Walsingham

I'm perplexed by the fat children more than the fat guy.

I wonder if there'd be any goodness in trying to write a rennaissance notion of 'science' fiction. That is extrapolating from their notions of science. Which were a bit mad.

Oh, and thanks to all for the birthd'y wishes! :)

Thanks all. Had a great time, some ludicrous things were made including (if only I were making this up) a codpiece with a shaped charge (of party streamers) in it. In the shape of a lion's head. Pub crawl followed, where I discovered that you can take a large stein of budvar, and drop a small shot glass of spiced rum into it, and the result is like a good pale ale. Very very tasty. Monged about today. Just had a look at my weather forecast and tomorrow is just 'fog'. WTF?

I use steam because it has an architecture surrounding it which makes the games playable socially. In turn, it is smart about publicisiikng which games your friends are playing, and encourages you to buy same. Combine that with plenty of sales and the odd massive special offer and of course you win. They behave like a market leader, and surprise surprise they market lead. It's not sinister. It's basic degree level management theory. And unless the competition wish to get swallowed then they'd better come up with a better offerring, supported by marketing yadda yadda.

Given the 'twitter joke trial', it might be wise to be careful with associating 'evil' children and your flies. LOL

So you're saying that in order to be a good wealth creator I have to punch Glenn Beck in the nuts? I have no problem with this.

Agreed, but at least there are only one or two countries that can even do it. A more realistic threat to our infrastucture is someone firing off a high altitude E Bomb. Thats when you'll really see the poop hit the fan. Thing is that a mag pulse will hurt everything. Why bother when China could surgically whack all the military sats?

My retirement plan revolves around sitting at a bar and snarling at impressionable whippersnappers who come up to me asking for my help on the grounds that I was 'the best'.

Today I celebrate my birthday! I am having friends round and we will be eating pies and beer, and I have a number of construction challenges for people. Hopefully it will be quite fun. I spent a bunch on colourful bits, small party bangers , balloons and so forth so the challenges will be fun. If not, I shall be too drunk to care.

This is the problem with making art a business. Businesses want money, and money flows towards morons the way the foamy torrent of the mountains transforms sluggishly to the idle brown mud of the estuary.

Oh. I see. Makes you worry because basically EVERYTHING in the western military arsenal wants to talk to satellites the way a fat middle aged man wants to talk to the ladies shown in those annoying pop-ups.

Lloyds of London began life as a coffee house. Ok, maybe just a joke for business nerds.

May I remind you gentlemen that Harry Potter is for KIDS!

Eh, weve been doing it as early as 1985 and as recently as 2006. I don't buy the notion that strategic threat capability should be 'fair' somehow. I don't mind US doing it. I mind angry anti-democratic heavily industrialised, massively populated ****ers doing it.

That is absolutely stunning. What a play!

I will keep that in mind for my internet streamed suicide.

You get my desires? You poor, poor, sick man.

It's true. I could feel the icy cold of their evil murder thoughts all the way over here. Unless I've left my flies open again. Oh.

I felt ravenous when I came out of surgery. Had this insane and overpowerin desire to eat chinese takeaway.

Gfted1: isn't that actually an argument in favour of fixing how your government works, not just one program?

Went out expecting to have one meeting. Had something like nine. A bit tired, but I feel like the king of some slightly rubbish but proud country. Like Britain.

I think we should make you a peer.

It was nice of you chaps to stand up for me. 1. I could have been more clear in the basis of my objection, which as has been pointed out was on how ludicrous it was devote such massive coverage to an incredibly small stream our religious makeup. 2. I'm not a bigot. Except about parrots. 3. Close friends and family are actually long practising priestesses in various pagan religions. I get on tremendously well with them. But again, they're not even comparable with say, sikhs in this country. 4. Whether this is an internet forum or not the people here are people. Taking zero interest in them is both insulting and begs the question of why post at all? Does your keyboard need regular use or it seizes up?

I suppose you forgot the little fact he was mainly a 'bad man' because he was going to blow up the world with all his WMD.. where are they? Thats right we forced the intel to show what we wanted so we could justify a invasion. And who made out like a bandit..? all the big corps who got undisputed fat contracts that just happened to be donors and associates of those in the white house. Please.. there were ZERO altruism to these motivations and the cover of his atrocities was simply smoke and mirrors. If you believe it wasn't you are beyond naive. If powell went to the UN and used the argument 'hes a bad guy thats why we want to invade' he would have been laughed out of the building. We went there for WMD's and thats what the main argument was built on. Him being simply a nasty dictator became the reason after no WMD we verified to exist as they wanted to cover their arse as their main argument turned out to be bunk. Which they seemed to know from the start anyways. Zero altruism is a pretty big statement, but one I should have expected. Really? You believe that an organisation as massively complex as the US government and its allies, based upon the even more complex basis of elected power ...had zero altruism? Well, I can disprove that instantly. I spoke to my MP about it, I voted for it, I spoke to others about it. My motivation is in their and my motivation was altruistic. Non-zero, even if I'm the only ****hole who felt that way. The reality is that there were multiple reasons which is why it went ahead. Any one reason would simply not have worked. To suggest that I supported it, and that my friends supported it, because we are nothing but oil grubbing colonialists is patently insulting. But this is beside the point. By your own argument you would have us do nothing. Pretend such states - founded on never ending fear and suffering - do not exist and to wall them off from our consciousness and policies. If that is definition of altruism then I suggest it is fundamentally unsound.