kgambit

Oby's got nothing on this guy: Greg Hallett's book "Hitler Was A British Agent" According to Hallet, not only was Hitler a British Agent, but he also escaped Germany alive during Operation Winnie the Pooh with the help of Ian Fleming. Martin Bormann also was secreted out England with Fleming's help as part of Operation James Bond. I couldn't make this **** up if I tried ..... http://www.henrymakow.com/_from_an_email_from.html That one might even be funnier than "Hitler was part of the Illuminati". Oby this is almost as funny as the South Park episode you linked to.

Side Effects with Jude Law, Rooney Mara, Catherine Zeta Jones Basic plot revolves around a wife (Mara) suffering depression after the recent release of her husband for insider trading. It looks like it's going to be a fairly plodding commentary about the side effects of prescription drugs and then things change. Worth watching.

You're right, older source, my bad. 51. Just in the interest of having accurate numbers, as of July 22, 2013 the total since 9/11 is 60 attempts including 4 successful according to Heritage.org http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/07/60-terrorist-plots-since-911-continued-lessons-in-domestic-counterterrorism If you want to research terrorist attacks on US soil or get some more details, check out this site: National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). (2012). Global Terrorism Database http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd They list 207 terrorist attacks from 2001 to 2011 (that is the last year of data available in the public database) 91 of those attacks were perpetrated by the Animal Liberation Front, the Earth Liberation Front or by Anti-Abortion activists (14)

I agree. The Cards were likely not going to win yesterday considering Wainwright was off his game, but they sure looked ugly losing. Wacha has been off the charts in the postseason. Not a bad choice for the draft pick they got from the Angels for losing Pujols.

Three Card errors not counting the pop fly that Wainwright - Molina let drop for an infield hit. Yikes! Beltran's catch at the wall prevented it from being even uglier but he bruised his ribs in the process (x-rays negative).

@Keyrock What's the story with Buchholz? I heard he might be pulled from the WS rotation. Something about a neck or shoulder issue?

Gold does grow on trees ..... Scientists in Australia have discovered gold deposits on eucalyptus trees in the Outback. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/world/gold-growing-on-trees/index.html?hpt=hp_c3 http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131022/ncomms3614/full/ncomms3614.html#author-information

Fair enough about the typical human. That simply makes the point about adventurers taking less time by virtue of being exceptional more relevant. How many of those skills would you reasonably expect to find as separate skills in a crpg? Design? Measuring? Balancing? Forging? Those can all be lumped under a general classification of metal working. You're correct that a master smith would have to have knowledge of all those, but they are also part and parcel of the fabrication process. Knowing how much steel you need to make a long sword, how to shape it, fold it, etc. can all be lumped under metal working. Hardening, tempering, sharpening are all metallurgical considerations. So I'll give you two skills total and possibly a third for leather working. The 10K model allowed for two skills to be mastered at 4 hours a day for a normal human. Make that human truly exceptional or use an exotic race with special learning talents and we could easily imagine a 5K requirement which lets our exceptional person learn 4 skills instead of 2. Now you've got metal working, metallurgy, leatherworking and room left for one more. Consider what it takes to master a second language. There are actually four separate macro-skills associated with learning a language: reading, writing, speaking and listening (comprehension). And those 4 skills require additional micro skills such as vocabulary, grammar, tenses, pronunciation and spelling. That's a total of 9 individual skills (and I probably missed some) yet we lump them all into one base skill and call it language knowledge. Unless you want to apply the same sort of detailed breakdown for all skills that you do for smithing, you need to be able to combine sub-skills and abstract them. Otherwise you are going to end up with a massively complex and unwieldly skill system.

Only if you believe Malcolm Gladwell, or more accurately Ander Ericsson (now at Florida State) on whose work the 10K rule in Gladwell's Outliers was based. For starters, Ericsson's work stated that 10K was an average time required which meant that exceptionally gifted people could achieve master status in far less time. Ericsson himself has said that "there is nothing magical about the 10K figure". So 10K hours isn't a rigid measure. It could just as easily take half that time for a truly exceptional individual. 10K hours works out to 3.4 years of extended practice or study at 8 hours a day, 7 days a week. Cut the practice time per day to 4 hours that's slightly less than 7 years total and you can still achieve master status before you've exited your teens if you start at ages 10 to 12, which by the way is not that different from the time required to achieve master status for apprentices in the middle ages. That's achievable prior to the start of an adventuring career. You can't claim multiple skills are necessary without delineating what those skills are. I claim Smithing is a single skill, but if you want to argue that becoming a master smith involves mastering both metal working and metallurgy, you could still achieve that in 7 years by spending 4 hours a day working a forge and 4 hours a day studying metallurgical tomes. Again that's doable before you start adventuring. Remember that the 10K rule isn't rigid. It's not a huge stretch to argue that my adventurers, being the exceptional people that they are, could have achieved master status in half that time. My rogue was one of Fagin's kids when he started out: learned his pickpocket, open locks etc skills starting at a very early age. We don't have any trouble accepting that premise do we? Or a young mage with a proclivity for magic? Again that doesn't cause us a moments pause. We are talking about abstracted skill progressions in a fantasy rpg and you're trying to impose a rigid standard which actually isn't that rigid in the first place. How pray tell would you justify becoming a master of persuasion then? Do you practice your glibness in front of a mirror 4 hours a day? Talk to your dog? Or how about bartering. Did you spend 4 hours a day running thru the bazaars chating up merchants in order to practice negotiating lower prices? Of course not. If you are willing to set aside a certain amount of realism (for lack of a better word) in those instances, why can't we do it for everything?

