Walsingham

What? I'm just downloading my copy from Steam now. There's no levelling BS, which means Bethesda listen to my shrieking, and you can actually talk to people. I know we can't shoot the nuts off deathclaws any more (how else am I going to do it?), but otherwise fair enough, surely? I nearly didn't buy it because of secuROM, but the secuROM appears to be a simple disc check. Which I won't face in any case, through steam.

Your words, not mine.

I'm going to buy those babies. EDIT: "Do I look... like a dev?"

I tell you what, happy-pants. You can keep the gold in the van. It's for the kudos! Anyway, the way I figure it the basic problem is a pivot. Which means we have to lift up the gold, or hold down the driver's end. However, that's just the momentary issue. The next level up we're trying to get the gold. HOWEVER, going up a further level what we really want is both the gold, the van, and the fellahs inside. Given this, the most obvious solution is to move the gold from the rear end of the van to the front end. This lightens the unsafe end, and weighs down the safe end. All one of you with me so far?

Ah explosives... is there anything they can't solve?* We had been planning a dungeon crawl for some time, but on the day I was the only player. The referee said I could try, but the odds were poor. I pondered this for a while and said I would, on condition he'd let me have a half dozen chickens, four gallons jars of lamp oil, a basting tube and a pouch of rolling tobacco and self-sticking fairy wings (rizlas). Thus proving a personal maxim which is it is best to not tell the ref what you're planning. 1. Two crossbow bolts and I'm past the bored goblins at the tunnel entrance. 2. I hear a troll talking to itself in the tunnel down. Down goes one jar of lamp oil. glug glug glug. "Hoy, rockfoot!" Burning troll. A bit of poking with a spear. Hi-di-ho, and on we go. 3. A guard room. Double-quick the basting syringe is filled with lamp oil, and one unlucky chicken receives it the way a T-54 receives an A-10 warthog. A roll-up is tethered to the chicken's tail feathers and lit. Finally the chicken is shoved around the door, where it proceeds to flap about, spraying flaming lamp oil over everything and generally causing chaos. In the melee two more chickens are introduced, followed by my dwarven tunnel-fighter who proceeds to fillet the four guards. 4a. By this time the alarm has been raised if that's the right word, by the noise of explosive (literally) diahorrea. I can hear a range of goblinoids forming up around the corner. I lay down my second to last jar of oil on the floor. On the near side of the oil I leave a trussed live chicken, that has once again had its innards prematurely pickled. In its beak is clamped a lit cigarette. I weigh down its feet with a fallen sword, keeping it in a standing position, and retreat to a safe distance. 4b. On come the goblins, with the weakest in number at the front. They cross the lamp oil. One goes to pick up the chicken, but being food, it goes to the largest one (the chief), who unceremoniously bites its throat out. Out sprays the lamp oil, and down goes the cigarette. Flambe. Naturally I realised at this point that I still couldn't win so I ran off. The referee objects to my use of the chickens as out of character, to which I obviously replied that it was normal practice among dwarven tunnel fighters, and that for this reason the ancient dwarf lords traded first with humans. A fast, and or capacious chicken being worth its weight in mithril. I received full session experience points.

If by effective you mean a total waste of time. A totalitarian state subordinates the lifetime output of every man women and child under it into only one thing: sustaining the state. A recursive and pointless excercise. Where a state is subordinated to a single man it becomes even more pointless because the man is guaranteed to die eventually. But back on topic, with this US raid. The US has been pressuring Damascus for action to be taken against jifascists going into Iraq for years. No significant action has been taken, although to be fair there's not much the regime can do when their aparratus is so throughly subverted. So US intelligence presumably finds a training cadre in Syria and sends in Delta Force. I really can't muster much indignation, while terrorism kills hundreds each month in Iraq. Slightly tangentially, I'd have more patience with these discussion if I didn't get the feeling that some people feel there's some magical non-violent way to deal with people who refuse to negotiate. And I don't mean people who pretend to negotiate as a cover for keeping the initiative. If I jump out a window it doesn't mean I'm flying.

Up betimes, and to my Lord Sandwich's house. Breakfasted on interesting low fat scrambled eggs. I managed to enliven teh flavour considerably by poaching all in water, with no milk, but plenty of garden peas, cherry tomatoes, and capers. The water having perviously been mixed with liberal amounts of Polish mustard, and cayenne pepper. Served over wholewheat toast, and a mug of black coffee.

It's not teh fault of capitalists. It's the fault of women. AAAAAAALLLLL the fault of women. Without women a man will cheerfully live his entire life with only the following requisites: 1 pair shorts 1 blanket 1 knife 1 spoon fuel for a fire an earthenware tub for brewing things in things to brew things to hunt women Of these, the manufactured goods would take perhaps two months personal labour to acquire. Everything else, from comic books to oil tankers is the fault of women and their lousy mate preferences. Look at bonobos. They have no war, no personal possessions, or territory ...and no mate selection. They just jig-a-jig with the nearest primate. Granted they look like someone stepped on a bag of hemorrhoids, but it doesn't seem to put them off.

My understanding is that evolution is a theory which encompasses any 'replicator'. In biological terms this means living organisms. But in artificial terms it can also mean an algorithm or a computer virus. Richard Dawkins also argued that evolutionary theory can apply to thoughts and ideas like memes. To evolution it matters little HOW you became a replicator. Nonetheless is is interesting to evolutionary theorists, since it flags areas of future subject matter. Viz self-replicating nano-machines. EDIT: spontaneous generation applies to the genesis <sic> of a new replicator system. Once something is a replicator it's no-longer spontaneous.

