Dintiradan

The discussion about whether to vote at all, coupled with ADoS's chess analogy made me wonder: is it possible for voting to be zugzwang? I'd say it certainly is in situations where you hold all candidates in equal enough esteem that it isn't worth the effort to vote. Personally, I don't vote for school board trustees in municipal elections: I've never been in the public school system(s), the children I don't intend on having won't be attending the public school system(s), and I'm simply not informed enough about the candidates. But in all other cases, I feel it would be in people's best interest to vote. Especially in the States, where aside from voting for presidential candidates (whom you might hold in equal (lack of) esteem), you're voting for other representatives and perhaps even some referendum items. Maybe I'm being too much the game theorist, but tough, terrible choices are still choices, and one will be the best one for you.

Of course, there are different viewpoints to take, and reasons you might have to abstain. This is democracy we're talking about, after all. But navigating (and changing) broken systems is a part of life. Is withdrawing from a broken system more likely to fix it than reform from within? I have my doubts in this case.

Ideas about adding ways to track disengaged voters (adding "none of the above" to ballots, etc.) are interesting, but I don't think they would be too effective. After all, most disengaged voters just stay home. In Alberta, you have the option to decline your ballot, but no one at my poll took that option. It's possible that people aren't aware of this option, but for the last provincial and the last federal election, I could count the number of rejected (or spoiled, or informal, or whatever) ballots my poll had on the fingers of one hand. (Though it would seem this number goes up in places with mandatory voting. A quick Google search tells me that the number of informal ballots in Australia goes anywhere between 5% and 25%.)

As for mandatory voting: in the end, I'm against it, because freedom of expression includes the freedom to not express yourself. Though I have to say the idea is tantalizing. Mandatory voting could succeed in decreasing the amount of negative advertising, which is less about convincing voters to change sides as it is about convincing voters to just not vote for their most desired candidate. I'm curious what people from places with mandatory voting think about it.

Finally, re: Sanders having a better chance: Really? A lot of people up here thought he was too far to the left. Yes, Sanders would have fared better against the rhetoric Trump used, but then, Trump's rhetoric was tailored to Clinton. Had he been running against Sanders, Trump would have conducted his campaign differently, just as Clinton would have conducted hers differently had she been running against Cruz, Rubio, Bush, etc.

That's boooooring.

My prediction: EVERY STATE BUT FLORIDA.

BONUS CHALLENGE: How many states will hold recounts?

I can't get Google to back me up on this, but I recall HUGEMASSIVE starting out on Shadow Vale. Someone (pretty sure TGM, but not certain) implored Ephesos to create a HUGEMASSIVE scenario (the all caps is important), and it went off from there. At one point Smoo (again, pretty sure but not certain), through an act of subterfuge, recovered a file titled 'hugemass.bas' from Eph's computer and revealed its shocking contents to the world. dbot points to anyone who can find evidence of these events.

I first came across Bob in this article by the Creator, though it's possible the term was in use before then. I've never ever seen it used outside this community.

No point in me taking the Pottermore quiz, because I already know what house I would be sorted into: Ravenclaw. Though this would be due to process of elimination more than anything else. I'm not brave enough to be Gryffindor, I'm not ambitious enough to be Slitherin, and I'm terrible at finding things.

Same as Tyranicus and Kelandon. I don't regularly play or design scenarios, but I'll play whatever new stuff comes out. The same will be true of maybe a dozen other regulars on this forum.

However, it's really hard to say how many people who aren't regular contributing members of this forum still play BoA whenever something new comes out.

Will she also win DC?

(06:29:29 PM) Cenobite Sybarite: JILL STEIN IS GOING TO WIN ALL 50 STATES

"I did have a cool idea for a Nethergate sequel. In SPACE. Not kidding."

Not "sci fi game where you can play as either opposing faction".

I want "literal Romans and literal Celts IN SPACE".

There is such a thing as a tesseract.

rabble rabble rabble

Sorry to disappoint, but I've only got one now, and it's a complete guess:

467. From the One I reach out to the Five! - Adam Warlock's attempt to influence the Infinity Gauntlet from afar

Adam Warlock is a character in the Infinity Gauntlet series (and probably a character in other Gauntlet-centric storylines?). The titular Infinity Gauntlet is formed by mounting Infinity Gems on it, of which there are six. I'm guessing (since I haven't actually read any of it) that at some point Adam Warlock acquires one of the Gems and tries to magically influence the other five through it.

