Walsingham

Of course it sounds bad if you put it like that. Yeah because there are so many established facts in science. And I'm saying that as a scientist. There are, yes. Especially if you define facts axiomatically. Well, if you define the bastards axiomatically, that's essentially cheating.

I keep throwing up. I feel fine, then I throw up. I think this is related to eating salad at the weekend.

No, when you break the sound barrier you actually break it. It's both a visual and audible experience. At a distance it sounds like thunder, close up it's like a gigantic explosion and a shockwave. It can easily break a lot of windows. A friend's mother had her buns fly out of the oven when a jet plane did a low fly-by above her house (her boyfriend is a fighter pilot). She was not impressed. Well yes I know you can still hear a sonic boom from a distance, but I guess I was asking could an object still be visable but distant enough to break the sound barrier without the sound reaching the viewer. In theory. I suppose that you might also be travelling above mach 1, and miss the boom wave, like a surfer. But if a ground observer saw one fly cose by you'd definitely notice it. On the other hand... if we assume for the sake of argument that these are interstellar craft then they have some emans of breaking the 'light barrier' so it could be related to that.

Humanwine, Rivolta Silenziosa A bit of gypsy punk for the afternoon.

Of course it sounds bad if you put it like that. Yeah because there are so many established facts in science. And I'm saying that as a scientist.

Or maybe the noise was too low/high for human ear ranges? You cross the sound barrier, you make noise. I don't see how you couldn't. EDIT: I suppose you could use a system to create and opposing vortice of air as you went along, but I'm not sure how much energy that would require.

At 13 (or was I 11?), in one of the few DMing sessions I ever did, I had all the players quit on me when they met an elephant in a cavern. In my defense, when I put the elephant in the cavern it made sense to ME, I just could never get that across to the players. Makes sense to me. I remember when we had elephants turn up in our adventure. I maintained that they were the same size as shown in the encyclopaedia britannica. i.e 4 inches long.

I'm just in awe of how much of a nerd Sawyer is. Seriously. I worship his nerdness.

I've just been playing two games: GTA San Andreas, and Fahrenheit*. And my keyboard spacebar has broken. This could be inferior space bar-age, but I suspect it has something to do with all the relentless button mashing required for doing training, lifting bodies, and running. It's doing wonders for my fingers strength, but is it REALLY necessary? How do you chaps like button mashing? *Indigo Prophecy for Americans

Load times do seem a bit long.

I've only beenplaying for awhile, and what I can say is: 1. Picking fights with people is fun 2. Finding phat loot is difficult 3. Choosing your entire party can be entertaining 4. Playing multiplayer kicks butt

Hiro, you're not paying attention. There's no such thing in Islam as a 'church'. So there can't be any effective action taken against a 'rogue' preacher, because technically he's not rogue. I think it's more than just prejudiced against woman. They don't seem to want to assimilate at all. And when this is exposed by the media, we always get Imams saying 'it's just a few bad apples, a minority thing. It's not mainstream within the Muslim community'. Some Muslim religious leaders condoning rape within marriage, domestic violence, polygamy, welfare fraud and exploitation of women. Also, Muslim school has banned the national anthem at assemblies - and sacked the teacher who asked for it to be played.

Wth? have we got some kind of Assassin's Creed ninja Christian roaming the personal message rooftops of the fora?

Neither. It's doughnut. Yeah, Crashgirl. You're spelling's only one step from 'dognut' and that, I assure you, is NOT a tasty treat.

Bought yesterday. I also picked up a copy of NWN2 fora friend who *shock* didn't have it. Early christmas present.

Wow. I thought we'd got beyond some of the notions here ages ago. 1. To talk about Islam having a unitary authority and somehow being able to 'take action' is to do nothing more than show a total ignorance of how all three main strands of Islam work. Shia Islam is the closest to having a religious orthodoxy in the ayatollahs, but Sunnis feel that authority is bogus. 2. Correlation does not imply causation. Violence and ignorance might correlate with religion. I sure as hell know that on the occasions I've been chased by mobs in the dark, and sniped at I've been praying like crazy. But I've also met great thinkers, and humanitarians who were religious. Bishop Desmond Tutu is one example, Mahatma Ghandi would be another but I could go on. 3. My learned friends appear to put an unnatural emphasis on the requirement for Islam (see point 1) to take a stand against radicalism. Firstly, and most importantly, leaders and religious men do regularly take a stand, and get killed for their trouble. So don't you dare accuse the whole of being cowards. Secondly, where were the parades of American Irish against terrorism in Ireland? Or for that matter the English parades against Loyalist violence?

We must all have read about the recent attacks in Mumbai. I was particularly struck by the mounting impression they give that radical Islamic terrorism is about as Islamic as bacon butties. 1) On hearing that the terrorists would be buried in Muslim burial areas, the local Muslim community asserted that the men and their behaviour was totally unIslamic. Marches were held to prevent the men being buried in the Muslim cemetery. 2) The men had been on a steroid training regime, and took drugs to get themselves in the right frame of mind and stay awake during the attacks. It seems to me that one of the most crucial objectives of the terrorists is to brand themselves as Muslims so they can continue to recruit from that base. A real practical and effective thing we can all do to combat terrorism is to refuse to play along with their agenda. Thoughts?

Oh, please. The Westminster system isn't democratic. That's one of its few redeeming features. I'd like to remind readers that it was the unelected House of Lords who defended our right to avoid imprisonment without trial when the elected assembly did not. Go, go, those crazy old buffers!

It's a very sweet Christmas drink that's served smoking hot and sometimes with raisins and/or some kind of nuts in it. Also, it's usually mixed with obscene amounts of alcohol to make people drunk without them realizing it. It's really good at hiding the alcohol flavour. Aha, cool. And I think I just worked out what to do with this backlog of orange marmalade.

How about some sort of dance?

I know that because of this view you and I disagree over drug policy, but believe it or not I am generally the same way. I certainly don't believe that putting up with attacks is tenable. However, I'm not sure there is the political will yet to carry out the necessary action to eliminate the problem. I think we're going to see the phenomenon spread, most likely to Nigeria first. Maybe the LTTE will try it as well. As for criminlaising paying the pirates I don't see your point, Volo. Paying up finances more crime, and more victims. The cycle has to be broken somehow. If it were criminal to pay up, then the owners would be obliged to protect their assets properly.

What is glog?

I've been trying to learn the NWN2 engine, and getting on quite well. This surely qualifies it as easy to use. I like your effort and ideas for random encounters, Ed.

Dictatorship my foot. I've visited dictatorships. Maybe you should too, unless the same rules apply to nation states as games: that seeing them on TV counts as experience.