I love this song. And the Animatrix was the best. I wish they would make a Matrix prequel based on the Renaissance shorts from the Animatrix.

OUTSTANDING !

Cheers my friend.

I just had a challenging few hours and sat down to the 'puter only to have to launch and relaunch the browser six times as someone left a slew of windows full of tabs open for hours and low and behold the nicest occurrence of my day, truly so.

I am about to retire. I will get three hours sleep then getting up to drive to the Tx Renaissance Festival for the day. It will be about an hour and a half drive.

My drinking days are long since gone now. I did verily enjoy my Courvoisier and wine for that matter. I do still miss El Dorado 15 year rum occasionally. I am, though, raising a St. Pauli Girl NA to you. I hope not to be slighting you...Salute Rougy. Never had the pleasure of Mexican brandy. Sounds intriguing.

I Ching? Rougy, you surprise me. From what translation is that quote? It does not ring of the Wilhelm Baynes. That is my default translation since '72 though I have a large collection. Do you use the sticks?

Your simian statement reminded me of the Principia's, and I paraphrase, a monkey looks into a mirror, an apostle does not look out.

You are ever the poet, sir.

As for me, I am the happiest of my life and happy when I have the sense to be. Healthy, my years weigh heavily but I am better than in years and intend to be better yet.

And you my friend? Healthy? And happy? I hope both for you.

I think of you often as a matter of fact,...and well if I may add. The are a few here that have touched my life, mind and heart, interestingly so, and you are not among the least of those. I think quite often of your last missive.

And finally, to your owing me one, thank you so much for the sentiment, and the gift of hearing from you my friend.

You'd be surprised to discover how many thousands of so-called intelligent peeps be unable to execute the simplest of opposable digit tasks. My ex-father-in-law, a published, successful pulmonary physiologist at a world-renown hospital couldn't wield a shovel to save his life. I often refer to this line from a Heinlein novel as a road map to what is is to be an actual, human being:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." — Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

If you live on planet now, are located in a first-worldlier country with a reasonable amount of "education" , are over 30 years of age and are not approaching the level-up to polymath or renaissance person, yer a fuckin' lazystupid

All a child needs to be able to learn and discern are fundamentals of critical thinking in the form of basic/complex problem solving in the immediate world around him/her, and the basics squared.

By basics squared we mean the 3R's and about four foreign languages and maybe some musical training, kids can sponge that up and more in the proper environment. You need to thrown in practical tool-making with the daily training, and maybe some martial arts fundamentals.By the time they are seven (age of reason), you'll have MENSA material on your hands, and the makings of a real piece of work.

If you are into history and want to use it as a platform, leave any teaching of religions to the basics and leave the god-as-a-backdrop out of your curriculum. Your kid can make his own choices about the great unknown later, yer preparing a Renaissance child for a steam-punked future that's moving faster than any parent has the capacity to digest, anyhow...Your take on God will only complicate matters.

Can this (crowdsourcing / crowdfunding) work? Clearly, yes. In situations similar to hers, it likely works better than signing with a label. However, I'd wager that the bigger you get, the more likely it is to have that turn on its head.

On the other hand, her method builds a solidly loyal core following, while handing the reins to a major label (and therefore the RIAA, MPAA, etc.) practices shitting on the heads of their core followers from on high. The longer the RIAA types spend on their strong-arm tactics, the more that tipping point between smaller artists -> crowdsource vs. bigger artists -> labels swings in her favor.

Maybe the whole thing will come crashing down and "patronage" (crowdsourcing) will become the way artists get funded, as it was during long periods of human history (including highlights like the Renaissance) .

I remember when Yahtzee was brand new on the interwebs and I thought he was the second coming. Since then, he's had his ups, a very long and boring down streak, and some in-betweens. He seems to have had a renaissance in quality more recently, and this review is particularly good, but it only affirms my opinion that he shouldn't be a slave to the review format. I think he'd be best employed just being free to rant about whatever gaming or game-related concerns he has from week to week, since a lot of his best ones involve him making a point about a game or the state of gaming anyway, more than they are technical reviews in any sense.

LOL, this was just down the street from us. We went to it last year. Much better weather then--it was pouring all morning this year.

Last year they had medieval fighting--a bunch of Renaissance festival-type guys brought their armor and weapons and demonstrated proper fighting techniques, then did a tourney (obviously with padded wooden substitutes for the real weapons).

