like gravel and birdsong, as you might slide off a lilo. Thinking about that it's hard for me not to hope the guy surrenders. I know I said that these guys are worthless ****, but you do get kids barrelled along sometimes, and maybe this is just some little brother with seriously misplaced hero workship issues.

As an aside, I just noticed Nonek's sig. Awesome.

Back off, man. I have the World's tiniest violin. It plays only for me.

Weird. I guess (with my corporate head on) it makes sense to utilise the IP in the World building once you've done it for the game. Plus, maybe if it gets going you'd take inspiration from what was happening in game online and dramatise it. Could get the fans on both angles worked up.

If I may take an interim show of hands (so to speak), are we all agreed that more fundamentally than any political creed the perpetrators were vain worthless arseholes? I just enjoy the rare shreds of consensus we achieve at times like this.

To play devil's advocate, because it's fun... Industrial accidents are just that. Accidents. They cost a lot of money, and ruin (middle management) careers. However, the thing that makes EA crap is that they take things we care about and water them down and pimp them out and generally get inside our dreams and paint them beige. The difference is between killing a baby in a car crash, and rounding up people's house pets for use as kebab meat.