Dantius

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S I would totally play that game. Also, he could vary it up. No need to only use education and geography. I find it funny that you're already considering future forum games when you haven't even finished the one you started two months ago hint hint wink wink.

Originally Posted By: Triumph My heart bleeds for History. Poor, poor History, being trampled and abused in this thread. DID YOU KNOW THAT HITLER SURVIVED WWII AND IS NOW HIDING IN A [FLYING SAUCER IN THE MOON/SECRET BASE INSIDE THE EARTH, WHICH BY THE WAY IS HOLLOW AND HAS A SUN INSIDE]?!!!??111!1!//?/??? Those are my favorite crazy conspiracy theories. Ever.

Originally Posted By: The Turtle Moves I suppose the fact that the Beethoven question is complete nonsense has no bearing on the issue? I've usually seen the question phrased in such a manner that it's Tim Tebow that you would have recommended be aborted. On a broader note, this probably came from an e-mail, and when e-mails like this get passed around, they tend to create a sort of echo-chamber like effect where they're only sent to people who would already agree with them, and so the sender tends to overvalue how deep and meaningful the contents are when he or she gets back 10 responses of "Yeah!" or "Damn straight!" without ven factoring in that those people already agreed with the sentiments within.

Originally Posted By: Lilith Originally Posted By: Dantius Wagner, one of the most prolific composers and writers of all time of course you'd be a fan of wagner One genocidal dictator liked Wagner! One! And Wagner was dead decades before the fact! Why do his fans still have to take crap about this sixty years later? You don't see German Shepard owners having to defend the honor of their breed of choice because of Blondie, so why does "liking good opera" automatically get me lumped in with Hitler?

Oh, and re Beethoven, I'd be pretty OK with him not coming and taking one of the three ubiquitous "composers everybody knows" slots (the other two slots belonging to Bach and Mozart) away from somebody who actually deserves it, like Wagner, one of the most prolific composers and writers of all time, or Liszt, who is widely regarded as far and away the greatest pianist of all time. I mean, what pieces is he famous for again? Symphonies 3,5, and 9? The Egmont Overture? Moonlight Sonata? Fur Elise? I really can't think of any more...

Originally Posted By: Lilith to be fair winston churchill was a terrible prime minister and the UK voted him out at the earliest possible opportunity after the war was over He was also openly incredible racist, even for the time. And as funny as some of his drunk retorts were, it's also clear that he wasn't a nice guy at all, and would probably be downright unpleasant to know or be friends with.

Originally Posted By: Note to Self Read the numbers again. We're not talking about a lunatic fringe. The average Tea Partier is white, Christian, straight, science-denying, and racist. Yes, most of them work; they're wealthier than average, after all. Yes, in a big movement you can find representatives of all types. That's not the point. The movement as a whole is white, and it isn't very friendly to interests that aren't. Correct me if I'm wrong, which I highly doubt in this case, but if you selected a random sample of American citizens with, say, n=1000+, I'd be willing to bet that the most frequently represented ethnicity would be white, the most frequently represented religion would be Christianity by a long shot, far and away the most frequent sexuality would be straight, the majority would not be well-educated on scientific matters, and a very significant minority, if not a majority, would have little to no higher-level grasp of complex racial relations. How exactly is it an indictment of the Tea Party for also satisfying conditions that could be true of any random grouping of American? I wouldn't say the average Tea Partier has above-average income. That might be true of the Republican Party as a whole, but the meme that "TP-ers are Republicans by another name" isn't one I buy into. There economic polices march in lockstep, true, since both are broadly libertarian- but there is more to policy then economics. I'd be willing to bet that there are plenty of die-hard free market Republicans that are less then sold on the die-hard social conservatism that the Tea Party shows, and I'm certain that there are neocons that strongly disagree with their foreign policy- if it can even be called that. And it's rather disingenuous to say that "the movement as a whole is white and isn't friendly to nonwhites" like that's a trait exclusive to protesters in the Tea Party. While I personally think it's true, haven't the last eight or so pages demonstrated how that's true for America, as well? So how, exactly, is this an issue endemic to the Tea Party and the Tea Party alone that merits their rubberstamping as "RACISTS" on par with the KKK Also, as somebody who satisfies from two to four of those conditions dependng on your definitions, I object to their use as a borderline insult. And it's a pretty stupid argument to say that "you are guilty of x because you made the rational choice to support a system that indirectly endorses x", which is what we're getting close to quickly. EDIT: Originally Posted By: lilith actually the main reason for the formation of the tea party is the Koch brothers not wanting to pay taxes You could probably generalize that to "people who are making over $50,000,000 a year who are not Warren Buffet or Bill Gates not wanting to pay taxes" and still be largely correct.