>> ^lantern53:

Most people don't like gay people and you can blame gay people. If gay people acted like everyone else, in that they kept their private affairs private, most would have no trouble with them. It's when they parade down the street with red codpieces, or french kiss in front of children, or wear dogcollars with little metal studs, or fling semen from 2nd story windows...
that is the kind of thing that pisses people off. You don't see Neil Patrick Harris doing that, which is why he's so adorable.


You are a troll, yes?

Unless you live in a very rare kind of area (perhaps you moved into your city's gay especially felonious gay district without realizing it?), I have serious doubts that you've witnessed those kinds of actions when you haven't seen them among straight people. I've seen plenty of apparently straight people french-kissing in public in front of children and wearing studded collars. (I have yet to see anyone with a red codpiece outside of a Renaissance Festival or a play.)

Or perhaps your objection is that they "don't keep it in private," that they don't hide that they're gay. That they kiss their girl/boyfriend in public where you can see it, or hold hands in public, just the way that straight couples do.

People can dislike it all they want, but gay people, bisexuals exhibiting their same-sex attraction, and transmen and transwomen enacting their gender have as much right to the public space as you do.

So suck it.


<==== pissed off (and slightly drunk) bisexual

There are about 1.5 million years between our ancestors discovering fire and the wheel. Iron, 2500 years after that, and then another 3000 years later, the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution. It has only been 109 years since Kitty Hawk, and here we are, watching Curiousity land on Mars, a planet that is an average 150 million miles from Earth, from the comfort of our living rooms.

I must have watched the original 4fps version 30 times. Just an amazing thing for humans to have accomplished in such a relatively short span of time. It just blows me away.

The Texas Renaissance Festival in in Montgomery county just north of Magnolia, Tx. in Todd Mission,Tx. (mapfart) -It's touted by organizers to be the biggest such event in the country...Lotta fun, great place for the whole family, plenty to do and see and EAT!

3 sifters are in Dallas, the only other I know besides myself lives not too far from Houston, where I'm at...

Anywhere we hold it it's gonna mean some driving.

I suggested this place:
http://www.firstmondaycanton.com/

Thursday through Sunday before the first Monday of every month in Canton, Texas this massive outdoor flea market and trade fair rocks about 10 acres of all kinds of coolness.....Bring a couple hundred bucks and come home with plenty of great stuff!!

Or just pay admission and stroll and check out everything, food vendors galore, stuff to do....

Renfest rocks and you can stay all day and night, and there's massive brews, music, dancing, staged-events...great costumes, plenty of comic-con-type costumes, some extremely elaborate and well-made. Always a winner, Renfest.

Or we could do one of those trough buffets like a Golden Corral and crash the place and build a drunken mountain outta mac n cheese and chicken tendorz.....$12.95 to get thrown out of a Golden Corral??? Priceless.

What about West Bumfuck? I hear it is lovely in October...

What about Carthage? Watch the movie Bernie first and keep your eye peeled for the locals featured in it! Almost as fun as the Renaissance Faire. Texas folks are highly entertaining. (GREAT movie, Bernie.)

If the time was moved to early November, I might even come. I have a family reunion in Oklahoma the first weekend in November. I can fly home from Dallas as well as I can from Oklahoma City.

yeah, I got that... I meant what city or thereabouts. I see now from their website it's well north of Houston. Anyone interested in being in an actual city, instead of the middle of east bumfuck? No offense - I'm just thinking it might attract a few more people that way. >> ^ctrlaltbleach:

For now it looks like Texas Renaissance Festival>> ^jonny:
Texas is big... whereabouts are you planning on holding this shindig?

For now it looks like Texas Renaissance Festival>> ^jonny:

Texas is big... whereabouts are you planning on holding this shindig?

That's a good point @KnivesOut, cult leaders can believe their own stuff. They get deemed crazy for doing it, but if your stuff is hundreds of years old, it's all fine. As regards secrecy, the Catholic church banned owning a Bible and put to death people for translating into then-modern languages.

The question of protecting their members is also dubious. Keeping girls out of school isn't for their own benefit, but I can believe that some Muslim leaders actually believe that it is. It wouldn't surprise me if David Koresh thought he was doing what's best for his followers either.

If it's not what the leaders believe, how they guard the beliefs or how they treat members, what is it? A mix? Or is there just a cut-off date? Like if your belief has been around longer than the renaissance, you can't be called crazy for believing it.

Have not seen such beautiful pirouette since Baryshnikov at Bolshoi.

May red car spin the first cog of new renaissance in Russian Ballet just like it did on icy road.