Christ, this thing again? Well, you've always been a bit of a masochist gwiz.

*promote, *quality, *health

If I put it in skillful, deano would just remove it again - that's like giving a toddler a lollipop and taking it away again, doubly cruel. I'm only partly cruel.

You should sing more often.
In reply to this comment by hpqp:
I'm hurt, gwiz. Really. I tend you my throbbing, innocent tweenage heart in glorious WindowsMovieMaker Colour and you have the gall to leave it out of the *love and, more importantly, *skillful channels. You break my heart. ,
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I'm so glad you got into music. \^\^
http://videosift.com/video/hpqp-makes-a-music-video-so-hot-Boys-boys-

boys

I'm hurt, gwiz. Really. I tend you my throbbing, innocent tweenage heart in glorious WindowsMovieMaker Colour and you have the gall to leave it out of the *love and, more importantly, *skillful channels. You break my heart.
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
I'm so glad you got into music. \^\^
http://videosift.com/video/hpqp-makes-a-music-video-so-hot-Boys-boys-
boys

This video has 14,326 likes and 229 dislikes right now.

Thanks gwiz and please keep us up to date on this problem.

(Note: My 3 year old grand niece can fake cry much better that this guy.)

Not only should gay marriage be legal, and socially accepted, so should:

Polygamy
Incest
Prostitution
Contraception

Plus, anyone in the U.S. who gripes about their taxes being too high needs to be deported to Somalia.

And gwiz already mentioned it, but there is no such thing as free will.

If you're not in the beta, and wondering why they felt the need to post this, it's because the beta is ridiculously easy. Like, one spell from the wizard clears a whole pack, and costs 5% of his mana easy. One hit from the Barbarian kills most mobs, AND tosses them across the screen like a ragdoll.

And that's without any gear -- get good weapons, and it only gets sillier.

But like they say at the end, all you see in the beta is a tiny part of the game, and you can't pick any difficulty but normal.

I'm glad to hear that eventually the game might be able to kill me. The beta hasn't even come close.

And I 2nd gwiz, it is fun.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^jonny:
>> ^soulmonarch:
>> ^gwiz665:
Dude! Nazi jokes are NOT funny! Anne frankly, I'm sick of them!
>> ^soulmonarch:
I confess, I did Nazi that coming.


Sorry... it seemed like the Reich type of joke to make under the circumstances.

Really gwiz, no reason to get in a Führer over a little joke.

If you don't cut it out, I'm goering to ignore you.


Puns are such a Löwenbräu form of humor.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^jonny:
>> ^soulmonarch:
>> ^gwiz665:
Dude! Nazi jokes are NOT funny! Anne frankly, I'm sick of them!
>> ^soulmonarch:
I confess, I did Nazi that coming.


Sorry... it seemed like the Reich type of joke to make under the circumstances.

Really gwiz, no reason to get in a Führer over a little joke.

If you don't cut it out, I'm goering to ignore you.


Liar, liar, panzer fire.

>> ^jonny:

>> ^soulmonarch:
>> ^gwiz665:
Dude! Nazi jokes are NOT funny! Anne frankly, I'm sick of them!
>> ^soulmonarch:
I confess, I did Nazi that coming.


Sorry... it seemed like the Reich type of joke to make under the circumstances.

Really gwiz, no reason to get in a Führer over a little joke.


If you don't cut it out, I'm goering to ignore you.

>> ^soulmonarch:

>> ^gwiz665:
Dude! Nazi jokes are NOT funny! Anne frankly, I'm sick of them!
>> ^soulmonarch:
I confess, I did Nazi that coming.


Sorry... it seemed like the Reich type of joke to make under the circumstances.


Really gwiz, no reason to get in a Führer over a little joke.

Hey! First off, thanks for the promote on my Circus Galop video.

You know, I bet that if we wanted to we could start up a VS band. Get kulpims on bass, gwiz on guitar and we'd be set!

Also I fixed up those tracks on my site if you'd like a listen
In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
I do all kinds of drums and percussion and do a little writing too.

I can't get the soundfiles on your webzone to play. :

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
I play piano mostly. How about yourself? Do you play?

If you're interested I have some tracks on my webzone (http://paulricheymusic.com/). Unfortunately soundcloud doesn't make 'em sound that great but oh well
In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
What do you play?

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
Indeed! I was looking for a prince tune to cover with my jazz fusion trio. It's either kiss or nothing compares 2 u. Kiss might be too simple to cover without any words so it's looking like nothing compares will win out.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Right on. We have similar taste. You've got to be a musician, right?

In reply to this comment by Fusionaut:
*promote

Huuurrr ana.. aww.
>> ^DerHasisttot:

>> ^blankfist:
>> ^DerHasisttot:
1.(Modern) Germany

What's wrong with old Germany?
Oooooh.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/
22/britain-nazi-obsession-insecurity-history
A lot of people instantly jump to 'Hitler+Nazis!' in their minds as soon as they hear 'Germany,' and it gets annoying with time. I don't think 'Slavery+Genocide+Imperialism!' everytime I hear 'United States' or 'Britain.' I'm not saying it should be forgotten, but I think that more than one rail-track should lead in and out of the trainstation Germany. (What a strange analogy based on 'one-track-mind')(And to preempt gwiz: "Hurrurr anal" )

Dark Souls is an awesome game. It's like Skyrim's evil twin brother. It features a huge beautiful world, with lots of mood and style, with some great enemies and bosses, with customizable stats, armor, magic and weapons and it's hard as balls. Unlike Skyrim, this game is extremely difficult. It purposely fucks with your head, leads you into traps a rewards failure with harsh punishment. The upside is that it feels like you are one tiny adventurer against huge odds in a hostile world, and when you accomplish something it is extremely gratifying. Skyrim is great, but you can easily 'save' and cheat your way through so many of the boss battles. On the rare occasion when you can figure out a way to cheat a boss to death in Dark Souls, it feels completely justified out of self defense against a huge and powerful foe. Anyway, I liked it. Still haven't finished it and I may not because it's so fucking hard and long (go ahead gwiz, it's the perfect set up), but it's an awesome horror-adventure action RPG that rewards caution, smarts, planning and skill - unlike Skryrim, which I liked alot too.

