Walsingham

You mean the exploding octopus?

Photographer documented before, during and after shots of British squaddies on tour. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegal...fghanistan.html Includes some mindquaking observations from folks who've been there. ~~~ Feel free to post your own galleries on other topics.

Sounds like the chrome is rubbing off a bit of your life, mate. Don't sweat it. Some things really are solid silver.

Captain of sunk ship claims he 'tripped and fell' into lifeboat. Was not running away. link I honestly couldn't believe how hard I laughed when I saw this. My nose hurts.

Mad Moxxi's theme

Damnit.

Burn with the undeserving! (NSFW) (Biblical)

Borderlands - Ain't no rest for the wicked

That poor alien. Can you imagine a cross body block with those blades?

Only fair to point out that I just needed to look up the constituents of saltpetre, and couldn't. At least not until I remembered I have, you know, BOOKS.

I should like to remind everyone that thanks to the humiliating and retarded DRM on Dragon Age 1 I am simply not buying (and not playing) DA2. DRM win!

I'm happy to take my chances at level 1 until I can get dragged up by the rest of the higher level party killing stuff. If I die I die.

Uh okay ? Point was it's nothing to be shocked at or more outraged over as it's expected as they're being "funtwits" with big games. The reported 25% was a lot lower than I was expecting though. OK. I got confused. Thought you were saying it was OK for them to bury indie startups which they COULD afford in the same way that they were mildly annoying bigger game companies whose products they could afford less.

I haven't time to run through an entire case here, but I would like to air a view which I haven't seen in the papers: I agree that forcing a business to take charge of copyright infringement will mean the effective end of free user-generated content. But is that really so earth shattering? I mean it is for some of the biggest websites online currently, like wikipedia. But honestly how bad is it if they fail? It's not as if this is awfully unjust. As Guard Dog will be happy to illustrate to you, govt regulation frequently strangles businesses on the vine. These companies who stand to lose out the most are the biggest winners of the last few years. Youtube, wikipedia, facebook. I just can't get worked up on their behalf.

May have already mentioned this, but a friend of mine is writing a book on his father's experiences in a prisoner of war camp. To my enormous surprise and pleasure it's actually very good. As a wordish side-salad I'm reading UK Eyes Alpha by Mark Urban. Published in 1998 it's a somewhat (but presumably not entirely) outdated look at the British Intelligence Services. I hoover up stuff like this, but I'm also curious to know what shape the services were in just before 9/11. The biggest point so far is that Sovbloc intelligencers rule the roost with carefree abandon. Every other area languishes!

Oh, man. Now I want to eat a unicorn.

For the record: I swan about thinking magnetism is something to do with custard. I get by OK.

There's no denying that I'm getting broody. The troubel is that all the good women have got married by now. I'm hence gambling on Nepenthe's point about the second round after the divorces.

I hold doors open for both sexes. In the Uk this is a socially complex point. It does have an element of dominance to it, but it's also signalling a degree of relaxedness about the point. Hence you can go for a meeting with the uber-boss of whoevere and he will let you go through a door first on some occasions but on others will expect to have it held for him out of deference. Interestingly one of the reasons the Zulu were regarded as bastards by some whites was that they would insist on going through a door before a woman. However, this was because in Zulu society what's on the other side of a door is frequently dangerous and needs to be fought hand to hand. Hence it was the MOST polite zulus who got labelled as rude buggers. However, the notion that both sexes are equal is nonsense. We are not identical and hence we can't be equal in any specific context. Some of the difference is biological and some socially delivered, IMO. Throwing out simple courtesy in pursuit of a chimera smacks of lunatic dream chasing.

Please tell me I'm not the only person here trying to imagine a feminine LHC... EDIT: This is on topic. I'm being a neanderthal.

WTF!? Happy Birthday, man! I think you mentioned this in advance, but I completely forgot. I'm going nuts with work at the moment. Had what I call an 'Indiana Jones' moment handing in a project just before deadline. Feel pretty guilty pulling crap like that at my age. Feel worse because I am now thinking about my age.

Awesome.

Note: that's in no way intended as a slight on you, Tigs. The best guy I've ever met at pitching projects only has a 20% success rate.

Virumor, what the sam hill is that damn game?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. That was a joke. Can I steal that joke and pass it to a friend who (helps) run a mental health charity?