Walsingham

Since it's you I bought the plug, and dropped in. Screened looks nice, and the reviews seem informed and intelligent. Now find me a wife.

In a roundabout way. I'm working like stink so I can have time after I complete the projects on the table. Note I'd like to see random sampling within each track, to improve variability and interest. I'd also like to see some foreign language material. Korean war, Spanish civil war, etc If anyone has any police broadcasts that might be cool provided they can be made to sound fuzzy. Suggested tracks: Barney the dinosaur (obvious for anyone who's read The Men Who Stare at Goats) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsKO_r76kfQ 1930s documentary about Cuba Martin Luther King on Vietnam Eisenhower's farewell address Marge Thatcher on the Falklands Neville Chamberlain declares war on Germany http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrOJnpmz6s

EDIT: It is the stated objective of extremist violence like that against Mr Vilks to try to polarise opinion and provoke excessive counter-reaction. LoF just posted exactly this point in the 'direct action' thread. These people - be they islamists, racists, animal rights extremists or anarchists - have no right to speak on behalf of anyone, and pretending they do simply makes them stronger. The real menace here is not Muslims, but the growing trend in world affairs for tiny numbers of professional lunatics to try and foist their values of purity/progress/revolution on democratic nations through violence and intimidation. THAT is the enemy which we should wake up to and which we should be fighting, whatever mask it wears. ~ Volo: I made a mistake by accusing of being Amerikan, but I stand by everything else. This is not about 'guilt' or existing responsiblity, it is about assuming responsibility. 'White culture' predominates in many countries, and those countries and cultures are strong enough to bear the responsibility for having our feelings hurt on the backswing of racism which our parents and grandparents sent flying outward. Surely you would not deny that someone has to break the cycle of claim and counter-claim. If not the stronger party then who? Further it is perfectly valid to draw a distinction between making a few concessions to tender feelings and the genuine racism I already described. Just as it is valid to distinguish between a bruise and a broken bone, even though both are physical injuries.

Huge professional breakthrough last week. Have been working almost continuously since. hard to overstate how good it feels to be back into work properly after the last few years of divided attention, and emotional strain. The fact that it's a little startling for some of my more recent acquaintances is just gravy.

I'll be sure to mention your theories on the validity of using violence to attack a democratically elected government the next time I'm chatting to the BNP. Im sure that they, and countless other dingbats with an axe to grind and no actual democratic support will agree with you.

Not if those steps result in a plummet into the maw of an angry giant plant.

Kewl.

And you wouldn't believe what a naive search can accidentally turn up! The man asked a civil question, you know. @Nihilius: DRM is a class of systems ostensibly intended to control and enforce the rights of a creator in the digital medium. So music, film, gaming etc rendered electronically. A fierce debate exists over the way in which DRM has developed, because many in the industry feel it is appropriate to exert control over the material by exerting control over the platform used to access the material. My opinion is that using the access platform for DRM is reliant on two false assumptions. Firstly that the material is unchanged by the time it reaches the platform. Secondly that the behaviour of the platform will remain static/predictable and interface reliably with your material. That both assumptions are false is evident from the widely accepted fact that DRM in this format has not halted violation of digital rights on related material.

We asked the industry for more realism because we wanyted to pretend we were soldiers. Then we discovered that real war is boring/terrifying/incomprehensible.

New Subject - Bullet Impact and Immersion This may not be a big deal for some people, but i hought I'd raise it anyway. The effects of a bullet striking and killing a target appear to be based on damage done, not the class of weapon. Immersion wise what this means is that my lvl 24 character routinely shoots and kills bears with a sniper rifle, and the bear carcase goes flying straight up in the air like the hat of a patriotic fellow on victory day. Even pistols can achieve this sort of thing on a critical. Wouldn't it make more sense, computationally, and rationally, to have the impact determined with reference to a lookup table? Still have it semi-random, for amusement's sake, but more constrained.