I've got my own one, what I drawed myself:

If recycling takes energy and technology* then that would effectively reduce our requirement for raw materials a thousandfold. *I'm assuming that we can either up our ability to recycle, or make our new products more recycleable

Actually on topic, I found a great mashup of De La Soul and the theme from the film, which has the end scene at the end of it. So: 1. Everyone has to watch the film (again if necessary) 2. We all need to speak like Michael Caine 3. We need to come up with a genius solution to the problem

Poor deluded fool.

Er... so you didn't like my idea of becoming more adept or improving our technology? For example, fusion power would massively increase our ability to produce energy.

More importantly, where do I get this Bleach 192? Don't answer that question.

Seriously, WTF? Anyway, didn't know there was a 60's Italian Job - I'll have to dig it up. Poor chap. I'm going to wager you prefer it. Well, it doesn't have Charlize Theron, but it's a much better film. Anyway, solutions, people!

Wasn't a US pilot the guy who shot at a british column back in desert storm? with a freaking Cobra no less. Also Americans have a tendancy to fire at anything remotly connected to the military. See: Highway of Death from Desert Storm. A mile long string of (albeit stolen) civilian cars that were absolutly hammered by American air power. very few actually died in the highway of death, it just looked terrible with gutted cars and trucks strung for a mile or so along highway 80 from Kuwait to Basra. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_death Sorry, cal, but I have got to take issue. Yes, the yanks do shoot us up, and naturally we get annoyed. But US air power saves more British lives than it costs. British civvies bitch about it, but soldiers witha tour on them generally come back with good words to say. Particularly about the helicopter pilots. *reads wikipedia article* Assuming the wiki is correct, for the sake of argument, it doesn't work as a great example. The stated object of Desert Storm was the ejection of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Any single movement of troops is just that and nothing more. Those same retreating troops can and might have turned around and come right back again, having been rallied by propaganda, shame, or death squads. Bombing retreating troops can't be regarded as unusual in any way at all, or (in my opinion) excessive. I support proportionate force, but taken across time. A single massive strike can save more lives in the long run. Just look at the numbers lost in the Iran-Iraq war.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...really-end.html I think this is a blindingly good idea. We should put in our own plan to save the gold at the end of the classic film.

Because it rocks.

Yes, of course I did. You give one example where negotiations failed. I'd bet in 99.99% of the times there's a problem between nations, negotiations DO SUCCEED. So instead of avoiding the question, please tell us all what your brilliant example was meant to prove. Three examples, off the top of my malodorous head: 1) Yalta. Negotiations with Stalin, and particularly Roosevelt's attempts to be 'nice' prvoked Stalin into a more aggressive stance than he might have used if he thought a military confrontation was possible. 2) USA and North Vietnam. North Vietnam used the negotiations to attempt to secure concessions and cease-fires whenever they wanted a rest, and refused negotiations when they were doing well. Negotiations only hurt the US efforts. The Viet Cong learned this from the North Koreans who used the exact same trick. 3) UNAMIR vs the Interahamwe. In Rwanda, the genocidaires repeatedly used offers of negotiation to forestall UN action and military force. I'm a believer in negotiation, but to work there has to be a willingness to engage, and to concede. If there isn't then it is used as a delaying tactic and safe zone. ~ Epirote, I want to stress that you're fielding questions put to you, which means you're playing the game. So I'm not pissed off, or anything. Fair does. However... 1. The concept of "defensive war" ( as you put it) became outdated in the 19th century. Very briefly defensive war at that time meant acting only when your nation's vital interests were damaged. This principle is sound, but one can no longer define it as territorial integrity. Firstly, internationalisation means that my national and personal interests begin in Japan, and end in Kazhakstan. Secondly, the range, and speed of military effects has extended transcontinentally, not just beyond our borders. If you wait until the panzers/terrorists/nano-robots/were-sheep cross the border then you've got virtually no hope of winning. 2. You mentioned the impossibility of the US mistaking a civilian vehicle for a weapons convoy. Really? How would teh sensor profile of a weapons convoy differ from a civilian convoy? You give me a simple answer and I'll use it to make a million.

Tarna for US Foreign thingy. Take that, Somali militants!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7696197.stm Report suggests that consumption outstrips supply by as much as a third, making some of us 'debtors'. Two points: 1. is that Norway on the consumption map as high as the USA? 2. If work was simply raw materials x energy this would make sense. But work is raw material x energy x skill x technology, is it not? If so, we simply need to up our game...

You seem like a reasonable chap, so I'll ask you to justify your claim that the war was fought without any regard for civilian casualties. I've met senior RAF officers who still worry about decisions made. Not to mention the fact that the publicised order of battle has whole units whose only job is to worry about civilian casualties. From politicians, to generals, to air controllers, to pilots to ground crew I've seen and heard people worrying about civilian casualties. Not in a newspaper or a public relations exercise. I mean candidly, off the record. Your example of hiroshima is just one more reason why they DO worry now. Because we've like, you know, learned from our mistakes. However, I won't disagree that victors write the rules of the game. Which is why doing the right thing has to be balanced aginst bloody winning. Lest the history of this period be written by the humourless bastards, in between their attempts to outlaw women, fun, free thought, and waffles. I really don't see what viable alternative viewpoint could be seriously entertained.

Gaaah!

We rule!