Walsingham

I've been scrolling through those threads for a while now. Aimlessly, indifferently... It was worth it. Don't worry lad. In real life she's probably a colossal pain in the arse.

A game I am not playing right now is Civ - Beyond Earth. I own Civ 5, and have just sat through a couple of video reviews on Youtube. The reason I am making the post is not just to give a space to discuss it, but because I think Firaxis have been making two key mistakes in recent years. Although no doubt you'll all have your own reactions. 1. Combat 'balance' The combat system is still trying far too to be balanced. I've given this quite a bit of thought and believe that you cannot have combat with a consistent rule base, and make every faction equally capable, yet different. war in the real world rewards certain behaviours; you can't just ignore that. But in Civ everyone gets an equal 'shout', because multiplayer. Which is just foolish. 2. Passion I didn't get the impression with either Civ 5 or this game that it had been made with passion. There were no little curlicues of design excitement scattered around. You DO see this in - for example - Alpha Centauri's voiceovers. I don't know what causes this, but suggest that it's probably game project management being _too_ professional. "No, Anil, you can't add in a cool widget, because that's not what the agreed design spec is, and I need to come in on budget and on time." But the pint for me is that a civ game eats _hundreds_ of hours of my life. I don't want a carefully prepackaged boring suare brown box. I want something that's known a little love and excitement.

I genuinely like organic red wine. It tends to be much beefier. But I have yet to find a good organic coffee.

Good breakfast.

I was about to reply to Woldan, but of course he's on sabbatical.

The rice in lamb stock was a terrible idea. For some reason it went all to mush and tasted foul. Must have been something in bone? Anyway, never again.

I take it you've seen her in Black Mirror? Boy yahowza.

Just started the series Continuum. It's a good show, but Rachel Nichols keeps making my genetic heredity whistle like a fire alarm.

Ebola screening at airports enacted in the UK. Cost 6 million UKP, assuming short duration. Once again, for the cheap seats, you _cannot_ screen all the traffic into a modern nation. But feel free to pretend that you can, and bash your politicians, and not do the actually useful job of spending money upgrading local responses. It's not as if this is a life and death issue that deserves serious thought.

Lamb shank, slow cooked with onion and bacon. Nothing special, but quite nice. Cooked rice with the juices. Venison later.

The jifs don't object to porn for the 'true Islamic Warrior'. Special exceptions for the martyrs is part of how they keep morale up.

I'm not at all clear why having sex with babies and grandmothers is better than gay sex.

The concept of a Tonipandy isn't new, and it doesn't just happen in the press. Some narratives are just 'truthy' and get accepted. Fwiiw I could take protestations about Serbian war guilt a lot easier if it didn't come with a denial of ANY war crimes by Serb forces.

Nice to see your contempt for democracy out in the open. Naturally democracy is pointless, because other people are just toys for you to play with using your amazing brain. No-one can see through your tawdry and unimaginative facade. You are a genius.

What I will say is that any man who regards subjective judgements as beneath examination, renders himself and his entire experience in life null and void. Moreover, he is a c***.

Vladimir Putin. Does not care. About Russian people.

I don't know why I'm suddenly taken by the young Liz Taylor. But I found this video. Reminds me so much of my youthful romances. There's nothing so beautiful as a really angry woman if she's in love with you.

More on those pesky traitors of the motherland who have died after being sent into Ukraine. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/soldiers-rights-activist-jailed-in-russia/2014/10/18/606e76d2-56ce-11e4-b86d-184ac281388d_story.html The Kremlin locks up a grandmother on 4 year old charges, for asking too many questions.

Are those home-made schurtzen on the side there? In any case, while that does look genuine, these days I trust very few youtube videos. Who the hell can say where that was shot, and what we saw?

I am not Catholic, but from knowing a few Catholics I'd say it's about family. You are Catholic because of your family, you attend church with them, you all confess to the same person. The only point at which doctrine comes in is, as outlined above, you are supposed to adhere to the same rules to be part of the family you were born into. That's not meant in a derogatory way.

It is hopelessly defined because trolling is subjective and has variation in degree based on a large range of factors, principally based on how the recipient responds and whether it was even intended as trolling in the first place or is just labelled as such by the recipient. To illustrate, let's say that I think someone, let's call him Bob, posts stuff to get a negative reaction, you think someone, let's call him Ivan, posts stuff to get a negative reaction but neither of us thinks that both are trolls. And if we asked either they'd both say they aren't trolling. So are you right, or am I, or are neither of us? Are we going to go through some objective check list to determine whether your troll induced butthurt or my troll induced butthurt is objectively reasonable, or if either of us should be butthurt by both 'trolls'? Do we take the 'trolls' statements about their intent as gospel or do we assume they'd lie about being trolls, or indeed lie about not being trolls (the classic 'say something stupid, then claim to be trolling' defence of having said something stupid)? The only answer I can come up with is that none of those questions actually work to determine anything objectively. Base stuff on self identifying trolls and assume the trolls are being... honest and upfront- I think everyone can see the inherent problem in that proposition- or base stuff on what you personally think constitutes trolling, in which case it isn't objective either. Come on, Zor. Don't make me explain the methodology to you, man. You're easily smart enough to work it out. Have another read.

Visual aid Better visual?

It's not hopelessly defined. It's defined in black and white in the paper I linked. Their definition is what we are discussing. Also, it's a peer-reviewed and quite respectable journal. Bit overly keen to dismiss it, aren't we? EDIT: OK, slight exaggeration. The whole point of the paper is to do a trait analysis to improve the definition. But you get the idea.

Not at all, Lab. It's not control freakery. Running a business takes 100% effort. Don't kid yourself you can stand in the wings. My advice would be to make a nominal, but considerable investment. Just enough to show your Dad you trust him, but not enough so you can't afford to lose it if things go wrong.

Sure it does, they are just winding people up. Displays, in some cases, some good wit and quick thinking. Then I politely urge you to find more interesting ways of passing your brief span than deliberately making life harder for people for your idle amusement. Failing that I hope someone kicks you square in the balls. So I can laugh.