Originally Posted By: Triumph Originally Posted By: Master1 Major General and Minor Chaos? Title of a new Broadway musical parodying army life? He is the very model of a modern minor chaos?

Originally Posted By: Triumph Originally Posted By: Dantius Oddly enough, I also find that categorizing by education and location on the Internet, especially here, makes it way easier to identify members. "Working on English major, Great Britain" obviously refers to one specific member here, whereas "College-age male" is really really broad to the point of uselessness. I sense a new Dantian forum game, where Dantius posts of a lists of the defining educational / geographic characteristics of forum users, and the trivia-obsessed populace guesses which clues match which forum users! Triple Lingustics Degree, America-ifer?

Originally Posted By: Excalibur Originally Posted By: Dantius Originally Posted By: Tyranicus Based on age-related comments you've made in the back to school thread, I'm guessing Andrew? That's kind of scarily stalkerish. Not really. IIRC, when you see other people in real life your brain automatically categorizes them by gender and age. I can't imagine it's terribly different with a forum. So I don't find it odd that Tyranicus would remember his age. I tend to categorize people on the internet by location more than anything- "person from X from site Y" tends to be far more descriptive than "24 year old male from site Y". Oddly enough, I also find that categorizing by education and location on the Internet, especially here, makes it way easier to identify members. "Working on English major, Great Britain" obviously refers to one specific member here, whereas "College-age male" is really really broad to the point of uselessness.

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus Based on age-related comments you've made in the back to school thread, I'm guessing Andrew? That's kind of scarily stalkerish.

Originally Posted By: Tirien That explains where all the Twilight fans came from. We were discussing badass Nosferatu-esque vampires, not the sparkly DANTIUS PLEASE THINK BEFORE YOU TYPE kind. Do endeavor to keep the different types straight in the future.

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S What I don't understand, Harehunter, is why you think it's okay to go ahead and judge the situation as if it is indeed scenario 1 and the accusation is false. I know it's your gut feeling, but that's not evidence. It would probably be safe to assume that there are vicious racists in congress on purely demographic grounds: there are still people in this country who will admit to wanting non-white Americans dead or exiled when you ask them, and if you adjust for demographics -- congress is overwhelmingly older, white, male, wealthy, straight, and Christian -- it starts to sound pretty unlikely that NONE of those sentiments are represented in congress. Particularly in the House, where, depending on your district, you can get away with saying some pretty extreme things without being voted out. Is Strom Thurmond still alive and kicking? He was a pretty obviously unabashed racist, and he also served in Congress for what, 50 years? I seem to recall there was some serious discussion about amending the Constitution to take the president pro tempore of the Senate out of the line of succession for the Presedency when it became clear that he'd be that person a few years back... I'm not sure if there are any current members of Congress that are as blatant or as Turner-Diaries level insane about it as Thurmond, but I'd pretty much agree with you that there are almost certainly some closet racists in the House, if not the Senate.

Avadon is much, much smaller than any previous Spiderweb game. Of course, it has been made cheaper to compensate, but it's still noticeably smaller and faster than other JV games.

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan I've played very little of the original, and only third-party modules, not the original campaigns. I only played to familiarize myself with the engine, in connection with my work on the ScriptEase project (and even then very little of my work actually interacted with NWN). So I can't really judge what the original is like. On the other hand, I own NWN2, and yeah, it's a disappointment. I couldn't force myself to play past Old Owl Well, so I ended up reading this LP to see how it ended. Has Obsidian ever finished a game? It's frustrating, because there's a kernel of a good game with good themes in there, amidst all the cruft (and creepy stalker love interests that make the plot of Twilight seem sane). EDIT: Looks like I finished the first chapter before quitting. But yeah, Old Owl Well was pretty crappy. How many perfectly good games has Bioware handed off to Obsidian to make crappy sequels of? NWN 2, KotOR 2, and... any others?

Originally Posted By: HOUSE of S Both movie versions were terrible. Also, I admit I'm surprised to see the book getting such a bad reception here. I liked Lord of the Flies, mainly because I liked the author. He had some incredibly insightful quote that I can't seem to find anywhere that went something like "I wrote [Lord of the Flies] at the time everyone was so busy thanking God they weren't a Nazi that they didn't see every one of us could have been one." Great stuff.

