Prince of Kitties

... Yeah. I recall reading an essay once that praised the Arthurian legends, on the grounds that King Arthur is a better heroic role model than action hero types: he doesn't just go around kicking behinds, he builds a kingdom. Not sure I agree entirely with the premise, but it made the point. Honestly I'm a lot less worried about "goofball" character stereotypes, than about "action hero" ones. Fantasy is fantasy, and people generally recognize it as such, but I think there's a bit much emphasis on the idea that a guy has to be able to do violence to be a Real Man.

Wow. Out of curiosity, was the board serving up anything malicious at any point? (When I visited it shortly after the hacking, Firefox claimed that it employed an unreadable form of compression, and Opera rendered the page as a bunch of Unicode gobbledygook. Could this have been the result of an attempt to launch a hostile payload?)

Originally Posted By: Sylae If I may pose my own question, what are y'all's thoughts on whatever Canonical is trying to do with Ubuntu? I only used the distro for a few months, then they did all that funky stuff (i was on the way out anyway, was tired of it just being a dumbed-down Debian). I think Unity would be fairly nice if a) they made it a bit more ergonomic they ditched some of the absurd eyecandy Especially (. When a desktop runs sluggish on a Core 2 Duo workstation with 4 GB of RAM, you know something is seriously wrong.

For mine: 1. I use SalixOS, a fairly obscure French desktop distribution based on Slackware. Why? Because it has most of the advantages of Slackware, and dependency resolution. 2. Security. Small user base, lack of standardization, and poor backwards compatibility all work to prevent the spread of malware! (chroot also helps.) 3. It's free and it works for standard desktop stuff. 4. "Overdesktopification." Methods for handling power management, disk mounting, and wireless networking are tied too much to huge desktop environments, which is annoying for obsessive-compulsive nerds (like me!) who don't like desktop environments. 5. Probably Windows XP. Expensive, but it works (for most things), and the backups fit on one DVD (which is more than can be said of Windows Vista/7).

(Because I'm curious! And also because sometimes, the best way to kill a controversial discussion is to introduce a more controversial discussion. ) Okay, I know some of you here are Linux users. So... 1. Which distro do you use? (Most of the time, if applicable, etc.) 2. What keeps you using Linux? 3. What do you think is Linux's best point as an OS? 4. What do you think is Linux's most frustrating point? 5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop?

Ah, Microsoft does have a thing on it. It looks like macros are acceptable in RC files, but not totally compatible with the C preprocessor kind, and RC files use their own special preprocessor.

Ah, thanks. BTW, I only know enough C/C++ to be dangerous (to myself), and nothing about C/C++ programming on Windows. Can an RC file use preprocessor macros instead of plain numbers, or is the preprocessor generally not supposed to be used on those files?

It's in the change log. D'oh! And apparently it does make boom effects faster... Though I'll clearly have to take the word of whoever added the option. Code: LTEXT "*Faster Boom Space Effects",57,72,440,340,16 LTEXT "2_0", 58, 53, 462,17,18 I mean, how is anyone supposed to decypher that? There are no macros or constants there, just a string of numbers! I had no idea the sources were that bad. (I was thinking of seeing if I could contribute any bugfixes, but this puts a definite damper on that. This codebase is far beyond my capabilities.)

... Amusingly, nobody seems to know. Time to do some grepping I guess.

Thanks, I guess. Though I haven't really been around that long, so I might not count. (Tyranicus, that image makes me think of Jack Vance.)

This happened when I was 17 or so, on a road trip with my dad. Quote: Dad: There's the exit to Norwood. Nandwood should be coming up next. Me: Uh what? Dad: Never mind, just booling around. *two second pause followed by uproarious laughter* ... Yeah. I come from a family of total geeks. May the gods help me.

Sylae - as someone with emotional problems who finds solace on the intertubes, I want to say "welcome to the club," but I get the feeling you were there before me. It's a truly sucky situation, and I hope things get better for you. Please do stick around though! We need someone who knows how to make BoE cross-compile on Linux. As for MLP, I've never been interested in it (and wasn't following the thread), but there are people of all sorts and all genders who unabashedly love it. It's cool by me.

