Khoth

Lev Grossman's The Magicians comes to mind. It's definitely a reaction to the magic-school genre, though. The main character is intelligent but psychologically screwed up and with no idea what to do with his life, and after going to a magical school he becomes a powerful wizard who's screwed up and has no idea what to do with his life.

Wow, the new ToME is nothing like the old ToME. It's really good, and has wasted far too much of my time lately.

I find that in games where I'm expected to grind for stuff, I don't like it when my effort is, umm, "wasted" due to permadeath.

I love Dungeon Crawl. Nethack and ADOM are also worth a look, but rather outdated now. I've not played ToME since back when it was an Angband variant. I'll need to take another look. (IMO the food shop on the surface ruins the Angbands)

22,236 miles long, at least.

Quickfire, Force Barrier, end combat.

How about this for a voting process? Instead of counting all the votes and seeing which candidate has most, let everyone vote then pick a ballot paper at random, and the person named on it becomes president. No more tactical voting or voting for the lesser evil - if you don't like the main candidates, your vote is exactly as valuable used on someone you do like, or even on yourself!

My member number has stayed beautifully consistent across the migration, which saves me the horrible trouble of memorising the new number to get about my life.

You missed out zebra from your list. I assume it tastes like horse, but I don't know because I've never eaten horse.

I resent that comment!

She might, but I don't.

Oh hi Saunders. Long time no electronic interaction!

Originally Posted By: Harehunter @Lilith, Again and again I hear that "There is no evidence that voter fraud exists". I agree with that because there is no evidence at all, period. None, zero, zip, nada. Whether you wish to prove or disprove it, there is no evidence. As to the premise that voter ID laws will / have disenfranchise 10% of the population, again, how can one prove that theoretical estimation without actually testing it and making quantifiable observations? An assertion that is simply being repeated many times by many people does not make it a fact. What quantitative method is being used to count that 10%? I also assert that if that 10% of the population could be verified to have been denied the right to vote, we would also have identified those individuals and be able to correct the problem. So apparently sometimes if there's no evidence for a problem it means we should take it seriously, and sometimes if you haven't seen evidence for a problem it means we shouldn't take it seriously. How do you distinguish between the two cases?

Originally Posted By: Harehunter The National Center for Public Policy Research has a report that conflicts directly with the NEWS21 article. I can't find the bit in your source that shows voter fraud to be common (it's long and mostly about peripheral issues). Could you pick it out and quote it?

Originally Posted By: Microsoft lacky Don't the dead and cows voting constitute as Voter Impersonation Fraud that could have been prevented by picture ID requirements? If election officials are letting cows show up to vote, you have more problems than a voter ID law can solve.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter The one thing that everyone seems to miss is this. Those people who are in this country and are not citizens DO have the right to vote... in the country of which they ARE citizens. Depends on the country. I have a friend who isn't allowed to vote in her home country because she's not resident there. Quote: Thirdly, with respect to Khoth's post, I admit that half the countries I mentioned do have some cross border voting rights; those states that are members of the European Union. Well, those countries, and also other countries. Venezuela, for instance, isn't in the EU, but they recognise that resident noncitizens are affected by the government and should get a say in choosing it. Quote: Fourth; How can you prove there is *not* any voter fraud? What evidence have you collected to prove that point. Do you have any evidence? No, because you are not even trying to collect any? Surely the burden of proof should be on those arguing that new restrictions be introduced which make it harder to vote? But anyway, yes, people have tried to collect evidence of voter fraud. Here's an attempt to make a comprehensive database: http://votingrights.news21.com/interactive/election-fraud-database/ The only type of fraud listed which would be prevented by ID requirements is "Voter Impersonation Fraud". Over the last ten years, they found ten cases of this. Quote: Sixth; What overwhelming evidence states that the majority of the people who would be /are disenfranchised are predominantly democrats. Again, without collecting any evidence to verify that point, how can such a claim be proven to be valid? Demographics. Look at the percentage of people by race who vote Democrat, and the percentage of people by race who have voter ID.

Originally Posted By: Harehunter Does Australia allow non-citizens to vote in their elections? Great Britain? Denmark? India? El Salvador? Venezuela? Cuba? More than half of those countries do actually grant some voting rights to some non-citizens.

So "ACORN-like vote fraud" presumably means "Not actually vote fraud", then?

I'd take the armchair Dr Strangeloves more seriously if they also advocated nuclear strikes on their own countries for crimes committed there. At least that would be consistent.

Here's the other reason why neither party seems particularly interested in touching universal health care:

I like the thread running through this that's treating universal healthcare as some mad impossible fairlyland dream rather than something that's practically a basic requirement for a country to call itself first-world. What on earth is wrong with your country?

Well, last time I was cross-compiling something on Linux that turned into a horrible mess of using the wrong compiler and linking the wrong libraries and whatever else the wretched thing could do to get in my way.

I have Lilith's in my desktop background rotation. My favourite is probably this one

1. Which distro do you use? (Most of the time, if applicable, etc.) Debian 2. What keeps you using Linux? It's the only OS that runs on the hardware. 3. What do you think is Linux's best point as an OS? The useful utilities 4. What do you think is Linux's most frustrating point? Configuring the thing 5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop? I actually use Windows 7 on the desktop. I switched from a Mac so I could play games.