Actaeon

I'm not sure you can really call it arbitrary. Congrats, Sucinary T.

A lot of the oldbies have grown up and have adult responsibilities to attend to. Meanwhile, the younger ones are either afraid to misstep or insufficiently afraid. There are, as Nikki noted, ups and downs. We've had a couple of slow weeks, but actually the last year has been decently active, and has spawned several spin-off activities. Edit: Apparently you were referring to a shorter time frame. In this, I agree that the lack of a recent release contributes, as well as the waning novelty of IPB. If you want to see more action, post more (non-meta) threads of your own, or come up with a new activity for us.

I understand the temptation to be exasperated with the opposite sex (provided you have a sex to be opposed to), but in my experience making sweeping generalizations is often detrimental and insulting to everyone involved- even the group that you think you're raising up. Diki and I discussed the original version of this ("... does it make a sound") and agreed that, scientifically speaking, a sound does not need to be heard to exist. Besides which, there are other animals with ears. Also, the egg came first.

I may not be able to make it- I got an invitation for an in-person night out, and am inclined to take it. If I'm around, though, I'll certainly still drop in. Sorry.

There have been Spidweb meetups (I don't know if I count my half hour stay at Neb and Sy's- but Year Five will make me an official participant). To the best of my knowledge, none of them included Jeff. Perhaps an oldbie can say for certain.

There are a fair number of correlations to Risk, but there are some pretty fundamental differences that can trip you up. I encourage you to check out http://webdiplomacy.net/intro.php. Wikibooks takes it a bit farther, and if you want to get really analytical about it, you can read the original official rules here. If, after all that, you're not thoroughly overwhelmed, you can brush up on strategy at The Diplomatic Pouch.

It might be worth taking over Nioca if you're new... it's a strong position. Alternatively, perhaps we could make a new, classic game to teach? Everyone would agree to go easy on the new guys? Edit: I've gone ahead and made one with the most basic settings possible. I encourage anyone trying to get their legs under them to join, and chose a country like Turkey, England, or France. Experienced players are also welcome, but should go with a more difficult country (I chose Italy) and go easy on the new guys for the first two years. Please, don't join if you don't intend to see it through. I dropped out of the last one, and I intend to make it up to the community. http://vdiplomacy.ne...hp?gameID=12402 Password: skribbane

Heck, if Nioca returns, so will I.

I credit my knowledge of that song to a Simpsons introduction.

I wake up in the morning with the most energy I'll have all day. If I slept nine or ten hours, that's a fair amount. Six or seven, and it's not much at all. In any case, I am fairly bad at sleeping in unless I've had a VERY late night, so I pretty much have to make due. I have yet to wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy, so that's something.

Anyone who wants to participate might as well fill this out, but I won't go ahead without at least 4 of the main 5: http://whenisgood.net/4sipnnd

It certainly sounds like a variation of Mafia. I'd be inclined to see how it works online.

I found the CalRef server to be a great way to get into Minecraft- you have fellow Spiderwebbers for advice or aid (or, I imagine, collaboration), infinite space to explore, the admiration of your comrades to gain, and several abandoned fortresses to claim as your own.

It is likely that not a lot of people bother to open this thread, so you if one of you has an idea of someone to participate, you might brooch the subject. Also, when shall we try again? It was just me and Magnus last Saturday, but perhaps the third time's the charm?

In this case, though, I suspect it was unintentional. Luckily, no one seems to be hostile toward you at the moment, so you have some time to recover.

I am inclined to open the upcoming finale to broad community participation without the need for a long commitment. We are gearing up for a showdown between several fantasy factions in a modern US city. It would be cool to bring some NPCs to life with guest players. How do the current PCs feel about that, and is anyone interested in joining?

After all, he's been gone for three months. Seems like thirty.

Lillith: You can't with that site, but there is one that does. I can also chose a variant with fewer players. Nioca: I anticipated getting more Refugi on board, and put it up here as more of an afterthought. I won't make that mistake again.

Edit: Another failure. Again, by one person. If I was a mod, I'd lock this thread to cover my shame.