I think the collector's edition should come with a special plastic wristband, like the Help for Heroes campaign has. I think they'd sit very well together. Support the troops!

I think I could handle these sorts of announcements with greater equanimity if the networks only made these announcements while ritually disembowelling a high ranking executive on the steps of some sort of large 'profit pyramid'.

Orogun is correct: accepted theory is just what we haven't disproved YET. This assertion makes some people very giddy. Anti-science faithists say "Aha you are no better than us." And fundamentalist science fanbois say "Rubbish, we are all about proof. Proof is what we do experiments FOR". Both are wrong. The ruthless application of the principle of disproving rather than proving is why so many theories we have haven't been disproved in decades. And frankly I'm amazed how anyone who has done even high school science can actually believe experiments prove anything at all. They can show a phenomenon and in bulk they allow us to infer that the phenomenon occurs over and above another. But strictly speaking they only tell us what DID happen not what WILL happen, which is what a theory is for. So, to return to the point, should we test every theory? The answer is that philosophically yes, we should. However, this tells you a lot why I generally want to punch philosophers. We have limited resources. Under which conditions almost all decision making is a question of optimality. Is it optimal to test every theory? No, clearly not. On the other hand, if we only tested theories we thought were very strong we'd never learn anything new. Most people believe theories need to be weak enough to provoke doubt, but strong enough to represent a worthwhile gamble. However, as Orogun points out this precludes testing really fundamental theories which are taken as true, such as the position of the Earth in relation to other planets. Testing those sorts of theories underpins the biggest leaps forward in human development. For this reason I believe a dichotomous approach is unhelpful. I believe testing should be a balancing act between three factors: - How many resources we have as a ratio to the the resources required for the test - How many times the theory has been tested previously (keeping in mind novel techniques are positive) - How important the theory is to our stores of resources In this way you'd set up a positive feedback loop between science and the resources available to science, driving science forward.

Did you take a class or took it blind? That reminds me. I had planned on turning up to my old university and trying to sit random exams. I figured if I managed to pass the damn things having done very little work, I may be able to pass them having done NO work!

Science came to my mind. And on that note, the skill with orbilaser could (should?) affect the accuracy (the ability set the coordinates correctly) and amount of uses/day. I can Imagine a situation where one is aiding a group on mission to seize a "spot X". He sets the "spot" as a target to burn the enemies behind the covers and whoops the laser goes 100 meters aside from the target and scorches all/half the allies - and because the skill is low there is no second try (not being able program/what ever a booster for the recharger) until tomorrow, and then it's too late already. Power comes with risks. Science, surely? Or what about pure Luck?

@Volo: Your response makes no sense. On the one hand you highlight slavery, holocaust etc, and then go on to ask if a positive discrimination is terrible? The answer is no. No it fething well isn't. I don't agree with it, because I believe it demeans the beneficiaries. But is it properly serious? No. I'm pissed off with you because I'm sick of white people getting into a shrieking flap at the first hint of what we've been throwing out like an amok catherine wheel for the past 500 years. I'm not saying it's OK to have it come back, it's completely wrong, but we have a responsibility to be slightly more gokking thick skinned. Because unless we are we may simply push back and direct conflict will erupt. Direct conflict of a sort I've actually seen, having been confronted with murderous racist mobs on two occasions. It doesn't look anything like a rally of people celebrating their homeland. Nor does it look like a tiny handful of social rejects indulging fascist power fantasies. "Ooooh. We have it so bad here. I'm a third class citizen in my own country." I've actually seen a third class citizen living in his own country. He was clothed in rags. He ate scraps from a municipal tip and slept under a hand cart. He faced every kind of casual cruelty and injustice, but he couldn't approach the police because the best he could expect was bored dismissal and the worst was a savage beating. I've been to America for many years. I have family there. I've also seen formal racism under apartheid, encultured racism in the Far East, and casual racism in the Army. I've experienced it myself. It's insane and it's terrifying AND IT IS NOT HAPPENING TO WHITE PEOPLE IN AMERICA. @Boo. I'll respond to you when I calm down.

