Humodour

Or we could just cut the phone concept altogether because it's crappy (shoe phone excepted).

Recently I have been stocking up on powdered milk, kilograms of pasta, and multivitamins. I believe on balance this would provide suitable nutritious, light-weight and long-life sustenance in the event of a zombie or mutant invasion. Moreover, I recently acquired a tomahawk with which to sever Zombie heads into eternal rest... however I lament that it would require multiple swings to be effective. Finally, I am halfway through crafting a set of ring-mail armour, which I believe capable of repelling zombie teeth. I regret that my home is unfortunately unsecured against zombie threat, but will in the future hopefully be installing spear trap floor plates with which to immobilise the zombies, as well as head-height saw-blade traps.

Britain finally grants gay Iranian teen asylum from death penalty for homosexuality when he goes back to Iran, following on from the teen being denied asylum whilst he was studying in the UK: More here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-...n-792058.html#a

1. Mock attacks huh. You mean the incident where the speed boats approached the patrol ship USS Typhoon in a

^ The flaw in that logic is no DRM wouldn't mean no Bioware.

You have to remember SA still went through a lot of the problems the rest of Africa did. It's more 'together' than the rest of Africa, but it still has massive problems with things like AIDS/HIV, child slavery, racism, etc. It's a very important centre in Africa, though. Over the next 50 years, Africa's population should double (accounting for most world population growth), while the people should live twice as long (i.e. about 60). SA will play a key role in whether Africa turns out for better or worse.

Ohhh yeah, sorry. That's true. Black holes form when stars are too massive. But not all massive stars form black holes - some do, some don't, It depends on a bunch of factors like elemental composition, temperature, density, etc at the time of 'death', meaning that some large stars form neutrons while some smaller ones form black holes. Other fates for supernovas are quark stars and neutron stars. Even white dwarfs can form supernovas if they bump into other stars (e.g. a binary system of white dwarfs). Black holes eventually explode into Hawking radiation when they leak away too much matter for their gravitational pull to hold the rest together (I think it's because of virtual antimatter interaction with virtual normal matter on the event horizon of the black hole - the black hole sucks up one of the virtual particles but the other escapes, meaning the black hole 'gives off' matter... but this is only a problem when cosmic background radiation loses enough energy, like a bazigillion years from now, ok maybe a googol). This is why micro black holes on Earth won't suddenly swallow it up - they'll explode harmlessly almost immediately. Well, supposedly... a lot of the theory at that level is incomplete. For example, electrons bear a striking resemblance to micro black holes.

Robert Mugabe is painting "Imperial Foreign Powers" on the walls of peoples imagination in Zimbabwe, other leaders in volatile countries do the same... creating scape goats is an old, tested and tried recipe. Indeed. It provides an (unfortunate) cohesive force for an otherwise unsustainable regime. I think Orwell documented such a phenomenon fairly well in 1984.

What? Black dwarfs? Black dwarfs should be extremely hard to detect (because, like planets and black holes, they emit little to no light), so gravitational analysis is probably the best method. But they aren't black holes - the gravity pulls would be noticeably different. Further, black dwarfs can't possibly exist yet - all the white dwarfs in existence are still too hot. BTW, did you know that when you are within a neutron star's gravity, you must reach 50% the speed of light to escape, or be accelerated so fast to the core that you are immediately converted into pure neutrons?

If I worked for a game company and were surprised that somebody was claiming they were going to leak a trailer about our game, I would say: "I want to see the trailer too."

I'd would be surprised if 90% of conspiracy theorists weren't paranoid to some degree. However, closing perfectly good eyes and assuming that people in power always have your best interest at heart isn't necessary a good thing either. Which is why my "religion" is doubt and my "crusade" consists of constantly questioning my own lines of thought as well as my surroundings. Investigating why things are the way they are, is something I consider a virtue Both are obviously not good, being extremes. Though the problem of Iran's anti-Semitism has little to do with our faith in our governments, unless secretly Iranians like the Israelis and their hatred of Jews is all a myth perpetrated to by our governments to steal their oil. After all, Archie in no way implied we have or should have blind faith in our governments.

Hold me.

Nah, the sun will become a red giant in 5 to 6 billion years (c.f. Earth and Sol are 4.56 billion years old while life is about 4 billion years old). Meanwhile, by about 0.9 billion years time, the Sun's thermal expansion leading up to red giant phase will have incinerated most of Earth's atmosphere and annihilated all life on earth. After a red giant, Sol will become a nebula, and then a white dwarf and finally a black dwarf. Of course, no black dwarfs have been observed, because the universe is relatively young (13.7 billion years old) so none have formed yet. Even so, it is unknown exactly how long black dwarfs take to form... it depends on whether or not protons decay and what dark matter is (i.e. WIMPs).