Many would argue that that's where hydrogen generation comes in- a portable fuel that can be produced by renewable means. Myself, I think we're overlooking a lot of low-tech solutions in favor of high-tech and energy-intensive approaches. You could use a high-intensity but inconsistant energy source to compress air or run water uphill, allowing you to extract energy via turbine later. Is it efficient? No, but it has a fraction of the initial costs of a chemical battery. A bit more passive solar and passive geothermal wouldn't go amiss, either. And how about bio-mass? Switchgrass can be grown in places that wouldn't support food crops, and ends up carbon neutral if it's farmed continuously. The idea of putting huge solar farms in Nevada to fuel LA might seem like a nice idea for the urban majority, but the rural areas get sick of being treated as nothing but an energy and mineral resource. Besides which, as noted above, photovoltaics themselves aren't sustainable- they require several rare earth elements for production. In a side note, while I do not agree that the environment has no intrinsic value other than its usefulness for humans, my opinion is based in emotion and faith, rather than intellectual study, and thus cannot be defended here. I will say, however, that I see no logical reason human life is of more value than any other. What's so special about culture? Why should we want people we'll never meet to benefit from natural resources? If we're being really dispassionate, the solution to the energy crisis is to cut down on population and thus on demand. Most of us, myself included, don't like that avenue of thought. Cold logic is only useful to a point.

Isn't nuclear power also a temporary fix? I mean, the R/P is a lot better than oil or gas, but fissionable materials are still a finite resource.

When I was little, I fell in love with an area of land west of town commonly referred to as Thompson Creek- containing a heady mix of ranches in sagebrush, mines reclaimed by juniper forest, and nearly untouched aspen forest in the high places. While you can bike there in a few hours (or walk if you planned on making several days of it), we generally adopted the use of a car. When my family, with the help of Habitat for Humanity, constructed an apartment for my severely disable brother, we chose to use radiant heat flooring so there was no risk of him hurting himself with the heating apparatus. Prior to that, the whole building was heated using wood, but a natural gas line had to be installed. I went to college largely due to a scholarship financed by the estate of a coal magnate from the turn of the century. During the Bush era, the federal government sold large swaths of mineral rights under BLM and Forest Service land on Thompson Creek. Up until now, it has remained one of the last remaining sections of well-free public land West of the Divide. The community, including myself, is strongly in opposition to risking land that already does double duty for recreation and ranching. At best, they'll carve a bunch of roads where they weren't any before, and put oil pads in the middle of meadows. At worst, we'll be able to light our water on fire. The resources underneath the area are probably enough to run the country for a couple days. It doesn't seem a fair trade to those of us here, but it's ostensibly better than doing it in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I am a hypocrite. That seems to be the upshot of most of my opinions, if I look deeply enough. I am curious what the the thoughts of this community are on issues of this nature. Frakking has nothing on Oil Shale (I hear they're working on trying that in Utah soon), and Deepwater Horizon is not all that far in the past. But even if you, like me, held off driving and bike when you can, our food comes to us with the help of fossil fuels, plastics are ubiquitous, and the electrical grid that allows me to type this includes a fair amount of dirty coal. How do you tout environmentalism when you're the beneficiary of the pillaging? (A similar question could be raised with regards to American foreign policy and the plight of the third world- but that should probably be a separate thread.)

… No, it's not. That happens in "Winter's Heart". Don't try to outnerd the nerd squad.

Sanderson does a good job of toning down some of Jordan's less savory tendencies (long descriptions of tedious events which don't further plot or character, one dimensional female characters). In an ideal world, Brandon would go back through and trim down the series to about ten books of greater quality, and those Spiderwebbers that despise the series would understand our enjoyment of it. Alternatively they could make it into a set of film or mini-series and do the same thing. I don't know that it has the edgy-ness that made A Song of Ice and Fire popular, though. While I enjoyed reading the final book, I don't have near the same affection for the series as I did when I picked it up ten years ago as a twelve year old. Or perhaps that's just me trying to protect myself from withdrawal.

I'd like to state, for the record, that while I agree with the Doctor regarding bananas, we diverge when it comes to pears.