And you have no conception of how ugly real racism is.

Suddenly trolling becomes a civic duty?

I don't follow you, Krez. What LoF describes as a 'highly effective revolutionary' system is a doctrine predicated on slaughtering and terrifying everyone, especially the civilian population, until the entire state collapses, at which point the revolutionaries substitute themselves as the only viable authority. If, as he suggests, they simply ran for election peaceably, then failed to enact any Maoist revolutionary plans... then what EXACTLY is Maoist about them?

Didn't you hear? My mum died last year.

We must be talking about different MoDs. John Reid was popular? He was treated with due reverence for his temper, but he had a terrible reputation for not listening to any advice, and by consequence failed to establish bureaucratic 'grip' on the department through consensus. I accept the principle of your counter-argument but I still say that the present defence secretary must do four things 1. He must inspire raw confidence in UK front line military 2. He must inspire raw confidence in US headquarters military 3. He must have an awareness of and 'grip' over the political complexity of the war we are fighting 4. He must have the chutzpah to guide Parliament on defence matters His personal history answers this as follows: 1. RM/SBS 2. RM/SBS/Intelligence 3. Intelligence/FCO/Bosnia experience 4. Long experience of Westminster, and firm speaker

That might be true, Boo, if the immigrants really did stay unassimilated. In reality we're fething awesome at 'corrupting' them. It's happening in every British town as young muslims drift away from their parents values.* For comparison, twenty years ago a lot of radical Republicans in Northern Ireland said that all they had to was wait and breed and catholics would 'win' unification by default. But in fact what has happened is that as they ceased to be and be treated as a minority they absorbed mainstream values and stopped giving a **** about politics. When you talk about Muslim unity you make it sound like you think there's this monolithic Muslim menace lurking just over the horizon. Now, I'm saying that in a more friendly way than I would to some, because you seem like basically a decent chap. So just think about what I'm saying. 1. There's no such thing as 'muslim culture' in the geopolitical sense. 2. The appearance of unity has more to do with a shared frustration with US hegemony, and the relative inadequacy of the economies of 'muslim' states 3. Geopolitical reality almost always trumps Islam. Viz Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Malaysia. Just as it does Christianity. Viz France, the US, Sweden, Ukraine 4. Approach Islam as a monolith and you play directly into the hands of Al Qaeda and chums who want to base their leadership on some spurious notion of Ummah 5. The prospect of a war of annihilation based on religion is horrifying beyond imagination *And become truly British over-entitled wankers, but that's not the point.

Your character is straight. :lol: I should admit that the gag is nicked from the radio comedy 'Acropolis Now' by Lynn Truss.

It wasn't just the texan division. The entire operational plan was to break through the line, and get Clarke's army astride the escape routes. Stop the escape and the Germans wouldbn't be able to continue their stubborn defence, that was costing so many lives. Let them go and they'd just retreat to a new defensive line, and the process begins again. Clarke's actual behaviour was to send his army and himself towards Rome, and only a tiny force to 'try' to block the reteating Germans. Every book I've read on Cassino points out that Clarke ignored both the long-established plan, and specific orders to behave as planned. It is simply not credible that this was an oversight. I've spoken to Richard Holmes and Duncan Anderson, both international authorities on military history about this, and they are unequivocal. You have to remember that this was a man who was obsessed with publicity. He refused to be photographed from what he considered his 'bad' side. For him, being first general in Rome was more important than anything else. Perhaps the saddest thing is that neither Clarke's presence in Rome, nor the heroic sacrifices on the slopes of Monte Cassino were very much noticed in Britain and America, since they were overshadowed by events in Normandy. Although to say this is to assert that it is less sad and shameful that while Clarke went on to have a full and celebrated career 192 men from the so-called 'mutiny' at Salerno were vilified and some given the harshest sentences.

Your character is straight.