If you're running under Linux, you could try with Wine instead of DOSBox. That should work as long as the sysctl vm.mmap_min_addr is 16384 or less.

Wow. I think this thread has exploded. I'll admit that I didn't read much of Student of Trinity's posts because they were... Extremely verbose. And, to be blunt, I am weary of verbosity, because it can be used to cloak nonsensical or dangerous ideas. "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull," and all that. Skimming through the OP, though, another quote kind of struck me: Originally Posted By: "Student of Trinity" The point of all this is that it's not enough just to demand identical treatment for men and women, and rail against patriarchal society if we don't get it. We need to figure out what's really going on, if we can, and act on the information. If we can't figure out what's really going on, we need to be prepared to act on our best guesses, rather than just let things slide along. The possibility that men and women do act and choose in significantly different ways, for whatever reasons, cannot be ignored. I think this basically presents a false dichotomy. There may very well be significant, biologically ingrained differences in the way men and women think and act... But this does not nullify the fact that modern human civilization is still mostly patriarchal. And it does not change the fact that providing equal rights and opportunities for men and women - in practice, not just in theory - would be a very good thing. Look at it this way: everyone knows that there are huge differences between the ways different individuals think. All humans are not created equal. But all humans must have equal protection under the law, or really bad things happen. TL;DR the existence of differences between men's and womens's brains does not in any way provide justification for legally different treatment.

You're expected to keep your beard and moustache in shape, which is probably a minor annoyance, and is basically a matter of not looking like a complete barbarian. Women are expected to - Shave their legs, which is a huge pain (trust me on that) - Show the right amount of skin for a given occasion - Wear the right amount of the right makeup (also a huge pain) - In general, pay absurdly more attention to their appearance than men Seriously, if you payed that much attention to how you looked, you would have a lot less time in your life for useful stuff. As for you wearing a short skirt, "wearing clothing normally associated with the opposite sex" is a whole other matter.

You're right, I was thinking Scrioth, not Boltblade. N/M.

Originally Posted By: ShieTar Sorry for quoting you against your wishes, but that is not correct. "Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is defined as prejudice or discrimination based on sex; or conditions or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex." Quoted from Wikipedia? Quote: The historical fact that discrimination of women has been predominant over discrimination of men does not make the later an acceptable behaviour. Gut instinct agrees with you. Intellect disagrees. Discrimination against men by women is socially a non-issue. Quote: I, personally, am not by any means privileged over any women I am likely to interact with. If I ever attempted at any time to give a woman any kind of order, I will get laughed at. If a woman of equal qualification works in the same position I do, laws and company policies guarantee her the exact same payment. I do not disagree that sexism exists in my society, but I neither participate in nor profit from it. There is thus no reason why I should lean back and let someone declare that I am to be considered a potential rapist. Do you have to deal with men looking at your breasts all the time? I'm serious, that's a privilege issue. Men walk around stealing glances at women's bosoms; if you're a woman, it starts to get really demeaning after a while. (And no, I'm no better about this than any other man. Even so.)

I agree with you pretty much 100% on interactions between strangers. I just think that applying the same rules between friends (or spouses) is a recipe for all kinds of tension and unpleasantness. Basically - and I'm not sure I'm putting this right - I feel that the likelihood of hurt from a trusted person abusing their trust, is vastly outweighed by the likelihood of misery from failing to trust people in the first place. This is probably going to sound awful, but some people take advantage of others. The risk of being exploited, perhaps brutally, is a risk everyone takes at some point. Human society, or what passes for it, has to run on trust or not run at all. I do realize though that the danger of being exploited is much higher for women and minorities... Which, frankly, disgusts me. IMO everyone deserves a fair chance, and some people aren't getting one.

Again though, I have a problem with the words no matter how good... your previous behaviour Privilege or no privilege, we judge the likelihood of people's future behavior based on their past behavior. It's not 100% accurate, but it's all we've got. Edit: in reponse to Alorael... I'm not offended by the idea that women walking alone at night are afraid of me. I'm offended by the idea that I could be married to a woman for 20 years, and always be perfectly good to her, yet it would still be considered perfectly rational for her to think of me as a potential threat. If you can't trust people based on their past behavior, then on what basis can you trust them?

