The Loquacious Lord Grimm

Hmph. Wikipedia doesn't have anything to say on registration requirements, but the article isn't a bad read.

In West Virginia, I had the option to keep my votes blank when using a touch-screen interface, or to manually enter a write-in name via an attached keyboard.

My absentee ballots for New Jersey, including the one for the 2004 Presidential Election, all had space for write in candidates in all categories, and the electronic voting machines that my town uses allow for blank votes or for the input of write-in candidates through an in-built keyboard. We've had our share of local elections upset by write-in campaigns for someone who didn't make it through the Democrat primaries, because the Dems tend to run unopposed around here.

I don't know if these high-level write-ins would be valid without registration, but it seems unnecessary... registration is how you get onto the ballot in the first place, right?

It seems, in my sleepiness, I cut out a paragraph that I did not intend to:

The severity of religious principles, of course, doesn't make the debate any less significant to those who desire themselves to by publically recognized, and it is interesting to watch as lawmakers debate and politic (more politic than debate, I fear) over the future status and legal recognition of GLBT relationships:

Keep in mind that while laws shape society, society still sets the laws. Perhaps it is time for our society to change. Perhaps it is not yet ready.

I don't know. I hope, for your sake, it is.

[ Splicing in something from another cut paragraph: I cannot force my standards upon you, because the Law doesn't work like that. Forcing someone to act less like an unbeliever doesn't make them any less an unbeliever, right?]

Either way, I find myself quite glad that we will... eventually... be getting to put it to popular vote in New Jersey. In the unlikely event that it fails, such a thing can always be brought back in a few years, as society adapts. We'll get to the name change when society decides that it's ready, and in the meantime, the legal recognition is already there (and it's practical not only for gay couples, but for housemates of the same sex and other, more complicated relationships).

I will not deny that these principles are discriminatory, but please understand that such discrimination bears no malice. On God's principle, I cannot support homosexuality as an act, mindset or choice, but that doesn't mean that I can't step aside and let the godless world go on. It's not like forcing-feeding my views to you is going to inherently change the way you think or act.

At the same time, I ask that you bear me no malice for holding a position that merely disagrees with you.

@SoT: I'm more of a D option thinker, myself, with a wee bit of A thrown in. There is no way that we can get out of this downward-spiraling status quo without everyone, and I mean everyone giving up something to return to center. As I have said many times over the past few years, government intervention can be quite effective in creating growth, but no one seems to understand that both programs and regulation require money, and that the money has to come from somewhere.

I personally think that much of our more active structure, from Social Security, to Welfare, to Medicare, to the Defense Budget, to the very way that Congress earmarks funding for special use, and to a small extent, our system of taxation, needs to be rebuilt from the ground up so as to create an organic system, an efficient bureaucracy.

Of course, the very nature of such a paradox will prevent it from ever truly happening, but I desire to at least push those in control to acknowledge the flaws in the system and to take action to remedy them; not simply blame them on past leaders, nor push them off to the future.

Edit:

@Diki: True, on all counts.

Religious objection is not always bigotry, you know.

Being a Christian, I cannot, on principle, support gay marriage as an institution because the Word clearly describes it as sin in both the Old and New Testaments (I spent the last two hours writing up my full take on how Christians should approach the evolution of sexuality and gender, and have since cut it out and archived it. Ask privately, if you feel like a debate. I don't want to throw off the thread.)

At the same time, I do want people to be happy, successful in their relationships, their lives; and the New Testament is heavily peppered with reminders that Christians are to treat others with love and grace. And humility. And a few other things that people who like to publically quote Leviticus tend to lack... like knowledge... caution... you get the idea.

Just as significant, I don't want to see anyone judged. in the Biblical sense. I mean, that is a huge freaking part of the whole Christ-one thing.

It's a lot easier to balance all of that on a person-to-person basis than it is to politic in broad strokes, and easier still to dismiss the rest of the world as sinners going to hell.

While that last part does smack of bigotry, what does the rest of it sound like to you?

I guess it's a good thing that I'm not voting on just that issue, and that my investigations into the candidates on my ballots goes into other things like fiscal records, voting and policy records, compared to actual actions. I know for sure that I will be voting to remove my incumbent Congressman because he refused to even consider compromise during the budget crisis, and made darn well sure that Twitter knew it... and shortly thereafter used campaign funds to take his family on a vacation in Europe. Fortunately, the competition looks competent.

