Walsingham

I know that I'd be all over MMOs like stink on a goat, being the OCD megalomaniac that I am. But having seen two colleagues who are far cleverer than me waste years of their lives on MMOs I'm refusing to get involved. Until I get too old and fat to care. So probably next Tuesday. *bdum tish*

OK then, what do you want me to sing?

Not at all, Nightshape. I can remember being an 11 year old boy, and am quite certain that 11 year old girls are still just as evil.

Just when you thought organisms like ebola couldn't get any worse, scientists give them frakking lasers.

Insta-concrete shelters. http://www.concretecanvas.co.uk/index.html Apologies if this has been posted already. I think it's amazing stuff. Actually, now I think about it, I did post this already. But it's bloody awesome.

Antsy all damn day.

In My Day... MMO meant muddy multiplayer outside. The production values came down to whatever you could imagine a stick was. EDIT: It was boring as hell, but at least there was no level grinding.

To a certain extent it comes down to how investment capital moves. Dragon's Den (*vomit*) has given people some totally misleading impressions of the process. One of the weirdest aspects is that venture capital often prefers a 1 in a million chance of making a billion over a one in ten chance of making a million. My personal view is that for many players it's as much a form of legal tax incentivised gambling as anything else. So in this instance I'd suggest that its a lot to do with some snakeoil merchant pushing his vision of the next World of Warcraft to uninformed, greed-crazed chinese investors.

I'm fascinated by the notion of a radar sensitive to heat.

Sorry to hear that. I don't know if it'll help, but the way I figure it, when old folks get close to the end the best you can hope is that they go their own way and in their own time. Sounds at least like your grandma has her strength of will to do that.

Rape in wartime is a topic in its own right. Survivors in Germany remarked that it was rarely the front line assault troops who raped, but the rear echelon and supporting detachments. This is in contrast to, say, the seige of Badajoz, where British troops from the assaulting parties committed similar atrocities. Ultimately, well ordered and disciplined troops subject to harsh punishment are the only way to limit such offences. It's one reason why you get even worse problems during civil wars where the fighters are unsupervised, untrained, and unregulated. But then, all sorts of atrocity occur in civil war, not just rape. Another factor to keep in mind when you talk about rape in wartime is that rape occurs in peacetime. If you hoover up every able bodied male into uniform you are going to get a percentage who are 'natural' rapists. Natural rapists, with a gun, and plenty of vulnerable people near them. Just some scattered thoughts.

As I've been saying in a few discussions, it doesn't really matter what the trigger is. the entire situation is the problem. But I'm not sure why that's significant.

I hope this willl make it pretty clear. I am not required to apologise for anything my dad has done. I am not required to apologise for anything my grandfather did. Why should I be required to apologise for something someone older than my grandfather, who I have almost no blood connection to, did?

I don't think it was scripted as such. But I saw them get killed in fairly startling and unpredicted ways.

Blood knew the native mind; He said we must be firm, but kind. A mutiny resulted. I shall never forget the way That Blood stood upon that awful day Preserved us all from death. He stood upon a little mound Cast his lethargic eyes around, And said beneath his breath: 'Whatever happens, we have got The Maxim Gun, and they have not.'

Shiny. I'm a simple man. A simple man with pleasing kitchen fixtures.

Please, _please_ tell me you're being serious.

Have spent entire day fixing kitchen taps. The entire day. The people who put that sink in should be hung upside down from a lamp-post. Just insane. On the plus side I have some very nice new taps.

It would be both naive and wrong to assume that Nazi notions of racial superiority were only present in Germany. Many scientists worldwide were seized with a manic fanatical belief that scientific progress was worth any price. Or at least that is how they justfied themselves. Personally I think individual failings are the ultimate component.

I also know enough to know that the US Economy's problems don't only come from the housing market.

That is just insane. He can't have been more than 3 feet off the ground!

Keyboard warriors reckon that national security won't arrive just because we dig some slit trenches around Portsmouth. The biggest problem with Afghan isn't Afghan, it's our public insistence that we cannot possibly do anything to win in Afghan. That and the Labour government's refusal to properly fund or lead the effort.

You're confusing epic with tragic, Soro.

Just so I'm clear, I have to wait until July to buy the next set of DLC?

No. The reason the government gave was that we were directly frustrating terrorist infrastructure that might threaten our national security. Nation-building was explicitly not part of the deal and I am mad as hell about every penny spent on the place, which will descend back into chaos the moment we leave. Your reasoning is false. We should presumably be invading the rest of the medieval third world hell-holes that litter the globe. You assume that it is possible to frustrate the terrorist infrastructure without making a go of nation building? I don't just mean in a neo-con way. Although I agree with much of their view. I mean setting ourselves down and letting them have a go and beating them. Once we put boots down we had to prove we weren't the feckless wasters they said we were. It's not a popular view, but leaving aside the political scene we've been kicking seven bells out of them the last few years. You look at recent statements by Al Qaeda and they've gone to a kind of entirely distributed lone wolf model because they can't organise, train, and maintain on a grander scale. And your reasoning is false. Not having the resources to drop kick every child torturing scum sack on the planet is no an excuse for not doing sometimes.