Yes Australia has the highest pay in the world for those positions.

I don't understand what this is in response to. I wasn't suggesting anything regarding a necessity for the same person performing both jobs, or even anything related to problems arising from such. I was merely comparing an actual master smith and the efforts and schedule that got him there with a narrative RPG adventurer who's dealing with problems 24/7. You can't START as a master smith, because that goes against the whole progression dynamic, and you can't FINISH as a master smith because you're too busy not doing anywhere NEAR the amount of smithing that is required for one to master smithery and forge renowned weapons and armor. "forging the greatest sword" seems to imply both masterwork and enchantment. If I misread your intent, I apologize. But as far as a mastersmith I think you can either start as one or achieve it during the game. The middle ages example says you it is more than possible to achieve master smith status before you even begin adventuring. It's not out of the realm of possibility at all. Check the ages I listed and consider what age you might start the PE campaign at. But if you want to claim that it's not possible because of lack of experience, It is not that difficult to extend your argument to other disciplines. Language skills? HAHA When are you going to find time to learn new languages. Alchemy? Takes time to study chemical reactions and how chemicals interact. Can't just pull the Alchemy for Dummies book of the shelf. (Well okay you could but you probably won't like the results). Medical skills? Okay it's not In PE, but learning medical skills takes a long time and years of study. Hmmm, where are you going to find time to do THAT in a game. Yet games like JA2 let you improve medical skills. So please ... just throw away the time constraint argument. Skill progressions are generally abstracted to begin with. You rarely find people being required to find new books on metallurgy, botany, wilderness skills, tracking etc. The process by which knowledge is gained is abstracted at the level process. I don't see why weapon smithing should be any different. YMMV I have seen skill progressions that are based on repeated usage of certain skills to advance them. Forget that. Mindless repetition is boring. We can do without that. I think you're advocating the type of npc mastersmith/enchanter that was in BG2 and NWN. I found those systems to be far less satisfying than the crafting systems in any of the NWN2 series or several other games. The Witcher alchemy system did basically the same thing. It had multiple ingredients that provided the same base elements and actually had a secondary property with them. It was actually a very neat system. It's not that different in concept and allows a lot of flexibility. I think the best you can hope for is enough variety in the ingredients and recipes that it seems expansive - any system is going to require hard coding. Before the game starts? maybe but it's not a given When the game starts the characters are novices even in their chosen fields. Do they bring previous experience to the table. Sure but you're speculating as to how extensive that experience is. Exactly the same way I am speculating that a character might have sufficient skill to be a master smith when he starts the game.

I always love reading stuff like this: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-25-hidden-gems-of-nyc-startups-2011-5 It never ceases to amaze me how enterprising some people can be. Edit: It also never ceases to amaze me how freaking difficult it can be as well. Some of the financing requirements are a major hurdle.

This works fine for me.

Who's to say that the weapon smith and the enchanter / runecaster need to be the same person? It may work out that way but it doesn't have to be like that. Again you're thinking small. Instead of 10 different runes try 20. Instead of a single slot think 3 or 4. You could add different elemental damage, defensive runes, sharp edges in virtually an endless array. Okay it wouldn't really be limitless - it's still a finite number but you get the idea. We're talking 100s of combinations. I think you could accomplish the same thing by simply learning a metallurgy based skill and refining a different type of ore. Going thru the breaking down process seems a little contrived but I see where you are going with it. I would like to see a system that didn't rely on *essences* because that's been done already and it didn't feel right. It worked really well and was well designed but it just lacked something.

No, not in all cases. There are exceptions. Even so, there's no reason to encourage those who won't bother to learn English. It's also no reason to penalize people in that age group. Learning a new language at that age is not easy.