Most of the local positions are running unopposed. That's what happens when the unions run the area. In those that have challenges, only one challenger actually looks better than the incumbent. Happens every now and then.

It's four in the morning, and I'm still undecided on my Presidential vote. As a man and a politician, let alone a leader, President Obama has lost almost all of the respect that I had for him by refusing to man up or compromise, insisting that his long string of failures, ineffective policies, and insufficient measures were not his fault. On the other hand, Romney's record in the social, economic, and legal arenas has been so damned inconsistent, the only thing that seems to be counted on is his faithfulness to the voters that got him elected. While I can actually see some of his policies going places, I don't particularly care for the people to whom he has been pandering. Hell, it's been over a year, I will likely be voting within the next twelve hours, and I'm still playing with the idea of voting for Obama, just to give Chris Christie a chance while he's still considering the possibility of running.

I'm thinking of running in 2024. My campaign will be based on policies of common sense, balanced budget, and absolutely no use of the words "middle class". Possibly some reform in social programs, but the aim of this would be to give them more bang for their buck. No gimmicks, no assault ads, no catering. Just an average American trying to help America.

Anybody think I could get a kickstarter fund for my campaign?

Bob, of course, returns the favor, as he doesn't think that voting for himself is ethical.

I would watch, but I only have netflix.

The series is available through Play Instantly, if you have it.

'nuff said.

Huh, I thought there would be more concern about sensitive information being made available to anyone who knew where to look for it on a used machine. Especially with the rise in identity theft already.

We're already using stolen identities, silly.

Edit: I don't want it to sound like identity theft isn't a serious thing, so I'll just add that the easiest way to prevent identity theft is to keep your passwords to yourself, keep your Internet access encrypted, and keep a regular eye on your bank accounts and credit report. There is very little that a would-be thief can't find out about you with some serious digging, thanks to the accessibility of information that the Internet and... a telephone.... brings, but most thieves can't or won't justify taking that amount of time, and are satisfied by the illicit gains that can be made by casually snagging people who leave themselves exposed.

He then hunts them down and feeds them last month's leftovers.

Brick has power? That's encouraging. Neptune/Belmar/Wall/Sea Girt are still out, last I heard.

I'm trying to remember which corporation I encountered that cited this topic very specifically as motivation not to do anything crude with the copy machines. Regardless of where, I remember that for the most part, it worked, but that one staff members had mentioned to me that the possibility of having one's posterior... or worse... indelibly stored on company hardware was actually motivation for several applicants.

It might have been my university's library, now that I think about it.

No, I don't know what that's supposed to mean, either.

The missus and I are midway through season two in her anticipatory rewatch. Netflix is a strange and powerful thing, and even stranger and more powerful when available through a Nook.

And the missus will be very cross if I don't mention My Little Annotated Project, which is produced by her best friend, and is supposed to be some sort of adaptation done for the classroom or something... I confess, I haven't really looked into it. But I will be beaten senseless if I don't mention it.

Also, he thinks Pinkie Pie looks very chic with straight hair.

It's good to see that people are getting out of the chaos.

I really didn't think this storm would be that big. I couldn't have been more wrong.

 

It really was just crazy and Ive never seen some of the bizarre human behavior in stores/gas stations such as this before.

I have some family a few beaches south of Asbury Park, and they've been sharing some rather scary stories about how people are reacting while waiting for the power to come back. Today's big report was the half-mile line of pedestrians trying to get gas at the only functioning station in the area. This, while their town has been waterlocked from the flooding of a nearby bay, and with voluntary water rationing to stave off the local tower from going dry in the expected week it'll take to get power to the pumps again.

And yeah, nobody saw it coming. I mean, we've had flooding before, and the coast has been evacuated before (I have other family who insists that LBI gets evacuated for moderate-power thunderstorms.), and, well, it's impossible to live in Jersey and not have seen pictures of the Wildwoods underwater... but that same family, whose home was merely a block away from the water when the ocean hit its highest, was informed that all they needed to do was prepare for local flood contingencies. And now they can't leave, even if they wanted to.