Yeah, I saw this on Slashdot earlier. It's hard to tell exactly what the outcome is, but it's always good to at least see people having a go against bigger powers instead of cowering away in the face of a potential lawsuit.

Likewise. While people like Walsingham have tackled the main issues (compared with conspiracy theorists like brdavs) and I'm probably repeating them, I'll just quote the current Iranian president: "Israel needs to be wiped off the map.", meanwhile his official military parades are adorned with imagery of ballistic missiles overlayed with slogans about how Israel must be erased. In other words, totally peaceful.

Anyway, if it took pop 45 minutes and 40 clot charms to kill the PS:T end boss, he must have really sucked. I melee'd it with my mage ffs.

WoW is crap for that. It doesn't recapture the atmosphere of D2. I mean, it's not a bad game, but it's not Diablo.

Try and refrain from replying to this with some snappy comment - since you make a distinction between "art" and "mere entertainment", what criterions must be met for something to be in one field and not the other? Just wondering, since I would not have it easy categorising creative works like that. It's probably an classification of ease, with average, common games as entertainment and the more highly appreciated/innovative games (e.g. those with cult following) as art. A fairly decent distinction for utility purposes, but probably inaccurate when it comes to deciding whether or not a game is art.

Fragmentation is only necessary when there is lots of file movement, creation and/or deletion going on. I imagine for consoles the relatively small hard drive size coupled with the fairly static nature of installed operating systems and programs means defragmentation is rather unnecessary.

Let me preface this with: you are awesome. OK, so, my favourite designs, from memory are: Paladin Vengeance + Conviction - massive damage, no need to worry about dexterity (Conv lowers their defence by 90%), only one hit (but usually one hit kills) meaning more clicking than zeal Holy Shock + Zeal - massive damage, multiple targets, screwed for lightning immunes, possibly weak defence Holy Freeze + Zeal - massive damage, multiple targets, targets are slowed, effectivelly means high defence... this one is a personal favourite Smite + Fanaticism - used to be fairly decent... no leech, single target, knockback, screwed for physical immunes, massive defence Amazon Lightning Zon - powerful as a buggery. Main skill is charged strike (releases charged bolts), possibly using lightning fury as a crowd thinner. Needs to focus on defence, not damage (you can pick up a rusty javelin and kill hordes with this char), also needs a viable way to kill lightning immunes... possibly jab... or just work in a team Ice Zon - uses the level 30 frozen arrow. Freeze, area of effect, high damage, no 'cast' delay, meaning based on bow speed. Stacks with pierce for extra goodness. Might be worth 10 in the level 1 fire arrow skill for ice immunes... haven't played this one enough times to determine Barbarian Warcry barb - he runs around casting warcry like a sorc would cast nova. Sports two +skills swords or +fast cast wands. Extremely effective with the right gear, as it's better than nova without the cast delay and it stuns enemies making you untouchable. Extremely mana intensive. Frenzy barb - used to be a little used build in D2 Classic, but I always preferred it to WW. Seems now it is fairly mainstream, though. As with warcry barb, the war cries are very important, especially the one just before warcry which lowers enemy defence/damage/ar Necromancer Poison Necro - very tempted to play a necro based on poison nova and poison explosion + lower resist. Would team well with any elemental character. Druid Werebear - I want to try this. Single hit, but high damage, high life, high defence, and he has a stunning (literally) crowd control skill. And finally: pay attention to synergies. They make or break most builds. P.S. if you ever want an MP LAN game, I'm good for it... true for anybody in this thread. Beauty of LAN is you get to start from scratch with friends. Starting from scratch can be kind of lame on your own, but it becomes fairly fun with friends, and the game takes on a different dynamic, as even magic drops and random chests become important.

I said this on Mistress Lair, but I adored "The Doctor's Daughter" episode. I mean, the overall episode was fairly generic, but Jenny was awesome. Very much hope she's a regular or gets a spin-off targeted at the 15 to 25 demographic.

The new Doctor Who is fairly formulaic most of the time. Very glad Moffat is the new head writer.

Really loved this season. Glad they left behind the whole demon of the week thing (it's still there, but doesn't feel forced like in Smallville or Doctor Who). Last two episodes were sweet. Series has been renewed for 13 episodes which is awesome. Thoughts?