>> ^Quboid:

>> ^therealblankman:
>> ^gwiz665:
I can't agree with him on the last one, but otherwise fine fine.

That's because, no offense intended, like everyone else who keeps buying these games you're a sycophantic idiot who happily swallows whatever tiresome, un-original, unimaginative, over-rated swollen appendage the major publishers choose to repetitively cram down your open throat year after year.
All the best.

I must say, I'm getting pretty tired of the hipster "you've probably never heard of the games I play" attitude that is prevalent in PC gaming. The "You like Modern Warfare 3? That's cute, personally I'm more into SpaceChem but whatever" attitude. This is probably unfair on you @therealblankman but this certainly applies to a lot of people.
You know why we have BF3 and MW3? Because BFBC2 and MW2 sold well. Why was that? Because people liked them. Not because major mainstream publishers told us to like them, but because we actually did like them, in general. I don't care for MW3 but I bought Skyrim because I like "dumbed down, overly simplified RPGs" like Oblivion.
I don't think less of people who prefer MW3 to X3. I think less of people who play them on consoles, but that's because console gamers are simply genetically inferior.


Like I said to gwiz when I pm'd him: I don't begrudge these games simply because they're successful. Hell, these game's biggest crimes are that they're simply repetitive, derivative, formulaic and most egregious of all... BORING. If Twilight were a video game, it would be MWx. To quote H.L. Mencken "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people".

Shit, if nobody made money off them then we wouldn't have games to play. My favorite games of the past year are both huge hits, but at least they're fun to play... Batman: Arkham City and Portal 2. Haven't gotten into Skyrim (yet), but that's only because I'm terrified that I'll have to quit my job and not have friends any more if I start playing it- I did play Oblivion so I know of what I speak.

As for consoles vs PCs, you're right of course. At least partially- I frankly got sick of spending $400 every year or so to upgrade my graphics card to be able to even play the latest and greatest, so I've given up and joined the PS3 darkside. But you know what, there's hope for that as well. Valve software is bridging that divide in the right way. I bought Portal 2 for PS3 but using a code I can also play it on my PC, and if I want to play Co-op with someone it doesn't matter whether they're on a PC or PS3 either! Maybe other publishers will do the same going forward, but I doubt it.

I meant exactly what I wrote; I was evoking the image of a priest being ordained in his robes.


Yeah, that sentence above doesn't parse right either. You can be ordained, and you can be in robes, but you don't really "ordain something in robes". You just don't. Maybe "shrouded in vestments"? Feel free to disagree with me on this, it obviously doesn't matter.

My point, continuing a previous conversation with gwiz, is that people put faith in science much as religious people put faith in religion.


I'd say they put way, way more faith in science than religion. And they're right to: science brings us all kinds of amazing things every day. When I get on a plane, I'm relying on all sorts of science and engineering that I don't fully understand. My three year old knows to put chocolate milk in the fridge or it will go bad. People have long histories of relying on science and things working out. They have long histories of seeing something amazing, having no idea how it works, but later using that science and technology in their own lives.

If people got anywhere near that level of positive feedback from their religions, religion wouldn't be slowly dying in the developed world.

There are no legitimate demonstrations of quantum levitation that highlighted some of the features present here...


Well, yes, there's more stuff happening here than in previous demonstrations - but that's what people are used to with science; a progression of more features.

If it steps over the line, even a micron, it becomes pseudo-science. Yet you are willing to suspend your disbelief based on other past results you may not understand.


Very few people are going to understand all of the science and technology they use. I don't know how my anti-lock brakes work, or fully understand even the (what I assume is simple) tech in an airbag (what's the gas it inflates with? I don't know). And I may one day rely on those things to save my life. Almost anyone getting medical treatment is relying on very, very shakey knowledge of how the medicine or procedure actually works, or why things are done a specific way.

And they're not fools to do so. With science and technology, you can build a web of trust based on demonstrable results in the past. I know that there's standards bodies that test airbags, and medical associations that understand and approve procedures; I don't have to confirm this kind of thing personally on a case-by-case basis, nor could any one person fully understand all the technology in their lives. Hawking has to hire some tech guy to fix his voice box.

But that doesn't mean that things aren't tested or that there's "blind faith" involved. There's faith backed by reason.

Back to this video in specific: people may have thought this video was real, but very few would have sent off a cheque to buy one without knowing a lot more, without seeing it reported on by someone they have some trust in. And look at how fast it was brought down. How many people still believed after reading all the comments? Similarly, when scientists emerge trumpeting some new unlikely discovery, they're treated by other scientists with very appropriate and high levels of skepticism until their results are independently validated.

Could you benefit from a medium-term, important scientific hoax? Yes, with some real effort. But history has a lot more examples of people seeing big success using science for their religious hoaxes (from Greek temples on down to scientology). Even if people have the "amazing science" in hand with which to try to trick, they recognize where people's real blindspots are and aim for those.