I think the worst part is the response. I live in the Philly suburbs, and the worst we got here was that a handful of homes in known flood zones got flooded and gutted by the water, while all of the power across the river in PA seemed to have gone out (Irene was much, much worse for our area). A lot of people around here think that the mess on the coast is a bunch of media hype, and I've even heard it suggested that PSE&G is balking at fixing up a few traffic lights just for the attention. Y'know, never mind the whole convoys of bucket trucks trying to get through the highway system.

I own exactly three games that I have not played: Empire: Total War (because it was on steam sale, I had gotten some good word-of-mouth on it, and my poor computer simply couldn't handle all of the processing), Assassin's Creed (again, steam sale, seems to run fine, but I have yet to have had a weekend to spend alone with it since I bought it.), and Call of Duty (which came bundled in with a new video card many years ago, and I have had no interest in playing.)

Mostly, between time constraints (I work six to seven days a week) and budget (I'm self-employed and my primary client nearly went bankrupt this year), I don't buy anything that I don't plan on playing, finishing, and playing again later.

So... the list of games that I haven't yet finished: Avernum 4 (bought it several years ago, and am still slogging through it in small doses), Avernum 6 (don't remember why I stopped, but at this point, I'm waiting to finish A4), Skyrim (not so much an inability as I'm enjoying it too much to bring it to an end), Fallout: New Vegas (ditto), Fallout (it's on my field computer and only gets pulled out if I'm bored on the road, Minecraft (in progress), and the latest Avernum release (in progress).

Suffice to say, I've got enough on my plate that not having the money or time to pick up Dishonored is not bugging me too much.

I haven't tinkered with the windows editor in a few months, but I've always felt that the reason why BoA slumped in comparison to BoE was the lack of user friendliness in terms of built-in design interface. BoE came with an all-in-one design tool that even I, as a completely inexperienced teenager, could understand. BoA, while exponentially more powerful, requires more work outside of the provided editor than it does in it, and while 3rd-party tools have been phenomenally useful in making scenario design more approachable, the fact stands that without that all-in-one tool, a fair amount of could-be designers are scared away. Doesn't matter that it's just different interfaces for creating the same scripts, as BoA's approach merely cuts the GUI middleman, people are more comfortable and more ambitious if they feel guided.

I believe that the Steam Workshop is an excellent tool for expanding the Blades community and its influence, a centralized official hosting system that could coordinate not only scenarios, but scripts, graphics, and other presets as well, precluding the need for intimate knowledge of community and satellite resources before jumping in. Our third-party sites would still be excellent grounds for advanced users, without scaring off casual beginners.

However, I fear, given the age of the program, the necessity to change file types between operating systems, and its graphical differences from Spiderweb's current Steam offerings, that it would not be well-accepted in its current condition, even if an all-in-one editor is ever developed.

But the Workshop idea is strong.

Perhaps it is more prudent to pester Jeff to start a long-term project of adapting the current engine towards the goal of Blades, with a beta open long enough to give the established community a chance to adapt and port our best works, thus giving the new installation a strong repertoire when it hits the market, instead of just A Perfect Forest and Roses of Reckoning. Just saying.

This, of course, assumes that Jeff wasn't too burned by BoA to ever think of such a thing again.

 

I just noticed: when you quote a post with a quote in it, the initial quote disappears. IPB doesn't allow for stacked quotes! We can't break pyramids anymore!

You can still do it. You just have to do it manually.

This was done by hitting the "multiquote" button on each of the appropriate quotes, and then a little copy-pasting to nestle appropriately.

So yeah, it is possible, but not nearly as easy, nor as much fun.

Also, does anyone else get this weird thing where the cursor randomly jumps back several characters when backspacing? I'm using Chrome.

A less presumptuous name., on 31 October 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

 

I just noticed: when you quote a post with a quote in it, the initial quote disappears. IPB doesn't allow for stacked quotes! We can't break pyramids anymore!

You can still do it. You just have to do it manually.

Testing...

This was done by drag-selecting and copying the desired post, and then pasting it into the framework provided by the "quote" button.

edit: and it doesn't quite work the way I'd hoped. Let's try multiquoting the various posts:

I just noticed: when you quote a post with a quote in it, the initial quote disappears. IPB doesn't allow for stacked quotes! We can't break pyramids anymore!

You can still do it. You just have to do it manually.

This was done by hitting the "multiquote" button on each of the appropriate quotes, and then a little copy-pasting to nestle appropriately.