IIRC Boltblade was in Motrax's hoard in E1. Maybe it's still there in E3?

Originally Posted By: ShieTar Wow. Really, just wow. That right there is a prime example of sexism at work. Don't quote me on this, but I don't think it's sexism. IIRC sexism refers to an institutional bias, and there is no society on Earth that has an institutional bias against men. Quote: ... But the statement you made up there was not an acceptable contribution to a discussion on gender roles, it was a highly sexist insult to all male readers. Insult, schminsult. We luxuriate in grotesque privilege all the time, we can put up with a few "insults." BTW, did you notice some of the stuff Harehunter said? Originally Posted By: "Harehunter" I wish that someday you can find a relationship as strong as the one I am blessed with. Perhaps you already are, but your stance on independence indicates that you are not yet ready for such. May you find happiness without measure. "A women can't be in a truly happy relationship without giving up some of her independence." Now that's what I call sexist.

Originally Posted By: Lilith You know what sucks even more? That no matter how good your intentions, your previous behaviour or your relationship with a woman is, the state of our world is such that it's rational for her to consider you as a potential threat. Okay, I'm going back to this because the bolded portion kind of rubs me the wrong way. How do you judge if a person is safe, if not based on their prior behavior? There is always the chance that someone will behave decently because they're waiting to take advantage of you, but it doesn't seem rational to me to assume that by default; even in this very ugly world, and even if the person in question is a man. Or am I misreading your use of the word "potential?" e.g. with a spouse, are we talking about conditional trust, or are we talking about complete distrust?

Originally Posted By: "Lilith" I think sometimes it can be useful to shock people awake a bit. If you say so. Me, I never quite recovered from the shock. There are many days when I wish I hadn't woken up. But, as the feminists are fond of saying, "It's not about you." Quote: Yeah, of course it sucks to be seen as a potential rapist or abuser. You know what sucks even more? That no matter how good your intentions, your previous behaviour or your relationship with a woman is, the state of our world is such that it's rational for her to consider you as a potential threat. I know the sidelong glances that young women give me when I walk past them. That's fear; they're afraid of me, and logically they should be. I'm not offended by that, just disgusted that it's necessary. It does get to you after a while. But men do much, much worse things to women, so I don't doubt it's justified. I just wish it weren't.

Sorry, I wasn't really following Harehunter. Lilith's "you might betray your wife" thing just kind of leaped out at me as an example of the guilt thing I mentioned earlier. Lilith: apologies, I think I jumped the gun on that. /goes back to read over Harehunter's posts Edit: I see... Just a sec, will make another post.

Originally Posted By: "Lilith" This is a big part of the point I was trying to make. It's not that I have any specific reason to expect that Harehunter will abuse his power and privilege: it's just that he has it, and therefore has the capacity to do so, and this in itself is a problem. I think we can all agree that it's not a good idea for a government to have unlimited, unaccountable power just because the people running it are doing a good job right now: the same logic applies to a family. I hope you don't take offense at this, but while your logic is impeccable, I think there's a problem with the way you present it. Quote: Good luck with your marriage, then. I hope for her sake that you don't change your mind about her one day and leave her destitute -- and that she doesn't live in fear that you may do so. Statements like, "This situation is bad because you, personally, might do something awful with the power it grants you," tend to get on people's nerves, due to the implicit assumption that the person being spoken to may be untrustworthy. Technically they might be - for all you know, Harehunter might be a really bad fellow. But putting it that way makes it read like a statement of suspicion at best, and a personal attack at worst. Better might be something like: "You should realize that, while your marriage has worked out so far, relationships like that have huge potential to turn out badly for the woman." Or maybe more specific: "What would happen to your wife if you became unable to work for some reason?" I realize I probably come off as incredibly patronizing here, in all senses of the word... But I think this is one of the things wrong with how some feminists promulgate their message. "You are a potential abuser." "You are a potential rapist." "You are part of the problem." This kind of language deeply offends people. (Or rather, deeply offends most people. A few will really take it to heart. I could tell you a story about that.) But yeah. My point is, nobody likes to hear it assumed that they might commit evil, even if there's no basis for assuming they won't. (And that was way long-winded, and hopefully not a prime example of mansplaining. Yeah.)