Well, assuming the download ever finishes, I'm going to try this world of warcraft thing that some folks here and there seem to enjoy.

This is something that mom never understood.

That said, they stay in their boxes a little longer, since they have lots of little parts to lose. Except the Shadowrun characters. Their bases all have storage for the parts.

Heh, still unpacking from the move to Bloomington. I came to the realization that I have a bunch of action figures still in the box. This is unacceptable. I don't want to be that guy. The one who collects toys but doesn't play with them because that would kill their resale value. They are toys. It is like Magic the Gathering. Sure, mint copies of the older cards are worth lots of money, but honestly? It was a game, it was meant to be played. Saving toys to never play with is just plain wrong.

So, I saw a truck with a bumper sticker on it that said "Drive it like you stole it."
I suspect this means different things to the owner of the truck and myself.

I bet they mean drive your vehicle hard without worrying about damaging it.

I read it as "obey the traffic laws and keep your speed within 3 mph of the limit so as to not attract the attention of the police to your newly stolen vehicle."

Damnit, looks like WotC is announcing 4th edition this year at gencon. Now I'm really upset at missing it.

Know what's the most depressing thing in the world for a quasi aspiring author? That Eric Snark Burns isn't making a living from his writing. I mean damn it people, who ever you are, he's mostly in Sturgeon's 10 percent. On his off days.

To be anything or anyone, all you need is a hat. And the hat doesn't have to be real.
But you do have to believe in that hat. If you don't others won't be able to tell you are wearing it.

So I just went and looked at a bunch of graphs of the value of the dollar vs other currencies. I should have grabbed the data and played with it. oh well. Mostly? The US Dollar is getting weaker, though the graphs weren't all on the same scale. (We were up vs the Yen, and the HKD has to be notched to our dollar.)

Honestly? What I want is the value of a currency vs the price of a kilo of bread or a liter of milk or some similar measure.

About that last post?
New thought.
Instead of adding the difficulty of needing 2 screens for face to face play, make the controllers have different numbers of contact points. The front one has one fewer pairs than the person in the back (because it is much harder to manipulate things behind your back) I'd say 6 or 7 to 8 or 9

Sex and Video Games (well foreplay and video games at least.)

This looks like it has some potential. Well, the interface looks a little clunky, and I'm not sure that it wouldn't be better to work out a front to front version for symmetrical challange levels (as it is currently, the player in the briefs appears to have some serious advantages. Spreading the contact areas out a little more would help that, but having the player in the bra facing the other way would be a big help. Sensors in the groin area would be a logical extension, and probably more than just six sensors total. Also, while this is a natural set up for rhythm games, I don't think the DDR scroll up the screen method is best here. Give different sensors different functions, match the shoulder ones for the woman to some lower back ones for the man, have those sort of a power maintenance button or score multiplier (so that constant contact is a boon instead of batting at the sensor when it comes up.) Actually all of the sensors should encourage slightly elongated periods of touch instead of the quick batting motions in the first video. Also? the game they demoed appeared to be neither competetive nor cooperative enough. Either you should be able to distract your partner in order to rack up more points, or especially skillful manipulations from person A should set person b up for something special point wise. Possibly different sorts of sensors for different body parts too, though possibly a series of touch mouse touch pad type sensors on a soft backing would be best.

(Actually, the shoulder/lower back sensors should be touch pad like, the butt and breast sensors more based on uniform gentle compression, maybe outer thigh or stomach sensors that are more button like, and maybe a groin sensor too, though I'd have to give that one some thought as to best method of manipulation.

I suspect that you could come up with at least as many distinct games as they did for the Super Scope.

A Miracle of Science

My only serious complaint about this webcomic is that it is over. If I had been diligent about reading all of the comics from the Whiteboard's cameo comics, I'd have caught this one earlier and possibly already bought the first book. (Moving. Can't afford it now. Gladness resides in the fact that it is with a PoD company so they won't sell out their stock.)

Some nice transhumanisim stuff, a neat set of governments, a passel of mad scientists, and possibly a few too many pseudo-pacifists.

Also, there is a scene where a [spoiler] hits on [spoiler] This is wonderful.

Um if the comic is loading slowly go to another tab. You don't want to read the news posts first. They are often spoileriffic. In fact the writer posted that a scene was important, so no news post today before one scene. Sadly that tag needed to go before many scenes in the tow or so weeks after that one too.
Wowness.

Also <3 the ending.

SO yeah, yesterday's thing? Sure it was an N^k solution to the problem, but it took on the order of N^N photons to do it, so for example, a 150 city problem would take more than 10^200 times as many photons as actually exist.

that is 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


(the actual number being about 10^326 or 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

http://www.opticsexpress.org/abstract.cfm?id=140598

I just tossed out my old trumpet. I think I need a fiddle.

(Note, these folks might not have anything.)

Better than I could say it

Taken whole cloth from



In the thread that billowed out of my last post, I was informed that by comparing a woman who gives frequent birth to (in my original wording) an exotic dancer who ejects ping pong balls from her vagina, I was calling both women "whores."

In a response, I said that the exotic dancer was not a prostitute, but a sex worker. I was then told that a comparison between a sexually active women and a sex worker is generally intended as neither neutral nor flattering.

So let's clear up my intentions right here and now, since my rewording of that disgusting term doesn't seem to have made my intentions clear.

First things first. Exotic dancers and/or strippers are not prostitutes, as has been alleged elsewhere. They dance for a living; they display their bodies; they perform the oft-touted "lap dance" for extra cash, and yes, that is supposed to arouse the client. That is each person's choice. This is what feminism is about. And it doesn't make these men and women prostitutes. They are workers in the sex industry.

The men and women who perform in sexually explicit movies are sex workers. Yes, they perform sex for money. It can be all kinds of sex. This is also true of men and women who have pornographic websites and telephone chat lines. (Many of these people work with their partners, by the way.) This is their choice. They are sex workers.

Then there are prostitutes, women and men who sell the act of sex--many kinds of sex, or certain specialties of sex--to those who will pay them.

For those who have not been and are not forced to do this by exploitative others, this is their choice. This is true of other sex workers as well. If they do their work of their own free will, with no one else to force them, then they have the right to do it. They have the right to equal protection under the law. They have the right to medical care and respect as human beings.

THEY HAVE THE RIGHT NOT TO BE CALLED WHORES, SLUTS, SLAGS, SKANKS, HOS, GASHES, SLITS, CUNTS, MEAT.

Do you want to be outraged over the sex trade? Do you want to punish someone and slap them in jail? Round up the pimps who batten on the women and men who don't have the tools to see them coming, who turn them out and control them through violence and drugs. Round up those who turn out children as prostitutes and create sex tours to the countries that give such tourists access to child prostitutes. Round up those who make their money on women, men, and children used violently, against their will. Go after the customers who leave a battered sex worker who refused a service or an instruction to bleed.

I do not believe that sex of any kind between consenting adults is a crime. I believe coercion is. And it makes me angry to hear those in the sex trade treated like dirt by those who don't know them, their lives, and their choices, but who are quite willing to despise them all the same. I know some really decent people who are sex workers. They have the right to pursue their trade and/or avocation without risk, with proper medical care, with legal rights.

Feminists will never be free of the past until we stop turning on our own. ANY of our own.

"Kevin Zuccato, head of the Australian High Tech Crime Centre in Canberra, says terrorists can gain training in games such as World of Warcraft in a simulated environment, using weapons that are identical to real-world armaments."

I think that some of those words don't mean what he thinks they mean.