On the bright side, I haven't gotten any calls from the police or fire departments yet, so I'm not quite in a panic.

I'm not gonna lie, before (and somewhat during) the time that the Prequels emerged, part of me had hoped that Lucas would take on the expanded universe while the original actors and staff were still capable of doing so.

I haven't read too much of expanded universe material, but feedback from friends over the years suggests that it is too splintered and extended to incorporate every fanboy's wildest dreams into good film.

The Star Wars film franchise is built on simple plot, easy-to-understand archetypes, and a freaking ton of spectacle. Good directing helps, and a solid, balanced script is preferable, but not necessary.

It would therefore stand to reason that any first films created by this new alliance would focus on an easily-digestible chunk of Star Wars lore: either inherently new material with references to established canon, or the digest version of a longer serial from the expanded universe.

I remain a holdout for the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, as I have for many years, but my reading on the interwebs suggests that we might first be exposed to adaptations from Timothy Zahn. Not a bad thing, I'm told.

We hope that the prequels were a learning experience, we understand that film as a medium has evolved since Lucas made his start, and with Disney's funding and producing power behind it (I'm praying that John Lasseter winds up involved somehow), we could be looking at a very interesting continuous push at the film-making envelope. Or we could be looking at Disney's next Tinkerbell franchise. Time will tell.

In either case, nothing can change the fact that Star Wars completely revolutionized the way films are both made and examined.

Disney acquires Lucasfilm.

Discuss.

Reports are in. The shore got torn up pretty badly.

I have family that lives five blocks from the beach in a little town due east of Trenton. The ocean came up to about a block from their house, and parts of the local boardwalk and retaining wall have since washed away.

Around here, the biggest complaint is downed power lines and trees, and the emergency crews have been fixing things at a pretty good pace. I wouldn't say that we're lucky, just far enough inland that hurricanes and nor'easters don't pound us too hard.

So far, he's made forty cents!

We live just on the Jersey side of the Delaware River from Philadelphia. We've gotten about four inches of rain, which is kinda high for a storm around here, but we've had worse. It's the wind that's doing the real damage. Power's been flickering all night, and I have no doubt I'm going to be cleaning up busted branches come tomorrow afternoon.

The coast has taken it the worst: I'm sure you've seen some of the pictures. The Wildwoods were practically underwater even before the rain started last night, and there are some excellent photos of waves breaching all sorts of man-made barriers. Most people aren't too worried about the flooding: every seaside community has flood plans, and most are actually designed with flooding in mind. The issue is, again, the wind. Power's been out for a fair portion of the coast throughout the day because of wind damage, and the flooding is obstructing repair crews.

The rain has stopped already, but we're expecting the wind to continue through tomorrow.

He's spent the day working out a solution: dirigible turbines.

It says MDT at the bottom.

I have no idea how I missed that. Shame on me.

it's pretty common for people who need sounds to just buy a licence to a big ol' sound library with lots of generic sounds all up ins

Not to mention free online sounds (check the credits, Jeff cites a few in the latest Avernum), and lots and lots and lots of sharing. Digital recording made life sooo much easier.

To my wife's chagrin, I constantly point out sounds that are in my library when we watch TV. Also, Wilhelms, which annoys her because she still hasn't figured out which one he is yet.

Hey, as long as it keeps him away from the valuable stuff inside, right?

all posts by hour.

Dumb question: what time zone?

In response to SoT:

I know I'm not the average person, but I upgrade an Operating System to improve efficiency and to learn firsthand how to fix what all of my friends and relatives think that they've broken.

Granted, yes, there are a few aesthetic customizing options in Windows 7 that I wouldn't mind using. But I do want to point out that I went from Windows 2000 Pro to XP kicking and screaming.

Also:

EDIT: OH DANG I DIDN'T REALIZE A ZILLION PEOPLE ANSWERED THIS ALREADY

 

INCLUDING MYSELF APPARENTLY

Please tell me this was sarcasm.

Please.

I've been seeing a lot of pictures of Disney's Hades of late.

I have yet to fully move to Windows 7 from XP, and will probably only do so when my motherboard craps out... likely within the next year.

Windows 8... the one-OS-for-all-platforms concept sounds ok, but after the whole Longhorn/Vista/7 fiasco, it really really seems too soon for another full OS.

^ What Rowen said.

Also, I really like this new "there are XX new posts" feature.