Originally Posted By: Randomizer There is a 200 item limit on how much you can drop on the floor. That's odd, I thought it was a 255 item limit...

Originally Posted By: Darth Ernie or delete them You actually can do this. Society frowns upon it though, to say the very least.

Originally Posted By: Darth Ernie ps. can some mod add the apostrophe to the e in expose? i don't know how If you're on Windows, you add the e with aigu by holding down "ALT: and pressing 0233 on the numpad.

Originally Posted By: FnordCola To clarify: to the best of my knowledge, Jeff Vogel posts on here with the username 'SpidWeb' and no other. Not everyone with a red name is him. Also, I believe Jeff's custom title is The MAN. Though come to think of it, "Redbeard" could be a cool custom title for Jeff, and it would be accurate as well.

1. c. Pretend to break down and cry, then knife the clerk and fill out the forms yourself Violence is the last refuge of the semi-demi-competent. 2. a. Wigs, for the vain sort of barbarian Obviously a barbarian demanding doilies can use additional wigs. You can also offer him Whigs, if you find any hanging around Parliament today. 3. b. Cackle madly and activate the clam's self-destruct charges I'll show them! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL! 4. e. Draw your Atomic Blast Clobbering Decimator™ and do your level best kill him Only Atomic Blast Clobbering Decimators are that precise! In theory, at least. Experimental results may differ. 5. c. More gizmos with hyphenated names Put more gizmos with hyphenated names in... the thing more gizmos with hyphenated names go into! 6. i. The suspicious gardens Obviously the raiders move from place to place, so it would be unwise to attempt to find them in one place. Instead, you should travel to the farthest location and hope to meet them in a random encounter upon the way. 7. a. Attempt the ritual of teleportation at the new temple Only teleportation can get you close enough within the required time period. The risk of summoning an eldritch abomination who destroys the universe is negated, as the temple is brand-new rather then ancient, and would not have sufficient time to attract one. 8. d. The 6th Elite Pastry Chefs My team of elite pastry chefs can infiltrate the bakery unnoticed and, by taking command of the upper floors, have a powerful reinforced position to rain dough down upon my enemies. Victory is assured. 9. Grab the bedsheets and throw them over the snare drum, and bundle it up to keep it from escaping. Then, using the telephone book to keep h bedsheets closed, fill a four-gallon jug using only the three- and five- gallon glycerol jugs, and then douse the bedsheets and your book notes in the glycerol. Then, threaten to use the sparks generated by the broken pencil sharpener to ignite the sheets and book and immolate the drum to force it to calm down and obey and receive +5 Renegade points. 10. First, sell the vector force rifle on eBay, where it will no doubt acquire a price in excess of one hundred biiiilion dollars. Then, use this money to launch a massive publicity campaign about how robot samurais will soon put security guards out of work. Under the cover of darkness, put on the shielded parka and sneak into the lab while the samurai and guards are duking it out. Isolate a guard and show him the maps of the moons of Saturn, but then explain to him that that's no moon, it's a hyperadvanced safecracking device and that you need his soul to power it. He should be so terrified that he gives you the codes, which are obviously known by every low-ranking member of the organization. Then, open the safe and conceal the formula in the backpack. Finally, after using the laser rangefinder to trip the gorilla detector and set off the general alarm, sneak out and return the formula to Q. B. -1<r<1.

Originally Posted By: Lilith it's safer to correct for your own biases by making sure your children have access to a variety of ideas, even ones you disagree with. if the world is made up mostly of rational, intelligent individuals, the chance that you're right about something that they're all wrong about is pretty slim. and if the world isn't made up mostly of rational, intelligent individuals, why are you bringing children into it? It's also possible to make the argument that by having children, you are by definition not a rational, intelligent individual, since by doing so, you are making a decision that is contrary to your best interests. So it's probably wrong to accuse people of being irrational and unintelligent based on their actions when they are already such a priori.

There's only one possible response to this!

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. My favorite RPG is STAR WARS: KOTOR(knights of the old republic) Ah, a man (child?) of discerning tastes. I'm fairly torn between KotOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 1, and Geneforge. The favorite one of those four varies depending on my mood.

Originally Posted By: Trenton Uchiha, rebel servile. Cornstarch is sol? Solid? Originally Posted By: Dantius t's a non-Newtonian fluid, which means that it's a liquid that doesn't behave like one when you subject it to pressure, because it doesn't have a constant viscosity. Do you even read what other people post?