Gorth

Start of old Thread End of old Thread Sorry to hear that Majestic... Starting to wonder if I shouldn't try this annual leave thing some day. Had 3 days off between Christmas and New Year, which again was my only leave since Christmas the year before that again. Might be nice to actually kick back and relax a bit some day Oh, and a nice 26 degrees Celcius here today, just at the start of winter (just wanted to rub it in).

Not sure how many people have seen this old British comedy series called "Yes Prime Minister!". Jim Hacker (the PM) explains who reads the newspapers Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers. The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times is read by the people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by people who own the country; the Morning Star is read by people who think the country ought to be run by another country, and the Daily Telegraph is read by people who think it is. Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun? Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big ****.

BBC Coverage Nineteen people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a suspected terror attack at Manchester Arena. The blast happened at 22:35 BST on Monday following a pop concert by the US singer Ariana Grande. PM Theresa May said her thoughts were with those affected by "what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack". Paramedics at the scene told the BBC they had treated some of the wounded for "shrapnel-like injuries". Condolences to those who lost family, friends and loved ones.

Not sure if posted already, but I think Putin is having some genuine fun here... It is a bit funny

How do those three points explain Pong?

Suffering a bit of self inflicted pain this week. Started in a gym again. The exercise bike is nice enough, but rediscovering long lost muscles which didn't seem too thrilled about being prodded back into life through the Inquisitorial Torture Apparatuses ? Well... Yeah, it's boring as hell, but it was necessary. This old body needs to get fit again. With 24/7 access I can come and go as I please, even when working long hours. Currently taking it "easy" with just 3 visits weekly (Monday/Wednesday/Fridays).

Things I won't touch... Can be summarised by "anime inspired" and "Real Time Strategy". Apart from those two broad categories, I'm usually game (pun unintended) for most things.

I've been trying to get into Dragon Age: Inquisition recently. Really trying, spending hours on it. I just can't get hooked on it. Something about the game just feels "wrong". It's like it's completely devoid of life Was thinking about either have a go at PS:T (GoG version) or try to have another go at Witcher II (would it make sense to try completing that one before Witcher III?).

Sorry mate. Secular democratic leaders in this region??? Even if you could find one of those rare specimens, he would have no political clout whatsoever, because there would be no popular support. Lessons learned from previous disastrous wars in the region? Absolutely NIL! People in Syria will still be mostly Sunnis and their neighbours will still try to gobble up as many of them as possible to increase their political spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and Turkey first and foremost. Just a little bit of ethnic cleansing so areas can be resettled here and there by Sunnis and be amenable to be included in their respective neighbouring countries.

Appeal to Emotion Fallacy is the phrase you are looking for?

If things starts getting too hot at home, nothing like a cozy little war elsewhere to give people something else to talk about. Palmyra isn't Circus Maximus, but the mental image of a staged bloodsport game is hard to shake.

Ghost of Guy Fawkes, I banish thee, Be gone!

You can "split" the info. Posting a link and a label that is a friendly hint to what the link leads to. For example: [url=http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/lolcats]Funny cat pictures[/url]The above gives something like Funny cat pictures Not sure if that is what you are looking for? Alternatively there are sites like https://tinyurl.com/ which can create redirections to links you don't really want to (or can't) post.

Isn't that pronounced something along the lines of fer-guss ur-kart? Edit: @Madscientist - You are perfectly understandable. I've always considered German the "Lego" of languages. Can't find a word that fits, just put a pile of words together until you got a new (often very long) word that explains what it is

Early versions of Fortran made it possible to redefined numerical constants in your code

Counting? I, ii, iii, iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi... No, not going to continue until d Roman computer science was doomed from the outset. Just try to make sense of the following pseudo code: for i = i to x do { i = i + i; } what the heck is i at the end of the loop? 1, 2 or 55?

That sounded even more wrong

Like Volourn I got 100's but mostly DVD and less than 10 blu-rays. Simply becaue I don't have a multi region blu-Ray player, so not buying any movies in that format

I doubt Bioware can say anything that would excite me particular much as this point. The NGE (New Grind Experience) killed any fun that may have been left in the game mechanics department. Only thing that makes me keep an eye on what comes out of the PTS eventually is that the first boss fight allegedly is designed by the guy behind the Revan fight (Temple of Sacrifice Revan, not the Yavin 4 mini story Revan "fight").

Just when I thought I had completely forgotten how to smile... Not sure how I ended up at that video. Opera is not normally my thing, but google/youtube probably remembered that I did some searches for xyz got talent in past years. A stunning performance from a young lady (9 years old participating in the "grown up" version of the show). http://youtu.be/qDqTBlKU4CE I ended with this wide, stupid grin that I couldn't get off my face again, no matter how hard I tried to be grumpy.

Somehow I just got this image in my mind now that I can't unsee... Trump sitting in his tower with a Palantir in his lap, listening to his Masters words, knowing nothing escapes the all-seeing eye of Putin

I bought this old Infocom Adventure game once upon a time. Can't remember the exact name but I think it was Starcross or something similar. I never beat it (that was before the internet). I think you needed a chemical engineering degree to get some of the puzzles

I do disagree, because looking at most things in complete isolation misses the point *for me*. Causes and effects is what interests me (hence my interest in history in general). Bin Laden was already a militant person looking for a cause before Soviet presence, which wasn't an "invasion" btw (Western bias shining through) but an intervention requested by the Afghan government. Before that he was being a good, rabid Sunni slaughtering civilians in Shia villages as the pawn of the Pakistani intelligence service. Finding a new cause more interesting than butchering villagers in Afghanistan he fought there with the mujahedeen indeed and used the Saudi and US funds to build Al-Qaeda. What turned Al-Qaeda into the "terrorist" organisation (because until then they had been "heroic freedom fighters") was the fallout between him and King Fahd over who should protect Saudi Arabia after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Fahd decided to invite the US Troops (Bin Laden was adamant his Arab fighters from the Afghan war could do the job) and the result was an undying hatred of both the Saudi monarchy and the US for daring to set foot on the land of Mecca and Medina. Killing Americans (and westerners in general) became priority no. 1, even more important than killing Shia Muslims. If you want to look for a cause for the "Terror organisation" Al-Qaeda, the first Gulf war is a good place to look. And yes, Bin Laden was an avid follower of "Qutbism" (see previous post) and Al-Qaeda had many members from radical Egyptians, not just disgruntled Saudis. Without his leadership, it fragmented and reverted to its "base nature", killing Shia's again became a priority (leading to a break between groups like Al-Qaeda who wants to kill westerners and ISIS who wants to kill Shias).

Sorry Bruce, but in this case you missed the target by a few light years. AQ (and ISIS by extension) is rooted in Saudi history, or rather in the history of the house of Saud and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The founder of modern extremist Islam was Sayyid Qutb. I'll leave it to you to study the history of those people, it's quite enlightening and leads directly to the modern day conflicts

Bought a six pack of beer for myself, then pulled out my work laptop. Never was a fan of "commercial" holidays whose purpose seems to be revenue boosting and nothing else