Got it.

481. Wiz-Burj - Rappin' skyscraper

The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai. Wiz Khalifa is a rapper, I'm told. To be honest I'm more familiar with his sister Mia.

482. Atlatlas - Greco-Aztec David and Goliath story

An atlatl is a Mesoamerican tool used to throw spears. Atlas was the titan who held up the sky. The "David and Goliath story" is about someone slaying a giant with a sling (a tool used to throw stones).

461. Death Addend - Target of a Golden Axe villain, maybe

Golden Axe is an arcade/PC game that had Death Adder as the main villain (who had a fantastic helmet, I must say). An addend is one of the terms in an addition expression.

466. Some Orc - The critique of democracy offered by Shelob's web, maybe

Shelob of Lord of the Rings fame was a giant spider who lived in a mountain pass on the borders of Mordor. Charlotte of Charlotte's Web fame was a not-giant spider who saved her porcine friend Wilbur by inscribing praises to him in her webs ("Some Pig" was the first of these). This made Wilbur a celebrity, not Charlotte, which is something that confused Baby Dintiradan.

477. Antici--- - Famous Frank line

Frank-n-Furter is one of the main characters in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He says and sings many lines, but this one will make you shiver the most.

497. Tectonic Suit - Continental plate armor

Continental plates are also known as tectonic plates. A suit made out of them would protect you but be rather cumbersome.

I'll keep looking.

guess what folks

it's that time again

see how you've grown as a person

or how you haven't

time to have everyone vote on a psychographic profile for each character

Do what I did in Avadon and manually count the spaces each and every time you make a ranged attack.

:|

I haven't touched my FreeWebs account in a long, long time (the fact that I still refer to it as 'FreeWebs' probably tells you enough), so I'm guessing my account was frozen due to inactivity. If, for whatever reason, you need to access something I had there, you'll probably be able to find it at http://dintiradan.ermarian.net

There are a couple of other PDNs like this - I know what the PDN is about, but I have no idea what clue goes with it.

(4:18:07 PM) dintiradan: *goes through the list of PDNs* Oh, I know what he's combining for this one, and for this one, and for this one. This should be easy.

*goes through list of clues* I have no idea where he's going with this.

349. Mombi & Jinjur & old Tippetarius - Ways to battle the patriarchy, way up high

This one is marvelous. "Way up high" is an allusion to the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," (most famously sung by Judy Garland in the The Wizard of Oz), and the three names are all female characters from L. Frank Baum's Oz books. Jinjur in particular is something of a parody of the women's suffrage movement active in Baum's day.

I was going to facetiously pair every PDN with "just a pile of unhappy words", but upon a second reading I am able to get a couple:

357. Bistromath Mathonwy - "Requires non-alcoholic drinks when not at warp"

(The Bistromath used a restaurant as its warp engine, and King Math (or Mathonwy?) had to hang out with virgins when not at war. Why Lloyd Alexander omitted that in his books, I'll never know.)

363: Jayk Armitage - "Geneforge goes cyberpunk?"

(I've never played the Geneforges, but "Jayk" looks Geneforge-y. Armitage is from Neuromancer.)

Bizarre. Could you imagine if I posted weird links all the time?

Your move_to_new_town line doesn't end in a semi-colon. That's probably it.

If that doesn't fix things, try changing the state number (in both your script and in the editor) to 10 or higher. The editor asks for states to start at 10; I don't know if that's a requirement or just convention, though.

Create a special encounter rectangle along the border of the town, then in the script for that state have a move_to_new_town call. It's even possible to avoid outdoors completely using this method.

Also, you're able to adjust the boundaries of a town in the editor (somehow; I don't have it open right now but I think there's a tool that lets you do that). So if you need a bit of extra space, it's possible.

i've had tongue but tbh it didn't even occur to me that people would think of it as that weird. it's just a muscle, like most of the meat that people eat is