The average value of a 4-year degree is increased earnings income of $900,000, almost a million dollars, compared to a high school education. I think that's worth the investment. If so many people have degrees, then why aren't they earning hundreds of thousands of dollars? Because you rarely get a starting job that pays that much to start and at today's average starting salary for a college graduate of you would need to work approximately 23+ years with annual 3% raises to reach a 100K$ salary. The US currently ranks 12th out of the OECD countries in terms of the percentage of adults 25 thru 34 with an associate degree or higher at 41.3%. http://thinkprogress.org/education/2010/07/26/177470/college-attain-fall/ Starting salaries also vary widely by discipline. The average starting salary is ~45,000$ for a college graduate. Which happens to be below the median income. http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/04/15/college-degrees-with-the-highest-starting-salaries-3/ Starting incomes for college graduates are anywhere from 67% to 100% higher than high school graduates. Conversely high school graduates make 50 to 60% of what a college graduate does. http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2012/12/grads-earn-85-more-than-those-without.html?page=all Which means that a high school graduate makes an average starting salary of 22,500$ to 27,000$. They also represent around half of the 25-34 yr old age group. Why is a college education worth so much more? Do the math. ~25k$ a year more income for a college graduate x 30 years = 750,000$ without any salary increases or compounded growth. If you really want to cash in, become a petroleum geologist. The average starting salary is ~85,000$ http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2012/04apr/salary_survey0412.cfm

Tree inhabited by evil forest gnomes! RUN AWAY!

No, not in all cases. There are exceptions.

I bought this on DVD. Originally I thought it might be a good series to show my students at the end of the year when we are done with instructional time, but I'd have to skip over quite a bit! So did we. We both loved it. Just curious: which bits? It's a bit bloody (okay Vikings - it's a lot bloody lol) but much less so than the Spartacus Gore fest. Very little nudity either. I did some digging and I'm getting mixed returns on the continuity of some parts. e.g. Aelle of Northumbria became King around 862 but the series puts him as king much earlier. I loved Vikings and I did some research around the characters and what should be coming in the next series is going to be very exciting LOL - No spoilers! I had to be really careful in this thread when Breaking Bad was airing the last 8 episodes. SPOILER TAGS! Use them!

Doesn't sound weird at all - I can imagine that does require a different perspective.

Okay. I didn't realize you taught 12 yr olds. The parts at the Viking temple at Upsala are a bit intense too but from some accounts it was actually a lot bloodier.

This is interesting: the US seems to have made a much better recovery from the financial crisis. I wonder why that is? There is a slight kink around mid-2010 when the UK recovery starts to flatten. Isn't that when David Cameron came to power with an agenda of reigning in the debt? It might also be a slight increase in unemployment at about the same time. Check out the second of the next two graphs. Here's two slightly different plots for the entire G7:

Add some small red potatoes and onions around the chicken. They will cook in the chicken grease and will brown nicely. So you end up with main course, two sides and desert all at once.

The average value of a 4-year degree is increased earnings income of $900,000, almost a million dollars, compared to a high school education. I think that's worth the investment. Admittedly educational costs are far outstripping inflation so it makes it tougher. Last time I checked ed costs were one of the fastest risers. The flip side is ed loans are low interest. (Correction: I double checked and they aren't as low as I remember. Fed student loans run 3.86 to 6+% now. My loan rates were considerably lower. So things are tougher) Usually you don't have to start repayment until after you graduate and you have a 6 month window to start, assuming that you do not interrupt your schooling. I think it still works that way. I know the squeeze though. I had fed and state loans to pay off and the state loans required repayment immediately on graduation. Which meant I was paying them off while I was in grad school. OUCH! So yeah I understand the pain. Yeah compound interest is a bitch. Sometimes the solution is to go without until you can really afford something. yeah that's harsh. I'll be blunt - I have absolutely no sympathy for someone complaining about how paying interest on something is stretching their budget. If you can't really afford it, don't buy it. After all, you did mention items over 7 grand and I hardly would classify things in that range as essentials. Okay, income disparity is fair game. I totally agree with two issues. (1) Increased worker productivity has not found it's way into regular incomes - that profit has increasingly been retained at the corporate level without proportionate increases in hiring or income. (2) The % share of wealth held by various income groups has become decidedly skewed towards the 1%. I have to admit that part of me says so effing what? Isn't that part of what is so great about the US? Being able up with a fantastic freaking idea and making a bloody fortune? Like Facebook? On the flip side, I do wonder why there is a cap on income for paying social security and medicare taxes. Oh I understand why it's there - I just don't think it should be.

I bought this on DVD. Originally I thought it might be a good series to show my students at the end of the year when we are done with instructional time, but I'd have to skip over quite a bit! So did we. We both loved it. Just curious: which bits? It's a bit bloody (okay Vikings - it's a lot bloody lol) but much less so than the Spartacus Gore fest. Very little nudity either. I did some digging and I'm getting mixed returns on the continuity of some parts. e.g. Aelle of Northumbria became King around 862 but the series puts him as king much earlier.